Hello everyone, my name is Grant Holloway and welcome to Reel Talk! A new segment in which I try to play devil’s advocate and critic well-received movies and praise badly-received ones. In next occurrences, this will be a bi-seasonal segment with one at midseason and the other during the GRA season. Remember that it’s all in good fun and I thoroughly enjoyed the movies put out by LRF this season. Let’s get on with it!
Sgt. Rock – The movie praised because it looked like a movie they already liked.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed Sgt. Rock as entertainment, but most of its tropes are recycled from other movies. It’s part Inglorious Basterds cosplay, part Indiana Jones relic-hunting cliché, propped by a grizzled guy with big muscles and his ragtag squad. There was a super generic Nazi final boss and a Spear of Destiny plot straight out of Saturday morning cartoon. If audiences want comfort food disguised as a full meal, Sgt. Rock will keep them full but just don’t pretend it’s gourmet.
Exodus – A two-hour Midlife Crisis
Yes, Pitt is committed to the role and Andrew Dominik brings style to the production, but it feels so “I want Brad Pitt to win an award” it hurts. The secondary characters only exist to prop up Elijah’s arc, their conflicts feel convenient rather than genuine. It’s a glossy morality tale for people who like to feel they’re watching something serious while staying safely comfortable.
Mises – It may be a mess, but a good one
Critics hated Mises at time of release and I get it. Some called it messy, unfunny and alienating, but that’s exactly why it’s fascinating to me. I think it captured the chaos, obsession and absurdity of the hyper-politicized internet era. Hedges’ Michael Heise isn’t meant to be charming, he’s meant to expose the weird, obsessive corners of political subcultures.
The Flintstones – Did we really need this ?
I get it, nostalgia sells, but did anyone really ask about Flintstones movie in 2025 ? I wasn’t particularly moved by cartoon characters playing bowling for the entire movie. The stakes felt low. It’s a family movie of course, but charm and nostalgia can only entertain me for so long before it feels stale and reheated.
Nineteen Eight Four – Part Two - When Rebellion Is Just Flirting in a Rent-by-the-Hour Room
Call it faithful, or atmospheric, but it felt like a high-budget diary of two people sneaking around in a society we’re supposed to fear, but we never really feel. The revolutionary terror or Orwell’s novel has been politely RSVP’d out of the frame to make room for intimate, pseudo-erotic angst sequences. It felt like this movie wasn’t about rebellion, but about lingering on everything except the thing that actually matters.
Heist Society – Ocean’s Eleven, but your little cousin directed it
This film felt like a fever dream in which plausibility packed its bags and left the country, much like the characters. Speaking of, isn’t Joe Keery to old to play a high-school student at this point ? The man is closer to his forties and his high school years. If you want a movie that treats international art theft like a logical operation, keep looking. If you want to watch “teenagers” effortlessly defy laws and common sense while looking glamourous, knock yourself out.
Convalescence – 90 Days of Anguish
This movie felt to me like a two-hour AA pamphlet and it also felt emotionally exhausting at the same time. I didn’t feel anything for both main characters and it really failed to land the catharsis. It felt self-aware to me. The struggles they faced felt telegraphed, arbitrary chaos trying to masquerade as drama.
Robopocalypse – AI Goes Bad… Again
This felt overambitious to me; sci-fi commentary, family drama, global action, philosophical AI pondering – but it accomplishes little of it with lasting impact. The most memorable part of the movie felt out of place. Nomura and Mikiko were weirdly compelling, but it felt out of sync with the destruction around them, like if Hallmark movie crashed into a Michael Bay film. It recycled tropes we’ve already seen before and it make it a generic hero shooter for Glen Powell.
Test of Time - 90s Hallway Adventures: The Movie
The movie felt so predictable to me. Wyatt Oleff rode his bike through every possible teen trope, from classroom hijinks to clandestine gym parties, to a crush on the cheerleader to the obligatory heartfelt pep talk from the wise mentor. It is sincere, but painfully safe. It felt like the equivalent of a high school guidance counselor.
All the Fives – All the Fives, None of the Thrills
To me it just felt like Wyatt Russell sitting in a cab looking anxious while staring at blood, sweat and cash while Ben Foster was hired to play a corpse. By the end the film wants you to feel moral weight and suspense, but I mostly felt fatigue from the claustrophobic atmosphere. It felt competent, but hollow, it’s hard to describe.
Blood Brothers – Two actors, one flat film
The plot felt as subtle as a hammer. The final tragedy, which should land like a gut punch, instead lands like a predictable thud you’ve been anticipating for an hour. I don’t think the brothers were miscast, contrary to popular belief, but it doesn’t change that the slow-paced movie didn’t work for me.
X-Men : Age of Apocalypse – X-Men: The Curse of More, More, More
All thorough the movie, I had a hard time being convinced about the villain team. The Horsemen recruitment scenes are supposed to be mythic and set up a menacing villain team, but they feel like speed-date therapy sessions capped with heroes drinking the Apocalypse juice like it’s a detox cleanse. Cable felt like a time-travelling post-apocalyptic Siri instead of the badass he’s supposed to be. Is it watchable, of course, it’s a good movie. But like all superhero team up movies, il feels like comfort food disguised as haute cuisine.
The Revolution – The flip phone has more character development
Of course the creepy principal was the real puppet master, I’ve only been telegraphing it since I saw Willem Dafoe on the poster. This film’s idea of tension is watching characters… watch screens. Sadie Sink is getting praised, but her character barely exists beyond “hurt girl + vengeance + flip phone aesthetic”. Hannah’s emotional arc is less and arc and more a loading screen stuck at 67%. If your idea of tension is watching teens weaponize a Google Drive, The Revolution might be your Citizen Kane.
Tethered – A horror movie held together by exposition tape
I’ll be honest I liked the movie on first watch. However, on rewatches, I can’t help but think the emotional stakes would land harder if the film weren’t so committed to explaining every single supernatural mechanic like it’s prepping you for a final exam. By the time Richard nobly sacrifices himself — to defeat an evil tween phantom who speaks like a Hot Topic demon — the whole thing tips into melodrama held up solely by the cast’s sincerity.
Blade – A Daywalker in need of a nap
To me, it felt less like a reimagining Marvel’s vampire hunter and more a three-hour demo reel with some good ideas peppered in, but they quietly leave before they can develop. The films keeps promising depth but mostly delivers monologues about systemic corruption while vampires stand around waiting for they cue to die. Meanwhile, Spike Lee directs like he’s elbowing you every five minutes saying: See ? It means something. The Daywalker deserved a revival, but it instead got a arthouse dirge wearing a leather coat.
The Guns of Peridido – Defending Peridido’s beautiful chaos
People said this film was messy and unfocused, but I disagree. Austin Butler’s Damien is twitchy, haunted, unpredictable, while Phoenix’s Sanchez is mythical like all great western villains should be. The West was absurd and violent. Everyone saw a mess, but I saw ambition.
Macbeth – A three-hour aesthetic vibe
This is a film praised by the majority because they’re afraid not to. It looks like prestige, it sounds like prestige and quotes Shakespeare, which automatically convinces people they’re watching something important. This didn’t feel like a fresh take on the Bard, more like an excuse to showcase Eggers’s visual talent as the backdrop of an egregious award-bait movie. Revisit every other Macbeth and you get the same story, but without Eggers’ notorious style.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre : Flesh and Blood – The Chainsaw reboot that mistook misery for meaning
I get horror has its fans, but this movie felt to me like misery-porn dressed up as prestige horror that critics love to praise or risk being seen as soft. Some people even suggest there is depth to Leatherface. He stomps, he saws, he grunts and he screams. If this is depth now, we’ve lowered the bar to sea level.
DOOM – A symphony of stupid genius
DOOM stumbled with critics because they judged it as a movie instead of what it proudly is: a berserk, fire-spitting theme park built for pure demon killing. It doesn’t aspire to be subtle or have emotional arcs and thank Hell for that. It instead captures the feeling of picking up a controller, grinning like a maniac and diving headfirst into chaos.
Starlight – Hollywood’s self-congratulatory love letter
Critics loved the emotional payoff, but I saw it coming as soon as we learned Sweeney’s character got cast in her movie. Speaking of Sweeney, it felt like a clever way to get her naked on screen. Hollywood loves itself and it feels no different here. The story checks off the boxes; female empowerment, Hollywood glamour and period authenticity, but it misses with actual human complexity.
Material Girl – Loud, flashy and emotionally bankrupt
Madonna here is a cartoon of ambition. She manipulates men, sabotages collaborators, and runs roughshod over friends, lovers, and bandmates alike—all framed as “artistic vision.” Watching her destroy demo tapes or throw tantrums in recording studios is meant to signal genius, but all it communicates is: she’s exhausting, unlikable, and, frankly, sociopathic. And the film asks us to cheer. I don’t remember a less likable lead. It’s a fashion shoot disguised as cinema, a highlight reel of performative chaos, and an exhausting reminder that style has never been a substitute for story.
Tears of an Angel – An expensive perfume commercial
Although the leads were charismatic, this felt to me like a two-hour perfume commercial directed by an auteur director. Some called it haunting, but I call it slow Рslow to start, slow to move, slow to end, but impossibly fast at reminding us of every fantasy romance clich̩s; from the ghost lover in the alley to magic tears. That alley sure looked pretty, right ?
Full Custody – When messy lives become marketing
For a film with such a well-casted supporting cast, the two leads felt awfully miscast to me. Shane Gillis can nail the everyday guy, down on his luck persona, but we could see he isn’t an actor when it asks more emotionally. I just couldn’t take the soft-spoken Lynskey seriously as a dominatrix. It felt to me like the two leads got all the credits, but the standout performances for me were Marin Ireland and Vale Cooper, but not a word from the critics. This felt to me like a sitcom with the A24 color filter on it. Just because a movie smells like stale beer and forgotten laundry doesn’t automatically make it authentic, just a reminder.
The Crow : Yomi – Misery porn in a mythology mask
Critics praised the “brutal beauty” of this one, but that’s just Miike going full Miike because that’s the only dial he has. The film’s constant insistence that everything is symbolic kind of got tiring towards the end, like a goth teenager’s sketchbook brought to life. This felt like cultural set-dressing rather than cultural references. Yes, the film is gorgeous to look at, but it stopped there for me.
Assata : The Che Guevara poster of movies
My opinion of this movie is tarnished by the fact that it only seems to sell Assata Shakur as a martyr, a symbol and a revolutionary saint. The result ends up being a 2-hour highlight reel sanitized of controversy. The supporting cast of basically set dressing by the end of the movie. Teyonah Parris commands the screen, but in the end, the movie seems terrified of letting Assata be anything other than a symbol and it hurts the end result.
Police Story: Retribution : Police Story tries to be Mission Impossible and forgets who it is
This movie felt like the franchise mistook volume for vitality and scale for identity. It’s loud, busy, globe-trotting and oddly hollow, like an action movie assembled by committee after binge-watching better spy films. The movie hops from location to location with the restless anxiety of a streaming algorithm, never lingering long enough for any location or emotion to matter. Jackie Chan’s farewell as Ka-Kui should be devastating, but it’s instead treated like a ceremonial baton pass. It didn’t feel like a Police Story movie to me.
Coriolanus : Prestige without pulse
It felt to me like the kind of movie critics admire from a respectful distance, hands clasped behind their backs, murmuring about composition and restraint while completely ignoring the fact that it barely moves. What should feel like a brutal political tragedy instead plays like a two-and-a-half hour endurance test in tasteful misery, where passion is implied but never unleashed. The core problem to me was Coriolanus mistook austerity for depth. The film is so committed to seriousness that it forgets to be dramatic.
Offside : Dismissed because it refused to be a fantasy
Offside landed with a shrug because it denies viewers of the moral clarity they expect. I felt like it wasn’t about triumph or redemption, but more about survivorship. It understands that modern sports chew through stars faster than they mythologize them, and that comebacks are rarely clean, glorious and complete. It felt to me like a film about losing the future you assumed was guaranteed and discovering the ability to keep going might be the only win that matters. It wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be.
Ruby Ridge : Prestige grief with the rough edges sanded off
Ruby Ridge is the kind of movies critics rally around instantly: solemn, restrained, well-acted and politically legible in all the right ways. It announced its importance early, speaks in hushed tones, and never once risks losing the audience’s approval, which is precisely the problem. This film is about one of the most volatile, ideologically charged standoffs in modern American history and yet it unfolds with the emotional temperature of a well-funded public memorial. I wanted it to be a confrontation with American paranoia and authority, but it felt like a prestige reenactment designed to leave audiences shaken, saddened and reassured they’re on the right side of history. Important cinema, impressive craft, but just a little too comfortable to be truly dangerous.
Superman: Doomsday : Grief in IMAX
Jeff Nichols directs this like a filmmaker determined to prove that superhero cinema has finally grown up, even if that maturity comes at the expense of momentum, surprise or genuine danger. The film made a bold choice of killing Superman halfway through and it leans into the mourning hard. Quiet room, soft lightning, women framed in shared grief. It’s effective, moving, but also doing a lot of emotional labor for the movie, like the grief was carefully staged like a memorial brochure. The resurrection was undeniably rousing, but also completely expected. He comes back stronger, sleeker, more controlled. Death changes him, but only cosmetically. There’s no lingering cost, no permanent fracture. The movie flirts with consequence, then flies past it. It makes me disconnect with the material because I know that no matter what happens, at the end of the day, everything will be fine. That’s what makes me contempt with the superhero genre and this film is no different.
