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The Fall Guy represents what a true “summer movie” should be: a light, fast-paced spectacle with likeable characters and a balance between action/eye candy and narrative elements. No one is going to call Drew Pearce’s screenplay a masterpiec...

It's a tough thing for a dysfunctional-family-at-Christmas movie to avoid doses of melodrama, and it's fair to say that The Family Stone contains its share. But the nice thing about the movie is that it avoids overt manipulation. There's some - i...

Speed, adrenaline, and a distinct lack of intelligence - those are characteristics that could easily be ascribed to street racing, an underground sports phenomenon that keeps the police busy in some communities. The same adjectives can be used to ...

Saban Films is to action what Blumhouse is to horror. They buy low-to-mid budget productions and put them out into the marketplace (usually with a small theatrical release to complement a wider VOD footprint) with an eye toward a profit. Most ...

The best things – or at least the most memorable ones – in The Flash are rooted in fan service and nostalgia. The movie, although too long by about 45 minutes, is enjoyable on that level. With a tone that skews closer to that of Shazam! than M...

Game Night is canny enough to go full-throttle with the absurd and not bother trying to do much with its meager dramatic and/or sentimental elements. Character-building occurs through the comedy and doesn’t extend beyond what’s needed to k...

Considering his involvement in Superbad, it’s not surprising to see Seth Rogen’s name in the list of Good Boys’ producers. In terms of intent and tone, the films have a lot in common, even if the latter production focuses on characters a...

One hot summer day in 1988, I emerged from a movie theater exhilarated by what I had just experienced. The film in question was the original Die Hard, one of the best thrillers of the decade and, one could argue, an all-time Top 10 entry for the ge...

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints illustrates that it's still possible to do something interesting with a familiar premise. Writer/director Dito Montiel, who has based the film on his memoirs, tells the story of a man who escaped from his "old" n...

With the arrival of this "adaptation" of Gulliver's Travels, author Jonathan Swift must be spinning in his grave fast enough to make a top dizzy. If Swift was alive, no doubt he'd demand that his name be removed from the credits. Little of his sati...