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Taut, relentless, and uncompromising, A House of Dynamite’s greatest strength is its sense of plausibility. Stripped bare of a Hollywood ending, some will find the film’s trajectory grim and unsatisfying. Indeed, there really isn’t an ending...

Rarely have I felt as conflicted as I did while watching Joshua Oppenheimer’s 2012 documentary, The Act of Killing. Over the course of its nearly three-hour running time, the movie does many things, some of which are wrenching, some of which...

Allegiant exemplifies what happens when a book or movie exists solely for the purposes of placating fans and maintaining a revenue stream. Craft and originality are swapped out for familiarity and sameness. Plot turns into a regurgitation of not only...

The popularity of Conan the Barbarian peaked during the early 1980s, with no fewer than three monthly comic books to go along with the books and the first Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. The success of the 1982 film begot a horrible sequel, Conan the...

Feature film biographies like Jackie inhabit difficult terrain. They are servants to two masters: the historical record and the needs of artistry. From time-to-time, a great one like Patton or Lincoln comes along but most are run-of-the-mill affairs ...

Despite a strong opening and riveting first 45 minutes, The Maze Runner devolves into one of the weakest post-apocalyptic Young Adult movies to reach theaters in recent years. The film's inability to sustain the energy it starts with results in a d...

With Oppenheimer, director Christopher Nolan steps away from the action/adventure core that has been his bread-and-butter and opts instead to channel his inner David Lean. Despite being overlong and unevenly paced, Oppenheimer contains moments of ...

Sahara takes the action/adventure story to new heights of preposterousness. In a way, that's not a bad thing, since it allows a certain level of guilty enjoyment. You're never expected to take anything in the movie seriously, because the characte...

A Sound of Thunder takes a thought-provoking science fiction short story by Ray Bradbury and turns it into a noisy, messy Hollywood action/adventure extravaganza. This approach isn't unique or inherently bad (it worked, for example, with Blade Run...