U.S. Release Date: 2021-11-12
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Action/Comedy
Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya
You can have The Rock, Wonder Woman, and Deadpool, but it doesn’t mean much if they don’t have clever things to say and meaningful things to do.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-11-05
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Action/Fantasy
Director: Chloe Zhao
Cast: Gemma Chan, Barry Keoghan, Lauren Ridloff, Brian Tyree Henry, Lia McHugh, Kumail Nanjiani, Kit Harrington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Don Lee
Despite trying to be a departure from the superhero generic norm, it misses wide of the mark and ends up being a major lapse.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-10-01
MPAA Rating: "PG"
Genre: Animated
Director: Greg Tiernan, Conrad Vernon
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nick Kroll, Javon Walton, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, Bill Hader, Wallace Shawn
A series of loosely connected skits, this lacks a coherent narrative and appears to have been targeted almost exclusively at the pre-teen crowd.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-10-01
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Profanity)
Genre: Action/Comedy
Director: Andy Serkis
Cast: Tom Hardy, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Williams, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham
With its short running length, this drunk-on-CGI production is less a movie and more the outline of something ambitious.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-09-24
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Profanity, Suicide, Mental Illness)
Genre: Musical/Drama
Director: Stephen Chbosky
Cast: Ben Platt, Julianne Moore, Kaitlyn Dever, Amy Adams, Danny Pino, Amandla Stenberg, Colton Ryan
There’s a dissonance between the film’s darker subjects and its seeming desire to offer something uplifting at the end, and the mediocre songs are a distraction.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-08-20
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Profanity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Science Fiction/Thriller
Director: Lisa Joy
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis, Daniel Wu, Brett Cullen
Although made with care and competence and featuring a strong underlying premise, the film as a whole is forgettable.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-07-23
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content)
Genre: Science Fiction/Horror
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Gael García Bernal, Eliza Scanlen, Nolan River, Emun Elliott, Alex Wolff, Alexa Swinton, Embeth Davidtz, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Ken Leung, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Abbey Lee, Rufus Sewell, Vicky Krieps, Kathleen Chalfant
The movie doesn’t make a lot of sense and it doesn’t help that the dialogue is poorly written and clumsily delivered.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-07-16
MPAA Rating: "PG" (Cartoon Violence)
Genre: Animated/Adventure
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Cast: LeBron James, Eric Bauza, Jeff Bergman, Harper Leight Alexander, Ceyair J. Wright, Sonequa Martin-Green, Khris Davis, Cedric Joe, Don Cheadle, Zendaya
Feels more like a two-hour commercial for the entire Warner Brothers catalog and a means of stroking LeBron James' ego.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-07-02
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence)
Genre: Science Fiction/Action
Director: Chris McKay
Cast: Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J.K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Jasmine Mathews, Edwin Hodge, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Mary Lynn Rajskub
Uses reliable science fiction/time travel/alien invasion tropes in ways that could be interesting but ultimately turn out to be regurgitations of stories we’ve seen before.
U.S. Release Date: 2021-06-25
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Violence)
Genre: Action
Director: Justin Lin
Cast: Vin Diesel, Sung Kang, John Cena, Charlize Theron, Nathalie Emmanuel, Chris “Ludcaris” Bridges, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Thue Ersted Rasmussen
F9, like its predecessors, isn’t about characters or story. It’s about the excessively over-the-top action sequences.