ReelViews for PG movies

Back in the 1990s, as Disney’s second golden age of animated movies surged, the company entered the sequel business, churning out follow-ups to their popular titles. For the most part, these represented inferior products and Disney knew it, but ...

Let me start out this review by asserting that those who consider themselves die-hard fans of the stage musical Wicked, upon which this movie is based, will almost certainly love what director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights) has deli...

Pumping Iron is a puff piece. From its partly-scripted elements to its decision to focus on the most relatable aspects of bodybuilding, the movie is as far from a hard-hitting documentary as one can find. (For example, the rampant use of steroids ...

As a dramatic exploration of the political wrangling that occurs behind-the-scenes when the College of Cardinals meets to elect a new pope, Conclave is compelling and intriguing. As an opportunity for a group of top-notch actors to showcase their ...

Perhaps the best thing about The Wild Robot is that it rarely feels like a Hollywood-produced animated film. It’s more Miyazaki than Disney. Although seemingly simple, it explores concepts like perceiving “kindness as a survival skill” and h...

Horror/comedies were all the rage in the 1980s, with many of the so-called “serious” genre entries displaying a toothy sense of humor (although one can debate to what extent this was intentional). Excepting perhaps 1984’s Ghostbusters, none ...

Fire of Love was one of two documentaries released in 2022 about the (R.I.P.) late volcanologist couple, Katia and Maurice Krafft, who died in 1991 while pursuing their passion. The other, by the legendary German filmmaker, Werner Herzog, bears th...

Let me start out by saying that my four-year-old daughter liked the film considerably more than I did, which probably says all that needs to be said about Harold and the Purple Crayon. Like the book from which it gets its name and inspiration, the...

For a movie that was posited as one of 2024’s heavy hitters, Despicable Me 4 is strangely inconsequential, especially coming in the wake of the more substantive Inside Out 2. More of a “big screen cartoon” than a legitimate “animated featu...

Inside Out 2 is about the best one could hope from for a sequel to a movie whose main selling point was its unconventional perspective. The original Inside Out worked brilliantly because of its freshness but that quality is diminished in the follo...