ReelViews for PG-13 movies

For younger fans of Marvel movies, it may be hard to remember anything that came before the advent of the MCU. For decades, however, studios had been trying to strike gold with Marvel properties in ways to rival the success experienced by Warner B...

Was it only six years ago that every Marvel movie was greeted with unbridled anticipation and around-the-clock showings that delivered box office records? Although Disney executives have been quick to blame the pandemic for the decline of the MCU,...

Spoiler Alert! Nothing overt but I hint at some plot developments that some readers may not want to know about until after they’ve seen the movie. Depends on your concerns about a “virgin movie-going experience.” Despite the name...

It's fair to say that superhero saturation has set in. Not many years ago, every cinematic version of a comic book protagonist's adventures was awaited with baited breath. Now, because of an unceasing and sometimes careless flood of such titles, ma...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier represents the first film from Marvel Studios since The Avengers to capture the true superhero spirit: plenty of derring-do, action, adventure, and an ending that doesn't fall apart. A sequel to 2011's Captain Am...

With the introduction of Captain Marvel into an already crowded field, the MCU has become unbalanced. Ordinary villains might as well give up and conventional heroes can retire. For decades, Warner Brothers/DC has had trouble figuring out how ...

Movies like Captain Phillips - taut, white-knuckle thrillers that feature ordinary guys instead of bona fide action heroes - are something of an endangered species. In today's risk-averse movie industry, making an "action" film without an establish...

The scenario presented in Captive State would almost certainly have worked better in a mini-series format. The filmmakers’ low-budget approach of minimizing special effects might have allowed for an expansion of the narrative over a six or ei...

When Pierce Brosnan took over the role of James Bond for Goldeneye, much was made about how the franchise was being "modernized." In reality, the only apparent changes were cosmetic. Brosnan's 007 was easily connected to the character previously p...

With Cassandra's Dream, we may finally be seeing confirmation of what many have suspected for years: that Woody Allen's period of greatness as a filmmaker is over. A few years ago, Match Point provided hope that we might be observing a re-invention...