ReelViews for PG-13 movies

Drop starts out with Hitchcockian flair and rides a dizzying wave of anxiety-based mystery until, like far too many underwritten thrillers, it falls apart with the arrival of an ending that is laughably absurd in concept and execution. What starts...

It seems that an inordinate number of movies produced by BBC Films take us back in time to an England That Was, where class structures were as rigid as women's corsets and royalty meant more than a ceremonial title. In many cases, there's a samene...

The DUFF would make John Hughes smile. With its mixture of wit, teen friendly situations, and heart, The DUFF feels like something that might have come out of Hughes' '80s playbook. Although the film understands its target audience, its appea...

Since it is not possible to endure The Dukes of Hazzard without finding some other task to occupy one's mind (straight viewing could result in brain damage), I passed the time by re-constructing what might have been the pitch meeting in which Warne...

In recent years, I have complained about the inability of movies to close strongly. Numerous films with promising beginnings and middles have fallen apart at the end. Thankfully, that's not the case with The Dukes, where a satisfying final half-h...

Sometimes, a movie just can't live up to its advertising campaign (or its name, for that matter). Dumb and Dumber is one such case. Take the newspaper ad, for example, filled with all those fake, witty quotes. That's rather clever (although not o...

What propels filmmakers to make a sequel to a 20-year old film? Is it nostalgia for the brand of comedy that characterized the original? Is it desperation on everyone's part to revive flagging careers? Or is it Hollywood's acceptance that recogniz...

Just when I thought it was safe to go back in theaters on Friday the 13th – with Jason having decided to postpone his duel with Robert Englund's nightmare-prowling pizza face until later in the summer – along comes a seemingly innocent movie th...

There’s a lot to like about this new version of Dune: the screenplay’s ability to pare down Frank Herbert’s complex, weighty novel without emasculating it, the epic scope, and the spectacle of the experience. Director Denis Villeneuve’...

Dune: Part One, the first chapter of Denis Villeneuve’s ambitious attempt to re-create Frank Herbert’s seminal 1965 novel for a generation not scarred by David Lynch’s misfire, became the reason for many shuttered individuals to venture back...