ReelViews for PG-13 movies

14 years sounds just about right. That’s the amount of time it took between the release of Jurassic Park III, with its waning box office, and that of the resoundingly successful reboot, Jurassic World. The problem is that the third Jurassic Worl...

Have I ever before used the phrase “unspeakable dreck”? I don’t remember; maybe I was saving it up for this movie. It’s not the worst thing I have seen but it’s among the year’s most soulless, unentertaining slogs. The first M3GAN was ...

When it comes to the nuts and bolts of car racing movies, there’s a tendency to follow the trends and tropes of the wider sports film genre in which they form a sub-category. The difference is that when Robert Redford steps to the plate or S...

The older he has gotten, the more offbeat his films have become. Now, to be clear, Wes Anderson has never been a conventional filmmaker. His movies have always appealed more to niche audiences than mainstream ones. (My favorite of his oeuvre, ...

Karate Kid: Legends feels like glorified fan fiction. It has all the earmarks of something made by a fan primarily for fans. The overstuffed 94-minute feature aggressively strip-mines the previous five films (plus the series Cobra Kai) in an attem...

Here’s yet another original streaming “event” movie that rewards viewers for inattentiveness and distraction. The less attention one pays to this soulless retread of an action/adventure wannabe, the better it looks. With its A-list cast and ...

After 30 years and eight films, there’s a sense that the Mission: Impossible film series (itself a reworking of the venerable and popular 1960/70s TV series) may finally be played out. Since Christopher McQuarrie came on board and revitalized th...

Thunderbolts*, Marvel’s entry into the early summer box office sweepstakes, is a comic book film of a different sort. While most of the expected tropes are present – big battles, costly action sequences, a threat to life on this planet – tho...

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...

If you’re looking for a fun, revenge-oriented thriller, The Amateur doesn’t deliver. (Go check out John Wick instead.) If the goal is to find a modern-day spy story, you won’t find that here, either. (Consider streaming the vastly superior S...