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Movie Reviews

How to Train Your Dragon Review

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How to Train Your Dragon

  • Director: Dean DeBlois
  • Writer: Dean DeBlois
  • Starring: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James

Grade: B

Until this point, live action remakes of animated films have been confined to Disney, a symbol of their hubristic greed to wring every last possible dollar out of their classic catalog. How to Train Your Dragon, one of the most respected of DreamWorks Animation’s library, has an admittedly dated aesthetic by today’s standards, but this alone isn’t reason enough to make the jump to live action. But writer-director Dean DeBlois (who co-directed the original with Chris Sanders and went solo for the rest of the trilogy) stays true to the heart of the film, making the best remake of its kind so far.

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Movie Reviews

Fountain of Youth Review

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Fountain of Youth

  • Director: Guy Ritchie
  • Writer: James Vanderbilt
  • Starring: John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, Eiza González, Domhall Gleeson, Carmen Ejogo, Arian Moayed, Stanley Tucci

Grade: C-

For every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. On the same weekend when Tom Cruise & Co. are defying death on the big screen, Guy Ritchie’s Fountain of Youth wasn’t even given the decency of a one-week theatrical run, and has been relegated to the AppleTV+ streamer. Whereas Christopher McQuarrie seeks to redefine action spectacle, Ritchie’s film never distinguishes itself as anything more than a clone of films like National Treasure or the Dan Brown/Robert Langdon series.

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Movie Reviews

Sister Midnight Review

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Sister Midnight

  • Director: Karan Kandhari
  • Writer: Karan Kandhari
  • Starring: Radhika Apte, Ashok Pathak, Chhaya Kadam, Smita Tambe, Navya Sawant

Grade: B+

As soon as Howlin’ Wolf’s “Moanin’ at Midnight” starts to play over the opening credits of Sister Midnight, it’s clear we’re in for a wild ride. It’s a strange juxtaposition, with a janglin’ blues song that would be more at home in a deep-fried Southern noir, and not a surrealist comedy about life on the fringes in Bombay, India. But somehow it works, and Karan Kandhari’s film continues to ride this tricky tightrope for its remaining 107 minutes.

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