Category Archives: Doc’s Movie Reviews

Red Sonja (2025)

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June 29

Movie 29

The iconic character of Red Sonja has been hot lately in comic books so it was a good time last year to do another chance at a full length Red Sonja movie.

The sword-and-sorcery flick starred Matilda Lutz as Sonja.

According to IMDB, “Captured and forced to fight for survival, Red Sonja must rally an army of outcasts to reclaim her freedom and take down a tyrant and his ruthless bride.“

The Red Sonja movie was better than I anticipated. I liked this more than the Red Sonja from 1985 with Brigitte Nielsen… quite a bit more actually. I think Matilda Lutz does a great job of bringing Red Sonja to life. I like how she is not an over the top muscular character, because she feels more like what I see in the comics.

Story wise, there was not a ton of original moments in the film. The scenes all felt like I had seen it before in other sword-and-sorcery movies. However, most of these familiar scenes were executed fairly well.

I loved the Conan mention near the end of the film. I would love to see this Red Sonja with King Conan.

This is a far from perfect film, but I did enjoy watching it. There was nothing here that made me dislike it. It is a good use of the character of Red Sonja.

The Great Flood (2025)

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June 28

Movie 28

We are down to three final days of June for the June Swoon, with today’s entry being a Korean sci-fi/disaster film called The Great Flood.

According to IMDB, “A great flood has hit planet Earth. People, including An Na and Hee Jo struggle to survive in their apartment building, which is sinking into the water. An Na is an AI development researcher and Hee Jo belongs to a human resource security team, who is trying to save An Na from the disaster. But why is Hee Jo trying to save An Na and who is behind it?“

There are some solid moments in The Great Flood. However, the film takes way too many sudden shifts to be effective. Every time the sci-fi elements work their way into the story, it weakens what had come before it. They dropped the sci-fi story in the middle of this disaster film about a flood and it pulled me out of what was happening.

These different genres did not play well together in this movie. An Na (Kim Da-Mi) does a good job of showing the panic of the situation and her desperation in trying to recover her son, Ja-In (Kwon Eun-sung). The kid was both decent in his role and extremely annoying, depending on what the plot needed him t be.

The film looked great and some of the flooding scenes were really strong. However, the sci-fi scenes just messed with the story and the imagery of the sci-fi stuff did not work for me.

I got to the point where the characters lost me and I did not feel compelled to root for them any longer. The film felt way longer than the run time would indicate and had me wondering how much longer it was going.

Still, it was not the worst movie of the June Swoon 5, and if you get past the story aspects of the sci-fi, the disaster movie scenes were solid. It’s a mishmash of a film that could have been better than it was.

Urchin (2025)

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June 27

Movie 27

The June Swoon 5 takes a serious turn into the world of independent film with a British movie called Urchin, written and directed by Harris Dickinson.

According to IMDB, “A young addict living on the streets of London is given a shot at redemption, but his road to recovery soon curdles into a strange odyssey from which he may never escape.”

When I called this an independent film, this is what I would consider a clear definition of that term. This movie is not about a plot. It follows the main character of Mike in scenes from his life as he moves through it. It is absolutely a character study about Mike, this homeless addict who has to do things to survive. Those things lead to him facing consequences. Every scene is basically scenes of his life and the story is basically Mike’s life.

Frank Dillane played Mike and he does a tremendous job in his role. You feel for him even as he is making poor choices.

Another trait of an independent movie is that the ending is a weird, artsy end. Urchin has that and I am not sure how I feel about it. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie so it felt like it came out of nowhere and it leaves the film up for serious interpretation.

I thought this was an intriguing movie, but I am not sure how I felt about the ending. Great performances and a tone of sadness surrounds the movie. It is very emoptional.

Supergirl

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I went to the next DCU movie today, which was Supergirl. I had heard so many negative things about this movie… well, not necessarily negative, but more like middling. People were calling it forgettable and meh, so I went into the film with low expectations, but an open mind.

I tell you what… I really enjoyed this movie. Based on the classic Supergirl story “Woman of Tomorrow,” Supergirl gave us a Supergirl that we had not seen before on the big screen. I will admit that I was not a huge fan of the “Woman of Tomorrow” comic book storyline, which I know places me in the minority.

We get a Kara who is flying to red sun planets so she did not have her powers, meaning that she could get drunk. On the planet, she encountered young Ruthye (Eve Ridley) who is in search of revenge against Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), a brutal killer who had killed her family. Krem then shot and poisoned Krypto, inspiring Kara to try and save her dog.

Even those critics who did not like the film had positives to say about Milly Alcock as Kara/Supergirl. She is truly a revelation as the character. I think her performance was outstanding and I have a lot of positive thoughts about Alcock moving forward in the DCU.

On the other side, Matthias Schoenaerts’s performance as Krem was a major drawback for this movie. I disliked the way he played this character. Krem had the chance to be such a frighteningly sinister character, but he was so weird in his dialogue and the way he delivered it. He was my least favorite part of Supergirl.

I thought that I would have problems with the character of Ruthye in the movie, because I did have a problem with that character in the comics. However, I thought this was a strong addition to the film. There were a couple of moments when I thought she was getting whiny, but they did not take away from the story or the character for me.

Two big cameos in the film: Superman and Lobo. I loved the use of David Corenswet’s Superman in the film. He felt perfectly used and helped center Kara in the tale. While I thought Jason Momoa was awesome as Lobo, I am not sure that the character of Lobo was really needed for the story. He felt a little crammed into the movie. Again, it is not that Jason Momoa was bad, because he wasn’t. I just feel that he did not play enough of a significance for the roll.

The other area that I had a problem with the music. Some of the needledrops did not fit well and were distracting to the film. There was a time in a bar on this other planet where the band started singing “Cheek to Cheek,” the earth song that was so out of place.

I was engaged and enthusiastic about Supergirl and Milly Alcock’s portrayal. I had heard so many bad things about Supergirl, but I truly thought this was exceptional. The humor worked. The film looked pretty good. The characters were great (with the exception of the villain). The film moved quickly and worked well.

4.3 stars

Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

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June 26

Movie 26

I was able to pick up Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc on Amazon yesterday during Prime Days, I had to do a quick Wikipedia search which told me that this was a sequel to Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man, a season of manga from Japan.

According to IMDB, “Denji became ‘Chainsaw Man’, a boy with a devil’s heart, and is now part of Special Division 4’s devil hunters. After a date with Makima, the woman of his dreams, Denji takes shelter from the rain. There he meets Reze, a girl who works in a café.”

I will say that I was confused by this for a good chunk of the runtime. It makes sense since I never watched the manga series Chainsaw Man that preceded this. I am sure that if I had watched that series, I would be considerably more up to date with what was going on in this movie.

However, despite the fact that a lot of the details were confusing, I enjoyed this animated film. There were a bunch of positives. I did love the character of Denji as himself. He was very relatable and I liked spending time in the movie with him. The character designs on all of these manga characters were savage and very eye-popping. The animation was beautiful, as one would expect in this format.

The violence was brutal, bloody and barbaric. The last twenty minutes of the film was as violent as any film from last year.

But the violence was not the reason this film stood out. It was the relationship between Denji and Reze, which took several turns during the film, but it absolutely shined through the story.

I watched the English dubbing with a series of voice actors who did a solid job. Some of the main voice actors included Ryan Colt Levy, Alexis Tipton, Suzie Yeung, Derick Snow, Sarah Wiedenheft, and Josh Bangle.

I have a feeling that a fan of the show would have been even more enthusiastic over this movie. I thought it was pretty good as is.

Diablo

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June 25

Movie 25

I rented Diablo off Fandango at Home this morning for the June Swoon 5. It had a solid Rotten Tomatoes score and I thought this was a nice addition to the month.

I was wrong.

I hated this movie.

According to IMDB, “Kris Chaney, a recently released ex-convict embarks on a perilous mission. He kidnaps Elisa, daughter of Vicente, a powerful gangster, which puts them in danger from El Corvo, a psychopathic killer seeking revenge against Vicente’s family.”

I had so many problems with this movie. For one, they introduced a bunch of characters but gave me zero reason to like any of them. Because of that, these characters were all flat and stereotypical. The plot was contrived and predictable. The dialogue was wooden and dull. Even the action scenes were fairly run-of-the-mill.

The villain, El Corvo, played by Marko Zaror, had some interesting scenes and was probably the best part of the film. He seemed like a Bond villain.

I was checked out within the first twenty minutes, but I had another hour + to go.

Big disappointment and probably my least favorite film of the June Swoon 5 so far.

Crash Site (2025)

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June 24

Movie 24

It is the last Wednesday of the June Swoon and I needed to pull out one more live action short. I searched through YouTube and I found a short called Crash Site that starred Steven Yeun and Sam Richardson. I like Steven Yeun a lot so I made this be my short for the June Swoon 5.

To summarize this, Crash Site sure seems as if this is “What if Close Encounters of the Third Kind came to us as SIMON, the game of electronic game of short-memory skill.

According to IMDB, “Two men discover the crash site of a mysterious object. As one of them begins investigating the strange find, his fascination soon turns into a dangerous obsession.“

The mysterious object is a weird black box that Steven Yeun takes home with him after they saw this crash. He then goes about trying to figure out what it was. It was literally like SIMON and made little beeps as he pressed buttons.

The story then started as someone arrived, pounding on his door and breaking in…just as SIMON was starting to work.

Then the film was done.

This felt like a short that was way too short. The story was missing rising action and a climax. All we got was an inciting incident.

There was so much more that what was here. I am amazed that you got a big star like Steven Yeun (and Sam Richardson, who was there for a minute) to do this.

I liked the short, but it was so incomplete that it was hardly worth watching.

Nouvelle Vague (2025)

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June 23

Movie 23

During the June Swoon, I have had the opportunity to watch several foreign films over the years. Today, I watched a French film from director Richard Linklater called Nouvelle Vague. Nouvelle Vague told the story of the filming of the French New Wave classic “Breathless” from director Jean-Luc Godard.

I had a little bit of trouble getting into the movie at first, which might have had to do with the French speaking going on, but it was not too far into the movie that I had become enthralled with the wild portrayal of the filming of the movie. Godard was anything but a typical director and his style and chocies were driving the people around him crazy.

Guillaume Marbeck played Godard with a flare and a carefreeness that was contagious. The performance of the lead actress of the movie, Jean Seberg, played by Zoey Deutch, was outstanding. She played both the joy of the creation of the film and the frustration of not understanding Godard’s vision beautifully and I thought she was a standout of the movie. She had chemistry with Aubry Dullin, the actor who played Jean-Paul Belmondo, the lead character of Breathless.

The film was shot in black and white and it helped to create the mood of the story. It was a lovely looking film that helped portray how unconventional Godard’s style.

The non-English speaking films are some times pushed back on my watchlist because of the subtitles, but i am glad that I watched Nouvelle Vague. It gave me an insight into a film classic and the different ways someone could create art.

The AI Doc or How I Became an Apocaloptimist

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I have been wanting to see this doc for awhile now, actually since it was in the theater, but I haven’t gotten around to it. The AI Doc or How I Became an Apocaloptimist documentary did not make me feel better about the concept of AI.

As a teacher, I hate AI. Many of my colleagues use AI such as ChatGPT to help them with lesson plans or ideas to help present material. I do not have issues with others doing that to make their lives easier. My biggest problem is how AI can be used by students to simply write a paper without any of their own writing skills.

So I immediately came into this movie with a negative mindset about AI. After watching this, my concerns were not removed.

The premise of the film, according to Wikipedia, was “old through the perspective of filmmaker Daniel Roher as he prepares to become a father, the film investigates the existential threats and potential promises of artificial intelligence. Roher conducts interviews with leading experts in the field to understand the world his child will inherit, balancing anxiety with ‘apocaloptimism‘.” (Focus Features).

Roher presented a series of talking heads to speak to the idea of AI and what it could mean to the future of the world. To his credit, Roher does provide a fairly comprehensive opinions on both sides of the subject, providing thoughts from the pro and anti AI experts. There are those who believe AI will lead to an new utopia or that could lead to an apocalyptic end of the planet.

He brought in the CEOs of some of the major AI companies (except Mark Zuckerberg, who refused, and Elon Musk, who agreed to come and then got too busy). These CEOs sounded reasonable in the doc, but one wonders what that means.

The doc was a difficult watch. I am not sure how to feel about the info that it was presenting, though I did like the way Roher framed this, with his concerns over the upcoming birth of his first child and the idea of bringing a child into this current world. I do think this is a valuable doc to watch to make sure you have, at least, a surface level knowledge of where the world is heading.

It did not help me figure what to do about those AI generated research papers, though.

3.6 stars

Eternity (2025)

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June 22

Movie 22

Today’s June Swoon 5 film is one that I am torn about. It was on Apple TV and it was entitled Eternity, starring Elizabeth Olson, Miles Teller and Callum Turner.

According to IMDB, “In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.“

Elizabeth Olson played Joan, who spent 65 years married to Larry, played by Miles Teller. Larry died before Joan, as he choked on a pretzel. Joan died soon after from a terminal cancer. Joan was married once before to Luke, played by Callum Turner, who died during the Korean War.

When someone died, there is a waiting area where souls have to decide where their eternity is going to be spent. However, Luke had waited for Joan and now she had to make a decision between her first love and the man she spent her entrie life with.

There were several specific details that bothered me about this premise that stuck with me through the film. The entire idea of this afterlife bugged me. A soul has to pick an eternity and cannot change that choice. That means that you may never see family or friends unless they chose the same eternity. That was bothering me as the film moved on.

Another issue I have is the situation Joan is placed into by everyone around her. She had to choose between her two husbands and I think it is an unhappy premise of the story that was not something I liked.

All of these actors are great and they do excellent work, even though I am not a fan of the story. Da’Vine Joy Randolph played Anna, a soul who helps recently deceased souls with the transition. She was perhaps my favorite part of the film as she was wonderful once again.

The ending of the story, without any spoilers, was fair and helped to balance out my thoughts on the movie as a whole.

There were so many little details that bugged me about the film that it kept me from enjoying it fully. It was still a decent flick that I did not hate watching.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025)

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June 21

Movie 21

I did not watch the TV show Downton Abbey, and I was never that interested in seeing the previous two movies. I ignored them each, and wound up watching them in June Swoons or other binges. Funny thing is that I then enjoyed the movie after watching it.

So when the Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale came out in 2025, it did not surprise me that I was not interested in seeing it, even though the previous movies were very enjoyable for me. I even think I can remember thinking that this finale would be a good film for the June Swoon.

Once again, the film was a fun and enjoyable time, even if I am not as familiar with these characters as someone who was a longtime viewer of the TV show.

According to IMDB, “When Mary finds herself in a public scandal and the family faces financial trouble, the household grapples with the threat of social disgrace. The Crawleys must embrace change with the next generation leading Downton Abbey into the future.”

The whole Mary scandal felt odd considering how many people in the world are divorced, but I understand there was a different time and perception at this.

My personal favorite character in the film was Noël Coward, played by Arty Froushan. Coward was a real life English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer and Froushan played him wonderfully in a short role. I did not realize until after that Froushan played Buck on season two of Daredevil: Born Again, and he was awesome there too.

I am sure fans of the show would have been more emotionally connected than I was, but I did like most of this film. I am glad that I saw it in the June Swoon again.

The Death of Robin Hood

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Hugh Jackman played Old Man Robin Hood, much like when he was Old Man Logan in the movie Logan. Except this time, he is playing the big time asshole Robin Hood, who, despite the mythology behind Robin Hood, the man who “robbed from the rich and gave to the poor,” we learned that he was anything but that person.

The film certainly wanted to deconstruct the story behind Robin Hood, and this film does a good job of doing that very thing. There was no sign of Kevin Costner anywhere around.

The movie had some very violent and brutal scenes so we could accept Hugh Jackman as this horrendous character. Hugh Jackman does a fabulous job in this role. You could see the conflict at times when Old Man Robin Hood was thinking back upon the violence that he perpetrated.

However, The Death of Robin Hood turned out to be very slow throughout the whole film, and, dare I say, more boring than not. The whole essence of the film was down and dark, bordering on depressing, and there was little to cheer for.

Faith Delaney, who played little Margaret, was a nice highlight and the few scenes we got between her and Jackman were good. I think they were supposed to help lead toward Robin Hood’s redemption, but I do not think that is what they did. However, they were pretty solid together.

The ending was meant to be more emotional than what it turned out to be, and the whole (SPOILER) death scene (SPOILER… although it is in the title of the movie) was not an awesome moment.

Overall, The Death of Robin Hood was an interesting idea, but I do not think the execution of this movie matched the potential premise. Hugh Jackman was great as always (so was Bill Skarsgård as Little John/Edward), but that upside just did not manage to maintain throughout the film.

2.7 stars

Sovereign (2025)

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June 20

Movie 20

I’m not sure how to feel about this one.

Sovereign was a film starring Nick Offerman and Jacob Tremblay that I found after an exhaustive search for a film this morning for the June Swoon 5. Nothing was tripping my trigger until I came across this movie on Hulu. I like both of the actors of this film (which also included Dennis Quaid) and it had a high Rotten Tomatoes score so I decided to put it on.

It was a film that I had a problem with becoming engaged with as the character played by Offerman, Jerry Kane, was such a brusque, unwavering individual with thoughts and opinions that were revolutionary or conspiratorial. It was clear that Jerry had been indoctrinating his son Joe (Tremblay) into his way of thinking, even though Joe did not always seem to be okay with the ideas.

Watching these two interact with the world and the eventual results of the choices was heartbreaking and very difficult to watch. The film certainly did not leave me with a positive feeling.

Both Nick Offerman and Jacob Tremblay played their roles brilliantly. There was a raw, visceral feel around the characters. Jerry stuck in his ways and lost in himself and Joe who could see a way out, but was tied to his father.

This film is based on a true crime drama and, as I said, I am split on it. I did not find the experience of watching Sovereign an enjoyable one, but the two main performances were so excellent that I am glad that I watched it. It did not leave me in a positive mindset, but there are a lot of strengths to the creation of the film including some wonder cinematography and direction that make the film special.

It is one of those movies that I am glad to have seen but never want to watch again.

Sarah’s Oil (2025)

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June 19

Movie 19

Today is Juneteenth and, in honor of the holiday, I watched a movie called Sarah’s Oil, which was a film that had been on my Amazon Prime watchlist for awhile now. It was on there for so long because it sounded as if it was not going to be a movie that I was not going to like.

However, it was such a great film. I was fully engaged and entertained by the story, the characters, and the relationship between Sarah and Bert. I was in on the show immediately, and the time of the film just flew by.

According to IMDB, “The remarkable true story of eleven year old Sarah Rector, an African American girl born in Oklahoma Indian Territory in the early 1900s, who believes there is oil beneath the barren land she’s allotted and whose faith is proven right.”

Naya Desir-Johnson does a tremendous job as the titular character. I loved how this character was well-spoken and intelligent and not serving any fools. She has great chemistry with Zachary Levi, who played Bert Smith, a Texas wildcatter and con man. This center relationship is important to the movie and, while it is a basic story, they fit very well together.

The prevalent racism of the time (Early 1900s in Oklahoma) is dealt with in this movie and, while it is not out front, the reach of it is felt throughout the story. It is under practically every scene, especially those with people in the town. It just felt as if that was the way it was.

The film was exciting and tense, even though it does feel kind of predictable. The biopic does a really great job of presenting this story in an entertaining way.

Naya Desir-Johnson would have made the list for the “I See Kid Actors” Award last December had I seen this. She doesn’t win the award, but she absolutely deserved to be recognized.

Toy Story 5

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Toy Story has to be considered one of the greatest franchises in the history of cinema. Five movies and they all are critically beloved. I was excited to see Toy Story 5 today.

Toy Story 5 is Jessie’s story. One of the questions I had was how they were going to Woody back to the group considering how Toy Story 4 ended, and I think they had a great way to get him there.

The balance of Bonnie’s room is thrown out when she gets a tablet called Lilypad. Suddenly Bonnie becomes focused on the screen and not on her toys.

The tech vs. toys story is interesting in this film, and definitely a worthy idea that needs to be investigated. I’m not sure it did much with that premise.

I had heard how emotional Toy Story 5 was and that I would require tissues. I was looking forward to having a good cry. However, I did not cry. I had a decent response to the emotional moments in the film, and maybe had a gulp once or twice, but there were no tears or even any tears forming in my eyes to brush away.

Now, I do not want to sound like I hated this movie, because I did not. There were plenty of things to really enjoy in the movie including the animation, which is as wonderful as always, the new characters, especially Conan O’Brien’s Smarty-Pants character, and the overall writing and humor involved.

Woody is my favorite Toy Story character, but sadly, he feels unnecessary for this movie. He was absolutely crammed in because Toy Story has to have Woody in it. It is always fun to hear Tom Hanks’s voice work, but Woody was dispensable to this story.

Toy Story 5 is going to end up being my lowest Toy Story movie on a ranking scale, but it is still a really great film with a lot of things going for it. I can see this being scored lower because it is a Toy Story movie. This would be better than most animated films of the year. Still, I came out of it liking the film, but not being in love with it.

4.1 stars