Critic's Notebook

The Way of the Dragon

Universal Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

By MARTIN TSAI

Since Disney is resolved to mine and recycle all its animated I.P. into live action, DreamWorks is also joining in on the act – or at least that’s the logical conclusion that redditors on the r/DreamWorks sub are already drawing. The studio is so gung ho about the odds for the “How to Train Your Dragon” live-action remake that a sequel is already in the pipeline for 2027.

Beyond the Dreams of Avarice

Festival de Cannes

MOVIE REVIEW

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

By MARTIN TSAI

“The Phoenician Scheme” is, for better or worse, an archetypal Wes Anderson movie. The Cannes Film Festival competition entry is, once again, a timeless motion storybook about affluent eccentrics that’s symmetrical, pastel and droll. While Mr. Anderson’s rigorous mise en scène is always to be admired, telling a tale like this in the techbro oligarchy era is a choice – sort of like the cinematic equivalent of let them eat cake.

Long Covid

A24

MOVIE REVIEW

Eddington (2025)

By MARTIN TSAI

I often catch myself saying “during the pandemic” in reference to the Covid-19 lockdown, knowing full well that the virus is far from eradicated. Though people hardly mask up anymore, there are still deaths from it in 2025. The lockdown apparently remains very much on the minds of some of the world’s top filmmakers, as we find out from a few of the Cannes Film Festival selections that seem to have been inspired by it either directly or indirectly. Ari Aster’s “Eddington,” which takes place in late May of 2020 in the eponymous town in New Mexico, is a case in point.

Last Action Hero

Paramount Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025)

By MARTIN TSAI

This is going to date me, but Tom Cruise’s first stab at “Mission: Impossible” in 1996 was also my first review assignment for my college campus newspaper. Even though my editor went at it with a heavy hand, the result was still fairly amateurish. Thankfully, my most embarrassing writings were at the infancy of the internet and left no digital trace. In 2011, I critiqued the fourth entry in the series, “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” on this very site when it was still somewhat thriving. And here I am again, checking out the eighth installment at its Cannes Film Festival premiere and sashaying down the same red carpet as the cast and crew. But enough about me.

I am bringing all this up because Late Cruise has been mostly trafficking in nostalgia. Hollywood’s last movie star reminds us all of the good ol’ days when marquee names could make or break the box office, the days before Netflix and venture capitalists spoiled everything. “Top Gun: Maverick” was the template. Sure, it had “it” boys like Glen Powell, but the most memorable moment for boomers and Gen-X had to be Mr. Cruise’s reunion with an ailing Val Kilmer. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” sort of does the same thing. It gathers the likes of Henry Czerny and Rolf Saxon from way, way back. There are even montages of earlier films peppered throughout.

Slow Country for Old Men

Kino Lorber

MOVIE REVIEW

Oh, Canada (2024)

By TIM HAYES

According to the cliché Paul Schrader's tormented males journal their pain and get it down on paper; but in "Oh, Canada" Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) might struggle to hold the pen. Enfeebled by terminal cancer, stuck in a wheelchair and in need of assistance on and off the lavatory, Leonard does a more cinematic thing and unburdens himself to a camera instead. As a renowned documentarian - the "Ken Burns of Canada" we hear - Leonard is supposed to be telling a camera crew about his life and times, including the 1960s flight from the U.S. Vietnam War draft that took him to the slower waters north of the border in the first place. This testimony involves Leonard directly addressing the camera, which the film, as an inside joke, calls the signature style of his documentaries. Mr. Schrader and anyone familiar with the work of Errol Morris knows that it's actually the Interrotron set-up that Mr. Morris uses for his own documentaries, designed to torment interviewees and lever confessions out of people who know they have things to confess. Leonard fits the bill.

The Odd Couple

Apple TV+

MOVIE REVIEW

Wolfs (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

“Wolfs” is the new action-comedy starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney and directed by Jon Watts, who is responsible for the last three “Spider-Man” movies. It should get some butts in seats on these names alone; here we have two of Hollywood’s surviving movie stars who’ve earned their stripes before the industry’s almost complete pivot to IPs in an effort to draw box office. But these household names and their screen personae can be a blessing and sometimes a curse. Case in point: “Wolfs.”

Arms and the Men

Fourth Act Film

MOVIE REVIEW

Hollywoodgate (2024)

By TIM HAYES

After centuries of conflict and decades of occupation by the latest foreign army, a country picks up the pieces. Local politics reforms; young men look for work; a diminished government takes stock of its military equipment to work out which guns function and which might fall apart when anyone pulls the trigger. It also ponders, in this case, what to do with $7 billion-worth of the most advanced efficient killing technology in existence, left behind by the United States. For this is Afghanistan in 2021: the weapons are those given to the Afghan government by the U.S. before the latter withdrew chaotically and the former fell apart; and the people finding the stuff left behind are the Taliban.

Trans Mission

Mubi

MOVIE REVIEW

Crossing (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

A movie that revolves around two Georgians in Istanbul, Turkey, looking for someone they know, “Crossing” is very reminiscent of “Central Station.” Ain’t nothing wrong with that! The Walter Salles film is a masterpiece that others should aspire to emulate. It also sets the bar impossibly high.

Asking a Lot

Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW

Kinds of Kindness (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

Yorgos Lanthimos is one of the few European directors from non-English-speaking countries (in his case, Greece) in recent years to successfully pivot to full-time filmmaking in America. Unlike, say, Lars von Trier or Nicolas Winding Refn, Mr. Lanthimos has been recognized by the Academy with multiple nominations. He’s also lucky that he’s never had to placate Harvey Weinstein.

Fury Road to Nowhere

Jasin Boland/Warner Brothers Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

Reviving the “Mad Max” franchise in 2015 after a three-decade gap turned out to be a very good idea for George Miller. So instead of another “Babe” or even “Happy Feet,” we’re getting a Furiosa origin story. Well, there’s apparently a sequel planned for “Mad Max: Fury Road” as well, but that’s a whole other conversation for another time.