Neon
MOVIE REVIEW
Cuckoo (2024)
The absolute worst audience reaction you can have for a horror film is silence. People are supposed to be reacting to the gore, experiencing the shocks of the plot twists in their own bodies, maybe even screaming. This is not something you can expect from “Cuckoo;” it’s awful but it’s true that the audience at the Berlinale watched it in stony silence. “Cuckoo” should have been an O.T.T. camp catastrophe/delight, but unfortunately it's just a rotten egg.
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
When was the last time a movie was so thoroughly, unashamedly, fun? Rian Johnson might have had “Star Wars” unjustifiably taken away from him, but never has anyone needed a major franchise less. Not when he can, with no visible strain on his part and all the support in the world (including a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival), casually set up a better one of his own. “Glass Onion” is a flawless delight; and it’s crystal clear Mr. Johnson is only getting started.
Murray Close/Warner Brothers Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)
“The Matrix Resurrections” is part ’90s cyberpunk (remember “Hackers,” “The Net” and “Johnny Mnemonic,” which also features our beloved Keanu Reeves?), part zombie flick and part ’20s bracing critique of internet corporate overlords like Google, Amazon and Facebook. Much of the new entry retreads the Wachowskis’ trilogy circa 1999 to 2003, with a few exceptions: Smith, here played by Jonathan Groff, is now, rather than Terminator in the computer simulation, a Musk/Bezos/Zuckerberg-type tyrant and business partner of Thomas Anderson/Neo (Mr. Reeves), who deliberately articulates in early scenes his disdain for Warner Brothers’ decision to revive “The Matrix” with or without its creators – which perhaps explains how Lana Wachowski only begrudgingly came onboard.
Twentieth Century Fox
MOVIE REVIEW
Underwater (2020)
A remarkably late addition to Fox’s 1980s sci-fi canon, “Underwater” finally surfaces some three years since the completion of principal photography. To be sure, the studio has never gotten out of the B-picture business entirely, but for the past few decades its niche pipeline has been mostly outsourced to Eurotrashy outfits like Luc Besson’s EuropaCorp, resulting in more bargain actioners like “Taken” while the low-budget sci-fi well ran dry in favor of . . . James Cameron’s other preoccupations.