Recently watched movies 2025

[nomar]

Some air travel specials.

The Old Guard & The Old Guard 2. Stars Charlize Theron as Andromache of Scythia ("Andy"). She's spectacular at 49 years old. She's one of a few "immortal" beings who have tried to help people over the centuries and are kind of bored with it at this point. Too many spoilers so I can't say much other than (a) the villain is predicable in a way that I find annoying and (b) I'm sure there will be a third movie. This is based on a comic book and the story is pretty decent. This is much more about these people and their struggles and bonds through unnaturally long life. Overall pretty decent, but nothing special.

I liked the first one and I am struggling getting through the sequel. I keep falling asleep.

Do you know what Netflx movies are awesome? Extraction and Extraction 2. They are EXACTLY what I want out of a Netflix movie.

 

[nomar]

Wicked.

I watched it on a ten hour plane flight from Istanbul with 450 grumpy Turks who would not stay in their seats.

First, this movie is a pile of crap. It’s also half a movie. You can hit with a ‘to be continued’ at the end, so there is a second pile of crap coming.

Premise is that people are mean to the one person because she is green which is kinda weird when you notice that some of the people in the crowds that are being mean to her are actual minorities…..strange confluence of woke story lines running headlong into woke casting.

The bad witch is played by a good actress, the good witch is played by a bad actress. Jeff Goldblum makes an appearance to play Jeff Goldblum. He has less range than Vince Vaughn. There’s some singing, some dancing and you’ll be happy when both stop.

If you’re a woman, I am giving this four Deepsters - you people will love this slop.

If you’re not, it’s zero Deepsters - stare at the wall for three hours instead.

We watched it at home. And by watched, I mean I watched the first hour. And when my wife said, do you want to watch the rest, or should I watch it by myself, I said, by yourself.

Not my jam.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Watched Life of Brian on Peacock with one of my kids this week. I have seen it so many times that I can just about write the script from memory.

Peacock edited out the entire Loretta bit by Eric Idle, along with all the callback jokes. Life of Brian is certainly in the Top 10 of most offensive wide release movies of all time if you are measuring people offended by it. It takes a flamethrower to many groups of people and social norms, laying waste to organized religion, and this fearlessness is part of its brilliance. The fact that the movie is so ruthless also makes this very selective editing more disappointing.

 

[Monte]

GRAN TORINO

 

[superjohn]

And Ariana Grande is definitely sick and needs medical intervention.

She's seriously messed up, it's sad.

 

[ZooCougar]

Wicked.

I watched it on a ten hour plane flight from Istanbul with 450 grumpy Turks who would not stay in their seats.

First, this movie is a pile of crap. It’s also half a movie. You can hit with a ‘to be continued’ at the end, so there is a second pile of crap coming.

Premise is that people are mean to the one person because she is green which is kinda weird when you notice that some of the people in the crowds that are being mean to her are actual minorities…..strange confluence of woke story lines running headlong into woke casting.

The bad witch is played by a good actress, the good witch is played by a bad actress. Jeff Goldblum makes an appearance to play Jeff Goldblum. He has less range than Vince Vaughn. There’s some singing, some dancing and you’ll be happy when both stop.

If you’re a woman, I am giving this four Deepsters - you people will love this slop.

If you’re not, it’s zero Deepsters - stare at the wall for three hours instead.

I saw the play in London. My god. The two hour movie is just the first half of the play. The play was actually kinda mediocre.

 

[ZooCougar]

Superman (2025)

Superman isn't even a comic book hero anymore. Nobody reads Superman comics which is why everyone is wondering how Superman got a dog. He has a substantial cinematic history at this point. He's been in some great ones and some really forgettable ones. Time will tell what kind this is.

Mike Francesa wasn't totally wrong. This didn't feel much like a Superman movie. Superman is a total screw up here, he gets his butt kicked throughout the movie and it's so bad that it stops feeling like you are watching the right movie.

There's a ton of extra noise in this movie. There is a lame Hawk Girl (Who cares?), some guy who talks like Robert Downey's character from Tropic Thunder, who also is like Rob's Iron Man without the suit and an actually pretty good Nathan Fillion Green Lantern with a Simple Jack haricut who steals every scene.

And this is the problem; If your Superman movie needs all these extra supporting characters to help carry your movie then your Superman movie blows. Superman is Superman, and written correctly he can carry a movie. This is objectively true and not up for debate.

The other thing a good Superman film needs is a good villain. The Lex Luthor in this movie was totally boring. He's nothing you haven't seen before. A pretty stock smart rich guy who is angry that someone better than him exists. He's no Gene Hackman. He's not even Jesse Eisenberg. He's certainly no General Zod.

Unbelievably the other bad guy is the leader of a totally "fictional" nation called "Boravia". I don't want to get all political here but with this leader there are just so many tropes on display here, the accent, the big nose, yeah you guessed it.

The movie is just one giant Computer Generated Imagery generated crisis after another. They are meaningless and you will lose track.

James Gunn as usual is incapable of making a story that's good enough to stand without heavily augmenting it with catchy music. It's like a tasty sauce spread all over a bland steak.

The only acting that occurs is with Jimmy Olson (How could James Gunn not bring back that Spin Doctors song) and Lex's "girlfriend". That's literally the only interesting subplot and more interesting than the actual plot.

Do yourself a favor. Wait till it comes out for free on one of your 12 streaming services. Or watch Man of Steel, which is 100 times better.

 

[CL82]

Ghosted (2023)

First, it stars Ana de Armas. That in and of itself makes it worth a look. It also stars Chris Evans as a needy guy whose latest girlfriend just broke up with him for being too clingy. He meets de Armas and Art curator and they hook up. He texts her a bunch of times afterward so she ghosted him. He figures out that she's in London and follows her there, but wait, in an entirely predictable twist,she's not actually an art curator she's a spy and not just a spy, but a super spy. Of course, the bad guys now think Evans is the super spy. So, you have the mistaken identity meme, the bickering new couple meme, and the saving of the innocent civilian meme tripleheader. It sounds a little trite, but they do a good job with it and it's a lot of fun.

They have some good (and terrifically brief) cameos by Ryan Reynolds, Sebastian, Stan, Anthony Mackie and John Cho. Adrien Brody plays the principal villain. It was entertaining, and well worth a look.

 

[Fishy]

I saw the play in London. My god. The two hour movie is just the first half of the play. The play was actually kinda mediocre.

Two hours? It was nearly three! I cannot imagine sitting through that play.

We went to the Globe once in London….98 degrees.

First 15 minutes of the play - wow, this is cool.

Last 200 minutes of the play - I am gonna die, why won’t this end.

 

[ZooCougar]

Two hours? It was nearly three! I cannot imagine sitting through that play.

We went to the Globe once in London….98 degrees.

First 15 minutes of the play - wow, this is cool.

Last 200 minutes of the play - I am gonna die, why won’t this end.

That’s the thing. The movie is half the play but almost twice as long. I guess they had to do that to make it a franchise.

 

[HuskyHawk]

Ballerina. Stars Ana D'Armas as Eve MaCarro, a young woman who, as a girl suffers a tragic circumstances and meets Winston, who takes her to the Ruska Roma, where she becomes a ballet dancer and a "Kikimora". This takes place during the 3rd John Wick movie and has all the usual John Wick cast members, including Keanu. It's Lance Reddick's final role. Gabriel Byrne is the leader of a very violent organization. We see her training and Eve learns the tricks of the trade and becomes very good. Ultimately she turns her attention to Byrne's organization and then the body count is on. It's just a hell of a lot of fun. This is, at worst, the 2nd best John Wick movie.

 

[CL82]

Ballerina. Stars Ana D'Armas as Eve MaCarro, a young woman who, as a girl suffers a tragic circumstances and meets Winston, who takes her to the Ruska Roma, where she becomes a ballet dancer and a "Kikimora". This takes place during the 3rd John Wick movie and has all the usual John Wick cast members, including Keanu. It's Lance Reddick's final role. Gabriel Byrne is the leader of a very violent organization. We see her training and Eve learns the tricks of the trade and becomes very good. Ultimately she turns her attention to Byrne's organization and then the body count is on. It's just a hell of a lot of fun. This is, at worst, the 2nd best John Wick movie.

You had me at "Stars Ana de Armas..."

 

[Husky25]

I saw Jurassic World Rebirth over the weekend in 3D. I think it was PG-13 because the violence was cartoonish in that it would never happen. I.e. 95% involved a dinosaur. Make no mistake though, there is a fair amount of gore and death.

I can't really rank it in terms of the Jurassic Universe, because I don't think I've seen any other since the original Jurassic Park. The CGI was good, but the story and some of the details were a little far fetched, even considering it revolves around dinosaurs.

Now because I watched it in 3D, I wonder if I'll react to it when it comes out on a streaming service. The last Action/Fantasy movie that I saw in 3D was Avatar. I remember liking it in the theatre, but being underwhelmed on a 47" HD TV.

 

[ZooCougar]

I saw Jurassic World Rebirth over the weekend in 3D. I think it was PG-13 because the violence was cartoonish in that it would never happen. I.e. 95% involved a dinosaur. Make no mistake though, there is a fair amount of gore and death.

I can't really rank it in terms of the Jurassic Universe, because I don't think I've seen any other since the original Jurassic Park. The CGI was good, but the story and some of the details were a little far fetched, even considering it revolves around dinosaurs.

Now because I watched it in 3D, I wonder if I'll react to it what it comes out on a streaming service. The last Action/Fantasy movie that I saw in 3D was Avatar. I remember liking it in the theatre, but being underwhelmed on a 47" HD TV.

I thought the sequences where they fight the dinosaurs in the ocean were good. The one with the family on the sailboat specifically. It was a nice subtle homage to Jaws. The rest was fairly procedural. Shady corporate guy dies, kids don't die and so on. My son gave it a 4/10 (not enough T-Rex).

The two plotlines converging wasn't bad too. The family on the yacht was a bit more interesting. The father who was played by the actor they had to use because they couldn't get Pedro Pascal was decent. Honestly there was a better movie in there. Not Pascal's family ends up getting ship wrecked and The Black Widow who is his girlfriend mounts a rescue mission. Then they spare us the evil corporation storyline for once.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

Saw Eddington last night.

I can probably put together a better review later on, but I mostly agree with many of the criticisms that the film has garnered.

I gave it a 3/5 on Letterboxd. It seemed both somewhat lazy/disengenuous and hodgepodge-y. Pretty disappointed overall. There were good performances, Joaquin is almost always great, but he has been wasted in some pretty poor movies lately. Austin Butler’s character seemed like it was thrown in last minute and Aster didn’t care to do much with it.

Curious what others think.

 

[Dove]

Novocaine (Paramount+). Dumb fun. I'm certain if one wanted to examine the physiology of being numb to pain and how the hero couldn't have survived/rebounded from many of his injuries, one could have a field day. But that would be missing the point. I don't recall seeing this progeny of Quaid/Ryan in anything before, but he did a solid job as the lead. Sweet romantic story goes along with with a very good Amber Midthunder. You could do much worse than watch this one.

This movie was such a fun watch. The fight scenes were entertaining. Jack Quaid's character, Nate "Caine", was great balancing the dork banker with the pain-free fighter guy. Yeah, his character should have been killed in the restaurant kitchen fight but just roll with it.

 

[Palatine]

The Phoenician Scheme (2025) Unless you are a hardcore Wes Anderson fan, skip it. Trivial nonsense that follows an absurd plot with dead pan characters you don't really are about (except the sporadic screaming matches that serve no purpose). Lots of A+ actors. Wes always has nice sets. 0 stars.

 

[nwhoopfan]

The Phoenician Scheme (2025) Unless you are a hardcore Wes Anderson fan, skip it. Trivial nonsense that follows an absurd plot with dead pan characters you don't really are about (except the sporadic screaming matches that serve no purpose). Lots of A+ actors. Wes always has nice sets. 0 stars.

I thought The French Dispatch and Asteroid City were both terrible. I'll probably skip this one. I think Wes has lost his touch.

 

[Kolumbo]

Superman (2025)

Superman isn't even a comic book hero anymore. Nobody reads Superman comics which is why everyone is wondering how Superman got a dog. He has a substantial cinematic history at this point. He's been in some great ones and some really forgettable ones. Time will tell what kind this is.

Mike Francesa wasn't totally wrong. This didn't feel much like a Superman movie. Superman is a total screw up here, he gets his butt kicked throughout the movie and it's so bad that it stops feeling like you are watching the right movie.

There's a ton of extra noise in this movie. There is a lame Hawk Girl (Who cares?), some guy who talks like Robert Downey's character from Tropic Thunder, who also is like Rob's Iron Man without the suit and an actually pretty good Nathan Fillion Green Lantern with a Simple Jack haricut who steals every scene.

And this is the problem; If your Superman movie needs all these extra supporting characters to help carry your movie then your Superman movie blows. Superman is Superman, and written correctly he can carry a movie. This is objectively true and not up for debate.

The other thing a good Superman film needs is a good villain. The Lex Luthor in this movie was totally boring. He's nothing you haven't seen before. A pretty stock smart rich guy who is angry that someone better than him exists. He's no Gene Hackman. He's not even Jesse Eisenberg. He's certainly no General Zod.

Unbelievably the other bad guy is the leader of a totally "fictional" nation called "Boravia". I don't want to get all political here but with this leader there are just so many tropes on display here, the accent, the big nose, yeah you guessed it.

The movie is just one giant Computer Generated Imagery generated crisis after another. They are meaningless and you will lose track.

James Gunn as usual is incapable of making a story that's good enough to stand without heavily augmenting it with catchy music. It's like a tasty sauce spread all over a bland steak.

The only acting that occurs is with Jimmy Olson (How could James Gunn not bring back that Spin Doctors song) and Lex's "girlfriend". That's literally the only interesting subplot and more interesting than the actual plot.

Do yourself a favor. Wait till it comes out for free on one of your 12 streaming services. Or watch Man of Steel, which is 100 times better.

Superman (2025)

We watched Superman at a drive-in so the novelty of sitting outside, despite the exreme heat, made it worth it. But then it just became very looooong. I haven't seen all the superman movies but I agree with your points. To me it seemed mostly like it was trying to be like Ironman and the Avengers. Jimmy Olsen was in the Vacation remake and has his own comedy plusses. Lois Lane was OK. The extras showed up but I don't even know much about their characters so it all felt like watching the Transformers - just a bunch of CGI chaos. I always feel like the theory of relativity or something goes out the window in these kinds of fight scenes. Anyway, probably worth the effort if you like to keep up with all the comic movies but nothing stood out to make it a great movie.

 

[CL82]

Superman (2025)

We watched Superman at a drive-in so the novelty of sitting outside, despite the exreme heat, made it worth it. But then it just became very looooong. I haven't seen all the superman movies but I agree with your points. To me it seemed mostly like it was trying to be like Ironman and the Avengers. Jimmy Olsen was in the Vacation remake and has his own comedy plusses. Lois Lane was OK. The extras showed up but I don't even know much about their characters so it all felt like watching the Transformers - just a bunch of CGI chaos. I always feel like the theory of relativity or something goes out the window in these kinds of fight scenes. Anyway, probably worth the effort if you like to keep up with all the comic movies but nothing stood out to make it a great movie.

Which raises an interesting question what makes a good superhero movie. I would suggest it's largely narrative, at least when introducing characters. Part of what makes Iron Man such a great movie is it's a story of redemption. Start goes from being self indulgent and self obsessed to wanting to "fix the problem he created." we end up liking him because of his roguish charm and heroes journey.

Nor are they all "feel good" movies. Look at the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie in which he learns the lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility" at great cost. I'd argue that that movie was really a tragedy on many levels. He ends up telling the woman that he loves that he can't be with her. At the close of that movie it seems like he's doomed to live a life apart, dedicating his existence to others.

That's what I think the recent DC movies have struggled with. They have all of the action and CGI sequences, but they lack and narrative that makes us care about the characters.

 

[nwhoopfan]

Which raises an interesting question what makes a good superhero movie. I would suggest it's largely narrative, at least when introducing characters. Part of what makes Iron Man such a great movie is it's a story of redemption. Start goes from being self indulgent and self obsessed to wanting to "fix the problem he created." we end up liking him because of his roguish charm and heroes journey.

Nor are they all "feel good" movies. Look at the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie in which he learns the lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility" at great cost. I'd argue that that movie was really a tragedy on many levels. He ends up telling the woman that he loves that he can't be with her. At the clothes of that movie it seems like he's doomed to live a life apart, dedicating his existence to others.

That's what I think the recent DC movies have struggled with. They have all of the action in CGI, but they black and narrative that makes us care about the characters.

I'd throw in the Capt. America movies in terms of good narrative. The first one was decent, I thought Winter Soldier was possibly the best superhero movie made (still). Civil War was really good too.

 

[Palatine]

Which raises an interesting question what makes a good superhero movie. I would suggest it's largely narrative, at least when introducing characters. Part of what makes Iron Man such a great movie is it's a story of redemption. Start goes from being self indulgent and self obsessed to wanting to "fix the problem he created." we end up liking him because of his roguish charm and heroes journey.

Nor are they all "feel good" movies. Look at the first Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movie in which he learns the lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility" at great cost. I'd argue that that movie was really a tragedy on many levels. He ends up telling the woman that he loves that he can't be with her. At the clothes of that movie it seems like he's doomed to live a life apart, dedicating his existence to others.

That's what I think the recent DC movies have struggled with. They have all of the action in CGI, but they black and narrative that makes us care about the characters.

Being true to the comic is the first most important imperative of "good" superhero movies. Marvel comics always had heroes with human flaws. DC didn't. In the comics, SpiderMan often saw himself as a loser. In the comics, Stark was a irresponsible drunk searching for purpose. To me, that is why the Marvel movies succeeded where the DC world had trouble.

 

[CL82]

Being true to the comic is the first most important imperative of "good" superhero movies. Marvel comics always had heroes with human flaws. DC didn't. In the comics, SpiderMan often saw himself as a loser. In the comics, Stark was a irresponsible drunk searching for purpose. To me, that is why the Marvel movies succeeded where the DC world had trouble.

Being true to comic only matters to the people who are familiar with the series, but I agree, that's a core audience.

Somehow, the film has to make us care about the character. I agree that's always been an issue with Superman, who is essentially invulnerable except for magic and various colored kryptonite. I suspect that's why they had him getting the crap beat out of him in the most recent movie, to create a sense of vulnerability.

 

[Deepster]

Meh. Super hero movies stink.

The hero rides a wave of successful “save the day” events. A seemingly unbeatable villain emerges. The hero seems down and out and unable to defeat the villain and yet SOMEHOW HE DOES IT!!!!

Toss in some cool special effects and maybe a cameo or two. Secure a deal for a video game and a Subway or Taco Bell campaign. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

Anyone else catch Happy Gilmore 2?

Had some laughs but if 30 minutes and half of the cameos and flashbacks to the previous movie were cut, it would have been better. Thought having actual golfers act was pretty funny, John Daly was perfect, kudos to Bad Bunny and Boban was fun. All other celebs must go.