Movie Reviews

By: Bob Garver     After three “Jurassic Park” movies and three “Jurassic World” movies, it seems the time has come to kickstart the “Jurassic” franchise again with “Jurassic World: Rebirth.” I’ll give the franchise credit for recognizing that there was no need to continue with the Chris Pratt or Bryce Dallas Howard characters from…

By: Bob Garver     “F1: The Movie” takes viewers inside the exciting world of Formula One auto-racing. The director is Joseph Kosinski, best known for taking “Top Gun: Maverick” to the top of the yearly box office three years ago. Between that movie’s jets and this movie’s cars, it seems the man’s specialty is…

By: Bob Garver       “Final Destination: Bloodlines” It’s hard to believe that we went over a decade without a new “Final Destination” movie. Fans love this series and its “slasher-movie-without-a-slasher” gimmick. The “killer” here is the concept of Death itself, which takes the form of unlikely, elaborate, horrific accidents. This sixth installment features…

By: Bob Garver    The eighth “Mission: Impossible” movie, “The Final Reckoning,” sees Tom Cruise’s secret agent Ethan Hunt strive to save the world yet again. But this movie has “Final” in its title, so maybe Hunt won’t succeed this time. Maybe the world will be destroyed by the evil A.I. program known as The…

By: Bob Garver   The latest edition of Disney’s trend of remaking its animated classics in live action or “realistic” CGI is “Lilo & Stitch.” I remember seeing the 2002 original with my mom, both of us huge Disney fans, and we agreed that the studio’s magic from its mostly-90’s “Renaissance” era was long gone.…

By: Bob Garver     “Thunderbolts*” certainly scared off the competition in its second weekend at the domestic box office. This sometimes happens the weekend after the opening of a huge blockbuster. Other studios will know that they can’t compete against the powerhouse, so they hold off on releasing anything that they think has the…

By: Bob Garver     “Thunderbolts*,” the latest offering from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, seems like awfully familiar territory. In the film, a group of assassins, criminals, and burnouts band together to form a ragtag group of do-gooders looking for redemption. There are definitely shades of the MCU’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” in play. Or…

By: Bob Garver     “The Accountant” was a midsized hit from 2016 that until recently had a reputation as a wannabe franchise-starter that never got a follow-up. I watched the first movie for research last weekend, and I would have guessed that the reason the film went so long without a sequel was that…

By Bob Garver   If “A Minecraft Movie” is the commercial hit that 2025 needed, then “Sinners” is the creative hit it needed. Writer/director Ryan Coogler has delivered a film that starts off as a compelling-enough 1930’s period piece before wildly shifting into supernatural territory. But the later developments don’t devalue the efforts made in…

By Bob Garver     After a mere two weekends, “A Minecraft Movie” has claimed the top spot of the 2025 domestic box office. It’s not shocking that this franchise piece beat out January fare, but since then we’ve had an MCU entry and this movie just blew right past it. And I have to…