Title: Star Trek Beyond | Rated: PG-13 | Runtime: 120 min | Theaters nationwide

It’s prime time to be a Star Trek fan. Gene Roddenberry’s franchise just celebrated its 50th anniversary, and it has reason aplenty to live long and prosper. A new Trek TV series, Star Trek: Discovery, is scheduled to premiere next year – nearly 12 years after the end of Star Trek: Enterprise. The latest entry in the reboot feature film saga (dubbed the Kelvin timeline), Star Trek Beyond, opened in theaters this past weekend. Furthermore, there’s already a fair bit of chatter regarding its sequel, in which Chris Hemsworth will star. Indeed, any Trekkie (or Trekker) must be over the moon, especially since the recent film is arguably the best in the Kelvin timeline so far.

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Title: Free State of Jones | Rated: R | Runtime: 139 min | Theaters limited (reducing)

There’s no shortage of incredible true stories, and a great number of them deserve to be told on the big screen. After all, through the magic of filmmaking, a story can come to life and engage the viewer emotionally, intellectually, and visually. The story of Newton Knight and the “Free State of Jones” rebelling against the Confederacy during the Civil War is an utterly fascinating one, and it’s well-suited to be a movie that engages on all fronts. Writer-director Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, The Hunger Games) is up for the task, but Free State of Jones is a cluttered film that simply tries to juggle too much and ultimately doesn’t fulfill any part of its incredible subject matter.

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Title: Ghostbusters | Rated: PG-13 | Runtime: 116 min | Theaters nationwide

When it comes to this year’s female-led Ghostbusters reboot/remake, you’ve got to have an opinion. Ever since the project was announced, it has been met with a barrage of absolute hatred that shows no signs of stopping. I’ve yet to come across any preview on YouTube where the “likes” outnumber the “dislikes,” low ratings are already flooding its IMDb page, and a large number of individuals seem to relish reading any negative review. All this is happening before the movie officially opens stateside in a few hours, by the way, so general audiences haven’t seen it yet. Such reactions come from a variety of people, from fans of the Ivan Reitman films to trolling misogynists to Donald Trump himself. To say the least, this is a strange and troubling phenomenon: there’s a widespread desire to see this particular film tank hard. It’s very unfortunate since the film isn’t the cancer-inducing dumpster fire that many want it to be. On the contrary, it’s a solid flick that – despite its flaws – bursts with energy and fun, thanks in large part to the chemistry between its leading ladies.

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Title: Swiss Army Man | Rated: R | Runtime: 97 min | Theaters wide

Let’s face it: a movie about a shipwrecked survivor relying on a farting corpse with incredible abilities sounds pretty stupid, if not outlandish. That said, it’s almost magical when a pair of filmmakers inject that story with so much emotion, fun, heart, and humanity, turning it into something that almost defies description – and that’s exactly what Swiss Army Man is. It does bite off more than it can chew, but you can’t deny that it’s exciting to watch unfold.

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Title: The BFG | Rated: PG | Runtime: 117 min | Theaters nationwide

Two of the world’s greatest storytellers have come together. One is Steven Spielberg, perhaps the greatest living master of cinema, and the other is Roald Dahl, whose books have caused the imaginations of children across many generations to run amok. It seems like a perfect match given their techniques and tendencies, and it’s almost surprising how Spielberg hasn’t adapted a Dahl story until now. His book of choice is The BFG, and on paper, his adaptation of the zany novel sounds like nothing short of a home run. Alas, the film turns out to be one of his weaker efforts – a visual treat boasting a pair of terrific performances, but marred by slipshod pacing and a mishandling of the book’s tone.

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Title: Independence Day: Resurgence | Rated: PG-13 | Runtime: 120 min | Theaters nationwide

There are certain movies that I’ll watch if they happen to be playing on TV. Independence Day is one of those, and I’ve caught it quite a number of times over the years. I haven’t seen it for a while since I don’t have cable, but I never had to try hard to remember its sheer entertainment value. However, that’s all I tended to remember about the movie – for a while, I only thought of it as great popcorn entertainment and nothing more. It was only when I recently watched the sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, that everything about Independence Day started coming back. In my nonchalant attitude towards that movie, I had forgotten just how well crafted it really is. Remembering that not only made me appreciate the 1996 film a helluva lot more, it also emphasized how much of an inferior movie its follow-up is. Hoping to cash in on ’90s nostalgia, this bland flick feels smaller than its predecessor in almost every way.

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Title: Warcraft | Rated: PG-13 | Runtime: 123 min | Theaters nationwide

Movie adaptations of video games must be cursed. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but there’s something to say about the genre when there isn’t a single film that critics, fans, and general audiences like. You can come up with so many reasons why this is the case: some are poorly made; some are made for fans; some bastardize the source material; some video games feel like movies in the first place; some video games aren’t meant to be made into movies because there’s nothing to adapt. The odds seem stacked against the genre, and yet, it pumps out films fairly regularly, with some being lost causes looking for easy cash, and others actually wanting to prove that there is hope in making such pictures. Warcraft belongs in the latter category, and while it’s up to the challenge of being a good film, it unfortunately falls short of its mark. The film is clearly a project from the heart that ultimately sinks under the weight of adapting its lore.

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Title: The Wailing | Rated: Not Rated | Runtime: 156 min | Theaters limited (expanding)

If you want to explore world cinema, I cannot recommend South Korean films enough. Being Korean myself, I admit my bias, but there’s no denying that this nation’s film industry has progressed in leaps and bounds since the turn of the century. Auteurs like Bong Joon-ho, Kim Jee-woon, and Park Chan-wook have gifted cinephiles with pictures that are as exquisite as they are twisted, and as moving as they are weird. Filmmaker Na Hong-jin, who made a big splash eight years ago with his thrilling tale The Chaser, now joins their ranks. His 2010 follow-up, The Yellow Sea, is decent if not emotionally distant and forgettable, though it does offer glimpses of his storytelling sensibilities and vision. However, it’s his latest feature, The Wailing, that firmly cements Na among the great modern Korean auteurs; he’s at the top of his game here, mastering tone to craft an engrossing story, and he comes close to making his best film to date.

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I went into this movie with tempered expectations. The trailers looked good. It looked like they were going to fix the mistakes of the first movie (incoherent story, terrible dialogue, an attempt to be too serious) and make something worthy of the cartoons I loved when I was growing up. After watching the movie, my wife and I looked at each other and in very shocked tones said, “I really liked it.” There were two reasons we were shocked. The first, we were expecting the movie to be garbage. The second, this was not a great movie, but it we loved it anyway. Continue reading →