Mark McPherson's Blog, page 29

‘Kill City Cup’ Review

Wrestling sure has gotten more creative in the 21st century. I remember being enthralled by the theatrics of the WWF, watching fervently as a kid. Every surprise in and out of the ring had me transfixed. Had I watched something like Kill City Cup as a kid, I’d probably be just as addicted to this wrestling format that embraces so much imagination and pageantry that it’s a treat for the eyes.

The Kill City Cup is established in a post-apocalyptic world run by the evil Kill Corp.. The vocal an...

“The Venture Bros.: Radiant Is the Blood of the Baboon Heart” Review

Of all the shows to grace the late-night block of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, The Venture Brothers are easily part of their top tier. What began as a satire of Jonny Quest quickly transformed into a stylish, subversive, and exciting series that goes beyond parodies of retro comic books and cartoons. So when the show was unceremoniously canceled after Season 7, it didn’t feel right to leave behind this saga on a whimper. Radiant Is The Blood of the Baboon Heart brings the show to a close as a ...

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” Review

The Ninja Turtles were my jam growing up. I loved the toys, the cartoons, the live-action movies, and I even watched the absurd musical stage show tape too much as a kid. So, with the inevitable return of the Turtles to the theater, there’s sure to be a tizzy of long-time fans getting grumpy over a new iteration. But after having endured the bland and baffling nature of CGI/live-action Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem arrives as a refreshing dose of what made the Turtles great while not remaining t...

Sound of Freedom is a QAnon Trojan Horse

Sound of Freedom is a 2023 crime thriller starring Jim Caviezel. The film centers around true-life figure Tim Ballard, an ex-homeland security investigator who pursued a life of vigilance to stop child trafficking under the organization known as Operation Underground Railroad. The movie was in development at 20th Century Fox and completed shooting in 2018. In 2019, Disney acquired Fox and decided to shelve the film. The film’s producer spent years trying to reattain the rights from Disney and s...

“Oppenheimer” Review

I’ve often called Christopher Nolan the thinking man’s Michael Bay, and I know I’m not the only one to share this perspective. He makes big films where things blow up really nicely without feeling like your brain cells get caught in the blasts. With Oppenheimer, he tackles the biggest explosion and surrounds it with a searing drama of science, politics, and existential dread. What follows is a film that finds more ways than one to make the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer a thrilling experience.

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“Barbie” Review

At some point, amid Barbie’s toy existence, somebody joked that Barbie doesn’t have a vagina, and Ken doesn’t have a penis. It’s the easiest and most immediate joke that comes to mind, conjuring the initial perplection when curious kids stripped the dolls. A PG-13 Barbie movie certainly wouldn’t steer away from that gag. Thankfully, there’s more to this picture than the routine cultural gags and brightly-colored bravado associated with the brand.

Director delivers an adaptation ...

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” Review

Now in its seventh entry, Mission: Impossible remains one of the most exhilarating action-spy franchises. Though a long way from its simpler roots of the 1960s TV series and the dense structure of the 1990s Brian de Palama picture, the seventh film maintains the high coming off the impressive sixth entry. The stakes get higher, the stunts more elaborate, the plots more thick, and the twists more abundant. In other words, it’s everything you’ve come to expect and love from the MI movies.

This...

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” Review

There’s a certain vibe that audiences have come to expect from the iconic Indiana Jones movies. Pulling from old adventure serials, they always carried an air of exciting treasure hunting and bold action sequences that delighted moviegoers. For staging such old-school thrills, Steven Spielberg’s saga always felt like it reflected the past in exaggerated yet compelling ways. The original trilogy took place in the 1930s, crafting tales of Indy battling Nazis in search of supernatural treasures. T...

“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” Review

In the same way this film’s central character exists between two worlds, Ruby Gillman is a film that feels caught between Dreamworks’s innovations and modern animation’s simplistic reliability for kids. It perhaps doesn’t help that the film opens with Dreamworks’s latest logo opening, revealing their pedigree of such films as Kung-Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon. This film is not in that same league, but it’s also not too shabby for trying to be a cute and eccentric coming-of-age fantasy ...

“Asteroid City” Review

Despite what the vibrant vintage might imply, Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City may be the director’s darkest film (as well as his most brilliant). It is a film about death but tackles the topic head-on beyond The Royal Tenanbaums’ acceptance or The Life Aquatic’s grief. Here’s a movie with the guts to force its quirky characters to stare deep into the abyss of nothing and find the crutches to keep skipping along in the face of dread. The embracing of absurdities makes for a potent Anderson comedy, ...