Mark McPherson's Blog, page 36

“Jurassic World: Dominion” Review

Lumbering on at 2.5 hours, Jurassic World Dominion is a test to see how many dinosaur movie tropes you can reiterate in one feature. Here is a film in which you’ll see Bryce Dallas Howard flee from a velociraptor. Then she’ll hide from a bigger dinosaur. Then sneak around other dinosaurs. After two hours, one has to question if there’s anything more to Jurassic World than just running from dinosaurs, repeating the same things we’ve seen time and time again. The answer might be no considering ho...

“The Bob’s Burgers Movie” Review

It seems obligatory that a show as successful as Bob’s Burgers was due for a movie. But the question arises if the animated sitcom is suited for the big screen. The working-class hijinks of the Belcher family and their restaurant work well enough on television. In terms of making the leap to a theatrical film, there’s certainly faithfulness but not much more than the smirks and giggles that you’d get from watching it at home.

There’s certainly a bigger story at play with the Belchers facing ...

“Top Gun: Maverick” Review

Did this Top Gun sequel really quote Enter the Dragon? Well, kinda. The mantra of the movie is “Don’t think, just do.” There are several moments where characters will let the first part linger with a powerful pause and my mind just fills in the blank with Bruce Lee’s “…feeeeeel.” But, hey, why not? It’s a good saying for a picture such as this which embraces the theatrics.

For many moments, the world washes away when watching jets go fast. If you’re going to make a film all about a mission o...

“Men” (2022) Review

Men is the director’s most cerebral and blunt movie to date. Whereas his previous sci-fi efforts of Ex Machina and Annihilation had some grounding to their surreality, this film goes deeper down a dark hole of nightmares. The title for the film likely came from the online apologies of “not all men” when it came to the issue of men sexually assaulting women. Sure, not all men are rape apologists and sexist pigs with engorged egos, but, in this film and from the perspective of our ...

“Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers” (2022) Review

How do you make a Rescue Rangers movie? Do you play it safe by sticking to the adventure aspect of the show or go for a commercially-safe fish-out-of-water angle? Thankfully, this film does none of that and decides to go full Roger Rabbit. It goes meta with the show while going ham on a plethora of cartoon characters that occupy a world of washed-up stars. And while this type of staging seems par for the course in our Ready Player One film landscape of vomiting every IP onto the screen, this is...

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” Review

How much horror can be injected into the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The answer with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse is quite a bit more than I expected. Coming from director Sam Raimi, a director with a rich history in exhilarating horror with Evil Dead, there’s a solid smorgasbord of horror filmmaking panache present. It’s a good-looking picture but makes one wish it were just an inch more brutal and dynamic to become the horror superhero movie the MCU deserves.

Doctor Stephen Strange (

“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” Review

appears in a film that reminds viewers of his other movies. The film opens with one of his more chaotic roles in Con Air and we’re reminded of his heroic history of film roles. We see a younger version of himself that acts as the voice of his ego, having a striking resemblance to his character in Wild at Heart. But, wait, wasn’t he speaking to himself in Adaptation with a polar-opposite double? And is he now using the same guns he had in Face/Off? If you’re a big Cage nerd, this fi...

“The Bad Guys” Review

The Bad Guys tell the story of anthropomorphic characters usually associated with villains. In this world of humans and animals, the predators of wolves and snakes are regarded as criminals. Instead of eating other animals, however, they mostly commit bank robberies and car chases. They still eat animals on the side but kinda keep it low-key. After all, this is an animated movie aimed at kids and is much less likely to take a grander stance on nature’s cruelty or the ethical concerns of good gu...

“Sonic The Hedgehog 2” Review

As a matinee adventure for kids, Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is okay entertainment for the wee ones. Yet I couldn’t help but feel that there was something more I should be appreciating here. I grew up with Sonic The Hedgehog being my favorite video game character (I was in the Sega Genesis camp of the console wars). I recognized the reference to the game Doctor Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine with Robotnik’s secret base in the film is a coffee shop called Mean Bean. I smirked a little shrug, reluctantly ...

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” Review

What an amazingly alive movie! Everything Everywhere All At Once combines a whole of everything into a meaningful tale of life and love while still being a berzerk kaleidoscope of weirdness. It has kung-fu, multiverse travel, mech suits, and chaotic fight scenes that use buttplugs as weapons. It manages to be all over the place in its staging yet surprisingly on point in its central focus of existentialism.

plays Chinese-American laundromat owner Evelyn Wang. Her life has taken...