Mark McPherson's Blog, page 4

“Materialists” Review

If Past Lives toyed with the physics of cinematic love, Materialists plays with the economic construction of romance in the modern age. This is an ideal film for someone who enjoys watching love triangles set in New York and can’t see the whimsy beyond the invisible price tags that come with everything. The characters in this film can see those dollars and find themselves conflicted over how nearly every aspect of life is motivated by finance more than flings, presenting a chilling...

“How To Train Your Dragon” (2025) Review

15 years ago, I marveled at the astonishing animation of the plucky Hiccup and his dragon Toothless taking to the skies with their makeshift tail wing. 15 years later, I am watching that same scene on the big screen and feel nothing. It’s not that the live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon is lifeless with its visuals or awkward with composited computer graphics. I feel nothing because there’s nothing new. It’s the same shots, same dragon, same dialogue, same music, and same direction fr...

“Predator: Killer of Killers” Review

Dan Trachtenberg’s Killer of Killers feels like the likely follow-up to his Predator spin-off, Prey. What other time periods and settings could be used for the Predator formula? While this animated interpretation acts more like a sampler than a historical epic, it does tantalize a more creative route to take this franchise down instead of figuring out how many different ways the Predator aliens can sport braids.

There are three time periods plucked for the Predators, and each one feels like a...

“Ballerina” (2025) Review

The John Wick films have always felt like an action ballet, refined with the most creative and wonderous of brutal choreography. Ballerina continues that dance, but, much like Mad Max spun off into Furiosa, it explores a more nuanced arc for the protagonist than a grand ambition to slaughter. entered the John Wick world as a fully formed killer primed for his revolution. becomes more compelling as someone just stepping into it and choosing her place amid all the vengean...

“The Phoenician Scheme” Review

I might have been mistaken in thinking that Asteroid City was most direct film on the nature of existentialism. The Phoenician Scheme becomes even more overt with mortality, to the point of making regular trips to the afterlife and forcing skulls onto tables multiple times. This aspect doesn’t entirely hinder the film, but it does reveal how simplified the themes become in a movie that zips through its tale of spirituality and bureaucracy, more compartmentalized than compelling.

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“Fear Street: Prom Queen” Review

The scariest thing about Prom Queen is that it feels less like a step down and more like a full-on tumble from the other Fear Street movies. There was a refreshing nature to how the trilogy of films drew on different eras to compose a more twisty horror epic than a nostalgic etching, as it darted between the 1990s, 1970s, and 1660s. Prom Queen takes place in the 1980s, and it stumbles into every hole possible for evoking that popular era of horror.

Taking place in 1988, high schooler Lori Gra...

“Pee-wee as Himself” Review

Soon after the death of , I recalled him making a cameo in the comedy Quiz Lady. He appears before an elderly woman who mistakes him for Alan Cumming. Informed about this woman’s desire to meet Cumming, Reubens fakes a Scottish accent. As the documentary Pee-wee as Himself reveals, melting into different people seemed to be what Reubens prefers most.

Even when director Matt Wolf gets Paul to sit down with him for an interview, there’s a veil as thick as his Pee-wee persona that co...

“Bullet Train Explosion” Review

Although technically a sequel to 1975’s The Bullet Train, this action-packed reprisal lives up to its simplistic title. You won’t be disappointed if you were expecting an action film with a bullet train exploding multiple times. Some easter eggs are nestled in the plot of revenge and bombs, but they’re perfectly positioned more like bonuses than requiring the audience to recall a 50-year-old film. As someone who doesn’t have that nostalgia factor, I think this explosive film gets the job done, a...

“Final Destination Bloodlines” Review

As the sixth film in the Final Destination saga, Bloodlines is smart enough to toy with the material. By now, everybody knows the formula. There’s an opening onslaught of accidental deaths, most brutal, and one character witnessing this premonition will stop death’s Rube Goldberg games. But, wait a minute, this film has the camera pull out to a different character in a different time period! How did this happen? That’s just one of the few intriguing twists that make Bloodlines one of the more en...

“Havoc” Review

Watching Gareth Evans go from directing the manic masterpiece of The Raid to the familiar street cop grit of Havoc is like having a top-rated chef go from cooking Kobe beef to a Big Mac. On the surface, it looks like a typical dose of fast food. But there’s a great surprise when taking a bite and noticing how juicy he gets with the gushing blood, blunt bullet ballets, and breakneck carnage. It’s still a Big Mac, but served so incredibly rare that the familiar cliches are mostly washed away by th...