July movie reviews

In theaters:

JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH

Well I'll be! 

After more than 30 years, and various failed sequels and a shaky reboot, we at long last have a Jurassic franchise movie that is genuinely very good again. No qualifiers are needed.

Why does this one work? Well, for one thing it at least some of the time treats the dinosaurs again as objects of awe and wonder, and not just as scary monsters. But it really nails the big set pieces, including an absolute dandy involving a T-Rex and a raft. 

The movie definitely follows a lot of the beats of the 1993 film, but does so extremely well.

Cast is pretty good, led by a charismatic and, yeah, super hot Scarlett Johansson, who gets a rare chance to just be a fun movie star. 

Great job, Gareth Edwards. 

MATERIALISTS

I'm not sure what happened here. Director Celine Song made the sensitive, moving Past Lives a couple of years ago, and now returns with another romance-based film that is anything but sensitive, and only moves me to want to hate everyone on screen. And that's with a cast of likable actors. 

I think the intention here was to kind of deconstruct shallow romcom tropes, but the target was completely missed. So it ends up being just a mean, shallow, rather hateful movie with a bunch of loathsome characters. 

SUPERMAN 

James Gunn's kickoff of the new era of the DCEU is the best Superman movie since the first 2 Christopher Reeve films. 

It's bright, colorful, lively, charming, and a lot of fun. It's also a little overstuffed with characters, but at least that stuff is good stuff.

The new Superman, David Corenswet, is fine. I honestly think he is just fine here, not exceptional, but he is good enough to play the role.

The film surrounding him fills in the personality a little more, including a spunky Rachel Brosnahan, a very angry Nicholas Hoult, and the Justice Gang: Edi Gathegi's Mr. Terrific kind of steals the movie, and there's cute Isabela Merced again as Hawkgirl.

What really distinguishes this film is how stunningly of the moment it is. So much of this story reflects where this failing country is at this summer that I'm almost amazed it got released in this form. Immigration, media disinformation, intervention in foreign conflicts. It's a giant budget Superman film that is unabashedly hopeful we can overcome those problems. 

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025)

The original 2 I Know films were big deals for me in the late 90s. But I never felt like we needed a reboot, or a legacy sequel as they're often called now.

Well, we got one, and for the most part, I thought this was pretty good. It puts a few spins on the original, and the cast is good. Chase Sui Wonders, in particular, is an instant "she is on my radar big time" find. And the return of Jennifer Love Hewitt delivers. Btw she looked hot as fuck at the premiere, and anyone saying different is a moron. 

But then come those final 20 minutes, including a twist that, while certainly bold, just does not work at all, and truly hurts the earlier films to do it.

Neat mid-credits tease, though. I would see THAT movie immediately if it happens. 

Everything else: 

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND

A very, VERY boring film about a guy inviting his favorite musicians to his home. Only got through this cause of Carey Mulligan's typically warm presence. 

HAPPY GILMORE 2

I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything different from this, since it is an Adam Sandler comedy post-2000s, and scant few of these have been passable. But certainly doing a nearly 30 years later sequel to one of his best movies meant he would give a damn. Nope. HG2 is easily one of the worst ever sequels to a good comedy, a zero effort movie that is a death march of lazy callbacks to the original (they literally show entire clips at times), and a cavalcade of unfunny cameos. I only got a few minor chuckles out of this. Even the return of Shooter McGavin is a dud. At the center of this is Sandler, giving the same disinterested performance he has given in nearly all of his comedies for almost 2 decades. It is more clear than ever that, when it comes to his straight comedies, he simply no longer gives a shit. It's a paycheck and nothing else. Put him in something like Uncut Gems, he can dazzle. But when it comes to comedy, he no longer cares enough to give even the slightest effort.