Hops and Box Office Flops

2012's Total Recall lacks the bizarre charm of Paul Verhoeven's 1990 film. Substituting Mars for dystopian earth, the movie ultimately feels like just any other action movie.

Whereas the 1990 version was full of oddities, one-liners, and gore galore, this Total Recall is just a bland, PG-13 wannabe. What it lacks in personality and style, though, it does make up for with a few kinetic action scenes and solid special effects.

Those,...

The 2015 remake of Point Break is all style and no substance. It's an extreme sports highlight video that flourishes when the stunts are on display, but fizzles whenever the cast has to act.

Ultimately, there is just too much going on, and as we bound from place to place and stunt to stunt, very little in the way of plot or character depth is ever established.

Sure, having the radical Robin Hoods branch out into several extreme sp...

Captain America: Brave New World carries on the distressing trend of underachieving and subpar MCU movies. Worse, like much of Phase 4 and 5, there still seems to be no clear direction for what is coming next or why.

Brave New World is not a terrible film, but it is one that is clearly stitched together. Plagued by behind-the-scenes drama and frequent reshoots, the whole is clearly made from disparate parts.

Thus, despite game effo...

When Tremors was released in 1990, Kevin Bacon—who starred as Valentine McKee—thought it would kill his career. Like all great cult classics, though, Tremors has come to be one of the actor's most beloved films.

And that's not a mistake. Tremors is a ton of fun. With an interesting new creature that burrows under the surface and terrorizes a small town, it does exactly what a monster movie should do.

Add in its abundance of humor ...

Army of Darkness, the finale of Sam Raimi's iconic Evil Dead series, is truly a cult classic.

A minor departure from the series more comedic/horror roots, it is a film that revels in its absurdity, taking the protagonist, Ash, back through time to the 14th century.

Though it is goofier, it is no less fun than the first two. And its one-liners—frequent throughout—remain infinitely quotable to this day.

There is a reason Ash and the ...

Empire Records poses the important question: What do a bunch of pre-20s slackers do at work all day? Well, they have random sex with has been celebrities, eat weed brownies, argue over mundane things, and thoroughly explore the existential crises they're all experiencing.

To no one's surprise, very little work is actually done amidst all the melodrama. Now, that may not sound all that great, but Empire Records is very much a time c...

Based on a William Gibson story of the same name, Johnny Mnemonic centers on the titular data courier as he embarks on his latest assignment, transporting 320 gigabytes of corporate secrets.

That intel is quite sensitive, and its owner, Pharmakom, will stop at nothing to get it back, employing the Yakuza to track down Johnny. Like most of Gibson's work, the world in which Johnny lives is a cyberpunk dystopia.

Corporations rule with...

Transformers: The Last Knight is the fifth film directed by Michael Bay about the storied toy line. The prior four were of varying quality, but The Last Knight stands out as by far the worst.

A convoluted mess, it rewrites the legend of King Arthur, infusing the Autobots into the tale. This, of course, leads to a whole bunch of other nonsense, including Merlin's magical staff being of Cybertron origin.

Anyway, as we rumble through ...

The Last Jedi, despite being a massive financial success, has been highly divisive since its release in December 2017.

Sure, there are those who love and defend it, especially for its willingness to subvert expectations. Its detractors, though, often cite The Last Jedi's nonsensical plot and less than favorable depiction of beloved Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker for why they hate it.

The pod tends to lean toward the latter. For all ...

By feeling more like optional homework than obligatory viewing, The Marvels falls into a familiar trap of the Phase 4 and 5 MCU films. And it fails to up the ante for its main heroine from her first solo outing.

There is certainly more to juggle here—adding in both Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau—but The Marvels fails to find the right balance.

The titular three are charming and have decent chemistry. The villain, however, is one of...

In 2019, Todd Phillips' Joker, though divisive, received heaps of praise and a box office shattering $1 billion+ take. Joker: Folie à Deux, however, received none of that acclaim or success. That is for good reason.

Joker: Folie à Deux is a meandering mess of a film — one that features impromptu musical segments. Those songs, shockingly, are not at all the issue. Instead of carrying on Arthur Fleck's story, Folie à Deux just sort o...

Kraven The Hunter, Marvel's most dangerous huntsman, has always been linked with perhaps their most famed hero, Spider-Man. Yet, for his big screen debut, there is a distinct lack of the web-head.

Yes, folks, this is another of Sony's moronic attempts to build a shared universe out of the wall crawlers villains. And, like all those that came before it—Madame Web, Morbius, and the trilogy of Venom films—it doesn't make a hell of a l...

Red One is a big budget Christmas action film with an array of stars to make it shine; it is also a mindless hunk of studio schlock.

In it, Santa Claus has been kidnapped by a malevolent holiday witch. It is up to the Rock's Callum Drift (yes, that is his name) to get him back in time for the big day.

What follows is a paint-by-numbers blockbuster that is crammed with enough CGI and bad one-liners to rip the seams of even the large...

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire directly proceeds the events of 2021's Afterlife, following the Spengler gang as they begin their exploits in the Big Apple.

Wider in scope and scale than its predecessor, Frozen Empire features plenty of ghoulish fun for fans of the franchise. However, it's also poorly paced and overstuffed with characters and sub-plots—some of which work far better than others.

That latter fact is probably why critics ...

Based on a 1980s television show of the same name, The Fall Guy seemed to be on course to be the summer season’s first hit.

Screening more than a month before its release at South by Southwest, the buzz (reviews included) for the Ryan Gosling/Emily Blunt film was strong. And with Gosling—who plays the titular character Colt Seavers—coming off of Barbie, his movie star bonafides had never been stronger.

Yet, despite all that moment...

Borderlands is yet another vapid video game adaptation that fails to capture what made the games it's based on so great—a colorful explosion full of nonsensical plot points and weak action.

Not surprisingly, it couldn't ignite the box office or earn the adoration of fans and critics.

Now, sit back, fuel your anarchy with a Oberon Eclipse from Bell's Brewery, and roll up the damn windows! The Thunderous Wizard (@WriterTLK), Chumpzil...

Loosely based on the daring exploits of a ragtag group of soldiers during World War II, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a tale of heroism with a Guy Ritchie spin.

The film chronicles Operation Postmaster—in which a battalion led by Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) is sent on an off the books mission to disrupt, ideally destroy, the Nazis U-Boat resupply operation.

March-Phillips, played with extraordinary flair by Cavill,...

Sting is a nasty little creature feature that came and went to little notice.

Released on under 1,000 screens, this tale of a cosmic spider running amok is sure to make the hairs of any arachnophobe stand up.

It's lean; it's mean; and it's got enough gross gore to unsettle even the least squeamish of us. It's like Alien—if the Xenomorph was an eight-legged freak who enjoyed dining on birds, babies, and pups.

Now, sit back, drown th...

Oddity, a small Irish film, is one of the better horror movies of 2024.

It centers on Darcy, whose twin sister Dani was brutally murdered alone in the remote house she was renovating with her husband. Darcy, who is blind, is a medium. When she touches an object, she can peer into its experiences.

She, still unsure of what truly happened to her sister, takes it upon herself to unravel the mystery of Dani’s murder.

A slow burn, Oddit...