Movie reviews of David McGinnis

The Rescue is one of the year’s best documentaries, a white-knuckle account of the 2018 rescue of twelve boys and their soccer coach from a flooded Thailand cave.

Limp, woefully miscast, and exhibiting little affection for the TV history it depicts, Being the Ricardos is a total misfire for Aaron Sorkin.

The film is an appealing if formulaic rags-to-riches sports drama, based on the inspiring true story of Venus and Serena Williams. For another, the film is at its best when it focuses on them, and not the bloviating, fanatical, hardass father in the titular role.

Hawkeye was an amiable mixed bag, recovering from a dull start to become a nice little showcase for Hailee Steinfeld and especially Florence Pugh, the latter of whom swanned into the series at the midway point with effortless charisma.

The storytelling started to settle into a groove, as did the cast. I would have come back for more. But it was just okay, and that’s not enough.

A slow burn with a truly shocking climax, a powerful statement about masculinity, and Cumberbatch’s finest performance to date.

Once we’re truly underway, though, No Way Home is a blast. Tom Holland has never been better, or asked to carry more dramatic weight on his pasty shoulders.

That it’s able to deftly balance both of these ideas — a diatribe against the numbing sameness of our cultural landscape, AND a sweet, heartfelt love story — is a trick only a Wachowski could pull off.

The timeless tunes are supported by Janusz Kaminski’s evocative lighting and Justin Peck’s muscular choreography, all under the masterful guidance of one of our greatest living directors.

Encanto‘s story may not be the most logically consistent or airtight, but its ambiguity is at least partially by design. I will say that unlike recent Disney offerings Frozen 2 or Raya and the Last Dragon, I actually found myself quite invested in what would happen next.

Yet I was delighted the whole way through; the songs — with a few exceptions, like the heartrending “Why” — may not be as sophisticated as Larson’s later work, but you feel the burning passion of everyone involved, and therefore feel Larson’s as well.

They burned bright, and quickly. And Peter Jackson has given us, I believe, the defining document of their genius at work.

Scott deserves credit for letting his actors go fully uncorked, but I can’t help but wonder what, say, Martin Scorsese could have done with the material.

Branagh is not known as a screenwriter. But to his credit, Belfast is a deeply felt film, beautifully lensed by Haris Zambarloukos, and a moving tribute to a community torn asunder. The script isn’t poetic because of the way it’s written, but because it feels utterly true to itself.

You can see the shape of the film Electrical Life could have been if Cumberbatch and the rest were given rein to mine it for pathos, not just affectation.

Oda’s pacing is deliberate, and the cinematography from Wyatt Garfield is appropriately otherworldly. But it’s the performances that must transcend the staginess of Nine Days’s conceit, and the Yale-trained Duke especially delivers, right down to the film’s exuberant, if bittersweet, final shot.

More Tarantino than John Ford, The Harder They Fall is stylish, certainly, and I’m glad it exists; it’s also overlong by about twenty minutes and seemingly cast for hipness than to honor the legacies of the historical figures it depicts.

Soho might be hit or miss as a “perils of nostalgia” thriller, but as a visual stylist, Wright is still in rarefied air.

Dispatch is a Francophile’s dream, but intensely pleasurable for any fan of Anderson’s work — a progressive feast for the eyes and ears.

With a sprawling ensemble and millennia of history to cover, Eternals struggles to bring together all of the lore and character work in a coherent way.

The Last Duel is actually a pretty great movie with a lot to say about masculinity through the ages, acted to near-perfection, and lensed by a legendary director who hasn’t yet run out of inventive ways to stage a bloody sword fight.

Not an instant classic like Skyfall, but it’s way better than Spectre, despite leaning absurdly heavily on characters and plot development from that turgid nothing of a movie.

The scope is epic; the visuals are frequently gobsmacking; every actor seems perfectly cast.

I was wildly entertained throughout. Bring on Phase Four.