Movie reviews of Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen

Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is masterfully made but also exhaustingly bleak. Review

I think of it as a thoughtful and soft meditation on grief, existence, memory, family dynamics, and what it means to really know someone and something. I found it to be both fascinating and quietly moving. Review

Park Chan-wook shows major signs of the filmmaker he will become, and his steady, stylish, and level-headed approach to a tough subject matter really helps to make this film succeed, as does Song Kang-ho’s dedicated and complex performance. Review

When compared to Knives Out, Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion is equally witty and just as sharply written and edited. It comes oh so close to matching the incredible first film. Review

Morbius is an undeniably messy Frankenstein’s monster of a film that is so awkwardly stitched together that scenes right next to each other lack connective tissue and are tonally uneven. Review

Ti West’s period slasher film X is about religious fanaticism, sex positivity, aging, and the allure of the American Dream. Throughout, West achieves the right atmosphere through the look of the film, the soundscape, and some fun visual and editing touches. Review

Avatar: The Way of Water is a fitting title because, in certain ways, it blows the first film out of the water. I’d call it a definite improvement on the first film, which I merely liked. I am in awe of the updated breathtaking visuals, and I was moved by its beautiful focus on our bond to misunderstood creatures from the vast ocean. James Cameron, I see you. Review

The thing about Avatar is that even though it is a great film in so many aspects, some of the criticisms that people have of it are perfectly valid. None of this stops it from being a great film, but it does prevent its archetypical story from sitting with you as being uniquely its own thing. Review

I know that it is a tough ask for an animated film with as dark and real a backdrop as this one to be accepted by families, but this is one of the most impressive stop-motion animated films that I have ever seen and it packs an emotional and earned wallop that will sit with you. Review

It is full of beautiful colors, great imagination, gorgeous costumes, and eye-opening visuals. It is a marvelously ambitious fantasy-fairy tale film that gets so close to being a true all-timer. Review

Eiza Gonzalez is credible as the paramedic, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II makes for a solid lead struggling with how his life is blowing up all around him, and Jake Gyllenhaal’s performance is unhinged in a way that is really entertaining. Review

Transfixing and sometimes startling, Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All is a genre-bending coming-of-age road romance film with pinches of horror and gore that, to me, is all about rejection, abandonment, loneliness, and the need to feel seen. Review

Packed with nostalgia, heart, humor, and his lovable Marvel misfits, James Gunn’s The Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special is precisely the kind of thing I needed to get back in the holiday spirit. Review

Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love is a fantastic and, in moments, beautiful documentary about the fires between two people burning hot and the extraordinary external hotspots bringing them together. It absolutely is one of the best documentaries of the year also because it in moments emphasizes how it is of paramount importance to listen to scientists... Review

It is a great documentary that showcases an individual risking his life for the good of the world knowing that his outcome is up in the air. Review

Mark Mylod’s The Menu is a darkly comedic thriller and a scrumptious and sizzling satire of the often-wealthy takers in society. Review

Sebastián Lelio’s The Wonder is an absorbing period drama about the transformative power of stories. Review

Down the line, I’m sure we’ll get a third Hardy-led Venom film. Let’s hope it’s much better than these two have been. But I will admit that this sequel is a slight improvement. Review

It is a different experience, but it’s also one of the more interesting of the latest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because of this permeating soulfulness, the tribute that the film is to its late titular character, and the epic and complex anti-hero that is introduced here through epic world-building. Review

It is a mostly unremarkable but generally decent true crime drama that ultimately gives you the idea that reading the Wikipedia entry on the story might be more interesting, even though Chastain and Redmayne deliver fine performances. Review

It is a deeply moving and staggering anti-war film that both in an auditory manner and visually rivals the most well-made war films of the previous decade. Review

Zach Cregger’s Barbarian is one of the most surprising, and most original new horror films that I have frankly seen in years. It is a horror film that constantly stays a step ahead of you and which manages to be both genuinely scary and surprisingly genuinely funny. Review

Black Adam is a moderately entertaining but, ultimately, quite generic and underdeveloped superhero origin story that fails to elevate the titular character to be anything more than just the next hero in line. Review

It’s too messy and the writing is too all over the place for me to be able to call it a good movie, but I will say that I kind of enjoyed it and that it is a marked improvement over Halloween Kills. Review