Movie reviews of Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen

Oddly structured but fast-paced and, at times, gorgeous, Frant Gwo’s The Wandering Earth is a spectacular blockbuster disaster film that could make Roland Emmerich jealous.

Brandon Akiaten’s God of War: Raising Kratos is a strong ‘making of’-documentary and a solid audiovisual text about the creation of a masterpiece, which, throughout the processes, never really looked like the shining star it would become.

Detective Pikachu is a delightful journey into the world of Pokémon that, in spite of some significant issues, hits most of the right notes thanks to excellent world-building, great visual effects, a super effective approach, and a charming voice-over performance.

Neil Jordan’s Greta is a poorly written and ludicrous thriller, as well as one of the worst movie-going experiences of the decade for me.

Ultimately bereft of any risky proposition or messaging, Jonathan Levine’s Long Shot is unlikely to stand the test of time or be as memorable to me as some of his previous beloved efforts, but it is an amusing political acting vehicle for Charlize Theron to showcase her unreal and incredible range, as well as a fun but cursory satirization of Trump’s America. Still, though, this is my kind of romantic comedy.

Erin Lee Carr’s latest documentary is a disturbing, powerful, and damning eye-opener.

Buoyed up immensely by a beguiling career-best performance from Zac Efron, Joe Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile is a skin-deep and slightly unfocused exploration of deception, enchantment, and denial.

Avengers: Endgame is an incredible and overwhelming achievement. It is the most heart-wrenching and most satisfying comic book film I’ve ever seen. It might be Marvel Studios’ finest hour, so to speak.

If you have experienced the French original, you will probably be disappointed by the inferior Americanized version, which lifts entire jokes and scenes from the original film with little success.

A predictable and tiring experience, this film suffers from many issues that I believe stem from the screenplay.

It is one step forward, and three steps back for the Hellboy-film series, which has gained ultraviolence and lost character, affection, and heart.

Leonetti’s adaptation of Tim Lebbon’s novel is drab, humdrum, and trite.

Brie Larson’s debut feature, Unicorn Store, is a quirky 90-minute millennial coming-of-age film that doesn’t quite work, in part, thanks to it being tonally uneven and unfunny.

Doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it is a sweet, colorful, and delightful superhero film about wish-fulfillment and the importance of family.

Just another average horror film with cheap scares, poor pacing, and missed opportunities, even though there are some haunting horror movie images here and there.

A fascinating overview of the propping up of a biomedical disruptor and the crippling revelations that tore Holmes’ deceptions to shreds. But it is merely skin-deep, and if you want to tell the story of a con artist such as Holmes you have to pierce the skin of the subject.

The Highwaymen is a listless buddy road movie with an ax to grind with celebrity culture and the media.

Deliberately paced and sinful-to-the-bone, May el-Toukhy’s Dronningen is a remarkable, stylish tragedy about gender-roles and an abuse of power.

Though it is superficial, it may end up being ‘good enough’ for them, and it most definitely tells a more honest story than Bohemian Rhapsody did, but The Dirt is, nevertheless, a tired, uninvolving, and, frankly, unpleasant music biopic.

It really is nothing more than a glimpse. The Making of a Legend is a much too hasty, superficial, and unbalanced documentary.

As a fan of Kinda Funny and Nick Scarpino, I can say that I greatly enjoyed watching this documentary, even though I think the documentary’s somewhat wide scope warranted, at the very least, a larger runtime.

It is confident, tonally-flexible, thought-provoking, and rewarding.

Triple Frontier is the early contender for Best Dad Movie of the Year precisely because it isn’t a gloriously patriotic thriller but rather a heist film blindsided by gold fever and the heart-wrenching consequences of thievery. J. C. Chandor’s gripping heist epic trips once or twice due to, at times, ponderous pacing, but it is, from start to finish, buoyed up by its all-star cast.

It may be the final nail in the coffin that forces you to rethink your stance on the Michael Jackson allegations — after all, it’s impossible to ignore this much smoke — but it isn’t a particularly great documentary. Though I’m sure Dan Reed was more interested in letting Robson and Safechuck tell their truth than making a perfect piece of journalism, and, frankly, who can blame him?