Movie reviews of Hope Madden

Whatever its flaws, once How to Train Your Dragon is airborne, it’s pure cinema. Review

It’s a weird one, though, and certainly entertaining. Shimotsu can’t quite pull it all off, but it’s fun even as it falls apart. Review

Each story boasts a quick, engaging, violent narrative that adds a bit of fun to the canon. Review

The colorful shell feels pretty empty, but sometimes pretty colors are enough. Review

It’s a slow burn, a movie that communicates dread brilliantly with its cinematography and pacing. Review

The biggest let down is the updated script, which can’t match the original in terms of the delightfully, delicately human writing. But the contrast between the alien and natural world makes this a natural fit for the leap to live action, and the charming lawlessness of the story is as much fun today as it was in 2002. Review

Pee-wee as Himself is revelatory, nostalgic, glorious viewing for Pee-wee fans. Review

There’s a bleak beauty to it all that recalls Liam Gavin’s genre masterpiece, A Dark Song. The Surrender never reaches those heights, but Max knows how to ground the supernatural in relatable reality and wonders which is worse. Review

Bloodlines delivers as fresh an idea within the bounds of the mythology as you could ask for. Review

The scares are too telegraphed and borrowed to amount to much. Worse still are plot holes so deep and wide you could lose a combine. Review

Until Dawnis not a complete waste of time. Sandberg doesn’t skimp on bloodshed, and the cast really elevates the material. It’s no classic, but it offers a bit of bloody fun. Review

Skiles looks past knee jerk, self-congratulatory action in favor of context, his camera lingering on the blight of old suburbia. In this unglamorous world of perms and coupons, polyester and bus passes, two losers that life passed by just try to do one good thing. The humble simplicity is surprisingly moving. Review

The pace is slow, the performances stilted to match the dialog, and the resolution is nonexistent. The Shrouds has a grotesquely beautiful dreamlike quality, and it teems with notions both weird and fascinating. It just can’t pull that pull it all together into an entertaining whole. Review

Clarke opens strong and her cast keeps you guessing and engaged for as long as they can, but in the end, it feels as if she clung too closely to tales we already know. That can’t erase the mounting dread and nightmare imagery, though. Review

The FX are bad. The Raiders of the Lost Ark moment is silly. But in terms of reconsidering exorcism tropes, Shadow of God has some big ideas. They don’t entirely work, but at least it’s novel. Review

It’s scary. It’s sexy. The action slaps. It’s funny when it needs to be, sad just as often. It looks and sounds incredible. And there’s a cameo from Buddy F. Guy, in case you needed a little authenticity. Review

Filmmaker and cast investment pays off. Dead Mail is clever, intriguing and wholly satisfying little thriller. Review

Yang struggles with the dramatic needs of his character while Tran has trouble with the comedic, but there’s charm in the mess. Ahn conjures a bubbly, romantic confection and maybe that’s needed right now. Review

The Amateur is no masterpiece. But it is a nice change of pace. Review

Drop exceeds low expectations mainly on the charisma of the cast and two universal fears: technology and first dates. Review

It’s probably not the worst movie Cage has made, but lord, it is not good. Review

Not everything works, but every performance is remarkable and there is bravery and power behind the message that life and death are messy things. Review

The plot itself could have used a few more solid surprises. Hell of a Summer does not set out to reinvent the wheel, and even commits to one of the genre’s most tiresome new stereotypes. Still, it’s fun while it lasts. And Fred Hechinger is a treasure. Review

The movie plays like a rehearsal that could have turned into something fun with a couple more rounds of script revisions. Review