Movie reviews of Don Shanahan

Despite its subpar story and the thinner ensemble of familiar voices, the stoutest barrel of panache and muscle holding up Kung Fu Panda 4 is Jack Black. Review

Everyone else is cemented is moored stoicism. So much of the Dune: Part Two dialogue that could be winning hearts and minds is delivered in hushed platitudes. It’s positively wild than one of the loudest movies possible utilizing the biggest film screens the industry has to offer can move someone so little where it counts. Review

Their script carried a wise prudence tempering the propensity to lay struggles and positive responses so thick the central cause is lost in showy actions. The family priority remains highest, creating a moving experience for the heartful rather than the heartless. Review

That very journey of the human condition is paced like the plates of one meal to the next. Review

Even though Adam the First may look and feel like a meandering melodrama without a specific date marker to declare its present day, nothing about the time it spends feels wasted or aimless. Review

Maybe it’s due to budget constraints or maybe not, but the film left some ambition on the screenplay treatment page. Review

Akin to something like Netflix’s hit show Emily in Paris, if Upgraded intended its imbalance towards careers hawking the finer things, some solid pieces are in place. Review

To stay on the ground and within the domestic sets, Żal masterfully utilizes long takes, dolly track movement, and precise long-shot framing to maintain an arm’s length, hallway’s length, or lawn’s length of observational voyeurism captured with complete precision. Review

Not all of the zaniness meshes for laughs, but the effort is undeniable and the transposed concept is a sound and delightful one that needs to be seen to be believed. Review

While plenty interesting, Cold Copy may or may not be the kind of seedy dive you are willing to embrace. Review

The script and Gabriela Cowperthwaite offer a more-evolved approach, keeping I.S.S.-- at first– as reasonably cool, calm, and collected as possible until tension requires more peril. Review

The wealth of that effect emanates from a phenomenal performance from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Paired with an uncharacteristically sublime Jon Bernthal swooning her heart, the long-underappreciated actress encapsulates loving strength pushing against weathered pain. Review

For a movie that started as hot-and-bothered as it did, the pendulum swing to dramedy heaviness of what’s really going on with these two in Which Brings Me to You is welcome and precarious at the same time. Like the leap the characters need to make to be better together, the 24-hour shorthand and 98-minute rush to pull it off is challenging and you miss the challenging humor. Review

Backing that humble, intimate passion in Society of the Snow is an equally tremendous level of technical prowess from Bayona and his production teams. Review

Taking stock over the entire kitchen sink that is this sequel and franchise finale, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom feels like a movie that gave up itself or had puppeteers do it for them in post-production– as rumored with extensive rewrites and reshoots– once a new regime arrived. Review

The Boys in the Boat is far from the first hero worship movie for the departed Greatest Generation, but, by staying solely on their titular young men, the film lacks a sizable antagonistic presence or well-established moral opponent to make the eventual victory more impactful. Review

Thanks to these three and the entire mood around every ordeal, The Iron Claw stands with its proverbial hand held high to be one of the most powerful films of 2023 and one of the damndest stories of brotherhood you’re going to find. Review

Poor Things is a movie of unsavory urges and scratched itches that pull the viewer down a pernicious drain of unconscionable behavior. There is a dark comedy buried in the muck of Poor Things that curdles to the surface in the final third as our strong female becomes the master of her own fate, body, heart, and business. Review

This lovely approachability in a fabulous package should come as no surprise for a film directed by Paul King of two cherished Paddington films and co-written by his series partner Simon Farnaby. Review

With American Fiction, those emotions balance each other, and audiences get the best of both worlds with arguably the year’s best satire packaged within a tissue-pulling, affecting drama. Review

To say Bradley Cooper threw himself into his work is an understatement. He is a marvel to behold. The actor was operating with a spot-on imitation of Bernstein’s vocal annunciations, inflections, cadence, and tone. Review

The booming choral score of composer Martin Phipps evaporates to a weak flute motif, and scenes that should showcase the intellect and ignite sources of passion within the famous sovereign plod by, like the lead actor, with wincing disinterest. Review

Haynes is left with a mood piece of examining taboo with more taboo and it gets unattractively lost in just that very vibe. Review

The visual beauty of Wish does something surprising most Disney animated films do not normally do and that is outshine the musical bread-and-butter. Review