Filmrecensies van Don Shanahan

When everything is a question mark and very little is worth rooting for in Sleeping Dogs, the result can be, in the end, uninteresting. Recensie

There’s more than enough crowd-pleasing flair to let this Road House have its shot to slap us in the face and draw our blood of amusement. Recensie

The Animal Kingdom has veritable ambition, yet its emphasis on alarm and intolerance only dares to answer the larger provocations and heavier subjects at hand. Recensie

When done right, as One Life is, these positive historical movies are not vaunted “savior” movie narratives. Instead, they are evidence for and inspirations of hope that always exist. That’s a story worth telling every time. Recensie

Leaning on this hastened and rapidly emptying hourglass, Michael Keaton has formed a dramatic backbone in Knox Goes Away that is simultaneously blunt and poetic. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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

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. Recensie

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

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie

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. Recensie