Movie Reviews from Chris

★★★  out of ★★★★ Iron Lung (2026) Runtime: 125 minutes MPAA:  Rated R for language, bloody images and some gore. Anyone reading this would think that I'm losing my mind at this point, with another connection to, yes, Five Nights at Freddy's. I discovered these indie point-and-click games through popular youtube playthroughs, especially those from Markiplier (real name Mark Fischbach). Several years later, he posted a video gameplay of David Szymanski's horror game Iron Lung. This fascinated him enough for him to adapt it into a film of the same name, his writing and directorial debut, also starring himself. Even more so than Project Hail Mary, this one-man show is clearly a personal project, the whole film giving off-kilter vibes, but surprisingly in a good way. Iron Lung is more of a mood piece, one that has zero jumpscares throughout its entire runtime, instead building and sustaining dread, while simultaneously peeling the psychological deterioration of his character Sim...

★★ 1/2  out of ★★★★  ( 👍 ) Superman (2025) Runtime: 129 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violence, action and language. Let's continue the funny story which I started in my Five Nights at Freddy's 2 review. My note-taking is so that I'll remember what to unpack and talk about when expressing what I'd like to articulate after watching a movie. Now, looking at what I've typed for writer-director James Gunn's reboot of Superman, it's such a huge mess that I don't even know if I can coherently compile this. The same can also be said about what I feel right now: I don't even know what to say. So here goes trying to synthesise all of my thoughts. Gunn's reimagining of Superman doesn't repeat the origin story, character introductions or setup. It starts off strong, right in the middle of a defeat, Superman retreating to his fortress to recover. What follows in the next half-an-hour is a lot to process. Superman isn't really just a superhero movie,...

★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★ Weapons (2025) Runtime: 128 minutes MPAA: Rated R for strong bloody violence and grisly images, language throughout, some sexual content and drug use. A certain degree of skepticism is inevitable in movies of almost any genre. Weapons breaks expectations in minutes. From the start, you can clearly feel the artistic drive from writer, director and producer Zach Cregger. Refusing to conform to genre expectations, his elaborate framing, camera movements and editing feel highly personal. The same can be said about the script. Confident and unique, it's not a conventional horror movie in any sense. Jumpscares are inevitable, yes, but they're sparsely used and deployed unexpectedly, relying more on the lack of score, build-up, atmosphere and tension to induce an increasingly unnerving sensation. When characters become possessed and start chasing their targets down, I felt genuine discomfort and dread as the scene unravelled in slow, yet disquieting ways. It's...

★ 1/2   out of ★★★★ The Drama (2026) Runtime: 105 minutes MPAA: Rated R for sexual content, some violent/bloody images, language throughout, and brief drug use. The title reminded me of Gerard Butler's Plane, a movie with a title so memorable because it was so mind-numbingly generic. Now, we have The Drama, written, co-produced and directed by Kristoffer Borgli. I can think of how he'd name movies of other genres: The Action, The Horror, The Comedy, The Animation, The Science Fiction, The Fantasy etc. The list goes on. Again, this is merely an observation and has nothing to do with the quality of the film. Sadly, there's something wrong with this movie. Clearly, it's well-intentioned in examining the tension in a relationship when circumstances forces its characters to test their bond. It starts off as an unassuming romance, before taking a sharp, dark turn into events that throw themes like true love, gun violence and trust across the board. There's an undercurrent...

★ ★ ★  out of ★★★★ Project Hail Mary (2026) Runtime: 156 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some thematic material and suggestive references. Two-thirds of the way into Project Hail Mary, the latest effort from duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Dr. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), alongside his alien buddy (voiced by James Ortiz), attempts to collect a substance from a planet orbiting Tau Ceti, after discovering that it has the ability to kill an extraterrestrial organism called "astrophage". It's a legitimately tense moment. Despite repeated struggles, including dangerous orbital altitudes, compartment punctures and relentless piloting, the ship still ends up spiralling uncontrollably, knocking Grace out. What follows next is a moment of silence. It's refreshing, a break from the usually overbearing score that plays in every other scene, dictating how we should feel instead of trusting the (sorry) gravity of the scene. Space is a silent abyss. Let us live with it. Fortuna...

★ ★ out of ★★★★ Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (2025) Runtime: 104 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violent content, terror and some language. Here's a funny story: I've taken a habit of jotting down some notes of what I think about the movie as it's playing, just to help me when writing on how I feel about it. For Michael, that was about 15 points. Surely, for a mindless video game adaptation, there wouldn't be so much to jot down, right? 20 minutes into Five Nights at Freddy's 2, the follow-up to the 2023 adaptation, I stared at the screen with contentment, without anything in particular to say. Yes, the first movie already set some expectations in terms of structure, dialogue, plot armor, and the lack of claustrophobia. Yet, by the time the credits rolled, the number of things I had to say was already 25. All this for the movie titled "Five Nights at Freddy's 2". You get the point. As it turns out, this sequel is not as simple as one thinks. Set a year...

★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★ ( 👍 ) Michael (2026) Runtime: 127 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some thematic material, language, and smoking. Even decades after his passing, Michael Jackson continues to captivate the world through his music, dance choreography and stage presence. From "Thriller" to "Billie Jean" to "Bad", these songs remain ubiquitous in media, whether it's in videos or movies. Which leads to the inevitable production of documentaries and this recently released biopic, summarising the first half of his life into a mere two hours (with text reading at the end of the film, "HIS STORY CONTINUES"). Directed by Antoine Fuqua, who also helmed movies like Training Day and The Equalizer franchise, this conventional and sometimes workmanlike production chronologically delves into Michael's upbringing, involvement in the Jackson 5, his sudden and unlikely rise to stardom, up to the 1984 Pepsi incident and a 1988 Bad tour. If that sounds lik...

★ ★  out of ★★★★ Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) Runtime: 109 minutes MPAA: Rated PG-13 for strong violent content, bloody images and language. Released in 2014, Five Nights at Freddy's, an indie point-and-click survival horror game, immediately blew up thanks to its deceptively simple yet intense gameplay, gaining further traction from creators like Markiplier on online platforms primarily YouTube. This was a launchpad for multiple sequels on various consoles, all while giving rise to a burgeoning and increasingly convoluted lore. In an admittedly good move, the film adaptation doesn't confuse newcomers with its lore, and has well-designed sets that evoke the vibe of an abandoned, creepy pizzeria. Unfortunately, despite a decent attempt on a story of grief and redemption, it far from captures the essence of what made the games terrifying, strangely lacking in thrills, atmosphere and occasionally lagging in pacing. Of course, one wouldn't expect it to precisely follow th...

  ★  1/2 out of ★★★★ Madame Web (2024) Runtime: 116 minutes MPAA:  Rated PG-13 for violence/action and language. It might be a coincidence in my schedule to have watched Madame Web after Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire. Despite having drastic differences - one being a "science-fiction" film and this being a "superhero" film - both are pretty much on par with each other in terms of quality and enjoyment (perhaps to a lesser degree for this one) and share a similarity: full of potential and unique ideas, but ultimately wasted. Amidst the wave of strongly negative reviews that have circulated around the internet and audiences, Madame Web is far from an absolute disaster but still isn't anywhere good. Directed by S.J. Clarkson, writers Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless and Claire Parker forget that a narrative is vital to the movie, simply throwing their characters in the same scenarios repetitively until the final act. Madame Web opens in a Peruv...