Movie Reviews from Chris

★★   out of ★★★★ All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) Runtime: 148 minutes MPAA:  Rated R for strong bloody war violence and grisly images. "War is hell." Leaving All Quiet on the Western Front, I felt depressed. Depressed in the sense that the entire movie was so bleak and nihilistic, yet so emotionally hollow. First, let me get something sorted out. Granted, All Quiet on the Western Front is the third remake and also happens to be a German production. Under the company Netflix, there would also exist an English dub of the movie. Here's the problem: most of the time, the characters' lip-movement is wildly inconsistent with the English dialogue the dub is outputting, and sometimes you can't convey all the emotions the actor is suggesting in another language. This was a fundamental problem in a recent TV show "Squid Game", where the dubbing has been frequently criticized and mocked. It's perhaps better to let the original audio play out and heavily d...

★★ 1/2   out of ★★★★  ( 👍 ) Plane (2023) Runtime: 107 minutes MPAA: Rated R for violence and language. Before we get to the review, let's talk about the title. Yes, it's important. "Plane". I've heard cries from critics and audiences that the title is so mind-numbingly bland, and that the studios could have come up with a better title. However, as I'm gathering information from IMDb.com, I've learnt that it was actually Gerard Butler, our main star, who convinced the studio to keep the title simple, so you've got "Plane", as if Avatar was titled "Blue Creatures", or Whiplash as "Drum". Like Liam Neeson appearing in an excessive amount of second-rate action movies, Gerard Butler is quite close to following that path, with the "Olympus/London/Angel Has Fallen" trilogy, "Den of Thieves", "Hunter Killer", "Copshop", and counting. Quite fortunately, "Plane" probably ends up bei...

★★ ★   out of ★★★★ The Menu (2022) Runtime: 107 minutes MPAA:   Rated R for strong/disturbing violent content, language throughout and some sexual references. When I first heard about "The Menu", and this was way before any trailers were released, I thought: maybe it could be a film where guests dine in and throughout the film the chef sends a message or tells a story to them with each course? My prediction is, to some degree, fairly accurate, but what I didn't expect was a horror/thriller that also functioned as a commentary of the super-wealthy. Even with a rather relaxed pace throughout, "The Menu" establishes that sense of dread, leaving an uneasy feeling in your gut. It's an adequately tense film. Spoilers ahead as the questions I raise concern the plot in the film. You have been warned. The Menu opens with a foodie Tyler Ledford (Nicolas Hoult) and his date, Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) boarding a ship to a private island. We learn that they are two ...