Project Hail Mary 2026 * * Stars

4TH AND I'M THINKING MORE THAN 10

2026's Project Hail Mary is like a cinematic jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces that still need attention. I mean its narrative structure is so fragmented you'd think helmers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were trying to get their veritable, Christopher Nolan on. "Hail Mary's" lead (Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace), well he pulls you through somehow, being charismatic and unconventional as only the Ry dog can. So OK, that begs the question, do we really need another astronaut flick starring London, Ontario's favorite son? I guess. Uh, maybe.

Anyway let's get back to the movie as a whole shall we. Project Hail Mary is a bit of a chore to sit through and it probably needed to trim about 15-20 minutes from ye olde runtime. Gosling talking to an alien rock that looks and walks like a tarantula for a good hour. Random flashbacks that turn into random flash-forwards. Techspeak concerning astrophage and global cooling, stuff only hardcore AI eccentrics could understand. Yeah "Hail Mary" has a few moments of awe and wonderment but it's also a painful reminder of why high schoolers skip class occasionally because teach decides to roll out a scientific filmstrip on a Tuesday. Yikes!

All in all, Project Hail Mary is about junior high professor Ryland Grace (Gosling) being tapped by the government to save Earth and the sun from a deadly medium threatening mankind as we know it. He must get on a spacecraft with other chance crew members and travel light years away. 

The direction by Lord and Miller is claustrophobic and effective and the editing, well it's feverish at times, possibly to entertain in fits and starts. The problem with "Hail Mary" is that it sort of keeps the viewer at a distance, wandering and dawdling when it could instead take to the air (pun intended). I mean Project Hail Mary is literally like Interstellar without the sadness and danger. Oh and don't get me started on its comparisons to something more emotive like E.T. Project "x out." 

Written by Jesse Burleson

War Machine 2026 * * * Stars

WAR MONGER

"Keep your eyes open." Uh yeah, especially when you've got to deal with some extraterrestrial killing apparatus with nasty rays coming out of it. Yikes! Oh and said apparatus is totally untraversable and a real pain in the dairy air. Double yikes!

Anyway 2026's War Machine does involve war and the machine in question, well it's designed to get the viewer to get their veritable War of the Worlds on. Unrelenting bustle, bloody barbarity, special ops, brute military swag, D. Quaid in his golden years. It's like "Machine's" director (Patrick Hughes) saw every action horror flick from the late 80s and decided to throw the term "dated" out the window. "Whatever that thing is, it's hunting us." Have nose will hunt my brother. Have nose will for sure hunt.

So yeah, as a flick about some soldiers hellbent on becoming US Army Rangers only to discover that their final stage involves dealing with an alien life force that looks like something straight out of an H. G. Wells novel, War Machine is akin to stuff like Predator and Tigerland and Independence Day and all things Julien Leclercq oh my! So basically it's a boot camp movie, or a mishmash-of-genres movie, or a streaming slickster, or a total cinematic mutt. Hey, the boys at Relativity Media called and well, they want their freaking concessions back. Natch!

Starring Alan Ritchson, Dennis Quaid (mentioned earlier), and Stephan James and distributed by good old Netflix (shocker), War Machine is entertaining to a fault. I mean it sneaks up on you, announcing itself as one type of vehicle only to turn the tables and get all celestial on the low. I dug the fast cut, lightning-quick editing, the never-tedious pacing, and the complete whisking from one action set piece to the next. Yup, no "rage against this machine." 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Queen of Chess 2026 * * 1/2 Stars

"CHECK" THE TECHNIQUE

Queen of Chess is a true events documentary that takes place in the post-Cold War decade 90s. And yeah, it's made even more truer by the fact that the actual subject is the one being interviewed most of the time. I mean there are a few people that I didn't know from Adam putting their two cents in (via accounts) but it's main lead Chess player Judit Polgar getting the veritable spotlight. "In the beginning everybody underestimated me." Uh, too bad for those critical dolts. They're too busy playing checkers. Natch. 

Anyway at 93 minutes of running time, "Queen" is shot in chronological order only to produce a sort of neutered, Marty Supreme-style ending, complete with a final endgame and a totally vanquished dream. It's edited feverishly with microfilm reader remnants and careful emends, trying to mask the fact that we're watching an almost paint-drying effect that to people like me who have no clue as to what we're seeing, looks like a couple of small, wooden sculptures moving from one freaking box to the next.  A Chess prodigy (Polgar mentioned earlier) challenges the greatest player in her field (past champion Garry Kasparov), wins the match, and becomes the GOAT of all things female checkmate. "When I was five years old, I started my Chess training." You don't say Judit. You don't say. 

Timothee Chalamet vehicles, slow burn castling-s, and girly Bobby Fischer grandmasters aside, Queen of Chess is well done yet fairly predictable, with the usual archives, a few nifty draw reenactments, a couple of unknown Chess mongers being grilled, and some of the most sluggish cue card narration I've heard in many a moon. I mean I wouldn't say it's a lousy docu but it's far from indelible. Yup, you could leave the room you're watching it from and come back literally non-staggered. "Queen B-minus."

Written by Jesse Burleson

Scream 7 2026 * * 1/2 Stars

"I'LL BE RIGHT BACK"

A one-word title for a movie (plus a number), gory as all get-out, relentless, made for an audience that is so hard-up for horror they'll fork out $10-$15 bones just about any day of the week. Yeah I'm talking about Scream 7, that's right, the 7th installment in the already distance-running franchise of 30 years. So come on, how many of these things does Dimension plan on putting out? And uh, should Sidney Prescott seriously consider not having possession of a phone (cell, landline, or otherwise)? "Hello Sidney." Oh boy, here we go again. 

So yeah, the Scream franchise does the AI thing now with "7", digging up the corpse of actor Matthew Lillard so he can play an artificial intelligence version of old jag Stu Macher. Other than the AI shtick and the addition of mobile security cameras to track offender monger Ghostface, Scream 7 is just like every other Scream flick, lots of nasty kills, a big whodunit at the end, and characters who make substandard decisions like they wanna get offed. "I wanna be a fighter, like you." That's the spirit teenage daughter of Mrs. Prescott (now Mrs. Evans). You go girl!

Starring Neve Campbell, Joel McHale, Lillard (mentioned earlier), and Isabel May and featuring a better-than-usual score from maestro veteran Marco Beltrami (he was Wes Craven's musical, right-hand man back in the day), Scream 7 is about the Ghostface slayer setting his sights on Sid's daughter (as the main target) while butchering everyone else in his or her's path. 

Solid direction from the screenwriter of 1996's Scream (Kevin Williamson who rarely helms movies), more cruor than any Scream vehicle that has ever existed, and a window to the next bit make "7" entertaining and cinematically malnourished at the same time. Heck, they can keep churning out these pics forever. I mean Scream 11 could be in outer space like Friday the 13th's Jason X. Oh and Sidney could show up in a walker a la Scream 19, brandishing a sawed-off shotgun while blasting Ghostface right between the good old corneas. Yikes! "Scream aim fire." 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Firebreak 2026 * * 1/2 Stars

FLAME THROWDOWN

A one-word title for a movie, vexing, poorly dubbed, Syfy channel-like, made for the weary, beaming streaming crowd. Yeah I'm talking about 2025's Firebreak. a pseudo thriller that's more about Hitchcockian panics and suppositions than uncontrolled towering infernos. So OK, are the main characters intolerant or just plain paranoiac? And where's the plot buildup? And um, why does it take forever for the combustion and/or burning to reach ye olde denizens of Segovia, Spain. "Is it snowing?" Uh no, that ain't vapor my young Padawan.

So yeah, there aren't many fire clips in Firebreak, probably because the special effects are just you know, ho-hum. Basically this flick is like watching Alex Garland's Annihilation from 8 years back, less trippy yet more signal, less about the flames yet more about the onus probandi. 

You want a cast of unknowns yelling at each other while trees and shrub steadily go up in smoke all around them? Yup, Firebreak can sort of be your ticket. And do you want those same actors constantly howling the words "where is she?" and "we've got to get out of here" enough times to warrant a freaking drinking game? Me neither, don't think so.

Starring Belen Cuesta, Diana Gomez, and Enric Auquer and distributed by Netflix (I've been saying that a lot these days), Firebreak is about a widowed family who visits their forestry, summer home only to plan on selling it after the death of a recent member. As said family is getting said home ready for buyers, a wildfire breaks out and a 7-year-old child goes missing. Conflict and chaos ensue with the mystery of the disappearing girl being the dramatic center and the wildfire in question being merely the backdrop. A couple of flashbacks here, a violent shindy there, a whole lot of diegesis discontent everywhere. Near "backfire". 

Written by Jesse Burleson