Karate Kid: Legends 2025 * * Stars

THEY CALL ME LI FONG

I read somewhere on the Internet that Ralph Macchio is 63 years old. That's just crazy to me. I mean he'll always be young Daniel LaRusso in my book. Guess I'm still stuck in good old 1984. Ralph, yeah he shows up about an hour into 2025's Karate Kid: Legends, a sixth film in the distance running, Karate Kid franchise. Macchio's stay in "Legends" adds up to a sort of long-winded, thankless cameo. Yup, he probably got paid about $100,000 a line so that means he pocketed $3 mil. Cobra Kai never dies baby!!

Anyway Karate Kid: Legends is nearly a cash grab, an incredibly underwhelming entry in the Karate Kid canon. It clocks in at about 94 minutes, formulaic, devoid of character development, and sadly made for the malnourished, MTV crowd. I mean you'd be better off watching an alternate, hour and a half action thriller like '83's Revenge of the Ninja. At least you'd get a more compelling, darker side of martial arts met with an actual conflict and/or skirmish. "Sometimes it is the only way to move forward". Are you sure about that boss? Are ya?

Directed by a feature rookie in Jonathan Entwistle and appearing like it was made on a short weekend (that's not a compliment), Karate Kid: Legends is about a young boy who moves from Beijing to NYC only to be coerced by an old sage (Jackie Chan as Mr. Han) into competing in a karate competition called the Five Boroughs Tournament (I've never heard of such a thing). There's a final grudge match, some training, a tormentor, and a green-eyed romance so it's basically the diegesis of the first Karate Kid chapter all over again. The problem here is that it doesn't feel like there's much at stake and despite the punchy fight sequences (which are well shot), Karate Kid: Legends literally evaporates right after you see it. This kid manages to "stay in the picture" until he doesn't. Natch. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning 2025 * * Stars

ON THIS MISSION

I read somewhere that Tom Cruise might do Mission: Impossible movies till he's ninety. That's "crazy town". I mean there's no way that could happen but you've got to admire Tommy boy's ambition. At 62, he's rolled out 2025's Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, a 170-minute sequel and supposedly the last installment in the franchise. Yeah right. Based on the closing shot of "Final Reckoning", I "reckon" no. Hey, you heard what the Cruiser said.

Anyway Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning unfortunately does what "Dead Reckoning Part One" did two years ago. It provides an uneven, elongated script that nearly dumb-s down the actors. The film is about Ethan Hunt and his buds trying to stop an (AI) called the Entity who could destroy mankind. Yup, that was off of "Final Reckoning's" wiki page, I'm not gonna lie. Otherwise everything else in terms of the flick's diegesis is balderdash in the purest form. 

So what's left to admire with "Final Reckoning?" Well you have shootout and/or fistfight scenes and the Cruiser risking his life doing his own stunts. I mean isn't that why we pony up $10.50? Sadly either said scenes are cut too quickly or Tom's Hunt takes forever to retrieve a submarine module underwater or chase down a baddie in a biplane. Yeah, I'm thinking Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning needed an editor with a tighter sense of craft or someone with the legendary pedigree of Thelma Schoonmaker to sift through the whole lumpy shebang. "This can't all be true". But it is my dear, it truly is.  

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning is directed by Christopher McQuarrie, a sometimes meat and potatoes filmmaker and Tom Cruise's cinematic, Siamese twin. I mean I liked his touches in the first hour, what with all the psychedelic fast cutting and the flashbacks, a sort of greatest hits collection in regards to the other seven M:I pics that came before it. But ultimately, "Final Reckoning" is a slight letdown, an almost blatant excuse to put out another one of these bloated things in 2-3 years. More of Tom Cruise running (eh), more of Simon Pegg acting like well, Simon Pegg (ugh), more globetrotting than the TV show Where in the World is Matt Lauer (double ugh), and Hunt having to save the world because no one else can fit it in their darn calendar. Um, there's no "self-destructing messaging" going on here. Natch.

Written by Jesse Burleson

Con Mum 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

MIXED GAZUMP 

2025's Con Mum is a sad, factual film made only sadder by the fact that the black hat involved didn't get charged with any crime. I mean she could be wobbling around somewhere today, scamming the bejesus out of some poor schlub. Yikes. 

Anyway "Mum" is shot in the standard, docu form. It's film-making 101, a rinse, repeat of interviews and recent archives and present-day swipe, sterile and wonted and made for the TLC Network as opposed to the big screen. 

The victims in Con Mum, well they become pathetic, self-enablers. The "mum" in Con Mum, well she becomes as hated as any real-life character you could ever imagine. Now did I feel sympathy or commiseration for any fifteen minutes of fame-r involved here? No, just a bilious feeling in the pit of my stomach as I did the good old SMH. And does "Mum's" veteran helmer Nick Green provide a happy cessation and/or a fruition moment when those 88 minutes of running time are up? No, just a downer of a summing-up, where separation and false clean hands are involved. 

Containing a twist and taking place mainly in London (and just about everywhere else), Con Mum is about an 80-year-old woman who seeks out her actual, estranged son and his female partner and proceeds to diddle them out of nearly $500,000 US dollars (hence the twist). It's like that email you get from a kite that says, "give me $20,000 and I'll get you $5 mil" (yeah right). The mum in question is Dionne and the couple is Graham and Heather. "I never stopped loving you. I just want to be with you as much as I can". Yeah, whatevs Dionne.

So yeah, remember that line from a certain Matt Damon flick from '98? You know where Matthew's Mike McDermott says, "if you can't spot the sucker at your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker". Well that applies to Graham and Heather, two naive foodies that seemed to have been easily duped by a husky, "Pat" of a human being that's nearly bald, unable to move freely, and likes to completely butcher the English language. I don't know whether Con Mum is a cry for help for Graham and Heather or a route for them to make a profit off this documentary after being taken for a monetary ride. Either way "Mum" is a very uneven viewing experience. Def "con". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

A Deadly American Marriage 2025 * * * Stars

AMERICAN REVISED VERSION

It's not everyday that a Dateline episode gets put on celluloid but here we are with 2025's A Deadly American Marriage. I mean the only things missing are the commercials, those aerial shots of Podunk towns, and Keith Morrison's legendary creeper alert. "It's one of the bloodiest crime scenes I've seen in a long time." Yeesh!

Anyway "American Marriage" is a documentary, fact-based and quite disturbing when you realize that the people doing the crime never actually did the time (talk about a dead giveaway and/or spoiler alert). The film is about the murder of Irish gent and North Carolina native Jason Corbett, who supposedly was offed by his wife Molly Martens and his wife's father Michael Martens. 

Yeah there's some interviews, some barbarous scenarios, and that compulsory trial. Sound familiar? Well it should. I mean I would've written "American Marriage" off completely (pun intended) had it not been so darn well done and involving. Case in point: when's the last time you pooh poohed an installment halfway through of that long-running, NBC reality legal show to do some knitting on a Friday night? Exactly.  

So OK, you're probably thinking do I plan on recommending A Deadly American Marriage? Sure why not. But I'm recommending it for its craft and veritable, visual spiel as oppose to its almost non-existent level of freshness. For instance, if "American Marriage" predated Dateline and a young Josh Mankiewicz rolled in to be the moderator I'd probably call the flick a masterpiece, a real innovator of the probing of true crime. But here we are in the present, where there are 6 NCIS shows, 6-7 shows like 48 Hours, and thousands and thousands of podcasts about real torts and such. A Deadly American Marriage is oddly akin to the cinematic equivalent of the guy (or girl) who still buys CDs at Borders bookstore. "Marriage" mart. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

The Golden Voice 2025 * * Stars

GOLDEN SLUMBERED

A clearly independent film with a perfectly cast Nick Nolte as a grizzled, homeless war veteran. It should work right, until it doesn't. What starts off as a hard-hitting drama in the opening 30 minutes turns into a mawkish, God's Not Dead-type sequel in 2025's The Golden Voice. 

So yeah, the "voice" in The Golden Voice refers to KJ (played by Dharon Jones). KJ wants to audition for an American Idol-style TV show but doesn't have the cash, the pull, or the family support to do it. Nolte's Barry is the dude that befriends KJ who with guitar and lyrics in tote, is on the verge of suicide. They both rely on each other for cleansing therapy, as their back and forth banter is of yore and/or the despairing, present-day variation. Some of the scenes crackle, other times they come off as plodding. "You've got a voice good enough to perform on any stage". Yeah but first that stage has to be a lowly street corner for tips. Believe that. 

Distributed by Vertical Entertainment, shot nearly four years ago, and directed by the unseasoned and possibly swayed Brandon Eric Kamin, The Golden Voice feels like two different halves of one movie. The first half grabbed my attention, a sort of numbing portrait about what it's like to be a vagrant, dumpster-diving and sleeping in a man-made shelter and being tormented by everyday denizens, all to the atmospherics of haunting, morose Philadelphia locales. The second half is pure bunk, a sort of Christian dramedy and/or Afterschool Special of the bible-thumping variety. Community theater acting is a mainstay and seeing Nolte's character have to dance to some tuneage is quite a cringey experience. Either there were tag team helmers involved or Kamin didn't have a say over final cut. Passive "voice". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror 2025 * * * Stars

CITY WALLS

The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995, carried out by two terrorists named Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was the main target of said bombing, as over 150 denizens lost their lives amidst the dust and rubble. That's the blueprint for Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, a competent documentary which begs the audience member to dredge up the sadness and utter gloom of something that happened thirty years ago. "I thought maybe I was dead, but I was buried alive." Yeesh!

So yeah, "American Terror" is not a frills docu nor does it try like heck to reinvent the desperado wheel. It does however give you the proverbial creeps as you watch it, loading up with 82 minutes of grainy archives, old school social media platforms, and present-day interviews from the battered people who were there. The Oklahoma City bombing, well it predates 9/11 and COVID and the D.C. sniper attacks and Columbine and all the other despairing crap this country has had to go through. Director Greg Tillman knows this and gives "American Terror" the feel of a horror film and/or lingering incubus. It's like taking in the look of The Belko Experiment or 2017's The Snare but without all the aspects of being arcane.  

Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror, yup it's lean and mean, a mere thumbnail as opposed to viewing something about the same occurrence via a miniseries or whatnot. A haunting image of the dissected building here, a haunting image of a projectile victim there, the actual explosion caught on vintage camcorder, an overhead shot of an edifice that looks like the inside of a fraying skeleton. "American Terror" with its mere, brief snapshot of a running time, almost feels like a cinematic hack job. That's if it weren't so darn soul-stirring. Gravity "bomb". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

iHostage 2025 * * Stars

iPADDED

"At some point it ends". Yup, it sure does. And if you're referring to 2025's iHostage, it ends quite abruptly. No mystery, no twist, no intrigue, just cut and dried, finito! 

Anyway iHostage is an inessential slickster of a movie, the kind of stuff Brian A. Miller would've done ten years ago. A subtle zoom here, some shiny cinematography there, an empty, forceful musical score, a few pedestrian gunfights. iHostage is about some crazy dude who strapped with a bomb, invades an Apple Store, demands millions in Bitcoin, and takes someone with a heart problem as his captive. The film obviously has a hook with the whole tech company thang and such. Otherwise it would be about as trifling as watching reruns of American Gladiators on a Wednesday afternoon.

So yeah, iHostage stars Soufiane Moussouli, Admir Sehovic, and Louis Talpe, actors who give performances anywhere between middling to overreaching to ample. They are caught in a flick that although decently edited, feels dated when you compare it to more heightened swipe like 2005's Hostage, Captain Phillips, and/or Mel Gibson's Ransom. Oh and it doesn't help that this thing is based on a true story. I mean that's some serious injustice mind you. You're better off reading an article about the events of iHostage or watching a documentary about its detainee conch on free-to-air television. You certainly would get a more cavernous point of view. 

Directed by seasoned helmer Bobby Boermans and shot with sheeny locales in Amsterdam, iHostage has a few tense moments and anything but a downer of a coda. The problem is it doesn't bring new or fresh material to the denizen-seized genre. 100 trivial minutes go by, complete with an angry terrorist, some scared internees, a negotiator chiming in, and good old SWAT getting their gun on. We're talking cinematic deja vu here. Oh wait, there's a million dollar retail outlet and ear buds involved. My bad. 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Drop 2025 * * * Stars

DROP IN

Widow Violet goes on a date at some swank restaurant. Violet's phone receives messages from some unknown creeper telling her that she either kills said date or said creeper will off her son and sister (who are at home nearby). That's the gist of 2025's Drop, a workmanlike thriller that sometimes slows to a halt and other times comes on like gangbusters (especially when nearing its coda). Violet, well she is played by Meghann Fahy, a little known actress but a future star in the making, leading lady. "Please, what do you want from me?" Oh not much, just keep doing your thang Meghann. Keep that dream alive. 

So yeah, Drop is not really an exercise in style nor does it possess any swooping camerawork and/or mad storytelling from perspectives. I mean I could only imagine what could have been had Brian De Palma or Pete Travis got a hold of this material, giving the audience member some sort of Rashomon effect complete with a few gnarly tracking shots. Yup, that would be neato. 

New Hollywood generation helmers and unique plot devices aside, what Drop lacks in modus operandi it gains in provided suspense, some gaslighting, and a little nasty tension. It's a whodunit, a who done did it, satiny and glossy and bent on showing the glitz and glitter of Chicago (the film's setting). No, you don't have to adjust your eyes, it's not Tokyo or Malaysia you're looking at, it's the City of Big Shoulders. Clearly the location scout hadn't been in the loop (pun intended). 

Drop, yeah it feels like Die Hard in an eatery or some Halle Berry actioner from a few years ago. Barring a few annoying characters (chiefly a waiter) and some major implausibility, it's compact, isolated, and examined, a one-milieu stage play that eventually turns steadily violent. I enjoyed it, I got into it, but in the back of my head I knew it was capable of being so much more twists and turns begot. "Drop anchored". 

Written by Jesse Burleson

Holland 2025 * * 1/2 Stars

DUTCH TRIP

"Here here the best part because you get to make up a story and control everything". Gee, if only that worked in the cinematic world consistently, like when Rob Reiner got behind the lens and told Kathy Bates to let er rip. 

Anyway 2025's Holland is a stoner fever dream, the type of movie that relies on visual symbolism and grisly palate as opposed to actually delivering a story that is not cut and dried. A dorky husband who is suspected of being unfaithful to his wife is actually a serial killer. And said wife jots around stakeout-style while acting a little cuckoo bird herself. What, we're supposed to think this is out of the box stuff just because Holland's hook is that it takes place in a small burgh via the state of Michigan? Get reals.

So OK, Holland stars Nicole Kidman, Gael Garcia Bernal, and Matthew Macfadyen, actors who give raw, disciplined performances despite the final, work-shy result. Lots of match cuts here, a hallucinatory image there, dazed nightmare sequences everywhere, some cognitive freak-outs. Holland isn't an awful flick but it's certainly an off-center one, looking like TV swipe from the 70s, taking place in the early 2000s, and feeling like 1950s suburbanite, h-e double hockey sticks. "It may seem like we have everything all together but right under the surface it's like we're being strangled." You don't say Australia's favorite Oscar victor. You don't say. 

I'd say (pun intended) that Holland is a director's pic if there ever was one, with helmer Mimi Cave committing to every shot even if her diegesis is about as stale as every 90s satire a la Kathleen Turner or some black comedy from decades ago starring Roseanne Barr. I mean do you want nuclear family noir or Stepford Wives avant-garde. I myself can't decide. "Great lakes okay times."  

Written by Jesse Burleson

Black Bag 2025 * * Stars

FADE TO BLACK

"What's on the menu?" That's a good question, especially when maverick helmer Steven Soderbergh is coming out of his cinematic, Howard Hughes phase. 

Anyway every time I think Soderbergh has retired from directing, the dude just keeps nearing back, like Jason Voorhees, Chucky, or The Terminator. He's basically saying to his audience, "did you miss me?" So what's Stevie up to in 2025? Well he's almost on holiday making Black Bag, a pseudo thriller that's so compact, last-minute, and terse it might just wither away. 

I mean it, man this is "pretty thin" stuff (to quote Danny Glover's Roger Murtaugh). A slither of violence here, a small interrogation scene Clue-style there, a couple of flashbacks toward "Bag's" coda. You take away the brilliantly ominous music of David Holmes and Black Bag is basically an afternoon table read with some really good actors. It's also occasionally slick and uncharacteristically shiny by Soderbergh's routine standards. Yup, just think the opposite of his Traffic shot with a more spherical lens. 

93 minutes is the runtime of "Bag" and that's with credits, something about some SIS operatives who are being investigated for betraying the nation by leaking some top-secret, software application. Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, and Naomie Harris star and even good old Pierce Brosnan rolls in for an extended cameo. Unfortunately they are trapped in a flick that feels more like a verbose short than a full-length feature. 

Black Bag (the title is referenced once in the first half-hour) is one talky SOB, and I wasn't quite sure what everyone was "talking" about. Because the film is so brief and ends so abruptly, you probably need multiple viewings to figure out the intentions of these deft, British intelligence officers. This is not for entertainment value mind you, it's for you know, the latter. Mixed "bag". 

Written by Jesse Burleson