I watch too many movies.
I had a lot of fun with this one. A clever science fiction premise full of compelling problem-solving and action sequences. Gosling is fantastic in the lead, and the whole thing is just crowd-pleasing fun. We need more movies like this!
You don’t have to be a nerd to like these movies, but it sure does help! I grew up on Tolkien and came to this series with big expectations. It was a large scale film adaptation of my favorite book. And, as I’ve revisited the films repeatedly over the years, I’ve never stopped loving them. If anything I appreciate them more with each rewatch. This entry introduces some of the most iconic characters of the story: Gollum, Treebeard, Wormtongue. And…
I love this movie so much! Seeing this when it came out was a peak cinema experience for me, and I can still feel that palpable sense of relief that they pulled it off so well. I watched the extended cut, because I’ll take as much of this shit as I can get. It is such an impressive feat, and their admiration for the source material comes through in every facet of the film. They brought this world to life, and it is fricking magical. Long live Figwit!
This is great! The first half felt like a lot of it had been spoiled by the trailer, but it was still very entertaining, and well-crafted. And the last half delivered some surprises and paid off the character relationships really well. It is great to see Anderson pulling off an ambitious and culturally relevant film at this stage in his career, and I think this is may be my favorite DiCaprio performance ever. The best of 2025? The case could be made...
I found this entertaining, and some of the action set pieces were really impressive. The ending dragged a bit, though, and some of the prequel stuff where they are explaining how Fury Road came to pass felt a bit misguided. I've always appreciated how the Mad Max franchise doesn't worry much about narrative continuity from one film to the next, so for this one to do so much of that was unexpected. That said, I would definitely be down for more of this world if George Miller wants to give it to us at some point!
