Night of the Living Movie Critic

Runtime: 2hr 28 mins Director: Lana Wachowski Cast: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yayha Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris Rating: R The Matrix: Resurrections is not content to be another retread in the 20 year nostalgia cycle that drives blockbuster remakes and continuations that currently dominate cineplexes. Neo is now back in the Matrix, believing he is video game designer Thomas Anderson. Neo, and the rest of the world, believe his story is just a video game trilogy he created. This leads to one of the best sequences of the film, where Neo ghost walks through the development of another sequel that parent company Warner Bros has forced him into. Eventually, Neo is liberated from the Matrix by a team of humans and good programs (called Sentience) who have been inspired by his story. In a lot of ways, Resurrections feels like an elaboration on the themes and ideas of the much maligned Matrix sequels. Those movies' big twist revolved arou

Runtime: 2hr 30 mins Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara, Cate Blanchet, Toni Collette, Willem Defoe, Ron Perlman Guillermo del Toro loves his monsters. He loves what they represent; the mysterious unknown filled with possibilities, or the wonderful people who are forced to live on the edge of civilization  because they were not born the way people wanted them to be. Conversely, del Toro is also distrustful of what we consider to be “normal” people. He sees past their physical beauty and shrinks away from the moral decay that drives them to maintain control and expel the helpless monsters. Guillermo del Toro has been telling the story about monsters fighting normal people throughout his career. From his early Spanish language films such as Pan’s Labyrinth , where the young Ophelia uses fantasy to escape her fascist authority figures, to blockbusters such as Hellboy whose titular hero is shunned by the humans he protects, to his Oscar winning The Shape of Wa

This review was originally written for naijanerds.com and posted there on Nov. 23, 2021 Dune has a reputation for being unadaptable. Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi epic has been subjected to multiple movie projects abandoned in pre-production, a 1984 film adaptation that infamously suffered from studio interference, and a middling Sy-Fy channel miniseries in the early 2000s.  The novel is a doorstop of a book and dense with worldbuilding and lore, but unlike The Lord of the Rings, a similarly lauded fantastical epic with a straightforward hero’s journey, Dune is an impenetrable study on the danger of charismatic leaders and the intricacies  of politics that does not translate into easily watchable fare for wider movie going audiences (remember how reviled the Star Wars prequels were upon release). Now director Dennis Villeneuve (Sicario, Arrival) steps up to give his spin on the source material. Taking advantage of an all star cast, he applies his signature style to one of science fic