Flash Frames

“Who will save us from our heroes?” Director: Bryan Andrews Cast: Iman Vellani, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Tessa Thompson, Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Hailee Steinfeld, Wyatt Russell, Randall Park, and Dominique Thorne Synopsis: “After the Avengers are overtaken by a zombie plague, a desperate group of survivors discover the key to bringing an end to the super-powered undead, racing across a dystopian landscape and risking life and limb to save their world.” __________________________________________________ I might have to just get right to the point for this one because I don’t have a bunch to say about Marvel Zombies , the latest Marvel miniseries that has hit Disney+. I really wasn’t too excited for it, mainly because of the other animated Marvel show  What If…? ending up really collapsing in on itself. They had a Marvel Zombies episode that I thought was… fine? I didn’t hate it, but it left my mind pretty soon after watching it. I also just don’t like t...

A Creeper and Jason Momoa in A Minecraft Movie Yes, I know that this is a later than I hoped it’d be, but don’t get it twisted: I feel obligated to write about A Minecraft Movie , mainly because of my experience watching it. You’ve seen the videos of audiences (that mainly consist of children and teenagers) losing their minds over “CHICKEN JOCKEY,” and I’m here to say… that didn’t happen at my screening. It was insanely packed, but there really weren't any rowdy reactions. As someone who respects good theater etiquette, I’m glad to see that it isn’t dead. Either way, there’s no denying that Minecraft , the game, and A Minecraft Movie are now cultural beasts. The game has been around since 2009, and its popularity really hasn’t dwindled since then. It’s the highest-selling video game ever, and I was saying that even before we’d see the record-breaking box office performance it’s currently in the middle of, this thing was going to make so much money no matter what the reviews were. ...

Still from The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim It’s interesting to see how fast this movie came and went. Yeah, an animated fantasy movie aimed at adults isn’t exactly a wide audience in America, but just look at the title of this post. A new Lord of the Rings movie, the first ever since the Hobbit movies, hit theaters last December. Granted, I didn’t see it until now, maybe that proves just how well this ended up going. I’ve never been too into Lord of the Rings and all that, but I’ve enjoyed what I remember of those movies. I guess this is a reminder that I have to watch those again at some point. Either way, this isn’t just an animated movie: it’s anime, honest-to-god anime. When The War of the Rohirrim was first announced, I thought it would be anime-inspired, like elements of the Spider-Verse movies. I really didn’t think it’d just be anime, but once I saw that Kenji Kamiyama, the director of this, created the Ghost in the Shell series, Stand Alone Complex , that’...

Still from Flow I bet a lot of people that were watching the Golden Globes didn’t expect Inside Out 2 or The Wild Robot , the expected winner of not just the Globe for Best Animated Feature but the Oscar too, to lose out on that award. However, it did to this movie, Flow . An independent movie from Latvia, which is also a nominee in this year’s Best International Feature category at the Oscars, beating out not only a strong Pixar movie but the Dreamworks underdog is a big deal. Flow not only has the quality to back it up, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it took home that animated feature Oscar. It’s also a very simple premise: a cat that’s been run out of its home by a massive flood finds shelter with different animals and has to adapt and survive in this new world. I didn’t really know what to expect, but the ties to more fantastical elements would be something to at least watch out for. It doesn’t exactly tie into the plot, but I can’t lie and say that I was expecting it. The a...

Still from Transformers One It’s nuts to see that there’s actually a pretty well-received Transformers movie out there now. I know I’m very late to the party with this one, but I just kept hearing about Transformers One and how good it is, from non-fans and fans alike. I know I should take out that bias when I’m reviewing something, but it was so overwhelming that it felt unescapable. One is apparently a prequel to Michael Bay’s live-action Transformers films, but there’s no real connection to them. I honestly don’t even know why this is tied to it. One follows two lonely workers: Orion Pax and D-16. They work in the mines on Cybertron, where the intelligent robots are divided into two classes: the ones who can transform and the ones who can’t. Why they mine for Energon, the fuel that powers Cybertron, is because the planet lost the Matrix of Leadership. Gaining this back could end the need for what’s basically slave labor and restore Cybertron to its former glory. It’s refreshing t...

Still from Creature Commandos There always is some standard with James Gunn now. Maybe it’s because of the quality, mainly because he’s made the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, but even his DC work in The Suicide Squad (and its Peacemaker spin-off series) has shown that there’s a big audience for his work. I’m certainly in that audience, and I’m personally very excited for his Superman movie. However, it’s well known now that he’s the current co-head of DC Studios, with Peter Safran. Creature Commandos , an animated series that’s wrapped up its first season on Max this week, is the soft launch of the DCU, the new established canon. The reset button has been hit. That being said, there’s some things carrying over. Gunn’s previous DC entries are canon, with events from both The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker being implied to have happened here. That being said, I’m still stuck on why this is the beginning of this new canon. Was there something important here that we have to know? The...

Still from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 It’s been fascinating to see these movies become underdog stories. It’s been over five years now since that truly awful trailer of the first Sonic the Hedgehog movie released, with that nightmarish original design for Sonic embedded itself into our minds. Now, two movies and a spin-off streaming series later, it’s hard to believe that one design change brought the franchise up to this. Sonic the Hedgehog and its 2022 sequel are pure family fun. Some groan-worthy bits thrown in occasionally, but that’s to be expected. They’re largely movies for kids and families, that’s gonna come with it, but with this new installment, a good amount of that “family movie” façade is mostly (intentionally) stripped back. In the third installment, Team Sonic has a new enemy to face: a mysterious experiment called Shadow, who’s broken out of military unit G.U.N's containment to enact his revenge on G.U.N. from a tragedy 50 years earlier. Obviously I’m leaving out major...

Vera Drew in The People’s Joker Boy, did this have a rocky road. I remember reading articles about The People’s Joker , actress/director/co-writer/editor Vera Drew’s low-budget, punk rock, mixed media comic book parody of various DC properties, and how it was hit with a cease-and-desist at the Toronto Film Festival back in 2022 by Warner Bros. itself. It wasn’t until April of this year when it finally received a small theatrical release, and I’m kicking myself for not making the time to see it in a theater. At first, I thought I hadn’t seen anything that Drew has worked on, but after looking over her credits, I saw that she edited An Evening with Tim Heidecker , an hour of comfortably unfunny stand-up that’s practically anti-comedy. The People’s Joker lays claim to the term “anti-comedy,” and this Joker runs wild with it. For its characters alone, it’s a surreal remix of what Batman fans and DC fans in general know that feel almost nonsensical. Ra's al Ghul isn’t the head of the L...

I’m not exactly the biggest Ryan Reynolds defender here, but he’s certainly not worn out his welcome with me. Sure, it’s a big thing on the internet to clown on him for being annoying, but I think that break for the last year of any major roles helped me out. What’s funny about that is that it never felt like a break. His last leading role was Spirited back in 2022, which I think was a fun enough movie for a straight-to-streaming holiday musical thing. Ever since then, all the movies he’s been in have been cameos like Bullet Train or Ghosted , which is all on top of his Mint Mobile commercials and his venture into football club Wrexham A.F.C. with Rob McElhenney (and its accompanying show). So, it’s never felt like a break in that regard. However, on the flip side, I’m actually curious to see what John Krasinski could have up his sleeve as a director outside of A Quiet Place . I think he’s done a pretty good job with those movies and it feels like Krasinski wants to show off some ver...