Flash Frames

War of the Worlds (2025) Director: Rich Lee Cast: Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, Henry Hunter Hall, Iman Benson, Devon Bostick, and Michael O'Neill. Synopsis: Will Radford is a top cyber-security analyst for Homeland Security who tracks potential threats to national security through a mass surveillance program, until one day an attack by an unknown entity leads him to question whether the government is hiding something from him... and from the rest of the world.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Director: Matt Shakman Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, Mark Gatiss, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Ineson. Synopsis: Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, the Fantastic Four must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus and his enigmatic Herald, the Silver Surfer.

Superman (2025) Director: James Gunn Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, and Isabela Merced. Synopsis: When Superman gets drawn into conflicts at home and abroad, his actions are questioned, giving tech billionaire Lex Luthor the opportunity to get the Man of Steel out of the way for good. Will intrepid reporter Lois Lane and Superman's four-legged companion, Krypto, be able to help him before it's too late?

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) Director: Gareth Edwards Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Ed Skrein. Synopsis:  Zora Bennett leads a team of skilled operatives to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park. Their mission is to secure genetic material from dinosaurs whose DNA can provide life-saving benefits to mankind. As the top-secret expedition becomes more and more risky, they soon make a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades.

Hannah John-Kamen, Lewis Pullman, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, and Sebastain Stan in Thunderbolts* This one’s a little late too, I know, but during the last two weeks of stewing on Thunderbolts* and superhero movies in general, I’ve hit a small realization about comic book movies. There’s a good chance that the glory days are done. I know, just hear me out. Remember when westerns were so insanely popular, and the popularity of them just waned over time? Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re in the middle of that. Oddly enough, maybe that’s why I feel like Thunderbolts* , the 36th (!) film in the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe, is such a breath of fresh air. The closest thing to a relative comparison to the Thunderbolts team in other media is DC’s Suicide Squad , but even then, this team is pretty different, at least in Thunderbolts* . The main focus here is Yelena Belova, played excellently by Florence Pugh, a former Black Widow and m...

Eiza González in Ash It’s not too often that I get to see indie horror in the theater, but I’ve tried my best to. By “indie,” I don’t mean a studio like A24 or NEON, even though they technically are indie. I mean Shudder, a studio that deals exclusively in horror and typically puts out their movies and movies they buy the right to into theaters with IFC. The last couple of Shudder films I’ve seen in theaters are In a Violent Nature , which was one of my favorite horror movies of last year, and Skinamarink , a lo-fi experimental horror movie that might just be the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had in a movie theater. That being said, I do have somewhat high expectations whenever I see the Shudder banner. Even if it’s not a great movie, I just wanna see some cool stuff, and boy did I get that with Ash , a cosmic horror/sci-fi exhibition match that pretty much snuck up on me. What Ash is ends up being a fun twist on something we’ve all seen before: Alien as a murder mystery. Riya...

Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt & Ke Huy Quan in The Electric State There’s been a lot of talk online about the “death of movies” surrounding The Electric State , and from a certain point of view, I can understand why. This is a Netflix-exclusive movie, with no theatrical release that I knew of beforehand. It’s directed by the Russo Brothers; while having made some of the best/most successful movies in the MCU, their movies after their run in the MCU just haven’t landed: Cherry , The Gray Man , and now, The Electric State , an adaptation of Simon Stålenhag’s graphic novel of the same name. I haven’t read that yet, although I’ve heard very good things about it, but there’s been a big backlash to this not really being an adaptation of the book. Call me crazy, but if I can call something like Dragonball Evolution for not being a good adaptation even though I haven’t watched a single bit of anything else in that franchise, I might be able to say that about The Electric State . It also...

Robert Pattinson and Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17 I had a certain experience with this movie that I’ve had with very few: bewilderment. When a movie ends, I usually have my mind made up on if I liked it or not. This time, though, I had no idea what to make of Mickey 17 , the latest movie from Bong Joon-ho and his first since the historic, Oscar-winning Parasite . I meant to publish this review a few days back, but I was just stunned by this movie for a while. Whether or not it was positive or negative, Mickey 17 genuinely did stump me for a while. This is based on a novel by Edward Ashton, Mickey7 , and mainly follows Mickey Barnes, a man who joins an ambitious space colony to work as an “expendable,” a disposable employee for the company that’s sent to die in various ways in the name of science to develop ways that humanity can move to a new planet. After he dies, he’s cloned with all of his memories and personality in place and sent back to work, just to die over and over again. Th...

Anthony Mackie in Captain America: Brave New World Since this is the first MCU movie I’m actually talking about and reviewing, I might as well start off with a little preamble on where I think this franchise is heading. Right now, it feels like Marvel is too big to fully collapse like the past DC movies, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn't at least concerned. I understand that their original plan with Jonathan Majors playing Kang as the big villain pretty much fell apart at the seams, so even if it’s cope, I think they’re still trying to figure out what exactly is happening with these movies. To me, the past few MCU movies have been fine. Not disasters or masterpieces, they ended up somewhere in the middle: watchable while they’re on. There are some that have risen above that like Deadpool & Wolverine , the last Doctor Strange movie, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 , and that’s not even mentioning the shows. Loki hit hard for me, but the rest I’ve seen have just been okay. E...

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 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...

Snowpiercer , the Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho’s English language debut, celebrated its 10th anniversary this past summer, as well as releasing in 4K for the first time next month, so it felt right to revisit. Adapting the first volume of French graphic novel Le Transperceneige , Snowpiercer takes place in a future where an experiment to slow down global warming backfires and kills off most life on the planet. All of humanity is now kept in an ever-moving train, hoping to survive, or at least live. Things go sideways for the heads of the train when the most recent uprising attempt, led by Curtis (Chris Evans), the de-facto leader of the tail-section passengers, ends up being their most successful endeavor yet. Speaking of, Evans stands tall over nearly every performance, even the supporting roles from Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris, and an underrated Ewan Bremner. Only Joon-ho regular Song Kang-ho comes close to his level. Evans oozes movie-star charisma here, and if now-disg...

I’m going to be totally honest when I say that I’m not exactly a Planet of the Apes connoisseur. I’ve seen the classic 1968 movie that kicked this whole thing off, along with the reboot trilogy of movies: Rise , Dawn , and War for the Planet of the Apes . All of them are pretty spectacular in their own right, especially that classic one, but right now, most people know the franchise for its last three movies, which are undoubtedly just spectacular. The groundwork was laid in Rise , which was directed by Rupert Wyatt, and while it’s a pretty good movie, Dawn and War , which were both directed by Matt Reeves, raised the bar. I’d even go as far to say that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is one of the best blockbuster sequels ever made. That being said, I do have to add that the accomplishments of Dawn and War made Rise better in retrospect. Rise was fine, but going to it after seeing the other two movies after it just made it better in my eyes. Either way, that trilogy is over, and...

I admittedly do not know much about the Fallout franchise, but the most exposure I have to it is the overall tone of the last few games franchise, along with playing a little bit past the opening of Fallout 4 . However, it’s been pretty clear for the past few years that adaptations of video games into movies or shows are getting a lot better now. Sure, there’s the oddball one that’s pretty bad like the Halo show on Paramount+, but adaptations like Halo used to be the norm. The Last of Us seems to be the biggest example for shows, becoming a flagship HBO Sunday night series, and whether or not you liked it, The Super Mario Bros. Movie was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2023. There also seems to be some common threads that separates a Halo or an Assassin’s Creed from a Last of Us or Mario : involvement of the creators and overall respect of the source material. The writers and showrunners of Halo just tossed away the games and are doing their own thing, and look at what ha...

I’ve always sort of enjoyed the Monsterverse, which was established by Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla from 2014 and has had an admittedly strange existence in my mind and also in Hollywood. It’s somehow also been going strong for a while now, with three movies consistently released for the past few years, and yet I constantly forget I’ve seen nearly all of them in theaters. The easy crown for the best one out of them for me is Kong: Skull Island , which might just have to do with me being more of a King Kong guy than a Godzilla guy, but we’ve all got our preferences. Even after multiple movies, a spin-off on Apple TV+, and an animated series on Netflix that I didn’t even know existed until I began writing this, it’s a cinematic universe that’s outlasted quite a few failed ones. So, going into Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire , it feels strange knowing how long this series of movies/shows has gone on and that they’re all at least consistently entertaining, I’m hoping for the same. For the mo...