Tom Fink

Good set pieces, predictable plot. I mean, it's Rome in its decline, what do you expect? The cast does its best in the struggle against clunky Biblical-style dialogue. Eddie the rocker from Stranger Things 4 turns up as a co-emperor and the goofy kid from White Lotus season 1, the only likeable person in that bunch, is the one with the monkey. A side note, it's yet another in an endless line of films where gay is shorthand for the depths of depravity. I'm sort of surprised LGBTQ groups aren't picketing out everywhere.

I figured out the mystery of "The Usual Suspects" before the reveal and I figured this out before the reveal as well. Having said that, go see it without reading another thing about it! The less you know the more you will enjoy it! I mean, you know, however much you typically enjoy a murder spree...

It's a Technicolor character study in cray cray. Slow burner. The movie opens with a direct visual callback to X. In short order we are (re)introduced to Mr. Pitchfork and Ms. Axe, and the giant alligator, which proto-sociopath Pearl has lovingly named Theda, after the great silent film star Theda Bara. Chekhov supposedly said if you intoduce a gun in the first act, it had better go off by the third act, and the same is true for a pitchfork, axe and alligator! Hmmm, fireplaces and pillow cases too, oh my! Anyway, a bit slow in the middle, with an ending that begs for a prequel-sequel (say it fast!) Pearl satisfies that Stephen King 1921 itch in the middle of your back you couldn't scratch.

Bodies Bodies Bodies stinks stinks stinks!

While the acting is fine, this movie doesn't add anything to the alien invasion/end of the world genre except to extend the list of characters willing to risk their very lives - for a cat. Thanks for starting that one, Ridley Scott!

This is like a self-indulgent student film; maybe it is. I'd like to give it zero stars but can't. I wasted 90 minutes of my life on this so that you don't have to. You're welcome

"Elemental" is a strange movie. A classic immigrant story combined with a classic wrong side of the tracks/star-crossed lovers story, it isn't really for kids. Who IS its target audience?

This really could have been a single two hour movie. Nothing was a surprise. The only three characters you are probably going to like are the only two good persons and a really really Machiavellian lawyer. Mary McDonald does a great job with the most dispicable character but she has a kind of viewer insulting speech at the end. Wow, maybe I liked it less than I thought after all!

This movie is very slow for a long time, then goes totally bonkers in the last 15 minutes. Effectively captures that 1970s/80s cheap slasher/horror movie vibe. Watch for Greta Gerwig in a small role.

This pornographic mash-up of "Singin' In The Rain" and "A Star Is Born" isn't much fun. The best scene in the movie is when the filmmakers shoot their first-ever sound scene, and frankly "Singin' In The Rain" did it better, funnier and more economically. The subplot in which Sidney Palmer is forced to darken his skin to match the other Black actors makes no sense, not because things like that never happened (they did). but because he isn't light-skinned in the first place. And then the film almost ends with "Singin' In The Rain", reminding you how much fun you could have had if you had just watched that instead. But thank God Chazelle returns to the opening orgy so you can finish up with a bitter taste in your mouth! That and his attempt to somehow out-Kubrick Kubrick...