The First Purge is by far the weakest of the four movies of the franchise and it’s not even close. Weak plot and thinly written characters torpedoed a series that was on a decline and for myself, I’m pretty much done.
In My Country is a finely acted drama from Samuel L. Jackson and Juliette Binoche telling an interesting and well written story based off of a novel.
Skyscraper isn’t a terribly impressive action film even by the mindless entertainment kind, but it is passable enough even if the plot heavily borrows from The Towering Inferno and Die Hard.
Queen of Outer Space is a cheesy yet also somewhat dull of a 1950s era science fiction genre, though still a lot of fun for just how bad it is and a fun time can be had, MST3K-style.
Scarlet Diva is by no means a bad movie, just not quite fully fleshed out and does have some amateurish filmmaking and style, though for what I’m sure was a considerably limited budget, not too bad.
Puppet Master: Littlest Reich is a reboot to the long-running franchise and while it’s not a great film, still had some fun entertainment value and as a fan of Thomas Lennon, was nice to see the actor in a lead role.
With the success of the Barbershop movies, and with at the time Queen Latifah’s growing fame following her Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in Chicago, it’s no surprise there would be a spin-off with Beauty Shop which had a good heart at its core.
Barbershop 2: Back in Business is a fine sequel and although, as with the first film, isn’t my cup of tea in terms of comedy but any fan of Ice Cube or Cedric the Entertainer might find it entertaining.
Barbershop is a fun enough ensemble comedy that actually shows some depth for Ice Cube unlike some of this crappy family adventure fare.
Siberia had the opportunity to be a compelling little crime-drama along the lines of A Simple Plan (same author and screenwriter) and although Ana Ularu was impressive in her performance, Keanu Reeves was a bit flat with some tepid dialogue.
Solo: A Star Wars Story might be unnecessary and it’s also not all that memorable, yet it was entertaining enough for what it is and featured some fun action set-pieces and the performance from Ehrenreich.
Gotti is a well intentioned but terribly conceived bio crime drama with some so-so acting but worse, terrible editing and pacing making for just an all around bad movie.
Scream for Help is an odd little 1980s movie where the first two-thirds are kind of Nancy Drew like but the final third was genuinely thrilling, negating any issues I had.
Occupation was a surprisingly decent enough sci-fi/thriller that should entertain any fan of B-level type of movies and the film itself does feature some respectable enough visual effects and an entertaining enough story.
Big Wednesday is a well acted drama mixing surfing drama with 1960s culture clash, not a great movie but it is worthy of a rental.