Scott Eastwood stars, Jamie Foxx baffles, and Robert De Niro cashes a check in “Tin Soldier”, one of the most confounding features to reach a screen this year. While it’s technically an action thriller, finding a fitting category for it is a challenge. That’s because this confection is all over the map, attempting to be a little bit of everything but ultimately landing nowhere.

It’s hard to believe this ever looked good on paper, but something about “Tin Soldier” drew Eastwood and two Academy Award winners. The film is directed by Brad Furman who is helming his first feature since 2018’s “City of Lies”. He does everything he can to make something at least slightly cohesive. But even at under 80 minutes, his film has a difficult time generating or sustaining any momentum. That’s because the script (written by the trio of Furman, Jess Fuerst, and Pablo Fenjves) fails to develop into anything compelling or narratively functional.

Seventeen years prior, a decorated naval officer named Leon K. Prudhomme (Foxx) founded a PTSD treatment center for veterans. He called it THE PROGRAM. But a secret FBI investigation discovered Prudhomme was actually forming a heavily armed anti-government cult. He reinvented himself as a charismatic (and unintentionally goofy) revolutionary called The Bokushi. And all indications point to his cult stockpiling chemical weapons.

Out of fear that a domestic terror attack is imminent, the FBI begin planning a raid on the Bokushi’s remote mountain compound (think Waco, 1993). But before they do, a covert tactical team organized by Emmanuel Ashburn (De Niro) is secretly organizing an unsanctioned mission to infiltrate the compound and take out the Bokushi before things escalate.

To guide his team, Ashburn approaches Nash Cavanaugh (Eastwood), a disheveled military vet and former member of Prudhomme’s cult. Nash struggles mightily with PTSD, a result of his time at war and in the Bokushi’s outfit. Nash wants no part of Ashburn’s mission. But when he hears his wife Evoli (Nora Arnezeder), who was presumed killed during his escape, may actually be alive, Nash agrees to join the operation with hopes of rescuing his wife.

From there the movie moves forward in the most mechanical way imaginable. It jumps from point to point with very little buildup and even less emotion. Furman makes an effort to break things up, but it mostly comes through instances of awkward narration and jarring flashbacks, none of which add much the story (there’s one unintentionally bonkers flashback of Foxx giving a musical performance that plays like an “In Living Color” sketch). Meanwhile other actors like John Leguizamo and Shamier Anderson do little more than add some familiar faces.

Not that it was ever fully together, but things completely fall apart in the final act where any attempt at an explosive finish gives way to utter absurdity. We get a laughably easy infiltration, a goofy cult ritual, and a hysterically bad monologue. And if that wasn’t enough, the story wraps up with a preposterous showdown in….a gladiator arena.

To its credit, there are a few striking locations, flashes of clever cinematography, and a couple of decent action sequences. But overall, “Tin Soldier” features more bad haircuts than good scenes. And no amount of effort can make this AI-quality creation remotely entertaining or inspired. “Tin Soldier” is in select theaters now and releases on VOD September 30th.

VERDICT – 1 STAR

With the obviousness of its provocative title, “The Threesome” sets out to grab as much early attention as it can get. Once you get beyond that, you have a movie hampered by dueling ambitions. On the one hand it wants to be a millennial romcom. On the other hand it wants to be a mindful and mature relationship drama. Unfortunately it never fully works as either. And things get even shakier as the two ambitions try to coexist.

Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) is head-over-heels for Olivia (Zoey Deutch). The two once had a fling but broke it off and became friends. He’s still crazy about her and wants to give it another shot. She’s not interested, or so she pretends. While at the bar where Olivia works, Connor strikes up a conversation with a young woman named Jenny (Ruby Cruz). His intent is to make Olivia jealous, but the three end up hitting it off.

After spending some time dancing at a nearby club, all three end up at Connor’s place where things quickly heat up. The trio get closer and from there…well, look no further than the movie’s title. All of this happens in the first 15 minutes or so. The rest of the movie deals with the aftermath and the complications that mount at almost absurd rate. And it all begins with the revelation that both Olivia and Jenny are pregnant.

The story is a rollercoaster of consequences brought on by a near endless parade of bad choices. But that’s not quite the way the movie sees it. Instead, director Chad Hartigan and screenwriter Ethan Ogilby tell their story from an aggressively ‘modern’ perspective. They view nearly everything including dating, relationships, sex, even religion through the same social lens. In fact, it’s so beholden to its point-of-view that it may only appeal to those who hold the same worldview while pushing away those who don’t.

That may not seem like the most fair-minded critique, but in this case it does impact the storytelling. For example, throughout the story the consequences are almost exclusively emotional. That’s not to say there aren’t emotional consequences. But the movie barely looks beyond feelings. And those feelings are often undermined by the tonal hopscotch as the story bounces back-and-forth between comedy and drama.

And then you have the characters. The performances are solid with Deutch impressively balancing the best. Meanwhile Cruz is an absolute revelation. But the characters often live oblivious to reality, making statements like “I thought you were on the pill?” or “But you wore a condom!”. Meanwhile supporting characters manage a few laughs but are mostly cut from the standard romcom cloth. Take Kevin (Josh Segarra), Olivia’s meat-headed side-dish and Greg (Jaboukie Young-White), the conventional gay best friend functioning as comic relief.

“The Threesome” takes several swings at humor while at the same time attempting to be realistic and grounded. It’s a juggling act the movie never quite masters. There’s certainly potential in the story and its unorthodox ‘love’ triangle. But it’s too difficult to get onboard when the story stretches believability to such a degree. And it’s even harder to take seriously when the movie tries to say something weighty. Ultimately, there are just too many frustrations to get past.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

Television producer and presenter Richard Osman struck gold as a novelist with his 2020 best seller, “The Thursday Murder Club”. Not only was the book greeted with strong reviews, The Guardian called it “the fastest selling adult crime debut since records began“. His light yet intelligent work of crime fiction spawned three sequels that were released over the following three years. Now fans eagerly await the fifth installment that is due out later this month.

As we wait, director Chris Columbus and Netflix have delivered a feature film adaptation of “The Thursday Murder Club” and it is nothing short of a delight. It’s an adaptation full of spirit and with a level of charm that makes it irresistible. It also features a crackling cast that includes Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, and Celia Imrie – all so wonderfully in tune with the material and each other. And while it hardly reinvents the murder mystery wheel, nearly everything from its characters to its setting to its all-around vibe clicks cozily into place.

Built within a beautiful old abbey and its surrounded property, Cooper’s Chase is a luxurious retirement village for elderly folks with good pensions. Among the residence are three good friends who make up the Thursday Murder Club. They are a retired international spy, Elizabeth (Mirren), a retired high-profile trade unionist, Ron (Brosnan), and a retired psychiatrist, Ibrahim (Kingsley). Together the group of murder mystery enthusiasts pick out a current police cold case and attempt to solve it.

Their current case involves the murder of a young woman. Needing some medical expertise for their ‘investigation’, the group recruits a new resident, a retired nurse named Joyce (Imrie). But before they can dig into their case, they’re sidetracked by the news that a ruthless and corrupt land owner, Ian Ventham (David Tennant) wants to shut down Cooper’s Chase and turn it into a luxury resort. The co-owner and operator, Tony (Geoff Bell) vows to fight for their home. But when he turns up dead, the club realize they have a more pressing murder case on their hands.

While the super sleuthing is a lot of fun, it’s what happens around it that gives the movie some weight. The four club members each have their own family side stories which the film cleverly uses to speak about aging. When not combing over evidence, Elizebeth is taking care of her beloved husband Stephen (Jonathan Pryce) who’s struggling with dementia. Ron is so enamored with his celebrity son Jason’s (Tom Ellis) fame that he can’t see the young man’s struggles. Joyce and her daughter Joanna (Ingrid Oliver) haven’t communicated well since the death of her husband. Meanwhile Ibrahim keeps quiet about his family past until just the right moment.

Other supporting players give good performances to help round out the story. Naomi Ackie is a fine addition playing Donna, a frustrated constable who has grown tired of making coffee and handing out parking tickets. Daniel Mays is a lot of fun playing the lead detective investigating Tony’s murder. And even Richard E. Grant shows up in a small but chilling role as a major crime kingpin who may or may not have connections to the murder.

Among the many reasons for the film’s success are screenwriters Katy Bland and Suzanne Heathcote. While their script happily embraces a number of stock whodunnit tropes, they avoid the commonly overused elderly archetypes, even poking fun at them on occasions. Their treatment of Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce is a breath of fresh air. These aren’t overly sweet grannies or amusingly grumpy grandpas. Bland and Heathcote imbue their characters with grit, personality, intellect, and emotional sincerity. The veteran actors take it from there, wonderfully breathing life into this endearing foursome.

Perhaps its story is a bit overstuffed. Maybe the ending is too tidy and the final moments a tad too saccharine. Yet “The Thursday Murder Club” never pretends to be something it’s not. Despite the presence of murder, the film is self-aware enough not to take things too seriously. Its tone is breezy and easygoing with no shortage of good-natured humor. But what sets it apart is its treatment of its leads. They’re presented as real people with real personalities. And they’re vibrantly portrayed by a top-notch ensemble who drive this smart and satisfying crowdpleaser. “The Thursday Murder Club” is streaming now on Netflix.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

The history of “The Toxic Avenger” is nearly as wild as anything its creators have put on screen. Lloyd Kaufman’s 1984 film was a bonkers superhero, black comedy, and splatter film mashup that gained a boisterous cult following through its VHS and Betamax releases. It eventually paved the way for three feature-length sequels, an animated spin-off series, and a video game based on the spin-off series.

Now here we are in 2025 with a remake that has its own wild history. There were talks of a family-friendly reboot as far back is 2010 but it fell through. Six years later, another reboot was discussed with Guillermo del Toro attached. In 2018, Legendary Pictures won the rights to the remake, and a year later Macon Blair had been hired to write and direct. The finished film hit a few festivals in 2023 but struggled to secure a distributor due to its over-the-top gore. No one would touch it until Cineverse stepped in earlier this year.

Now “The Toxic Avenger” is back and with a fresh coat of 2025 paint. Blair’s script has a little bit of everything. It starts as an underdog story, evolves into a vigilante story, and ends as something similar to a superhero story. But possibly more than anything, “The Toxic Avenger” is a pitch-black comedy. The laughs come in rapid succession and often from the most unexpected places. And then there’s the gore, thrown liberally at the screen through an array of digital and practical wizardry.

Peter Dinklage stars as Winston Gooze, a widowed single parent doing his best to raise his stepson Wade (Jacob Tremblay). Life has dealt Winston a tough hand, and it only gets worse after he’s diagnosed with a terminal brain disease and given one year to live. Winston learns of an insanely expensive potential cure. But he’s devastated to learn that it’s not covered by the insurance plan he has with his employer, BTH, who has loyally worked for as a janitor.

BTH is ran by an its pampered and corrupt CEO, Robert Garbinger (played by a wacky Kevin Bacon who eats up every wacky scene he’s in). The company creates and distributes proprietary bio-boosters. But it’s also a criminal polluter, dumping cancer-causing chemicals and toxic waste into a river that runs by the small town of St. Roma’s Village. As a result, a determined whistleblower named J.J. Doherty (Taylour Paige) is ready to go public with damning evidence exposing BTH’s complicity.

After the company refuses to help him, a frustrated, hurt, and desperate Winston breaks into the BTH factory to steal enough money to pay for his treatment. But he’s caught by Garbinger’s goons who shoot him in the head and dump his lifeless body in a tank full of toxic sludge. Unexpectedly, the chemicals bring Winston back to life yet leaves him horribly disfigured and deformed. Even more, the mutated Winston emerges with superhuman strength and healing factor which he uses to become the working-class, mop-wielding avenger his city needs.

Dinklage brings energy and heart to the ill-fated Winston, both before and after his grotesque transformation (Luisa Guerreiro handles the body suit performance with Dinklage provides the voice-over). Meanwhile he’s surrounded by a supporting cast who are all-in with what the movie is going for. In addition to the hilariously gonzo Bacon and Paige as the movie’s straight woman, we also get Elijah Wood channeling Danny DeVito’s Penguin, Jonny Coyne playing a perpetually angry mob boss, and Julia Davis as Garbinger’s ditzy wife.

“The Toxic Avenger” is a zany yet self-aware reimagining that pretty much accomplishes everything it sets out to do. In fact, you could tag it as pure shock schlock and the filmmakers wouldn’t be a bit offended. It’s extremely gory to the point of delighting some and turning off others. It’s also absurdly silly which could lead to the very same reactions. I get that it may be excessive to the point of being exhausting. But it’s hard to not be entertained by this raucous mix of shock value and humor. “The Toxic Avenger” releases in theaters Friday, August 29th.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

Cryptic teasers and creepy trailers paved the way for “Together”, A24’s latest twisted foray into the world of body horror. “Together” is the directorial debut for writer-director Michael Shanks and has grabbed a lot of attention since premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It stars real-life husband and wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie and tells a tale built upon a fairly obvious allegory. At the same time it lacks the psychological edge that could have made it considerably better.

Franco and Brie play codependent couple Tim and Millie. He’s a struggling musician and she is an elementary teacher who was just hired by a small rural school. As a result, the longtime partners buy a house in the country. But before leaving the city, Millie shocks Tim with a marriage proposal while at a going-away party with friends. His hesitation not only embarrasses her, but it’s the first of several hints that reveal the complications in their relationship.

Once settled in their new home and in desperate need of some quality time together, Tim and Millie take a hike in a nearby forest. Both end up falling into a deep hole where they discover the ruins of an old church – broken pews, broken stain glass windows, and an ominous bell embedded in the rock. But more mysterious is the pool of water than Tim decides to get a drink from. The pair eventually escape, but over time Tim begins to change. The formerly aloof Tim suddenly can’t stay away from Millie. And Millie can’t resist the attention. That’s when their story takes a gnarly Brothers Grimm-esque turn.

Shanks hasn’t been secretive about his film’s big twist. The couple’s connection takes a new form. Their new desires to be ‘together’ are more compulsory as if from a force outside of themselves. Again, the metaphor is pretty clear and the dangers of it are visualized through grotesque sequences of their bodies painfully fusing together whenever they make physical contact. Shanks doubles down on these scenes, leaning into the twisted body horror but finding room for some pitch-black humor as well.

To the film’s credit, it smartly presents us with a fairly likeable couple and a central relationship that is rooted enough in truth to earn our empathy. It does a good job exploring their genuine affections but also the buried resentment that has grown over time. Brie and Franco’s real-life chemistry pays dividends as the two are key in developing an organic on-screen partnership that is easy to believe in.

At the same time, you can’t help feeling that “Together” could have taken everything a little bit further – their attraction, their contentions, their anxieties, their grisly consequences, etc. Even more, the movie never comes across as either a fully realized horror feature or relationship drama. Still, Shanks does a good job conveying the weight of codependency even as his blaring metaphor gets more obvious through each gory mutation. “Together” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS

Danny Boyle put his own unique spin on the zombie genre with his acclaimed 2002 horror gem “28 Days Later”. He stepped aside for the 2007 sequel, “28 Weeks Later” – a movie that wasn’t as well received as its predecessor but that I personally enjoyed just as much. Now after 18 years, Boyle has returned with “28 Years Later”. And joining him again is the first film’s screenwriter, Alex Garland. The two make for a captivating creative pairing.

Much of “28 Years Later” delivers the bleak and visceral experience teased in its trailers. Boyle creates a dark, gruesome, and forbidding hellscape where any notion of hope hangs by a thread. It’s also helped by four rock-solid performances from Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and young Alfie Williams. But despite its ability to fully immerse us, the storytelling is hampered by plot holes, glaring questions, and a bonkers cliffhanger ending that feels yanked from an entirely different movie.

After a horrifying opening set in the Scottish Highlands, we’re introduced to the world 28 years after the second outbreak of the Rage Virus. It turns out the virus, which instantly turns anyone infected into a ravenous zombie, has been contained throughout much of Europe. Yet a ravaged England remains under a strict quarantine. Just off the coast, a group of people have built a community on a small island that’s only connection to the mainland is a heavily fortified causeway that can only be accessed during low tide.

Taylor-Johnson plays Jamie, a father who is preparing his 12-year-old son Spike for the community’s rite of passage ritual. It’s where a father accompanies his kid to the mainland for the first time – acquainting them with its dangers and guiding them to their first “kill”. For Spike (who is two years younger than the normal age), the ritual is especially trying, not just because of the perils he will face, but because he hates to leave the side of his ailing mother, Isla (Comer).

Once on the mainland, Jamie leads Spike deeper inland, showing him how to use his training to navigate the treacherous landscapes. Spike eventually gets his first kill, but soon after the pair is forced to flee after a violent zombie horde appears. They seek refuge in the attic of a dilapidated house where they find safety from the zombies. But it causes them to miss their window to return home by crossing the causeway.

As they spend the night in the attic, Spike notices the glow of a large fire in the far distance. Jamie tells him it’s probably Dr. Ian Kelson (Fiennes), a reclusive survivor dismissed by the community as a savage crazy man. After a few harrowing encounters – one with a hulking mutated zombie called an Alpha – Jamie and Spike make it back to the community. As the town celebrates his return, a frustrated and disillusioned Spike is more interested in his mother. Defying his father, Spike sneaks Isla out of the community and across the causeway in hope of finding Kelson and potentially a cure for her sickness.

From there “28 Years Later” turns into a perplexing mix of harrowing survival horror and coming-of-age drama. Some scenes are raw and genuinely unsettling and will leave you rattled. Other scenes are surprisingly tender, specifically between Spike and Isla. Boyle and Garland manage to create a number of truly captivating sequences. The problem lies with the connecting narrative tissue (or lack thereof). Things don’t always sense and there are holes in the story that are too big to simply look over.

“28 Years Later” is the first of a two-part story which becomes aggressively obvious in the film’s final scene. Without spoiling anything, let’s just saying the movie ends on a rather preposterous note that doesn’t really help cover its other shortcomings. Still, Boyle delivers several scenes fueled by in-the-moment tension to make the movie worth seeing. The world he creates is a fittingly grim representation of a society collapsed, and the pure horror of the zombie attacks is undeniable. If only there was more connecting its big moments. “28 Years Later” is in theaters now.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS