MOVIE REVIEW: Wonder Park

The new animated family flick Wonder Park offers an imagined world of roller coasters and amusement built with as much love as they are creative engineering. The principles of STEM support the cinematic chain lift hills before the drops take audiences through inversions and turns of family feels. Like the railed, ridden inventions it depicts, Wonder Park has clever ideas and solid foundations, but too many trim brakes, suspensions, bumps, dead spots, and other hits of filmed friction slow the glee and weaken the poignant pillars attempted.

2 STARS, 2019Don ShanahanMarch 14, 2019Comment

OVERDUE REVIEW: The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms is far from the first and surely not the last story to have a protagonist visitor changed for the better after seeing their worldview shaped by a fantastical journey that affirmed new perspective of what was likely already inside of them. More about this shallow depth later.

2018, 2 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJanuary 31, 2019Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Glass

Injections of high interest and good graces were attempted by attaching the hope of the present to an old hit of the past. The big Unbreakable reveal that elevated the otherwise uneven Split is wasted in miscalculations to the point where Glass can be weaken a portion of that first film’s favor. The monotony replacing ambition pushes viewers to be ready for washed-out despondency.

2019, 2 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJanuary 16, 2019Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody lives and dies through the vitality of its lead performer. Emmy winner Rami Malek gives a smashing performance that should skyrocket him into the Oscar conversation. He and the film thrive when the volume is turned up and the microphones are on. It withers when it stifles that provocative heat. What should and, frankly, deserved to be a line-blurring and envelope-pushing affair of affairs is, to borrow a pair of friends’ terms, “straight-washed” into something “puritanical” instead of free, open, and, most of all, potent. Allowing something this hot to go lukewarm is a cinematic crime.

2 STARS, 2018, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanOctober 31, 2018AMC River East 21 Comments

MOVIE REVIEW: Venom

For the purpose to sell tickets, this proper villain is touted to be an response to the world having enough superheroes. The resulting film debunks its marketing by reducing Venom into a do-gooder and carnival attraction opposite of that claim. Never once does your heart pump a little quicker from tension. Never once do any hairs stand up in fright in the presence of what should be a complete badass. Those deficiencies shouldn’t happen with Venom.

2 STARS, 2018, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEW, PodcastDon ShanahanOctober 4, 2018AMC River East 21Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: A Simple Favor

Putting the women in charge instead of the men in this modern landscape, Paul Feig’s A Simple Favor had the dreamy cast and pulpy source material locked in to invigorate the subgenre. Instead, the Bridesmaids and Ghostbusters comedy specialist and Nerve screenwriter Jessica Sharzar couldn’t help themselves. Satire is their aphrodisiac and they brought it to the wrong bedroom. Kinky and quirky can be fun, but that mix is tenuous at best. Watching A Simple Favor devolve from intrigue into incompetence is like pouring chocolate sauce over a sizzling steak.

2 STARS, 2018, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 13, 2018AMC River East 21A Simple FavorComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Predator

As riotously entertaining as this ensemble bounds and gurgles with glorious and exasperated profanity, they feel lifted from a different movie. On paper, this infusion of infectious comedy counts as a something devilishly new squeezed onto the Predator franchise from the joyless failures of its past. In execution, the actors are having a blast, right down to the F-bomb dropping Tremblay, but the absurdity takes away from nearly all possible mystery and suspense.

2018, 2 STARS, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 11, 2018AMC River East 21The PredatorComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Damsel

Kicking up scratchy dust in the western genre, the Zellner Brothers rousingly debunk and demystify that stereotype to create a dark comedy of their own pitch and prickliness. With humor as dry as the topography, Damsel is the kind of film that sneaks up on you like a snake in the weeds. The brothers and fellow stars Robert Pattinson and Mia Wasikowska dance all over this landscape, but the steps keep dawdling when the music runs out.

MOVIE REVIEW: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Jurassic World to matched all of the definitions of “spectacle,” from the positive connotations of “unusual, notable, or entertaining especially an eye-catching or dramatic public display” on down to the more questionable “an object of curiosity or contempt.” The jungle playground reboot lacked most of the awe and wonder of the Spielberg classic in favor of blockbuster-sized theme park thrills. Its sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, continues the feral frolic only to go a little too far and throw smarts out the window next.

2 STARS, 2018, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanJune 20, 2018AMC Navy Pier IMAXComment

MOVIE REVIEW: The Guardians

There is a different and commendable bravery found in the young and old to carry on the community dream of hearth and home. For the “War to End All Wars” at the beginning of the 20th century, those civilians predominantly included women who were mothers, wives, fiances, and sisters. Xavier Beauvois’s often lovely foreign film The Guardians from Music Box Films follows the hardscrabble trials and tribulations of one French homestead of ladies during the lean years of World War I

2017, 2018, 2 STARS, Foreign Film, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 25, 2018The Music Box TheatreComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Island Zero

The bloody swirls of cold ocean water where a cute little terrier wearing a fou-fou life vest for his yachtsman owner used to be represents the first pre-credits victim of Island Zero. That pooch is the first of a cavalcade of casualties to come. This indie flick of cheesy gore pierced by a stab at serious science works hard to make the most of is resources to craft an involved little creature feature and paranoid thriller. The shrewdly cleaver Island Zero arrives nationwide on VOD on May 15th from Freestyle Releasing.

2 STARS, 2017, 2018, Independent Film, MOVIE REVIEW, Video on DemandDon ShanahanMay 15, 2018Comment

MOVIE REVIEW: Rampage

The dignified art form of cinema may not need a dumb and dazzling film like Rampage, but what escapist audiences do seek out and need are larger-than-life stars. There will always be an ass-kicking place for brawny men like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on the silver screen. The former WWE superstar has become the center square of any year’s blockbuster Bingo card. The fully-formed persona that is Dwayne Johnson is always a welcome treat

2 STARS, 2018, ADVANCE MOVIE REVIEW, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanApril 11, 2018AMC Navy Pier IMAXComment