The long-awaited trailer for Transformers One has finally been released and it… was not what anyone was expecting. Early details first confirmed in April 2020 revealed the film would be a fully animated prequel. Set on the home planet of the Transformers, Cybertron, the film takes place several years before the main story that’s been adapted so many times in both live action and animation, and focuses on the early relationship between Autobot leader Optimus Prime and Decepticon leader Megatron. The implication of that premise was that we’d finally receive key context as to the motivation behind the two most…

This Rebel Moon article contains spoilers. Love him or hate him, you cannot deny Zack Snyder garners more attention than most filmmakers working today. It’s no surprise that his fans have been champing at the bit to see his the second part of his dark sci-fi epic, which it titled Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver. Snyder debuted Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Light in December. That film introduced viewers to a futuristic science fiction world, drawing from beloved tropes about scrappy rebels, mysterious prophecies, and a totalitarian empire. The movie pulls ideas from Star Wars, the samurai…

This article contains possible spoilers for Dune: Part Three and Dune Messiah. When Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part One opened in 2021, it only took Warner Bros. six days to announce the sequel. However, when Dune: Part Two opened this past March 1—despite doing huge business and clearly paving the way for a third chapter—it took the studio over a month to confirm a film of Dune Messiah was in development. Why the delay? Well, lots of possible reasons, actually.  Even though Dune: Part Two is likely to soon cross the $700 million mark at the global box office, it was…

Way back in 2002, the excitement for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones diminished somewhat. Late Night with Conan O’Brien sent Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to mock the fans lined up for the premiere, resulting in a segment in which comedian/puppeteer Robert Smigel launched nerd jokes at the assembly. Most of the jokes were pretty obvious, including the last bit, in which a man cosplaying as Mr. Spock gained the knack for cursing and walked up and down the line with his middle finger extended. But while the perceived Star Wars vs. Star Trek rivalry has become…

There is a lot that can be and has been said about the dance scenes in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. Little of it has been positive in the 17(!) years since the movie’s release. Undeniably leaning into the director’s goofier comic sensibility, the film twice detours from its dour tone—which begins when Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) dons the bad juju vibes of an alien symbiote—in order to have a laugh-out-loud dance break. In one sequence near the end of the second act, and after Peter has permanently scarred and attempted to kill his BFF (James Franco), Maguire’s protagonist struts down…

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth mythology includes several epic and powerful love stories. Aragorn and Arwen are probably the best known thanks to the Lord of the Rings films, plus Sam and Rosie get married at the end, and the extended editions also feature Éowyn and Faramir’s relationship, though that one was a bit rushed even in the books. But book fans also know the stories of Tuor and Idril, Elwing and Eärendil, and the rather more tragic story of Aegnor and Andreth, among others. The love story that meant the most to Tolkien himself, though, was the story of Beren and…

Bigfoots or Sasquatches, these creatures that straddle the line between man and beast are a captivating blend of mystery and fascination. Picture cavemen of colossal stature, untouched by the need to shave their skin. That’s your typical bigfoot. These enigmatic beings have also found their way into the spotlight of cinema, becoming iconic movie stars in their own right.  While they may have fewer film representations than their arctic counterparts, the yeti, Bigfoot has left an indelible mark on Hollywood. Whether these creatures were scene stealers or the main attraction, the Sasquatch has carved a unique place in cinema history.…

Civil War is an extremely powerful, effective movie that thrusts you into the middle of an American civil war seen through the eyes of a war photographer. It’s brutal. It’s extraordinarily violent. The sound design is bordering on abusive. And if you watch it in IMAX you can reasonably expect to leave the theater with more than a little motion sickness. It is, however, excellent, with great performances from Kirsten Dunst as the older, jaded photographer and Cailee Spaeny as the reckless youngster new to the game. So see it. But we’d be very surprised if you decide to rush back…

This article contains massive spoilers for Civil War. Barely in cinemas for 24 hours, the already most debated aspect of Alex Garland’s Civil War has been its ambiguity. Despite being a picture centered around journalists, Garland’s vision of social collapse in the United States remains curiously spartan when it comes to background details. It suggests polarization has become so extreme that Americans are dying by the tens of thousands (if not more). Yet by design, Garland does not explain the root cause of that polarization or much else of what led to the last bedraggled days of an unnamed president…

The United States is tearing itself apart in a maelstrom of sectarian divisions. Armed groups freely patrol vast swaths of so-called “sovereign” territory. The constant threat of violence hangs over the country, and states are openly rebelling against the powers of the federal government. The world’s oldest continuous modern democracy seems poised on the brink of melting down. And, oh yeah, a new movie is coming out: Alex Garland’s Civil War. While the above scenario is a slightly exaggerated version of what’s actually happening in the U.S. today—and, it seems, for the past eight years—one can squint a little and…

The debut of Amazon’s Fallout series is a major moment for fans of the gaming franchise who have long dreamed of an adaptation of the legendary RPG franchise. Of course, since every episode of that series is being released at once, there’s a good chance you’ll finish the post-apocalyptic series pretty quickly and be left feeling as empty as an apocalyptic wasteland. Thankfully, there is no shortage of tremendous post-apocalyptic movies out there to help you fill that void. From some of the most shocking films ever made to bonafide action classics, the post-apocalyptic genre is a surprisingly robust slice…

As much as we love them, the Star Trek movies have their share of mistakes. God stealing a starship, John Harrison revealing himself as Khan, McCoy shaving off his beard in The Motion Picture. But it looks like the movie franchise is about to outdo them all. Paramount has officially added the next Star Trek movie to its 2025 release schedule. According to TrekCore, the project currently called Untitled Star Trek Origin Story will begin production this year, with Seth Grahame-Smith writing and Toby Haynes directing. The film will take place decades before the 2009 Star Trek reboot from J.J.…

This article contains major Civil War spoilers. It’s the smiles that ultimately get to me. The entire, deafening finale of Civil War is meant to disturb as secessionist soldiers storm the nation’s capital, obliterating enemy combatants and U.S. landmarks in the same breath. Their foes, the few remaining armed forces loyal to a failed American dictator, are hardly meant to be sympathetic. And yet, it’s impossible to not shudder at the sight of the Lincoln Memorial reduced to rubble or unarmed bureaucrats being executed on the carpeted floors of the West Wing. The whole sequence crescendos into the inevitable. We…

There are so many directions that a SPY x FAMILY could pursue. The ongoing anime has a deeply versatile story structure that allows it to indulge in diverse missions so that the series always feels fresh. Accordingly, it’s seriously surprising to see Code: White function as a covert cooking anime movie.  It’s the type of story that audiences would expect to see in a Food Wars! or Toriko feature film, but not SPY x FAMILY. It’s also an ambitious approach to SPY x FAMILY’s first movie that hedges its bets and is too cautious to disrupt the status quo. Code:…

Under $5 million; no first time directors (unless there’s a named producer); actually good. These used to be the tenets by which Blumhouse built its name. But oh how things have changed. It’s looking increasingly like the little studio that could is making a land grab for virtually every property in horror-dom.  The latest trailer to drop from Blumhouse is for Speak No Evil, a remake of the 2022 Danish film of the same name which caused a big buzz when it hit Shudder for being so utterly and depressingly grim. Blumhouse snapped it up and cast James McAvoy, star…

The 1990s represented a golden epoch for action cinema. This was the time which saw VHS and its digitized successor DVD introduce a whole new generation of fans to the magic of stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. And those titans from the ‘80s still claimed big wins, too, at the box office and home media via the likes of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Demolition Man, and Cliffhanger. It was also the decade that saw audiences turn out in droves to theaters and rental stores to catch a glimpse of Steven Seagal’s flying fists in movies like Under Siege…

Alex Garland’s Civil War is not an easy movie to quantify or grapple with, including for the folks who were there when it was made. An intentionally provocative film that is as much speculative fiction as it is a dystopian thriller about the United States descending into chaos, it is an immensely disquieting experience, and one which is being hotly debated even before its wide release on Friday. While most of the press that saw the film during its SXSW premiere were impressed by the experience—including admittedly us—there has been a vocal counterpoint in some reviews and social media posts…

It takes The Matrix about three minutes to become the coolest thing you’ve ever seen. That’s when Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) evades a cop by breaking his arm, punching his throat, and then freezing mid-air so the camera can whip around her before she unleashes a kick that sends him across the room. Three minutes. And everything changed. But the most impressive part may be the fact that the amazing stuff doesn’t stop there. For the 117 minutes that follow, The Matrix directors Lana and Lilly Wachowski offer an improbable mix of kung fu action, Continental philosophy, and fin de siècle…

It’s a tale as old as Bat-time: an Arkham Asylum psychologist named Harleen Quinzel is driven mad by the Joker and she becomes the insane clown’s accomplice and oft-abused paramour. More recent takes on the character, especially in the comics, have seen Harley Quinn thankfully break up with the Clown Prince of Crime and become more of an anti-hero, but the upcoming film Joker: Folie a Deux is taking a more familiar approach to this dark “love story.” Sort of. The first trailer for Todd Phillips’ follow-up to his hit 2019 horror flick confirms not only that the highly-anticipated sequel…

Star Wars Outlaws is the next big video game adventure set in the galaxy far, far away. Developed by The Division studio Ubisoft Massive, the game puts you in the boots of a thief named Kay Vess, whose run afoul of the galaxy’s criminal underworld and is now one of the most wanted criminals in the Outer Rim Territories. To get out of this predicament with her head intact, she’ll need to pull off a daring heist to pay off her bounty. In a new story trailer, we learn just how stacked the odds are against Kay and her little…