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Movie Review: PRACTICAL MAGIC 2

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 04:00:14 +0000

Rating: PG-13
Stars: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Lee Pace, Maisie Williams, Xolo Maridueña, Solly McLeod, Dianne Wiest, Stockard Channing
Writers: Akiva Goldsman and Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, based on the novel THE BOOK OF MAGIC by Alice Hoffman
Director: Susanne Bier
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Release Date: September 9, 2026

The new movie PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is a sequel to the 1998 film PRACTICAL MAGIC, which was adapted from Alice Hoffman’s 1995 novel of the same title.

PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is also adapted – by director Susanne Bier and screenwriters Akiva Goldsman and Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel – from Hoffman’s novel THE BOOK OF MAGIC, which was published in 2021.

THE BOOK OF MAGIC serves as the finale of Hoffman’s quartet of MAGIC books. Both PRACTICAL MAGIC, the novel and the film, and the novel THE BOOK OF MAGIC and its adaptation PRACTICAL MAGIC 2, deal with the Owens sisters, Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman).

(For those keeping track, Hoffman’s second tome in the series, THE RULES OF MAGIC, published in 2017, chronicles the adventures of Sally and Gillian’s aunts in their younger days, and MAGIC LESSONS, published in 2020, is set in the 1600s, which depicts the origins of the curse afflicting the Owens women.)

In some ways, PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 has a premise that’s a retread of PRACTICAL MAGIC. The curse dictates that any man who is loved by or falls in love with an Owens woman will die a premature death. In the first film, Sally loses her husband, father of their two young daughters, to the curse. She swears off witchcraft, only to need it to rescue Gilly, who is proud of their magical heritage. Sally finds new love, she and Gilly believe the curse is broken, and apparently everyone can live happily and magically ever after.

Well, not so fast. At the start of PRACTICAL MAGIC 2, although Sally and her beloved from the first film married, the curse struck again after all. Broken-hearted, Sally does a graveside spell that at least superficially strips her of all her powers. Sally makes Gilly swear not to tell Sally’s daughters, Kylie and Antonia, that they are hereditary witches. Gilly is extremely reluctant but gives her word.

When Kylie (Joey King) is in college and Antonia (Maisie Williams) is a student doctor, the siblings are tightly bonded to each other, to their mom, to Aunt Gilly, and to great-aunts Jet (Dianne Wiest) and Franny (Stockard Channing), themselves Owens witches who raised Sally and Gilly.

Several things happen almost simultaneously. For one, Jet locates a book that contains the spell that can break the curse – but can’t get the pages to open. For another, Kylie realizes she is in love with her sweet boyfriend Gideon (Xolo Maridueña).

These things combine to force Sally to try to get back in touch with her witchy nature in order to save a loved one.

The best reason to see PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is the chemistry between Bullock and Kidman, who bring out the best in each other as performers. Without naming movies, both have been saddled with some roles where the jokes and the spark weren’t there. Here, they conjure an energy that feels spontaneous and playful that’s delightful to witness.

While they don’t get as much screen time together as Bullock and Kidman, King and Williams also have an appealing sibling dynamic. Wiest and Channing both have warm authority, Lee Pace charms as an English warlock, and Solly McLeod does well as a groundskeeper with a tale to tell.

Director Bier and the cinematography and design team do a visually entertaining job of keeping the Owens’ world look plausibly enchanting – that is, these are spaces that people who like spirits and the unseen and rich colors (and lots of books) might ensconce themselves in within our world.

There are a number of witchy glitches, though, starting with the basic premise. Did Sally learn nothing from what she and others went through in PRACTICAL MAGIC? Since she knows the curse to be true, shouldn’t she have warned her daughters about it back when they first reached dating age?

The workings of the curse may be a little too mysterious for any viewer who contemplates it. It inevitably came to pass before, but at least Sally had enough time to have two children with her first husband and a wedding with her second. Kylie barely has time to declare her feelings before there’s a big kapow.

Then there are the story mechanics that fuel the inevitable mortal jeopardy. Hoffman may have set these up well in THE BOOK OF MAGIC, but in PRACTICAL MAGIC 2, the peril and how it’s investigated and combatted all seem borrowed from any number of mostly standalone episodes of supernatural TV shows (including but not limited to SUPERNATURAL).

Still, PRACTICAL MAGIC 2 is worth watching. It is pleasing to the eye, and the joy that the cast has in playing squabbling but adoring family is genuinely fun to observe.

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Movie Review: THE UPRISING

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 04:00:07 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, Katherine Waterston, Sam Chapman
Writer: Paul Greengrass
Director: Paul Greengrass
Distributor: Focus Features
Release Date: September 10, 2026

For those wondering about the film’s veracity, the 1381 uprising of common folk in England (sometimes referred to as “the peasants’ uprising,” although the term “peasant” wasn’t coined until a century or two later) was a series of real events.

Writer/director Paul Greengrass has dramatized this in THE UPRISING, which is mostly a rousing history lesson, with a little bit of Robin Hood folklore to provide some extra texture and structure.

By 1381, half of England’s population had been wiped out by the Black Plague (another historical fact). In Essex County, Ploughman (Andrew Garfield), who calls himself this because he tills the land with a plough, has lost his wife and two children to the pandemic. Ploughman is physically reasonably healthy, though haunted by loss and thus absolutely miserable.

England is at this juncture ruled by fourteen-year-old King Richard II (Woody Norman), who is prone to nightmares and subject to the influence of his advisors, who include Archbishop Sudbury (Stephen Dillane) and Royal Treasurer Hayles (Tom Hollander). The king’s widowed mother, Countess Joan (Katherine Waterston), worries for her son but does not have her own power within the court.

With the royal coffers running low, the king’s counselors think they can finance the kingdom with taxes. But where will the taxes come from? If the king taxes the merchants, the merchants will want a seat at the table. This leaves the common folk.

Of course, the common folk by and large don’t have any money for themselves, much less for taxes. When a tax collector (Sam Chapman) shows up in Ploughman’s village, Ploughman is prepared to pay, even though he and others are troubled (to put it mildly) by the collector’s financial mandates and the soldiers’ methods of determining the age of young women.

Then the tax collector demands that Ploughman prove his wife and children are dead by paying a death tax, or else pay taxes on them as living household members. This is too much for Ploughman, who lashes out, inspiring others to follow suit, until there’s an actual riot. The tax collector’s men are better-armed, but there are a whole lot more serfs who are much more motivated.

Ploughman is soon approached by Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), who leads a group of rebels from Kent, where they’ve had similar encounters with tax collectors. Tyler is joined by the “renegade” priest John Ball (Jamie Bell), who has his own acolytes and is convinced their cause is just. Tyler persuades Ploughman to bring his neighbors into the fold.

Together, Ploughman, Tyler and Ball devise a list of demands for the king. These seem basic by today’s standards, but were revolutionary in the fourteenth century. The list includes freedom (the serfs literally legally belonged to whoever owned the land they worked), the right to profit from their own labor, and amnesty from presenting the demands.

But can the king be trusted? Is he a good soul who is being held prisoner by his advisors? If this is the case, Ball thinks the council members should be executed as traitors to the king. If this demand is honored, Tyler feels it will lead straight to disaster.

The king, meanwhile, has more opinions than we might at first imagine.

There are a lot of moving pieces and THE UPRISING is fascinating to watch, as characters change their minds, while huge rivers of people swirl around them.

Greengrass, who as a director often employs a handheld look, gives us a terrifying sense of what it’s like to be in the middle of chaos that is violent and absolute. There are moments when no one can tell who’s on what side and people are so inflamed that there’s no way of knowing who is just trying to get out of the way and who is attacking blindly.

The script, production design, performances and general aesthetic also give us a strong sense of how muddy and back-breaking the lives of the commoners have been. When they commit to taking up arms (lots of farm instruments; Ploughman has a scythe), we viscerally feel their grievance.

There are perhaps a few frames more than necessary of showing groups either on the move or impatiently holding still. It adds to the overall verisimilitude, but the pace could be swifter in places.

Garfield makes a magnetic, sympathetic focal point. Ploughman’s pain gives him integrity; he doesn’t want to be at the forefront of anything but cannot abandon his fellows. Jarvis is solid as a reasonable man who finds himself in an extraordinary position and Bell gives Ball fire that treads the edge of insanity. Thomasin McKenzie has fire as one of Ball’s fervent followers.

There’s some Shakespearean/THE LION IN WINTER intrigue among the nobility that keeps us sitting forward. Norman is excellent and Waterston does a great deal with little dialogue. Dillane and Hollander are very smooth, and Jonny Lee Miller makes the Mayor of London both pragmatic and chilling.

THE UPRISING ends in a manner that’s a little more familiar and a little more fanciful than how it begins. But it’s well-earned and plausibly nods to the roots of a legend.

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Movie Review: LOCKJAW

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 03:59:58 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Blu Hunt, Colin Burgess, Kevin Grossman, Sally Sum, Nick Corirossi, Ally Davis, Lena Redford
Writer: Sabrina Greco
Director: Sabrina Greco
Distributor: Magenta Edge Films
Release Date: August 8, 2026 (theatrical); September 8, 2026 (VOD, digital)

An onscreen title tells us it’s September 18, 2023. Friends Rayna (Blu Hunt), Mitch (Colin Burgess), and Noah (Kevin Grossman) are barhopping in a Los Angeles neighborhood that looks like Silverlake. Rayna is extremely drunk but, despite Mitch’s best efforts to take her keys, she gets into her car – and promptly has an accident.

Six weeks later, Rayna’s jaw is wired shut. Mitch is monitoring whether she’s drinking – Rayna maintains that she isn’t. They’re invited to a party. Rayna wants to go, Mitch doesn’t. It’s hard to tell if he’s just worried that she’s going to fall off the wagon or if he’s jealous of her interacting with other people.

However, since Rayna clearly has the upper hand in their ill-defined relationship (it’s not just us who can’t tell what’s going on with them – neither can they), they wind up at the party. Noah is here; Reyna and Mitch haven’t seen him since the car crash.

Noah invites Rayna to watch his magician friend Robert (Nick Corirossi) perform at a small club. When Rayna insists on going, Mitch comes, too.

Robert’s magic act consists of taking pictures of people without their consent, figuring out what their secrets are, and spilling them to the audience. He and his wife Cleo (Ally Davis) tell Noah he can come over and spend the night. Rayna invites herself and Mitch over, too.

Then Rayna, Mitch and Noah’s sort-of friend Annabelle (Sally Sum) shows up, wondering why they all left the party.

If you live in Los Angeles, and perhaps even elsewhere, there’s a good chance you’ve been through a night like the one that occupies most of LOCKJAW. Writer/director Sabrina Greco paints an absolutely credible portrait of a group of dysfunctional twentysomethings coping with interpersonal and substance problems.

Fans of what’s known as “cringe comedy” may well enjoy LOCKJAW. The question for others is whether or not we want to relive the situation as passive observers (i.e., audience members) with these people. Rayna is truly annoying and abusive; Mitch is passive/aggressive and something of a stalker; Robert is manipulative and a little creepy; Cleo is pretentious. Noah appears annoyed that Rayna and Mitch can’t get themselves together and doesn’t notice the unpleasantness of Robert and Cleo. This leaves mostly harmless but clueless Annabelle.

Filmmaker Greco has some great, surprising quirks and provides a modicum of release at the finale. The behavior she documents is perfectly believable. It’s just that, absent of any insights or revelations, the film’s observations don’t add up to characters who hold our interest.

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Movie Review: THE GIRL IN THE RIVER

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:56:25 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Maggie Grace, Devon Sawa, Tiffany Haddish, Ralph Macchio, Andrew Stevens, Angelena Swords, David Moncrief, Darron Dunbar, Lucy Blair
Writer: Brando Benetton
Director: Brando Benetton
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Release Date: September 4, 2026

THE GIRL IN THE RIVER is a mostly decently-executed procedural. In its structure, it could be mistaken for a long episode of a serious-minded TV crime-solving series, assuming the show has two leads who don’t like or trust each other very much.

Newly-minted Mississippi Department of Investigations (a fictional government branch that resembles the FBI) agent Amelia Pembrock (Maggie Grace) isn’t sure she’s cut out for field work. Veteran agent Alan Kramer (Devon Sawa) is clearly suffering from alcoholism and wants to retire immediately.

Nevertheless, their mutual boss Erica Graysmith (Tiffany Haddish) decides that these two reluctant operatives should be teamed up and sent to solve a high-profile case in Canton, Mississippi.

As we see in the opening, a masked, gloved man stops a van in the middle of a suspension bridge, removes a body and throws the corpse over the edge into the river below.

When the body is recovered, the deceased is identified as fourteen-year-old Greta Otto, daughter of wealthy Canton residents Arthur (Andrew Stevens) and Ilsa Otto (Angelena Swords).

The grief of these parents is compounded by fear and confusion because their other daughter Anna (both roles played by Lucy Blair) is missing and likely in the hands of whoever murdered her twin Greta.

As they dig in, Pembroke and Kramer find more and more puzzling aspects to the evidence.

Writer/director Brando Benetton has constructed a good foundation for a mystery, including elements cleverly designed to deliberately throw the main characters off the scent. Also, with an abducted child presumably taken by a known killer, the stakes could hardly be higher.

But Benetton undermines himself in a variety of ways. In trying to add to the drama, he overdoes it from the start. We can accept that a supervisor might send out one agent who is openly ambivalent about the investigation, but two of them?

Despite solid performances from Grace and especially Sawa, who is convincing as a man who can barely bring himself to function, the confrontational dynamic is over-familiar and neither informative nor entertaining to spend time with for long.

Finally, after the culprit has gone to great lengths to mislead the protagonists, he carelessly reveals something that undoes it all. Maybe this is meant to confirm a psychological observation about subconscious needs that Pembroke has made earlier, but it feels wrong in the moment.

Despite all this, THE GIRL IN THE RIVER should be okay fare for people who crave something that can tide them over until the next seasons of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION and NCIS start back up.

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Movie Review: ONSLAUGHT

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 11:58:58 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Adria Arjona, Dan Stevens, Eric Wareheim, Reginald VelJohnson, Blake Kennedy, Michael Biehn, Alex Pereira, Drew Starkey, Rebecca Hall, Dave Campbell, Tyler Hall
Writer: Simon Barrett, story by Adam Wingard & Simon Barrett
Director: Adam Wingard
Distributor: A24
Release Date: September 4, 2026

Directed by Adam Wingard and scripted by Simon Barrett from a story by both men, ONSLAUGHT puts a sci-fi/horror spin on the well-armed marauders attacking a small target genre.

ONSLAUGHT begins with an onscreen clock and countdown – it’s 7:04 AM, and so many hours and so many minutes until an unnamed event (presumably the onslaught) occurs.

Meanwhile, we’re toggling between the secret facility where modern-day Nazi scientist Hans Kammler (Dan Stevens under a lot of prosthetic makeup) has housed his prize experiment, and the nearby desert trailer park, where cranky Celeste (Adria Arjona) is the on-site manager.

Celeste is an ex-military sniper who is on relatively good terms with her fellow park residents, even the ones who are late on rent. She loves her daughter Daisy (Blake Kennedy) but resents it when Daisy’s remarried dad drops the little girl off at the trailer park without prior notice.

Kammler is theoretically present to supervise final test of his three subjects. These are all U.S. soldiers dead or wounded in the line of duty; they have revived with technology that causes them to have as their only goal killing everything they encounter.

We will stipulate here that the filmmakers put their locations to excellent use and are to be saluted for creative and frequent employment of a variety of weapons, notably a chainsaw that may get more of a workout here than it does in the MASSACRE movies where it features in the title.

Arjona is terrific as Celeste, someone not to be trifled with at the best of times, and certainly not when protecting her daughter. Reginald VelJohnson also scores as a fellow veteran and general good soul.

But when we hear why the super-soldiers have been devised, we wonder exactly how fanciful ONSLAUGHT is supposed to be.

Spoiler alert: Kammler believes what our country needs is armed law enforcement (i.e., his soldiers) who won’t be hindered by morality when it comes to firing on civilians in their own country.

The natural reaction of a lot of viewers to this will be, are we meant to surmise that Kammler and his cronies haven’t watched the news in a while, or that the filmmakers haven’t, or that ONSLAUGHT was written long ago and not updated before shooting?

Of all the purposes for the super-soldiers, this one is tragically redundant. Even without the real-world ramifications, what Kammler et al do in the name of seeing if their super-soldiers function as intended should prove to them (it definitely does to us) that regular unenhanced humans are as capable of atrocities against their own people as anything whipped up by scientists.

And calling this out: ONSLAUGHT has a good-guy character for absolutely no reason taunt one of the super-soldiers with a homophobic slur. This seems as though it’s intended to be funny. It’s not. In fact, it’s one of those things that can jerk an audience member right out of the narrative and into questioning the meta of it all.

ONSLAUGHT has great action, but a premise that probably should have spent a little more time in the concept lab.

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Movie Review: BY ANY MEANS

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:58:28 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Yahya Abdul-Mateen III, Mark Wahlberg, Nicole Beharie, Josh Lucas, LisaGay Hamilton, LaChanze, Ethan Embry, Giancarlo Esposito, David Strathairn
Writer: Sascha Penn
Director: Elegance Bratton
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: September 4, 2026

In 1964, Black civil rights leader Malcolm X gave a speech that included the words, “We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.”

“By any means” has largely been interpreted as “including violence.” BY ANY MEANS the movie certainly takes it that way. Directed by Elegance Bratton and scripted by Sascha Penn, it raises a lot of thought-provoking questions but couches them in a way it seems unprepared to fully contemplate.

BY ANY MEANS opens with the onscreen declaration “based on true events.” This much is verifiable: Vernon Dahmer (played by Giancarlo Esposito) and Gregory Scarpa (played by Mark Wahlberg) were both real people.

As shown in BY ANY MEANS, Dahmer was a family man and Black voting-rights advocate in rural Mississippi, where his home and family were attacked and he was murdered on January 10, 1966.

Scarpa, on the other hand, was a member of the Colombo Mafia organization, who reputedly was an FBI informant and sometimes hired by the Feds to get physical with suspects in ways that agents were forbidden from doing.

Reportedly (though the FBI denies it), Scarpa’s methods led to locating the bodies of young civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwermer, murdered by the Klan in Mississippi in 1964.

BY ANY MEANS introduces us to Scarpa as he’s beating a suspect almost to death, on behalf of the FBI, to get the man to reveal where Chaney, Goodman and Schwermer’s corpses are. It’s brutal but gets results.

Two years later, we meet (fictional) Black FBI agent Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen III), who toils thanklessly in the file room of the Bureau’s Mississippi office. He and his wife Allison (Nicole Beharie) have just moved from Chicago back to Strider’s small hometown. Strider is old friends with Dahmer and his family, who live in the neighborhood.

When Dahmer is killed, the FBI runs into a roadblock. The white townsfolk won’t tell tales on their own, and the Black potential witnesses won’t talk to white law enforcement at all.

Strider’s supervisor, Special Agent Roy K. Moore (David Strathairn), therefore decides to put Strider on the case, because the locals know and trust him. Moore also assigns Strider to be Scarpa’s “handler,” as Scarpa’s methods may be called for in getting cooperation from those who conspired to commit the murder.

Scarpa is truly amoral, which is anathema to Strider. Scarpa is also fairly uneducated but surprises Strider by being able to quote “by any means necessary.”

For his part, Scarpa is astounded that Strider’s ethics prevent him from using his badge as an excuse to do absolutely anything.

The conflict here is that Scarpa doesn’t care what he’s doing, to or for whom – he actively enjoys it. Strider cares profoundly about these things. This, plus understandable rage at the perpetrators, starts to make him rethink some of his convictions.

Abdul-Mateen gives Strider an aura of deep feeling and integrity. Wahlberg as Scarpa does something that many actors shy away from, making him not just cynical but actually kind of soulless. Wahlberg’s Scarpa has layers, but we don’t get the feeling that any of them are redemptive.

It’s unclear who thought putting a false nose on Wahlberg was wise for the role. It’s not as though Scarpa is so recognizable that Wahlberg would look wrong without it; it doesn’t say anything about the character and it’s a little distracting.

It would be inaccurate to call BY ANY MEANS a buddy movie – it’s more like a “can barely tolerate each other at best” movie, which is more credible, given who the characters are.

Somewhat less credible is that Moore would task Strider with the investigation, given that he lives in the vicinity. This makes Strider a perilously within-reach target for white supremacists who resent the whole notion of a Black FBI agent, to say nothing of him being on their trail. (Again, since Strider is an invented character, there’s no evidence that anything like this happened in reality.)

Where BY ANY MEANS gets deep but also troubling is in how it handles Strider’s gradual embrace of violence as something that can be not only effective but righteous. Given how he is treated with threats and contempt, we are encouraged to not just witness but actively cheer on Strider’s metamorphosis, especially when it is in response to the criminals’ refusal to respect him as a man and as an officer of the law.

It’s easy to imagine other law enforcement, in other circumstances, feeling entitled to use violence when they feel they are being disrespected. But BY ANY MEANS doesn’t explore this; it never suggests that the sentiments Strider feels can be (and are, on a daily basis) put to bad use. (On a less philosophical note, the movie also makes a joke out of Scarpa killing a bad guy’s dog; it’s not the dog’s fault his owner is a monster.)

As a civil rights piece, BY ANY MEANS doesn’t break new ground, but what it shows is always worth remembering. As a violent actioner, it delivers, and it’s never less than intriguing.

We can momentarily lose ourselves in the comfort of Strider as a fighter for justice. But we come away with a sense of disquiet over the bigger issue of getting us to applaud abuse under color of authority, especially because BY ANY MEANS doesn’t reflect on prompting us to do so.

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Movie Review: C.O.G.

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:57:00 +0000

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Piper Curda, Noel Fisher, Josh Zuckerman, Natasha Behnam, Lucius Baybak. Ritesh Rajan, Kyle S. More
Writer: Angie Simms
Director: Tommy Savas
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: September 4, 2026 (theatrical), September 25, 2026 (VOD)

C.O.G. (original title COGNAITIVE) is about an A.I. that goes rogue in the final stages of its (her?) development.

“Haven’t you seen TERMINATOR?” a programmer snaps when asked what’s the worst that could happen. Obviously, the irony is that the programmer certainly saw it and went ahead with her job anyway – right until it reaches crisis point.

Written by Angie Simms (who also supplies much of the A.I.’s voice) and directed by Tommy Savas, C.O.G. is one of those techno-horror thrillers that make smart use of a low budget and limited spaces, even though it has a few wait-a-minute bits like the one listed above.

In the opening moments of C.O.G., we see a nervous programmer, Daryl (Kyle S. More) private-messaging with an unidentified user. If you guess this user is the A.I., congratulations. It asks Daryl to do “one more thing.” Daryl refuses – and is strangled.

We then meet Ethan (a splendidly smug Noel Fisher), head of the scrappy little start-up that invented this new A.I., dubbed “CognAItive,” as he rehearses a speech. He talks about how A.I. used to be like an employee, needing teaching and supervision. CognAItive, he says, is more like a perfect partner.

Ethan is willing to give credit where it’s due, explaining that programmer Kaya Cole (Piper Curda) is actually responsible for the creation of CognAItive.

We see Kaya running late, using A.I. to wake her up, tell her what the weather is, what she ought to wear, how she should brush her teeth. When she gets to the office, Ethan tells her she has to do a Zoom interview with WIRED.

While Kaya dances around some aspects of CognAItive, she is sincere when she tells the journalist that she believes A.I. is more trustworthy than human beings. Kaya also believes that, while CognAItive has autonomy, there are safety measures to keep it from actually having a mind of its own.

Ethan dismays Kaya and the rest of the team by insisting that CognAItive will launch tomorrow, rather than in two weeks as scheduled. This means everybody has to pull an all-nighter, but that turns out to be the least of their problems.

There are a number of kills, at least one reasonably shocking and another nicely creepy. There is also decent plot logic for what’s happening.

Just as important, the filmmakers have a good sense of pacing. We get just enough time to get to know the rest of the gang, including timid Wes (Josh Zuckerman), sensible KJ (Ritesh Rajan), goof-off Jude (Lucius Baybak) and hard-to-flap Liza (Natasha Behnam), before things get crazy and stay that way.

There are breather moments, lots of plausible action – nobody’s a superhero, so the fights look like what would happen in life-or-death conflicts between the untrained – and some intriguing interactions between CognAItive and most of the human characters.

C.O.G. brings up arguments about what A.I. can do for us versus what it can do to us. These are worth contemplation. However, C.O.G.’s main value is as a punchy, entertaining piece that knows the worth of speed and detail.

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Movie Review: COYOTE VS. ACME

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:32:09 +0000

Rating: PG
Stars: Will Forte, Lana Condor John Cena, Tone Bell, Martha Kelly, Luis Guzmán, P.J. Byrne, John Early, Nancy Linehan Charles, Kenneth Choi, Eric Bauza (voice), Candi Milo (voice)
Writer: Samy Burch, story by James Gunn & Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch, based on the NEW YORKER article “Coyote vs. Acme” by Ian Frazier
Director: Dave Green
Distributor: Warner Bros./Ketchup Entertainment
Release Date: August 29, 2026

While there are previous examples – Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry the Mouse in 1945’s ANCHORS AWEIGH, whole sections of 1971’s BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS – the movie that is perhaps most associated with human performers interacting with cartoon characters is 1988’s WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.

Apart from the awesome technical achievement of combining live-action credibly with cartoon animation (the technology has been improved upon vastly since then, but the movie still holds up), WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT has as a core piece of its plot the relationship between live-action people and animated folks, which creates class divisions and even a mystery.

Directed by Dave Green and scripted by Samy Burch from a story by James Gunn & Jeremy Slater and Burch, based on the NEW YORKER article by Ian Frazier, COYOTE VS. ACME feels something like the spiritual and conceptual child of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT. In COYOTE VS. ACME, cartoon beings are now completely integrated into live-action human society, but there are still physical and legal distinctions between the groups, and the story engines are similar.

Anyone who has even passing familiarity with the classic Warner Bros. Looney Tunes “Roadrunner” cartoons knows that Wile E. Coyote has every right to sue the Acme Corporation.

For those who somehow have missed the original shorts, Wile E. Coyote is an animated desert canine who has devoted his existence to his (to date unsuccessful) attempts to capture, kill and eat the likewise cartoon Road Runner.

The Road Runner is perhaps the fastest-running bird on Earth. He makes his signature utterance “Beep, Beep” pretty much every time he’s about to dash off. This leaves Wile E. Coyote at the mercy of whatever defective Acme product he’s acquired this time that’s supposed to help him catch his prey, but instead just winds up decimating the aspiring predator.

After a pair of misfiring Acme rocket roller skates once again foil and maim poor Coyote, he sees a TV commercial advertising the law firm Avery, Jones and Maltese (the names meta-honor Looney Tunes animator/director Tex Avery, animator Chuck Jones and screenwriter/storyboard artist Michael Maltese). The firm’s spokesman Kevin Avery (Will Forte) asserts that he and his team are specialists in getting settlements for cartoon characters injured by faulty devices. Coyote decides to check them out.

Coyote isn’t the most cooperative of clients. When Kevin wants to settle with Acme the way his firm always does – for a few hundred dollars – Coyote brings in *all* the defective Acme products he’s purchased over the decades.

Kevin’s eager-beaver niece and well-trained attorney Paige (Lana Condor) looks at the almost-literal mountain of evidence and sees a winnable big case. Kevin desperately doesn’t want to go to court – especially opposite Acme’s chief defense attorney and Kevin’s old schoolmate Buddy Crane (John Cena) – but up with little choice. Kevin also discovers that he and Coyote may be ensnared in a sinister Acme conspiracy.

Director Green and his team of animators appear to have pored over every frame of every Looney Tunes short. Not only are their references superb, but so are the look and impeccable timing. Every joke sticks the landing; every sight gag is at home here without ever seeming anachronistic to the original.

There is plenty of employment of Coyote’s contemporaries, including a certain wascally wabbit, who is voiced in COYOTE by Eric Bauza in a seamless duplication of Mel Blanc’s original Bugs.

The filmmakers also devise ingenious, easy to comprehend methods of communication without compromising the never-speaking Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

Forte as the super-reluctant hero, Cena as the effortlessly confident foe and Condor as the indefatigable advocate all give excellent performances, especially when it comes to interacting with their to-be-added-in-post-production animated costars. Condor is particularly good at consoling the beleaguered Coyote.

While this is not its chief feature, COYOTE VS. ACME achieves the surprising feat of injecting some real emotion into the proceedings without violating character essentials.

Potential viewers may want to strap on their non-Acme-made rocket roller skates to get the into theatres playing COYOTE VS. ACME more quickly. It’s that funny and that entertaining.

Those who want to know more about the end credits thank you note reading, “Dedicated to everyone who posted, shared, held up signs and spoke out when it counted. This film made it to the big screen because of you” are advised to look up COYOTE VS. ACME Warner Bros. for some enlightenment.

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Movie Review: BUDDY

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:00:49 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Keegan-Michael Key (voice), Sergey Zhuravsky (suit), Topher Grace, Tristan Borders, Madison Skyy Polan, Caleb “CJ” Williams, Luke Speakman, Patton Oswalt (voice), Clint Howard, Michael Shannon (voice), Jimmica Collins (voice), Cedwan Hooks (suit), Seamus Flynn, Bryson Jonsteele
Writers: Casper Kelly & Jamie King
Director: Casper Kelly
Distributor: Roadside Attractions/Saban Films
Release Date: August 28, 2026

In the best possible way, BUDDY looks like it was made by people who had serious nightmares after watching BARNEY & FRIENDS. For those who missed it, that’s the show (that ran for fourteen seasons) for young children with a plush purple dinosaur (a suit performer) and his pals, some other dino suit performers and some actual kids.

Valuable lessons are taught and Barney keeps singing, “I love you, you love me …” If you’re not the target age, and maybe even if you are, that’s legitimately creepy.

BUDDY drops us into the TV episode world of its title character, a toy stuffed unicorn who comes to full-sized life (Keegan-Michael Key is the voice, Sergey Zhuravsky is the suit performer) whenever anyone says his name.

Buddy lives in a playland that looks pretty much like the playland for live-action children’s programming everywhere. He has four young (under-10) human friends, plus Betty Bunny (voiced by Jimmica Collins, Cedwan Hooks in the suit), and some anthropomorphic talking furniture like the couch and the mailbox, plus other items, like the talking backpack, Strappy (voiced by Patton Oswalt), of little girl Freddy (Delaney Quinn).

The children adore Buddy, and he seems to love them right back. However, when Buddy thinks that little Josh (Luke Speakman) doesn’t want to come to the dance party because he’s afraid he can’t dance and that this is the opportunity for one of those valuable lessons, Josh defies him. Josh isn’t afraid of embarrassment, he just really wants to sit by himself and read (the book: A WRINKLE IN REALITY, in case we needed the prompt).

Buddy isn’t used to kids not being improved by his teachings, and he doesn’t take Josh’s reaction well. Suddenly, we’re in the next episode. The other children are aware that Josh is missing and that Hannah (Madison Skyy Polan) is new, even though she feels like she’s always been here. Then Freddy does some sleuthing, and soon discovers she’s got a problem she’d better not ask Buddy about …

We spend the first half-hour of BUDDY within the world of its episodes, which get more and more ominous, even with all the bright colors and lighting. We also get scrolling end credits for each episode that become progressively menacing without changing format.

Then we’re plonked into the real world, where we meet the happy suburban family of mom Grace (Cristin Milioti), dad Ben (Topher Grace), teen son Timothy (Seamus Flynn) and youngster Derek (Bryson Jonsteele). At least, they’re a happy family until Grace abruptly freaks out and falls into a depressive funk.

BUDDY doesn’t go exactly where we might think it’s going from here. We never go behind the scenes – Buddy and his universe exist on their own terms – though there is a moment where it stops inventing new twists and simply tears ahead. We can’t blame it for this, though it has been so darkly and delightfully weird and unpredictable for so long that we feel a tinge of loss when the surprises cease.

Director Casper Kelly & his cowriter Jamie King have brilliantly absorbed the molecular structure of the type of children’s programming they’re adapting. When they open up BUDDY’s world, every aspect of it looks exactly the way it should, including the gory parts.

The songs, with music by Shawn Coleman and lyrics by Kelly and King, precisely capture the sound and texture of what we’d find on BARNEY.

Buddy himself is likewise pitch-perfect, with Key hitting the bullseye with the unicorn’s goofy, cheery voice. Quinn is an excellent avatar of burgeoning anxiety, and Milioti ably addresses the pivots of her role.

Production designer Anna Kathleen, costume designer Shawna-Nova Foley and puppet designer Devon Hawkes Ludlow all make stellar contributions to BUDDY’s look and feel, evoking a whole genre.

We can commend BUDDY’s makers for not over-explaining what’s happening. At the same time, the film falters a bit in its last act. Even though it concludes, it’s been so wide-ranging that it comes to a stop more than builds to a finale.

Still, BUDDY is a definite kick for those ready to confront their childhood (or later) TV trauma.

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Movie Review: COLONY (GUNCHE)

ABBIE BERNSTEIN — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:00:31 +0000

Rating: R
Stars: Gianna Jun, Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Shin Hyun-been, Kim Shin-rock, Go Soo, Kim Jong-tae
Writers: Yeon Sang-ho & Choi Gyu-seok
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Distributor: Well Go USA Entertainment
Release Date: August 28, 2026

The Korean horror film COLONY (GUNCHE) is technically not a zombie movie, in the way that the 28 DAYS/YEARS movies aren’t – the virus doesn’t actually kill the victims.

However, in most movies of this type, how it all started is either unknown or irrelevant. In COLONY, it’s the plot engine.

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho (of TRAIN TO BUSAN fame) and written by Yeon & Choi Gyu-seok, COLONY is set primarily inside the massive Doongwoori Building in downtown Seoul, Korea. The lower floors house an indoor shopping mall, with all sorts of spaces on the upper levels.

Suh Young-chul (Koo Kyo-hwan) calls 911 to report that he’s about to commit an act of bioterrorism here.

It takes us (or at least this reviewer) a while to figure out why Suh announces his intentions to the authorities rather than just proceeding, but there’s method to his madness.

Suh then injects himself with an unknown substance and says he is the only living antidote.

We then get the onscreen statement: “COLONY: Organisms of the same species that, for a certain time, live in the same place.”

There’s an auditorium (among other things) on the mall’s third floor, where Chains Biotech is holding a conference. Personably CEO Kang Woo-cheol (Kim Jong-tae) gives a lecture about organic semiconductors and the collective intelligence found in ants and in biological slime (who knew?), where various physically unconnected bits can communicate and grow together in the direction of food.

The makers of COLONY are genuinely interested in this, with scientist characters not only piecing together what’s happening, but how they may interfere with the evolutionary process in order to save themselves and others.

Among the attendees at the lecture are prickly scientist Professor Kwon Se-jeong (Gianna Jun) and her caring, mellow ex-husband Professor Han Kyu-seong (Go Soo). They become trapped inside the Doongwoori Building with fellow conference-goers and an assortment of vendors and customers from the mall when the place is locked down until the infection can be identified and contained.

Outside, the police and military coordinate with a scientific team led by Professor Gong Seol-hee (Shin Hyun-been). They are tasked not only with exploring the biohazard mystery but also with a variety of tactical and ethical decisions.

Director Yeon clearly has a blast creating a plethora of zombie tableaus as the hive mind pauses repeatedly, leaving its subjects motionless in similar positions to one another for moments. The coordinated movements threaten to tip over into full-on THRILLER choreography in places, but the horror iconography is captivating.

Kwon is introduced as such a surly, self-absorbed individual that it takes us a moment to accept her transition to group leader, but Jun adeptly handles the different aspects of her role. Koo excels at Suh’s deadpan smugness, to the extent that we actively root for his painful demise.

COLONY has plenty of bravura action sequences to go with those images of the infected freezing in place, then jerk back into motion. With its toggling back and forth between groups, COLONY doesn’t have the raw momentum of TRAIN TO BUSAN, but it’s thought-provoking. Certainly, it makes us look at expanding slime in a whole new way.

In Korean, with English subtitles.

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