My random comments, handwritten, converted to a text file via a scanned pdf file uploaded to ChatGPT Plus:

• Kept my attention.

• A unique take on a familiar underlying story (“Who will survive?”).

• Brutal.

• Bleak.

• Well photographed and edited.

• Excellent performances by all.

• Mark Hamill is sparingly but well-used to represent “evil authority.”

• Amused by the age of the derelict automobiles used throughout; constant reminder this can be viewed as an “alternate history.”

• Many ways to interpret the symbolism:

  • Another take on society’s perpetual conflict between age (the Major) and youth (the walkers).

  • The need for all races to band together against the White Power Structure.

  • The futility of resisting the powers that be (do you really think the Major can’t be easily replaced?).

• Why anyone might have thought the masses would flock to see this is beyond me.

• Signs of the times:

  • Mark Hamill’s daughter is credited as his “assistant” (I just saw a post by him on Bluesky complimenting his daughter on the help she has provided him).

  • One credit in the final credit scroll is “drone pilots.”

  Review copyright © 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

An English-Language Review “created” by ChatGPT Plus from above bullet list via the following prompt:

“Good. Now please covert the bullet points into an English language review like the ones I have written in the past with standard sentence and paragraph structure. Place it immediately below the bullet list you just generated.“

Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk kept my attention from beginning to end. It offers a distinctive variation on the familiar question of who will survive, but it does so in a manner that is unrelentingly brutal and bleak. The film is well photographed and tightly edited, and the performances are excellent throughout.

Mark Hamill is used sparingly but effectively as the embodiment of an evil and seemingly unassailable authority. I was also amused by the age of the derelict automobiles seen throughout the film. Their presence serves as a constant reminder that the story can be viewed as taking place within an alternate history rather than in the world exactly as we know it.

The film’s symbolism can be interpreted in several ways. It can be seen as another version of society’s perpetual conflict between age, represented by the Major, and youth, represented by the walkers. It can also be read as an argument that people of all races must unite against a white power structure. At the same time, the story raises a darker question about the futility of resisting entrenched power. Even if the Major were removed, do we really believe he could not be easily replaced?

Despite its strengths, I find it difficult to understand why anyone might have expected mass audiences to flock to see such a grim and punishing story. It is compelling, but it is hardly comfortable entertainment.

Two details in the credits struck me as signs of the times. Mark Hamill’s daughter is credited as his assistant, which reminded me of a recent Bluesky post in which he complimented her on the help she has provided him. The final credit scroll also includes the now-routine but still noteworthy job title of “drone pilots.”

Review copyright © 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

Some POST APOCALYPTIC media

There’s a pandemic in early 1990s Taiwan. We listen as a radio announcer describes how some areas must face the shut-off of water. The movie focuses on a man and woman who live in a crumbling apartment building. The man lives in the apartment above, the woman below. Almost by accident, a small hole opens in the man’s living room floor. The woman sees this hole after complaining that her walls are being flooded by water flowing from above.

They seldom speak as a relationship of sorts develops between the two over the course of the movie, which takes place in the apartment rooms, hallways, and in the basement where the man runs a small seldom-visited bodega.

The movie is punctuated throughout by the woman breaking into old-fashioned nightclub song and dance numbers, sometimes accompanied by a male or female chorus.

If you have seen the director’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn, you might have some idea of what to expect—a slowly unfolding movie, little dialog, scenes well framed with minimal action. The differences are clear, however. Goodbye, Dragon Inn features many scenes that focus on the vast interior spaces of a decrepit movie theatre. The Hole focuses on the more “intimate” spaces of the apartment building and its interior spaces, all against a backdrop of constantly heard but rarely seen rainfall.

Except, The Hole has the musical numbers. The mousy toilet-paper-collecting woman transforms into a lithe, coquettish, sequin-clad singer as she vamps about the room and hallways, sometimes accompanied by nightclub-style dancers.

“Bizarre” does not begin to describe these sequences, but somehow they make sense in an already surreal situation that only on the surface appears grounded in reality. Why are these two persisting in staying in this crumbling apartment building? How do they survive given the impending cut-off of water? How come the electricity is still on?

Such things don’t matter. I could not help but be amused by the weirdness of it all and the feeble attempts being made by the main characters to deal with unfolding events and how to deal with a hole in the ceiling through which glimpses of the two main characters were available—and through which water, bug spray, vomit, and even a human leg could protrude.

Perhaps the message of this odd but entertaining film is simply this: people can get used to almost anything!

Review copyright 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More SURREAL

Parts of this movie are overwhelming, and that’s not just a comment on the action scenes.

I was fortunate to see it on a large IMAX screen with an excellent sound system. Throughout I was impressed by everything including lighting choices, sound design, and Ludwig Göransson’s music.

For me the most impressive performance was Samantha Morton as Circe, a terrifying sequence laden with anger and sexual politics as Matt Damon’s Odysseus faces rescuing his men whom Circe has turned into pigs. Another standout performance is Bill Irwin as Polyphemus, last seen by me as the robot TARS in Nolan’s Interstellar.

But I must hand it to Matt Damon as Odysseus. He ably communicates Odysseus’ ambivalence about his critical role in the Trojan War as well as his emotional and conflicting feelings about returning home. Damon will have a hard time topping this.

If I did have some disappointment, it was with the final climactic fight where Odysseus battles Penelope’s suitors. It is extraordinarily well choreographed, but the fluidity of the action, coupled with rapid action-oriented editing, generated some difficult to follow murky sequences, despite the high IMAX-supplied image definition.

Given photographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s impeccable credentials (e.g., Interstellar, Ad Astra, Nope), I wonder if some of this “murkiness” was related to the size and weight of Nolan’s new IMAX camera. The film does contain some impressive tracking shots (e.g., the crew scrambling down from Polyphemus’ cave); perhaps the size and weight of the camera restricted its movements relative to the “swooping” close-quarters action shots possible using lighter and more nimble digital cameras.

Review copyright © 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

Some ANTIQUITY themed books

This movie is a mess. Strong casting choices are undermined by a derivative plot, uneven editing, disjointed storytelling, murky photography, and uninspired anti-AI satire.

Maybe that’s the point: as a society our approach to the challenges of this modern world is disjointed and scattershot.

Meanwhile, I found the serious themes seemingly being addressed here were buried by jokey dialog and constant forced silliness.

My recommendation: instead of this film, curl up with a decent SF novel like Philip K. Dick’s “Ubik.”

Review copyright 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More DISAPPOINTING media

Watching Emma Stone in action is always a treat, and Bugonia does not disappoint. She was great in Lanthimos’ Poor Things, but here she plays a completely different character type, a driven and cold-blooded pharmaceutical company executive who is kidnapped by conspiracy nuts who believe she is an extraterrestrial.

The bulk of the movie is devoted to her attempts to escape captivity while matching wits with the wily conspiracy nut played masterfully by Jesse Plemons.

As in Poor Things, Stone is subjected to a wide variety of physical indignities, and the physical sets and environments that surround her are both realistic and bizarre.

I’ve always enjoyed weird films and this one is a perfect example. I love it when artists  enthusiastically embrace weird; in that respect, Bugonia hits the ball out of the park!

Review Copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More CLASS WARFARE

This movie succeeds despite being assembled from a plethora of familiar elements, among them: long term hibernation in space, invading other people's dreams (and dreams within dreams), and frequent references to pop culture and THE DANGERS OF AI which by now is old hat but here creatively explored.

Nevertheless, spectacular production design and special effects, affective and sympathetic performances, and clever (and humorous) incorporation of frequent Chinese cultural references set it apart from ultimately boring Chinese SF spectacles like The Wandering Earth.

The story: an AI-managed starship on its way to a distant planet experiences a problem. A technician awakens from hibernation and realizes he needs to awaken the ship's captain. To do so he must insert himself into her dreams, which all hibernating colonists are experiencing as a way to maintain "neural health" during long term hibernation. Thus begins the movie's alternation between ship-based emergencies and increasingly bizarre dream sequences that reflect how dreams are impacted by personal histories, Chinese cultural imagery, and the increasing realization that both human and AI "characters" are threatening the ship in some way.

Visually the movie is a wonder to behold, especially the dream sequences, which, despite their overall reliance on familiar story elements, are illustrated in unique, surprising, and creative ways.

In summary, there's more than enough creativity (and even whimsy) to entertain a sci-fi fan like myself. Plus, the English subtitles (we watched the Mandarin version) are excellent and provide just enough explanation of what's going on.

This is a fun film even though by now “the dangers of AI” are a commonplace concern permeating society. Recommended.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More “Chinese” Media

Watching Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day on a large theater screen, I could not help but think about Cixin Liu’s “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy, especially volume 2, “The Dark Forest.” What happens when people on Earth finally encounter an alien civilization, one whose technology is vastly superior to our own? Do we welcome them with open arms? Or do we view them as a threat?

Spielberg spins his tale very differently from Liu and from his own Close Encounters of the Third Kind. For example, instead of relating a mystery of people drawn from all over to a place where they can finally meet benevolent aliens, in Disclosure Day the aliens are already here, their existence and their technology hidden by a shadowy quasi-governmental high-tech firm that wants to prevent disclosure of their existence. That firm is opposed by a group of disaffected former employees that support a reveal of the alien presence.

That outline sounds like a pulpy sci-fi movie about a garden-variety struggle between the good guys and the bad guys. In Disclosure DaySpielberg takes the story in a different direction.

The aliens themselves aren’t the primary dramatic force; three people are. One is a Kansas City TV weather reporter played by Emily Blunt. The second is a disaffected employee who, upon witnessing his employer’s duplicity, defects; he is played by Josh O’Connor. The third is the head of the shadowy high-tech organization that wants to keep the aliens and their technology under wraps, played -- creepily -- by Colin Firth.

These three and their own personal relationships and backstories anchor the movie’s wild and weird events. There are chases, a mysterious construction project, spooky proximity to animals, a magical high-tech McGuffin that only a few humans know how to handle, a childhood experience filled with wonder and awe, and a series of single-take-appearing tracking shots that remind you that Spielberg is a master at orchestrating enveloping cinematic experiences.

Still, as fantastical and unlikely as the events are in Disclosure Day, Spielberg keeps us grounded throughout by focusing on the individuals and the stresses they experience as events careen towards a planned Disclosure Day that the forces of evil — led by Colin Firth’s character — are willing to do anything to prevent.

The action sequences in this film that typically take the shape of a hair-raising chase of some sort. But these are not the only high-stress situations. There are several telepathic sequences involving two people communicating using alien technology that are suspenseful and engrossing because of the personalities and issues involved.

Is the movie perfect? No. Some coincidences made me roll my eyes. These are few. Overall, the management of mystery and tension is masterful.

What impressed me most about the film is its mature treatment of serious themes. If we are not alone in the universe, are “they” good or bad? More importantly, how will their existence impact our daily lives?

As cinematic and action oriented as this film is, it does touch on some profoundly human issues that the mature Spielberg knows how to address — themes like religion, memory, loss, death, and the impacts of obsession. The aliens are not the issue, Spielberg is saying, it’s how we deal with what we see in the mirror they hold up to us.

Emotionally, Disclosure Day is closer to a film like Zemeckis’ Contact than to Spielberg’s own Close Encounters. It doesn’t deal with the theme of “what it means to be human” as does A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, nor does it attempt to relate complexities like language and temporal distortion like Villeneuve’s Arrival. All these films incorporate intense human and emotional conflicts without devolving into massive battles and violence that have become all too common in big-studio sci-fi films these days.

I look forward to a longer “director’s cut” of this film that adds more detail not only about the production but also some of the character detail and plot details that might have ended up being cut.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald. The original handwritten version of this review, which was scanned into and transcribed by ChatGPT and then manually edited by the author is here.

Summary of the above text created 6/19/26 by ChatGPT: “Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day begins with a familiar science-fiction question — how humanity would respond to contact with a technologically superior alien civilization — but the review argues that Spielberg’s real interest lies less in the aliens themselves than in the human beings forced to confront what their presence reveals. Unlike Close Encounters of the Third Kind or Cixin Liu’s darker “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” trilogy, the film centers on secrecy, institutional control, and the emotional consequences of disclosure, grounding its fantastical premise in three sharply drawn characters played by Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, and Colin Firth. While the story includes chases, mysterious technology, hidden alien knowledge, and Spielberg’s trademark cinematic orchestration, its strongest moments come from its management of mystery, tension, and character-driven suspense. The review sees the film as imperfect but mature, closer emotionally to Contact and Arrival than to action-heavy modern science fiction, because it uses alien contact not to stage massive battles but to examine how people respond to wonder, fear, mortality, faith, memory, and the unsettling mirror that alien intelligence holds up to humanity.”

More SCIENCE FICTION

This is a real hoot of a movie! The impression I got was that the director decided to “swing for the fence” and the superb cast, headed by Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, were totally on board, no matter how weird, grotesque, or just plain strange the director’s request was.

I have categorized this film as quirky. If you look at the other listed films you’ll see there are probably several sub-categories:

1. High production values.

2. Imaginative.

3. A veneer of class.

4. No commercial pretensions.

The image I have of Maggie Gyllenhaal during writing and production of this movie is that she had a little devil on one shoulder and a little angel on the other. They both whispered suggestions from the above list throughout the course of production.

Fortunately, the devil’s suggestion usually won out, the most lively example being the fancy-dress dance sequence, which — thankfully — goes on much too long but seems to have been a lot of fun to rehearse and perform. (I hope to see more of this in an extended edition.)

But what of the nuance and creative significance of the film? Aren’t the themes of “female empowerment” and “sisterhood” a bit overdone?

Absolutely; that’s part of this film’s charm. The director is making no excuses where her sympathies lie. She is still able to build in humor and satire, which is quite refreshing in these dark days!

Review copyright © 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More WEIRD or QUIRKY

Review from 11/13/2007:

Great film. Truly edgy, exciting, twisted, and violent. Great stunt work.  Fascinating and funny dialog. Tarantino definitely inhabits an alternative universe. What a terrific cast! Zoë Bell is spectacular, so is Kurt Russell. Gotta rent Disc 2 for the extras…

Review from 6/9/2026:

Rewatched last night. Even better than I remembered. Stunt work and driving are phenomenal — so is lighting, colors, and most important of all, giving each actor an opportunity to shine. Lots of “girls talking in bars and cars” which I assume was a Tarantino thing back then.

I’m no expert on cars and car chases but I think the car chase here is as good as if not better than the one from Bullitt. Plus, most of the time Zoë Bell is hanging from the hood of the white 1970 Dodge Challenger as it battles Russell’s evil Stuntman Mike. (It’s funny when he gets nothing but blank stares from the ladies when he reels off his TV stunt driving experience from long-dead TV series.)

Review copyright 2007 and 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

This weird series has one of the best casts I have ever seen in a series. Somehow they make the characters in this bizarre story come alive with reality and humanity, despite the prurient nature of the underlying story: Margo discovers she is pregnant, she drops out of college, her mother and father (long divorced) reinsert themselves in her life, and she finds she can make a living by posting erotic images and videos on the web.

All does not go well: the baby’s father sues for custody; Margo’s father, a former wrestler, relapses to drug abuse; Margo’s mom (a former Hooters waitress) establishes a relationship and wedding with a holly-roller husband.

It all sounds ridiculous, but the story holds together. Margo wants to keep her baby, and she stumble into online sex imagery as a way to pay the rent.

I have to credit Elle Fanning with holding all this together. Her range as an actor is unmistakable: from Super 8 to Predator Badlands and Sentimental Value we see a young actor whose career if carefully managed will extend long beyond middle age. I’ll be interested in seeing her as a director.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

I'm adding FRIEREN along with THE APOTHECARY DIARIES to my list of favorite anime series. Frieren offers sophisticated character development, a constantly evolving and sophisticated story, and superb animation. Especially well done is how history and backstory are interwoven with what is essentially an extended road trip.

Throughout the series the main characters walk from place to place while encountering situations enabling very sophisticated world building involving demons, magic, mortality concerns, and medieval economies and politics.

Central to it all is the character of Frieren herself, an apparently ageless elf who has outlived many human companions as she pursues learning everything she can about magic and magic spells.

Much of the series is slow moving as we watch Frieren and her companions walk from place to place. Their conversations are at times playful, wistful, and even philosophical. She has outlived many companions but flashbacks and reminiscences add many layers to our understanding of her and the societies she has experienced.

When action scenes occur - and there are many - they are fast, furious, and among the best I've seen in anime, even when magic spells and energy blasts are involved. Highly recommended if you're interested in both action and thoughtfulness.

Review (c) 2026 by Dennis McDonald

More ANIME

This wicked little horror-comedy offers a combination of implausibility, terrific production values, very strong performances by the two leads, and twists and turns that will keep you guessing.

The story: a put-upon number cruncher is passed over for a promised promotion by her new CEO. While accompanying him and his team to an important conference in Thailand, their plane crashes into the sea during a horrific storm.

The analyst and the CEO are the only survivors and they wash up on a remote island. There the tables are turned; the analyst uses her real survival skills to keep them both alive. Then we watch as power shifts back and forth.

It could be a "traditional" survival tale in the face of the CEO's overt arrogance but the script, direction, and cast keep things inventive and even surprising. Things get a bit gory at times (I think the wild boar is an ILM creation but the credits unfortunately don't provide details) and we learn both characters' backstory and how that has impacted their personalities. But I did like how the story kept me guessing till the end. Recommended.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

This movie is almost perfect in every way — the script, the direction, the acting, the photography (!), the sound, everything.

The story: an aging director after many years wants to make another film. He returns to his two grown daughters from whom he has been estranged for years. He tries to convince one to be the lead. She refuses. What then unfolds is a story that jumps seamlessly back and forth in time to reveal not only backstory but the underpinnings why the family’s emotions and relationship are what they are today.

Central to it all is an old family house that serves as the basis for numerous scenes that take place over the years. One especially fraught sequence occurs when one daughter seeks out archival evidence of family member torture that occurred during WWII. Another is a snippet of one of the directors; early films starring one of his daughters — it’s mesmerizing in ways that will be repeated throughout the film.

I only recently learned this film received an Academy Award. I usually pay no attention to those awards but must admit in this case SENTIMENTAL VALUE cannot be praised too highly. Strongly recommended.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

Images from SENTIMENTAL VALUE

I watched Deadpool and Wolverine last night and was simultaneously repelled and amused.

Since I watched it all the way through to the end credits I guess the amusement outweighed being repelled.

Overall I find the character of Deadpool to be tiresome and unsympathetic, while my superbly positive memories of James Mangold’s Logan inclined me to be much more sympathetic to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.

That said, the overall arc of the story (or rather, arcs plural) were clever and inventive. It definitely helps to have a grounding in the basics of the MCU and the rest of the main characters as well as multiverse functioning. All of the Fox and Disney quips I found boring and a bit too “inside baseball” to be amusing; sympathizing with one monopolistic mega-corp over another monopolistic mega-corp just isn’t on my playlist today.

Bloodshed and foul language aside, I was entertained by the major action set pieces and their clever execution. I especially appreciated the clever tip of the hat to Stan Lee.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

When the credits started rolling at the end, my friend Charlie turned to me and apologized for recommending this film for our regular weekly movie night.

It's a beautifully produced action film. Acting, stunt work, action sequences, music, editing – all are top-notch. Photography is gorgeous as we follow the characters from all angles via a multitude of swooping shots. When we watch Charlize Theron hanging by her fingernails from an overhanging cliff edge, we see her from all angles and always get a clear shot of the nothingness below.

But the main problem with the movie is the story. We've seen it all: creepy killer stalks independent woman through an increasingly desperate and harrowing sequence of physical chase sequences. Both main characters endure physical challenges that would destroy lesser mortals, but the hunter and the quarry are very evenly matched. The hunter is skilled, smart, and deranged. The quarry is also smart, driven, disciplined, and superhumanly resilient to physical injury.

I just wish all this effort had been devoted to something more memorable, but dwelling too long on that sentiment would be committing the cardinal sin of too many reviewers: reviewing the film that was not made.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More DISAPPOINTING media

We follow Hirayama as he cleans toilets in Tokyo. He gets up in his modest apartment, brushes his teeth, trims his mustache, mists his houseplants, buys a can of coffee from a vending machine near his front door, and drives away to work after selecting a cassette tape to play while on the road.

Methodically he cleans public toilets, one after the other, many located near roads or parks, and always busy. What’s going through his head is never really clear, but his routine and how he approaches it, day after day, paints a picture of a calm, deliberate, and peaceful person, always polite, always careful.

When he emerges from his front door every morning we get a brief glimpse of how he approaches his life: he looks around, smiles, and then he’s on his way. No excitement, no dread, but a sense of comfortable, low-key anticipation.

We do occasionally witness his fleeting relationships with others as he goes about his routine: a nod to a vagrant in a city park; another nod to a young woman eating her lunch; helping a lost child find his mother; saying hello to the server at his regular restaurant; picking up prints off the rolls of black and white film he gets developed at a local hole-in-the-wall shop.

We do get some variation in his daily routine which also manages to reinforce his own relationships with events and other people. A troubled co-worker needs money and his young runaway niece shows up on his doorstep seeking shelter.

We see his dreams at night after he reads for a bit; they are black and white and involve overlapping images of trees and clouds.

Words that come to mind about this film: contemplative; deliberate; no sharp edges; interesting; reassuring; and mysterious.

I mention “mysterious” only because it’s hard to watch this film without wondering about Hirayama’s backstory. Why has he selected this lifestyle? What, if anything, did he do before? His brief encounter with his sister, who comes to retrieve his runaway niece, raises more questions than it answers.

But do such mysteries reduce one’s enjoyment of the film? I don’t think so. What we experience here is a beautifully crafted and photographed record of one human who seems to be at peace with the world. His routines are practiced and meaningful to him. That he cleans toilets for a living is almost beside the point. I get the impression that he could be performing just about any mundane and repetitive task, and come to love it.

My only other real familiarity with director Wim Wenders’ work is his dreamlike Wings of Desire about an angel who, while walking among humans and providing comfort, develops a desire to become human. The story is quite different but shares some similarities, including the treatment of mundane events with respect and brief glimpses of the varied personalities one encounters throughout one’s day.

In Perfect Days we see how one human has adjusted to life, not with complacency but with respect and regard for ordinary life events. Perhaps the filmmaker’s point is to illustrate what can occur when one focuses on the now and not on the before or after.

Review copyright 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More “mature” films

Three thoughts came to mind as I watched this film in the theater: 

1. The soundtrack music at times is very intrusive.  

2. Some scenes went on much too long and will benefit from tighter editing. 

3. Were a global level disaster like this to emerge, would the US given its current deteriorating conditions be able to exert leadership such as is suggested here? 

Otherwise I really enjoyed the film. I was especially impressed with how it rendered visually the many amazing situations and scenes in the original book. I also like how the movie illustrates the main character’s gradual memory return vie flashbacks.  (And yes I was able to overlook the unbalanced centrifuge.)

I just hope that the directors’ cut is actually shorter and has a way to reduce the overbearing and unnecessary choral music underlying the film’s frequent tense and exciting situations. The blasting music frequently detracts from what we are seeing on the big screen.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Denis D. McDonald 

More SPACE TRAVEL

Brendan Fraser plays an American actor who has lived in Japan for 7 years, during which time his acting career fails to materialize. He takes a job at an agency that “rents” family members for special events such as weddings and funerals.

It sounds hokey, but we see these events from the inside and experience the American actor’s confusion and anxiety as he adjusts to playing such “family-intimate” roles.

Gradually, he adjusts to his work, and much of the film is devoted to two specific jobs. One is to be the “father” to a young girl trying to get into a prestigious school; the single mom believes that having a “dad” at the interview will increase her chances. The other job is to play the role of a journalist interviewing an elderly retired actor about his career.

In both cases, of course, we watch as the American—against his employer’s instructions—becomes emotionally attached to his subjects. Naturally, this causes conflict that serves to propel the story and the viewer’s engagement.

I’ve heard that such firms do exist in Japan, and this can be the subject of commentary about the deterioration of Japanese culture. Thankfully, that is not the topic of this film. Instead, we focus on what this all means for an American who plays these parts, and how he reacts to it all.

Brendan Fraser plays his role straight. He skillfully balances competing demands in a way that might have proved more difficult for a younger or less skilled actor. He’s the “fish out of water” American still adjusting to the cultural complexities of life in Japan. He’s also our emotional surrogate, as he applies (or so he thinks) his character’s acting skills to these day-to-day, real-life situations that require emotional engagement while at the same time maintaining emotional distance.

Life doesn’t always work that way. The film does a good and economical job—thanks to the director’s approach and Fraser’s acting—of showing some emotional reality through an engaging drama.

Recommended.

Review copyright © 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More we both enjoyed

This terrific action film is a B movie with A level acting and production values. Kristen Stewart carries the film with her no-nonsense, keep-moving-forward behavior, while also displaying recurring fear and uncertainty. But everyone contributes even as we know that we’re watching an underwater variation of a “Ten Little Indians”-style death count.

After a while in such films it almost doesn’t matter who will be next. You just know that surviving in such a deadly environment—3000 feet under the sea—is unlikely. What helps everything along is its constant, fast, and urgent pacing, as well as top notch set designs and special effects. Things tend to get a bit dark at times so I recommend watching this film with screen brightness turned up.

You could swear that much of the exterior scenes have actually been filmed under deep water given the constant swirling sand and debris as the dwindling group trudges along the ocean bottom. Set and equipment design also deserve praise; those suits by themselves look great and move realistically.

Still, I can’t imagine this film was a fun shoot for the cast and crew and I am very interested in learning more about actual production details, given what we now know about what a nightmare filming The Abyss was.

Review copyright (c) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald

More SCARY

I value curiosity. It is one of the things that drives human desires for learning, exploration, and research. In Ghost Elephants we follow one researcher’s obsession, a desire to locate a tribe of giant elephants related to “Henry,” who currently sits in the main lobby of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

The researcher hopes to locate the “lost” elephants and bring back some DNA samples to compare them with Henry’s. What follows is a road trip in Africa to locate these “ghost elephants.” Along the way we get to observe tributes to Werner Herzog’s photography and direction, culminating in an almost classic “safari” staffed by experienced and knowledgeable locals through land inhabited by these elusive elephants. They must pass through land ruled over by a local “king” who proclaims his people are descended from a woman transformed from an elephant.

Is the project a success? Do they find the elephants? What drives people to pursue such research goals in the light of everything else going on in the world?

The answers to those questions are almost secondary to our experiencing the steps people go through in pursuit of a research goal. Perhaps the message is that research often raises more questions than it answers. That’s a pretty trite conclusion, I admit, but it’s true whether we are going to the moon or looking for a genetic ancestor.

What research itself can’t answer for us is the question of whether the research is worth doing.

Watching Herzog’s film about this pursuit, I couldn’t help but wonder how important it is to land humans on the moon again given all the profound questions we still have here on Earth—like the ones this film raises about whether certain species survive or not.

Review copyright (C) 2026 by Dennis D. McDonald