Wins and losses. Knockouts and submissions. These sensational headline-grabbers are essential to MMA, but they only make up one part of the bigger, brutal picture. The pieces that are arguably more important — the countless bloody knuckles, cuts, gashes, and bruises it took to reach that point — often get lost in all the pre- and post-fight commotion. Luckily, these unforgiving journeys full of sweat, sacrifice, and punishment are the stories EA Sports UFC 6 aims to deliver, and, man, does it do that well. With an impressive roster of legendary fighters and a handful of curated stories that captured my complete attention the minute I dove into them, I’ve found myself enjoying and appreciating the violent art of MMA more the longer I played, even if EA Vancouver’s latest creation has strayed further than ever from the sport’s reality.

No, I don’t mean how the fighters’ joints will occasionally bend in awkward ways during a fight (although that still cracks me up whenever I catch it). I’m talking about Flow State, the newest and most significant feature added since the series moved to the Frostbite engine in UFC 5. For the uninitiated, Flow State is a boost that, once activated, practically turns you into Bradley Cooper in Limitless. You know, that movie where he takes a pill to unlock 100% of his brain, making things easier and more predictable? It’s pretty much like that.

In UFC 6, though, it’s harder to trigger since you can’t simply choke down a sketchy tablet mid-match. Instead, filling your fighter’s meter depends on the perks they have equipped and the boost conditions each one has. For example, a grappler like Islam Makhachev will enter Flow State much faster by chaining together offensive submission moves than by unleashing a flurry of well-timed hooks and roundhouse kicks.

Look, I get that “flow” is a very real thing because I’ve repeatedly watched Anderson Silva dodging a hailstorm of punches like he’s Neo from The Matrix (Chris Weidman is Agent Smith in this scenario). But his instinct was born out of endless reps in the gym, and probably a bunch of behind-the-scenes knockouts, too. The flow in UFC 6 is the opposite; it’s manufactured and gimmicky. Out of place like a Street Fighter move dropped in the middle of the octagon’s bloody canvas. After getting so used to the straight-up, no frills fighting that all the previous games in the series were known for, it’s hard to take a feature like Flow State into account. I’m not even kidding, I always forget to activate it when my meter’s maxed out because it’s the last thing on my mind. I’d much rather focus on my hit-and-run fighting style, not losing my advantage on the ground game, and avoiding getting my face beaten to a bloody pulp, thank you.

It’s also a double-edged sword in online fights, whether that’s in full-rules Ranked, Stand & Bang, or Online Career. Even though you can use Flow State to push the advantage or turn the tide of battle in your favor, your opponent can just as easily do the same. As of launch, most PvP brawls have pretty much turned into a race where the person who fills their meter fastest wins. Or, at the very least, gains a big lead in the scorecard with it. Either way, Flow State is an obnoxious feature to keep track of when there are already so many things to juggle within the octagon.

Still, even something as unrealistic as Flow State can’t knock down UFC 6’s hard-hitting combat, which is otherwise as savage as ever. I’ll be honest; the revamped controls and button combinations had me reeling at first, as if I was on the receiving end of a Jon Jones elbow. But once I got used to it, my vision cleared and the wild haymakers I was throwing turned into a coherent string of jabs, uppercuts, and leg-buckling hits.

My return to familiarity only became more satisfying because each punch and kick that I dealt felt like it landed with even greater force than in UFC 5. The result of those blows — the dripping eyebrow gashes, flying sweat, and spittle — that decorates the canvas once both fighters collide and start exchanging vicious strikes also looks as vivid as ever. Even more than these moments of brutality, UFC 6 has greater physical realism, with the unexpected body contortions — those weird, jerky animations that come up when a limb flies towards an opponent — happening less during fights, which is great when that’s an issue I saw all too often in its predecessor.

Remember the Titans

Now, the Flow system does have its moments, especially in my favorite mode, Hall of Legends, which features three UFC greats in Max Holloway, Alex Pereira, and Zhang Weili. It’s where I’ve spent most of my time because everything in it, from the videos of each champion’s humble beginnings to the thrilling reenactments of their most iconic fights, is all so easy to get lost in. And it was one of these bouts — Holloway’s BMF title win against Justin Gaethje in 2024, to be exact — that helped Flow State shine, if only for a little bit. Of course, the most iconic part of that fight is the last 20 seconds, and I was able to recreate it with the help of Max’s Flow Boost, which has him actually point down at the canvas when it’s activated. You would not believe the noise I made when I saw and did that for the first time — like a caveman discovering fire. And no, my primitive side didn’t stop there; I made more of the same grunting sounds after playing through Weili’s and Pereira’s own curated experiences.

You would think that, having seen some of these scenes live, rewatching their digital reruns years later wouldn’t be as exciting. But they still are, at least for me, and I think they’ll only continue to retain that same electricity into the future, which is a big part of what makes UFC 6 particularly special. These interactive memories are all so expertly told and uniquely individual in the way they unfolded that experiencing them again and again (yes, I went through them multiple times) didn’t feel like a chore at all. And I hope that whenever the seventh installment does come out, EA Vancouver doesn’t just dispose of this mode and instead gives Hall of Legends the same care and attention it did here.

Still, you’re probably wondering why this would be anyone’s idea of a favorite mode when there are a few other exciting ones to choose from. Well, reader, it’s because I’m a sucker for a good story, and it doesn’t get much better than immersing myself in the lore behind three legendary champions. Although the dedicated UFC Career story, called The Legacy, is a close second. That’s right, there are now two separate Career modes you can pick from: the former, which drops you straight into Dana White’s octagon, or the latter, where you star as Chris Carter, a relative no-name who starts from the bottom. Do I even have to tell you which one I was drawn to first?

Yes, as soon as I saw The Legacy, I pressed select faster than you could say “Chama”. Don’t worry; I won’t be spoiling much of the plot here because I would like everyone to experience it knowing as little as possible. But I will say I love how it immediately got me invested in the journey with a rivalry, a career derailment, and the promise of revenge. Sure, it may sound like the overused plot of a Rocky movie, but that stuff works; just ask Sylvester Stallone. There are so many more pre-fight events that demand your attention this time, too, which makes this mode both more entertaining and less repetitive than UFC 5’s.

If going through a rags-to-riches story isn’t your jam, you can always jump headfirst into the big leagues with the newly rebranded UFC Career mode (EA Vancouver added UFC at the beginning, if you didn’t notice). Although I wasn’t as invested without the standalone story to back it up, it’s still plenty of fun – not only due to the improvements I mentioned before, but also because Ken Shamrock and Randy Couture are finally included in the roster. At least now I don’t have to create them both from scratch just to start a modern career with them, even though it is hilarious to see a 62-year-old be called a newcomer by the commentators.

Overall, developer EA Vancouver’s decision to create a separate prologue tale from the UFC Career mode is ultimately what distinguishes UFC 6 most from its predecessor. Not only does it give you more options and a better onboarding experience, but it also doubles down on the overall pitch for this version: that every fighter has a story, a central concept I have seen consistently and resonated with the more I’ve played UFC 6.

The Gym-fluencer

Still, even decent stories have their shortcomings with parts that drag and feel unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. And this tale of MMA, which so far has had more highs than lows, has one such blemish called The Gym.

When I first heard about it, I thought it would be like MyTeam in NBA 2K or Ultimate Team in Madden. Unfortunately, it’s neither of those. Instead, it’s where you can recruit (collect?) a bunch of different fighters so you can train them…to earn cosmetics. Remember that thing I said earlier about straying further than ever from reality?

That’s right, training in this mode is purely for the sake of looking good — not in the “lift weights to get buff” way, but in the style of a vain influencer who does it just to get free stuff. Instead of Lululemon apparel, though, UFC 6’s The Gym grants fighter-specific rewards, like coins, backgrounds, multicolored fight kits, and belts. So, let’s say you train Max Holloway up to level 14, which seems to be the current cap for all fighters; at that point, you’ll have earned five different shorts, 500 coins, a background, a profile pic, and the biggest prize of all, a UFC Champion belt. See that, people? Hard work does pay off!

Again, it’s all just so unnecessary when the only point of training the fighters you collect in The Gym is to earn accessories that you probably won’t even notice once you’re in the octagon. I know I don’t, because I’m much too mesmerized by the bleeding cuts and blood spatters that practically turn the canvas into a brutalist Pollock painting. Sure, there’s beauty in the hundreds of punishing hours that fighters put in to eventually reach peak form and conditioning. But not when it’s minimized and turned into a sideshow for knick-knacks like this.

I love pixel art. I find that, even decades later, the best-looking games of the ‘90s – Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past – can still be breathtaking in a way older 3D games usually aren’t. That’s why I take notice whenever Square Enix uses its signature HD-2D art style, and why it’s so exciting to see that aesthetic expand past its turn-based roots with The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales, the first action-adventure game to get this modern-retro treatment. Even though its titular hero may be wearing red instead of green, it essentially asks the question, “What if Square made A Link to the Past?” The answer is an adventure I never knew I wanted – one with a compelling story, impressive build customization, and a world I hope we see more of.

Elliot is an adventurer – a fact he makes sure everyone is aware of – who helps anyone that may be in trouble or has a problem to solve. After a summons by the king, your seemingly routine quest turns into a mission to save both the princess and the kingdom itself, traveling through time to do so. Elliot is is easy to root for, charismatic without ever crossing over into cheesy. Traveling alongside our hero-in-red is Faie, a small and slightly amnesiatic fairy who helps Elliot navigate and faces down foes with her magical abilities. She is a bit chatty (how chatty can be adjusted but never turned off completely) and occasionally falls into the “partner who gives you the puzzle answer too soon” trope, which is unfortunate, but is still a pleasant companion to have. Over the span of the 20-ish hours I spent with Elliot, Faie, and the rest of the supporting cast, I grew to love this world and was invested in the lives of these characters – even if the most emotionally impactful moments don’t arrive until quite late, sometimes not until the post-game portions.

One of the core components of The Adventures of Elliot is its time travel, which can be a tough thing to get right in a game, and it never quite lives up to its promise here. You’ll jump from age to age, and while that’s reflected in some ways as certain locations or routes change depending on the time period, these differences are rather underwhelming. It’s neat to find the ruins of a once great building from the Age of Magic during the Age of Reconstruction, but venture a short distance outside the city walls, and you will see the same trees and shrubs regardless of when you find yourself. Stranger still is the lack of any sort of evolution or development in the settlements of the beastmen tribes you frequently visit. You’re telling me that the wolfish Ulfur, even in a thousand years, never figured out how to set up a few more tents?

On the topic of those pesky beastmen, the enemies of the various ages don’t change, either. Whether I was exploring dark caves in the present day or the ancient sands of the Age of Budding, I was swinging my sword at the same slugs, rat people, and weird flying things. You can at least skirt around them pretty easily if you just want to get somewhere in a hurry (with the exception of the occasional room that requires you to clear out all the enemies before moving on), but the lack of variety does mean that after the first few hours, you will have seen a majority of the foes you will face on your adventures. The best Elliot offers in terms of age-exclusive enemies is a palette swap for the robotic automata units, with their once-shining chassis becoming caked with an aged patina in the years that follow their invention during the Age of Magic.

But while the time travel might not alter them much, the world itself and the designs of the characters and enemies within it still make this another beautiful example of Square Enix’s HD-2D aesthetic in action. There were occasional encounters where a monster would be hidden behind a wall or other piece of scenery, but that was only a minor inconvenience and was brushed aside whenever I stumbled across the next stunning landmark. The drooping indigo leaves of Grandree, the crown of the Mount Phoenix volcano, and the glistening structures of the grand city of Weyzn are just a few such places. Not to mention the creative boss sprites, such as the laser-shooting lava lizard Salathmadra, or my personal favorite, a frog don that rides a turtle around. All of this and more shines on Nintendo Switch 2 where I did my full playthrough, nearly as well it did during my tests on the PC build, with only slight slowdown and longer load times being the main noticeable differences with the former.

Crystal Combat

Much of what The Adventures of Elliot does feels very familiar, but equipable Magicite buffs and the “crafting” system you can use to make more of them is one of the most interesting twists it introduces. You would be forgiven if you assumed Elliot to be an RPG upon hearing it was developed by Square Enix and Team Asano, but it actually has very little in common with the genre those teams are best known for. Instead of gaining levels to become stronger, your growth is tied more to Magicite that you slot into your weapons, granting different modifiers and enhancements.

These crystals can be found in chests or crafted at a special shop using shards that are dropped by enemies. Coming in progressively rarer and stronger tiers, each of the seven possible weapons has a whopping 15 unique Magicite options that can be swapped in or out at any time, even during combat. Perhaps enemies are moving around a bit too much, so you want a stun effect that will let you land hits more easily – just hop into the pause menu, equip the Magicite that does that, and get right back into the fight. That flexibility is empowering.

There are also some awesome combinations of crystals that turn Elliot from an adventurer into a weapon of mass destruction. For example, the bow’s Fire Shot Magicite will give its arrows a chance to light a target on fire, while the Explosion Magicite causes, well… an explosion when you hit a burning target. It’s exciting to experiment and find a powerful combo like this, which can melt a boss’ health bar in no time flat. Between being able to have two weapons equipped at a time (each assigned to a specific button) and the ability to swap their Magicite quickly, as well as a variety of helpful magical spells from Faie, I always felt ready for whatever encounter awaited me next.

Team Asano really knocked it out of the park when it comes to just how seamless and easy all this swapping can be, too. A convenient radial menu can be popped up at any time to swap weapons, and similar screens are used for your potion vials and Faie’s magic as well. All three are accessible from the others with a simple button press, and opening these menus freezes the action around you. During tricky fights where I needed to plan and prepare, or just stop and analyze the situation, it all worked splendidly. At the same time, though, hot-swapping weapons and guzzling potions basically became muscle memory by the end of the campaign, so I never felt like those menus slowed things down or took me out of the action unless I specifically wanted them to.

Combat itself is a nostalgic trip to simpler days when all that was involved was looking at an enemy and pressing a button to swing. It feels good to just walk up and spam my sword attacks to take out enemies, but there are still ways to quote “get good” for those who want to really excel. Elliot can parry with his shield, leaving a foe dazed and open for critical hits; you can cause some enemies to explode and, in the process, damage their allies; or you can just hurl some pots at their heads for old times' sake.

If you do find yourself having trouble on a boss or another annoying mob, The Adventures of Elliot is rather gracious with its revives, allowing you to pay to have Faie heal you back to full. The price doubles each time, but resets when you visit certain checkpoints (unless you are playing on the Very Hard difficulty). The best part is that this is completely optional, instead giving you the option to simply respawn at the last save point. This revive proved to be a welcome option against some of the bosses where I needed just a bit more life to come out victorious. As long as you have the money, you can just brute-force your way through anything, but it never feels like you need to do that.

However, Elliot rewards you for playing well and avoiding damage, too. Every enemy you strike down will add to a chain count, and enemies drop more goodies when they’re defeated if you reach a high enough number, making this a great way to grind for resources – but the moment you take the slightest bit of damage, the combo breaks, and you have to start all over. I had high combos break more times than I care to admit due to becoming overconfident and overlooking the dangers around me.

For those battle masters that want to really test their mettle, Elliot offers a special Temple of Trials. This pits you against not only previous bosses but also increasingly difficult mobs of enemies. The rewards are worth it, and it's a great place to test out those weapon combo ideas, but they are not for the faint of heart!

Watch Out for Pit Falls

Outside of combat, Elliot has a surprising amount of platforming. Leaping across gaps, diving underwater, and figuring out how to get up to some nearby plateau all play a far bigger role in this adventure than I had anticipated. Dungeons tend to feature at least a few sections that will test your dexterity, requiring you to maneuver around pits or over lava. Thanks to how tight Elliot’s controls are, I generally had a good time with these sections. There are some handy accessories that can help you out too, such as one that lets you briefly hover or another that prevents you from taking damage if you drop into those pesky holes. Since many areas of the map can be explored in whatever order you want, you may even encounter places with abilities like Faie’s Warp spell that let you bypass parts altogether.

The varying terrain height also allows for some fun experimentation during combat. When enemies were nearby, ledges stopped being simple hills and instead became high grounds, ripe for the taking. My go-to strategy usually involved chucking bombs down on the enemies below or sending Faie out to beat on them for a bit. Though setting them on fire or exploding nearby bomb slugs with her magic also proved devilishly effective.

Traveling through time is just as convenient as traveling across the map itself. Special guideposts are placed around the world that, once activated manually the first time, can be fast-traveled to from your map screen at any point. It doesn’t matter what age you or your desired location are in, you can get there in a flash. The maps are also covered with various markers pointing towards treasure chests, shrines to upgrade both Faie and Elliot, collectible cats, and lots more. That’s quite helpful for secret hunting, but it’s actually so much information that I wish I could filter the icons or even turn them off completely for the times I simply want to discover things on my own.

The maps inside dungeons have all of the same helpful features, with icons pointing out all the chests or cats and guideposts positioned at both the front entrance and right before the boss. You won’t be able to teleport into a dungeon from the world map, or to the outside from within one, but most of the beefier dungeons have a convenient guidepost nearby. It was always just a short detour to heal up or restock at a village if I found my resources lacking before a boss fight, which I appreciated a lot.

Link? No, I’m Elliot

Okay, it’s time to address the moblin in the room: The Adventures of Elliot shares a lot of DNA with A Link to the Past, and the Zelda series in general. It would frankly take longer to list out all the things it has in common with that SNES classic than those it doesn’t. Calling this “The Legend of Elliot: A Link to the Pasts” really wouldn’t be too off base. A lone swordsman on a top-down quest to save a blonde-haired princess, wielding the likes of bows, bombs, boomerangs, and even a dash you can use to bonk into things. You have your fire dungeon, water dungeon, and forest dungeon all checked off the list, and you get a neat glowing magic sword, too. Being so reminiscent of one of the greatest video games of all time is hardly a bad thing, and finding all the little nods and callbacks almost became a game of its own for a big Zelda fan like myself. Elliot even manages to pull off a convincing “hyah!” when he swings his sword that would make Link proud.

I am all for more Zelda-style games like this, and Elliot does a great job of recreating that formula while also introducing a few twists that help it stand out. But when you follow the overall blueprint so closely like this, it unavoidably puts you into direct comparison with what came before, and Elliot’s quality doesn’t quite reach the same lofty heights as its inspirations. The dungeons tend to lean on the simpler, more straightforward side, and I never found the “puzzles” to be much of a brain buster. (Though, also in typical Zelda fashion, Elliot’s equivalent to the Water Temple did feature water level shenanigans that made me grumble a bit.) I can only recall a handful of times where trying to figure out how to reach a specific area on the map left me scratching my head, and people who grew up with or frequently played 2D Zeldas may not find much of a challenge here in general, but I can see how The Adventures of Elliot could be an on-ramp to the genre.

Of course, Elliot differentiates itself significantly by having multiple endings to uncover, the best of which require a deeper dive into the various ages. There is a good amount of stuff to do and discover here; playing through on Hard, which felt similar to a standard 2D Zelda level of difficulty for me, it took just under 14 hours to get my first ending, and I found the rest of the endings within another 10. That was the perfect size I wanted from a game like this, and some of those endings were so good they may have had me holding back tears.

Spoilers follow for Widow’s Bay Season 1, which is now available to stream on Apple TV.

Now that the first season of Widow’s Bay has ended, let’s dive deeper into the passionate conversation that’s been growing exponentially with each new episode. Is it really the best new TV show of the summer? On the whole, I think the answer is a resounding yes. The Apple TV series, created by Katie Dippold, has pulled off a minor miracle in effectively balancing its blend of horror and comedy and its deep bench of inspirations — Stephen King’s multitude of spooky New England hauntings and happenings, Twin Peaks, John Carpenter, Jaws, the list goes on — without getting pulled too far in any one direction. There’s simply nothing like it on TV right now.

Widow’s Bay is about a tiny, insular island off the coast of New England that’s basically stuck in a past era. It’s accessible only via unreliable ferry, cell service is practically nonexistent, and the economy has long been sustained by fishing and whaling. The only person desperate to revitalize the place is Mayor Tom Loftis (an outstanding Matthew Rhys), and everyone hates him and his plan to turn Widow’s Bay into the “next Martha’s Vineyard” tourist destination — primarily because the born-and-raised islanders believe their home has been super-haunted since its founding.

Part of what makes the paranoia funny is how its characters weather their superstitions. There’s the middle-of-the-road hushed terror of the townie priest (Toby Huss), but also the extremes in the ranting and raving sea dog Wyck Crawford (an always great Stephen Root) and the matter-of-fact acceptance of chainsmoking mayoral office worker Rosemary (Dale Dickey, who gets her moment to shine in tracing the generational lineage of the island’s curse in Episode 9, “Emergency Shelter”). What ties them all together, though, is their certainty of the unavoidable force that grips the island, and Tom is a dangerous idiot for trying to pretend otherwise.

That gets to the heart of what Widow’s Bay is really about. For the show being chapterized like a monster-of-the-week takedown in its horror specialty of choice — IT, Carrie/Wicker Man, Michael Myers, etc. — its overarching question lies in how a population makes peace with the very land it resides on. How do they deal with the burden of the sordid legacy of a place laden with hundreds of years of history that includes human sacrifice, cannibalism, and other strife? For Tom, specifically: How does someone be a good custodian of a place they don’t — or even really want to — understand?

Early in the season, Tom, who was born off-island and became mayor by default (he ran uncontested), brushes off as lunatic whispers the claims that the island has “awakened.” By Episode 2, “The Lodgings,” he starts to buy into the ghost stories after spending a night at the Breakwater, the charming yet creepy local inn. He finally accepts the malevolence at the heart of Widow’s Bay in Episode 5, “What to Expect on Your Trip” — which closes out with a hilarious 311 needle drop — when he takes diabolical-looking mushrooms that are meant to connect him to the island’s source. The practical, process-oriented Tom then must decide: Is it time to attempt to tame or bargain with the supernatural? From what we learn about the island’s history in Episodes 6 and 7, what Tom at first considers to be an optional negotiation turns out to be mandatory for the town's leaders.

As thematically interesting as it is, Widow’s Bay would not be as successful without all of the involved talent, both in front of and behind the camera. There’s not a stinker in the cast, down to the townie randos who make entire meals out of scraps of dialogue — like the dour white-hair who shows up late in the season to yarn about island history during the impending generational storm, or even the janitor who asks if a trash can had enough to eat. Then there’s the regulars: Kingston Rumi Southwick (Presumed Innocent) as Tom’s socially pliable teenage son, Evan; Kevin Carroll (The Leftovers) as local “I can’t believe this shit” cop Bechir; the hilarious Jeff Hiller (Somebody Somewhere) as mayor’s office employee Dale; K Callan (Knives Out) as Tom’s elderly secretary Ruth who takes off around 3pm; Christian Clemenson as the oddball town doctor; and so on. Dippold, who was a writer on Parks and Recreation, knows how to flesh out a backwoods town. Hell, she even sneaks in a very Parks and Rec-ian town hall with locals braying contradictory pleas at Tom while he’s tripping balls. Even the guest stars — Tim Balz (The Righteous Gemstones), Chris Fleming, Betty Gilpin (GLOW), Hamish Linklater (Midnight Mass) — are here, albeit briefly, giving inspired performances.

But the cast is held down by its big three characters. It’s hardly a surprise that Rhys (The Americans, The Beast in Me) is fantastic as Tom — a man who is a pathetic try-hard to most around him, but is ultimately caught up in his own grief. Root, similarly, stands out as Wyck, who refuses to let Tom allow the island to fall to calamity. Last but certainly not least is Kate O’Flynn’s Patricia, the breakout fan favorite of Widow’s Bay. If there’s one ding I can make at the series, it’s that its first three episodes don’t fully lock in until the Patricia-forward episode, “Beach Reads,” which is probably one of the best episodes of TV for the year, full stop. (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ Episode 5 gets some worthy competition!) O’Flynn makes incredible choices with Patricia’s dichotomous unflagging self-assurance and deep insecurities throughout the season, but it’s that episode in particular, wherein she accidentally does witchcraft on the town — and again in the slasher episode “Your Baggage” — that she gets to shine most.

The DNA from the episodes’ directors also seeps through to make the tone of Widow’s Bay so successful. Hiro Murai, who directed most of Atlanta as well as several episodes of Barry, helmed five episodes. Andrew DeYoung — a Tim Robinson collaborator who directed the 2024 film Friendship and five episodes of The Chair Company, as well as other revered comedy series like Pen15 and The Other Two — and Sam Donovan (Severance, The Crown) get two episodes apiece. And X/Pearl/MaXXXine auteur Ti West took the one-off flashback episode. Nothing to scoff at!

By the season finale, it’s certain the island is governed by an ancient and unseen eldritch, blood-thirsty entity. The question of how Tom and the other islanders will deal with it remains. I cannot wait to see what they’ll do in Season 2.

Leviticus will be released in theaters on June 19.

A year of strong films from debut horror directors continues with Leviticus, the feature debut from Australian writer/director Adrian Chiarella.

Joe Bird stars as Naim, a teenager living in a small, very religious town. Naim’s newfound secret romantic relationship with his classmate Ryan (Stacy Clausen) and subsequent discovery of Ryan’s dalliances with another boy, Hunter (Jeremy Blewitt), have terrible consequences when, fueled by jealousy, Naim outs Ryan and Hunter. When a so-called “Deliverance Healer” (Nicholas Hope) is called in by the community, his methods of stopping the boys from acting upon their urges involve very dangerous and potentially deadly methods.

Amongst horror’s many subgenres, this is essentially a classic curse movie in which the curse causes those afflicted to see something that looks and sounds exactly like the person they most desire, only for that entity to attack and try to kill them when they let their guard down. And it’s a very well made curse movie, with Chiarella doing an excellent job both of setting the scene and building tension throughout the story, as these boys realize just how much danger they’re in and how little they can trust their own eyes.

Obviously, this is a movie about homophobia — a story about how painting a young person’s love and desire as inherently wrong and something to be suppressed at all costs can have terrible consequences. The extra messed-up thing here is that these teenagers — including a girl we meet in the film’s classic-style opening kill sequence — are seeing the face of the person they love as their potential killer. But that’s because the people around them have decided that just loving or lusting after this person is something that is so despicable, death is an acceptable way to “solve” the problem if they can’t just somehow turn off their feelings.

Chiarella commendably shapes his film’s actual storytelling as very straightforward and often understated, correctly trusting that the metaphors and analogies he’s using will work just fine on their own. There’s no out-of-place speechifying here; Naim and Ryan aren’t suddenly stopping to deliver out-of-character pointed monologues about what it feels like to grow up gay in this judgmental environment. They speak like normal kids, where any talk of wanting to get out of this town already has plenty of context for why it would be especially important for them.

The film rests on the shoulders of its young leads, who are very much up to the challenge. Bird — who made an impression in 2022’s Talk to Me, another recent attention-getting Australian horror movie — is excellent as Naim. It’s an often quiet and contemplative role where he’s able to show us a lot about the character through his expressions and demeanor, selling us on Naim’s frequent discomfort and the more easygoing, happy side that begins to manifest when he’s with Ryan. This in turn gives way to his fear and terror, both at what begins to happen and his own responsibility for setting these events in motion, all of which Bird expertly conveys.

Clausen is also great as Ryan. His character is not as fully fleshed out as Naim, since we don’t have as clear a picture of his home life or as much perspective on the before and after of what he goes through; unlike the more reserved Naim, it seems he’s a popular kid, but his dynamic with his friend group isn’t really represented. But Clausen is able to imbue Ryan with a lot of sweetness and empathy beneath his outward bravado, along with showing the big changes in his attitude once that Deliverance Healer pays him a visit.

Also doing strong work is Mia Wasikowska, who’s been mostly sticking to small, independent movies since her days starring in big budget films like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland or Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak. As Naim’s mother, she plays things impressively ambiguous, depicting a woman who watches her son from afar with expressions that could read as loving, menacingly judgmental, or perhaps a conflicted mixture of both depending on the moment.

Chiarella makes sure his queer horror movie never forgets it's a horror movie. Leviticus is genuinely creepy and filled with tension, especially after Naim himself falls under the same curse as the others. The idea of never knowing if the person you most long to see is actually this evil thing out to kill you gets plenty of mileage here, as both Naim and the audience share the same doubts and fear every time “Ryan” shows up to see Naim. One scene in particular does a great job of using that uncertainty to flip around an expected outcome in a very clever way. Chiarella also knows how to deliver a heart-pounding jump scare when he needs to, never overplaying that approach but making sure there’s a couple times that are definitely scream-worthy.

The film also benefits from Jed Kurzel’s evocative score, which blends together feelings of both eeriness and melancholy. Kurzel’s music is just right for the story being told and its conclusion, which offers no easy solution to this scenario yet doesn’t fall into utter hopelessness in a manner that feels appropriate for the subject matter.

Toy Story 5 is in theaters on June 19.

Woody, Buzz and the gang are back in theaters for Toy Story 5, a fourth sequel to Pixar’s flagship franchise that proves no matter how well you wrap up a story, there’s always room for more. This time, the now-very-antique toys are faced with their most dangerous challenge yet… screen time.

But how necessary was this sequel? And how can the brain trust at Pixar successfully pull these toys out of the attic again? To find out, I took both my film critic hat and my kids (7 and 11) to a press screening of Toy Story 5.

Right off the bat I can say that the movie does Pixar proud in the visual department. It isn’t quite the revolutionary jump in graphics that Toy Story 4 had over its predecessors, but the usual Pixar bump is there. In fact one scene that starts with an establishing shot of the sky and trees and a school bus had me thinking for a split second that they'd actually shot some real footage for the film before kids from the uncanny valley came running into frame.

My son had a quote about that as well… “better grafics." He almost got it. To be fair, he took my notebook in the middle of the theater and wrote it in the dark, so there’s a chance he knows how to spell it right.

My kids were very excited to tag along to this press screening, but less so when I started asking them questions on the ride home. My daughter, who just finished fifth grade, said it was starting to feel like homework, and I had to remind her that this was, in fact, my job and yeah, it’s a little like homework.

For starters, it’s difficult to talk about Toy Story 5 without a heavy dose of context for the entire franchise. Obviously it’s a sequel and there are four movies worth of story to keep in mind, but more than that this is a franchise that has had two separate occasions to wrap up in a pretty satisfying way. There are crowds of people who would agree it should have just been a trilogy, ending on Bonnie’s porch at the end of Toy Story 3. And while Toy Story 4 started the conversation of “why are we still doing this” for some, it defied the odds and put a decently neat bow on the franchise again, and with even more finality.

So “why do we need a Toy Story 5?” is a bigger question here than it has been even for other long-running franchises. That is, fair or not, the hole that this movie was starting in for me. For my kids, though? Not so much. In fact, their least favorite entry in the franchise is the widely beloved Toy Story 3. But my daughter had a very interesting reason for that – one that leads me back into this review proper.

First and foremost, a Toy Story movie, and I would argue a Pixar film in general, needs to be fun, and Toy Story 5 certainly trots out some fun moments. The animation style of Bonnie’s imagination and the scenarios she concocts while playing with her favorite toys is maybe the strongest of any such sequence in the whole series. And from a battalion of stranded next-gen Buzz Lightyears trying to find their way back to Star Command to forgotten toys wasted in the wake of tech, there are plenty of memorable laughs. Conan O’Brien in particular is hilarious as Mr. Smarty Pants, a potty-training assistant.

In fact, the trio of new characters – including Smarty Pants, the kids-first digital camera Snappy, and Atlas, a map device that’s, for some reason, a hippo – were my daughter’s favorite characters in the entire movie, and I can’t really argue with that. They’re a blast. (They also do one of my favorite Toy Story things, which is questioning their own existence in a legitimately terrifying way.)

However, on the balance this movie may be more of a downer than it was fun. There’s a maudlin sense of dread that hangs over most of the first half of the movie, where a real sadness revolves around Bonnie and her inability to make friends that can meet her where she’s at. Now, this was something that my daughter and I had an interesting conversation about. After Bonnie’s parents get her Lillypad (Greta Lee), her first tablet nervously purchased as a way to help her connect with all the other kids in her orbit who already have one, Bonnie’s online dynamic in a chat group goes pretty immediately bad. My kid and I talked about who was to blame for it – the bullies who were being mean, or Lillypad, who served as an easy conduit, providing access to Bonnie for the bullies. She actually blamed Lillypad, saying, “It’s important to know who good people are in real life.”

There’s wisdom beyond her 11 years in that, and I’m proud of her, but also she agreed it was the iPad’s fault, so joke’s on her – she’s getting less screen time from now on. Meanwhile, my 7-year-old son said, “I like how the tech took over,” so… I guess for sure less screentime for him too.

And, to finally get back to my daughter’s point, the other thing a Toy Story movie needs is a good villain. To quote her thoughts on Toy Story 3… “I hated that the villain was just evil the whole time.” I thought that was an interesting take because Lillypad, for her part, is doing what she thinks is best for Bonnie which, based on the conversation my daughter and I had, makes placing the “villain” label on her a little more difficult. She’s a stand-in for the idea of technology causing kids to grow up too fast, not necessarily the antagonist in and of herself.

Now, I think that’s in the Pro column for this movie, as some of the franchise's best moments are from villains who see the error of their ways and are big enough to pivot. I would argue Tom Hanks’ Woody actually represents the best version of that in the original Toy Story because he was straight-up the bad guy of that movie, but that’s probably a different article.

Toy Story films also need a relatable phase of life at their center – something universally experienced, like growing up, leaving home or letting go. These are all things just about everybody can relate to without any extra direction from the filmmakers, and Toy Story 5, for at least the first half, is very much missing that universality. Growing up with social media is a modern and I suppose widely relatable experience that wasn’t around 30 years ago when the first Toy Story came out. But instead of being about “remember how it can be difficult to be a kid?”, a lot of Toy Story 5 is more focused on “kids these days and their screens, amirite?” The difference there is that Toy Story 5’s statement feels like it’s the filmmakers’ telling us about it instead of letting us get there emotionally ourselves. The result is an out of touch-ness that is, quite frankly, surprising to see from Pixar. For a lot of the film’s runtime Toy Story, very uncharacteristically, doesn’t have much to offer to the conversation about young people’s relationship to their screens and there’s not a lot of the real emotional stakes this series has been trading in for four movies prior to this.

To be fair it doesn’t let parents off the hook either. As a remote worker myself, I felt properly seen and criticized by a scene where a parent is just shouting “you’re muted” while parked in his home office on zoom. It’s difficult though to take the critique too seriously coming from Pixar, a company sprung from the same Steve Jobs that brought us the iPad in the first place. But that also might just be me being defensive. But I followed up about this scene with my kids and if it reminded them of me, to which my son said “oh 100% totally. It wasn’t funny because it was work.” So the movie does have its finger on the pulse of human connectivity in, lo, these modern times to some extent.

I know I’ve been more negative than not about this movie for like 1500 words now, but really the second half of Toy Story 5 is much better. A lot of what I like about it and how the movie lands gets into some spoiler territory, so it’s just harder to get into detail about it. Before I attempt to though, I feel like I have to call out everybody’s favorite cowboy. This movie did not need Woody. It’s a testament to the job the franchise has done of ending in a satisfying way twice now that he feels so tacked on in this one. In fact, it’s enough to make me wonder if he wasn’t even in the early drafts of the movie, until an exec got hold of it and said, “put the cowboy in, you maniacs.”

You could lift Woody straight out of the movie and there would only be two differences. Number 1, the movie would be maybe two minutes shorter. He’s got no business to do off on his own that affects the plot in any meaningful way. And number 2, it would actually help out Buzz (Tim Allen). This movie wants so badly to be a two-hander between Buzz and Jessie (Joan Cusack), and it almost pulls it off. But when Woody comes back and starts hatching plans, it takes away Buzz’s agency. Buzz could’ve taken a next step into responsibility, adulthood, leadership, whatever box needed to be ticked for one of those universally relatable life phases that Toy Story has always hung its hat on. Instead, he just kinda keeps following orders and it feels like an opportunity was missed in favor of rehashing some of his and Woody’s old dynamic.

Now, again, pretty much all of my issues with this film are in its first half, but I think that’s also in part because I was dreading how they were going to attempt to stick the landing. But happily, the second half of the movie manages it a lot better than I’d feared.

From the midpoint of the movie, Toy Story 5 really starts to nail the things Pixar does best. It’s adventurous, with well-choreographed and stylish action, and just a lot funnier. The heart of the movie finally shows up to deal with things like what it means to really make meaningful connections or the distinction between games and actually playing. Woody also starts to fade into the background, leaning into more of a comic-relief role than being front and center, and, surprise surprise, the film is better for it.

Most importantly, after all the hemming and hawing about “what’s to be done with tech,” the film finally takes a stand. It’s not an overly ambitious one, or even one that will surprise you, but it was very necessary to walk out of the theater feeling good about it. Ultimately, Toy Story 5 does have something to add to the conversation beyond old guys shaking their fists at clouds about “kids and their tablets these days.”

But speaking of kids and their tablets, mine apparently have not had enough of Toy Story. I asked them what they’d like to see in a Toy Story 6 and my son just started yelling about needing Spoony to join Tony Hale’s Forky and his knife bride Karen Beverly (Melissa Villaseñor). He kept getting louder and doing different goofy voices every time my daughter would try to chime in. But finally she was able to articulate just wanting more Toy Story. Couldn’t get more detail out of her than that. Maybe it’s the idea that she, like Andy or Bonnie or, it would seem, Pixar, just can’t bear the idea of leaving these toys behind.

When Epilogue released its first device, the GB Operator, back in 2021, it gave retro game collectors a way to save their favorite games. That handy little device not only let you play your physical Game Boy games on your PC, but, more importantly, made it so that anyone with a PC and an open USB port can back up the saves and games from their aging Game Boy carts. Now the team is back with the SN Operator, offering that same convenience but for your Super Nintendo and Super Famicom games. It’s a 16-bit banger and a must-have for folks with SNES and SFC collections. Now, my original endgame Final Fantasy III save will live forever!

Much like its smaller sibling, the $60 SN Operator is simple to use, requiring only a single USB cable (included in the box) running from it to a USB-C port on your machine. Once hooked up, it’s just a quick install of Epilogue’s Playback software and you are set to start playing or backing up your favorite SNES games. It’s about as painless and easy as you can get. Linux and Apple retro fans have nothing to worry about either, as both the Operator and Playback will work on those machines too.

After plugging in the Operator and opening Playback, you will be given a couple of choices – either to play the cartridge that is currently inserted, back up the data on the cart, or load data onto the cart. The back-up functionality includes options for both the game data itself, letting you digitally back up your beloved 16-bit library, or your save files. Thanks to the transfer speeds of USB Type-C and the small size of the ROMs and save files, these processes only take seconds.

While I don’t have a massive collection, I was still able to blaze through the process, backing up about 30 games in about 20 minutes. Loading things back onto a cart, at least the saves, is just as quick, making this a great way to back up your save, replace your cart’s old battery, and reload the saves to the cart when the replacement is done. Loading the ROM files themselves isn’t as simple and requires specific writable/re-writable carts, which retail carts aren’t.

Playing your games on the SN Operator, Epilogue’s device acts more like a cartridge reader of sorts, with the Playback software doing that actual playing. This is in contrast to something like Analog’s Super NT, which opts for the fPGA to imitate original hardware. This means it’s using emulation, but it does require your game to be plugged in to play. And since you are playing your own back-ups, things are all above board.

Epilogue’s Playback software uses the popular open source bSNES emulator as its default and does a solid job of it, featuring multiple shaders to pick from, cartridge autosaving, cheats, and various other settings. If you have a preference, the Playback software does include other options (mostly variations of SNES9X). The game back ups you create from your carts aren’t tied to the SN Operator or Playback and can be used with any Super Nintendo emulator out there. While I admit that I’ve never been overly sensitive to picking up latency in games, every game that I tried with the SN Operator, from climbing Kefka’s Tower or avoiding King K. Rool’s cannon balls, felt just as good as I remember them feeling on my original hardware. I especially enjoy playing my old favorites and unlocking achievements courtesy of the link you can use to connect to a Retro Achievements account.

When it comes to compatibility, every official game that I have thrown at it has been read and properly labeled (though a couple of times I did have to bring out the ol’ “blow in the cartridge” trick). I tried both North American and Japanese games, and they all booted up just fine in all of their 16-bit glory. The only games that wouldn’t read for me were my reproduction carts of the fan-translated Bahamut Lagoon and Tales of Phantasia – both games having never been released in the West with official localizations (with the exception of the later GBA port of Phantasia). One thing to be aware of, however, is that support for the Super Game Boy (the specialty cart that let you play your Game Boy games on the SNES back in the day) is confirmed by Epilogue to be incompatible with the SN Operator. Of special note for collectors or shop owners, if making sure the copies of the games you are getting are legitimate, SN Operator will also be able to let you know whether or not the cartridge that’s plugged in is authentic and official, meaning no more opening up the carts to verify.

That said, if you really want to play and back up your GB/GBC games, I highly recommend you just snag the GB Operator. That will play all your games and even display those nifty Super Game Boy borders for games that featured them, like Pokemon Gen 1. You can even have both operators plugged in at the same time, with no issue. Inside the Playback software, there is a dropdown menu that lets you toggle between which device is being read from. Epilogue has done a great job making every step of the process using the SN Operator as painless as it could be.

For myself, the biggest draw and selling point of the device is about its back-up functionality, more specifically, the fact that I can backup my save files. The game back-up and being able to “use” my own carts again is a neat feature, but rescuing a beloved save file matters so much more. Think of that 100% Link to the Past save that you and your sibling worked together on, or that Lunar Surface Final Fantasy 2 one that you are so proud – being able to back up and preserve those files before the respective cartridge batteries die and they disappear forever, that’s the big selling point for the SN Operator. And in that regard, Epilogue’s latest is easily worth the money and then some.

The device itself is solidly constructed, but I’ll note that, at least with my unit, the carts had a very tight fit when slotted in and were difficult to pull back out. I would have appreciated some sort of easy-release mechanism.

Epilogue continues to impress me and the SN Operator has let me sleep soundlier knowing that these immensely meaningful parts of my childhood are saved from their plastic shells. The peace of mind knowing that those memories are back-up is worth far more than its $60 price tag, and for anyone else with a Super Nintendo library in their closet or attic somewhere, the SN Operator is one of the easiest recommendations I can give.

Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.

Warning: This review contains full spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 9, Episode 4!

Celebrity guest stars are hardly uncommon for Rick and Morty, but a lot of them tend to blend into the background and wind up overshadowed by the main cast. Season 9 is no exception in that regard. But occasionally, you have a one-off character who rises above the pack and really takes advantage of a celebrity's particular vocal talents. Such is the case with Reese, delightfully voiced by the one and only Owen Wilson in "A Ricker Runs Through It."

For whatever reason, this episode is fueled more than most by the strength of the vocal performances. There's a lot of fun to be had early on with Rick (Ian Cardoni) and Morty (Harry Belden) spiralling into their latest feud. Cardoni's extra-drunk Rick is downright hilarious, full of all the whiny, petulant energy one could ask for. And Belden's Morty responds in kind with his own prolonged temper tantrum.

And then in walks Wilson's Reese to save the day. This feels like a character tailor-made for Wilson and his particular brand of folksy charm and light southern drawl. His arrival immediately changes the tenor of the whole episode, with Rick morphing from malevolent, abusive drunk to lovable scamp and Morty coming out of his shell a bit. You can't help but like Reese as much as they do, which of course means that there's something seriously amiss with him.

It's not long before that particular shoe drops and we learn that Reese is just Rick's convoluted way of working around his computer's password protection system. It's an amusing reveal, but the real fun with this episode is that it manages to continue steadily building on said reveal and grow more and more bizarre with time. Sometimes, Rick and Morty episodes struggle to keep that storytelling momentum going and really push a concept to its fullest (case in point - last week's "Rick Fu Hustle"). But that's not a problem here. Writers Jax Ball and Albro Lundy manage to keep building and escalating.

There's the reveal that Rick has developed a source of infinite vodka, a feat achieved by enslaving a world full of kindly hog workers. That situation spirals out of control when Morty successfully exfiltrates Reese, only for this human password manager to become the catalyst that sparks the hog uprising and triggers complete bedlam back at the Smith house. You really have to appreciate how bizarre the flow of events is in this little storyline.

That said, it's Jerry (Chris Parnell) who really steals the show in "A Ricker Runs Through It." He unwittingly becomes the host for a gas cloud-based service technician who's a little too psyched to have a new meat sack to run around in. It's a lot of fun watching the possessed Jerry hit the town and revel in his newfound freedom. And getting back to the idea of this episode being especially driven by the vocal performances, Parnell's loopy cloud voice is highly amusing in its own right. Now if only the series could find something more for Spencer Grammer Summer and Sarah Chalke's Beth to do this season...

This is a spoiler-free review of the first four episodes of X-Men ‘97 Season 2. The series premieres on Disney+ on July 1.

Sometimes, it doesn’t necessarily pay to put popular franchises in the hands of devoted super-fans. Look at Star Wars, for example. No one would accuse Tony Gilroy of being the world’s biggest Star Wars nerd, yet Andor is arguably the best thing to come out of that property in the Disney era. But with a project like X-Men ‘97, the rules are a little different. This is a series fundamentally built on nostalgia. The writers and animators are clearly deep, deep fans of the original X-Men: The Animated Series and the comics that inspired it. The result has been and continues to be a show that reveres the past even while being unafraid to chart a bold new future.

Without burying the lede here, X-Men ‘97 Season 2 is exactly what fans of Season 1 have been waiting for. The several-year gap between seasons may have been painfully long, but the series doesn’t suffer one bit because of it. These first four episodes build nicely off the fallout of Season 1 and quickly establish an even darker and more foreboding status quo for this animated Marvel Universe.

Season 2 is divided along three parallel points in time, all linked by a connection to the tyrannical villain Apocalypse (voiced in different eras by Ross Marquand and Adetokumboh M'Cormack). Half of the X-Men have been dragged into the future, where Apocalypse reigns over mankind and the nomadic Clan Askani is the only resistance left. The other half find themselves in Ancient Egypt, a time when Apocalypse is still a young mutant waging war on Rama-Tut (John de Lancie). As those twin conflicts play out, it falls on a haphazard band of mutant heroes like Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith), Forge (Gil Birmingham), Jubilee (Holly Chou), and Cable (Chris Potter) to fill the void left by the missing X-Men and continue the fight for human/mutant coexistence in the present.

These first four episodes juggle those conflicts with grace. It helps that the writers don’t attempt to keep all these plates spinning simultaneously, but rather break each storyline into its own dedicated episode (or episodes). This gives each group of characters room to breathe while still maintaining a brisk overall sense of pacing and progression. Unlike Season 1, it’s clear from the outset what the overarching conflict is and who the main villain is this time, and Season 2 is quick to build on that foundation.

If anything, the series can be a little too quick in that regard. That was one of the few drawbacks of Season 1 - that relentless pacing that sometimes caused the series to blow through classic X-Men source material in the span of a single episode. For example, “Fire Made Flesh” gave us a very stripped-down version of Inferno, and “Remember It” abruptly cut short all that fascinating potential on Genosha. There are times here, particularly in Episode 1, where it seems the series is still pushing forward a little too rapidly and not giving the material full breathing room. At some point, X-Men ‘97 is going to run out of vintage X-Men stories to adapt, so what happens then?

Still, you have to admire the writers’ ambition, and there’s a lot of great material for classic X-fans to sink their teeth into. These episodes adapt elements of classic ‘90s storylines like The Rise of Apocalypse and The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, while also including nods to more contemporary X-Men comics for good measure. But it hardly matters if you’re not familiar with the material that inspired the series. Like its parent series, X-Men ‘97’s greatest strength lies in its ability to make you care deeply for these characters and the madcap soap opera that is their lives.

Season 2 really leans into that quality. Beneath all the colorful trappings and the time travel spectacle, the series is really concerned with the very real and personal struggles our heroes face. Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean Grey (Jennifer Hale) have reunited with their time-displaced son Nathan (Michael Johnston). But how long can this reunion last, and can they put their responsibilities as parents over the needs of the world at large? As Jubilee is drawn into Cable’s war, how much is she willing to compromise for the sake of the survival of her people? And perhaps most pivotal of all, Professor Xavier (Marquand) and Magneto (Matthew Waterson) find themselves locked in another ideological battle, this time over the fate of the man who will be Apocalypse. All of this is tied together by that age-old question - is the future written in stone, or can fate be altered?

That Xavier/Magneto storyline is easily the highlight of these early episodes. They, along with Rogue (Lenore Zann), Beast (George Buza), and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough), find themselves stranded in the past amid En Sabah Nur’s first great war. The series thrives here when it comes to exploring Magneto’s complex moral code and worldview. He’s no longer a villain in the strict sense of the word, but there’s still a vast gulf separating his actions from that of his old friend. And by setting part of the series during Apocalypse’s early years, the writers have a valuable chance to explore a very different side of the character. He’s no longer the pompous mutant overlord, but a man who is still malleable and capable of great good. All of this culminates beautifully in Episode 4’s climax, one which rivals “Remember It” in terms of emotional impact.

The Cable/Jubilee storyline also proves surprisingly entertaining. It serves as a bit of a fun palate cleanser amid all the time travel melodrama, while also highlighting just how grim the situation in 1997 has become. Defeating Bastion and Operation: Zero Tolerance was hardly the end of mutantkind’s woes. This material leans into some of the more colorful trappings of the ‘90s X-Men milieu and gives the series a chance to flesh out several characters who were basically glorified cameos in the original series.

Naturally, X-Men ‘97 doesn’t have room to give every character the attention they deserve. Morph (J. P. Karliak) and Nightcrawler are fairly underutilized here, and Rama-Tut is far less a focus than a character so devilishly voiced by de Lancie deserves. Even the ever-popular Wolverine (Cal Dodd) remains a bit of a lower priority for the series. Those hoping for Season 2 to immediately launch into exploring the ramifications of losing his adamantium will come away disappointed, though I have little doubt we’ll be getting an episode dedicated to that subplot at some point.

Visually and sonically, the series continues to work very well as a modernized update to the original. The animation is fluid, colorful, and dynamic, and Season 2 has the added benefit of these new eras to bring an extra dash of variety to the table in terms of costumes and environments. There’s an especially impressive action scene early on in Episode 1 that makes great use of fog and ethereal lighting. Episode 4, meanwhile, reminds us just how massive the scope of X-Men ‘97 can become when the situation calls for it.

The voice cast is equally impressive, whether it’s the X-Men: The Animated Series veterans like Dodd, Buza, and Zann or the contemporary replacements like Chase and Hale. Waterson remains an MVP of the series, as there’s no way Magneto’s grandiose dialogue would work without the proper force and dignity behind it. And as mentioned, de Lancie is really a delight as Rama-Tut in those few scenes in which he appears.

Only Apocalypse himself leaves me feeling somewhat ambivalent on the vocal front. M'Cormack is great as the younger version of the character, but Marquand’s evolved Apocalypse doesn’t quite capture the booming, bass-y menace of John Colicos from the original animated series. Hopefully, that’s a role he’ll settle into as this Apocalypse-centric season continues to unfold.

As the years go by and current hardware becomes increasingly incompatible with the past, the first Gothic gets harder and harder to play, making it the perfect target for a remake. The 2001 RPG is a cult classic for a reason, ahead of its time in worldbuilding and nuanced NPC interactions. While Gothic 1 Remake pulls the original into the near-modern era in terms of presentation and controls, it doesn’t touch much else. This is a mixed blessing. It’s great because Gothic already forces a higher level of engagement and immersion out of those who play it, refusing to hold your hand in a way that still resonates in 2026 – but it’s own sparks of brilliance are regularly challenged by the poor quality of its story, the inconsistent pacing of quests, and shallow combat, and none of that has changed either.

I first played Gothic soon after The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, which came out around the same time. I immediately identified them as similar games in many ways, but different in at least one stark one: while they are both dense worlds designed to get lost in with lots of mysteries to find and foes to fight, Morrowind invited and encouraged me to fulfill my destiny as the hero of its clandestine peninsula, while Gothic couldn’t care less about my survival, my progress, or my fun.

Ironically named the Hero, you’ll spend much of the first half of Gothic feeling like anything but. From the moment you are dumped into The Colony, a work camp and open air prison surrounded by a magical one-way barrier, you are met with tribulations as grand as the complicated political climate that the survivors here live in and as small as the tiny critters that can one-shot you in combat if you’re not careful.

This remake’s best upgrade is easily how it looks and sounds. Gothic had a unique style even back in 2001. It was the definition of “doing a lot with a little,” thanks to low-poly models with muddy details arranged and colored in ways that really evoked a sense of place many bigger budget games didn’t. The forests have big trees that block out the light from the sun, which is a huge contrast to the brick and mortar ruins where people are making new lives. All of this has been enhanced, with modern lighting and models that make the old castles and caves of the Valley seem more like real places. The grassy and rocky lands that make up the uncivilized spaces between The Colony’s settlements look verdant and appropriately wild now.

The audio design was always strong, too, especially in the sound effects and ambient nature noises. All of those are more robust than ever, even if the droning background music selection isn’t all that special. But the best enhancement is the completely revoiced script. The original Gothic had some abysmal voice acting and this remake does a great job upping the bar to at least “good.”

Training Days

Despite the visual upgrades, Gothic is still fairly buggy. It was rare that I ever straight up crashed, but more common were weird AI behaviors. Sometimes I took a bunch of monsters just watching me run past them without any reaction whatsoever as a win, counterbalanced by all the times I had to load a past save because an NPC that I was supposed to follow got stuck, the quest I needed to finish trapped with him. For a solid chunk of Act 3, an NPC I had to recruit for a quest just followed me around aimlessly. That poor ore digger has seen things no man should…

Gothic’s difficulty is baked into its design in ways that aren't simply enemies that hit you hard. It starts with how little you are even told about how to play. The remake does you a favor the original didn't, including a small glossary of important controls for how to do basic things like pick up items and attack with bows. Otherwise, most of what you learn comes from trial and error. For instance, the lockpicking minigame, though not overly difficult to understand, is something you just have to throw yourself against until you get it, even if it means wasting a ton of picks. Thankfully, the modernized control scheme and the inclusion of controller support help sand down some of the early game edges that came from a basic inability to interact with the world around you correctly, which does get you off the blocks and into the ore mining rat race more quickly.

Combat also benefits from the revamped controls, making it easier to swing at and hit enemies. This does not make combat easier overall, however, which is still just as dangerous as it was 25 years ago. Your hero starts off weak, and even lowly molerats can send you to the game over screen in a hit or two. Leveling up gets you Learning points you can spend at trainers to raise your stats, which goes a small but gradual way towards making you dangerous in your own right. Once you get stronger gear, you stand a better chance, but weapons of any real note can be a big investment early and armor even moreso, the latter being the biggest factor in surviving more than a few blows.

You'll be pretty bad at handling any weapon you pick up without training. It's cool to see the difference between wielding a one-handed weapon untrained vs trained (or eventually mastered). Untrained, you clutch a short sword with both hands for dear life, flailing awkwardly with every swing, while trained attacks can flow into combos with the proper timing, and can critically hit enemies. This is a fun example of a game’s storytelling goals being met with both interactive and non-interactive elements at the same time, but it still means that melee combat feels bad for a large chunk of the early game, only getting better if you can scrounge together enough money and save up a couple of levels worth of Learning points to get trained. And even after that investment, while the act of swinging a sword feels better, the actual action never evolves beyond standing in front of bad guys and bashing them until you or they are dead.

Leaning on ranged attacks from a bow or crossbow is the safest (and most costly) early game option, and though training makes your shots more accurate over long distances, it's an approach that evolves even less than melee. Magic does help both of these strategies, with offensive spells that are just better ranged attacks like fireballs, or support options that can change the size of enemies or summon monsters to help you out. Some of these spells can even have out-of-combat utility, like transforming yourself into a bloodfly so that you can fly from place to place and cut down travel time. But magic doesn't become a real factor until the mid-game, and by then you’re probably pretty well invested in other skills and stats, making the pivot to a “magic-based” build a hard task unless you plan well in advance.

You can learn all sorts of other skills that affect how you play, like investing in acrobatics so that you take less fall damage but also get a dodge roll. Every time I made a big investment in a skill or equipment, these changes were noticeably impactful. I got stuck on a boss for a while, and when I finally decided to try out Remake’s new branching armor paths (which allow you to improve armor in stages) it made the difference. But it often felt like I had to grind either to make Gothic 1 Remake feel good to play at all, or just to raise my stats so that I could endure cheesy enemy attacks for long enough to hit back. I never had to gain any actual skill, I just had to be more annoyingly determined than my enemies. I guess there's some sort of message in there somewhere?

Listen and Learn

Information about this world has to be teased out of it, either by talking to its denizens or picking up context clues from the environment. When agreeing to quests, don’t expect objective markers to appear on your map to guide you. Hell, don’t even expect a map at all unless you plan to buy or steal one first. Especially in the early hours, Gothic trains you to pay close attention to what you see and hear. It can feel daunting at first, trying to remember where specific NPCs are at certain times of day or establish who the most important people in town are based on their jobs or how other people talk about them. Your screens are free from the tooltip detritus of modern games of this ilk, but the reward for engaging with the Gothic at this level is how great it felt every time I could navigate to a point of interest on the map based on memory and context clues alone.

Unfortunately, the overall story of Gothic doesn’t fulfill the promise of its great setting and world. The denizens of the mining colony have basically revolted and set up several microgovernments, each with their own hierarchy, economies, and organizational goals. You’ll need to join in with one of the three camps early in order to get a stable foothold in the region and start working towards your own personal agenda. Each of these camps are unique from one another and present different social and moral quandaries that are really cool to exist among. The Old Camp is the largest and most established and does the most direct interaction with the outside world, but it's also the most obviously corrupt. The Swamp Camp is a cult-led theocracy out in the wetlands filled with people who pray to a new forbidden god now that they are out of the reach of the mainland church. The New Camp is a hodgepodge of people who don’t want to live in the former camps, and is largely a pretty ruthless meritocracy where the strong and capable can have anything they want.

I spent my playthrough getting into the good graces of the Old Camp, which meant impressing its leader, Gomez, enough for him to elevate me into his troop of personal guards. To do that, I had to spend a lot of time in the camp schmoozing his people enough to vouch for me, which meant doing favors for them or catching their attention in other ways. It also meant navigating the social structure of the place, sometimes the hard way. Elite guards patrol different sections of the camp and run protection rackets for the people in their districts. They would constantly try to shake me down for money in a “it would be a shame if something happened to you” kind of way, and more than once co-conspirators would try to set you up to have that thing happen to you if you don't. They all have allegiances to their own paying customers, of course, so if you get into a fight in a place where you didn’t pay a guard but your opponent did, they will act accordingly.

This attempt at immersion doesn’t always land consistently, though. While most citizens in these settlements are pretty vigilant against weird and potentially criminal behavior by you, it's easy to avoid any real consequences if you're caught. People will stop and make a fuss if you walk into a house uninvited, but so long as you leave before someone starts swinging, everyone goes back to normal. I was caught more than once failing to pick the lock on someone's personal treasure chest, but I simply walked out of the room before they questioned me and they never brought it up again. It's the kind of videogamey stuff that happens all the time, but it stands out as odd in a game that has such an emphasis on character behavior and relationships.

Not every camp approaches social dynamics the way the Old Camp does, but in the early parts of Gothic at least, you’ll find a surprising wealth of these social lattices. Lots of early quests put your dedication to joining a camp in direct conflict with your relationship with a different camp, meaning choices can have pretty definitive outcomes depending on how you navigate them. One quest had me chasing a guy out of town at the direction of a guard captain, only for a different guard to get mad at me about it because that person was his main source of smuggled goods. This sort of dynamic-feeling social structure was always Gothic’s biggest strength and it goes untouched in the remake. That unfortunately also means that when the main story finally gets into full swing and the rote “save the world” tale spins up, the complete shift away from all this nuance makes the back half of this game comparatively boring. This is exacerbated by just how jarringly paced the quests in the final acts can be. So many of them require meeting the only guy who can help you do a thing, but proving your worth to that guy then means hunting X of a certain monster first. It feels like homework, not heroism.

That isn’t to say that the parts that work are perfect, anyway. You’ll fight boredom throughout thanks to the uneven story pacing in every act, even with this remake’s occasional attempts to smooth the transition between major plot points by changing a quest in key ways. Back to the Old Camp example, you can impress everyone you need to impress to get a meeting with Gomez, but you still can’t actually do that until you hit level five, which means you may have to go out and grind or spend some time in other camps you don’t intend to join just to find some way to get enough experience points to meet this arbitrary goal. These gaps spent wandering around doing busy work were at least sometimes rewarded by small but neat discoveries in the wild early on, though those were mostly a new plot point that let you feel your way through the dense tapestry of the world some more.

The Remake does bring a wealth of new sidequests that gives you many more opportunities to submerge into and affect the world in small ways. One that lets you get a measure of revenge on a jerk you meet very early on is among the best, but my favorite is easily when you learn the tricks to train your very own rideable scavenger bird (think dinosaur chocobo). As a returning player, the process of discovering genuinely new things to do was just as pleasant as it was to see all the regular stuff the first time. Which is to say, it was often just as interesting and valuable as it was tedious.

Over the last decade and change, international markets have asserted dominance over the action genre. The Raid: Redemption, RRR, and The Night Comes for Us blew away American audiences accustomed to watching bulky, neckless meatheads lumbering around or aimless, bullet-spraying shoot-outs. Where do you think John Wick learned his slickest moves? Filmmakers like Kenji Tanigaki find poetry in ruthless motion, which he does once again in his latest release, The Furious. Not an ounce of exhilaration is squandered in this Hong Kong import, which dares any other actioner this year to be as battered, berserk, and certifiably badass.

The movie boasts a melting pot of international phenoms who've been lighting up the modern action landscape. Tanigaki is a decorated Japanese stuntman and director with a dazzling résumé of achievements; he’s a ringleader with no fear. Actors Joe Taslim and Yayan Ruhian bring an Indonesian flavor of butt-whoopin’ and set the bar for their castmates. Star Xie Miao won multiple Chinese wushu tournaments as a child star, and co-leads with lionhearted courage. Then there’s Orange County's Brian Le and Thailand's Jeeja Yanin, all of whom bring their unique fighting styles into Tanigaki's full-throttle tale of bloodshed and vengeance.

Miao stars as mute everyman Wang Wei whose daughter, Rainy (Yang Enyou), is abducted by a crime empire's underlings. Taslim plays Navin, a journalist investigating the same syndicate in connection with another missing person. Together, they form an unlikely duo hell-bent on derailing a criminal family's operations from the inside by breaking every last henchman's bones. The men won't stop until Wang Wei's child is safe and Navin has answers, because dying isn't an option, no matter how many high-octane brawls they have to endure.

Sometimes, these violence-first marathons skimp on the storytelling, but that's not entirely the case with The Furious. Rainy's kidnapped for a devastatingly dark reason, which quadruples the stakes should Wang Wei and Navin fail — we're talking about the nastiest of the nasty here, with the type of bad guys who might as well sprout devil horns. It's impossible for Tanigaki not to take the material deathly seriously, but dialogue doesn't always meet the moment and sometimes comes off a bit underbaked and hokey; questionable ADR doesn't help. Tanigaki drags Wang Wei and Navin straight into hell, but despite four credited writers, pesky story developments can be noticeably (but not detrimentally) thin.

Tanigaki doesn't cheat his audience out of anything that a title like The Furious promises. His stunt choreography is a flurry of blink-and-you'll-miss movesets that land intricately punishing blows, a testament to how much he trusts all of his performers. Miao and Taslim display astonishing balance as they control their bodies, pivoting on kick angles or transitioning holds with a millisecond's notice. They’re hardly the sole standouts; Le's turtle-shaped warrior throws his weight around like a wrecking ball, grounding and pounding on all fours while Ruhian wields assassin-like bow skills and inflicts a thousand knife cuts before his foe even attempts to block. A magnificent cast of fighters flows harmoniously through sequences with the fluidity of a professional ballet, never taking a break or letting momentum wane.

The Furious functions like a Streets of Rage beat-'em-up, with environments that are interactive and levels that build in intensity. Tanigaki finds ways to keep the onslaught of pain fresh and thrilling, from beer-bottle barrages to MMA octagons to bicycle duels; he even lets the kids have a little fun (or at least their stunt doubles). Miao and Enyou nail their father-daughter dynamic, especially when Rainy can aid Wang Wei in combat like a pint-sized sidekick. It's a hilarious juxtaposition as Taslim double-teams baddies like the boss he is, while Wang Wei plays both protector and instructor as Rainy has to lend a helping blow or two. When dangers throw a zig, the characters appropriately zag — and we, the watchers, benefit.

It's no stretch to believe The Furious confidently boasts what could be the year's best action chops. There's a bit of Kill energy here, in that just when you think Tanigaki's flick can't get any more furious, it gets furious…er. Whatever chart-topping highs exist in the first two acts are obliterated by an outstanding third act that lets the masters go to work. I don't think I ever stopped smiling through the back half, especially Tanigaki's knocked-out-of-the-park finale. There are just no diminishing returns here when it comes to choreographing an endless parade of bloody-knuckled justice.

Spoilers follow for Cape Fear Episode 3.

To really dig into the third episode of Apple TV’s Cape Fear, we have to start with what happens at the very end. More specifically, we have to discuss who shows up at the very end. At the tail end of the episode, we see Max (Javier Bardem) return home after a road trip (more on that later) in which he wound up with a hefty settlement to the tune of more than $4 million from a private prison company.

Upon entering, he sees an envelope on the coffee table and a busted-up TV with a pre-loaded video. I guess Max Cady, unlike the rest of us, still has a VCR. Once Max hits play, we’re greeted by the mysterious masked woman who’s been following him. She reveals herself and – surprise – it’s Juliette Lewis, Academy Award-nominated actress and star of the 1991 film version of Cape Fear.

It’s unclear if Lewis is playing Dani, the once-teenage heroine of Martin Scorsese’s theatrical adaptation (probably not), but boy does she make an impact when she shows up here. Her character addresses Max directly and begins singing a slow, creepy song. This triggers something in Max: He flashes back to his time spent in a cage as a boy and has a seizure-like episode. After opening the envelope and finding a dog collar (so many questions there), Max flies into a rage and bludgeons the TV (maybe like he bludgeoned his wife all those years ago?) before the screen cuts to black.

It’s a shocking and unsettling ending to what, up to this point, had been a relatively slow, meandering affair. Much like the previous two episodes, “Phantom Sensations” is full of ominous, strange occurrences that provide further (potential!) evidence that Max is terrorizing Anna (Amy Adams) and Tom (Patrick Wilson) Bowden and their family.

The episode starts with a menacing couple trespassing on the Bowdens’ property. Maybe they were sent by Max. Maybe they were just lost. As with much in Cape Fear, their motives are unclear. Later, Anna mirrors her son Zack’s (Joe Anders) phone after suspecting he was being catfished by Max, only to be led to a girl named Nevaeh (Malia Pyles) at a local diner. Navaeh claims she was actually flirting with Zack and Anna forces her to break up with him.

Later, Navaeh shows up at a pool party where the Bowdens’ daughter Natalie (Lily Collias) is in the midst of being harassed by a bunch of fellow teenagers. Nevaeh, who tells Lily her name is Amber, rescues Natalie, gives her drugs, and makes out with her. It seems this girl with multiple names has her eyes on the Bowdens. Is it at the direction of Max Cady? I’m guessing we’ll find out soon enough.

Later, in the episode’s most incredulous storyline, Anna agrees to go on a road trip to Atlanta with Max as he pursues “justice” against the private prison company who he claims wrongly incarcerated him. She’s on a mission to build trust with Max and find out what he’s really up to, not to mention snag a 40% slice for her employer of whatever settlement Max lands. Along for the ride are a pair of documentary filmmakers who are capturing Max’s post-release life in an effort to land a deal with Netflix or HBO.

Back at home, Tom is working on a case involving a woman accused of murdering her husband. After perhaps the season’s most meme-able scene to date, in which Tom unleashes his frustrations on a set of free weights, he takes drugs with his colleague Lex and they make out (it’s implied they almost had sex previously).

This all adds to the generally mysterious and opaque nature of Cape Fear. Buried secrets abound and bad vibes are plentiful. Whether it’s Max slowly slicing a tomato in the Bowdens’ kitchen or creepily licking ice cream off a woman’s cheek, Bardem continues to imbue Max with charismatic evil, propelling the story forward whenever he’s on screen.

The cinematography and overall ambiance of the show continue to shine, giving a rich, intoxicating tone to the generally morose subject matter. While this week's episode at times borders on ridiculous (really, Anna? You’re going to take a 12-hour round-trip car ride and stay overnight in the same seedy motel as the man you think is terrorizing your family?), it builds on last week’s strong foundation and keeps the wheels of this pulpy, dreamy show slowly turning.

All of this culminates in a barnburner of a final scene, a meta whammy of a moment that leaves me with a million questions ahead of Episode 4. “Phantom Sensations” may not be quite as strong as Episodes 1 and 2 of Cape Fear, but it’s still a great time.

The Death of Robin Hood will be released in theaters on June 19.

Robin Hood and Little John, murderin’ through the forest, Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly, what a slay! That’s basically The Death of Robin Hood in a nutshell. While its gloomy visuals, gory kills and sharp performances impress, writer-director Michael Sarnoski’s cerebral, artsy drama will likely appeal more to medieval folklore scholars and fans of gritty period pieces than general audiences expecting a more traditional, escapist Robin Hood movie.

The story draws its inspiration from the medieval ballad A Gest of Robyn Hode, the last section of which is titled “Death of Robin Hood” where the outlaw visits the Prioress of Kirklees. The ailing Robin goes there for treatment because the Prioress is his kin, but she and her lover are actually plotting to kill him. Sarnoski’s film keeps the idea of Robin Hood going to a priory for healing but otherwise reworks and demystifies the entire legend of the English folk hero.

This Robin Hood – played with solemn intensity by a never-hairier Hugh Jackman – is no altruistic hero but rather a vicious, thieving nomad who freely admits that all the stories about him are myths, most of which don’t even have a kernel of truth to them. There was never a Maid Marian, he robbed from the rich and the poor alike, and he killed women and children.

Like Unforgiven’s William Munny, Jackman’s Robin Hood is a grizzled killer haunted by an unimaginably violent past that continues to chase him. He’s killed so many people over the years that there is always someone's relative hunting him down – no matter how far in the hills he hides – to avenge their fallen loved one. Robin is old and tired and, frankly, death would be a gift, yet he keeps killing those who pursue him. Despite the bouts of sudden and often senseless violence, there’s a haunting silence that permeates the entire film, an audible loneliness, if you will, that captures Robin’s isolation from the society he’s wronged.

The only member of the Merry Men who appears in this film is Little John (a barely recognizable Bill Skarsgård, employing yet another of his signature weird, guttural voices). It’s been many years since Robin and Little John last saw each other, with the latter living a relatively content life under an assumed name with a wife and child who are unaware of his wicked past. Now his family are in peril so Little John enlists the aid of his former leader (and surrogate father figure) to save them and exact vengeance.

Both men end up getting far more than they bargained for, with Robin suffering grave injuries in the ensuing battle. In order to save his life, Little John delivers Robin to the film’s version of the priory from A Gest of Robyn Hode, whose prioress is renowned for her healing abilities.

The prioress, Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer, at her most tender), nurses Robin’s wounds, but the longer he stays there and becomes acquainted with its community, the more his soul might be rehabilitated as well. There’s a stillness to both Sister Brigid and to the priory itself that lends an appropriate serenity to this portion of the film where Robin tries to reclaim his humanity.

Robin’s bond with Sister Brigid and a traumatized little girl named Margaret (a compelling Faith Delaney) is the emotional crux of the film and is its most effective and rewarding aspect, lending a much needed humanity to an otherwise savage and seemingly irredeemable Robin Hood. Robin also has a compelling friendship with an enigmatic leper (a moving Murray Bartlett, who barely ever shows his face), who also helps the outlaw inch closer to the light.

The Death of Robin Hood ably mixes the meditative myth-busting of Unforgiven, the medieval ultra-violence of The Northman, and the dreary Celtic aesthetic of The Green Knight. Yet the film also benefits to a large degree from the enduring memory of Jackman’s other, better “violent badass cursed by his past” film, Logan (a comparison Sarnoski understands people will make). Instead of adamantium claws, he uses a knife and a bow and arrow to eviscerate his foes. While that doesn’t diminish Jackman’s performance as Robin Hood, I could never quite shake the knowledge that I’ve seen him do this all before.

Some years back, a few buddies and I started going to the park every Wednesday afternoon to shoot hoops. Five-on-five, first-to-11, 1s-and-2s; that way, we could take a break after each game, swap a couple of guys around to keep things fresh, play another, and repeat until it was either too dark to see the rim or people were all balled out. This is what NBA The Run feels like. There’s the burst of excitement I get the second I hit my first shot. There’s the novelty of having enough players to switch it up so things don’t become stale. And, unfortunately, there’s also the unavoidable exhaustion at the end; of having played too many games, shot too many threes, and alley’d too many oops until I need to take a complete break from it. Sure, I can go again next Wednesday, but until then, I’d rather be doing something else.

Thankfully, something NBA The Run lacks compared to my local court is that one guy who always throws elbows. Instead, it hosts a roster of 30+ NBA all-stars and five street legends full of hardwood pros who are all masters of their craft. Trying out different characters in these fast, 3v3 matches never got old because, much like in reality, each guy has certain things they’re better at than others: Victor Wembanyama is, as you’d expect, an alien who can shoot, dunk, and block with his Go Go Gadget arms. On the less-freakishly-tall side, there’s Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard, who can both throw it up from pretty much anywhere. And we can’t forget Ja Morant, who is a highlight dunker and daring shooter like no one else. That deep player roster keeps things exciting, and the championship I won with Devin Booker felt very different than the one I got as Nikola Jokic. (And no, I’m not just saying that as a desperate Suns fan.)

To top it off, NBA The Run doesn’t just capture each player’s likeness; it also accurately mimics their signature jump shot forms, which was a very pleasant surprise. I’ll be honest, having played a lot of the NBA Street series on the PSP and GameCube back in the day, I was half-expecting generic character movements and animations to be copied and pasted across all the different players. Instead, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Book’s silky smooth shot and even LaMelo Ball’s unorthodox release throughout each match.

All of these hardwood icons and their jumpers are playable within NBA The Run’s two main game modes: Knockout Squads and Knockout Solos. The former is a lot like The Park in NBA 2K, where each pro in your squad of three is controlled by a different player, and you have to work as a team. The latter, on the other hand, lets you control all three of them by yourself against another person doing the same. There’s also a third mode called Knockout Friends (tragically named, in my opinion, because you shouldn’t knock your friends out unless you want enemies), which is a promising private tournament format where you can invite up to 48 people to play for a championship, but I wasn’t able to test that out ahead of release.

Across all my runs, I gravitated more towards Knockout Squads because you just can’t replicate the wild highlights, the frequent taunting from both sides, and the pure joy of winning a championship with two random teammates. Sadly, there’s always a chance you get paired with someone who apparently doesn’t know how to pass the ball. But if that happens, and it does often, the short match times make it easy enough to just chalk it up as a loss and run it back without much frustration.

Side note: I am begging you to pass the ball, people. It’s one button on your controller. One key on your keyboard. It’s not that hard. Basketball is a team sport. There is no ‘I’ in team, “We, not me,” and all that jazz. Now, back to our regular programming.

Home (Court) Is Where the Heart Is

Look, I get that I can’t just ask Kevin Durant to replace that flying elbow guy in the real world, so how about we find a new court to play on instead? You know, one that doesn’t have multiple dead spots? NBA The Run has options for me here, too.

Take The Tenement, for example, a small piece of my home from the heart of Manila, Philippines, brought to the global stage. I’m a bit biased here, but it's my favorite of the seven in-game courts, not just as a nostalgic hit, but also because it so perfectly captures what basketball is: a spectacle that draws crowds, from the oldheads who can barely walk to the youngins who stand on their tiptoes just to watch. From that towering behemoth to the concrete jungle’s iconic Rucker Park, I appreciate the care and attention developer Play by Play Studios has put into building these courts, treating each one like the gathering and celebration of hoops that they are. And with every arena being a grand, near-accurate recreation of a real place, it turned the first few runs I went on into an exciting global tour where I may or may not have lost some matches because I was busy taking in the sights.

But, hold on. What do you mean we can’t just drive down to the Venice Beach court to play a few actual pick-up games? Fine, how about we switch things up with the scoring instead? Like, three points for dunks and one point for threes?

Although this would be a terrible idea that I would never suggest in real life because I can’t dunk, it’s the kind of unexpected option that makes NBA The Run tick. Different match types are selected pre-game through a roulette, and that keeps things interesting and unpredictable – be it Triple Threat, where threes are threes, and everything else is only worth a single point, or another option that turns the match into a first-to-7 contest where every basket, whether that’s a half-court shot or a flashy alley-oop, only counts as one. It’s like a box of tweets from Kevin Durant’s burner accounts; you never know what you’re going to get.

Take the dunks-count-as-threes mode as an example: if that gets chosen out of everything else, then a team that had picked Stephen Curry, Damian Lillard, and Devin Booker to spam threes all game long would be out of luck against a more well-rounded one. Overall, the current match type rotation is a smart way of encouraging you to explore the roster instead of going all-in on a single strategy every time. Can you imagine how stale it would get if you played as Anthony Edwards your whole playthrough? Or if all the games you played were a first-to-21, 1s-and-2s contest? It’d be like voluntarily watching the Washington Wizards for a whole season.

Time to Hang it Up

Sadly, there are only so many Zion Williamson 360-windmills, Trae Young half-court heaves, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander flops I can stomach by my 22nd match at the Dongdan Sports Complex before things get old. (Well, that’s not all true; flopping isn’t actually a part of NBA The Run, but my overall point still stands.) After winning multiple championships through a lot of highly-contested matches and playing as all of the available characters across its two main game modes, that feeling I savored so much in my first, second, and even third championship run is long gone.

This must have been what Michael Jordan felt during his second retirement with the Chicago Bulls. I’m not comparing my accomplishments to his or anything (I got more than six championships, after all), but when you’ve won everything there is to win, what’s left? Playing for the love of the game only works when it loves you back, and now that both sides are spent, there’s little reason to stick around any longer. NBA The Run could pull me back in eventually if new content arrives in the coming weeks and months, just like MJ coming back to play for the Wizards – but at the moment, my legs are spent, my wrist is aching, and I cannot shoot, dunk, or ineffectively put my hand up any more than I already have.

Secretlab has proven itself to be one of the most influential brands in the gaming chair industry, and for good reason. Its Titan Evo models have inspired countless clones, so when I heard that the company had something brand new in the works, my interest was immediately piqued. I’ve been testing the Atlas for more than a week now and there’s more here than just good looks. The Atlas offers all-day comfort in one of the most unique designs I’ve seen in some time.

Secretlab Atlas Premium – Design and Features

The Secretlab Atlas isn't your average task chair. Visually, it looks like what would happen if the Haworth Fern had a baby with the Secretlab Titan Evo. In other words, it still clearly carries the Secretlab DNA, but is also unique and grown up in a way that most gaming chairs are not. But then, the Atlas doesn't look much like a task chair either. It lands somewhere in the middle, integrating bolsters on the seat and backrest, but not attention-gathering in the way a pure gaming chair might be.

All it takes is a glance to see the shared DNA between the Atlas and the Evo, so let’s actually begin with where the chairs differ. For starters, you won't find any recline lever on this chair. The chair is designed to let you rest just as well as focus, but you're not getting the full automotive lay you might otherwise expect. Next, it’s not overtly “gaming.” Secretab debuted new colorways designed to fit in just as well at your gaming setup as in a shared office space. If you’re in the know, you’ll be able to see its gaming inspirations. If you’re not familiar with gaming chairs in general, you’ll probably just see the Atlas as an especially nice chair.

One of the biggest differences is the silhouette of the chair. While the Titan Evo was very traditional with its car-inspired bucket seating (admittedly expanding upon this with its subsequent releases), the Atlas is all about its curves. The backrest wraps around, allowing you to see the contour of the bolsters from the side. The mix of straight angles and contours reminds me a bit of how Picasso and abstract artists sometimes paint women (for real, compare the side profile to these paintings). Whether you agree with that or not, there’s definitely a fluidity to the design that guides your eyes from top to bottom.

Another big differentiator is the slimness of its cushions. Its sleekness is one of the Atlas’s biggest design tricks, allowing it to take a supporting role in the room. By contrast, the Titan and Omega before it seem to demand attention. But don't let its slimness fool you: it’s still plush enough to keep you comfortable and hides the frame perfectly. Those extra inches shaved off allow the chair to be lighter and sleeker for professional use.

The Atlas comes in two different lines, Standard and Premium. The biggest difference between the two is that the Premium range integrates Secretlab’s NanoGen Hybrid Leatherette and dual composite foam in the seat for enhanced softness out of the box. The Premium edition also uses all color-matched hardware and starts at $699. The Standard edition comes in at $499 and uses Secretlab’s traditional cold cure foam, Neo Hybrid Leatherette, and SoftWeave fabric depending on the model.

I was sent a Premium version in the Dune+ colorway, which combines sandy SoftWeave fabric with NanoGen Hybrid Leatherette on the bolsters as an accent. It can also be picked up in black, white, or gray. All colors are deliberately neutral so they can blend into any space rather than gain the spotlight.

The term "ergo chair" carries a certain set of expectations. The biggest is adjustability... and lots of it. The Atlas has that on offer, though you might be surprised to find that it does not feature an adjustable lumbar support. Instead, Secretlab has molded the contours of the backrest to form an integrated lumbar curve. In a briefing ahead of this review, the company told me it put extensive R&D into the new backrest design and feels that it will offer excellent support. The backrest also utilizes a mix of foam and integrated springs to offer more responsive support than pure foam.

Unlike Secretlab’s existing gaming chairs, the Atlas uses a new synchro tilt system that allows the backrest to move independently from the seat. While seemingly small, this actually makes a big difference, which is probably why it's a common feature on most high-end task chairs. Your back and hips flow together, and the Atlas allows them to do so while moving about in a seat, reducing your muscle tension and ultimately back and neck pain.

This new system also comes with new adjustments beneath the seat base. All of the standards are there, including height, tilt, tension, and tilt lock, as well as a seat depth slider to ensure it can comfortably match your anatomy. These are different from what we've seen on other Secretlab chairs, though we still have a lever on either side under the chair. These levers control height, tilt, resistance, and seat depth.

Each also now has a viewing window so you can see your settings at a glance. The left lever controls the angle lock and will change from "LOCKED" in red or "UNLOCKED" in green. On the opposite side, the right handle is a knob and controls the amount of resistance you feel when leaning back in the chair. There are four levels indicated with a row of red dots that grow or shrink with each twist of the knob.

This is both good and bad compared to what we typically see on ergonomic task chairs. On the one hand, instead of cranking endlessly on an oversized knob under the seat, here you can simply click through four levels in seconds to find the best fit for you. On the other hand, having only four levels is significantly more limiting.

The armrests have also seen a significant change this time around. They no longer bolt on under the seat with tracks to adjust their width. Instead, they have cast slots and no width adjustment whatsoever. Height, depth, and angle are all just as functional as ever.

The last change worth highlighting is that the Atlas actually sits about one inch lower when fully extended than the Titan Evo and most chairs I've tested. Secret Lab says this is so all users can more easily plant both feet on the ground in a more active and focused posture. Be warned, however, if you are coming from another chair that happens to sit higher, it may take a while to get used to sitting lower to the ground.

Secretlab Atlas Premium – Assembly

Like other Secretlab chairs, the Atlas requires assembly before it can be used. The process is similar to most gaming chairs and is built from the bottom up, starting with the casters and progressing to the wheel base, piston, seat, armrests, and finally, the magnetic headrest.

The build process is straightforward and easy enough for a single person to complete alone — assuming you can stand it upright at the end. Everything you need is included in the box, including a decent T-shaped wrench with an interchangeable bit. Following the included directions (which you may not even need if you’ve assembled a task chair in the past), it took me about 15 minutes.

I also want to highlight how far Secretlab’s packaging has come. The company has always packed its chairs securely, but this was the first I’ve tested that didn’t use multiple garbage bags full of styrofoam. It made clean-up significantly easier and is better for the environment. Win-win.

Secretlab Atlas – Performance

Since the Atlas is designed around productivity and focus, I took it to my day job to test throughout the week. I also spent some time at home with it playing games on my PC and consoles, and while it may not be quite as versatile for gaming as the Titan Evo, it's certainly capable of offering a comfortable and supportive gaming experience as well.

No matter how you use it, you'll be sitting in style. Secretlab did an amazing job of making a chair that looks luxurious without being ostentatious. Looks are always going to be subjective, but the designers did a damn fine job, in my opinion.

When it comes to comfort and ergonomics, Secretlab has seemed to have that dialed in for quite a while now and even hosts its own ergonomics board to review, confirm, or challenge their conclusions.

The Titan Evo NanoGen is probably one of the most comfortable gaming chairs I've ever used, so I was hopeful the Atlas would be good. While it doesn't quite reach the same levels of NanoGen-clad comfort as the Titan Evo, the Atlas felt just as good leaning back with a controller as it did sitting upright typing out a review.

I have to admit that I had my doubts about the integrated lumbar support. My first impression was that this was a downgrade from the Titan Evo, given its lack of adjustability. At the same time, the company says it invested heavily in making sure the integrated curve is going to better match the majority of users and prevent incorrect setups, which could cause more pain over time. And, well, at least for 5’ 8”, it seems like their research has paid off.

Over the course of a full work week, I don't recall a single day that I stood up or went to bed sore unless I had done something else. The only other integrated lumbar I've used that compares is the Razer Enki, which is a whole different style.

Looking at the chair's other qualities, I don't find a lot to take issue with. It reaches the standard of the Titan Evo and exceeds it in some ways. The dual composite foam is just as comfortable and the cold-cure base should provide long lasting durability, and the NanoGen Hybrid leatherette is soft and supple. The magnetic neck pillow also returns here, albeit a bit more rounded off. That's great because it's genuinely one of the comfiest I've used.

The two issues I take are with the seat height and the armrests. It may not seem like an inch would make a big difference, but it does if you're used to sitting higher. I had to lower my standing desk and my monitor around an inch each. Even after days with the setup I still feel like I'm too low to the ground.

The armrests are less impactful because they are still quite good just as they are. Secretlab uses a thick gel cushion topper that you can lean on all day without elbow soreness. I wish there were some way to adjust the width, however, not because I necessarily found them poorly spaced, but because not being able to do so just feels like a strange downgrade.

Is all of this worth $700, or $500 if you purchase the Standard edition? Value will always be in the eye of the beholder, but compared against other task chairs, the $500 price point is reasonable. I expected it to cost more, to be honest. A good task chair doesn't come cheap, which is why industry stalwarts like Herman-Miller, Steelcase, and Haworth can charge four digit prices for chairs that sometimes don't look all that different from normal office chairs.

Considered as a gaming chair, that price certainly feels more expensive, but isn't far off and is even cheaper than some of its competitors. It won't lay flat or be quite as dominating as something like the Titan Evo, but its style may very much make up for its trade-offs.

Christopher Coke has been a regular contributor to IGN since 2019 and has been covering games and technology since 2013. He has covered tech ranging from gaming controllers to graphics cards, gaming chairs and gaming monitors, headphones, IEMs, and more for sites such as MMORPG.com, Tom’s Hardware, Popular Science, USA Today’s Reviewed, and Popular Mechanics. Find Chris on Twitter @gamebynight.

Disclosure Day will be released in theaters on June 12.

Steven Spielberg is back in theaters and, for the first time in quite awhile, he brought aliens with him. So in that sense, Disclosure Day is a welcome return to the things that Spielberg does best. But for all the good questions the movie asks, can the answers be as compelling?

The prospect of a new Steven Spielberg film is always exciting. The guy is an all-time great and needs no introduction. That he’s back with a big-budget, original IP science fiction film is even more exciting, and not a thing that can be overlooked in the calculus of reviewing this movie. I will never argue against having more Spielberg, especially when it comes with so many of his most Spielberg-ian toppings.

There’s a familiarity to his filmmaking that’s maybe unfair at this stage of his career. He’s such an influential filmmaker – his style has been imitated by two generations of filmmakers by now – so it’s easy to forget that this is all stuff he invented. It’s not an imitation of the man, it’s the man himself, which is another part of this film that should not be overlooked. His camera Moves with a capital M, the backlight, the lens flares, the determined pushes into the awe-stricken faces of his characters – it’s all there and it’s all extremely Spielberg.

Disclosure Day is, in its simplest terms, a film about whether or not humankind can handle learning that aliens exist. Of course there is a shadowy government-adjacent agency that’s been tasked with covering this existence up for decades, and a group of well-intentioned regular folks take it upon themselves to reveal the conspiracy, but that’s just plot. The meat of this story is the question: Can we handle it?

That has always been Spielberg’s biggest strength where sci-fi is concerned: taking a big and fantastic premise and rooting it in real, ground-level human emotion. Because while it’s cool that E.T. can make the bikes fly, what really makes us care about him is the connection he’s got with Elliott. There’s a relatable heart at the center of all of his science fiction that really sets it apart. For Disclosure Day, that heart rests entirely with the cast.

First and foremost, Emily Blunt is fantastic. She’s truly one of the best actors going and she always seems to elevate whatever movie she’s in. Disclosure Day is no different. As Margaret, the weather person in Kansas City who suddenly finds herself clicking and clacking in an alien tongue, she works through it with bold determination, visible terror and legit confusion all in equally believable turns. This is part of the Spielberg trick in science fiction – it is truly a wild thing that’s happening to this woman, and keeping her reaction to it grounded while also never mugging in any sort of “can you believe this” way truly takes subtlety and attention to detail. Without Blunt’s performance to that end, there are huge parts of this movie that just wouldn’t work. There’s a pretty spectacular oner, a long take that covers a ton of ground in a pivotal scene in her story, during which she’s panicked in one moment, confused in the next and inexplicably speaking fluent Korean a second later.

The supporting cast is just as good. It would be weird if Colman Domingo and Colin Firth weren’t good at this point, while Eve Hewson brings an outsider’s perspective to the plot and Wyatt Russell lends his aw-shucks everyman-ness to the proceedings in a way that never really outstays its welcome. Still, the second hand carrying the film is Josh O’Connor.

If O’Connor is not spectacularly memorable, he’s as solid as they come, and really shows his ability to carry a movie here. His Daniel is in over his head with only his principles to guide him; he just knows what he’s decided to do is the right thing and that’s all the motive he needs, even if he’s not equipped for action. But Daniel has a past he doesn’t feel great about and a hope that his future can be better, which is all you really need for a Spielberg-ian leading man. It seems like such a simple thing, but it’s something that’s missing in a lot of would-be tentpole movies.

Now, that’s putting myself at the risk of sounding like an old man on a porch shaking my fist at “kids these days” but, I am talking about a movie made by an 79-year-old filmmaker, so maybe that’s appropriate.

I will say, there are stretches of this film where I couldn’t help but be awed by the fact that Spielberg has still very much got it. And I can’t talk about how good the two leads are in this film without also mentioning a sequence in the center of Disclosure Day that’s truly outstanding. After escaping from the shadowy G-men trailing them, Margaret and Daniel get run into a train, narrowly escaping again. It’s about a 10-minute stretch of the movie, but what’s incredible about it is that it’s action bookended by emotion. There’s a scene where Blunt and O’Connor’s characters get to connect that’s funny and loose and plainly shows where they’re at, then there’s a nerve-wracking bit of action, then there’s an intense scene of the aftermath of that action.

It’s a moment where we, as an audience, ought to be able to catch our breath, but instead Spielberg makes you live in the fear and anxiety that these two are feeling. The result is a truly thrilling sequence that ended up being the highlight of the whole movie for me. And yes, the highlight of the movie for me was right smack in the middle because it certainly wasn’t the ending. But let me back up a bit before I get there…

I have a rule, a kind of guiding principle, about the little things in movies. If there are threads I can’t help but pull on, little logic gaps or plot holes that I can’t look past, then I just don’t like the movie. Every movie has those little nagging things, but if they don’t bother me, that means I’m charmed enough by the movie overall and I like it.

Let’s say, for example, the big bad’s goons close in on our protagonists as they’re on the run and holed up at a cheap motel, but the heroes escape by just climbing out the back window and casually walking away unseen. The quibbling part of me says “No, that’s not how it works in movies. I’ve seen The Fugitive and who knows how many other movies where agents cover the whole building and there’s no way they should get away with that.” With Disclosure Day, there are a handful of moments that do exactly that and I snickered out loud at each of them as they happened.

Ultimately I got over them easily enough because, again, this is Spielberg. The film really moves from scene to scene and is for the most part a very good time… but then it hits its third act.

This is where it starts to get difficult to talk about without spoilers, but I can say the way this movie wraps up didn’t sit too well with me. The answers the film offers to the big questions it spends its runtime asking felt downright naive. It’s childishly hopeful and it had me completely checked out of the film’s climax.

The way some of the characters react didn’t feel honest, real, or in keeping with how their characters were established. Having started this review pointing out Spielberg’s specific proclivity for keeping characters grounded in fantastic situations, losing that asset here in the film’s finale really stood out to me. But it shows what a sort of delicate balance it is, and the risk inherent in making a sci-fi movie in the first place. Yes, it’s a movie about aliens, but also yes, things need to feel real and honest. Spielberg is great at sci-fi, but in large part because there’s always an emotional element to the story that makes his movies about aliens realistic. And that’s where this movie stumbles.

Every character has a clean and clear relationship to the idea of Disclosure Day. Different schools of thought as to how we would accept the truth of aliens are represented in thoughtful ways via these characters, which makes the naivete of the ending a little frustrating. There’s an open-to-interpretation aspect to the film’s finale as well, though, that can be a bit of a rorschach test. To a certain extent, you’ll get to see what you want to see in the film’s conclusion. So maybe my reaction to it says more about me and how I feel about the current state of our world than it does the movie itself. That’s the thing I’ll be thinking about because of this movie. Maybe I don’t agree with how the film feels about humanity’s ability to deal with a knowledge drop like this, but none of the characters on screen agree with each other either, so why should I be any different? If that’s the conversation this movie wants to have, coupled with a dose of Spielberg-ian positivity and hope, wrapped up in an original idea that’s not a spin-off, sequel or franchise, I’m not going to complain about it too much.

My Adventures with Superman Season 3 debuts June 13 on Adult Swim and June 14 on HBO Max.

After a two-year absence, My Adventures with Superman is back with another sweet, dramatic, jam-packed run of ten episodes of its anime-inspired take on the Man of Steel. The season starts relatively small-scale considering what’s to come, as Kara/Supergirl (voiced by Kiana Madeira) tries to acclimate to life on Earth while she and Jimmy (Ishmel Sahid) figure out their relationship dynamic. At the same time, Clark (Jack Quaid) and Lois (Alice Lee) discuss their future, with Clark starting to ponder what settling down together might look like. But then a notably powerful Cyborg Superman shows up, and things get very dangerous and very intense very quickly.

Season 3 of My Adventures is interesting as far as its source material, in that it’s borrowing heavily from the big “Death of Superman” story — specifically the “Reign of the Supermen” portion of that long-running 1990s comic book storyline, which involved several would-be Superman successors showing up at the same time. Rather than go for any sort of direct adaptation, this is more of a complete remix of that storyline, utilizing core elements and characters but making them work within the confines of the established My Adventures of Superman universe. It’s a very well done approach that manages to pay homage to its inspiration but still feels like it’s doing something different with it. If you know the comics, rather than feeling ahead of the story, you can have fun with seeing how the show will bring in — either very directly, through smaller references, or something in between — those familiar elements while providing its own interesting take that’s fully accessible for old and new fans alike.

Cyborg Superman is Hank Henshaw (Max Mittelman), the S.T.A.R. Labs employee and pilot whose previous anti-alien sentiment is only further fueled by the grievous injuries he sustained in Season 2’s big finale battle. His presence brings forth the arrival of the mysterious Superboy (Darren Criss), sporting a look that is very much in line with how he appeared in those ’90s comics, though this version of the character also pulls heavily from multiple incarnations (and the comics sure have provided plenty of Superboy possibilities). These two, along with Kara, won’t be the only folks showing up sporting their own take on Superman’s powers and his costume before the season concludes…

There are multiple layers to this storyline, and the middle of the season provides a major new obstacle for Clark to face that provides a lot of strong angst-ridden drama for much of the latter half of the season. Per usual, Quaid and Lee’s great vocal performances provide the solid emotional center to this series, with Clark and Lois’ love for each other — and how they help each other get through tough times — providing a grounding element amongst all of the bigger-than-life chaos around them.

If there’s one notable thing to lament about My Adventures of Superman Season 3, it’s that since the show has gotten so big in scope, it does feel like it’s lost a bit of the core charm of its early days and the initial focus on a more down-to-Earth Superman. This is most obvious by the complete lack of the Daily Planet as an actual location in the series at this point, where it once felt crucial. Yes, the newspaper still exists, and Lois, Clark, and Jimmy still are said to work there, but there’s no scenes actually set there anymore. It feels like things so quickly and repeatedly are “Huge Stakes!” that it’s too bad there’s not enough time to also circle back into what was once a core part of the series.

At least Cat Grant (Melanie Minichino) makes a couple of very entertaining, typically brash appearances, though Perry White has, alas, been nearly entirely pushed aside. But the early episodes of the season do have some very fun scenarios at a convention in honor of Superman and Supergirl, and an awards ceremony among other set pieces. That convention allows for several amusing comics-derived easter eggs and a previously announced quick appearance by Jessica Cruz, lightly setting up the My Adventures with Green Lantern spin-off that’s in the works… with a recognizable actress (that critics have been asked not to reveal) providing Jessica’s voice that one presumes would reprise the role going forward.

Other highlights of the season include the return of Mister Mxyzptlk (David Errigo Jr.) in an episode that both provides its own wacky diversion and allows for some introspection for our characters. There’s also a fascinating look into Krypton’s ancient history for Clark, providing a very different take on that planet than most depictions. And the “will they or won’t they?” element of Jimmy and Kara’s relationship is a fun throughline for the season, even as Jimmy makes some very foolish decisions along the way… all the better to complicate matters.

The action scenes continue to be big and bold and wear the show’s shōnen anime influences like a badge of honor. With multiple characters as powerful as Superman flying about this season — including some I’ll hold back from naming — these various red and blue-clad warriors can certainly go all out, and the show continues to be both kid-friendly but also feel appropriately epic, including in its intense fight scenes (and as an aside, the show continues to sneak in some amusing innuendo for the adults that will go over the heads of the young ones). Also appreciated is the fact that this show is not afraid to get weird, including a very random but appreciated musical number that breaks out during one of the season’s more low-key moments.

After serving as more of a devious background player in Season 2, Lex Luthor (another role for the busy Mittelman) is more centered this time, not only setting Cyborg Superman into play but having a more consequential role than even he realizes. This show’s “young tech nerd” take on Luthor has been a solid one, but it does stand out that even after being a part of the show for two full seasons now — after sitting out Season 1 — we don’t really have any sort of personal dynamic between Superman and Lex established in terms of one-on-one scenes. Hopefully My Adventures with Superman can get a fourth season so that can be remedied.

Warning: This review contains full spoilers for Rick and Morty Season 9, Episode 3!

Rick and Morty Season 9 veers in a slightly sillier direction in its third episode, as Rick (Ian Cardoni) and his grandson (Harry Belden) get drawn into a zany martial arts conflict and Jerry manages to make a true mountain out of a molehill with the new family pool. The result isn't exactly high art, but it's certainly an amusing way to spend 30 minutes.

The premise of Rick Fu Hustle is basically "What if Rick encountered the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique from Kill Bill and found a way to reverse-engineer it?" What follows is kinda, sorta a send-up of the martial arts movie genre, though the episode never firmly commits to that parody. It's more about highlighting the incredible lengths Rick will go to not apologize to someone he wronged. Not a new theme for the series by any means, but certainly one worth repeating.

That's where "Rick Fu Hustle" tends to work best - exploring Rick's latest feud with Morty and his over-the-top efforts to beat Lin Su at his own game. It's amusing to watch Rick spend entire scenes only walking backwards and then build elaborate contraptions to support him in his obstinate quest. It's also entertaining to watch Morty briefly befriend Lin Su, only to come tearfully crawling back with his own death punch problems.

Again, the martial arts parody of it all doesn't fully click, if only because the episode seems a little scatterbrained in that regard. The entire subplot involving Lin Su and his estranged sifu is somewhat undercooked. I'm not convinced this episode needed both characters or the little tangent involving the polycule. It could have used some more streamlining and more emphasis on lampooning martial arts tropes.

Still, it all pays off in a nice way when Rick and Morty duel Lin Su in the ultimate martial arts showdown. Similar to the epic spectacle seen in the Season 9 premiere, the series is really impressing with how bombastic and over-the-top its action scenes have become. The scope of the battle is great, and you can't help but laugh at the icnreasingly ridiculous series of special moves the three characters unleash upon one another.

That battle only grows more ludicrous when our combatants draw the wrath of the martial arts god Punchy and his massive enforcer, Punchenheimer. It's a great way to wrap up an uneven but generally fun main storyline.

As for the other half of Episode 3, we get our first Jerry-centric subplot of Season 9. I'm the type of Rick and Morty fan who generally believes that whenever Jerry's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Jerry?", so that's certainly a welcome development.

Not that I'd argue this is the best or most clever Jerry subplot the show has delivered by any stretch, but it works well enough. Of course he'd somehow bungle something as simple as cleaning the pool to the point that he winds up in a violent sexual affair with the pool cleaner robot. Textbook Jerry. It's been a nice novelty having a serialized storyline this season, even if only for something as minor as the family pool, and this is certainly one way of building on that element.

Full spoilers follow for Star City Episode 3, which is streaming on Apple TV now.

It’s only Episode 3 and Star City has already gotten a (short) time jump from late 1969 to 1970. Security has tightened in the months after last episode, as Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) promised, now that she’s on the scent of Americans trying to smuggle something into Star City. Toward the end of this episode, “Bad Dancer,” we learn what it is — a small radio transceiver — and who did it (I’ll tell ya at the end of this). But the hunt for that piece of equipment that still makes it onto a Soviet spacecraft headed to the moon anyway creates problems everywhere, from everyday inconveniences to the death of a cosmonaut as a result of rebooting the onboard systems to disable the foreign radio signal.

The lockdown looks different for all of our sprawling cast of characters. Tanya Mironova (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) finds solace in musical contraband pressed onto X-rays, what her stressed-out husband Valya (Adam Nagaitis) calls “bone records.” (These were real, by the way!) There’s a tragedy in the way the records warp after so few plays; she can’t even get one clean listen in because each time she’s interrupted. Still, Tanya’s connection to music allows for some lovely color to her character and draws in young Irina (Agnes O’Casey), who’s still learning the rules of engagement when it comes to being a good intelligence officer at Star City.

As part of her regular surveillance assignment, Irina listens in on the Mironova apartment. Her connection may be via scratchy tapes, but she’s clearly become endeared to the couple, especially Tanya. But Star City is a small place. Out at the town square market, Irina learns that Tanya actually teaches piano to her daughter Zoya, and Tanya invites the two of them over. Wilder yet, Irina accepts. O’Casey is great in this scene, barely concealing her feelings of interloping. It leads to Irina being probably too vulnerable in sharing details about Zoya’s father. He’s a “bad man,” but in exactly what ways, we don’t know. In a clever continuation of Irina relating to places through the tapes, the audio cuts out as she speaks. Later, she magnetizes the part of the tape of her visit we don’t hear. I’m guessing it won’t be a secret for terribly long, though. Certainly overseer Lyudmilla will catch this act of self-censorship, inquire after it and give her a hard lesson about her job.

On the space side, the Sergeis Korolev (Rhys Ifans) and Nikulov (Josef Davies) are in the throes of their next rushed moon mission, while also trying to move quickly on their secret Venus project. The Chief Designer has to do his share of smuggling, too: a gigantic deep sea pod that can take extreme levels of pressure — the same needed to withstand Venus. But in splitting their time between – and managing the stress of – the projects, that American radio transceiver manages to make it onboard Luna 17.

And who is the rat? It’s Valya, who’s been training the Luna 17 crew (which includes Solly McLeod’s Sasha). During the launch, Valya takes a trip with Tanya to see a pianist perform in Moscow, where he’s approached by a mystery woman in a manner that makes it seem like an affair, but zoom in and we hear the reality. She’s pressuring him for another job since the transceiver was found out. We’ve only spent a short time with Valya, but now it all adds up why he’s been so stressed out and a distant husband, leaving room for Sasha to elbow his way in with Tanya. I’m very curious to know how he was recruited. Blackmail? Over what?? We’ll find out!

Spoilers below for Episodes 1 and 2 of Apple TV’s Cape Fear. New episodes stream every Friday.

Apple TV’s Cape Fear is executive-produced by Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg and it shows. The polished, colorful reworking of Scorsese’s 1991 blockbuster (which itself was a remake of J. Lee Thompson’s 1962 film; all based on John D. McDonald’s novel The Executioners) literally starts with a bang and quickly drags you into a pervasive sense of dread as thick as the Savannah night air.

The first two episodes, out today on Apple TV, quickly put their own spin on a familiar premise: Convicted murderer Max Cady (this time portrayed in a scene-chewing turn by Javier Bardem) is released from prison, much to the surprise of his former lawyer (Amy Adams) and her family. In this version, Adams’s Anna Bowden is married to the former prosecutor of Cady’s case (Patrick Wilson), so the anxiety that comes with Cady’s release is a family affair.

Episode 1 opens with Cady’s mistress committing suicide at his direction, opening the door to her taking the fall for his 17-year-old crime (he was accused of murdering his wife and unborn son). What follows Cady’s release is a languid, tension-filled premiere brimming with paranoia and foreboding.

As soon as Cady re-enters society, the Bowdens’ seemingly idyllic life becomes flush with ominous incidents. Strange noises begin to fill their posh Southern home. Their security system begins to malfunction. Anna and Tom’s (Wilson) daughter Natalie (Lily Collias) is followed by a strange car. A family of dead skunks is found in their backyard pool. A panther, of all things, is seen on their suburban property. Some of these occurrences are quickly explained (turns out the guy following Natalie was a podcaster obsessed with Max Cady!) but many are left unresolved (for now) and feed into an unrelenting sense of tension.

Soon, Tom and Anna’s son Zack (Joe Anders) goes missing and the dread ratchets up to 11. Cady and Anna come face-to-face at a glitzy fundraiser for the latter’s Innocence Project-like foundation. He quickly ingratiates himself with both the audience and Anna’s colleagues, but Anna struggles to hide her absolute fear. She’s not telling us about her prior relationship with Max, and all signs point to it being a while until we find out why.

Bardem is brilliantly cast here, floating through scene after scene in a turn so menacing that he might as well be twirling his mustache. As Max, Bardem exudes an unhurried charisma that makes it easy to see why so many are smitten with him (including Anna’s boss Noa, played by CCH Pounder). In perhaps his best villainous performance since No Country for Old Men (or at least Skyfall), Bardem is having the time of his life. He and Adams go toe-to-toe early and often, saying more with glances and smirks than most actors do with pages of dialogue.

For her part, Adams’s Anna is steely but vulnerable. You at once know exactly what she’s thinking but have no idea what she’s about to do. It’s a performance that complements Bardem’s brilliantly and leaves you constantly guessing what exactly happened between these characters nearly two decades ago.

Wilson’s Tom is stoic and grounded, providing a welcome counterpoint to the high drama between Max and Anna. Anders and Collias round out a solid cast that elevates what can otherwise be overly-pulpy material. Anders, in particular, gives a performance that masks a metric ton of secrets, adding another dose of suspense to a show that’s already filled with plenty.

Anders’s Zack serves as the focal point of Episode 2 where, after disappearing before the fundraiser, he reappears at his family’s home with a bloody foot and missing toe. Max is there too, pointing to more terror that he may or may not be inflicting on the Bowden family.

And therein lies the central premise and overarching appeal of Cape Fear: At every turn, you’re pretty sure that Max Cady is responsible for the strange things happening to the Bowdens, but you can’t be 100% certain. Nor can you be absolutely positive that there’s not something in the family’s past that they did to deserve it.

Episode 2 begins with a gruesome flashback (beautifully shot in black and white) showing us some of Max’s time in prison, in which he brutally murders a pair of fellow inmates. Back in the present day, Zack reappears, Max is arrested, and they all end up in the hospital where Zack’s missing toe reappears. Turns out, after being drugged – by whom, we don’t know (we do) – whomever was responsible stuffed the toe into Zack’s throat, which he vomits up in the emergency room.

Unlike the premiere, the second episode drags in places, seemingly more concerned with mood than advancing the plot. Despite this, we do get some interesting character revelations. After his mother took her own life, Max was sent to live with his father in the States, leading to an abusive childhood and potential rationale for Max’s (alleged) future actions. We meet Anna’s father Ben, whom she has cut out of her life. Anna discovers Zack has a mysterious online girlfriend, which may or may not be the alias Max is using to further terrorize the family.

Cape Fear has a lot going for it. The cinematography is lush and sultry. The acting, despite some ill-fated attempts at South Georgia accents, is laudable. The tone of suspense and dread that infects every scene of the show is borderline addictive.

The allusions here to Scorsese’s 1991 film (starring Robert DeNiro as Max Cady) are plenty. Episode 1 features vibrant, disconcerting interstitial negative images of the lead characters, which directly tie into the ending of that movie. The film’s bombastic score returns here as well, providing a jolting sense of familiarity.

This is a show that knows what it wants to be yet is not attempting to reinvent the thriller genre or be better than the versions of the story that came before. The dialogue can be overly expository at times and the thrills can border on ham-handed. But if you’re a fan of jump scares, shadows slipping through doorways, and things that go bump in the night, the first two episodes of Cape Fear likely point to a season of delightful thrills.

The three-part miniseries The Witness is available to stream on Netflix now.

Netflix’s new true crime miniseries The Witness retells the real-life murder of Rachel Nickell in London in 1992, which was a widely publicized story in Britain. The elements involved here – equal parts wrenching and compelling in terms of the aftermath of what occurred – certainly make for an involving series, even if it doesn’t quite tie together everything it feels like it’s trying for.

A veteran of British crime dramas like The Victim and Chasing Shadows, Rob Williams wrote The Witness (with Alex Winckler directing the three episodes) using Alex Hanscombe’s memoir, Letting Go, as the main source material. Alex is The Witness’s title character, a boy who is just three years old when his mother Rachel (Eleanor Williams) is horrifically raped and murdered in front of him during a walk through a park. With no DNA or fingerprints found at the scene of the crime, Alex (played as a 3-year-old by Jahsaiah Williams) is the only one who can give investigators any information to go on, but his incredibly young age makes this a daunting and emotionally precarious process.

Trying to deal with all of this is Alex’s father, André (Jordan Bolger), who’s left juggling his own immense grief and wish to protect his son from more trauma with the push to get Alex to talk about what happened. It’s an impossible situation, and there are strong and effective scenes early on as André must navigate whether having Alex talk about these things can actually help him process what he went through versus simply giving the police what they want, regardless of what it does to the boy.

Best known for playing youthful roles in series like Peaky Blinders and The Book of Boba Fett, Bolger is excellent in The Witness as André. He wears his character's mixture of sadness and frustration on his face, even as we see him do his best to push through and give Alex some sort of normal life, which becomes increasingly difficult thanks to the massive media attention they attract wherever they go.

The Witness takes place in two time periods, including the murder and initial investigation in 1992-1994, and then a decade later when André and Alex, now living in Spain, are informed the case is being reopened thanks to an advancement in DNA matching techniques. Kudos to both Bolger’s performance and to the hair and makeup teams for selling him at different points of André’s life, in a story that ultimately spans 14 years. Much of the story jumps back and forth between the two time periods and Winckler does a very good job of visually differentiating the eras so it’s almost always immediately clear which portion we’re now back in.

That being said, it’s hard not to wonder if telling this story in a more linear fashion might not have been just as effective, as it feels like the cross-cutting is sometimes a bit of a distracting, unnecessary technique. But at least it does allow us to meet the teenage version of Alex earlier, with Max Finchman also very good as a kid who has, not shockingly given all he’s gone through, grown up with some self-destructive tendencies. A complex aspect of all of this is that Alex’s lashing out has been perhaps given an extra boost unwittingly by André, whose desperation to keep their identity a secret in other countries, lest the media learn where they are, has them living with a go bag packed with money and passports by the door, as though they’re criminals on the run.

A talented cast of British character actors like Neil Maskell, Kevin Eldon, Sean Gilder, James Bradshaw and James Dryden offer solid, engaging performances as the men leading the investigation into Rachel’s death in the ’90s, with Mark Stanley then grabbing the baton for the portion set in the 2000s. There are some moments in the series that are certainly heavy-handed, such as André watching a psychologist on TV talk about the lifelong trauma Alex will likely feel, but the cast do a lot to keep the story grounded, even when it briefly threatens to feel a bit more sensationalized.

The third and final episode of The Witness jams in a lot, including the reopening of the case, the possibility of seeing the killer (Steve Stamp) in a more sympathetic light based on his own disturbing history, and discussion of huge errors on the part of the police going back to before Rachel’s murder even occurred. All of these aspects are compelling, particularly the unexpected empathy towards the killer in a story of this sort (and who it is who’s seeing them in this different manner). Yet it also feels somewhat rushed through and ultimately as though The Witness could actually have used one more episode to help flesh out some of what is being conveyed here.