Movie Reviews
‘Franz’ Review: Agnieszka Holland’s Freewheeling Kafka Biopic Is Playful and Moving
The biopic is the vulgar but necessary tribute inherently populist cinema pays to more traditional, higher-brow art. Scholars and snobs might sneer at these films, and especially the way they love to transmute childhood trauma into creative drive, all in the service of a tidy narrative arc. But we secretly sort of love them too, especially when they’re a little tacky, and preferably accurate enough to offer the cinematic equivalent of a well-edited Wikipedia page or, for the more serious-minded, a scholarly biography. It helps if the subject, in addition to being admired and talented, if not sympathetic, had a dramatic and interesting life, like mentally imbalanced painter Vincent Van Gogh. Even better: a life we know very little about, like playwright and poet William Shakespeare, making plenty of room for fictional invention.
Given that the writer Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was not famous in his lifetime, it’s remarkable that we know as much about him as we do. Indeed, it’s a miraculous fluke that we know his work at all given that he instructed his friend and literary executor Max Brod to destroy all his writings and personal letters after he died. Luckily, Brod was, in some ways, the world’s worst literary executor — although he did risk his life at points to smuggle the work out of Czechoslovakia as he escaped Nazis to make his way to Palestine, as dramatized in Franz, Agnieszka Holland’s excellent new biopic.
Franz
The Bottom Line Never the trial, always a pleasure.
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentations)
Cast: Idan Weiss, Peter Kurth, Jenovefa Bokova, Ivan Trojan, Sandra Korzeniak, Katharina Stark, Sebastian Schwarz, Aaron Friesz, Carol Schuler, Gesa Schermuly, Josef Trojan, Jan Budar, Emma Smetana, Daniel Dongres
Director: Agnieszka Holland
Screenwriter: Marek Epstein
2 hours 7 minutes
In fact, as far as I can work out, this may be the only proper, life-spanning biopic made so far about Kafka, although there are several films that turn him into a character caught in a world much like his own absurdist, menacing fiction (see Steven Soderbergh’s 1991 exercise Kafka) or ones that memorialize a small slice of Kafka’s bio. (German directors Judith Kaufmann and Georg Maas’ The Glory of Life focuses on the last year of the writer’s life, for instance.)
Holland, whose last film Green Border was one of her best, seems to know conventional biopics are inherently cheesy, and risk being boring and shapeless if they plod chronologically through the subject’s life. Plus, she has to contend with the fact that Kafka’s life wasn’t especially eventful on the surface. He grew up in an affluent German-Jewish family in Prague; had a rocky relationship with his overbearing father Hermann, but a better one with his mother and sisters; worked in the legal department for an insurance company; got engaged but broke it off and never married; caught tuberculosis and died, aged 40.
His writing, to which he was devoted, was the most interesting thing about him, an intensely rich and motley life of the mind. Only his near contemporary, the American modernist poet Wallace Stevens (who survived into old age), who weirdly enough also was a lawyer for an insurance company, rivals Kafka in terms of the inverse proportion of literary originality and canonical significance to dullness of life story.
In order to surmount the challenges the raw facts present his biopic-makers, Holland, screenwriter Marek Epstein, editor Pavel Hrdlicka and the team have opted to create a ludic, kaleidoscopic montage film that flits like a fevered mind around the subject’s life and beyond, leaping decades with a single cut.
That said, the structure never feels random; there are obvious causal connections. For instance, we see young Franz (played as a child by Daniel Dongres) being “taught” to swim by his father (a superb Peter Kurth) by being chucked into a river after just a few lessons, compelled to sink or swim (he sinks). That scene is directly followed by flash-forwards to tourists in the present day admiring a riverbank spot where the adult Kafka would always rest after a swim. Similarly, a section that touches on how prolific a letter-writer the adult Franz was (now played by Idan Weiss, a dead ringer for the real Kafka but also a subtle, gifted performer) then cuts to a tour guide (Emma Smetana) at the Kafka museum pointing out that, in sheer weight, his personal papers are dwarfed by the mountain of wood pulp about him produced over the years.
Indeed, Holland takes a puckish delight — one that Kafka would probably have been equally amused by — in showing how this introverted, neurasthenic perfectionist has become an icon in modern-day Prague, with burger restaurants, statues, tours, tourist traps and all manner of tchotchkes pedaled in his name.
Nevertheless, the film strives to offer a rounded portrait of Franz that gets across his intellect, his sense of humor (there’s a great scene where he reads, smiling broadly throughout, passages from The Trial to a room of guffawing peers), and his complex emotional inner life. A fair amount of screen time is devoted to his tortured relationship with Felicie Bauer (a tender Carol Schuler), the Berlin-based relative of Brod’s to whom Kafka proposed. Not long before their engagement was to be officially announced, Franz became besotted with Felice’s best friend Grete Bloch (Gesa Schermuly) and started writing letters to her, an absurd romantic farrago that would seem farcical if it weren’t so very sad. The closest the film comes to a happy-ish ending is the limning of his later affair with married journalist Milena Jesenska (Jenovefa Bokova), a relationship that at least made him happy for a time.
Even with its two hour-plus running time, Franz feels dense but nimble, Tomasz Naumiuk’s cinematography often in motion, or static as the characters flow frenetically from room to room within the frame, especially in the Kafka family home. We come to appreciate why Franz would crave silence so as to be able to pursue his craft. Even so, the original score by Mary Komasa and Antoni Komasa Lazarkiewicz, supplemented by sadcore indie tracks by Trupa Trupa, is a presence throughout, acting like a sonic glue that holds the chronologically disparate sequences of the film together while adding a distinct modernity to the tone.
However, it will be newcomer Weiss’ intense, playful, sweet rendition of Kafka that people will remember this film for — a portrait of a complicated man who lived mostly in his head but was capable of tenderness with friends and lovers. Also, Franz doesn’t minimize the centrality of Kafka’s Jewish identity and Zionist beliefs, but neither does it pander in any way to any particular audience. The fact that almost none of his family survived the Holocaust is not neglected. But the film doesn’t dwell on that part of the story, all of which unfolds long after Franz’s death.
The tense near-final scene where Brod just escapes the scrutiny of a Gestapo officer on a train, with all of Kafka’s papers in his satchel, is all you really need to know about the rise of fascism that Kafka foretold in a way. Similarly to his writings, Franz the film is interested in a distilled, abstracted meditation on power, the law, control and desire that transcends the banal borders of realism.
The verdict is in, and critics have widely panned The Super Mario Galaxy Movie while audiences have universally praised the family-friendly sequel. This follow-up to the fan-favorite The Super Mario Bros. Movie has been in theaters for about a week since its debut on April 1, and it has already had the best box office opening in 2026, earning more than $190 million over its 5-day domestic weekend. Worldwide, it has amassed $372 million, making it the fifth largest global opening ever for an animated film. Despite the movie being a massive box office hit, however, the review scores are terribly low for the video game adaptation, and there are several reasons why.
Fans vs. critics on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie
As of April 6, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has a mediocre 42% Tomatometer score from a total of 175 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes while holding a fantastic 89% Popcornmeter score from over 5,000 verified user ratings. That’s a stark 47-point difference between critics and users.
A similarly wide disparity can be found on Metacritic as well, where the sequel has a “generally unfavorable” Metascore of a 37 based on 45 reviews, despite it earning a “generally favorable” user score of a 7.9 (basically, a 42-point difference).
This gulf between professional reviews and user reviews for this sequel likely isn’t too surprising by fans of the original 2023 Super Mario Bros. movie. That film earned a 59% Tomatometer but a 95% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes, and it has “mixed or average” 46 Metascore but a “universal acclaim” user score of 8.1.
To be fair, the range of critic scores for the film is vast on Metacritic, with about seven reviews above a 60 and fifteen reviews below a 40. ComingSoon’s Jonathan Sim give it a “Good” 7 out of 10 rating, noting that “it doesn’t necessarily deepen the emotional or narrative complexity of the franchise, but it refines what worked before amplifies it on a grander scale.” However, many other reviews are far less kind, particularly the 0 out of 5 rating from The Times that calls the film “ugly, overbranded, lifeless digital marketing vomit” and a review from Vulture that says it’s like being “asphyxiated in a ball pit filled with candy.”
Meanwhile, multiple user reviews on Metacritic are shocked at the reviews. One called the low Metascore “absolutely ridiculous,” while another asked readers to ignore the critics altogether. A different user wrote, “It’s wild to see professional critics giving this a zero. It feels like they’ve never actually picked up a controller.” And to that person’s credit, we did find that a few critics who gave low scores admitting that the film wasn’t meant for them or that they had never played a Mario game before. Indeed, the movie is chock full of Nintendo references and easter eggs, something that Mario fans will appreciate far more than anyone who doesn’t know or care about the difference between a Super Mushroom and a Fire Flower.
More broadly speaking, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has more than several traits that critics tend to dislike but that audiences enjoy. The first is that it’s a quick-paced, action-packed film, which features a handful of battles with Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Princess Peach, Toad, Fox McCloud, Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Wart. Another is that it’s a comedic adventure with cartoonish gags that are age-appropriate for kids and humorous to Mario fans who are in on the joke. On top of that, the film is a family-friendly video game adaptation, a genre that doesn’t usually score well from critics. A Minecraft Movie, another box office smash that earned $960 million worldwide (and also starred Jack Black), was equally slammed by critics with a 47% Tomatometer but lauded by audiences with an 84% Popcornmeter.
Taken altogether, the movie was almost made in a lab for reviewers to despise and for audiences to praise as a nostalgic love letter to Nintendo. Regardless, despite how critics feel, they’ll need to brace themselves for more, since the Nintendo Cinematic Universe is looking like it will come sooner than later.
Watch I Know Exactly How I Die on VOD
The director of I Know Exactly How I Die is Alexandra Spieth, who ensures a tight pace and some gorgeous shots. She previously directed Stag and created and starred in the web-series [Blank] My Life. The screenplay comes from Mike Corey, and I do really like the plot and evolution of this story.
As already mentioned, the star Rushabh Patel is the executive producer. As a result, this movie is billed as “Rushabh Patel’s I Know Exactly How I Die“, which I am not a fan of. Unless Rushabh Patel is famous in ways I am not familiar with – nor is IMDb, as this is his first and so far only credit there.
This is like people wondering if Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen is connected to Stranger Things, because the media keeps referring to it as a new show from The Duffer Brothers. Sure, they produced it, but Haley Z. Boston created the original story and wrote the screenplay. And she’s not even a newcomer.
Okay, rant over, but I just don’t understand the marketing and press decisions of it all.
Anyway, as already mentioned, the practical effects in I Know Exactly How I Die are gorgeous. Any slasher fan should enjoy the concept of the plot as well as those amazing practical effects. And yet, you will have to endure a little terrible CGI, but this is an indie production, so budget restraints come into play. Of course, so does choosing the best talent, and that did not happen for CGI here!
I Know Exactly How You Die is out on VOD from April 7, 2026. You can rent it on Digital HD from your preferred platform, including Prime Video and Fandango at Home. The film will also be available on DVD.
Movie Reviews
‘Super Mario’ fans ignore weak reviews and send sequel to $372.5 million global box office debut, biggest opening of the year for a studio film | Fortune
Mixed reviews didn’t dissuade mass audiences from buying tickets to the “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which scored the biggest opening of the year for a Hollywood movie. The Illumination and Nintendo co-production earned $130.9 million over the weekend and a massive $190.1 million in its first five days in North American theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Universal Pictures released the sequel globally on Wednesday, capitalizing on kids’ spring break vacations in the week leading up to the Easter holiday. With an estimated $182.4 million from 80 overseas markets, the film is looking at an astronomical $372.5 million debut — the latest hit for the PG rating. Mexico is leading the international bunch with $29.1 million from 5,136 screens, followed by the U.K. and Ireland with $19.7 million.
The animated sequel, Illumination CEO Christopher Meledandri’s 16th movie in 16 years, is the industry’s biggest debut since “Avatar: Fire and Ash” launched over Christmas. The Chinese movie “Pegasus 3,” which was not a Motion Picture Association release, has the slight edge for the 2026 global record, however.
It’s also a dip from the first film, which opened to $204 million domestically during the same five-day time frame in 2023 ($147 of that was from Friday, Saturday and Sunday). “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” went on to be the second biggest movie of 2023, with over $1.3 billion in box office receipts.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” which features returning voice actors Chris Pratt, Jack Black, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Day, had a massive footprint in the U.S. and Canada, where it played in 4,252 theaters, including 421 IMAX and 1,345 premium large format screens. It made $15 million from the IMAX screens alone.
“It’s exactly the kind of broad, crowd-pleasing release that brings people into theatres,” AMC Chairman and CEO Adam Aron said in a statement.
It also cost around $110 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. But it arrived on a wave of less-than-stellar reviews. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is currently sitting at a lousy 40%. Ticket buyers were more enthusiastic, however.
The family audience gave the movie five out of five stars according to PostTrak exit polls, while general audiences gave it four stars and an A- on CinemsScore. Audiences skewed male (61%) overall, although when it came to families attending there were slightly more moms (52%) than dads.
“These kind of audience reaction scores just point to a ridiculously strong run, not only throughout the spring, but likely into the summer as well,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution.
“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will open in Japan later this month.
Last year, the first weekend in April hosted the launch of another video game blockbuster, “A Minecraft Movie,” which had a bigger three-day debut ($162.8 million) but didn’t have a “Project Hail Mary” in a strong second place, meaning the weekend overall is still up around 5%.
As expected, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ended the two-week reignof the Ryan Gosling-led sci-fi hit “Project Hail Mary,” which landed in second its third weekend in theaters where it added $30.7 million, bringing its running domestic total to $217.2 million. Worldwide, it’s made $420.7 million to date.
Third place went to A24’s provocative new movie “The Drama,” starring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, which made an estimated $14.4 million from 3,087 theaters. The film’s stars have been on a massive and charming press blitz to promote their R-rated movie about a engaged couple grappling with an unnerving revelation, which cost a reported $28 million to produce. The reveal has drummed up a fair amount of cultural discourse. While reviews have been more positive than not (82% on Rotten Tomatoes), it got a less promising B CinemaScore.
“Hoppers” and “Reminders of Him” rounded out the top five. And the box office outlook looks bright overall, up around 30% from last year.
“There’s no better opening act for a great summer than a huge month of April powered by a mega blockbuster like the ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,’” said Paul Dergarabedian, comscore’s head of marketplace trends.
Top 10 movies by domestic box office
With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:
1.“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” $130.9 million.
2.“Project Hail Mary,” $30.7 million.
3.“The Drama,” $14.4 million.
4.“Hoppers,” $5.8 million.
5.“Reminders of Him,” $2.2 million.
6.“A Great Awakening,” $2.1 million.
7.“They Will Kill You,” $1.9 million.
8.“Dhurandhar The Revenge,” $1.9 million.
9.“Ready or Not 2: Here I Come,” $1.8 million.
10.“Scream 7,” 915,000.
After deadly crash, loved one questions suspect’s actions at scene
Unlicensed contractor arrested after allegedly scamming Miami Catholic school out of $220,000
Boston University OT Program Ranks Top in Its Class for Fifth Straight Year by U.S. News & World Report
Denver police use Aurora’s license-plate reading system to ID, arrest a teenage murder suspect
Kraken lose 5th straight game, Jets 6-2 win pushes Seattle further from playoffs
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Map: Minor Earthquake Strikes Near San Diego
Trump claims he’d win as the president of Venezuela — just needs to ‘quickly’ learn Spanish
US Supreme Court clears path for Steve Bannon criminal case dismissal
Trump reiterates threats to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges
Trump threatens Iranian infrastructure over Strait of Hormuz | BBC News
-
Atlanta, GA2 days ago1 teenage girl killed, another injured in shooting at Piedmont Park, police say
-
South-Carolina1 week agoSouth Carolina vs TCU predictions for Elite Eight game in March Madness
-
Movie Reviews5 days agoVaazha 2 first half review: Hashir anchors a lively, chaos-filled teen tale
-
Vermont1 week agoSkier dies after fall at Sugarbush Resort
-
Politics1 week agoTrump’s Ballroom Design Has Barely Been Scrutinized
-
Politics1 week agoJD Vance says he was ‘obsessed’ with UFOs, believes aliens are actually ‘demons’
-
Entertainment5 days agoInside Ye’s first comeback show at SoFi Stadium
-
Atlanta, GA1 week agoFetishist ‘No Kings’ protester in mask drags ‘Trump’ and ‘JD Vance’ behind her wheelchair