Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Eden (2025)

Published

3 months ago

December 26, 2025

Eden, 2025.

Directed by Ron Howard.
Starring Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law, Daniel Brühl, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Felix Kammerer, Toby Wallace, Jonathan Tittel, Ignacio Gasparini, Richard Roxburgh, Paul Gleeson, Thiago Moraes, Nicholas Denton, Tim Ross, Antonio Alvarez and Benjamín Gorroño.

SYNOPSIS:

Based on a factual account of a group of outsiders who settle on a remote island only to discover their greatest threat isn’t the brutal climate or deadly wildlife, but each other.

Based on true events, esteemed director Ron Howard (fallen on hard times, especially given both the quality of his last film and what it led to…) seems unsure of what tone to take with Eden, a look at a power struggle on Floreana, a Galapagos Island, circa World War I.

Divided into three groups, they have all escaped civilization for one reason or another, with Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) dedicating time to a manifesto for a new, supposedly more sensible and humane brand of social norms. He is also a quack convincing his wife, Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), that this self-imposed exile will also give him the peace and time necessary to focus on curing her multiple sclerosis. His rules for a more respectable society contain everything from vegetarianism to the usual clichéd rambling about pain functioning as a necessary ingredient to growth and happiness.

That quiet isolation is impeded upon, first with the arrival of the Wittmer family, looking to escape the war, poverty, and live freely, growing their garden. Sydney Sweeney slides right into the more traditionally conservative wife role of Margaret, currently pregnant and somewhat docile toward her husband, Heinz (Daniel Bruhl), a man she married not out of love but for a severe lack of experience, and that she was asked to take his hand. That does not mean that this is a boring role for Sydney Sweeney; even if she isn’t entirely convincing regarding looks (there are times that, even in the period piece clothing, she resembles a contemporary woman) and accent, the back half allows her character ample opportunity to show that, while often quiet and passive, her character bears much intelligence and is capable of making risky choices under pressure.

Soon after Dr. Ritter intentionally settles them into a plot of land he deems will make gardening impossible and them want to leave within a few weeks, a spoiled and flirty baroness (Ana de Armas) unexpectedly shows up with a couple of young and handsome sycophants (Jonathan Tittel and All Quiet on the Western Front’s Felix Kammerer) to do everything from make her feel important, cook her canned food, steal some more canned food (somehow, she stupidly assumes what she brought would be enough to last a lifetime, and is too entitled to eat anything homegrown on the island), fornicate, and last but not least, manipulate her way into control over the island as she is looking to build a ritzy hotel solely for the rich.

Dr. Ritter couldn’t give a damn about any of these people, quick to place them into unfortunate circumstances, pitting them against one another. The joke is on him, though, as these people are either more suited for this lifestyle or competent than he or his wife, causing him to start breaking the rules going into his manifesto. Each of them (more so the baroness) knows what buttons to push to bring out his anger and insecurities.

A solid idea for a psychological triple threat match, Ron Howard’s (co-writing alongside Noah Pink) approach to this is a clunky blending of tones that never gels. Anything involving the baroness is played over the top and campy, at odds with the more serious attempts at character study. Ana de Armas isn’t bad here, but she is in another movie entirely, and one that might have worked if that tone was consistent across the board. Giving confidence to this belief is that, once her character exits the story for reasons that won’t be spoiled, the dramatic rift between the other two groups suddenly becomes compelling, with a layer of deadly intrigue and darker impulses. At a little over 2 hours, Eden is also a film that benefits from such a running time, allowing for lengthy sequences dedicated to each group and letting their characters breathe outside the larger picture.

Eden has one last piece of frustration in store once the ending credits start, noting that there are two different perspectives to these factual accounts. How Ron Howard and Noah Pink arrived at the story they have told here is anyone’s guess (presumably trying to find the truth in the middle), but that piece of information suggests a much more narratively creative and ambitious approach to the story. That’s not to guarantee it would have been better, but, aside from the intriguing curiosity of essentially every Hollywood IT actress in one movie playing mental mind games for superiority over an island, this veers between dry and overly wacky, never finding a working middle ground until it’s too late.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

Movie Reviews

Sharwanand Biker Movie Review

Published

4 hours ago

April 2, 2026

Press Room

Movie Name : Biker

Release Date : April 03, 2026
123telugu.com Rating : 3.25/5
Starring : Sharwanand, Dr Rajashekhar, Malvika Nair & Others.
Director : Abhilash Reddy
Producers : Vamsi Krishna Reddy, Pramodh Uppalapati
Music Director : Ghibran Vaibodha
Cinematographer : J Yuvraj
Editor : Anil Pasala

Related Links : Trailer

Sharwanand has now come up with the sports drama Biker. Directed by Abhilash Reddy, the movie stars Rajasekhar in a key role. Let’s see how the film is.

Story:

Vikas Narayan aka Vikky (Sharwanand) is a top-class motocross racer.. Since childhood, he is trained rigorously by his father Sunil Narayan (Rajasekhar). However, Vikky suddenly leaves the sport, putting his father in a tough spot.

Why did Vikky leave racing? How is he connected to Ananya (Malavika Nair)? What is her role in his life? What happened after Vikky left the sport? This forms the crux of the story.

Plus Points:

We have already seen multiple sports dramas in Tollywood, but motocross racing has never been explored before, and that becomes the USP of Biker. Even though a few moments appear familiar, the unexplored territory in Telugu cinema keeps the proceedings engaging, and credit where it’s due.

The sport sequences are superbly shot and choreographed. Some moments truly keep us on the edge of our seats. To make a film on a less popular sport in India by weaving emotional moments around it, the director does a pretty good job in helping the movie connect with the regular audience.

Sharwanand looks in his best shape, and it’s good to see him try his hand at multiple genres. He brings sincerity to his performance as a professional racer and is effective in the emotional segments as well. His scenes with Rajasekhar work well. With Biker, Rajasekhar (Angry Man) reaches a new level, playing his part with utmost dignity and elegance.

When veterans play their age and become an integral part of the story instead of trying to outshine others, it’s a pleasure to watch. From here on, Rajasekhar could become the go-to actor for character roles in Telugu cinema. The second half is comparatively more engaging with decent emotional depth. Malavika Nair is fine in her role.

Minus Points:

Biker plays it safe in key moments with familiar tropes, which prevents it from reaching the next level. The vulnerability of the protagonist should have been explored more during the actual racing portions to make it stand apart from regular sports dramas. Some elements feel too easy for the hero to achieve, which takes away from the realism.

Instead of external factors, if the hero had been troubled by his own internal thought process during the racing, the impact could have been much higher. The episodes involving the hero’s sponsorship needed better execution.

The racing scenes are no doubt solid, but the moments leading up to them could have been still better. The conflict point between the lead pair is meaningful, but it is underutilized. The first half is slow at times, and isn’t upto the mark on the whole.

Technical Aspects:

Ghibran’s background score is solid in the thrilling moments, and the sound design is excellent. Cinematographer Yuvraj does a fabulous job in picturizing the racing sequences. The editing is fine in the latter half, but needed improvement in the first half.

The production values are solid. Director Abhilash Reddy takes up a not-so-popular sport and delivers an engaging film with a fair number of good moments. Had he avoided a few clichés, the movie could have reached a whole new level.

Verdict:

On the whole, Biker is an engaging sports drama with a never-before-explored motocross racing backdrop and good performances. The racing scenes are brilliant, and the film is carried by Sharwanand and Rajasekhar with their impressive performances. The first half is slow, and there are a few convenient moments. The use of certain tropes could have been avoided for better impact. Nonetheless, if you enjoy sports dramas, Biker turns out to be a satisfactory watch.

123telugu.com Rating: 3.25/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

Movie Reviews

Vaazha 2 first half review: Hashir anchors a lively, chaos-filled teen tale

Published

16 hours ago

April 2, 2026

Press Room

Vaazha 2 first half review: Hashir anchors a lively, chaos-filled teen tale

‘Vaazha’ found its footing in how sharply it reflected a certain kind of youth, boys dismissed as ‘vaazhas’, but carrying their own confusions and emotional weight. The second part returns to that space, again following a group of boys trying to figure themselves out.

Directed by Savin SA, the film tracks this gang through their higher secondary years, with Hashir and Alan among the central figures. It stays with them as they move through that in-between phase, dealing with early attraction, peer pressure and the pull of new experiences, the kind that often arrive before they fully understand them. The narrative is not built around a single arc, but around the shared rhythm of the group.

The first half is mounted as a high-energy stretch, driven by humour, action and a fast pace, with a background score that keeps it buoyant. The inclusion of contemporary content creators stands out here, and the response suggests it lands well with younger viewers, especially in the way the film taps into familiar emotions.

Vijay Babu, Aju Varghese and Sudheesh appear in key supporting roles, adding presence around the central group.

Where the first Vaazha had a more subdued, easygoing take on youth, the sequel is noticeably louder and more vibrant, holding on to the same core but pushing it with greater energy.

Movie Reviews

‘Are We Having Fun Yet?’

Published

1 day ago

April 1, 2026

Press Room

Photo: Universal/Everett Collection

Like being asphyxiated in a ball pit filled with candy, the experience of watching The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is at once kaleidoscopic and nerve-wracking. It pantomimes the hallmarks of a good time, with a fast, forced cheeriness; the flashing lights, bright colors, sparkly design, and subplot-happy narrative are there to hold our attention and charm us, but they accomplish the opposite, instead making us worry about what we’re missing. At one point there’s a throwaway bit involving a roller coaster that dives into a pit of lava, eventually emerging with all its passengers transformed into happy skeletons; maybe we are supposed to be those happy skeletons, drained of life and loving it. The good news (or is it the bad news?) is that this is a kids’ movie and nobody cares what “we” think. Its predecessor, 2023’s Super Mario Bros. Movie, made more than $1.3 billion worldwide, and no one should be surprised if this one does something similar.

That first movie wasn’t particularly accomplished either, but it had a slick simplicity that one could sort of lose oneself in and some clever bits involving our heroes, Brooklyn plumber brothers Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), as well as a lively turn by Jack Black as the bloviating turtle-demon Bowser. The sequel, by contrast, is turbo-loaded with character, incident, themes, never pausing to let us appreciate anything. Though directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic do apparently want us to care: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie centers around families destroyed and reclaimed, a sentence I can’t believe I just typed. The film’s chief villain, the spasmodic Bowser Jr. (voiced by Benny Safdie), seeks to save his father, the now-docile Bowser, from neutered captivity. As part of his devious plan (I think?), Junior kidnaps Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) from her space-faring observatory dominion, where she plays mother to a race of puffy, colorful star children known as Lumas. Rosalina loves to read her kids heroic stories about Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), her long-lost sister, ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom and Mario’s main object of desire. Such attempts to infuse depth into the film’s carnivalesque cacophony could have been something, but corporate flatness consumes all. The ideas about family aren’t explored or developed, merely repeated.

But like I said, it’s a kids’ film, and younger children will be distracted by the aforementioned cute little star-baby things, by the cute little mushroom-head guys, by the frantic speed at which everything comes at us, and by the film’s vision of the universe as a series of amusement parks, with each world in this galaxy seemingly its own funfair. If only all this chaos didn’t feel so strained, so polished and programmed, so, so … unchaotic. The movie is also filled with Easter eggs from many decades’ worth of Mario video games, which will surely reassure devoted fans of those games that all is right with the world and someone loves them. (Full disclosure: I haven’t played any of them. Back when I was a kid and had to cold turkey myself from video games entirely, I’m pretty sure Donkey Kong was as far as I got in the incipient Mario universe.) The best of these aforementioned callouts is the appearance of the Han Solo–like Star Fox (voiced by Glen Powell), a character from a different set of Nintendo games, who arrives accompanied by his own hand-animated, hyper credit sequence. More of that, please.

Of the rest of the star-laden voice cast, Safdie and Black are the only others who make an impression. As before, Bowser has been realized with an eye (and an ear) for Black’s own grandiose, mock-operatic mannerisms, and Safdie seems to have appropriated them for the character’s offspring. Black, of course, was also the star of last year’s entertaining hit A Minecraft Movie, which got a ton of mileage out of the actor’s unique mix of irony and roaring sincerity, using him to hold together its ramshackle, faux-DIY vibe. That film was a good example of this type of material handled with something resembling charm. We could also point to something older like The LEGO Movie as a model of a brand-management enterprise that managed to be irreverent and thoughtful (and, indeed, brilliant) at the same time. All The Super Mario Galaxy Movie has, unfortunately, is the messianic fervor with which it throws everything at us. Well, that, and the mountains of money it will surely make. Me, I’ll take my travel stipend and go home.