The “PAW Patrol” franchise is now 10 years old — 70 in dog years — and with each installment, children and their parents have been treated to exciting adventures, wholesome characters and cool new merchandise. What began as a preschool TV series in 2013 got the silver-screen treatment in 2021 with the inventively named “PAW Patrol: The Movie,” broadening its scale and reach but sacrificing none of its lesson-learning or toy-slinging. Given the property’s theatrical and streaming success, there’s an audience perpetually hungry to connect with the ongoing saga of a tween boy and his pack of four-legged heroes. The fantasy-forward follow-up “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” involving a meteor, magic crystals and a mad scientist (who hates being called that), expands their journey to saving the world.
This time, their mission holds greater challenge and peril — raising the bar creatively and bumping the MPAA rating from G to PG. While not as subversive as its predecessor, it delivers on the promise of a smart and salient sequel with bolder action, bigger stakes, and deeper resonance for all ages.
Adventure City is safe and secure on land, at sea and in the air thanks to the elite PAW Patrol and their efforts to quell crime and avert disasters. Team leader Ryder (Finn Lee-Epp) is so confident in their ability to keep the peace that he’s decided to take on three young, clumsy and over-eager trainees: Nano (Alan Kim), Mini (Brice Gonzalez) and Tot (North West). Though the newest member of the pack, headstrong dachshund Liberty (Marsai Martin), is initially opposed to the idea, she stays behind to train the trio when the others are called out to fight danger. Little do they know a lurking evil is about to upend their lives.
From her lair in an abandoned observatory, scientific mastermind Victoria Vance (Taraji P. Henson) plots to magnetically harness a meteor and mine it for its powers. However, her plan goes awry, putting citizens at risk and the pups in its path. While Vance is sent to jail for her misdeeds — where she connects with the pups’ longtime foe Mayor Humdinger (Ron Pardo) and his Kitten Catastrophe Crew — the patrol learns the massive rock contains special crystals that give them amazing abilities: Pilot Skye (Mckenna Grace) can fly and has super strength; police dog Chase (Christian Convery) has super speed; bulldozing bulldog Rubble (Luxton Handspiker) can turn himself into a wrecking ball; firehouse dalmatian Marshall (Christian Corrao) can throw fireballs; aquatic diver Zuma (Nylan Parthipan) can control water; and gadget guru Rocky (Callum Shoniker) is magnetic. But just as The Mighty Pups are honing their newfound skillsets, a trap is set that threatens their livelihood.
Similar to their first big-screen adventure, another pup suffers from a crisis of confidence: Skye, whose small stature causes her to question her self-worth. Yet returning writer-director Cal Brunker and co-screenwriter Bob Barlen add different facets to her arc to distinguish it from Chase’s anxiety issues. Her tiny pink bandana acts as a literal and figurative tie to her past. They include a beautifully poignant, “Jessie’s Song”-like backstory that blends Christina Aguilera’s tear-jerking ballad “Learning to Fly” with breathtaking animation. The filmmakers also turn their focus to Liberty and her heartrending struggle to figure out her purpose as well as her power. Still, the emotional weight of these sentimental storylines won’t overwhelm youngsters, as it’s all layered in with finesse.
Action sequences and their aesthetics have evolved. Scenes that show the team functioning as a well-oiled machine are exhilarating, but pull double duty narratively, propelling the characters and their conflicts further. It’s also fun to see this turn into a family affair with returning player Kim Kardashian West — who perfectly voices prissy poodle Delores — accompanied by her children North and Saint in supporting roles. Composer Pinar Toprak’s evocative score is complementary without being pushy, enhancing character drive. Fur, water, lasers, fire and cloud elements are visually dazzling, while the climactic face-off between the puppy protagonists and their adversary feels electrically charged in these capable animators’ hands.
The consumerist underpinnings that were so prevalent in its predecessor are, of course, still evident — perhaps now even less cloaked, with their new souped-up vehicles and “Tron”-esque bodycon suits revealed in the expected hype-montage style. There’s even a fourth-wall-breaking joke ironically stated by a newsman (Lil Rel Howery), as if it were news to us, that makes us chuckle through our complicity. With much humor and charm, this second chapter reads fairly well for all ages. It may not reinvent the wheel, but it certainly knows how to cleverly repackage and resell the goods.
Cobweb didn’t quite make waves when it was released in July, but its aptly timed Blu-ray release comes right in time for the spooky season, which fits it much better than summer. Samuel Bodin’s directorial debut has a talented cast that features Lizzy Caplan, Antony Starr, and Cleopatra Coleman, alongside child actor Woody Norman, who continues to be one to really watch. With some fun ideas, a unique framing, and some cool practical effects, Cobweb winds up making an impact despite its limited resources.
“Eight-year-old Peter is plagued by a mysterious, constant tap, tap from inside his bedroom wall – a tapping that his parents insist is all in his imagination,” says the synopsis. “As Peter’s fear intensifies, he believes that his parents (Lizzy Caplan and Antony Starr) could be hiding a terrible, dangerous secret and questions their trust. And for a child, what could be more frightening than that?”
What makes Cobweb really stand out is the performances. Caplan and Starr are great as the parents, delivering creepy performances that leave the audience truly guessing if they are anxious parents, abusive psychopaths, or somewhere in between. While not particularly scary at any point, the film is always engaging, and Norman does a great job of portraying a child’s natural fear in such a situation.
The film will leave viewers with a lot to digest, especially if you engage with what you just saw and try to make sense of it. How much is to be taken literally? Could it be a child’s imagination that leads to a tragedy, and the more supernatural elements are simply used to cope? There are a lot of ways to read the events that take place, which makes this a prime candidate for rewatches. It’s one of those movies that are just as fun to discuss with friends as it is to watch.
The special features don’t really engage a ton with its interpretation — which is fine and almost ideal as we don’t need literal answers to every piece of art –, but I still would’ve loved to have heard a director’s commentary discussing what went into the movie. There are three short featurettes, though, totaling around 8.5 minutes. They provide a decent look into the practical effects that went into its final act, using a child’s perspective to tell the story, and taking advantage of primal fears, such as being afraid of the dark and spiders. While I wish there was a bit more to sink your teeth into, they do complement the film well and are worth checking out after you finish watching.
Cobweb winds up punching above its weight, and there’s no better time than fall to revisit it. Just as intriguing a film to engage with as it is to watch, it’s a quick and rewatchable movie that is worth discussing. While there aren’t a ton of special features, what is here is an interesting glimpse at production. While it’s not one of the year’s best horror movies, it’s still a fun watch worth your time.
Disclosure: The publisher sent us a copy for our Cobweb Blu-ray review.
1 of 5 | Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren star in “Caligula.” Photo courtesy of Vitagraph Films
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 30 (UPI) — Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, which screened at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles, is unlikely to win over critics of the original film. But, fans of the notorious Penthouse production will be treated even more debauchery in a more focused narrative.
The film charts the rise and fall of Roman Emperor Caligula (Malcolm McDowell). The empire’s excesses involve the carnal delights that Penthouse magazine specialized in.
However, producer Bob Guccione took the film away from director Tinto Brass and added hardcore sex to the film’s orgy scenes. The Ultimate Cut is comprised entirely of alternate takes of scenes or footage that has never appeared, and none of Guccione’s additions.
It remains the story of Caligula, though. Caligula’s predecessor, Cesar Tiberius (Peter O’Toole) already had a harem of sex slaves performing for him or fulfilling his needs.
So any take chosen is still full of background actors naked, writhing and simulating sex. Some sex acts are even suggested in shadow.
Once Caligula becomes Cesar, he enjoys the abuse of power. He makes light of the actual duties of the position.
Some absurdity remains in the nature of the material and is not necessarily out of place in an epic of decadence.
Caligula dances and prances around. In the rain his palace becomes a Slip N Slide. With his short kilt, McDowell inadvertently moons the camera every time he turns around.
The most memorable scenes from the film are still in this cut. Those would be the execution by decapitation machine, and the assault on newlyweds Proculus (Donato Placido) and Livia (Mirella D’Angelo).
Much of the film’s last hour is restored for the first time, which gives Caligula an actual arc. It explores Caligula’s insatiable madness to its inevitable conclusion.
McDowell plays the megalomania of speaking in dramatic declarations like, “If only all Rome had just one neck” and declaring himself a god.
The third hour also restores much of Helen Mirren’s role as Caligula’s wife, Caesonia. Considering the softcore sex scenes she shares with McDowell in this section, it’s surprising Guccione would have ever omitted erotic material with his lead actors.
Caligula is never boring. It can be exhausting, so at three hours plus an intermission, one might have taken the opportunity to hone the cut down to a more manageable running time. Perhaps Caligula is destined to be excessive by its very nature.
The only excess that feels out of place is the decision to open the film with more than five title cards explaining the circumstances of the original production. That is too much information to read at the beginning of a film.
This version of the film should just be presented either for people to discover afresh, or for fans to explore further before or after the film.
At that, even without Guccione’s interference, there are plenty of orgies and taboos in this edition of Caligula. Even without the hardcore sex scenes Guccione added, Caligula will never be tame.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
Some thrillers coast on mood. Reptile slowly drowns in it. For nearly two-and-a-half hours, this plodding murder mystery sustains a single note of hushed unease. Every scene has the same vibe, a pinprick of vague dread amplified by the low hum of what the Netflix subtitles refer to as “tense music.” A man walking into a building? Ominous. A couple dancing at a bar? Ominous. A detective admiring an automatic kitchen faucet? Believe it or not, that’s ominous too. Because the film never strays from this atmosphere of impending doom, it quickly loses its persuasiveness, like a boy crying wolf one too many times.
For a little while, though, it’s an effective approach. The opening minutes have a seductively sinister pull, efficiently drawing you into the apparent New England dream life of two young real estate agents, Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz) and her boyfriend, Will Grady (Justin Timberlake). It’s not just the overcast lighting scheme that clues us to storm clouds forming on the horizon. There’s also the way Juice Newton’s timeless “Angel of the Morning” rises triumphantly on the soundtrack, only to be swiftly cut off by an opening door. The movie’s first and arguably only true shock arrives just as abruptly, as Will comes home to find Summer brutally stabbed to death. The title slams dramatically across the whole screen, obscuring our view of her mutilated body.
Seasoned detective Tom “Oklahoma” Nichols (Benicio del Toro) catches the case and works it, very gradually. The pool of suspects is small but almost comically filled with plausible psychos. We can’t rule out the boyfriend, thanks to how close to the chest Timberlake plays his emotions. There’s a dirtbag ex-husband (Karl Glusman) who looks like a police sketch personified, with his pencil stache bracketed by sharp cheekbones. And what gumshoe wouldn’t turn his magnifying glass on Eli Phillips (Michael Pitt), a townie who pulls the classic serial-killer move of appearing among the gaggle of onlookers outside the crime scene and holds a grudge against Grady’s local real-estate dynasty? Eli also has the misfortune of being portrayed by Pitt, the frequent onscreen creep who gave TV’s Hannibal and the English-language Funny Games remake some additional notes of distress; how obvious the movie will become hinges partially on whether he’s the culprit or an easily profiled red herring.
Making his feature debut, director Grant Singer fits a profile, too. He stages scenes just like a guy who cut his teeth on music videos: obsessed with surface effect, less so with how well his story tracks from one carefully composed image to the next. The clipped editing, seedy overhead illumination, and periodic plunges into file cabinets mark Reptile as another entry, like The Little Things or Prisoners before it, on the growing log of David Fincher imitations. In fact, the movie often plays like the work of someone who caught Zodiac or Gone Girl on cable years earlier and is trying to recreate it from memory, getting some of the sickly sleekness down but remaining foggy on the specifics.
This movie could really use a Gillian Flynn pass. It has the veneer of a Fincherian procedural, but not the density of clues or complications or studiously observed lead-chasing. Singer, who also cowrote the screenplay, portentously stretches out his ho-hum mystery, which gets less interesting the closer the detective comes to solving it. (The biggest revelation, the one that cracks the whole case, is uncovered thanks to laughable carelessness on the guilty party’s part.) Padding out the protracted runtime are scenes of the detective’s intersecting personal and professional lives. That his wife, played by Alicia Silverstone, is an encouraging, unofficial partner is a nice subversion of police-movie convention. A more playful thriller might have some fun with their dynamic instead of folding it into the general gloom.
There’s some craft to admire at least. The cinematographer, Mike Gioulakis, supplies some of the same creeping menace he previously lent films by Jordan Peele, David Robert Mitchell, and M. Night Shyamalan. He has an expert eye for the evil lurking in the cracks and crevices of suburban life. Beyond the polished imagery, it’s the performances that prop Reptile up. Del Toro, especially, draws you close with his understatement. He downplays everything, raising an eyebrow but never his voice, even when threatening the man flirting with his wife. Is that lawman strategy or essential temperament? There’s much more intrigue in the actor’s carefully subdued delivery than what the whodunit provides.
Then again, maybe he’s just drowsy. The audience probably will be. Reptile drones through its mystery, almost daring viewers to zone out, perhaps in hopes that we might miss a few key details and walk away thinking we’ve seen something more suggestive and complex than we have. The film has no ups or downs, just a flatline of disquiet connecting one identically inflected moment to the next. It’s the detective thriller as foreboding white noise machine.
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