Movie Reviews

Reagan Is Almost Fun-Bad But It’s Mostly Just Bad-Bad

Published

1 year ago

August 31, 2024

Reagan Is Almost Fun-Bad But It’s Mostly Just Bad-Bad

Dennis Quaid in Reagan.
Photo: Showbiz Direct/Everett Collection

Reagan is pure hagiography, but it’s not even one of those convincing hagiographies that pummel you into submission with compelling scenes that reinforce their subject’s greatness. Sean McNamara’s film has slick surfaces, but it’s so shallow and one-note that it actually does Ronald Reagan a disservice. The picture attempts to take in the full arc of the President’s life, following him from childhood right through to his 1994 announcement at the age of 83 that he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. But you’d never guess that this man was at all complex, complicated, conflicted — in other words, human. He might as well be one of those animatronic robots at Disney World, mouthing lines from his famous speeches.

Dennis Quaid, a very good actor who can usually work hints of sadness into his manic machismo, is hamstrung here by the need to impersonate. He gets the voice down well (and he certainly says “Well” a lot) and he tries to do what he can with Reagan’s occasional political or career setbacks, but gone is that unpredictable glint in the actor’s eye. This Reagan doesn’t seem to have much of an interior life. Everything he thinks or feels, he says — which is maybe an admirable trait in a politician, but makes for boring art.

The film’s arc is wide and its focus is narrow. Reagan is mainly about its subject’s lifelong opposition to Communism, carrying him through his battles against labor organizers as president of the Screen Actors Guild and eventually to higher public office. The movie is narrated by a retired Soviet intelligence official (Jon Voight) in the present day, answering a younger counterpart’s questions about how the Russian empire was destroyed. He calls Reagan “the Crusader” and the moniker is meant to be both combative and respectful: He admires Reagan’s single-minded dedication to fighting the Soviets. They, after all, were single-minded in their dedication to fighting the U.S., and the agent has a ton of folders and films proving that the KGB had been watching Reagan for a long, long time.

By the way, you did read that correctly. Jon Voight plays a KGB officer in this picture, complete with a super-thick Russian accent. There’s a lot of dress-up going on — it’s like Basquiat for Republicans, even though the cast is certainly not all Republicans — and there’s some campy fun to be had here. Much has been made of Creed’s Scott Stapp doing a very flamboyant Frank Sinatra, though I regret to announce that he’s only onscreen for a few seconds. Robert Davi gets more screentime as Leonid Brezhnev, as does Kevin Dillon as Jack Warner. Xander Berkeley puts in fine work as George Schultz, and a game Mena Suvari shows up as an intriguingly pissy Jane Wyman, Reagan’s first wife. As Margaret Thatcher, Lesley-Anne Down gets to utter an orgasmic “Well done, cowboy!” when she sees Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” speech on TV. And my ’80s-kid brain is still processing C. Thomas Howell being cast as Caspar Weinberger.

To be fair, a lot of historians give Reagan credit for helping bring about both the Gorbachev revolution and the eventual downfall of the U.S.S.R. and its satellites, so the film’s focus is not in and of itself a misguided one. There are stories to be told within that scope — interesting ones, controversial ones, the kind that could get audiences talking and arguing, and even ones that could help breathe life into the moribund state of conservative filmmaking. But without any lifelike characters, it’s hard to find oneself caring, and thus, Reagan’s dedication to such narrow themes proves limiting. We get little mention of his family life (aside from his non-stop devotion to Nancy, played by Penelope Ann Miller, and vice versa). Other issues of the day are breezed through with a couple of quick montages. All of this could have given some texture to the story and lent dimensionality to such an enormously consequential figure. But then again, if the only character flaw you could find in Ronald Reagan was that he was too honest, then maybe you weren’t very serious about depicting him as a human being to begin with.

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Movie Reviews

Sisu: Road to Revenge

Published

6 hours ago

November 21, 2025

Press Room

The lethal and tenacious Aatami Korpi returns in this sequel to 2022’s Sisu. Like its predecessor, Sisu: Road to Revenge offers up nonstop, gory hyper-violence as the old soldier shoots and stabs his way through the Soviet Union’s Red Army to avenge his family’s murder. Paired with all the bloodshed is a handful of f-words and some drinking, as well.

Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “Sisu: Road to Revenge” takes a Wrong Turn or Three

Published

24 hours ago

November 21, 2025

Press Room

Movie Review: “Sisu: Road to Revenge” takes a Wrong Turn or Three

I am an audience of one at a late afternoon “preview” matinee of “Sisu 2,” aka “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” the sequel to the savage sleeper hit by Finnish carnage Jalmari Helander.

Do the locals know something I don’t? Or are the good folks in “The Last Capital of the Confederacy” showing their red ball cap displeasure at a movie about mowing down Russians by staying home?

I’m guessing it’s the fact that Screen Gems’ marketing didn’t spend enough to move the needle even a centimeter that dampened enthusiasm, as nobody knows about it.

That’s no big deal, because this sequel is inferior in pretty much every way to the original “Sisu,” which came out of nowhere back in 2023 and which takes its title from a Finnish word that more of less means unfettered rage. It’s not on a par with Helander’s “Rare Exports” Santa-horror splatter film either. He’s due for a misstep. Here it is.

“Road to Revenge” brings back our non-speaking, unstoppable and unkillable Finnish commando Korpi (Jorma Tommila), this time out to haul the pieces to his house across the Russian border after the end of World War II.

When your anti-hero is “unstoppable” and “unkillable,” that lowers the stakes. A lot.

Throw in feeble pacing and thus no urgency to its story of driving, shooting, stabbing and missle-launching his way through legions of belligerant Russians, fresh from their triumph in “The Great Patriotic War,” and you’ve got a thriller whose only creative bits are random moments of Russian-mutilating and murdering.

Remember, the vodka/borscht-folk and their dictator sided with the Nazis at the beginning of WWII, only to F-around and find out you can never trust a Nazi. And the Russians further earned their history’s bad-guys status by invading Finland at the start of the war, and paying dearly for their miscalculation, at least for a time.

The Soviet Russians annexed Finnish territory at war’s end, and that’s where Korpi lived. So he’s got his passport and his battered, oversized military truck and he’s aiming to move the logs of his old homestead, where his family was slaughtered, to a new location across the new border.

Ivan doesn’t want him to get away with it.

The stages of his quest are broken into superfluous “chapters” like “Old Enemies,” “Motor Mayhem:” and “Incoming.” The dialogue, almost all of it by a Russian tormentor (Stephen Lang) who commanded the troops who failed to finish off the Finn in the first film, is every bit as pointless.

“Unleash Hell,” like they haven’t already. “Keep your eyes open,” the most worthless command cliche of them all. And “Look at me,” served up as if he isn’t looking at you.

Duels against armored commandos on motorcycles (!?), airborne fighter bombers and the like ensue. Our hero takes another licking and keeps on ticking. The Russians? Let the body count commence, Comrades!

I laughed at a few of the more audacious butcherings, but that was early on. The narrative settles into a slog in the middle acts and no pull-out-the-stops train ride finale could drag it out of the mud.

Rating: R, graphic violence, pretty much start to finish, profanity

Cast: Jorma Tommila, Richard Brake and Stephen Lang.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Jalmari Helander. A Screen Gems release.

Running time: 1:29

About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine

Movie Reviews

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Ariana Grande Shines In A Solid But Weaker-Than-The-Original Finale!

Published

2 days ago

November 20, 2025

Press Room

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Ariana Grande Shines In A Solid But Weaker-Than-The-Original Finale!

Wicked: For Good Movie Review Rating:

Star Cast: Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Jonathan Bailey, and Michelle Yeoh.

Director: Jon M. Chu

Wicked: For Good Movie Review Out: Solid Performances But Underwhelming Conclusion (Photo Credit – Instagram)

What’s Good: Wicked: For Good is definitely a showpiece when it comes to production values, and so, every single frame is beautiful to look at and the ultimate Wizard of Oz experience when it comes to visuals.

What’s Bad: The film is slower than the first, and it feels, especially when the new songs don’t hit like the ones in the previous instalment ,and dialogue feels like a lot of filler.

Loo Break: Anywhere in the first act, as the film moves so slowly that you can probably go and come back and not miss anything.

Watch or Not?: If you loved the first one, then yes, you need to see this and close the cycle.

Language: English (with subtitles).

Available On: Theaters

Runtime: 137 Minutes

User Rating:

Opening:

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Ariana Grande Shines (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Script Analysis

Wicked: For Good is a solid film, there is no doubt about that, you just have to look at the powerful visuals, and the entire production value, but the script might be the weakest aspect of the film, especially when it comes to structure and dialogue, which affects the pacing, making the first two acts of this musical epic feel like it could do with a couple more drafts to make the story tighter, and the flow a lot more natural.

As it is, the first two acts move a snail’s pace, and the songs simply don’t match the quality and catchiness of the songs in the first two acts of the first film, here, the songs feel like they are there just to make the film longer, and it is hard to remember one that is simply memorable enough to sing along. Fans of the original musical will probably have a lot more fun with this aspect of the film, but as a newcomer, I did feel a drop in quality on the musical side.

The dialogue also does a lot of damage to the film, as it feels like everything is delivered in two or three lines that are too long, when it could have been conveyed in a simpler and more efficient way. It just doesn’t work, and while the actors do their best, the material doesn’t hold up. Nevertheless, some jokes here and there truly land, and the film does tell a compelling, complete story, which is a lot more than many other films do today.

The third act also feels quite rushed, and the connections to the original Wizard of Oz film, and the characters from that story deserved a lot more, because they are so legendary and iconic, that for some reason this movie feels like it should just move away from them as fast as it can, hurting the overall impact of the story, and the character growth.

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Star Performance

Cynthia Erivo is quite solid in here, and she is plotwise, the main character, but let’s be real, this is the Ariana Grande show, who basically steals the show in every single scenes she is in, not only with her powerful voice but also with her solid acting abilities, she just has it, when it comes to presence, delivery and charisma.

The rest of the cast is quite good. Bailey does some terrifying things in the film and effectively creates all the darkness it needs, while Goldblum’s Oz is just right – nothing to talk about, but definitely his performance, along with the rest from all the other actors, doesn’t hurt the film; it elevates it.

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Movie Lacks Crisp Editing At Places (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Direction, Music

Jon M. Chu started as a relatively standard director. Still, he has definitely graduated to the big leagues with these two films, as the scale of everything just goes out of the window when it comes to the visuals and the camera’s placement, which is always in the perfect spot to show it. Really, the world-building that Chu and his team have created here is outstanding.

The music, as we said before isn’t as good or memorable as the first film which really hurts the experience because this is a musical and I thought the best was being safe for last in the song department, of course, it will be a matter of taste, as it is everything but this is definitely one of the biggest negative points for the film. Nevertheless, the performers are truly going out of their way to create something extraordinary, so there is really nothing to criticize regarding the actors, dancers and singers themselves.

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: Takes Viewers On An Atmospheric Ride (Photo Credit – YouTube)

Wicked: For Good Movie Review: The Last Word

Wicked: For Good closes this adventure in a solid manner, although the overall package feels weaker than the first film, which is disappointing. However, Jon. M. Chu, his team, and his cast demonstrate that they truly care about the project, and it shows on the screen as the film finally delivers on being entertaining, grandiose, and visually stunning. It could have been better, but what is there is truly remarkable.