A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025)

Director: Kogonada

Cast: Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Might have missed it, too, if it hadn’t been for a more-charming-than-average trailer, I might have missed it altogether.

Did I Like It: To paraphrase Bart Simpson*, after he saw Naked Lunch (1991), “I can think of at least four things wrong with that title.”

Unfortunately, whatever charm the film had at its disposal was spent in that aforementioned trailer. Even in the context of the full film, the one moment where a character says the misplaced-in-time Sarah (Robbie) looks like she’s forty, plays less funny and more like a line meant for a different actress.

Robbie and Farrell seem to be vaguely embarrassed by the film happening around them, as if they both understand they have to allow for a down project after their recent highs in Barbie (2023) and The Penguin and act for our patience while the rest of their career calibrates in front of our eyes.

A bland rebound project might register on the mind as a tepid non-event, if it weren't for the fact that the supporting cast is utterly wasted. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline can each single-handedly raise films beyond where they might have otherwise been. Here, they just show up and have a mildly quirky air about them, while unfortunately neglecting to have anything funny to say or do. There’s a different cut of this film somewhere that is probably just as uneven in pacing and tone, and is ultimately still a small, tepid, reasonably photographed circular trip, but it would at least have been a bit funnier.

*I thought I may have gone to this well before in a review, and searching the reviews, I apparently did it in a recent review for Night Editor (1946). In retrospect, I mean it far more here than I did then. Ah, well. There is at least some risk of repeating oneself over nearly 1000 reviews.

Daredevil (2003)

Director: Mark Steven Johnson

Cast: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Farrell

Have I Seen it Before: Yes. For reasons I can’t possibly even fathom, I even bought the soundtrack (in those final years when people went out and bought soundtrack albums on disc after seeing a movie). This is why I can karaoke Evanesence’s “My Immortal” without looking at the words*.

I’ve seen it more than a few times, and even went straight from getting a paycheck at Staples once twenty years ago to pick up a copy of the director’s cut—now with 100% more Coolio—but I can’t imagine I would have ever watched the film again, if it weren’t for Jennifer Garner being thoroughly charming in her more-than-a-cameo role in this summer’s Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

Did I Like It: I knew I wasn’t going to like it even before I pressed play. While the moment when the movie came out was when I was most into the Matt Murdock (Affleck) character that I was ever going to be, I remember thinking that the meet-cute/fight scene between Affleck and Garner was one of the most awkwardly staged sequences ever shot.

I had somehow forgotten that almost every other element of the film doesn’t work, either. There are a few moments where the film seems fleetingly interested in depicting the challenges a blind man (regardless of how much he can actually see) might face. Far too many plot lines from decades worth of Daredevil** are included here for this to have any hope of being anything more than an unappetizing mystery loaf of a movie. One gets the sense that the filmmakers tend to agree, hence why leaden voice over narration from Affleck permeates the film like a fart that just won’t dissipate.

Every performer either seems like they want to be almost anywhere else, or trying their best to be a good sport, as this will hopefully lead to some other, better films. The entire affair seems blithely designed to get a reasonable return on the investment at a time when few movies are expected to do well, and to be able to make a few extra bucks on that aforementioned soundtrack album. It accomplished both of those modest goals.

*Okay, fine. You twisted my arm. It’s only partially how I’m able to do that.

**Also, and I can’t imagine I’m going to find a venue to express this deeply held thought anywhere else. Shouldn’t the billionaire, ultimately thrill-seeking man who uses fear as a weapon be called Daredevil - The Man Without Fear, and the blind guy with sonar powers be called Batman? If Affleck is capable of learning lessons—and there is evidence to suggest that he cannot—then maybe he has finally worked this one out.

Minority Report (2002)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: When Spielberg dies, this won’t be even in the top ten films mentioned as his most memorable. In any retrospective of the Philip K. Dick adaptations, this film probably won’t be one of the first ones mentioned. Considering Tom Cruise will likely continue reaching for cinematic excellence after he has grown beyond the use of his physical body to await Xenu’s return, there’s a very real possibility this won’t even rank in the top thousand memorably Cruise roles*.

And, for the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why any of those things are true.

It is far and beyond the best adaptation of Dick’s work ever produced, and yes, I count Blade Runner (1982) in that equation (although I don’t care for it, which I understand already renders me suspect) and Total Recall (1990) (which I ultimately kind of like). It takes a kernel of an idea—which is all Dick was ever really good for—and flushes it out into an actual story that sticks with you.

There’s not a genre which Spielberg hasn’t conquered, so it’s almost a tragedy that he hasn’t done more hard-boiled detective stories. He didn’t even need to include any of the Dick-ish trappings present here.

Cruise may still be working through his post-Mission: Impossible II (2000) malaise, but he’s approaching his later day renaissance with the vigor even his detractors must grant him.

*As I type that, I feel like I’m being unfair to Scientology. I might have saved this revelation for my eventual review of Top Gun: Maverick (2022), but I’m struggling to think of any religion not built on a foundation of abuse. Only one religion has its adherents speaking out against the horrors of motion blurring on HD TV sets. So, even though it might not bring me the kind of power of a Cruise or the horrors of a Kirstie Alley, I may need to keep a more open mind.