Weapons (2025)

Director: Zach Cregger

Cast: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Amy Madigan

Have I Seen It Before: Nope. Brand new.

Did I Like It: There are long stretches where this film really reaches—and actually grabs—something special. Most of that happens in the film’s middle. That’s kind of a surprise all by itself, as most movies, and especially horror films get water-logged and flabby in their second act. Overlapping the stories of the various main characters keeps the attention far higher than average, and fully develops those characters. All have their flaws, but most of them* are innocent at their core. I’ll be stuck with the memory of their motivations and behavior all careening towards each other.

If that solid plot and character work had been coupled with an array of some of the more basic horror movie cliche you’re likely to find in a major release this year. Strange looking villain who’s strange looking for the sake of strange looking? Check. Jump scares a-go-go? Check. The camera pans across a character looking at something, landing on an open hallways and WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? Check. Dream sequences within dream sequences that are just a vehicle for the aforementioned jump scares**? You better believe, check.

The film could have truly been great in a year filled with great horror movies, but I’m left with the frustration of a average-to-good film that couldn’t quite get out of its own way.

*Everyone but Paul (Ehrenreich), the opportunistically tee-totaling cop.

**When they aren’t offering one of the more over-the-top images I’ve seen in a film in a long time. One that doesn’t even feel thematically right, even if it does go a long way to offering a sweatier than it needs to be reason for the title being what it is.

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Cast: Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Jermaine Clement

Have I Seen it Before: I have a strong, unwavering belief that this was the last movie I ever saw in a hotel room pay-per-view. And I mean that as it was the most recent time that happened, and also the final time. Honestly, kids. Ask your parents.

Did I Like It: What is the smallest possible rationale for a movie to be made? Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) is what it is because Shatner had a favored-nations clause with Nimoy and thus, the crew of the Enterprise meets God. The Cat in the Hat (2003) was the minimum punishment Mike Myers was able to stomach after refusing to make a movie version of Sprockets. The less said about most adaptations of The Fantastic Four, the better.

Among all of those, the pitch “Josh Brolin can do a pretty good impression of Tommy Lee Jones” has got to be pretty thin. But Sonnenfeld and company make the best of it, for the most part. Trying to get Jones by telling him he maybe had to work for a week probably helped matters more than little.

I’m not entirely sure (pre 2022 Oscars, naturally) why Smith felt the need to come back, and could still around the same time turn his nose up at Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). A summer sci-fi extravaganza is just the same as any other. Maybe if Josh Brolin could do a young Robert Loggia impression…

Ultimately a third venture with Earth’s last line of defenses is about as good as the original and a fair sight better than the almost paint-by-numbers second film. I’m normally in favor of any series wanting to suddenly adopt time travel, but content to reach for the simplest of audiences, we’re not so much allowed to go along on the adventure with Agent J as having him occasionally mention aloud what is happening. It’s not my favorite thing to happen. But it’s all of a piece.

Dune (2021)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin

Have I Seen it Before: Never. See my remarks about my boneheaded Dune-related decisions in my review of David Lynch’s Dune (1984).

Did I Like It: It’s going to be difficult to find something to say about this film that isn’t immediately clear from being exposed to any piece of information about the film. It is a sumptuous production, being a nearly perfect fusion of modern special effects and epic filmmaking of old. The performances are finely tuned, with excellent performers managing to inhabit a space opera with not a single one of them looking embarrassed that they are taking place in the proceedings. Preceding decades may have been filled with varying degrees of false starts, but this is unequivocally the best possible adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel. It is all made more impressive by the fact that Villeneuve and company had to accept that they only had the resources to tell half of the story (to say nothing of the larger tale of Paul Atreides (Chalamet) and his heirs) with no guarantee that the film would catch on with audiences to necessitate the rest of the story going before cameras. It’s not a fair example, but the makers of Battlefield Earth (2000) made the same gambit and had it blow up in their face. This film had to be good, and it shows.

Had we been left with only this film, it might have been a supremely unsatisfying experience. What’s more, in stark contrast to David Lynch’s version of the story, much is left unexplained. I’m honestly surprised that the film did as well as it did, as the uninitiated might have found some of this inscrutable. Against all odds, I’m really glad that I read the book first. Take that to mean what you will.

The Goonies (1985)

DIRECTOR: Richard Donner

CAST: Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Ke Huy Quan

HAVE I SEEN IT BEFORE: Yes, but…

DID I LIKE IT: I feel like I’m obligated as a byproduct of my age to not only like the movie, but love it to the expense of both movies.

It is certainly not the best Amblin movie of the 80s, not by a mile. You always have to eye a movie with a story by Spielberg, but that he eventually decided against directing*. He had to have thought it was a good idea at some point, and then turned back from it. Very damning, and as I write this I’m trying to avert my eyes from the forthcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

I can’t even count in Richard Donner’s best films, when the Lethal Weapon movies can remain so unassailably watchable, despite the insistent existence of Mel Gibson**.

It’s not even the best 80s movie with Ke Huy Quan (yes, in this house we defend Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)).

But all of that is not to knock the film entirely. For the first half, the score, the breakneck pace, and the likable performances from the main cast are positively electric. But, every time I see the film—and this dates back to the 80s when I was probably first obligated to start loving it—the film meanders after the halfway point, and my level of interest wanes considerably. The kids are still all right, but I’m think of better times with them (Temple of Doom, again). Then the ending comes around, in one of my least favorite trends, not because it is a conclusion or punctuation to the story, but instead because they ran out of runtime.

I like the film, but I don’t love the film. And for that, I can only offer a half-hearted apology.

*Along with Poltergeist (1982) the collective wisdom indicates he might as well have directed the movie, but just opted out of taking that particular credit.

**Is anyone, and I mean anyone at all interested in a Donner-less fifth Lethal movie, much less one (as all signs point to) helmed by Gibson? The mind boggles

Deadpool 2 (2018)

Director: David Leitch

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Zazie Beetz

Have I Seen it Before: Yep.

Did I Like It: Yes. Could have definitely been a drag, but it fires on all cylinders, and even… Well, give me a second on that thought.

Let’s start our discussion with a few questions. How many comedy sequels are just as good as the predecessor? I’ll wait. Like, maybe Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)? Debatable. Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)? I’d give a resounding, even combative yes here, but would you even place that series exclusively in the realm of comedy? 

Let’s widen the lens a little bit. How many comedy sequels are even watchable? Ghostbusters 2 (1989)? Some would say no, but I think they’re wrong. Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2014)? Again arguable, but it’s hard not to notice the precipitous drop in quality.

For each of these possible answers, there are just as many that are absolute train wrecks. Caddyshack II (1988). Blues Brothers 2000 (1998, for some reason). The Whole Ten Yards (2004). Analyze That (2002). More Fockers than you can shake a tree at.

Okay, now let’s ask the question that seems silly on spec: How many comedy sequels are better than their original?

Yeah, I’m having a hard time coming up with anything. Which makes this follow-up all the more miraculous. While the original Deadpool (2016) was a shock and a surprise, given that mainstream culture had next to no awareness of the character beyond a pale imitation injected into the perfectly forgettable X-Men: Origins: Wolverine (2009). But here, the manic sense of fun pulled directly from the source material is not watered-down and in fact intensified.

The beating, weepy heart of Deadpool/Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds, the sing movie star most in touch with his id) is on full display, miraculously giving him an emotional arc while still managing to keep his edge sharp. He defends abused kids, he loves the people around him fully, and still manages to teabag Josh Brolin in the process.

If the character does end up a casualty of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, that’d be a shame. A third movie would really be something else.