One Battle After Another (2025)

This film defies any easy explanation, so I won't even try. Loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon's Viceland, Paul Thomas Anderson's sprawling three-hour crime epic covers a lot of ground. It's messy and takes a long fucking time to get going, but it's so close to greatness at times that I have to award it on that merit. Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn's fucked up characters make this ride infinitely watchable. The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

4 boners under duress out of 5

THE BELKO EXPERIMENT [2016]

Wolf Creek director Greg McLean misses the mark the with violent thrill-ride The Belko Experiment.
In a Battle Royale-esque set-up an isolated office building is put on lockdown when the employees are ordered to kill each other or else everyone dies.
With a script penned by James Gunn one would expect it to be a real hoot but somehow director McLean sucks all the fun out it by taking it far too seriously.  One can tell there were funny moments in Gunn's original script but without his comedic timing and visual influence it all falls flat.  Perhaps if it were smart or more imaginative with it's kills (think Operation: Endgame's bat-shit crazy office supply murders) it might have worked but there's none to be found here either.  It threatens to erupt with complete madness but never really does with the exception of a near hit in the final act.  It just never quite reaches it full potential and leaves much to desired.

2½ perverts out of 5

DIVERGENT [2014]

Neil Burger directs the youth oriented sci-fi fluff Divergent, the first part of a trilogy based off the novels of the same name.
In yet another dystopian future with great hair, folks are divided into separate factions based on their virtues, thus romance is born, enemies are made and once again it's time to overthrow that nasty ol' authority.  It seems to think it's more unique and wittier than it really is and instead comes off as a boring and predictable answer to the much more superior Hunger Games series.  It drags it's feet at a snail's pace to actually get anywhere which is insanely frustrating when you've figured out the entire story 5 minutes in.  If not for Shailene Woodley & Theo James' intriguing performances I might not have made it 30 minutes into this snoozefest which seems to be heading into far more interesting territory in the future instalments.

2 greatest fears out of 5