Collider - Reviews https://collider.com Stay up to date with new movie news, watch the latest movie trailers & get trusted reviews of upcoming movies & more from the team at Collider. Fri, 22 Dec 2023 21:00:21 GMT en-US hourly 60 <![CDATA['Ferrari' Review — Penélope Cruz Dominates Michael Mann’s Biopic]]> Before the climactic 1957 Mille Miglia race near the end of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, the company’s racing team each leaves letters to their loved ones in case they don’t make it through the finish line. Earlier on in the film, Adam Driver’s Enzo Ferrari tells these same racers that they should be willing to die to win for the Ferrari brand, and as a former racer himself, the company’s owner calls racing a “terrible joy.” Throughout Ferrari, Mann and the script by the late Troy Kennedy Martin (1969’s The Italian Job), frequently equate racing to war—which makes sense considering Italy and its people are still reckoning with the pains of World War II. The Ferrari family is still grieving the losses of their past, the choices that were made, and the understanding that they’ll never be the same again. By making Ferrari less of a sports film and more of an introspective look at the car creator, Mann has ended up making a fantastic war film, and his best work since 2004’s Collateral.

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Mon, 25 Dec 2023 08:01:16 GMT https://collider.com/ferrari-movie-review/
<![CDATA['The Winter King' Review — Arthurian Legends Are Reborn in Sprawling Series]]> The last two decades of television have delivered an absolute lion’s share of Arthurian legends brought to life. Each series has had its own unique style, from the quirky humor of Merlin to the sex appeal of Camelot, though none are quite like MGM+’s epic new adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s The Winter King. While the series is rife with pagan mysticism, it is far more focused on being rooted in the realism of its historical context. Though the pagan priestesses and even Merlin (Nathaniel Martello-White) may have intuitive foresight, they are not all-powerful beings capable of otherworldly magic. Set in the period of late antiquity in Great Britain, following the Roman occupation and amid the conflict with the Saxons, The Winter King is a sprawling tale about a warrior’s rise to power during uncertain times. In this, Arthur (Iain De Caestecker) is not the rightful heir to the throne, but rather a bastard son with power foisted upon him to secure the seat of Dumnonia from threats both inside and outside the kingdom.

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Fri, 22 Dec 2023 22:00:19 GMT https://collider.com/the-winter-king-review/
<![CDATA['The Iron Claw' Review — Zac Efron Delivers a Knockout Performance]]> Wrestling is a façade. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, innately a lesser art form, or that the participants don’t put a lot of effort into those matches. It’s just that wrestling is, like so much entertainment, a lot of smoke and mirrors. What seems spontaneous in the ring is often rehearsed heavily beforehand. Adversaries in public can be best buddies in the locker room. Given that the Von Erich family (the central subjects of the new Sean Durkin film The Iron Claw) are so entrenched in the world of wrestling, it's no wonder that their entire rapport is one big masquerade. In the ring, they were unstoppable wrestling machines. In their private lives, they were tormented by toxic family dynamics and harmful approaches to masculinity.

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Fri, 22 Dec 2023 21:30:19 GMT https://collider.com/the-iron-claw-movie-review/
<![CDATA['Society of the Snow' Review — A Gripping Take on a Devastating True Story]]> If it wouldn't be absolutely terrifying to do so, Society of the Snow feels like the exact type of movie you'll watch alone on a plane a few months from now and find it to be quite good before bemoaning that it didn't get a wider theatrical release. Instead, the latest from writer-director J.A. Bayona is only popping up in a handful of theaters before being sent to Netflix starting January 4. While the streamer is by no means the only one to often not give their films proper theatrical releases, it still feels disappointing each time it happens. While all releases deserve to be seen with the best visuals and sound, there is also the communal aspect of going to the movies that would serve a film like this rather well.

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Fri, 22 Dec 2023 21:00:21 GMT https://collider.com/society-of-the-snow-review/
<![CDATA['The Teachers’ Lounge' Review — You Won't Be Able to Turn Away]]> Teachers can change people’s lives. What the new Ilker Çatak feature The Teachers’ Lounge presupposes is…what if a teacher changed people’s lives for the worse? So it is with Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), the protagonist of The Teachers’ Lounge. Nowak is not an evil human being. On the contrary, she's quite empathetic to her students and tries to empower them to be deeply idiosyncratic human beings. She also expresses disbelief with some of the actions of her fellow teachers that will socially isolate the youngsters she's teaching. Some of those actions include singling out male students suspected of being at the center of a string of robberies at this middle school.

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Fri, 22 Dec 2023 20:04:33 GMT https://collider.com/the-teachers-lounge-review/
<![CDATA['What If?' Season 2 Review — Marvel's Multiverse Series Doesn't Do Enough]]> When Marvel released the first season of their animated anthology series, What If...?, it was a simpler time. The MCU had flirted with the idea of a canonical multiverse, with hints dropping in WandaVision, Loki Season 1, and, of course, the multiversal crossover event that was Spider-Man: No Way Home. The best thing about the What If...? concept, and indeed, the first season of the series, was the zero-pressure takes on so many of our favorite MCU characters. Like a child playing with action figures, What If...? was allowed to be nonsensical, high-concept, and have zero repercussions for it. For that, it was refreshing.

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Fri, 22 Dec 2023 08:01:17 GMT https://collider.com/what-if-season-2-review/
<![CDATA['Gyeongseong Creature' Review — Netflix’s K-Drama Plays Monster Peek-a-Boo]]> It was probably a mistake to watch Gyeongseong Creature, the new historical Netflix K-Drama about a monster lurking in the shadows of what would become known as Seoul, so close after seeing the thrilling experience of Godzilla Minus One again. It is not that they have anything comparable in terms of their scope or scale, as will become very apparent to any who stumble upon the series, though each is attempting to explore elements of history via their monster stories. There is plenty of potential to this undertaking as many great works have used creatures as a way to cut deeper into their thematic aspirations. The thing is, where Godzilla Minus One sees the iconic monster smashing his way to new heights, Gyeongseong Creature is a much more superficial affair that can’t quite rise above being average at best.

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Thu, 21 Dec 2023 21:14:13 GMT https://collider.com/gyeongseong-creature-review/
<![CDATA['Aquaman 2' Review: The Best and Worst of the DCEU]]> While the film industry has become inundated with cinematic universes that studios hope will go until the end of time, it’s rare that we get to see one actually end. Sure, every once in a while, there’s a Dark Universe that ends before it even has the chance to begin, or a Fantastic Beasts, which just fizzles out of existence, but a cinematic universe rarely ends with us knowing that it’s concluding. But that’s not the case with the DC Extended Universe, which began with 2013’s Man of Steel and has sputtered along for the last decade—with the occasional bright spot along the way. With the announcement that James Gunn and Peter Safran would be restructuring DC Studios, beginning in 2025 (and with a few characters crossing over to this new vision), the much-maligned and often exhausting DCEU would finally be coming to a close.

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Thu, 21 Dec 2023 15:00:08 GMT https://collider.com/aquaman-2-review/
<![CDATA['Dr. Death' Season 2 Review — True Crime Series Cuts Right to the Bone]]> One of the best aspects of the first season of Dr. Death was that it wasn’t afraid to switch perspectives to tell its story more efficiently. This happens again in Season 2, but in much more intensified ways and in service of a far better-constructed narrative. Once again based on the hit Wondery podcast series, Peacock's anthology TV show centers around high-profile doctors who took advantage of their statuses to do pretty much what they wanted in their fields of medicine.

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Thu, 21 Dec 2023 08:05:16 GMT https://collider.com/dr-death-season-2-review/
<![CDATA['The Creator' Review — Gareth Edwards Takes a Sci-Fi Stand for AI]]> Is artificial intelligence really our enemy or is our fear of it the real problem? That is one of the moral dilemmas that The Creator attempts to address as it unpacks the very real and present threat of AI, through a heightened sci-fi lens. Seven years after the release of the critically acclaimed Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, director Gareth Edwards has returned to the world of high-stakes sci-fi—and this time, it is entirely of his own design.

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Wed, 20 Dec 2023 18:35:01 GMT https://collider.com/the-creator-review/