Now You See Me: Now You Don't, Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
Staring illusion in the face
Film: Now You See Me: Now You Don't (2025)
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Isla Fisher, Justice Smith, Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt, Rosamund Pike Director: Ruben Fleischer
Rating: * *
Runtime: 112 min.

The “Now You See Me” trilogy, is basically about magicians pulling a con on powerful bad guys and redistributing that wealth among the public - in a sort of modern Robin Hood activism. In this third entry the Four Horsemen return along with a new generation of illusionists to perform mind-boggling magic while being involved in a plot to steal the world’s biggest diamond.

The new director Ruben Fleischer and writers Michael Lesslie, Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese, Seth Grahame-Smith mix the old with the new ( fresh additions to the team and some new tricks) to keep the interest in the series going. The magic tricks don’t exactly impress but the plot twists and turns are enough to keep you moderately interested.

Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), the forceful erstwhile leader of the group continues to be at loggerheads with his team. The team consisting of mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), card shark Dave Wilder (Dave Franco), escapologist and Danny’s ex girlfriend Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), resist his authority and there’s a lot of bickering, and insulting going on. The opening sequence has Charlie ( Justice Smith), June (Ariana Greenblatt), and Bosco Leroy ( Dominic Sessa) out a crypto scamster and redistributes his wealth. Danny, impressed by the trio, recruits them to join the Horsemen in Antwerp to assist them in their mission. The diamond they plan to steal belongs to a South African, International crime syndicate boss Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike). Morgan Freeman has a brief role as Thaddeus Bradley, the retired ex-magician and former Grandmaster of The Eye, a secret society for magicians.

Danny’s plot to steal the diamond during a rare public appearance in Antwerp feels half baked at best. There’s no great flair in the trickery here and the stakes are rather mediocre. The narrative is crowded with unexplained backstories and generic hostility. Convenience and contrivance motivate the flashy tricks department here.

The “Now You See Me” movies are not told as a convincing story. The flashback reveals don’t offer much in the way of explanations. They only manage to repeat the illusion. They are cursory and convoluted in the way they are structured. There’s a lot of flash and dash but nothing solid to take home as a memory.

Ruben Fleischer who took over the directorial baton from Louis Leterrier and Jon M. Chu, manages to make this a comedy thriller with exotic locales, convoluted plots, fancy heists and vivid villains. Abu Dhabi and Antwerp are the places where the choicest stunts are staged. All the cast members are fairly competent. But it’s Rosamund Pike as the villain in chief, even with a bad South African accent, who manages to make a meal of her villainous role. She is the most vivid and engaging in a film that fails to corner glory even with its plethora of magic tricks.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

Frankenstein(2025) Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
An artistic rendition of a monstrous experiment
Film: Frankenstein
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi. Christopher Waltz
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Rating: * * * *
Runtime: 149 m

Netflix

Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel titled ‘Frankenstein’ is named after the scientist Victor Frankenstein and not the Monster he made in the lab… but when we hear the word Frankenstein the first thing that comes to mind is the monster. This film gives Victor and his monster similar weight-age. Shelley’s 200-year-old source material, has been grist for creative liberties since long and Guillermo del Toro is no different. But his version comes very close to what Shelley envisioned while writing the book.

Del Toro’s vision is ambitious, uncompromising and makes the macabre look artistic. This long-gestating romanticization of darkness is driven by passion and forged with perseverance. The auteur’s imagery of gothic horror is impressive. Frankenstein adheres closely to its source material. The film is split into two distinctive halves: Frankenstein’s story and the creature’s story.

The first part focuses on Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), with glimpses of his abusive childhood and his crazed, deranged scientist adulthood driven to surpass everything his father(Charles Dance) achieved.

Del Toro’s inspired scenario begins towards the end where creator and creation are playing pursuer and pursued in the frozen Artic. We see an expedition crew on their boat in the Artic, that’s stuck in the ice, help a near frozen Victor (Oscar Isaac) aboard. The monster (Jacob Elordi) suddenly comes on the scene, disposing off a few of the sailors and falls into the freezing water, seemingly dead. Frankenstein, still wary of his creation, begins telling the ship’s captain (Lars Mikkelsen) the whole story.

The movie is set in 1857, a Victorian period, when electricity is already in use. The visionary scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), initially is forced to navigate financial constraints while pursuing his dream. When he gets unlimited funding from a wealthy arms dealer, Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), and his brother William’s (Felix Kammerer) unfettered support, Victor is able to pursue his most ambitious project. Frankenstein fulfills his dream of creating a creature (Jacob Elordi) from corpses.

Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation makes an artistic swath through the familiar story making it look new, rich and fantastical. This is a horror film that scares you yet makes you feel strongly for the tragic creator and his creation. This treatment is a moving account with philosophical, psychological and spiritual implications.

When the creature gets to tell his side of the story the narrative evolves into a more complex telling. It becomes more emotional as the creature’s neediness calls out to Elizabeth (Mia Goth), a compassionate woman, who in turn feels drawn irrevocably to him. An old man (David Bradley) also shows him some kindness…before all the hatred and violence begins to engulf the story. This portion of the film is rather touching and is bound to move you.

Jacob Elordi's menacing yet vulnerable creature is born from an empathetic understanding of the story and the character’s place in it. So it’s a triumph for Del Toro and Elordi. Elordi is wonderful in the part, at once conveying intelligence, sensitivity, rage and indomitable strength beautifully.

Oscar Isaac's Victor is consumed by ambition, and obsessed by the belief that he is creating something good. His performance as the crazed scientist is on point. Christoph Waltz and Mia Goth, shine brightly in their respective roles too.

The potent gorgeous visuals are the real highlight here. Like in all Del Toro films, they are vividly macabre and haunting. The film is visually stunning. Cinematographer Dan Laustsen creates immersive gothic imagery that leaves you stunned. The breathtaking visuals of Scotland are just out of this world. The production design, the costuming, make-up, red-green contrasts, Alexandre Desplat’s score, all linger in your mind. It’s a well-constructed and bountifully realised work - one from the heart. Del Toro’s script and direction make this effort the most faithful, yet unique take on the book.

Del Toro once told an interviewer that he dreamed of making the greatest Frankenstein. …and he has succeeds in that ambition. This is undoubtedly the best Frankenstein film ever made. All credit to Del Toro for sticking uncompromisingly to his vision and creating a masterpiece in the horror genre. The film ends with a quote from Byron: “And thus the heart will break and yet brokenly live on”. The experience of it says it all. This movie makes you feel the creature’s pain and it’s an unforgettable experience.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

Predator: Badlands Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
A fresh new take on the iconic antagonist
Predator: Badlands (2025)
Cast: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, Michael Homick, Rohinal Nayaran, Reuben De Jong, Cameron Brown. Voices: Stefan Grube, Alison Wright, Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer.
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Rating: * * *
Runtime: 106 min.
#20thCenturyStudios #LawrenceGordon #DavisEntertainment #ToberoffEntertainmentProduction #TSGEntertainment

Dan Trachtenberg’s follow-up to ‘Prey’ is a surprisingly mild-mannered franchise entry in the ‘Predator’ series. There’s not much room for crushing brutality, grimness or gore here because the story is about building bonds with the unlikeliest of allies. The iconic sci-fi villain is an underdog hero here.

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi), a young Predator monster, who is ordered to be killed by his domineering father Yautja chieftain Njohrr, is spared death by his elder brother Kwei (Mike Homik). Kwei sends Dek to the “death planet” Genna where every being is a killer and even the grass, branches of trees and luna-bugs are treacherous. Dek has to find his path through the deadly flora and fauna - a task that no one has succeeded in before. En route he meets up with a legless female android Thia (Elle Fanning) and they adopt a cuddly monkey-like creature. There’s another ruthless synth Tessa(Fanning again) in the mix, who has been tasked with capturing the Kalisk and bringing it back to the Weyland-Yutani corporation.

The story is told from the Predator’s point of view. The half-pint of his clan of intergalactic trophy hunters, Dek becomes an unlikely hero when he manages to slay the Kalisk, a fierce creature that intimidates even his father.

From the moment Dek touches down on the planet, we get relentless, slick sci-fi action embedded with some incredibly cool moments. When Dek meets Thia, the film takes an unexpected turn, with the tone and tenor changing to that of a buddy comedy. Patrick Aison and Brian Duffield’s script gets inventive in creating funny moments that get the audience involved.

Predator: Badlands has terrific FX heavy set pieces, action beats, is consistently entertaining and has colorful violence. The bits of violence and dismemberment are not bloody. Instead of blood red we see milky white, green, purple, orange substances oozing out of the varied creatures and synths. Arms are lopped off, skulls are crushed, brains pierced and cut-off legs do kung fu on their own. The action is both funny and propulsive.

Badlands, unexpectedly, has an endearing arc. It seeks to challenge outmoded, cliched representations of masculinity in cinema. The journey is pure joy. The unlikely hero learns lessons about friendship from a half-bodied humanoid/synth and a cute CGI animal.

Unlike previous Predator movies, this one has an emotional depth that is searing. Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi makes Dek humanistic - lending him rage, humour and a vulnerability that gets you onto his side. Elle Fanning in the dual role of Thia/Tessa, polar opposites, is effortlessly distinctive, nuanced and empathetic in both roles. It’s a winning performance that could garner awards come awards season.

This film is visually impressive. The CGI is seamless. Trachtenberg’s inventive helming sets it apart from earlier Predator issues. The world building is fresh and the treatment is endearing. The older fans of Predator movies may be disappointed but it’s also likely that a fresh new surge of young blood will keep the franchise going.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

Bugonia, Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
A beautiful, bizarre take on modern belief systems
Film: Bugonia
Cast: Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Emma Stone, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Rating: * * *
Runtime: 118 m

Yorgos Lanthimos latest,“Bugonia”, after the critical success of “Poor Things” and “Kinds of Kindness”, is a black comedy which is far more easily accessible than his earlier films. Even so, it has the typical Yorgos stamp all over it. Produced by Ari Aster, “Bugonia” is a radical, capricious adaptation of Jang Joon-hwan’s Korean film “Save the Green Planet!”

Bugonia is a daring attempt to mesh absurdist satire, sci-fi meanderings with psychological horror, as the film follows two men who kidnap a corporate leader they believe to be an alien. The premise may seem bizarre but in Yorgos-land it’s par for the course. An apiarist, Teddy (Jesse Plemons), and his impressionable cousin Donny (Aidan Delbis), both conspiracy theorists, kidnap Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone) the high-powered CEO of a major company, believing she’s an alien from the Andromeda species intent on destroying humanity. Fed to the brim by conspiracy podcasts and unverified online sources, the pair’s plan is to cleanse themselves of their “psychic compulsions.” Once they abduct her, they shave her head, strip her, cover her in lotion, and chain her to a bed. For the rest of the film we see Teddy interrogating her.

There’s relentless tension as the power dynamics between classes bubble up in the interrogation. The constantly shifting power play between the haves and the have-nots makes it all very unpredictable. The exchanges between the wealthy, well-educated, liberal, Michelle and the poor, paranoid, conspiracy-driven Teddy (and cousin), mirror the polarity we see in society today - between the progressive liberals and the extremist right wing. Like in the real world the extreme views seem to have the upper hand. Teddy’s rants about the corporate class’s domination, current generations techno enslavement and the poisoning of the natural world, hits home hard.

“Bugonia” is a well-structured film that provides enough shocks as it escalates to a unpredictable yet satisfying conclusion. The scripting is incisive. Yorgos envelopes us with a scathing critique of capitalism in which paranoia and falsehoods form familiar bedfellows. The pace picks up speed as perceptions get challenged and the drama intensifies. The dialogue hints at impalpable elements that eventually cause the run-of-play to turnaround on it’s head. The dialogue exchanges have an intensity that builds up tension as the movie reaches for an original and unique ending.

The choice of ending may not appeal to all but it makes ‘Bugonia’ an unique experience. It’s surprising enough to catch you unawares. It’s a bold audacious choice that makes the whole experience memorable. The three lead actors deliver well calibrated performances. They manage to capture feelings vividly enough for the audience to feel its burn. Emma Stone’s performance is nuanced, Jesse Plemons’ intensity makes the paranoia come alive and Aidan Delbis lends strong support to help keep the esoteric vein in check. The soundtrack lends the movie an orchestral crescendo that accentuates the drama in subtle increments. The production design makes the bizarre acceptable. The cinematography by Robbie Ryan is also quite stunning. Shot in 35mm the camerawork contributes majorly to the unease. Every frame is textured with shadow and light and it’s visually beautiful yet unsettling.

Bugonia goes against traditional story telling conventions. Yorgos’ offbeat mix of black humour, drama, horror and sci-fi is quite potent. The script plays-up modern inequalities while exploring current belief patterns in an oddly disturbing, darkly funny vein. The movie’s strangely absurd chaotic world feels familiar enough for the audience to participate in the emotional see-saw it wrings us through. Yorgos’ film might be peculiar but it’s also beguiling, funny and visually enrapturing.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

The Apprentice (2025), Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
A docudrama on Trump that flatters to decieve
Film: The Apprentice (2025)
Cast: Sebastian Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Emily Mitchell, Martin Donovan, Patch Darragh, Stuart Hughes, Eoin Duffy
Director: Ali Abbasi
Rating: * * *
Runtime: 122 m

This film is not really a life story of Donald Trump but it briefly details his formative years in the real estate business and the strong influence that lawyer Roy Cohn had on him. Based on actual events with fictional elements meshed in, the Indian censor board refused to pass the film as is, and with Abbasi unwilling to compromise on his work the only alternative was OTT. This film is airing on Lionsgate play.


Trump, of German and Scottish descent, belonged to a well-off family that ran a business focused on developing middle-class housing in New York. He had exposure to the company as a child.While in college, he began investing in real estate and, after graduation, joined his father, full-time. Though he credits his father and the family's pastor, Norman Vincent Peale (author of "The Power of Positive Thinking"), as major influences, it’s really Cohn who mentored him to become a go-getter - combative, highly aggressive, and unapologetic. Cohn taught Trump to never settle, always counterattack harder, and never admit defeat. We see the result of those teachings even in his political life today.

Cohn saw in Trump the perfect protégé, someone with raw ambition, a hunger for success, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. Abbasi’s film basically designates Cohn as the creator of the monster we see today. The film shows Trump using Cohn’s teachings in all aspects of his life. The focus here is on his business dealings though. His relationships with his family and the girl who catches his eye one night, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), may run deeper but we just get to see a few facets.

Amidst shots of 70s New York City, Trump is shown as a guy who trudges door to door collecting rent checks in a rundown “Trump Village” built by his father. Director Ali Abassi’s film unfolds in two parts. The ’70s wherein a relatively naïve Trump (Sebastian Stan) follows Cohn (Jeremy Strong) around and imbibes his philosophies. The second part has Trump rise in financial stature with corruption and amorality playing familiar bedfellows.

Gabriel Sherman’s script fails to be consistent. The first half is intriguing while the second half lacks bite. The time jump to the mid-‘80s, when Trump makes plans to launch Trump Tower, makes it a piecemeal and selective look at the making of Trump. The gap of nearly a decade between the ‘70s and ‘80s in this telling is quite glaring. The movie shows Trump learning to lie, wooing his first wife, Ivana (Maria Bakalova), building the Commodore Hotel and Trump Tower, gulping diet pills to keep himself going, making bad investments, and ultimately shutting Cohn out. Trump dispassionately watches his partner die of AIDS, and we realize that this one-time apprentice no longer has any room in his life for a former mentor. There’s no sympathy here for either.

Abbasi’s approach to this docudrama feels superficial. The film begins to play like a parody in the second half. There’s not much insight here. From sycophant to a megalomaniac, the jump is convincing because of his public persona. The writing does not cover the gap. Trump’s legacy of bad behavior, selfishness, effrontery, criminal transgressions, and abuse of power is a given. But the psychological study is missing crucial links so the learning curve feels hacked together here.

Ali Abbasi uses handheld shots to make it all look real. The set design matches the vulgarity of Trump’s riches. Sebastian Stan’s performance is bang on. He gets the physical and behavioral ticks right. Strong as Cohn is equally effective. The performers all, manage to showcase their talent in a film that doesn’t dig deep enough, and as a consequence feels shallow and simplistic. At best, this is an intriguing take on a conniving lawyer and his would-be-mogul protege.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

Regretting You, Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
An all too obvious melodrama
Film: Regretting You (2025)
Cast: Allison Williams, Mckenna Grace, Dave Franco, Mason Thames, Sam Morelos, Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald, Clancy Brown
Director: Josh Boone
Rating: * 1/2
Runtime: 116 min.

This schmaltzy romantic drama, a relationship saga that attempts to give your tear ducts a workout, is an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s romantic novel of the same name. Film adaptations of her books Reminders of Him and Verity are also in the make and are scheduled to come out soon.

Adapted for the screen by Susan McMartin, directed by Josh Boone and filmed by cinematographer Tim Orr, this film is a spurious melodrama. There’s a lot of crying to go through here.

The story is about infidelity which gets discovered after a fatal crash. It’s the late 2000s. Morgan (Allison Williams), her boyfriend Chris (Scott Eastwood), her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald) and Jenny’s boyfriend Jonah (Dave Franco), are preparing to graduate high school. Jonah has a secret crush on Morgan while Morgan discovers she is pregnant with Chris’ baby. Cut to 17 years later, Clara (Mckenna Grace), Morgan and Chris’ daughter is now preparing for college while nursing a crush on a classmate, Miller (Mason Thames). Jonah and Jenny are also together and have a son. However, a car accident reveals Chris and Jenny’s secret affair. But since they both perish in the crash Morgan and Jonah are left to deal with the fallout.

The narrative plays to an overly emotional tune. There’s hardly any buildup, so the overwrought drama becomes more and more laughable as it prolongs. This plays like a Hallmark-styled love story that is smaltzy with tame romance, plying tears instead of nuance. The characters are thinly sketched and don’t play true to type.

Morgan and Jonah’s dilemma and process of healing gets intersected by Clara’s romance. The tragedy itself is not focused on much. The loss of lives is considered negligible to the burden of dealing with infidelity. Both the adult couples were obviously living a lie. Morgan and Jonah have to deal with being alive and having to come to terms with their losses. In Hoover’s novel Morgan forbids Clara from seeing Miller. The same happens in the film but it gets forgotten soon enough and the romance continues unrestricted.

The plot developments are rather bland here. Obvious plugins for AMC theaters, Paramount etc also spoil the endearment. The narrative is ploddy and unoriginal. The treatment is cheesy, plain and generic and plays like a bad soap. The sun-dappled North Carolina backdrops look inviting but pedestrian performances, ordinary helming, mushy score and underdeveloped characters make the film a crushing bore.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

Black Phone 2, Hollywood Film Review, Picks And Piques, Johnson Thomas

Hollywood Film Review
Johnson Thomas
A fairly distinctive supernatural horror thriller
Film: Black Phone 2 (2025)
Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke, Demián Bichir, Miguel Mora, Arianna Rivas, Anna Lore, Jeremy Davies
Director: Scott Derrickson
Rating: * * 1/2
Runtime: 114 min.

Blumhouse’s “Black Phone 2” is set in 1982, a four years after Finney (Mason Thames) survived the vengeful killer Grabber (Ethan Hawke in the earlier film). One would have thought that with the villain no longer available to terrorize, franchise ambitions would lie low. But there’s no accounting for creativity. “The Black Phone” was adapted from a short story by Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill. This film though, gets inventive creating a bogie that comes entirely from mental instability.

Grabber was killed in the climax in the earlier film, but Finney Blake, now 17, in the present film, hasn’t really recovered from that trauma. He is struggling with his life after captivity. He takes out his rage on other kids, tries to numb his pain with marijuana, and attempts to ignore the ringing phones that he keeps hearing. His sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) is the one having terrifying visions featuring mutilated children sketching letters into the ice in frozen lakes, with a phone ringing in the background. Her visions get more explicit… she sees three boys being stalked at a winter camp. The siblings are determined to solve the mystery and confront the killer. But is he real or imagined?

Scott Derrickson and writer C. Robert Cargill try to create a nightmarish scenario where the villain, like Freddy Kuger from ‘Nightmare on Elm street,’ gets resurrected and becomes more powerful as his legend gets bigger. This film is a sort of homage to the aforementioned horror classic. There are quite a few savage bloody moments to horrify you here. Surreal nightmarish scenarios work their magic as a unique visual language emerges from the embers of the past.

It may not have real logic or even make any cinema sense but it does manage to creep you in unusual ways. The camerawork by cinematographer Par M. Ekberg does much of the heavy lifting with grainy sequences delineating the nightmares. It’s quite an effective capture of Gwen’s dream state which builds up a past link with Gwen and Finney’s mother who was a counselor, in the ‘50s, at the camp known as Alpine Lake. It’s also hinted that Mrs. Blake’s suicide may have driven her husband (Jeremy Davies) to alcoholism and abuse.

Gwen, Finney, and Gwen’s new boyfriend, Ernesto (Miguel Mora), head to the winter camp managed by husband-and-wife (Graham Abbey, Maev Beaty), in the middle of a blizzard.

The escalation of the supernatural as the primal force to fear doesn’t really work. There are quite a few unintentional laughable moments in the film but the acting and the overall seriousness displayed allows for feeling to creep in. The tonal shift from the grounded in the original to the flaky in this one, was not a great idea. It’s the general treatment that keeps you fairly interested here.

The dysfunctional family dynamic and repressive aspects of religion add depth to the characterizations. The atmospherics add chilling effects to the narrative. The storyline may be convoluted but the director manages to develop empathy for the lead characters. Grabber hidden behind demonic-looking masks, is a villain who has attained legend status, and gives the franchise its raison d’etre. Hawke, is superbly convincing in the demonic role, in which we see him in a series of masks and recognise him for his raspy voice.

Thames and McGraw, as the traumatized teens willing to do battle with evil, Demián Bichir as the camp’s sympathetic owner, Arianna Rivas as his spunky niece, Miguel Mora, who forms a romantic connection with Gwen, are all potent performers.

Derrickson, a past master at horror, displays a stylistic influence that gives the film an eerie underpinning. Atticus Derrickson, his son, designs a music score that will surely haunt you for hours past the movies runtime. This may not be a perfect horror vehicle but it certainly is a fairly effective one.

johnsont307@gmail.com