Movie Vibes
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Critics' Picks
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The Electric State
Director: Joe Russell, Anthony Russell
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Kwan Jiwei
"The book is expensive, and the illustrations by the Swedish illustrator give off a darker, more melancholic vibe. The backdrop of the human-machine war originally had a strong Matrix feel, except here, humanity wins the war using neural projectors. With such a massive world-building setup—think The Matrix, Cyberpunk 2077, and artificial intelligence—the screenwriter had all the ingredients for a solid sci-fi film, yet somehow the end result feels lacking in emotional depth and philosophical exploration."
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The Life List
"At the beginning of the movie, I was attracted by the unique frosted voice of the heroine. I really love her voice, lazy and with a wise tone, very mellow. The group of pregnant women at the beginning of the movie formed a sharp contrast with the heroine. This feeling is very strange. I can't explain it. It vaguely reflects that her boyfriend who loves games is not her true love, and sets the stage for her journey of self-discovery that unfolds throughout the narrative."
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Novocaine
"Nathan Kane, a vice president of a bank, was born without the sense of pain. Under this setting, he can accomplish almost everything. Although novel, it is not scientific. Pain is a mechanism for humans to protect themselves. The inability to feel pain means that you are not aware of danger, but put yourself in danger. For example, you don't know if you are hit by someone, and you may die in an instant without ever feeling what happened to your body."
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The Electric State
Director: Joe Russell, Anthony Russell
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Kwan Jiwei
User Rating: 6.0/10 (12,718 votes)
"The book is expensive, and the illustrations by the Swedish illustrator give off a darker, more melancholic vibe. The backdrop of the human-machine war originally had a strong Matrix feel, except here, humanity wins the war using neural projectors. With such a massive world-building setup—think The Matrix, Cyberpunk 2077, and artificial intelligence—the screenwriter had all the ingredients for a solid sci-fi film, yet somehow the end result feels lacking in emotional depth and philosophical exploration."
Read Full ReviewThe Life List
Director: Adam Brooks
Cast: Sofia Carlson, Kyle Allen, Sebastian de Sousa
User Rating: 6.7/10 (1,000 votes)
"At the beginning of the movie, I was attracted by the unique frosted voice of the heroine. I really love her voice, lazy and with a wise tone, very mellow. The group of pregnant women at the beginning of the movie formed a sharp contrast with the heroine. This feeling is very strange. I can't explain it. It vaguely reflects that her boyfriend who loves games is not her true love, and sets the stage for her journey of self-discovery that unfolds throughout the narrative."
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Director: Robert Olsen, Dan Burke
Cast: Jack Quaid, Amber Mindysand, Jacob Bertalon
User Rating: 6.3/10 (4,331 votes)
"Nathan Kane, a vice president of a bank, was born without the sense of pain. Under this setting, he can accomplish almost everything. Although novel, it is not scientific. Pain is a mechanism for humans to protect themselves. The inability to feel pain means that you are not aware of danger, but put yourself in danger. For example, you don't know if you are hit by someone, and you may die in an instant without ever feeling what happened to your body."
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The Gorge
Director: Scott Derrickson
Cast: Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sigourney Weaver
User Rating: 7.3/10 (64,471 votes)
"Keep up with current events. The US special services budget was cut by doge, so they hired a freelance mercenary who was short of love. Russia's economy was in a downturn, and in order to cut costs, they hired an ENTP self-employed killer. The whole thing seems absurd, but it actually makes sense logically. Some high-level projects in government departments have been put on hold after a lot of investment but without the desired results, leading to outsourcing of even the most sensitive operations."
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Mickey 17
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun
User Rating: 6.7/10 (66,584 votes)
"I finished watching the movie No. 17 today. The overall conclusion is that the censorship made this Bong Joon-ho movie, which started out with a score of 8.5, become about 7.5, but smart audiences can still accept the essence of the whole movie. Note! The censorship I'm talking about here is not the deletion of pornographic/bloody scenes in China, but the censorship of film investors; and I don't know who the censors are. Despite these limitations, the film still manages to deliver Bong's signature blend of dark humor and social commentary."
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Perfect Companion
Director: Mimi Cave
Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Will Poulter, Eliza Scanlen
User Rating: 6.3/10 (32,596 votes)
"To let the public know what the story is about, let me list the relevant factors. Heroine: has no friends, no boyfriend. Family: Mother passed away, father still needs her care. Life: has little entertainment, but recently downloaded a popular dating app. Not long after, she matched with a handsome American doctor and they went on a date. He was gentle, considerate, but always on call. One day, the heroine fell ill at work and was sent to the hospital. When she woke up, she was in the doctor's home. The heroine felt that she was still ill and needed to be taken care of. But slowly, she found that something was wrong..."
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Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Director: Jeff Fowler
Cast: Ben Schwartz, Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba
User Rating: 6.2/10 (9,040 votes)
"When the movie's Easter eggs are released, the concept of similarity becomes a thread from between species to between bionics and species. The appearance of the Easter egg has nothing to do with Sonic, but the image that is quite similar in outline is a robot. In other words, it forms a very obvious representational similarity, which, in Deleuze's words, is a body without organs."
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Mufasa: The Lion King
Director: Barry Jenkins
Cast: Aaron Pierre, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Tiffany Boone
User Rating: 6.6/10 (28,736 votes)
"The Legend of Mufasa is the prequel to The Lion King, telling the story of Simba's journey to become king. Generally, films where the protagonist goes from being an inexperienced person to a perfect man need to be paired with a symmetrical character who is both evil and complex, otherwise it will seem old-fashioned and boring."
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The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
Director: Kenji Kamiyama
Cast: Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Miranda Otto
User Rating: 6.2/10 (8,523 votes)
"After watching it, I felt like I had drunk a bowl of broth that Éowyn handed to Aragorn. The ingredients were the same, but the taste was really not the same. It is an unforgivable mistake to make the protagonist of Helm's daughter, who has no role in the original book and whose name is unknown (in fact, she is an original character)."
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Plainclothes Police
Director: Carmen Emmi
Cast: Tom Bryce, Russell Tovey, Maria Dizzia
User Rating: 7.9/10 (4,053 votes)
"There is no way out, only fantasy. 'Plainclothes Police' and 'Brokeback Mountain' do have many similarities, presenting the persecution of homosexuals in a homophobic social environment and the exploration of nature under the moral constraints of sexual repression."
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Smile 2
Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lucas Gage
User Rating: 7.2/10 (36,181 votes)
"The series 'Dangerous Laughter' has an interesting design: the identity of the heroine and the setting of the fake smile demon complement each other. In the first film, the heroine is a psychiatrist who wants to help patients, but cannot believe what the patients see; when she herself is haunted by evil spirits, she personally experiences this pain."
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The Birth of a Miracle Joy
Director: Ben Taylor
Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Rishi Shah, James Norton
User Rating: 7.5/10 (1,314 votes)
"The film tells the story of how the world's first 'test tube baby' was born. The main characters in the film are two doctors, embryologist Robert Edwards and gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, and patient Lesley Brown, who was the mother of the world's first 'test tube baby'. They were faced with the predicament of medical ethics at that time and the physical, mental and social pressures brought about by carrying out IVF technology. The film touched me profoundly, especially seeing how these pioneers persevered against tremendous pressure from both the medical establishment and society at large."
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The Bambini Train
Director: Cristina Comencini
Cast: Diego Riace, Barbara Ronchi, Serena Rossi
User Rating: 7.6/10 (704 votes)
"The story revolves around a seven-year-old boy named Amerigo who leaves his impoverished family in Naples to live with a wealthy family in the North as part of a post-war effort to save children from terrible financial hardship. Although the film is about a boy, it's deeply focused on the bonds between mothers and sons. The film explores two types of maternal love: Amerigo's birth mother, driven by survival needs in extreme poverty, sends him away despite loving him desperately; and his Northern foster mother, who gives him cultural and material advantages his birth mother never could."
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Transformers: Origins Transformers One
Director: Josh Cooley
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson
User Rating: 8.0/10 (83,437 votes)
"Transformers: Origin is an animated film set on Cybertron, telling the origin story of the friendship between Optimus Prime and Megatron, how they went from being 'brothers' with common goals to eventually becoming enemies. Directed by Josh Cooley, known for 'Toy Story 4,' the film skillfully reveals how the socio-political structure on Cybertron leads to the initial strong bond between our two protagonists, and how their differing reactions to their world's issues ultimately drive them apart, setting the stage for the war we know from the franchise."
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Black Bag
Director: Liu Jian
Cast: Animation
User Rating: 7.0/10 (3,214 votes)
"In this animated spy thriller, a demoted female spy is assigned to a remote monitoring station where she discovers an unusual case through surveillance footage. The animation style is distinctive - using flat, minimalist graphics that create a unique aesthetic. The story follows Ma Yongtao, who stumbles upon suspicious activities while monitoring seemingly routine surveillance footage. What begins as basic observation quickly escalates into a complex web of corruption, intrigue, and unexpected danger that forces her back into active field work."
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Last Breath
Director: Alex Parkinson, Richard da Costa
Cast: Corey Munro, Duncan Allcock, Sylvester Crawford
User Rating: 6.8/10 (5,237 votes)
"This film tells the true story of commercial diver Chris Lemons who, in 2012, was stranded at the bottom of the North Sea with only five minutes of oxygen but survived for over 30 minutes. The documentary-style narrative recreates the incident with remarkable tension and authenticity, using a combination of real footage from the diving vessel and dramatic recreations. What makes the film particularly effective is how it builds the claustrophobic isolation of being trapped on the seabed, while simultaneously showing the frantic rescue efforts above, creating a race-against-time scenario that's all the more affecting because we know it actually happened."
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Building Happiness: La Dolce Villa
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Armie Hammer, Dakota Johnson
User Rating: 7.1/10 (8,714 votes)
"In the picturesque Italian countryside, recently divorced architect Sofia (Swinton) purchases a dilapidated villa with plans to restore it and start a new chapter in her life. What begins as a project to heal from her past becomes complicated when charming local contractor Marco (Hammer) and his free-spirited daughter Lucia (Johnson) enter her life. Guadagnino's sumptuous visuals make the most of the stunning Tuscan setting, with golden sunlight bathing crumbling stone walls that become a metaphor for Sofia's own reconstruction. Food, architecture, and the rhythms of village life are all lovingly depicted, creating a sensory experience that celebrates the healing power of beauty and human connection."
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Macbeth
Director: Max Webster
Cast: David Tennant, Jumbo Cush, Various
User Rating: 7.0/10 (4,318 votes)
"This version of Macbeth features an innovative approach where audience members wear headphones during the performance. The ambient sound effects played through these headphones create an uneasy, terrifying atmosphere that enhances the psychological aspects of Shakespeare's tragedy. David Tennant brings intensity to the title role, while the minimalist stage design focuses attention on the performances. The production's most striking feature is how it uses audio technology to represent the inner voices and hallucinations that plague Macbeth, blurring the line between what is happening externally and internally, making the audience complicit in his psychological deterioration."
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A Complete Unknown
Director: James Mangold
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning
User Rating: 6.4/10 (8,084 votes)
"Set in the New York music scene of the early 1960s, the film recreates Bob Dylan's controversial transition to electric guitar. At just 19, Dylan (Chalamet) arrives in New York's West Village from Minnesota with his guitar and quickly rises from obscurity to become a star in the folk music scene. The climax comes at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan's decision to use an electric guitar divides his fans and fellow musicians. Mangold's direction captures both the creative ferment of Greenwich Village and the personal transformation of an artist discovering his voice, while Chalamet's performance conveys Dylan's enigmatic blend of vulnerability and stubborn defiance."
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Moana 2
Director: Dave Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller
Cast: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Temuera Morrison
User Rating: 6.6/10 (31,843 votes)
"Under the sudden call of ancestral spirits, Moana (voiced by Auli'i Cravalho), Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), and a new crew set out to the far reaches of Oceania. They venture into dangerous and unknown waters on an adventure unlike any they've faced before. While the animation is stunning as expected from Disney, the storyline follows a predictable formula: encountering difficulties, marching forward, retreating after setbacks, spiritual growth, overcoming obstacles, and finally reaching a happy ending. Despite this formulaic approach, the film still delivers visually impressive sequences and catchy musical numbers that will appeal to fans of the original."
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