Reviews A-Z | Deep Focus Review | Movie Reviews, Essays, and Analysis

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Brian Eggert — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:24:40 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. The Fantastic Four: First Steps comes as close to greatness as MCU movies get. Accented by a dazzling retro-futurist style and strong characters played by a pitch-perfect cast, it adheres to the save-the-world formula found in many superhero movies: Planet Earth faces an impossible threat from outer space, and only the titular heroes can save us. However, instead of the flat digital environments and lack of distinct visual flair found in most movies of this ilk, there’s a wonderful alternate reality for audiences to explore, set in a version of the 1960s replete with spaceships, robots, and flying cars. The movie instills an instant desire to investigate this familiar yet unique world, something most MCU movies cannot claim. Rather than feeling like The Fantastic Four is more of the same, it feels alive and new—an inspired variation on a theme that, admittedly, has already been tackled onscreen but to subpar effect. With a terrific cast who embody their iconic characters and a visual energy that presents a refreshing alternative to the Marvel house style, The Fantastic Four is not only immediately engaging but also one of the MCU’s most satisfying offerings yet. […]

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Oh, Hi!

Brian Eggert — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 21:17:54 +0000

“I did a thing,” confesses Molly Gordon’s Iris, the sympathetic if somewhat unhinged protagonist of Oh, Hi!, a familiar, convoluted rom-com that escalates into bad-sitcom level absurdity. When Iris and Isaac (Logan Lerman) escape to a picturesque farmhouse—singing the Dolly Parton-Kenny Rogers duet “Islands in the Stream” in the car like an old married couple—their weekend trip brings some details about their relationship status to light. The “thing” she admits to over the phone, speaking to her best friend Max (Geraldine Viswanathan), is that she has chained Isaac to the headboard and refuses to release him. It started as playful bondage and good sex, until he remarked that he didn’t consider them boyfriend-girlfriend. “I’m not really looking for a relationship,” he says, after four months of dating. And so, Iris has resolved to leave him there, hoping that he might come around after twelve hours or so. This twisted look at modern dating from writer-director Sophie Brooks is the kind of insufferable movie where, if the characters just had a quick conversation to clarify their feelings, they could have avoided everything that follows. But then, of course, there wouldn’t be a movie—meaning Oh, Hi! exists to perpetuate itself. Brooks lays […]

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Sorry, Baby

Brian Eggert — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 14:42:16 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. With Sorry, Baby, writer-director-star Eva Victor rethinks how cinema portrays and processes trauma, and it’s not with sensationalism or buzzy terminology, but with restraint, humor, and compassion. Victor stars as Agnes, a literature professor working at the same New England college where she once attended grad school and survived a sexual assault. The film explores what it means to feel stuck and unable to see a path forward. Victor acknowledges that it’s impossible to anticipate or shield against every terrible thing that might happen, and when something does occur, how one responds is often an unconscious reaction. Some people repress the experience, only for the feelings to return with a vengeance, while others try to confront it directly and endure the psychological collision. Regardless, trauma reframes self-image, raising introspective questions: Agnes wonders how she would have been different had this never happened to her. Should she mourn the version of her that might have been? Sorry, Baby doesn’t pretend to offer answers. Instead, it gently observes how healing can emerge out of supportive friendships, empathetic strangers, plenty of time, and perhaps also a kitten. Sorry, Baby is structured into chapters, each covering […]

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Cloud

Brian Eggert — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 19:09:44 +0000

Note: Janus Films and Sideshow will distribute Cloud in limited release, starting on July 18, 2025. It will expand to other markets, including Minnesota, in the coming weeks. Listen to the audio version of this review. Kiyoshi Kurosawa warns that something dreadful awaits those who prey on thrifty, unassuming online shoppers in Cloud, an unpredictable thriller about a shady reseller whose minor crimes come back to haunt him. Kurosawa, the Japanese director whose approach to genre adheres to no rulebook except his own, navigates a predatory capitalist underworld with a masterful control of tone. What begins as a portrait of a small-time grifter unravels into a study of how even the most modest offenses accumulate into something more nefarious—a transformation from petty transgressions into an all-consuming and inescapable criminal enterprise. Kurosawa considers how the desire for profit—or on a much more basic level, survival—instills a rampant need to exploit bargain shoppers for everything they’re worth. Cloud dissects how a world in which income means life gives way to opportunistic self-preservation. And yet, the corruptive nature of capitalism, and those caught in its wake, perpetuate a system of irresistible deals and prospective dividends. From this framework, where Kurosawa crafts both an […]

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Eddington

Brian Eggert — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:53:21 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. Ari Aster dissects the culture war with Eddington, a portrait of how COVID-19 irrevocably tore America apart at its already frayed seams. The pandemic intensified partisan rancor, social fragmentation, and reactionary behavior—conditions that enabled opportunists to seize power amid the chaos and, ultimately, profit from it. Set in late May 2020, the film looks back five years at the titular New Mexico town, seemingly in an attempt to understand what led to the erosion of democracy in Trump’s America today. Described as a Western in the promotional materials, it’s also a period piece, though the time hardly feels that long ago, much to the film’s detriment. Still, Aster captures the uncertainty, paranoia, and desperate search for answers that drove people to rely on the worst possible source: social media. Rather than offering clarity, it only deepened the divide between the right and left, as both sides leaned into their worst impulses and most extreme reactions. Fortunately, Eddington boasts an excellent cast, led by another tour-de-force performance by Joaquin Phoenix under Aster’s direction. It’s unquestionably well-crafted and brimming with the director’s anxiety-ridden style. But the question remains: Is now the right time for […]

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Another Round

Brian Eggert — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 14:56:24 +0000

Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round dances on the ledge between tragedy and comedy, chaos and clarity. The Danish filmmaker fortifies his 2020 release, winner of the Oscar for Best International Feature and many other awards, not only with a superb ensemble cast headlined by Mads Mikkelsen’s outstanding performance, but also with a balance of puckish energy and philosophical depth. He opens the film with a quote from Kierkegaard: “What is youth? A dream. What is love? The content of the dream.” Vinterberg frames youth as a fleeting time of passion that becomes muted as one grows older. From there, he thoughtfully explores the midlife crises among men who run an impulsive experiment involving alcohol—a somewhat ill-advised attempt to recapture the dream of youth and renew their dispirited lives. Their reckless revival efforts put their careers and personal lives at risk for an experiment that awakens some and sends others further into a downward spiral. Just like the characters, the film, too, alternates between high and low, playful and sobering, pickled and profound. The full review is currently exclusive to Patreon subscribers. To read it, you can purchase individual access. Or you can join Deep Focus Review’s Patron community, where you’ll receive […]

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Commune

Brian Eggert — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 18:11:17 +0000

Note: A newly restored version of Commune arrives in limited theatrical release on July 11 and expands in the weeks to come. Click here for showtimes and additional information. Commune is also available on some streaming services, including Kanopy. Say “commune,” and images of flower children, vegans, New Age remedies, and free love advocates come to mind. Jonathan Berman released Commune, his portrait of a famous cooperative living experiment, in 2005. The documentary follows Richard and Elsa Marley, who founded the 80-acre Black Bear Ranch in 1968 on the site of an abandoned mining town in Siskiyou County, California. Nestled in the wilderness, ten miles from anywhere, they started their would-be utopia on the principle of “free land for free people.” Their counterculture haven provided a new way of life for those resisting the US government’s demand for social conformity, the FBI’s mission to dismantle progressive movements, and the general unrest of the 1960s. Berman’s engrossing film returns to theaters not just to celebrate its twentieth anniversary but also to comment on the parallels between then and now, and how those who disagree with their government respond to unpredictable times by dropping out of conventional society. What’s fascinating about the […]

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Superman

Brian Eggert — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:25:30 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. Punk rock may seem loud and nihilistic to some, but when it emerged in the 1970s, its performers aimed their angry sound at tyrannical mainstream ideologies. In particular, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, The Clash, and others sought independence from the traditionalism, religious dogma, and social norms reinforced by popular culture. Their aggressive sound and lyrics condemned authoritarian politics, questioning the systems of power that keep people under control. They sang about the oppressed rising up against—or at least flipping off—their oppressors. By now, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about punk music in this review of Superman, writer-director James Gunn’s new feature about Krypton’s last son. Gunn’s highly entertaining summer release, which might just be my favorite Superman movie yet, looks at our world and considers where a morally upright hero like Superman would fit. Would humanity embrace him as a beacon of hope? Would his presence become politicized? In the end, Gunn acknowledges that, sadly, believing in the value of all life, regardless of politics or personal motivation, as Superman does, represents a rather punkish, outsider point of view, and he weaves that concept into his film. Along […]

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40 Acres

Brian Eggert — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:48:11 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. 40 Acres is another in a long line of post-apocalyptic yarns about survivalists who contend with raiders and cannibals—not to mention their strained family dynamics. The movie combines the sensibilities of an austere drama such as The Road (2009), where a parent will do anything to ensure their child survives, with the coming-of-age trappings of a YA equivalent, where the young protagonist feels compelled to question his world (think The Maze Runner series), including his parents. However oversaturated the story may be with familiar ideas, the movie’s title hints that there’s something more on Canadian director R.T. Thorne’s mind than another formulaic genre exercise. 40 Acres alludes to how, after the Civil War in the United States, the government under Abraham Lincoln vowed to give thousands of formerly enslaved Black families forty acres of farmland and a mule. But Lincoln’s assassination gave way to President Andrew Johnson, who reversed the decision in just one of the many broken promises made to Black communities during the postwar Reconstruction era. Thorne wrote 40 Acres alongside Glenn Taylor, and they weave a shared history by centering on the Freemans, a family whose militarized matriarch, Hailey […]

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Jurassic World Rebirth

Brian Eggert — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 23:28:48 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. Jurassic World Rebirth further proves that Steven Spielberg invented the visual language of modern blockbusters, and other filmmakers merely speak in it. Rather than create something new, director Gareth Edwards spends 134 minutes paying homage to Spielberg and his 1993 original, Jurassic Park. But more than just the masterful first film based on Michael Crichton’s book, or even its now-six sequels, Edwards also nods to Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) in a recapitulation of iconic Hollywood imagery. No slouch himself, Edwards—the helmer of Monsters (2010), Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), and The Creator (2023)—devises almost nothing new here. What seems new stems from recycled ideas that never really worked in the first place, such as genetically altered mutant dinosaurs. Rather than take the time to stretch his talent, Edwards falls back on the same reverence for Spielberg that directors Colin Trevorrow and J.A. Bayona displayed in Jurassic World (2015), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), and Jurassic World Dominion (2022). And yet, even though Edwards’ visual nods to Spielberg and Rebirth‘s story autocannibalize the Jurassic series, it manages to be more purely entertaining than the last […]

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