Ed Skrein Archives | Deep Focus Review

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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Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

Brian Eggert — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 19:34:23 +0000

Zack Snyder continues his Netflix sci-fi series Rebel Moon with the first sequel, Part 2: The Scargiver, after its predecessor debuted on the streamer five months ago and failed to make much of an impression. The experience of watching Rebel Moon – Part 1: A Child of Fire remains a blur; not one element stands out in the mind, except perhaps Jena Malone’s short-lived spider villainess. It’s best deleted from the memory banks, whereas you should avoid the sequel altogether. A woefully dull and empty hunk of would-be entertainment, The Scargiver’s storytelling adopts a by-the-numbers structure, with its imagery overly derivative of Star Wars iconography and the plotting drawn from Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954). To be sure, if A Child of Fire amounted to a sci-fi-infused version of the first half of Kurosawa’s classic, where a wandering warrior amasses a small force of experienced fighters to protect a farming village, The Scargiver is the second half, where the fighters defend the village. Half the movie is devoted to The Final Battle—which is not final at all—so it should be an exciting watch. Instead, it proves to be two hours of spectacle so tedious that anyone not reviewing the movie […]

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Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire

Brian Eggert — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:37:42 +0000

The allusionism is strong with this one. Zack Snyder’s latest visual extravaganza, the loftily titled Netflix production Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, draws more than a modicum of influence from Akira Kurosawa’s samurai cinema and George Lucas’ galactic franchise. Of course, Lucas already appropriated bushido honor and aspects of Japanese culture, along with story elements from Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress (1958), to develop the original Star Wars (1977). Snyder’s movie merely draws out the connection further with an amalgam of both filmmakers, offering a hodgepodge of ideas from better movies, repurposed here to lackluster effect. Aside from a few neat aliens and a rousing laser gun battle or two, there’s not much in these familiar proceedings to maintain the viewer’s interest. The movie plays less like an affectionate homage and more like a lifeless and derivative composite, underserviced by Snyder’s interest in cool images over compelling characters. Armed with a talented cast and occasionally impressive visuals, Rebel Moon neither transcends nor pays adequate respect to its influences, making for a flagrant and pedestrian imitation of better material. The story is an unmistakable copycat of Seven Samurai (1954). That Kurosawa’s all-time classic goes uncredited is troubling, if not […]

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Alita: Battle Angel

Brian Eggert — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 23:41:41 +0000

Sitting down to write a positive review of Alita: Battle Angel, I cannot help but feel on the defensive. The critical community has panned this big-screen adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s manga series, and the few to respond positively have been lukewarm in their praise. Industry commentators and box-office analysts forecast major financial losses for distributor 20th Century Fox’s reportedly $200 million production, signaling that audiences aren’t altogether interested. Whatever such trends may say about Hollywood’s rampant, often misguided desire to create a long-running franchise similar to Harry Potter or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, these factors have little bearing on the film itself, which I enjoyed and at this point feel a need to defend. What I enjoyed about the film is the pageant of state-of-the-art CGI and imaginative world-building—it’s something to dazzle the eyes rather than engage the critical mind, and sometimes that sort of experience is worthwhile. However simplistic the characters and often banal the dialogue may be, Alita: Battle Angel offers an escapist science-fiction showpiece that may not be high art, but it nonetheless offers an important component of the moviegoing experience: spectacle. Working from a long-gestating script and production planning arranged by James Cameron, director Robert Rodriguez […]

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If Beale Street Could Talk

Brian Eggert — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 18:46:34 +0000

Barry Jenkins’ third feature, If Beale Street Could Talk, cannot help but draw parallels between its troubled Harlem setting in the 1970s and the present day. Based on the 1974 novel by the author and social commentator James Baldwin, the story follows a young woman whose future husband, the father of her unborn child, is wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. The film details the impossible struggle to prove his innocence while remembering, with a profound degree of humanist compassion, the beauty of the young couple’s pure love in hopeful possibility. Jenkins, just two years after his independent breakthrough Moonlight (2016) became an unlikely Oscar-winner, delivers another work of exquisite craftsmanship and artistry, once again drawing influence from the likes of Wong Kar-wai and Jonathan Demme. His picture details a corrupt system that robs African Americans of justice, jailing them inside of both prisons and their neighborhoods, while at the same time putting forth a loving ode to the people who endure despite the conditions around them. Although it sways toward social realism, Jenkins transforms the material into an expression of cinematic poetry. Drawing from Baldwin’s novel for much of his screenplay, If Beale Street Could Talk […]

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Deadpool

Brian Eggert — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 00:00:39 +0000

Produced by “Asshats” and directed by “An Overpaid Tool”, Marvel’s Deadpool thumbs its nose at everyone except comic fans. From the hilarious opening credits to the post-credits scene inspired by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, referential irreverence explodes onto the screen. Longtime special FX supervisor Tim Miller makes his directorial debut for this snarky, R-rated, meta-styled comic book film—not to be confused with a superhero film. If you read X-Men comics in the 1990s, chances are you heard of Deadpool, a horribly scarred, well-armed, and unremitting killer whose disturbing origins left him so crazed that he even had knowledge of his own presence within a comic book; or in this case, a Hollywood film. Playing the titular smart-ass is Ryan Reynolds, who also produced, and who speaks to the audience by breaking the fourth (and sixteenth) wall. Reynolds’ character mocks his real-life counterpart and even the distributing studio, Twentieth Century Fox, who have made an essential entry in their ever-expanding X-Men franchise. And perhaps best of all, amid the bloody violence and naughty language, Deadpool also happens to be a love story that bonds us to the character. The foul-mouthed Marvel character debuted in 1991 in the pages of an X-Men […]

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