the @popcollin reviews

Doug Liman (following up March’s bland ‘Road House’ reboot) helms this comedy-of-errors crime caper co-starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as bumbling idiots who try to rob the corrupt mayor of Boston. While there are more than a handful of chuckle-worthy moments, the film winds up slogging and sputtering its […]

Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman star in this forgettable rom-com from director Richard LaGravenese (‘Beautiful Creatures’) that feels like a little bit of a step up from a gooey Hallmark flick – but not by much. Efron is super-famous movie star Chris Cole (insulted by the term ‘celebrity’) who falls […]

Adapted and directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan (daughter of M. Night), this supposed suspense/horror flick is actually neither and instead plods along, heavy on mood and eeriness but not much else. The story of four people locked in a mirrored room in the Irish woods while ‘others’ watch them stand […]

A 2010 Canadian home invasion and murder-for-hire scheme unfolds in this Netflix documentary a little like a low-rent episode of ‘Dateline’. There are no real surprises along the way (it’s all right there in the title), and there’s not much depth or backstory either—both of which means this one’s fairly […]

The follow-up to 2021’s ‘Afterlife’ is a bitter disappointment, despite the return of all the key players (including the OG gang of BIll Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Annie Potts, and Ernie Hudson). Director Gil Kenan (who also co-wrote the screenplay) seems like a lost little puppy, not sure what to do […]

Everyone who’s ever tossed out an ‘It wasn’t me’ or made up some outlandish excuse why they couldn’t attend their neighbor’s kid’s cousin’s cello recital will appreciate this (very) low-brow and ultimately eyeroll-worthy effort… but that’s about as far as this one goes. Zac Efron is one of three musketeers […]

Directed by Johan Renck (‘Chernobyl’), this sparse drama starts with plenty of promise, with Adam Sandler as Jakub, a solo astronaut six months into a mission to investigate a strange cloud near Jupiter. Shortly after we pick up the story, though, he comes face-to-face with a huge (though friendly?) spider, […]

The puzzling tale of an Appalachian Trail hiker whose body was discovered in a tent in Florida in 2018 is the subject of what ultimately is a mildly frustrating documentary from director Patricia Gillespie. The crux of the film is the nationwide effort to identify the off-the-grid man (which ends […]

Struggling mightily to launch Kevin Hart’s career as a serious action star, this all-over-the-place ‘Ocean’s 11’ wannabe finds the comic as the ringleader of a heist gang hired by Interpol to foil an even larger heist. Not nearly as clever (or believable) as the ‘Oceans’ films, however, the film crumbles […]

Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal star as Midwestern couple Hen and Junior in this meandering sci-fi drama about a couple living in a pseudo-dystopian 2065. Because of the deteriorating state of the Earth, Junior is chosen to try out life on a space station for a year, while an AI […]