the @popcollin reviews

Adam Sandler’s latest Netflix offering is a surprisingly cute and endearing animated musical about, of all things, classroom pets. Sandler voices the titular lizard, and Bill Burr co-stars as a cranky turtle, and when the fifth graders in Ms. Malkin’s class discover that the animals can talk (and actually have […]

David Fincher’s first film since 2020’s ‘Mank’ stars Michael Fassbender as an ice-in-his-veins hitman who goes on a cross-country killing spree after getting targeted himself. Though it certainly occupies the same dark and gloomy space as Fincher’s best (‘Gone Girl’, ‘Se7en’, ‘The Social Network’), the movie suffers a bit from […]

Director Neill Blomkamp burst on the scene in 2009 with the incredible ‘District 9’, but since then, it’s been a downhill slide (‘Elysium’, ‘Chappie’). His latest offering is a whiz-bang race car movie that combines the popular PlayStation franchise with the true(ish) story of how a gamer wound up behind […]

Anyone wanting or expecting a light and frothy summertime romp about a doll’s adventures in doll-land better run in the other direction. Co-writer and director Greta Gerwig has instead given us Barbie (Margot Robbie) coping with a deep existential crisis as Ken (a brilliant, scene-stealing Ryan Gosling) becomes the poster […]

The fifth (and hopefully last?) Indy flick finds our intrepid hero in 1969, on the hunt for a nifty little time-travel gadget that, naturally, the Nazis can’t wait to get their hands on. (Yes, there are still Nazis around to torment Indy, even in the late 60s.) Phoebe Waller-Bridge holds […]

Based on the true story of the Mexcian janitor at Frito-Lay who brought the world super-spicy snacks, this feel-good flick is a great, uplifting story that’ll make you instantly wonder how you’ve never heard even a bit of it before. Eva Longoria, directing her first feature, pulls off the fascinating […]

Chronicling Colombian cyclist Rigoberto Uran’s journey through the 2020 Tour de France, this documentary by first-timer Ted Youngs will only be of interest to devout Tour fans and/or fans of Rigo himself. It’s well done, certainly, and provides plenty of behind-the-scenes insight, but for anyone who doesn’t reserve three weeks […]

The live-action remake of Disney’s 1989 classic has everything you remember about the original, along with a handful of nifty new songs (courtesy of Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda). Big kudos to Halle Bailey, who makes Ariel her own, and to Melissa McCarthy, who gives us a wild-and-crazy Ursula. The […]

Jennifer Lopez kills it (literally) in this suspense-action flick that never feels wholly original but still manages to ride its taut pace and her charisma all the way to the finish line. Lopez stars as a former military-operative-turned-FBI-informant who, duh, can’t escape her past, especially when it takes her estranged […]

Lily James stars in this enjoyable rom-com about a struggling British filmmaker who decides to make her Pakistani bestie’s voyage through an arranged marriage the subject of her next film. The film floats on the chemistry and talents of James and co-star Shazad Latif, overcoming its formulaic plot to become […]