the @popcollin reviews

Not as memorable or as inventive as ‘Ragnarok’, the third Thor flick is still a solid, comedy-first/superhero-second effort from writer-director Taika Waititi. All hail the return of Natalie Portman as Jane, but the rest of the characters—including Thor himself and Christian Bale’s cartoonish villain Gorr the God Butcher—pale in comparison. […]

Newbie writer-director Cooper Raiff clearly has some talent and is bound for bigger and better things. Despite a few missteps, his tale of a young, aimless college grad who falls for an older(ish) woman (Dakota Johnson) has plenty of heart and charisma and snappy dialogue. It’s a cute and quirky […]

Based on a true story, “Jerry and Marge” stars Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening as the Michigan couple who found a loophole in the lottery and walked away with millions, helping their tiny little hometown in the process. It’s sweet and charming and floats over you like a cool breeze, […]

Director Sam Raimi enters the MCU with a movie that may look hella-cool but trips over itself repeatedly as ‘Loki’ creator Michael Waldron’s script alternates between brain-scrambling esoterica and tired superhero tropes. Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, and a top-notch supporting cast all do fantastic work, though, and, despite not being […]

Karen Gillan stars in this off-the-wall thriller, set in a not-too-distant future where terminally ill people can clone themselves to make their death easier for their loved ones. The issue is, should the person miraculously recover, the original and double have to fight to the death. (We can’t have two […]

If I told you it was a movie, written by D. B. Weiss (of ‘Game of Thrones’ fame), about two lowly high school outcasts who form a heavy metal band and then recruit a loner cellist to join in the fray, would that sound interesting at all? Turns out, yes. […]

The feature film writing/directorial debut for Mayim Bialik, this bittersweet tale of a young woman (Dianna Agron) coping with the imminent death of her father (Dustin Hoffman) is a powerful, if somewhat uneven, tale of family and dysfunction and coping. Candice Bergen and Simon Helberg co-star, rounding out a fairly […]

Michael Bay’s latest big-boom-bang is set over the course of a day in Los Angeles, as a local criminal (Jake Gyllenhaal) leads a bank heist that goes south very quickly. Considering who’s at the helm of this thing, the movie is surprisingly restrained, instead leaning on the characters and the […]

If you’ve had a weird longing for a remake of 1984’s “Romancing the Stone”, you’re in luck. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum star as regular folk thrust into the tropical jungle on a hunt for treasure, while Daniel Radcliffe pulls the strings. It’s fun and goofy and has plenty of […]

Based on the true story of a miraculous 2010 Mount Washington rescue, the film stars Naomi Watts as a search and rescue volunteer who, even while battling her own demons, somehow trudges up (and back down) 6,000 feet to lead a man to safety. But that’s only part of the […]