MOVIE REVIEW: CLAYFACE

 

Rising Hollywood star Matt Hagen descends into a horrifying revenge-filled monster when scientific ambition strips him of his identity and humanity.

Director: James Watkins

Cast: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella, Eddie Marsan

Release Date: October 16, 2026

 

Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language, some nudity and brief drug use.

Runtime: 1h 48m

Review:

DC’s Clayface fully embraces the body horror tropes to deliver a superhero adjacent film that plays more like Frankenstein than The Substance by the time it’s all said and done.  James Watkins, who is no stranger to the horror genre, directs the film with a steady hand, borrowing elements from Matt Reeves and Christopher Nolan’s Batman film to deliver a familiar visual aesthetic for Gotham.  He moves the film along at a steady pace, spending little time setting up his central character and general set up.  Anyone familiar with Bruce Timm’s classic animated Batman series will find plenty of familiar elements with the story taking inspiration from the two-part episode "Feat of Clay."  Watkins leans into the gangster elements much like the animated series and Matt Reeves take which will leave those looking for Easter Eggs and nods to the larger comic book world disappointed since the story is laser focused on Matt Hagen/Clayface.  Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries delivers a strong performance in the lead role, managing to pry out every bit of emotional depth from the character which makes his story arch all the more tragic.  Harries deftly handles the character slow decent into madness by making it a subtle, slow burn transformation.  It would have been easy for the story to make Matt a narcissist whose vanity drives the story, but it smartly avoids that path to deliver something more nuanced by making Matt somebody who pulled himself up by the bootstraps to earn his success.  His disfiguration and “cure” all leaning into the underlying story thread about his consistent sense of imposter syndrome makes the story all the more intriguing especially when larger set pieces hit.  The final act club set piece, seemingly inspired by Scarface, is an impressively staged bit of body swapping action that’s sure to leave an impression.  On the downside, the romantic storyline between Naomi Ackie’s Dr. Caitlyn Corr and Matt Hagen feels shoehorned and unnecessary.  Mobster Markos Szabo, played by David Dencik, serves as the film’s villain but the character is about as generic as they come leaving that aspect of the story rather underwhelming.  Those lackluster elements keep Clayface from being something special even though Tom Rhys Harries takes the opportunity to shine in the central role.  

B-

MOVIE REVIEW: STREET FIGHTER

 

Estranged street fighters Ryu and Ken Masters get thrown back into combat when the mysterious Chun-Li recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament -- a brutal clash of fists, fate and fury. However, behind the battle royale lies a deadly conspiracy that forces them to face off against each other and the demons from their past.

Director: Kitao Sakurai

Cast: Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Callina Liang, Joe Anoa'i, David Dastmalchian, Cody Rhodes, Eric André, Andrew Schulz, Vidyut Jammwal, Curtis Jackson, Jason Momoa

Release Date: October 16, 2026

 

Genre: Action

Rated PG 13 for violence/action, bloody images, strong language, sexual references, partial nudity and brief smoking.

Runtime: 1h 59m

Review:

The newest iteration of Street Fighter hit the screen with the energy of an unsupervised child at a playground with kinetic action paired with splashy visuals which almost makes you overlook the nonsensical plot.  Kitao Sakurai brings a late 90’s/early 2000’s aesthetic to his film and his candy-colored world populated with oversized characters and performances.  He has fun with the property dropping a boatload of easter eggs for fans of the games but never taking any of it overly seriously.  In a strange contrast, the animated flashback sequences are the only portions of the film that plays the story straight which makes those moments almost feel like they belong in a different film.  The animation is incredibly well done, and the voice acting is excellent throughout which clashes with the over-the-top live action scenes.  The live action portion of the film does offer up plenty of wonderfully choregraphed fight sequences that are well staged and fun throughout.  The ensemble cast is clearly having a ball hamming it up across the board with Noah Centineo’s Ken Masters and Callina Liang’s Chun Li doing most of the heavy lifting.  Centineo and Liang both look the part, but they also bring great screen charisma that makes their performances engaging and fun.  They balance the action and comedy with relative ease even when the jokes don’t land.  The large cast all plays off each other so well that there’s an infection energy to their exchanges whether it be David Dastmalchian channeling Raul Julia’s take on M. Bison.  His henchwomen, Cammy and Juli, played by Mel Jarnson and Rayna Vallandingham, both look like they could easily walk in and out of a Lady Gaga video.  Cody Rhodes and Vidyut Jammwal turn as Guile and Dhalsim feel like it needs more time since their bromance is just begging for more screentime which the film’s two-hour time could have easily worked it in with its hefty run.  Especially since the film starts to wear out its welcome as it starts to lose momentum with the finale doing more to set up a sequel as opposed to a wrapping up the story in a satisfying manner.  Street Fighter is far from a perfect film, but it still offers up plenty of fun for both fans of the game and causal movie goers looking for some mindless entertainment.  

B-

MOVIE REVIEW: THE SOCIAL RECKONING

 

Facebook engineer Frances Haugen and The Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz blow the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets.

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Cast: Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Bill Burr, Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen

Release Date: October 9, 2026

 

Genre: Biography, Drama, Thriller

Rated R for language.

Runtime: 1h 52m

Review:

Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning was always going to have a large hill to overcome with the inevitable comparisons to The Social Network, also written by Sorkin, which it can never overcome since this film never captures the immediacy and importance of that film by painting with the broadest of strokes on every level.  Sorkin’s film has a solid story to tell and a collection of talented actors to tell it which makes his surprisingly undeveloped script peppered with clichéd characters all the more confounding.  His direction is rather bland for the lion’s share of the film’s runtime with a few uninteresting visual flourishes thrown in for good measure.  The script makes intriguing figures like Frances Haugen, Jeff Horowitz and Mark Zuckerberg come off as one-dimensional types we’ve seen before in other better films like All The President’s Men, The Post or Spotlight.  The general facts are covered with a sort of matter-of-fact approach that never makes the story as engaging as it should be even as it cycles between different time periods for effect.  The cast is, to their credit, all do their best to bring out of every bit of nuance out of their underwritten roles.  Mikey Madison does an admirable job of making her character more interesting than what’s written on the page.  Sorkin decides to make Frances Haugen a quirky, wallflower intellectual who can dissect data with ease but lacks any sort of actual social skills.  It’s a tired trope especially since the actual woman is nothing like that characterization with her being a willing whistleblower who drove the process much more than the film version of her does.  Jeremy Allen White is stuck in a similar situation with the film’s version of Jeff Horowitz who portrayed as a principled investigative reporter but there’s little else to him with the character kept at arm’s length from the audience.  As such, he’s a bit of an enigma since there’s little depth or background provided outside of passing mentions of previous journalistic accolades.  Jeremy Strong gets the showiest role with this fully formed version of Mark Zuckerberg who’s a robotic, possessing a nearly inhumanly cold demeanor that makes him almost cartoonish.  Strong gives it his all as he clearly relishes emulating Zuckerberg’s quirky mannerism and speech pattern that gives him a distinct feel to Jesse Eisenberg younger version from The Social Network.  The script mostly keeps him locked up in a single space prepping for congressional testimony with an underutilized Wunmi Mosaku.  Bill Burr provides some energy to these sequences as a former Facebook investor and legal counsel who is more than willing to challenge Zuckerberg without fear.  The film needed more heated exchanges like that to really drive those moments home since the film noticeably perks up during those moments.  Once the film wraps up its story, culminating in Haugen’s congressional testimony post insurrection, there’s a noticeable sense that the story remains unfinished as we are still living in the wake of the aftereffects of the events portrayed onscreen.  It makes The Social Reckoning feel like an unfinished product as we are still living through this moment in time and in the shadow of tech billionaires, such as Zuckerberg, acquiescing to the far right   

C

MOVIE REVIEW: OTHER MOMMY

 

Bela, an eight-year-old girl living in a home with marital problems, confronts a sinister entity that comes out of her closet. The presence, whom she calls "Other Mommy," becomes increasingly threatening to her and her family.

Director: Rob Savage

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Jay Duplass, Dichen Lachman, Arian Moayed, Karen Allen

Release Date: October 9, 2026

 

Genre: Horror, Thriller

Rated R for some bloody violence, and language.

Runtime: 1h 34m

Review:

Other Mommy is a derivative, messy horror film that still manages to be entertaining thanks to some showy visuals and a deliciously committed turn from Jessica Chastain.  The film waste little time getting right into the meat of the story with the film’s buzzy trailer serving as the opening salvo.  Rob Savage keeps the film efficiently paced which works in its favor since the script offers up haphazard bits of lore that don’t make much sense the more you think about it.  Savage makes it easier to overlook these shortfalls by delivering a series of set ups and jump scares that are visually impactful especially as they get more hallucinatory and abstract.  Savage uses slivers of his 2023’s film, The Boogeyman, along with bits of The Nightmare on Elm Street series and the late 90’s Ju-On (The Grudge) to craft his story with some elements working better than others.  The story tries to weave in a deeper thread about family discord but it’s handled in such a clunky manner that it fails to land in spite of the cast’s best efforts.  Leading the way is Jessica Chastain who is clearly having a blast playing the Other Mommy role.  She clearly relishes the opportunity to play in this sandbox as she creates a rather disturbing presence by using a series of unblinking facial expressions and unsettling vocal intonations.  She’s much more muted in her non demonic role of Ursula with the performance echoing her turn in the television miniseries, Scenes from a Marriage, but with much more running and screaming.  Chastain keeps the whole thing afloat by sheer will as the script gets more and more nonsensical as it moves along.  Her screen family played by Jay Duplass and Arabella Olivia Clark bring an earnest, natural energy to their roles even if they are both woefully underwritten.  Familiar faces such as Karen Allen and Dichen Lachman pop up in a rushed exorcism scene that feels like it would have been more memorable if the characters had been set up and fleshed out a tad more.  Once its all said and done, Other Mommy maybe an imperfect vessel but there’s still enough entertaining thrills paired with a memorable turn from Jessica Chastain to make it a fun bit mindless genre fun.  

B-

MOVIE REVIEW: VERITY

 

Hired to be a ghostwriter for renowned author Verity Crawford, Lowen Ashleigh's assignment takes a dark turn when she discovers chilling autobiographical notes. As she wrestles with disturbing and twisted confessions about Verity's husband, she soon finds it hard to separate fiction from reality, manipulation from attraction, and opportunity from obsession.

Director: Michael Showalter

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Brady Wagner

Release Date: October 2, 2026 

 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Rated R for sexual content, some nudity, language, violence and bloody images.

Runtime: 1h 54m

Review:

Verity is a glossy psycho thriller that does just enough to elevate the material above Lifetime quality, thanks mainly to a vamping Hathaway, with the story’s series of twists playing out predictably.  Michael Showalter brings a steady hand behind the camera, delivering a visually slick film that takes full advantage of its locale and good-looking cast.  It’s almost too sleek of a film since there’s an artificial air to everything thrown onscreen which gives the entire thing utterly detached from reality.  It’s hard to blame Showalter much since the script is peppered with stiff, unnatural lines of dialogue that feel most like old school Cinemax than anything else.  If the story had just gone all in with its tawdry subject matter and fully embraced it, silliness and all, the film would have worked better as a guilty pleasure.  As is, Anne Hathaway is the only one of the cast who understood the assignment by leaning into the cartoonish nature of the character.   Hathaway chews up every bit of non-comatose screentime she gets and it leaves you wishing the film gave her more time to brood as a mother who hates every aspect of it.  Sadly, those moments come and go far too quickly with Dakota Johnson being asked to carry the lion’s share of the load.  Johnson can deliver some decent performances with good material, but this script offers up a painfully one dimensional and bland character which sets her back to her default setting of the human embodiment of “meh.”  There are a few bits of background thrown around at the beginning of the film but after that her character isn’t given any sort of tangible depth or texture to make you care about her which makes her the least interesting person onscreen.  Josh Hartnett fares slightly better since he’s given a tad more to work with but there are reveals which are telegraphed from a mile away.  The climax plays out in a similar fashion as everything you expect to happen, but instead of eliciting gasp they provide unintentional laughter.  The ending is supposed to be shocking, but it delivered in such a blasé manner that it leaves you with more of a collective shrug than a visceral thrill that leaves you begging for another entry, which is set up at the end.  Verity ends up being a barely passable erotic thriller that thinks it’s far more clever than it actually is.

C-

MOVIE REVIEW: DIGGER

 

The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove that he's humanity's saviour.

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Cast: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons

Release Date: October 2, 2026 

 

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Rated R for pervasive language

Runtime: 2h 9m

Review:

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger is a big on every level imaginable, from the scope and scale of the story to the performances led by a particularly fascinating turn from Tom Cruise.  Iñárritu’s film starts off an over-the-top satire in the vein of Dr. Strangelove with oversized cartoonish characters and a world ending crisis at the center of it all.  There’s a major reveal, roughly about a half hour, into the film which changes everything you’ve seen before and going forward, serving as a clear line of delineation.  The story, performances and overall look of the film is reshaped from that point as we are watching something different and far more intriguing than what you are originally led to believe.  It’s a bold choice which is sure to divide audiences but ultimately, it opens up multiple thematic story threads that will linger in your mind well after the film ends.  There’s plenty to dissect afterwards with the film tackling everything from climate change to how art deals with catastrophes and portrayals of those involved.  Some parts work far better than others but even the parts that don’t work have an audacious energy that’s hard to deny especially since the cast is fully on board with Iñárritu’s vison.  Tom Cruise leads the way by bring the kind of over-the-top energy he brought in his Tropic Thunder cameo with the heavy makeup and prosthetics freeing him to go for the gusto throughout.  Cruise delivers each line with an impressive level of commitment highlighted by a nearly 10-minute speech by Digger taking responsibility for the calamity and flipping it back on the raucous international crowd along with the audience.  Nearly every bit of Digger’s dialogue, along with the majority of the supporting cast, is delivered at max decibel levels, which makes more sense in the context of the film.  Intermixed between are smaller moments where Cruise offers up an impressive level of nuance and depth to the character even if the daughter subplot feels slightly under served.  It’s the kind of performance that’s sure to garner Cruise some awards consideration regardless of how critics feel about the movie as a whole.   The talented supporting cast are given plenty of time to shine with John Goodman, Riz Ahmed and Robert John Burke leaving lasting impressions whenever they pop up onscreen.  Sadly, Sandra Hüller and Jesse Plemons feel underutilized with both seemingly begging for more to do.  Digger might not for everybody, almost by design, but those who can appreciate what Alejandro González Iñárritu delivers will find a multi layered story and a stellar level of artistry on both sides of the camera.        

A-