Category: Reviews
Who was The Acolyte supposed to be about?
Image: Lucasfilm Ltd. A thrilling premise entirely undercut by its execution The pitch for The Acolyte probably kicked ass. It’s easy to imagine how compelling it looked in brief, on paper: A coven of women who challenge the Jedi’s binary view of The Force. Twin sisters connected to a cosmic Force mystery. An assassin out […]
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is all about millennials killing milliseconds
Graphic: Polygon | Source images: Nintendo This NES remix for the speedrunner era is highly compelling Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a finely crafted nostalgia trip, in the vein of the decade-old NES Remix games, that taps into the competitive spirit of the esports event Nintendo launched more than 30 years ago. Despite being […]
House of the Dragon’s latest episode turns gods into meat
Photo: Theo Whiteman/HBO Maybe killing a dragon was a mistake A recurring theme in discussions around House of the Dragon — and Game of Thrones before it — concerns morality. George R.R. Martin’s world is so grimly amoral, just about every character is a bad person on some level. So who do you root for? […]
The new Disney princess board game is just as fun as I dreamed
Image: Ravensburger Chronicles of Light: Darkness Falls is a collaborative experience that charmed one board game grump When I was little, all I wanted was for the Disney princesses to team up and save the day. That didn’t happen in any movie, but it didn’t stop me from pretending to do so with my friends. […]
Longlegs, billed as 2024’s scariest horror movie, is actually pretty hilarious
Image: Neon There’s a big difference between scary and creepy If you’ve heard anything at all about Longlegs, the new horror movie starring Nicolas Cage, you’ve probably seen someone claiming it’s one of the scariest movies ever made. From the movie’s excellent marketing to the avalanche of disturbed reactions from early screenings, all of the […]
Space Cadet is a spiritual successor to Legally Blonde
Image: Amazon Prime Video To the stars… with a lot of glitter and tie-dye! In 2001, Legally Blonde told a generation of girls they could be unapologetically girly, unabashedly plucky — and still sharp, smart, and capable of getting into Harvard Law School, becoming lawyers, and winning a landmark case. It’s a staple of girl-power […]
Mothership’s box set gives newbie game masters something to hold on to
Image: Tuesday Knight Games Don’t give up the ship All too often, tabletop role-playing games get lost in their own fine print. As the author of a core rulebook, you want to keep things short and sweet, but it can be easy to confuse carefully explaining a game with unnecessarily expanding it. The designers of […]
Star Wars: Unlimited’s new two-player starter set tells a great, modern Star Wars story
Image: Fantasy Flight Games/Asmodee A handful of new mechanics recreate the tension of The Mandalorian’s first season on Disney Plus The second set of cards for Star Wars: Unlimited, the new collectible card game from Asmodee’s Fantasy Flight Games studio, is all-in the iconic franchise’s modern expressions. Titled Shadows of the Galaxy, it’s a full-sized […]
Despicable Me 4 has an unusual flaw: too much plot potential
Image: Illumination And believe it or not, the movie could use more Minions Four official movies and two Minions spinoffs in, the world introduced in Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud’s animated 2010 comedy Despicable Me somehow still has enough steam to power its setting. There’s inherently a lot of narrative and comedic potential in a […]
Kalki 2898 AD has the ultimate recipe for a sci-fi epic: Star Wars + Hindu myth + RRR
Image: Vyjayanthi Movies With a dash of Blade Runner, a pinch of Mad Max: Fury Road, and all the Amitabh Bachchan you can eat Actor Amitabh Bachchan is a metaphorical giant of Indian cinema, a superstar of proportions that dwarf even A-list American celebrities. In the Indian sci-fi epic Kalki 2898 AD, his stature becomes […]
