 Warner Bros. Pictures, 2025. When a movie based on the popular sandbox video game "Minecraft" was announced nearly a decade ago, fans cheered. Moments later, many of them thought, "Wait...what?"
Despite it's tremendous worldwide popularity - it is in fact the #1 best-selling video game of all time, outselling even games like Super Mario Bros. and Tetris - its open-world format doesn't necessarily come with a minable (pun intended) storyline suitable for a feature film. How would a Minecraft movie even work? What would it be about? Well, now we know. And the result is that "A Minecraft Movie" isn't all bad, in that it's a complete romp that both makes fun of and honors the blocky-universe it is based on. It's silly, ridiculous and ends up being a bit better than it has any business being. Albeit, it was a very low bar...video game movies have generally been awful, and expectations were minimal. Ironically, it's the hard-core Minecraft gamer, not the casual movie-goer, that may take issue with this movie the most. In aiming it at the masses, it obviously becomes a more accessible movie, but it simultaneously risks losing the adoration of those that made it popular in the first place.
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Review: 'Thank You Very Much' doc a celebration of Andy Kaufman's genius, or whatever it was3/26/2025  Drafthouse Films, 2025. A lot has been said about the one-of-a-kind comedian Andy Kaufman. But somehow, the new documentary about his life, "Thank You Very Much," seems to put a fresh spin on what we've come to know, while also examining the methods of his madness.
 Warner Bros. Animation/Ketchup Entertainment, 2025. While the beloved Looney Tunes characters are familiar and respectful, these aren't exactly your parents' Looney Tunes.
"The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie" is shockingly the first all-animated Looney Tunes movie ever released in movie theaters. It's also not being distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures...that duty is being handled by the much smaller Ketchup Entertainment, which is why this film might feel a bit "under the radar" for most. And while this weird, zany sci-fi story is quite harmless, it also feels a bit uninspired. It's been nearly 100 years since the release of the very first Looney Tunes animated short...and this is what we've all waited for?  Sony Pictures Releasing, 2025. Everybody loves Pattington, the Peruvian talking bear that winds up living a proper British life in London with his adopted human family, the Browns. So much so, that he's appeared in nearly 30 books since 1958, when he first appeared in the classic novel "A Bear Called Pattington," by author Michael Bond.
This is the first Pattington film since Bond's death in 2018, and the third in the surprisingly great film series that has not only been a success at the box office, but also with critics ("Pattington 2" held the rare 100% RottenTomatoes rating with over 250 reviews, until some boob famously posted a rotten score, surely to grab personal headlines).  Marvel Studios/Disney, 2024. Two of the most popular Marvel characters on the planet see their worlds collide, in a wild, ridiculous mash-up appropriately titled, "Deadpool & Wolverine."
 Paramount Pictures, 2024. It's cute, innocent and means well, but "IF" - an acronym for "Imaginary Friends" - leaves a lot to the imagination.
 Netflix, 2024. Viewed through the right lens, Jerry Seinfeld's directorial debut, "Unfrosted" (now streaming on Netflix) is a harmless diversion. Much like its subject, the Pop Tart, if you're looking for nuance, exquisite flavor or any level of complexity, you are probably sniffing in the wrong toaster. But if you want something fast and edible, this may be the comedy for you.
 Universal Pictures, 2024. While Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt are undeniable super-stars and the sort of actors you'll always find yourself rooting for, "The Fall Guy" fails at becoming the romp-action-comedy it's aiming to be.
It's not all bad and as a comedy, it contains plenty of laughs, albeit there are more misses than hits. But as an on-the-nose love-letter to the long-ignored stunt community, it is less effective despite its efforts. It gives the under-appreciated stunt men and women their due, but hold this up to other stunt-heavy films that REALLY should be applauded - think "John Wick" or the "Mission: Impossible" movies - and it's no question that "The Fall Guy" falls way short.  Amazon Prime Video, 2024. New and available on Amazon Prime Video today is the romantic-comedy, "The Idea of You," starring Anne Hathaway as Solene, a single mom who gets entangled in a forbidden romance with the much-younger Hayes, a sensitive heartthrob played by Nicholas Galatzine...who just so happens to be a mega-star member of a popular boy band.
 Columbia Pictures, 2024. It's been nearly 40 years since the original "Ghostbusters" slimed its way onto the scene, becoming one of the most popular and iconic movies of all-time. It made nearly 300 million at the box office when it was released back in 1984, or roughly 10-times its budget, and the movie spawned an entire multimedia franchise reaching across film, television, video games and pretty much every corner of American pop culture.
As difficult as it is to trap a ghost in one of those little striped boxes, Columbia Pictures has spent the past four decades chasing whatever strange lightning struck with that original film, desperately trying to bottle it. The 1989 sequel "Ghostbusters II" was not well-received, nor was the 2016 Paul Feig reboot. And while "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" was a box-office winner in 2021, many (like me...see my "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" review here) found that this thick dose of nostalgia was a bit too much. For a franchise that seems to have so much potential for originality and entertainment value, what was being streamed directly into our eyeballs felt more like a feeble attempt to cash-in on what had come before. That brings us to "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire," a film that feels a bit more comfortable with itself overall, but is still too closely shackled to its past. Everyone is dressed up, and it feels like a "Ghostbusters" movie. It's just that these ghosts are quite lifeless. |
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tom santilli movie reviews
Tom Santilli is a professional film critic, TV personality, host and
the Executive Producer of Movie Show Plus.
He also is the featured film critic appearing on WXYZ Channel 7 Action News in Detroit,
and appeared weekly on FOX-2 in Detroit from 2016-2020.
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