 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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 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).  2025 Universal Pictures, DreamWorks Animation. The major bone that I have to pick with "Dog Man," is that the titular character is actually the least interesting of the bunch. But that doesn't stop it from being a successful, if not all that stellar, family-friendly adventure.
 Disney, 2024. I have to admit: When I walked out of the theater after screening "Mufasa: The Lion King," the new prequel and sequel to the CG-realistic 2019 version of "The Lion King," I had a smile on my face. Indeed, there are some good messages and the movie got better, faster, stronger, as it went along, culminating in what felt like a satisfying conclusion.
But the more and more that I thought about what I had just seen, the more I felt...underwhelmed. The animated original, from 1994, was and is of course a modern classic. And I was one of the lonely critics that actually embraced the 2019 version (that last movie only ended up with a 51% on RottenTomatoes.com). Especially when I started comparing it to what had came before, I began to feel like the franchise deserved better. "Mufasa: The Lion King" doesn't feel like a pure cash grab in the way that, say, the straight-to-DVD "The Lion King 2" did. And yet, there is no real reason for its existence other than to ravage the dead carcass - like a hyena might - of yet another Disney classic, squeezing what little life might be left so that the masses can feed. When the tribute to James Earl Jones at the start of the film carries more weight than the film itself, there's a problem.  Disney+, 2024. I wouldn't refer to it as "hard-hitting," but a new documentary on Disney+ (streaming as of May 31st) called "Jim Henson: Idea Man" is a loving, and long-overdue tribute to a man who was way ahead of his time, absolutely right for his time, and simultaneously, gone way too soon.
 Paramount Pictures, 2024. It's cute, innocent and means well, but "IF" - an acronym for "Imaginary Friends" - leaves a lot to the imagination.
 Pixar/Disney, 2023. The bar is always set exceptionally high when you hear the word "Pixar." The animation studio has of course given us some of the very best movies - animated or otherwise - that have been made over the last 3 decades.
With that framing in mind, "Elemental" isn't among the very best of Pixar. But it is the sort of movie that we frankly need more of. Review Round-Up: 'The Little Mermaid,' 'Kandahar,' 'You Hurt My Feelings,' 'Being Mary Tyler Moore'5/25/2023  Walt Disney Studios, 2023. Here are reviews of several new movies opening this weekend theatrically as well as on streaming:
 Disney+, 2023. If there was ever a classic Disney animated film in need of an update, it's the 1953 "Peter Pan" movie. It's depiction of Native Americans have made it an uncomfortable watch - at best - and so "Peter Pan & Wendy" is one live-action Disney remake that is probably a good thing.
But this Peter Pan's flight plays it mostly safe and unimaginative. Neverland has never been depicted quite as boring, and a few big casting blunders makes "Peter Pan & Wendy" grow old, quickly. |
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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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