Black Bag

Black Bag; The economy of Soderbergh strikes gold once again. A taut thriller, stage play style experience, expertly acted by a fine cast. The spy world is given a domestic slant to great effect and high tension. Sold as having more action, it’s really the mind games bringing the excitement; A-
 

Black Adam

Black Adam; A music video, an invasive orchestral score and a video game all compete to be anything but a coherent movie. It took three credited writers to craft a nonsensical snore fest that manages to make The Rock boring. A completely unredeemable mess; F

Cinderella

Cinderella; Jukebox Musical has some clever song selection but it’s been done before in A Knight’s Tale and Ella Enchanted. The cast has a lot of fun inhabiting their roles. Good as a silly time passer, like those ancient things known as music videos; B-

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again; Gorgeously shot sequel outshines the original. New cast embodies their elder counterparts well, without becoming imitations. Script cleverly reworks songs while bringing strong emotional tones from the new voices that elevate the hits; A

Dante's Peak

Directed by:  Roger Donaldson
Starring:  Pierce Brosnan, Linda Hamilton, Charles Hallahan, Jamie Rene
Running Time: 1h 48min

What starts off initially as an intense, captivating disaster waiting to happen, quickly turns into a disaster once the movie leaves its attempt at originality and turns the characters and situations into boring, cliched melodramatic foils.  The two leads may have possibly pulled it off as they are both believable yet have that little bit of fantasy that creates movie magic.  But then that gets covered in ash as the studio tries to make too much of that movie magic in easily contrived disaster scenes and destruction for the sake of filling the trailer with exciting images.  It's too bad that the trailer was the only excitement as we move through rescue after rescue with no worries at all.  Absolutely nothing new to offer here.  Just a cute leading couple.

Grade: C