Director: Marshall Curry
Stars: Julianne Moore, David Remnick

Synopsis: The New Yorker’s centennial reveals behind-the-scenes access to editors, writers, and archives of this culturally vital magazine, one of print’s last survivors.

When we speak of The New Yorker, we’re referring to one of America’s most enduring and idiosyncratic publications. Born in 1925, it has devoted itself to long-form journalism, fiction, cartoons, and that unmistakable New York voice. The magazine has straddled the literary and journalistic, the high-brow and the whimsical, and, in doing so, has built a reputation for rigorous fact-checking, sophisticated storytelling, and cover art that often speaks volumes before the first word is read. Now, in the Netflix documentary The New Yorker at 100 (directed by Marshall Curry), the magazine reflects on its century-long life as the makers shine a light on its inner workings.

Journalism is in an age of “fake news,” battling authenticity and fighting for the audience’s attention. In this documentary, we’re invited behind the scenes: from the editorial meetings to the cartoon-selection room, from the obsessive fact-checkers to staffers debating comma usage. The New Yorker at 100 offers a satisfying peek into a world people think they know about, but this film will open their eyes. We witness the magazine’s downtown, fancy New York offices and the homes or haunts of writers, showing that, even in our digital era, this print institution still insists on craft and precision.

Visually and structurally, the film is tidy and pleasant. Like most documentaries, it uses archival material alongside present-day footage. There are bright colors, along with examples of their work and what has inspired it. Narrated by Julianne Moore (whose voice is gentle yet authoritative), we hear from contributors like Hilton Als, Roz Chast, and Ronan Farrow (plus celebrity fans such as Sarah Jessica Parker and JonHamm) to anchor the magazine’s cultural impact. There are clips from TV series and films such as Family Guy and Seinfeld, which mention The New Yorker. 

However, the documentary often stays at a surface level. For an institution with such a rich and sometimes controversial past (including journalistic missteps, cultural blind-spots, and shifting editorial ambitions), the film plays it safe. The documentary needed to probe into the tensions we’re seeing in the industry, from AI to environmental factors around printing. It briefly touches on the controversy the printed covers have had, especially when they’ve printed pictures of American Presidents such as George W. Bush and Donald Trump. But I still never felt like we got to the nitty-gritty of what goes on behind the scenes of The New Yorker.

Its structure, too, sometimes leans toward a checklist: show the editing room, show the covers, show the writers, show the cartoons, celebrate the centennial. The beat-to-beat is pleasing but mundane. If you’re already familiar with The New Yorker’s history, the film offers reminders ratherthan revelations. For newcomers, it’s a fine primer, but it may feel slightly cautious to veterans of media-industry documentaries.

The interviews are enjoyable, especially when walking around NYC; they felt lively, and audiences got to see some of the famous sights. Watching artists, writers and critics work, draw, and discuss their inspirations and experiences over the years, both good and bad, is eye-opening. The section on 9/11 is very poignant and moving. 

Another minor reservation: the pacing, though generally competent, occasionally lags when the film relies too heavily on talking-head interviews without sufficient counteraction. The tone remains reverent, which is understandable given the centennial context, but somewhat limits the documentary’s capacity to critique its subject as much as celebrate it.

That said, the film succeeds in making the magazine’s internal rituals accessible and, yes, even amusing (there’s a section on the fact-checkers and the word ‘vaunted’ that made me laugh). You come away with genuine admiration for the people who persist in making a magazine despite the odds. The documentary is infused with affection for the magazine’s form, for the craft of journalism, and for New York, which gives it an uplifting, feel-good quality without descending into purely nostalgic fluff.

The documentary gets very interesting, but sadly, only 15 minutes from the end. This is where we get a glimpse into how dangerous journalism can be, and how much more dangerous it’s getting. Here, the pace picks up, and we see the stresses of getting publication-ready on time and, like all good documentaries, we end with words of wisdom and a serious, hopeful attitude for the future. The New Yorker at 100 is an informative, engaging, and well-crafted tribute to a singular publication. It does not bite deeply into the messier corners of media transformation, and it skirts bigger questions about the magazine’s future. But if your interest lies in learning how the magazine has come to mean what it does, and how one small team of “obsessives” still insists on excellence, you’ll find it satisfying. For those seeking a darker, more interrogative media documentary, this might not be the boldest option. It’s worth watching, and worth reflecting on what it means for journalism’s next century.

Grade: B+

Director: Josh Safdie
Writer: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion

Synopsis: Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.

In a year full of underwhelming disappointments, A24’s Marty Supreme is here to save the day. Josh Safdie’s seventh directorial feature, only his second time helming a film solo, and the first since his debut, The Pleasure of Being Robbed, is a slice of cinema unlike anything you’ve ever seen. An exhilarating sports epic that transports you to another time and place, it strips away the noir-soaked urban sheen of the period. Safdie replaces it with hard-boiled comedy, bustling claustrophobia, and overwhelming anxiety.

This isn’t a New York City where glamour is front and center. Marty Supreme jumps off the screen, big and bold, riveting and exciting, eclectic and alive with an electric charge. That’s because this is a story that puts the downtrodden front and center. The movie is for the dreamers, the workers, the hustlers, the bustlers, and the barstool regulars circling the drain and barely keeping their heads above water. These are the New Yorkers who give the city its color, vibe, and flair. 

For those who revel in just as much moral ambiguity in the shadows as those Big Apple corporate fat cats, that’s where Timothée Chalamet comes in. Rumor has it he was furious when he didn’t take home the little gold man known as Oscar last year for playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. This isn’t a performance that encompasses America in peacetime or the decade of great conformity. Safdie ignores the humble post-war politics, and America is always portrayed with post-war optimism. 

No, Chalamet delivers something different. Simply put, this is the best performance of his career. The actor, previously nominated for Call Me By Your Name and launched into superstardom by the Dune franchise, drops the boyish charm, sex-symbol status, and tortured-soul charisma for a caustic, motor-mouth energy fueled by narcissistic ambition—magnetic, chaotic, and a sight to behold.

Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, the star of, at least according to Marty, the fastest rising sport in the world, ping-pong. He’s a showman: arrogant and fiery, the John McEnroe of table tennis, frequently antagonizing his opponents and violating the boundaries and personal space of referees and corporate officials. Marty doesn’t want to live his life blending into the background. Marty wants to be front and center. He doesn’t want to step into the spotlight. No, he expects the spotlight to follow him.

There isn’t a person Marty won’t use or manipulate to get to the top. For instance, he steals money from his uncle’s safe to finance his trip to Europe for an international table tennis tournament. It doesn’t matter that he got a married pet-store owner, Rachel (She Rides Shotgun’s Odessa A’zion), pregnant; took advantage of his best friend Wally (Tyler, The Creator), mooching off his mother (Fran Drescher), or trying to con a past-her-prime actress (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her wealthy magnate husband (Kevin O’Leary, no, that isn’t a typo).

That’s the bushel of carrots when it comes to Marty Supreme, written by Josh Safdie, who co-wrote the script with longtime Safdie brother editor and producer Ronald Bronstein (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), and he swings an awfully ambitious stick here. Marty Supreme works on many levels, being part sports film, crime thriller, and dark social chaos comedy. The movie is also heavily influenced by the subtext and themes that begin to bubble to the surface.

There is a fascinating scene of postwar surrealism, what I’ll call “the honey scene,” that is bound to divide audiences. Many will question why it’s even in the film, but it’s a moment unlike anything that has been done before. Featuring the great Géza Röhrig (To Dust, Son of Saul), it’s a sequence that would make Tadeusz Borowski proud. The imagery blends dissociation, survival, shared communal sustenance, and humiliation. This is paired with O’Leary’s “Vampire” fat cat, a character offering a subtle nod to our own era, with capitalist kings running the country.

Of course, this being a solo Josh Safdie film, it feels like he’s the brother who loves to rev up the action with his signature urban-pressure-cooker comedy. The pacing is fervent, and Chalamet delivers a performance and plays a character you somehow can’t stand yet still find yourself rooting for. The comedic chaos of anxiety, ambition, lust, and self-loathing drives him, and Chalamet brings to the surface a deeply seated insecurity caught between ego and shame.

Chalamet’s turn is a tornado of contradictions, masterfully fascinating, as his manic ambition struggles to break free of societal views and labels. The surrounding characters heighten the comedy, with Safdie’s humor emerging through terrible decisions, escalating disasters, and awkward social collisions that make you laugh while covering your eyes. All of this is elevated by Josh Safdie’s signature aesthetic: gritty neorealism, immersive sweat-and-grime atmosphere, and striking street casting that gives the performances a raw, natural feel.

That being said, Marty Supreme is remarkably accessible and a crowd-pleaser for mainstream audiences. The experience is wild, kinetic, and deliriously enjoyable from start to finish. A movie that is destined to become a classic because no one is making movies like this today. Josh Safdie’s third chapter of his Anxiety Cinema trilogy is unmistakably alive and an experience all its own. 

Go see this film!

You can watch Marty Supreme only in theaters starting December 16th!

Grade: A+

Creators: Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
Stars: Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Winona Ryder

Synopsis: In 1980s Indiana, a group of young friends witness supernatural forces and secret government exploits. As they search for answers, the children unravel a series of extraordinary mysteries.

The first four seasons of Netflix’s smash-hit streaming series Stranger Things were genuinely thrilling, funny, and frightening armrest-grabbing television that may have defined the era of binge-worthy TV. The Duffer Brothers’ creation set the gold standard for mainstream popcorn escapism, elevating the genre into genuine art or at least an art form defined by its audience. These freaks and geeks we have welcomed into our homes have taken us on a thrilling and terrifying ride. 

However, Stranger Things’ final season has, unfortunately, been a massive disappointment. Not because the series won’t be satisfying for its fervent fanbase, but because it recycles the same thrills and chills on auto-repeat, lacking new ways to put these beloved characters on their toes and settling into an unmerited mythology that skips over proper setups. The characters now feel redundant, the world-building has grown tiresome, and the era’s unique themes that once made the show stand out are all but a distant memory.

Stranger Things’ final season hasn’t reinvented itself as much as it’s found itself stuck in predictability, still clinging to the nostalgia from better seasons past. 

The fifth and final season picks up in the fall of 1987, a few months after the events of the fourth season, when the gates of Vecna’s (Horizon: An American Saga’s Jamie Campbell Bower) hellish realm have opened in Hawkins, Indiana. The group is trying to live their everyday lives, but behind the scenes, they’re hiding Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) from the American military while planning to kill One. Helping to hide and train Eleven are Hopper (Thunderbolts’ David Harbour) and Joyce (Beetlejuice’s Winona Ryder), her legally adoptive parents.

Of course, this is all happening around the time of Will’s (Noah Schnapp) disappearance, highlighting the Duffer Brothers’ penchant for circular storytelling. However, the team is still down one person, as Max (The Whale’s Sadie Sink) remains in a coma, with Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) always by her side. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is still mourning the loss of Eddie (Joseph Quinn). There is also the ongoing love triangle involving Nancy (Natalia Dyer), her boyfriend Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Steve (Joe Keery).

The group begins an operation to send Hopper into the Upside Down to kill their nemesis, who is hell-bent on ending the world. With Robin (Wildcat’s Maya Hawke) running the local radio station and sending coded messages, Hopper sneaks onto a military transport—only to find himself in immediate danger. Meanwhile, as Mike (It’s Finn Wolfhard) tries to figure out why his little sister Holly is talking to an imaginary friend, she is taken by Vecna, who uses her as bait to draw Eleven out to save her.

Stranger Things’ fifth and final season suffers from a phenomenon called the Mystery Box effect, which, frankly, was an issue in Volume Two of Season Four’s pendulum chapter. When Vecna was revealed at the end of Episode Seven, it was a jaw-dropping admission. We knew most of the characters would survive, and everyone knew Eddie was a knockoff character. Now, in the final season, making Holly (Nell Fisher) older and using a character who has hardly had a presence as a significant driving plot point is highly contrived. 

The show suffers from Netflix endgame fatigue, which is very real, and the loss of complexity results in only two simple outcomes: either the villain or the hero wins. The other issue is that all the episodes are over sixty minutes long, so there is a lot of narrative fluff in between. It doesn’t help that most of these kids lack the skills to play three-dimensional adult characters, which is the real reason Wolfhard and Schnapp were kept hidden for most of last season. There’s improvement, but they need to be insulated by the large cast to make their scenes work.

This, of course, will happen with any thriller as popular as Stranger Things, especially a show with so much mystery, character development, and world-building. For example, another series with a fervent fanbase, Lost, collapsed under the pressure of creating endless mysteries. With the Duffer Brothers’ mystery, however, the story leads to a simple, unsatisfying endgame that lacks complexity.  

Even with the addition of Linda Hamilton (The Terminator) as Dr. K, running a military base in the Upside Down feels out of place and out of character for a series that takes significant jumps without showing enough patience, taking narrative leaps past its audience without earning those choices. Of course, the series is exciting enough in spots, displaying some glorious special effects that lead to a few very scary scenes. But once you’ve seen one Demigod, you’ve seen them all. 

However, the twist at the end of episode three, titled “The Turnbow rap,” had a fun moment that almost had me recommending the first batch of episodes. Of course, only the first four episodes of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season were screened for most critics. So it is impossible to know where the show is headed or how it will end satisfyingly. Frankly, that is Netflix’s fault for not screening all the episodes for critics and not trusting their product. Based on the limited number of people who were given screeners, I can now see why.

You can stream Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 on Netflix starting November 26th!

Grade: C

Director: Jared Bush, Byron Howard
Writer: Jared Bush
Stars: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Ke Huy Quan

Synopsis: Brave rabbit cop Judy Hopps and her friend, the fox Nick Wilde, team up again to crack a new case, the most perilous and intricate of their careers.

It’s easy to be cynical about what The Mouse has been offering as of late and is going to offer in the future for audiences (read: endless sequels, cash-grab remakes, and The Mandalorian and Grogu), but Zootopia 2, a second installment of a popular film seemingly released much later than expected, is genuine fun. It’s a vibrant, dazzlingly animated adventure that keeps moviegoers on their toes through intricately staged action sequences that retain immense emotional power throughout. Thus, it’s hard to have a more negative posture to the film when what’s on screen is simultaneously terrifically moving and bracingly exhilarating, something I haven’t felt from a Disney animated movie (outside of Pixar) since 2021’s Encanto, which was directed by the same duo of filmmakers that brought us this sequel.

Waiting nine years for the sequel to one of Disney’s most lucrative movies (an Oscar-winning one at that) seems like a massive gamble. Yet, Zootopia 2 is so much better than it has any right to be, especially after the nearly unwatchable “chopped and screwed” Moana 2, a planned television series hacked to bits to fill a feature runtime and make a billion dollars. Zootopia 2’s plot may not be as inspiring or inventive as the first. Still, there’s enough here to hold our attention, especially when what’s on screen consistently blows us away visually and isn’t afraid to delve deep into the connection (or lack thereof) between rabbit cop Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and her sidekick, thief-turned-cop Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman). 

After an incident on their last case leads them at odds with one another, the two must put their differences aside when they discover a conspiracy connected to their previous case, involving descendants of Zootopia’s founder, Ebenezer Lynxley, specifically its patriarch, Milton (David Strathairn), son Pawbert (Andy Samberg), and a mysterious snake only known as Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan in his best post-Oscar win performance in a feature film, after two back-to-back duds with Love Hurts and The Electric State). It’s more thoughtful than expected, and much darker, too (though with its PG-rated limitations), unafraid to discuss themes of corruption in an actively meaningful way than most films that deem themselves “political” and say nothing of the current bleak times we live in.

That said, it’s harder to discuss some of the film’s broader developments without spoiling. However, what’s interesting about directors Byron Howard and Jared Bush’s approach to Zootopia 2 is how they elevate some of the more obvious plot threads with textured emotional urgency. The stakes feel tangible because the core relationship at the heart of the picture deepens in meaningful ways and never repeats what was established in the first. Of course, you get some obligatory cameos and references to the 2016 picture (it is, after all, par for the course for sequels), including one that left me a very sour taste in the mouth (and you’ll probably know which one, there’s no self-deprecating nature to this appearance). Yet, everything around these sections works amazingly well. 

The animation is strikingly detailed and jaw-dropping on an IMAX screen. Specific action scenes, including a chase inside a never-ending water pipe, will take your breath away, as Howard and Bush move their camera (and characters) inside and outside the pipe, following its strong currents and stretching and squashing their characters in ways that harken back to the early days of animation as a pure artistic medium. The stakes feel genuine because we end up caring about the fractured relationship between the protagonists more than the revolving door of characters who appear to either guide Judy and Nick, or give them support, such as beaver podcaster Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster), who sadly doesn’t work.

Even the sense of alchemy between Judy and Gary feels wobbly, because the film doesn’t spend much time with the snake for the bulk of its runtime, preferring to make him an elusive figure who’s part of the mystery both Nick and Judy must solve, rather than an integral character until a reasonable hour into the movie. That said, the filmmakers compensate by expanding its emotional heft during the climax, where one actually fears for the animal’s lives in ways I didn’t expect coming from Disney, who once traumatized children but are now afraid to give them lasting PTSD (understandably so, but kids’ films used to have an edge we don’t get anymore, probably for legal reasons). 

It helps that the already-solidified kinship between Judy and Nick is deeply human, and anyone can latch onto their differences, whether internal or external, regardless of whether they’re a younger or older viewer. Kids will undoubtedly appreciate some of the movie’s more physical (and visual) humor. They will likely be dazzled by its bevy of creative action, which consistently gives Zootopia 2 a pulse and finds its own rhythm within the literal and figurative labyrinthine plot it develops. Similarly, adults will enjoy a movie that never talks down to its child audience and understands they will be able to grasp some of its deeper themes on inclusion and accepting people’s individual differences. 

In short, it’s a movie for everyone, and one that families will undoubtedly enjoy this Holiday weekend, far more than the dreary Wicked: For Good. The thing is, and most importantly, children’s movies must instill some form of wonder, awe, or at the very least tickle their imagination a bit. Wicked: For Good’s murky cinematography prevents the movie from defying gravity and filling the younger generation with images they’ll think about, or at the very least enjoy watching. Zootopia 2 is filled with one imaginative setpiece after another, even if some of its parts (and overstuffed ensemble) aren’t as refined as the first movie. With that being said, it doesn’t much matter when Bateman and Goodwin haven’t lost a step in their vocal turns as Wilde and Hopps, and Idris Elba is still a riot as Chief Bogo, although his presence here is more limited than in the prior installment. 

The movie is also unafraid to make direct references to movies kids are far too young to be watching, complete with key musical patterns you do not expect to hear in a children’s film. The thing is, this is stuff adults love to see, while children will understand these references much later down the line, and perhaps develop an affinity for cinema with gateway films such as Zootopia 2, priming them for stuff that will either terrify them, blow their minds, or maybe both. With such a sincere gesture like the one found in Howard and Bush’s film, it’s hard to be cynical about a movie that wants us to feel like we’re kids again. I saw the vision, and I hope the third one won’t come out in nine years from now.

Grade: B+

Director: Dylan Southern
Writer: Dylan Southern
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Henry Boxall, Richard Boxall

Synopsis: After a tragic loss, a grieving father tries to raise his young sons whilst dealing with an unlikely, unpredictable and uninvited houseguest.

Film is a good medium for tackling the complexities of grief. It’s a medium in which we can see the realities of the emotion and a manifestation of the agony of our characters. This can be many things, but is in many instances given personification, identity, and expression all its own. Grief often takes on the guise of birds, or bird creatures. There is something about the bird’s migratory nature and the fact that grief comes upon you out of the sky that easily evokes the metaphor of grief.

Yet, The Thing with Feathers uses not only a bird, but a sort of bird hybrid. At first Crow (voiced by David Thewlis) is shrouded in shadow and appears as a common crow, but as the other characters come to understand its presence in their lives and how it hurts in order to help, we see Crow more clearly. Rather than go the less cost effective, but maybe more movement effective, route of CGI, the filmmakers chose to have a physical costume and actor, Eric Lampaert, to portray this character.

Creature and prosthetics designer Conor O’ Sullivan and the special effects team created and brought to life a character unlike any other. Combine the technical with the physical performance of Lampaert and the sometimes comforting and sometimes menacing augmented voice of Thewlis and you almost wish this was just a film about Crow. The character is just a little less interesting than its physical form, though. Kind of like the majority of the film.

Films with unreliable focal characters are tough to pull off well. The idea of Dad’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) life falling apart is easy to understand. It’s easy to find an emotional way into empathizing with his and the Boys’ (Henry and Richard Boxall) grief. What gets complicated and muddled is their collective experience of their grief. The logical parts of our brains tend to fight against the inconsistencies and push against what we’re actually seeing. It’s very difficult to rectify that, especially as focal points of view shift within the film’s different segments.

One could argue that this is what grief amounts to, but we could also easily argue that narrative needs a more solid structure with which to stand on. Dylan Southern is not completely off base with either his script or his direction. There are scenes that are very good amongst the ho hum of the entire film. The sequence titled “The Boys” is probably the best example of his prowess. The psychology of the two boys is described in their own words over narration is sublime and a scene between the Boys and Crow is heartbreaking.

Crow gives them a false promise. He promises that the boy that can create the best representation of their dead mother will have his representation come to life for a day. The Boys work diligently. They create and think about their mother, using her things to try and manifest her the best they can. Then, as they finish, Crow tells them what they already know. He tells them there was no way to bring her back, she’s gone. The anger and sadness that erupts is primal and emotionally striking. It’s an excellent sequence that draws us in better than any of the scenes with Dad alone.

This scene and a handful of others makes you wish this had been a short instead of a feature. Even with a reasonable runtime, The Thing with Feathers feels like a drag. It wallows for so long without forward momentum it feels stuck. It makes us sit in discomfort with the film and the fact that the film says nothing new or revelatory about grief or the descent from grief into despair. There are moments of good filmmaking and storytelling, but it’s hard to balance that completely with the stagnation of the rest. It’s at best a pretty familiar dissection of grief and at worst a portrait of solipsistic wallowing.

Grade: C

Director: Jalmari Helander
Writer: Jalmari Helander
Stars: Jorma Tommila, Stephen Lang, Richard Brake

Synopsis: A man returns to dismantle his family’s house, where they were murdered in war, to rebuild it elsewhere. When the killer, a Red Army commander, tracks him down, a brutal cross-country pursuit begins.

Sisu: Road to Revenge is the kind of breathless action-film experience that prides itself on finding new ways to create so much carnage, you’ll need a shower afterwards to rid yourself of the overwrought blood and guts that you’ll be showered with over 89 minutes. The film is bloody, gory, and darkly comic. The experience is pure white-knuckle ferocity, oozing jaw-dropping action and set pieces that give the audience what they ravenously crave. 

Of course, it helps when you have a hair-raising, exhilarating performance from Jorma Tommila, who brings so much brooding, simmering intensity, with very little dialogue, that it feels like a slow, smoldering burn radiating tension and surprising emotional depth. You just wish director and writer Jalmari Helander knew how to rein in their ambition a bit, especially now that they have double the budget to work with.

The last time we saw legendary Finnish soldier Aatami Korpi (Tommila), he was cleaning a large combat knife with a Nazi’s severed head and using the ones that remained as target practice with live mines while fighting his way through the blazing northern Finnish plains occupied by dozens of Hitler’s regiments. However, as we soon find out, money isn’t everything. Korpi wants to bring his home back to Karelia, a no man’s land located between Finland and northern Russia, where his family was murdered.

This is his home, so he dismantles each piece of wood himself, carefully loads them onto a large truck, and plans to relocate the lumber to his hometown. However, there is one problem, since Germany wants revenge on the man who just won’t die. So they let loose a killer even more ruthless than himself. That would be Igo Draganov (legendary character actor Stephen Lang), a Soviet Red Army officer who was the trigger for Aatami’s bloody walk that will live in infamy.

If Draganov catches Korpi and apprehends him, handing him over to German control, they will let him go and finance his freedom. Not a bad deal, considering he has been stuck rotting in Hitler’s wet-dream of a prison for years. So he grabs soldiers, Kradschützen (motorcycle riflemen), Bomberfliegers (bomber pilots), cluster bombs from a Heinkel He 111, machine guns, smoking bullets, sharp knives and blunt ones, not to mention a missile on a train that gets lit up like a Christmas tree.

Sisu: Road to Revenge is bloody fun, with some eye-popping action set pieces that offer howling thrills. Yes, most of the scenes are ridiculous, but they are so surprising in their execution that it hardly matters. (In particular, the scene where he manages to avoid a kamikaze-style attack had me laughing so hard I began choking on my popcorn.) Keep in mind, this is all happening with his adorable Bedlington Terrier at his side. The scenes are adrenaline-fueled armrest-grabbers that hit you viscerally like a hammer. 

These are accomplished in a myriad of ways. The breathtaking dive-bomb scenes are majestic, including shots of fighters flying sideways to avoid tall, thin Scots pines. It even includes an homage to the truck scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.. Helander also knows how to build suspense, with a terrific scene where the main character tries to tiptoe his bloody and bruised body through multiple train cars filled with sleepy German soldiers.

That is also where the film begins to falter. As with the original Sisu, the movie goes too far, just as it did with the plane crash scene, when Tommila’s Aatami and Lang’s Igo come to their final blows. The scenes become almost grotesque, to the point where Helander needs to learn how to rein himself in. The sequel offers too much of a good thing. While still enjoyable, the gory self-indulgence comes close to ruining the picture, but there’s enough there to provide a mild recommendation. 

You can watch Sisu: Road to Revenge only in theaters starting November 21st!

Grade: B-