It’s always risky to see a movie based on a book when you’ve actually read (and enjoyed) that book. Gratefully, in this case the risk pays off.

Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, director Taika Waititi’s “Klara and the Sun” follows the story of an artificial human who is purchased to be a companion for a terminally ill young girl.

Klara (Jenna Ortega) is a model B3 Artificial Friend, a lifelike robot intended to offer a range of assistance to any child with parents presumably wealthy enough to afford one. We meet her among a group of other AF hopefuls who live in a downtown department store. 

After a long period of waiting and occasionally occupying the prime spot in the store’s display window, Klara is finally purchased for a sickly teen named Josie (Mia Tharia). Josie takes to her new AF instantly, but her mother Chrissy (Amy Adams) is much more unsure of the arrangement. They live with a surly maid (Rachel House) far away from the city on a remote farm, and Klara loves the easy exposure to the sun, which she worships as a deity–in part because she’s solar-powered.

As Klara gets used to her new environment, we learn that Josie is sick because of complications from being “lifted”–a procedure privileged children undergo in order to enhance their DNA and ensure they become an elite member of society. Because of certain things she witnessed back at the store, and because she seems to have been gifted with a unique sense of observation, Klara determines to find a way to save her young friend.

Similar to his treatment of Nazi-era Germany with 2019’s “JoJo Rabbit,” Waititi filters Ishiguro’s ponderous future through a quirky and thoughtful filter, albeit to a lesser degree than with some of his other films. In this case, the humorous tone and characters–such as a humanoid scarecrow and a motley crew of other “lifted” children Josie meets at a party–offer a nice counterpoint to the ebbs and flows of the story, which explore the nature of the soul and the relationship between technology and the natural world.

Ortega anchors the film with an appealing, wide-eyed performance as Klara, and Adams’ veteran gravitas is a good choice for Chrissy. It’s also fun to see Rachel House–a consistent supporting actor in most all of Waititi’s films, and Steve Buscemi in another supporting role later in the film.

Fans of the book will notice a number of changes from the source text, mainly to zero in on the core story and streamline characters and subplots that might otherwise extend the run time. But overall Waititi does a good job of capturing the heart of Ishiguro’s story, and exploring its primary questions. And because of this alone, “Klara and the Sun” earns a spot among the better movies of 2026.

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“Klara and the Sun” is rated PG-13 for scattered profanity (including one use of the F-word) and some comic violence.

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“You Can See Everything” is one of those documentaries that seems to raise more questions than it answers. And one of those questions is whether Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s film is actually a documentary.

The initial premise is straightforward. Convicted ex-Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has invited a team of filmmakers to cover the intimate day-to-day lives of her and her family over the last month before she is scheduled to begin her prison sentence in May of 2023.

How intimate? Well, at one point we get a lingering shot of her naked husband Billy showering after a gym workout. Though given what is to come, one must wonder if he came up with that idea himself.

The setup feels like a normal documentary concept, but what follows is odd, and often fascinating. For one thing, the film is shot so beautifully that even the casual conversations look staged, and what’s said in those conversations make it hard to believe they are real. And rather than stay behind the camera and use a normal talking-head set-up, Fielder is a constant presence in front of the character, practically to the point of feeling more like the film’s protagonist than Holmes.

The fact that Fielder comes from a comedy background also has a significant impact on the tone of the film. The director is openly skeptical of Holmes’ persistent claims of innocence, and his incredulous, deadpan delivery frequently leads to hilarious moments as he challenges her logic and struggles to reconcile her behavior. (Keep an eye out for an eye-opening sequence where Fielder shows Holmes the classic “Who’s on First?” sketch from Abbott and Costello.)

This dynamic is exacerbated by Holmes’ husband–the father of her two children–a fellow medical tech entrepreneur who could be anything from an evil puppet master taking advantage of his trusting wife to a complicit mastermind with a simple runaway ego.

Understand: this is all being drawn from the first half of the film, and the second half–the stuff that happens after Holmes goes behind bars–has to be seen for yourself. Without spoilers.

That being said, the whole package may be compelling and engaging, but it also raises a lot of questions about the ethics of documentary filmmaking, not to mention dramatizations of real-life figures. “You Can See Everything” is not worth seeing because it solves the mystery of whether or not Elizabeth Holmes knowingly defrauded her investors; it’s worth seeing because it inspires thought and debate. Not just about Theranos, but about the means Fielder and Oppenheim used to construct their film.

You might just want to avert your eyes for a bit once you see Billy hitting his gym routine.

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“You Can See Everything” is rated R for scattered profanity and the aforementioned graphic nudity (as well as a much more discreet nursing scene).

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When director Alex Gibney invited Elon Musk to participate in his documentary, the famous trillionaire balked, suggesting the film would be a, “hit piece.”

Having watched the near-four-hour final product, I think Musk might have been on to something.

In a sense, Gibney’s effort is a comprehensive look at one of the defining figures of the 21st century. Over its 232-minute run time, “Musk” explores the titular figure’s involvement with SpaceX, Tesla, Twitter (now X), DOGE, and all of his personal eccentricities in-between (including his many children from many women). 

In another sense, “Musk” isn’t comprehensive at all. Thanks in part to Musk’s refusal to participate–instead Gibney makes liberal use of the entrepreneur’s previously recorded statements, paired with an odd AI avatar–the film feels grossly one-sided, especially when it takes a sharp tonal turn in its second half. Ironically, in spite of a nearly four-hour run time, “Musk” only manages to offer a single perspective on a profoundly complicated figure.

“Musk” plays out chronologically, and maybe because his earlier pursuits are less controversial, the first half of the film feels a lot more neutral and objective. We learn about his early companies and investments, and how he became a millionaire long before getting involved with the companies that would make him a household name. Eventually we learn more about SpaceX and Tesla, and watch footage of his setbacks and triumphs as he steps into NASA’s mission vacuum and creates a reusable rocket.

We also learn more about Tesla and the EV revolution, along with a healthy dose of controversy care of the car’s notorious self-driving system. Musk’s character is further called into question once Gibney addresses his ever-expanding host of offspring, but even at this point it merely feels like the director is covering his bases in a fair way.

Following an intermission break at the two hour mark, though, “Musk” officially enters the political mine field. From here, the treatment of every subject–the purchase of Twitter, his support of Donald Trump, the effort to clean up government waste via DOGE–feels like it comes with an extra helping of shading courtesy of the director. The music, the framing, and of course, the utter lack of any interview subject remotely interested in providing an alternate point of view–all confirm Musk’s concerns about participating in the film.

Please understand: painting Elon Musk as a controversial, even concerning character is not difficult. Simply presenting the public record would be enough to get certain messages across. And that’s what’s so strange about “Musk.” It doesn’t feel like it trusts its audience enough to let them make up their own minds about the subject. And that’s too bad, because if there is a current figure who deserves a documentary up to that task, it would be hard to come up with a better subject than Elon Musk.

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“Musk” is rated R for scattered profanity.

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“The Social Reckoning” is a lower-case “g” good movie undercut by two issues: first, it is effectively a sequel to a better film (2010’s “The Social Network”). Second, it suffers from its own ideological biases.

Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Reckoning” tells the story of how the social media Goliath Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg were investigated and called to account for the effects of its product. The story is mainly told from the perspective of Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison), a Facebook employee-turned-whistle blower who becomes an inside source for a series of Wall Street Journal investigative pieces around the time of the COVID outbreak in 2019-2020.

When we meet Frances, she’s working on Facebook’s Civic Integrity Team, a barely-tolerated effort to provide public accountability and internal moderation for the company. When she comes across footage of an old friend who seems to have made a dramatic ideological shift in her politics, Frances suspects Facebook’s content recommendations may have had something to do with the change. But her co-workers aren’t interested in her findings, so when an investigative reporter named Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) reaches out on behalf of the Wall Street Journal, she begrudgingly cooperates.

In a parallel plot that takes place two years later, Zuckerberg (Jeremy Strong) is prepping to testify before congress regarding Horwitz’s findings. As he grapples with a former associate turned critic turned consultant (Bill Burr), we are offered a glimpse of the media mogul’s rationale.

“Social Reckoning” isn’t quite a suspense thriller, but it is engaging, well-performed and relatable as it explores a present phenomenon involving a company that somehow is over 20 years old (an admittedly remarkable feat, even if to do so my feed has been reduced to a series of recommendation pages and other advertisements). Madison and White are especially solid in their roles, and the dialogue, as you might expect from Sorkin, is strong.

Strong’s performance is a good pivot to “Social Reckoning’s” more ambivalent elements. The actor’s mannerisms are a solid match for Zuckerberg, and he certainly looks the part. But that might actually work against him. Where Jesse Eisenberg’s take in “Social Network” felt familiar yet distinct, Strong’s work almost feels more like an impression, and taken in comparison with David Fincher’s earlier film, “Social Reckoning,” while still good, lacks the drama and impact of its predecessor.

Also, for anyone paying attention, the primary concern–that Facebook’s algorithm is helping to radicalize its users–only seems to move in one ideological direction. Based on its examples and illustrations–including its opening prologue and some rather heavy-handed intercuts with the January 6th riot–Sorkin’s idea of radicalization only seems to take place on the right-wing end of the political spectrum.

Altogether then, “Social Network” feels like a lot of sequels that come more than a decade after their predecessors: a flawed echo with enough merits to give it some consideration, but not enough to stick with you, or feel like the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Not unlike Facebook itself.

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“The Social Reckoning” is rated R for sporadic profanity.

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Coming on the heels of last year’s documentary, “Predators,” “Primetime” is the live action, “inspired by true events” story of Chris Hansen and TV’s “To Catch a Predator,” the mid-2000s NBC program that purported to hunt child predators and broadcast the results to the world.

Given the subject matter alone, it’s easy to understand that whether it’s a quality production or not, “Primetime” is not going to be an enjoyable watch. And sure enough, in spite of some strong performances and a compelling story–not to mention some conscious, stylish direction–director Lance Oppenheim’s effort leaves you wondering whether the experience was worth the tradeoff.

We meet Hansen (Robert Pattinson) in 2006, just as he’s about to confront one of the titular predators in the show’s established TV sting formula. By this point, the process is already in place: show employees lure predators online by pretending to be underage kids, arrange for an in-person meeting, then have a “decoy” (an adult who looks young enough to pass for said child) meet the target at the door before delivering them into the hands of Hansen, who confronts them with a host of TV cameras and, shortly afterward, law enforcement representatives.

So far the formula is working, though you get the sense the people hunting the predators may not be as noble as they present themselves. There’s no question the target’s intentions are abominable, but there’s something about the methodology that feels off, especially the publicizing and commercializing of the encounters.

“Primetime” continues to explore this tension as we go behind the scenes of the show, getting to know Hansen, his producer Andie (Merritt Wever), and a newly recruited decoy named Dan (Skyler Gisondo), who is thrust into a sting operation thinking he’s on set for a traditional acting gig. Contrary to his pious, smug confrontational attitude, Hansen has his own skeletons, Andie is being lured away from the show by a competing network, and Dan’s storyline clearly indicates that “the business” is every bit as unpleasant as the world Hansen’s show is presumably trying to infiltrate.

The plot escalates as NBC executives decide to ramp up their promotion of “Predator” by pitting it against ABC’s “Lost,” and encourage Hansen to target even more deplorable predators. This leads to a high-level target in Texas that becomes the narrative focus of the film.

Again, the performances here especially effective. Pattinson plays Hansen as a figure unable to fully empathize and connect with anyone as he struggles to separate his professional persona from his real-life interactions, even introducing himself by his full name when calling his wife. Wever’s effective turn as Andy shows her character’s wrestle between her professional aspirations and the lingering doubts that tug on her morality, and Gisondo’s Dan is the most sympathetic of all.

But, as you might imagine, the subject matter and the related discussion–which includes recitations of lurid online chat discussions and some frankly unnecessary instances of graphic nudity–confirms that “Primetime” will not appeal to general audiences. It’s an effective document of a television show that was problematic at best, and a nuanced portrait of its creator. But coming on the heels of a documentary on the same subject, it may not exactly be essential viewing.

“Primetime” is rated R for profanity, graphic dialogue and nudity, and some violence.

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It may be best to know going in that “Heart of the Beast” is a dog movie. It isn’t essential in order to appreciate director David Ayer’s film, but it will account for a transition late in the film that feels awkward–and maybe even disappointing–on its own.

“Heart of the Beast” is a survival story about a pair of war veterans trying to make it out of the Alaskan wilderness following a plane crash. The first vet is James Belmont (Brad Pitt), a quiet and resourceful ex-Special Forces operative who has elected to spend his retirement as far away from civilization as possible. The second is his dog, a German Shepherd named Odin, who is also suffering from a life of active duty and the traumas of war.

We meet them in the middle of an excursion into remote Alaska, traveling from site to site in a small prop plane along with enough gear to set up a modest campsite. For the everyday outdoorsman, it feels like an idyllic life: fishing and camping and flying through a truly beautiful landscape, far from the hassles and distractions of the modern world. But nightmares and flashbacks suggest the origins of this routine continue to undercut their quest for peace, and when another lonely soul (J. K. Simmons) stumbles upon their excursion, the tension is palpable.

Soon after the rare social encounter, James is flying Odin to the next stop when a sudden heart attack leads to a crash in another nearby lake. The good news is that both parties survived; the bad news is that they are 50 miles from the nearest road, and that’s just the start of their troubles.

What follows is best summarized as, “one thing after another,” and as things go from bad to worse James is forced to employ all his skills to keep moving. At times the story feels a little like 2013’s “All is Lost,” which pitted Robert Redford’s lonely sailor against the ocean in a memorable solo performance, and Pitt’s effort is equally strong. But the presence of Odin is a helpful reminder that Man’s Best Friend will never let you truly be on your own.

As a metaphor for life’s often insatiable need to hammer you with trials and ordeals, “Heart of the Beast” is effective if not ground-breaking, and admittedly some of the more extreme perils (like the plane crash) feel like they are stretching believability a little too far. But the biggest problem is a protagonist shift late in the film that leaves the story feeling too empty for its own good.

Along with a lengthy narrative voiceover and some detailed pre-credits titles, “Heart of the Beast” concludes with the kind of explicit messaging that indicates the filmmakers didn’t think the audience would get the point otherwise. They may be right, but it undercuts the impact of the film, and leaves it feeling more like a public service announcement than a movie. As usual, it would have been better to show instead of tell.

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“Heart of the Beast” is rated PG-13 for scenes of peril and some fairly gruesome gore.

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“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” marks ten years since actor Tom Holland’s debut as Marvel’s beloved web-slinger, and oddly, the fourth standalone film for the character that features a three-syllable title. And yet, unlike most Marvel releases from the last six years, director Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Brand New Day” leaves you thinking you wouldn’t mind seeing more.

The story picks up after the traumatic events of 2021’s multiverse adventure “No Way Home,” which, in addition to the death of Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), left Spider-Man’s closest friends unable to remember him. Girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) have graduated high school and lit off to MIT, in a film-opening montage that shows Spider-Man tracking their exploits through social media while trying to attend to his friendly neighborhood duties.

Lately those duties have come to involve dealings with a super-villain named Scorpion (Michael Mando) and a complicated relationship with a fellow super-vigilante named The Punisher (Jon Bernthal). But these challenges pale when Spider-Man encounters a mysterious new adversary who seems to be able to possess the minds of innocent bystanders, and even worse, leap from person to person to evade capture.

When the activities of this mysterious villain start to threaten Ned and MJ–now returned to New York as freshly minted MIT graduates–Spider-Man’s past, present, and future collide, and the results are one of the more enjoyable Marvel adventures of recent years.

A lot of this is due to Holland, who remains relatable and sympathetic in the lead role. Bernthal provides a nice foil as the persistently-agitated Punisher, and a few other newcomers (who won’t be identified for spoiler’s sake) add strength to a cast of generally likable characters. And even if he doesn’t get a lot of screen time, fans of TV’s “Better Call Saul” will enjoy seeing Michael Mando as Scorpion.

As you might imagine, one key function of “Brand New Day” is to lay the groundwork for “Avengers: Doomsday,” set to release at the end of this year. One of the best elements of the new film is the way it manages to do this successfully while remaining true to its lead character. “Brand New Day” does justice to Spider-Man and his arc, and manages to deliver a satisfying story that leaves you excited for more.

Ten years on from Holland’s first turn as Spider-Man in “Captain America: Civil War,” that’s not a bad compliment.

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“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is rated PG-13 for comic book-style mayhem and violence.

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Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is a good movie that should have been better. 

Based on Homer’s epic poem of the same name–with some key bits of The Iliad thrown in for good measure–“The Odyssey” delivers in the areas you would expect from a Nolan film. The IMAX scale and cinematography are engaging, the battles are exciting, and the soundtrack from Ludwig Goransson has a way of ramping up the tension in key spots. As a three-hour piece of eye candy, “The Odyssey” isn’t bad as a summer blockbuster.

The premise: having won the Trojan War thanks to the help of a certain hollow wooden horse, King Odysseus (Matt Damon) sets out with three ships of weary warriors for the long journey home. But an unfortunate encounter with a cyclops during a rest stop offends Posiedon, the sea god, so the journey becomes beset by additional trials as a result. Giant warriors, some sirens, and in perhaps the film’s most memorable scene, a crafty witch (Samantha Morton) all chip away at Odysseus’s party, and the various adventures prolong the journey by years.

In the meantime, a host of suitors have been hounding the queen back home. Penelope (Anne Hathaway) has been waiting faithfully for the king’s return, but the long years are taking a toll, and pressure is mounting to take a new husband under the assumption that Odysseus has been killed. Her son Telemachus (Tom Holland) could inherit the throne from his father, so as a threat to the suitors, certain parties like Antinous (Robert Pattinson) are plotting to murder the heir.

True to Nolan’s form–though the source material may also have input here–“The Odyssey” is told out of sequence, mostly in flashback while Odysseus finds himself marooned and a little short of memory on an island with a woman named Calypso (Charlize Theron). This allows Nolan to include episodes from both of Homer’s books, and pack plenty of action sequences into the film’s three-hour run time, but strangely it also leaves you feeling as if you are only seeing highlight clips of the epic.

The bigger problem is Nolan’s decision to interpret the classic Greek myth with modern “sensibilities.” The film has earned controversy for certain casting choices, but the more problematic issue is the use of contemporary dialogue–especially some R-rated profanity that sounds completely out of place in a story that is supposed to be taking place 3,000 years ago. And without being more knowledgable with the original source material it is hard to say for sure, but this interpretation of Homer’s epic feels like it leans hard into modern fixations on hero deconstruction and existential malaise.

Another way to say it is that “The Odyssey” is mopey. Very, very mopey.

Throw in some spotty acting in a few key supporting roles, and “The Odyssey” feels like a big and brash blockbuster with some healthy room for improvement. For many audiences, its strengths will be more than enough, but the truth is that this should have been a better film, and it wouldn’t have taken much to get it there.

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“The Odyssey” is rated R for scattered profanity, brief male nudity, and sequences of action violence (comparatively tame for an R-rating).

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Your capacity to get through Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” should be measured by your interest in spending almost two hours watching miserable people argue and/or conduct lengthy graphic discussions of their dysfunctional sex lives. 

The premise is pretty simple: an unhappy married couple in San Francisco invites their bohemian upstairs neighbors over for a dinner party, and hijinks ensue. It’s a little like the famous Dinner Party episode of TV’s “The Office,” only four times as long, with a lot more profanity and sex talk, and no Jim and Pam to ground the chaos in reality.

Joe (Seth Rogen) is a music teacher at a Bay Area middle school, and his wife Angela (Olivia Wilde) is passionate about interior decorating. They have a teenage daughter we never meet, and after we watch Joe and Angela interact for a little bit, we don’t blame her for not being around. The opening of the film is an extended argument between the unhappy couple; on the surface, it’s about the impending dinner party, but the subtext makes it clear these two could come to blows over the three different shades of blue that Angela is currently testing out in the master bedroom.

If you can make it through this opening salvo, things calm down a bit once the neighbors arrive. Hawk (Edward Norton) is a retired firefighter who comes across more like a guidance counselor, and Pina (Penelope Cruz) is an actual counselor who periodically displays the intensity of a firefighter. These two couples are a mismatch, and they almost seem to revel in making each other uncomfortable, but there is an additional source of tension. Hawk and Pina’s nocturnal activities have become increasingly noisy in recent weeks, and Joe is almost desperate to address the issue, to Angela’s obvious horror. 

The “odd couple” dynamic sets into a rhythm, and for a time, “The Invite” almost becomes enjoyable. Then comes the explanation for the upstairs activities–Hawk and Pina are swingers who have become fond of throwing sex parties on the weekends–and after a lengthy description of their deviant lifestyles to a now enraptured Joe and Angela, “The Invite” reveals the specific meaning behind its title.

Then: more hijinks, more fighting, more arguing, rinse and repeat.

“The Invite” is a remake of a Spanish film called “The People Upstairs,” and beneath the profanity and graphic sex talk, Wilde’s film is meant to be a comedy–punctuated with the hard-hitting reality of the complexities of marriage. To its credit, the script does offer some scattered laughs, as well as some well-chosen needle drops. Best of all, once the dust settles, “The Invite’s” ending offers a quiet and thoughtful contrast to everything that came before.

The problem is getting through everything that came before. Sometimes you have to go through the lows to get to the highs, and “The Invite” is clearly trying to show you Joe and Angela’s worst in order to appreciate their best. When you get past all the unseemly exterior, “The Invite’s” main characters wrestle with common challenges, but Joe and Angela–who are altogether way too quick and too happy to accept Hawk and Pina’s indecent proposal–will only remain relatable to a narrow sliver of the audience.

The question is whether the payoff is worth the journey, and if you’re asking me, the answer is no. I hated the beginning of the movie, and the middle exhausted me. The ending was good, but it wasn’t good enough.

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“The Invite” is rated R for persistent profanity and graphic sexual dialogue, along with some brief violence (done for laughs).

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Anyone who goes to see Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood” should abandon any connection to past movies about the legendary outlaw. If you’re expecting something along the lines of Kevin Costner’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” Disney’s animated feature, or the classic adventure with Errol Flynn, you’re in for two hours of increasingly painful disappointment.

The title of the film says it all, and in fact carries a double meaning. “The Death of Robin Hood” is about the literal death of the title character, but in a figurative sense Sarnoski’s effort feels like a character assassination, too.

The idea is one we’ve seen plenty of in recent years: the mythic character you know and love wasn’t all that great in real life, and now you’re going to see them deconstructed under the miserable, unflinching light of historical truth. This is a little curious since this particular character is more based in myth and legend than history, but whatever.

We meet this version of Robin Hood late in life, with Robin (Hugh Jackman) living in isolation as a vagabond, staving off vengeful attackers who seek to avenge his past misdeeds. His career was one of theft and criminal brutality, and his golden years are just more of the same. After a little scene-setting, Robin’s literal partner-in-crime Little John (Bill Skarsgard) recruits him to help rescue his wife from some problematic neighbors, and when that gruesomely violent operation goes south, Robin winds up in a priory clinging to life.

The premise is an adaptation of one of the common tales about the end of Robin Hood’s life, and most of the film takes place at the priory, where under the care of Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), Robin tries to reconcile his past. After a comparatively action-packed and violent opening act, the remainder of the film transitions to an introspective and ponderous pace.

So again, even if you go in understanding that this isn’t Disney’s Robin Hood, you still might be disappointed with what you find. One of my fellow UFCA critics noted some obvious similarities with 2017’s “Logan,” but that film kept up a balance of action throughout its run time.

Credit is due to the film’s production, which establishes a strong mood, and the various elements like cinematography, the performances, the lighting, and especially the haunting score from Jim Ghedi all have their merits. But it may not be enough when the story struggles to move the needle.

To reiterate, “Death of Robin Hood” is a violent movie. There may be more graphic stuff out there, but one of the film’s main intents is to say its titular character is a menacing and uncaring villain, and on more than one occasion we see that children are not exempt from his ethos. 

Ultimately “The Death of Robin Hood” is intended to be an exploration of guilt as a man reflects on and reconciles his past, and for some that may make the film worthwhile. But many will question whether the result was worth the investment.

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“The Death of Robin Hood” is rated R for episodes of brutal and graphic violence, some involving children.

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