I Am Mother Finds Some Solid Thrills Especially When It Comes To Its Titular Robotic Character

I Am Mother takes place in the wake of the apocalypse. We open on a robot called Mother (Rose Byrne) in a small compound, shielded from some kind of Armageddon that's wiped out humanity, beginning her task of raising a human child. Eventually, she'll have to use the thousands of embryo's stored in the facility repopulate the whole human species, but for now, she's just gotta take care of this one little youngster who grows up to become Daughter (Clara Rugaard). Mother and Daughter get along just fine, but once she turns 18, Daughter begins to become more curious about what's going on in the outside world, which Mother tells her has been contaminated from a virus. Daughter's perception of reality is challenged when a lady only known as Woman (Hillary Swank) emerges from the outside world alive.

Trust Me, The First Season of Trust Has Pacing Problems But Also Has Excellent Performances

In the grand tradition of Armageddon & Deep Impact and Volcano & Dante's Peak comes two rival projects about the J. Paul Getty III kidnapping, the newest instance of Hollywood inadvertently releasing two pieces of high-profile media that cover the same general topic. The first of these entities arrived in the form of a Ridley Scott directed movie called All The Money In The World and was released this past December. It was a pretty good thriller that got a lot of mileage out of a great performance by Michelle Williams and placing a heavy focus on her character's perspective as she tries to navigate a high-stakes hostage situation.

Step Into The Ring With An Emotionally Powerful Feature Like Million Dollar Baby

Ever since Rocky delivered knockout box officer numbers over forty years ago, the boxing drama subgenre has been a prominent fixture of cinema all over the world. It's one that's reliable both in terms of drawing a crowd for studio and plucking at the heartstring of audiences. Plenty of duds exist in this cinematic niche (remember Southpaw or Grudge Match?), but when done well, like with Creed, the creative apex of this entire subgenre, there's really nothing quite like it. Clint Eastwood's 2004 directorial effort Million Dollar Baby is no Creed, but few movies are. Positive marks are in order for a movie like this one that rides on traditional storytelling to mask how crafty it is at knowing just when to strategically get the viewer wrapped up in a blanket made of emotions.

Insomnia Has A Great Robin Williams Performance And Some Overly Predictable Elements

Compared to other entries in Christopher Nolan's filmography, Insomnia can't help but feel a bit routine in execution. Now, the film overall is actually pretty entertaining, a well-done cat-and-mouse crime thriller with one particularly strong performance I'll talk about later, but compared to the narrative audaciousness of fellow Nolan movies Dunkirk or Memento and even just considered on its own merits, Insomnia feels more paint-by-numbers in concept and execution of said concept. But even paint-by-numbers can be plenty fine when the paint looks pretty and Insomnia most certainly has some super colorful elements that help stand out.