Action/Adventure | www.jaredmobarak.com

REVIEW: The Batman [2022]

2022/04/062022/04/06 Jared Mobarak

No more lies. It’s been twenty years since the murder of his parents. Two since he put on the cowl. Gotham still doesn’t know what to think of the costume, but the fear it has placed inside the hearts of criminals cannot be overstated. Violence only seems to increase, though, and Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) wonders if his presence as a vigilante seeking vengeance has done anything beyond giving offenders another figure of “justice” to run from. Saving a helpless man from a gang on Halloween, only for the victim…

REVIEW: The Contractor [2022]

2022/03/232022/03/28 Jared Mobarak

We’re all just mercenaries in the end. James Harper (Chris Pine) knows that military life has two faces. He grew up with first-hand knowledge thanks to a gung-ho Ranger dad who forced him to spend his birthday money on an American flag tattoo that matched his own despite not yet being a teenager. Was James’ father a hero? Maybe. Was he also a monster? Sure. The truth lies somewhere in the middle because the military cannot turn you into the former without first ensuring that you can become the latter.…

REVIEW: カウボーイビバップ天国の扉 [Kaubōi Bibappu: Tengoku no Tobira] [Cowboy Bebop: The Movie] [2001]

2022/03/122022/03/12 Jared Mobarak

I try not to think. It was supposed to be a quick bounty hit on the way home from the horse track for Faye Valentine (Wendee Lee). When she got her ship in position to apprehend the mark (Dave Wittenberg‘s Lee Sampson), however, someone else exited the vehicle instead (Daran Norris‘ Vincent Volaju). Not only that, but this mysterious man also went all action movie by calmly walking away as said truck exploded behind him. The chaos causes Faye to high tail it out of there knowing the return on…

REVIEW: Turning Red [2022]

2022/03/112022/03/11 Jared Mobarak

Don’t hold back. For anyone. Thirteen-year-old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) has always been the perfect child. She respects her parents (Sandra Oh‘s Ming and Orion Lee‘s Jin), helps work the family temple (a tourist destination in Toronto, Ontario), and makes sure to keep her grades impeccable (while also enjoying a litany of extra-curriculars to pad out that inevitable college resumé). And this is how she wants it. Or, at least, it’s how she’s wanted it. She looks up to her mother and is cognizant of the strain that’s kept her grandmother…

REVIEW: Spider-Man: No Way Home [2021]

2022/03/082022/03/08 Jared Mobarak

It’s just a tree. **Potential Spoilers** “Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is Spider-Man.” Those are the words we hear at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home and the beginning of Spider-Man No Way Home. They’re the dying words/contingency plan of Quentin Beck aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), recorded and sent to J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) and his Alex Jones alt-verse “Daily Bugle” to turn the entire city of New York against their friendly neighborhood hero. The ramifications are obvious. Anonymity is gone. Peter’s friends (Zendaya‘s MJ and Jacob Batalon‘s Ned)…

REVIEW: Against the Ice [2022]

2022/02/282022/03/03 Jared Mobarak

They say there’s truth in every dream. I must say that I was excited coming into Against the Ice. It has a captivating premise centered around an Arctic expedition at the northern end of Greenland circa 1909, is based on the autobiographical account of Captain Ejnar Mikkelsen, and deals with an almost three-year survival opposite extreme weather conditions, isolation, and polar bears. Director Peter Flinth ratcheted up my anticipation even higher during the opening scene, dropping us into the action as Mikkelsen (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who also co-adapted the…

REVIEW: The 355 [2022]

2022/01/052022/01/06 Jared Mobarak

Just a little longer. Nobody is talking about the Colombian wunderkind who single-handedly coded a drive that can backdoor any encrypted electronic device in the world from a single terminal. I know there’s zero need to talk about him since being the only person who can create and/or replicate something as valuable as his little hard drive isn’t long for a world where scarcity on such black-market weapons increases price, but still. Dude was just a twenty-something son of a drug warlord (with infinite time and resources) who was raised…

REVIEW: The Matrix Resurrections [2021]

2021/12/302021/12/31 Jared Mobarak

Desire and fear, baby. Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) are dead. There’s no denying this fact. They sacrificed themselves for the salvation of humanity, traveling to a machine city to explain to the source code that Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) had gone far enough rogue to threaten the viability of the entire experiment and thus both of their species. Trinity passed first (but not before seeing the real sun for the first time in generations). Neo went next, his deal for peace with the machines being contingent on…

REVIEW: The Matrix Revolutions [2003]

2021/12/262021/12/26 Jared Mobarak

Cookies need love like everyone does. You cannot have a film as anticlimactic and boring as The Matrix Reloaded segue into a sister project (they were produced and photographed concurrently) as propulsive (albeit very messy) as The Matrix Revolutions without realizing a mistake was made. Whether it was the filmmakers (Lana and Lilly Wachowski), the studio (Warner Bros.), or both, the decision to continue The Matrix through sequels seems to have been motivated by probable box office success rather than actual artistic merit. The idea of two new pieces set…

REVIEW: Dune [2021]

2021/12/232021/12/24 Jared Mobarak

They see what they’ve been told to see. The trap is set. One day House Harkonnen is ruling over the spice mines of Arrakis with an iron fist and the next sees them leaving. The local Freman know it won’t last, though. Outlanders have come to oppress their people for generations ever since discovering the power of this substance within the sand. Without it, interstellar travel is impossible. As such, whomever oversees its cultivation has the potential for wealth beyond the imagination. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen’s (Stellan Skarsgård) avarice therefore makes…

REVIEW: Sing 2 [2021]

2021/12/212021/12/22 Jared Mobarak

I love sky-fi! Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) and his ragtag bunch of heart-of-gold singers have their sights on leaving their small-town theater for the bright lights of Redshore City if talent scout Suki (Chelsea Peretti) thinks they have what it takes. Their rendition of Alice in Wonderland with shy Meena (Tori Kelly) belting out the lead part opposite Johnny’s (Taron Egerton) Mad Hatter, Rosita’s (Reese Witherspoon) Cheshire Cat, and Gunter’s (Nick Kroll) Caterpillar has sold out every night, so their hopes are as high as poor Miss Crawley (Garth Jennings)…