A.A. Dowd
Writer
A.A. Dowd, or Alex to his friends, is a writer and editor based in Chicago. He has held staff positions at The A.V. Club and Time Out Chicago, and is a member of the National Society of Film Critics.
At 70, is Godzilla more popular (and better) than ever?
As other franchises falter, the radioactive reptile enjoys new popularity, thanks to Godzilla Minus One and his forthcoming reunion with King Kong.
The Beekeeper review: an awful, hilarious Jason Statham action movie
Jason Statham is hilariously nonchalant in the dreadful but sometimes funny John Wick wannabe The Beekeeper.
Society of the Snow review: Alive gets a dreary Netflix makeover
Though less hokey than the 1993 film Alive, this new Netflix movie similarly fails to get big drama out of the harrowing true of the Andes flight disaster.
Are movie franchises dead, or are we just seeing the start of new ones?
Some of Hollywood's biggest franchises like Indiana Jones, Transformers, DC, and Marvel flopped this year, but are new ones coming to take their place?
Rebel Moon review: A glum Star Wars ripoff from Zack Snyder
Zack Snyder realizes his vision of 'Seven Samurai with Jedis' with Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire, a glum, unsatisfying sci-fi epic on Netflix.
The 10 most underrated movies of 2023, ranked
From the latest Exorcist and Scream sequels to the blockbuster flop The Creator, these were the 2023 movies that deserved a better reception than they got.
Oppenheimer was the movie of 2023. Here’s why
By almost any major metric, Christopher Nolan's grand historical epic Oppenheimer was the movie of 2023 — and that goes far beyond the whole Barbenheimer thing.
Poor Things review: Emma Stone shines in a Frankensteinian sex comedy
Emma Stone reunites with the director of The Favourite for an even stranger comedy, the captivating feminist Frankenstein story Poor Things.
Godzilla without Godzilla? Stop turning blockbusters into streaming soap operas
Why do the small-screen adaptations The Last of Us, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and John Wick: The Continental all fail to live up to their source material?
The Marvels review: the MCU’s shortest film is its biggest mess
Captain Marvel teams up with two Disney+ B-listers for the surprisingly shoddy MCU adventure The Marvels.
The Killer review: David Fincher stylishly roasts himself
Michael Fassbender plays a dispassionate assassin in The Killer, an ultra-stylish and sneakily funny new thriller from David Fincher.
Is Thor: The Dark World really the worst Marvel movie?
Ten years later, the second Thor movie looks less like a low point for the MCU than a concerning harbinger of what the superhero franchise would become.
Priscilla review: The anti-Elvis by Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola peers into the gilded cage again with her Priscilla Presley biopic, starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi.
Platinum Dunes polished horror’s grimy past for a new generation
Twenty years ago, Platinum Dunes remade almost every major horror classic from the '70s and '80s. Are the Michael Bay horror remakes as terrible as fans say?
Is Final Destination the best horror franchise we have right now?
With five movies and counting, the Final Destination series remains as ghoulishly entertaining as ever.
Killers of the Flower Moon review: Scorsese’s monumental new epic
Martin Scorsese reunites with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro for a devastating adaptation of the David Grann bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon.
20 years ago, Quentin Tarantino geeked out with Kill Bill
Twenty years ago, Quentin Tarantino returned with the wildly entertaining East-meets-West revenge epic Kill Bill.
From Godzilla to The Creator, Gareth Edwards makes beautiful doomsday blockbusters like no one else
The Creator joins Rogue One and Godzilla on the list of beautiful blockbusters by director Gareth Edwards, the poet of downbeat multiplex movies.
20 years later, The Rundown is still The Rock’s best action-hero role
Dwayne The Rock Johnson delivered his most likable star turn in The Rundown, which turns 20 this week.
The Continental review: John Wick is less fun without John Wick
Keanu Reeves is sorely missed in Peacock's unsatisfactory TV prequel to John Wick, The Continental.
20 years ago, Spider-Man swung onto MTV and changed the Marvel superhero forever
MTV's Spider-Man: The New Animated Series, starring Neil Patrick Harris as Peter Parker, deserved better than the single 13-episode season it got.
With just a few episodes, writer Darin Morgan changed The X-Files forever
Chris Carter's classic TV show The X-Files, which turned 30 this week, hit new peaks of tragicomic brilliance in the six episodes written by Darin Morgan.
Video game adaptations are huge, but will we ever see a great one?
With The Last of Us, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and Gran Turismo, video game adaptations came of age in 2023, but they didn't transcend the genre.
Superhero movies aren’t events anymore
From Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania to The Flash, superheroes have underperformed in 2023. Will Blue Beetle and other comic book movies suffer the same fate?
The Halloween franchise should have ended 25 years ago with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Twenty-five years ago, Halloween H20 did the legacy sequel thing long before, and better than, the recent trilogy by David Gordon Green.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter review: Dracula by way of Alien
Adapting just a few pages of Bram Stoker's novel, The Last Voyage of the Demeter puts an entertaining new spin on the most famous vampire of them all, Dracula.
Meg 2: The Trench review: Toss this bucket of chum
Jason Statham returns to defend the world from giant, prehistoric sharks in The Meg 2: The Trench, an even-worse thriller that fails to do that premise justice.
Passages review: Ira Sachs’ portrait of a romantic scoundrel
Franz Rogowski plays a magnetically selfish lothario in Ira Sachs' compact drama, Passages.
How James Wan reshaped modern horror with Saw, The Conjuring, and Insidious
From Saw to Insidious to The Conjuring, the Aussie director James Wan has an uncanny ability to launch hit horror franchises.
Talk to Me review: scary party-game horror from A24
The Aussie horror movie Talk to Me has a great premise, but a disappointing second half blunts its scares.
Why is it so hard to make a hit Terminator movie again?
Every Terminator sequel since T2 has been a commercial dud. With the advancement of special effects and the rise of AI, why can't the Terminator series succeed?
Oppenheimer review: Christopher Nolan’s staggering atomic opus
Christopher Nolan returns with a towering, troubling 70mm biopic about the Father of the Atomic Bomb, Oppenheimer.
Does Jurassic Park reveal a guilty confession from Steven Spielberg?
The 1993 sci-fi film Jurassic Park works as both an entertaining blockbuster and a revealing confession about the damage Steven Spielberg did to modern movies.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One review: Accept this mission
Tom Cruise returns once more as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, the latest entry in Hollywood's most reliably entertaining franchise.