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Ryan Syrek

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Ryan Syrek has served as a film critic for The Reader in Omaha since 2002. He is now the contributing editor for the film section at that publication, and his reviews are also syndicated in the Boulder Weekly. Ryan has a weekly segment on KVNO 90.7 at 8:30 am on Wednesdays. He also participates in an annual "Movies vs Books" fundraising event for public libraries, serves on numerous academic panels about popular culture, and cowrote a chapter in African American Children in Early Childhood Education.

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
The Rip (2026) 80% B EDIT “If you’re even mildly inclined to watch a movie about a bearded Ben Affleck and a goateed Matt Damon playing "who is the dirtiest cop?" you are likely to get the precise amount of entertainment you expected and not a stolen cent more. ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Jan 22, 2026 Full Review 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) 92% A- EDIT “In the same way that Ridley Scott’s two Alien sequels were prosecuted for not being elegant repetitions of the first film, the widespread reception of the 28 Years Later series may not be what it deserves. ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Jan 16, 2026 Full Review Greenland 2: Migration (2026) 51% D EDIT “I am willing — nay happy! — to enjoy freewheeling and mindless disaster nonsense. The wheeling is not free. The disaster is minded. No thank you, please.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Jan 9, 2026 Full Review Hedda (2025) 89% A- EDIT “If you’re up for a "modern imagining of a theatrical classic" or even, you know, immediately knew that Hedda was referring to Hedda Gabler, you should probably watch this one.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 26, 2025 Full Review The Roses (2025) 64% B- EDIT “This time out, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman are feuding. But first they flirt and fornicate, which is far more fun. Their friends are played by Kate McKinnon and Andy Sandberg. Ncuti Gatwa pops up. It’s generally a delight! ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 26, 2025 Full Review Frankenstein (2025) 85% C EDIT “At this point, with as many adaptations and incarnations have been launched, maybe there’s no fully fresh way to Frankenstein. We can probably leave it alone for a few hundred years, right?” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 26, 2025 Full Review Oh. What. Fun. (2025) 35% B- EDIT “It feels over-hated because it is about how moms get hosed during the holidays (and frequently neglected throughout the year). This is to say, the ceiling for this was always "mildly pleasant," and it bumps its head right up against that.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 26, 2025 Full Review Relay (2024) 82% B+ EDIT “ I am a full-throated advocate for seeing movies in theaters, but this also plays phenomenally at home. It is something you can spin with your dad, and it’s that or discussing tariffs.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 26, 2025 Full Review F1 The Movie (2025) 82% D- EDIT “This works as a duology with writer/director Joseph Kosinski’s last film, Top Gun 2: There’s Still Lead in This Pencil! I thought that movie was the most egregious massaging of the aging white male ego, but I stand corrected.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 26, 2025 Full Review Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) 66% C- EDIT “I don’t have anything original or interesting to say about the Avatar series. That is mostly because it is doggedly determined to say absolutely nothing original or interesting itself. ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 19, 2025 Full Review The Secret Agent (2025) 98% A- EDIT “It is truly wild to see the film’s universal acclaim, not because it doesn’t deserve it but because it is so antithetical to the movements of this moment in every way possible. ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 12, 2025 Full Review Hamnet (2025) 86% A- EDIT “Writer/director/editor/genius Chloé Zhao, working from Maggie O’Farrell’s beloved novel, has crafted a two-hour cinematic elegy that is largely unparalleled (in my non-Shakespearean estimation).” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Dec 5, 2025 Full Review Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) 92% A EDIT “Knives Out was good. Glass Onion was better. And Wake Up Dead Man is the best of all. The cast is crisper, the message is more meaningful, the humor is heightened, and the mystery is more meticulous.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Nov 28, 2025 Full Review Wicked: For Good (2025) 66% F- EDIT “Wicked: For Good is remarkably, uniquely awful. The pacing is atrocious, the visuals are wonky, and sidelining Erivo for Grande is like trading an ice-cold beer on a hot day for a glass of lukewarm milk. A glass of milk that is trying way, way too hard.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Nov 21, 2025 Full Review Keeper (2025) 53% B EDIT “Despite being a bit too sleepily distracted, Keeper has the ghostly goods. The ghouls that pop out of the woodwork before finally seeing the spotlight steal the show, as much as anything can steal the show from Tatiana Maslany. ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Nov 14, 2025 Full Review Predator: Badlands (2025) 86% A- EDIT “It is, at a bare minimum, highly improbable that director Dan Trachtenberg has now squeezed three consecutive squeal-inducingly-good sci-fi spectacles out of a franchise best known for a handshake meme.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Nov 7, 2025 Full Review Bugonia (2025) 88% B+ EDIT “Tracy, Lanthimos, and the performers shouldn’t be expected to float a solution to our collective conspiratorial mess, but is this extensive lady torture that concludes in the bleakest-of-bleak outcomes a satisfying snapback or a satirical shoulder shrug?” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Oct 31, 2025 Full Review A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (2025) 75% B EDIT “It simply points to the titular metaphor in which we live, in which we forget most days to pray/hope nobody pushes the Very Worst Button ™. Maybe it's enough for the film to jump up from the desk beneath it was duck-and-covering, yell “BOO!” and run away.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Oct 24, 2025 Full Review Black Phone 2 (2025) 72% B- EDIT “Between the camp setting, a blizzard, and the Grabber going Freddy Krueger, this is basically Friday the 13th set in The Shining with Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. That is not a complaint.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Oct 17, 2025 Full Review TRON: Ares (2025) 53% B- EDIT “Honestly, if it weren’t for the Leto-of-it-all, Tron: Ares would be a delightfully overbudgeted B-movie with a killer soundtrack and nothing to say but “Look how pretty!” ” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Oct 10, 2025 Full Review The Smashing Machine (2025) 70% D EDIT “It’s basically like Rocky if instead of yelling “Yo, Adrian, we did it!” the hero just yells obscenities at her.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Oct 3, 2025 Full Review One Battle After Another (2025) 94% A+ EDIT “The whole thing is a glorious comedic cacophony that takes more of an explicit moral stand than The Long Walk, proving that intense self-seriousness and brutality is by no means the best way to condemn oppression. Maybe laughter is?” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Sep 26, 2025 Full Review HIM (2025) 30% F EDIT “Him immediately creates a vibe of “uh oh.” And that’s not the good kind of “uh oh,” like “uh oh, this is scary.” This is “uh oh” like when a diaper-wearing toddler hides behind the couch for a minute.” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Sep 19, 2025 Full Review The Long Walk (2025) 88% D EDIT “Who is The Long Walk for? It’s definitely not for folks who look at the world around them and say “I like where things are going!” However, this is also not for anyone dramatically concerned about, you know, everything...” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Sep 12, 2025 Full Review The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) 58% D EDIT “Maybe it is the shockingly poor pacing, the unclear motives of every supernatural baddie, the frequently dodgy acting, or the odd and unearned air of seeming pretentiousness. But if this is the end of The Conjuring, then…you know…cool?” – The Reader (Omaha, NE) Sep 5, 2025 Full Review
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