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The Reader (Omaha, NE)

The Reader (Omaha, NE) is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Ryan Syrek.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
B
The Rip (2026) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Jan 22, 2026  Edit critic review
A-
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Jan 16, 2026  Edit critic review
D
Greenland 2: Migration (2026) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Jan 09, 2026  Edit critic review
A-
Hedda (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
B-
The Roses (2025) Ryan Syrek 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!
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
C
Frankenstein (2025) Ryan Syrek 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?
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
B-
Oh. What. Fun. (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
B+
Relay (2024) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
D-
F1 The Movie (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Dec 26, 2025  Edit critic review
C-
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Dec 19, 2025  Edit critic review
A-
The Secret Agent (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Dec 12, 2025  Edit critic review
A-
Hamnet (2025) Ryan Syrek 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).
Posted Dec 05, 2025  Edit critic review
A
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Nov 28, 2025  Edit critic review
F-
Wicked: For Good (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Nov 21, 2025  Edit critic review
B
Keeper (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Nov 14, 2025  Edit critic review
A-
Predator: Badlands (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Nov 07, 2025  Edit critic review
B+
Bugonia (2025) Ryan Syrek 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?
Posted Oct 31, 2025  Edit critic review
B
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Oct 24, 2025  Edit critic review
B-
Black Phone 2 (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Oct 17, 2025  Edit critic review
B-
TRON: Ares (2025) Ryan Syrek 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!”
Posted Oct 10, 2025  Edit critic review
D
The Smashing Machine (2025) Ryan Syrek It’s basically like Rocky if instead of yelling “Yo, Adrian, we did it!” the hero just yells obscenities at her.
Posted Oct 03, 2025  Edit critic review
A+
One Battle After Another (2025) Ryan Syrek 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?
Posted Sep 26, 2025  Edit critic review
F
HIM (2025) Ryan Syrek 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.
Posted Sep 19, 2025  Edit critic review
D
The Long Walk (2025) Ryan Syrek 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...
Posted Sep 12, 2025  Edit critic review
D
The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) Ryan Syrek 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?
Posted Sep 05, 2025  Edit critic review
A
Eddington (2025) Ryan Syrek Seriously, where is the great art about the world-realigning madness we’ve been going through for a half decade now? Maybe Eddington is the first entry in that, even if it is fairly simplistic (and expectedly, delightedly weird).
Posted Aug 28, 2025  Edit critic review
A-
The Naked Gun (2025) Ryan Syrek Being “the funniest movie of the year” used to mean something. Now it means you were the best of the 2-3 actual comedies released in a given calendar year. Good news: The Naked Gun would be the funniest movie even if you crumpled several years together.
Posted Aug 28, 2025  Edit critic review
B
KPop Demon Hunters (2025) Ryan Syrek It is oddly hypnotizing, even beyond the music, which is almost DANGEROUSLY hypnotizing. Those songs all remain in my head against my will after one listen. Enjoy?
Posted Aug 28, 2025  Edit critic review
C+
The Amateur (2025) Ryan Syrek Lots of great actors! They all come together to deliver exactly (A) what you’d expect and (B) was shown in the trailers. Not so much disappointing as perfectly appointing.
Posted Aug 28, 2025  Edit critic review
C+
Drop (2025) Ryan Syrek You can palpably feel the “this will be good enough to watch at home” smell wafting off of this one. That’s a good stank sometimes, honestly.
Posted Aug 28, 2025  Edit critic review
A-
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) Ryan Syrek Nonurgent, nonbreaking news: Spike Lee is good at directing movies, and Denzel Washington is good at acting. In case you were worried, the fifth time the pair united for a film was not the one that broke their perfect streak, which spans four decades now.
Posted Aug 22, 2025  Edit critic review
A+
Sorry, Baby (2025) Ryan Syrek The problem with this review is that, if you trust me, you’re going to watch Sorry, Baby expecting it to dazzle you. Sorry, baby. It’s not that kind of movie. I apologize if this builds it up too much for you. I just loved it too much to pretend otherwise
Posted Aug 14, 2025  Edit critic review
A
Weapons (2025) Ryan Syrek The fact that “children are the future” went from an optimistic outlook to something like a threat is part of the inherent terror of writer/director Zach Cregger’s Weapons, a movie that turns everyone you know and don’t into a potential murder instrument.
Posted Aug 08, 2025  Edit critic review
C+
Together (2025) Ryan Syrek Together is well-acted, original, entertaining, and nearly weird enough. It just couldn’t quite commit, which seems ironic, if the point of the film is what it appears to be.
Posted Aug 01, 2025  Edit critic review
B+
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Ryan Syrek Fantastic Four: First Steps isn’t disappointing so much as “contained the potential to be transcendent.” I will also probably watch it like five to ten more times.
Posted Jul 25, 2025  Edit critic review
D
Cleaner (2025) Ryan Syrek This should have been torture for people afraid of heights but is mostly just anguish-inducing for people who like stuff that’s good.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
D+
Heart Eyes (2025) Ryan Syrek Maybe the first ever horror rom-com, the only problem with Heart Eyes was that it couldn’t quite deliver on any of those three elements.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
C
G20 (2025) Ryan Syrek Every moment spent on exposition of the unnecessarily complicated plot was a moment Davis was not shooting at stuff.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
C-
Nonnas (2025) Ryan Syrek It’s hard to get super mad at this, but I tried.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
C+
The Severed Sun (2024) Ryan Syrek This is a witch hunt-centric period piece that doesn’t drown itself in a river of pretension, a la Robert Eggers.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
C-
The Accountant 2 (2025) Ryan Syrek I could listen to Bernthal angrily yell into a phone about how he’d make a good pet parent for a full two hours, but if you think about what’s actually happening for more than a few seconds in a row, it’s like licking a battery.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
D-
Fountain of Youth (2025) Ryan Syrek For a few years now, I’ve wondered if everyone (including the man himself) has overcalculated John Krasinski’s likeability. At least director Guy Ritchie’s latest can confirm that.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
A
Rebel Ridge (2024) Ryan Syrek Saulnier lets the slow burn sizzle, opting for an understated climax that keeps the whole thing on the right-side of almost realistic.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
D
The Ritual (2025) Ryan Syrek What if, instead of being the scariest movie of all time, The Exorcist made you hate the invention of film?
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
D
The Old Guard 2 (2025) Ryan Syrek Theron is capable of doing virtually anything, but even she can’t snake charm a crap script into wiggling pleasingly.
Posted Jul 18, 2025  Edit critic review
C-
Superman (2025) Ryan Syrek Needle-drop song selections that scream “trying too hard,” various cameos from the filmmaker’s go-to collaborators/friends/family, and upsetting stuff involving animals make this a James Gunn movie before it is a Superman movie.
Posted Jul 11, 2025  Edit critic review
F
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025) Ryan Syrek Rebirth is cinematic pickpocketing, a film heist in which audiences are pinched for the crime of keeping the faith in the now-truly-extinct Jurassic brand.
Posted Jul 03, 2025  Edit critic review
D
M3GAN 2.0 (2025) Ryan Syrek “Maybe we misunderstood the supercomputer trying to kill everyone” ought not be the message of the moment. Although, to say that M3GAN 2.0 has any kind of message at all is a bit generous.
Posted Jun 27, 2025  Edit critic review
A
28 Years Later (2025) Ryan Syrek Without spoiling anything, the last few minutes of 28 Years Later is so glorious and goofy that if you people don’t make this thing a big enough hit that we get to see what comes next, I will simply never forgive you.
Posted Jun 20, 2025  Edit critic review
A-
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) Ryan Syrek Predator: Killer of Killers is the best animated movie that I have seen in the last several years and among the most fun I’ve had watching any movie in 2025. Join me. There is room on the Pred-Head bandwagon.
Posted Jun 13, 2025  Edit critic review
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