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Phoenix Magazine

Phoenix Magazine is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): M.V. Moorhead.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Dead Man's Wire (2025) M.V. Moorhead It’s Van Sant’s first theatrical feature since 2018, and as an evocation of its period, it’s intensely vivid; those of us who remember the mid-’70s in middle America may find it almost hallucinatory.
Posted Jan 17, 2026  Edit critic review
Anaconda (2025) M.V. Moorhead This movie makes the Hangover flicks look like Oscar Wilde. But these actors, particularly the always game and personable Rudd, passionately commit to the stupidity, and this Anaconda may strike an emotional chord with certain audience members.
Posted Dec 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Song Sung Blue (2025) M.V. Moorhead Jackman is terrific in a role that seems tailor-made for him... Excellent and lovable as Jackman is, however, he’s shown up by his leading lady.
Posted Dec 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) M.V. Moorhead The dialogue isn’t poetry but the dialogue isn’t the point; the shimmering, immersive visuals and mythic yarnspinning are what the movie is for. In the last hour or so I was fully invested; I wanted to see the good guys win and the bad guys lose.
Posted Dec 20, 2025  Edit critic review
The Housemaid (2025) M.V. Moorhead It’s probably a hair longer than it needs to be... But it’s a polished production, the three leads are improbably pretty, and the rip-snorting gothic comeuppances of the homestretch are satisfying.
Posted Dec 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Hamnet (2025) M.V. Moorhead Hamnet speaks to a truth every parent knows: that the best-case scenario is that you live in fear for your children until the day you die. The movie dramatizes it potently, and I’m glad I saw it, but I doubt I’ll ever want to see it again.
Posted Nov 26, 2025  Edit critic review
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) M.V. Moorhead Like many Hughes films, it carries a whiff of his unapologetic sense of the suburban upper middle class as an aspirational paradise. But Planes, Trains and Automobiles squares off two of the greatest comic actors of their generation.
Posted Nov 19, 2025  Edit critic review
The Roses (2025) M.V. Moorhead Sometimes The Roses is a nasty, mean-spirited black comedy, other times the stars give it a degree of emotional depth and complexity that the farcical plot twists and the vicious, stupid insults they’re given to say can’t accommodate.
Posted Aug 29, 2025  Edit critic review
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) M.V. Moorhead Both comedically and emotionally, The 40-Year-Old Virgin -- if you’ll pardon the expression -- goes all the way.
Posted Aug 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Weapons (2025) M.V. Moorhead The most memorable performance is by Amy Madigan... [who] easily steals the movie with a hilarious yet spellbinding turn.
Posted Aug 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Shin Godzilla (2016) M.V. Moorhead Like 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, it’s a free-standing entry, unconnected to the other films in The Big G’s franchise. Also like Godzilla Minus One, it’s marvelous, and worth taking the trouble to see on a big screen.
Posted Aug 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Highest 2 Lowest (2025) M.V. Moorhead Lee keeps us on the edge of our seat even while he takes the time to explore character, and to use the New York locations for all they're worth. His approach is charged yet discursive, and the movie glides and swerves and rattles along like a subway ride.
Posted Aug 15, 2025  Edit critic review
The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) M.V. Moorhead There’s real, off-the-wall imagination here, and after an unsteady start, First Steps ends up surefooted.
Posted Jul 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore (2025) M.V. Moorhead I’m a fan. But after watching Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, I realized how little I really knew about her, and how important her story is.
Posted Jul 02, 2025  Edit critic review
F1 The Movie (2025) M.V. Moorhead F1 never bored me, at least not when the cars were moving. And that’s a lot of the movie. On the other hand, for all the deft skill and lucid precision of the many racing scenes, the movie doesn’t add up dramatically.
Posted Jul 02, 2025  Edit critic review
Elio (2025) M.V. Moorhead Above all, I liked that Elio isn’t too perfect. He’s kind of a reckless pain; you feel for Olga’s exasperation with him, even as you can see he’s basically a good-hearted kid.
Posted Jun 23, 2025  Edit critic review
28 Years Later (2025) M.V. Moorhead This is one grim, bleak, gory shocker... It also has an emotional dimension that its predecessors weren’t even trying for. It isn’t just a horror picture; it’s a coming-of-age story, and Williams makes a splendid young everyman hero.
Posted Jun 23, 2025  Edit critic review
The Birdcage (1996) M.V. Moorhead Hackman may have been overshadowed by Lane’s brilliance, but he’s genuinely hilarious.
Posted Jun 16, 2025  Edit critic review
Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981) M.V. Moorhead The poster reads “THE BODY COUNT CONTINUES” and that’s pretty much all there is to the movie – attractive young people getting skewered. The anti-sexual subtext is obvious, and ugly.
Posted Jun 16, 2025  Edit critic review
Ballerina (2025) M.V. Moorhead The movie, directed by Len Wiseman, is very watchable and well-done for what it is, which is something fairly stupid.
Posted Jun 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Dogma (1999) M.V. Moorhead It’s a little overlong, and laden with some really dumb gags and gross-out effects. But there’s something moving about Smith’s grappling with the contradictions of a religion and tradition he clearly loves.
Posted Jun 06, 2025  Edit critic review
Karate Kid: Legends (2025) M.V. Moorhead This is pretty basic stuff, dramatically speaking. But the young leads have a sweet rapport, and the fan service of linking the old film series with the reboot is warmly received.
Posted Jun 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Final Destination Bloodlines (2025) M.V. Moorhead The movie suffers from diminishing returns... Bloodlines isn’t without entertainment value, but I hope that this truly is the final destination for this quarter-century-spanning series. Joke’s over.
Posted May 19, 2025  Edit critic review
The Surfer (2024) M.V. Moorhead I have to admit that The Surfer sort of gave me a headache... I will also admit, though, that the pitiless bullies are truly loathsome villains, and I did invest in the movie insofar as I wanted to see them get theirs.
Posted May 07, 2025  Edit critic review
Thunderbolts* (2025) M.V. Moorhead It’s Pugh who carries the film, making us care about her jaded world-weariness but always keeping it funny. Which is not to say that there’s no other good acting in Thunderbolts*.
Posted May 07, 2025  Edit critic review
The Sandlot (1993) M.V. Moorhead It’s a charming picture, capturing the world from a kid perspective.
Posted May 01, 2025  Edit critic review
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) M.V. Moorhead Crisp and funny and filled with one unforgettable action set piece after another, yet also somehow unassuming. It truly feels like a vintage cliffhanger serial of the 1940s, directed by William Witney or some other master of the form.
Posted May 01, 2025  Edit critic review
Sneaks (2025) M.V. Moorhead It isn’t too much sillier, I suppose, than the characters in Cars or Planes, and any movie that includes the trash talk, “Your mama is from Payless!” deserves some credit.
Posted Apr 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Sinners (2025) M.V. Moorhead Sinners is perhaps overambitious at times, but in a good way, down to its absurdly touching epilogue; the movie is overstuffed with terrific acting and marvelous music, and a big heart.
Posted Apr 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Drop (2025) M.V. Moorhead There’s hardly a plot point that doesn’t require a more arduous suspension of disbelief than usual, and some of them get still more dubious when you think them over later. But it’s highly entertaining while you’re watching it.
Posted Apr 15, 2025  Edit critic review
The Alto Knights (2025) M.V. Moorhead The Alto Knights is fascinating, but it's as doggedly stodgy and prudent as Frank. You may find yourself, like Vito, craving a little more mayhem.
Posted Mar 22, 2025  Edit critic review
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (2024) M.V. Moorhead Rungano Nyoni’s brilliant, freaky and devastating exploration of relations between, and within, the sexes in Shula’s culture.
Posted Mar 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Eephus (2024) M.V. Moorhead The movie throws off our expectations; it takes its time, and it sails surprisingly high.
Posted Mar 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Mickey 17 (2025) M.V. Moorhead A premise that could work well as a half-hour Twilight Zone episode is spun into imaginative, unpredictable adventures and complications.
Posted Mar 15, 2025  Edit critic review
My Dead Friend Zoe (2024) M.V. Moorhead It isn’t a glorified didactic training film. Martin-Green offers a heartbreaking depiction of a guilty grief that doesn’t want to let go, that regards every temptation to happiness as a betrayal. She’s superb.
Posted Mar 04, 2025  Edit critic review
Captain America: Brave New World (2025) M.V. Moorhead It’s all pretty silly, of course, but it’s not punishingly overlong, and director Julius Onah stages an amusing finale involving the Red Hulk rampaging among the cherry blossoms in D.C.
Posted Feb 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Paddington in Peru (2024) M.V. Moorhead Paddington in Peru isn’t quite as good as Paddington 2, but it’s still terrific. As before, the quiet, marmalade-loving bear in his blue coat and floppy red hat serves as a polite foil for the wacky antics of character actors
Posted Feb 15, 2025  Edit critic review
Heart Eyes (2025) M.V. Moorhead Heart Eyes is no His Girl Friday, and it’s no horror masterpiece either, but if you’re in “Love Stinks” mode this year, it still might be good for a few laughs.
Posted Feb 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Dog Man (2025) M.V. Moorhead Scripted and directed by Peter Hastings -- who also voices our hero’s spirited barks, whimpers, growls and howls -- it’s an exuberant exercise in nonsense, with snappy, surgically executed gags.
Posted Feb 03, 2025  Edit critic review
One of Them Days (2025) M.V. Moorhead Most of [the slapstick sequences] are wearisomely heavy-handed or gross-out schticks in the contemporary comedy manner. But this modest movie... is endearing anyway, because it’s an old-school buddy comedy, and a portrait of a community.
Posted Feb 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Wolf Man (2025) M.V. Moorhead The movie’s austerity and lack of old-school hokum may feel like a cheat at first, but director Whannell of the Saw flicks, who also directed the pretty scary 2020 version of The Invisible Man, handles many scenes with panache.
Posted Jan 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Nickel Boys (2024) M.V. Moorhead Though it’s heartbreakingly sad, Nickel Boys is surprisingly not depressing, because the friendship that grows between Elwood and Turner carries a quiet charge of love that transcends the tragedy.
Posted Jan 23, 2025  Edit critic review
I'm No Angel (1933) M.V. Moorhead I’m No Angel is a blast. West’s familiar persona -- the swaggering walk, the purring, offhand delivery -- hadn’t curdled into a cornball cliché at this point, and her throwaway lines have a cheerful insouciant vibrancy.
Posted Jan 06, 2025  Edit critic review
The Fire Inside (2024) M.V. Moorhead This unflashy, straightforward movie -- Morrison’s style recalls the modest, gritty naturalism that John G. Avildsen brought to the original Rocky and The Karate Kid -- wins us with its warm, convincing performances.
Posted Dec 28, 2024  Edit critic review
Nosferatu (2024) M.V. Moorhead The film generates a nightmarish atmosphere, no question, and the dialogue and supporting performances are strong. But this Nosferatu cheats itself, and cheats its leading actor, by distancing us from the Orlok character.
Posted Dec 28, 2024  Edit critic review
Babygirl (2024) M.V. Moorhead It stays with you because of this filmmaking intelligence, and because of Kidman’s witty performance; Romy is simultaneously game and hilariously inhibited. But it also feels slow and oppressive and cautionary.
Posted Dec 28, 2024  Edit critic review
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024) M.V. Moorhead [Jim Carrey] is, essentially, his own co-star here, and few actors have ever seemed more impressed and delighted with their scene partner.
Posted Dec 23, 2024  Edit critic review
Kraven the Hunter (2024) M.V. Moorhead The dialogue is flat, and despite the presence of two other supervillains, the movie feels humorless and lacking in color. It could also be a tough slog for people who are highly sensitive to depictions of violence toward animals.
Posted Dec 13, 2024  Edit critic review
Y2K (2024) M.V. Moorhead Almost needless to say, not everything in Y2K works. But it’s imaginative, and the actors are energetic; it’s not hard to picture this uneven film developing an affectionate cult.
Posted Dec 13, 2024  Edit critic review
Gladiator II (2024) M.V. Moorhead Best of all, as usual, is Denzel Washington. You can see he’s having a ball as the crafty, conniving, chuckling villain Macrinus. But he isn’t hammy or over-the-top; it’s a sly, subtle, carefully wrought performance.
Posted Nov 26, 2024  Edit critic review
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