Animals

Crisis on the Campaign Trail

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                Animals (Ben Affleck)   rated R    106 min.

Here’s the trailer:

      (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

      activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 (This has been a busier week than usual so this posting will be quite brief, but I have provided some links to help get you much deeper into what’s happening in this movie.)  Mark Kimball (also Affleck, who as well is a co-screenwriter, co-producer), with a previous solid background in the military and public service, is running a struggling campaign to become mayor of Los Angeles, so he’s followed Sam Allison’s (Steven Yeun), his manager’s, advice to commit all his financial resources to the task without consulting with his wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington); she’s got her own secret, an affair with Ron Sperling (Ray Fisher), which has her on the verge of filing for divorce.  Everything gets worse on Halloween night when young son Danny (Christopher Woodley) goes Trick or Treating with Hector (Jacob Estrada), son of Mark and Abigail’s housekeeper Cecelia Trujillo (Adriana Paz) and her undocumented boyfriend Ramon Valle (Luis Gerardo Méndez).  As the night goes on the Kimballs get a voice-disguised phone call from some unidentified man angry with Mark, saying he’s got Danny, wants $7 million in ransom by dawn or the boy will die.  Frantic, Mark turns again to Sam who calls in a mysterious woman, Dayle Burton (Gillian Anderson), to provide the ransom which she’s willing to do but only for a 20% fee plus payback of the $7 million with further complications when Danny comes home which makes it clear that Hector’s the actual abductee so will Mark still pay up to save the other boy from threatened death?  That’s all I’ve got time for this week (just like a good mystery I’ve tried to leave you intrigued enough to see how this all turns out), but you can get extensive plot details (including Spoilers) at this site; then, if you wish to go deeper into Animals you can start here to get clarity on the narrative’s ending (which might take just a bit to figure out what you’re seeing on screen as it doesn’t match what you’ve just previously seen), then move on to this one for a lot of detail on Affleck’s intention to get into the culture of L.A., a place which has become almost as important to him as Boston.  Happy reading as there’s quite a bit to digest herein.

 Animals is a Netflix product so even though it was released in some “select theaters” last weekend there’s no info provided about any box-office results with the emphasis on its streaming presence where it’s free to Netflix subscribers (you can become one for $8.99 on a monthly basis [with ads], $19.99 [no ads]).  The OCCU would give you little reason to do so, though, as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews sink to a mere 32% while the Metacritic average score for once is a close match at 33%.  Yet, just to show that there are some who do like it (even a bit more than me) here’s someone I don’t know from a site I’m not familiar with, Jim Vejvoda (MC 80) of IGN, who’s quite supportive: “Affleck and Washington make their characters three-dimensional, flawed people. Both Mark and Abigail can be hypocritical and selfish at times, and have been unable to speak plainly about their problems with each other until this unthinkable crime happens. […] LA is used here as a microcosm of the US for a broader thematic and political commentary about the rich and the poor and American citizens and undocumented immigrants. All said, Animals gets pretty bleak and cynical in its depiction of human nature and the price of victory.”  (Probably will lose his OCCU credentials.)

 More typical, however (and back in territory and people I’m much more familiar with), is Jeannette Catsoulis (MC 30) of The New York Times: “Like an inedible gruel made with top-shelf ingredients, Ben Affleck’s ‘Animals’ whisks its high-value cast into an overwrought script (by Affleck, Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray) to produce an extraordinarily flat political thriller. […] Bedeviled by clumsy plotting and perplexing behavior — maybe think twice before issuing murder instructions to someone whose specialty is manipulating leverage — ‘Animals’ never achieves liftoff.”  So, decide for yourself even as I say I found it quite engaging and watchable (though I knew about it only because Netflix keeps telling me everytime they add something to their vast collection); what I couldn’t easily say is what to choose as a Musical Metaphor for this movie so I finally defaulted to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s "Bad Moon Rising" (1969 Green River album) even though that song’s more about climate dangers than kidnapping but it does address a dangerous night where people are warned “Hope you got your things together / Hope you are quite prepared to die / Looks like we’re in for nasty weather / One eye is taken for an eye.”  Anyway, it’s a good song (and, at least for me, a good movie), so I hope you’ll enjoy at least some of what I’m offering you in my rushed manner this week.

(In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,

            

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES (not our fault).

             

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 87,411.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

Supergirl [2026]

A Tale of a Daughter and Three Suns

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this exploratory site.

10/1/2026—One other opening announcement: There will be no Two Guys review posting next week because Nina and I will be indulging in our annual (sometimes semi-annual) immersion in the Godfather trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola 1972, 1974, 1990) while washing down spaghetti (about the limit of my culinary skills) with plenty of red wine so we’ll see you again on roughly October 14, 2026.

   Supergirl (Craig Gillespie)   rated PG-13   108 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 

 You may not have realized it yet, but there have been decades of presentations about Kara Zor-El/Supergirl since she first appeared in DC comics in 1959, with many iterations since then including her death in the 1985 comic book series Crisis on Infinite Earths—with DC never beholden to their created timelines so periodically (so to speak) they just terminate whatever universe/multiverse they’ve last created to be able to once again start anew, so Kara’s been back in print action since early 21^st century, along with the first Supergirl movie (Jeannot Szwarc, 1984 [critically reviled despite its all-star Hollywood cast]) and her presence in the TV series Smallville (The WB, 2007-2011) and Supergirl (CBS/The CW, 2015-2021); extensive details are found here.  Throughout all of that, her origin story is generally stable as she’s (Milly Alcock) the daughter of Zor-El (David Krumholtz), with him the brother of Jor-El (who sent his son, Kal-El [David Corenswet]/Clark Kent/Superman to Earth to escape Krypton’s explosion).  Zor-El saved a chunk of Krypton as he activated a force-shield around Argo City.  However, a few years later the foundational rock remains of the lost planet turned to kryptonite, killing the remaining survivors of the initial explosion so Kara was also rocketed to Earth to save her life, join her cousin.  However, unlike him she has memories of her home planet and her parents so the loss has weighed on her, keeping her from fully establishing a sense of her now-adopted home as she's considerably more cynical than Superman.

 In this movie she’s taken her trailer-like spaceship to a planet with a red sun where she has no superpowers (she’s still tough in hand-to-hand combat, though), unlike on yellow-sunned Earth where she’s the equivalent of Superman, just younger.  In this location she can drown her sorrows in drink, celebrating her 23^rd birthday, until she meets Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), a young woman seeking revenge against Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), leader of the Brigands—a ruthless all-male group capturing young “brides”—who killed Ruthye’s parents when they wouldn’t hand her over.  Kara joins up with her to get a needed antidote to save her dog, Krypto, shot with a poison dart by Krem with the dog only having 72 hours to live.  There’s lots more plot here, but my self-imposed time/space limitations require me to send you to this site to see what they are, as lots of combat occurs when Kara’s pumped up by a yellow sun (though she almost dies under a green sun [not clear what causes this reaction]).  Despite some brief appearances by Superman, this story develops far from Earth to keep the focus on Kara, yet in the process you can’t help but think you’re encountering a cinematic gumbo mixing elements from various franchises—Star Wars, Mad Max, The Handmaid’s Tale—topped off with a reminder from Raising Arizona (Joel Coen, 1987) with this new burly, dangerous biker character, Lobo (Jason Momoa), who becomes Kara's ally.  Despite all these allusions, though, Supergirl holds up on its own, especially when Kara roars into action, finally wearing her Supergirl clothes as she’s made some decisions about herself.

 Supergirl debuted in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on June 26, 2026, made $73.4 million (worldwide $126.5 million), now seems to be available only on streaming where it rents for $6.99 if you’re a subscriber to Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV or it’s free to subscribers of HBO Max (it also pops up periodically on HBO cable which is where I saw it, putting that subscription to occasional use).  However, the OCCU offers faint encouragement to see it, with the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at a mere 53%, the Metacritic average score at a similar 50%.  Among the smaller group who liked it is Katie Walsh of the Tribune News Service (2½ of 4 stars, a percentage somewhat similar to my 3½ of 5 stars): “The strongest scenes aren’t when she’s battling bad guys in a motorcycle wagon circle from hell, but the quiet ones when Alcock delivers the story of Kara’s loss and grief, the pain she’s masking with alcohol and isolation. [¶] This is a new version of the character that’s more ‘Rebel Girl’ than ‘Supergirl,’ with a distinctly mid-aughts flavor. With Kara’s melancholy monologues and musical taste, there’s really only one way to label her: emo girl. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t, but what works here is Alcock, and all that matters is that we find some inspiration in the girl at hand, even if being good means being a little bit bad.”  Bad she can be!

 

 Yet, there’s plenty of negativity out there as well, as with Stephanie Zacharek of TIME (MC 40): “The gags are both belabored and feeble. Occasionally, Kara will utter some kind of pithy truism: ‘He sees the good in everyone, and I see the truth,’ she observes solemnly, in reference to her goofy-gallant superhero cousin. But she clearly can’t see the truth of the dull, dismal movie around her. […Kara’s] like the final straggler at an outdoor festival, refusing to go home for a bath long after the last band has packed up its gear and split. [… It’s] a throwaway superhero movie. Welcome to the new Hollywood, or what passes for it. It’s the coldest planet of all.”  All I can say to that is both Nina and I enjoyed this movie, think there’s a good possibility you would too.  I’ll bow out with my usual Musical Metaphor, this time Neil Diamond’s "I Am ... I Said" (1971 Stones album) which to me has resonance with Kara’s inner-difficulties: “ ‘I am,’ I said / To no one there / And no one heard at all […] I’ve got an emptiness deep inside / And I’ve tried, but it won’t let me go” (of course you’d need to change New York and L.A. to Krypton and Earth, but you'll surely get the idea for such substitutions).

 (In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.)  If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,

          

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

         

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 87,411.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

The End of Oak Street

Dinner With Dinosaurs … But We’re On the Menu

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I will call either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to ongoing COVID-19 concerns on my part I’m focusing on streaming these days with limited visits to theaters.  (Note: Anything here in bold blue [or near purple] is a link to something in the above title or in the review.)  This blog’s been operational since mid-December 2011, often with ridiculously-long reviews from me, but other ongoing responsibilities now require me to be very brief in order to have time to post anything each week, although I’ll include links to informative sites for useful enhancement.

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

          The End of Oak Street (David Robert Mitchell)

                                  rated PG-13   100 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

 This movie will push your willing suspension of disbelief to the limit; hopefully if you decide to watch it you’ll be OK with that as it does provide an effective cinematic thrill ride despite some inexplicable plot aspects.  One night in 1982 in the quiet suburban town of Flowervale, MI a wormhole suddenly appears that transports an entire neighborhood (but not any surrounding ones) back into the long-ago era of “thunder lizards” so dinosaurs now co-exist with the streets, houses, and people of the movie-set present, providing a reversal of the Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, 1993) situation of resurrected ancient beasts trying to kill contemporary humans to such humans now suddenly stuck in an inescapable prehistoric region (dense vegetation prevents an exit from the transported neighborhood) where the beasts are living in their own time, the people desperately trying to avoid being a next meal.  The primary characters in this oppressive quandary are aspiring-novelist Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway), her secretly-out-of-work (surviving on his “passion” for part-time jobs such as pizza delivery) husband, Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor), and their teenagers Audrey (Maisy Stella) and Brian (Christian Convey); however, this family’s already in trouble before the dinosaurs arrive as Denise is ready to file for divorce, Brian’s trying to avoid being beaten up by a gang after he accidently broke the arm of one of their members, while Audrey’s ready to move on to college in hopes of finding a more interesting life (though the time-dislocation portal’s provided plenty of that).  

 

 From this setup the movie follows with extreme tension scenes of people trying to escape the dinosaurs (some not successfully) as we wonder along with the Platts how liberation from this sudden-hell could happen (for an extensive rendering of the plot, along with Spoilers, please go here).  Comparisons to the long-running Jurassic Park franchise are inevitable here, but once you stop trying to make sense of the wormholes and Denise’s actions in the conclusion … Oak Street flows nicely as mostly-mindless escapism with Hathaway effectively carrying the action from start to finish as her fictional family learns to work together.  You may not be able to fully embrace what she does when all seems hopelessly lost, yet what viability do you really expect from an intentionally-wacky story such as this?  I’d say just let it ramble where it needs to, hang on for whatever’s next.

The End of Oak Street opened in 3,446 domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on August 14, 2026 (still in 461), has made $54 million so far ($120.6 million worldwide) with support from the CCAL where Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at 86%, the usually less-enthusiastic Metacritic average score is 69%.  Overall, I thought it worked quite well as a fantasy-thriller as does Megan McCluskey of TIME (MC 90): “Outside the Jurassic universe, there haven't been many successful attempts to reinvent the dinosaur wheel, so to speak. […] Once the carnage gets going, Mitchell never really take his foot off the gas. And while the film's ending ultimately requires some logic-bending buy-in, the journey to get there is equal parts thrilling, fun, emotional, and ferocious. Harking back to its Jurassic forbear, The End of Oak Street channels everyone's favorite '80s Amblin classics, but with a far more vicious bite.”  Not everyone in the critical establishment’s so enthusiastic, though, as with Odie Henderson of The Boston Globe (MC 50): “[…] sounds like ‘Land of the Lost,’ the Sid and Marty Krofft TV show from 1974 that had pretty much the same plot. Carl Sagan, host of the 1980s show ‘Cosmos,’ also gets namechecked enough to make the late scientist spin in his grave ‘billions and billions’ of times. […] I’m no longer 12 years old with nothing but time on my hands. There’s no denying that Mitchell has made a credible facsimile of the films kids would have encountered back then. Your enjoyment will depend upon the limits of your nostalgia.”  Yikes!

 

 Whatever your tastes may be for this sort of fare I’ll leave to you as I’ll also leave with a Musical Metaphor (I'll admit this song's not the greatest connection to this movie, as some of my choices sometimes are, but nothing better emerged [Maybe Billy Joel’s "My Life" from the trailer?]), the Rolling Stones’ "Out of Time" (1966 Aftermath album) to reflect how these humans “don’t know what’s going on / You’ve been away for far too long / You can’t come back and think you are still there,” yet Denise, unlike the song’s woman, shows she can “come back and be the first in line,” even if we’re not fully sure how she does it.  So, if this story interests you and you’re not near one of its theaters there’s streaming where you can rent for $19.99 from Amazon Prime Video or Apple TV.

(In this photo Pat on left, Ken on right.) If you’d like to know more about the Two Guys “wisdom” in this blog you can go here for links to our past reviews, our homepage, our Facebook page, sign-up for a Google account to reply to us, & Ken Burke’s email address if you want direct correspondence,

            

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

        

Finally, Google says that over the past month the total unique hits at our  Film Reviews from Two Guys in the Dark site were 127,519.  (We thank all of you for your support with hopes you’ll continue as or become regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation too for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):