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):