Coyote vs. Acme follows Wile E. after one defective Acme product too many. Tired of being crushed, blown up, launched from cliffs, and otherwise betrayed by the company’s inventions, he hires struggling attorney Kevin Avery—played by Will Forte—and takes the Acme Corporation to court. It’s like Who Framed Roger Rabbit meets Erin Brockovich in a live-action and animated comedy wrapped around a thoughtful David-versus-Goliath story.
The plotting is solid, the characters possess surprising complexity, and the filmmakers pack the movie with Easter eggs and affectionate nods to the Looney Tunes legacy. There is even a clever touch before the story begins. Beneath the Warner Bros. logo appears an asterisk identifying the studio as “a wholly owned subsidiary of the Acme Corporation”—meaning the movie is ostensibly being released by its own villains.
The animated characters remain wonderfully expressive without needing dialogue. Wile E. Coyote can communicate a lifetime of hunger and frustration with a single glower. The Road Runner celebrates another narrow escape with the familiar—and apparently infuriating—“beep, beep.” The integration of animation and live action is not quite as convincing as it was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. That film’s combination of celluloid photography and hand-drawn animation gave its characters a remarkable physical presence within the human world. The digital tools used here cannot entirely recreate that tactile magic.
But Coyote vs. Acme compensates with its warmth, wit, and understanding of these characters.
Like Roger Rabbit and Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, the film uses lovable cartoon figures to soften the darkness of a crime story. But instead of a jaded detective or washed-up celebrity, Kevin is a perennial loser who has always been too afraid to try.
Facing Acme’s wealthy, polished, and bullying legal team—led by John Cena’s Buddy Crane—it is easy to understand that fear. Watching Kevin find courage alongside a motley collection of screwups and goofballs is genuinely heartwarming. The movie also recognizes that there is nothing fantastical about the odds in a corporate David-versus-Goliath fight. Wile E. is not even granted a true jury of his peers. Only two of the twelve jurors are animated—and one of them is a silly goose.
After Warner Bros. originally shelved the completed film, its eventual theatrical release makes that theme especially resonant. The movie itself became an underdog battling a powerful corporation for the right to exist.
Audiences should have a wonderful time laughing together in the cinema. Coyote vs. Acme honors the Looney Tunes while reminding us that courage does not require wealth, polish, or privilege.
Sometimes all we have are our fellow screwups and goofballs. And together, we can still become our own warriors—whatever the rich, the powerful, and the “I say, I say, I say” privileged throw our way.
Ryan is the morning host on WLRH Public Radio in Huntsville, AL and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can enjoy the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry
The newest installment in the Insidious franchise is a reminder that atmosphere, mythology, and strong individual ideas are only the ingredients of a motion picture—not the motion picture itself. Jacob Chase clearly has several intriguing concepts at work: a story rooted in grief, characters shaped by trauma, supernatural elements designed to expand the mythology of the franchise, and the return of horror icon Lin Shaye. Yet those ideas rarely connect into a cohesive dramatic experience. Instead, the film often feels like a collection of scenes and sequences searching for the narrative that will bind them together.
Insidious: Out of the Further introduces Gemma, a young mother who discovers she possesses the ability to enter the Further—the purgatorial realm of lost souls established throughout the franchise. However, Gemma’s ability comes with a dangerous consequence: she can bring the entities she encounters back into our world.
The simplest description of the film may be Insidious meets Poltergeist, with a little A Nightmare on Elm Street mixed in for good measure. Chase clearly understands the lineage of these films and the horror traditions from which they emerged. There is an appreciation for the genre’s history and an attempt to build upon familiar ideas. Unfortunately, the film’s vision would have benefited from a stronger screenplay—one capable of shaping those influences into a more dramatically compelling narrative.
Horror has always been a genre where atmosphere can compensate for many shortcomings. A haunting location, unsettling sound design, frightening imagery, or a memorable performance can carry an audience through imperfect storytelling. But atmosphere cannot replace character development, and franchise recognition cannot substitute for emotional stakes. Even the presence of Lin Shaye—whose portrayal of Elise Rainier has become one of the defining elements of the Insidious universe—cannot overcome material that struggles to transform its concepts into meaningful drama.
The result is a film containing many of the elements audiences expect from an Insidious installment, but without the dramatic foundation necessary to make those elements resonate. There is simultaneously too much happening and not enough meaningful material to sustain the film’s 105-minute runtime. The story introduces several promising concepts but rarely develops them beyond their initial premise.
At the center of the problem is the screenplay. Allowing the Further’s entities to cross into the physical world is an intriguing expansion of the franchise mythology, but the film never fully explores the possibilities created by that idea. Instead, it becomes another extended attempt to escape the supernatural dangers lurking beyond the red door.
That weakness extends to the characters as well. Outside of Gemma, her daughter Maya, and returning paranormal investigator Elise Rainier, several principal characters function almost like non-player characters in a video game. They appear when the protagonist needs assistance completing a specific task, but they possess little independent dramatic identity or purpose.
What ultimately saves the movie—and makes it watchable—is Lin Shaye.
Shaye remains the heart of this franchise, bringing warmth, credibility, and humanity to its supernatural mythology. Unfortunately, she is given surprisingly little to do. Her presence occasionally feels less like an essential component of the story and more like an acknowledgment that longtime fans expect Elise Rainier to be present.
Atmospherically, however, the film succeeds. The Further remains an effective nightmare landscape, populated by disturbing entities that longtime fans will immediately recognize. In fact, the world created here feels almost perfectly suited for a Halloween Horror Nights attraction—perhaps even a stronger haunted house than a feature film.
The scares themselves are competently staged, although many of the strongest moments appear to have been revealed in the marketing. I generally avoid trailers, but even the limited footage I encountered made several major scare sequences feel familiar before they arrived.
Insidious: Out of the Further contains numerous individually effective ideas, memorable imagery, and another welcome appearance by Lin Shaye. What it lacks is the dramatic structure necessary to connect those elements into a satisfying whole.
It is another example of a fundamental truth about filmmaking: a director’s vision requires a screenplay capable of refining, organizing, and transforming that vision into a complete story. Without that collaboration, even promising concepts risk becoming little more than a stream of ideas.
Fans of the franchise may enjoy another atmospheric journey into the Further. Everyone else can wait until this door opens on streaming.
Ryan is the morning host on WLRH Public Radio in Huntsville, AL and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can enjoy the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry
The End of Oak Street is a solid piece of summertime entertainment—a fun, action-packed journey through the hidden dangers of suburbia that plays like a throwback to a 1960s B-movie. Most importantly, it makes dinosaurs scary again.
About: A mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports a neighborhood to someplace unknown. The Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.
Shot on 35mm film, the picture has a warm, soft texture that somehow makes the terror feel even more immediate. Its old-school look and brisk pacing give the movie a tactile personality often missing from contemporary creature features. The external action plot works well, and the film understands the primal appeal of watching prehistoric predators invade an ordinary neighborhood.
In that respect, The End of Oak Street feels like the manifestation of a childhood fear many of us carried after seeing Jurassic Park. I certainly wondered what would happen if dinosaurs suddenly appeared in my own neighborhood after watching that film in theaters in 1993. Mitchell taps into that anxiety effectively, transforming familiar suburban streets and houses into places of danger.
The film also struggles to settle on a consistent tone. Mitchell seems caught between making a dinosaur horror movie and a dark comedy, and the picture repeatedly oscillates between the two without fully committing to either. Both approaches could have worked, but the uncertainty occasionally makes it difficult to determine how certain scenes are meant to land. The tonal inconsistency never overwhelms the film’s entertainment value, though it remains noticeable throughout.
Where the film falls short is in its unwillingness to fully explore the more reflective themes it introduces. The ideas are there, but they remain largely beneath the surface. The film introduces the question of God’s existence without meaningfully exploring it. One character explicitly rejects belief, another appears similarly skeptical, one is Catholic, and two others at least express curiosity. That range of perspectives could have supported a genuinely compelling thematic thread. Instead, the subject feels shoehorned into the screenplay in a way that subtly privileges a faithless worldview—particularly because the two characters coded as the most intelligent are also the least believing. Given that several others believe or remain open to belief, the film had an opportunity for balance and nuance that it ultimately leaves unexplored.
Mitchell also does not give the characters enough to do beyond reacting to the immediate crisis. The cast performs capably with the material provided, but the performative dimension is ultimately just that: capable. The characters are sufficiently compelling to carry the action, though few develop enough to linger afterward. But Anne Hathaway being chased by and fighting off dinosaurs…yes please! She did great.
The dinosaurs generally look good, and the visual effects are more convincing than the computer-generated creatures in many recent movies. They do not approach the groundbreaking naturalism of Jurassic Park, but they are considerably stronger than much of the CGI produced in its wake.
I could have done without the feathers. While there are scientific theories supporting feathered dinosaurs—and we cannot know with absolute certainty how every species appeared—the designs are initially distracting. Filmmakers should often strive for naturalism rather than strict realism. A creature must first look as though it belongs within the visual world of the movie, regardless of whether every detail reflects the latest scientific interpretation.
As a recent creature-feature comparison, The End of Oak Street shares some DNA with Crawl, although Crawl remains the stronger and more dramatically developed film. Still, Mitchell’s movie has heart, momentum, and enough old-fashioned monster-movie energy to make it an enjoyable capstone to the summer season.
This is also one to see on the big screen rather than postponing until streaming. The story may be simple, but its scale, sound, and creature action benefit considerably from a theatrical presentation. The End of Oak Street may not fully capitalize on all its ideas, but it delivers an entertaining ride—and reminds us that sometimes the most frightening monsters are the ones waiting just beyond the front lawn.
Ryan is the morning host on WLRH Public Radio in Huntsville, AL and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can enjoy the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry
Understands that movie magic isn’t merely that which you watch—it’s something you feel.
Some movies entertain us. Others remind us of why we fell in love with movies int he first place–Minions & Monsters is the latter. The Minions franchise has always revolved around a simple premise: these delightfully chaotic yellow creatures are forever searching for the next great master to serve. It is a formula that has produced plenty of laughs over the years, but Minions & Monsters wisely recognizes that every successful franchise eventually reaches a point where it must grow beyond its original concept. This film does exactly that.
Rather than centering its story on finding another larger-than-life villain, Minions & Monsters becomes something far more personal. It is about loving something so deeply that it becomes an extension of who you are. In this case, that something is the movies themselves.
Following the Minions through the history of Hollywood, the film functions simultaneously as a celebration of cinema, a playful history lesson, and a heartfelt story about pursuing dreams despite setbacks. Along the way, audiences are reminded of an era when movies were events rather than simply another form of “content” competing for our attention.
The filmmakers understand that cinema has always been more than projected images on a screen. Movies preserve dreams. They inspire careers. They connect generations. They remind us that imagination has value.
That affection radiates from nearly every frame.
The film’s greatest strength is its sincerity. It never treats its love of Hollywood as irony or nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Instead, it celebrates the people who built the industry and the enduring magic of storytelling itself. Watching the Minions stumble through different periods of filmmaking becomes less a parade of references and more a reminder of why the medium has endured for more than a century.
There is also an unmistakably classical quality to the storytelling. The narrative is clean, purposeful, and emotionally satisfying. Rather than chasing endless subplots or frantic spectacle, the film remains focused on its characters and their journey. It understands a lesson that many contemporary blockbusters have forgotten: audiences become invested in stories because they care about the people experiencing them.
Perhaps that is why Minions & Monsters feels so refreshing.
It channels the optimism and emotional earnestness of the great Hollywood studio era. One can almost imagine producers like Darryl F. Zanuck or David O. Selznick smiling at the film’s belief that stories—and the people who tell them—matter. More importantly, the movie reminds us that cinema is not merely something we watch. It is something we feel.
That is a surprisingly profound message for an animated comedy featuring yellow, gibberish-speaking creatures. Yet somehow, it works.
Minions & Monsters is highly entertaining, frequently funny, and filled with genuine heart. More than that, it serves as a joyful celebration of the movies themselves—a reminder that behind every projector beam lies the possibility of wonder. And in an era when so much of the entertainment industry speaks of algorithms, franchises, and content, that’s a message well worth celebrating.
Ryan is the morning host on WLRH Public Radio in Huntsville, AL and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can enjoy the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry
Full disclosure: this movie is in need of higher intelligence.
There are few filmmaker collaborations in modern cinema as successful as that of Steven Spielberg and David Koepp. Together, they helped bring audiences some of the most beloved blockbusters of the past three decades, including Jurassic Park. Watching Disclosure Day, however, one cannot help but wonder how much of that film’s enduring magic originated with Michael Crichton’s source material and screenplay draft. Because while Spielberg and Koepp’s latest collaboration contains intriguing ideas, technical proficiency, and occasional flashes of emotional resonance, it ultimately feels less like a finished screenplay and more like a collection of story notes elevated by accomplished filmmaking.
The result is a science-fiction drama that is intermittently engaging but rarely compelling.
About: A meteorologist and a cybersecurity expert find themselves at the center of a movement to expose the government’s cover-up of extraterrestrial secrets.
Movies featuring extraterrestrials have been a staple of cinema for generations. From the cautionary tales and Cold War allegories of the 1950s to the philosophical and emotionally rich science-fiction films that followed, alien stories have repeatedly provided filmmakers with opportunities to explore humanity from an outsider’s perspective. Even television programs such as The Twilight Zone managed to produce dozens of memorable alien stories that balanced suspense, wonder, humor, and moral inquiry in less than thirty minutes. (More on that later).
That is not because the premise lacks potential.
On the contrary, the central concept is fascinating. Spielberg and Koepp introduce numerous provocative ideas, several of which could have sustained an entire film on their own. The problem is that these ideas rarely develop beyond their introduction. Rather than building upon one another, they arrive as individual moments, scenes, and conversations that often feel disconnected from the larger narrative. The film frequently resembles a series of intriguing sequences searching for a story capable of connecting them.
This structural weakness becomes increasingly apparent as the movie progresses. The first act is remarkably protracted, spending an excessive amount of time establishing a premise the audience already understands. By contrast, the second act feels abbreviated, as though key dramatic developments have been compressed in the interest of reaching the finale. The third act, meanwhile, overstays its welcome, stretching material that would have benefited from greater economy and focus.
The irony is that Spielberg eventually finds the emotional center that has defined many of his greatest works.
For a brief period, audiences can glimpse the filmmaker responsible for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Human connection begins to emerge. Characters start to feel like people rather than narrative devices. The film develops something resembling a heart.
Unfortunately, it arrives too late.
By the time the emotional foundation finally reveals itself, much of the audience’s investment has already been exhausted by a story that spent too long wandering without clear direction.
Tonally, Disclosure Day suffers from a different but related problem. The film takes itself extraordinarily seriously—so seriously, in fact, that it often resembles a historical biopic or documentary rather than a work of speculative fiction. There is nothing inherently wrong with seriousness. Many great science-fiction films are serious. The issue is that Disclosure Day frequently mistakes solemnity for profundity.
The movie is so determined to be important that it forgets to be imaginative.
This is particularly frustrating because Spielberg has historically excelled at balancing wonder with reflection. Films such as Close Encounters and E.T. understood that mystery and awe are just as important as intellectual inquiry. Here, however, the sense of wonder is surprisingly muted, replaced by a self-importance that often weighs down the narrative.
The film’s treatment of faith and spirituality proves similarly uneven. At times, Spielberg and Koepp offer nuanced and believable portrayals of religious individuals grappling with extraordinary circumstances. One character in particular—a nun whose role I will leave undisclosed—provides some of the film’s most thoughtful and surprising moments. Yet elsewhere, the screenplay appears content to take easy shots at organized religion, resulting in a portrayal that feels inconsistent rather than insightful.
Technically, the film is well crafted. Spielberg remains one of cinema’s most accomplished visual storytellers, and there are moments of undeniable craftsmanship throughout. The exception is the visual effects work surrounding several of the film’s alien creatures, which often possess a strangely artificial, video-game quality that undermines their intended impact.
Still, technical proficiency can only carry a film so far.
After watching Disclosure Day, I found myself reflecting on a rather uncomfortable observation: nearly every alien-themed episode of The Twilight Zone delivered more thoughtful ideas, stronger characters, and more satisfying dramatic construction than what is presented here.
Perhaps the film’s greatest indictment is that it arrives decades after The Twilight Zone already explored many of the same questions more effectively. Rod Serling’s landmark anthology routinely delivered stronger characters, clearer themes, more compelling moral dilemmas, and greater dramatic economy than Disclosure Day manages across its entire runtime. Working within the confines of a twenty-five-minute television episode, The Twilight Zone often challenged audiences to reconsider humanity’s place in the universe while simultaneously telling complete and satisfying stories.
Nearly all the episodes of The Twilight Zone linger in the imagination long after the credits roll. Disclosure Day, by contrast, feels destined to become little more than a temporary water-cooler conversation—an intriguing premise discussed for a few days before fading from memory. The difference is not one of budget, technology, or visual spectacle. It is the difference between a story built around an idea and a story that understands what to do with that idea once it arrives.
Great science fiction requires compelling characters, coherent storytelling, and ideas that evolve beyond their initial presentation. Disclosure Day contains pieces of all three, but never assembles them into a satisfying whole.
If audiences enter the theater hoping for another E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, they are likely to leave disappointed. While Disclosure Day contains intriguing concepts and occasional flashes of Spielberg’s enduring humanity, it never develops the compelling characters, narrative cohesion, or sense of wonder that made those earlier films endure.
What remains is a technically proficient science-fiction drama built around fascinating questions but surprisingly few satisfying answers. Disclosure Day proves that even legendary filmmakers cannot rely on ideas alone. Great science fiction requires compelling characters, coherent storytelling, and a sense of wonder equal to its ambitions. Despite occasional flashes of Spielberg’s enduring humanity, this is one disclosure that never fully reveals its potential.
Ryan is the morning host on WLRH Public Radio in Huntsville, AL and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can enjoy the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry
R.L. Terry ReelView 
