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Erik Kain
Tomatometer-approved critic
Erik Kain writes about movies, TV shows and video games at Forbes.
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Barbie (2023) |
The ribald humor is just clever enough to please older viewers while flying over younger viewers’ heads. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 24, 2023
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Oppenheimer (2023) |
It's the delivery that leaves me a little cold, a little dizzy but not fun-dizzy. The twists that make a film like Interstellar so powerful simply don't work in a true story quite as effectively. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 21, 2023
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Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One (2023) |
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One is a gripping, exciting, often quite funny, occasionally quite sad tour de force that unleashes the rambunctious action this franchise is known for in bigger, more audacious ways than ever before. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 13, 2023
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Asteroid City (2023) |
At once delightfully quirky, genuinely hilarious and profoundly sad. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 07, 2023
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The Flash (2023) |
A dull, overly-saturated CGI action movie mess, that’s both half an hour too long (as per usual!) and rushed. - Forbes
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| Posted Jun 20, 2023
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The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023) |
The movie is a rushed mess, trampling over characters from the show, throwing together a conflict that is both jarring and unnecessary, and creating stakes that feel forced at best. It’s hard to care about any of it. - Forbes
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| Posted Jun 13, 2023
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) |
Across The Spider-Verse is a beautifully animated film that’s bursting with wild color and inventive artwork. It takes everything from the first movie and does it bigger. - Forbes
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| Posted Jun 02, 2023
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The Little Mermaid (2023) |
This is an absolutely delightful picture and is quite possibly my favorite of all the princess live-action remakes. Much of that is due to the powerful performance -- and singing chops -- of lead Halle Bailey as Ariel. - Forbes
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| Posted May 31, 2023
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) |
James Gunn sticks the landing with the third and final Guardians movie. It’s an emotionally powerful, wildly inventive, often hilarious tour de force farewell for our ragtag band of intergalactic space heroes. - Forbes
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| Posted May 06, 2023
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) |
It’s a great, fun, beautifully animated story of Mario, Luigi, Toad, Peach, Donkey Kong and a colorful, zany cast of Nintendo characters. - Forbes
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| Posted Apr 07, 2023
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) |
It’s written by people who clearly love D&D. The spirit and humor and silliness and adventure that a good session of tabletop gaming consist of all carry over into this film in the best possible way. - Forbes
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| Posted Mar 20, 2023
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) |
nt-Man 3 is a fun if predictable superhero movie that gets a few big things wrong, but bounces back on the strength of its leads, with both Paul Rudd and Jonathan Majors knocking it out of the park. - Forbes
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| Posted Feb 23, 2023
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M3GAN (2022) |
M3GAN leans hard into the genre tropes, often to great success. It’s a movie where half its gags are the titular doll’s facial expressions... No wonder, then, that this is a movie that’s constantly winking at us. - Forbes
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| Posted Jan 10, 2023
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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) |
It’s predictable, shallow and bombastic. This is a low-brow action movie dressed in the glitzy trappings of a high-brow sci-fi flick. Once you take off the 3D glasses, or the rose-tinted ones, the illusion is shattered. - Forbes
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| Posted Dec 19, 2022
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Disenchanted (2022) |
Disenchanted ends up feeling like the kind of movie that’s been stuck in development hell for a decade-and-a-half: Messy, half-baked despite such a long gestation period, and lackluster compared to the original. - Forbes
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| Posted Nov 18, 2022
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Black Adam (2022) |
Tepid. Lukewarm. Mediocre. Bland. Sluggish. Perfunctory. Dull. Anemic. - Forbes
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) |
If you’re looking for a fun, lighthearted action rom-com with a likable lead and plenty of laughs, Thor vs Gorr with a side of Korg is an enjoyable two-hour diversion. Nothing more, nothing less. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 11, 2022
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Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) |
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is a mostly terrific return to the magical misadventures of Stephen Strange and friends. - Forbes
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| Posted May 09, 2022
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The Northman (2022) |
It is a visually stunning, breathlessly violent, bone-crushingly metal take on Viking legend. - Forbes
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| Posted Apr 25, 2022
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Uncharted (2022) |
A fun, rollicking adventure flick with likable protagonists, fun puzzles and big set-pieces -- what’s not to love? Isn’t that basically the gist of the games? - Forbes
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| Posted Feb 23, 2022
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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021) |
It's a great movie in its own right, and honestly it has better pacing than the original. - Forbes
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| Posted Nov 22, 2021
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Eternals (2021) |
I really enjoyed Eternals despite it being too long, and one of the reasons was the humor. Another was just that it felt kind of quirky and different from most Marvel movies these days. - Forbes
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| Posted Nov 08, 2021
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Dune (2021) |
Dune is a visual feast and a space opera tour de force that should please fans of the novel despite some small changes and its missing final act. - Forbes
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| Posted Oct 25, 2021
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The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf (2021) |
All told, Nightmare of the Wolf is a welcome addition to the books, shows and video games in the ever-expanding Witcher universe. - Forbes
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| Posted Aug 31, 2021
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Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021) |
Far from a subversion of the genre or a fun homage to 90s' horror, Fear Street: 1994 is derivative, shallow and painfully generic, playing it safe at almost every turn. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 07, 2021
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Black Widow (2021) |
Black Widow mixes great action with a tedious script, predictable plot and overly long runtime. The results are mixed. - Forbes
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| Posted Jul 02, 2021
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Cruella (2021) |
The performances are solid, the casting is great and the costumes -- well the costumes are gorgeous. But Cruella plays it too safe and never really finds its feet, let alone its voice. - Forbes
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| Posted Jun 01, 2021
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Army Of The Dead (2021) |
Army of the Dead is good mindless fun, but it's far too derivative to ever be truly great-even as a zombie flick. - Forbes
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| Posted Jun 01, 2021
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Mortal Kombat (2021) |
Mortal Kombat is one of those rarest of creatures: a video game movie adaptation that actually works, and does so by leaning into everything that makes both video games and movies fun. - Forbes
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| Posted Apr 26, 2021
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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) |
It's not as good as the first one, but I enjoyed it a lot more than most of the DCEU movies, including Aquaman and Justice League. Perhaps I would have liked it better if the first Wonder Woman wasn't so many leaps and bounds better. - Forbes
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| Posted Jan 04, 2021
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Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) |
The humor and zany action throughout the film were on point, and Robbie is clearly having a great time as Harley Quinn, a role she was born to play. - Forbes
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| Posted Feb 10, 2020
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Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) |
Go see it on the biggest screen with the best sound you can find and enjoy it for what it is -- a charming, funny movie about being stuck in a video game with some of cinema's most endearing stars. - Forbes
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| Posted Dec 18, 2019
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John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) |
In the end it's a shallow sort of fun, a flimsy facsimile of the first film's frenetic genius. Perhaps this was an action movie that didn't need a sequel, after all. - Forbes
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| Posted May 31, 2017
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