While I wish a few of these flicks were in chilly, popcorn aroma-filled theaters this summer, three A-list cast films are premiering on Netflix instead. Two are worth your ten bucks.
Spiderhead
While Chris Pratt (Jurassic World Dominion) and Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love & Thunder) delivered some unwatchable summerfilms on the big screen in 2022, "Thor Chris" decided to go one worse and put a stop on the summer success of Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick) too.
Based on a short story from The New Yorker, Spiderhead (not a superhero film) takes place in a future prison where prisoners are offered mood altering, experimental drugs. Overseing these experiments is Steve Abnesti (Hemsworth) who manipulates and watches. It's creepy and everyone is acting in the wrong tone.
I have no idea what director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun:Maverick) and writers Reese and Wernick (Deadpool) were thinking except for just cashing a Netflix check, but don't be fooled by this impressive list of Hollywood royalty.
The Ten Buck Review: Skip it; not worth ten bucks.
The other Chris, "Captain America Chris," shows up as a bad guy doing his best mustached-Henry Cavill (Mission Impossible: Fallout) impression. Spoiler reveal: He's never a believable threat. It's the only weak spot in an excellent spy film that I wish had been on the big screen.
Directors Anthony and Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame) certainly know how to make an action film and they've enlisted one of the greats to hold it together. Ryan Gosling (La La Land, Drive) is Sierra Six, a government agent not unlike the ones we know from Mission Impossible and Bourne movies, just a bit more convincing.
He's an assasin who follows dangers from Hong Kong and Rome to Vienna and Bangkok, just like we like these other flix, but the action sequences are bang-pow-boffo with very little CGI. One scene reminds me of the joy of the train scene in The Fugitive (1993). Yeh, this is the spy movie we wanted this summer — it's just on Netflix.
The Ten Buck Review: Worth Ten Bucks
The joy of seeing a Netflix film is that you haven't invested money and you can change the channel on a film like Spiderhead — or give another chance to Adam Sandler. This one pays off.
Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman a Philadelphia 76ers scout and an underdog character who finds his next superstar in Bo Cruz (Utah Jazz's Juancho Hernangomez). The familiar but charming film also stars Queen Latifah and a Wheaties-box lineup full of cameos. Perfect for a TV night at home.
The Ten Buck Review: Worth Ten Bucks
The Ten Buck Review: Worth Ten Bucks
