Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2025.10

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. Constantine (2005) — 10/10
2. Romancing the Stone (1984) — 8/10
3. Mr. McMahon (2024) — 7/10
4. Fast X (2023) — 7/10
5. Kung Fu Panda (2008) — 9/10
6. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) — 7/10
7. Das Krokodil und sein Nilpferd (1979) — 4/10
8. Gaza Doctors Under Attack (2025) — 8/10
9. Bad Words (2013) — 8/10
10. Mythic Quest S01-S04 (2020-2025) — 8/10

Constantine (2005) — 10/10

I watched and reviewed this in 2013. The rating stands.

Romancing the Stone (1984) — 8/10

We start with a visualization of Joan Wilder’s (Kathleen Turner) latest western romance novel, starring knockout Angelina (Kymberly Herrin) who wins at life and ends up with Jessie (William H. Burton Jr.), happily ever after. Segue to Wilder in her writer’s studio in New York, crying her eyes out at the ending of her book and celebrating with her cat, Romeo.

Her life is boring. But not for long.

A mysterious, dark, and sinister stranger appears at her apartment while she’s out with her publisher Gloria (Holland Taylor). The stranger Zolo (Manuel Ojeda) kills her neighbor for asking too many questions. Zolo is from Colombia, looking for Joan Wilder because Joan’s sister Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor) is in trouble in Cartagena. She’s been kidnapped by Ira (Zack Norman) and his cousin Ralph (Danny DeVito). They make Elaine call Joan to tell her to open the envelope to find the treasure map. She’s to go to Colombia and deliver the map to them.

Joan arrives in Colombia, where she is met by Zolo, who fools her into getting onto the wrong bug. She has arrived at night and things are considerably different than in New York. Ralph is supposed to have picked her up but he discovers that she’s gotten on the wrong bus. He just has her author photo on the back of a book to identify her.[2]

The next morning, the bus crashes because Joan had distracted the driver. Zolo tries to steal her purse but is interrupted by Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), who drives him off with a tremendous volley of shotgun blasts. Jack’s jeep is totaled, the birds he’d planned to sell are gone, and now he’s saddled with Joan Wilder. He cavils $375[3] out of her to take her to a phone. They are in the middle of nowhere. It is raining. A lot.

Mudslide. Chopping the heels off of her shoes. Zolo and his crew show up, shooting at them. Jack machetes his way through the jungle to arrive at a cliff. There’s a bridge, “pre-Colombian art.” Joan tries it, while Jack decides to hold off the cops with his shotgun. She ends up swinging across the chasm and landing gently on her bum. Jack tries to follow but it’s not as easy for him. He barely makes it.

It’s raining again. Pouring. Machete. They discover the wreckage of an airplane and take shelter. Pot fire. Jungle snake (bushmaster) for dinner. They’re both pretty drunk and high. Joan face-plants into her bag. Colton examines the map, which is titled el Corazon and indicates that the “heart” is to be found at the tenedor del diablo.

The next morning, they’re on the move again, entering a village. To find a car, they are directed to the local rich man, Juan (Alfonso Arau). He turns out to be a huge Joan Wilder fan and he turns out to be quite wealthy. His hacienda is phat.

Zolo and his crew show up but Juan helps them escape in his “little mule” Pépé (a 4x4 black truck). Cue a chase scene. Juan has many tricks up his sleeve and they drop their chasers. Juan drops them off in a larger town, with a hotel—and a phone.

Cue the dance scene at a local festival. Cue falling into bed together. Joan talks Jack into looking for the treasure, although he doesn’t need much convincing. They sneak out the back when they see Zolo has arrived in the morning. They steal Ralph’s tiny car and head for the tenedor del Diablo. Joan figures out that they need to go to the huge waterfall. They’re now looking for leche de la madre. They find a pool of white water.

A giant emerald, shaped like a heart.

Frank shows up and takes it. Zolo shows up. Frank takes off on foot. Joan and Jack give chase in his car. They get the stone back but drive into a huge river. Steers furiously and fruitlessly. Splash. Opposite sides of the river.

Joan gets to Cartagena and arranges the transfer. Zolo shows up with his troops, having captured Jack. They’re trying to find the stone. Zolo tries to torture Joan but Jack gives up the stone. “Choke on it.” Parabola. Chomp. The gator is off with Zolo’s hand and the stone. Jack gives chase. Joan and Elaine escape. Ira and Ralph escape as well.

Jack grabs the gator’s tail. “C’mon, cough it up.” Jack struggles. Joan is cornered by Zolo. Jack has to choose. Shoot Zolo or let the gator go. No bullets. Free-climb the wall. Like, no shit, just free-climbing a flat wall. Joan and Zolo struggle atop a gator pit. Joan triumphs—having set Zolo on fire and made him stumble into the pit—just as Jack clears the parapet.

Jack, fearing the police, dives off the parapet, leaving Joan with Elaine.

Fade to Gloria finishing up Joan’s next novel, in bits. Joan walks home with her groceries to find Jack on his sailboat in the street in front of her apartment. He’s wearing gator-skin boots.

Mr. McMahon (2024) — 7/10

This is a six-episode documentary about Vince McMahon’s career, which is synonymous with the rise of professional wrestling to a worldwide sport. It paved the way for MMA and the UFC in a way that boxing never did. McMahon realized that wrestling was much more about the spectacle than it ever was about the sport. It is very much a sport and these are very much amazing athletes, but that is secondary.

The matches are scripted—the whole season is scripted—but so are plays and movies. Why did we ever have a problem with scripting? Is it because it also looked like a sport? What about Cirque de Soleil? Does anyone leave one of their shows because they’re mad that it’s “scripted”? Did people really think that everyone was fooled into thinking that it was a real athletic event with arbitrary outcomes? C’mon. That’s just elitist bullshit from people like John Stossel and Richard Belzer—both of whom questioned the “reality” of it and were physically assaulted as “proof” that it’s real. Of course they shouldn’t have been assaulted! But it’s hard to feel sorry for anyone whose entire career consists of their mouths writing checks that their bodies can’t cash.

Vince McMahon is not a good person. He is quintessentially U.S.-American; it’s no wonder that he was best buddies with Donald Trump. Trump shows up in a couple of clips. But so many wrestlers show up—just in the first episode. Hulk Hogan is featured, obviously, but Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Tony Atlas, Rowdy Roddy, Steve Austin, Wendi Richter, Jimmy Hart, John, Cena, Triple-H, and Dwayne Johnson are also in this.

Bob Costas—Mr. U.S. Olympics!—used to announce matches. Cindy Lauper was heavily involved at the beginning, kick-starting women’s wrestling in a way that it had never been before. As McMahon said, “Women’s wrestling was declassé in a declassé sport.”

By the end of episode four, you’re bound to make a few observations, if you’re honest.

1. This an extremely well-made documentary that doesn’t take sides and gives everyone a chance to see their good and bad sides.
2. Pro wrestling is a microcosm of U.S.-American society.
3. These wrestlers are incredible athletes, just enormous, strong, flexible, and talented gymnasts—just out of this world physically.
4. The entertainment devolved into the most caricatured and lascivious and filthy show that could possibly be allowed on U.S. television. I would also write misogynistic but, although it did emphasize the subordinate role of women (see below), it also emphasized the subordinate role of anyone who wasn’t a roided-out bag of meat running on alpha instincts.
5. It all continued to be fake but the level of manipulation became increasingly masterful, with the line between reality and scripted fantasy blurred into nothingness.
6. Tony Atlas is a hilarious and sympathetic national treasure.
7. Vince McMahon is an awful, meathead misogynist, but he’s not without principles, and he is willing to do anything he can for his business, even sacrificing himself and his ego.

   1. He even started wrestling and turned himself into the biggest heel the industry had ever seen.
   2. He’s relatively honest about his motivations.
   3. Because of his honesty, he’s right about more things than he’s wrong.
   4. He’s an asshole but not because he acts entitled.
   5. He and the entire industry have a horrific, obscenely sexualized perception of, and attitude toward, women.

The story takes us through the rise of WWF as it consolidated all of the regional wrestling organizations into a national, televised show. It was the era of Wrestlemania and Hulk Hogan. Then Ted Turner founded the WCW and hired a producer that started to eat the WWF’s lunch. They did so for 83 straight weeks, sapping away top talent like Hogan. They had better and lewder storylines. They appealed to 18–30-year-olds rather than kids.It got really lewd and crude. Everyone—male or female—was extremely fit and no-one’s costume covered more than 10% of their bodies.

The WWF struck back, first by coopting the WCW’s storylines and then by transforming Vince McMahon into heel Mr. McMahon, a caricature portraying him as an arrogant self-made billionaire who respected only money. Many interviewees said that it wasn’t a caricature. Then came the greatest rivalry in the history of the franchise: King of the Ring Stone Cold Steve Austin and Mr. McMahon.

As if things couldn’t go any better, the era of The Rock began. Things got really, really, really racy. The women in the shows were pornographic caricatures wearing barely any clothes—although they were still wrestling. They were still athletes. But there is no way you could want to excuse the obvious and boorish misogyny and stupidity. It was crude and ignorant. All done just for a dollar. And it worked. As Triple-H said, “Who’s worse? The guy who did it? Or the people who loved it?” Wise words, Mr. H. Wise words.

The fifth episode introduces us to the family storyline, where Shane, Stephanie, and Linda McMahon all take part. Shane and Stephanie are actually wrestling, getting beaten to hell by and beating the Christ out of their father. Stephanie “marries” Triple-H but I can’t tell whether it happened for real or not! This is madness. The storylines are so broad, it’s no wonder this stuff got popular the world over. It’s raunchy, it’s filthy, it’s easy to understand and follow along. The heel is easy to hate.

The one storyline has Vince “pretending” to be having an affair with a voluptuous wrestler named Sable. She ended up leaving and suing the organization for sexual harassment, losing, and coming back to work for the WWF again—even “pretending” again to have an affair with Mr. McMahon. I am honestly having a hard time telling the difference between WWF plots and real life. The line is really, really blurred.

The next “era” would be John Cena with “Ruthless Aggression”. All of this stuff is just Vince McMahon steering the company from above and below, from boardroom to ring. I am gaining a grudging respect for the guy (even though I’ve seen the tweets). Even when concussions and CTE came up in the most horrible way—a wrestler killed his family and then himself—they eventually became the first to protect the wrestlers, working with the CTE organization rather than fighting them. The head of the organization said that FIFA, the NFL, and the NHL have yet to be so accommodating. The schedule was lightened; rest days were increased; better health plans, and so on.

This is a great documentary. I deducted a point because it could have been a couple of shows shorter. I think it’s quite balanced, but that’s because I can understand when, in the process of documenting facts, you also include those that make it look like a terrible person like Vince McMahon was integral in having created something enjoyed by millions, if not billions, of people. He is a “piece of shit” but he seems to have his finger on the pulse of a good part of humanity, so he’s not alone.

Fast X (2023) — 7/10

I don’t quite understand why this movie has such a low rating on IMDb because it is, beat for beat, exactly what I expected the tenth movie of this franchise to be. Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) is over the top and pretty funny. I will admit that, in another mood, I might have hated how everything seems to go his way but you have to remember to just roll with it in movies like this. The movie will go where the movie goes. There are rules to this. For example, Dante has to take everything from Dom (Vin Diesel) before he wins it all back. Look to the East. That’s where the sun always rises.

Everyone from the previous movies is in this one: Dom’s sister Mia Torretto (Jordana Brewster), Han (Sung Kang) is back, Tej (Ludacris) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) are fighting as usual, Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez) is overacting and being touted as an incredible fighter, while Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) is back as a member of the team (although she was introduced much later; maybe she was working on Game of Thrones as Missandei, loyal slave and advisor to Daenerys).

There’s also John Cena as Uncle Jakob, Jason Statham as Shaw, Charlize Theron as Cipher. These actors are reliably good and can make a lot out of a little. Theron and Statham have got impressive fighting chops, as well as great choreography. Tess (Brie Larson) is not as good. Gal Gadot is so bad that they didn’t even give her any lines. Dwayne Johnson shows up at the very end to set things up for a yet another sequel.

We watched it in German.

Kung Fu Panda (2008) — 9/10

This is a really fun kid’s movie about a place called the Peaceful Valley. The story follows Po, a chubby and somewhat clumsy panda who is an absolute martial-arts fanatic. He wants to learn kung fu but he works for his father—who’s a goose—in his noodle shop.

An old turtle Kung Fu ascendant Oogway, who is in charge of selecting the Dragon Warrior, who will be allowed to read the Dragon Scroll, gaining supposedly limitless power. There are five candidates for Dragon Warrior: Tigress, Monkey, Mantis, Viper, and Crane. Somehow, Po is chosen instead.

Shifu puts Po through excruciating training. He is at first aided by the five in making it hard enough to make Po quit, but they all gain a grudging respect as the pudgy little guy perseveres and actually gets better.

Tai Lung—also a tiger—has escaped his deep, dark prison in an ingenious way and is lancing toward the Peaceful Valley to get the Dragon Scroll for himself. Po’s training takes a giant leap forward when Shifu discovers that he can be motivated to incredible feats with the temptation of food. By the time Tai Lung gets there and starts laying waste to everything, Po is ready.

He reads the scroll.

It’s blank.

The key to infinite power was inside you all along, bro.

You’re ready.

There’s a ton of ass-kicking á la One Punch Man and Tai Lung is defeated, the valley is saved, and Po triumphs. The end.

I watched it in German, with really great voice-acting. I’m thinking I probably gave it an extra point because I didn’t have to hear Jack Black’s nasally voice the whole time. The German voice actor for Po was hilarious.

Also, “Po” means “Butt” in German. So, now you know.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) — 7/10

Cletus Cassady (Woody Harrelson) is about to be executed. His lover Frances Barrison/Shriek (Naomie Harris) has banshee-like superpowers. She is in a super-max prison of her own. Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is assigned to Cletus’s last interview. He argues with Venom (also voiced by Tom Hardy) in the police station, but people seem less disturbed by how he’s yelling to himself all the time. Venom controls Eddie’s body and helps him investigate Cassady’s last murders.

Venom is fighting with Eddie because he needs Phenethylamine, which he can only get from brains…or chocolate. Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) is still in the picture. She calls him up to reveal that she’s engaged. Venom, as Eddie’s id, is not taking that well.

Eddie visits Cassady in prison, where Cassady bites him and gets a bit of the symbiote on him—in him. Back at home, Venom and Eddie fight in a protracted scene that ends with Eddie using the smoke alarm to dispel Venom, sending him to hitchhike on random New Yorkers for a while. At Cassady’s execution, the poison triggers a transformation, combining Cassady with the symbiote bit, creating the blood-based Carnage.

Guess what? Cletus has an axe to grind and he wants his girlfriend out of prison. Carnage apparently wants to destroy Venom and Eddie, so they agree to help each other (even though they’re technically a symbiote, so what else were they going to do?)

Carnage and Cletus free Frances but, instead of killing Venom and Eddie, they capture them. How else were they going to get free during the wedding ceremony between Cletus and Frances at which they’d been inexplicably placed? The cathedral collapses. Cletus and Frances die but Carnage moves on.

I like a bunch of the actors in this and think it’s kind of funny how a bit-character that arose from the super suit that Spider-Man acquired in the first Secret Wars (Wikipedia)[4] has gotten a trilogy (this is the second movie). It’s a testament to Hardy’s charm, I guess. Harrelson is having a lot of fun playing an unhinged and unrepentant psychotic, but he dead now.

Das Krokodil und sein Nilpferd (1979) — 4/10

This movie’s title in English is I’m for the Hippopotamus, which is a more-direct translation of the original Italian title, Io sto con gli ippopotami. I’ve only ever seen snippets of these Terrance Hill and Bud Spencer movies in German. This is the first one I’ve watched from beginning to end. They have not aged super-well. These are set up more-or-less like the Cannonball Run movies. If I’d watched these as a kid, I’d have fond memories, too. But they’re not very good.

There are long, long scenes in which nothing really happens, like the long meal that they had with the local criminals. it was utterly interminable. The plot is a thin, thin thread stitching together scenes that the film crew must have thought that children would find interesting. There are a lot of animals, like cheetahs, lions, elephants, and so on, which I suppose serve to “prove” that they’re in Africa but really only proves that they filmed near a zoo. I didn’t see the titular crocodile and hippopotamus—but I think that was referring to Terence and Bud, respectively.

Gaza Doctors Under Attack (2025) — 8/10

“[…] forensic investigation into Israeli military attacks on hospitals in Gaza. The film also examines allegations of the targeting and abuse of doctors and healthcare workers in Gaza.”

This documentary is a necessary one, and very current. It documents war crimes, perhaps a little too cleanly. Much of the footage is extremely smooth and neat. The interviews were made either in front of carefully selected backgrounds—a hospital with a lot of equipment, or a completely destroyed building—which look nearly fake, almost green-screened. During some of the narration, there is clearly reconstructed footage that is not labeled as such: children searching through rubble, but in slo-mo, finding children’s dresses, and so on. It feels very manipulative.

The interviews, in general, have the form of carefully crafted emotional manipulation—switching back to the very attractive interviewer, who nods sympathetically—which is wholly unnecessary in this case, as the stories themselves are horrifying enough. This isn’t a reality-TV show where you have to convince people to give a shit about someone’s parking spot having been taken at an Applebees.

The attractive narrator is shown in extreme closeup dozens of times, sometimes with glasses down on her nose while she’s “doing research”. The tropes are thick here. It’s unclear whether they think this is all necessary in order to retain people’s interest in a documentary that would otherwise be an uninterrupted stream of doctors lamenting in Arabic about their own torture or the torture of their patients.

On the other hand, it includes extremely high-quality footage taken by IOF soldiers themselves, of prisoner camps and other abuses. The pictures and videos of the rubble are compelling and believable. They make a strong case that the people Israel targets are just doctors, just citizens, not terrorists, not even particularly political. They’re just people trying to help other people, who are slaughtered with rockets, missiles, and machine-gun fire.

If you’ve been following the actual news for the last two years, then nothing in this video is surprising or new. What it really is, is the BBC producing a video that summarizes the independent reporting they’ve been slandering over that time, making a video now that it is more ideologically acceptable to actually describe what Israel is doing in the same way that Israel’s own media has long since reported about Israel (e.g., Haaretz). They cover the attacks on the hospitals, the rapes in Israeli prisons (in particular in Sde Teiman), the attacks on tents.

I watched it on YouTube at the following link. You might have to use a VPN if your country is on the ban list (like mine).

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack by Channel 4 Documentaries (YouTube)

I watched it in English and Arabic with English subtitles.

I gave it an extra point because it is factually accurate and the presentation, though not necessary for me, may serve to entice otherwise more-reluctant people into acknowledging the horror.

Bad Words (2013) — 8/10

I watched and reviewed this in 2014. Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) and Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand) are great in this, especially with their montage where they rage through the night. This is Bateman’s milieu. Kathryn Hahn’s too, who plays his lover Jenny Widgeon. Dr. Bernice Deagan (Allison Janney) runs the spelling bee. The library detective from Sienfeld Philip Baker Hall plays Dr. Bowman.

Mythic Quest S01-S04 (2020-2025) — 8/10

This is the story of a video-game company, owned and run by creative director Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney). His lead programmer is Australian Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao), who’s brilliant and a bit goofy, principled and a bit naive. The ruthless Brad Bakshi (Danny Pudi) is in charge of monetization.

David (David Brittlesbee) is product lead but he’s not really the lead of anything. I just realized why I love this guy—it’s the same actor who knocked the ball out of the park with Cricket in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The others take advantage of him all the time, including his sociopathic and hilarious assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis), who hangs out with alpha-male Ian as much as she possibly can, at least at first. When Ian becomes even slightly introspective, she jumps ship to glom onto Brad. at least, until he’s convicted of securities fraud (he comes back though).

C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham) is an alcoholic Nebula-award-winning sci-fi and fantasy writer who heads up the writing staff—seemingly of one. “The 70s were a bit of a blur.” “The 80s were a bit of a blur.”

Sue (Caitlin McGee) is in charge of customer relations, which means she’s on the end of a ton of player abuse. She works in the basement and has a lovely North-Midwestern accent.

Rachel (Ashly Burch) and Dana (Imani Hakim) are testers, although Dana becomes the company’s official streamer in the first season. They are not yet romantically linked, but it’s inevitable.

Their main game is the titular Mythic Quest, which is a MMPORPG, very much in the style of World of Warcraft. with a modern flair.

The game succeeds, then it fails, then it succeeds again. Sometimes Poppy saves the day, sometimes it’s Ian. Ian almost always takes credit, though he slowly learns how to share credit, just as Poppy learns how to take credit. Then she learns how to take credit a bit too much and her socially awkward ass swerves very hard into egomaniac territory before coming back down to Earth.

Brad makes his own journey, where he loses power, gains power, wrestles metaphorically with his even-more-ruthless brother, who’s an LBO specialist, then fights with Jo, then loves Jo, then takes on Rachel as a protegé, then dumps her because she’s too needy, then loses his whole empire to her, then gets it back. Rachel is kind of dumb and kind of insufferable, succumbing in nearly no time to a complete greediness from her former world-saving, eco-loving attitude. This is played straight but I think is supposed to be an ironic commentary on people like this who positively litter large companies like this.

Dana becomes romantically involved with Rachel, but then isn’t, then is again. She develops games on her own but gets way too big for her britches but is also kind of screwed out of her game but she did develop it on company time and on company computers even though she’d signed a contract that explicitly said that, were she to do anything like that, the resulting work would be property of the company. So she did it anyway, then spent a season whining about the unfairness of it all.

She founds her own company, I think? Or does she work for Poppy and Ian when they found their own company? Oh, yeah, they left Mythic Quest to do their own thing. Their egos and visions collided but then meshed but then didn’t. They returned. I forget what happened to Dana’s game. I’m sure it rocked.

Anyway, at some point, Poppy gets a hot boyfriend and then becomes his baby-mama, which causes all sorts of issues for her platonic relationship with Ian. They straighten it out in the end, though, as I’m sure comes as no surprise to anyone.

Each episode is mostly self-contained fun, with witty writing, affable actors, and interesting characters. Some of them suck but they’re still entertaining, and they tend to get their well-earned comeuppance quickly enough. I enjoyed and looked forward to each season, even if I can’t quite remember everything that happened. The abstract summary above should give you bit of a flavor of it.