Mehnificent

Should not have resurrected The Crow. That, in a sentence, is the wisest epitaph for an undead franchise whose new lease on life feels, if not actively damned, then at least embalmed in every frame. Hollywood loves to exhume its corpses; here, though, the necromancy is not just joyless—it’s grotesque. Watching Bill Skarsgård lurching through all that smeared makeup like a moping IT clown forced into Hot Topic drag—and that’s the last cloudburst this city needed. Lionsgate, when you next crawl back to the mausoleum, maybe try releasing a film that resonates with audiences for good reasons, not just out of contractual obligation. Just a suggestion!

Take Cover — the title suggests a mad dash and a hearty thud behind the nearest flaming oil drum, but what you get, with Scott Adkins at the prow, is something slyer and more self-aware. This is action cinema with a sly wink—half tactical ballet, half armchair philosophy, and more than a few swigs of that fizzy stuff called character charm.

Fasten your spandex—Marvel’s most obnoxious court jester has stormed the palace and, with an exhausted growl, dragged along cinema’s most battered—if not beloved—mutt: Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds, as Deadpool, doesn’t simply arrive in the MCU—he crash-lands, splattered across the screen with the sort of anarchic acid you expect when a franchise finally stops playing spin-the-bottle and just licks the wounds. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, back from the grave, looks at once chewed up and feral—he’s the aging gunslinger who’s realized the last bar’s happy hour is over and the piano man’s dead.