Welcome to this month’s Cinema Snapshots! At the beginning of each month, I reflect on what I watched the prior month and provide a quick “snapshot” of my thoughts on those films. February was still a slower month for new releases, but I did manage to catch a few I liked (and a few I disliked). So without further ado, here are my Cinema Snapshots for February 2025.
September 5
"September 5" unveils the decisive moment that forever changed media coverage and continues to impact live news today. Set during the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, the film follows an American Sports broadcasting team that quickly adapted from sports reporting to live coverage of the Israeli athletes taken hostage.
The thesis of September 5 is perhaps best summarized by its ending text: “September 5, 1972 was the first time an act of terrorism was broadcast live around the world. 900 million people were watching.”
Much like last year’s Civil War, September 5 should be watched with proper expectations. It’s a film that’s much more interested in exploring media responsibility and ethics than the specifics of the events that unfolded. Viewers looking for a nuanced exploration of the Israeli and Palestinian perspectives may be disappointed. But that’s not a shortcoming of the film, it’s just not its area of focus.
The 1972 Olympics were a turning point in media consumption. As the first ever live broadcast of the Olympic events, it provided viewers with unprecedented access and quicker news updates than ever before. But with that ease of access and speed of reporting comes inevitable missteps and misinformation. Should the media’s priority be speed or should it be accuracy? Faced with this dilemma, we see the film’s characters make brave choices, but also foolish mistakes. They cover the events better than any other network, but they also quite possibly worsen the hostage situation altogether.
It’s a thought-provoking examination of the successes and failures of our media system at a landmark in reporting history. I highly recommend.
★★★★☆ | Watch now on Paramount+
Heart Eyes
For the past several years, the “Heart Eyes Killer” has wreaked havoc on Valentine’s Day by stalking and murdering romantic couples. This Valentine’s Day, no couple is safe…
As a horror rom com, Heart Eyes is at its best when relying on quips and self-deprecating humor. I laughed out loud unexpectedly multiple times at its fun tonal blend of MCU and Scream humor.
Unfortunately, the film is at its worst when attempting any sort of sincerity, which takes up far too much runtime. The audience is presented with an overplayed romance between unconvincing leads, a serial killer plot lacking any tension or intrigue, and an eye-rolling opening scene that starts the film off on a terribly campy note. I just never believed or felt any real emotion the film asked me to feel. And it certainly doesn’t help that it’s shot and acted like a made-for-tv movie.
Heart Eyes either needed a lot more humor or a lot more heart, and unfortunately it’s lacking in both.
★★☆☆☆ | Watch now in theaters
The Gorge
Two highly-trained operatives (Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy) are appointed to posts in guard towers on opposite sides of a vast and highly classified gorge, protecting the world from an undisclosed, mysterious evil that lurks within. They bond from a distance while trying to stay vigilant in defending against an unseen enemy. When the cataclysmic threat to humanity is revealed to them, they must work together in a test of both their physical and mental strength to keep the secret in the gorge before it’s too late.
I found The Gorge to be a pleasant surprise!
I loved the chemistry between Anya Taylor Joy and Miles Teller, and once we arrive at the gorge (which weirdly takes too long?) the first half does a great job balancing the romance with the mystery surrounding the film. The film thrives when it allows itself to be fun and genuine, and director Scott Derrickson does some neat stuff with the camera to show us the two operatives’ growing relationship.
The back half of The Gorge isn’t terrible, but it definitely starts to fall off the rails. The locked in tone gives way to overly serious and cliched action beats, while the extensive exposition over explains every plot point. And for a relatively long film, the final act is strangely rushed to the point of near incoherence.
That said, I’d still recommend it for anyone looking for a fun, easy watch that blends romance, action and sci fi.
★★★☆☆ | Watch now on Apple TV+
Captain America: Brave New World
In “Captain America: Brave New World,” Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident after meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
It’s not like the MCU has had a perfect track record before now. But lately the bad (and even mediocre) projects seem to feel more like cogs in the machine than labors of love. The heart is just lacking for me; the passion is gone.
Of course, the moviegoing landscape has changed too. The MCU (and the pandemic) permanently changed the blockbuster film, and with it, audience expectations. The stakes have to be higher, the series has to be meticulously interconnected, and every film has to be an *event* in order to drive people to the theater.
The result is Captain America: Brave New World, a film that seems to know it needs to evolve, but has no clue how to. A film that heavily relies on characters and events from The Incredible Hulk (2008) and Eternals (2021), but features a protagonist with zero stakes in either of those stories. A film that desperately wants to be a political thriller, but has absolutely nothing political or thrilling to say.
It’s not all bad. Director Julius Onah and cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau establish a visual language that really caught my attention. I’m a sucker for film emulation, and by pairing it with great lighting, rich color, and a constantly moving camera, they imbued many scenes with the tense, urgent feel the project was striving for (of course, that all goes out the window in the VFX-heavy third act). On top of that, the hand-to-hand combat is well-choreographed, shot in a clear way, and edited effectively. And while the supporting performances varied in effectiveness for me, Anthony Mackie is a strong and charismatic lead you can’t help but root for.
But the script has to be among the MCU’s weakest. The shockingly blunt and shoehorned expository dialogue is nearly enough to ruin it the film at times, but even at a structural level characters take action with little-to-no motivation. It doesn’t help that what little intrigue the story contains has already been done more effectively in the second and third Captain America entries. Sam’s investigation into a government conspiracy feels like a lesser version of Steve Rogers uncovering HYDRA in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and his quest to clear the name of Isaiah Bradley feels like a rehash of Steve clearing Bucky’s name in Captain America: Civil War.
Which points to a larger problem (and one I’ll end on). Sam isn’t Steve Rogers, as President Ross cruelly points out to him in a early crucial scene. But that isn't a bad thing. Sam is different than Steve, and the film should embrace that. Sam has a family, lacks superhuman powers, and his lived experiences as a Black man greatly inform his words and actions, as we see beautifully played out in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
Captain America: Brave New World simply doesn’t require Sam, an odd problem for a movie in which he’s the titular character. His role in the film could not only be replaced with Steve Rogers, but with nearly any other hero in Marvel’s vast library. How is the audience supposed to be invested in events that even our main character has a limited investment in?
The MCU can give us all the Hulks, cameos, and callbacks we can imagine, but until they make us care about our heroes and their conflicts again, it just makes me wonder…what’s the point?
★★☆☆☆ | Watch now in theaters
Last Breath
A true story about seasoned deep-sea divers who battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
Last Breath is based on a remarkable true story, but it makes for a pretty unremarkable (and occasionally bad) movie. Between the underwritten characters and the overly cheesy dialogue, it felt at times like the documentary re-enactments you’d see on the History Channel. The audience is dropped in the middle of a random story with characters we aren’t yet invested in, and as a result there’s an unfortunate detachment between what’s happening on screen and what we’re feeling.
I enjoyed the sound design paired with some wide underwater shots showing the vastness of the ocean, and the actors were doing what they could with the material. Unfortunately I think this was an instance where the director (who also directed the documentary) was too close to the story and couldn’t properly convey it in a narrative format.
★★☆☆☆ | Watch now in theaters