The Smashing Machine (2025)

The Smashing Machine is based upon the life of Mark Kerr, an amateur freestyle wrestling champion and mixed martial arts fighter. Kerr (played here by Dwayne Johnson, who certainly knows his way around a wrestling ring) becomes more addicted to pain drugs as he keeps subjecting his body to some pretty brutal treatment. The difficulty is that very few people try to stop him or help him, and he’s constantly fighting with his girlfriend (the always reliable Emily Blunt) over his drug use. Johnson seems to have bulked up even bigger than he normally is for this role, and he looks very different with hair and facial prosthetics. This movie might be remembered as the one where viewers started to consider that Johnson is a good actor, but honestly, who didn’t already know that he was a good actor? He’s very skilled at showing the difficulty Kerr has in getting sober and staying sober; he becomes very difficult to be around because he’s so very careful about his sobriety. Blunt’s Dawn gets mad because he’s changed so much; they’re really just too different from each other to be successful in this relationship. The fight sequences – and there are many of them – can be quite bloody and tough to watch, and I never quite grasped why so many of the tournaments were in Japan, but that just might be due to my own lack of knowledge about this sport. Perhaps the film’s lack of success was the result of Johnson trying to branch out as an actor, but isn’t that what we want to see of actors?

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

I’ve never missed any of the movies in the Jurassic Park/World/Universe franchise, and I must admit that I enjoyed Jurassic World: Rebirth more due to the actors than the dinosaurs this time. The setup is a little silly, but it follows the formula much like a Bond film always features an opening stunt. Yet another human goof leads to disastrous results with a particularly gruesome and ugly mutant, the D Rex, but more on that later. As we know from previous movies, the dinosaurs are loose now from the islands that contained them, but they can only live in certain temperate zones or they die. Rupert Friend’s pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs is trying to develop a breakthrough drug to treat heart disease, and he needs blood and tissue samples from three different species of dinosaurs: one that lives on the land, one that lives in the sea, and one that flies through the air. All bases covered, I suppose. So he assembles a team that includes Scarlett Johansson at her baddest-ass self as a former covert operative, Mahershala Ali as a former member of her team, and Jonathan Baily at his most adorable (slutty little glasses and all) as a paleontologist. Added to the mix are a family sailing near the latest dinosaur island: a father, his two daughters, and the slacker boyfriend of the older daughter. Xavier, the boyfriend, seems to be the comic relief until he actually turns into a bit of a hero. Once everyone has been connected, it’s just a danger-filled journey to find a means to get someone to rescue them after all of the ships have been wrecked. Along the way, the team tries to collect its samples, and we get to see just how adept Bailey is at showing the wonder of seeing dinosaurs in the wild. His facial expressions – and what a face it is – are almost childlike with joy. The youngest daughter, Isabella, acquires a cute little dinosaur companion that she calls Dolores, but most of the creatures are downright scary. A Tyrannosaurus Rex that can swim? A Distortus Rex that looks like a misshapen blend of a T Rex and a xenomorph from Alien and a bunch of leftover parts from other dinosaurs? No thank you. I’ll still with more familiar ones; they’re scary enough for me. There are some clever links to the earlier movies and to TV shows with dinosaurs scattered throughout the narrative, and the bad guy gets his comeuppance in a deliciously brutal way. I keep wondering just how many dinosaur islands are there? How many more islands with dinosaurs can there be to keep the sequels going? Given its box office success, it probably won’t be long before we find out.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

 

Avatar: Fire and Ash is the first film in the Avatar series not to be nominated for Best Picture, and it’s probably not too difficult to ascertain why. It’s mostly the same story arc as the previous films, just with a new villain. Well, a new additional villain. A lot of the same themes get covered: there’s another environmental crisis, and there’s the same struggle between the native people and the colonizers. There’s a big confrontation between the native people and the colonizers, of course, and the visual effects are the primary focus throughout. The twist, if there is one, is that this time there’s a group of Na’vi, the Mangkwan, who are participating in the destruction of their own world and attacking other Na’vi because The Mangkwan have rejected the worshiping of Eywa. They also start partnering with Stephen Lang’s Quaritch, the villain from the two previous movies, and he and the other colonizers introduce guns to this tribe of Navi, and it’s not going to end well for anyone. Anyone who’s ever seen a Western film knows where this is headed. The film spends a lot of time focusing on the young human with white skin, Spider (Jack Champion), who left his awful father (Quaritch) in the previous film to join the Na’vi. Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) is reluctant to accept him and welcome him into their home because of his skin color, so it’s possible that the filmmakers are trying to make a point about racism in a movie mostly populated by tall blue people. It’s not particularly clear what that point might be, though, since everyone seems to have enemies who have the same skin color and enemies who have a different skin color. Kiri (voiced by Sigourney Weaver) saves Spider after his oxygen mask fails by connecting him to the earth and undergoing the ritual that revives him and allows him to breathe the air of Pandora. This change leads the colonizers to capture Spider to see if they can reverse engineer his DNA so that they too could benefit from the secret to living without a mask. As you might expect from a James Cameron directed film, the visuals are stunning. This is the third film in the franchise to win for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, and they go hand-in-hand with the cinematography. I’m still not a fan of wearing those stupid 3D glasses over my regular prescription glasses, but eventually I adjust and just feel like I’m immersed in the world of Pandora again. I’m just not certain what message or messages we are meant to take from this film. Is this a movie cautioning the viewers about ruthless leaders? Is it an attempt to be subversive by suggesting that we combat their ideas even if they align themselves with people who might seemingly be on our side become of our common traits? The filmmakers, sadly, are not fully effective in making any of these points. I’m also troubled by the depiction of the Mangkwan in the film; they appear very similar to native tribes from, say, the Amazon or other parts of South America or Central America. It’s not a flattering depiction either. By the way, here’s another piece of Oscar trivia for you. Avatar: Fire and Ash is the first film directed by Cameron in 31 years not to be nominated for Best Picture. If the series continues, as he says it will, perhaps he should comfort himself with all the money he makes rather than expecting more Oscar glory.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Costume Design