Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker - 2/5

This is the Donald Trump of movies; it immediately begins dismantling everything its predecessor did. At least a dozen of the biggest plot holes from the last movie get directly addressed, which is a noble attempt but ends up making for a choppy, uneven film. It’s crammed to the gills with about three movies worth of plot and the first third especially plays out almost like a montage. Visually it’s not as stunning as The Last Jedi and its plot meanders, only knowing where it doesn’t want to go. So there’s good news and bad news. The good news is it’s much better than Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the bad news is it’s still not very good.

Closest comparison: It’s like Dragonball Z by way of Indiana Jones.

Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Fantasy
Tone: Adventure

The Cloverfield Paradox (Netflix) - 3/5

This is a fun sci-fi disaster movie and wisely moves fast enough to keep the audience questions to a minimum. By avoiding specifics the plot is able to adopt a 'here's what's happening, just go with it' attitude that works well enough. Lots of fun sci-fi ideas, most of which have been done before. Like many disaster movies it suffers from character contrivances that put themselves in more danger than necessary, but if that doesn't bother you then you may really enjoy this one.