Movie Reviews | The Last Movie Guy

Tornado (2025): When East Meets West in a Slow-Burning Duel

The longstanding romance between westerns and samurai films has yielded some of cinema’s most iconic hybrids from The Magnificent Seven to A Fistful of Dollars. Tornado (2025), the second feature from Scottish director John Maclean, joins this lineage with quiet confidence and striking visual precision. Known for Slow West (2015), Maclean once again proves his deep understanding of the western form, only this time, with the philosophical touch of the Japanese jidaigeki.

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Posted on July 16 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Cinema’s fascination with giant monsters is as old as cinema itself. Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) is the perfect example of how the industry has fully capitalized on this niche. This is the seventh film in a saga that began in 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg. That first installment marked a turning point in the use of digital and animatronic effects, and John Williams’ score would go on to become one of the most iconic in film history.

Warfare (2025): The Horror of War

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Hugo Pagan Soto

War has always been fertile ground for cinema. Warfare (2025), by Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, ventures into these paths by telling a specific incident during the Second Battle of Ramadi in 2006. American forces were fighting for control of this key city in central Iraq. But Warfare does not aim to be an action film or a thriller that leans on real events to take the audience on a rollercoaster of visual effects and endless gunfights—no. Warfare seeks to be a testimony, a kind of tribute, and a recounting based purely on memory.

Heretic: An Intense Experience

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Hugo Pagan Soto

If there is one film genre that thrives in confined spaces and is grounded in a single location, it is horror. Heretic by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods serves as the perfect example to support this premise. The directors confine us to a house and, for much of the runtime, to a single room. Using this creative device, they manage to maximize tension and keep the viewer captivated, eagerly awaiting the story’s resolution. Of course, many other examples across different genres also take advantage of the virtues of shooting in a single location, from my perspective, none fit as seamlessly into this ecosystem as horror does.

Anora: A Cinematic Journey Through Emotion and Resilience

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Hugo Pagan Soto

Anora is the latest example of how director Sean Baker creates protagonists drawn from the most neglected and marginalized characters in our society. The strength of his characters stems from this fractured world, the hostile environment, and the inevitable hardships that accompany the individuals he portrays on screen. Now it’s the turn of Ani (Mikey Madison), a sex worker who crosses paths with the son of a Russian oligarch, and her world changes unexpectedly overnight.