Weapons And Together Are Both Effective Thrillers While Smurfs Is A Bizarre Stinker

I've now seen 91 movies in the movie theaters this year and we have the second great movie of the year in Weapons. Together is a really enjoyable thriller as well. You can make a case that 2025 is building a resume for one of the greatest years in horror history.

I also saw Smurfs which is one of the weirdest movies of the year. That's not exactly a compliment.

Weapons has a jaw dropping final act that is both thrilling and completely earned. It’s a mix of horror, comedy and action and all of it is great. This is the 2nd best movie of the year (behind Sinners). It's a Top 10 movie of the decade for me. It's that good.

Julia Garner gives a star-worthy performance in a very challenging role where she has to be someone you believe to be trusted but also personally struggling a great deal. Josh Brolin is equally perfect as a father falling apart at the seams because he misses his son so much.

The minuscule critique is that the media likely would have been more involved but this is picking nits. This is a high wire act pulling off a movie with a big concept like this and nailing the finale. 

I do wish we could get more comedies in the theater but we keep getting great movies from creators like Zach Cregger, it’s impossible to complain.

Weapons: A

Together is a really well made horror movie with lead actors you root for. Unfortunately, like most scary movies, the most terrifying thing is the script trying to resolve the story at the end.

No one goes to a horror movie because they want to see how it gets resolved. This is what ultimately keeps this movie from being very good. Dave Franco and Allison Brie are believable both as a couple struggling to stay together and ultimately as one struggling to stay apart.

This is well directed and I really appreciated the brisk pace of the first two acts. Nothing felt rushed but the story never stopped moving. 

The third act of this movie just isn’t good. But that would have been a difficult thing to pull off when you consider the concept of the movie. This is worth seeing for the journey, not the destination.

Together: B

Smurfs is a bizarre, fever dream of a movie. It’s not good at all. The story is weak and the movie only exists to make statements about itself. Having said all of that, it’s also not boring. That means something, I guess.

Why does this movie exist? It’s a Smurfs movie in 2025 that is sort of a Rihanna star vehicle where we never actually see Rihanna. It’s a kids movie that seems focused on trying to (and failing to) making adults laugh. I really don’t know which demographic would enjoy this movie.

Maybe it’s just a movie for people that do a lot of drugs. This whole thing is absurd. For example, there’s a scene where the Smurfs end up in Paris and go to a discotheque. There, they jump into a disco ball that is filled with water. None of it makes any sense and nothing is really explained.

It’s nonsense. No one is taking anything seriously. Except the ticket price. They will still charge you full price for this.

2025

1)Sinners

2)WEAPONS

3)Presence

4)The Life Of Chuck

5)Black Bag

6)The Ballad Of Wallis Island

7)Warfare

8)Friendship

9)Superman

10)Mission Impossible 8

11)28 Years Later

12)Novocaine

13)Fantastic Four

14)The Naked Gun

15)Final Destination 6

16)The Amateur

17)Drop

18)Dangerous Animals

19)TOGETHER

20)Death Of A Unicorn

21)The Accountant 2

22)The Damned

23)One Of Them Days

24)Materialists

25)Lilo & Stitch

26)Paddington 3

27)Thunderbolts

28)F1

29)Clown In A Cornfield

30)Bring Her Back

31)Hell Of A Summer

32)Karate Kid 6

33)Fight Or Flight

34)Valiant One

35)How To Train Your Dragon

36)Elio

37)Rule Breakers

38)Heart Eyes

39)Mickey17

40)The Surfer

41)Last Breath

42)Flight Risk

43)Minecraft

44)Den Of Thieves 2

45)Dogman

46)Companion

47)Jurassic World Rebirth

48)Ballerina

49)A Working Man

50)The Last Rodeo

51)Eddington

52)Shadow Force

53)The Alto Knights

54)The Bad Guys 2

55)The Penguin Lessons

56)The Chosen Part 2

57)Looney Tunes

58)Opus

59)M3GAN 2

60)Becoming Led Zeppelin

61)Captain America: BNW

62)I Know What You Did Last Summer

63)Until Dawn

64)The Chosen Part 1

65)Riff Raff

66)The Home

67)Inheritance

68)The Chosen Part 3

69)The Wedding Banquet

70)SMURFS

71)The Legend Of Ochi

72)Night Of The Zoopocalypse

73)The Phoenician Scheme

74)Sneaks

75)Ash

76)Jujutsu Kaisen

77)The King Of Kings

78)The Friend

79)Dan Da Dan 2

80)Snow White

81)The Unbreakable Boy

82)Brave The Dark

83)Wolf Man

84)Hurry Up Tomorrow

85)The Monkey

86)Love Hurts

87)The Last Supper

88)Woman In The Yard

89)Bride Hard

90)Juliet & Romeo

91)In The Lost Lands