After teasing a music-related reveal a few days ago, Rockstar has officially announced the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto VI. Called Grand Theft Auto VI: The Album, the soundtrack will feature 34 songs, which Rockstar describes as “brand-new, original tracks.” Based on the first six singles, which are available today, it seems that the collection will span a pretty wide range of genres, with everyone from Keith Richards to Travis Scott contributing.

Here’s what’s been confirmed so far:

• Yung Lean – “That’s It” (feat. Future & Metro Boomin)
• Travis Scott – “RHYNO” (prod. by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo)
• CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, PinkPantheress, Fred again.. & Etienne de Crécy – “Sexy Magic”
• Morgan Wallen – “Last Thing You Need”
• Rauw Alejandro – “Macacoa 2000”
• Keith Richards – “Bright Lights, Big City”

The soundtrack will be coming to all major streaming services, and Rockstar says that it’ll be available on both CD and vinyl. It’ll be launching on November 19th, the same day as the game.

The reveal of the album is just the latest Rockstar announcement as GTA VI approaches it’s long-awaited and oft-delayed launch. Last month the studio debuted a lengthy first-look at gameplay, which premiered on Netflix before being released on YouTube. The anticipation around the game is so big that almost every major game publisher — with the notable exception of Nintendo — has gotten out of its way.

Christopher Nolan’s engrossing take on The Odyssey dominated at the box office and spurred a newfound interest in classic literature among filmgoers. But a new retelling of the story made entirely with AI is so bad that it might just make viewers hate the original tale altogether.

The new film, called Odysseus: The Fall, comes via AI firm Fountain 0 and is written and directed by company cofounder Ash Koosha, who also lent his likeness to the title character and created all of the music. (The film’s credits are very short.) The studio’s only previous work is an AI film called Dreams of Violets that made it into Tribeca earlier this year. The Fall is, on its face, a much more ambitious project, billed as “the first completely AI generated film produced at the level of a Hollywood blockbuster.” In reality, it’s nothing close to “the level of a Hollywood blockbuster.” That may not necessarily be surprising, but after watching the entire 2.5-hour production I nonetheless found myself constantly surprised by just how much worse things could get. The Fall is the opposite of a glimpse at the future of AI filmmaking — it’ll make you wonder if there’s really any future in it at all.

The movie is available to rent now for $9.99 and, as far as I can tell, you can only watch it via a web browser. In order to view it on my living room TV I had to mirror the screen from my phone, which is not exactly IMAX in 70mm. Things didn’t get much better once I pressed play.

The Fall is plagued by two main issues. The first is consistency. The world of the film is constantly morphing, to the point that it’s incredibly distracting. The height of the cyclops that traps Odysseus and his men changes from shot to shot, waves move in the opposite direction of the wind, mouths don’t match the words spoken (and sometimes they move without producing a sound at all), and oars bend and twist as sailors row. In one scene a huge fleet of boats is racing through the ocean and one of them is inexplicably moving sideways. The AI-produced voice-overs can be incomprehensible, and at various points the names of both Odysseus and Zeus are pronounced wrong.

If it were just the odd hiccup it might be understandable, but there are so many faults in The Fall that it can be hard to focus on anything else. I watched the movie with my 13-year-old kid and it basically became a game of finding the weirdest mistakes. I noticed that a sword magically turned into a dagger, and then she one-upped me by spotting an alien carcass roasting over a spit. The Fall seems like a film designed to prove why script supervisors exist.

The thing is, while all of the AI-induced errors are distracting, they’re also the most entertaining part of the movie. There isn’t really much to distract from in The Fall because it is so dull. Because current AI models are really only capable of generating scenes that last a few seconds, the movie feels like a disjointed collection of moments from the odyssey that have been stitched together with little rhyme or reason. If you didn’t already know the story going into this, I don’t think you’d have any idea of what was going on, because the film explains very little. You don’t even learn about Penelope’s suitors until the movie is almost over.

I also can’t think of a single aspect of The Fall that feels improved because of AI. The “acting” is bafflingly bad, with characters pausing for seconds at a time for no apparent reason and bursts of laughter that jolt you out of nowhere. There’s no weight to the action, as if this takes place in a world where things like physics and gravity are suggestions rather than constants. Similarly, there aren’t any cool or impressive effects that wouldn’t be possible without the technology. The monsters look like shabby stop-motion creatures from the 1930s, which is all the weirder when they’re put beside the smooth, hyperreal human characters that AI spews out. It’s not just jarring, it’s boring and ugly.

Koosha claims that he adapted this story because he “always felt passionately about Homer’s epic tale since [he] originally read it years ago.” It seems much more likely that he’s trying to skate by on the hype and energy created by Nolan’s film, turning AI slop into a modern-day iteration of direct-to-video cash grabs. But this also puts the film at an incredible disadvantage from the very beginning, inviting comparisons to one of the most critically and commercially successful movies of the last few years, one that was especially beloved because of the director’s insistence on human craftsmanship. Nolan is someone who cares deeply about film, and his passion and enthusiasm is why stars want to work with him and viewers flock the theaters to see his movies.

The existence of The Fall, meanwhile, shows utter contempt for the medium, attempting to boil the work of hundreds of skilled workers into slop produced by a tiny team. It’s so terrible it’ll make you appreciate human-made art all the more.

There are a lot of movies that have tried to seamlessly integrate modern tech — text messages, livestreams, etc. — into their storytelling. Some of the most novel attempts have been in the genre space, like the Twitch-style horror flick Deadstream. But the most chaotic to date might just be Vintage Violence, an absurd crime thriller with lots of blood, jokes, and screentime.

I was able to catch Vintage Violence, the latest from director Eugene Kotlyarenko, on my fifth day at the Toronto International Film Festival. Kotlyarenko has previously explored our hyper-connected culture in 2020’s Spree, a movie in which Stranger Things’ Joe Keery plays a rideshare driver who starts murdering passengers while livestreaming the crimes. But Vintage Violence takes things a step further by trying to replicate what it’s like to constantly be on your phone as the movie plays out. It’s a lot to take in, but I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately there isn’t a trailer yet to give you a better sense of how things work onscreen, but I’ll make sure to share it when they do release one.

Vintage Violence was one of three films I took in on day 5 of TIFF 2026; the others were a 4K restoration of a cult classic and a devastating drama that’s on its way to Netflix. Here are my thoughts on all three.

Vintage Violence

_{No theatrical date yet}

From the premise alone you can tell this movie is ridiculous. Carter (Cole Sprouse), a disgraced MrBeast-style influencer, finds a cache of vintage Levi’s while livestreaming, and one of his fans, Izumi (Kiko Mizuhara), suggests he comes to Tokyo to sell the denim for some big cash. When he gets there, just about everyone is running some kind of scam — pretty quickly the yakuza get involved, including an enforcer with a prosthetic middle finger — and things play out like a toned-down, but still brutal and bloody, Takashi Miike film. But what really elevates Vintage Violence is the way it constantly displays what characters are doing on their phones right alongside the main film. That means everything from sending text messages to livestreaming to listening to whale sounds to relax. It can get chaotic and a challenge to follow — at one point I was trying to read the chat on a Kick stream while an action scene played out beside it — but that’s also kind of the point.

Ken Russell’s The Devils

_{In theaters on October 16th}

The Devils is one of those cult classics I’ve always meant to watch but never got around to. But this new 4K theatrical rerelease was the perfect excuse. First released in 1971, The Devils is a surreal and disturbing account of a witch trial in a small, independent town in 17th-century France. Run by an impossibly handsome priest (Oliver Reed) who openly defies a powerful cardinal, the town soon descends into pure hysteria following reports of demonic possession, which the church seizes on in order to oust the priest. This version is not only a remaster but also a director’s cut — it’s rated NC-17 — and while I can’t speak to what’s new since I hadn’t seen it before, I will say the film rarely shows its age, with enthralling and disturbing sequences merged with a poignant story about the dangers of mixing politics and religion. And in 4K the stark architecture and uncomfortable violence really pop on the big screen.

Gentle Monster

_{In theaters on October 30th; streaming on Netflix on November 18th}

Marie Kreutzer’s latest feature is a difficult watch. It follows a young family that is torn apart when the police arrive at their country home one day to seize the father’s digital devices as part of a CSAM investigation. The story is primarily centered on the mother, Lucy (Léa Seydoux), a pianist who struggles with accepting a truth that threatens to upend her entire world. Gentle Monster does a remarkable job of slowly taking you through Lucy’s complicated, messy, and constantly changing understanding of the situation, but what really makes it work is Seydoux’s raw and unnerving performance, which oscillates between wishing the problem would go away to doing anything she can to protect her son. It’s a great film, but one that’s certain to leave you unsettled.

It makes sense that Musk is a long film. The latest from Alex Gibney, who has previously directed documentaries about Theranos and Steve Jobs, is an impressively thorough retelling of the story of Elon Musk, from his early days as a dot-com millionaire to “taking a wood chipper” to vital US government departments. In order to understand Musk’s rise to power, you need to know the whole story. Musk tells it compellingly and convincingly, but doesn’t offer much in the way of revelations if you’re aware of Musk’s catastrophic influence on the world. For everyone else, a demanding runtime just shy of four hours might prove too much of a barrier to being convinced.

The film opens with shots of space and a voiceover of Musk detailing some of his sci-fi ambitions. From there, it’s a fairly chronological narrative of how we got to this point. The first section of the film reveals how Musk’s mythology was built, while also steadily seeding doubts that he’s the Tony Stark–style tycoon that many believe him to be. It starts off with the basic details, like when Musk was ousted as CEO from PayPal or how he convinced the world he founded Tesla, a company that existed before he was involved. The film juxtaposes his many bombastic claims about autonomous vehicles with visceral footage of a deadly crash involving a Tesla on autopilot. It drops in poignant interviews, like when former MAGA influencer Ashley St Clair, mother to one of Musk’s many children, declares in a terrified voice: “Elon is a nuke.”

At the outset, Gibney makes it clear that his goal is to answer two questions with interrelated answers: how Musk got so powerful, and why we allowed it to happen. By gradually accruing power through Tesla, X, SpaceX, and Starlink, Musk ingratiated himself with governments all over the world, in particular the US, and then used that political power to further his own interests once it became so hard to extricate his influence. The documentary lays out the plot clearly and concisely, all in one place.

Musk himself didn’t participate in the documentary. Instead, he sent Gibney a legal threat over it. So Gibney built in a digital doppelgänger that mouths to audio of things Musk actually said, based on a database the team created of existing clips. The avatar Musk veers into uncanny valley territory, with its overly expressive face and unsettling heavy breathing, but it’s a smart way of putting Musk’s face to his words, in a manner of speaking. And it fits well with Musk’s belief in simulation theory. Additionally, the movie uses plenty of sim and video game imagery to illustrate things throughout, like a fictional first-person shooter that depicts Musk dismantling Twitter and the US government with a chainsaw that shoots lasers. It’s over-the-top and absurd, but then again we’re here, in part, because of a kid bureaucrat named Big Balls.

In many ways, Musk is successful. It lays out how he got to power and why he was able to accrue so much of it without being stopped, which boils down to him being far too rich and ingrained by the time most people realized what was going on. Unfortunately, as someone who has followed the story over the years, I can’t say I learned much or gained new insights into the man while watching Musk. 

Which makes me wonder who this film is for. Many people have already woken up to the fact that Musk is something quite different than some kind of genius inventor, but there are still plenty who only associate his name with past wins like incremental advances in reusable rockets or pre-Tesla Cybertruck vehicles. The film even interviews one fan who says he intentionally ignores the things about Musk that he doesn’t agree with. That’s exactly the kind of person who would benefit most from watching Musk lay it out all in one place.

But in a world of dwindling attention spans, four hours in a theater is a lot to ask (even if it does have a 10-minute intermission). It could miss the people who need to see it the most.

_{Musk is in theaters on October 9th. This review is based on a screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.}

Update: changed the premiere date to reflect that the release was moved up a week.

Marvel’s mishandling of its Blade reboot will likely go down as one of the studio’s biggest mistakes. There was a great actor in place to play the vampire hunter (Mahershala Ali), and a promising director set to take over the reins (Bassam Tariq). In retrospect, though, the disappointing demise of Blade might not be such a bad thing, because Tariq and Ali have collaborated on something much more interesting than a superhero reboot: the powerful hitman thriller Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother.

That was one of five movies I was able to cram into a very hectic third day at the Toronto International Film Festival (you can see my previous reports here and here), and it was one of those days that drives home why events like TIFF can be so special. Each film I saw was drastically different from the last — there was everything from a drama about drifting cars to a throwback horror flick based on a famous Japanese ghost story — which was a great reminder that there are still plenty of new ideas left in the world of film.

So let’s get to it. Here are some rapid-fire reviews of everything I saw on day 3 at TIFF.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

_{In theaters in October}

Latif (Ali) lives a life of contradictions: he’s a devout Muslim and loyal father, but he also works as a hitman, albeit one who works under a specific moral code (only kill bad guys; never use a gun). But both his faith and his code are tested when his wife dies and he’s forced to become a single father to three kids, including a newborn baby. At the same time, his blood-soaked past comes back to haunt him, putting everyone at risk. We’re in a great moment for pure action flicks like Furious or the John Wick franchise, but Your Mother offers something very different. It’s a powerful character study, one where the action is comparatively fleeting, but all the more powerful and impactful because of it. It’s a film that always left me guessing just how Latif was going to get through this, and, despite being very serious and often solemn, the story also has plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Ali is excellent as the morally questionable righteous killer, but I was also really impressed by John Cho as the villain, a charismatically unhinged leader of a right-wing church group.

In Alaska

_{No theatrical date yet}

A slow-burning crime thriller, In Alaska, co-directed by Jaap van Heusden and Vinnie Karetak., follows a suicidal teen named Woody (Leo Matthew Temela) who, after a tragic mishap, finds himself wanted by the FBI for causing millions of dollars worth of damage to an oil pipeline. It’s a film of two sides: Woody’s desperate attempts at survival, and veteran agent Susan (Noomi Rapace), the only who realizes the damage wasn’t caused by eco-terrorists. In Alaska is a moodier take on the genre, and one that asks some difficult and important questions about both its leads, particularly Woody, who constantly grapples with whether he even wants to live at all. What starts out bleak ends on a much more hopeful note.

The Face of Horror

_{No theatrical date yet}

Conceptually, Anna Biller’s The Face of Horror is a mishmash of styles and influences. It’s based on the influential Japanese ghost story Yotsuya Kaidan, but adapts the tale for 14th century England. It then renders the whole thing in the style of Technicolor horror classics. That curious combination works, though, as the film has a campy sense of theatricality to it, with over-the-top performances and classic-style special effects  — including some truly memorable make-up work — that lend its grisly tale of murder and betrayal a distinct vibe. And it’s all held together by two strong lead performances: Eleanor (Kristine Froseth), the jilted wife-turned-nightmare of Edward (Jonah Hauer-King), a smarmy and morally-dubious knight who is the kind of asshole you can’t wait to see get what’s coming to him.

Babies

_{No theatrical date yet}

A film that explores that nagging question many long-term couples are forced to answer repeatedly: when are you going to have a baby? Written and directed by Lauren Miller Rogen, Babies is centered on Annie (Anna Kendrick) and Aaron (Seth Rogen), the only childless couple in their social circle. But Annie can’t stop thinking about the question — there’s a lot of her internal monologue debating the pros and cons of having kids — and the couple are forced to really confront the idea when a close friend and her young daughter come to stay with them, providing a taste of parenthood. Babies works for two reasons. First, it’s hilarious: Kendrick and Rogen have a blast together, and the supporting cast includes the likes of Issa Rae, Zach Cherry, and Ed Helm. But it also feels grounded in a way that makes it very relatable, whether you have kids or not.

Drifter

_{No theatrical date yet}

If Good Will Hunting and The Fast and the Furious were smushed together, you might get something like Drifter. The film is directed by longtime Fast star Sung Kang, who also plays the lead role of Tree, the janitor of a smalltown race track who moonlights as a driver for a drug kingpin. But all he really wants to do is drift, and events conspire to bring him to an event where he’ll go up against the best drifters in the world. The challenges are much more than just on the track, though; Tree has spent most of his life alone, so he’s forced to learn to open up to others, and he also has to contend with extracting himself from the world of crime. Unfortunately, Drifter leans too heavily on the established formula of underdog sports stories, which makes most of its beats feel predictable, with the exception of its completely improbable ending. Worse still is that, with the exception of Tree, none of the characters feel developed at all, and the crime thriller aspect doesn’t gel well with the feel-good story. At least there are some beautiful sequences that make drifting a car feel like an artform.

Due to a scheduling mishap, I was only able to check out two movies on my second day at the Toronto International Film Festival — but I did manage to get an early look at and some fascinating details on one of my most anticipated films this year.

Even if you don’t know the name Laika, you probably know the studio’s work; it’s the animation house behind stop-motion hits like ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings. Over the years Laika’s films have steadily gotten more impressive on both a technical and artistic level. Which brings us to the incredible-looking Wildwood, hitting theaters next month. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a look:

Some of the crew from Laika was on stage at TIFF to talk about the making of Wildwood, in particular why this film looks more lifelike than the studio’s previous work. There are a few reasons. One has to do with the animation itself, which, as you can see in the trailer, is incredibly smooth in the new film. “We’re in the midst of the evolution of an art form,” Laika’s head of animation Brad Schiff explained. “Because we have digital cameras, we’re able to see what we’re doing; we have what we call frame-grabbers.” This lets Laika’s animators see all of the recently-shot frames as they’re animating, allowing them to track every single movement of a puppet, ensuring everything moves smoothly. “There’s no reason for stuttery animation, other than a stylistic choice,” Schiff said.

The puppets themselves are also more advanced. They utilize an internal “diaphragm” that Laika calls a breather, which the studio first experimented with on its previous film, 2019’s Missing Link. This time, all of the major puppets are outfitted with breathers, and this lets the animators make characters appear to breathe in a lifelike way, so that they seem more human in the final product.

You can see some of that in the trailer above, but I was also able to watch a handful of clips from the film, and — despite Laika stressing that they weren’t final — they looked incredible. One showed a fast and tense bike chase through a bustling version of Portland, where Wildwood takes place. There was a speed and tension to it that felt like a live-action sequence. In the movie, a young girl named Prue loses her little brother in an “impassable wilderness” that’s home to a rich fantasy world. In the clips I saw, she did everything from escaping an ornate mansion filled with guard dogs distracted by their own tails, to soaring above a vast landscape while on the back of a giant bird. Wildwood looked as stylish and detailed as you’d expect from a Laika production, but what impressed me the most was how realistic it all felt in motion.

A few other details for those who love numbers: Wildwood features 233 puppets (36 are just versions of Prue), was brought to life by 49 animators, and took 231 weeks from start to finish. It’s in theaters on October 23rd.

As for the movies I was able to actually catch on day 2 of TIFF, they were both great, but also, could not be more different. One is a sweetly morbid musical, the other a life-affirming family film made with traditional animation. And if you missed my previous TIFF coverage — including films like All of a Sudden and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York — you can check it out right here.

Julián

_{No theatrical date yet}

Julián comes via Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, best known for the features Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers. And it shares much in common with the studio’s previous work, telling the story of a child lost in a world of fantasy. In this case it’s seven-year-old Julián who goes to live with his grandmother in Brooklyn while his dad is on a work trip. Julián is obsessed with ocean life and anything pretty, so when he meets some kids making costumes for an upcoming mermaid parade, joining in becomes his sole focus in life. But his colorful personality often clashes with his more conservative grandmother, and when some boys bully Julián for wearing a mermaid tail, he starts to retreat into himself. Ultimately, Julián is a fairly straightforward tale about being yourself and allowing others to do the same, but it’s told with tremendous style and passion, making it a welcome addition to the studio’s catalog. Plus, the ending is almost guaranteed to make you tear up.

Stuffed

_{No theatrical date yet}

A love story between an eccentric taxidermist and the man who agrees to give up his life in order to fulfill her lifelong dream of stuffing a human. Oh, and also it’s a musical. Stuffed has shades of Sweeney Todd, but despite its macabre premise, it’s much more heartfelt. Barrie (Harry Melling) lives a sad life working at a sandwich factory, collecting obituaries, and caring for his aging mother. But he’s obsessed with being remembered, and when he answers an online ad promising to make him “exceptional,” he meets Araminta (Jodie Comer), whose house is filled with taxidermied animals, but who has also always wanted to take the next step. Their interests, it seems, line up: she wants to stuff a person, he wants to live forever. But as they work together on the weirdo plan, the two become close, complicating the whole killing Barry thing. Stuffed is morbid and occasionally wince-inducing, but it’s also filled with a lot of love and heart, and a not-so-surprising amount of humor.

Hello once again from Toronto, where for a week every year I watch far too many movies and tell you all about them. The festival, better known as TIFF, is always a great preview of the months ahead in film, with a nice mix of mainstream fare, awards contenders, indie surprises, and genre flicks destined to be cult classics. The streamers also love to make their presence felt here, previewing some of their most anticipated projects. Last year, for instance, Netflix showed off both Guillermo del Toro’s long-awaited Frankenstein as well as the third Knives Out movie, and I was also able to watch everything from the terrifying video game adaptation Exit 8 to Park-Chan wook’s dark satire No Other Choice.

This year looks similarly promising. There are new films from directors like Takashi Miike, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, and Werner Herzog, and very intriguing features including a four-hour-long documentary on Elon Musk. There are also previews of a surprising number of Halloween-adjacent streaming series in the form of Netflix’s Below, Peacock’s Crystal Lake, and Amazon’s Carrie. I’m aiming to see just shy of 30 films and series over the next week or so, and, just like last year, I’ll be writing daily dispatches covering every single thing I see with a brief review.

And things have gotten off to a very interesting start. On my first day I watched four movies and the premiere of a streaming series, highlighted by John Turturro’s wonderful turn as a technophobic petty thief in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. I also saw one of the most Canadian things I’ve ever watched and a three-hour drama that somehow doesn’t feel overlong.

Here, in no particular order, is what I’ve seen so far.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York

_{In theaters on October 30th}

Imagine if Uncut Gems was a little less stressful, but much more heart-wrenching. Harry (Turturro) is an aging pickpocket, one who sticks to what he knows while the world advances around him. He doesn’t understand smartphones, has no idea what USB means, and laments that no one carries cash anymore. But he’s still able to make a dishonest living and take care of his sick wife. Then one day he accidentally steals a crypto gizmo from the wrong guy, and is pulled into a tense thriller that puts everyone around him at risk. The film is a beautiful love letter to the city of New York, with lots of shots of busy streets and packed subways, but it’s mostly an incredible showcase for Turturro. He plays a genuinely bad guy, but you can’t help but love him in spite of it; at one point he literally steals candy from a child, and it made me smile. The final moments of the film are just about perfect.

All of a Sudden

_{In theaters on November 25th}

A story about conversation and connection, and one that — despite being over three hours long — absolutely breezes by, much like a great evening out where you suddenly realize it’s 2AM. Split between France and Japan, and helmed by Drive My Car director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, All of a Sudden comes to life after a chance meeting between Marie-Lou (Virginie Efira), the workaholic director of a nursing home, and Mari (Tao Okamoto), a playwright who is coping with a terminal cancer diagnosis. The two connect instantly and spend an entire night talking about everything from the ruinous impact of capitalism to the practical aspects of caring for elderly patients. It all feels natural and heartfelt, though, and at its core, All of a Sudden is a movie about what it means to be human: how we want to spend our time, and how we treat those around us, particularly those who are different or difficult. It sounds cliché, but it left me feeling both hopeful and terrified for the future. The film is also downright gorgeous, and there’s a good chance you’ll immediately start pricing tickets to Paris or Kyoto after you step out of the theater.

Below

_{Streaming on Netflix on October 8th}

Below is the rare story set in Newfoundland, on the east coast of Canada. It’s a compelling creature feature, a thriller where a mysterious monster is slowly terrorizing a remote fishing village that has been decimated by dwindling fish stocks. Josh Hartnett stars as a father of three who is just trying to survive, when strange chunks of ice start appearing in the harbor, portending something real bad. I watched the first two (of six) episodes, and even though it’s pretty clear what is going on, the show does a remarkable job of building up the mood and suspense, which makes the horrific reveals hit harder. Below is also surprisingly authentic and funny; anyone who has been to the East Coast will feel right at home when they see a bucket of salt beef or the dreaded screech.

Rogue Trooper

_{No theatrical date yet}

An animated satirical sci-fi movie based on the comic of the same name, Duncan Jones’ Rogue Trooper is set on a toxic planet that is home to a never-ending war that is a lucrative venture back on Earth. It follows a squad of genetically engineered supersoldiers who find themselves stranded in enemy territory, and their numbers steadily dwindle over the course of the film. Unfortunately, despite some occasionally beautiful sci-fi imagery that imbues a real sense of scale, Rogue Trooper mostly falls flat, with a drab story, forgettable characters, and action that lacks any real weight. Even worse, despite boasting a cast including Jemaine Clement, Matthew Berry, and Philomena Cunk herself, Diane Morgan, it’s also not funny at all.

How We Stand

_{No theatrical date yet}

After moving to Los Angeles as part of the Indian Relocation Act in the 1950s, three sisters find themselves separated from each other after their mother is killed. The story then jumps forward a few decades, when each sister is living a very different life; one is trying to make it as an actress despite being typecast, one is a doctor after being adopted by a white family, and the youngest is struggling after passing through dozens of foster families. How We Stand explores the real impact of some truly horrific policies and programs, and the trio of actors at its core — Amber Midthunder, Alyssa Wapanatâhk, and Isabel DeRoy-Olson — are all excellent. But the film is saddled with writing that can feel too on the nose, and its magical realism elements feel underutilized until the very end.

Marvel’s Wolverine captures just how angry its lead character is. The latest PS5 exclusive from Spider-Man developer Insomniac, Wolverine is a straightforward action game that is at its best when you’re (literally) slicing through enemies or thrust into a sequence pulled from a blockbuster movie, like climbing the fuselage of a plane as it careens toward land or racing a motorcycle across rain-slicked city streets. It’s the kind of game that can really get your heart rate rising, and keeping Logan mad is a key part of the strategy. In many ways, it’s a throwback to straightforward action titles of the past — and it’s a refreshing change of pace in a medium saturated with live-service and open-world games.

Though it comes from Insomniac, Wolverine is very different from Spider-Man, which thrust the web-slinger into an open-world version of New York City. Instead, this is a much more linear experience that feels like a combination of two other PlayStation staples: God of War and Uncharted. Rather than follow Wolverine as a member of the X-Men, the story instead has him as an often reluctant member of Team X, a mercenary group with similar pro-mutant aims but a much more violent approach. Instead of heroes like Cyclops and Professor X, Wolvy is joined by more villain-adjacent characters like Sabretooth, Mystique, and Nathaniel Essex, before eventually connecting with Jean Grey. The story pulls Logan and his companions across the globe, but it starts out relatively simple, as they investigate a rash of mutant disappearances connected to a billionaire arms dealer.

The most important thing about both Wolverine the character and Wolverine the game is fighting. This is a hairy little dude who loves to scrap, and his mutant powers — healing and sharp claws — make it so that he is very good at it, able to both take a huge amount of damage and dish it out. And the best part of the game is how Wolverine-specific the action is. The combat is fast and violent and forces you to be aggressive. Wolverine can leap huge distances to take out foes and use his claws to both repel attacks and slice at enemies, often with very gruesome results. (At the end of a battle he’s usually coated in blood.) An important part of this is Wolverine’s rage level, which increases the more you fight. As his rage grows, it allows you to do two things: go absolutely berserk and kill a rash of enemies with a single blow, and use your healing power as a sort of extra life in case your health depletes. It’s a clever system that means you can’t sit back and play it safe. Wolverine isn’t chill, and you can’t be either.

That’s the God of War side of Wolverine. The Uncharted side comes in the form of all of the over-the-top set-pieces you’re thrown into. I’ll refrain from detailing some of the best ones for spoiler reasons, but I’ll say that, just like in Uncharted, these moments make it feel like you’re playing out a wild sequence from an action movie. There are chases across the rooftops of Tokyo, massive boss battles against some iconic comic book villains, and scenes where Wolverine is literally being ripped apart as he fights for survival.

The flip side is that, because of this setup, Wolverine is also much more restrictive than most of its contemporaries. In some ways this is a good thing; it’s refreshing to play a game that isn’t trying to do everything. But there are still some awkward elements. For instance, much like in Spider-Man, there are lots of collectibles that will reveal new bits of story or unlock new suits for Wolverine to wear. But exploration outside of the main path is extremely dull, so the only reason to track these down is if you have a completionist mindset. It’s also disappointing that Wolverine’s closet of outfits is much less fun than Spider-Man’s, and they often feel out of place with the game’s attempt at a more gritty tone.

Making matters worse is that, despite a promising start, the story ends up in a largely forgettable place, with few surprises, particularly if you have an even slight knowledge of the X-Men universe from comics or the animated series. Outside of combat and set-pieces, Wolverine skews generic AAA game; the voice acting, the cutscenes, and even some of the missions feel like standard video game fare, many of which seem out of place. Wolverine is amazing when you’re surrounded by ninjas trying to kill you. But when Logan is in a tux trying to spy on a fancy party? Not so much.

All that said, Wolverine’s return to a simpler and smaller style of action — I beat the game in around 13 hours — is still notable, particularly from Sony, which has had a rough few years after placing many ill-fated bets in the live-service space. But much like last year’s Ghost of Yōtei, Wolverine shows that PlayStation is still capable of the single-player blockbusters the platform is best known for. It’s also launching at perhaps the busiest video game release period in recent memory, going up against major titles including Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Control Resonant, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, Gears of War: E-Day, Silent Hill: Townfall, Star Wars: Zero Company, and, soon enough, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Grand Theft Auto VI.

In that company, despite occasionally skewing generic, Wolverine’s bloodthirsty focus on action is something that makes it stand out.

^{Marvel’s Wolverine launches on September 15th on the PS5.}