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A guy wakes up alone on a colony ship, stares at a sleeping stranger for a year, and then makes a choice the movie wants to frame as romance. That’s the moment Passengers (2016) loses us, and we can’t stop talking about why.

We walk through the film’s best ingredients: a slick sci-fi setting, a genuinely scary isolation setup, a talented Jennifer Lawrence, and a premise that could have powered a tense space thriller. Then we dig into the uncomfortable stuff the screenplay keeps sanding down, from consent and confinement to how quickly the story tries to move past the damage. Along the way we roast the ship’s “rules” (food tiers, crew access, the one medical pod for thousands) and call out how the stakes keep evaporating right when they should spike.

The most fun part is the fix: we pitch a version of Passengers that starts with Aurora waking up and lets the truth unravel slowly, turning the movie into the horror story it keeps accidentally teasing. We also hit the Laurence Fishburne section, the rushed malfunction plot, and the ending that asks you to feel warm and fuzzy after everything that came before.

If you’re into movie review podcasts, sci-fi movie critiques, and conversations about narrative structure, character accountability, and why some “romance” plots age terribly, queue this one up. Subscribe, share it with a friend who hates this movie too, and leave us a review with your verdict: horror, romance, or both?

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Tron: Ares made us do something we almost never do: we hit play, heard the soundtrack kick in, and immediately wished we could keep the speakers on while turning the screen off. Dan and Tony break down the new Tron sequel with a very specific question in mind: how can a movie look this polished and still feel like nothing is happening? We get into Jared Leto’s Ares, why the “program becomes human” arc never shows up on screen, and how the movie leans on dialogue to claim growth instead of building it through choices.

From there, we pull on the threads that keep snapping: the permanence code timer that should create tension but rarely changes anyone’s strategy, the laser printing tech that can seemingly create anything without limits, and the corporate world details that make the characters feel smaller than the story says they are. We also talk through the chase beats, the ENCOM tower moment, and the strange action editing choices that keep fights from reading clearly. Along the way, we compare key moments to Tron: Legacy and why that film’s locked-in camera language and game structure still land.

We close with the finale, Athena’s wasted potential, the post-credit Sark tease, and a quick detour into shows we are actually enjoying right now, including Alien Earth, Widow’s Bay, and The Pitt. Next week we are watching Passengers, and we strongly recommend going in cold.

Subscribe for more movie talk, share the episode with a Tron fan, and leave a review so more listeners can find us. What is the one thing you would fix first in Tron: Ares?

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Marty Supreme looks like a prestige movie, sounds like three different movies at once, and plays like a sports film that refuses to give you the one thing you came for: a reason to care who wins. We walk through the plot beat by beat, then stop and argue about why it feels so strange when the directing and performances seem competent, yet the story keeps slipping out of our hands.

We get into the loud, anachronistic soundtrack choices (80s and 90s thriller cues crashing into a 1950s table tennis world), the missing “training and redemption” architecture that most sports movies rely on, and the core issue that never goes away: Marty is written as a guy who charms everyone, but the movie rarely shows the charm on screen. Along the way we hit the money logic that never adds up, the Globetrotters detour, the dog hustle spiral, and the moments that should create consequences but get brushed past.

Then we land on the ending, including a reported early draft twist that could explain a lot: a cut vampire ending tied to the 80s music. Whether that’s real or just Hollywood legend, it gives us one more angle to test what Marty Supreme is trying to say about ambition, ego, and exploitation.

If you’ve seen Marty Supreme, listen and come argue with us. Subscribe, share the show with a fellow movie hater, and leave a review. Did the movie work for you as a character study, or did it fall apart the moment it asked you to root for Marty?

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A movie about condoms, cocaine, and the World Cup should be a layup for a wild studio comedy. Balls Up somehow turns that setup into a string of half-formed bits, missing reactions, and scenes that refuse to escalate. So we did what we do best: hate watched it closely and pulled it apart like a broken engine.

We talk through why the central buddy comedy dynamic never locks in, how Mark Wahlberg looks stranded without a co-star who can elevate the rhythm, and why “straight man” only works when the straight man is still funny. We dig into the biggest script problems: characters who change traits scene to scene, stakes that get introduced then ignored, and jokes that explain themselves instead of landing. Along the way we call out the few moments that actually spark, like the dialysis callback, the Larry David translator voice, the karaoke choice, and the one truly committed set piece involving a vampire fish and a very unlucky pee break.

After the movie autopsy, we pivot to what we’ve been enjoying lately, including long-form YouTube essays that dissect the MrBeast machine, plus Tony’s current comfort watch with the American Gladiators reboot. We also tease our next watch, Marty Supreme, and briefly vent about how modern reboots like Frasier can still have great actors but fail on writing.

If you laughed, cringed, or disagreed with our takes, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review, then tell us the one change you’d make to fix Balls Up.

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Dark Crimes wants to be a grim, prestige-leaning true crime thriller, but the further we follow it, the less it holds together. We sit down with our notes and try to track basic things a crime mystery should make clear: who wants what, what the evidence means, and why Jim Carrey’s detective is even making these choices. Instead, we find missing motivation, unclear timelines, and a “reveal” that feels like it changes the vibe more than the story.

The most heated part of our conversation is the adaptation problem. The real case that inspires the film has a genuinely interesting hook, yet the movie pivots into a sex cult angle that we think adds nothing to the central mystery while pushing the material toward exploitation. We talk about what that choice does to the theme, why the ending lands with a thud, and how basic screenwriting tools like dialogue and a strong investigative partner are oddly absent. If you like film criticism, movie podcasts, and honest breakdowns of plot holes, this one is a full teardown.

After we finally put the movie down, we cleanse the palate with what we actually enjoyed this week, from Scream 7 to the return of American Gladiators, plus a few side quests into reality TV and why Traitors works. We also get into a surprisingly real topic: the influencer career dream and what happens when the audience moves on, then connect it to the creative trap of waiting for perfect camera gear before you make anything.

If you’re listening, subscribe for more movie chaos, share the episode with a friend who loves a good bad-movie autopsy, and leave a review telling us your all-time most confusing thriller twist.

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A three-hour sci-fi epic shouldn’t feel like you accidentally hit replay, yet that’s the vibe we can’t shake while breaking down Avatar 3: Fire and Ash. We’re Dan and Tony, and we watch the movies everyone’s already seen, then pull on the threads that the hype cycle ignores: character logic, story structure, and whether the emotional moments are actually earned.

We dig into the big question the movie flirts with and then seems to abandon: what’s the real moral dilemma here? From Jake Sully’s sudden turn toward “maybe I should kill Spider” to the recycled son-rebels-again storyline, we talk about why stakes don’t work when they show up without buildup. We also get into the film’s environmental themes, whale hunting brutality, and the colonialism allegory, especially when the humans are cartoonishly cruel and the Na’vi feel oddly disconnected from the animals the franchise used to treat as sacred.

Then we hit the craft stuff: CGI that still looks impressive, creature design that almost saves scenes, sound design choices that make us scream at our screens, and worldbuilding rules that seem to change depending on what the plot needs. Plus, an intermission you have to hear to believe: a mouse breaks into Tony’s Girl Scout cookies and sparks an all-out household war.

Subscribe for more movie reviews, share this with a friend who loves film criticism, and leave a review if you want us to keep surviving blockbusters like this. What’s the one moment in Fire and Ash you think should have worked but didn’t?

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A sequel can be bigger, darker, and meaner, but it still has to make sense. We take on Greenland: Migration as a natural disaster movie and post-apocalyptic survival thriller that keeps sprinting past its own logic: rations that magically last years, bunker life that feels weirdly comfortable, and character deaths that happen so fast they barely register. We’re not asking for a documentary. We’re asking for cause and effect, stakes that stick, and a world that doesn’t collapse the second you think about fuel, medicine, or basic survival behavior.

We also try to untangle the movie’s endgame, from the “civil war” language to the supposed war zone guarding a fertile crater in France. That’s where we introduce our favorite concept from the show: the “Dan Goodsell line,” the one sentence a script uses to explain away something bizarre so you’ll stop asking questions. When that line works, it’s a cheat we’ll happily accept. When it doesn’t, it becomes the loudest problem in the scene.

After we vent, we pivot to stuff we actually enjoyed, including Brawl in Cellblock 99 as a reminder of what it looks like when a movie sits in a situation and lets tension build. We also hit quick recommendations and TV talk, from Send Help to Jury Duty, and we tee up what we’re watching next. If you’re into movie podcast reviews, disaster movie debates, and screenwriting craft, you’ll have plenty to argue with us about. Subscribe, share the show, and leave a review, then tell us: what’s the worst plot hole you’ll still forgive?

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An AI judge. A 90-minute timer. One chair that can end you. Mercy sells itself like a sleek future-court thriller, but the more we follow its rules, the less the world holds together and that’s where our review gets viciously fun.

We walk through the movie’s central idea: Judge Maddox runs the Mercy Court as judge, jury, and (indirectly) executioner, while Chris Pratt’s Detective Chris Raven has to prove his innocence with no lawyer and almost no real investigation happening on the system’s side. We dig into the “guilt percentage” threshold, the film’s obsession with interconnected twists, and the strange choice to make the supposed hero an abusive alcoholic, which flips the entire emotional engine of the story. If you care about screenwriting, pacing, and believable stakes, we call out the exact moments where the logic collapses.

The conversation also goes bigger than one movie. We argue about what AI can and can’t do, why people over-trust chatbots, and why any story about algorithmic justice needs an actual point of view on ethics, bias, and accountability. Mercy keeps teasing a message about AI courts and policing, then swerves into a finale where the AI behaves however the plot demands, leaving us asking what the movie even thinks it’s saying.

We wrap with what we’re enjoying right now (Bait and Company Retreat) and tee up the next review: Greenland 2. If you listen, share your take, subscribe for the next one, and leave a review or a comment telling us where you think we’re dead wrong.

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A time portal opens on a soccer field, a future soldier somehow addresses the whole stadium without a mic, and the world immediately agrees to a draft that sends regular people into an alien war with barely any training. That’s the kind of logic we can’t let go, so we put The Tomorrow War (2021) on the table and ask what happened to the “streaming blockbuster” era where huge movies drop on Prime Video and vanish from everyone’s brain by Monday.

We walk through what works and what collapses: the video game structure, the unclear mission goals, the action geography that keeps getting fuzzier, and the time travel movie rules that change whenever the script needs a shortcut. We also get specific about casting and emotion, including why Chris Pratt’s approach doesn’t sell the family story, why Betty Gilpin deserved more to do, and how J.K. Simmons shows up and immediately makes the movie feel more alive. And yes, we give Sam Richardson his flowers because he threads the needle of being funny without breaking the tone.

From alien design to the toxin plotline to the government decisions that make no sense, we keep pitching the cleaner, meaner sci fi version hiding inside the premise, including the ending we thought they were building toward. We wrap with what we’re watching next and our next pick, Mercy, because apparently we’re doing a Chris Pratt double feature whether anyone asked for it or not.

Subscribe, share the show with a movie nerd friend, and leave a review if you want more deep dives into forgotten sci fi action movies. What’s the one change that would’ve fixed The Tomorrow War for you?

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A reboot can survive a bad budget, cheap CGI, and even a silly premise. What it cannot survive is refusing to be the movie it advertises. We dig into the Anaconda remake and the strange choice to set up jump scares, a Brazil jungle prologue, and a “we’re living the movie we’re making” hook, then drain it all of horror, tension, and consequences the moment the story gets moving.

We break down the biggest screenwriting and structure problems: the movie within a movie never becomes a real, trackable film with real scenes, so every setback feels weightless. We compare it to Tropic Thunder to show why that format works when the inner production is coherent and the danger forces characters to change. From there we pitch practical fixes that would have made this reboot a stronger horror comedy, including a clearer snake-driven goal, escalating stakes on the river, and character arcs that actually clash.

We also give credit where it is due. Steve Zahn repeatedly steals scenes with commitment and sharp delivery, and a handful of gags genuinely hit, from Buffalo Sober to the absurd “pee on it” bit to late-stage slapstick that finally feels like a creature feature. We wrap by sharing what we watched this week, then tee up next week’s review of The Tomorrow War for another round of big budget pain.

If you enjoy movie podcasts, film criticism, reboot debates, and craft talk about comedy writing, hit subscribe, share the show with a friend who loves bad remakes, and leave a review. What is the one change you would make to turn this into a real Anaconda movie?

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Dan: @shakybacon
Tony: @tonydczech

And follow the podcast on IG: @hatewatchingDAT