TRASH IN MY EYE Reviews: 2026

Showing posts with label 2026. Show all posts

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Review: Pixar's "HOPPERS" Surprises and Amazes

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 of 2026 (No. 2057) by Leroy Douresseaux

Hoppers (2026)

Running time: 104 minutes

Rating: MPA – PG for action/peril, some scary images and mild language

DIRECTOR: Daniel Chong

WRITERS: Jesse Andrews and Daniel Chong; from a story by Jesse Andrews

PRODUCER: Nicole Paradis Grindle

CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Jeremy Lasky and Ian Megibben

EDITOR: Axel Geddes

COMPOSER: Mark Mothersbaugh

SONG: “Save the Day” sung by SZA and written by SZA, Ben Lovett, and Rob Bisel

ANIMATION/FANTASY/FAMILY and ADVENTURE/COMEDY

SUMMARY OF REVIEW:

Disney/Pixar's Hoppers has some of the best chase sequences and action scenes that I've ever seen in a Pixar film. They're better than what audiences find in a lot of live-action films

The characters are an utter delight. I think most viewers of Hoppers will see themselves in Mabel Tanaka, and the animal characters memorable in the way many Disney/Pixar animated characters tend to be

The science fiction elements in Hoppers are as charming as the magical elements found in the best fantasy films. This movie is made to delight adults and children of many ages because it is one of Disney/Pixar's best

Starring: (voices) Piper Curda, Bobby Moynihan, Jon Hamm, Kathy Najimy, Dave Franco, Eduardo Franco, Aparna Nancherla, Tom Law, Sam Richardson, Melissa Villasenor, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Steve Purcell, Ego Nwodim, Nichole Sakura, Meryl Streep, Karen Huie, Lila Liu, Carlos Alazraqui, Grey DeLisle, Jorden Wyrick, and Secunda Wood

Hoppers is a 2026 American animated science fiction, action, and comedy film from director Daniel Chong. It was produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The film follows an animal-loving college student who transfers her mind into a robotic beaver in a bid to save a beaver habitat from destruction, actions that only lead to disaster.

Hoppers is set in and around the city of Beaverton. The story introduces Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda), a 19-year-old college student and an intense animal-lover. When she was a child, Mabel and Grandmother Tanaka (Karen Huie) found solace in a glade in a nearby forest. After her grandmother passes, Mabel takes it upon herself to care for the glade.

However, Beaverton's Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) has announced his new “Beaverton Beltway,” a highway system that will encircle the city in order to better connect it. Mayor Jerry's plan includes routing the beltway through Mabel's glade mainly because he says that the animals have abandoned it.

While trying to lure the animals back to the glade, Mabel discovers that her biology professor, Dr. Sam Fairfax (Kathy Najimy), and her colleagues, Nisha (Aparna Nancherla) and Conner (Sam Richardson), have developed the “Hoppers” program. It is a new technology that allows them to transfer their minds into robotic animals. Mabel transfers her mind into a robotic beaver that will allow her to communicate with the beavers that once inhabited the glade. Mabel then discovers a world of animals beyond her imagination, but her activities will lead to one disaster after another.

I won't waste my time or yours, dear readers, preaching about the quality of the animation in a Pixar film. I'd rather wait until there is a day I can complain when I find a Pixar film that visually looks inferior. However, I will do something I have done in almost all of my reviews of Pixar films, praise this movie a lot. Not only does Hoppers have that magical Pixar charm and heartwarming storytelling, but it also has a really strong message. I know some people claim films should not have messages, and they are right. If a studio is making fast food-like entertainment, if the studio is making yet another movie featuring characters running away from CGI-generated weather phenomena, then, yeah, there probably is no message that it could deliver in an interesting fashion.

However, Hoppers isn't mere entertainment product, so it does have a message. Mabel wants to save the glade so badly that she her advocacy becomes interference and turns as disastrous and practically as destructive as Mayor Jerry's plans. Mabel is certainly one of those Pixar characters that is both lovable and has universal appeal, but she is more than just a heartwarming character. With here as the lead, Hoppers manages to have a message and also be a wonderful tale of friendship and redemption filled with Pixar's usual eye-popping action set pieces. The scenes with Diane (Vanessa Bayer), the great white shark, are... well, I think they the stuff of cinematic magic.

Hoppers represents peak Pixar storytelling, and I wish that I'd seen this grand, inventively-visual cinematic gem on a theater's big screen. Hoppers makes me want to invent adjectives to describe and to praise it, but I can simply highly recommend it.

9 of 10

A+

Saturday, September 5, 2026

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Sunday, June 21, 2026

Review: "CRIME 101" is an L.A. Crime Film Delight

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 8 of 2026 (No. 2056) by Leroy Douresseaux

Crime 101 (2026)

Running time: 140 minutes (2 hours, 20 minutes)

Rating: MPA – R for language throughout, some violence and sexual material/nudity

DIRECTOR: Bart Layton

WRITER: Bart Layton (based on the novella by Don Winslow)

PRODUCERS: Bart Layton, Tim Bevan, Dimitri Doganis, Eric Fellner, Benjamin Grayson, Chris Hemsworth, Shane Salerno, and Derrin Schlesinger

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Erik Alexander Wison (D.o.P.)

EDITORS: Julian Hart and Jacob Secher Schulsinger

COMPOSER: Blanck Mass

ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tate Donovan, and Corey Hawkins, with Nick Nolte and Halle Berry

SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW:

Crime 101 is one of the most beautifully photographed films that I have seen in the last several years. Los Angeles looks a jewel

Writer-director Bart Layton gets the best from his four leads: Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Barry Keoghan, and Halle Berry. This quartet make their character's desires and problems seem genuine

Crime 101 is a true modern Neo-Noir film and a very special L.A. crime story

Crime 101 is a 2026 crime thriller and drama film from writer-director Bart Layton. The film is based based on “Crime 101,” one of six interconnected novellas from Broken, a 2020 book from author Don Winslow. Crime 101 the film focuses on an elusive thief whose last big score connects him to an insurance broker, a relentless detective, and a violent young biker

Crime 101 opens in Los Angeles, the home and base of operations of four people about to be violently brought together. Mike Davis (Chris Hemsworth) is an elusive and disciplined jewel thief, carefully planning robberies to avoid violence and leaving DNA evidence behind him. However, Mike finally runs into a complication during a jewelry heist that almost costs him his life. Sensing that Mike might be finished because of this close call, his fence, “Money” (Nick Nolte), enlists a violent young biker, Ormond (Barry Keoghan), to replace him.

Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo) has been tracking a series of unsolved robberies and links Mike's diamond theft to these unsolved cases. Although few in the LAPD accept Lou's theory that a lone suspect is responsible for these crimes, Lou sticks to his theories and becomes obsessed with catching Mike.

Meanwhile, high-end insurance broker, Sharon Coombs (Halle Berry), discovers that her boss has found a new star broker, a woman who is way younger than Sharon's age of 53-years-old. Mike is using a hacker to get information on Sharon in the hopes of finding his next big hit, a multi-million dollar heist that will be his final score before retiring. Mike, Ormond, Lou, and Sharon will come together in an explosive confrontation that will not have a happy ending for everyone.

When I find a movie that I think would work better as a television series – such as 2009's Brooklyns Finest, I usually end up not being crazy about that film. I think writer-director Bart Layton's Crime 101 would make an excellent TV series, but I am also crazy about Layton's film. It is a true Los Angeles crime story that takes the good, the bad, and the mundane of the L.A. and transform it into a riveting, entertaining, and beautiful film. Yes, I would be repulsed and scared if I saw the crimes depicted in this film played out in real life. This is cinema, however, and Crime 101 is so gloriously thrilling that it is the kind of cinema that draws me into its world.

[I suspect the film's source material, Don Winslow's “Crime 101” novella, is probably quite a good read. However, I've never read any of Winslow's work.]

Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Halle Berry have all played famous Marvel Comics characters in several films, and that is one of many reasons I love all three. Seeing Hemsworth and Berry on screen together is heavenly; damn, they'd make a pretty baby. Then, getting Ruffalo paired with Berry or Hemsworth in various scenes is enough to make love Crime 101 even if it were trash. Thankfully, it isn't treasure instead of trash.

Add in Barry Keoghan giving another one of his wacky-ass turns, and Crime 101 has a star quartet that turn Crime 101 into Neo-Noir, character-drama gem. These four performers give their characters' highs and lows dramatic heft. At first, I didn't think I'd buy into these characters, but as this narrative came together, the star cast, which includes two Oscar nominees (Ruffalo and Keoghan) and one Oscar winner (Berry), made me believe in them and their motivations.

I'd hate to ruin this film for those who have not seen it, but I thoroughly enjoyed Crime 101. The experience of watching it was a series of thrills and chills, as I always expected something to suddenly snuff out the lives of character to whom I'd grown attached. Plus, watching the film editor, director of photography, make-up and hair crew, costume department, and composer deliver super work really made me appreciate what film industry professionals can do. So I heartily recommend Bart Layton's L.A. diamond, Crime 101.

8 of 10

★★★★ out of 4 stars

Sunday, June 21, 2026

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Sunday, March 22, 2026

Review: Netflix's "WAR MACHINE" is an Action Movie Thrill Machine

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 6 of 2026 (No. 2054) by Leroy Douresseaux

War Machine (2026)

Running time: 106 minutes (1 hour, 56 minutes)

Rating: MPAA – R for strong violence, grisly images, and language

DIRECTOR: Patrick Hughes

WRITERS: Patrick Hughes and James Beaufort; from a story by Patrick Hughes

PRODUCERS: Patrick Hughes, Rich Cook, Todd Lieberman, Greg McLean, and Alexander Young

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Aaron Morton (D.o.P.)

EDITOR: Andy Canny

COMPOSER: Dmitri Golovko

SCI-FI/ACTION/THRILLER

Starring: Alan Ritchson, Stephan James, Blake Richardson, Jai Courtney, Alex King, Keiynan Lonsdale, Jack Patten, James Beaufort, Joshua Diaz, Esai Morales, and Dennis Quaid

SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW:

War Machine is a pulp sci-fi all gussied up as an intense military thriller slash melodrama, and it works quite well

War Machine is an awesome action movie spectacle and virtually every minute of it is entertaining in some way

Alan Ritchson makes the most of this film, which is really an Alan Ritchson vehicle, and Ritchson gives it his all, meaning he would be lucky to have other vehicles as absolutely entertaining as War Machine is

War Machine is a 2026 science fiction film and action thriller from director Patrick Hughes. A co-production of the United States and Australia, the film was released in Australia before it began streaming on Netflix on March 6, 2026. War Machine follows an unnamed Army staff sergeant who becomes an Army Rangers recruit just in time to battle a mysterious and deadly machine.

War Machine opens in Kandahar, Afghanistan sometime during the prolonged conflict known as the “War in Afghanistan” (2001-21). An unnamed Staff Sergeant (Alan Ritchson) has just arrived t help his brother's broken down convoy. Then, tragedy strikes, leaving the unnamed Staff Sergeant wounded and broken. He is awarded the Silver Star for his actions, but leaves Afghanistan broken and feeling that he failed.

Two years later, the Sergeant attends the "Ranger Assessment and Selection Program" (RASP) in the hopes of becoming a U.S. Army Ranger with the 75th Ranger Regiment. He is given the candidate number “81,” but refuses the request of two officers, Sergeant Major Sheridan (Dennis Quaid) and First Sergeant Torres (Esai Morales), that he take on the role of team leader with the new recruits. Eventually, the final RASP exercise requires 81 and the remaining recruits to enter a nearby forest for a simulated mission.

During the mission, 81 and his team find a mysterious object that they mistake for their target. After they try to destroy the object, it transforms into a giant walking machine, and the killing and destruction begin. Now, 81 will have to be what he no longer wants to be, and that is both a leader and a savior of his his servicemen and servicewomen.

War Machine is one of those pure, old-fashioned science fiction film that is not afraid to be a rollicking, good-time alien-invasion movie. War Machine give me (and also you, dear readers) what I want; it pits a brave human hero battling his inner demons while simultaneously battling an alien baddie for his life. War Machine is Predator (1987) meets Transformers (2007), except that the Transformers here are homicidal, relentless killing machines. The result is a movie that is an absolutely thrilling and entertaining film, which I enjoyed from start to finish.

War Machine's director, Patrick Hughes, has experience delivering muscular action movies, as seen in his work directing The Expendables 3 (2014). Hughes shines up this pulpy sci-fi scenario and delivers an action film that seems as if it could have a timeless appeal (which I can also say about the preposterous Adam Driver sci-fi monster movie, 2023's 65).

I heartily recommend War Machine because I really enjoyed it. Alan Ritchson shows that he certainly has the acting chops to carry a movie as the lead. Ritchson just does his thang because he is both an actor and an entertainer. He shows that in War Machine.

7 of 10

B+

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Sunday, March 22, 2026

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Sunday, March 1, 2026

Review: "SCREAM 7" Will Make You Laugh... and Scream

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 4 of 2026 (No. 2052) by Leroy Douresseaux

Scream 7 (2026)

Running time: 114 minutes (1 hour, 54 minutes)

Rating: MPA – R for strong bloody violence, gore, and language

DIRECTOR: Kevin Williamson

WRITERS: Kevin Williamson and Guy Busick; from a story by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick (based on characters created by Kevin Williamson)

PRODUCERS: Paul Neinstein, William Sherak, and James Vanderbilt

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Ramsey Nickell (D.o.P.)

EDITOR: Jim Page

COMPOSER: Marco Beltrami

HORROR/MYSTERY/THRILLER

Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Joel McHale, Mckenna Grace, Michelle Randolph, Jimmy Tatro, Asa Germann, Celeste O'Connor, Sam Rechner, Ethan Embry, Mark Consuelos, Jeremy Connor, Matthew Lillard, and Roger L. Jackson (voice)

SUMMARY OF REVIEW:

“Scream 7” is pure entertainment,a truly scary movie that is also a genuinely funny in all its mayhem and gore.

Neve Campbell makes a welcome return as Sidney Prescott, and dominates the film in a way that recalls that old “Scream” feeling.

I highly recommend “Scream 7” to fans of the franchise and also to people who just want to enjoy a good movie.

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Scream 7 is a 2023 slasher horror film from director Kevin Williamson. It is the seventh film in the Scream film series and is a sequel to Scream VI. In Scream 7, Sidney Prescott is living in a new town, but she cannot escape her past as a new Ghostface killer has emerged to target her teenage daughter.

Scream 7 finds original Woodsboro victim, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), living in Pine Grove, Indiana with her husband, Police Chief Mark Evans (Joel McHale), and their two daughters. Now known as Sidney Prescott-Evans, she has her own small business, tea and coffeehouse, “The Little Latte.”

Despite her new life, Sidney is still vigilante, always expecting “the Ghostface Killer” to invade her life again. Then, it happens; Sidney gets a call from Ghostface, and he is requesting a video call. And right before Sidney's eyes is a ghost from the past, and this time, he declares that he is targeting Sidney's older daughter, teenager Tatum (Isabel May). Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and her new assistants, siblings Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding), come to rescue. Before they can stop this new Ghostface, however, Sidney and company must discover how many Ghostface killers there are and who they are.

Personally, I believe that the previous film, Scream VI (2023), is the best Scream film since the original trilogy of films, and is closest to the original Scream (1996) in terms of entertainment value. So I am surprised by how much I really enjoyed the new film, Scream 7, and I'll say the same for it as I did for the sixth. Director Kevin Williamson, the who created Scream over three decades ago with his original screenplay for the first film, finally got his shot at directing a Scream film. Scream 7 is so good that it makes me think that Williamson should have directed a film in this series long ago.

I saw this film with a predominately Black audience, and we all enjoyed talking to the screen the entire time (Girl, don't put the gun down!) simply because Scream 7 is so freaking entertaining. It is as if Williamson deliberately has his characters do nonsensical things while in the throws of panic and terror in order to give the audience a reason to yell at them. I can't say for certain that Williamson did that, but, if he did, it is like an ultimate meta experience.

Neve Campbell makes a killer return as the ultimate survivor. Isabel May is good as her daughter, Tatum, but she can't help but be in the fearsome shadow Sidney/Neve casts. Courteney Cox, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Mason Gooding provide excellent support and comic relief in a film that is, at times, as shockingly gory and gruesome as Final Destination (2000) and its progeny.

I don't want to spoil Scream 7 by talking about all the scenes that held me, thrilled me, kissed me, and killed me. Instead I will tell you, dear readers, that like Scream VI, Scream 7 is easily one of the series' best entries.

7 of 10

A-

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Sunday, March 1, 2026

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