Dont Tell NetflixDont Tell Netflix

Talks of a movie based on Minecraft have been floating around for nearly a decade now, though only Wednesday morning did we see what the concept finally had to offer. Fans were met with realistic renders of sheeps, ghasts, and piglins from the best-selling game, while the humans introduced into the world didn’t look quite as blocky—rather, they looked just like regular humans green-screened into Minecraft. The reception to Warner Bros’ release of the teaser was almost universally mixed to negative, with criticism ranging from game inaccuracies to the lack of lighting and color matching on the green-screened actors. Why are non-zombified piglins in the overworld? Why does it look like a Verizon gaming commercial? The outcry was understandable, and yet it did nothing but aid the publicity of the teaser.

Let’s take the trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 into account. On August 27th, we reported its view count had skyrocketed immediately upon its release. The marketing of the film had been relatively nonexistent until recently, save for a few press releases along the way, which made the immediate success of the trailer a remarkable success story. The Minecraft film’s promotion has been off the grid in a similar way that almost feels even more lowkey than what Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had going for it. We had cast member confirmations and a few statements from crew members, but aside from that we didn’t even have a first look into what this movie’s visuals were like. And yet, now sitting at 21 million views on YouTube (more than double Sonic the Hedgehog 3’s at the moment of writing, which is at 10 million), the teaser for Warner Bros’ A Minecraft Movie has at once become the internet’s laughing stock and a magnet for viewers in two days.

While we’re talking numbers, against the teaser’s 21.2 million views at the time of writing, it has amassed approximately 537,000 likes. This is by no means a small amount of positive reception, but it’s important to note this is outnumbered by a dislike count of over 970,000 at the moment, close to double the amount of likes.

In the trailer’s fallout, memes and viral tweets about the movie are running rampant, none of which seem to be saying good things. For what it’s worth, I personally think the piglin species’ designs are adapted very well. This is to the movie’s benefit, as the trailer seems to display the species as playing a pivotal role in the film’s story, though aside from this there isn’t a whole lot left to compliment the movie on. The color grading in the film is in fact as flawed as people keep parroting, and the mobs BESIDES the piglins don’t inspire anything but dread about the final release of the film. The writing (at least, what was shown in this teaser) feels uninspired and corny, but with all these factors in consideration, it’s exactly what you think it’s going to be. It’s A Minecraft Movie. It’s going to sacrifice faithfulness in favor of what Hollywood thinks makes the franchise appealing, and everyone is going to line up to see it anyway regardless of whether they’re a kid, a betrayed fan, or someone who’s neither and just wants to see how bad this thing will really be.

Going back to Sonic for a second, the hedgehog appeared terrifying and unrecognizable in his first trailer as well. After extreme public outcry from fans and moviegoers alike, however, the team brought Tyson Hesse onboard and has since brought us one of the only stable video game movie trilogies out there. I don’t think this is possible in this case, since in Sonic’s case it was just his own design. With A Minecraft Movie, this is a whole visual nightmare that fundamentally doesn’t work. Putting actual humans in a blocky world like Minecraft’s defeats the purpose of that world and is something I don’t feel color grading would even fix. You can’t make THEM blockier, because I’m not sure the world is ready for a realistic Minecraft-skin proportioned Jack Black. You can’t make the world ITSELF entirely realistic, because that would defeat the purpose of the movie being about Minecraft. Something tells me that, despite the what-ifs from countless tweets, making this an animated film outright wouldn’t have helped it either. All we can do is hope Netflix’s animated Minecraft series will fare better.

A Minecraft Movie releases in theaters on April 4th, 2025.

From the post-credits scene of 2022’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2, those well-versed enough in the Sonic franchise were quick to notice what it teased was not a storyline from the third game in the classic Sonic series, but the second game in Sonic’s transition to 3D. Soon enough, rumors began circulating about the third movie in regards to how this storyline would be played cinematically. Talks of Hayden Christiansen or Keanu Reeves voicing Sonic’s new adversary, speculation on if the iconic “Live and Learn” track from Sonic Adventure 2 would appear, and the first trailer’s appearance at CinemaCon only helped fuel the fire. Releasing in the final stretch of 2024, fans waited and WAITED for any clips, screencaps, or even leaks of the movie’s materials, but Paramount seemed to be as careful and vigilant as ever to make sure everything was under wraps until this Tuesday. After months of radio silence, mysterious visuals from the Sonic series appeared around the world on Sunday on various large screens.

After the internet ran rampant with rumors and speculation, Paramount would confirm the following day that the trailer would be releasing on 9AM EST on Tuesday. In under an hour, the first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 would garner over a million views across platforms. After his brief appearance at the end of the second film, fans of the films and games alike finally got to see Sonic’s new (or familiar) foe, Shadow the Hedgehog, in action. Immediately, eagle-eyed fans noticed many parallels between the film’s contents and some of the games released during the sixth generation.

The trailer revealed two key members of the Robotnik family, Gerald and Maria, would appear in the film as portrayed by Jim Carrey and Alyla Browne respectively. Those familiar with the Sonic Adventure series know well that these two characters are crucial to the key narrative of the second game, and will no doubt play a major role in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 given how much it takes from the game. As many hoped, “Live and Learn” from Sonic Adventure 2 did play in the latter half of this trailer, albeit in a more cinematic and score-y form arranged by Tom Holkenborg, the composer of all three Sonic films. However, this was not the only sixth-generation Sonic entry the film seems to take a lot of cues from.

Twitter user @UltimaShadowX was quick to point out—and edit together—the parallels between Shadow and the G.U.N. fighting in the trailer and a similar scene from 2005’s Shadow the Hedgehog. While the game released after the discontinuation of the Sega Dreamcast, it released within the same timeframe as other pivotal Sonic titles the film takes from, and may be even more important than it lets on in this trailer. One of the constant rumors circulating is that the film will be rated PG-13, but is this for the sake of more fleshed out fight scenes and dialogue or so that Shadow can swear a few times as he does in his titular 2005 release? While we’re still on the topic of Ultima, however…

He was also quick to notice the incorporation of Sonic Adventure 2‘s Chao Garden minigame in the film, though not in the traditional sense it appears in the game. Instead, the Chaos appear to be represented by a live house venue act, or possibly a Chuck E. Cheese’s influenced restaurant. I’m leaning towards the former since they seem to move a bit more fluidly than animatronics, as if humans in costumes. However, if this takes place on Earth rather than some other dimension through Sonic’s rings, some fans fear it may deconfirm Cream the Rabbit’s inclusion in the franchise moving forward, as the “lead” of the Chao Garden band looks identical to Cheese, her Chao partner in-game. Anyway the wind blows, I find this as a great and funny way of including even Sonic Adventure 2‘s minigames in the film. This begs the question, though—does this mean Big’s Big Fishing Adventure is on the table?

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 releases in theaters December 20th, 2024.

And no, it’s not related to any of Valve’s alleged projects.

When Half-Life: Alyx released in 2020, it led to a subsequent renaissance of sorts of Half-Life and even Portal content. This wasn’t quite the Half-Life 2: Episode Three fans wanted—nor outright Half-Life 3—but it was finally a return to the universe in an all new engine, from a brand new perspective that offered a fresh but familiar take on the world. Though a bit inaccessible due to the pricey nature of VR technology and peripherals, Alyx has since been hailed as one of VR gaming’s essentials from release to a retrospective look, as well as an incredible return to form for Valve’s development branch.

So when datamines and leaks of Valve’s erroneously pushed files for an update contained references to files of a game that didn’t exist involving Half-Life‘s flagship HEV suit, as well as said game being a single-player non-VR experience, it’s fair to say speculation began to run rampant. This was only further fueled by the listing on a voice actor’s portfolio page that they had worked on an unknown Valve game(?) known only as “Project White Sands”. Fans of the franchise have taken into consideration that the aforementioned “white sands” could refer to snow, which can be found where Half-Life‘s arctic device known as the Borealis resides. As some long-time fans of Half-Life were quick to point out, the Borealis was to be a key point of Episode Three, being seen in some of the concept art which made it through to the public.

And then a website for a suspiciously named startup appeared.

Blackmesa.com is a real website for an actual biotechnology/science laboratory in Boston that just so happens to share the exact name and display a very similar logo to the one shown in-game, the website for which claims it has nothing to do with the series and yet contains an ominous countdown to September 30th, 2024 at the bottom. What is going on here? Is this an ARG planted by Valve to drum up discussion and hype around a potential shadowdrop of the next entry in the Half-Life series? It must be, there are too many coincidences. Why else would this show up as soon as the results of datamining and leaks pointed towards a new entry?

Well, ground yourself for a moment. After doing enough digging, it can be confirmed that the real Black Mesa IS an actual biomanufacturing startup, with a LinkedIn page and multiple verified appearances of its founder talking about exactly what he claims to do. If this is an ARG to drum up hype for Valve’s next big thing, it would have to be one of the longest-running, expensive, effort-filled marketing campaigns in history, full of aliases and personas for real people to take on for over a decade. Though, any astute observer of the developer knows the production of anything related to Half-Life since the release of Episode Two has been a rough and troubled pipeline.

While their company names are identical and their logos may have similar fillings with different shapes, this realistically seems just like CEO Charles Fracchia is one of the many loyal fans of the series who wanted to pay homage while doing something similar to the in-game company that he happens to also be very passionate about. It’s not impossible to see a cross-promotion happening between the company and Valve in regards to SOMETHING Half-Life related, but sending thousands of emails to a small startup asking for help fighting the Combine isn’t going to help things. I do think it’s a bit suspicious that Valve hadn’t locked down the domain name for Black Mesa years ago as well, but there are too many real ties involved in all of this to say with certainty that it’s all a decades-long front for a game that many had long since given up on before the announcement of Alyx.

When in discussion about the works of LAIKA and Henry Selick alike, 2009’s Coraline is often pointed to as one of the crown jewels of both, and for good reason. Its portrayal of the uncanny using such a raw medium as stop-motion animation to tell its imaginative story made for a film unlike any other releases of the year, and definitely one that stuck in the minds of those who watched it in their youth. Now, the film celebrates its 15th anniversary with a theatrical re-release containing a behind-the-scenes featurette after the credits roll. With how much most of its living audience grew up in the time since then, it appears many are flocking to their local theater for a showing, in addition to those who discovered the film after the fact and want to finally see it on the big screen as it was intended.

Theatrical re-releases have had their supporters and critics, especially with the increased practice in the last few years by bigger companies than Focus Features. Disney is one of the biggest companies partaking in this strategy, re-releasing everything from Star Wars films to Pixar and their own animated selections. To be fair, some films such as Turning Red, Soul, and Luca had their opportunity for a theatrical release stripped for safety reasons during the COVID-19 pandemic, so this strategy is neat for specifically those films as they are able to receive that closure. As far as some of the other re-releases go, however, it’s felt a bit like Disney has been chasing their own glory and looking for what works after their recent animated features and Star Wars projects have flopped critically and/or commercially. Though, looking at some of the box office returns of these re-releases, it’s hard to say they’re moving in the right direction.

And yet, despite how much bigger of a corporate presence Disney casts over the film industry than a distributor like Focus Features, Coraline‘s 3D re-release has grossed over $12 million in the US, expanding to $20 million worldwide in its opening weekend, making it one of the most successful re-releases of any movie to date. This is already impressive in the face of the many other re-releases this year, but even moreso when taking into account that this $20 million outnumbers the $16 million opening weekend Coraline opened to in the US in 2009.

Laika’s productions are always nothing but soulful. Even in the face of lesser box office returns on new films than most major distributors, their method of storytelling, aesthetics, and heart have cemented them as one of the most beloved production companies of animated films. My hope is that this re-release of one of their greatest achievements drums up talk of the company name again, resulting in a bigger audience being drawn to their next original film Wildwood.

Coraline is now playing, again, in theaters.

Borderlands is the latest film at the butt of cinemagoers’ jokes, along with Harold and the Purple Crayon if anyone was even slightly passionate about that one. Being described as laden with bad acting, directing, and action sequences all topped off with ho-hum box office returns in its opening weekend, Borderlands adapts the titular video game to the worst of its ability. Even early on, the film was notorious for its troubled production. The most infamous “fun fact” the movie’s production has to offer is that Eli Roth’s direction and changes were so polarizing that screenwriter Craig Mazin refused to have the film on his record, crediting his contribution to the alias of “Joe Crombie”. Now that the film has released and everyone is calling it worse than Madame Web of all things, we had to check it out to see if that much really was true.

It wasn’t.

Listen, Borderlands is definitely one of those “nothing” movies. It feels uninspired—ironically, too, being an adaptation—the writing has issues for sure, and a lot of the direction feels messy and all over the place. If you’re looking for problems with the film, you’ll definitely find them, whether or not you’ve actually indulged in or are a fan of the Borderlands series going in. But aside from that, there’s nothing in the film that feels like it actively harms the medium or genre and how far both have come. Madame Web was special in that absolutely NOTHING about it was working. For people who love to see absolute trainwrecks at the theater, its release was a dream come true. What’s special about Borderlands, weirdly enough, is that it ISN’T special. It’s a bad movie, but not unwatchable in the way some of the more recently shunned releases have been.

In spite of its sloppy direction, the palette of the movie can be pleasant to look at, which is a good explanation for how the movie as a package feels. Interesting to look at, but boring to watch. Some of the characters’ motivations, even that of the main cast we follow, aren’t as clear as they should be for a film where all these rogues are together for a reason. Adding onto that, it’s not entirely entertaining watching the main cast’s interactions, as they’re not written to have the chemistry required for film like this where a bunch of morally grey strangers band together against a much bigger evil. James Gunn’s original Guardians of the Galaxy had it figured out, as well as his take on The Suicide Squad (the standalone follow-up to the similarly titled original that ALSO couldn’t do much right). It’s not like it’s an easy task to pull off, especially when most of reviewers’ comparisons to a group that does this dynamic better usually comes down to comparing to Gunn’s work. What I find hard to believe, though, is that Craig Mazin’s script didn’t do this a whole lot better.

A lot of this film felt rushed and troubled, from the CGI to the marketing to the line deliveries, we could definitely go on. After how mediocre a lot of the other loadbearing terrible films were this past year, though, it’s hard to say this one breaks the mold. It’s just a generic action movie that doesn’t do anything all too inventive or impressive that you could probably just throw on if you need something to watch. Again, you’ll find problems no matter if you’re actively looking or not. But with the reputation the film has already accrued, it’s pretty hard to go in expecting anything anymore if you happen to find it on digital in the future, or in the bargain bin.

Borderlands is now playing in theaters worldwide.

Exploding Kittens is a name any player of party games has at least heard in passing. The breakout Kickstarter hit has become a full franchise with expansions, spinoff games and ports, and now an entire TV series since its launch in 2015. The series feels a bit like it came out of nowhere, since I’d hardly heard anything much about it before the entire season release this past July. The first looks posted to Twitter seemed not to garner much attention—though, to be fair, that’s not exactly the series’ or Netflix’s fault so much as it might be its notorious owner’s for driving everyone away.

A lot of Netflix’s animated sitcoms tend to blend together for me. Paradise PD, Farzar, and Hoops (to name a few) all have these shared stylistic traits so prevalent in attempted new animated sitcom programming that they seem a bit creatively limited and fail to stand out from themselves. Netflix’s new sitcom, Exploding Kittens, escapes this stylistic box with its best attempt at blending rigged animation and the original artist Matthew Inman’s style for the game. While it’s not the most thrilling to look at, it’s easy to understand that as being the point of the series’ stylistic choices. This is where the show gets a bit divisive in its choices, because it feels less like an adaptation of the Exploding Kittens game and more like an animated successor INSPIRED by the game.

When God and the Devil are booted from their respective afterlives in order to live among humans for a bit to learn how to work managing them into their actual jobs, they’re sent to the planet in the form of small felines, Godcat and Devilcat respectively. These two now have ACTUAL cards with the help of a tie-in spin-off game, Good vs. Evil. The only pre-existing Exploding Kittens character who takes on a recurring role in the show is Marv’s boss, who oddly enough appears on one of the Alter the Future cards.

The household Godcat and Devilcat meddle with, the Higgins household, is home to an interesting family of four. Marv, an avid tabletop gamer whose day job is at a big bulk store, Abbie, a former Navy SEAL, Greta, a scientific sister who can often be the voice of reason, and Travis, a passionate content creator trying to retroactively undo his online reputation of being in an embarrassing viral video. These four are quirky on paper and have loads of character building potential, but their writing at times can be a bit sloppy and feeds into a lot of problems there are with modern animated sitcoms. A lot of the jokes come down to on-the-nose dark humor. No matter how dark the humor might get in the show, it is an adult animated series after all, the problem comes down to how shoehorned in these quips feel at times. After not even the full nine episodes of the season, that type of writing can get pretty formulaic, and in the essence of party games, the last thing you’d want is for every joke to be as predictable and played-out as it can get.

However, it doesn’t feel like these are just tortured souls that are vessels for Godcat and Devilcat and the world around them to toss around like toys. There are occasionally actual stakes with interest and plot backing to drive them. Travis’ constant talk about the internet and online content creation often feels dated and like there’s no commentary behind it (which, honestly, is hard for almost every animated sitcom to do right), but when he and Marv travel back in time to try and stop his viral video from being made, you can feel some of the regret and embarrassment he feels that isn’t just exclusive to the online experience. When he finally discovers the identity of his most relentless online troll, it doesn’t exactly feel the most crushing, but it most certainly doesn’t feel empty. The writers are trying to do something more with these characters than it would seem, which is a great direction for this series to take that isn’t just “another animated sitcom”, which works to their benefit.

Again, there isn’t a ton that’s Exploding Kittens-y about the Exploding Kittens TV show, but it’s not like they’re not trying with anything but the series name alone. Some of the cats’ expressions mirror that which appears on the cards, with more cards’ elements (such as Marv’s boss) being incorporated as well. In addition, the original artist of the game is heavily involved in the show’s production, so it doesn’t feel like an attempt to revive an IP that makes people go, “Oh, that game? It got a TV show? NOW?” You could actually make the argument that this show represents the output of the titular company BEHIND Exploding Kittens, as Marv plays a game in one episode that seems strikingly similar to another of their releases. The series is by no means a love letter to the game, but it is doing its best with what it has and comes out just fine. Which, given the factors at hand here, is an achievement worth stating. Exploding Kittens isn’t going to light the world on fire like it once had, but this is a series worth watching if you have fond memories of the game or if you just like cats. Don’t worry, there wasn’t a single kitten that actually exploded in this series.

Exploding Kittens is now available to stream on Netflix.