News Sinners Sinners Heads to Streaming, Including Black American Sign Language Version The movie makes its way to HBO Max on the Fourth of July. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 30, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is one of the best movies to come out this year, and if you missed seeing it on a big screen (which is a bummer, especially given how much thought Coogler clearly put into making it look good on different theaters across the country), you can now catch it on HBO Max starting this Friday, July 4, 2025. HBO Max will have more than one version available for streaming too. In addition to what was shown in cinemas, the streamer will have a version with Black American Sign Language (BASL) interpretation done by Nakia Smith. HBO Max will be the first platform to release a feature-length film in BASL. BASL is a dialect of American Sign Language (ASL) that has its own history and unique grammar, signing space, rhythm, facial expressions, and cultural nuances. “Accessibility within streaming is not a one-size-fits-all approach,” Naomi Waibel, SVP of Global Product Management at Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement. “Our goal at Max is to make these great stories accessible to all audiences in a way that is authentic to the content and the communities we serve. Sinners with Black American Sign Language is an example of how culturally nuanced access can enrich the viewing experience for our audiences.” Check out the trailer with Black Sign Language interpretation below, and get ready to (re)watch Sinners this holiday weekend.[end-mark] The post <i>Sinners</i> Heads to Streaming, Including Black American Sign Language Version appeared first on Reactor.

News Saturation Point Cynthia Erivo & Michael Bay to Adapt Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Saturation Point Universal Pictures will be adapting the novella from The Children of Time author. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on June 30, 2025 Erivo screenshot: Universal Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Erivo screenshot: Universal Pictures Universal Pictures has picked up Adrian Tchaikovsky’s 2024 novella Saturation Point and is set to make a feature adaptation, which will potentially be the start of a franchise. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that none other than Michael Bay (Ambulance!) and Cynthia Erivo (pictured above as Elphaba in the feature adaptation of Wicked) are attached to the project as producers. Saturation Point is a climate thriller where part of Earth has gotten so hot and humid that humans can’t survive there. Here’s the summary of the story, per Goodreads: Doctor Jasmine Marks is going back into hell.The Hygrometric Dehabitation Region, or the “Zone,” is a growing band of rainforest on the equator, where the heat and humidity make it impossible for warm-blooded animals to survive. A human being without protection in the Zone is dead in minutes.Twenty years ago, Marks went into the rainforest with a group of researchers led by Doctor Elaine Fell, to study the extraordinary climate and see if it could be used in agriculture. The only thing she learned was that the Zone was no place for people. There were deaths, and the program was cut short.Now, they’re sending her back in. A plane crash, a rescue mission, a race against time and the environment to bring out the survivors. But there are things Marks’ corporate masters aren’t telling her. The Zone keeps its secrets, and so does Doctor Fell… THR also adds that “not all forms of intelligent life in the Zone are necessarily human.” Minnie Schedeen, the creator of The Beautiful Liar podcast series, will write the script for the adaptation, which will be her feature debut as a screenwriter. It’s not clear whether Erivo will also star in the film as well as produce, or where the project is in the development process.[end-mark] The post Cynthia Erivo & Michael Bay to Adapt Adrian Tchaikovsky’s <i>Saturation Point</i> appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Squid Game Squid Game Season 3 Is Unhinged Did the show really need two seasons more? By Christina Orlando | Published on June 30, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share The first season of Squid Game was a global phenomenon—after going unfunded in Korea, the thriller from creator Hwang Dong-hyuk skyrocketed to success once it was released on Netflix. It felt incredibly timely in the fall of 2021 in America to talk about death games; billionaires profiting off of and being entertained by the suffering of average people. Squid Game, along with its spiritual siblings Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, no longer felt (feel, still) like such far off dystopian concepts. Life is becoming less and less affordable, the climate’s stability is declining, debt is increasing, people are dying from preventable causes, and the rich and powerful care not as long as they continue to be rich and powerful.  I loved the first season of Squid Game. Despite being a horror baby, I love death games. I love the intensity of human drama within them, the trauma bonds, the slow steeling of inner strength as our protagonists set their sights on the gamemakers. I love characters that discover a well of capability they didn’t know they had and band together despite their differences. And I love the mechanics of the games themselves—all the insane ways characters could possibly die, and all the ways they discover how not to. Squid Game’s first season was the perfect encapsulation of these concepts. Tell me you didn’t hold your breath as you watched Kang Sae-byeok pull shards of glass from her stomach, knowing she’s going to bleed out, but mustering everything she has left anyway in the hopes of saving her little brother.  Unfortunately, in true capitalist fashion, Squid Game’s success also sparked a slew of unnecessary follow-ups, including the Squid Game reality show (for why), a million branded products (imagine my horror at seeing Young Hee makeup palettes at the Korean beauty store), legions of cosplayers in pink jumpsuits (akin to cosplaying stormtroopers tbh), and, the most egregious in my opinion, the Squid Game Experience here in New York, just in case you’re an adult who needs an excuse to play Red Light Green Light with your friends and wants to microdose being shot at or whatever.  The other unnecessary spin-off was, unfortunately, season two. See, I’m of the mind that Squid Game didn’t need a follow-up. Season one’s ambiguous ending enhances its thrill—the unanswered questions plague our minds and stoke our fears, leaving a lasting grip on our hearts. Gi-hun is safe, maybe, but the island is still out there. The games are still running, and we have no idea who is making it all happen. The machinations of capitalist greed are massive and never-ending, the extent to which we may never know. Our imaginations, therefore, take up the mantle of storyteller.  Or, ya know, Netflix can give Gi-hun a gun I guess.  But let’s go over it from the very beginning, because there is… a lot.  SEASON ONE Credit: Netflix At the start of season one, our man Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) is insufferable. He’s whiny as fuck and in debt up to his eyeballs, pursued by violent collectors as he gambles away the little money he has to buy his daughter a birthday present. It’s made to seem like he’s a screw up, which he is to a certain extent, but it’s not as if his story is unusual—his life fell apart years ago and he’s struggled to get his shit together ever since. One day at a train station, he is approached by the handsomest man alive (Gong Yoo)—known to the fandom as The Salesman or The Recruiter—and engaged in a game of ddakji, which involves throwing one paper square at another until one flips over, and in Gi-hun’s case, getting ₩100K (which is about 73 USD) when you win and slapped when you lose. Thus he is recruited for the Squid Game, a hellish situation he is unable to say no to, especially once he discovers that his mother is in the hospital and will need extensive care. Because the winner of Squid Game will receive up to ₩456 billion. That is, if they survive.  Seong Gi-hun (#456), along with his childhood friend Sang-woo (#218, a failed businessman who SUCKS), immigrant factory worker Ali (#199, who deserved better), Il-nam (#001, an elderly man suffering from a brain tumor), and loner Sae-byeok (#067, who is caring for her brother while trying to get her parents over from the North), engage in a series of games in which the competitors are both killed by the squiddies (the homies in the jumpsuits and shape masks) and are responsible for killing each other. This includes the now world famous dalgona challenge, tug-of-war, marbles, and a hopscotch-like game played on a glass bridge. Contestants die en masse, each time causing the prize pot to increase, and the survivors’ greed to get the better of their morality. Overseeing all this is a man in a black mask known simply as the Front Man, who watches each death on screen with a glass of whiskey.  At the same time, we follow Detective Hwang Jun-ho (who looks like the hottest guy in the college math department), who follows Gi-hun in hopes of finding his missing brother. Jun-ho is able to disguise himself as a squiddie and infiltrate, to a certain extent, its operations. Jun-ho successfully finds records of past contestants, and gets himself into the room with the VIPs—a group of international billionaires who come together to watch the final game as they drink champagne and bet on the outcome. It’s a disgusting display of wealth and cruelty. Jun-ho escapes, but not before being shot off a cliffside by the Front Man—who, unmasked, is revealed to be Jun-ho’s missing brother, In-ho.  This all culminates in a bloody and emotional battle between Gi-hun and Sang-woo during the final game—the titular squid game. Sang-woo ends up stabbing himself, leaving Gi-hun the sole survivor.  And we love Seong Gi-hun, our incredibly reluctant and traumatized winner. He’s charming and compassionate throughout, always looking out for others while facing certain death. There’s a particularly compelling moment, at the start of episode 5 during tug-of-war, where Gi-hun realizes they’re winning and is horrified by it—the look in his eyes conveys a thousand thoughts even though the moment only lasts a few seconds. As Gi-hun is taken home, exhausted and broken, he can only wonder about who is running these games and why they’re doing it. After finding out Il-nam (#001) was the creator of the games, the sight of Hot Recruiter Man causes him to turn back from the chance to see his daughter again in favor of seeking justice and ending the games altogether.  Season one has everything. There’s organ harvesting, there’s Chekov’s scuba gear, there’s creepy voice overs and music. There’s so much interpersonal drama it would overheat my laptop to write it all down. This shit slaps aesthetically, too, with its neon Escher-esque stairs, blood spattered playgrounds, and coffins with big pink bows on them—the juxtaposition of bright Kindergarten-ish set decor against the slaughter of 455 people is delightfully head-spinning.  It also successfully does what death game stories ought to do, which is to explore the way our humanity is warped under oppressive systems. It asks the big questions: What would you do to save yourself? What could you do? Why do we keep saying yes to participating in a system which wants to see us suffer? Whose hands are your life really in? Because Squid Game is not really the enemy—capitalism is the enemy, and the way the players’ emotions are manipulated over the course of these games is a heightened reflection of the dehumanizing conditions that landed them there. And the dehumanizing conditions of the real world. People screw each other over in the face of greed, but they also find moments of beautiful, genuine connection. Gi-hun’s journey shows how important those connections are, how clinging to one’s humanity is the only way to really make it through intact.  Which is why it’s so disappointing to see him turn into fucking John Wick in season two. SEASON TWO Credit: Netflix I’m just not convinced there’s a way to do the Jack from Lost voice “We have to go back!” thing without it feeling like a bit of a cash grab. Season two of this show felt forced, mostly unnecessary and skippable, with a lack of real character development over its seven episodes. It’s clearly milking as much as possible out of a conclusion that probably could have been eight episodes total instead of two seasons. If you ask me, the best thing season two gave us was more time with psycho hottie Gong Yoo as the Recruiter, who gets some time to shine in the first episode, “Bread and Lottery.”  We meet Seong Gi-hun three years later—he’s hardened, and he’s pooled all his money into finding the people responsible for the games. He’s gathered a squad of goons who are searching for a man in a suit playing ddakji in the train station. After a long summer the attempts succeed, which leads to a heated game of Russian Roulette between Gi-hun and the Recruiter, which in turn leaves Hottie McHotterson with his pretty brains splattered all over the wall. Hwang Jun-ho, alive after being rescued by a fisherman, finds Gi-hun and they decide to tackle this shit together. They chase the lead, resulting in Gi-hun asking to be put back in the games, presumably because he believes the only way to take it down is from the inside. Meanwhile, Jun-ho teams up with the goons and the fisherman who rescued him to search for the mysterious island where the games take place. That’s pretty much his whole storyline this season.  So now we’re back in it, right? But in the past three years, the squiddies have learned to cover their bases—players now sign a consent form before they play (though they still don’t know they’re going to be fucking killed but whatever, consent is important), and this time they are given the chance to vote whether to continue after each individual game. If the players choose to stop, the prize money will be split amongst the remaining.  Gi-hun, again #456, attempts to get everyone through Red Light Green Light alive which works only semi-successfully. The new crop of players—including Gi-hun’s friend from the outside Jung-bae (#390), rapper Thanos (#230, played by K-pop idol T.O.P.), failed crypto bro Myung-gi (#333, who several players feel is responsible for their crypto-induced debt) and his pregnant ex-girlfriend Jun-hee (#222), gambler Yong-sik (#107) and his elderly mother (#139, an angel), and the badass Hyun-ju (#120, a transwoman looking to fund her gender confirmation surgery)—barely believe Gi-hun is a former winner, and even after watching people get shot in the head, go mostly unswayed by his big hero speech. The final vote is decided by player #001—revealed to be In-ho, the Front Man, who has come down to mansplain manipulate manslaughter.  We also get a look behind the scenes as a lot of the squiddies are unmasked—we follow sniper No-eul (who is !!! a GIRL!! SCANDALOUS), who is totally down with shooting people who lose the games but is not cool with the organ harvesting that’s going on. The show attempts to do the whole “humans are the real monsters” thing, while also revealing the highly organized and technical system behind the whole operation. The progression of games and beats effectively predicts human behavior within it—they know exactly when people will beg and when they will turn on each other, it’s all manipulated from top to bottom. The squiddies know that desperate people will do desperate things, that each death makes the money seem more and more worth it, and that players will ultimately always vote against going home.  Now, Gi-hun is stuck having to do this all over again. How do we tell him that the real bad guy is capitalism—that if the squiddies have enough money to keep running the games (which is at least ₩456 billion every time) plus the cost of the facility and employing all those people, AND there’s 456 people to fill the games every time, there’s bigger issues at hand than just shooting some masked dudes will solve. Gi-hun, get your shit together and run for office. Organize the masses instead of these goons. If it’s not the squiddies, it’s super PACs funding corrupt politicians, it’s tech investors pouring millions into AI that’s killing the environment, its non-elected officials slashing government jobs and programs for no reason, it’s a rich fantasy writer funding anti-trans legislature. But that’s taking the metaphor out of the fiction, I guess.  Anyway. They play some games, do some voting, Gi-hun forms some manly bonds. Somewhere out in the ocean, Jun-ho’s search is made futile by the fact the boat captain has been tampering with their drone. By the time the players are all trying to stab each other in their sleep, Gi-hun’s organized a hostile takeover. There’s a shootout in the neon stairwell, which fails, leaving Jung-bae dead and Gi-hun defeated. In-ho returns to his role as Front Man.  And, like… it’s fine, we’re getting where we need to go.  SEASON THREE Credit: Netflix I went into the final season thinking it would have to pull off something major in order to convince me more Squid Game needed to be made. Good news is, it’s tense as hell from the start and a very emotional watch.  The big (unnecessary from a narrative perspective, IMO) shoot-out was a bust. Everybody blames everybody, but mostly Gi-hun blames Kang Dae-ho, who failed to bring more ammunition, and spends the whole time staring daggers into him. Fortunately (sort of), for the next game, he is given a literal dagger. A cool Sailor Moon-ass lookin one too. Aesthetically, this shit still slaps.  The remaining players are divided into two teams for a game of hide & seek. Blue players are given keys that will unlock doors to hide behind in the arena, and need to find the exit to succeed. Red players are given a dagger and need to kill one other player to pass the game. Pairs are split up—Yong-sik holds a knife while his mother Mrs. Jung holds a key, Gi-hun is on the hunt for Dae-ho who he eventually does strangle (that’s a whole ass thing, I did not like Terminator Gi-hun one bit), and Myung-gi promises to find and protect the pregnant Jun-hee after he makes his kill. The blue team women (Hyun-ji, Jun-hee, and Mrs. Jung) team up, with Hyun-ji serving as protector and total badass. Somewhere along the way, Jun-hee breaks her ankle, and then her water breaks also. Because of course it does. Because of course she’s gonna give birth in the middle of the most directly murderous game so far. Why the fuck wouldn’t she.  And like, here’s the thing. There are a lot of impracticalities with this baby. Beyond this being so very not a safe place for a newborn, there are no diapers. There is no crib or anything. None of this shit is clean, there are a million infections waiting to happen. The biggest gripe I have with this season is that the baby sleeps through the night in a twin bed with its mother, on its back the whole time. And that’s not even the half of it.  After the baby is born, my wife Hyun-ji is stabbed by babydaddy Myung-gi, who has finally come to take care of Jun-hee, and does not know that Hyun-ji was protecting them and knew the way out. Jun-hee rightfully tells Myung-gi to fuck off. By the time Yong-sik arrives, time is running out—he has failed to kill someone and knows he will die because of it. His mother tells him to kill her, but ends up stabbing him instead when he makes a play for Jun-hee. It is really brutal, and I did need to call my own mother afterwards. The ante is upped when its revealed that the VIPs have donned jumpsuits and masks to participate in shooting the contestants themselves—and that this group is mostly younger than the last. A lot can be said about the nature of contemporary wealth here, as most likely these are meant to be energetic and emotionally detached tech CEOs instead of lecherous old businessmen.  On the boat, Main Goon Woo-seok expresses concerns about Captain Park and decides to stay on shore the next day and look into it. He discovers the captain’s home filled with pictures of his fishing buddies, one of whom is the Recruiter (eagle-eyed viewers will also spot the Front Man on that wall), plus a pile of cash and a squiddie uniform buried in the backyard.  Now we kick the drama into high gear. Players vote to continue the games despite there being a baby in the room. In the morning, they wake not only to find Mrs. Jung has hung herself, but that the game is a large scale jump rope, played on a platform. I will now remind you that Jun-hee, the baby’s mother, has a severely broken ankle. Gi-hun, having snapped out of Terminator mode after a conversation with Mrs. Jung the previous evening, offers to help the baby across and then go back for Jun-hee. We spend the entire time waiting for babydaddy Myung-gi to get his shit together and step up, but Jun-hee refuses his assistance again. Time runs out, and in a highly emotional moment, Jun-hee asks Gi-hun to take care of her child before stepping off the platform to her death.  Again: impractical. How are they going to feed that baby. Do they know that the first week of breastfeeding provides babies not only with essential nutrients, but immunity as well? This baby is fucked. On top of that, the vicious VIPs decide that the baby is now a player, and will inherit its mother’s number. The others riot, especially considering this lessens their share of the prize money. A discussion about inherited debt ensues, which I wish was more dystopian than it is.  Woo-seok gets caught by the police, who call Captain Park to inform him, which means Hwang Jun-ho is vulnerable. Jun-ho gets Captain Park with a spear gun and interrogates him, though is unable to learn the location of the island. It isn’t until they run into the contestant No-eul has helped escape that he gets pointed in the right direction and makes it to the island. The remaining contestants get their fancy steak dinner, AND FINALLY THE BABY GETS FORMULA. This is the only thing I care about, thank you. Gi-hun is taken to see the Front Man, and is given a knife with which to “kill the trash” who have obviously decided to kill him and the baby. It is also at this time that In-ho removes his mask, revealing himself to be the man who played beside Gi-hun in season two. There is shock, there is tension. They don’t kiss. But there is no winning Squid Game, not really, and so Gi-hun is forced to once again reckon with his own humanity and face a high stakes trolley problem. In the best moment of the series, we are given a flashback to In-ho’s own time as a player—he is given the same option by a man in a mask (Chairman Oh), the same knife, and is able to complete the task. In the present, Gi-hun has visions of Kang Sae-byeok, and the moment in his first games when she begged him not to commit murder. “You’re not that kind of person”, she says. And he’s not, except for that one time he strangled that guy.  Needless to say, the next game continues as planned—and it’s “Sky Squid Game,” taking place on three large platforms. Now, the six remaining douchebags have already decided who to eliminate, including Min-su who is having a severe withdrawal from taking what I assume to be MDMA twice, plus Gi-hun and the baby. Because they’re douchebags. Myung-gi successfully convinces the rest of the men to try to separate the baby from Gi-hun, which spirals into the reveal that Myung-gi is in fact its father. Now, I have been waiting for this idiot to step up for two seasons now, and it is a little too late at this point. Surprising absolutely no one, he does it only to make sure he’s got someone to throw overboard on the last platform. But after a fight with Gi-hun he falls, before the third round has technically started, and Gi-hun is left to sacrifice himself so that the baby can live. I assume this was meant to be emotional, but I think we all saw that coming.  I spent a lot of this season saying “oh they’re fucked! You’re fucked, bro!” out loud to no one, pausing and switching to Taskmaster when things got too tense for me to handle, and sending enraged voice notes to friends who don’t even watch this show because I had to get my feelings out. Which is a great viewing experience. However, I’m still not entirely convinced more Squid Game was necessary. It just didn’t feel as urgent or nuanced as the first season, and the more I sit with it, the more bothered I am by how it all played out. I was waiting for a big twist that didn’t come, a confrontation between Jun-ho and his brother In-ho that barely took place, and a taking down of the system that didn’t really happen. The closest we get to resolution is that the baby survives, and Gi-hun’s money is given to his daughter in Los Angeles, which like, thank god, because they entirely dropped that storyline up until this point.  And they did kill all the women. Not a one makes it to the finals, and honestly I would be curious to test the philosophy posed in season one that everyone is equal in the games—can I get a list of all the winners, broken down by gender? I have my suspicions. I also really want to know more about the world as a whole. Are the VIPs different each year? Who does the creepy voice overs? Who makes all the props and sets for the games? Why does In-ho have that weird puppet “Fly Me to the Moon” thing instead of a normal ass record player? And why did he choose to stay instead of taking his winnings back to the world? I’m left with lots of questions, but none of them are good ones, or ones that I actually want answered with another season. The ideas posed by the show’s original conceit are still interesting–capitalism’s grip on society and the callousness it creates, and the importance of human connection in combating that—but failed to come through its final seasons. Thrills were had, mostly during the hide-and-seek game, but heartstrings were only half tugged at. Gi-hun’s action hero transformation left an emotional distance and ultimately, his death felt like the easiest narrative choice, but not the most impactful one.   The one question I had that did get answered, sort of, is if there are games in different countries. Because as In-ho makes his way back to LAX, he spots two people in an alleyway playing ddakji—one of whom is CATE. BLANCHETT. THAT IS CATE BLANCHETT. SHE HAS TWO OSCARS. WHAT IS SHE DOING RECRUITING PEOPLE FOR SQUID GAME. Image: Netflix And there are no cameras, it’s not like they’re making an in-world Squid Game show, there’s no Squid-ception happening. It’s just fucking Cate Blanchett playing a Korean kid’s game. I’ll be mad about this forever. Why was this choice made. Why use one of the most recognizable faces in the world to make this point. Is it that Squid Game hires the most handsome person in the country to do the Recruiter job? In between movies, has Cate Blanchett been donning a pink jumpsuit? Make it make sense. How absolutely unhinged.  I’d let her slap me though.[end-mark] The post <i>Squid Game</i> Season 3 Is Unhinged appeared first on Reactor.

News Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Are About to Cowabunga Onto the Big Screen Again Hope they’re showing it in theaters that serve pizza. By Molly Templeton | Published on June 30, 2025 Screenshot: New Line Cinema Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: New Line Cinema If you were a certain kind of child of the ’80s and ’90s, Elias Koteas was IT. He was a surly punk in Some Kind of Wonderful (the actual best John Hughes-written movie) and he was Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The only Casey Jones necessary (with apologies to all those who have come along in his wake). The 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film was not exactly high art—and it is, shall we say, very of its time. But it did help me survive babysitting a screaming redheaded terror. And one of the film’s greatest qualities is—as James Whitbrook so aptly puts it at io9—”Judith Hoag and Elias Koteas creating a pre-Mummy cinematic bisexual crisis as April O’Neil and Casey Jones.” Naturally, a film like this needs an anniversary release, no? And that’s what it’s getting courtesy of Fathom Entertainment: Two nights! In cinemas! With additional footage! Here’s the synopsis Fathom provides: Four baby turtles come in contact with a mysterious substance called ooze and then are transformed into human sized crime fighters. The leader of the turtles is a human sized rat who has come into contact with the same green ooze. The rat was a former pet of a ninja master and therefore uses his skills to train the four turtles in martial arts. They befriend a local journalist and with her help attempt to find the group behind a crime wave in New York City. Starring Josh Pais (The Station Agent, A Beautiful Mind), Elias Koteas (Zodiac, Fallen), and Judith Hoag (Armageddon, Cadillac Man).The turtles live again… In the “Turtles Unmasked” featurette before the movie, produced in collaboration with the creators of TMNT: Evolution, Mutation & Reboot, experience never-before-seen footage from the archives, extended scenes left to history on the cutting room floor, home-recorded behind-the-scenes footage, and 1-on-1 time and commentary with the Director Steve Barron, as he reflects on the day-to-day in crafting the absolute best version of Turtles brought to the big screen. The absolute best! Look, they said it, not me. Director Barron has most recently been working on an assortment of televised murder mysteries—and the David Tennant-starring Around the World in 80 Days. As for the Turtles, they’ve been quite busy; I truly cannot begin to summarize the number of TMNT projects, cartoons, games, and comics that have been running since Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the Turtles in the 1980s. The latest movie version, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, came out in 2023; a sequel is due in 2027. Get your tickets for these limited showings of the first TMNT film from Fathom Entertainment. Side note: The runtime of this film is 1 hour 40 minutes. This is a normal runtime for a movie about mutant turtles, or any other kind of mutants, for that matter. Marvel: take note. [end-mark] The post The 1990 <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> Are About to Cowabunga Onto the Big Screen Again appeared first on Reactor.

Movies & TV Nautilus Nautilus Premiere Is Engaging, But Can It Do Justice to Captain Nemo? Of the many changes to Jules Verne’s story, the role of its central character prompts the biggest questions. By Tim Ford | Published on June 30, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share We are awash in nostalgia. There is a veritable tide of works made new again; intellectual properties entering the public domain, adaptations and re-imaginings of classics, and sequels tugging at our childhood heartstrings. Amidst the multitude of re-treads that make up so much of the cultural lexicon on the big and the small screen, it seems inevitable that there would surface yet another take on one of science fiction’s seminal and iconic adventure novels: Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The new iteration is named Nautilus, after the submarine ship that served as the main setting in the original story, here realized in full steampunk glory, with stunning sets and a great production design. Steampunk—a nostalgic subgenre of science fiction—leans into the Victorian era as inspiration for aesthetic and plot. Most stories turn on “what if” alternate histories; timelines involving some means by which the sun truly never set on the British Empire, where steam-powered technology continues to reign supreme. It experienced a surge in popularity in the aughts, taking conventions by storm, even generating fully-fledged clubs and societies. Some fans stay strong to this day, but for the most part the genre has subsided from its dizzying heights. This has the effect of making Nautilus feel oddly dated from the outset. Had it come out 15 years ago, it would likely have been an instant hit among the top-hatted, be-monocled lovers of the genre. As it is, it still has a degree of resonance from its premise: fighting the man. Nautilus takes a prequel approach to Nemo, the captain of the submarine from Jules Verne’s original novel, imagining him as a troubled but brilliant young Indian man enslaved by the British East India Company during their brutal reign of his country. In the pilot episode, “Anahata,” Nemo leads a slave revolt to steal the Nautilus out from the Company, who has been building it in secret as a weapon of domination against China. From there, Nemo offers promises of sunken treasure to keep his motley crew—composed of some fellow conspirators, as well as some other labourers who were, depending on your point of view, in the wrong or right place at the wrong or right time—to escape. The crew are as diverse as the territories conquered by the British East India Company. They include Kai, a Māori man, Suyin, a Chinese woman, Boniface, from Zanzibar (modern-day Tanzania), Turan, a poet from Iraq, Jiacomo, a mysterious white man who speaks a language none understand, and Indian labourers Ranbir and Jagadish. They are led in part by Nemo, and also by Benoit, a French inventor who is chiefly responsible for designing the titular Nautilus. They are soon joined by three passengers—or, more accurately, hostages—who were travelling on a Company ship that Nemo sinks by ramming it with his submarine: Blaster, a powder boy, Humility Lucas, a wealthy woman en route to be married, and Humility’s maid/bodyguard, Loti.  Literal diversity notwithstanding, the crew are efficiently and uniquely defined with a few key lines and scenes in the pilot episode, quickly set up for various roles in the vessel. Boniface, for instance, assumes the role of first mate with a natural leadership ability and a cool-headed approach to dealing with Nemo’s mercurial temper. Kai, meanwhile, takes on the position of quartermaster and chef with a skilled hand at tallying items up in a record book – and masterfully wielding a meat cleaver both to cook and to ward off would-be food thieves. What is unfortunate is that Nemo is comparatively poorly etched. He spends a significant amount of time brooding, and being rather unreasonable and hostile towards his crew. Actor Shazad Latif, who has some experience in Steampunkery—and brooding—from his earlier turn on Penny Dreadful as a re-imagined Dr. Jekyll, is nevertheless well-cast in the cryptic role. He brings a stoic intensity that makes a cypher on paper into someone who feels compelling to watch, although the writing keeps him at arm’s length from the audience. Latif also deftly captures the rebellious spirit of the Nemo from the books, where Nemo proclaimed, after rescuing an Indian pearldiver: “That Indian, sir, is an inhabitant of an oppressed country; and I am still, and shall be, to my last breath, one of them!” That spirit is carried on in Nautilus’ Nemo, fiercely ready to fight the Company. But where the premise falters for Nemo is twofold: First, there is a degree of “show, don’t tell” at play here. When one of Nemo’s fellow rebels is tragically killed during the escape, he ruthlessly instructs his remaining sailors to execute some captive British soldiers. Benoit interjects, saying “this isn’t you.” It’s an unearned moment, because at this point, so early in the show, the audience really has no way of knowing if Benoit is right. Is it Nemo, to fight the Company to the point of murder? So far, it seems like it is. Secondly, that fight, while a good way of injecting momentum and purpose into the show, does chip away at the literary foundations of Nemo as a character. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, the Nautilus is Nemo’s invention, and built to his specifications. Here, Benoit is mainly responsible for the design, and the Company is responsible for the construction. Benoit nevertheless repeatedly insists that without Nemo, “there would be none of this,” and the engine design was his. It’s another moment of telling instead of showing, undercut all the more by the pilot’s closing cliffhanger, which involves some mechanical chicanery in the Nautlius’ guts—and which Nemo is apparently incapable of resolving himself. If we consider that as a prequel, Nautilus is a kind of superhero origin story, it can be forgiven for not immediately giving us the stern, confident, commanding Nemo from Verne’s book. But by making the origin of Nemo’s powers an invention not of his own, as it is in the book, and rather the main tool of Benoit, a colonial man (albeit an altruistic one), and funded by colonial powers, Nautilus undercuts Nemo’s agency. It also undercuts his focus by hiding his motivations and backstory, and being too quick to make Nemo seem villainous. First, by his threat to execute prisoners, and second, by his ramming of a Company ship and hostage-taking. There is a tonal judgement in these story beats, with side characters looking on in a mix of horror and dismay at Nemo as ominous music plays, that reads like the show is more concerned about Nemo being vengeful than with exploring the conditions and backstory that pushed him here. The crew, by comparison, feels lively and interesting, while the captain skulks in his cabin and snarls commands, betraying the trust of his companions almost immediately. This all being said, nine more episodes make up the season run, and if the series can better centre Nemo as a character and as the main driving force of the action, Nautilus can be set up for interesting adventures with a crew of engaging supporting players and a strong purpose. Nemo just needs to be given ample space to show what makes him special as a character—and a hero. Disney+ cancelled Nautilus before it even learned to swim, and AMC rescued it from the depths of obscurity so that US audiences could take a dip in it. If it is a catch worth keeping remains to be seen, but if nothing else, it deserves a chance to be weighed.[end-mark] The post <i>Nautilus</i> Premiere Is Engaging, But Can It Do Justice to Captain Nemo? appeared first on Reactor.