Morbius (2022):

Despite the fact that it took three tries, due to Covid, to get to our screens, I must say that this character who first appeared in a Spider-Man Marvel comic in 1971, was well worth the wait. Perhaps it's because I have superhero fatigue, seeing so many of the same old characters for so many years, but I found this action-thriller a breath of fresh air, full of never-before-seen special effects, and built on new characters making their way in a world as yet untouched by most of those old costumed heroes. Based on a lesser-known Marvel Comics character, Dr. Michael Morbius (Oscar-winner Jared Leto) is a PhD and an MD who has suffered from a debilitating and ultimately lethal rare blood disease. An early scene shows us young Michael as a pre-teen confined to a hospital that specializes in cases like his, all children, all unable to walk without the use of crutches, and facing an early death before they actually get to live a life. When a complex piece of medical machinery malfunctions for the young patient in the bed next to him, Michael rips the back off the electronic device, pulls out what appears to be a blown fuse, and bridges the gap with a spring from a ballpoint pen. His doctor is amazed, saying, "the finest engineering brains in the world developed this piece of equipment, and a child repaired it with a spring, saving a life." That was Dr. Nikols (Jared Harris) who then pursued an opportunity for Michael to get into a gifted students' program in New York. We cut to the now-adult Morbius in the person of Jared Leto who owns this role like a man who paid cash for a new car. He is researching the possibilities to save himself and from there to save others who have this rare disease. He makes a discovery that comes with a huge risk - the cure has a tragic flaw. Morbius may have saved his own life, but he has become the Living Vampire, imbued with powers well beyond anything that we ever saw in Dracula. There is nothing supernatural about what happens to Morbius, so sunlight, a wooden stake through the heart, and garlic have no negative impact. But Morbius has the insatiable thirst for human blood that makes his character either a bad guy with good intentions, or a good guy with bad intentions. Michael Keaton is billed as a co-star, but does not show up until a post-credit scene that sets up the next film in this series. Outstanding movie! Rated 14A.

Father Stu (2022):

Based on a true story, on actual events, and on real people, this is the inspirational story of Stuart Long (Mark Wahlberg), an amateur boxer whose career was ended by injuries. I knew that much going in and was expecting a Hallmark-type movie, or maybe something we might see on the Lifetime channel, an uplifting tale of overcoming odds and finding a better life. Nothing could be further from the truth! To say this is a tough, gritty movie would be dramatic understatement. The language and situations are brutal, the characters for the most part are anything but likeable, and tragedy stalks each outcome like a predatory wolf stalks an innocent deer. With boxing now out of the picture, Stu decides to take a big chance and move to Los Angeles, where he believed a future in the movie business as a star performer was waiting for him. Cheap motels, cheap whiskey and cheap women were the order of the day. He was lucky to get a job in a butcher shop, but wasn't all that good at it because his dreadful people skills and crude behaviour haunted each turn in his life like a graveyard ghoul. Stu's faking an interest in the Catholic Church wasn't convincing enough to get him anywhere. A tragic motorcycle accident changed everything. While recovering, he began to wonder if he could change his life to one of helping people and of doing some good in the world, and soon felt compelled to become a Catholic priest. The grit, the no-punches-pulled dialogue, and the characters scraping the bottom of society's barrel, are hard to watch at times, but at the end of it all, this is an unusual story, true to its core with no sugar-coating, with excellent performances, and with an outcome that is both happy and tragic. Stay for the credits to see video of the real Father Stuart Long and his real family. Rated 14A.

Ambulance (2022):

Action producer and director Michael Bay (the "Transformers" movies) is the talent behind the camera in this action-drenched crime thriller. It is a remake of a 2005 Danish movie of the same name, and, while open to plenty of criticism, it's a popcorn movie that rivals the best of them with a lot of stuff blowing up, a lot of car chases and a lot of bad language. Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul Mateen II) star as a pair of adoptive brothers, Danny and Will Sharp, one white (Danny), and one Black (Will). They have been estranged for a time. Danny is a career bank robber like his father before him, and Will took a different road signing up for the Marine Corps and fighting in Afghanistan where he returned home a war hero. Like so many other veterans, America did not treat him kindly on his return. Will's wife needs life-saving surgery which will cost $231,000 and his insurance won't cover it. He can't get a decent job, he struggles with PTSD, and he has a little baby to boot. Seeing no choice, Will goes to Danny and asks to borrow the money for his wife's operation. Instead, Danny has a better idea - he has a crew ready for a bank job that will net $32 million, and Will just needs to come along as another support person. It isn't what Will wants, but he is between a rock and a hard place, so he reluctantly gives in. A huge firefight kills off all of Danny's crew outside the bank. That's the set-up, and now, with a wounded police officer in an ambulance, with Cam trying to keep him alive, and with Will driving, and Danny riding shotgun, the ambo is out on the mean streets of South-Central LA and the police are giving chase. For the next hour and change, it's a series of cop cars flipping over, freeway traffic smashing up, and police helicopters giving chase. Danny knows that his ticket out of all this means the cop has to stay alive, and a number of hard-to-believe scenes follow. There are some reveals about the brothers' family connection to organized crime along the way. Other than the fact that the movie is too long at 2 hours and 16 minutes, if you want to just turn off your mind, it will work just fine as a great escape from reality. Rated 14A.

Stranger Things: Season 4 (TV Series) (2022):

The horrors of The Upside Down continue to haunt the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, while the original cast returns intact, with the kids who fought those horrors now in high school and facing their own challenges. When season three ended, we were in the midst of the Battle of Starcourt, the mall which became the focus of the bizarre creatures focused on destroying humans. Town Sheriff Hopper isn't in Hawkins when the action opens. He was captured and is the focus of interrogation somewhere on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula by both human dangers and those more out worldly. A good part of the start to this season, which will come in two parts separated by one month's time, has the pals, the kids, including Eleven, Mike, Dustin, et al off on separate missions of a sort, really the first time in their young lives that they haven't been a tight group. Rated 14A.

Operation Mincemeat (2021):

This film, based on actual events in WWII, was released by Warner Bros in the UK theatrically, and is being released by Netflix in North America. Colin Firth stars in this ingenious story of an espionage operation in 1943 that turned the tide of the war when a pair of British operatives used a combination of a corpse and false identity documents to deceive the Germans at a critical point when a huge build-up of troops was set to quash the allies. It tells the story of those who fight in the shadows, and whose true exploits are sometimes unknown and lost in the fog of war and the mirage of history. Rated 14A.