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Return of the Street Fighter almost stages a third act rally. It comes so close, then it doesn’t. After a string of boring fight scenes, director Ozawa finally gets in a couple good ones. Lead Sonny Chiba against one adversary, instead of a half dozen, two dozen, or four dozen. The failure to do bi read more

Captain Marvel’s Secret opens with yet another lackluster cliffhanger resolve. No reason to change it up at the end, apparently. The chapter has a lot to do in sixteen minutes. It’s got to reveal the evil Scorpion’s identity, stop the Scorpion’s evil plan, and maybe do something regarding Frank read more

Sentence of Death unfolds gradually. The action mostly follows Betsy Palmer, playing a naughty blue blood who the tabloids love to cover. She’s slumming it and having a nice private dinner at a drug store. She’s there when someone holds it up and kills the owner. Enter cops Gene Lyons and Ralph read more

Valley of Death is the penultimate chapter of Adventures of Captain Marvel. It’s in a rush to finish. The cliffhanger resolution is boring, though leads to some decent effects shots. The cast ends up in a hotel somewhere, planning to return to Thailand and the tombs from the first chapter. Villain read more

There’s nothing nice to say about Doom Ship’s opening cliffhanger resolution other than it’s short and leads into an energetic fight scene for Frank Coghlan Jr. More than ever, Coghlan’s got the wrong timing for turning into Tom Tyler’s Captain Marvel this chapter. Unlike the times when Coghlan’s read more

Two-Faced Woman is the story of a successful New York magazine editor, played by Melvyn Douglas, who marries his ski instructor (Greta Garbo) while on vacation. It’s a whirlwind courtship, with one condition of the marriage (for Garbo) being Douglas is giving up New York. Turns out he’s not and read more

Dead Man’s Trap is, I guess, a bridging chapter. It depends on what’s next. Otherwise it’s a treading water chapter. It picks up from the previous chapter’s “cliffhanger” (quotations because it’s more of a “beware the cliff 150 meters away” than anything else) and gives George Pembroke read more

Boomerang is the best chapter of Captain Marvel yet. Not because of Captain Marvel action–there’s some, but it’s perfunctory–rather it’s the plotting. Boomerang springboards off something in the previous chapter (unrelated to the cliffhanger), sort of narratively hopping over something. That read more

Justice League exists, whether intentionally or not, outside a certain kind of critical examination. Director Snyder didn’t finish post-production. Or, at least, when the studio demanded lots of reshoots, Snyder wasn’t involved in a creative capacity. The job went to Joss Whedon, who gets a co-writ read more

Dressed to Kill has oodles of style. It doesn’t have a lot else going for it–a lot of the acting, sure, but the acting never pays off for anyone–but it does have style. Director De Palma and cinematographer Ralf D. Bode create an ethereal New York for the action to play out in. The film opens read more

Starting Human Targets, I couldn’t remember what cliffhanger needed to be resolved. It’s not a good one. More of the “Tom Tyler is bad at being a superhero” same. Once it gets resolved, with William ‘Billy’ Benedict shooting the breeze with Tyler and asking zero questions about why Tyler’s read more

Some of The Dragon’s Challenge’s problems are because it’s a TV two-parter stuck together then packaged as a theatrical. An overseas theatrical, but still a theatrical feature. The action in the first half takes place in New York, with some cuts to villain Richard Erdman making plans. He needs read more

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is an amusing, intentionally misleading title. Eddie Coyle (Robert Mitchum) doesn’t have any friends. He has various criminal contacts he sees on a regular basis, but he doesn’t consider any of them friends. Mitchum’s a down-on-luck small-time crook who’s about to read more

Lens of Death has great fistfight in the middle. Sadly, it’s not Captain Marvel fighting, but this guy’s butler. The place is being robbed and the butler takes on the two crooks and keeps them busy until Captain Marvel does arrive. There’s no great fight scene Captain Marvel Tom Tyler, though read more

The cliffhanger resolution at the beginning of The Scorpion Strikes quickly gives way to a fine Captain Marvel action sequence. Tom Tyler gets lots of dialogue as he threatens punks; he even throws one off a building. He captures the last thug left ambulatory and takes him in for questioning. Only read more

The Lottery has a lot of mood. Isidore Mankofsky’s lucid but muted cinematography captures a routine day, not even special with an entire small town gathering in a large field. Director Yust has a few favorite touchstones among the townspeople, though only until the lottery itself starts. Then he read more

Death Takes the Wheel sadly does not have a Death character driving. It does have a lazy cliffhanger resolution at the open, which will probably echo in the next chapter’s cliffhanger resolution too. The screenwriters have established their cliffhanger resolution pattern. It’s not a good one, that read more

A couple things in Time Bomb stand out. First, there’s how no one seems to care about how the opening cliffhanger resolves. Not for Captain Marvel (Tom Tyler), but for the expedition member being held hostage. It’s not clear anyone even knows about it after its happened. So, not a good thing, a read more

The Guillotine does not open with a satisfying cliffhanger resolution. It’s only Captain Marvel’s second chapter, which probably ought to have a satisfying cliffhanger resolution; it’s mildly concerning it does not. After that lackluster resolution, the story moves back to the United States. Turns read more

Adventures of Captain Marvel has a lot of action in its first chapter. Setting up the ground situation is even action. There’s an expedition to Thailand and, although they have permits with the occupying British forces, the native people aren’t thrilled with the expedition coming in to tomb rob. read more