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Aside from Kerry Condon's surprising chemistry with Brad Pitt, this film doesn't separate itself from the standard sports cliches to do much. The best thing a sports movie can do with a niche sport (which I define as being outside the big four in the US) is try to elucidate and excite the viewer about said sport. Your mileage will vary, but I didn't find myself caring or even understanding the plot besides broad outlines. The action could have either used enhanced graphics in the manner of Guy Richie or Edgar Wright, or more wide shots that showed the action in broader strokes.

It's ironic that the film is directed by Joseph Kosinski who had insane commercial and critical success with Top Gun: Maverick. That Oscar-nominated film had a spectacular emotional impact, but it was ultimately a sequel to a film that leaned on cliches itself. It's also hard to replicate the sense of a Top Gun type work when you don't have an actor of Tom Cruise's intensity. Brad Pitt was playing more of a static role with a James Dean/Marlon Brando vibe.

Considering Brad Pitt is practically synonymous with matinee star sex appeal, it seems almost impossible for any woman of Kerry Condon's age to play a convincing option for a Brad Pitt character to want to be monogamous with. After all, the actor himself has trouble being monogamous despite landing some of the most beautiful women on the planet. Considering all this, credit goes to Pitt and Condon for their chemistry.

The TV show Ramy is a wonderfully introspective meditation on modern life as a religious minority. But it's not really funny in a ha ha way, which is strange because creator Ramy Yousef is known as a stand-up comedian.

This might be closer to the mark for those looking for a combination of introspective and funny Ramy.

The show is based on Ramy's memories (also mentioned in his stand-up act) of growing up as a bullied Muslim in the wake of 9/11. It adds a serious satirical punch to the typical high school tropes without getting too preachy.

The show has a few gimmicks that feel a little scatter shot. His crush on his teacher fantasy or the occasional musical number blurs the line between fantasy and reality in a way that wouldn't be out of place for Family Guy or Solar Opposites.

On the upside, jokes that miss are rare and there are a few stand-out characters: Ramy's teacher is a wonderfully strange mix of spacey, tone-deaf, non-plussed and misguidedly enthusiastic. Ramy's grandmother has a dependably humorous voice and serves as a niqab and is a traditionalist contrast to his integration-minded father who's funny in the opposite direction.

With time, there's every reason to believe this show will grow on its first season foundation.

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Being a later comer to this one, I was pleasantly surprised to find the critics are wrong. This is a great film that is pretty much indistinguishable from the originals stylistically. Director James Mangold (Logan, Walk the Line, Girl Interrupted, Ford v Ferrari) once again gives life to an old genre.

While it's a shame Shia LaBeouf wasn't allowed to stay with the franchise (I imagine him not getting along with Harrison Ford didn't help) and grow within the narrative arc, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (primarily known for her comic timing) shows an ability to play a charismatic rogue that few actors or actresses are able to pull off.

As par for the course, the film's set pieces don't disappoint.

The villain is a professor at University of Alabama which seems like a curious cheap shot at red states. He's also played by Mads Mikkelson who plays this kind of role nine out of ten times.

The film's chief MacGuffin, the primitive calculator of Archimedes known as the Antikythera, is a real artifact and sets up the story far better for something far more grounded than the alien plot of the last film.

A lot of skeptics will say that Harrison Ford is too old for the part, but the film works with his age surprisingly well. More to the point, it deals with the emotional and life growth of the man. I'd posit that Indiana Jones has always been a suptegenerian at heart: He's always been a bit of a crank, so to see Indy at this age is to see the man go full circle.