AnotherGuyNamedNick

This is an excellent documentary highlighting the counteroffensive efforts of Ukraine in 2023. But there's no heroism or uplifting arc here. Watching it in 2025 just left me depressed, because it underscores how futile the Ukrainian war effort has felt and how much pain and how many lives have been lost. The dreary tone also becomes a bit repetitive.

It works as a follow-up to 20 Days in Mariupol, but it isn't as engaging or as strong journalistically.

Whose idea was it to turn Predator into a beat-for-beat Disney-style adventure film? This is Predator in name only. There is virtually none of the horror, tension, or atmosphere from the original. It feels like a cardboard cutout, generic kids movie. It may as well have been a Disney Channel original.

I could not believe they included every stereotype: the quirky, annoying sidekick who asks endless questions while traveling, the cutesy creature the audience is supposed to adore, the forced found-family dynamic, and the overtly evil villains with shallow motivations. It's seriously reminded me of like this straight to dvd kids movies my parents bought for me when I was a kid. Unbelievable.

If Cregger were a competent writer, this movie would have had an ending that raises more questions than it answers like Memories of Murder or The Wailing. Instead, we get a promising first act and premise, followed by an extremely cut-and-dry ending. This movie exudes pretension by raising pointless questions that turn out to be mostly red herrings.

That being said, it's competently filmed, and if you temper your expectations, it's a fun watch. I'm just tired of these gimmicky horror films that critics hype up, only for them to amount to a whole lot of nothing.