War Machine (2026) | This year's War Machine drops soldiers into a fight with a giant alien machine. No deep thinking, just solid popcorn action. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.3/10. I was glad to see War Machine (2026) knows exactly what it is and doesn’t spend any time pretending to be a late Oscar contender. It’s loud and simple. Built almost entirely around the idea of soldiers fighting a giant alien killing machine in the middle of a Ranger training exercise. If that sounds like the kind of dumb fun you’re in the mood for, War Machine mostly delivers.

The film opens with a quick emotional setup for Alan Ritchson’s character, known simply as “81.” Ritchson continues to ride the momentum from his success on Reacher, and he’s proving he deserves these bigger leading roles. We get a short scene between 81 and his brother where they promise to join the Army Rangers together. As you’d expect, the inevitable tragedy follows, setting up the grief motivation that drives 81 through the brutal Ranger training process.

Two years later, we jump into the excruciating qualification process for Ranger candidates. Writer/director Patrick Hughes quickly establishes the classic underdog angle as the remaining trainees head into their final field exercise. What starts as a mock combat mission, however, takes a hard left turn when an actual alien threat crashes into the training zone.

The movie had already been hinting at some mysterious asteroid earlier, so the reveal isn’t exactly shocking. What is a little surprising is how the Ranger candidates react when they first encounter the alien combatant. These are supposed to be elite soldiers, yet their first instinct seems to be standing around staring blankly while teammates get blasted apart. You’d think at least one of them might try ducking.

Once the chaos kicks in, though, War Machine (2026) settles into the type of action we tuned in for. The alien isn’t some stealthy hunter like the Predator. Think a massive mechanical threat, closer to something you’d see stomping around in Pacific Rim. The entire movie felt like a throwback to early 90s action, with soldiers scrambling across rugged terrain while a giant robot hunts them down.

The Australian scenery looks fantastic, giving the action plenty of wide-open space to muck around in. And if you’ve seen some of Hughes’ previous films like The Hitman’s Bodyguard or The Expendables 3, you know the kind of action style he likes to bring. Big explosions, fast pacing, and absolutely zero concern for robot safety.

I'll give the film credit. The action sequences are well constructed, and the CGI never becomes distracting. Even when the logic wobbles a bit, like the final bomb behaving very differently from earlier ones, it’s easy to let it slide. This isn’t exactly the kind of movie where you keep your brain switched fully on anyway.

The ending even feels a bit like a video game final boss battle, which actually works in the film’s favor. It also sends a pretty clear message. If audiences respond well, War Machine is absolutely ready to fire up a sequel.

War Machine (2026)

There isn't much depth here, yet War Machine (2026) still is an entertaining handful of popcorn action. Sometimes that’s all I need a movie to be. And you would think Netflix would be a little smarter with title choices. They just released a movie by the same name in 2017.

https://jackmeat.com/war-machine-2026/

T Blockers (2023) | The story drags early, but once people start eating tar-like, slimy worms, you at least get some goofy indie horror energy. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.8/10. T Blockers opens with a black-and-white introduction featuring an Elvira-style host who doesn’t have much to say beyond the vague reminder that “it’s only a movie.” Not exactly the most insightful introduction, but it sets a campy tone before the story dives into its slimy premise.

Ancient parasites are rising from beneath a small town and infecting the most fearful and susceptible hosts. Before the film settles into its main characters, we get a guy noticing a pair of eyes staring at him from a crack in the ground, possibly caused by an earthquake, though the movie isn’t overly concerned with explaining it. A strange green mist swirls up, curiosity wins, and he leans in for a closer look…only to get blood spit straight into his face. Lesson learned. If the ground is staring back at you, maybe just keep walking.

The budget has become obvious by the time the title card appears, proudly labeling the film as a transgender and queer horror movie. Depending on the viewer, that will either be a selling point or a deterrent. Personally, the real attraction here was the brisk 71-minute runtime.

The early stretch of the movie centers more on everyday life than horror. There’s an awkward date where both participants claim they were rejected by the other. The woman later goes home to party, while the guy meets a stranger who convinces him to bury his face in a barrel of mysterious slime. You know, a normal evening in this town. The sound mix doesn’t help matters, with music frequently drowning out the dialogue.

About twenty minutes in, the cryptic host reappears, although we now see that the characters are viewing this segment online. The focus of T Blockers appears to be on Sophie (Lauren Last), a young filmmaker who appears to be the only character who can detect if someone has been infected. Sophie is mid-transition, something mentioned during a conversation with her brother, and many of her scenes are bathed in intense neon lighting that occasionally borders on blinding.

The horror finally picks up when a group of guys attacks Chris (Toshiro Glenn), the nicest character in the movie. When his friends step in to defend him, they witness the attackers hunched over a fallen friend, eating thick black goo from his body. That’s when the group realizes the situation resembles something they saw in an online movie, prompting them to go full vigilante and start hunting infected worm creatures.

The parasite concept occasionally reminded me of Night of the Creeps, particularly the idea of worms entering people through the mouth. It’s nowhere near as effective, but even the suggestion of that classic gets a small bonus from me.

There are a few glimmers of potential from director Alice Maio Mackay, although the acting, special effects, and writing are all subpar and detract from the potential of T Blockers. The metaphor for acceptance and standing up against hatred is definitely buried in this story, although the message gets a bit too preachy towards the end (and focused on the totally wrong character).

T Blockers (2023)

https://jackmeat.com/t-blockers-2023/

Ballerina (2023) | A graceful symphony of revenge with heart and soul carried out by a pint-sized hero. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.4/10. I noticed Ballerina had been quietly making waves for a while before I finally moved it from the ever-growing watchlist pile onto the screen. You know how that list goes. Movies sit there patiently for months, sometimes years, waiting for their moment like a kid raising their hand in class. Well, Ballerina finally got called on, and thankfully, it had a pretty good answer ready. This 2023 Korean action thriller, directed by Lee Chung-hyun, follows ex-bodyguard Jang Ok‑joo (Jeon Jong-seo) as she sets out to fulfill her deceased best friend’s last wish. Wreak some very, very specific havoc. Revenge is the dish of the day here, and Ok‑joo serves it cold…with a side of roundhouse kicks.

From the opening scenes, Ballerina makes it obvious she isn't going to screw around. Ok‑joo quickly moves from quiet mourning to a full-blown cat-and-mouse game with gun dealers, gangsters, and other assorted baddies. The action hits hard. Every scene feels like it could explode into a fight at any second, and guess what, it often does. The choreography is smooth and brutal in equal measure. Ok‑joo might be pint-sized, but she makes the bad guys feel like poorly assembled Ikea furniture.

What sets Ballerina apart from your typical revenge flick is Jong-seo. She doesn't say much, and that silence works like a secret weapon. No comedic one-liners needed to cover that pain. Just her presence keeps the story grounded, even when bullets and fists are flying all over the place. You feel her pain, anger, and determination without the need for a melodramatic speech. That’s a rare skill in an action movie and makes her captivating to watch from start to finish.

Aside from a few spots in the beginning, the pacing is fine. Even still, the momentum never really lets up for long. When the fights begin, it’s all systems go. And the action itself? Oh, it's perfectly choreographed, with a nice level of creativity thrown in so things don't get repetitive. With Ballerina, it’s not just the punches and kicks that you see, it’s the punches and kicks that you feel.

At its core, Ballerina is about loyalty, loss, and making sure the people who hurt your friends learn that is gonna be a permanent mistake. The movie does a good job of balancing the action and a little bit of emotional depth, giving it a sense of being more than just a series of fights.. It’s still primarily a thrill ride, but one that occasionally lets you breathe long enough to care about why the next punch matters.

Also worth noting. Ballerina has zero connection to the 2025 Ballerina spin-off from the John Wick universe. No assassins’ guilds, no gold coins, and no Keanu Reeves showing up to ruin someone’s day. Just one determined woman making a very specific list of people catch a slight case of death.

Ballerina (2023)

In the end, Ballerina is a lean, stylish revenge thriller that knows exactly what it wants to be. It’s not going to reinvent the genre. It is here for anyone in the mood for tightly choreographed fights, a quietly fierce lead, and a story that punches as hard as it hits. This Korean gem is worth the watch.

https://jackmeat.com/ballerina-2023/

Skinwalker Island (2025) | We've seen this movie before, with a better story & better effects, but never has shapeshifting horror been such a family affair. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 3.5/10. I don't really have an excuse for this one. Skinwalker Island follows a group of siblings who return to their family’s Florida island after their grandmother passes away. Of course, because no low-budget horror gathering is complete without anarchy, their resident troublemaker cousin crashes the grief party just in time for supernatural forces to start clocking in. What unfolds is a mix of ancestral, shape-shifting curses and characters who probably should have just sold the island and moved on with their lives.

Let’s start with the script. Written by Jon Carlo, the plot is about as bland as unseasoned mashed potatoes. It checks off familiar horror beats without adding much flavor. You’ve seen this movie before. You know where it’s going. You can practically hear the “ominous forest noise” sound effect before it happens. The suspense is nearly nonexistent, and when the possession angle kicks in, it feels rushed and barely explained. Someone gets taken over, someone dies, and the “why” is treated like optional DLC content.

That said, Carlo the director, fares better than Carlo the writer. He somehow manages to make the film look more expensive than it probably was. The shots are clean, the Florida scenery is decent, and the overall presentation is polished enough to trick you into thinking something bigger is coming. Unfortunately, it rarely does. The effects leave plenty to be desired, especially when CGI blood shows up looking like it was applied with the “basic red splatter” preset. Most of the kills are either off-screen or poorly executed, which is always a risky move when your story is this thin.

Interestingly, the lead actors appear to actually be siblings, and I’d already seen them in Carlo’s previous film, Feral State. This is a slight step up from that one (which I rated a brutal 3.1), so progress is technically being made. Jasmine Tamposi, playing Lucy, has definitely improved since then. She was adequate here. The brother, Oliver, still needs a few more classes. Solid enough that I didn’t find myself actively wincing, which is growth. Meanwhile, Nicholas Tamposi plays Lucy’s dad, and age-wise, might very well be Oliver & Jasmine’s real-life father. It’s giving a “family production meeting over Thanksgiving dinner” vibe. But hey, at least there’s commitment.

The dialogue, though, is often irritating. The extra characters are largely interchangeable, and the attention-seeking social media cousin is more eye-roll than comic relief. His performance feels especially forced, which doesn’t help an already predictable movie (sorry, bruh, not naming you). The shapeshifting creature itself never feels fully defined, as if the filmmakers couldn’t quite decide what it was supposed to be. Even so, one particularly mean-spirited attack does land effectively. It’s nasty in a way that briefly jolts the movie awake. And it doesn't involve any half-baked creature.

Overall, Skinwalker Island looks better than it reads, and that’s about the kindest thing I can say. It’s a marginal improvement over Carlo’s previous effort, but not nearly enough to make it recommendable. I found myself checking out mentally more than once, which is never a great sign when supernatural horrors are supposed to be lurking in every shadow. Not one I’d suggest rushing out to see unless you’re a completionist for low-budget shape-shifter cinema.

Skinwalker Island (2025)

https://jackmeat.com/skinwalker-island-2025/

Hamnet (2025) | This wonderfully acted movie is not exactly a feel-good pick, unless crying quietly in the dark is your thing. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 7.7/10. I realized March 15th is coming soon, and I would like to get all the Best Picture nominees in so I can make more educated picks for the Oscar Contest. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet opens with a title card explaining that in Elizabethan England, “Hamnet” and “Hamlet” were interchangeable due to the era’s creative relationship with spelling. It’s a small detail and not just historical trivia. It’s part of the backbone of the film.

After her eleven-year-old son dies during the plague, Agnes Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley) is shattered. Her husband William (Paul Mescal) mourns too, but in a very different way. She is the wound exposed. He is the scar forming quietly underneath clothing. All of this takes place in the unforgiving landscape of 16th-century England. The film follows Agnes, a healer who can mend others but not herself. She attempts to navigate grief while still being a wife and mother to her surviving children.

Let’s get this out of the way. You already know this story is going to hurt. The plague doesn’t exactly scream “feel-good matinee.” But what makes Hamnet devastating isn’t just the tragedy, it’s how convincingly it’s performed. The acting here is on another level. Buckley delivers a performance that feels less like acting and more like a mental excavation. When that moment of realization hits her during the stage performance of Hamlet, the entire range of emotion she cycles through is staggering. It’s raw, unfiltered grief. Agnes doesn’t romanticize her pain. She wears it like armor made of broken glass.

Mescal plays Will as a man who buries his sorrow so deep it comes back out as poetry. Their dynamic is painfully believable. One partner imploding, the other transmuting loss into language. You can practically see the creative gears turning behind his eyes while hers remain flooded.

The supporting cast is equally strong. Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Susanna, the eldest child, brings a quiet resilience to her scenes. I had just seen her in Shelter, and she continues to impress. Noah Jupe, playing the stage version of Hamlet, again had my full attention, as he did in The Carpenter’s Son. The theater sequence with Agnes in the audience is one of the film’s most powerful moments. Grief meeting art in real time.

I thought Hamnet was visually stunning. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal deserves major credit for creating an atmosphere that feels authentically lived-in rather than museum-polished. There’s mud, candlelight, and damp air. You can almost smell the 1500s (which, I'd be willing to bet, wasn’t pleasant).

If there’s a drawback, it’s the pacing. The film moves deliberately, sometimes very deliberately. It slows down to force you to sit in the grief, to feel its corrosive weight. There’s no swelling musical cue to soften the blow. Sadness here isn’t poetic. It’s damaging and relentless, without a cure in sight.

Go figure. A movie about the Shakespeare family delivers some of the best acting of the year. Don’t be surprised if you don’t make it through dry-eyed. It may not be my Best Picture pick (I’ve still got two contenders left to watch), but in terms of performances? This one’s setting the bar uncomfortably high.

Hamnet (2025)

https://jackmeat.com/hamnet-2025/

Shelter (2026) | Not his best, but when Statham starts clearing rooms, I remembered why these movies still work. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 6.3/10. Jason Statham has built an entire career around playing men you absolutely do not want to inconvenience, and Shelter continues that proud tradition.

Statham plays Michael Mason, a recluse living on a remote Scottish island, clearly enjoying the “leave me alone” phase of his life. The film opens with some genuinely gorgeous oceanfront scenery - IMDb credits Wicklow Town, County Wicklow, Ireland, for the views - and it’s a strong visual hook. There’s something calming about waves crashing against cliffs…especially knowing that at some point, those cliffs are going to echo with gunfire.

When Mason rescues a young girl, Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), from the sea, the film wisely slows down instead of sprinting toward explosions. Their relationship gets time to develop, which gives the story a bit more emotional weight than your standard “gruff loner with a mysterious past” setup. Breathnach delivers a captivating performance, holding her own alongside Statham with surprising confidence. If you haven’t seen her before, you probably will again, especially with her upcoming role in Hamnet already drawing attention. (Oscars 2026, get your picks in)

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Statham vehicle without someone deciding that the quiet island hermit is actually a massive problem. Writer Ward Parry builds a fairly layered conspiracy to justify why Mason suddenly becomes target number one. It’s not reinventing the wheel. You’ve absolutely seen versions of this before, but it’s presented with enough detail to stay entertaining.

Once the attack hits Mason’s home, the movie shifts gears and doesn’t really look back. I enjoyed seeing a car chase that avoids the modern obsession with CGI chaos and instead opts for grounded, believable stunt work. The cars behave like cars. Gravity behaves like gravity. It’s refreshing. After the action moves to London, we get well-choreographed, old-school fight sequences that lean on practical effects and tight choreography rather than flashy digital noise.

A close-quarters gunfight inside an electronic music–pumping nightclub is a particular highlight. Loud, chaotic, and satisfyingly brutal. The bad guys meet their ends in ways that feel earned, not cartoonish.

What ultimately makes Shelter work is Statham himself. He plays this role effortlessly, commanding attention without overacting. There’s a steady confidence to his presence that keeps even the familiar plot beats engaging. The film also earns points for sidestepping a certain overused villain trope ending - if you know, you know - which was a welcome surprise.

In tone, this feels closer to The Beekeeper than some of his more straightforward punch-fests, blending character moments with efficient, no-nonsense action. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s sturdy, practical, and entertaining. And honestly, that is exactly what I want from a Statham flick.

Shelter (2026)

https://jackmeat.com/shelter-2026/

Die Hart 2: Die Harter (2024) | Kevin Hart's 2024 sequel has decent action sequences proportional to its large budget, but it fails on the comedy front. #jackmeatsflix

My quick rating - 4.6/10. Die Hart 2: Die Harter follows the classic sequel rulebook. Bigger budget, louder explosions, and the bold confidence that surely this time they’ve cracked the formula. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, it sticks closely to the blueprint of its predecessor. Only this time, it doesn’t quite level up.

Once again, Kevin Hart plays a heightened, self-aware version of himself, still on a mission to cement his legacy as the greatest action star alive. His grand plan? Come up with his own flick packed with unscripted, unpredictable chaos to wow the suits that finance it. Because if there’s one thing action movies need, it is more chaos. Hart's master plan has a blind spot that puts him in the middle of a vengeful plot from his past. It turns out that if you make a living by making fun of people and being loud, someone might hold a grudge. Who knew?

Let me start with the positives. The budget is clearly visible on screen. The movie looks really good, and the action scenes are impressive. The stunts are big, and director Eric Appel captures them well. So you get some excitement instead of just a lot of confusing fast edits. There are times when you can see what this series could be. A funny action series that makes fun of action movies while still being a big blockbuster. When the movie focuses on the action, it is actually good.

Now…about that comedy.

For someone known for rapid-fire delivery and sharp comedic timing, Hart feels strangely held back by a script that doesn’t give him enough good material. The humor is very hit-or-miss. And unfortunately, it misses more than it hits. Several jokes feel forced, as if the punchlines were added during a lunch break rewrite. The timing occasionally feels off, and the wit just isn’t as sharp as fans have come to expect. You can almost see the jokes coming and then watch them trip over their own setup.

The storyline has some promise to it. A meta commentary on fame, ego, and legacy, but the execution is just off. That vengeful twist from Hart’s past should have added some thrills. Instead, the plot feels disjointed, bouncing between ideas without committing to any of them. The pacing suffers, and the film occasionally drifts into “Are we still doing this?” territory.

Getting Nathalie Emmanuel and John Cena involved was smart, adding some much-needed energy. Cena, in particular, continues to prove he understands how to play the straight-faced absurdist better than most. Their chemistry with Hart creates a few genuinely fun moments, but even they can’t fully rescue this script.

In the end, Die Hart 2: Die Harter delivers action sequences I call proportional to the ridiculous budget. But the comedy, which should be the backbone of the concept, doesn't always work. I mean, it's not a disaster, but it's very disappointing. Especially given the talent they hired. There are hints of what this franchise could be, but in the end, it goes with safe and forgettable, just like Die Hart did.

Die Hart 2: Die Harter

If Hart’s goal is to become the greatest action star alive, he might need one more training montage, preferably with better punchlines.

https://jackmeat.com/die-hart-2-die-harter-2024/