Which Avengers: Doomsday cast member are you the most excited about for Marvel Studios’ latest universe-spanning event film?

Last Wednesday, Marvel launched a livestream for its upcoming cinematic epic Avengers: Doomsday. The event, which moved at a snail’s pace, featured a then-unknown crew member placing chairs in a line, each revealing a confirmed cast member of the Joe and Anthony Russo-directed movie. As a chair appeared every 10-15 minutes, the five-and-a-half-hour-long presentation helped build anticipation for the film across social media and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Here’s the list of actors and characters Marvel confirmed for the movie: We have Robert Downey Jr. – not as his Tony Stark / Iron Man character from earlier MCU movies, but as the villainous Doctor Doom / Victor von Doom. Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor, with Tom Hiddleston as his brother Loki. Anthony Mackie returns as the new Captain America, and Danny Ramirez as the new Falcon. Paul Rudd returns as Ant-Man. So does Simu Liu as Shang-Chi. The Fantastic Four is in the line-up: Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm. We have Letitia Wright as Shuri from Wakanda and Winston Duke as M’Baku. Tenoch Huerta Mejía, who played King Ch’ah Toh Almehen, a.k.a. Namor the Sub-Mariner, in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, is returning.

Several Thunderbolts* cast members are present and accounted for: Sebastian Stan as James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, Wyatt Russell as John Walker, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian, Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost, and Lewis Pullman as Robert “Bob” Reynolds / Sentry. And from the X-Men films: Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier, Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto, Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Henry “Hank” McCoy / Beast, Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler, Rebecca Romijn as Raven Darkholme / Mystique, James Marsden as Scott Summers / Cyclops, and Channing Tatum as Remy LeBeau / Gambit.

The most significant surprise for Avengers: Doomsday arrives courtesy of Marvel’s pivot into the studio’s X-Men universe. Bringing familiar cast members back from Fox’s X-Men films was a highlight of last year’s Deadpool and Wolverine, and it appears Marvel wants to keep the X-train rolling. Still, the studio says fans can expect more cast members to return, perhaps with another lengthy game of musical chairs.

All this excitement leads us to today’s poll question: Which Avengers: Doomsday cast member are you the most excited about? Who would you like to see confirmed for the second round of cast reveals? Answer the poll, then let us know in the comments section below.

The long journey for Blade to finally make it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe may be over…and not in a good way.

For months and months, we were only getting bad and disheartening news about Marvel’s Blade, which would be entering the MCU more than 25 years after Wesley Snipes first brought the character to the big screen. Now, the bad news may be over…depending on your view of the movie. As it stands, it may be that Blade has been cancelled completely.

Multiple sources are reporting that Marvel has put Blade to rest after a string of screenwriters and directors circled, signed on and left the project. One key source this time around is The Playlist’s Rodrigo Perez, who posted a thread on X where he detailed what might really have been going behind the scenes that eventually led to Blade potentially – but not definitely – being dulled.

For starters, Perez noted that the news that Chad Stahelski signing on as director (after Bassam Tariq and Yann Demange, while apparently Cari Joji Fukunaga had also been in talks) was false. However, Mashershala Ali is still playing Blade (despite calls for Wesley Snipe to reprise, especially after his Deadpool & Wolverine cameo), although it may not be for a standalone movie. So where does that leave Ali in the MCU?

Last year, after Blade was formally removed from the release calendar, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige insisted that Ali would for sure be playing Blade, saying, “We love the character, we love Mahershala’s version of him. And rest assured: whenever we change direction with a project, or are still trying to figure out how it fits into our schedule, we let the public know. You’re up to date on what’s going on. But I can tell you that the character will be coming to the MCU.” So does this development mean that he’ll be a surprise reveal in something like Avengers: Doomsday? More likely, it might be that Blade gets introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe via Midnight Sons, as Blade is part of the titular group which was first introduced in 1992.

Genuinely, the news that Blade might officially be dead as a standalone Marvel movie is no surprise as it feels like it has more or less gone nowhere of significance since first being announced more than five years ago.

How would you feel if Blade was officially dead at Marvel? Where do you want to see the character end up?

Jason Statham’s latest action flick, A Working Man, topped Snow White and more at the box office this weekend.

Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Jason Statham, evidently, as his latest action flick, A Working Man, has topped the weekend box office, poisoning the apple of Snow White, which continued its disappointing run by dropping to the number two spot.

A Working Man once again proved that Jason Statham’s fanbase is a continuously loyal one, as the movie – which reunites him with The Beekeeper director David Ayer – earned $15.2 million in its debut weekend, a chisel in its $40 million budget. For a movie that banks on Statham himself (and not an established franchise like Fast and the Furious), that’s pretty good, landing in The Beekeeper territory.

Now onto Snow White, which opened last week with just $47 million. The live-action (well, mostly) remake of the Disney classic was bound to fall but we didn’t expect it to do so in such embarrassing fashion, as it slipped nearly 70%. While that still put it as the weekend’s runner-up, it only took in another $14.2 million. For a movie that has a budget pegged upwards of $270 million, this is easily one of the biggest red marks for Disney. Hopefully this will make them reconsider their desire to remake their animated classics (although a lot are still on the calendar)…or at least convince Hollywood to stop casting Gal Gadot.

The rest of the box office was far less dramatic, although a curious choice came in at #3: The Chosen: The Last Supper ($11.5 million), which is actually part of an Amazon MGM Studios deal that sees the fifth season of the faith-based series getting a theatrical release before hitting Amazon. It’s an interesting strategy that is evidently paying off, pulling solid numbers for a movie that has a niche audience.

Blumhouse’s The Woman in the Yard snuck through the gate with $9.4 million. That single-digital number isn’t all that far from the movie’s $12 million budget, although the studio’s non-franchise fare usually at least opens in the doubles. Failing to sparkle was Death of a Unicorn, which poked its way into the top 5 with $5.8 million. You’d think that a movie starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega would have fared far better at the box office but with mid reviews, an R rating and nothing really to grab an audience outside of the cast, it just didn’t have the magic to land.

One delight that made the top 10 was Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, now out courtesy of a 4K transfer. No doubt IMAX screens helped boost it to $3.5 million, but I’d also like to think those who were disgusted by OpenAI’s Studio Ghibli-inspired feature headed to the theater as a move of support. And considering its initial domestic run back in 1999 only saw it in 129 theaters, we’re calling this a win all around. Right behind it was Captain America: Brave New World, which, with another $2.75 million to its name, still stands as the highest-grossing movie of 2025 so far.

Meanwhile, Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag is trying to nudge towards $20 million domestically with its $2.15 million this weekend. Soderbergh isn’t normally a splash at the box office but his movies are almost always worth seeing so good on him for hanging in the top 10 (even if Black Bag won’t recoup its budget, not even earning back half of it on the domestic front). The number nine and 10 spots would go to Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 and the Jack Quaid action flick Novocaine, which is a lot of fun and well worth checking out. Mickey 17 took in $2 with a, while Novocaine earned $1.45 million in its third week. That might seem numb, but considering it has already recouped its budget, any extra bucks are welcome.

As it happens, Chris Bumbray’s box office predictions for this week’s totals underestimated Jason Statham’s ability to put in work. Our editor-in-chief, Chris Bumbray, thought Snow White would retain its top spot, but David Ayer and Jason Statham’s A Working Man hammered its way to the top of the list with a $15.2M debut over Snow White‘s $14.2M. Ah, well. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, right?

Next week will no doubt find a new champ at the box office, as A Minecraft Movie is looking to be a real blockbuster, proving to do well with advanced ticket sales ahead of its release. Other new titles include Lionsgate’s Pedro Pascal-starring Freaky Tales, horror-comedy Hell of a Summer (which is Finn Wolfhard’s co-directorial debut), The Luckiest Man in America (about the infamous Press Your Luck scandal) and Eric Laure (Michael Shannon’s own directorial debut). Mid-week, Screamboat – the latest horror movie taking advantage of copyright lapses – will also open.

What did you catch at the movies this weekend?

Bruce Glover, who notably played a villain in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever and had small roles in several classics of the ‘70s, has passed away. He was 92.

The news of Bruce Glover’s passing was shared on social media by son Crispin, who posted numerous photos – ranging from publicity shots to family photos – all bearing the caption: “Bruce Herbert Glover May 2, 1932 – March 12, 2025”.

While Bruce Glover was featured in dozens of movies, his most famous role was as one of the henchman (along with Putter Smith’s Mr. Kidd) to Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever. He and Smith stole nearly every scene they were in, providing deadly ends to their targets (from scorpions to time bombs) and exchanging banter that made them some of the most interesting lower-tier baddies in the entire franchise.

Bruce Glover would be featured in a number of movies following Diamonds Are Forever, including vigilante favorite Walking Tall, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and Charles Brosnan boxing movie Hard Times. A good amount of his cinematic output in the ‘80s and ‘90s would be with genre movies, 1988’s Ghost Town, 1991’s Popcorn and 1993’s Warlock: The Armageddon. His earliest credits came via television, with spots on famous series like My Favorite Martian, Perry Mason and Car 54, Where Are You? Near the end of his career, he would even be directed by his son in 2007’s It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine. According to IMDb, he also has a role in another yet-to-be-released film directed by Crispin.

In a 2019 interview, Bruce Glover stated, “If I am anything as an actor, it is that I will never the usual. I will be the unusual, and I intend to continue that whatever I am doing, whether it be acting, or I’m writing, or I am going to be painting or whatever I am going to be doing. It is uniquely my own.” Now there’s something that got passed down to son Crispin. And as  Mr. Wint said, “One is never too old to learn from a master…”

Share your favorite Bruce Glover movies and performances with us in the comments section below.

Australian martial artist and fight coordinator Richard Norton worked across the world and with some of Hollywood’s elite.

Richard Norton, the Australian stunt performer and coordinator who worked with some of Hollywood’s elite, has passed away. He was 75.

Announcing the news, Richard Norton’s wife Judy wrote on Instagram, “I am numb and devastated, I have no words, I have lost my everything, I know there is, and will be lots of love and shock that we have lost this incredible human being. The love of my life. I’m using this time to come to terms with my great loss…” The likes of Robert Patrick, Lorenzo Lamas and more have all shared their grief on social media over the loss of Norton, with Lamas noting that he was inducted into the Martial Arts Hall of Fame in the same year.

No doubt Richard Norton was an absolute legend in the field of martial arts, proving versatile in a number of studies, including karate, Aikido, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (he was even an instructor). That he studied and perfected fields from different countries showed his devotion to the craft. And he would take this into the movies as well, getting his first notable credit alongside Chuck Norris in 1980’s The Octagon. Soon after, he was appearing in films from Hong Kong (Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars) and the Philippines (Future Hunters). Throughout his lengthy career, Richard Norton was found facing off – and holding his own against – the likes of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Don Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, and the aforementioned Chuck Norris (their showdown in The Octagon is simply badass).

Richard Norton got a new appreciation with Western audiences much later, serving as a stunt performer and fight coordinator on George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, later returning for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. These action-packed favorites allowed him to work with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Charlize Theron. He, too, would work with Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie and Ben Affleck, who all found out that when you want to look like you know what you’re doing in hand-to-hand combat, Richard Norton was one of the best.

What was your favorite Richard Norton movie or stunt work? Leave your picks and your condolences in the comments section below.

A new poster has been unveiled for The Last of Us season 2, which is set to premiere on HBO in just three weeks

Season 2 of the HBO series adaptation of the video game The Last of Us is now just three weeks away! The new batch of episodes are scheduled to begin airing on April 13th – and ahead of that date, a new poster for the new season has been unveiled. You can check it out at the bottom of this article.

The story of the The Last of Us video game is set years after a fungal plague wiped out much of humanity, transforming most into vicious zombie-like monsters, the story follows Joel, who’s living in a militarized quarantine zone. He has a close relationship with Tess, who operates in the black market of this community. Together, they’ve become known by the local criminal underworld for their ruthlessness. On a mission to reclaim their stolen guns, they run into the leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group, who tasks them with smuggling a young girl named Ellie out of the zone. This mission soon becomes much more than they were prepared for. 

For the HBO series, Pedro Pascal plays Joel, who is “tormented by past trauma and failure. He must trek across a pandemic-ravaged America, all the while protecting a girl who represents the last hope of humanity”. He is joined in the cast by Bella Ramsey as Ellie, “an orphan who has never known anything but a ravaged planet and who struggles to balance her instinct for anger and defiance with her need for connection and belonging… as well as the newfound reality that she may be the key to saving the world”; Anna Torv as Tess, “a smuggler and hardened survivor in a post-pandemic world”; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s brother Tommy, “a former soldier who hasn’t lost his sense of idealism and hope for a better world”; Merle Dandridge as Marlene, “the head of the Fireflies, a resistance movement struggling for freedom against an oppressive military regime”; Nico Parker as Joel’s daughter Sarah; Jeffrey Pierce as Perry, “a rebel in a quarantine zone”; Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett as Bill and Frank, “two post-pandemic survivalists living alone in their own isolated town”; and Storm Reid as Ellie’s best friend Riley.

The new season 2 cast members include Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction) as Isaac, “the quietly powerful leader of a large militia group, known in the video game as the Washington Liberation Front, who sought liberty but instead has become mired in an endless war against a surprisingly resourceful enemy,” Isabela Merced (Alien: Romulus) as Dina, a romantic love interest for the Ellie character; Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart and No One Will Save You) as Abby Anderson, a major character from the video game who is described as being “a skilled soldier whose black-and-white view of the world is challenged as she seeks vengeance for those she loved”; Danny Ramirez (Top Gun: Maverick) as soldier named Manny, Ariela Barer (How To Blow Up a Pipeline) as young doctor Mel, Tati Gabrielle (You) as military medic Nora, Spencer Lord (Riverdale) as Owen, “a gentle soul trapped in a warrior’s body,” and Young Mazino of Beef as Jesse, “a pillar of his community who puts everyone else’s needs before his own, sometimes at terrible cost.” (Jesse also happens to be Dina’s ex.) Schitt’s Creek Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara is also in there, in an unspecified role, as are Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix), Alanna Ubach (Euphoria), Ben Ahlers (The Gilded Age), Hettienne Park (Hannibal), Robert John Burke (RoboCop 3), and Noah Lamanna (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds). Merced said Dever is “one of the most talented actors I’ve ever worked with.”

Will you be watching The Last of Us season 2? Take a look at the new poster, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

Ash, from rapper/DJ-turned director Flying Lotus is a gory, but entertaining, sci-fi horror flick.

PLOT: An astronaut (Eiza Gonzalez) wakes up on a distant planet and discovers her entire crew has been killed. Suffering from amnesia, she soon meets a fellow astronaut (Aaron Paul) who says he was part of her team, but she’s unsure whether she can trust him.

REVIEW: Space horror is a reliable sub-genre of the sci-fi universe. Alien is the king of the castle as far as it goes, but the vastness of space is always a good place to set a horror flick, and it’s a genre that I have a particular weakness for. Event Horizon is a favourite of mine, and I even like the not-great ones, like the campy Saturn 3 or The Black Hole. Ash owes a lot to the genre classics, with director Flying Lotus clearly having a deep bench of genre knowledge. However, his influences aren’t limited to film, with many noting Ash has several striking similarities to the video game Dead Space.

It gives Eiza Gonzalez her first major leading role after many years as a supporting player in big movies like Ambulance, The League of Ungentlemanly Warfare, and Baby Driver. She delivers a solid performance as Riya, who has found herself stranded on a new planet, Ash, not knowing how or why she’s there. Even worse is the fact that she has violent visions of dispatching her crewmates, and she begins to wonder if perhaps she was the one who killed them all.

Much of it is a two-hander, with Aaron Paul showing up as the mission’s commander, who was away on another part of the planet when the killings happened and is now trying to evacuate them. Having a suspicion that a parasite might have been responsible for what happened to her crew, Riya isn’t sure they should be leaving, but with their oxygen running out, they don’t have much choice.

Both Gonzalez and Paul are solid, even if Flying Lotus’s film, which Jonni Remmler wrote, is rather thin in substance. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. However, despite a low budget, Flying Lotus has done a nice job of giving the movie a sense of scale, and the violence, when it hits, is hardcore.

For those not in the know, Flying Lotus, who also appears in the movie, is a rapper/DJ but has been toiling away in the genre for some time now, having helmed the well-received “Ozzy’s Dungeon” segment of V/H/S/99, as well as the horror flick, Kuso. The movie looks terrific, with neon-soaked visuals, excellent sound design, and an impeccable score by the director himself. 

But, what really makes the movie worth seeing for horror fans is how violent it is, with the gore notched up to eleven during the climax. With Iko Uwais in the cast as one of Riya’s doomed shipmates, there’s even a little bit of fighting, and Lotus has a keen sense for staging action, especially when you consider how limited his resources likely were.

While Ash probably won’t make a huge dent theatrically, I could see it pleasing a whole lot of fans once it makes its Shudder debut (they’re distributing it with RLJE Films). Imagine a somewhat lesser version of Event Horizon or a MUCH better version of Supernova, and that’s about what you get with Ash. 

6

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Daredevil: Born Again season 2 set pics feature Deborah Ann Woll, Charlie Cox, Annie Parisse, and the Anti-Vigilante Task Force

The nine episode first season of the Marvel series Daredevil: Born Again just made its premiere on Disney+ earlier this month (you can read our review HERE), but season 2 of the show already started filming at the end of February. We previously heard that Deborah Ann Woll would be back as Matt Murdock’s friend and law office partner Karen Page in Daredevil: Born Again season 2, and now Woll has been spotted on set, in character, hanging out with Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock. Also spotted on set were members of the Anti-Vigilante Task Force, who were giving a character played by Annie Parisse (Law & Order) a hard time. The images can be seen in the embeds below.

Although the initial plan was to rework some elements and make Daredevil: Born Again stand separate from the Netflix Daredevil series (despite sharing some cast members), the show underwent a creative overhaul when the writers and actors strikes shut down production in 2023. Now, this series is a direct follow-up to the Netflix series, picking up five years later.

Dario Scardapane, who worked on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and the Netflix series The Punisher, was brought in to serve as showrunner on Daredevil: Born Again during the creative overhaul. The behind-the-scenes shake-up also led to Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the directing team who were at the helm of multiple episodes of Moon Knight and Loki season 2, being hired as directors on the show. Matt Corman and Chris Ord were previously the head writers on the show, but they were let go.

The cast of the series includes Charlie Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, Elden Henson, Deborah Ann Woll, Jon Bernthal, Wilson Bethel, and Ayelet Zurer, reprising the roles of Matt Murdock / Daredevil, Wilson Fisk / Kingpin, Murdock’s associates Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, Frank Castle / The Punisher, Benjamin “Dex” Poindexter / Bullseye, and Vanessa Marianna Fisk. Also in the cast are Margarita Levieva as Matt Murdock’s love interest Heather Glenn, Michael Gandolfini as a character named Daniel Blade, Genneya Walton as BB Urich, Jeremy Earl as Anti-Vigilante Task Force member Cole North, and Lou Taylor Pucci as a character named Adam. Matthew Lillard (Scream) joins the cast for season 2.

It’s rumored that Daredevil: Born Again season 2 might involve Daredevil “recruiting a team to take on Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force.”

Are you looking forward to Daredevil: Born Again season 2? Take a look at the set pics, then let us know by leaving a comment below.

The game that takes players through a bevy of fictional worlds is now set to become a feature film adventure.

While video game adaptations were once considered to be guaranteed disasters, a number of them have still been made in an effort to break the curse. Some can argue that the movies that have taken inspiration from video game source material have successfully broken the stigma, but many adaptations will still find themselves coming to the big screen. And now, you have projects like The Last of Us series on HBO that are giving the subgenre a much-needed boost. Variety is now reporting that a movie version of the new hit two-player co-op, Split Fiction, is now being developed into a film adaptation from the game company Hazelight Studios.

The studio is also known for the game It Takes Two, which emphasizes two-player gameplay where you work as a team. After the popularity of It Takes Two, the film rights were acquired by Amazon in April of 2022. Story Kitchen is the company that’s bringing that game to life on Amazon and sources at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco confirmed that the media studio is also leading the charge in developing Split Fiction.

According to the Wikipedia entry, “Split Fiction is a 2025 action-adventure game developed by Hazelight Studios and published by Electronic Arts. As a cooperative multiplayer-only game, it follows authors Mio Hudson and Zoe Foster after they become imprisoned in the world of their stories when they are connected to a machine designed to steal creative ideas.”

Variety will be keeping an eye on the bidding war for the project and will be releasing more information as it develops. There is yet to be a comment from representatives for Hazelight Studios and Story Kitchen after a request was sent. Split Fiction became a hit with both players and critics. It has received positive reviews and earned massive sales. According to Hazelight, the new teamwork game sold more than two million copies in the first week after its March 6 release, and that number continues to rise at an impressive rate.

Are you excited for the Split Fiction movie adaptation? Are you a fan of video game movies in general? Have you played the game? Sound off below, be cool to each other and have a great weekend!

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.

Popeye the Slayer Man review: He’s Popeye, but instead of popping open cans of spinach he’s crushing heads in this horror flick.

PLOT: A group of college students embark on an investigation into the legendary Sailor Man. Unfortunately for them, they find him.

REVIEW: He’s Popeye the Sailor Man! For decades, the animated character has delighted young fans. From the cartoons to the live-action Popeye featuring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, he is an iconic and beloved character. And just like Winnie the Pooh, the copyrights have lapsed, sending the spinach-guzzling hero into the Public Domain. And my, oh my, Popeye is kinda pissed. With his puffy, bloated face and ridiculously cartoonish arms, Jason Robert Stephens is undoubtedly having a good time killing off numerous victims in wacky ways.

Popeye the Slayer Man is what you’d expect from a B-movie horror flick. It tells of the local legend rumored to be stalking the abandoned Anchor Bay Cannery – look for more than a few fun Easter Eggs. After plans surface that the city is tearing it down, a group of “college-age” kids decide to go inside to investigate the creepy stories of The Sailor Man. Sean Michael Conway is Dexter, and the gang he brings with him includes his BFF Lisa (Marie-Louise Boisnier) and a mysterious girl named Olivia (Elena Juliano). This crew of amateur filmmakers makes the work of Heather, Josh, and Michael from The Blair Witch Project appear near Kurosawa-level in their talent.

Once the group arrives and discovers that Olivia has the talent to pick the lock to get in, they find what you’d expect: a spooky warehouse. As they wander around with ‘Director Dexter,’ he sets up a few cameras, and they begin investigating. Meanwhile, Joey (Steven McCormack), Olivia’s jealous boyfriend, brings his buddies along to see what his girl is really up to. All the fodder lines up for a nice bit of slaughter, and the sailor man begins his reign of terror. And when it comes to the practical effects, they are certainly loaded up on some goofy gore.

If you are looking strictly for the red stuff, it may not be at Terrifier 3 levels, but it’s got the bloody goods. You’ve got a scalping, a man beaten by his own severed arm, twisted heads, and much more. Yet it’s not gonna keep you up at night with fright. Nah, this Popeye is happy with over-the-top gore and a couple of groovy cameos. As gruesome as it can get, the kills do tend to feel the same after a while. Popeye loves smashing heads. Regarding weird cameos, my favorite moment is a man seeking a cheeseburger at the local pub. I won’t spoil anything more about who that happens to be, but the reveal was too much fun for this viewer.

As far as a creepy location, Popeye offers that. And yes, the Anchor Bay shout-out delighted me to my core. And I even found several of the actors to be quite charming. Sarah Nicklin gives a solid performance, and I enjoyed Steven McCormack as “bad boy” Joey. Sean Michael Conway and Elena Juliano do fine work. And strangely, I found the odd relationship between Lisa (Boisnier) and Seth (Thomas) fun all the way up until their final scene together. Funny stuff. The two worked rather well together. While nobody will be sneaking away with “a surprise Anora win” at the next Academy Awards, they do what they need to do.

It sure sounds like a blast, doesn’t it? Well, as much fun as it can be, sometimes it felt like spoiled spinach. The characters occasionally make jaw-droppingly dumb decisions. Many of the kills are repetitive. Tonally, it was a bit of a mixed bag. Regarding the balance of humor and horror, it worked much better when it focused on the silly stuff. 

As for Popeye himself, Jason Robert Stephens is rather menacing when needed. I wouldn’t want to face this fellow in a dark alley. Although, as a whole, the character’s look didn’t necessarily send shivers. The script by John Doolan, with story credit going to Cuyle Carvin and Jeff Miller, has a few funny moments, but it ultimately felt a bit predictable. However, it has affectionately goofy moments of Popeye lore. And that’s when Popeye is the most fun. The Robert Michael Ryan-directed flick is best when it isn’t taking itself too seriously.

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