Black Phone 2 & Tron: Ares Are Both Rip-Offs But One Is At Least Good (+ Other Reviews)

Tiffany Rose. Getty Images.

Two movies have just came out that feel like rip-offed versions of great movies from 30+ years ago. Tron: Ares feels like Terminator 2 leftovers and you can't watch Black Phone 2 without immediately thinking about Nightmare On Elm Street. However, one of the these movies did pull it off and at least be entertaining. These reviews along with Roofman, Kiss Of The Spider Woman and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey below.

Like I just said, Tron: Ares feels like a leftover version of Terminator 2. The problem is Jared Leto is no Arnold Schwarzenegger. The best scene of the movie involved a chase in a parking garage that Robert Patrick should probably be paid royalties for.

I enjoyed Tron: Legacy and thought it got everything it could out of the story. Turns out, I was right because this movie had very little to do with the Tron universe. It ignores so much of what happened in Legacy and instead focuses on Greta Lee running around and Jared Leto as a fish out of water. Poor Jeff Bridges is relegated to a hologram. At least I think he was. Who knows? Who cares?

It’s not all bad. The Nine Inch Nails score is fantastic and at times, the movie looks great (especially in action sequences). But the rest of the movie falls flat and leaves you wanting less Tron in the future.

Tron Ares: C

I’m really conflicted about The Black Phone 2. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and it had some very nice performances from Mason Thames and Madeline McGraw. It’s also a total rip-off of Nightmare On Elm Street.The whole movie is about teenagers in peril by an evil villain while they sleep and have nightmares. Wes Craven should get royalties from this.

The first The Black Phone was a very effective horror movie. This is also well directed by Scott Derrickson. But, this script could have easily been from a never produced Freddy Krueger movie from the 1980’s. It even takes place in 1982!

How much credit should we give a movie that borrows from another movie so much? I genuinely don’t know and I’m probably being too generous with this review. But I did enjoy the movie. It just needed a song. One, Two, The Grabber’s Coming For You…

Black Phone 2: B-

Roofman wisely uses the talents and charm of Channing Tatum & Kirsten Dunst and makes them the primary focus of this movie. In weaker hands, these could be difficult people to like or understand. Instead, I found myself caring about these people quite a bit.

I loved that director Derek Cianfrance never does too much and allows this pretty wild (yet true) story to breathe at times. This is a movie made by someone confident in his talents and doesn’t need to show off. He was already able to flex with The Place Beyond The Pines.

My big takeaway from this was Dunst’s performance. Despite a wild story that has an escaped convict living at a Toys R Us, it’s her acting that makes this feel like it’s happening to someone you know. She never plays the role too clever but also never stupid. It’s a woman that is fooled but only because she wants to love, not because she’s gullible.

This is an interesting movie about people that you still care about despite making poor choices. It also never shies away from those decisions. I wish more movies would treat the audience with as much respect.

Roofman: B

This is just A Big, Bold, Beautiful Mess. There are scenes or moments here that work really well (like Margot Robbie with her mom) but those are overshadowed by a love story that feels cold and forced in a universe that’s more weird than relatable.

I’m pretty disappointed with this movie. I loved After Yang and I was hoping the director Kogonada would be able to follow that up especially working with a great actor like Colin Farrell again. Instead, so much of the realism and larger themes from After Yang were replaced by a sort of artificial sentimentality.

However, I do give the cast, filmmakers and studio credit for making this. It’s an original movie and while most of it didn’t land for me, it took some big creative swings. This did fail. It tanked at the box office and it’s not good. But, we need more creative, unique movies. The three best movies this year (Sinners, Weapons, One Battle After Another) are not from IP and are big risks. Some big risks fail. But I hope studios don’t stop taking them.

A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey: C-

The thing that makes Kiss Of The Spider Woman unique is its downfall. This tells the story of two prisoners in Argentina in the early 80’s. To pass the time, an openly gay prisoner tells the other one the story of a 1950’s musical that he loved.

The problem is you only care about the prisoners. You don’t give a shit about the musical at all. Every time it cuts away, everything grinds to a halt.

It doesn’t help that the best actor in the movie (Jennifer Lopez) is trapped in the musical portion doing some of the cringiest line readings you’ll see in any movie this year.

The other element is the acting isn’t good enough by prisoners to keep you as invested as you should be. Director Bill Condon hasn’t directed a movie this decade and it shows here. He once wrote the film version of Chicago, which is very good. Maybe this proves that Bob Fosse should have gotten even more credit when that came out.

Kiss Of The Spider Woman: D+

2025

1)Sinners

2)Weapons

3)One Battle After Another

4)Caught Stealing

5)The Long Walk

6)Presence

7)The Life Of Chuck

8)Black Bag

9)The Ballad Of Wallis Island

10)Warfare

11)Friendship

12)Superman

13)Mission Impossible 8

14)28 Years Later

15)Novocaine

16)Fantastic Four

17)ROOFMAN

18)The Naked Gun

19)Final Destination 6

20)The Amateur

21)Drop

22)Dangerous Animals

23)Together

24)BLACK PHONE 2

25)Death Of A Unicorn

26)The Accountant 2

27)The Damned

28)One Of Them Days

29)Materialists

30)Lilo & Stitch

31)Paddington 3

32)Thunderbolts

33)F1

34)The Smashing Machine

35)Clown In A Cornfield

36)Bring Her Back

37)Hell Of A Summer

38)Karate Kid 6

39)Good Boy

40)Downton Abbey 3

41)Fight Or Flight

42)Valiant One

43)Sketch

44)The Roses

45)How To Train Your Dragon

46)Elio

47)Rule Breakers

48)Heart Eyes

49)The Conjuring 4

50)Mickey17

51)The Surfer

52)Relay

53)TRON ARES

54)Last Breath

55)Flight Risk

56)Minecraft

57)Den Of Thieves 2

58)Dogman

59)Companion

60)Eddington

61)Jurassic World Rebirth

62)The Senior

63)KPop Demon Hunters

64)Spinal Tap 2

65)The Toxic Avenger

66)Ballerina

67)A Working Man

68)The Last Rodeo

69)Taylor Swift: Showgirl

70)Shadow Force

71)The Alto Knights

72)Honey Don’t

73)The Bad Guys 2

74)The Penguin Lessons

75)The Chosen Part 2

77)Looney Tunes

77)Opus

78)M3GAN 2

79)A BIG, BOLD, BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY

80)Becoming Led Zeppelin

81)Captain America: BNW

82)I Know What You Did Last Summer

83)Until Dawn

84)Ne Zha 2

85)The Chosen Part 1

86)Riff Raff

87)The Home

88)KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN

89)Freakier Friday

90)Inheritance

91)Nobody 2

92)The Chosen Part 3

93)The Wedding Banquet

94)Smurfs

95)The Legend Of Ochi

96)Night Of The Zoopocalypse

97)Demon Slayer

98)The Phoenician Scheme

99)Sneaks

100)Ash

101)Jujutsu Kaiden

102)The King Of Kings

103)The Friend

104)Dan Da Dan 2

105)Light Of The World

106)Snow White

107)The Unbreakable Boy

108)Gabby’s Dollhouse

109)Brave The Dark

110)Wolf Man

111)Hurry Up Tomorrow

112)The Monkey

113)Love Hurts

114)Him

115)The Last Supper

116)Woman In The Yard

117)Bride Hard

118)Juliet & Romeo

119)In The Lost Lands