The Spool

10/07/2025

SUPERMAN can't stop explaining its themes and character motivation, points out Tim Stevens. Still, what it gets right, it gets very right.

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10/07/2025

Tim Stevens pulls the lever for HEADS OF STATE, a movie he praises for good action, a gooey heart, and being dumb without being stupid.

You may have heard that the United Kingdom and the United States have a special relationship. In Heads of State, Prime Minister Sam Clarke (Idris Elba) and President Will Derringer (John Cena) share a bit more of a hostile association than typical. Derringer is a former model/action star turned worl...

04/07/2025

It isn't the dinos scaring Lisa Laman away from JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH. It's the morose humans and the bland retreads.

In 1914, Gertie the Dinosaur redefined the possibilities of filmmaking. This groundbreaking animated short chronicled the antics of its titular prehistoric creature in a single black-and-white static wide shot. Nonetheless, Winsor McCay’s animation imbued Gertie with such a hysterical, anarchic pe...

27/06/2025

Taron Egerton is having so much fun in SMOKE that he makes the series an absolute kick to watch, says Tim Stevens in his new review.

Taron Egerton is often a strong performer in works ranging from great to mediocre to fairly poor. He’s been in the best thing in an ill-conceived tale of a video game (Tetris), a compelling scumbag discovering his conscience (Black Bird), and a convincing everyman action hero in the early Die Hard...

13/06/2025

Zombie skeptic Tim Stevens has plenty of kind words to say about REVIVAL, perhaps because the series gives audiences a very different kind of undead.

What if, one day, scores of the dead came back to life with seemingly no explanation? Not as rotting, flesh-devouring monstrosity spreading disease in their death, but as if they’d never left?  What if they looked the same and sounded the same but healed instantly, had incredible strength, and ap...

12/06/2025

ECHO VALLEY strikes a discordant note between its two halves and the film never successfully resolves it, say Tim Stevens.

In the 90s, I was very into films laden with twists, in which the final denouement would recap exactly the way the story had unfolded behind the scenes you saw up until then. I prided myself on finding the lesser-known entries in this subgenre and championing them. So keep that in mind when I write....

06/06/2025

While PREDATOR: KILLER OF KILLERS loses momentum in its final segment, it remains an impressive new chapter in the hunter alien's mythos, says Tim Stevens.

There’s something so gloriously simple about the Predator. An intergalactic big game hunter that roams the universe, taking on the greatest killers of that planet of that era. Given its simplicity, it is galling how often media has struggled to deliver on its promise. Thankfully, Predator: Killer ...

04/06/2025

Tim Stevens goes long on STICK and could go longer. He sees a show with plenty of personality that blows part of its goodwill on weak intergenerational jokes and unclear characterizations.

In Stick, AppleTV+’s new comedy from Jason Keller, much is made of the difference between playing golf the smart way versus a more high-risk, high-reward style. The implication is that there is a time for both. Too much of one, and you end up a competent but boring player who never achieves glory....

03/06/2025

MOUNTAINHEAD is populated by the worst people you can imagine and stumbles hard as it nears the end of its climb. Tim Stevens still thinks it has things to say that are worth hearing.

Imagine being trapped in a geometric monstrosity on a mountain with four of the worst people you have ever known. Now imagine they are richer than anyone you’ve ever met. And yet, they're just witty enough that their trash talk is a bit more complex than typical. That gets you, broadly, to the exp...

31/05/2025

THE BETTER SISTER benefits from Jessica Biel, Elizabeth Banks, and Kim Dickens giving a trio of good performances. Sadly, it lets the plot keep getting in their way, Tim Stevens explains in his review.

With turns in TV thriller series like The Sinner and Candy (and arguably, to a lesser extent, Limetown), Jessica Biel has carved out an impressive career second act playing possibly morally, if not legally, compromised protagonist. The Better Sister is the latest entry in that canon, one that finds....

30/05/2025

DEPT. Q has plenty going for it, but focuses on its weakest aspect to the show's detriment. Tim Stevens gets into it in his review.

From the moment we meet Matthew Goode as Detective Carl Morck in Dept Q, it's clear what we’re in for. Goode, his impossibly handsome self unconvincingly hidden behind a slightly unmanaged salt and pepper beard and loose clothes, is a protagonist in the Dr. House (of House fame) model. One might e...

28/05/2025

ADULTS might not yet be fully formed, but Tim Stevens sees reasons to be optimistic.

Every 10 or so years, it seems as though American television owes the public a show about friends in their 20s hanging out and trying to make that transition from college life to full-out adulthood. For younger people, they’re aspirational. For people in their 20s, they’re relatable if only in t...