Hugh Jackman Delivers Again

Prisoners puts all other morally ambiguous movies to shame

One of the great movie litmus tests is about to be presented with Prisoners, a high-intensity drama starring Hugh Jackman, Terrence Howard and Jake Gyllenhaal. The film essentially forces viewers to put themselves in the shoes of the main characters and answer one seemingly simple question: What would you do if you were in the same situation?

That situation is one no parent ever wants to contemplate: the kidnapping of a child. The daughters of both Keller Dover (Jackman) and Franklin Birch (Howard) disappear while playing together on Thanksgiving. Ultra-dedicated detective Loki (Gyllehaal) gets assigned the case.

With this wrenching, heart-breaking performance, Hugh Jackman will no longer just be the guy who plays Wolverine, no matter how many times he returns to that character.

Attention quickly turns to Alex Jones (Paul Dano), who was driving an RV the girls were seen playing on soon before their disappearance. But with little to hold him on other than his proximity to the crime, officials are forced to let him go. Dover, having already convicted Jones in his mind, decides to take matters into his own hands to find out what happened to the girls.

What happens next and throughout the rest of the film is brutal and unsettling, but it could also be completely justifiable. Director Denis Villenueve and writer Aaron Guzikowski do a great job of balancing the tone of the film, pulling back before things get too rough, but also never letting the characters — or the audience — off the hook for their actions.

They also space out the various revelations in such a way that it propels the two-and-a-half-hour hour movie forward at a seemingly breakneck pace. Suffice it to say that you’ll probably change your mind about certain characters' motives and how you feel about them two or three times before things are all said and done.

Until his performance in last year’s Les Miserables, Jackman had never really gotten his due for his skills. With this wrenching, heart-breaking performance, he will no longer just be the guy who plays Wolverine, no matter how many times he returns to that character.

Gyllenhaal is fantastic as well, although Loki’s numerous quirks prove to be distracting at times. First of all, he embodies the cliché of a detective who gives his all to the job at the expense of all else. Those people surely exist, but it’s a vastly overplayed movie device. Gyllenhaal also chooses to have this workaholic blink constantly, an oddity that becomes more annoying every time we see him.

The rest of the cast — which includes Howard, Dano, Viola Davis, Maria Bello and Melissa Leo — is tremendous. Dano is especially compelling as Alex, as he makes the character both supremely creepy and sympathetic at the same time.

Prisoners is an ultra-tense, can’t look/can’t look away kind of film that may have you questioning your own beliefs. And anytime a film can do that, you know you’ve just been in the presence of excellence.

Hugh Jackman and Paul Dano in Prisoners.

Hugh Jackman and Paul Dano in Prisoners

Photo courtesy of Alcon Entertainment

Hugh Jackman and Paul Dano in Prisoners.

Movie Review

Supergirl loses the sense of fun that Superman brought to DC Comics films

Milly Alcock in Supergirl

Photo courtesy of DC Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures

Milly Alcock in Supergirl.

The new Superman in 2025 brought with a renewed sense of optimism for, if not the concept of the comic book movie, then at least the DC Comics universe. After more than a decade of DC films that felt mostly creatively bankrupt, the leadership of James Gunn gave the story a sense of fun. That included the brief introduction of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, who’s now getting her own showcase in, naturally, Supergirl.

When we first met her in Superman, Supergirl was in rough shape, arriving at the Fortress of Solitude visibly inebriated. Nothing has changed at the beginning of this film, save for her aimlessly traveling around the universe with her rambunctious dog, Krypto. One of her random stops puts her in the same bar as Ruthye (Eve Ridley), who is looking for help tracking down Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) and a group known as the Brigands after they brutally murdered her family.

Kara is initially loath to offer aid, but when Krem shoots a poison dart into Krypto while escaping, her motivation goes way up, especially since Krem holds the antidote. Kara, with Ruthye doggedly following her, uses every means available to her to find Krem, a journey that is hampered by galaxies having different colored suns than the one that gives her powers, the yellow sun.

Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, the film is a big step back in the fun category, not least because Supergirl is deep in her feelings for much of the film. Her personal trauma, which is detailed in occasional flashbacks, gives a reason for her depression, but fails to land fully. The story seems to want everyone to be sad, as it includes a child trafficking ring and multiple instances of families being murdered.

Milly Alcock and Krypto in Supergirl.Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

To try to counteract that downer material, the filmmakers give Supergirl many opportunities to show off her fighting skills. While still CGI-heavy, the action scenes contain enough of a semblance of reality that they feel exciting. Unfortunately, this is undercut by the inclusion of several slow-motion sequences, giving the impression that the filmmakers didn’t trust the actors to deliver the goods on a consistent basis.

Superman (David Corenswet) makes a handful of appearances in the film, and while his presence is welcome given how well the character came across in the previous movie, it also doesn’t allow Supergirl to become her own person. Almost everything she does is colored by either her cousin or her parents, and since her powers are identical to those of Superman, there is very little that makes her story unique aside from how she’s dealing with the fallout.

Alcock (House of the Dragon, Sirens) gives an appealing performance despite her character being drunk and/or moody most of the time. She definitely sells what Supergirl is going through, so if given a better story in a future film, she’s proven her capability. Schoenaerts makes for a pretty good villain, although he’s aided by a look that includes a face full of studs. Jason Momoa has a memorable supporting role as the bounty hunter Lobo, even if his character doesn’t add much to the story.

While not a full-on disaster, Supergirl does not continue the momentum that Superman started. With a story that’s more concerned with showing audiences death scenes than a hero saving people, the film doesn’t seem to understand the appeal of a character like Supergirl or how to make her someone audiences will return to over and over again.

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Supergirl is now playing in theaters.

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