Raevin Larue

Stop! That! Train! kicks off a summer of fun blockbusters, and this movie is a hilarious delight. The film arrives like a blast from a different cinematic age. In 2026, comedies are hard to pull off, and cultural sensibilities are more divided than they have ever been, but this film makes it impossible not to laugh.

There is something refreshingly uncomplicated about Master of the Universe. While it feels like every summer blockbuster is desperate to be dark, gritty or more self-important than the last, this film isn’t any of that. With a 30-plus-year lore and loyal fanbase, it knows what it is: a big, goofy fantasy adventure based on a toy named He-Man fighting a skull-faced villain called Skeletor.

When a film tackles real-world trauma, the stakes for sensitivity and truth are impossibly high. However, director Robert Sarkies rises to that challenge with a film that is startling in its restraint and deeply emotional in what it chooses to illuminate rather than dramatize. At its core, Pike River follows the aftermath of the 2010 Pike River coal mine disaster on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, one of the nation’s worst industrial tragedies, where 29 men lost their lives.