Rebecca Ferguson as Capt. Olivia Walker in a scene from "A House of Dynamite." (Photo by Eros Hoagland, courtesy of Netflix)
It's later than you think. Unlike natural disasters, man-made cataclysms always seem to appear like they're just beyond the horizon, a headache to be handled another day. On some undetermined date, hopefully in the not too near future. Away from us.
But what if the future is now?
Two movies out in theaters depict these dire scenarios as high-stakes races against a doomsday clock. One is a sobering “what if” that focuses on the prelude to what may or may not be a targeted nuclear attack. The other turns corporate greed into the match that lights the fire of an AI revolution. One is a star-studded ensemble thriller with an Oscar-winning filmmaker making viewers feel distressing winds of war. The other gives yet another techno makeover to an enduring action/sci-fi franchise popular with gamers, science nerds and some hipsters. Let's see if these atomic yarns reach the finish line in style or if they vaporize on reentry.
Tracy Letts as Gen. Anthony Brady, Ben Chase as STRATCOM J2 Intelligence Director and Gbenga Akinnagbe as Maj. Gen. Steven Kyle in a scene from "A House of Dynamite." Photo credit by Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.
“A House of Dynamite”: It's not going to be a typical day at the office for the military leaders and Beltway pros at the center of this crisp, unnerving dramatization of what having a nuclear warhead hurtling toward the continental United States would look and feel like. But it sure starts out feeling like one.
The latest nail-biter from “The Hurt Locker” and “Point Break” auteur Kathryn Bigelow, a selection at this year's Venice Film Festival, starts out in deceptively mundane fashion, with the women and men of the U.S. Armed Forces tumbling out of bed and clocking into work. For Maj. Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos), the commander of a military base in Alaska, the day begins by chastising a fellow officer on his sloppy work station. (Cue the Cool Ranch Doritos product placement.) For Capt. Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson), it starts out by sharing some quality playtime with her son, who's running a pretty high temperature. It's up to Dad to take the kid to the doctor. Mom's off to man the Situation Room at the White House.
“Dynamite's” early scenes would work considerably better if they weren't saddled with an overbearing score by Volker Bertelmann. The “Conclave” composer appears to mix the gravity of that (very good) film's score with the nervy momentum of an episode of “24,” Fox's hit terrorists-run-amok series starring Kiefer Sutherland. That mix of sounds may have looked good on the music sheet, but the resulting cacophony just ends up calling attention to itself. I kept wishing Bigelow had nixed the score and relied on the manipulation of sound, like filmmaker James Bridges' no-score approach to “The China Syndrome.”
Idris Elba as the President of the United States in a scene from "A House of Dynamite." (Photo by Eros Hoagland, courtesy of Netflix)
What “Dynamite” does get right is the disorientation and denial that follow the realization that an intercontinental ballistic missile is airborne and making a beeline for the American Midwest. In 18 minutes. Disbelief by the officials in the Alaskan tundra gives way to panic and a mad scramble to neutralize the threat from up above.
Back in D.C., that doom-laden rocket triggers all sorts of protocols, prompting the world's most stress-inducing Zoom call. Working from a screenplay by former NBC News President Noah Oppenheim, Bigelow gets considerable mileage of these frazzled leaders in little boxes, with the box labeled “POTUS” a black square. We'll get back to the commander in chief.
With the fate of the free world at stake, “Dynamite” primes viewers for Daniel and Olivia to take charge with their quick-thinking skills to win the day. But that's not how this portrait of our paranoid present rolls. Bigelow faced some criticism and pushback when she released “Zero Dark Thirty,” a riveting chronicle of the hunt for Osama bin Laden that raised hackles by arguing that finding the Taliban leader would not have been possible without the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. In “Dynamite,” she says something just as provocative: that you can have the most qualified people in charge of dealing with a nuclear attack, but when that missile is launched, these experts will all end up running in circles like headless chickens, virtually powerless to stop that mushroom cloud. When that button is pushed, the film states, it's already too late.
Anthony Ramos as Maj. Daniel Gonzalez in a scene from "A House of Dynamite." (Photo by Eros Hoagland, courtesy of Netflix)
That uncomfortable assertion sounds like an ironclad premise for a sobering thriller, but “Dynamite” goes astray by playing those tense 18 minutes from multiple perspectives. Bigelow and Oppenheim turn back the clock two more times in an attempt to complete their mosaic of despair, but every time that happens, it cuts off the tension and further dilutes its cumulative impact.
It's not as if the formidable Tracy Letts isn't good as a gruff general at a Nebraska base who encourages the President of the United States, played by Idris Elba, to retaliate while the country still can. Or that the winsome Gabriel Basso doesn't make a good impression as a Deputy National Security Advisor intent on ensuring cooler heads prevail. Or that Jared Harris doesn't have any poignant moments as a Secretary of Defense with a stormy personal life. “Dynamite” forces us to view every beat of this missile's trajectory three times without adding anything particularly noteworthy each time it hits rewind.
Greta Lee as Eve Kim, Jared Leto as Ares, and Arturo Castro as Seth Flores in a scene from "Tron: Ares." (Photo by Leah Gallo, courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.)
Elba does what he can to fight the strong current of diminishing returns, but his charisma during Act 3, which he mostly dominates, can only take this “House” so far. Bigelow has crafted a film full of isolated accomplished moments, but they don't add up to a cohesive whole. The Oscar winner still knows how to craft indelible fusions of sights and sounds, such as the moment Elba's unnamed POTUS walks into a basketball court, just as she cranks up “In the Air Tonight” on the soundtrack.
And then “A House of Dynamite” doesn't so much end as just stop, allowing the fuse to go out just when we were hoping for some fireworks, or at least some sort of resolution. We get it: The film wants to fill you with the uncertainty and dread these public officials are experiencing, but when that uncertainty consumes all your dramatic spark, all you're left with is a wan simulacrum of material other filmmakers have tackled with more conviction. That sound you hear isn't a missile whizzing closer and closer to dry land. It's the urgency hissing out of this honorable underachiever.
“Tron: Ares”: My heart sank when I saw the high-tech demo that kicks this third entry in Disney's 43-year-old sci-fi franchise into gear. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters, twirl that mustache!), the power-hungry CEO of Dillinger Systems, explains his endgame to a carefully curated assortment of movers and shakers with deep pockets. Getting zapped into “The Grid,” a computer system filled with neat, neon-hued virtual motorcycles, is so 20th century. What if he could bring this artificial intelligence to the world of the living? The ultimate fighting machine, destructible but perennially replaceable.
Gillian Anderson as Elisabeth Dillinger and Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger in a scene from "Tron: Ares." (Photo by Leah Gallo, courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.)
The militarization of the “Tron” series is lazy and uninspired. Why lean into it when the creative possibilities with this premise are endless? But here comes Ares (Jared Leto): a blank expression, immaculately groomed facial hair, a fancy supersuit that would fit right in at Walt Disney World's Tomorrowland, and just a hint of curiosity about mortal folks. The filthy rich potential investors are suitably impressed, but there's a tiny detail Julian leaves out of his show and tell: this program named after the Greek god of war only lasts just under a half hour in the real world before he disintegrates.
Oopsie.
The good news is that director Joachim Rønning abandons the whole “soldier of tomorrow” bit almost as soon as he introduces it. The bad news is that the warmed-over, scavenger-hunt narrative that we're stuck with instead isn't much of an improvement.
Julian is hunting for a solution that will make Ares capable of staying in our realm permanently. But there's another corporate mogul searching for the very same thing: ENCOM CEO Eve Kim (“Past Lives'” Greta Lee). The holy grail they're both after is the Permanence Code, a creation of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the computer whiz who headlined the 1982 original “Tron,” a matinee rite of passage for many a Gen-Xer like yours truly.
Eve, still reeling from the death of her sister Tess (Selene Jun), initially gains the upper hand in this competition, but Julian poses quite the obstacle, since he has total control of Ares. (Or does he? The computer program becomes fixated with human empathy. Is there a real boy hiding underneath all those ones and zeroes?) The “x” factor here comes in the form of Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), Ares' rigid, by-the-byte second-in-command, who's more mission-driven and not afraid to let things get very dark in order to fulfill her commands. Dark as in she doesn't really mind some collateral damage. Grim.
Jodie Turner-Smith as Athena in a scene from "Tron: Ares." (Photo by Leah Gallo, courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc.)
When Ares isn't dodging danger while still looking like he's ready for the catwalk, or the Ultra Music Festival, the protagonist's identity quest that screenwriter Jesse Wigutow has concocted, in addition to Eve's paralyzing grief, ostensibly give “Ares” a thematic dimension with the potential to rise above this film series' predecessors. Alas, Rønning (“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” the underrated “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”) is all too content to reduce Ares' “soul” searching to a story engine, the better to zip from one competently staged but unremarkable action sequence to another. The tidy, bloodless mayhem that ensues is set to the moody techno chords in the music score by Nine Inch Nails. The nightclub aesthetic is further enhanced by cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth's high-contrast palette, dominated by snazzy reds and deep blacks.
But despite its slick surfaces, some nifty gadgets and a game cast that also includes Gillian Anderson as Julian's judgmental, skeptical mother, “Ares” can't overcome its central stumbling block: that it often plays like a “Wizard of Oz” sequel predominantly set in Kansas. Rønning and Wigutow are unable to turn Center City, the fictional metropolis where the “Tron” movies are set, into a compelling substitute for “The Grid,” but even those scenes set in the virtual world smack of Wachowskis envy.
There are spurts of dumb, derivative fun that make “Ares” watchable enough, but mostly, it's just dumb and derivative. Also, it doesn't help that a movie that invites viewers to embrace individuality and live life to the fullest rarely stops feeling like synthetic corporate product. But the appeal of seeing Bridges reprise his role, however briefly, is pretty hard to resist. It's the good side of nostalgia. And hey, it lets Anderson pick up a paycheck while retaining her Margaret Thatcher accent from “The Crown.” You wish more of the film would let its hair down and be just a tiny bit more analog.
Jared Leto as Ares and Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn in a scene from "Tron: Ares." (Photo by Eros Hoagland, courtesy of Netflix)
“A House of Dynamite” is now playing at CMX Brickell Dine-In, CMX Miami Lakes 13, CMX Dolphin 19 and The Landmark at Merrick Park. It begins streaming on Netflix on Oct. 24. “Tron: Ares” is now showing on wide release, including at AMC Aventura 24, AMC Sunset Place 24, Silverspot Cinema in downtown Miami, Cinépolis Luxury Cinemas Coconut Grove, Regal Dania Pointe and the AutoNation IMAX at the Museum of Discovery and Science in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
