Catnip Reviews: 28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE, ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES and SEND HELP

Snack-sized opinions from the frisky felines at Free Kittens…

28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE (Blu-ray) - Picking up where last year’s 28 Years Later left off, The Bone Temple doesn’t simply continue the same story. Though Ralph Fiennes and Alfie Williams return in their roles, this one goes in a different narrative direction and introduces who might be the most menacing and hateful antagonist in the entire franchise, played with gleeful aplomb by Jack O’Connell. And while this is certainly the goriest chapter yet, it’s also the most emotionally affecting, largely due to Fiennes’ excellent performance. If nothing else, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen one of Britain’s most respected actors parading around as Satan while lip-synching Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast.” A thrilling, brutal film, it also manages to be both heartwarming and heartbreaking. While the door is enticingly left open for a sequel, The Bone Temple’s underwhelming box office performance might have dashed those plans. If it does end up being the final film, at least the series ends on a high note. This Blu-ray release comes with some interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes, an audio commentary by director Nia DaCosta and (surprise!) a blooper reel. (2026/109 min/Sony).

KITTY CONSENSUS: 😼😼😼😼😼

ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES Limited Edition (4H UHD) - How great was the late Alan Rickman? Sure, he was a big part of what made such films as Die Hard and Galaxy Quest modern classics, but the strongest testament to his talent might be his performance in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. For those who weren’t around back then, this film felt more like a corporate decision than a creative one, hastily assembled to capitalize on the tremendous audience goodwill afforded Kevin Costner after Dances with Wolves. Slickly assembled, Robin Hood boasts best production design and big-name cast money can buy, and even throws in the prerequisite Oscar-baiting power ballad. It made millions, of course, but 35 years later, Rickman’s scene-stealing, turbo-charged performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham remains the only memorable aspect of the entire film and the main reason for revisiting it today. This limited edition release from Arrow Video serves up good 4K UHD transfers of both the theatrical and extended cuts, as well as a big batch of bonus features, including a multipart documentary. (1991/143 min/Arrow Video).

KITTY CONSENSUS: 😺😺😺

SEND HELP (4K + Blu-ray) - While director Sam Raimi isn’t as prolific as most of us would like, he certainly brings his own unique panache to the films he does end up doing, even those where he’s essentially a director-for-hire. That being said, Send Help is his best film in years. This wildly constructed survivor thriller is chock-full of tension, black comedy, gruesome violence and relevant social commentary. It’s all built around a gonzo performance by Rachel McAdams, a socially awkward (and slightly looney) corporate employee to gets stranded on an island with her shallow, narcissistic boss (Dylan O’Brien) and uses the situation to turn the tables on him. The film runs a little longer than necessary, but it’s got a couple of nifty twists during the climax that we don’t see coming. This 4K/Blu-ray combo pack includes several making-of featurettes, a collection of bloopers and over an hour of deleted/extended scenes. (2026/113 min/20th Century Studios).

KITTY CONSENSUS: 😼😼😼😼

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE (4K): A Boomer's Confirmation

GOOD LUCK, HAVE FUN, DON’T DIE (4K + Blu-ray)

2026 / 135 min

Universal

Available at MovieZyng

Review by Princess Pepper😺

At the risk of sounding like an angry old boomer yelling at clouds, I’m of the belief that AI is ruining everything…from art to social media to critical thinking itself. Making matters worse, we’re happily giving the environment a collective middle finger just so we can make paintings depicting the president as Jesus without ever picking up a brush.

Hell, I was yelling at clouds even before AI reared its ugly head. Just ask my family, who’ve endured endless rantings over how cell phones have rendered people more isolated, self-absorbed and a hell of a lot dumber. Everyone has a good chuckle at my expense before going back to scrolling their Tick Tocks (Boomerspeak for TikTok).

But this ol’ boomer is hardly alone, and the very first scene of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die perfectly sums-up damn near everything that irritates and worries me about our addictive relationship with technology. Not only that, it’ll bring about an apocalypse that we won’t even notice coming because it turns out that AI promises a better life than the one reality provides.

This ominous future is laid-out by “the man from the future” (Sam Rockwell), who descends on an LA diner one night to recruit people in order to save the world from a child-created AI that’s about to go online and will ultimately result in civilization’s downfall. Most of the diners think he’s crazy, of course, but not only does he know things about them he shouldn’t (this is his 117th attempt to recruit a team), he reveals a bomb attached to his chest. So at the very least, he has their attention.

"I just flew in from the future, and boy, are my arms tired."

He does manage to assemble another eclectic group of volunteers, and that’s when the fun begins. To elaborate on the story any further would spoil the party, but rest assured, Good Luck, Have, Fun, Don’t Die is a sci-fi action-comedy (and a damn funny one) that’s more tonally similar to Everything Everywhere All at Once than, say, The Terminator. The film is loaded with amusing characters, each with their own backstory, which are presented as flashbacks (including a tragic one). Not only do those side stories become relevant to the plot, all involve some kind of bizarre variation of technology that currently exists (and the ominous implications that suggests). There are times this almost plays like an anthology film with saving the world serving as a wraparound story.

Speaking of story, Good Luck, Have, Fun, Don’t Die might be the most original sci-fi comedy since Michelle Yeoh stumbled into the multiverse, its narrative nicely blending science-fiction, social satire, black comedy, absurdist humor and even a few serious themes. Gore Verbinski returns to the director’s chair for the first time in nearly a decade with the best film of his career, with considerable help from imaginative visuals (love the centaur cat!), Matthew Robinson’s witty screenplay and great cast lead by Sam Rockwell, who looks like he’s having a hell of a lot of fun.

The movie bombed in theaters, which is too bad because, Project Hail Mary being a notable recent exception, we don’t get a lot of original sci-fi these days. I suppose that’s more Boomerspeak saying Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is nothing if not unique. Smart, exciting, quirky and very funny, it’s so-far one of the best movies of 2026 that hardly anyone has seen. 

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTE - The Making of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die is a perfunctory 5-minute promotional spot.

The Repetition of DIE MY LOVE

DIE MY LOVE (4K + Blu-ray)

2025 / 119 min

MUBI 

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😾

Let’s accentuate the positive first. The performances in Die My Love are outstanding. As far as Jennifer Lawrence is concerned, it might even be the best of her career, certainly deserving of the Golden Globe she was nominated for. She approaches the role of Grace with a level of fearlessness and bravery that’s truly compelling (sometimes morbidly so). Co-star Robert Pattinson, as Grace’s beleaguered boyfriend/husband Jackson, further distances himself from the old Twilight days. He successfully avoids being overshadowed by Lawrence in a role that, depending on how one views the film, is either a protagonist or an antagonist. 

At no time do we feel like we’re watching actors, but a really troubled couple whose lives are unraveling due to Grace’s severe postpartum depression (and no small amount of Jackson’s perceived lack of emotional support). Elsewhere, director/co-writer Lynne Ramsey makes a lot of aesthetically interesting choices that enhance the film’s surreal, sometimes hallucinatory moments, bolstered by excellent cinematography by Seamus McGarvey.

However, I can’t eliminate the negative. Despite those stellar performances and themes worth exploring, Die My Love is a challenge to endure. Not because it’s very deliberately paced and depressing. Given her reputation, I wasn’t expecting sunshine and lollipops from Ramsey, anyway. But while Lawrence and Pattinson are all-in, their characters are static and simplistically conceived. Aside from an opening scene where they engage in an uninhibited bout of floor sex (presumably conceiving the child that’s the catalyst for what follows), Grace and Lawrence are defined by verbal and physical conflict. 

A Montana honeymoon. 

In fact, neither of them come across as all that likable or sympathetic. Grace, in particular, grows increasingly vindictive and unhinged, some of her actions bordering on unforgivable. But here’s the biggest problem…Die My Love soon becomes phenomenally repetitive. Not to disparage the impact of postpartum depression on women and families, but as depicted here, the repeated pattern of crises and reconciliation gets rather predictable and boring after a while, despite efforts to jazz things up visually. Along the way, there are no character epiphanies, no meaningful explorations into the nature of this disorder and certainly nothing resembling levity (though I suppose some of this could be seen as black comedy). 

Still, some viewers might appreciate the film’s frankness, surreal elements and no-small-amount of sensationalism. If nothing else, the great cast (including Sissy Spacek & Nick Nolte) makes it difficult to dismiss Die My Love entirely. However, two hours is an interminable amount of time to spend with characters who are exactly the same at the film’s conclusion as they were at the beginning.

CRACK-UP and the Nagging Question

CRACK-UP (Blu-ray)

1946 / 86 min

Warner Archive Collection

Available at MovieZyng

Review by Mr. Paws😽

While I enjoyed 1946’s Crack-Up, it did leave me with a nagging question. Fortunately, I didn’t think to ask it until after the movie was over.

As the story begins, art critic and lecturer George Steele (Pat O’Brien) has apparently lost his mind, going berserk in the museum where he works. After waking up, he tells his colleagues and the police the last thing he remembers was being in a train crash on the way to visit his ailing mother. However, skeptical cop Lt. Cochrane (Wallace Ford) informs him there’s been no reported train wreck, nor any record of George’s mother being at the hospital.

At British art expert Traybin’s (Herbert Marshall) behest, George is released and followed by police. He decides to retrace his steps leading up to the accident, and though it turns out that there was no train crash, somebody definitely has it in for him. While Trybin and George’s beleaguered girlfriend Terry (Claire Trevor) implore him to give up after he’s suspected of murdering friend & colleague Stevenson, George uncovers a plot involving missing paintings and forgeries, and only he is skilled enough to identify the differences.

"You push that broom like a boss, buddy."

While no classic of the genre, Crack-Up is a fairly decent little film noir mystery. The story is pretty interesting, though overall implausibility of the antagonists' plans rears its ugly head here and there. It’s efficiently directed by Irving Reis, who may not display much in the way of aesthetic panache, but he keeps the pace lively, which helps smooth over some of the narrative rough spots. And what the film lacks in marquee names is compensated by serviceable performances.

There is that nagging question, though, which doesn’t necessarily ruin the movie. In the moment, Crack-Up is pretty fun, with a couple of neat plot twists. But without offering any spoilers, I simply gotta ask: Rather than arrange this elaborate scheme to discredit George by making everyone think he’s crazy, wouldn’t it have been easier just to kill him in the first place? Perhaps someone wiser than me can answer that one.

EXTRA KIBBLES

SHORT - “Purity Squad,” from the Crime Does Not Pay series.

TRAILER

THE POOP SCOOP: Classic Horror Edition

UPCOMING KIBBLES THAT MAKE US PURR!

THEY WILL KILL YOU on Digital April 28 and Blu-ray, 4K & DVD June 30 from Warner Bros. director Kirill Sokolov unleashes a blood-soaked, high-octane horror-action-comedy in which a young woman must survive the night at the Virgil, a demonic cult’s mysterious and twisted death-trap of a lair, before becoming their next offering in a uniquely brazen, big screen battle of epic kills and wickedly dark humor. The film stars Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, and Patricia Arquette.

 GINGER SNAPS on 4K + Blu-ray + Digital May 19 from Lionsgate. The cult favorite returns, in hair-raising 4K! Ginger Snaps is the story of death-fixated teenage sisters Ginger and Brigitte, who are attacked one night by a creature drawn to Ginger’s first menstrual period. Bitten by the creature, Ginger soon exhibits sudden aggression and bizarre transformations that convince Brigitte her sister is turning into a werewolf…and that Ginger’s embrace of her liberating new condition may be terminal. 

George A. Romero’s DAY OF THE DEAD on 4K + Blu-ray June 16 from Shout Factory. In George A. Romero's third film in the saga of the undead, a small group of scientists and soldiers take refuge underground as they struggle to control the flesh-eating horror that walks the Earth above. But will the final battle for the future be fought among the living or have they forever unleashed the hunger of the dead? This highly anticipated four-disc release features new 4K restoration, as well as hours of new and vintage bonus material.

NIRVANA, THE BAND, THE SHOW, THE MOVIE on Blu-ray May 26 from NEON/Decal. In this indie sci-fi comedy, Lifelong friends Matt and Jay once again try to book a gig at a legendary venue when they accidentally travel back in time to 2008. 

The Original 28 DAYS LATER Coming to 4K UHD September 1 from Sony. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital, bicycle courier Jim (Academy Award®-winner Cillian Murphy, 2023 Best Actor, Oppenheimer) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion. Joining forces with another group of survivors, Jim soon learns that a deadly virus was released. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity — or has the deadly "rage" virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet?

THE BRIDE! On Digital April 7 and Blu-ray, 4K & DVD May 19 from Warner Bros. This is a bold, iconoclastic take on one of the world’s most compelling stories. 

SPEED RACER on 4K UHD May 19 from Warner Bros. Based on the classic series created by anime pioneer Tatsuo Yoshida, the live action Speed Racer is newly remastered and includes new bonus content. 

FALLOUT SEASON 2 on Blu-ray, 4K & DVD May 19 from Amazon MGM Studios. While Fallout Season 1 took us through the dangerous remains of Los Angeles, Season 2 picks up after the epic finale and takes us on a journey through the “Mojave Wasteland.”.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER 4K Collector SteelBook Coming June 2 from Warner Bros. The collectible steelbook will include a Blu-ray bonus disc with special features created by Paul Thomas Anderson along with a 24-page booklet with behind-the-scenes photos. 

“WUTHERING HEIGHTS” on Blu-ray, 4K & DVD May 5 from Warner Bros. Academy Award- and BAFTA-winning filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s bold and original interpretation of one of the greatest love stories of all time.

STRANGER THINGS: THE COMPLETE SERIES Coming to 4K and Blu-ray July 26 from Arrow Video. PRE-ORDER HERE!

The Fantasy Thriller, DUST BUNNY Coming to 4K and Digital from Lionsgate. Some monsters are real in this fantastical and wickedly inventive feature directorial debut from visionary creator Bryan Fuller.

INNERSPACE on 4K and Blu-ray April 28 from Arrow Video. The limited edition release features a brand-new restoration from the original 35mm negative.

SOLDIER, Starring Kurt Russell, on 4K April 28 from Arrow Video. The limited edition release features a brand new 4K restoration by Arrow Films approved by director Paul W.S. Anderson, hours of special features and newly commissioned extras.

Finally! BLUE THUNDER Limited Edition 4K Coming May 5 from Arrow Video. A landmark of analog-age futurism, it remains a razor-sharp thrill ride that fires on all cylinders from beginning to end. Includes numerous new and archival bonus features.

THE BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA on 4K and Blu-ray May 12 from Celluloid Dreams. This giallo classic is now available for preorder on the Celluloid Dreams website.

MONSTER ON A PLANE: Cancel This Flight

MONSTER ON A PLANE (Blu-ray)

2024 / 90 min

Uncork’d Entertainment

Available at MovieZyng

Review by Josey, the Sudden Cat😾

Hoping for a little cheap, trashy fun in the sky? Look elsewhere. While I periodically enjoy a bit of exploitative junk as much as the next guy, Monster on a Plane mostly fails to even reach those lowly standards. 

Ironically, overall cheapness isn’t the movie’s problem. In fact, it dutifully includes plenty of the gratuitous sex & nudity, splatter & gore, cut-rate CGI and phony monsters that have made similar films a lot of shameless fun. And of course, it’s got the usual silly story and overwrought performances, capped off by the prerequisite title that explains the plot in a nutshell.

However, this one doesn’t even rise to the level of so-good-it’s-bad, for a couple of key reasons. First off, the dialogue is not only terrible (hell, that can be forgiven, even embraced), there are numerous distracting occasions when it doesn’t even make sense…and I’m talking grammatical sense. Monster on a Plane is a German production but filmed in English, and if I didn't know better, I’d say the script was originally written in German before being fed through Google Translate and handed to the cast. Some of it even sounds like it was clumsily written by AI (as a former teacher, I’ve seen many examples of AI’s butchery of the English language). Here’s just one stellar example:

Man: You know who I love more than you? Your tiny boobs.

Woman: You idiot. My boobs belong to me.

This little fellow is in charge of guarding the script.

The entire cast delivers their lines as if they aren’t always exactly sure what they’re actually saying, their efforts to recite everything verbatim coming across as a struggle. Elsewhere, I found myself wondering if “writer”-director Ezra Tsegaye has ever been on a plane (or if he knows how they work). Not only is the cockpit free of any steering control wheels, the cargo hold (where much of the slaughter takes place) is the size of a small warehouse. Then there’s the creature itself, which so-closely resembles the little Krites in Critters that someone should consider suing. 

It also seems to have been edited with a chainsaw…most scenes sloppily slapped together, often with little or no transition. If a bonkers German creature feature is what you seek, might I humbly suggest something like Sky Sharks? At least that one feels like the work of professional schlockmeisters. The only vibe Monster on a Plane gives off is contempt for the expectations of its audience.

SLEEPERS Awakens in 4K

SLEEPERS (4K UHD)

1996 / 148 min

Warner Bros

#InPartnershipwithWB 

Review by Princess Pepper😺

Man, what a cast…an inspired combination of living legends, rising stars, young newcomers and one particular A-lister who totally nails a role that would be way, way out of anyone’s comfort zone (well, maybe not Willem Defoe’s). Back in ‘96, the overstuffed marquee alone was enough to make Sleepers worth checking out.

The cast remains the driving force behind the film, which tells the story of Michael, Shakes, John and Thomas, four teen buddies from Hell’s Kitchen. Following a prank that results in someone’s death, they end up incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility. While there, they are repeatedly subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the hands of four guards, led by super-sadistic Sean Nokes (Kevin Bacon). 13 years later, two of them, John and Thomas (Ron Eldard & Billy Cudup), are violent mobsters who unexpectedly spot Nokes in a bar. Ceasing the opportunity for payback, they shoot him dead. 

Now they’re on trial for murder. In a surprise turn of events, Michael (Brad Pitt), is the assistant DA who signs on to prosecute them. But he has an ulterior motive, using his position to manipulate the trial…not only to free his friends, but exact revenge on the remaining guards who abused them. To accomplish this, he requires the help of Shakes (Jason Patric) to locate those guards and (more importantly) come up with a witness willing to provide an alibi for John and Thomas.

Brad Pitt gets put in time-out.

Richly drawn characters notwithstanding, Sleepers is ultimately a payback story, its narrative seldom diving too deeply into the moral ambiguities of its protagonists’ actions. And considering the atrocities inflicted on them as children, we wouldn’t want it to. In fact, the only moral quandary is experienced by Father Carillo (Robert De Niro), their life-long mentor who’s asked by Shakes to commit perjury on the stand. As revenge films go, Sleepers isn’t necessarily a “fun” film (the first half is really harrowing), but it’s certainly a satisfying one.

Most of the stacked cast are excellent in their roles. De Niro provides his usual gravitas, while the young actors playing the main characters as boys are engaging, sometimes more so than their adult counterparts. This is especially true regarding Joe Perrino as young Shakes, who’s far more dynamic than Jason Patric (but I never found him to be a particularly interesting actor anyway). However, the most shockingly effective performance belongs to Bacon as Nokes, a truly repellent and menacing turn unlike anything he’d done before at the time. The cast’s other legend, Dustin Hoffman, is perfectly fine in a smaller, underwritten role as a drunken defense lawyer, but I can’t shake the feeling he did it simply as a favor to his buddy, director Barry Levinson.

Elsewhere, there’s good attention to period detail in rendering late-60s Hell’s Kitchen, and despite its length, Levinson keeps things interesting with a lively pace and frequent bursts of intensity. It all looks quite good with this new 4K UHD transfer (but having never seen it on Blu-ray or DVD, I’ve got no basis for comparison). There are two audio options, both of which are DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. However, one of them is titled “Director’s Remix,” where some of Patric’s voiceover narration is removed. Sweetening the deal are a couple of new retrospective bonus features.

EXTRA KIBBLES

FEATURETTES - The Making of Sleepers and The Art of Casting are both short pieces featuring writer-director Berry Levinson. Not much depth here, but at least they’re new.

DIGITAL COPY