Sinners Review: The Vampire Hits Keep Coming.

There has been a vampire resurgence over the last few years, with various different films.
Last year’s Abigail was a fun movie with a lot of humor.
Nosferatu (which I unfortunately never got around to reviewing) was a masterful remake of one of the world’s first horror movie.
Which brings us to 2025’s Sinners.

*Sinners* is the next in a recent line of successful vampire films.

Directed by Ryan Coogler, the film juggles many genres from vampire flick, to gangster film, to a study of black culture in the 1930s, and, of all things, a borderline musical.
The story follows the Smokestack Twins, both played by Michael B. Jordan, former gangsters who return to their hometown to open a juke joint.
Recruiting their cousin Sammie to perform, all seems to be going well until a group of vampires show up to ruin the party.
The performances in Sinners are all fantastic.
Michael B. Jordan brings the Smokestack Twins to life with two very different performances.

Stack is sociable while Smoke is a lot colder, personality wise.

Hailee Steinfeld is also great as Mary, Stack’s former flame.
Then there is Jack O’Connell, who is delightfully charismatic as Remmick, the leader of the vampires.
The standout of the movie, however, is definitely Miles Caton as Sammie.
What makes his performance so amazing is that this is his first role in a movie.
I hope this leads to a strong career in film for him because he knocked it out of the park both with his acting and singing.

Like I many, I was shocked to hear this was Caton’s first movie role because of how good he is here.

Speaking of which, the music of Sinners is a character itself.
I called the film a borderline musical earlier, due to it having many musical performances, from old blues to Irish line dancing.
Every musical sequence is great and elevated by wonderful cinematography in what are undoubtedly some of the best movie scenes this year.
Sinners is full of great scenes, whether they be from the setup of the first half or the vampire carnage of the second.
The fact that I enjoyed both of these halves equally should show how great I consider the film to be.
If Sinners had just been about the Smokestack Twins establishing their juke joint, I am sure it would have been just as interesting as the version with the vampires.

But do I have any criticisms of the movie?
Well, a few, although they are very minor.
My first criticism is that there are a few points in the film where random red shirt characters, who I am certain were not there before, show up just to die and add to the body count.
It drew me out of the movie a couple of times, as I wondered where these characters had come from.
My second issue is that the trailer gave away some of the characters who get turned into vampires, but that is more an issue with the trailer than the movie itself.

There are two big transformations spoiled by the trailer, which is a shame.

Otherwise, Sinners is a brilliant vampire movie.
It has outstanding acting and singing, compelling commentary and cinematography, and a great mid-credits scene which ties the movie together (seriously, do not leave once the credits start rolling or you will miss something big).
Sinners is my favourite Ryan Coogler film and another great addition to the growing vampire flick resurgence.

Creed 2: Hard Hitting Sequel.

The Rocky series is known to have had its ups and downs over the years.
I cannot really attest to this since I had only watched the first film before watching Creed in preparation for watching and reviewing the sequel.
However, even though I cannot claim to be a huge fan of this franchise, I can state that when these films get it right they are often amazing.

I have only seen two films in the *Rocky* franchise but both are classic examples of great film making.

The first Rocky is a very inspiring film and the recent sequel Creed also gives off this vibe, even if I did find it a bit too similar to the original.
Coming into Creed 2, I was not sure what to expect from this film.
I wondered if it would manage to capture the magic of the other two Rocky films I had seen, or if it would be one of those terrible sequels I have heard so much about.
Thankfully, the film was not the latter because, under the guidance of director Steven Caple Jr., Creed 2 is a very hard hitting film both figuratively and literally.
Personally, I think the story of this film is better than the first Creed with the titular Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) planning to fight Viktor Drago (Florian Muteanu), the son of the man who killed his father in the ring.
Watching Adonis’ journey and the emotional and physical struggles he had to go through in this film made me relate to him a lot more than I did previously.
One thing that really surprised me about Creed 2 was how relatable the antagonists Viktor and Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) were.
I actually found myself relating a lot to their struggles just as much as Adonis’ and their arcs were just as satisfying as his.

CREED II — I was very surprised by how good a job the film did at making me sympathize with both Ivan and Viktor. Ordinarily they would have just been stereotypical bad guys so this is a welcome change.

On the whole, I would say almost every character has grown exceptionally from the first Creed.
The one exception to this is the man himself Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) but he is still very relatable and Stallone gives another great performance as his most memorable character.
While, Creed 2 does have a great story it does not quite live up to the first Creed‘s technical mastery.
There were no shots that really wowed me like in the first film but this did not take away from the enjoyment.
Many other people in the theater I was in seemed to enjoy this film too because they were literally cheering during the final match between Adonis and Viktor.
Overall, Creed 2 is another crowd pleaser in the Rocky franchise with a great story, characters and acting.
This is also surprising for me because (and this is a secret) I do not even like boxing!

Black Panther makes its fictional country a character in its own right.

After Civil War it was expected that Black Panther would eventually get his own movie and now it is finally here.
Black Panther is a superhero I did not know that much about beforehand so I came into the movie not sure what to expect.
Needless to say, this movie blew me away.
It had a great story, set of characters and setting.
Directed by Ryan Coogler, Black Panther is set in the fictional country of Wakanda and this country felt like a character itself.
Seeing African customs alongside this futuristic city is something we have never seen before and made it really exciting and interesting to explore.

The movie picks up after Civil War with T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman, mourning the death of his father and about to take up the mantle of both king of Wakanda and the Black Panther.
However, T’Challa faces problems from arms dealer Ulysses Klaue, played by Andy Serkis, and the mysterious Erik Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan.
This story is made all the better by the great cast, who portray really fantastic characters.
Boseman is very likeable as T’Challa and he is a great contrast to Killmonger, the film’s main villain.
Then there is Serkis’ Klaue who you can see Serkis had fun with because of how crazy he seems.
The best minor character in the film is definitely T’Challa’s sister Shuri, played by Letitia Wright, because of how energetic and likeable she is.
Finally, Killmonger almost steals the movie.
Jordan gives a great performance as Killmonger who is one of the best villains the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever had.
It really does seem like the MCU is improving its track record with villains, as you can tell with Vulture from Spiderman: Homecoming and now Killmonger.
Killmonger is a great villain because, even though he is clearly evil, you understand why he is doing these bad things and you sympathize with him because of these reasons.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a great contrast between Killmonger and T’Challa that really helps to emphasize the movie’s themes, which centers around the moral ambiguity of running a country that is deliberately cut off from the rest of the world.
But this movie is not perfect, there are a couple of flaws.
For one, the CGI just did not work at times.
During the final fight between T’Challa and Killmonger it was hard to get into because of how the CGI was implemented.
My final problem with the movie is Daniel Kaluuya’s character, W’Kabi.
Kaluuya gives a great performance, like everyone else, but his character is very inconsistent.
Halfway through the movie W’Kabi does a complete turn around out of nowhere.
If you compare his character from the first half to the second half of the movie he is completely different, even though he has experienced no character growth.
Overall though, Black Panther was a great film, despite its minor problems.
It has an investing story and great characters, one of which, you could even say, was Wakanda.