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Let’s say you want to watch “Adipurush,” a new Indian mythological action-fantasy, without thinking so much about what came before it. You want to enter the theater with as little baggage as possible, despite the associations that come with the marquee-topping Prabhas, star of both S.S. Rajamouli’s trend-setting “Baahubali” period action fantasies. Maybe you want…

Within a single 21-minute sequence in “Extraction 2,” Chris Hemsworth’s hero character Tyler Rake takes Netflix viewers from the bottom of an erupting and overflowing prison, through a riot packed with fire, explosions, and dozens of ferocious stunt performers, into a breakneck car-chase in the woods, and onto the top of a speeding train, where he…

Overseen and conceived by the Russo Brothers of Marvel fame, the “Extraction” films are an example of a dwindling breed: the big-budget, super-violent adventure. Whether the main character is named John Rambo, Jason Bourne or John Wick, he’s a variant on a type: the prolific killer who’d prefer not to kill anymore but keeps getting pushed back…

I remember my first Marvel comic. I was a teenage fan of DC Comics’ Superman, who seemed to me to be the ideal superhero with an unquestioning dedication to “truth, justice, and the American way.” He was ever-stalwart, cheerful, and delightfully under-appreciated in his Clark Kent persona. And then someone gave me Marvel’s Fantastic Four.…

“We can’t all die first” is an excellent tagline perfectly fulfilled by Tim Story’s “The Blackening,” an ode to horror parodies like “Scary Movie.” This film’s comedy, characters, and commentary will be hilarious to all audiences but scratch a familiar itch among Black viewers. Of all of the film-watching customs within the Black community, shouting at and…