Vick's picks movie reviews for February 2026

 - by Vick Silkenpen
   Movie Critic

One Battle After Another: This Paul Thomas Anderson film was expected to do well at the Golden Globes (much to the spitting dismay of Fox News), and it did. However, Leonardo DiCaprio did not win in his category.

But it led all films in total wins, including Teyana Taylor for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture, Anderson for Best Screenplay, Anderson again for Best Director of a Motion Picture, and the big brass ring for Best Motion Picture-Musical or Comedy Globe.

The recent massive protest demonstrations and actual news events involving federal government aggression unfolding right in front of our eyes, out of Minnesota on video and in other American cities, pretty much guarantee this film’s major success and continued viewing.

DiCaprio plays a reclusive and aging political activist/revolutionary named Bob Ferguson in hiding with his wife’s child (just a touch of a spoiler there), who just wants to stay stoned and be anonymous after an action just goes too south for his tastes and nerves. But the past has a way of catching up, whether Bob is paranoid or not, since a persistent Colonel Lockjaw (a perfect Penn performance) is obsessed with Bob’s wife, played to a bombastic pitch by Taylor.

Lockjaw’s kidnapping of his daughter flings Bob once again back into the fray of resistance to an authoritarian military machine that is bullying the citizen population and immigrant groups. (Sound familiar?)

While this all seems like dire, dramatic business, it manages to have many hilarious situational moments and lol comic relief scenes even in the middle of dangerous-to-fatal moments. The underground has some quirky operational snags. How well does a past counter-culture adapt to now?

My favorite scenes involve Benicio del Toro calmly handling raids and narrow escapes, even managing to spring Bob from the clutches of Lockjaw. Del Toro never loses that twinkle in his eye and winning smile, which communicate that he has been immersed in political resistance for a long time, with no intention of quitting, juxtaposed with Bob’s frantic, loose-cannon actions rubbing up against the snafus of fatherhood responsibilities.

While comedy abounds, it nonetheless makes clear that the white nationalist forces don’t just go away on their own but will force us to wake up to the problem all around us eventually, no matter how safe, comfortable and even privileged we think we are. The attacks on free speech and assembly continue almost daily as moms are shot in their cars and citizens are detained by thuggy military characters on our streets. It remains to be seen whether this film can help illuminate the present and motivate viewers to at least try to push back and help themselves out of complacency and inaction to defend and ultimately save democracy.

Eden: Somewhat recently, when Trump was asked if there were any limits to his global powers, he said, “Yes, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” Many may say that “one thing” means nothing then.

Director Ron Howard uses a fantastic cast to make a based-on-true-events film from a stranger-than-fiction utopian experiment that happened in the 1930’s on an uninhabited Galapagos island named Floreana where German physician Friedrich Ritter (a sweaty Jude Law) and his lover Dore Strauch (an earthy Vanessa Kirby) have the vision to live an isolated existence even as he writes letters to newspapers expounding on his intellectual and philosophical conclusions for a world based on his personal moral take on man.

The couple’s supposed paradise is soon complicated by the disillusioned German married couple, Heinz and Margaret Wittmer (Daniel Bruhl and Sydney Sweeney) and their teenage son. Add to that the invasion of the scheming Austrian baroness Eloise Bouquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (a scenery-chewing Ana de Armas) with her dual male lovers and her dubious plans to build a luxury hotel, and you have a potent sociological mix that tests the boundaries of Dr. Ritter’s new manifesto. Will his morality and “own mind” stop the events that unfold on the island after that?

As these three “entities” begin interacting with each other, the corruptions and natures of the outside world start to emerge as attempts are made to cooperate and address the problems of the haves versus the have-nots, which also mirrors not only the period leading up to World War II, but to a degree, problems we see right now.

Inflated and narcissistic ego(s) can lead to some drastic and self-serving claims and actions. Are there any collaborative safeguards in place to prevent paranoid reactions, or are those hardwired into human nature, no matter the setting? Is violence all there is? Yes, of course, many of these sound like an episode of TV’s Survivor, although my first impression was of Lord of the Flies.

None of this described detracts from watching this cast get down and dirty in their art and skills. Howard understood tension well enough to guide them toward maximum moods of doom, desperation, and dread. Netflix was savvy to pick up on this one.

 If you enjoy a film that leaves you with quandaries to consider, try this one for some introspection.

The Gayly online. 2/9/26 @ 9:30 a.m. CST.