This Is Not How You Start a Trilogy: “Hope” Gets a Nope From Me
Despite it being one of the most visually impressive action movies I’ve ever seen, everything else fell short of my expectations.

Sarah and Aldi are a married couple who have just moved into a new home. They’ve brought Sarah’s mother to live with them. Sarah and Aldi’s life was going normally at first, until a mysterious woman named Indah suddenly entered Aldi’s life. A series of supernatural events began to haunt Sarah and her mother. It turns out that Indah was using black magic and witchcraft to influence Aldi into taking her as his second wife. And to carry out her plan, she teamed up with a shaman.
Despite it being one of the most visually impressive action movies I’ve ever seen, everything else fell short of my expectations.
It only seems to prove that when the company had their backs against the wall and needed an all pleasing, generic movie that had to make up for The Last Jedi, they chose to sacrifice almost everything that made their main protagonist interesting and that made her stand out as the strong female character that a generation of young movie goers was supposed to look up to. Instead, we were left with a Rey that was so much less than she could have been. And I guess that’s the real story of Rey and The Rise of Skywalker; they could have been so much more, but they were just more of the same.
An adventure that centers on freedom and captures viewers' hearts.
Alongside A Drowning Man, I Signed The Petition, 3 Logical Exits, and A World Not Ours, A Man Returned continues to paint a realistic portrait of the Refugee Crisis that eschews the Western gaze and stereotype. These are real portraits painted by a director with lived experience, cultural connection and an amazing eye for visuals.
Remember when there was this amazing comedy titled "National Lampoon's Vacation"? To this day, it is a true classic of the genre and certainly put a new spin on precisely what KINDS of insanity could occur when taking the fam on the road. Then, like with so many successful films, there was the sequel (which for me was even MORE of a classic than the original!). However, the third film emerged....and then a fourth. Suddenly, the luster was gone and disappointment set in.
Yeah, sure, the movie’s about Carnage. But it’s really about love. A love that defies all odds: the love between a man and his man-eating alien symbiote.