[EXPRESSO] Sacrifice (2025) | Beer On The Sun

After debutting September 2025 at the Telluride Film Festival (to arguably very little acclaim), Sacrifice, the latest film from director Romain Gavrais (Athena) hit theathers here, to also very little fanfare or much in the way of marketing, despite having indeed an all stars cast of recognizable Hollywood actors

The premise sees a film star, Mike Tyler (Chris Evans), try to make a come back by partecipating in a gala full of powerful people, influencers and the likes, takin place in a old cave-temple situated in a Greek island , with the idea of promoting an enviromental positive message, only for a group of pagan cult terrorists (their young leader played by Anna Taylor Joy) that believe a nearby volcano will erupt, causing an extinction level event, and that the only way to advert that and save humanity requires sacrificing three people.

Mike inadvertedly gets imbroiled into their plans, thinking that this is some sort of performance or that he can get away with it, or captivated because he almost shares the same ideals.

Sacrifice is an interesting idea for a ecosatire drama-comedy about the performative lies of the elite that swears this time he won’t rape the Earth for profit, of “greenwashing” and so on, but after a very good first half that has you intrigued in where the plot’s gonna go… the answer is sadly up its own arse, really, just plodding towards its own premise without really doing nothing of substance with it, as it’s all mostly an exercise in stylistical mixture that doesn’t work out, as it lacks actual political commentary, doesn’t actually develops its own themes, and just feel empty.

It’s not exactly “boring” but i won’t lie, this is a movie held together mostly due to its great performances, though not for lack of trying.

[EXPRESSO] Knights Of The Zodiac (2023) | Saint Seiya Evolution

It feels like its the late 2000s again with a production like this, as if Dragon Ball Evolution never released, or it did but nobody learn shit from it, just by gazing upon this brand new live action adaptation of the popular manga/anime series Knights Of The Zodiac, better known as Saint Seiya.

IF you knew this was coming at all, in the US the series never really “took off”, and even in countries like Italy where it still has a lot of nostalgic value for older generations, it has been barely marketed at all and released as 3 days special event thingie, kinda telling.

Honestly, i was never much into Saint Seiya, but just from the trailer i recognized the whiff of another Dragon Ball Evolution. Though this one is SLIGHTLY better.

Just because the effects and visuals are a bit better, and the fights could be worse.

But it’s still a terrible, lousy adaptation that’s so 2000s and it’s a total crapfest anyway, as it checks ALL the negative boxes.

Wildly miscast actors that either half-ass it or are just pure pine, a script trying to squeeze a saga worth of info into a 2 hours runtime, a narration with no focus continuously jumping from scene to scene without context, that is when the stereotypes (there are no actual characters in this movie) aren’t vomiting torrents of exposition.

Even worse, it’s also a BORING mess, and it’s that kind of adaptation that it invents his own plot, one that has barely anything to do with the series’ premise, and – for good measure – it’s stupid, boring, threadbare and utterly tiresome on its own, managing not only to disappoint long time fans, but also alienate general audiences.

Not that it stops this movie sequel baiting into the void.