The Wall (2017)

A small crumbling wall is the only thing protecting an American soldier from an Iraqi super sniper in this thriller with a unique premise, but the psychological tension is lessened by two things: the not very likely nor insightful exchanges that take place via earpiece between the two adversaries, and the litany of rookie mistakes made by the American soldier which by movie's end proves such a comprehensive list it can not simply be dismissed as the result of the soldier's youth, his being wounded, his fear, nor his dehydration from being stuck in the searing desert heat.

★★☆☆☆

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Bumblebee (2018)

About a teen who befriends, educates and culturally integrates a refugee she discovers living, in fear of war aggressors, in a Californian scrapyard, this is a big dumb empty blockbuster and mildly entertaining entry in the Transformers series of movies based on the Hasbro toys, but it is hard not to also see it as a missed opportunity - what a watershed moment in cinema it would have been had it just been released as Short Circuit: Fully Loaded or, I think even better, Herbie: Dark Side of the Lovebug, a big cgi blockbuster reboot of one or the other of the two movies Bumblebee mashes together for its plot.

★★★☆☆

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