With Bob Odenkirk’s recent action movies “Nobody” (2021), “Nobody 2” (2025), and now “Normal” about a temporary police Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota, it seems that Odenkirk is starting a franchise of one word crazy action movies that start with the letter “N”.
Normal starts out as a run-of-the-mill, boring police story in a small town, and then later explodes into an insane idea involving a criminal mob from Japan, a small bank with a vault loaded with many gold bars and millions of dollars, with a plot twist impossible to see coming.
This film stars Bob Odenkirk as the temporary sheriff Ulysses Richardson, who has been through a tragic incident and is looking to escape by becoming a temporary Sheriff in the town of Normal, Minnesota. Ulysses runs into many off-the-wall people in the abnormal town of Normal, including the Mayor of the town Mayor Kibner, played by Henry Winkler.
For this third insane Odenkirk action movie, the action scenes do not happen until around the middle of the story, and then a huge explosion of death, gunfire, and destruction as the final climax with the criminal gang from Japan.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 77% are mostly correct, but the previous two Odenkirk action movies were better. I agree with this rating and do recommend Normal.
When I see any Avatar movie, the first three: “Avatar” (2009), “Avatar: The Way of Water” (2022) and “Avatar: Fire and Ice” (2025), I think of Pixar, the company that always puts out outstanding animated movies. Some of the best: “Toy Story” (1995, 1999, 2010, 2019), “Inside Out” (2015, 2024), and “Finding Dory” (2016). Granted, these movies are not nearly as complex and costly as the Avatar movies, which use live-action capture to create the characters. The difference is that Pixar movies consistently deliver a great story and screenplay, as well as exceptional animation. The reason for a high quality story is obvious, “how can we spend so much on great technology and not take the time to create a great story, dialogue and screenplay first”?
Unfortunately, all of the Avatar movies believe that record-breaking special effects are enough; the story is always secondary. “Avatar: Fire and Ice” is very similar to the previous movie; there is no real contiguous story, and too many examples of disconnected scenes and jumping around to different reasons for another special effect or action sequence. As with all of the Avatar movies, this one is once again, way too long at 3 hours and 15 minutes. There is no reason why this movie should be this long, with so many unnecessary scenes that have nothing to do with the overall story. This film could have easily been cut down to 2 hours and 30 minutes with no reduction in quality. Nobody in charge seems to realize that movies that are too long, can potentially greatly reduce the box office. Most people do not want to sit and watch a movie for over 3 hours, with movies normally lasting only two hours.
James Cameron started working on these Avatar movies in 2006, and now almost 20 years later, after the 3rd one has been released, there are plans for two more movies, with Avatar 4 scheduled for release in 2029 and Avatar 5 scheduled for 2031. In my opinion, it makes no sense why Cameron would want to spend the majority of his career as a screenwriter and director with one movie concept, even though these movies have advanced movie-making technology more than any other films.
This movie stars the same three main starts, Sam Worthington as Jake, Zoe Saldana as Neytiri, and Sigourney Weaver as Kiri. Other known actors include Kate Winslet, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi and Edie Falco as General Ardmore. All of these actors have to be grateful for big paydays that will probably last all the way until 2031 when the last Avatar is completed.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct and low 68% with this review, being typical of the critics’ opinions: Michael Compton: “After taking a step forward with the previous film, ‘Fire and Ash ‘ takes a giant step back — a film overstuffed with style but completely lacking any meaningful substance.” For a normal movie a 68% rating would mean failure at the box office, but like the other Avatar movies, this one will probably also gross over 2 billion dollars worldwide. My rating is 100% for the special effects and 65% for the story and a moderate recommendation.
The new fictional World War II movie “Sisu: Road to Revenge” is not really a movie, but more of a series of violent action scenes with one man from Finland trying to get revenge against the entire German army. The reason for Aatami’s (Jorma Tommila) revenge trek, other than his country being invaded by Germany is not very clear, not that this matters in an unusual movie like this one.
The action scenes are almost all crazy, impossible, and insane, almost as off-the-wall as the inane action scenes in the latest Fast and Furious movies. The other obvious issue is that no human being can be injured as severely as Aatami and still be alive.
The only known actor in this foreign film is Stephen Lang, who plays the German leader trying to kill Aatami. There is an extremely violent fight scene at the end of this movie that is both impossible to describe and violates all laws of physics and basic logic. This last scene is the entire movie in a nutshell.
This movie is difficult to review, so I will agree with the very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but only for the intense war action scenes. I will give this movie only 50% for its very limited screenplay and almost no dialogue. I recommend this film only for those who enjoy gratuitous violent action scenes and don’t mind a lack of a story.
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 