A whiskey-soaked barn burner of a blockbuster told with the same ferocity, soul, joy, and pain as the best blues songs. Coogler’s patient script unfurls itself slowly and in knots, but when the levee breaks and this reaches its epic, bloody conclusion, you’ll practically be levitating. His deft directorial hand keeps the energy practically crackling off the screen, and Autumn Durald Arkapaw’s vibrant cinematography fills every frame with richness and depth. There’s a sequence roughly halfway through the film where…

I’m so tired of cheating narratives as a plot device for drama. It’s the fridging of romantic dramas—overused, underanalyzed, and disrespectful of the humanity that the film is showing us. There’s nothing romantic about Challengers, nothing worth getting horny over, nothing to think about once the film’s through. I was following (not enjoying but following) this film until the last fifteen minutes or so where the ostensible protagonist becomes unforgivable and loses any moral high ground they may have in…