About Defacto Film Reviews
Defacto Film Reviews is a unique site where the film critics are also filmmakers themselves. It will feature weekly reviews as well as lists and more.
Originally formed in 2002 under Defactoweb.com, our website’s chief film critic is Robert Joseph Butler. His top ten lists were featured under Movie City News. His reviews have also been published at Michigan Movie Magazine and on Michigan’s longest running film school website, MPIFilm.com. His reviews have also been featured and published in The Oakland Press as well, which is one of Michigan’s largest newspaper publications.
He later went on to become an award-winning filmmaker of several independent short films including such festival hits as The Spirit of Isabel and Within, which won the Audience Choice Award at the 2015 Cinetopia International Film Festival. His short film “The Girl on the Mat” won Best Screenplay at the 2017 Queens World Film Festival. His most recent feature length movie, “Blood Immortal,” won Best Horror Feature Film at the 24th annual Indie Gathering International Film Festival and is now available to own on DVD and is available on Digital streaming platforms.
Using grassroots support, the site is devoted to celebrating independent and art-house cinema, as well as to high-crafted films that tell engaging stories with vision, focus, and skill.
Defacto Film Reviews is a unique case where the film critics are also filmmakers themselves. We will give readers comprehensible, honest, and erudite analysis of each film.
Rating System–4 Stars
Masterpiece/Top 10 Worthy
Exceptional
Quality
Mediocre
Poor
Reviews published in
The Naked Gun (2025)
The Naked Gun is not a remake. It is a direct continuation of the original series of films, done with a clear level of care and love for the goofy classics. There are five times [...]
Happy Gilmore 2
Happy Gilmore 2 is the sequel to the original 1996 film, starring Adam Sandler. Happy is a golfer driven by his rage, harnessing that to drive the ball further than anyone else. In this film, Happy [...]
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
For decades now, it has been an ongoing joke that the Fantastic Four property is cursed when it comes to making successful film adaptations. Roger Corman famously attempted to bring the Marvel heroes to life [...]
Sorry, Baby
GRADE A This first half of the decade has been quite notable for female directors, especially for fresh voices. The debut feature written and directed by its lead, Eva Victor, is deeply personal about female [...]
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
I Know What You Did Last Summer is not a remake or reboot of the 1997 film of the same name, but rather a relaunch of the long-dormant franchise. Picking up in the current era, the [...]
Jurassic World: Rebirth
Jurassic Park: Rebirth is the latest film in the long running franchise. Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp, who co-wrote the first film and soloed the second one, this is a film the [...]
28 Years Later
28 Years Later is the third zombie film of the "28" zombie film series, and it marks a return by legendary filmmaker Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire) and screenwriter Alex Garland, who both [...]
Materialists
Writer/director Celine Song's debut feature Past Lives was an indie darling that captured both the hearts and minds of audiences in the summer of 2023. Earning an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Song is one [...]
The Life of Chuck
The Life of Chuck, written and directed by Mike Flanagan, is based on the novella by Stephen King. These two are no strangers to one another, with Flanagan having adapted both Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep. Flanagan, [...]
How To Train Your Dragon
How To Train Your Dragon is a live-action remake of the 2010 animated film, from writer and director Dean DeBlois, who also served the same function for the original. Based on a series of books [...]
Ballerina: From the World of John Wick
The success story of the John Wick franchise has been a shining light over Hollywood. Starting life as an indie actioner that nearly got sent straight to DVD, the first film quickly received enormous praise [...]
The Phoenician Scheme
The Phoenician Scheme, the latest work of writer-director Wes Anderson, is another in a long line of films about a very specific time, place and type of person and set of behaviors. In his last [...]
Bring Her Back
In the heart of the 2023 summer movie season, A24 released the small indie horror film Talk To Me to stellar critical and audience reviews and quickly became a sleeper hit, grossing over $90 million [...]
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo and Stitch is a live-action remake of the 2002 animated film of the same name, and that carries certain expectations. Disney has been churning these out in droves since 2010 and so far, the [...]