Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When a mobster uses a time machine to save his best friend from a deadly night, two versions of himself, a dangerous criminal conspiracy, and the woman they both love collide in a chaotic race to rewrite fate.

Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (or M&N&N&A, pronounced *deep breath* Mandnandnanda) is a weird movie. Mainly because of how normal it is. You’d expect an action-comedy based around time travel would be weird and feature set-pieces and moments which you’ve never seen before, but it doesn’t. So whilst it is original, it does feel kind of like it’s wasted the premise. 90% of what happens in M&N&N&A could happen in any other film, and most of the remaining 10% could be very quickly rewritten to make sense in a standard film. I mean, this is a time travel action movie, and my first draft didn’t even mention the time travel aspects; that’s how little they actually matter. There’s very little discussion of paradoxes or any of the other stuff you expect from movies about the subject.

Wasted potential aside, it is fun. Vince Vaughn is clearly having a blast, but he is hampered by there only being a six-month gap between the two Nicks, so in terms of personality they’re very similar. I also have another issue with Nick’s character. The film states that he and Mike used to be really close. But the way they interact before we’re told that wouldn’t lead you to think that. They interact almost like strangers, and not in a “we have nothing to say to each other anymore, and it’s awkward” way.

On the subject of cast, James Marsden is good at what he does, but he does need to start adding a few more tools to his arsenal, or at the very least take on more diverse roles than what he’s currently doing. He’s not helped by how bland Mike is as a character. Nick, you can imagine Nick outside of this movie; there’s enough there to base a short story around him. Mike? You’ve got nothing to go on. He’s so bland he feels like the default protagonist in a poorly made GTA clone. Eiza González is good (but Alice is sorely underused, often treated more as a prop than a character), with great chemistry with Marsden and Vaughn. Keith David? Well, it’s always nice to see Keith David in things. He elevates everything he’s in.

Using Sheena Easton to soundtrack a fight scene is a great touch. It’s playful, unexpected, and fits the film’s offbeat sense of humour perfectly. That being said, the “action scene set to a country song” has become a bit of a cliché. It feels like every other crime film or action comedy has one now, and the novelty has definitely worn off. It’s the action version of “Horror film trailer set to a slowed-down female vocal cover of a pop song”. At this point, I’d happily support a moratorium on country-song action montages for a few years until they start feeling fresh again.

One thing that stood out was the conversation about Gilmore Girls. It’s such an oddly specific topic for characters to get into in the middle of a dangerous situation, and that’s exactly why it works. It’s almost Tarantino-esque; all it’s missing is superfluous n-words and shots of the actresses’ bare feet. I can understand why some viewers might find scenes like this frustrating, arguing that the characters are too nonchalant considering there’s a mob boss actively trying to kill them. But I never got that impression. The threat is always lingering beneath the surface, influencing their decisions even when they’re talking about something completely mundane (well, as mundane as the end of a relationship can be). It feels less like they’re ignoring the danger and more like they’re coping with it however they can. These are also characters who’ve spent a lot of time around violence and death, so the possibility of being murdered isn’t exactly a new concept to them. Their casual conversations feel like a believable defence mechanism rather than a lapse in the writing.

The playful dialogue doesn’t always work, though. There’s a scene in a convenience store that’s ridiculously dumb, featuring a store clerk dismissing the very notion of “sugar-free candy”. Even if, technically, candy has sugar, you’d know what they meant. It’s like saying, “Vegan sausage rolls can’t exist because sausage is meat. Idiot”, technically right, but overly pedantic, and you’d have to be an idiot to argue it. Mike not being aware of what chloroform is also feels like something that a real person wouldn’t say, especially considering his line of work.

The action scenes are fine, occasionally bloody, sometimes fun. But there’s nothing that stands out, nothing that you’d look at and think “oh, now that’s cool”. Not everything has to be John Wick, but I saw this film less than a week ago, and no action scenes have stuck with me.

The emotional high point is the group singing Oasis to a dying Nick. It’s an unexpectedly sincere moment in a film that’s otherwise full of jokes and criminal chaos, and it’s genuinely quite touching. Unfortunately, the scene slightly undercuts itself because Nick’s death takes just a little too long. The emotional impact starts to fade as the moment stretches on, and what begins as heartfelt edges towards awkward. Had it been trimmed, it probably would have landed much more effectively.

That sums up this movie. It keeps showing glimpses of greatness. With clever dialogue, flashes of invention, and occasional bursts of inspired action. But then it walks back that greatness with jokes that rely on inexplicable stupidity, or scenes that take one good idea and stretch it just a little too far (again, the sugar-free candy bit). Ultimately, it feels like a blockbuster. By which I mean, a movie you’d rent from Blockbuster back when they were still a thing.

Minions And Monsters (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Those annoying little yellow shits that you may know from memes your relatives post on Facebook decide to make a movie.

As I sometimes do with sequels, I’m going to post a segment from my review of the previous movie, this time, 2022’s Minions: The Rise Of Gru:

I was ready to slate this; I was ready to come down on this harder than the next UK Prime Minister comes down on an unemployed person not applying for jobs in their sleep. I was going to use every insult that exists, and a few that I made up just to express my anger at this film.

But then it ruined my plans by having the audacity, the sheer gall, to actually be okay. How very dare you! I mean, it’s not going to end up on my “best of 2021” list, mainly because it’s 2022, but also because the best it ever gets is “okay”. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of the franchise; I think it’s because it’s basically old Buster Keaton skits, but in animation so there’s no sense of danger or risk. There’s also always the sneaking suspicion that it’s a merchandise-driven series rather than a creative one. It’s strange as it’s when this film links to the others in the franchise that it’s at its weakest. The timeline doesn’t line up AT ALL with the first Minions film, and when it makes references to the other films it falls flat, and like every prequel ever made has moments where the audience reacts with “what a useful skill/gadget, that would have been useful in [scene in a film made earlier but chronologically takes place later]”.

I try to keep politics out of reviews unnecessarily, but I have to commend Minions and Monsters (MAM) for allowing me to use less energy by recycling my own review. Hashtag, we only have one planet. Really, the only thing I would change from that review to make it applicable to this is remove the year 2022. Everything else is still accurate. It’s still a franchise that feels like it was conceived as a series of Happy Meal toys rather than a movie, with all the continuity of a drunk person explaining the Halloween franchise. In my review of Black Phone 2, I said: “As a stand-alone film, it’s pretty good, as a sequel, it’s a mess”. MAM is similar; the weakest parts are when it remembers it’s a Minions movie.

One sentence from that earlier review rings a lot more true this time: the Buster Keaton comparisons. Parts of MAM don’t just resemble a Keaton short; there are a few parts where it grabs you by the shoulders and tries to sell you a box set of his greatest hits, so much so that it feels like he should appear in the credits under “special thanks”. I watch a lot of films that people would describe as pretentious, and I can’t remember the last time I saw any film (let alone a mainstream animated film featuring yellow kidney beans) craft such a heartfelt love letter to silent movies. I’m used to animated films putting in references for adults, but even the parents would be too young for a lot of these references. Is there a crossover between “people who watch Minions” and “People who would recognise a reference to the 1902 Georges Méliès A Trip To The Moon”? That fills me with hope. Because it means that there’s a chance a kid will watch those scenes and then catch a glimpse of one of the original works, and be inspired to look into it, and find themselves falling in love with silent cinema.

Don’t worry, though. It doesn’t stay classy for too long.

Much like the introduction of talkies killed silent cinema, the introduction of them into the plot of MAM also kills any sense of originality, and it quickly becomes more of the same. Goomi, the tiny Cthulhu from the trailer, is introduced more than halfway through the movie. So he’s the villain? Nope, after more shtick than you shake a stick at, he gets them to free two sea monsters who are intent on taking over the world and destroying everything. So they’re the big villain? Nope. After more narrative faffing around, the three monsters summon Irene, a large orange blob monster with more eyes than a narcissist’s diary (that joke only works when you say it out loud, but I’m sticking with it). She appears, has one moment of chaos, then is destroyed by an alien who’s flanked by minions in a spacecraft. There are throwaway jokes longer than the villain’s appearance in this movie.

It’s like watching a relay race where every runner immediately hands the baton to someone else because none of them actually want the responsibility of being the antagonist. Every time the film introduces what you think is going to be the threat, it immediately goes, “Actually, no, THIS is the threat.” By the end, it’s burned through more villains than an arsonist superhero; you half expect the closing credits to reveal there was another one waiting in the car park.

I will say this: Minions is very rarely boring. Something is always happening, even if that something doesn’t advance the plot at all and is just the narrative equivalent of jingling keys around. It never builds towards anything; there’s no natural progression, it’s just a series of stuff happening. The closing section is not just bad; it’s disappointing. Worse than that, it’s generic. None of it is unique or memorable.

Which is why the silent cinema sections stand out even more. They feel like they belong to a different film entirely, one made by people passionately paying tribute to the history of cinema rather than fulfilling a contractual obligation to set up the next line of plush toys. If the entire film had committed to that style, this could have been one of Illumination’s most interesting projects. Instead, it eventually remembers it’s supposed to be a Minions movie, panics, and throws every monster, spaceship and glowing MacGuffin it can find at the screen until the credits arrive.

Now onto the closing scene and the credits. The closing scene reveals that the entire movie (including the framing device) is actually a film-within-a-film, directed by James and Henry, two of the minions from this movie. Oh yeah, the minions in this are different from the ones in the previous movies. Same species, different characters, that all happen to look exactly the same, have similar mannerisms, and wear similar clothes. So, none of the events of this movie happened? Fine, I’ll go along with that. But then the closing credits reveal that the magic book is real. It’s less “twist”, and more “different writers took a scene each and didn’t collaborate to make sure their visions lined up”. So did the events happen or not? The film seems to want to have it both ways: if you point out that at no point in this franchise has anybody realised that Gru’s minions look like a similar species that appeared in multiple films from the 20’s, then “it didn’t happen, it’s just a movie”, but for the sake of some mid-credits jokes, it definitely happened.

There’s another small problem I have, not just with this movie, but the franchise as a whole. It doesn’t really feel like they want to help villains. They say they do; they act as if their main motivation is to help evil and enslave humanity. But most of the time their actions don’t align with that. For one thing, they stop the runaway train from running people over. If they were truly evil, wouldn’t they have welcomed it? The franchise never treats them as the villains it tells us they are; they are only ever heroic.

Ultimately, Pierre Coffin’s biggest mistake with this Minions movie was making it a Minions movie. If it belonged to an original franchise, then it wouldn’t have needed to fall apart in the final third to live up to expectations, and it wouldn’t have needed to tie itself in knots to stay in continuity.

I suppose that’s enough about the writing. How about the technical aspects? They’re more difficult to judge. The lighting, colours and character animation are perfectly competent, but there’s never a shot that makes you stop and admire it. There’s nothing visually exciting about it. Also, the music doesn’t stand out at all. It’s not that the visuals or the score are bad, but they both feel as if they had no love put into them. There’s no flair, no style, and no substance. Ironically, the only sections with any visual personality are the ones borrowing techniques from filmmakers working over a century ago. That’s a shame, because the film leaves so much on the table. If it had committed to the silent movie motif, the score could have become one of its strongest assets. There’s a moment where a shark attacks the minions; imagine how much more memorable that sequence would have been with an old-fashioned reimagining of the Jaws theme.

Fans of the franchise will enjoy it, and the section set in old Hollywood is something worth not just admiring, but studying. But it doesn’t matter how delicious a steak meal is if the dessert is a literal steaming pile of shit.

The Invite (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A struggling married couple’s dinner with their free-spirited neighbours spirals into a provocative night of awkward revelations that forces them to confront the cracks in their relationship.

I love dinner parties in movies. They’re so fun to watch because they naturally allow group conversation, and there are certain unspoken etiquette rules that are always entertaining to watch get broken. If you want to expose your characters’ conflicts, put them around a dinner table and let what happens happen. The Invite takes that idea and makes it the entire concept.

It’s an English-language adaptation of the 2020 Spanish film The People Upstairs. It’s fairly obvious this is a remake of a non-American film. There’s something about it that feels slightly unconventional. It’s not just that it’s a summer movie driven by characters and dialogue rather than big action setpieces. It kind of feels like the cinematic equivalent of ordering food in a foreign country by speaking English with an accent. Familiar enough to understand, but just different enough to feel a little strange.

That sense of oddness is backed up by Olivia Wilde’s directing style. It’s incredibly static, with some weird blocking choices. Sometimes it feels like a play that we’re watching from the audience, sometimes it feels like someone just plonked a camera down randomly with no thought or care, and other times there’s a voyeuristic quality, as if we’ve wandered into a private argument we shouldn’t be witnessing. With that in mind, it’s difficult to criticise the film too harshly on a technical level because it’s clearly not trying to impress with flashy filmmaking. It’s aiming for a naturalistic style that occasionally feels awkward, but intentionally so.

What will chiefly inform your opinion on The Invite is the characters and the dialogue. The audience I saw it with loved it, and it’s easy to see why: it’s incredibly funny at times, with some truly incredible dialogue, and a cast who clearly enjoy bouncing off one another. The conversations have an energy that keeps scenes engaging even when very little is happening. That’s the issue, though: very little does happen. There’s almost no narrative progression for most of the runtime. Rather than pushing the characters into new emotional territory, the film spends much of its time having them elaborate on feelings they’ve already expressed. To be honest, it spends most of it catching up with the trailer. I’ve seen the trailer; I know this film involves the neighbours proposing group sex. I assumed that would be the inciting incident and it would lead to things. Instead, it’s the destination, and it’s a destination the film takes far too long getting to.

That lack of progression also affects the central relationship. Joe and Angela don’t feel like real people so much as vehicles for clever dialogue. Every conversation is packed with witty observations, but it rarely feels spontaneous or lived-in. Also, there was no warmth to the relationship between the two main characters. I understand that the point is they’re trapped in a loveless marriage fuelled by resentment, too afraid to admit it’s over. That doesn’t mean spending nearly two hours with them becomes any easier. I kept waiting for just one moment of genuine warmth, some glimpse of why these two people fell in love in the first place. There’s a brief moment where it seems they might unite against the bickering of the other couple, but it disappears almost as quickly as it arrives.

That lack of warmth really hampers the ending. Joe finally returns to the piano, Angela joins him, and they seem to reconcile. It’s a sweet scene in isolation, but after nearly two hours of anger, bitterness and emotional distance, it feels too small to justify such a dramatic shift. It’s like trying to fix a leg amputation with a piece of sellotape.

For all my issues, there is still a lot to enjoy about The Invite. Beneath all the bitterness is an impactful look at people and keeping the spark alive in long-term relationships. For a film that’s so bitter, it just may save the relationship of someone watching. They may see it and be inspired to try more, to treat their partner with love, to keep wooing them and trying to impress them instead of confusing stability for fulfilment. The ensemble also works well as a true four-hander, with every actor getting plenty to do. Although, interestingly, despite having a female director and co-writer, the film subtly privileges Joe’s perspective. He’s the only character we spend meaningful time with alone, and the only one we follow outside the apartment. It’s a small imbalance, but one that makes the supposedly shared story feel slightly weighted towards him.

I won’t begrudge anybody enjoying this. Mainly because being annoyed at someone for their film opinions would be weird. Maybe a younger, more cynical me would have loved this. It will find its audience, of that I’m certain. But I’m not part of that audience. I appreciate what it’s trying to do, but it never quite invited me in.

Supergirl (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A villain paralyses a superhero’s dog. Comes to regret it.

There’s a certain section of the internet that hates this movie. According to them, Supergirl is misandrist, implying that men are simple creatures who only see women as sex objects. They also think the film should have had Sydney Sweeney as the lead because she’s got nicer tits. I don’t see how you can view this as anti-men; it’s anti-child sex traffickers. If you see a movie be against sex trafficking and your first thought is “this movie hates men”, then you need to rethink your definition of masculinity.

It’s weird, especially since there are legitimate reasons to dislike Supergirl (from now on, when I say Supergirl, assume I’m talking about the movie; I’ll refer to the character as Kara for clarity’s sake). The plot is muddled, the villain is underwhelming, the visuals are inconsistent, characters often behave in ways that contradict what we’re told about them, and the soundtrack isn’t quite as memorable as it clearly thinks it is.

In terms of the directing, James Gunn is overseeing DC movies now, and that’s VERY evident in Supergirl. The film is so indebted to Gunn’s style that it barely feels like a Craig Gillespie movie at all. Instead, it feels like someone trying to make a James Gunn movie (but not at the same level as 2024’s Borderlands). It’s dark, not in tone, in terms of visuals. There are more than a few scenes where it’s difficult to work out what’s happening. This really harms the action sequences, as everything is so difficult to see that it’s impossible to be either impressed or emotionally affected by the action.

I actually liked the soundtrack overall, but there are too many moments where it feels desperate to seem cool or underline the film’s message. It’s never quite as heavy-handed as Captain Marvel dropping “Just a Girl,” but it comes close a few times. And yes, this is something I complain about constantly, but it desperately needed a killer cover song. The acoustic version of “The Middle” is fantastic, but to distinguish Kara’s ethos from Superman’s, an angry female-led cover of a classic American song could have been genuinely inspired.

Those issues would be more forgivable if the film wasn’t hamstrung by such a lacklustre villain. Krem has some good moments; the fact that he steals food from everyone he meets is a nice touch, and his actions truly are despicable. But it constantly feels like he’s not the big bad, but someone who reports to the big bad. Throughout the film, I kept expecting him to meet a superior who’d berate him before killing him for his failures. The film also seems intent on presenting Krem as Kara’s ideological opposite, but that idea never really lands because he doesn’t appear to have much of an ideology. There’s an implication that he’s trying to preserve his species through horrific means, yet the script barely explores that motivation. He rarely talks about his people, so instead he simply comes across as someone who would have been a sex trafficker regardless of circumstance. There’s no moral complexity to wrestle with. He’s not a villain whose worldview makes you pause and think. He’s just a dick.

The film also has a habit of telling rather than showing when it comes to Kara’s character. We’re repeatedly told she’s selfish, reckless, and directionless, yet the story rarely demonstrates those qualities. She only meets Ruthye because of a selfless act, and she beats up a stranger just to recover Ruthye’s sword. Her emotional core is built around survivor’s guilt, the trauma of losing her family, and her determination to save her dog. That’s someone with a strong moral compass, not someone who’s fundamentally selfish. Likewise, Ruthye is presented as an innocent child, yet she often speaks with wisdom far beyond her years, creating a disconnect between how she’s described and how she’s actually written.

That said, there’s still a lot to like here. Kara immediately establishes herself as a distinct character rather than simply being Superman with blonde hair. She’s angry, rebellious, impulsive, and deeply traumatised. Her past informs every decision she makes, and she’s refreshingly messy. She’s just as likely to smash a stereo as she is to break a villain’s back. Milly Alcock captures that contradiction beautifully, balancing confidence with vulnerability. She has the physicality for the action scenes, but she’s at her best in the quieter moments, when Kara’s bravado slips and we catch a glimpse of the frightened person beneath it.

The relationship between Kara and Ruthye is very sweet and helps elevate the somewhat conventional revenge narrative. It’s not exactly subtle, but it doesn’t need to be. There are times where sincerity works better than subtlety. Supergirl is very sincere; I’ll give it that. It wears its heart and message on its sleeve, and I love that about it.

Despite its flaws, Supergirl succeeds because it gives Kara a distinct identity and wears its heart on its sleeve. It isn’t the strongest superhero film in recent years, but it lays a promising foundation for DC’s future.

Pizza Movie (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Two friends need food to counteract the drugs they’ve just taken. All they need to do is get downstairs.

Sometimes you see a synopsis and the only thought in your head is “Wait, doesn’t that movie already exist?” Usually it’s because a movie is incredibly popular, so studios rush to release something similar. With that in mind, it’s hard to read the plot for this and not think “wait, isn’t that basically 2004’s Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle/Get The Munchies?” It’s an easy comparison to make. Two friends take drugs and try to find food. One of them is a nervous guy working up the courage to talk to a woman, the other being more impulsive, encouraging adventures and drug-taking. I thought that too; that was actually the first line I wrote in my notes while watching it.

But then the film revealed itself, and it’s more than the comparisons would suggest. For one thing, the female characters have more agency. They’re no longer just prizes or props; they’re fully formed characters with their own flaws and weirdness. The main characters have more depth too. Unlike Harold and Kumar, whose defining trait is essentially “they smoke weed”, Jack and Montgomery feel like people who happen to take drugs rather than characters entirely built around them.

Sadly, adept character writing doesn’t always make a good film. The drug trips themselves are superb: imaginative, creative, and a lot of fun. By comparison, the bits between them aren’t quite as good. There are also a few moments where it seems to suggest the drugs are not just affecting the characters, but are changing reality itself, with time loops, levitation, etc. There’s a cute moment at the end where we see the hallucination from an outsider’s perspective: the characters believe they’ve formed into Juan giant person (not a typo, an in-movie joke). From their point of view, they’re seamlessly moving as one person. From the viewpoint of others, it’s just the three characters tightly hugging each other and struggling to move. That’s fun. But then you have the time loop sequence, where there’s no obvious real-world explanation. Are bystanders genuinely watching these people scream, run back down a corridor, and repeat the process? If so, why does nobody react?

That being said, the time loop section is one of my favourite parts, so it’s not really a criticism. It’s more of a warning that to enjoy this film there’s a lot of “don’t think about it too hard, just go with it”. It’s not just the story, the comedy is like that too. The jokes don’t come quite as thick and fast as they do in something like Fackham Hall or The Naked Gun, but there’s certainly a variety. Some are quite smart, some are among the dumbest things you’ll see all week (even if you watch the trailer for the new Minions movie), and some exist purely because some guy thought “wouldn’t it be funny if….”

The willingness to embrace absurdity helps sell some of the weirder concepts. How many other films would have the villain be defeated by overdosing on drugs and realising they’re part of a low-budget indie movie? Or feature one of the writers joking that “my granddad wants to be in this movie”, only for a suspiciously elderly student to appear a few minutes later, played with deliberately amateurish enthusiasm? For such a gloriously stupid film, it’s surprisingly smart.

The visuals, however, are merely fine. A premise like this should give its directors licence to get truly weird, to push the visuals as far as their imagination will allow. Instead, everything feels rather restrained. There’s nothing wrong with how the film looks, but it rarely feels ambitious. The modest budget undoubtedly imposed limitations, yet there’s little here to suggest what these filmmakers might paint with a larger canvas.

The performances? They’re fine. Gaten Matarazzo does just enough to distinguish himself from his Stranger Things character. Sean Giambrone is slightly closer to his television role (Adam in The Goldbergs), but that’s more due to writing than performance. The two share a chemistry that makes you believe they’re actually friends. On the downside, the two are so good together that the traditional third-act split doesn’t land because you don’t truly believe these two would drift apart so easily. Lulu Wilson is the third part of the friendship group, and if there’s a third Ready Or Not movie, she wouldn’t be the worst choice as another relative to Kathryn Newton and Samara Weaving (she’d actually be the second best choice, first being Margot Robbie, obviously). Peyton Elizabeth Lee also leaves a strong impression despite limited material, and I’d happily watch her in a larger role.

The standout, though, is Sarah Sherman. She barely appears, yet completely owns every scene she’s in. She’s wonderfully odd, but never in a way that feels forced or performative. Instead, she gives the impression of someone who would happily spend an evening sitting alone in a dark room doing weird things regardless of whether anyone else was watching. It’s a fascinating performance, and one that makes me even more excited for Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which is rapidly becoming one of my most anticipated films of the year.

This won’t finish near the top of anyone’s Best Films of the Year list. But it’s well worth seeking out. It starts off looking like a Harold & Kumar clone (Harold and Two-mar?) before carving out its own identity through inventive ideas, likeable characters and an appealing willingness to embrace utter nonsense. At the very least, it’s funny, imaginative, and exactly the kind of film you’d have rented from a video shop back in the day, then ended up watching two or three times over the same weekend.

Toy Story 5 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Old-fashioned toys teach us the dangers of technology in a film that will soon be released on Disney+ and made available to watch online.

I don’t care about this movie.

I don’t care that it’s missing one of the main voice actors due to him sadly passing on. I don’t care that it seems like a cash-grab. And I don’t care that it kind of overrides the perfect ending of Toy Story 3. I don’t care about any of this, because I fucking loved this movie.

Sorry, did I say it overrides the ending of Toy Story 3? I meant Toy Story 4. That’s embarrassing on my part. It’s easy to see how I made that mistake, though; I just copy-and-pasted the opening to my Toy Story 4 review. I think if you liked the first four, you’ll like this too. It’s more of the same, in a good way. It features the same characters, going through the same lessons. At this point Woody and friends have had to learn that children are their own people so many times that I genuinely think they should see a doctor (although they are American, so they probably can’t afford it). The toys appear to suffer from a condition where every life lesson evaporates from their minds after about eighteen months

That sounds overly negative. It’s not meant like it. I did love this movie. I love it BECAUSE I know what to expect. I know I’m going to laugh. I know it’s going to break my heart a little bit. I know that Pixar will somehow convince me that what happens to some pieces of plastic is the most important thing in the world. I also know it’s going to look fantastic. Toy Story 5 (TS5) is probably the best-looking one of the series. It actually tries something new. When Bonnie is playing with the toys, it animates them in a way that it looks like, well, the only way to say it is watercolour CGI. The backgrounds become softer, colours blend together differently, and everything feels slightly dreamlike. It’s a surprisingly bold visual choice for the fifth entry in a franchise that could easily coast on familiarity. It doesn’t last throughout the film, but the brief moments that it does really stand out.

My issues are very small; it repeats points the franchise has already made. That’s a pretty big one, and I’ve already gone into it. One of the kids is animated in a way that she looks older than she is supposed to be, so she comes off as slightly immature. Really, it’s just her height, and the fact that until we see her interact with the toys, she does seem more of a teen than a child. There are also a few moments where the “humans never notice the toys” rule gets stretched to breaking point. The scenes involving multiple Buzz Lightyears are the biggest example. While that subplot pays off later, opening the movie with it felt like a mistake. It’s one of those ideas that’s fun once you understand where it’s going, but not necessarily the strongest foot to start on. Similarly, the film introduces a toy capable of sending messages that people don’t remember writing. Not one adult involved seems remotely alarmed by this. If my phone started sending texts that I had no recollection of sending, my first assumption would not be “lol, I am a silly billy”, mainly because my name isn’t Billy.

Besides those very minor points? It works. There’s a slight change in narrative focus. For perhaps the first time since the original movie, Toy Story feels genuinely interested in the human side of the story again. Bonnie isn’t just the kid the toys belong to. She’s an actual character with wants, fears and problems of her own. The film spends more time examining her perspective than previous entries did, and it’s stronger for it. There’s also an increased focus on Jessie. It’s hard to believe she wasn’t in the original movie. There was a 4-year period where Jessie wasn’t a part of the Toy Story universe at all. But she slotted in perfectly. I love how much more Joan Cusack is given to do in this. She may not be the top-listed, but she’s arguably the main character. The transition is handled well. It never feels like the film is forcing her into the spotlight. If anything, it feels like a natural evolution. Bonnie would realistically gravitate more towards Jessie than Woody, and the story simply follows that logic.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was the film quietly shutting down the long-running fan theory that Jessie originally belonged to Andy’s mother. I was never the biggest fan of that. Not because it was impossible or stupid, but because it makes the world feel smaller if EVERYBODY is connected. Also, if your childhood toy suddenly reappeared in your house decades later, you’d probably notice. At the very least, you’d spend a few minutes wondering whether you’d stumbled into a Child’s Play sequel (hopefully not Seed).

As for the newcomers? They work well. Lilypad will inevitably get most of the attention, and for good reason. She’s built around an interesting contradiction. The film needs children within the story to find her appealing, while simultaneously making sure real children don’t immediately demand one for Christmas and accidentally prove the villain’s point. It’s a difficult balancing act, but the film mostly pulls it off. There is a toy made of her, but it’s a VERY basic educational one, with none of the social and addictive capabilities that are in the film. The other tech-based toys are fine, but if they weren’t in the inevitable Toy Story 6, you wouldn’t miss them. Blaze, meanwhile, ended up being one of the more interesting additions. Believable as a child projecting an air of confidence whilst simultaneously having an inner personality that’s mostly anxiety. Mykal-Michelle Harris does a great job, and I do hope Blaze and Bonnie are an integral part of the franchise going forward.

In summary: it’s another Toy Story movie. Whether that’s a glowing recommendation or a dire warning is up to you. For me, it’s the former. Also the case apparently for the woman at work who spent six minutes very passionately telling me how much she loved TS5 before I’d even seen it.

Looking back, that should probably have been a clue as to how good this is.

Disclosure Day (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A former cybersecurity expert and a TV meteorologist uncover a decades-long conspiracy hiding humanity’s contact with extraterrestrials, racing to reveal the truth before powerful forces silence them.

I’m not a huge Spielberg fan. I’m not saying I don’t love some of his work. But no matter how good his films are (and they are, there’s no denying that), I’m not sure any of them would be in my personal top 100. I admire his work more than I like it. The one that I hold the most affection for is probably The BFG. He is very good at what he does: grounded spectacle. Really, the best way to sum them up is that they inspire wonder and awe.

That is what drives Disclosure Day. That, and hope. The emotional anchor is empathy; the idea that humanity’s ability to sympathise with others is one of our greatest strengths, and leads to our growth as a species. In a crapsack world, it’s nice to see something with hope as a central theme. It works, too. The emotional beats hit like a freight train, or a passenger train; I think if I get run over by a train, I’m not going to be that bothered by what type of train it is. Unless it’s a steam train, then I’ll be delighted as it means my obituary can say I was “chuffed to bits”.

Since it is so committed to wonder, there is the risk that it could come off slightly naive. That it would come off TOO hopeful and twee, making it seem almost like a kids’ movie. Thankfully, it contains just enough nightmare fuel to keep you interested. The footage of what humanity does to the aliens is shocking, haunting, and devastatingly accurate. That awfulness helps sell the sincerity, though. To inspire humanity to be at its best, we need to see it at its worst. We need to see it as cruel, selfish, and violent. It’s the old wrestling principle: to have someone the fans truly love, the fans kind of need to hate them first.

Science fiction has spent most of its existence asking what aliens would do to us. Invade, enslave, eat, breed (fingers crossed the last one)? The humans in this film are aware of this, and it’s why they fear the aliens. That cynicism is what stops us advancing. So in a way, it’s not actually about aliens. Disclosure Day is about humanity confronting proof that it is not alone. The question isn’t about whether we survive the encounter, but whether we deserve to.

This all sounds overly sentimental. A film where the real superpower is being nice? That sounds unbearably sweet. Which it is. But I liked it anyway. Whilst it is a bit too “nice”, it’s sincere. Anybody can be cynical; hope is harder. Hope risks looking like an idiot if it doesn’t work out. That’s why a film like this is impossibly brave.

Now it’s time for me to mention its second biggest flaw (I’ll discuss the first one later, and it’s controversial). We are told that the world is on the edge: the doomsday clock is practically midnight, there’s panic on the streets of London, and at the disco. We’re told that. But we never really feel it. We spend so much time with characters who are isolating themselves from the world that we never really get a good look at the world they’re isolating themselves from. That may be because Spielberg is so gifted at creating wonder and beauty that despair and existential dread never quite emerge from the visuals.

Now onto my biggest issue with Disclosure Day: Emily Blunt. She’s usually really good. But for whatever reason, I didn’t buy her performance in this. It felt like the epitome of “dull surprise”. Instead of displaying wonder and awe, it just seems like she’s constantly high. It’s made all the more obvious by how good Josh O’Connor is in comparison.

I don’t think his performance is the best in the film, though. That goes to someone else. I don’t know who Courtney Grace is. At the time of writing, she doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. And I’m certainly not saying she should have been the lead; she’s only in one scene, so it would be a stretch to go from that to anchoring the film. But her performance is spellbinding. Her character doesn’t even receive a name. But her role is important; she’s the news anchor talking about the footage in real time. Having to stay professional whilst obviously hiding her emotions, before ending up emotionally overwhelmed by what she’s seeing. By the time the information is disclosed, pretty much every character is somebody who already had some knowledge of the events, as did the audience. So she’s an in-universe audience surrogate. Yes, we see brief moments of how large groups of people react, but it’s Grace’s performance that lets us truly feel the awe that humanity feels. In a film full of excellent performers, she stood out.

In a way, that encapsulates Disclosure Day. It’s not aliens or magic powers that wow us in the end: it’s a person. Disclosure Day understands that humanity doesn’t experience awe; people do. That moment works because it takes something incomprehensibly large and channels it through an individual.

The thing is, when a film is this sincere, you stop judging it purely on logic. You judge it on whether you believe it. Not whether the politics make sense, not whether every plot point survives scrutiny, but whether the emotional truth lands. For me, it did. Yes, I wish it explored more ideas in depth (it briefly talks about what the existence of aliens means for religion, and aside from one nun being okay with it, it’s not really touched upon). We’re not really given enough time to see the impact the disclosures have.

Maybe that’s the point. We’re not left with certainty that something will happen. We don’t know for sure that humanity can save itself. Instead, we’re left with the hope and belief that it will. Really, there’s a world of possibilities that Disclosure Day opens up, and maybe it’s up to us to keep those worlds open. We have the possibility that, given undeniable proof that we are small, fragile, and not alone, humanity might finally grow up.

Dolly (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Macy, a young woman who fights for survival after she is abducted during a hike by a monstrous figure intent on raising her as its child.

I was looking forward to this. Max the Impaler is my kind of person, and I like horror movies, so this should be right up my street. It’s not; it definitely took a wrong turn and ended up on a street with the same name but in a different town. That said, it could be just that Dolly and I aren’t speaking the same horror language. I know that certain people will absolutely love this. Dolly has an 80’s throwback aesthetic. The colours and presentation make you feel like you’ve stumbled across a hidden 80’s slasher. Specifically, one on a cheap VHS that isn’t legally available in this country, so you had to get it from a dodgy tape trader, watched so often that the defects become part of the cinematography.

There are moments where Dolly has its creepy moments (the film, not the character. Wait, no, the character too). The trouble is that it isn’t quite good enough to sustain them. Several moments felt repetitive. Horror films often recycle scares, kills, or visual motifs; that’s part of the genre. But when you’re already feeling that sense of déjà vu before the protagonist and antagonist have even properly crossed paths, something has gone wrong in the script. At one point, I genuinely checked to make sure I hadn’t accidentally rewound the film. The overly artistic editing doesn’t help matters either. Rather than enhancing the experience, it often feels like it’s actively getting in the way.

The editing creates some practical problems, too. Characters reach for an object, and the cuts are so rapid that we don’t actually see what that object is. That’s an issue when the object is about to be used as a weapon. It’s difficult to fear someone being hit by an object if we don’t know what the object is. Is it a smoked haddock, in which case it will hurt but not likely kill the person (the fish, on the other hand, that’s probably gonna die). Or is it a wrench, in which case, yeah, that might kill a mofo.

That same uncertainty extends to Dolly as a character. The mask obscures so much of their face that we rarely get a clear read on what they’re thinking or feeling. This becomes particularly noticeable when the protagonist starts fighting back. Is Dolly frightened? Angry? Offended that somebody has stopped playing along? Excited because things have become more interesting? We don’t know. I know, similar horror films also have characters wear masks, such as Texas Chainsaw. But this isn’t Texas Chainsaw, no matter how much the ending desperately wants to make you think otherwise.

The good news is that when it comes to violence, the film absolutely commits. Rod Blackhurst understands gore and, more importantly, understands impact. The violence here isn’t stylish or glamorous. It’s ugly, messy and unpleasant in exactly the way real violence should be. The injuries look painful, the deaths feel convincing, and the kills strike that sweet spot between inventive and deeply uncomfortable. These aren’t deaths that the audience cheers or goes “woooo” to; they’re deaths that are made to sicken you.

I also found Dolly surprisingly compelling as a character. They’re simultaneously terrifying and tragic, which is a difficult balancing act to pull off. It’s the kind of horror villain that future sequels would almost certainly ruin by explaining too much. As they stand here, though, they’re fascinating. You could even imagine a sequel where Dolly somehow ends up becoming the protagonist. I hope not, but you can see it happening.

Ultimately, Dolly felt like a Rob Zombie movie, and that’s not a compliment.

Saipan (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A recreation of the Saipan incident involving the Republic Of Ireland national team during the 2002 World Cup. If those words mean nothing to you, this film isn’t for you.

The last football movie I watched was Balls Up. That movie was fucking terrible. All Saipan had to do was be better than that. Obviously it managed that; if it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this; you’d be reading a news headline saying “Makers of film attacked by a crazed/idiot reviewer”.

That’s not to say it’s a fantastic watch. For all its faults (of which there were many), at least Balls Up was memorable (except for the title, because I’m still not 100% on whether it’s called Balls Up or Balls Out). Saipan isn’t. It won’t move you, teach you, or linger in the memory. It’s just there. It’s the film equivalent of the 90’s song Save Tonight, by Eagle Eye Cherry. In the moment, you’ll enjoy it, and it’s hard to find many faults. But it won’t take long for memories and warm feelings to fade. That’s both a positive and a negative. Saipan never embarrasses itself. You never sit there bored, or annoyed. But it also never threatens to become anything more than “just okay”.

On the face of it, it rivals Seinfeld for being a piece of media about nothing. I mean, really. “A footballer shouts at his boss and quits mid-tournament” doesn’t sound like the sort of event that legends are built around. Nobody was physically harmed. Nothing was damaged. Ireland came second in their group (eventual finalists Germany topped the group), and ended up going out of the tournament on penalties to a Spain side that were on the cusp of being one of the greatest international teams of all time. There’s no Sliding Doors “but what would have happened if he stayed?” alternate history. All that would have changed is how they played, the final result wouldn’t change.

But that’s missing the point somewhat. It’s not just about that incident. It’s about professionalism, national identity, and personal pride. The reason the incident dominated headlines wasn’t because of what happened; it was because of what people thought it meant. There’s no clear-cut right-and-wrong side. To some people, Roy Keane was a selfish egotist who had no idea how to be part of a team. But to others, he was a perfectionist who refused to lower his standards and was extremely disappointed when it seemed like everybody else wasn’t taking the tournament seriously. To some, Mick McCarthy was a realist, attempting to deal with an egotist (Keane) who was being encouraged by his club manager to treat the international team. Whereas to others, he was woefully out of his depth, weak, and should have never got hired in the first place.

Saipan understands this. It doesn’t portray either side as wrong. They’re both right, but they’re having different arguments. I genuinely have no idea where the writers or directors stand on the issue. The script is impressively neutral. Perhaps that’s because all the principal figures are still alive and theoretically capable of hiring lawyers, but whatever the reason, it works. The film trusts the audience to make up their own minds.

There are a few issues. The main one is that Eanna Hardwicke looks nothing like Roy Keane. That, in of itself, isn’t an issue. Michael Sheen has shown time and time again that it’s more important to capture personality than accuracy. And it wouldn’t be an issue here if it wasn’t for one thing: the film opens with a montage featuring the real Roy Keane multiple times, repeatedly reminding the audience what he actually looks like before cutting to an actor who bears very little resemblance to him. It’s an odd decision. Why not keep Keane at arm’s length at first? Show him from behind, in silhouette, or at a distance. Build up the myth before revealing the actor. Instead, the film practically invites the comparison, and it’s an invitation that you can’t receive well.

The other issue is that it doesn’t do enough to explain why any of this mattered.

The film assumes a certain level of prior knowledge and doesn’t spend much time bringing newcomers up to speed. Non-football fans will still understand the basic facts. They’ll grasp the what and the when. But I’m not convinced they’ll fully understand the why. Which is a shame, as the why is the most important part.

Ultimately, it feels like a TV drama, albeit a very good one. It’s consistently engaging, well-acted, and intelligently written. It’s also surprisingly difficult to feel strongly about. The real incident sparked years of anger, debate, and discussion. I don’t think it’s particularly cruel to suggest that the film probably won’t. That sounds harsher than I intend it to. I’d still recommend it. It’s a solid, thoughtful piece of filmmaking that treats its subject with far more nuance than I expected. I’d say you should watch it, but watch it with someone who remembers the actual event. You might find their talks as every bit as interesting as the film itself.

Balls Up (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Two marketing executives end up public enemy number one in Brazil after ruining the world cup final they were invited to because they invented a condom that goes over your balls.

Weird timing. There’s a World Cup this year; in fact, that’s why I actually watched it, so I can have a somewhat topical review for once. But it’s now June; this movie was released in April. 15 days away from the final teams qualifying, two months before the first game. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to release it closer to the tournament?

The World Cup in Balls Up takes place in Brazil. That country hosted a World Cup in 2014. So is this film saying it takes place in 2014? Or is it marketed at people who want to watch a film based around the World Cup, but don’t actually like the World Cup? Why make a movie to capitalise on an event if you get all the facts wrong? It kind of feels like they wanted to make this movie, but realised the World Cup final this year is in the US, and a film that makes the US look bad isn’t likely to get funded in modern times. And they couldn’t go to Qatar or Russia due to US interest in those territories.

Also, Balls Up describes the event as the “2025 World Cup”, which doesn’t exist. For Americans: this would be like making a Super Bowl movie that says the event takes place every few months and features international teams. I’m not saying you need to know absolutely everything about something before writing a script. God knows, I dislike when people use esoteric expert knowledge to insult a film. If the cloud formation in the sky of a historical film annoys you because that’s not what the weather was like on that particular day, that’s on you, not the film. But if the entire central premise of your film is based on bullshit, then I have a problem. It would be like making a film about George Washington and having him grow up a poor black child in southern Lagos.

Also, I didn’t buy the general concept. “A condom that also goes over the balls”, that’s apparently a million-dollar idea. It’s not, stupid. It’s also not really explained WHY this would be wanted in the first place, or how it works. There’s not even a scene of someone trying to put the condom on and it snapping painfully on their balls, even when a character is about to have sex. That being said, it is possible there WAS a brief scene of that; I was just unable to watch it because my eyes were blinded by the sheer volume of shit.

It’s not all bad. Larry David being the voice of a translator app is funny. There are one or two other very brief moments that almost caused a smile. Plus, Daniela Melchior is pretty damn good at what she does. Also, watching it won’t cause a ghost to crawl out of the screen and say you’ll die in 7 days. It also hasn’t been shown to increase the risk of death by plane crash. As you can tell, I’m really struggling to find positive things to say about it. So I won’t.

It’s not just research which is missing from the script. There’s also not really a story. There’s no cohesive narrative that depends on you knowing these characters and their situation, where their characters gradually change and those changes effect behaviour. It’s just a series of long sketches and skits. They’re not scenes, they’re video game worlds. You have drugs party world, jungle world etc.

Maybe it’s saved by the characters being likeable? Nope. These characters are written as if we’re supposed to hate them and be annoyed by them. But they end up getting everything they want, so I think we were supposed to like them. They’re not easy to like, though. They’re juvenile, annoying, dumb, and are written as if they’re constantly drunk as fuck. It baffles me that this was written by the same people as Now You See Me 3, Zombieland, and the three Deadpool movies. But I suppose they did also write GI Joe: Retaliation and Ghosted, which makes more sense.

A film like this is usually released to capitalise on current events. I’m assuming this was made because Amazon isn’t showing the World Cup, so they needed to make something so bad that it would make people hate football.

And if it wasn’t for the Spain-Cabo Verde game, almost mission accomplished.