Month: May 2026

Mortal Kombat II (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: The fighters of Earth-Realm take part in a tournament to stop Shao Khan from taking over.

I know I’ve seen the first movie. I know this because I remember one or two moments from it, plus I reviewed it here. That being said, I can’t remember much from it. I can’t remember the story, the characters (I remember Scorpion and Sub Zero were in it, but not their characterisation). Reading through, that’s probably for the best, as there are some weird changes. The first movie established that champions can be identified by a dragon-shaped birthmark. That doesn’t matter here. Johnny Cage is a reluctant champion, but the mark never comes up. Not even a scene of him complaining about how long it took makeup artists to try to cover it. Also, the first film ended with Cole going to LA to talk to Johnny Cage. Do you know who talks to Cage in this movie? Sonya and Raiden. Spoilers: Cole dies in this movie. The characters don’t mourn him for that long; I don’t even recall them mentioning him after he dies. If Cole were the one to “recruit” Cage, it would have given some semblance of emotion, as it would have meant Cage lost his introduction to this world. It could have motivated him, given him what he needed to do what must be done (Punch people in the balls).

MKII is miles better than the first one. For one, there’s more focus on the fights. There are a lot more references to the games, so fans will find a lot of things to enjoy about it. It’s great to see some of the characters and stages come to life onscreen. It’s fantastic to see the acid stage finally recreated in a way that brings to life how terrifying it is. I appreciate how MKII managed to do all those references without alienating people not familiar with the games. Unlike the Uncharted movie, which featured such a distractingly obvious game reference, MKII still works if you’re not that familiar with the game. The source material isn’t essential, but it does make it a better experience. The fights themselves look great, with some fairly decent choreography and use of locations. Hits look like they hurt, and when there’s ultraviolence, it looks pretty damn glorious.

Now onto the bad. There’s one major issue I had with it. Shao Kahn doesn’t come off as a big threat. He comes off as fearful, but beatable. We see him in a few fights throughout the film, and in almost all of them, the person he’s against gets a lot of offence in, and at times nearly beats him. That’s not how you build that character up. The audience needs to see him go against someone we know is talented, and yet utterly annihilate them. That’s what the fight with Cole should have been. Cole should have hit him with everything he had, and it should have had no effect. Essentially, I’m looking for Brock Lesnar Vs. John Cena from Summerslam 2014 (just without that annoying kid in the crowd). The other thing this movie could have learned from pro wrestling: jobbers. A jobber is someone whose entire job is to lose and make the winner look good. That’s what this film needed. The franchise is full of recognisable characters who the audience would like to see but won’t be too disappointed if they were to die: Stryker, Nightwolf, Smoke. All of them could have been introduced and then killed quickly to demonstrate Shao Khan’s power.

I’d have liked to have seen more of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, but I understand why the film does what it does with them. Karl Urban is an odd choice for Cage. This iteration of the character isn’t a cocky, arrogant person; he’s riddled with self-doubt and uncertainty. In a way, it makes sense. But I can’t help but feel how much more FUN this movie would have been with someone a bit less dour. That’s not an issue with the casting; it’s the writing. The way that this iteration of the character is written, Urban plays it perfectly, bringing to mind Jean-Claude Van Damme in Jean-Claude Van Johnson. Hiroyuki Sanada is the perfect Scorpion when we do see him. Adeline Rudolph and Tati Gabrielle as Kitana and Jade are fine; they do what they need to, but don’t excel. Was Jessica McNamee this good in the first one? Because she’s fucking great in this. Circling back to Cage, I didn’t buy the movie of his they showed us. It didn’t feel like a dated action movie; it felt too modern. The action scenes themselves felt silly, lots of obvious missed punches, but visually, it looks very 2020’s. All they needed to do was change the colours, make it a bit less HD, add different music, etc., and it would have helped sell it. As it is? It feels like it was only there to get moments they could put in the trailer.

MKII is not a fantastic movie, but it is a lot of fun. And whilst I do have a lot of issues with it, you can bet I’m going to be in the seats for the third one.

Thrash (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: An American town is beset by twin problems: hurricanes and sharks.

Disaster movies can be intense. Nothing is scarier than nature (except maybe toilet snakes), hurricanes are destructive, fast, and cinematic. Shark movies are similar: I loved 47 Meters Down, and apparently, Jaws is quite popular. So, hurricane movies = good. Shark movies = good. Mixing the two? Well, then you get Sharknado. Usually, when a serious movie is made comedic by another film, the comedy comes later. Airplane! pretty much killed off the “Danger on a Plane” disaster movie, for example. But Sharknado was released in 2013, 13 years before Thrash. Surely the makers of Thrash knew what comparisons people would make? I’m not saying this is Sharknado, but it’s not not Sharknado. Maybe it would have worked if the film leaned into the slightly ridiculous nature, but it doesn’t. It’s more po-faced than a red teletubby.

That’s a weird way to start this review, I know. But it’s hard to find stuff to say about Thrash. There’s almost nothing of substance to it; it’s the cinematic equivalent of vape clouds. You know it’s there, but it leaves zero impression on you. It’s not that it’s a bad movie; it’s just incredibly bland. There’s not much to actively hate about it, but there’s not that much to like, either. I have some issues with the shot choices; a few scenes feature camera movements which seem to indicate they’re about to reveal something, but instead, it just shows us blank space (not the Taylor Swift song).

I love Djimon Hounsou; he’s a great actor, usually. Not so much in this, his performance feels spectacularly low-effort, almost like he can’t believe the dialogue he has to say. Matt Nable is wonderfully hateable; he does sometimes feel like he’s veering a bit too close to being over-the-top, but always pulls away before he reaches that point. Whitney Peak is probably the best performer, but even her performance feels more like she’s advertising for a bigger role than seeing this as her peak.

On the plus side, it looks real. At no point do the sharks look overly CGI, or the hurricane seem anything less than dangerous. The last film I saw that I can compare to this was probably Crawl back in 2019, and I liked this a lot more than I liked that. It’s paced well, doing a lot in a short time. The characters react logically to the situation, with the exception of characters we’re supposed to dislike, who are killed by their own hubris (and sharks, mainly sharks). Thrash has a lot of moving parts to juggle, and while some of the choices as to when to move between them are a bit weird, it mostly keeps the different narrative plates spinning well enough that none of them loses momentum.

The kills themselves could be better; I assume so, anyway. None of them sticks out as particularly memorable. Which, how do you have a movie like this and not have any memorable deaths? I assume that has something to do with the budget. Thrash feels low-budget, impressive for a low-budget disaster movie, but still low-budget. From the non-American cast (some hide their native accents better than others), all pretending to be American, through to the shark attacks, which consist of someone screaming whilst waving their arms in the air like they just don’t care.

In summary, I will forget I’ve seen this film. If I were in the room as someone else watched it, it would take me a while to remember I’ve already seen it. I watched Mortal Kombat 2 before this, but I had to get this review out of the way first because I knew, even though I made notes whilst watching it, I would have absolutely nothing to say about this if I left it any longer. I mean, in my first draft of this review, I referred to the disaster throughout this review as flooding, when it’s actually a hurricane. That alone shows how little this film stayed with me. I only remembered the water aspects, not a single moment where high winds caused issues.

That being said, I’m still looking forward to director Tommy Wirkola’s next movie, Violent Night 2.

The Sheep Detectives (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of sheep investigates the murder of their shepherd.

A detective drama starring talking sheep. Directed by the same guy who directed the two Minion movies. Written by the guy who wrote The Hangover Part 3 and Scary Movie Part 4. It rained VERY heavily on my walk to the cinema so I was in a pretty shitty mood when I sat down to watch what would surely be something terrible. I even planned how long I was going to wait until I described this movie as “baa-d” in my review.

But then The Sheep Detectives (TSD, Tooshed) ruined my plans by actually being really good. Not “good for a kids movie” or “good if you go in with low expectations”, but genuinely good. It’s not the best film I’ve seen this year (at the moment, that’s probably still Project Hail Mary), but is the one I feel the need to recommend to people the most. Mainly because the gap between expectation and quality is huge. Yes, it is a kids movie, but it’s not a kids movie that talks down to the audience. At no point do the sheep do a CGI song and dance to a Taylor Swift song. It doesn’t pander or condescend; it just has a well-written story full of fun characters. The characters are kind of one-note, but they are sheep, so it’s not as though they have access to a lot of human narratives that would drive change, such as money worries, social media, or that the t-shirt they purchased at their first gig over 24 years ago has finally become unwearable. It’s a curious mix of a family film that touches on heavier themes, and Paddington-style cuteness and fun. The characters are a lot of fun to watch. Nicholas Braun’s character is very different from what he normally plays, but he pulls it off. Playing an idiot is like playing crazy; it’s much easier to get wrong than it is to get right. I would say this is the best I’ve seen that kind of character played, but since watching this movie, I’ve watched Hugh Skinner in Twenty Twenty Six. Nicholas Galzatine continues to showcase just how secretly good at comedy he is. I’d have liked to have seen more of Mandeep Dhillon, mainly because she’s always a welcome presence onscreen. The sheep voices are all pretty damn good, too. Bryan Cranston nails his vocal performance. I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus in almost anything, and have seen her in SOOOO much, but this is probably her best performance. Really, the only weak link is Rhys Darby, and he’s not even bad; it’s just that everyone else is much better.

As any fans of who-has-done-this’s can attest to, the story is key. If clues and foreshadowing are too obvious, then the audience will get there before the characters. On the other hand, if they’re too hidden or depend on the audience knowing something they haven’t been told, then the audience will feel cheated. It’s a really tricky tightrope to walk, and TSD puts more hurdles in its way by having the main characters be sheep, so they can’t communicate with local police or anybody else who can help. Plus, it’s aimed at kids. So how do you do a mystery aimed at kids but not make it too obvious for adults? I’m still not sure HOW they did it, but they definitely did. It provides enough suspects. There’s one, in particular, who I felt certain was the killer. They were in the film enough to be notable, but quiet enough that it would be a shock. I was ahead of the filmmakers because I am smart.

I was wrong. I am not smart. And I love that. I love that the reveal is satisfying. I love how, in 30 years time, an author will describe how watching this film as a child was the moment they fell in love with mystery. This will be someone’s introduction to the genre, and it’s hard to think of one that would be better.

There we go, a whole review and I didn’t make one sheep pun. None, didn’t refer to it as a “ewe-done it”, didn’t describe the character as Angela Lambs-bury, no Hercule Poir-ewe, didn’t say it’s a wooly good time, or shear perfection, or describe nervous characters as feeling sheep-ish,

War Machine (2026) Review

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Quick synopsis: America fights aliens.

I’m not a complete idiot (that sound you hear is my family and friends laughing), so I am aware of the influence the US military has on films. The US Department of Defense even has an entertainment unit that handles requests when filmmakers want to utilise military equipment or locations. It’s not just “we need to make sure you use the equipment safely”; they denied support to Independence Day because the director refused to remove references to Area 51. The 1954 animated movie Animal Farm was purchased by the CIA and had the ending changed, which is ironically, very Orwellian. It’s not just film; the DoD also has agreements with TV shows such as The Price Is Right, America’s Got Talent, and The Kelly Clarkson Show. So, yeah. I’m used to American media figuratively fellating the US military. But few have done it so obviously as War Machine.

War Machine (WM, pronounced Womb) is not a movie; it’s a recruitment service. To the point where it almost seems like a parody. The villains? Alien machines that land on Earth. Now, and I believe this is very important, they don’t attack first. The machines just sit there. The US military decides to attach explosives to it to blow it up, after which, the machines rise and attack. So to reiterate: the good guys attempt to kill something, then claim to be victims when they get attacked in revenge. If that doesn’t showcase US foreign policy, I don’t know what does. I know Hitler Simpson wants to be heavily involved in the making of Rush Hour 4, but if it turns out he was involved in this, I would not be surprised. That’s how blatant the propaganda is.

WM feels like an early 90’s action movie, and that’s not a compliment. The villains are basic “others”, the characters are ultra masculine to the point of being laughable (the main character refuses to go to therapy after the death of his brother), and it all boils down to “one straight, white, American male will save the entire world”. How does he save the world? By blocking the machine’s ventilation ports. Did the visitors not realise that would be a problem? This keeps happening in movies like this, and it feels like it comes down to writers not understanding the ending of War Of The Worlds, where the aliens were defeated by a random virus. That’s not “invaders will all have one fault we can exploit”, it’s “invaders can be so cocky they neglect to take into account everything”, and that has historical precedent: think of the empires built where the first contact involved a lot of people dying of unknown diseases that their bodies weren’t used to. “Leaving a port open” is not like that; they would know that Earth has dust, rocks, and dirt. It feels slightly cheap to have a big threat defeated by what’s essentially a banana in a tailpipe. What’s weird is that this only happens once. At no point in their invasion of Earth did the alien machines get clogged up with sand in the desert, rocks from a collapsing mountain, or glass bottles full of piss thrown by English football hooligans.

How about the characters? Do they salvage this? Nope. For one thing, they’re all given numbers instead of names. Which strips them of their humanity. I get it, that’s probably the point, the military dehumanises you so you work as part of the machine. But for films? You’re supposed to give a shit about the people you’re seeing. Compare the two sentences:

  1. “It absolutely devastated me when Martha died”
  2. “I still haven’t fully recovered from the death of number 81”.

One sounds reasonable, one sounds stupid. You remember names; they’re unique, they have emotional resonance to them. Numbers don’t. It makes you feel like these characters don’t matter

So yeah, it’s dumb. But you wouldn’t know this by the Wikipedia page, which I feel has been edited by the production company. The top line says “the film received generally positive reviews from critics, praising it as a fun, old-school, throwback action movie despite its familiar, formulaic storyline”. Even the positive reviews are 3 out of 5, etc. The kindest response would be “mixed”

On the upside, it looks good. The action scenes themselves are fine, and the villains look menacing. The performances are fine, but nobody is really given enough to do. I also like the brief insight into survivor’s guilt, especially when 81 mentions how the medal he was given is just a constant reminder of the worst day of his life. That’s a fascinating look into both his character and American culture.

I’ve seen worse films this year. But it’s hard to think of films where I’ve given less of a shit.

Hokum (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a horror author struggling to find an ending for his book. He travels to a hotel in Ireland to scatter his parents’ ashes, but finds himself struggling with the buildings history and its present.

I’ll fully admit that I was somewhat sceptical about Hokum. It looked like it would go one of two ways:

  1. Spooky witch stuff, which means half of what the audience sees isn’t real, and when we finally see the villain, it does that weird crawl/walk that every modern horror movie uses.
  2. No story or character movement, a film based entirely on “vibes”. A film which throws spooky shit at the screen and doesn’t bother to explain any of it.

It’s actually none of those, whilst occasionally showcasing the worst aspects of both. At its heart, Hokum is a fine spooky story/murder mystery. Damian McCarthy knows how to write and direct terror. Not “oh, that’s scary” passing fear. I mean genuine, “keep you awake at night”, terror. The kind that makes you jump at shadows long after you leave the universe of the film. The plotting doesn’t quite match it, though. The story of a missing woman, her ghost seeming to help Ohm solve her murder, is interesting. The idea of a hotel being haunted by a witch is also fascinating. But it doesn’t merge the two together well enough. The story comes from the missing woman, the scares come from the witch. So the witch is narratively underdeveloped, with her intentions muddled and unclear. She’s not really treated like the legend the film wants us to think she is. Not enough attention is paid to her. There’s not really an in-depth analysis of her, saying “legend says that centuries ago, yada yada yada”. She’s treated more like a narrative handwave than anything else.

That’s my main issue with Hokum, and it’s a pretty big one. But it doesn’t take away from what does work. The character work is miles ahead of similar movies. Ohm is deeply flawed, but when you find out his backstory, it’s easy to see why he is what he is. His actions are mostly understandable, with the possible exception of most of his interactions with Alby, whom he seems to be uncharacteristically cruel to. On the plus side, that does lead to a revelation at the end of the movie, which provides a possible explanation for the film’s events. But it does feel like that’s the only reason it’s there. Mostly, he’s a smart and capable character who makes rational decisions to ensure his survival. The way he makes sure he can get back from the basement is particularly smart.

When Hokum is unsettling, it is unbeatable. There’s one scene in particular that stands out; a fake kids’ TV show. Makes me think that maybe McCarthy would be a pretty good shout for a gritty horror reboot of Barney the Dinosaur. He also somehow made a bell one of the most terrifying noises in cinema.

It’s not just fear: like all good horror movies, it’s about something more. It’s about human nature. It’s about grief. It’s about guilt. It’s here where the film is at its most interesting, when it’s examining the characters. Whether it’s the main character who is struggling from writer’s block (very Stephen King), the sympathetic bartender, or a man who had to mercy kill his soulmate and be maligned by society because of it. All of the human characters are instantly understandable without being caricatures.

In a year where horror has been stupid (Whistle), underwhelming (Scream 7), or fun (Ready Or Not), it’s a nice change of pace for one to be scary and smart. Hokum is a perfect mix of accessible and elevated horror. You can easily see people watching it on Halloween while drunk, but you can also easily imagine it being discussed academically. I’m still not sure if it’s my favourite of the year (Ready Or Not 2 probably has that), but it’s definitely the best from a pure horror perspective. Mother of Flies is more impressive when you take into account the budget, etc. But Hokum is more impressive on its own merits. The main difference between the two is that Mother Of Flies will enhance the creators’ careers, and Hokum will inspire people to create their own stories.

It’s not quite up there with the true classics of the genre, but it’s definitely one that people should check out. If you like your horror movies “fun”, this is not for you, and that’s clearly what a lot of the negative reviews from audience members on Rotten Tomatoes are like. If, however, you’re one of those people who likes horror movies but hates gratuitous gore, this may be the best film you’ve seen in a long time.