Author: troubledproductions

Rental Family (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Struggling to find purpose, an American actor lands an unusual gig with a Japanese agency to play stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality.

Thoughts Going In: None, it was a secret screening, and I assumed it would be Saipan.

If you think about this movie for more than a minute, it falls apart. Not just one or two moments. I mean, the entire premise falls apart. He’s in Japan because he received an acting job there years ago, so why would the Rental Family company hire him to pretend to be someone else for different families? They must know that at least one person will go “hang on, I’ve seen you on TV” and find him on IMDB, and thus find out his real name. Unsurprisingly, that does happen. Yes, it was just an advert (and a few TV shows), but if Barry Scott from the Cillit Bang adverts turned up at a pet shop in Cardiff, a few customers would notice. There are a few other issues I have with RF: the two subplots of him pretending to be a fan of a female performing duo and playing video games with a male shut-in just disappear. Would it have been too much of a stretch to have him take the shut-in to see the singers and have him befriend one of the women? So they have a genuine fan, and he has a reason to leave the house. There’s also another character who is clearly important to Phillip, yet is only in two scenes and really isn’t given enough to do. Overall, it’s a mess which doesn’t do enough to flesh out most of its characters.

So why did I like it so much? Even as deeply flawed as it is, it’s really hard to not feel charmed by it. There are two main relationships Phillip has as part of his job: one with retired actor Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), and one with a schoolgirl called Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman). With Kikuo, Phillip has to pretend to be a journalist making a profile of him. With Mia, he has to pretend to be her father who abandoned her, because the school that her mother wants her to attend is very old-fashioned and needs to believe Mia is part of a traditional family (again, not sure how this will work once she’s there and tells teachers her dad left again). Both allow him to display different sides of his personality and background. It is somewhat strange that they don’t overlap at all, but that’s maybe my brain being wired by too many episodes of Seinfeld, where two separate plots meeting at the end was one of their trademarks.

They’re both emotional as hell, and both end up as you’d expect them to. It’s really not a surprise that the old actor with dementia will die, and it’s also not a surprise that Mia will find out the truth. But if you go into a film like this expecting to be surprised, you have the wrong mindset. This isn’t a movie for plot twists and surprises; it’s a movie to sit back and watch, allow it to emotionally wrap itself around you in a comforting embrace. It’s not a film to challenge you; it just makes you happy, makes you sad, then makes you happy again. That’s not to say it’s stupid or simple. A lot is going on with the workers of the Rental Family company, but I wish that stuff were given more time, as some of it doesn’t really have enough time to land emotionally: Aiko’s arc, where she gradually gets tired of being yelled at and called a whore by random women because the husbands are too weak, feels like it could have been explored more. I would like to have seen more of Shinji, his boss, but I’m not sure how that could have been done without exposing his secret early.

In summary, flawed brilliance.

Hamnet (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: There once was a playwright called Will
Whose son became unfortunately ill
His death caused his family a shook
400 years later, a book
And many reviewers said it was brill

Thoughts Going In: This is going to be incredible and moving. I’d heard it was very good, so I was looking forward to it.

There are times when my viewpoints don’t align with those of most reviewers. This may be one of those times. At the time of writing, Hamnet has an 84 score on Metacritic, which means on average, reviewers see it as an 8.5 out of 10 (as opposed to RottenTomatoes, where it would mean 84% of reviewers have given it a 3/5 or more). Many reviews have described it as one of the best films of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but I’d be disappointed if this ended up among the best of the year. It’s emotional, perfectly acted, and looks beautiful. But it feels so hollow; two actors in search of a script. It feels like it spends most of its time just spinning its wheels, trying to think of a justification for itself before it reaches the end.

The end is superb, though. When Agnes realises the pain William is in and how he’s channelling it through his work, it’s incredibly powerful. The entire film is building towards this moment, and it doesn’t disappoint. It reminds you just how great an actor Paul Mescal is. For most of the film’s runtime, every scene belongs to Jessie Buckley, who owns every moment she’s in, but the ending is where Mescal shines.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t read the novel it’s based on. It seems like readers of it have appreciated the film a lot; whereas those who haven’t read it are a little more lukewarm. Or I just found it a bit too Oscar-bait, overly artsy at times, where I would have preferred it to be a bit simpler. There’s a high chance it was my expectations that ruined this; I expected Hamnet to die earlier, and for the film to be mostly about the aftermath of that. Nope, we spend most of the film building up the relationship between the characters; setting up the situation, etc., THEN he dies. I get that, it makes a lot of sense. It just wasn’t what I expected, and it’s not what I would have preferred. It feels somewhat cheap to criticise a movie just because it’s not what you personally would have liked, but in the end, isn’t that what all reviews are? If there were a movie called “All Daily Mail Journalists Should Be Shot In The Face”, and it was 90 minutes of justifying why everybody who works for, or even reads The Daily Mail should be shot in the face, I don’t think that paper would give it a positive review, no matter how well-written it is.

In summary; Hamnet is a superb film that’s expertly made and performed. It’s a film that will be studied and discussed for decades, and will rightfully win a lot of awards. It’s also a film that, for whatever reason, I didn’t connect with at all until the final scene. I left the film not knowing more about Shakespeare, and not feeling any closer to him or his work.

2025 In Film: Day 6 (The Thoroughly Okay)

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A Complete Unknown
Ups: Good performances.
Sells the time period it’s set in.
Killer soundtrack
Good chemistry between the leads.
Downs: Incredibly unfocused script
Doesn’t really tell you much about who he was.
The narrative doesn’t build effectively to the end.
Best Performer: Scoot McNairy
Best Moment: The first performance of “The Times They Are A-Changin”
Worst Moment: Dylan and Sylvie’s final meeting. Lacks the emotion needed for it to work.
Opening: Dylan travels to see Woody Guthrie in a hospital. Therein lies the problem; it assumes you already know who Woody Guthrie is and why he’s a big deal.
Closing: Johnny Cash approves of Dylans’ actions at the festival. Pretty cool moment, but doesn’t feel like it really closes anything.
Best Line: It was the Newport Folk Festival then, Bob, and it still is the Newport *Folk* Festival! Not the teen dream, Brill Building, Top Forty British Invasion Festival — a *Folk* festival. Do you even remember folk music, Bob?
Original review here

Elio
Ups: Looks incredible.
Very sweet at times.
Some of the aliens are fantastic.
Downs: Underwritten side characters.
They can do better.
Best Performer: Yonas Kibreab
Best Moment: Olga investing.
Worst Moment: Elio showed the Communiverse. Mostly fine, but the backdrop looks a little fake and disconnected.
Opening: Elio is at a diner, hiding under a table as his Auntie tries to get him to eat. Establishes that his parents are dead (because it is still a Disney movie, so dead parents are a necessity), and how isolated he feels.
Closing: People rush out to see aliens. Very beautiful.
Best Line: Since the dawn of time, humans have gazed at the stars and wondered… are we alone? Voyager is our attempt to find out. This intrepid explorer is on a mission, traveling farther than any human has ever gone, to the distant reaches of the cosmos and beyond. Voyager will never see those who made it again. It will drift on, solitary and alone. But maybe one day, distant worlds will receive its message, and Voyager will complete its mission, proving we aren’t so alone after all.
Original review here

Fear Street: Prom Queen
Ups: Doesn’t skimp on the blood.
Era-appropriate.
I will ALWAYS love seeing Katherine Waterston in things.
Downs: It takes too long for certain characters to realise things.
Best Performer: Katherine Waterston
Best Moment: The prom massacre. Violent carnage.
Worst Moment: The dance-off. Feels out of character.
Opening: Narration of “everyone always said I’d either be dead or a killer by graduation, I guess they were right”, blood dripping off a crown, and cool synth music. Yup, sold.
Closing: Someone gets bludgeoned with a trophy. Nicely thematic way to end their life, and I liked that they didn’t die immediately. They collapse, there’s not that much blood, but you can tell by the way they’re speaking that their brain is fucked.
Original review here

Friendship
Ups: Delightfully awkward.
Allows performers to spread their wings.
Downs: The fact he’s recovering from illness doesn’t come up as much as it should.
It WILL be a difficult watch for some.
Ingrid Goes West did it better
Best Performer: Paul Rudd
Best Moment: He meets his neighbours friends. It does not go well.
Worst Moment: The “welcome back” party. Most of his reactions are stupid, but you can kind of understand them. Here? It’s a little harder.
Opening: An awkward help group.
Closing: A hostage wig disaster. Nope, not giving you more information or context.
Best Line: Look, we had a couple of really nice hangs, but I think it best that we go our separate ways. I don’t wish to continue this friendship at the moment.
Original review here

Here
Ups: Unique idea.
Stunning visuals.
Downs: You’re constantly looking for the next scene to start instead of living in the moment.
A lot of wasted time.
The story is trying too hard to move you
Best Performer: Tom Hanks.
Best Moment: The dementia reveal. It’s built up beautifully.
Worst Moment: The modern family. Mainly because it feels like a massive waste of time.
Opening: The house is built. Really its the only way it could open.
Closing: We see outside the house for the first time. Cute, and really the only way it could end. But ties into my theory that the concept was more important than the narrative.
Best Line: I put things off, and I kept putting them off. And I would say, “Oh, we’ll do it next year.” And then that next year would come, and I’d say, “Oh, next year, next year.” And…
Original review here

Saturday Night
Ups: Fascinating time piece.
From a technical perspective, it’s fascinating to see what goes into the making of a show.
Fun to see moments you recognise and get a glimpse at the build-up to them.
Downs: Assumes you know everything already.
Such a cluttered cast that many aren’t given time to shine.
Best Performer: Cory Michael Smith
Best Moment: The argument with the censor.
Worst Moment: Meeting Alan Zweibel. He is a big deal, and very important to SNL. But we’re not given a reason as to why. It assumes we already know, and that moment will be met with “yes! Finally!” like Freddy Mercury joining Queen.
Opening: Lorne arrives at the studio, showing a mix of nervousness and cockiness. Jumps into the plot very quickly, which I appreciate.
Closing: The show starts. Would have appreciated seeing the culmination of what we’ve been building towards. Even if it is just snippets.
Best Line: Art is but a measure of sacrifice and tears
Original review here

September 5
Ups: It’s always good to see people being really good at their job.
Interesting behind-the-scenes look at the event.
Downs: Feels like propaganda at times.
None of the characters feel haunted by their own choices.
Best Performer: John Magaro
Best Moment: The FANTASTIC rug pull at the end when the truth of what happened to the hostages is revealed.
Worst Moment: “Wait, are they watching this?” Because they don’t feel particularly troubled by it. They realise the hostage-takers are using the footage they’re shooting to keep abreast of developments, and at no point show guilt that they exacerbated the situation.
Opening: The crew is setting up for the day. Considering it’s about a specific day, you have to start at the beginning of that day. I’d have preferred a faux documentary to keep us up to date with the political landscape at the time. We’re thrown into it with no knowledge of what led to the events.
Closing: He’s told he did a good job. Despite alerting the attackers to the police plans, exposing their viewpoints to a worldwide audience, and providing false hope. But those ratings.
Best Line: “So I… I don’t know about the Israelis, but David Berger’s folks are in Ohio, so I’m pretty sure they’ll watch.”
“Then tell them not to watch it”
Mainly because it demonstrates their shitness.
Original review here

Shelby Oaks
Ups: Incredibly creepy.
Rife with lore, all the characters feel real, as does the world they live in.
Downs: Loses focus in the final third.
Not as interesting once it stops being found-footage.
Best Performer: Camille Sullivan.
Best Moment: The format switch. Genius.
Worst Moment: The final showdown in the house, feels too much like a Conjuring movie.
Opening: An explanation of Riley’s disappearance. Exactly how a story like this should begin.
Closing: The death of Riley. It’s a bit of a bummer that we spend so long looking for this character, only for her to die.
Original review here

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Ups: Reminds you just how good Springsteen is.
An important look at men’s mental health issues.
The weird shit? That all happened.
Downs: Invents a character, seemingly just to make Springsteen look like a dick.
Seems to be deliberately avoiding a mass audience.
Avoids a lot of what you want to see.
Best Performer: Jeremy Allen White
Best Moment: When he plays at a local club. It really captures the energy of those smaller gigs.
Worst Moment: The end of his relationship with Faye. He does not come out of that looking good.
Opening: Bruce is on top of the world, which only fuels his anxieties about what to do next. Interesting move, to have him already be a big deal, skipping the usual biopic tropes.
Closing: A “what happened next”. Turns out, Springsteen became quite successful.
Original review here

The Ballad Of Wallis Island
Ups: Much more sedate than you’d think it would be.
Carey Mulligan is lovely.
Downs: The ending switch doesn’t seem as genuine as it could.
Ultimately, rather forgettable.
Best Performer: Tim Key
Best Moment: The peanut butter cup
Worst Moment: Michael chewing out Herb (not literally). Doesn’t seem like the kind of cruelness that character would do.
Opening: Herb arrives at an island, disappointed that there’s no harbour and he has to swim to shore.
Closing: He plays the gig, but for free. Very sweet. Also, very telling that for the song in the closing credits, he chooses his real name, not his recording name.
Best Line: “saying my own name isn’t name-dropping”
Original review here

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle
Ups: Incredibly disturbing at times.
Some great performances.
Downs: Reveal isn’t set up as well as it could be.
Feels a bit pointless.
Doesn’t know what to do with its own revelations.
Best Performer: Maika Monroe
Best Moment: The villain reveal. Truly chilling.
Worst Moment: The lead-up to the baseball bat death could have been shortened by a second. Also, the sex scene felt a bit superfluous.
Opening: A very cinematic fire.
Closing: The daughter has copied Polly’s mannerisms.
Original review here

The Long Walk
Ups: Tense
The Barkovitch characterisation is intriguing.
Brutal and unforgiving.
Great performances
Downs: Could have done with more background into the world.
The central concept doesn’t ring true.
Best Performer: David Jonsson
Best Moment: Ray meets his mothers on the walk. Heartbreaking.
Worst Moment: When they walk up a hill. Mainly because it feels like a cheap way for the film to kill large groups of people.
Opening: Ray is being driven to the walk. Feels a bit of a shit move to make people so poor they’d risk death have to fund their own way to a random part of the country.
Closing: Peter keeps walking after killing the major. Makes sense, but feels a bit sudden.
Best Line: You walk as long as you can. But sometimes the body won’t listen. For some, your heart will stop. For others, your brain. And the blood will flow… suddenly. There’s one winner and no finish line.
Original review here

The Penguin Lessons
Ups: Very emotional.
Cute moments.
Political, but in a way that people might not notice.
Downs: We don’t really know that much about him before he gets the penguin. Which lessens the supposed impact.
Best Performer: Steve Coogan
Best Moment: When Tom meets the militant who “arrested” Sofia.
Worst Moment: The journey to Uruguay. Not a bad scene, but not necessary.
Opening: Tom arrives at his new school, and his shoes are immediately ruined by someone painting over revolutionary graffiti, accompanied by explosions in a nearby city centre.
Closing: We see real footage of the penguin swimming in the pool. Very sweet.
Best Line: I can handle when bad people are bad, but when good people do nothing (CHECK LATER)
Original review here

Time Travel Is Dangerous
Ups: Funny.
Likeable leads.
Depressingly accurate for those of us who have worked in secondhand shops.
Downs: Not that interesting when it goes away from the main characters
Sometimes forgets its own format.
Best Performer: Megan Stevenson
Best Moment: When Ruth becomes a teenager.
Worst Moment: The game. It’s not bad, but it feels like it should be better, with more historical injokes.
Opening: Sets up the story almost immediately. “So we brought it inside, then went to 1945”
Closing: A new inventors headquarters is open. We get to see some of the inventions talked about throughout the film, which would have had more of an impact if we haven’t already seen them. It then goes on, and we see they’ve used the dimension as storage space.
Original review here

Together
Ups: Creepy.
Looks fantastic.
Downs: Loses steam at parts
Characters don’t behave realistically.
Best Performer: Dave Franco
Best Moment: His declaration of love before he attempts suicide. It feels so damn real.
Worst Moment: When she refuses to test it by placing her hand near his. It’s one of those “this would instantly answer questions and stop momentum if she does it” moments, but it can’t give her a decent reason not to do it.
Opening: Flashlight searching in the woods. As in, searching with flashlights, not searching for them. Someone stumbles across two dogs fused together. I get what they were going for, but it looks kind of goofy.
Closing: They fuse together, pretty sure they put this in the trailer, kind of ruins it a bit.
Best Line: It’s called diazepam now! It works quicker if you snort it!
Original review here

2025 In Film: Day Five (Meh)

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Black Bag
Ups: Tense
Good performances.
Well paced.
The leads have good chemistry. Every second they spend on screen together you get the feeling they’re just one sentence away from stripping off and fucking each other right there.
Downs: Has a weird look to it. The whole thing looks like you’ve just come out of a swimming pool laced with chlorine and you’re staring at street lights.
The central mystery isn’t that intriguing.
Best Performer: Fassbender.
Best Moment: The first dinner party. Dinner parties are always fun to watch on screen due to how characters react to them. And this is a good example of that.
Worst Moment: The polygraph scene goes on a few moments too long.
Opening: George is told there’s been a leak, his wife has been suspected. I assumed the film would lead up to that, but nope, happens almost immediately.
Closing: The leaker is discovered, and their body is dumped over the river. Really the only way it could end. Something about it feels anticlimactic though. Like it’s not an ending, it’s just stuff that happens.
Best Line: If she’s in trouble, even of her own making, I will do everything in my power to extricate her, no matter what that means. You understand?
Original review here

Dangerous Animals.
Ups: Creepy at times.
Good performances.
Unique idea.
Always fun to see horror movies set during the day.
Downs: Repeats itself too much.
Wastes its potential.
Really should be 20 minutes shorter.
Best Performer: Hassie Harrison
Best Moment: The death of Heather. Absolutely brutal.
Worst Moment: Zephyr almost reaches land. One fake-out too much.
Opening: Two tourists go on a boat so they can swim with sharks. They’re then killed, with a knife. Wonderful way to subvert expectations. Up until the murder, it feels like a romantic comedy.
Closing: Tucker dies. I wanted to see more, how did the world react to the revelation of what he did?
Original review here

Death Of A Unicorn
Ups: Violent.
Fun performances.
Original.
Downs: Too serious.
Too unsubtle.
Unbelievable characters.
Best Performer: Will Poulter
Best Moment: The death of Odell.
Worst Moment: The first scientist’s death, only because it was edited better in the trailer.
Opening: Rudd and Ortega on a plane. Very comedic and fun. So totally at odds with the rest of the film.
Closing: The unicorns run police off the road. Pretty sure the cops will have dashboard cameras so will be recording that, which means the unicorns are about to be public knowledge.
Best Line: And here’s hoping we kill Bigfoot on the way back
Original review here

Lilo And Stitch
Ups: Looks incredible.
I like Billy Magnussen in it. I know some people hate it because “it’s different from the original”, but he’s a great comedic actor, who’s amazing at seeming like he’s not fully human.
Incredibly sweet.
Downs: Doesn’t go quite as heartwarming as it could at times.
Best Performer: Sydney Elizabeth Agudong. Although Maia Kealoha is close.
Best Moment: Stitch at the animal shelter. Very funny.
Worst Moment: Dr. Jumba’s heel turn, feels forced.
Opening: Stitch is being investigated. Not how I would have opened it. Mainly because it seems weird to open a live-action adaptation of an animated movie with a scene that’s mostly CGI. Feels like you’d want to showcase the filming locations.
Closing: Nani leaves for university. Not as bad as it seems at first glance, she has a teleporter so can return home. But lacks any opportunity to be heartwarming.
Best Line: Sometimes family isn’t perfect. That doesn’t mean they aren’t good.
Original review here

Opus
Ups: Incredibly unsettling at times.
Sublime music.
Good performances.
Downs: The narrative switch happens too quickly and drastically.
Best Performer: Ayo Edeberi
Best Moment: The switch. I’m not a fan of how sudden it was, but the actual moment itself was brilliant.
Worst Moment: The death of Bill. Actually a lot of the deaths. They feel neutered.
Opening: Sets up how important the musician is. I like it. It didn’t just TELL us he’s a big deal, it showed us; his music, his talk show performances, his fans. It all feels real.
Closing: “haha you caught me but that was my plan all along”. I don’t know why, but for some reason this didn’t vibe with me. It just didn’t work or land the way it was intended.
Original review here

The Amateur
Ups: Delightful kills.
Smart.
It’s nice to see people be good at their job.
Downs: Feels like it’s wasting Remi Malek
Sometimes seems like it forgets its own sub-plots
Bland characters.
Best Performer: Malek
Best Moment: The swimming pool death. There’s a reason it was featured so heavily in the trailer.
Worst Moment: “She’s not there”, mainly because it feels like a waste. Malek can give emotional monologues, and whilst the scene doesn’t NEED more than that line, it could have been an all-timer if it had more.
Opening: Charlie is attempting to fix up a plane just as his wife is preparing to leave for London. Everything about her character and their interactions screams “Dead girl walking”.
Closing: Henderson survives, somehow.
Best Line: I came here to face my wife’s killer. To look him in the eyes, and tell him she mattered. Sarah mattered.
Original review here

The Bad Guys 2
Ups: Some nice animation.
Good vocal performances.
Puts more effort into space shuttle launch than it needed to.
Downs: Inconsistent rules when it comes to the rules of the universe.
Misses multiple chances to be better.
Best Performer: Sam Rockwell.
Best Moment: When the spaceship crashes. Very brief, but got SUCH a loud reaction.
Worst Moment: The wrestling match. It’s weird how this film can open with a heist/chase that makes such great use of space and logistics, and then forgets that they’ve shown us how big the wrestling ring is, and you can’t run for more than a second without hitting the ropes.
Opening: Heist! A really well-crafted one actually, showing you what their skills are instead of telling you.
Closing: The Bad Guys are secret agents. Sets up a sequel well, but also closes the narrative of this one. So a sequel isn’t necessary, but it would make sense if there was one.
Best Line: You want to work at a bank?
Why not? Some of my best memories are in banks.
You robbed us three times.
[sheepishly] That was this bank?
Original review here

The End
Ups: Atmospheric.
Depressingly relevant.
Downs: Waaaaay too long.
The songs aren’t that memorable.
Emotional beats aren’t followed up on.
Best Performer: Moses Ingram
Best Moment: The new years eve celebrations. So much repression coming to surface.
Worst Moment: Weird choice, but I’m going to go with a moment that’s not there. We go from a really intense argument between two characters, to an unspecified time in the future where they have a child together. We don’t see the inbetween.
Opening: Mother wakes up. For a musical, there’s a lot of silence.
Closing: Son and Girl (that’s their actual names in the script by the way) have an emotionally charged argument, then we skip to some time in the future and they have a baby together.
Original review here

The Last Showgirl
Ups: Good performances.
Unique look.
Emotionally brutal
Downs: Everything good about it has been done MUCH better by other films.
Feels low budget.
Best Performer: Pamela Anderson. She’s genuinely the best thing about this movie.
Best Moment: Her audition.
Worst Moment: Shelly’s argument with Jodie. Feels fake and overly set-up.
Opening: The character performs an audition. Very nervous, and obviously lying about her age. Anderson is best known for essentially being Ms. Fanservice in the 90’s. So to see her so emotionally naked and visually honest in the opening scene? Shows you what it’s going to be.
Closing: She gives her final performance at the show.
Best Line: Feeling seen, feeling beautiful, that is powerful. And I can’t imagine my life without it.
Original review here

The Rule Of Jenny Penn
Ups: Some creative visuals.
Noteworthy performances.
Original.
Downs: Takes a bit too long to get to the point.
The title is kind of shit.
Repeats itself too much.
Best Performer: John Lithgow
Best Moment: The catheter torture scene is painful to watch.
Worst Moment: Him kicking him under the table, mainly because at least one member of staff would have noticed.
Opening: Rush (the actor, not the prog band) is sentencing someone, and does it with a blistering speech that only a seasoned performer could do. He then becomes shockingly cruel towards the mother of the victims and collapses due to a stroke. Some quite trippy camera work but feels a little bit too arthouse.
Closing: The nursing home is peaceful due to the death. Kind of nice, but I’d have liked to have seen more focus on the immediate aftermath. For one thing, how did the staff react? That’s actually a huge problem in this, the staff feel invisible except when they want to get in the way.
Best Line: “My exposure to rugby has largely been limited to watching its players dodge rape charges”
Original review here

The Smashing Machine
Ups: Effectively displays the physical turmoil that life takes on you.
Tense.
Shows that The Rock can actually act.
Downs: Doesn’t capture the time well.
Skips over too much.
Glacial pace.
One bad performance.
Best Performer: The Rock
Best Moment: Hospital recovery. So much subtext.
Worst Moment: His time in rehab. Mainly because it’s not actually there.
Opening: His first fight. Violent, and real.
Closing: The real Mark Kerr walking around a supermarket. Bit weird.
Original review here

2025 In Film: Day Four (Could Be Better)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

All Happy Families
Ups: Cosy
Interesting points to make.
Downs: Really loses focus at the end.
Kind of reminds me of Arrested Development, and when you make that comparison, you can’t win.
Best Performer: Becky Ann Baker
Best Moment: When his brother tries to explain what actually happened and why he was accused of sexual misconduct.
Worst Moment: A moment which isn’t there; the bit before the end. It definitely feels like something is missing there.
Opening: Tolstoy quote. Letting you know this film is either going to be really smart, or really pretentious.
Closing: He kisses the girl, his mum goes for a drive, his dad is wistful, as is his brother. The audience is left with a sense of missing something
Original review here

Avatar: Fire And Ash
Ups: Looks beautiful.
Some good action sequences.
Fleshes out the world a bit more
Downs: Very similar to the second one.
Isn’t a marked improvement.
Far too long.
F*cking Spider. Why do they like him so much?
Best Performer: Oona Chaplin
Best Moment: The attack on the human base.
Worst Moment: The drugged sequence. I can see why it’s there, and it is good, but it’s kind of goofy.
Opening: The family decide it’s not safe for Spider to stay with them. Makes sense, but it really skips past why anybody suddenly gives a shit about him considering he saved the villain in the last movie.
Closing: Spider is welcomed into the Na’vi. So he’s gonna play a bigger part in the sequel.
Best Line: I am the fire! By my hand, my people grow strong! We do not bend down and die just because Eywa turns her back on us! We turn our back on Eywa! A weak mother, her weak children. We do not suck on the breast of weakness.
Original review here

How To Train Your Dragon
Ups: Looks magnificent.
The dragons look terrifying.
Good performances.
Downs: Utterly pointless.
Some of the side characters aren’t given enough to do.
Best Performer: Gerard Butler
Best Moment: First flight. Just as good as it was in the animated version.
Worst Moment: When he shoots down the night dragon.
Opening: Narration, pretty much exactly how the original opened.
Closing: Hiccup loses his leg, which was careless.
Best Line: You just gestured to all of me.
Original review here

Love Hurts
Ups: Some fun fights.
Ke Huy Quan
Funny
Downs: Missing “that” scene. The one that takes it from good to great.
One of the romance subplots feels a little forced.
We never really get the sense that he was dangerous in his past life.
Best Performer: Ke Huy Quan
Best Moment: Jeff’s death is funny and inappropriate.
Worst Moment: Everything involved in one the romantic sub-plots.
Opening: Introduction to Marvin. His character would not work if it was played by anyone other than Ke Huy Quan. The opening is a good indication of that, he’s so pure.
Closing: Marvin admits he loves Rose. Obviously.
Original review here

Presence
Ups: Tense.
Good message
A believable look at a family suffering.
Downs: Dull. So dull.
Mismarketed
Best Performer: Lucy Liu
Best Moment: The bedroom destruction
Worst Moment: The ending.
Opening: POV shot of someone looking around a house in the dark. Kind of feels like you’re playing a video game.
Closing: We find out that the ghost is actually the son, travelling back in time. We find this out because for some reason, after fulfilling his duties, he stuck around for a few days.
Best Line: Have you ever noticed how your advice always corresponds exactly with us not having to do anything, at all?
Original review here

Snow White
Ups: Looks fantastic.
Downs: The Dwarves (sorry, “magical beings”) are kind of annoying.
Gal Gadot.
The songs aren’t great.
We don’t get a good enough sense of how disastrous the land is under the Queens leadership.
Best Performer: Rachel Zegler
Best Moment: When Snow White approaches the castle with her followers. Incredibly Les Mis.
Worst Moment: The evil queen destroys the mirror, thereby destroying herself. She’s not smart.
Opening: Some cute animals open a book, then narration
Closing: Snow White inspires an overthrow of the Queen, who then magically dies in a kind of body-horror way.
Best Line: “The name’s Jonathan, Princess. Not Jonathan Princess, just Jonathan. Princess”
Original review here

The Second Act
Ups: Creative. There truly is nothing else like this.
Ambitious.
Some great dialogue.
Downs: REALLY loses momentum in the final third.
The very notion of its metaness will put a lot of people off.
Best Performer: Léa Seydoux
Best Moment: The opening conversation, lets you know what you’re in for. Should have been the opening instead of the restaurant set up.
Worst Moment: The gunshot. The moment itself isn’t bad, but it was the moments just after this that the film tried to be a bit too clever and ended up getting lost.
Opening: A gentleman tidies up the building.
Closing: Miles and miles of tracking equipment.
Best Line: “You can’t say that, we’re being filmed”
Original review here

Warfare
Ups: Tense.
Realistic.
Downs: Doesn’t really have a narrative.
Annoyingly unpolitical.
No way for the casual audience to buy in.
Best Performer: Will Poulter
Best Moment: The vehicle explosion.
Worst Moment: Most of the opening third.
Opening: The army dudes watch a music video then break into a family’s house and hold them hostage so they can use the building. Sorry, “commandeer a building for tactical use”. Done just to establish the time period. If it started with them in the house, it wouldn’t affect the story at all.
Closing: They leave. The insurgents make their way out of hiding. We’re then shown photos of the actual people involved, nice, but weirdly it shows some of them with their faces blurred out. So…….why show the photos at all?
Best Line: “I’m fucked up”. Nice to see male characters admit that.
Original review here

Wolf Man
Ups: Violent
Some decent transformation sequences.
Characters have depth.
Interesting look at generational trauma.
Actual emotion.
Downs: The reason for the transformation feels off.
Looks goofy at times.
Predictable.
Best Performer:  Julia Garner
Best Moment: The switch from reality to his perspective, incredible.
Worst Moment: Blake realising his father is the Wolf Man, mainly because it’s obvious.
Opening: Young Blake goes hunting with his dad. Shows why he is like he is.
Closing: He’s in pain and gets shot. Best way it could have ended, had actual emotion.
Best Line: Sometimes when you’re a daddy, you’re so scared of your kids getting scars that you become the thing that scars them
Original review here

2025 In Film: Day Three (The Too Flawed)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A Minecraft Movie
Ups: Fans of the franchise will love it.
The cast are fully into it.
Some good music.
Downs: No appeal to those who aren’t fans of the video game.
Jack Black and Jason Momoa probably should have swapped roles.
Even for a kids movie; far too dumb.
Best Performer: Jason Momoa.
Best Moment: The minecart escape.
Worst Moment: The title drop, it’s far too dumb.
Opening: Steve wants to mine but can’t as is a child, he comes back as an adult. Overly long, plus I feel it would have made more sense if he first arrived in the other dimension as a child, would have explained how he became so good at building.
Closing: Everybody wins and is happy. The song they play isn’t as good as they think it is.
Best Line: Tell my story in song. Keep it metal, keep it heavy, with real instruments.
Original review here

Black Phone 2
Ups: Great music.
Unique visual style.
Downs: Doesn’t really feel like a natural progression.
Completely unnecessary.
Best Performer: Ethan Hawke
Best Moment: Gwen calls out Finn and her dad. Is the only time it feels more than a horror movie.
Worst Moment: The opening
Opening: A young girl makes a phone call. Doesn’t really look like the rest of the film. Does come back later and tie into the narrative, which is a plus. But isn’t something that will hook people in. Plus, the central performance isn’t great.
Closing: The kids bodies are found and are used to help defeat the grabber. Very similar to the first movie.
Best Line: Oh, Finney. You of all people know that “dead” is just a word.
Original review here

Bring Her Back
Ups: Intense.
Terrifying at times.
Downs: Characters act very dumb at times.
Veers from holding the audiences hand to pushing them into a dark room.
Logically muddled.
Best Performer: Sally Hawkins
Best Moment: Oliver eating a knife. Disturbing as hell.
Worst Moment: The death of Andy. Doesn’t feel earned, doesn’t add to the narrative, feels a bit cheap.
Opening: Incredibly creepy cult footage. Sets the tone well. But leaves questions that the movie refuses to answer.
Closing: Laura carries Cathy’s corpse into the pool and cradles it as the police arrive. The best way it could have ended. I did fear it was going to end with her winning.
Best Line: I’m going to drown you, love.
Original review here

Die My Love
Ups: The two central performances are pretty damn good at times.
More films need to be made about postnatal depression.
Downs: Difficult to figure out what is real at times.
Bad background characters.
Seems like it doesn’t want you to like the characters
Best Performer: Jennifer Lawrence
Best Moment: The build up to the initial sex scene. You genuinely believe they love each other.
Worst Moment: The wedding, none of them come out of it looking good.
Opening: They move into a house, then have sex. Slow-paced.
Closing: They start a fire in the forest, which was alluded to earlier in the film.
Best Line: A thing you love is suffering.
Original review here

Five Nights At Freddy’s 2
Ups: Expands the universe.
The marionette.
The animatronics are great.
The central relationship is still incredibly sweet.
Downs: Feels too neutered.
In debt to much better films.
Best Performer: Piper Rubio
Best Moment: Mike monitoring the animatronics’ movements. Very much in keeping with the original game.
Worst Moment: Vanessa’s hallucinations/nightmare. Not very effectively done.
Opening: The death of Charlotte. Really well done.
Closing: Vanessa has been possessed.
Best Line: It’s so easy to become blinded by ambition even with the best of intentions, you don’t see the devil sitting right beside you.
Original review here

Happy Gilmore 2
Ups: Some nice callbacks.
Believable universe.
Weirdly breaks with tradition by talking about how important tradition is.
Pays lovely tributes to those who have passed
Downs: Repetitive.
Feels very low stakes.
Happy Gilmore is kind of an asshole.
Nepotism. So much.
Too many flashbacks to the first movie, almost as if it doesn’t trust you to remember them.
Best Performer: Bad Bunny
Best Moment: The traditional golfers training. Funny and chaotic.
Worst Moment: Happy’s drunken golf with strangers. It’s an incredibly funny scene, and I loved the other characters. But the fact it kept cutting before the cursewords was weird and felt badly done.
Opening: VERY quick “how we got here”. I’m amazed how effective it was. On the downside, Adam Sandlers narration feels like it was delivered during his lunch break. He then kills his wife, but that’s probably for the best considering how he writes love interests.
Closing: The good guys win, the bad guys not only lose but are humiliated. There’s no other way it could have ended.
Best Line: You look like Freddy Krueger worked at a Starbucks.
Original review here

Him
Ups: Violent.
Intense.
Disturbing
Downs: A tonal mess.
Wastes potential.
Best Performer: Tyriq Wathers
Best Moment: Cam (probably) paralyzing someone. Lets you know the commitment needed.
Worst Moment: The party, too visually messy.
Opening: Young Cam watches Isaiah win a game but severely injure himself. Isaiah then comes back from injury and keeps winning at the same level. Wouldn’t it have been more satisfying narratively if that injury effected his career?
Closing: Mass cult murder. Brutal, and fun, but kind of silly.
Best Line: Transitions of power are never peaceful.
Original review here

I Know What You Did Last Summer
Ups: Some nice callbacks to the original.
Quite funny at times.
Downs: Feels dated
Some people won’t appreciate what it does with legacy characters.
Unlikeable characters.
Some embarrassing callbacks.
Best Performer: Sarah Pidgeon
Best Moment: The death of Wyatt.
Worst Moment: The death of Tyler. Doesn’t play into the killers motivations, either of them. One killer wants revenge on her friends, of which Tyler wasn’t one. The other one is annoyed at the town for having forgotten the murders, Tyler was one of the few people talking about the murders.
Opening: An engagement party. The dialogue meant I automatically hated two of the characters, they were insufferable.
Closing: One of the killers is still alive. This is revealed in casual dialogue. Far too casual. “wearing jeans to your wedding” casual. Tone-deaf.
Best Line: Nostalgia is overrated
Original review here

Roofman
Ups: Sweet at times.
Believable romance.
Leighs characterisation is consistent.
Downs: Should have been a Christmas movie.
Feels too desperate to paint him as a nice guy.
Best Performer: Kirsten Dunst.
Best Moment: When we reveal that Leigh set him up. It would have been too unrealistic to not have her do that.
Worst Moment: The pawn shop break-in. Not followed up on
Opening: Jeffrey needs money to provide for his kid (who he soon forgets about) because otherwise she won’t love him. He decides to steal shit.
Closing: Text saying what happened next. He attempted to escape prison.
Best Line: We both know doing things the right way is not your superpower.
Original review here

The Twits
Ups: Does have some genuinely funny lines and moments.
Margo Martindale and Johnny Vegas are good leads.
Important message.
Accurate representation of modern politics.
Downs: Who’s it for?
Unfocused, going from one plot point to the next without them feeling connected. Feels very episodic.
Not the greatest animation.
Best Performer: Character actress Margo Martindale.
Best Moment: A family coming to an orphanage to refuse taking in an orphan out of fear they’re contagious. Truly crosses the line in a way few films dare to.
Worst Moment: The mayor farting. Even for a kids movie, it’s dumb.
Opening: The framing device; the story is being told by two flies in Mr. Twits beard. We see The Twits have built a theme park. Despite being seen as miserable, they sing a happy song.
Closing: The twits don’t die. Shame.
Best Line: “One of the worst liquid hot dog meat floods in the nations history”
Original review here

The Woman In The Yard
Ups: Makes daylight scary.
Sets up its different narrative pieces well.
Good performances.
Unique.
Feels very grounded
Downs: COMPLETELY falls apart in the final third. Like, drops off a cliff.
Best Performer: Peyton Jackson
Best Moment: The first time we see the woman, it feels MADE for posters.
Worst Moment: The attic moments.
Opening: Ramona watches a video of her deceased husband. It’s weird she filmed that moment, but it’s very sweet, and sets up SOOO much very quickly. Sets up what their relationship was like, sets up that they’re having problems fixing problems in the home, even the way she’s watching it sets up that he’s dead. Genius.
Closing: She decides not to commit suicide, the camera shows a painting signed by Ramona, but backwards. Possibly hinting that she DID in fact, commit suicide. Yay, “your children will be better off if you died” is a totally fine message.
Best Line: Today’s the day.
Original review here

Until Dawn
Ups: Some decent kills.
Bloody.
Decent effects
Downs: Switches between overexplanations and being annoyingly vague.
Survival feels more luck-based than as a reward for smart choices.
No reason to exist.
Best Performer: Ella Rubin
Best Moment: The death of one of the monsters.
Worst Moment: The bathroom scene. Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, it was bloody, and it was entertaining. But it also demonstrated how luck-based the whole premise was. For a game based around “your decisions have consequences”, it’s annoying how the choices have no impact. “Don’t drink water or you’ll explode” is not a lesson.
Opening: One of the characters gets murdered, they’re clearly annoyed at this.
Closing: A car pulls up to a snowy cabin. A clear reference to the game, I assume. It’s shot in such a way that it’s obvious it’s SOMETHING, so I can only assume it’s that. Incredibly unsubtle.
Best Line: Is anyone else growing new teeth?
Original review here

Song Sung Blue (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Lightning and Thunder, a Milwaukee husband and wife Neil Diamond tribute act, experience soaring success and devastating heartbreak in their musical journey together.

Thoughts Going In: I am never going to be able to remember that title. I’m not sure how much I’m going to get from this film, as I really don’t give a shit about Neil Diamond, let alone an impersonator.

As you can guess from my thoughts going in, there was a high chance I wasn’t going to vibe with this film. I don’t actively hate Neil Diamond; I feel the same way about him as I do about the Sega Mega Drive. I recognise it’s a huge deal to a lot of people, but outside of one or two tiny things (Solitary Man and Sword Of Vermillion), I have had zero connection, and it’s too late for me to get one now. I hadn’t seen any trailers so I legit had no idea what to expect. So when the film starts with the main character in an alcoholics anonymous meeting, pulling out an acoustic guitar and starting to sing like a douche at a house party (only without Wonderwall), my expectations were lower than Shemika Campbell’s 2010 world-record-setting limbo (yes, I did research that).

Song Sung Blue is incredibly melodramatic, to the point where it’s almost comedic, even during some of the most serious moments. The main character is delusional and selfish to the point of narcissism; taking it as a personal offence when a group of bikers don’t like Neil Diamond songs, or when a promoter who exclusively books cover artists asks him to play cover songs. The central romance doesn’t feel natural; the audience has no desire to see the two together before they get together; it happens so quickly that we don’t really get a sense of who they are outside of the relationship.

All of that was a long way to say that this film pushes a lot of my “Not for me” buttons, so why did it charm me so? It’s a genuinely fascinating story to watch; comprised of moments which, if you saw in fiction, you’d dismiss as unrealistic or stupid, but it all genuinely happened. The side characters are mostly lovable, especially the two teens. I’d love to see Ella Anderson and King Princess together again; they have great chemistry with each other, which I’d like to see explored further. Hugh Jackman is fine; most of the issues I had were with his character, not the performance. Kate Hudson probably gives the best performance; her character suffers so much over the duration, and her performance is the only thing that sells it. It’s full of moments which are life-affirming and sweet, with a warmth that is missing from many modern films.

I alluded to it earlier, SSB is based on a true story; specifically, a documentary of the same title released in 2008. I haven’t seen the documentary, so I don’t know what was taken from it and what was changed (I’m guessing the home movies played a big part in the documentary), so I won’t be judging it based on that. It’s going to be weird to say, but I kind of hope that a lot of this was invented for the sake of this film, because if it’s not, then the lead character is kind of a dick. Especially after his wife loses her leg. She’s traumatised by it and is not shown an ounce of compassion or love by her husband. Would it be that hard to show him displaying kindness to her?

When it works, it really does work, though. The gig with Pearl Jam is the culmination of everything this film wants to be: charming, loving, funny, and life-affirming. There are many small moments throughout that are just like that, but that’s the best example of how powerful it can be when it tries. I wish it had more moments like that, but I appreciate that it would feel a little much after a while.

In summary, not a brilliant movie, but worth your time watching.

2025 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Clown In A Cornfield
Ups: Some nice subversive character choices.
Some pretty decent shots; always looks clear.
Downs: Kevin Durand looks like a poundland Elon Musk
Predictable.
Doesn’t build up the villain.
Best Performer: Katie Douglas
Best Moment: The reveal that Cole and Rust are former lovers.
Worst Moment: The parade. Feels weak.
Opening: Party in a cornfield. Well, in a barn next to a cornfield. Close enough. Like all cool parties, there’s a teen playin with a windup doll. Her and a random dude strip off to fuck in a cornfield (feels like that’s how you’d get diseases). They die, obviously.
Closing: A damn sequel hook.
Best Line: You do realize that the ’80s are as far away from me as ’40s were to you, right?
Original review here

Ella McCay
Ups: Charming.
Some interesting moments.
Downs: Too unfocused.
Doing a political comedy this toothless feels cowardly.
Feels dated.
Inconsistent characterisation.
Best Performer: Jamie Lee Curtis
Best Moment: Ella’s freakout/monologue.
Worst Moment: The security working their way into overtime. Mainly because it has the air of something important and monumental, but really it doesn’t matter.
Opening: Narration by Julie Kavner giving us the history of Ella; basically, her dad was a dick.
Closing: Ella has started a non-profit that offers legal aid. Nice, but feels tacked. on.
Best Line:
Original review here

Nosferatu
Ups: Tense
Technically good.
Downs: Dull.
Feels too in debt to the original to really leave its own mark.
Uninteresting characters.
Best Performer: Nicholas Hoult
Best Moment: Orlock on the ship.
Worst Moment: The death of Friedrich feels a bit weird.
Opening: Ellen doesn’t want to be lonely anymore. She awakes an ancient creature and vows to pledge herself to him.
Closing: Nosferatu gets distracted and feeds until sunlight.
Best Line: God is beyond our morals! In vain! In vain! You run in vain! You cannot outrun her destiny! Her dark bond with the beast shall redeem us all, for when the sun’s pure light shall break upon the dawn, redemption! The plague shall be lifted! Redemption!
Original review here

Renner
Ups: Good performances.
Pretty visuals
Downs: Terrible script. I mean, there are moments where the visuals aren’t great, but the major problems (consistency, bad characters, genre confusion) are ALL down to the script, which is poor.
Best Performer: Violett Beane
Best Moment: Just after the monopoly scene there’s a wonderfully lit sequence.
Worst Moment: When he attacks the thieves. Purely because the way its shot (quick flashes whilst he’s asking what to do) makes it come off as a fantasy sequence rather than reality. The visually unclear storytelling happens a few times, but its most clear then.
Opening: I know it’s a common joke to make that the vanity cards that open up films are so long they seem like an actual movie, but the opening credits for this legit seem like a vanity card.
Closing: He gets shot. Reminds me of the original ending of Clerks where Kevin Smith was told “you killed off your character because you have no idea how to end your story”.
Best Line: Do you have a desire that remains unfulfilled because of your non-existent confidence?
Original review here

Silent Night, Deadly Night
Ups: Some decent kills.
Potential
Downs: Too bleak, stopped caring.
Falls apart if you think about it for more than a minute.
Best Performer: Ruby Modine
Best Moment: The many deaths of Nazi’s.
Worst Moment: When they encounter the snatcher. I’m still not sure whether we were supposed to recognise who they were.
Opening: The death of Billy’s grandparent, and parents. Sets up his character well, and pays homage to the original.
Closing: Billy dies, Pam is now the new Billy. So you have a non-white woman taking over a white male role. I’m sure the internet loved that.
Best Line: Punish
Original review here

The Alto Knights
Ups: Fans of the genre will enjoy it.
Well crafted atmosphere.
Good performances.
Suits the period.
Downs: Doesn’t bring anything new.
Maybe should have been made decades ago.
Best Performer: De Niro
Best Moment: Barber shop assassination.
Worst Moment: People testifying in front of congress. It’s edited terribly.
Opening: Frank Costello is shot in an elevator, then explains the history between him and Vito Genovese.
Closing: The Apalachin meeting. Much rather see a film about that.
Original review here

The Electric State
Ups: The robots look spectacular.
Downs: Bland story
They don’t seem like brother/sister. To be honest, the way they react is more like lovers. Hard to explain why.
Chris Pratt REALLY wants to be Harrison Ford doesn’t he?
Best Performer: Millie Bobby Brown
Best Moment: The Christopher reveal. Horrifying.
Worst Moment: The death of Clark Amherst. Has no emotional weight.
Opening: It’s 1990, “before the war”. Well it says “before the war”, but war is on the horizon and humanity already hates robots. Sweet interactions between the sibilings. We then get a background on the world, how robots were invented and came to take part in an uprising. I kind of think the “robot uprising” part of should have come first, the siblings part didn’t accomplish anything that couldn’t have been accomplished better elsewhere.
Closing: The robot character we thought was dead stands up so is still alive. oh no, what a shock.
Best Line: I have a condition where I can only live in reality. Sucks, but you go right ahead!
Original review here

The Toxic Avenger
Ups: Bloody
Fun
Actually helped people.
Downs: Too self-aware at times.
Oddly restrained in parts.
Needs a better soundtrack.
Best Performer: Dinklage
Best Moment: The diner robbery. Political, violent, and fun.
Worst Moment: The random guy in the woods. Mainly because it feels like a diversion.
Opening: Dramatic voiceover, met with quick highlights of what we’re about to see. Perfect for this.
Closing: The bad guys die, good guys win.
Best Line: My God you people are tedious!
Original review here

Y2K
Ups: Full of nostalgia.
Some good music choices.
Downs: A little too dumb.
Some unrealistic deaths.
The main character comes off a bit too “nice guy” at times.
Who is it aimed at?
Best Performer: Rachel Zegler
Best Moment: The sing-along to Tubthumbing. Kind of cute.
Worst Moment: The skating death. After seeing people being impaled and set on fire, a 1 foot drop while skating will always seem shitty.,
Opening: The “internet connection” noise. Then AOL. What ever happened to them? They WERE the internet.
Closing: Five years later, the glitch face appears on an iPod. Because God forbid a horror film be self-contained and not aim for a sequel.
Best Line: You think this’ll work because you saw it in a movie? I think movies have warped your mind. God damn, now I’m sounding like Tipper Gore.
Original review here

2025 In Film: Day One (The Awful)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Bride Hard
Ups: You can tell it was fun to make.
Downs: Some of the dialogue is too unsubtle.
Dull music.
Never makes the most of its premise.
Best Performer: Sherry Cola
Best Moment: I guess the kitchen fight, because its the closest this movie gets to what it is trying to be.
Worst Moment: The hovercraft chase looks particularly bad.
Opening: Montage of lead characters growing up and splitting when one of their families moves away, set to a sappy song. Then, “30 years later”, the two are part of a bachelorette group in Paris. I have a small problem; the labelling isn’t clear.
Closing: She sets off the denoator whilst catching flowers. The person whose house is blown up doesn’t seem to care.
Best Line: Is this normal for an American wedding?
Original review here

Havoc
Ups: Very energetic.
Downs: It looks weird. Hard to explain, but there’s a filter which means everything looks like a cutscene from a video game.
Kind of hard to care about anything that happens.
Best Performer: Tom Hardy
Best Moment: The kidnapping of Lawrence
Worst Moment: The inciting incident murder. Doesn’t feel “big” enough.
Opening: Tom Hardy delivers a voiceover over scenes of him stealing, murdering, and performing unlicensed burials at sea. A pretty weirdly shot car chase scene follows, can’t explain it, but it feels “off” somehow.
Closing: Patrick has been shot and will possibly die.
Best Line: You live in this world, you make choices. Choices you try to justify. For yourself, for your family. And for a while, it works. Until it doesn’t. Until you make a choice that renders everything worthless.
Original review here

In The Lost Lands
Ups: Unique.
Downs: Looks like a video game.
Overstuffed.
Characters turn on a whim.
Best Performer: Amara Okereke
Best Moment: The torture of villagers. Effective and personal.
Worst Moment: The train crash, it looks fake as shit.
Opening: Batista’s character walks up to the camera and gives a gritty version of “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”. This would have actually worked in the 1990s, but it now seems incredibly passe.
Closing: The two main characters who have spent the entire film working together decide to work together.
Best Line: The stronger the spirits, the weaker the senses.
Original review here

Keeper
Ups: Atmospheric
Tatiana Maslany
Downs: Meanders around.
Repeats itself a lot.
Some plot holes are vast enough to drive a truck through
Best Performer: Tatiana Maslany
Best Moment: The ending is satisfying.
Worst Moment: The cake. It isn’t impactful.
Opening: Quick scenes of women being murdered. Incredibly artsy.
Closing: Malcolm drowns in a jar of honey.
Best Line: This fork is going in your head one way or another. Might as well taste good.
Original review here

Kinda Pregnant
Ups: Amy Schumer and Urzila Carlson actually have really good chemistry and would make a great double act.
Some funny moments
Downs: It’s hard to like the characters
The premise is too dumb.
Most of the plot only happens because the characters are dicks.
Weirdly shot.
Best Performer: Urzila Carlson
Best Moment: The meet-cute. It’s believable and one of the few times she seems like a human.
Worst Moment: The break-up/threesome proposal with Dave. It feels incredibly fake. It would be like if you invited someone to your house on their birthday and all their friends were there, along with a birthday cake and a sign saying “Happy birthday”, but it wasn’t for their birthday, and you get annoyed at them for daring to think you were planning a birthday for them.
Opening: Two kids “playing mom”, well, pretending to be giving birth, with swearing. Weirdly short and feels like it’s there just because they know they can’t start the film with the next scene.
Closing: Public declaration of love involving a Zamboni and multiple vehicles being destroyed.
Best Line: “I will bite your fucking aorta”. Such a specific threat
Original review here

Matt And Mara
Ups: Some nice moments.
Nice to see low-budget movies get a release like this.
Downs: The characters don’t feel like friends.
They’re not that likeable.
Lack of cuteness
Best Performer: Deragh Campbell
Best Moment: The surly cafe owner.
Worst Moment: The car argument. Feels so forced.
Opening: A somewhat awkward meeting between the main characters.
Closing: Mara listens to music while holding her husband’s hand. She then puts a receipt in a book written by Matt.
Best Line: I’m letting my imagination reach the level of my stupidity, which makes it my reality
Original review here

Urchin
Ups: Some neat visual tricks.
There are moments where it shows you glimpses of how good it could be.
Downs: Unlikable lead.
Too episodic in nature.
Seems more focused on being visually interesting than being narratively compelling.
Best Performer: Frank Dillane. His performance is great, but his character is awful.
Best Moment: The karaoke bar. Three people singing an Atomic Kitten song should be skippable. But it’s incredibly sweet, and the way the three characters do it tells you so much about who they are.
Worst Moment: When he mugs the guy who tried to help him. Mainly because it’s too early on so colours your opinion of him. You spend the entire film knowing he’s a prick. If it delayed showing you that, it would have given us time to get some sympathy for him.
Opening: He wakes up, asks for money and is ignored. Interesting look in how hard that life is.
Closing: Arthouse weirdness. Probably killed himself.
Best Line: Each decision is yours.
Original review here

War Of The Worlds
Ups: Unique
Downs: Terrible CGI
Does this story really need updating?
Feels low-budget.
Product placement.
The world never FEELS in danger.
Too dumb
Best Performer: Henry Hunter Hill
Best Moment: The aliens crashing. Complete chaos, just enough to wake the audience up.
Worst Moment: The reveal of what the aliens are feeding on.
Opening: He logs on and opens up surveillance cameras. Let’s you know the gimmick quickly. Does include a fun moment where two people are talking about how “I think I’m being listened to” and is told to stop being paranoid. It’s interesting and intriguing. Then we see the freak weather, and it looks fake.
Closing: The aliens are defeated. Ice Cube refuses to spy on people anymore.
Best Line: I’m going to go with the tagline: “It’s worse than you think”. Almost like they were trying to warn us.
Original review here

Zero
Ups: Creative concept.
Makes the most of the location.
Downs: Terrible performers.
No style.
Dumb script.
Indecisive in terms of genre.
Best Performer: Moran Rosenblatt
Best Moment: The taking down of America. Depressingly relevant.
Worst Moment: The drug-taking scene makes it seem like the film is pausing.
Opening: Narration over a completely black screen. Did have to check if my HDMI cable was working properly. A guy is asleep on a packed bus in Senegal when someone puts a phone in his hand. He seems confused as to where he is.
Closing: The two characters stand in the ocean and accept their deaths. Kind of poignant. We then get the aftermath of the events; Senegal hates America, then a woman wakes up with a bomb strapped to her chest, but in Paris.
Best Line: “So where are you from?”
“I’m from that place that they signed the Declaration of Independence” Not the “best” line, but the most notable, because it’s terrible. Possibly the worst line I’ve seen all year. No person speaks like that.
Original review here

Wake Up Dead Man (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: A baffling death inside a quiet church draws Benoit Blanc into a tense investigation where faith secrets and suspicion blur as a close community turns against itself.

I should note that this will be my last review of 2025. To be honest, I just couldn’t be bothered to go see Anaconda, and Marty Supreme wasn’t available for viewing at my local cinema until 2026. Plus, it feels right to end 2025 on this movie. A few weeks ago, I was discussing the end-of-year awards with someone, and I mentioned the potential winners for “best film”. I narrowed it down to a list of five, but added “There’s a gap left for the new Knives Out”. In a year of uncertainty, I was certain it would reach that. So it’s weird that I don’t think it has matched my expectations. It’s not a bad film; it is still amazing, but it does feel like a slight downgrade from the two previous entries. It does improve on a second watch, but the initial feeling of slight disappointment doesn’t leave.

The main issue is that there’s very little Benoit in this Benoit movie. He doesn’t appear for 40 minutes. Now, Jud is a good character, played brilliantly by Josh O’Connor. But he’s not Benoit Blanc, so you do spend the time waiting for him to arrive. The lack of Benoit does break with tradition somewhat, but other than that, it stills to the formula pretty well; someone is dead, there’s a cast of characters all played by phenomenal actors, there’s a picturesque location, Blanc teams up with someone who is kind and very good at their job, plus there’s some weirdness.

I have no complaints about that. The formula works, so breaking it just for the sake of breaking the formula would feel silly. It does make me feel a bit sad that we won’t get to see some of these performers in another Knives Out movie; Jeffrey Wright, in particular, feels underutilised. Cailee Spaeny continues to be absolutely fantastic in everything she does. Josh O’Connor is good enough that it only took roughly 10 minutes for my brain to stop going “Is that Ralph Little?”.

The world-building of these movies frustrates me. On the one hand, it is great that they reference cases we haven’t seen; it makes it feel like the character exists outside of this universe. On the other hand, the two cases we have seen would be pretty high profile; one involved the death of a world-famous author, and the other involved an Elon Musk proxy. You’d think that would have come up in this. The right-wing influencer definitely would have asked Blanc about Miles Bron, and a best-selling author would definitely ask about Harlan Thrombey. I’m not asking for the entire film to revolve around the previous entries, but it would be interesting to see Blanc dismiss their questions as he’s too focused on the current case. Also, the first movie had Martha vomiting on Chris Evans, Glass Onion had the moment where everyone smashes shit up. Both of them are moments which are highly cathartic and entertaining, moments which you can point to as highlights of the year. There’s no equivalent in this. There’s no moment which stands out as being a highlight.

I do genuinely love this movie; it’s a solid 9/10 at the very least, but the others are so close to perfection that you can’t see this as anything other than a downgrade. Like the other two entries, it does NAIL the closing, though. It’s definitely the best Netflix movie of the year, but when their other efforts have included “Kinda Pregnant”, that’s not a high bar to clear.