Category: Review

Scream 7 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney has built a new life, her darkest fears are realised as her daughter becomes the next target.

Thoughts going in: I’m assuming Stu will be back. Curious how this will work, though.

Scream is an anomaly among horror franchises. For one, it’s protagonist-centred. Most horror movies are focused on the villain, whereas Scream has always been about Sidney Prescott (except for the sixth one, but even that featured characters we’d met before, some from the first movie). It has also remained relatively well-received. By this point, Friday the 13th had reached lows twice (the third and fifth movie), Saw had basically imploded, Child’s Play had gone past Seed, and Halloween had suffered The Curse Of Michael Myers. The low point for this franchise has been the third, and even that has its defenders. Personally, I think the sixth was the lowest because of the lack of Sidney and the unremarkable killers.

Sadly, Scream VII has more in common with the sixth than the others. Characters who should be here are missing due to studio bullshit (Neve Campbell for 6 because she knows her worth, Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega from this one due to the studio being anti-Palestine and pro killing children), characters survive what should kill them, and most of all, most annoyingly, incredibly weak killer reveals. Much like the sixth one, the reveal of the killers negated most of the goodwill the rest of the movie built up. It reminds me of Sherlock, the Benedict Cumberbatch TV series. The second series ended with Sherlock faking his death; to say fans were excited to see how it was done would be an understatement. The internet was full of fan theories and suggestions. Everyone was eagerly looking forward to the first episode of the third series, explaining it. Then the third series started, and the explanation was………not there. I think it’s fair to say that enthusiasm for the series has cooled down significantly, and it’s hard to think that the way the show handled this wasn’t a small part of it. That’s what Steven Moffat did, though; he would do tremendous setups, but they were only tremendous because the audience had a belief that things would pay off, but the resolutions were never satisfying.

For two-thirds of Scream 7, I was into it. Every time I thought I had the answers, they changed the questions. I was enthralled, making mental notes of everything that could be a clue or foreshadowing. Sure, there was a guy who worked at the hospital who was weird, but surely he is too obvious and is placed there as a red herring? I had faith that it would wrap together in a neat little package.

Did it fuck. The red herring turned out to not be one; it wasn’t a subversion, it was just bad writing. The other killer isn’t much better, being someone we’ve barely spent any time with. It’s like the script spent so long saying “this person isn’t the killer” that it forgot to write for the people who turn out to be the killers. I’d estimate that before the reveal, the killers have a total of 5 minutes of screen time, and even that feels generous.

Like I said, it’s a shame the reveal is so shit, because if it nailed that, then this would be among the best. I do appreciate that they turned Neve Campbell’s absence from the sixth one into a plot point/motivation. The kills are sadistic and brutal as hell. There’s no art to these deaths, just pure sadism and cruelty. Sidney’s daughter being named Tatum (after her friend in the first movie) is incredibly sweet. Gale’s entrance is pure brilliance. And the way the final killer is disposed of will make you feel like cheering.

Really, it’s all about the next step. If Scream 8 is a misfire, then seven will be seen as the place where the rot is solidified; if it’s an improvement, it will be seen as a set-up. It’s hard to see where they can go from here, though. Rumours have been circulating for years that Stu is still alive, which is why it was somewhat believable that he was the killer here. But now that the franchise itself has addressed that possibility, it makes it VERY hard for it to be true in the next film without it coming off as weak. I’d say they’re cut off from “person from an earlier movie who we thought was dead is now the killer” reveals for at least 2 movies now. Maybe by the time the next one comes out, the whole cast will be there, and it won’t feel like something is missing. It is hard to see where the next one will go, because when Scream has been successful, it’s been when it’s been satirising current horror tropes and trends. I’d like to see the Stab franchise matter again, maybe in-universe it can be rebooted, and the next film looks at that, mixed with overly gimmicky horror films. Essentially, the Scream series needs to remember to be ABOUT horror tropes, not be full of them. This series is at its best when it’s treating the horror genre as the set text that the audience is to study. Scream 7 treats its own franchise as the text instead. It’s not about horror movies, it’s about the Scream movies, and nothing more.

How To Make A Killing (2026) Review

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Quick synopsis: Disowned by his obscenely wealthy family, Becket Redfellow will stop at nothing to reclaim his inheritance, no matter how many relatives stand in his way.

Thoughts going in: Should be fun. Very Plaza-esque mixed with dynamic scenes.

I have a list of all the films I expect to watch at the cinema this year. Looking at the list for 2026, there’s not many that I feel excited about. It may seem a bit pessimistic, but I doubt that I will see a film this year that I’ll list in my top 100. There are still films which I’m looking forward to in a “that should be a solid 7/10” way. One of those was How To Make A Killing (HTMAK, pronounced Hah-two-mack). The trailers made it seem like a comedy darker than a nightime walk in the woods whilst blindfolded, and just as fun. Alas, it does not match those expectations.

It’s not helped by an indecisive view on how to view its characters. The film is uncertain whether we should hate the rich family members or crave their lifestyle. For a film like HTMAK to work you need to do one of two things: either lean into the moral ambiguity, or make the victims so despicable that we want to see them dead. At most, the victims are entitled rich pricks. nothing worse. Not pleasant people, not people you’d want to spend any time with, but not people who are reprehensible enough that you cheer their deaths. So really the film is just someone who feels entitled to wealth because of his birth, killing people who have a lot of wealth because of their birth. There could have been something done with that: the film could have played with the idea that he’s just as bad as the people he’s killing.

Those issues could have been ignored if the film was pacier, then your brain wouldn’t have the time to think about it as you’d be too distracted. John Patton Ford can direct, but his style doesn’t quite work for this. Personally, I think he should have taken The Running Man, he could have added a lot of the original novel’s satire and dark humour to the mix, and Edgar Wright should have taken this. He would have been able to add the one thing missing from this: energy, it’s incredibly sedate to the point of almost being dull.

The performances are fine, but there’s something about Glen Powell that makes it difficult to buy into him as this character. Margaret Qualley is perfectly cast as a sociopathic femme fatale. My personal favourite performer is Jessica Henwick, whom I last saw in Glass Onion. She plays a semi-similar character here; a grounded and likeable character surrounded by rich assholes. Her relationship with Beckett is very sweet, but it does happen a bit too quickly, and we’re not given a reason why she’d be into Zach Woods character in the first place.

Truth be told, most of the background characters could do with fleshing out. Most of the family members are introduced just before they’re killed; their entire existence is to be victims. I feel it may have been better to see them all at the start of the film, see how they react to their family members being killed, scenes where one of them worries they’re being murdered, but the fears are dismissed as paranoia (maybe because they smoke weed, IDK). That way, we’ll be given a reason to feel something for these characters, even if it is hatred. It would also allow us to see the family dynamics more. Think of Knives Out, how the family interplay was key to that film working. Imagine if that film was Benoit investigating them one by one, and the family never interact with each other onscreen. The other advantage of having the whole family shown throughout is it would stop the film coming off as episodic or like a video game where he’s slowly going through each level in no particular order (side note: it’s weird he never even considers killing more than one at a time at a family gathering, such as a funeral).

This has all seemed very negative, I know. HTMAK does have moments where it’s brilliant. The deaths themselves are fun, especially the death of Cassandra. It subverts expectations immediately by telling us he’s on death row. I hated the ending; it felt mean-spirited and not true to the character. And then it continued, and we heard his justification to himself. That saved it. I’ve never seen a voiceover save an ending as much as it does here. It turns it from a terrible ending to one that’s bittersweet and borderline poetic.

In summary, I don’t regret seeing this. It is fun at times, and it’s worth a watch. But it’s nowhere near essential or highly recommended. It’s “leave on if you’re in a hotel room switching channels” quality. As Alise Chaffins said here: “it struggles to figure out what kind of movie it wants to be, ultimately leaving it rather forgettable, if momentarily entertaining.”. It’s stylish, no doubt about that, but ultimately rather hollow.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Claiming to be from the future, a man takes hostages at a Los Angeles diner to recruit unlikely heroes to help him save the world.

Thoughts Going In: No thoughts, just singing the song from the trailer.

Finally! 2026 has not been the greatest year in terms of films. Nothing has stood out as being particularly innovative or exciting. It says a lot that I already have 2 possible nominations for “Worst Film Of The Year”, but nothing that will get beyond the “very good” in the end-of-year roundups. To be honest, looking ahead I can’t really see anything that I’m incredibly excited about. So I’m very glad something like Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (GLHFDD, pronounced Goo-lah-fa-dud) exists. It’s flawed, deeply. But it’s also a lot of fun.

It’s also very necessary right now. The world needs more anti-AI media. Creatives should be against AI. Someone using AI to make something creative is like hiring someone to do it for you and still claiming credit, only you don’t pay the person you hired, and they’re liable to make mistakes. Bragging about making art using AI is like bragging you wrote a perfect letter K using a stencil. GLHFDD isn’t exactly subtle, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be eye-opening.

I have a few issues with it. For a film predicated on “I’ve travelled back in time on multiple occasions and everytime I’ve seen failure”, we don’t see much from the other times. I’m not asking for every journey to be accounted for, or for the films runtime to be split between his different attempts, but a few quick cutaways of the main characters dying in different timelines would have helped make it seem a bit more dynamic. It also would have made this world seem a bit less important, as it is, it has definite “this is main timeline” vibes to it. The way it’s laid out, you get the feeling that even The Man From The Future feels this is the main timeline, that this is his only chance and all the others have been practices. On the subject of The Man From The Future, that’s his name in the credits, but to improve how this review will flow, I’m going to call him Carl from now on, no reason for picking that name.

Carl doesn’t seem particularly haunted by the other timelines, he’s seen these deaths 117 times, yet he only seems bothered when they happen right in front of him, almost as if he knows that this one is the one being seen by an audience. My other complaint is the ending. It really drags in the closing section. But it then drops a HUGE left-turn in the final few minutes. So it’s both too slow, and too quick. It feels like it needed 10 minutes or so, whether that’s 10 minutes added to expand the ramifications of the final plot point, or 10 minutes taken away so it has a more improved pace, I’m still not sure.

This has all been overly negative, for the most part, I absolutely adored this movie. At times it felt a bit like an anthology, when it went into the backgrounds of some of the group. They all provide backstories which add to the finale. It feels like Susan’s backstory (She cloned her dead son) doesn’t quite align with the world, or it’s not interested in explaining the ramifications: mainly how the world reacts to “didn’t your son die? How is he back now?”. It would have been an easy fix: just explain that once it happens you have to move cities. I don’t dislike it though, as it allowed some truly delicious bits of satire. Clones being cheaper if they come with ads is depressingly realistic. There’s a moment where two parents discuss the changes they made to their daughters personality for their own amusement which is shocking and brilliant.

That’s how I feel about this movie as a whole: you spend half your time laughing, and the other time with your eyes open in shock. Even more so when you see the budget. This was made on only $20million. That’s not exactly spare change, but that’s $5million less than it took to make domestic abuse drama It Ends With Us, which (as far as I’m aware) didn’t feature a Kaiju-sized cat made of other cats. I haven’t been this impressed/confused with a budget/product discrepancy since The Creator.

I love the performances. Asim Chaudhry’s accent is off-putting, but that’s probably only because I know what his actual accent is. Sam Rockwell is insane. Haley Lu Richardson gives the best performance I’ve seen from her, miles away from her role in The Edge Of Seventeen, almost Florence Pugh-like in how cynical and weird she is. Juno Temple continues to impress. Her roles are so varied that everytime I see her in something, I recognise her, but have no idea where from because the thing I’m currently watching is unlike the last thing I saw her in.

GLHFDD will not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s certainly mine. So far, my favourite movie of 2026, but I still REALLY hope that’s not the case by the end of the year.

Cold Storage (2026) Review

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Quick synopsis: Two employees of a self-storage facility have to deal with an escaping parasitic fungus. Shit gets wild.

Thoughts going in: I get the feeling Liam Neeson is going to die very early on. This was incorrect, by the way.

You don’t get enough films like Cold Storage. Films which are dumb fun without being stupid. Yes, there is a difference. Dumb means its just fun, not intended to have a deeper meaning or be too interested in plot twists and wrongfooting the audience. Stupid is when characters change personalities based solely on what the story needs; there’s no consistency in villain weakness, or everything is just too convenient. Cold storage is firmly in the “fun” category. It does occasionally get close to stupid, but the general tone allows it to do things I’d insult other films for.

The best example comes in the opening scene. There’s a character called Dr Hero. Most films, I’d insult that, but for this, it kind of works. The tone is so tongue-in-cheek you can swear it’s searching for an ulcer. It’s helped by the music. Lots of high-tempo songs to get the blood pumping, from Blondie, all the way through to a cover of Don’t Fear The Reaper. The performances are good too. Obviously, Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave, and Leslie Manville are good performers; that’s not a shock to anybody. It’s been said before, but Neeson is great at comedy. Leslie Manville has done comedy before, but it’s usually been sitcoms or farce; this is a completely different ballgame, and she nails it. Georgina Campbell is the best performer throughout, but she is responsible for the worst line delivery of the movie. When she realises Neeson’s character set off the bomb before handing it to them, her “he set the bomb off” delivery sounds flatter than a freshly ironed shirt. It brings to mind someone saying, “My landlord, and my plumber are both here. And I don’t have the money to pay them”, in a low-budget porn. I get the feeling it was ADR’d, it certainly sounds like it, and it’s a weird blemish on an otherwise sensational performance.

I also wasn’t happy with the way this movie ended. What’s worse is I could sense it coming. I knew we’d get the “there’s still an infected creature out there” opening, and I knew it would end up with something either jumping at the screen, or exploding, or something similar, where it’s a split-second THING before credits. It’s a trend in modern horror movies, and I hate it. You wouldn’t write an atmospheric horror novel, have an incredibly well-crafted conclusion, then have the final line be “Emily sat down in peace, drifting into a peaceful slumber. AND THEN A SHREK ATE HER!” It would ruin the atmosphere, destroy the story you were telling, and get you sued by DreamWorks.

Those are minor complaints, though. Cold Storage is one of the most outright fun films of the year. It’s incredibly funny at times, a lot slicker than its budget would suggest, and has a script full of likeable and believable characters. It reminds me of Shaun Of The Dead, mixed with slight Kingsman energy. It’s only Johnny Campbell’s second film as a director, his first being Alien Autopsy. He’s most known for his TV work, directing two episodes of Doctor Who that could not be more different from each other: The Vampires Of Venice, and whatever the Van Gogh one was called. This has more in common with the vampire episode than it does the Van Gogh one, with emphasis on scares (with a small “S”) and shlock than emotion. That’s for the best, as emotion has no place in a film like this. If anything, it would just slow things down.

Which brings me onto the pacing. Cold Storage is efficient as hell; setting up the fungus very quickly. The opening scene could be a short film on its own. Fun fact: the part about a parasite that takes over an animals brain and makes it climb high so that the parasite can be released over a wider area? That’s accurate, and is why I’m deeply suspicious of mountain climbers. It feels longer than 99 minutes, but that’s only because of how much it gets done in such a short space of time. It juggles so many characters, so even characters with only a few minutes screentime have clear motivations and character arcs.

I won’t say this is among the best films of 2026, but it is one of the least flawed. Yes, it never reaches greatness, but it also doesn’t make too many mistakes. In the buffet of cinema, this is a lasagne. Not going to be the best meal you’ve eaten, but you’ll enjoy it more than you would most.

Whistle (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: Terror strikes when a group of misfit high-school students discovers an ancient death whistle.

Thoughts going in: Saw this the same day I watched Cold Storage, and Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. I knew this would be the one I enjoyed least.

It may not seem like it, but I do genuinely love horror movies. I’m getting that out of the way now, because I did not like this. It had too many moments which annoyed me. The most obvious one was the use of music. Horror movies have a long history of music use, probably more than any other genre as a whole. But it has to be done a certain way. During the early 2000’s, it was standard for horror soundtracks to consist of nu metal tracks, whether it suited it or not. This resulted in a weirdly high number of deaths set to the songs of Ill Nino or Spineshank, which tonally didn’t work as there was no atmosphere. This does something similar; there are at least two deaths which are accompanied by what sounds like the start of a metal/hip hop song. This makes it seem like the deaths are supposed to be “cool”. The songs don’t even lead anywhere, so it’s not as though they build into the next scene where we find characters listening to the song. It also felt weird to have a character who was portrayed as a dark, brooding gothic teen, and have her accompanied by an Olivia Rodrigo track. That’s not a slight against the big O, I love her stuff, but it doesn’t suit the character as much as the movie thinks it does.

It’s a shame that one of the deaths is so badly soundtracked, as that death is otherwise pretty good. The deaths are unique here, with the characters being killed by what would have killed them later. Kind of. Some, the ones which are disease/age-based have the disease rapidly develop, so it is that which still kills them. Then there are some where it just injures the body in the same way; so a car crash victim is thrown into the air by an invisible force. The disease death happens almost instantly, whereas the accident deaths seem to happen in real-time. So there’s a kind of inconsistency which harms the internal logic.

Speaking of logic: a scene in a hospital establishes that a teenager who died was identified by the coroner as being in his late 40s. So the coroner was handed a body of someone who died in mysterious and unexplained circumstances (he burst into flames in the shower), you’ve been told that the deceased was a 17-year-old athlete, yet in your analysis, you discover that the body in front of you actually belongs to a man in his late 40s. Would that not be a big deal? Would that not get reported? At the very least, there’d be a conspiracy theory about it. Yes, you could make the argument that the town covered it up. But if that’s the case, the coroner wouldn’t note the age in his report; he’d list the body as 17. Also, the staff at the school haven’t taken a vow of silence about it, because the teacher has zero idea either, being equally confused at the death whistle.

The way the town reacts is weird: it doesn’t. A star basketball player dies mysteriously, and the school barely acknowledges it. They don’t even clean out his locker. You could say “but the whistle magically transported itself back into his locker”. 1) That’s lazy writing. 2) Why did it wait six months? Why not transport to another locker straight away? 3) Unless it also packed lunch and schoolwork, that’s demonstrably false.

I looked at the user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and saw some which called it “agenda-driven propaganda”. Which made me think I watched the wrong movie. Then I remembered the main character is a gay woman who ends up in a relationship with another girl. It’s weird to hate this film for that, considering there are many other reasons to hate it. Plus, that relationship provided some of the best parts. Dafne Keen and Sophie Nelisse have a naturally sapphic chemistry when they share the screen. It’s badly written, though. They fall in love far too quickly, and it means Chrys seem kind of callous when she appears to be unbothered by the death of her cousin, but completely crushed by the harm potentially coming to a girl she’s known for roughly two days. You can’t deny their chemistry, though, and I’d love to see the two of them work together again in a standard romantic drama/comedy.

Anything else positive? It constantly flirts with good concepts, but then turns away from them. Characters hitting future versions of themselves, which causes physical harm to their current self? Smart. Those same people continuing to fire a gun at future versions of themselves, even after they’re aware of what’s happening? Less smart. Death skipping you if you die, then come back to life? Smart, albeit a rehash of Final Destination. Being able to “pass death” onto someone else if they touch your blood? Also smart (but the way it’s done in this is done in a way that absolves them of responsibility, because you can’t have morally complex characters). Using BOTH of these at the end? Feels like overkill.

In summary, some good ideas, but the script is nowhere near good enough to make the most of those ideas. Also, can we call for an end to horror movies doing the “creepy character crawling unnaturally” thing? It’s overused to the point of annoyance. The image at the top of the screen may make it seem like an 80’s throwback, but this is very much a film of the 2020’s, for better or worse.

The Moment (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: As her arena tour debut looms, a pop star finds herself caught inside the afterglow of a breakout summer under the mounting pressure of what it costs to stay on top.

Thoughts/Opinions going in: I’m the only male in the audience, and I’m a good 10 years older than everybody else, this is unsettling.

I’m not a huge fan of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. Not just because of the editing, or its somewhat creative approach to band history. My main issue is that it feels more like a film about Queen than it does a Queen film. Visually, it’s incredibly bland, with none of the excitement and overbombastic nature that you’d associate with the band. That wasn’t as big an issue until I watched Rocketman, which felt very much like an Elton John movie, change the scripts, etc., and make that a film about Bob Dylan, it wouldn’t work. That’s how I felt about The Moment. The way it’s edited, the colour scheme, it all combines to create something authentic. It’s what I imagine being at her gigs is like.

That approach won’t work for everybody, though. There will be people who find it too loud, too busy, too obnoxious. Those are valid criticisms, but I feel that the people who make them aren’t the target audience for this anyway. I get the feeling that Charli XCX, as well as the director Aidan Zamiri, are not only aware of how off-putting this film can be, they’re counting on it. A running theme is how Charli is determined to stick to her vision, not compromising for the comfort of others. It’s a huge part of what she wants her live show to be. So it makes sense that the film would be the same. So whilst a lot of criticisms can be levied at this film, you can never say it’s inauthentic.

There’s another thing that helps the authentic feeling; it feels like a documentary. Other mockumentaries make the mistake of shooting things that no documentary filmmakers would show: either it’s too slick, it’s the kind of thing where the subject would tell them to turn the camera off, or it’s too personal, and they end up shooting people in bed going to sleep, or waking up. Every single shot in The Moment, you can see why a documentary would film and show it. The realism does hold it back in some aspects, though: the satire doesn’t bite quite as hard as it could, seeming content with teasing nibbles (yes, I did double check I put B’s, not P’s there). There are times when characters motivations aren’t completely clear. And the incident which changes her mind on how to approach the tour feels too low-key, it would be like watching an action hero where the hero decides to finally go after the villain because they ate a life-affirming slice of bread.

As I said, that will put people off slightly. As the closing credits rolled, I saw a lot of “as herself”, full of people I didn’t know. Most of them just passed me by, so it wasn’t an issue, but there’s one that was involved in a core plot point. Again, I’m not the target audience, and I’m certain the target audience would recognise them. So I can’t really hold that against it too much. But there’s an easy fix. The Moment is made to look like a documentary, and what do a lot of documentaries have? Information on the screen telling you who people are. Not something overly obnoxious, just plain text. Like I said, a small issue, and it won’t affect most of the audience: that’s judging by the reaction from the other people in the screening.

I didn’t love this movie, but I did appreciate it. As a film, it’s good. As a showcase for the personality of Charli, it’s superb. It also kind of feels like therapy for her, and it’s hard to begrudge her that.

Crime 101 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A master thief and an insurance broker join forces for a big heist, while a determined detective pursues them to prevent the multi-million dollar crime.

Thoughts Going In: This should be slick, fun, and may end up being one of the most fascinating films I’ve seen all year

Sometimes I write reviews the day I see the film, so it’s fresh in my mind. If it’s a Netflix movie, I may write parts of it while watching it. Crime 101, I watched over a week ago. If I wrote it soon after, this may have been kinder. It’s not that the flaws have made themselves known (like they did the further I got away from IT: Chapter 2), or that horrific things have been revealed (like how the main character in The Penguin Lessons turned out to be a sexual predator). It’s just that, being a week removed from the experience of watching it, this is a difficult film to feel any enthusiasm about.

It’s not a bad movie, far from it. It’s just incredibly pedestrian (which is ironic for a film so heavily focused on cars). It’s clear that the director Bart Layton is a big fan of films like Heat, and this is the closest to that we’ve seen for a while. But we have seen it before. Although if you are going to make a film like this, you could do worse than borrowing from the best.

What Crime 101 does well, it does very well. It looks great, the performances are fantastic, and all three of the main characters have clear motivations. Barry Keoghan’s character of Ormon was less convincing. Not the performance, the performance was great. But the character? The character would have been caught much earlier on. Hemsworth’s character (Mike) is meticulous, doing everything possible to make sure he’s not caught, very deliberately not leaving any DNA evidence, or using violence. Ormon is less careful. It feels like almost every single scene starts with him taking off a mask to show his face, even whilst on camera.

The main issue is one of length. It’s 140 minutes, and it doesn’t deserve it. It doesn’t do anything near enough with its story to justify that length. It’s not interesting enough to keep you emotionally invested throughout. The romance subplot is one that could definitely be cut. Especially since the meetcute is “she drives her car into his”. There’s something about the whole bit which feels fake. It seems like it exists to tell us how lonely his life is. There are definitely more efficient ways of doing that. The section on Wikipedia for Plot is 538 words long. Here’s every mention of that character:

The lonely Mike strikes up a romance with a stranger, Maya, after she rear-ends his car.

Wary of Mike’s secretive nature, Maya ends their relationship after he reveals he will be leaving town.

Mike sends Maya a childhood photo, asking her for a second chance.

Completely unnecessary, although it has to be said that the character is played well by Monica Barbaro. I’d like to see her and Hemsworth lead a low-budget romcom, but I don’t want that romcom to be in the middle of a crime drama. There are times when it feels like Crime 101 lacks ambition; being perfectly content to give you the basics. Which would be fine if it didn’t have a $90million budget.

Budget does affect how you view a film. Not just action movies, even romantic comedies starring big names have higher expectations than ones with lesser-known actors. If the budget was smaller for this, I would commend it. But a budget this big, with actors this well known? It can’t afford to be as generic and forgettable as this is.

Send Help (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A dickhead boss is trapped on an island with a co-worker who hates him and is an expert survivalist.

Oh this is painful. This is a very good movie, it’s entertaining, bloody, violent, and has an important message. The issue is, it’s a specific genre that I’m not a fan of. Not horror, not even wilderness horror, a genre/style even more specific. Evil Vs. Evil. Where someone who is clearly an abusive dick comes across someone who they think is innocent but turns out to be sociopathic. What can I say? I like likeable characters, even if they are flawed.

This could have worked, it could have shown her descent into darkness. But to do so, it would have needed Bradley (Dylan O’Briens character) to be more of a dick. Yes, he’s condescending and annoying to Linda (Rachel McAdams), but it could have gone further. Nobody will argue he’s a good person, but if his character was more of a scumbag, the events of the film would have been more entertaining. Firstly, he’s a newly appointed CEO who only got that position because his dad ran the company. He’s clearly a finance bro, yet he’s not that misogynistic. He’s not a feminist, but I feel he’d be more entitled and ruder to women, especially ones who work for him. The closest he gets to that is being kind of creepy to a woman he’s interviewing for a job, but we only find out about that because Linda barges in, which kind of makes her seem unprofessional. Also, that moment is referenced later on, in one of a few situations where it seems like Linda is into him. That’s weird, and kind of devalues her as a character. He can mistreat her, deny her promotion, leave her for dead, and yet she’s still sexually attracted to him.

It’s a shame, as if you took those moments of her lusting over him out, added a few scenes of him calling her the c-word etc, it would be one hell of a film. It’s visually interesting, mostly taking place in daylight, which I always love for a horror movie. The plane crash itself feels horrifying, and you won’t mourn most of the deaths in it. Weirdly, the plane crash isn’t the most violent part of it. That comes from a wild boar. I feel wild boars are like hippos; we don’t really appreciate how scary they can be. Send Help does a great job of showing what they’re like; a massive danger and it takes a lot to kill them. That scene may be among my favourite of the year so far: it’s violent, and indicates just how far she can go when pushed.

Good time to say this: Rachel McAdams is great in this. She tiptoes the line between “I’m just a happy hippy” and “I will cut your f*cking nuts off” as finely as anybody else could. She’s definitely playing against type, but does it so well that you’d assume this was her type. She’d make a great serial killer. In a movie, I mean. Well, maybe in real life too, who knows? #GirlBoss

When I sat down to watch this, I was uncertain as to how it could stretch the premise to nearly two hours. The answer? It can’t. It constantly resets the characters and their motivations. You could edit and reorganise 60% of this films events and it wouldn’t matter. It reminds me of when a TV series gets given 5 more episodes in its final season so the writers have to pull back on character development to fill the unnaturally extended runtime.

Personally, I would have had more of the plane crash victims survive. That way, the film could demonstrate how dangerous the island is by killing them. It would also give Bradley a reason to still be a dick. He could think that a group of alpha males could easily outsurvive a woman, and then he gets more and more panicked when they start to weaken. Or maybe he’s the most injured but still bosses everyone around, and they abandon him because of it, which is when she saves him.

I have been overly harsh on this. It’s a solid 7/10 (which depressingly makes it one of the best films I’ve seen this year). I have no need to watch it again, but if its on netflix and I need something to watch? I’ll give it a go.

Is This Thing On? (2025) Review

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Thoughts going in: No matter what, the stand-up comedy of this should be good. That being said, the trailers have felt strangely lifeless and dull.

Quick Synopsis: Alex Novak is going through a divorce and is deeply traumatised. Instead of therapy, he tries stand-up comedy.

This should have been an early contender for best film of the year. I like films about stand-up, and I like deeply personal, intense dramas. As soon as I told someone I was about to watch this, they said it seems right up my street. Plus, I like Will Arnett; he has a talent for making reprehensible people likeable.

Which is why it’s so disappointing that I didn’t enjoy it. I think part of it is that he never really seems that good as a comedian. The reaction the other comedians give him doesn’t match the reaction he gets on stage. You could show the stand-up sections independently to someone and ask if the comedian succeeded or bombed; they’d be unable to tell. It’s supposed to be cathartic, but you never really get that sense. There’s no joyful release; it’s just abject misery and pain.

The reaction he gets is weird; he’s immediately embraced by his fellow comedians. I have spoken to comedians who do these kinds of gigs, it can be brutal. Everyone is trying to break out and get noticed; they’re not going to take pity on a newcomer like that. Also, I’m sure it was unintentional, but having a group of comedians who are all women or people of colour fawn over a middle-aged white guy is kind of strange, especially when one of the female comedians sleeps with him despite them having less chemistry than somebody who decided to only do physics and biology as their GCSE science options. There’s a scene where his wife accidentally attends a comedy night where he’s performing (by which I mean, she didn’t know he’d be performing, not that she fell over and ended up in a comedy club). The comedian this is based on (John Bishop) actually had this happen to him; he told a joke about how he misses his ex so much that he keeps her head in the fridge. That joke doesn’t appear here; in fact, I can’t even remember what it was he actually said. They slept together that night, despite the fact that she was at the comedy club on a date. There’s a way this could work; if his on-stage persona was confident and charming, if he was charismatic and owned the room, allowing her to see him in a new light. But he’s the same person as he is for the rest of the film, so why would she be into that? That might be my biggest issue; comedy doesn’t change his life. He doesn’t feel like a different person because of it; we see him writing jokes, etc., but his personality and demeanor doesn’t change through his experience. He doesn’t seem to gain confidence or happiness.

My other issue is that I didn’t want the two characters to end up back together. Their characters don’t suit each other. It feels like they’re constantly looking for excuses to be annoyed at the other one. Again, there is a way to do a film where a relationship ends, he finds a passion, and they end up back together. The best example I can think of is High Fidelity. Actually, now I think about it, there are a lot of similarities between the two. They’re both about a couple that split acrimoniously, he sleeps with someone in his professional field, and they end up together after discussing their flaws and expressing regret for how they treated each other. The key difference is that in High Fidelity, Rob seems genuinely remorseful of his previous actions; you can tell he genuinely loves Laura, and we see him happy sometimes.

None of this is on the performers, by the way; Laura Dern continues to be amazing. Will Arnett can do this role; he has proven it in Arrested Development and Bojack Horseman (vocally at least), but he’s REALLY let down by a script that refuses to let him be likeable. Amy Sedaris is a highlight in the few moments she’s onscreen. Bradley Cooper is also in this film.

Bradley Cooper’s direction is strange. It’s mostly close-ups. Sometimes that choice works, making you feel the stress that each character is going through. But then there are times where it makes ITTO feel more like you’ve been cornered at a party by a guy who’s way too drunk and won’t stop talking even though you’re clearly uncomfortable.

ITTO isn’t a terrible film, but it’s not a particularly likeable one either. As I said, it’s based on a true story, and you have to wonder how many of his friends would be deeply offended if they think some of the characters are based on them. If you want a movie about a couple that dislikes each other, watch The Roses. If you want a movie about how tragedy can affect stand-up comedy, watch The Big Sick. If you want Will Arnett to be a complete mess, watch Bojack Horseman. Basically, there are hundreds of better options, and I really wish that wasn’t the case. I went into this expecting to fall in love, but instead I felt like how the main characters at the start: despondent, and like love is a waste of time.

Shelter (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: On a remote coastal island, a former assassin living in self-imposed exile rescues a young girl from a deadly storm. As their lives start to intertwine, he must protect the orphan while battling enemies from his past.

Thoughts Going In: Jason Statham is going to punch people. I have to be honest, the first time I saw this trailer, I thought it was a sequel to The Beekeeper, that’s how interchangeable his performances are.

Years ago, I was reading about a script for a Robin Hood movie that was focused on the sheriff of Nottingham. Essentially, he was going to be a CSI-style forensic investigator. That movie was made into the 2010 Robin Hood movie that was just another generic retelling. I can’t imagine a bigger gap between potential and reality than that. Shelter is a close second, though. No, the script was never going to be the best in the world, and you won’t be able to improve on some of the stupidity, but it nearly had a much better director. The original director was Baltasar Kormákur, who has previously directed 2022’s Beast, 2018’s Adrift, and 2015’s Everest. I’m not saying those films are masterpieces, but Kormákur is an award-winning director, so at the very least, he can be depended upon to be visually interesting. Shelter needs that. The action scenes are lacking any sense of excitement. Even the non-action scenes make use of an annoying handheld camera that makes it nauseating to watch. Most baffling is the use of music: there are some action scenes with no music at all. When I first noticed it, I wondered whether that was the film’s gimmick, an action movie with no non-diegetic audio. That would at least be interesting and unique. But then the action scene ended, and the characters got out of the car and started talking normally, and that was deemed music-worthy. What made the non-audio scene so notable was that it was a car chase across mostly rural roads. Have you heard a car chase without music? It’s just a long droning whine (a bit like a speech from [insert politician you don’t like here, even one who is famous for being an entertaining speaker]). It genuinely made me think it was a mistake; that they just forgot to put music on.

There are also issues with the script, mostly logistical. I’m not speaking about “A person high up in British intelligence wouldn’t kill an innocent person just for convenience”, because that would DEFINITELY happen. I mean, “they drove from Scotland to London without being caught on a single camera?” Or when a teenage girl is dragged kicking and screaming into a black van, and nobody seems to notice/care/film it for social media. Top tip: go over to the O2 Dome in London, when all the clubs are still open, and the streets are occupied but not bustling. Then fire a gun multiple times, see if anybody notices, because they don’t in this. For a group of highly trained secret agents, they are shit at being secret. I mean, the main villain shot someone in the head whilst they were surrounded by police. Did that get mentioned again? Nope. In fact, none of the police members who are attacked there are referenced ever again. You’d think there’d be something, some kind of news report at the very least. Is the general public aware of what’s happening? No idea, the film isn’t interested in telling us. It doesn’t even stick around at the end to tell us the repercussions of a former head of MI6 being killed in his own house. I suppose expecting closure for that is a bit much, considering the film states the Prime Minister is in political trouble due to illegal surveillance of civilians, and then is never seen again, and nothing happens to that system. The controversy is never mentioned again. It’s as if the script set up a lot of narrative dominoes, then got bored and wandered off before using them.

I’m not asking for this to be groundbreaking. I’m not asking for it to be an intelligent study on human nature. But I am asking it put effort in. For someone to look at the script and take out stuff it doesn’t need. For someone to think of the logic of some scenes. For someone to make it so that the action scenes are actually entertaining. Shelter had zero chance of being my favourite movie of the year, but there’s no excuse for it to be as lazy as it is. Bodhi Rae Breathnach is pretty damn good, though.

Again, it’s not that it’s a bad film. It’s that even as a first-time viewer, you’ve already seen it. You can guess the dialogue before it happens. There are 1000 movies just like this, so what’s the point of this one?