Category: Review

The Beast aka La Bête (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: In 2044 the rise of AI has led to humans being deemed useless because their emotions compromise their decision-making. Gabrielle undergoes a procedure that will purify her and get rid of her emotions, a procedure which involves delving into their past lives.

Many of the films I review on this site are the ones you find everywhere. The last three films I’ve reviewed have all been expensive franchise pieces. In my defence, the only cinema I have near me is a Cineworld, so it’s not as though I get much access to obscure arthouse films. When I do, it’s normally on a streaming service, 9 times out of 10 it’s Mubi, which if you’re a pretentious film dick, is an essential streaming service to have. It’s on Mubi where you’ll find today’s film. A bizarre mostly French-language piece directed by Bertrand Bonello. I think this is the first foreign-language film I’ve reviewed on this site since Monster back in April (unless you count “shit, utter and complete shit” as a language, in which case, the haunted swimming pool movie Night Swim). It being mostly in French isn’t the thing that’s going to stop this from being a massive hit in English-speaking countries. Nope, what’s stopping that happening is that The Beast is, well it’s really fucking weird. I have a high tendency for weirdness, I’m currently sharing my room with someone who is so weird he decides what films to watch by using a random number generator, yeah it’s me. But there were a few times when even I was sitting here thinking “Wait, what the fuck?”. It’s an incredibly unsettling watch, where some scenes don’t make sense until twenty minutes after they happen. Unless you’re paying a lot of attention, it risks coming off as borderline incomprehensible. I’m not saying “explain everything, “but there are times when it’s overly complicated just for the sake of it.

It’s also oddly fascinating. Few films make you work as hard as this one does to appreciate it, and those that do are often not worth it. The Beast is a difficult watch, but it’s utterly compelling once it does have its hooks in you. Like all good science fiction, it says a lot about where humanity is now, and where it’s heading. The somewhat futuristic nature of the story is even weirder to take in when you realise it’s actually inspired by the 1903 novella The Beast In The Jungle, very loosely. I’m not that familiar with the original work, but I highly doubt that it’s about two people crossing paths over three separate periods whilst they undergo a procedure to rid them of emotion so that they can get a job in an AI-led world. I also highly doubt it would feature a section set in 2014 and be mainly about an incel douchbag.

The incel section is probably the most interesting, and not just because it allows George MacKay to play someone incredibly out of character, and do a phenomenal job of doing so. The version of him in the other two timelines is also interesting, but it’s the 2014 section which is the most fascinating to watch. The version of Lea Seydoux’s character in that timeline is very similar to her other versions. As talented as Seydoux is (probably the most well-known French actress to UK audiences due to her roles in Dune and No Time To Die), she’s not given much to-doux. Her performance is great, but it does feel like she’s playing the same through all three. It makes sense, they are supposed to be the same character just their past lives. Like I said, it’s a strange film. But it’s also beautiful. My brain tells me it was full of more colours than a cocktail-fuelled vomit, but when I actually sit down and think about it, a lot of the colours were quite subdued and real. The editing is a different story, there are some brain-melting scene transitions which are creepy in a way I can’t explain, it’s like the film is collapsing in on itself. It makes sense, most of the film is supposed to be her regressing to her past lives, so it would make sense that her brain would “rebel” against those unnatural intrusions.

In summary; I’m not sure how I felt about this. Which is a weird thing to admit in a review. At times ugly and confusing, at times beautiful and as unsubtle as a flashing neon sign. At times it’s unemotional and cold, but then it breaks you (especially near the end). You may love it, you may hate it. But if you’re a film student or you want to move into film as a career, this is probably an essential watch. Even on the moments when I wasn’t that big a fan of what Bonello was doing, I always respected him for having the creativity to try something new. Even the ending credits are inventive; instead of traditional credits, it just has a QR code, which is great for now. But I fear that in a few years time it will send you direct to either dick pics, guns, or a computer virus; either way, it will be something messy that you don’t want to go off in your face.

Deadpool And Wolverine (2024) Review

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Quick Summary: hahahahahahaha, as if “what’s the plot?” is a question anybody will ask before watching this.

This film is funny.

What do you mean by “that’s not long enough to be satisfying and you should be ashamed of yourself”? (Obligatory “that’s what she said”). Fine, I’ll add more.

Deadpool And Wolverine (DAW, pronounced Daaaaaaaw like you’ve just seen a kitten wearing a cute hat) is everything you expect it to be. I can’t really imagine anybody who liked the first two would come into this and be disappointed. It won’t win over new fans, but it’s not supposed to. The continuity lockout is not as strong as you’d think it would be. The script gives enough context clues that if this is your first superhero movie and you are paying attention, you should still be able to follow what’s happening. There will be moments where you feel a little bit left out as a few jokes won’t make sense etc, but there’ll be another joke in a few seconds that will make sense so it doesn’t matter. It’s a bit like being non-American and watching an American sitcom, a general air of “I’m sure that would be funny if I understood the reference”.

But for those who do get the references? Damn, they are in for a fun time. This is a film for people who know their Marvel history, not just “I’ve watched the films”, DAW contains references to production issues, unmade projects, and internet gossip, and that’s just the stuff I recognise. I have no doubt that there are a lot of references I didn’t pick up on (like, who’s this “Wolverine” guy? Haven’t seen him before). It is great to finally see Jackman and Reynolds’s most loved characters sharing a screen (Baraka-pool doesn’t count), they have incredible chemistry and obviously enjoy acting alongside each other. The chemistry is so good that you don’t even realise the absence of Zazie Beetz’s Domino, it’s kind of sad that she’s not present, but I don’t think it really affects your enjoyment that much. What did affect my enjoyment was the absence of TJ Miller. His character of Weasel was essentially Deadpool’s best friend in the previous two films, so his absence is definitely felt. But Miller is also a colossal dickhead so fuck him, I’m glad he’s gone.

Now onto the bad. Like the previous two Deadpool flicks, the pacing and actual story for this could be better. You’re not really engrossed in the narrative at any point, it’s mainly used to just jump from joke to joke. That’s not necessarily a huge negative, but it is something that could have been improved upon. The only part with genuine emotion is a quick montage of the non-MCU Marvel films during the end credits, genuinely beautiful. In terms of pacing, there are times when to fit in the jokes, everything grinds to a halt, and then it jumps much further forward in time than it needs to so that it can make up for lost time.

In summary, this review, in fact, all reviews for this, are ultimately pointless. You already decided whether you want to watch it or not. Nothing any review says is going to change your mind. So really this has all been a massive waste of time and I’d have been better off eating two cakes as opposed to just one. There’s a reason it’s now the highest-grossing R-Rated film of all time, (taking the title from Joker which took it from Deadpool 2, which took it from Deadpool) joining such other illustrious films on that list such as *checks list* Terminator 3, Lucy, Fifty Shades Of Sexual Abuse, and Sex And The City. But in case you are one of the very few undecided people. Go see it FFS.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: How Furiosa became, well, became Furiosa.

Mad Max: Fury Road (MM: FR, pronounced Mumfour) was a phenomenally well-made piece of cinema, so you couldn’t help but feel slightly worried with the announcement of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (F: AMMS, pronounced Famms). A lot was working for it though, George Miller directing so it’s not as though it was handed off to someone who couldn’t handle it. Plus it wasn’t written as a cash grab, it was supposed to be filmed back-to-back with Fury Road. The cast seemed pretty solid too; Anya Taylor-Joy is always great, and the trailers made it look like Chris Hemsworth was having a lot of fun.

All of that is a long way of saying that if you enjoyed MM: FR then you’ll enjoy F: AMMS. It’s not quite as busy as Fury Road was, which I prefer. Furiosa actually gives you time to breathe so what happens is allowed to have an impact on you. It also has a much more varied visual colour palette to work from. There is a heavier focus on CGI in this one though, to its detriment. It’s not constant, but there are a few moments where some things just look “off”, and unlike MM: FR it doesn’t have as many exciting action scenes to fall back on. There are still some very good action scenes, but there’s nothing you can count as a “highlight”.

That’s my biggest issue with it. Despite how good it is, despite its noble origins, it still comes off as the cinematic equivalent of DLC for a video game. It never seems to become its own movie; instead, it is content to remind you of things from a better movie. Outside of curiosity, it’s difficult to see what the purpose of this was. If it was released earlier it wouldn’t be as big an issue, but after this long, it feels a bit like it is just a stopgap to tide you over until they release a sequel that will never come.

I’m being overly harsh I know. This is a brilliantly made film, and it’s very rarely boring. The performances are great, it’s an interesting story, and it’s a lot of fun. But, I dunno, I guess, it’s just a 7.8/10 and I want a 9. I think people do need to watch it though, it’s definitely worth your time

Alien: Romulus (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of disillusioned colonists get set for one big job to earn enough money for their freedom from the corporation that essentially owns them. As you can guess from the title, they meet a Xenomorph.

I managed to catch Covenant at the cinema during its theatrical release, and I wasn’t too impressed by it. Part of me wondered whether that was because I hadn’t seen any of the others. However, just through cultural osmosis, I recognised certain bits of it as paying homage to the original, making it seem like a greatest hits package, albeit one rerecorded by a different line-up because the lead singer fired everybody and didn’t want to pay them royalties so replaced them all with session musicians. By which I mean, I recognised the narrative and visual melodies, but they weren’t as sharp and exciting as I knew they had originally been.

Now, onto Romulus. Romulus VERY heavily leans into the original, taking place between that and Aliens, as well as featuring dialogue that explicitly references the original, just oddly delivered. The Xenomorph in Romulus is the same creature from the original, and there is an android that physically resembles Ash (the android, not the result of fire, or the Pokemon animal torturer). Now I have actually seen the first two films in the franchise, so am more able to spot more subtle references, it wouldn’t be a stretch for me to dislike Romulus as much as I did Covenant. Especially since it was written/directed by Fede Alvarez and co-written by Rodo Sayagues, the team responsible for the “you’ve kind of made a rapist sympathetic” horror movie Don’t Breathe (which I heavily disliked) and its “So you’ve made the rapist the hero now?” sequel Don’t Breathe 2, (which I utterly despised).

I didn’t. I, well I don’t want to say “enjoy”, as it was tense as hell and disturbing, but I was thoroughly “oooo”‘d, and a little bit “aaaaaa”‘d. There are some truly fantastic set pieces in this, full of creativity and intelligence. The use of the acidic blood in some of the scenes is superb, with my personal highlight being when the characters make a zero gravity journey through a corridor whilst the acidic blood floats around them. Some amazing scenes make the best use of gravity mechanics available to the characters. It felt like Alvarez and Sayagues looked at the toys they had to work with in terms of the technology and location developed earlier in the franchise, and then thought of scenes that would make the best use of them.

I haven’t felt this tense (at the cinema at least) since Civil War, which also starred Cailee Spaeny. The Alien franchise has many flaws, but one thing it’s always EXCELLED at has been casting perfect female leads. Noomi Rapace, Katherine Waterston, Weaver etc are all critically acclaimed performers, and I know that Spaeny will get there. She received some acclaim for her role in Priscilla, but that’s not enough. She was incredible in Civil War, to the point where in my review (link here) I specifically pointed out her performance, saying (and I quote):

she is damn near perfect. I want to see what she does next because she is fucking phenomenal in this

I didn’t quite expect her next performance to be this good. It’s genuinely difficult to figure out which of her performances is better. I dunno, maybe her next film will be shit. I’ll just see what she’s in next. *checks*. Knives Out 3. Oh damn, she’s in line for a perfect three-film run.

Romulus isn’t all perfect, some of the fanservice is a little bit too obvious, the final third drags a little bit, and some of the CGI feels a little weird. Those are very nitpicking criticisms though. Overall it’s incredible. There’s so much to like about it. David Jonsson (last seen here in Rye Lane) as a defective droid is great, with the character providing so much tension and humanity throughout, especially with a few of the narrative reveals (essentially the trolly problem) adding some background to humanity’s relationship with androids. The other characters are fine, but aren’t really explored enough, they don’t need to be though. Not everybody is a main character, so it’s fine if some characters are less developed than others.

The location is also a highlight. Much like the other entries in the franchise, there’s a kind of future-retro feel to everything. There’s a lot of future technology, but all the computers etc have all clearly seen better days. It would be much like having a film in 2010 featuring VHS players, but the film itself being released in the 1950’s.

Overall, I loved this movie. It’s cruel, atmospheric, and downright terrifying in parts, absolutely perfect for cinema.

Borderlands (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of people aren’t friends, but have to work together to do something to save others. Yeah, original.

I love watching films, I’d just like to point that out (just in case the almost 500 reviews on this site didn’t make that clear). But I’m not one of those people who hunt down trailers of everything and absorb information about everything that’s coming out. My at-home trailer use mainly consists of films I already know I’m interested in/curious about. The way I find myself watching NEW trailers is generally at the cinema itself. So I distinctly remember the first time I watched this trailer (I believe it was one of the trailers before Frozen Empire), I turned towards my cousin and said “Well someone’s watched Guardians Of The Galaxy”. The whole thing looked like a mockbuster GOTG directed by some music video guy on a budget of $11.50 and a tin of chopped tomatoes, starring the editor’s best friends cousin’s wife, only it was directed by Eli Roth and had a budget of around $120million, starring scream queen (and star of Scream Queen) Jamie Lee Curtis, five-time winner of “ohhhhh, her, I like her” award Cate Blanchett (whose crown has now been taken by Olivia Colman), and the person who stole the “I’m gonna fuck that Peach” award from Timothee Chalamet, Jack Black.

Maybe that was just the marketing, maybe the film itself will actually be surprisingly good. I mean, it’s directed by a competent director and has a very talented cast. So there’s always a possibility it will actually be really good. But is it? To answer that question I’ll show you a sentence I sent to someone after I left the cinema that day:

“Watched Borderlands and the new Alien movie today. The new Alien is very good”

That sums it up. Borderlands is not just bad compared to Alien (spoilers for that review), it’s a bad film. For a storyteller as creative and visionary as Eli Roth, Borderlands is a shockingly cliche piece of work. It follows the standard “ragtag group of misfits go in search of a MacGuffin” plot that has already been seen in both GOTG and DAD: HAT. It has gone through ten different scriptwriters in its development, and usually, that causes a film to be inconsistent and a tonal mess. Thankfully that’s not the case here, it keeps a pretty even tone and level of quality throughout; it’s just a shame that level of quality is complete shit. I’m not going to go into the “Blanchett is 52 but the character in the game is 22, and the character Kevin Hart plays is taller” etc. Those are valid concerns and criticisms for fans of the game, but I’ve never played the games so they didn’t affect my enjoyment of it at all. In fact, the cast is one of the few things Borderlands has going for it (and there are some subtle visual storytelling touches which are really good), everything else sucks.

It’s not terrible in a “nobody is trying” way, people are trying, they’re just making terrible decisions. The chief one is the violence, there’s not any. Borderlands NEEDS blood, this film is crying out for it. I’m guessing it’s so it can get a 12A rating instead of a 15, and thus appeal to more people. It’s clear that the studio wanted Borderlands aimed at the mass market, which was a mistake. Not only because of the lack of violence but also because it seems to assume the audience is full of idiots. That’s clear from the opening, which features far too much narration, and holds your hand more than a nervous mother teaching her child to cross the road. It doesn’t trust you to work something out for yourself. Such is its dedication to “No questions! No wonder!” I’m surprised that every character isn’t introduced with a fact sheet saying where you’re likely to know each actor from. The most egregious demonstration of this is when the film tells us that Lilith is from Pandora. Now, how do you think this film did it?

  1. “I haven’t been there in a long time”, and leave the meaning hanging in the air.
  2. Have another character tell them “I need you for this job, I know you were born there”
  3. When she arrives on the planet, have her say something along the lines of “This planet is shit, I should know, I was born here”.

Take a guess. I’ll wait. Have you guessed? Congratulations! You’re correct. I’m not saying that because I guessed that you picked the one most likely, I’m saying that because whichever one you picked you are correct since it does all three. They aren’t even spread out, all three of them take place within a few minutes. So it’s not even “we’re recapping this in case you went to the toilet”. There are other issues with the writing; primarily the amount of moments which make no sense.

The best example; everybody in the group is wanted by the police, so how do they disguise themselves? With a hologram mask. One of the characters has bright red hair, one talks like Kevin Hart, one is giant and muscled, one is a one-of-a-kind robot, and another has bunny ears. With all those visual and audio clues, I don’t think “slight covering of the face” is going to do much good to hide your face. If you saw Superman walking around in full costume but wearing a Lucha Libre wrestling mask, I’m pretty sure you’d still recognise it’s him by the giant fucking S on his chest. Same issue here. That’s not an issue for long as the masks are never used again once the characters pass that level scene. Fuck it, I hid it there but I’m going to flat-out say it here now; there’s zero cohesion between different scenes, as such they all come off as a series of levels rather than one continual narrative. As a result, it sometimes feels like we’re not watching a movie, but instead seeing a 2-hour “highlights” package from a 13-hour videogame. That’s why there are random things which aren’t explained at all, why certain characters’ relationships with each other seem to be based not on emotion or truth, but on the amount of time left in the film, and why it makes bafflingly random time skips at a level not seen since Fant4stic.

It’s nowhere near as bad as Madame Web was, but that’s damning it with faint praise. As I said, the performances from the leads are fine, Ariana Greenblatt in particular is a ball of chaotic energy. There are some nice ideas at play here, and the visuals are pretty nice to look at. But otherwise? When the universe collapses in on itself and completely destroys existence, the resulting void of infinite nothingness will still have more stars than this deserves out of 5. Harsh? Yes, but it deserves it.

Thelma (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Thelma loses $10,000 to a con artist, she is not very happy about this.

June Squibb is pretty damn cool. She’s best known to me for her role in the (criminally under-appreciated) Table 19, which is still near the top of my list for confusion at the negative reviews. She’s also been utilized in a lot of recent Pixar movies, recently voicing Nostalgia in Inside Out 2: Inside Harder. Yes, she was also in Father Figures but I can’t hold that against her. Thelma is her first chance to lead, and at the age of 94, it’s (as the great philosopher Lizzo once said) about damn time. The only disappointing part about June’s performance is if it was bad I would have had the perfect opportunity to make a “damp Squibb” joke, and now I can’t, stupid actresses ruining my jokes by being talented.

The script does help Thelma too. In the wrong hands it would risk coming off as condescending, or alternatively going too far the other way and having a message of “no, 94-year-old women can still parachute out of a burning helicopter whilst smoking meth, and if you try to stop them then you’re a terrible person”. It also doesn’t attempt to do an “old people swearing/rapping/sex references=comedy” thing, which is a relief. The title character feels real, and her interactions with her grandson (played by Fred Hechinger) are so lovely that I want to watch a road movie featuring the two of them. The two actors share surprisingly good chemistry, there is no sense of distance between them and the warmth radiates off the screen. Not so much with the two parent characters, but they’re not as fleshed out as the main two so that’s to be expected.

Anybody who has spoken to me for more than twenty seconds will know that I’m quite a moody and cynical person. So in many ways, a film like Thelma is the opposite of what it’s expected I’d like. But in another, more accurate, way, this is the exact type of shit I love. Sometimes it’s nice to have “Hey, stop being a condescending dick to your elderly relatives” as a message. It’s not exactly subtle with that message, having characters openly discuss moving Thelma into a home whilst she’s in the room, but discussing it like she’s not there. The moments where it plays like a pseudo-action film are fun to watch too, but it never goes quite as far as you feel it could.

A part of the film I didn’t think worked out that well was the sections in the nursing home. They feel a bit too sitcom-like as if they belong in a lower-quality film with a completely different tone. The director’s use of soft focus on the edges of the frame may be annoying to quite a few people too. It also sucks that this was Richard Roundtree’s final film role, and I’m not a fan of how it reminded me of my grandmother and hence now I’m sad.

Overall, Thelma is delightful. A bit too cutesy at times, but it would take a heart of stone to not be charmed by it. It is not among the best of 2024, but it is certainly among the films that made me feel most warm inside. It’s definitely the best of the two “Old person gets scammed by someone on the phone” movies of the year. Here’s the other one if you were wondering.

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: A top-secret group of rogues embark on a mission to something something Nazi’s.

“This does not feel like the Guy Ritchie who gave the world Snatch or Lock Stock. This feels like the Guy Ritchie that gave us Swept Away and Aladdin. It doesn’t feel like there’s any love in it. There’s nothing memorable about it. It lacks not only his visual flair but also the crowd-pleasing narrative twists and turns. There’s a real identity crisis about the whole thing. There are so many moments which if they were fleshed out could form the basis of a great film,” that’s from my review of the last Guy Ritchie film I watched, and it’s true here. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t entertained whilst watching this, I was actually bored. The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare (or TMOUW, pronounced Tomorr-woo) is only memorable because I wrote down that I saw it. Much like OFRdG, there’s not much here to recommend (and it has a clunky title). The action scenes are okay, but the film seems to want them to take a back seat to “banter” that shouldn’t be in the driving seat. It manages to be overwritten to the point that none of it feels natural and also like a first draft.

The opening scene is fun, shockingly violent, and features some pretty decent performances. If the rest of TMOUW was like that, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. By “a lot more”, I mean “at all”. Ritchie’s strength is not in the faux-gentlemanly characters of WW2. None of them feel genuine, instead coming off as a modern person’s idea of what people from the 90s would sound like in the 1940s.

The plot feels like a prequel to a film that has never been made. There’s no jeopardy, it’s all building towards something inevitable but never entertaining enough to distract you from that. The “heist” aspect isn’t as smart as it needs to be, and the surrounding scenes just aren’t interesting enough to hold your attention.

I can’t even say I’m disappointed. I didn’t have high expectations because of my issues with OFRdG, but there was a small part of me that hoped that Ritchie would pull it off, especially since how well-received The Gentleman TV series has been. It’s like going back to a restaurant that used to be good, but the last five times it’s given you intense diarrhoea. You know you shouldn’t go back, but your memories of the first time linger, and you will always have that hope, even when you should know better.

Sting (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: An alien spider grows and kills, serving as a warning to humans: “Don’t stand so close to me”.

Sting is not a smart movie. It’s not brave, it’s not challenging, it’s not something that’s going to stay with you for years after you see it. It’s also not bad. Not everything needs to change the world, some things can just be entertaining, and this is definitely that. Yes, it’s the dumbest thing the name “Sting” has been attached to since Starrcade 1997/Track 12 from the Brimstone And Treacle soundtrack. You’ll be entertained once you get past the disappointment that this isn’t actually a horror movie based on a guy who once watched The Crow or the writer of Roxanne (the song, not the movie).

It’s not perfect, for one thing, Robyn Nevin is clearly not using her natural accent, and it’s noticeable. Noni Hazelhurst is pretty damn fun though, and has the name that’s the most fun to say. There are also moments where the writers skipped over things we should have seen. For example, the police are seemingly accusing Ethan (played by a pretty damn great Ryan Corr) of harming his neighbour. While they talk to him he receives a phone call saying “come here” from his neighbour (Danny Kim), and he just leaves. There are also issues with pacing, the opening in particular is far too long in comparison to the rest of the film.

It is mostly just a lot of fun. The way the opening is filmed may make you think it would be cheaply made, especially since the attack there didn’t show that much (for reasons that become clear later on, but in the moment, it does seem cheap), but when it needs to, it goes hard. There’s one death in particular which is BRUTAL and I love it.

Sting has an advantage (not in a Wargames way) over horror movies in that people already find spiders kind of creepy, probably because the way they walk doesn’t seem natural, and they look more like hydraulic robots. Sting makes the most of the creepy nature they naturally have. Yes, it does augment it with sci-fi stuff, but it never comes across as horror you laugh at. There are some funny moments, but they’re based around the characters rather than the situation.

I went in with low expectations, and it exceeded them. I don’t think I need to watch it again at any point, but I don’t regret seeing it, and I would definitely watch a sequel (which, judging by the ending, we’re getting). Yes, it’s shlock, but it’s so fun. Taking inspiration from Alien, but also from those terrible 80s slasher movies that people love. It may not be your favourite horror of the year (I think The First Omen is my favourite so far), but it won’t be the worst (Hello there Tarot, Night Swim, The Watchers etc).

My Spy: The Eternal City (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: JJ (A “very noticeable for a spy” Batista) reunites with Sophie (Chloe Coleman), accompanying her on her school trip where they find themselves at the centre of a terrorist plot.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a normal reviewer; I don’t put definitive star ratings at the end of reviews for one thing. I will always admit that personal bias counts for a lot, sometimes negatively (I am predisposed to dislike anything with certain actors in), sometimes positively. My review of Hereditary was (I assume) the only review of that movie to include the phrase “cocking shit fuck” (unlike reviews of Morbius, which were fucking littered with that phrase, especially the one in the Holy Jesus Mary Church Weekly newsletter). On the plus side, that does mean there are lower expectations of me to maintain professional standards. As such, the following sentence won’t harm my reputation among readers as much as if it was said by someone like Peter Bradshaw (who only uses professional review lines, like in Twisters where he said “Certainly, the twister here is an obvious symbol for orgasm”). Here goes, the sentence which would doom me if I was a professional:

I stopped paying attention before this movie ended.

I watched this at home, but there weren’t any active distractions (local building work etc). I just…I just found myself watching but taking nothing in. When I speak of Come True, I often find myself talking about how despite watching it on a small screen, in my memory, it’s on a big one. With this? I will remember I watched it on my TV, not the cinema. It never felt big enough to be worthy of anything except “straight to streaming”. That’s a shame as I enjoyed the first one, and My Spy: The Eternal City (or MS: TEC, pronounced Ms. Tech) actually soured my memory of it. It assumes I can remember much more from the first one than I can. Characters turn up and the film is like “OMG it’s you guys”, whereas the audience’s reaction is “Who the fuck are these guys?”. I don’t want films overrun with flashbacks, but a few of them might have been helpful. It would be easy to do too; just frame it as Sophie giving a presentation in class or something. It would definitely be better than the current opening; a dream sequence. Never open an action movie with a dream sequence, it sets up action setpieces that can’t be recreated in reality.

Other scenes are similarly misjudged. The biggest misstep is when JJ is being tortured and threatened with death. I don’t know if it’s the way it’s shot, the way it’s written, or even just where it is in the script, but it’s devoid of any tension. I doubt a single person who watches this believed for a second that that scene would be where the character dies, even the stupid people watching it would realise that was never going to happen.

Another issue is how it wastes the location’ Venice is cinematic, but you would not know that from watching this. It could take place in any European city and it wouldn’t require that many changes. It’s a shame as I really enjoyed the first movie, and this feels like a massive step down.

MS. TECH isn’t all negative though. The cast has good chemistry, and Anna Farris is clearly having a lot of fun. There are some genuinely funny moments, especially when someone is getting stone dicks thrown at their face. Taeho K doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page but shows fantastic promise in the small moments he’s given.

Finally, and much more importantly; it’s great to hear an Ashnikko song in a film. Love that shit.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Do you care about the plot or are you just glad to see Foley back? Exactly.

I will admit I was nervous about this. I will go on record as being one of the few people who actually thoroughly enjoyed Beverly Hills Cop 3, probably because I had it on VHS back in the day so I got to watch it a lot. That being said; that film was released thirty years ago, and there hasn’t been anything major since then. A video game was released in 2006 but was so poorly received that it was referred to in one publication as “the 9/11 of video games”, which feels a little harsh. In 2013, a pilot for a television show was produced, but it was never shown. Let’s not be too harsh; but let’s face it, Eddie Murphy isn’t the name he used to be, and this is a francwhise that, whilst loved, isn’t missed (mainly because the last one was so poorly received). So what’s the purpose of this being made? Those concerns were raised with the release of the trailer; which made it seem tonally inconsistent with the rest of the franchise. Gone was the lightheartedness and fun, to be replaced by family drama and large stunts.

So it’s a pleasant surprise that the final product is a lot of fun. There are a few new characters, but they slot into the universe effortlessly to the point you could assume they’d been there all along. The only character that stands out is Kevin Bacon’s Captain Cade Grant. The reveal that he is the villain comes too early to count as a twist, but also arrives too late to be the basis of the plot. It’s also far too obvious, to the point where you have to wonder why they even bothered pretending he wasn’t the villain from the opening. Just show him as the bad guy at the start, then have the late reveal be that he belongs to the police, then have THAT lead to the third act shootout.

It’s nice to see the returning cast, although some have been very rude and had the audacity to age in the last 30 years, which is very disappointing to see. I do get the feeling that Eddie Murphy has slightly aged out of playing these characters. At his age, that kind of behaviour just seems reckless and irresponsible rather than “wacky fun hijinks”, there are moments when you can’t help but think “you should know better”. There are moments where his behaviour works, where it is genuinely fun to see, and that is most of the time. But like I said, there are one or two moments where it just seems weird to see him act that way.

There are few occasions where it does seem like its resting on past glories, but they are rare. It mostly works. There are fun set pieces, creative action, and some incredibly funny dialogue and interplay between the characters. It’s ridiculous, but not “he just knocked a helicopter out of the sky using a car” level like other franchises reached. Even at its most ridiculous, it does feel grounded in the reality that this universe has created.

In an uncertain world full of gloom and doom (to the point where it’s effected champagne sales), it’s nice to have something as comforting and uncomplicated as a film like this. Watch, enjoy, then eat a pot noodle or something. It’s not going to change the world, and some of the satire feels misguided compared to the potential it has, but it would be a cruel vindictive heart that is not warmed by this.