Category: Review

The Iron Claw (2023) Review

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Synopsis: The triumph and tragedy of the Von Erich brothers, a wrestling family based in Texas during the 70’s and 80’s.

I’m gonna be honest with you guys, girls, both and neither, this film would have had to be TERRIBLE for me not to like it. I watched a documentary about the Von Erichs a few years ago so I knew the tragedy was perfect for a movie. That foreknowledge also meant that what happened was not a surprise. I’m not sure what would be the most devastating way to watch this. If you went in completely blind then you might think “Oh, that moment was very sad. Time to see how the family recovers from this. Wait, now THIS?” and find yourself relentlessly overcome by the constant slew of depressing events, a bit like watching the news in [insert current year]. But is being aware of what’s coming any better? Watching with the knowledge of what’s going to happen is a bit like watching a train slowly fall on an unknowing family having a picnic. You can see something terrible will happen, but you can’t do anything to stop it.

The worst part about this? The reality is actually sadder. There’s another brother who passed away that the film doesn’t show. Imagine that, having so much bad shit happen to your family a two-hour film isn’t enough to fit it all in. There are some other moments where it plays a bit loose with reality. Nothing major, it’s mainly about the chronology of events. A lot of things are made to look like they happened closer to each other than they actually did, creating a false sense of connection to some of them, implying that some events were the direct cause of the tragedies, even when in reality there were years between them. For most people watching, this won’t cause any issues, but for those who know what actually happened, it can be a bit frustrating to watch, but not enough to stop you from enjoying it.

A few wrestling fans might have issues with the cast not really looking much like the people they’re portraying. It’s true, in photos you can’t really see the resemblance. But the way that each actor captures the essence of their character is perfect. With one exception. I try to shy away from bad performances from actors I don’t know, particularly with those who don’t even have a Wikipedia page. It can feel a bit like bullying, and you never know if they might see it and feel discouraged. If you’re a name actor and your performance is shit? Yes, I’ll call you out on your performance, but I do try to be a bit kinder to unknowns. I’m about to break that rule for Aaron Dean Eisenberg. His portrayal of Ric Flair is shocking, and unrecognisable as the character. Ric Flair has a very distinctive vocal cadence, and Eisenberg doesn’t even approach it. At best he sees the correct cadence in the distance and then heads in the opposite direction to buy cheese, walking right past a warehouse that’s currently holding acting workshops. It’s distractingly bad and is the weakest part of a truly great film.

I think everybody should see this film, it’s genuinely fantastic. It will break you, and when you think it’s finished, will break you again. It’s so well done too. There’s a scene set in the afterlife which risks coming off cheesy, especially in such a grounded film. But it REALLY works here, with even the surviving Von Erich coming out in support of it. I’m glad he liked it, as he wasn’t actually involved in production so if he wasn’t a fan of the finished result it would mean the whole thing comes off slightly exploitative. The reaction from most people in the industry, and from family members, has been mostly positive. There’s been a few people who have said it made the father, Fritz Von Erich, look like a dick. I mean, nobody will come out of this thinking he was a good person, but considering it only implied instead of flat-out stating that when he forced his son to give a press conference after a coma it was whilst the son had brain damage, and it doesn’t contain a moment where he drunkenly tells his only surviving son “The only reason you’re still alive is because you’re not man enough to kill yourself like your brothers did”, I’d argue that Fritz The Twat actually got off pretty light.

In summary; watch this film. But FFS pick something nice to treat yourself to afterwards. I’ve watched two holocaust-based movies this year, but they didn’t quite hit home like this did. I think it’s because the holocaust is SO large that it’s hard to truly comprehend. Whereas the themes of The Iron Claw; toxic masculinity, burnout etc. They’re all ones that we see every day all around us, and they’re ones which some people actually still defend as push as good things. So it’s heartbreaking to see the natural ending of a lot of those vices. It’s not something that happens to other people, it’s something we can see happening to all of us. So it has a natural sense of empathy to the way you watch it. Only, you know, it’s empathy with spandex tights and fake fights.

2023 Film Awards Day Three: The Genre

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Funniest

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret
Yes, it’s sweet and very wholesome. But what I mainly remember is how endearingly funny it is. Whilst the situations aren’t universal, the feelings behind them are, and the comedic ways the characters react to them are far too relatable.
Barbie
God bless the weirdness. From the first time I saw the trailer I knew I was going to laugh a lot, and the film itself didn’t let me down on that front. There are different types of jokes too, some innuendo that wouldn’t be out of place in a Carry On film, some absurd stupidity, and some that just hit way too close to home for me to be comfortable with.
Champions
A film with this much emphasis on special needs could have gone SOOOOOO wrong. But it works here. Crucially, it doesn’t make them the butt of the joke but also doesn’t feel overly condescending either.
Joy Ride
It features a scene with a light-up vagina, and a series of scenes of them accidentally injuring a sports team with sex. It’s filthy, and it’s fucking funny.
Scrapper
I went into this completely blind, and it won me over with heart and humour. The character of Georgie is wise beyond her years, but not in a pretentious way that makes you dislike her. She’s street-smart and quick-witted. From the moment she gets caught stealing a bike and blags her way out of it by saying “I was just checking your bike was safe, it isn’t by the way” the tone is set.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
It’s a little bit too reference-heavy, with pop-culture references flying by thick and fast. But it is mostly very funny. It’s helped by the main characters being voiced by actual teenagers, so their dynamic feels genuine. It’s a chaotic humour that suits the animation style. The dialogue feels like a bunch of teens just talking shit. The character of April has her moments too, including a vomit scene which is so over the top it goes past gross into hilarious.
The Blackening
I love a good comedy horror, in fact, as my love for Bride Of Chucky proves, they don’t even have to be good. The Blackening is good though. It knows the audience has certain expectations when it comes to black people in horror movies, and it plays with those tropes brilliantly.
Totally Killer
“Just think, maybe if she did blowjobs she’d still be alive today”
“Yeah, let’s NOT make that the lesson”
God damn, I loved the dialogue in this, the way it plays with time travel tropes, the way it points out how 80s parents at times didn’t really seem to care if their kids were alive or not.
Wonka
If you liked the Paddington movies, you’ll enjoy this. There’s a similar sense of playful weirdness which provides. It’s helped by a great ensemble cast, all bringing the weirdness, the funny, and the funk.

Winner

Bottoms
Again, a film that’s batshit insane. The final fight in particular is a masterclass of WTF black comedy. What would just be a standard football scene in most films (or at most, a quick fight) is a massacre, decapitations, explosions etc. There’s a line that comedy films have to be careful not to cross, Bottoms crosses that line multiple times and then snorts it. All the characters get jokes too. PJ and Josie are the leads, but the background characters get their chances to shine too. Personally, I loved Hazel and her sarcasm blindness.

Saddest

Aftersun
On the surface, not that sad. But when you get the subtext, when you get what’s NOT being said, it will break you.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Does a great job of showing just how futile individual effort is in a large-scale war. How you can die and it can mean absolutely nothing.
Talk To Me
Horror is a useful genre for exploring certain topics. Talk To Me explores grief and guilt, and does so perfectly. It blends together horror and sadness in some truly beautiful moments. The attempted suicide, in particular, is a mix of “Holy shit” and “please no” and is more effective than films with bigger budgets and more gore.
The Flash
Most of the film is not great. But the moment where he is essentially saying goodbye to his dead mother is heartbreaking. It is EXACTLY how I would have done it, and if the rest of the film had this much care put into it, then it would have been one of the best of the year.
The Night Of The 12th
Just knowing that you can be brutally murdered and not know why, the killer never being caught etc. It’s horrific. Murder mysteries tend to end with the murder being solved, this is depressingly realistic.

Winner

The Whale
God damn this is bleak. Much like The Wrestler (which is a great watch if you haven’t seen it), a tale of someone haunted by demons who hides himself away out of shame, which in turn alienates him from his family. They even end similarly, with a presumed but not confirmed death.

Scariest/Best Horror

Godzilla: Minus One
The big G is smaller here than in most iterations, you’d think that would make him less intimidating, but nope. His smaller size now means that he is aware of humans, and he’s not a fan (although can you blame him? What other species has invented atomic bombs, date rape, and the 2019 film Cats?). So you can’t just walk around him, if he sees you, he’s going to kill you.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3
The main villain is incredibly disturbing. There’s not enough of him in the finished product, but when he’s on-screen he’s utterly despicable and could easily work in an R-rated horror.
Holy Spider
The idea that people like Saeed Azimi actually existed, and in the modern world, is terrifying. It’s horrific how men like that don’t just exist, but seemingly thrive in some parts of the world. It would be nice if this ended with him and jail and the threat over. Whilst he is dead, it’s clear his son still thinks of him as a hero and is likely to carry on his mission. The patriarchy sucks.
M3gan
They’ve got a franchise here, and I think they know it. Reminded me of the last Childs Play movie, but with less violence. If the franchise continues though, it HAS to improve and go further. Plus it has some GREAT kills.
Piggy
Damn, people are dicks. Especially to overweight women. The sheer callousness displayed in how they treat her is uncomfortably true and will resonate with anybody who has weight issues.
Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
I’m surprised to see this here too. But it’s a kid film which fits in tales of existential angst, which I always find terrifying. Plus, it has a fantastic audio cue.
Saw X
Genuinely disturbing, and a surprisingly solid addition to the franchise. It’s as good as almost anything the Saw movies have given us. The traps are brutal and fun but do feel a bit unfair. We’re also given one of the most despicable and inhuman villains in horror history.
Scream 6
The ending was pitiful, but some of the deaths in this are brutal. The opening is nihilistic as hell and one of the best openings to a Scream movie in quite some time. It’s a shame that this could be the last good one as the seventh looks like it’s going to be a trainwreck.

Winner

The Blackening
The relationship between race and horror movies is well known, there’s a great documentary on the subject called Horror Noire: A History Of Black Horror. Films like Get Out have approached it from a serious side, so it’s about time someone took it in a comedic slant. The Blackening could not have been made 10 years ago. Racism is now politically acceptable, with politicians debating whether “This woman makes me hate all black people. I hope she gets shot” is racist or not. It’s in a “we’re not racist, many of my employees are Asian” world where films like The Blackening are needed. It kills it as both a horror and a comedy.

Wicked Little Letters (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When the residents of Littlehampton start receiving letters filled with obscenities and hilarious profanity, Rose, a rambunctious Irish immigrant, is accused of the crime.

This is the fourth time I’ve written this introduction. The first time I mainly spoke about how the trailer was misleading and the final film isn’t as hashtag girlboss as you’d think. But I couldn’t go into that any further without spoiling the plot. My second attempt mainly focused on how Olivia Colman is undefinable, how you never know what you’re going to get from her, is it going to be an intense award-winning drama, or something sweary and British? That ran out of steam when I (and this is genuinely true) every path I took led to a punchline where I talked about how I suspect a beloved comedic actor shows hallmarks of being an abusive piece of shit. My third attempt wasn’t a review but was in fact a recipe for tomato soup. That was thrown out because I ran out of croutons.

So how do I discuss this without giving too much away? I can start by pointing out the most important thing; this film is filthy. If you have an elderly relative who is thinking of going because “I loved her in that thing where she played the Queen, she seems such a nice lady”, warn them. I haven’t seen swearing like this since The Thick Of It, and just like TTOI, it’s done beautifully. There is an art to swearing. If it’s done wrong it can come off gratuitous and immature (see, well pretty much any Tarantino movie), but when it’s done well then it can provide sentences with an artistic rhythm which flows beautifully (think of the scene from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles). This is more of the second, with the “shits”, “cumbags” and “piss” flowing like a British river.

The story is one you want to see unfold. The timing of the reveal of the letter writer is perfect. If it was any sooner it wouldn’t feel earned, and if it was later it would feel like the mystery was too small to justify waiting that long. The mystery is possibly the weakest part, there are not enough potential suspects to drive the suspense. But the aftermath of the reveal is very good. It moves into more of a caper, the police trying to prove their suspicions, the suspect proving their innocence, and the guilty party being racked with guilt. It gives everybody involved more to do and is genuinely quite tense because you’re unsure whether the person will get away with it.

None of that would matter if it wasn’t for the performances. Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman have tremendous chemistry and I’d like to see them do more together; I would legit love a buddy cop movie. Anjana Vasan is a ball of energy and made me really want to see a second series of We Are Lady Parts. Joanna Scanlan is a lot of fun too. I wish some of the background characters had more to do though, there are inklings of personality for a lot of one-shot characters, and I’d have liked to have seen more of them.

Overall, Wicked Little Letters (or WLL, pronounced Woo-lil) doesn’t quite feel big enough to earn a cinema release, but it’s one you will be very glad you watched. Maybe don’t put it on over Christmas with the folks, but watch it when you need to laugh.

Bob Marley: One Love (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Bob Marley once existed. Here’s what happened.

Biopics of musicians are always difficult to pull off in a way that will satisfy everybody. What’s the thing most people know about musicians? What? No, not their penis size, that’s weird. The answer is their music. You go into a film about a musician, and you expect to hear music (Unless you’re watching Stardust, the movie about David Bowie where the makers didn’t license ANY David Bowie music). So I think my enjoyment of Bob Marley: One Love (or BMOL, pronounced, well there’s no other way to say this; Bum’ole) was limited by the fact that I don’t actually know that many Bob Marley songs. I only know about five or so. If I were a fan, then I imagine I would have enjoyed seeing the songs come together, from a single bassline, then gradually more and more elements added until it becomes the song we all know in some kind of improvisational mix of jazz, reggae, and singing which people in the people in business call Jeggings. Okay, they don’t, but I just wanted to get that jeggings joke in there. Not worth it really was it?

But for those who aren’t familiar with the music, all they’re seeing is a song they sort of recognise. I’m not sure how much there is in this film to draw in non-Marley fans. It pains me to say this, but his life doesn’t have THAT moment to anchor the narrative around, which really hurts the film. It doesn’t feel like it’s building towards anything or is about anything in particular, stuff just happens, and then more stuff happens. I would have liked to have seen more about the gig he was shot at etc, more about his political side and what inspired it.

Some people had issues with understanding what was being said. I sort of did, but I don’t mind it. A look of the dialogue is in Jamaican Patois, and I’d much rather have that authenticity than the fakeness of just doing the accent whilst speaking full English.

Onto the positives, there are times when you do forget you’re watching an actor play Bob Marley. In reality, Kingsley Ben-Adir looks nothing like Bob, but when you watch him perform and hear him speak, you believe. When you see footage of the real Marley at the end you’re like “Oh yeah, we haven’t actually been watching him”. The other performances are fine, but none of the background characters are really built up enough to come close.

In summary, it’s a good film. It’s an interesting film. It’s also incredibly unfocused and feels like it was made for the sake of being made. Worth a watch if you can catch it though.

Madame Web (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of plot convenient-clairvoyance.

I was supposed to watch this a week earlier, but I was unable to go down to the cinema due to a random bout of sickness. Now I’ve not only recovered from illness but have managed to catch this at the cinema I can finally say…

I miss the days when I was ill.

Going to start by saying this; Madame Web is not as bad as Morbius. Morbius had absolutely nothing going for it. MW at least has one GORGEOUS shot, sets something up for the future (which now probably won’t happen), and ends with a Cranberries song. I mean, the rest of the film is dogshit though.

I actually went into this knowing it would be terrible. I don’t think that affected my viewpoint though. I mean, I went into Ghostbusters: Afterlife having only seen negative reviews, and that won me over. Conversely, I went into Wolf expecting it to be great and that………was not. It wasn’t just the early reviews that caused me to think this, it was the trailer too. The trailer said absolutely nothing about who this character is, or why we should bother paying for a ticket to see her movie.

I don’t get how Sony decided that THIS was the movie they wanted to release. They picked the screenwriters of Morbius FFS. How does that make sense? “Hey, these two people wrote one of the worst movies of all time, let’s hire them again”. The plot is DUMB, the dialogue is some of the worst I’ve ever seen, and the characters are badly written. It feels like it was written by AI; nobody speaks or behaves like an actual human. Nothing really has consequences. Cassie is thought to have kidnapped the children, so she has to hide out with the teens to avoid suspicion. All standard so far. But there’s not really a reason for people to believe that. There were witnesses to the police being attacked by the villain, and all it would have taken was one of the multiple police officers on the scene to radio in “It’s a man in a Spider costume”. At least one person would have seen the villain get off the moving train too. They also would have seen him pace down the train whilst angrily staring at the teens. The kidnapping (which happens during working hours), is later reported in that day’s newspapers. You know, newspapers are famous for 3pm printings and distributions, everybody loves picking up a newspaper on the way home from work instead of in the morning. That’s such an easy problem to fix too, just show it on a TV screen. It only seems to be done via newspaper so the film can get a daily bugle reference in.

Usually when I’m writing a script I go through one draft where I delete the names and see if I can figure out who is who just by character actions and dialogue. You could not do that with MW. Characters change personalities from scene to scene, going from nervous and bookish, scared of drawing attention to themselves, to dancing on the table in a diner (completely sober).

The song that woman is dancing to? Toxic by Britney Spears. A song which wasn’t released until January 2004, in a film set in 2003. Why is it set in 2003? No idea. I’ve heard rumours it’s so they could tie it into the Andrew Garfield films, then the Tom Holland ones, then realised none of those timelines work. I’m not entirely sure I would believe that, but it would back up the absolute clusterfuck that is this movie. It being set in 2003 adds nothing. I suppose you could argue it means that you can use Uncle Ben as a living character. I mean, him being Uncle Ben adds NOTHING, if anything it makes Spider-Man a worse character, as it means he likely based himself on the supervillain from this film. All the 2003 setting adds is weirdness, especially in terms of music. It’s not just “that song wasn’t out yet”, it sometimes goes too far the other way, using too many songs from the 80s and 90s. I don’t think many radio stations in 2003 would play the 1987 Tiffany song I Think We’re Alone Now early in the morning. It doesn’t feel very 2003, and unlike the Spider-Verse soundtrack, it doesn’t feel very New York. Except for a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song near the start, it’s the most generic soundtrack outside of royalty-free music. That’s not the most offensive part of the audio though; it feels like a lot of Tahar Rahim’s dialogue was rerecorded in post-production. Sometimes it’s not as noticeable, his mouth being obscured, but then there are some times when the dialogue doesn’t match his mouth movements at all. That’s not just bad, that’s a failing grade at film school.

MW doesn’t even have the decency to look good, it overdoes the swoopy 180 shot. Some of the action scenes are incomprehensible in terms of staging and choreography. That being said, there is one PERFECT shot; a car quickly drives away, turning as it does so. The shot is a standard “snow gets kicked up into the air by a speeding tyre”, but with broken glass. It looks absolutely stunning and may be one of my favourite shots of the year. But other than that? It’s like a glass of cloudy lemonade left for four days; it’s murky, it’s flat, and it’s ugly.

So that’s established that the script is shit, the directing is shit, and the sound is shit, what of the performances? Sydney Sweeney, Isabella Merced and Celeste O’Connor are good and I would like to see a full-length Spider-Women movie featuring them (just with a different director and screenwriter). That’s actually my main takeaway from this; it was a trailer for a film that will now never be mad. I don’t know how much Emma Roberts was paid but considering her level of stardom it was undoubtedly too much for how little she’s in it. Adam Scott is fun, but again, isn’t in it enough to really be memorable. So, no issues with casting there.

Dakota Johnson is fucking terrible though.

American Fiction (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Monk is a frustrated novelist who’s fed up with the establishment that profits from Black entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes. To prove his point, he uses a pen name to write an outlandish Black book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain.

This is astounding. I’m leading with that, not because I’m going to be nitpicking and pointing out flaws in this so I wanted to remind you that I did actually like this, but because that’s the message I need you to know first. This was another secret screening, so nobody in the screening knew what it would be. I also haven’t seen a single advert for it being played, so it can’t really be argued to be eagerly anticipated by an audience. From speaking to people in the foyer, the general consensus was that it would be Argylle. So instead of something that had an extensive marketing campaign built around it, something that people were excited to see (note, this was before the early reviews came in so people were still excited about Argylle), they were met with a film that most of them didn’t know. Then to top it off, the first scene is an unsubtle racially charged explosion of sweary dialogue, the kind of moment which will put a lot of people off, yet nobody left.

I commend Cord Jefferson for leading with that scene, as it will weed out audiences who won’t like the film anyway. There’s no attempt to ease them in, AF lays out its themes and societal frustrations from the outset, not so much asking you questions as shouting them at your face.

It is depressing that this film is still relevant today, in a world in which a lot of people will loudly say “There’s no racism anymore”. Whilst there’s indeed less (definitely not “none”) open racism in modern society, it is definitely still there. It’s why people describe Idris Elba as “too urban” to play James Bond, or why the mere existence of a black man in an advert for a supermarket led to multiple people saying they’re boycotting the shop.

You may think a film dealing with race would be a somewhat dour affair, but it also deals with Alzheimer’s, sudden sibling death, and homophobia (in regards to his brother Cliff). Those moments are beautiful though. The death comes from nowhere and doesn’t form a shadow over the movie, but it is always in the back of your head when it comes to character actions and motivations. The other two bits combine in one of the most heartbreaking moments; Cliff is dancing with his mother (who he is out to), and she randomly says “I always knew you weren’t a queer”. Cliff (played WONDERFULLY) by Sterling K. Brown just breaks, he doesn’t need to say anything, you can read all the pain on his face. That pain is doubled in another scene where he speaks about how he regrets never coming out to his dad, he feels that his father died not knowing the real him. There is so much going on in the background of this, every character feels fleshed out and real. You could easily do spin-offs for most of the characters in American Fiction. Crucially, it doesn’t feel like their journeys are centred around the protagonist, they are all floating around in their own orbit, occasionally meeting in the same area.

It’s not all sad, it’s also HILARIOUS. Monks frustration at how he he feels stereotypical “Black” literature is dehumanising and false leads to some brilliant dialogue. He is essentially the sane man in a world gone crazy, but he’s still not entirely sane. It’s the most Larry David I’ve seen a character outside of Curb. Only a Larry David who accidentally Springtime For Hitlers himself. It all feels real too. Even the relationship aspect feels true, the fact that the argument isn’t resolved feels fresh, they had a massive fight, that shit isn’t fixed quickly.

In summary, this is my favourite film of the year so far, and it’s going to take something truly special to displace it from its place at the top. So much about it works, the dialogue is damn near perfect. The story is believable (although some may not like the directions it takes at the end), and the performances are damn fine. It feels weird to say this about an actor with as many awards as he has, but the world really is sleeping on Sterling K Brown. Jeffrey Wright is the true star though, this is the best he’s ever been, and considering how good he’s been in other things, that says a lot.

Lift (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: A group of thieves plan to steal $500million a shit load of gold from a dickhead.

Palestine, Ukraine, economic turmoil, in these trying and confusing times it can be nice to have something to ground yourself, something that you can hold onto that you know is real. So thank Netflix for bringing us Lift and providing us with an undeniable truth; some films are utter shit.

F. Gary Gray has a weird history as a director. Sometimes he brings us Friday or Straight Outta Compton, and sometimes he brings us Men In Black: International. Lift belongs more in the second camp. It’s so by the numbers it’s basically a children’s colouring book. When you watch it unfold you’re not surprised or entertained by anything. There are moments where you can guess what’s going to happen, not just in terms of narrative, but also in terms of action scenes and dialogue. Everything has been done before, and done better.

Lift even copies the stupid things from action movies. They do that usual chase scene thing of using the “make go fast” lever/button when it’s dramatically convenient rather than when it would have been best to use it. It feels like the writer took a bunch of modern buzzwords like “NFT” and “hackers”, and then got AI to write the script. It has the “yes they’re thieves, but they’re the good guys” BS that’s prevalent in a lot of similar stories, but they’re not really good. Yeah, they’re stealing art from dickheads, but they’re doing it entirely for selfish reasons. Also, I’m calling BS on the “we’re the best thieves in the world” claim as the police know every single member of the crew. Not just names, but also their roles within the organisation, their addresses, and their contact details.

I’m also not entirely sure WHY it had to be this group of misfits who helped get the MacGuffin back. The movie states “We legally can’t get the gold because the transaction itself is legal”. But Interpol plans on taking the gold once it’s been retrieved. By doing that, they wouldn’t be able to do anything with it EXCEPT return the gold to the first person, who will then just make the deal again.

I don’t know enough about physics to call out the flight scenes as unrealistic, but even I know enough to doubt the scene where one of the planes flies upside down steadily for an extended period of time. I’m guessing there are more instances which will cause people’s heads to explode, but that was the most obvious. I do know enough to know that planes flying over the English Channel don’t tend to need to be wary of mountains. There’s not really an extended mountain range in Folkestone or Margate.

The worst thing for me about those errors is how unnecessary they are. Just don’t mention the mountains, say “high winds”. Make up a different reason for the crew being needed (maybe they used to work for the Big Bad so have inside information etc). Use a heist method which doesn’t involve flying a jet upside down. All of those are easy fixes for unnecessary problems. The fact that these problems are all over the film like Bill Cosby on an unconscious woman raises concerns. Concerns that the scriptwriter either didn’t realise they were problems, didn’t care, or was told to put these problems in by the studio. Neither of these scenarios is good. It just adds up to the feeling that nobody involved in this plane crash of a movie gave a shit about making it the best movie they could. Nobody went in with the intention of bringing 100%, they just did what they were paid to do, and then left. Nobody cared, and that’s evident throughout.

A plane heist is a unique idea, and one that could be interesting to watch unfold. As it is, it’s hard to recommend something as lazy as this. If nobody involved is going to care about a film, then why should the audience? Billy Magnussen is dope as fuck though.

Argylle (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Reclusive writer Elly Conway finds herself in the middle of danger when it turns out her spy novels have started coming true.

Mystery and riddles are always good ways to sell a film. You provide a question, and people will want to answer it. You provide intrigue, and people will want to delve further into it. On the other hand, it can also kill a movie. Jennifers’ Body was marketed to appeal to the type of people the film wasn’t meant for and put off those who would have liked it. Argylle is the latest example of a film completely devalued by its marketing campaign. Firstly, it was built around “Who is Agent Argylle?”. The issue is, the type of people who would be intrigued by that are the kind of people who would use Google (well, duckduckgo as Google is pretty much useless at this point) and social media to work it out. If they did, then they’d have seen that the question was answered in the initial press release for the film back in 2021. The other issue I had with it was the line “From the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn”, it’s a 12A. That pretty much guarantees you’re not going to get the violence that made him famous. So people go into this knowing that they’re going to get a lesser version of what could possibly be made.

There are definitely a few moments where the rating harms the experience. Some of the fight scenes sag when they should soar, the action not being creative enough to make up for the lack of blood. Intense fight scenes are normally the highlight of a Vaughn movie, but with Argylle they’re arguably the worst. There’s a smoke-filled scene near the end which is laughably bad. Nothing about that particular scene works except for possibly the colours. The choreography is poor, everything looks CGI, and the music choice is the wrong one. Note to directors; if you’re looking for an iconic piece of music to score an action scene, a Leona Lewis cover of a Snow Patrol song is never the right choice.

I mentioned the CGI earlier, I have to reiterate that it’s terrible. If someone told me that none of the actors in the film actually met each other and it was all filmed adhering to social distancing regulations, I wouldn’t be surprised.

There are a few things to like about it though. Some of the music choices are fun. It’s a good ensemble cast, and there are some very funny lines. The moments where she’s struggling to write so Henry Cavill’s character keeps restarting the scene are also fun.

But for everything to like about it, there are three things to dislike. There’s a moment in the middle where there is potential for an incredibly tense “she could be killed at any point in this scene” section, instead it’s over far too quickly. That sums up Argylle, great potential, completely wasted. Ironically, completely wasted would be the ideal way to watch this.

The Zone Of Interest (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: In this drama written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, a couple (Rudolf Hoss and Sandra Huller) struggle to raise their children under the pressures of his work, that work? Commandant of a concentration camp.

The Zone Of Interest (Tzoi, pronounced Soy) is an important film. The holocaust is a strange and emotive subject. We are taught a lot about it, and the facts are discussed often in modern society. So, we learn a lot about it, but we don’t learn much FROM it. We don’t discuss how the Nazis used language specifically to dehumanise people so that the treatment of them was deemed more appropriate. If we did learn that lesson, we wouldn’t have politicians describing refugees as “vermin”. We don’t discuss how the citizens of Germany ignored what was going on for their own comfort. If we did, then we wouldn’t be okay with the government essentially making homelessness illegal by arresting anybody sleeping rough in the street. So we do need films like this, even in a time far removed from the events. We need something that shows how to some people it wasn’t a constant threat to their lives, it was just something that happened to other people. To some people involved, it wasn’t the most important part of their lives, it was just something they worked on to get a promotion. TZOI’s focus on the “banality of evil” is both its greatest strength and its biggest flaw. The fact that Glazer focuses so much on the mundane and regularness of the family is fascinating and incredibly harrowing. But lets face it, watching people do nothing for 105 minutes soon does become quite dull, that level of boring mundane stops being fascinating and starts becoming, well, boring and mundane.

A lot goes unsaid and happens in the background. But it could have done a slightly better job of pushing some of that to the front. I’m not asking to make it very obvious, but there are a few moments (particularly at the end) where a bit of clarification would have improved not only the understanding but also helped push through the idea and message that the film was trying to put forward.

Outside of the normality of Nazi life, there’s not really that much to it. It makes its point, and then continues to make that same point, never developing or adding to its themes. Once you’ve watched 5 minutes, really you’ve seen it all. In general, it leaves you with a hollow(caust) feeling, a realisation that this would have been far better as a short.

The worst realisation though? The fact that the people who need to learn the lessons from this is trying to teach, are the EXACT type of people who won’t watch a film like this. It’s essentially preaching to the converted.

It’s a shame, as this is at times fascinating, and depressingly real. It’s shot very realistically. Not like a documentary, with static shots and a set of people well aware they’re being filmed. It’s more like you’re an invisible witness to the goings-on. Sandra Huller continues to be one of those performers I now feel guilty for not paying attention to sooner. Christian Friedel as Rudolf Hoss is a revelation. His non-verbal reactions are key to the horrors TZOI contains. He is helped by the script giving him a lot to work with, there’s a moment near the end where he is so overcome with revulsion over his acts that he tries to vomit, but is unable to. It’s reminiscent of the (incredibly disturbing) documentary The Act Of Killing. There are lots of subtle moments which are equally horrifying (finding body parts in the river his family swim in, the soundtrack of slight screaming), but none have quite as much humanity as that moment does.

I do like how the ending shows that his legacy wasn’t as a great commander, but of the builder of one of the most horrific displays of humanity anybody has ever witnessed. His name is not sung in glorious tones but is instead spat out with disgust and hatred.

Like I said, there’s a lot to, well, not exactly “enjoy”, but appreciate. I just, I kind of wish it had bigger ambitions than “Art Student Film”.

The Beekeeper (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: After his friend Eloise kills herself in shame after being the victim of a phishing scam, Adam Clay goes on a roaring rampage of revenge.

If you like Jason Statham films, you’ll enjoy The Beekeeper. Actually, that’s incorrect, if you LOVE Jason Statham films, you’ll enjoy this. If you’re on the fence about him as a performer, this isn’t going to change your mind. It’s standard Statham-ware (Not Stathamwear of course, which is his fashionline). It’s actually got quite good reviews so far and I have to be honest; I don’t get it. I never really saw it get better than average. Nothing about it is memorable, not in a good way anyway. The action scenes really should be better. There are a few exceptions; the destruction of the call centre early on is deliciously cathartic, but those moments are few and far between. On the plus side, the action scenes are comprehensible, which is more than could be said for a lot of recent action films. Comprehensibility does not mean excitement though, I don’t find Humpty Dumpty exciting, even if I can understand it (it’s about breakfast, right?). As anyone who watched the first Suicide Squad movie can attest, as a director, Ayer knows how to create colourful shots. But he doesn’t know necessarily how to make them exciting. He just seems to think that adding purple neon makes a shot dynamic.

Similar accusations of laziness can be directed at the performances. It’s a weirdly talented cast; Minnie Driver, Phylicia Rashad, and Jeremy Irons. Performers like that should elevate the film and bring it up to a higher level. Instead, it feels like the film is dragging them down. For example, Statham does a weird not quite English/not quite American accent.

In their defence, the script doesn’t really give them much to work with. It’s hard to deliver a good performance when you have to give some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film. Some films improve when you think about them, this actually seems like it gets worse the more you think about it. Not in a “plot holes reveal themselves when you think about them” way, but for the events of this film to happen, certain things must have happened or will happen after the film ends. In this universe, “Beekeepers” is the name of an organisation of highly trained assassins who operate and kill with complete impunity from the law. I’m not quite sure how they’re funded, it possibly mentioned it but I stopped caring. But what makes it weird is the idea that their training library includes not only “How To Sneak Past Things” by “S.Tealth”, and “How To Fight” by “That Guy In The Pub Who Doesn’t Have Training But When He’s In The Zone You Totally Better Watch Out, Bro. fka. Keith”, but also “The Naked Apiarist; Elementry Mistakes In Beekeeping”. Statham’s character really commits to the bit, by actually keeping bees after he retires from the service. Weirdly enough, it’s only his beekeeping that alerts people to the organisation in the first place. If he stopped living the gimmick and started an alpaca farm, then the bad guys wouldn’t have had a clue how to identify him, so they wouldn’t have set so many highly trained killers on him.

I’d also like to see more of what happens after this film. It’s been revealed that the president’s son is behind a multinational operation that scams people’s life savings from them. and used that money to fund the election campaign. How would the world react to that? That’s the most interesting part of the story, and it’s not in the film itself.

In summary, an incredibly frustrating watch. If it was more in-depth and intelligent that would have allowed it to say something important about corruption and election funding. Although, in some ways, if it was trashier, that would improve it too. As it is, it’s stuck in this middle ground between shlock and serious, so just ends up shlerious, which isn’t a word. It does have one huge plus for it though; it genuinely is an incredibly effective way of teaching basic cyber security to those who aren’t that computer literate. Okay, all that lesson is is “don’t give your bank details to a stranger”, but you know, baby steps.

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