Category: Review

Creed III (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Adonis Creed retires from the boxing world, and is met by Damian, a childhood friend who has just got out of prison. Damian turns out to be a very good boxer, but also a massive prick.

On balance, I probably prefer the Creed franchise to the Rocky one. The first two Rocky films are great, no doubt about it. But the Creed films have something different to them. I think it’s because there is a real-life undercurrent to the whole thing. The character of Adonis Creed is trying to step out of the legacy of his father Apollo, whilst also wanting to pay respect to him. Similarly, the films want to stand out on their own away from the Rocky films, whilst also paying respect to them.

There was still the worry that this would be the film which lets the Creed franchise down, especially since it was being directed by Michael B. Jordan. He is a FANTASTIC actor, but this is his directorial debut, so there is always the risk that handing the reigns over to someone so inexperienced could backfire, especially when that person is the lead.

Thankfully, turns out that he’s pretty damn good. The first Creed film was notable for how it shot the fights, really making you feel like you were in there with them. This goes in a different direction, especially for the final fight. That scene is already one of the best I’ve seen this year. It doesn’t aim to make the fight realistic but uses more abstract visual language to show how it actually FEELS to be in there. For example, at one point, the crowd disappears and the fight takes place in an empty arena, it really highlights the personal nature of the feud between the two characters. Jordan has said he was heavily inspired by anime when it came to how to shoot the fight scenes, that makes a lot of sense. It’s a bold choice, but it pays off.

Another smart choice is casting Jonathan Majors, who was last seen in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. As daunting a presence as he was in Quantumania, it’s in Creed where he is more imposing. He looks like someone who can punch your head clear off your head, and carries himself as someone who would. It is kind of a weakness of the film that his point is too good. Most people would do what he did in that situation, so it’s hard to not only sympathise with him but to kind of root for him. I’m not asking him to come out and punch a child, but they could have done more to make him more of a villain. Wouldn’t even take something (Jonathan) major, his incarceration was kicked off by Adonis punching someone who abused him at a children’s home. All it would take is for Adonis to find out that Damian planned that person to be there to steal the money Adonis won from betting earlier. Or have Adonis’s mother Mary Anne point out horrible things Damian did to Adonis as a child (stealing his stuff, belittling him, stopping him from entering a boxing tournament, I dunno, something). He is still a prick, and his underhanded tactics in the fight to make you slightly hate him, but Damian is definitely too easy a character to root for.

Michael B Jordan continues to shine as Adonis, but he is slightly overshadowed by not only Jonathan Majors, but also Phylicia Rashad, who provides much of the emotion, kind of like Stallone did in the last one. On that note, I should point out that Stallone is not in Creed III. To be honest, he’s not missed. If Stallone was in this then it would be far too busy. There’s no space for the Rocky character, it also means that Adonis stands out more as a focused character. You’re not sitting there waiting for Rocky to turn up, you might not even notice he’s not there until you think about it.

Onto the downside: the pacing is a little off. It ends brilliantly, but the middle section seems rushed. Damian chases the title for a while, but we don’t get to see him as champion that much. It’s a shame as there is room for an interesting story about how the boxing world views him. We don’t really get how the boxing world reacts to someone winning the title in their first professional fight, and being much older than most professionals. There’s definitely space to tell this story too, it keeps going back to the incident at the grocery store when really we only needed to see it twice, once at the start, and then again later on for clarification with new context. It also wouldn’t be a bad thing for the opening to be a bit quicker. Those are minor issues, and it doesn’t stop Creed III from being a fantastic film, but it does stop it from being among the best I’ve ever seen.

So in summary, definitely go see this. I’m not sure where the franchise can go from here, but at the moment this is a damn fine conclusion to the saga.

Scream VI (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: People from Woodsboro get stabbed, this time in New York

I am a massive fan of the Scream franchise (despite only managing to catch one of them at the cinema), so a new one is always welcome. They don’t just work as slasher horrors, but also as murder mysteries, you watch them and look for clues to work out who the killers is, and why. The duel genre nature of the franchise is one I’ve always been a fan of, so I was looking forward to this. Scream movies have always started well, and have always been unexpected. The first one killed off Drew Barrymore, the third one killed off returning character Cotton Weary, the fourth was….well it was very weird, the fifth one started with the person who was attacked surviving, and this? This started with someone being brutally murdered, and the killer unmasking himself. It’s a shockingly different way to start the film off, and I love it. I’ll say this now, it’s genius. It subverts expectations twice, and both times it blew my mind and got me very excited.

The ending? Not so much. Scream 3 gets a lot of shit for the killer reveal, but it was still a lot better than this. In the third one, there was still some ambiguity about who the killer could be and what their motives were, we were presented with numerous possibilities, but enough clues so that we could possibly figure it out (but maybe not the “why”). Scream VI does the opposite, it’s blindingly obvious who the killers are. When you have a character say they “had” a son, and also have them talk about swearing revenge on those who hurt his family, it’s not difficult to figure out that they’re the killer, and the motive. Related to this, if a character in a slasher movie dies off-screen and you don’t see the body properly, they didn’t die. This is incredibly obvious to everybody who has seen a movie before. It’s an incredibly disappointing reveal, even more so because it starts wonderfully.

The rest of Scream VI is fun to watch, well, as fun as watching people get brutally murdered can be. The kills are disgustingly brutal, it gets really specific with where the knife goes. Someone being stabbed directly in the throat will always be a manner of murder that stands out more than just stabs in the back or chest. That being said, there is a scene where someone gets stabbed in the chest repeatedly and the sheer violence of it is shocking, so there is a way to do something as simple as that in a way that makes it stand out.

Usually, “[killer name] in Big City” is a sign a horror franchise has gone off the rails, second only to “in space” as a sign that the movie is going to be shit. I actually like the way they use the location here. New York is loud, so it is conceivable that somebody can be stabbed in an alleyway and nobody will notice. I will respect this for not doing the obvious scenes in Times Square etc. It is in New York, but it’s not a tour of the landmarks. Instead, it is a way to introduce different horror set pieces, the scene on the subway system is incredible, although it was ruined in the previews (as was the scene in the bodega). There are moments where it does get a bit too “You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!” Spider-Man-like.

The big story leading up to the release was the absence of Neve Campbell, who refused to make an appearance due to Paramount deciding not to pay her enough because they’re bastards. I have to be honest though, I’m not sure what she would have done in this. There’s not really a Sidney Prescott-shaped hole in this story. If there’s a sequel then there will have to be a discussion about bringing her back, but the story they’re telling here? She would have seemed superfluous. They do explain her absence, and it’s a way that makes sense. Without Neve, Scream VI focuses more on the characters introduced in last year’s Scream. The only legacy character to return is Gale Weathers, but Courtney Cox only appears in roughly 4 scenes. Her character seems to have reverted to her Scream 1 persona, in a character development that doesn’t make much sense. Her scenes do feature a nice reference to how she and Ghostface have never really spoken much, but aside from that, Gale’s scenes seem a bit superfluous.

Not quite established enough to be a legacy character, but also returning from this is Hayden Panettiere’s Kirby Reed, who was last seen (and introduced) in Scream 4,or to give it proper (a.k.a, stupid) title: Scre4m (pronounced Screfourm, obviously). It is nice to see her back, not just in this franchise, but in Hollywood in general, with this being Hayden’s first film appearance since Custody in 2016. Kirby’s character arc is a great examination of how characters react to events like this, although I would like to see her explored more in the future.

The rest of the cast is great too, Melissa Barrera keeps her upward trajectory, but I feel this does slightly stall the momentum Jenna Ortega is on from Wednesday. Not due to the quality of the script, but there are moments near the start where her performance seems a little bit weak. Not “OMG this is terrible” level, but it feels like she’s operating at a slightly lower level than everybody else. In a film full of Lennon and McCartney, she’s a George Harrison; still very good, but overshadowed.

So in summary; go see this. It’s very good, although you may get a headache from how many times the “How did they survive that?” alarm in your head goes off.

65 (2023) Review

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Synopsis: Mills (Adam Driver) crashes on earth 65 million years ago and fights dinosaurs.

Oh this is annoying. A title like that, and a film like this, you can almost sense that a review would say “65; a film as dull and unoriginal as the title suggests”, that comment itself would be (ironically) really lazy and predictable. But I can’t think how else to put it. Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs should not be as dull as this. Everything is just incredibly bland and dour. I think the problem is that the premise and the length (93 minutes) would lead you to believe that 65 will be an action-packed thrill-ride, albeit one that is a bit tongue-in-cheek and silly. Instead, the whole thing is far too serious, which feels like a missed opportunity.

That’s actually a good summary: a film of missed opportunities. Throughout, the script makes the wrong choices, goes down the wrong path, eats the wrong berries (I forgot the point I was making). Usually a script is lucky enough that these choices would be placed far apart in a script so that it isn’t too egregious but here it’s unlucky enough that it makes two narrative missteps in the opening.

One: Starting with Mills leaving his family behind so he can take part in a two year expedition. His daughter (Nevine) is sick so he needs to be able to afford healthcare etc. We find out relatively early on that Nevine died midway through Mills’ expedition. That should have been spread out. If we start not knowing this daughter is sick then it can unveil that to the audience through the film, and allow us to mentally go back and use the new knowledge to recontextualise earlier scenes. This doesn’t do that, because it gives us so much, so early on, it kind of feels like there’s no character exploration because we’re told too much early on. It’s the narrative equivalent of not bothering to wrap up Christmas presents. It also means that the film starst off calm and serene, which is the opposite of what you want. If it opened up with the spacecraft crashing then the audience would automatically be on the edge of their seat.

Two: We don’t see anybody else on the ship before it crashes. We aren’t introduced to them, the first time we see them, they’re all dead. This feels like a mistake because it means the audience doesn’t feel anything when they die. If we replaced the opening with a small scene of crew members joking around with each other it would flesh them out, so when everybody dies, the audience would actually feel something. The only other character we see is Koa, and with the exception of her desire to be reunited her parents, the deaths of the crew don’t effect the plot at all. There are no moments where Mills feels particularly haunted by all his colleagues being dead (or walking through their blood, in one of the few effective scenes). So what was the point of it? Why kill off that many people if you’re not going to have it have any baring on the plot?

That’s the other thought 65 provoked in me: Why? There are so many times where I don’t know why the writers made the choices they do. The core one: why is it set 65 million years in the past? Why not just have them as humans in the present day on a distant planet? The fact it’s earth, and in the past, adds NOTHING to the story. The odds that human life would evolve to the EXACT specifications on two different planets is astronomical. Is it just there so they can tie in the giant asteroid that caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event? I think it is. I did think that whole plot made the characters look like idiots. Mills is an experienced spacecraft pilot, so he is aware of what asteroids do. Yet when he spots a giant flaming rock moving gradually closer to earth, he just seems to be like “meh, not my world, not my problem, YOLO”. Both characters are a bit stupid to be honest. Koa traps a small dinosaur in a tunnel and throws a handful of grenades down, one would have done, and the other grenades could have been used for something else. It doesn’t matter in the end, they don’t need the grenades at any point, they were only used in 2 scenes and they didn’t matter. A lot that happens in this doesn’t matter. For example, at one point Mills wakes up and finds that Koa is foaming at the mouth. He opens her mouth and pulls a parasite out, then she recovers. That’s it, from “oh no, this character might die” to “everything’s fine” in less than a minute. The parasite thing isn’t mentioned again, doesn’t threaten the characters again, so ultimately a near-death of a main character means NOTHING. This keeps happening, something seemingly important happens, they get past it, the threat is no longer there. It’s not narrative, it’s video game levels. It might have worked better if the film had more survivors, then we could see them being killed off as the film develops. It would mean the world actually FEELS dangerous, instead of fake danger that we know can’t pierce the characters plot armour.

Of course, this could have been on a different planet with a different asteroid, and nothing would have been different. In fact, it didn’t even need to leave earth. The plot, as it is, would work perfectly fine if it was a character in modern times who is on a ship that lands on a deserted island full of creatures. I mean, that would basically be King Kong, but this is not a film aiming for originality anyway so fuck it.

So in summary; a film clearly aiming for spectacle, but instead ends up being utterly forgettable. Far too many pointless scenes adding up to a pointless movie. It also has possibly the worst title of the year in terms of making it easy to find in a few years time.

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: It’s a Marvel movie, you know what the plot is.

M.O.D.O.K looks fucking stupid. Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way before I start this.

*gathers notes and restarts*

Since Endgame, it feels like the MCU has been stagnating slightly. It’s doing the cinematic equivalent of setting up a lot of dominos, which will hopefully all tie together wonderfully, but at the moment it’s kind of uninteresting. Quantumania looks like it may end that, the next stage is set up so heavily that it needs to start being acknowledged soon.

First off, yes, this film has flaws. The visuals are a bit inconsistent. It’s both beautiful yet ugly, technically astounding yet a cheap mess. Everything looks green-screened, and the Quantum Realm itself is a bit bland. It’s a shame as there are moments where it is glorious to watch, where you truly get a sense of scale and wonder. But for the majority of it, it’s kind of bland. There was a chance to fill this world with colour, so that every scene pops off the screen, as it is, it’s just there. I mean, it’s still impressive that it was all created, but it still doesn’t look like a $200million budget film.

There was some controversy before Quantumania was released due to the recasting of Cassie Lang. Nobody was assuming that Abby Ryder Forston was going to come back due to being too young, but there was an assumption that Emma Fuhrmann would. I don’t know why they cast someone in Endgame when they were planning to look to recast if Cassie Lang came back. Secretly, I’m glad they did, Kathryn Newton is one of my favourite performers around at the moment, and she is a REALLY good Cassie. So yeah, I get why, and she is the better choice, I just, I think it’s a shitty thing to do to recast like that.

In terms of the other performers, the main issue is that Bill Murray feels wasted. I don’t want him as a main character, but having him in it then doing what they do with him feels like such a weird casting decision.

There are some people annoyed that Michael Pena didn’t come back. Luis was one of the most popular characters in both Ant-Man, and Ant-Man and The Wasp, with his rapid-fire delivery and vocal style of summing up events being a highlight. Truth be told, there wasn’t really a way for Luis to fit into this. If they did, then Luis would have felt unnaturally shoe-horned in and would have been weird. Part of this is because Quantumania does SUCH a good job in terms of pacing. Sometimes you can be waiting around for a lot of the running time waiting for the story to kick off, but it happens here incredibly quickly. Same with the way it ends. It doesn’t linger long after the story is resolved, they resolve the story, give a quick coda, then end it.

There is no Luis, but there is Kang (weak segue, I know), and Kang is a fantastic villain. Part of that is due to Jonathan Majors, he CRUSHES it. Josh Brolin was fantastic as Thanos, there’s no doubting that. But if they let Majors do what he is capable of doing, Kang could end up being better. Majors has such a screen presence, especially physically. He is a hell of an actor for the MCU to have going forward, and the concept of different multiverse versions of him is incredibly exciting when you think of the potential for Majors to show what he can do.

Now onto the big issue I have: M.O.D.O.K. I’ll admit, I’m not that familiar with M.O.D.O.K as a character, but I assume we’re supposed to take him somewhat seriously? It doesn’t help that when I look at M.O.D.O.K I don’t see a “Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing”, I see Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It doesn’t help that the CGI is awful and just looks ridiculous. To be fair, I don’t think there is a way to make a giant human head look threatening, so there’s not much they could have done to help that. Well, they could have just kept the fucking mask on and NOT SHOW THE ACTUAL FACE. Do the reveal through dialogue instead of unmasking. That would then make it seem like the face has been disfigured, and let the audience wonder how badly it has been ruined by what it’s been through.

Overall, Quantumania is a bit like the last few Marvel films; entertaining enough, but won’t change your mind on the genre. On the plus side, you don’t need to have watched all the TV shows for the film to make sense, although Loki will need to be watched to understand the post-credits scene.

The Whale (2022)

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Quick synopsis: Charlie, a reclusive obese English teacher wants to reconnect with his teenage daughter for a last chance at redemption.

There have been some negative reactions to this film, so I’ll address them first. The portrayal of an obese character has caused some issues, with some describing it as dehumanising. The director, Darren Aronofsky has defended his work, saying that when obese characters are portrayed in media, it’s normally as a joke. We’re encouraged to laugh at them, to mock them. I’ll give him credit, this doesn’t do that. We’re not supposed to laugh at Brendan Fraser’s character, which is a nice change. The trouble is, instead of laughing, it does kind of feel like the film wants us to be utterly disgusted by him instead. Is revulsion better than laughter? Maybe it just wasn’t the right film for Aronofsky to make, he has a habit of making things ugly, and for a film like this it is a bit uncomfortable. Especially when he plays music that’s akin to a horror soundtrack when Charlie stands up. He also makes sure to add lots of sound effects when he eats, making it seem as gross an act as possible. It may be eye-opening towards the subtle abuse that people go through, but it sure as hell is not shown through a sympathetic lens.

It’s a shame about the tone as otherwise, it is a fine movie. The performances are great all the way through. Fraser has been getting a lot of plaudits, and rightfully so, his performance is heartbreaking. He gives the character so much sadness and despair just with everyday life. Sadie Sink is an odd case as I’m not sure whether her performance was inconsistent, or her character was. Still, she’s a teenager so inconsistency is to be expected. The best part of Sadie Sink is her physical resemblance to the actress who plays her mother. Throughout I thought the mother would go unseen, but there was a small part of me thinking “this girl looks a lot like Samantha Morton”. So the fact that Morton then appears as the mother is something I certainly appreciated, although I can never get past how much she looks like one of my friends.

Personally, I think Hong Chau is the real star of the show, mainly because she’s the only character who seems real. Everybody else feels slightly overwritten and like characters in a film. Her character is played off completely straight, with no stereotypical manners or behaviour. She’s the smallest physical presence but has the largest screen presence. The discrepancy between her performance and the quality of the film is nowhere near as big as it was in Downsizing, and I hope she now gets the attention she deserves.

Here’s the thing, I know this is a good film. I know everybody involved is brilliant and is hard to criticise. But it’s just such a difficult film to actually enjoy. And the characters are so cruel to each other at times that it’s hard to take much enjoyment in the darkness. It’s just not something I will ever want to watch again. If it resented its main character less then it would be more tolerable, as it is, it’s the equivalent of a 20-minute prog rock song that lacks a killer hook. The hook/fish/whale thing was inadvertent, but f*ck it, make your own joke involving it.

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Detective Augustus Landor investigates a series of grisly murders with the help of a young Edgar Allan Poe

I suppose it had to happen. I’ve had a run of really good films so far, with every single one worth watching again. So I suppose it’s inevitable that eventually I’d get a film I didn’t like in 2023. It’s a shame, but this is probably the longest I’ve been into a year before that happened. Also, the first Netflix film I watched this year which just goes to show something, I’m not sure what, though.

So why doesn’t this work? It should, it has a really stacked cast. Look at the names involved: Christian Bale, Toby Jones, Timothy Spall. What connects those names? All British. The film location? 1830’s New York. Which (and I’ve checked a map), is not Britain. I get sometimes actors play different nationalities, and it’s usually not a big deal. But for this many members of the cast to not be American feels a bit weird. This could have been a great showcase for young American talent. The biggest non-British performer is Gillian Anderson, and she’s almost British as she’s spent large portions of her life here. Just to check, America still has actors, right? Or are they just depending on comedians now?

At times it’s beautiful. The location lends itself well to stylistic shots of landscapes, and it suits a story like this. The director, Scott Cooper, also directed Antlers, which you may remember I was not a fan of. And if you don’t remember, here’s the link anyway, warning, I do go off on a weird tangent for……well pretty much all of it.

The other issue? It’s hard to get through. Not because of content or strangeness, but because at times it is painfully dull. Ultimately, it comes down a poor script. It doesn’t know what kind of film it wants to be. Does it want to be a gothic horror? A murder mystery? The most annoying thing about the script is how much it fumbles what should be the highlight. The reveal of the murderer towards the end. One, the things that needed to happen are a little hard to believe. There are so many coincidences and weird character decisions. The scene showing the reveal isn’t even exciting. It tells you who the murderer is, then explains the motives, then shows you the murders in flashbacks. We didn’t need a scene of them killing people or approaching them, we know it happened, and we gain nothing from a barely lit shot of someone punching someone and shouting “who else was there?” at someone.

It’s a shame as I really wanted to enjoy this, I was hoping the Poe thing would give the film a sense of intelligence and darkness, as it is, you could replace Poe with anybody and it wouldn’t change the plot much at all.

Missing (2023)

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Quick Synopsis: June is a teenage girl whose mother disappears whilst on vacation. Using technology and long-distance phone calls, she attempts to solve the mystery of her mothers’ disappearance in this screen life thriller.

This film genuinely annoys me. The fact it exists annoys me. The concept annoys me. More importantly, the script, and general quality of the film annoys me. I should not pretty much have a winner for “Best film of 2023” this fucking early.

It’s supposed to be “I see a pretty good film early on in the year, stuff I love but I am aware isn’t going to be among the best I see”, and then halfway through the year the genuine best movies start to come out. This has ruined that. It’s going to take something special to beat this. Everything about it works. It’s technically a sequel to Searching, which is one of my favourite films of all time. It takes place in the same universe and uses the same gimmick of everything happening on a computer screen. It’s a divisive gimmick, and one not everybody will like as it can make it hard to focus, you have to pretty much pay attention to everything that happens. Before I saw this I was wondering whether it would be as good as the first one, unsure if that was even possible. I once did an at-home double bill of Knives Out and Searching, and just like Glass Onion easily matches Knives Out, this matches Searching.

The performances are all on-point. Storm Reid lives up to the brief flashes of potential she showed in The Invisible Man. She’s 19 years old and this is a lot of responsibility to place on the shoulders of a performer so young. She manages it. Every part of her performance showcases a young woman who is unsure of herself, full of regrets and worry, but full of determination. You can easily believe that she will do everything she can to figure out the mystery of her mother’s disappearance, but also that the decisions she makes will not always be the right ones as she’ll run headfirst into them without considering the consequences.

The supporting cast is great too, but obviously not given anywhere near as much to do. Ken Leung balances the tightrope between sinister and lovable which is necessary for his character to work. Joaquim de Almeida isn’t in it much but does what he needs to wonderfully.

Now onto the script. It’s brilliant. It has characters say enough things out loud so that you are sure of what’s going on, but leaves enough unsaid that you can be thinking of it 2 days later and have a sudden realisation of why something happened/somebody said a certain thing. The downside is that there wasn’t really a way for you to figure out the mystery yourself. I don’t think anybody can watch the first twenty minutes and figure it out. This means you miss out on the “ohhhhh, it’s so obvious now, how could I not have seen that? I am such a fool”. The reveal still works though and adds a lot of context to previous scenes and conversations. Some will require a rewatch but it does replay some of the conversations from the opening again, and I’m actually glad it does that. I’m normally not a fan of films repeating themselves, saying the same stuff again, or repetition. The lines they chose to replay are important though, and the context is SOOOO different when you hear them again. There’s another advantage too, and I can’t say with confidence that it was intentional but there’s every chance it could have been. The clips they replay are from the opening, and they’re shown again just after a character has had a huge revelation. So it’s almost like things are starting anew, the old story of this person is dead, and a new one awakens.

So in summary, go see this when you can, I saw it last week (thank you Cineworld previews), and can confidently say I’m going to watch it again.

A Man Called Otto (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Tom Hanks plays Otto the grouchy man who gets new neighbours who predictably warm his heart (not over an open fire, that would be weird) in this English-language adaptation of the Swedish book “A Man Called Ove”

Some films aren’t for everybody, and that’s okay. They’re too niche, too dark, or just too damn weird for mass audiences to enjoy. This isn’t one of those films, this is the opposite, and this is aimed at almost everybody. It’s a simple story, slickly told, and with one or two swears, but nothing too unpleasant. It even stars the perennial “oh I like him, he is good isn’t he?” everyman Tom Hanks.
That’s probably my biggest issue. I like Tom Hanks, he is obviously very good (and I’m sure that he celebrated actor with multiple awards, appreciates being reassured by a reviewer who is, let’s face it, a nobody), and he is likeable; that’s the problem. Otto is supposed to be a cantankerous grouch, a man who is angry at the world and expresses it through snark. He’s supposed to be someone you genuinely don’t want to spend a minute near in case his abrasiveness washes off on you. It doesn’t work if he’s played by Tom Hanks, he’s just too charming an actor to pull off this character. You spend the entire time knowing he’ll eventually turn good, and you’re just waiting for it to happen. If he was played by someone who generally plays quite villainous or menacing roles then it might have worked better. James Gandolfini would have been perfect if he wasn’t dead (which usually harms career prospects for everybody who is not 2Pac).

The upside of casting Hanks is that more people are likely to see it, which is a good thing as this is something that deserves to be seen. It’s not going to be something you remember for years and years, but it is good enough that six or seven years down the line, you’ll be browsing ParaHulCockFlix and see it, and think “yeah, I remember liking that, let’s watch it”.

Quick note, that was supposed to be an amalgamation of Paramount+, Hulu, Peacock, and Netflix, the fact it nearly says “huge cock flicks” is a genuine accident, but one I’m not changing.

The other positive of casting Tom Hanks is it means his son can play the younger version of him. No, not crazy Colin, but Truman, who doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. He’s a better actor than his experience would suggest, which is good as any flaws will bring up accusations of nepotism. He more than earns his place in this film, providing the character with youthful hope and warmth which means the turning point when he loses everything is all the more heartbreaking.

The rest of the cast is good too, the kids aren’t annoying, and Mariana Treviño provides her character with enough passion and life that she doesn’t seem pushy and annoying.

Everybody involved in this is obviously very good, and nobody is slacking. So why is this only “very good” and not amazing? There’s the aforementioned “Hanks is too nice” issue, but it does also occasionally come off a bit too “all young people are useless, old people are amazing and know everything”. It’s so boomer and “old man yells at cloud” that the fact the character’s reaction to someone being trans is “your father kicked you out because of that? Then he’s an idiot”, it is weirdly affirming that a character who is supposed to be mean and hate people, is still pro-trans rights. So if you’re anti-them, then you’re not only an idiot but also a special kind of hateful. He’s completely serious too, no “JK”.

My other issue is how the film opens, it shows him buying rope to make a noose at a hardware store. But he doesn’t attempt suicide until about 15 minutes later, with quite a few scenes and characters in between. If the failed suicide was earlier, then it would have flowed a bit better.

So in summary, you should see this, it’s very fun, and at times very sad. Also, it made me want to see the original adaptation (available on Mubi) plus read the book (available in bookstores, obviously)

M3gan (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Remember the 2019 Child’s Play? It’s that. Only with a younger child, less snark, and more orphans.

I’ll get the obvious out of the way, you don’t need to have seen M1gan, or M2gan for this film to make sense, mainly because those films don’t exist on account of M1gan sounding less like a horror film, and more like a documentary about the motorway connecting London and Leeds. I would not have made them the first movies I see in 2023, that would be weird.

This was actually the first film I saw in cinemas this year, and I don’t regret that choice at all. It’s a fun watch. It’s not likely to end up among the best films seen this year, but it is likely to be among the ones I had the most fun watching. This is my type of horror film; funny, violent, and well-made. That’s not to say it’s disposable, I think the idea of a horror film coasting by just on the kills are long-gone, they need to justify themselves to still work. This does that, it’s made with a lot of care and really feels like a passion project.

Some people may find it a bit too reminiscent of the last Child’s Play film, but I actually enjoyed that so it’s not exactly a downside, after all, even if you eat chocolate ice cream on a Monday, you’re not going to say no to chocolate ice cream on a Tuesday. Sometimes it’s okay to do the expected. There’s not much about this that’s necessarily groundbreaking or new, it’s not reinventing the wheel. It knows you know what’s going to happen, but it’s done so skillfully that that actually works in the movie’s favour. A good example of this is a scene where a technician is attempting to fix M3gan. Everybody in the audience knows that she’s going to reboot and attack him. But the key is when is it going to happen? It’s like watching someone play Jenga, every block removed causing a sigh of relief when the tower doesn’t fall, and the longer it doesn’t fall the tenser it gets as you know it’s building to the inevitable conclusion. Only, Jenga doesn’t cause as much blood usually (I’m aware there are exceptions).

So that’s the film itself, now onto the pieces that make it up. This is only the second feature directed by Gerard Johnstone, and that’s baffling. It feels like the work of an experienced hand, the way he balances horror and humour is a good sign for his future prospects. If he sticks with M3gan, he could helm a killer franchise, which the genre surely needs as there doesn’t seem to have been many in the last few years.

Oh, to answer the question; Get Out. That’s where you know lead actress Allison Williams from. Or possibly HBO’s Girls. I was trying to figure out where I knew her from the whole time. She’s well-cast in this, her slightly detached closeness makes sense. There are a few scenes where you feel she could do more, but there’s never a scene where it feels like she needs to. Violet McGraw does a pretty damn good job as Cady (the young child that befriends M3gan). I wouldn’t be surprised if she grows into a great talent over the next few decades. She has a really difficult role in this actually, a child who has lost her parents and is searching for emotional reassurance without being able to say that out loud because she’s too young to fully understand that’s what she needs. The worry when she approaches the android is understandable, as is the joy when they start emotionally connecting.

Now, M3gan herself. Usually, a character like that is either CGI or puppetry/robotics. Here she’s played by Amie Donald, a child actress from New Zealand. Her physical commitment to the role is impressive, moving in a way that even the silhouette provides an uncanny valley experience. If she moved naturally the character would be laughable, it’s the strange stiffness that reminds you that the character isn’t human, and then she rips a kid’s ear off easily and that confirms it.

That scene is very disturbing by the way, and if it wasn’t for the strange dance M3gan does that’s gone viral, I feel the child murder would be the iconic scene. It’s a good murder, and the motives for it make sense. Not only was the child threatening Cady, but he also pretty much tried to rape M3gan. I mean, he removes some of her clothing, strikes her in the face, and straddles her. He had no idea she was a sentient robot, he just thought he was fucking a toy. That’s still not great, is it?

Sadly, like all movies of this ilk, there is the inevitable sequel hook. It’s not as egregious as they usually are though, so that’s a plus. There is a self-contained story here, so any sequels will be nice addendums, rather than necessities. Plus, I wouldn’t actually mind seeing a sequel, if it was done right. If it’s just another “oh no, killer toy robot” then I wouldn’t be too excited. But a sequel that examined the effect these murders had on the survivors, the town, and the toy company itself trying to handle a PR nightmare that can’t be ignored? I’m down for that.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

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Quick synopsis: Tech billionaire Miles Bron invites his friends for a getaway on his private Greek island. When someone turns up dead, Detective Benoit Blanc is put on the case.

I’m a massive fan of Knives Out, it was my favourite film of 2019, by quite a long way. So I had high hopes for this. It did receive a small cinema release, and I was hoping it would be showing at my local. Sadly, that was not the case. It’s a shame as I don’t just want to watch this, I want to be in the room as others are watching. I want to hear reactions to this. This is a film that inspires reaction. The twists and turns, the dialogue, the revelations, they’re made to get audible reactions from the audience. This definitely has an audience too, and the film knows this. It knows people are going into it with certain expectations, and it plays on that. It does have to be commended for the fact that watching the first one isn’t necessary. That’s kind of the case for some other films as well, but they are not as stand-alone as these are. It’s refreshing that as more Benoit Blanc films get made, people will be able to watch them in any order and not feel lost.

One thing you do get from having previously watched the first one is a slight expectation of what you’re going to get: a murder mystery with an ensemble cast which will amaze you. That’s definitely the case here. The cast here easily matches the cast of the first one in terms of known names and new performers, with not a single weak link. This also has some good cameos; the first one only really had Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a detective in a TV show, this one not only has Gordon-Levitt (this time credited as Hourly Dong), but also Hugh Grant and Ethan Hawke in quick scenes (Hawke’s in particular is a real “Blink and you’ll miss it”). The solid reputation of the first one allowed Johnson to land some names to play themselves: Yo-Yo Ma and Serena Williams are probably the biggest, (the fact that they don’t signpost who Yo-Yo Ma is is pretty clever too, he just appears, gives an answer to a puzzle without introducing himself, then leaves). Sadly it also has Stephen Sondheim and Angela Lansbury, who passed away before the film was released. Lansbury is particularly heartbreaking because there’s so much potential in a universe where Lansbury is friends with a well-known private investigator.

The main cast we do have is superb, everybody is great. Kate Hudson is barely recognisable as fashion designer Birdie Jay, it would be nice if Leslie Odom Jr was given more to do but in a stacked story like this, it’s inevitable that some will feel shortchanged. Jackie Hoffman is only in one scene but absolutely steals it. The real star of the show is Janelle Monae. I’m more familiar with her as a musician (Screwed is an AMAZING song), I have seen her in a few things (Moonlight, Hidden Figures, and the rather disappointing Antebellum). She’s given a lot more to do in this than she has previously, and pulls it off wonderfully. Edward Norton is wonderfully annoying, and you can tell he was having a blast making this. Daniel Craig’s accent is still a bit strange. But he’s committed to it now so I suppose it’s worth it to get more of these films.

The story is so damn fun. After a run of “the plot is pretty basic” films, it’s nice to have something like this. Something with genuine surprises that make you pay attention.

Unless you’re cuntservative columnist Ben Shapiro, then you criticise a murder mystery film for daring to mislead the audience, like a fucking moron. With the exception of him, reaction to this has been mostly positive, with a lot of people saying it might be better than the first one. I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but it’s definitely closer than most sequels to matching the quality of the original. Once more time has passed I think I may end up preferring this one, it had better dialogue, a more unique look, and is a lot more fun. Well worth a watch, I couldn’t think of a better way to end 2022.