Category: Review

X (2022)

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Quick synopsis: A group of people try to film a porn movie at a cabin belonging to an old couple, who strongly oppose the idea and decide to show their thoughts on the matter by writing a strongly worded letter to the local council. No wait, they murder them.

If you are thinking of watching this, go see it at the cinema. Not because it’s particularly great and you need to watch it immediately, but because the title means it’s going to be a bitch to find on a streaming site.

Let’s get one thing out of the way; this is not for everybody. It’s heavily focused on sex and violence, so unless you’re comfortable with both of those things, you won’t like this. It doesn’t shy away from the violence, and it doesn’t shy away from the sex. The whole thing feels slightly grubby, which is something that works in its favour. This isn’t a modern film, it’s a 70’s throwback in terms of style. It does work a lot of the time, and Ti West is a talented enough director that you never forget the time period that it’s set in. Now, as anybody who read my review of Censor knows, I love my throwback films. Especially when it comes to horror. And I don’t shy away from films about sex and killing people (I mean, one of those things is my favourite thing to do on weekends). I also like films about film-making, and am not afraid to see them going weird, as seen in Black Bear). So in some ways, this film was designed for me, yet I’m not that fond of it.

Part of that is because of how it sometimes utilises the throwback style in terms of film-making. The gimmick of “it’s edited like a 70s film” actually kind of gets in the way sometimes. There are far-away shots that don’t really tell us anything, and moments where it cuts to something for a second and then cuts back. It’s jarring, but not in a “horror movie making me feel unsettled” way, but in a way “this was edited manually and they botched it”. So it feels less like a throwback love letter to a genre, and more, just incredibly dated.

My main issue though? The same issue I have with a lot of modern horror films. The same issue I had with The Gallows, Unfriended, Don’t Breathe, Escape Room 2, Fantasy Island: I don’t like the characters. They’re annoying, selfish, not that likeable. So when they die, you’re not sad, or emotionally affected at all. If anything, you’re relieved.

The only slightly sympathetic character is one of the killers. She has a tragic backstory and her motivations do kind of make sense, although it’s never clarified exactly why that drives her to murder. She doesn’t get as much focus as the other characters though. The film spends so much time developing doomed characters, and not the location. At one point one of the characters finds the rotting corpses of a naked man in the basement, and someone else finds (presumably) his car in the lake (in a delightful shout-out to Psycho). Those things are glossed over really quickly. Was that person the only one? Or do they have a long history of this? The film comes close to answering this. One of the characters escaped the couple, and overheard them talking about throwing a body in the river. The actual ending of this is in the trailer, one of the cops finding a camera, “what’s on there?” “probably some fucked up horror movie”, END!

So, is she the reason the police are there? If so, why aren’t they draining the lake? If not, then why are they there? There are no houses nearby for people to have overheard the commotion. Really, they’re there to bookend the story, but it’s done quite poorly. Just full-on ape the ending of Psycho and show the car being retrieved, and then news footage of the discovery of bodies, to let us know this wasn’t a one-time thing, they’ve been doing it for years. I mean, think of the shot that ends From Dusk Till Dawn, where the camera pulls out and you realise the bar is not only built on an Aztec temple, but there are hundreds of vehicles there, all of them belonging to drivers who didn’t survive previous nights there. It’s not talked about often but it’s one of my favourite ending shots because it provides a history to everything, it shows that this has happened a lot before, and we’re just lucky enough to see the ending of a story that’s been being told for years. It hints at hundreds of untold stories just like the one we witnessed, only with unhappier endings. As opposed to this, which ends with nothing of substance.

I think it tried substance, there’s a preacher being shown on the television throughout, and at the end, it’s revealed that the main character is his daughter, who ran away to star in porn. A reveal that changes………..absolutely nothing. It doesn’t change what we think of her, or the situation, or anybody else in the film. It adds absolutely nothing outside of irrelevant backstory. It might as well have ended with “And that house where all the murders happened? It used to be a slave ranch”. It’s like, “yeah, and? Who gives a shit, that’s not relevant. Stop padding your word count”.

None of this takes away from the unarguable talent of everybody involved. Mia Goth continues to usually be the best thing in every film she stars in. Jenna Ortega has a great “final girl” quality (as anybody who watched the new Scream can testify), Martin Henderson has a strange, slightly Matthew McConaughey-esque quality to his performance.

So in summary? Maybe see this, some of you will like this a lot more than I did, and some of you won’t. It just wasn’t for me.

Boiling Point (2021)

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Quick synopsis: Enter the relentless pressure of a restaurant kitchen as a head chef wrangles his team.

As I’ve said before, I am a sucker for a film with a good gimmick, a hook that makes it stand out from the rest. One gimmick I’m always a fan of is one-takes. They’re really hard to do but when they work they’re marvellous. A good one is one where you don’t really notice that much. I’m not saying ones that don’t impress you, but if the camera is just following somebody walking and not showing anything, then the gimmick hurts it. In a great one, things are always happening so you don’t have much dead time.

That’s definitely the case in this, stuff is always happening so you have no moments where you can relax as an audience, it’s just constant tension. It helps that whilst Andy (Stephen Graham’s character) the background characters are all fleshed out so when the camera follows them for a few minutes, it doesn’t feel like a distraction, instead, it feels like it was a live cameraman who just followed what he thought would be the most interesting story. You feel like the characters are constantly doing things off the camera, they’re not just standing still waiting for the story to focus on them again.

It’s a very dynamic movie, but small. It’s all about the dynamics between the characters, between the departments etc. There’s a plot point near the end where things get more serious, but it had to be serious to show how actions have consequences. The film needed something big to happen, and it does. In terms of film, it’s quite small, but if it happened in a restaurant while you were there, you’d consider it a big deal.

I’ve already talked about it from a technical standpoint, but that’s all helped by the performances. There are not many performers I know, but everyone knocks it out of the park. Stephen Graham is the highlight though, is he quietly one of the most talented actors this country has? I can’t see him leading an action movie, but if you need someone to make you FEEL, you wouldn’t go wrong with him. The most talented of the ones I don’t recognise is Vinette Robinson, who has a magnificent screen presence and delivers one of the best pieces of dialogue in the film where she goes on a long rant aimed at one of the front of house staff. It must not have been easy to deliver that as perfectly as she did, and it’s one of the highlights of the film.

Don’t get me wrong though, this is a dark film. There’s a level of ugliness over the whole thing. If I had to sum this up I’d say this film is like heroin. It’s not something you’ll be eager to try, but if you do sample it then you’ll be unable to stop, and it will linger with you long after you finish.

Médecin De Nuit aka The Night Doctor (2020)

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Quick Synopsis: Mikaël (Vincent Macaigne) is a doctor on night call. He looks after patients from underprivileged neighbourhoods, as well as drug addicts. We see his nightly work as he’s torn between his wife and his mistress, and embroiled in trafficking fraudulent prescriptions.

The trailer had me excited. It looked like it was going to be incredibly intense and dark. And while watching it, I was on board. But the longer the film went on, the more my fondness for it dulled. It’s one of those films which you think is really good as you watch it and see it unfold, but after setting up all these narrative dominos, it seems to get bored and wander off, so it just leaves you feeling unsatisfied. It’s a shame as there are some great performances in here, and some incredibly tense moments. But overall a lot of it feels inconsequential.

I know this sounds cheap and goes against my usual “all about the narrative” viewpoint. But this needed a gimmick. Maybe it would have worked if it was done as a one-shot, as that would have shown the chaos he’s going through, and his panicking would have seemed real. But considering how much driving is in this that would have been difficult. The best bet would have been to have it like Locke, all take place in real-time. Most of the conversations with his wife could have been done over the phone. as could his dilemma with the mistress and cousin. It’s hard to love this film knowing that if they did it another way it would have been SOOOO much better. The character in this is supposed to be panicking and feeling trapped, but we never really get that. We never feel much emotion for him and his troubles, we just feel like an observer. It’s not helped by the fact that the longer the film goes on, the less you buy him as a character. He overpowers seasoned drug dealers too easily and at times it feels like self-insert fanfiction. The only person he doesn’t seem to easily physically overpower is his cousin, he goes from “quickly punching people in the face and taking them out ” to “awkward grabbing”.

That moment comes just after he had a fight with notorious drug lord Ossip, who is one of those characters who is supposed to linger over the entire film, but in reality, doesn’t. You don’t feel his presence looming over when he’s not on screen. He’s not built up as a danger. If we saw him executing somebody, then he’d feel more of a threat. As it is you don’t really get that “oh no, he has to do this or that drug lord will harm his family”. The film tries to fix this with the ending, but the way they do it seems cheap and is done purely to get the sympathy of the audience with the main character. That’s the issue the whole film has, by the way, it doesn’t know how to treat the main character. We’re supposed to sympathise with him, but he’s quite unsympathetic. But done in a way that constantly justifies all his bad decisions. It’s like the writers want to create a morally complex character, but want to ensure we still sympathise with him.

The Duke (2020)

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Quick synopsis: In 1961, a 60-year-old taxi driver steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. He sends ransom notes saying that he will return the painting if the government invests more in care for the elderly.

This is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. It’s not going to top any end of year lists, but when it inevitably gets shown on TV over Christmas and you need something to watch with family while eating cheese, you’ll put it on. It’s incredibly inoffensive, but with great dialogue that will make you laugh. The characters are all incredible likeable and charming, and all with regional accents. It’s reassuringly touching and nice, with great performances all around. Really it’s the kind of film you could imagine being remade as a touring musical. It’s really hard to actively dislike.

But on the other hand, it’s hard to love. Yes, you’ll enjoy it. You’ll laugh, you’ll feel things, and it won’t be time wasted. But when you walk past it in a DVD shop, there will be no part of you that considers buying it. Even in a charity shop where it’s on sale for 50p, the option of buying it will not be one that enters your head. In a few years, you won’t remember that much about it outside of basic details.

The performances are all pretty damn good. There’s not really a weak link among them. Even those who are only in a few scenes do it perfectly. Most of the focus has been on Jim Broadbent, but Fionn Whitehead deserves plaudits too. His character could be a slimy pitiful character, but he’s played with so much earnestness and conviction that even he is doing slightly cowardly stuff, you root for him. I’ve seen him in one of the best episodes of Inside No. 9, and if he continues then he has a very bright future.

I’ve been somewhat critical of this film, but here is one thing it does phenomenally, and I can’t really talk about it without spoiling it. I know normally my approach to spoilers is “whatever”, but I do have a consistent logic to it all: if knowing what happens harms the viewing experience significantly, I don’t do it. And knowing the plot points for this will ruin it slightly. For the final third it takes an approach I genuinely didn’t expect. I can’t remember being that genuinely surprised by something I’ve seen in a long time. When it gets to the end of the year I will talk about it specifically, by whilst it’s on at the cinema I will refrain. The adverts did a marvellous job of concealing it.

The Justice Of Bunny King (2021)

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Quick synopsis: A mother of two with a sketchy past earns her keep by washing windows at traffic lights, hoping to earn back the custody of her kids. After promising her daughter a birthday party, she fights the social services and break the rules to keep her word.

I went into this with completely the wrong attitude. I thought it would be more like a feminist buddy road movie. Two women of different generations working together and learning things about life. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll marvel at the power of friendship.

That’s………that’s not what happened. This is bleak. Not in a “everybody is going to die horrifically” way, but in a “you cannot beat the system, it’s rigged against you” way. I haven’t felt this hopeless since The Day Shall Come. Similar to that, you understand every decision the main character makes. You can see her dig herself deeper and deeper. You know she’s making mistakes, and she knows it too. But it’s the only thing she can do. Much like that film, you’re watching it and you can just sense it’s not going to end well. No matter how good your intentions are, there are sometimes when the system fails you. Even if she went 100% through the correct procedures, she would still be waiting months or years to get her children back. When that’s the “right” way, you can understand why she would try another way.

She is frustrated and that is easy to see. You can’t really blame her either. Her husband abused her kids, leaving one of them with permanent injuries, and she killed him in self-defence. Her reward for this method of pest control is to have her kids taken away from her and making her jump through impossible hoops to get them back. It’s strange to know that governments hating women and poor people is a universal construct. She’s punished for keeping in touch with her kids. They actually tell her not to contact her children and if she does it affects her chances of getting them back. So her kids have to feel ignored. One of her kids is severely disabled, and the mother is told to ignore her and never contact her, even on her birthday. How do you think that makes them all feel? That is not the better option, it’s bureaucratic bullshit. The social workers who are supposed to help her aren’t actually helping her. They say they are but it’s all empty platitudes. You can tell this by the fact that they take her kids somewhere and don’t tell her. Leading to this:

“You gave my children away and didn’t tell me”

“I’m sorry you feel like that”.

No, that’s not how she feels, that’s what happened. This is how society works in this world and it’s inhumane. The way they treat the daughter isn’t best for her either. They don’t seem to talk to her directly, they aim questions at other people and get them to answer for her, denying her any agency.

The fact that this film genuinely enraged me is a testament to how believable the writing is. It’s almost perfect, the right mixture of pathos of humour. Crucially, the humour comes from the people, not the situation. There’s no “oh oh, we lost your kids, silly us. Road trip!”, it’s people in despair making jokes to reassure themselves. It’s all very human. The only negative to the script is her decision at the end of holding someone hostage at knifepoint is a bit out of tone for the film. In some ways it makes sense. But it just feels a little bit like they wanted to add unnecessary drama at the end. That section would be great as a whole film though, spread it out to 90 minutes and you’ll have a really intense drama. But for it to come at the end of this particular narrative falls a bit flat.

The performances are great throughout. Essie Davis is almost unrecognisable from her role in The Babadook. Thomasin Mckenzie is completely different from Last Night In Soho. There she seemed like an adult, a naive one, but one you can still imagine pays her bills on time. Here she seems almost childlike and incredibly innocent. She’s not as crucial to the narrative as the pre-release media made me think she’d be, but she is still very good.

So yeah go watch this. Just prepare a nice cup of tea for afterwards to calm down. You’re going to need it.

Death On The Nile (2022)

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Quick summary: There’s a death, on the Nile.

This had all the hallmarks of a bad movie:

  • Is a sequel
  • Heavily delayed
  • Released in February
  • Middling reviews

Let’s face it though, the reviews don’t count, as they didn’t like the first one either, and I loved it. If you enjoyed that, you’ll enjoy this too as it’s just more of the same. Ensemble cast playing suspicious characters locked in a location. It’s not quite as good as the first one though. It has a lot more wasted time. The first murder doesn’t happen for a long time, and a lot of that running time is somewhat wasted. Some of the performances aren’t that great either. I love Gal Gadot, but she gives some frankly abysmal line readings in this. The visuals aren’t as impressive either. There are some BEAUTIFUL shots in this, shots which take your breath away because of how stunning they are. But then there are scenes that seem too green-screened and fake. Plus there’s one piece of music that used silence too often to be effective.

It’s also awkward to watch Armie Hammer on screen, especially playing someone so sexual. You see him basically dry-humping someone, and in your head is the rape and cannibal accusations, which makes the whole thing slightly uncomfortable.

The rest of the cast is great though. There are some you wish had more to do, but everybody is given a chance to shine. Okonedo has the air of a diva, which is at odds with most roles she plays. Russell Brand gives the best performance he’s ever given. Emma Mackey is distractingly like Lucy Hale, but better (and with a better agent). The worst part of the ensemble cast is how they’re introduced, as part of a larger party, but they’re the only ones introduced, alongside an explanation of why they hate the soon to be victim. It’s a really unsubtle way of showing their potential motivations, there really should have been a better way of doing that.

I have been negative about this, but those are the only negative parts of a very positive film. It’s enthralling to watch and the closing section where Poirot gets pissed off and shuts down the boat is superb to watch, and his deduction is so much fun to see, it set the clues up well enough that you could have possibly figured it out before, nothing is worse than a “reveal” that comes completely out of left field with no foreshadowing. Also has genuine emotion, the handy thing about the delayed deaths is that by the time some of them happen, we are connected with those characters so we feel their deaths. The film also manages to avoid the cliche first-person POV shot of the killer attacking people while the victim stands there and screams “oh it’s you” vague stuff, never mentioning the names BS that harms lesser films. We don’t even know about the deaths until Poirot does. Characters are only known to be dead when he sees the body.

So in summary, a lot of fun, and definitely see it. You’ll enjoy it.

Uncharted (2022)

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A treasure hunter (Mark Whalberg) recruits the bartender brother (Tom Holland) of one of his old cohorts to try and find a shitload of goooooooooooooooold.

Movies based on video games have a bad reputation, for a good reason though: most of them are terrible. Even the best have only been “okay”. I’m actually not that familiar with the Uncharted games. By “not too familiar” I mean “I’m aware that they exist, but that’s about it”. For films like this that can sometimes be an advantage, and sometimes a disadvantage. A disadvantage because if the film assumes you know the game, it won’t tell you certain things which mean you’ll be lost. And an advantage because you don’t get annoyed at things like “but his belt buckle is a dark silver in the games, not light grey like in this. They ruined it! That belt is the most important thing ever, and the colour actually matters for reasons I can’t explain beyond crying”

I’ll say outright this is not the best film you’re going to see, but it’s nowhere near the worst. It’s the kind of film you’d rent from a video shop and enjoy, but not quite enough to buy it, and if it’s on ITV on a Sunday afternoon it would be a pretty good option for you. It’s very fun to watch and you’re not going to spend a lot of time looking at your watch or bored. You may spend quite a bit of time saying out loud “well that’s awfully fucking convenient”. The whole thing works on videogame logic in terms of physics, which makes sense considering, well, you know.

One thing this does very well is work for outsiders. Like I said, I know nothing about the game, yet the film made sense. It gave you enough backstory that you knew who the characters were, and what their motivations are. There are probably references etc that I missed, but most of them don’t make you aware they’re references so you don’t feel lost for not getting them, you don’t realise there’s something to get. There’s one exception, after falling from a plane he says what happens to a stranger on a beach, who replies “yeah, that happens to me a lot too”, and the way it’s filmed makes it obvious this is a reference to something, especially when the camera lingers on this random beachgoers face for an unnaturally long time. It turns out he voices Drake in the game, so I don’t object to the cameo itself, but the way they did it was more hamfisted than me when I’m drunk reaching into the fridge for some cold meat to eat.

It’s directed by Ruben Fleischer, who gave us not only the Zombieland films, but also the first Venom. Actually didn’t realise the same guy did those. If you told me that the guy who made Zombieland made this, I wouldn’t believe you. If you told me the guy who made Venom made this, I’d be like “okay that makes sense”. There’s nothing bad about the way this is shot, it has some good visuals and the set pieces are busy but never look fake despite how ludicrous the action in them is. Even when you have someone get run over by a car in mid-air, you never look at it and notice the CGI. But on the other hand, there’s nothing that really wows you. You’re not going to get future directors be influenced by it. It’s a shame as there’s potential for great visuals in here, but it never really gives them to us.

The plot……let’s face it you’re not watching this for the plot. It tries to have one, and it does work. The only issue is a major character dies and it seems to not affect the plot at all. In this world he’s a rich famous person, so you’d think that would be mentioned again. There are so many ways you could have used it to affect the plot, but having it just to be “hey, this person who killed him is bad” seems a massive waste.

In summary: see it, but don’t pay full price, and don’t go on your own.

Looking For Venera (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: Norika Sefa brings us this touching coming-of-age drama about two teenage girls (Kosovare Krasniqi and Rozafa Cefaj) growing up in Kosovo.

The handy thing about watching films from cultures you’re unfamiliar with is seeing how they deal with plots and stories you already know. Everybody knows the standard coming of age tale that takes place between two teenage girls, but we normally see it from an American or British point of view, seeing it from a Kosovan point of view is a fascinating change of pace. This new perspective brings with it new challenges, they’re not worrying about their dad buying them an unfashionable car, or not having a date for prom. They’re worried about shaming their family, and their fathers being angry enough to hit them (which does happen in this film).

This is a world in which equality is a dirty word, especially in regards to gender. Sefa shows this through shooting the main character in semi-close ups, instead of her being the focus of the shot, she’s often just on the edge or slightly out of frame, illustrating her position within the family dynamic (and with 3 or 4 generations of family in the same house, that’s an important dynamic for the characters). As alluded to, there are a lot unconventional shot choices in this. You have close-ups where characters move out of frame, and quite a few shots contain a lot of characters in shadows meaning you can’t see them clearly. It kind of works for this, teenage stories should be slightly ramshackle and unclear, because teenagers are.

It’s not perfect, some people won’t like it, and I’m in no rush to watch it again. But I would recommend you see it at least once, just to experience a new take on an old genre. It’s the new take that causes the cliche to mean something. When they mention the nervousness of talking to a boy, it’s got different energy and subtext than that same conversation would have in an American film.

The true key to this are the performers. Not only are they great individually but you feel a real-life friendship between the two, you can easily imagine them hanging out offset. They have undeniable chemistry which makes this film what it is, and what it is is something quite unique.

Belle (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: An adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, with VR, social media, and kayaks.

I love my local cinema, I really do, I encourage everybody to go see films at the cinema if they can. But they do sometimes annoy me. There have been multiple times where they’ve shown posters and trailers for films they then don’t screen: Popstar, The French Dispatch etc. So I suppose I should be glad that they at least showed this, once, at 7:45 on a weekday.

Now that I’ve seen it, I’m no longer annoyed by this, I’m f*cking pissed. This is astounding, and I hate that I left the cinema, text people how great it was, and yet they are unable to watch it like I did. This deserves to be watched. It’s probably the best film I’ve seen so far this year, not my favourite, but definitely the best. The emotion, the music, the story, the animation, it’s all so wonderful.

It is an adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, but a very loose one. It uses it as a foundation, but then takes it in a new direction. It’s like the original is a stick figure of a person, and this is a Picasso. You can see the similarities, but you wouldn’t recommend it to fans of the original.

You may be forgiven for thinking this goes a bit silly and light. That would be wrong, it goes dark. The revelation that the “beast” is a teenager who’s being beaten by his father, and the moments where he is hunched over and shaking are when he’s protecting his younger brother are heartbreaking. As are when the dad approaches the main character and attacks her in public.

The music is FANTASTIC too, wasn’t in English (obviously) but the melodies are terrific and haunting. There’s a weird ethereal beauty to it, like a fog made of reassurance and kind words. Definitely the best soundtrack of this year, not exactly the kind of songs you’ll listen to on their own individually, but definitely the kind where you’d sit down and listen to the whole soundtrack on your headphones.

The animation? It’s strange, some may hate it, some will love it. There are moments where it’s a bit “off”, but when you remember that those scenes are taking place in a virtual reality world it all makes sense that the buildings would have that weird feeling to them. There are moments where it feels like the backgrounds to some scenes are photos, and it’s certainly an acquired taste, but it’s one I like. The director, Mamuro Hosoda, also directed Wolf Children, and The Girl Who Lept Through Time, both of which have been highly recommended to me by multiple people.

So in summary, you have to see this. It could have been a cliche romance, instead, it’s a heartbreaking tale of online identity, systemic abuse, PTSD, art as therapy, plus it doesn’t end with a romance. There’s no “she loves him” ending, it has a “she loves herself” ending. Much more beautiful. I already know I’m going to buy it, I have to see it again. Have you ever been at a gig and there’s a moment where the singer stops singing, the band stops playing, and people stop cheering? In that moment where the only sound is thousands of people singing in unison? The mass emotion and passion seem to carry everybody today to a better place? Sure, life is shit, but at that moment, everybody belongs, everybody is as one, and it’s glorious. That’s what this film is like. Stunning, beautiful, and an experience you’ll carry with you.

Moonfall (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: The moon is out of orbit and will soon crash into the earth. It’s also not a rock but a spaceship.

This movie is fucking stupid. There’s no denying it. I mean, just look at it, how can this not be incredibly dumb? Luckily it knows how dumb it is and never really tries to be more than that. It’s not aiming to win any awards, which is good as it’s definitely not going to.

It’s also quite fun though. It’s ridiculous, I kind of want to watch this with someone who knows a lot about science, just to hear them get annoyed. There are so many instances where you want to shout out “that’s not how science works!”. But it’s so ridiculous that you just kind of roll with it.

It’s not really a film meant for analysis, which is good because if you do that it is lacking. I don’t mean in terms of intelligence (because that’s obvious), but the story is a bit meh. I’m not asking for fantastic storytelling, but when an entire sub-plot can be excised that says something. There’s a whole section about the guy’s son (along with her daughter and nanny) driving to get somewhere. A complete waste of time, doesn’t influence the plot at all and would not be missed if it wasn’t there. Those two characters aren’t particularly fun to watch either, they’re kind of bland. The only thing it adds is some car chases which the lowered gravity makes a bit more unique. Although those chases only happen because they happen to meet the same bandits 3 times.

It’s also aggressively American. Despite it being possibly the end of the world, we only really see how it affects America. Think back to Independence Day and the sequences of world landmarks being blown up, yes it was cheesy and a bit silly, but it showed that it was a worldwide event. This briefly mentions over countries in passing, but we don’t see it. For some reason, only America is considering how to stop this (although their solution is to nuke the moon, which is actually something they genuinely considered doing in real life, not even lying). It would have been good to see it as a multi-national collaboration, especially since they could cast actors who are unknown in the US but famous in other countries for quick cameos etc just to increase the visibility of the film in those countries.

A big upside is how it looks, it looks incredible. There’s a lot of effects work going on here and it never looks too fake. For some reason, there are conversational scenes that do look fake though. It’s weird, they can do massive grandiose scenes, but then you have two people talking and you can tell it looks like it’s in front of a green scene. How can they mess up something that simple?

So in summary: don’t pay to see this, wait until netflix, then get drunk as hell and watch it.