2024 In Film: Day Three (The Too Flawed)

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Films which I could easily see myself liking, but have (at least) one major flaw that stops me from doing so.

Argylle
Ups: Some funny moments.
Good ensemble cast.
Some good twists.
Downs: The central mystery isn’t that compelling.
Bad CGI.
Feels severely neutered by its rating.
Best Performer: Henry Cavill
Best Moment: When we find out who her “dad” is, it has the potential for an incredibly tense section (which it then doesn’t live up to).
Worst Moment: The smoke-filled action scene. Possibly the oil-skating too.
Opening: Elly has writer’s block. We also see a scene from the Argylle books. I think it’s supposed to be shocking that it’s not real, but we already knew from the trailer.
Closing: A random Henry Cavill appears. The audience asks questions, which will go unanswered unless there’s a sequel.
Best Line: The greater the spy, the bigger the lie.
Original review here

Dear Santa
Ups: Cate Freedman is fun.
Better than Borderlands.
Good idea.
Downs: Never moves past that idea.
Inconsistency in terms of intended audience.
No heart.
Best Performer: Cate Freedman, she’s only in it briefly, but I love her.
Best Moment: “Santa” first meeting Liam.
Worst Moment: The concert. One of many moments where it feels like a scene from a kids movie placed in middle of a more mature one.
Opening: Christmas music, Christmas decorations on a house. This sets the tone VERY quickly. The song then distorts over a shot of a less decorated house. There are some very passive-aggressive arguments from the parents.
Closing: His final wish becomes true. Very sweet but it doesn’t show how it was explained in this universe.
Best Line: “You’re Santa? I thought you’d be jolly”
“Who’s jolly nowadays?”
“Fair point”
Original review here

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
Ups: The titans themselves look great.
Some decent performances.
Funny.
Downs: It’s difficult to work out how big they are supposed to be.
Assumes you can remember more about the previous films than you actually can.
Doesn’t show enough of the human cost.
Best Performer: The little kid.
Best Moment: The Egypt fight.
Worst Moment: The final fight. All the issues the film has combined into one; buildings get damaged but almost silently so it feels like nobody was in them and nobody was injured. It’s over too quickly.
Opening: Kong is now old. Shows us this rather than telling us, displaying how he’s old, he’s tired, and he’s hunting f*cking children. Also shows off his immense strength.
Closing: Kong goes back to earth, and Godzilla has a little nap in the Colosseum.
Best Line: I’m scared something is wrong with me
Original review here

I.S.S
Ups: Good zero gravity effects.
Nice look at how people become pawns in government warfare.
Downs: No emotional resonance.
Forgettable
Best Performer: Ariana DeBose
Best Moment: The first nuclear explosions.
Worst Moment: The death of Weronika feels overly contrived.
Opening: Two astronauts meet up with the rest on the ISS. Makes sense as a way of introducing everybody, but kind of means that the bond between the group isn’t there, so the paranoia isn’t as effective.
Closing: Plummet to earth. With no idea of what awaits them.
Best Line: “If WE got orders from our government to take control…..”
Original review here

Lisa Frankenstein
Ups: Kathryn Newton’s wardrobe is on point.
Some really good visuals.
Sweet
Downs: Too Cody script.
The penis reveal comes too late
Best Performer: Kathryn Newton
Best Moment: The REO Speedwagon song.
Worst Moment: The axe-throwing murder feels too slow.
Opening: Black and white opening credits which reminded me of Lotte Reiniger.
Closing: Kathryn Newton’s character dies, but then gets better.
Best Line: “When I said I wanted to be with you I meant in the ground dead because people are jerk offs”
Original review here

Mean Girls
Ups: Some good moments when it gets meta.
It’s always nice to see Tina Fey on screen.
Downs: The songs aren’t that memorable.
Doesn’t justify its existence.
Seems to be aimed more at Plastics than at Cadys.
Best Performer: Auliʻi Cravalho
Best Moment: Revenge Party.
Worst Moment: All the moments where they overly sexualise child characters.
Opening: A song recorded on a phone. The transition from mobile to wide-screen was nicely done, but in my opinion, a musical has to start BIG. This starts in the smallest possible way, with a song on a mobile phone, and then the main character isolated in the wilderness.
Closing: An overly emotional song. Then a party montage that for some reason lacks fun.
Best Line: “I’m sorry I said you were dragging during revenge party, we just needed to move the story along”
Original review here

Red One
Ups: Incorporates Christmas myths and legends in an interesting way.
Funny.
Always nice to see Bonnie Hunt.
Downs: Tonally inconsistent.
Chris Evans is miscast.
Suicidally bad release date.
Best Performer: Kiernan Shipka. Does a good job of seeming very old whilst being young.
Best Moment: Krampusscchlap
Worst Moment: Nick Kroll possession. Very difficult to take seriously.
Opening: Santa’s bodyguard has become disillusioned with Christmas. Probably because he saw Mrs. Browns Boys had been scheduled again.
Closing: Callum doesn’t retire, having had his Christmas spirit/desire for a franchise returned.
Best Line: We know that somewhere inside every lost grown-up is the kid they once were. Our gift is that we can see that even when they can’t.
Original review here

The Whip
Ups: Important.
Fun lines.
Hopeful.
Downs: Visually, it has ambitions above its budget at times.
It is weird how the only character with a disability is in a small handful of scenes
Features one of the worst performances of the year. We’re talking “early years in low-budget porn” bad. I mentioned this to the only other person I know who has seen this, and they instantly knew which person I meant.
Best Performer: Shian Denovan
Best Moment: The “Gathering The Team” section. It’s difficult to watch that and NOT feel like you want to fuck shit up.
Worst Moment: When the plan is discussed on the bridge. Mainly because it’s weirdly staged. The next scene takes place on a bench nearby, and I feel that bench would have made a better setting than the awkward walk and talk.
Opening: The plan works, the country is in chaos. The story actually continues over the credits though, being told by newspaper headlines whilst the credits are going on (the actors are shown alongside their picture on front page of newspapers, and then smaller headlines link at the chaos). Fucking genius.
Closing: Newsposition. Done in a way that actually makes sense. Also, I love the opening credits for this. They’re written down in a notepad before appearing on screen.
Best Line: Of course they didn’t get it (the governments message), they’re not supposed to get it, if they got it they’d be furious
Original review here

Unfrosted
Ups: Funny.
Never boring.
Downs: Jerry Seinfeld can’t act.
A bit TOO silly at times.
Comedic actors aren’t used to their strengths.
Best Performer: Hugh Grant.
Best Moment: The market research with the two kids.
Worst Moment: The closing credits. Mainly because the song they chose sounds like a royalty free song so it makes it feel low budget.
Opening: A little kid orders some pop tarts at a cafe “leave the box” and sits next to the creator of Pop-Tarts, who insists on telling him the story. Funny, and sets up that this isn’t a film that takes itself seriously.
Closing: Standard “where are they now” closing.
Best Line: “Isn’t this a cereal company? Why did my husband explode?”
Original review here

2024 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

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Films which are very bad, but at least have one thing I like about them

AfrAId
Ups: REALLY good soundtrack.
Downs: Loses faith in its own story.
Best Performer: Katherine Waterston
Best Moment: The enforced car crash. It killed a creepy sex pest, so yay.
Worst Moment: There’s a REALLY bad edit where it cuts straight from characters driving to them parked up and one of them exiting the car.
Opening: An AI poem. It’s weirdly haunting and beautiful. Then some music that reminded me of Portal. Overall, it was a much stronger start than I thought it would have. Yes, the characters are there just as fodder, but the opening actually references them as missing people, continuity!
Closing: The family decide to treat the AI like my family treats me: they don’t like it but they’ll just live with it for now.
Best Line: I’ve seen a lot in my life. They didnt’ even have ipads when I was born.
Original review here

Garfield
Ups: One or two funny moments.
The animation of the humans looks good.
Some cute small references.
Downs: Have the writers ever read a Garfield strip?
Best Performer: Brett Goldstein
Best Moment: The acorn-as-phone.
Worst Moment: The train fight/rescue.
Opening: A funky happy song. Because when you think “Garfield” you think happy and funky.
Closing: A hostage swap
Best Line: “I really hope this works otherwise she’ll put us down; with her words and cutting insults”.
Original review here

Imaginary
Ups: Some half-decent moments of tension.
Good idea.
Downs: It feels like a tribute act to better horror movies.
Nothing stands out.
Best Performer: Pyper Braun
Best Moment: The bit where they first enter the Never Ever is pretty cool and inventive. Reminded me of Among The Sleep
Worst Moment: To open the door the characters need to feel pain. Physical pain isn’t enough so one of the characters engages in a brutal speech to her stepdaughter. It’s not brutal enough. Harsher sentences are said throughout.
Opening: Woman being stalked through a house at night by a standard evil thing. It’s well made, it’s just not really anything we haven’t seen before. The opening credits are much better though. A bunch of family home movies. It’s so sweet and really plays up the idea of a family unit. THAT gives us a much better idea of tone than the actual scene with dialogue did.
Closing: Sequel bait. Eugh.
Best Line: “So your imaginary friend was a terrorist?”
Original review here

Joker: Folie A Deux
Ups: Some beautiful shots.
Good performances.
Important/interesting themes.
Downs: Those themes are VERY badly explored.
Boring.
Too bleak, stopped caring.
Wastes a lot of good ideas.
Doesn’t explore the world as much as it should.
Best Performer: Lady GaGa
Best Moment: The weird brightly coloured 60’s TV-inspired song/dream sequence.
Worst Moment: The implied prison rape.
Opening: An animated segment. Makes sense, and plays into the theme of being destroyed by your shadow. But doesn’t suit the films tone.
Closing: He dies. So the two films called “Joker” weren’t actually about the Joker.
Best Line: I couldn’t go back to work. I still can’t sleep and I’m scared all the time. I never used to be scared. I’m scared right now, here. With you in front of me. I couldn’t do anything that day. I felt so small. I was reminded how powerless I really am.
Original review here

Kraven The Hunter
Ups: Bloody.
Some fairly decent fight scenes.
Downs: Boring soundtrack.
Inconsistent accents.
Bad CGI
Badly written script.
Disservice to the character
Best Performer: Russell Crowe. He’s hamming it up, but you have to.
Best Moment: The death of The Foreigner. Oh god, that sounds wrong.
Worst Moment: “She died after that, and I never saw her again”. Was the dialogue in this movie written by AI?
Opening: Kraven in prison, hunting. Shows what Aaron Taylor-Johnson can do, for better and worse. Physical performance: good. Accent: Bad. Does show what this film has going for it; blood.
Closing: His brother has now become confident, and a villain. A villain we will not see because the franchise is deader than Uncle Ben.
Best Line: My father puts evil into the world. I take it out.
Original review here

Madame Web
Ups: It starts with a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song and ends with a Cranberries one, just ignore everything else and you’ll have a good time.
Downs: A waste of the character.
Characters change personalities depending on the scene.
Dakota Johnson.
Best Performer: Adam Scott.
Best Moment: 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. It cannot be overstated how good it is. That shot, and ONLY that shot, is why this movie wasn’t in the “awful” section.
Worst Moment: Pepsi.
Opening: A scientist shoots a pregnant woman who then gives birth. So generic it’s barely worth having.
Closing: Madame Web is now blind but is fully clairvoyant. So whilst she can see the future, she is unable to read the reviews.
Best Line: And you know the best thing about the future? It hasn’t happened yet
Original review here

My Spy: The Eternal City
Ups: Anna Farris is bae.
Good charisma.
Has Ashnikko on the soundtrack, gets points for that.
I’m assuming kids will like it.
Downs: The separation moment between the two leads doesn’t seem legit.
Unnecessary.
Assumes you remember more more of the previous film than most people would.
Best Performer: Either Farris or Chloe.
Best Moment: The villain reveal. It is possible I’m an idiot but I didn’t expect it.
Worst Moment: The bodyguard explained how he killed JJ’s friends, family and fish. Kind of came out of nowhere.
Opening: He’s now a bodyguard watching over a singer. It sets this up in about 5 seconds. Plane-based action sequence where he beats up a flight attendant. Sophie (his daughter) saves the day using a flight suit. I don’t remember the first film, but I can’t recall it being quite as dumb as this is. But that’s okay as it then turns out to be a dream sequence. A weird choice to open up on a dream sequence, especially in an action movie as it makes it difficult to manage expectations.
Closing: The world is saved, and two of the side characters are paired together.
Best Line: “You got me a used burner phone. Maybe I can use it to buy meth or order a hitman”
Original review here

The Watched/Watchers
Ups: Good idea.
Downs: Wastes so much potential.
Runs entirely on conveniences and luck.
Seriously, how do you now do a cool mirror/double scare?
Best Performer: Georgina Campbell.
Best Moment: The mirror being cracked, very unsettling.
Worst Moment: The entire third act. Unnaturally stretches the runtime.
Opening: Mina’s manager sends her to deliver a bird to someone. There’s NO indication of how that person reacted to not getting their delivery when she went missing. In fact, there’s no reaction to her going missing at all. That sums up my issues with The Watched; if you think about it for more than a minute thenTh it falls apart.
Closing: Mina convinces Madeline not to kill her, with the power of love.
Best Line: Try not to die
Original review here

2024 In Film: Day One (The Awful)

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Borderlands
Ups: Some nice little visual touches.
Good cast.
Downs: Nonsensical action scenes.
Treats the audience like they’re idiots.
Inconsistent characterisation.
Keeps reminding you of better films.
Best Performer: Ariana Greenblatt
Best Moment: When Lilith meets Claptrap.
Worst Moment: The fight against the psychos. Remarkably unexciting. There’s no sense of danger
Opening: Quick explanation of the world. It kind of works and does its job. But it’s all stuff that could have been shown in the narrative rather than just narrated to us.
Closing: They all celebrate. Predictable, and doesn’t work to get you excited.
Best Line: I’m a bit old, I think, to be setting myself on fire for your amusement.
Original review here

Hellboy: The Crooked Man
Ups: Violent.
Some nice folk horror moments
Downs: Looks cheap.
Mind-numbingly dull.
The lead has zero presence.
Best Performer: Adeline Rudolph
Best Moment: Cora’s body is filled. It’s so creepy.
Worst Moment: No matter how much you try, you CAN NOT make “thing reaches out slowly to touch a bone someone is holding” scary, it looks more like someone was eating chicken and being told “There loads of meat still left on that”
Opening: Gothy text over woodland area. Then Hellboy on a train. Instantly, it makes it seem cheap.
Closing: They defeat evil. For some reason, Bobbie sleeps holding Hellboy arm. The words “beware! I am a witch!” are painted on the evil horse. So as long as that doesn’t wash up, it will be fine.
Best Line: “Come on snake, let’s rattle”. Wait, did I say “best”, I meant “worst, one that’s absolutely terrible and shit”.
Original review here

Lift
Ups: Good ensemble cast
Some good shots.
Downs: Predictable.
Boring characters.
Best Moment: When it looks like someone is about to be tortured. Could be a good way of showing the villain being a prick. Sadly it then cut away.
Worst Moment: The plane flying upside down for an extended period of time.
Best Performer: Billy Magnussen
Opening: Some absolutely STUNNING shots of Venice. A lot of the time when you see Venice on screen it seems like just one street with a river instead of a road. This makes it look like an actual city with historical significance. Essentially, it makes it feel like a city that isn’t just canals, gondolas, and a tourist industry that is killing it.
Closing: The thieves switched the gold around, much to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Notable Line: “It’s too big a risk”
“you know how much I like risk”
It’s not a good line but it indicates the level of effort put into this. None.
Original Review here

Night Swim
Ups: Competently made.
Downs: Stupid premise that is taken far too seriously.
Characters don’t behave realistically.
Not enough meat to stretch out to a full-length movie.
So many logical inconsistencies.
Best Performer: Wyatt Russell I guess.
Best Moment: When he hits a baseball. Kind of majestic.
Worst Moment: The pool party. It displays that the real horror is ineffective health and safety.
Opening: A foreboding shot of a swimming pool. Then a young girl is pulled into it by an unseen force. It’s technically well made etc, but it’s still very difficult to get past the notion of an evil swimming pool. It’s almost a parody.
Closing: The dad sacrifices himself by walking into the deep end of the pool. The family then fill the pool in, which you’d think somebody would have done in the hundreds of years this has been an issue.
Best Line: It’s funny, isn’t it, though. I mean, we evolved out of the water, and some part of our reptilian brain knows we’re not supposed to be there anymore. But… I guess that’s why we try to tame it so hard. It’s like trying to conquer death.
Original review here

Tarot
Ups: Shows grief believably.
The flashbacks are well-made.
Downs: No horror movie should have a Howard Jones song.
Terribly written characters.
No decent scares.
Best Performer: Olwen Fouéré
Best Moment: The lead-up to Paige’s death has a cool elegance to it.
Worst Moment: The baby’s death flashback. Mainly because the Count seems to be waiting for the narrator to stop speaking before he reacts. It’s like the scene starts and he’s waiting for his cue.
Opening: A bunch of teens play “Guess the Future” or something. Where they sit around a campfire and guess “who’s most likely to get pregnant?” and the “winner” drinks. Weirdly, every round has a complete agreement between everybody. Personal truths are revealed but more shocking, they ran out of beer. This is treated as a new revelation, but wouldn’t they have noticed when getting the previous beers out?
Closing: “Fuck fate”. Then we find out how someone escaped death; someone opened a door. Kind of a cop-out.
Best Line: “Do you know why there are so many murder podcasts? Because people are always getting murdered”
Original review here

The Crow
Ups: Some pretty shots.
Downs: Bland.
Obviously sets up a sequel it will never get.
No memorable music.
Best Performer: Danny Huston. So threatening.
Best Moment: The first sight of purgatory.
Worst Moment: When the film ends and you realise you’ll never get that time back.
Opening: An absolutely GORGEOUS shot of a kid walking through mud and coming across a dying horse. He puts it out of its misery. Sets up the character okay, but my main takeaway is how pretty the visuals are.
Closing: His girlfriend comes out of hell.
Best Line: “If I’m ever hard to love, try to love me harder”. That just sounds abusive as hell.
Original review here

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Ups: Fun concept
Downs: Drags, a lot.
Completely forgettable. To the point where having watched it is VERY similar to having not watched it in terms of the impact it has on you.
Best Performer: Henry Cavill.
Best Moment: The opening, very violent and fun.
Worst Moment: Genuinely can’t remember anything else from the movie. And I’m writing this a week after watching it.
Opening: Text telling us that the following story is true and wasn’t discovered until Churchill’s notes were declassified in 2016. Which is weird as it’s based on a book made in 2014. Then we get a scene of Nazis threatening two people on a ship by saying “You can either die in the ocean or die on fire. The last person nearly made it and we rewarded him by shooting him in the head”, firmly setting up that, yes, despite some politicians best efforts to state otherwise, Nazi’s were the bad guys
Closing: A “what happened next” to the main characters. It’s nice to see, but it would have meant more if the characters were memorable.
Best Line: I’m not leaving until I have a barrel full of Nazi hearts.
Original review here

Trap
Ups: Some decent performances.
Downs: Stupid characters.
Wastes its own story.
Nepotism.
Best Performer: Josh Hartnett
Best Moment: The very end where one of the characters realises he helped a serial killer. Although that does back up a criticism I had where I was annoyed that he gave a stranger so much information.
Worst Moment: I want to say “every moment Saleka is onscreen” but I’m going to get very specific. There’s a shot near the end where Josh’s character is sitting down and talking, and there’s a HUGE corner of the screen being blocked off by an overhanging cupboard. In terms of shot composition, it’s hard to find anything worse in a seasoned directors work. It makes it look like he’s just poking his head around
Opening: It opens with a song by M. Night’s daughter. I’m not talking about the actual opening showing the father and daughter relationship. Because I can’t get past the nepotism.
Closing: He’s arrested but escapes. I hope we don’t get a sequel.
Best Line: There isn’t any.
Original review here

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Sonic, Knuckles and Tails reunite to battle Shadow, a mysterious new enemy with powers unlike anything they’ve faced before. With their abilities outmatched in every way, they seek out an unlikely alliance to stop Shadow and protect the planet.

During the Nintendo/Sega “war” of the 1990s, I was firmly on the side of Nintendo. It just suited me better. I liked Mario’s intricate level design, the lush visuals of Donkey Kong, and Luigi’s CEO-handling skills. Truth be told, I’ve never really “vibed” with the Sonic games (except Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine for some reason), so the expectation would be that I’d be glad to see the end of this franchise.

Truthfully? I hope there is a fourth one. Not just because the way Sonic 3 ends means there kind of has to be one. But also because I’ve kind of liked these movies. None of them have been among my favourite films of the year, but none are ones that I will consider “bad”. At its worst, it’s mediocre, with weak plotting and no idea how to keep Sonic’s speed consistent. But it never ever gets worse than that. Weirdly, it’s probably among the most consistent franchises of the modern age; with no major changes in tone or quality throughout. It’s hard to imagine somebody only liking one of them as they are all very similar, for better and for worse.

It’s the best one of the three so far, mainly because it cuts down on what I didn’t enjoy of the first two. There’s much less wasted time (still some, but nowhere near as much). There’s one scene in particular which stops the movie dead for a few minutes, and WILL be mentioned in the end of year summary (starting Monday, very excited about that).

For worse, the story of the third is very similar to the second. The story arc that Knuckles and Shadow go on is basically the same. There was a chance to do something special, but it never manages it. This means that from the trailer, you can kind of figure out what’s going to happen. It tries to swerve you by having Robotnik’s grandfather appear as a secondary villain, but it’s not difficult to figure out where that’s going. There are also moments which feel disconnected from the story as if they’re left over from an early draft. On occasion, there are moments where it feels like the story wasn’t decided until the edit, and somewhere there are huge plot points on the cutting floor but they couldn’t remove every reference and set-up.

Overall, this is a really difficult film to dislike. It’s fun and contains more references to the games than you could shake a stick at. In the Mario movies, a lot of the best references were done by the artists, with the narrative references feeling shoe-horned in (especially the kart section). The references here are done by the writers. If you are a fan of the games, you WILL be excited by the post-credits scene, and you will enjoy seeing the likes of Maria on screen and being fleshed out as characters.

It also benefits from having a better sense of emotion at its core. The Maria story is heartbreaking to watch unfold. Its believable backstory is simple but effective. The human characters are essential but not the main focus. This is how it should be. Nobody buys a ticket to watch Sonic to see Tom’s adventures, but those parts still have to be well-written so they don’t come off as annoying.

The key to this has always been the performances. Ben Schwartz was a weird choice for Sonic, but he is perfect for the hot-headedness of the character. Idris Elba is a LOT better at comedy than you’d think he’d be. I know Liam Neeson is up for the lead in new Naked Gun, but I’d like to think there’s a place in that movie for someone like Idris. Keanu Reeves is a fun new addition too, providing genuine gravitas to what could be too silly.

In summary, the franchise continues to impress. Being a lot better than it needs to be. They’re not great, but they’re entertaining distractions from the inevitable heat-death of the universe.

Kraven The Hunter (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Sergei Kravinoff is a big-game hunter who specialises in dickheads. His family history brings him into conflict with Rhino and Foreigner, who wants to know what love is. And to kill people. It’s mainly the killing people.

So it’s ended. After six films, the Sony Spider-verse has closed. Or, as Sony initially called it: Sony Picture’s Universe Of Marvel Characters, shortened to SPUMC. The fact that that is not a joke tells you everything you need to know about it. They have always felt like unwanted distractions. Once people realised they were all setups and spin-offs of a main universe it would never meet (outside of fleeting moments) they began to feel like wastes of time. It’s not a good sign that out of six, two are generally regarded as some of the worst films ever made. If they knew, you’d have to think they would have ended it with The Last Dance, because Kraven is a weird choice as a curtain closer. There’s no sense of closure or wider universe development. Truth be told, the films have NEVER felt connected, which is a baffling choice, almost as baffling as “let’s make a series of films based on villains we treat as heroes”.

So, how about Kraven on its own? It doesn’t work. It’s not as bad as Madame Web, but it’s not really good. It feels like it was written scene by scene by different writers, with no rewriting going on to connect them once they’ve happened. Characters are not just inconsistent, there are times when their very existence seems baffling. He finds a woman based solely on the fact that she put a card in his pocket. He meets up with her and asks for her help in finding people, within five minutes of telling her “I’m a hunter, I can find anybody”. So……..why does he need her again? A lot of his attributes are not only informed attributes (where we hear of them, but never see them), but they’re also often visually disproven. Characters speak as if he hasn’t been spotted and is a complete mystery. He then runs along the street in central London with no disguise. Not only would he have been seen, but there would also be youtube edits of him 5 minutes after the first time he runs on the outside of a building.

Some of the performances are serviceable, but they never ever get better than that. However, they sure do get A LOT worse. The accents are as inconsistent as the visual effects (and that’s not a compliment to either of those), there’s one performer in particular who is only in for a few minutes at the start, but her line delivery is SO BAD that it’s almost laughable. It’s so bad, in fact, that I won’t even name the actor or the character because there’s no way this performer was trained, and if they were, they should ask for their money back.

The ADR is more noticeable than any film I’ve seen in a while, the CGI is ropier than a BDSM pirate ship, and the action scenes are flat, with even bloodshed moments feeling like they have no impact. It’s not just that there are a lot of bad moments, there’s nothing good. The soundtrack is completely forgettable, even Madame Web had a Cranberries song.

In some ways, I’m sad the SPUMC is other, people always look forward to a load of SPUMC coming at them, and every film in this franchise has potential. But it’s never lived up to that. There’s not a single drop of SPUMC that hasn’t made you wonder whether it could have been better.

Moana 2 (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Moana journeys to the far seas of after receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors.

Moana 2: More-ana has received a lot of criticism upon release. From people saying “It was obviously supposed to be a TV show” (which it was), to just a general sense of disappointment. At the time of writing, it has a 61% score on Rotten Tomatoes, that’s only 2% away from being rotten. It’s not as good as the first one, but it’s certainly not a bad movie. It currently has an audience score (sorry, “Popcornmeter”, FFS) of 81%. That feels more accurate based on the 95% score of the original.

Yes, it has its flaws. The music isn’t anywhere near as good and feels more unnatural than it did in the original. The villain isn’t quite as present, to the point where the film seems to be building up someone else as the villain, who then turns out to be helpful and isn’t mentioned again. It also has more moments that feel cringy compared to the original.

It is still fun though. It adds to the story from the first one in a logical way, expanding the universe that was created. Most of the original cast return, and the new voices slot right in; Rose Matafeo BELONGS in more Disney movies, and her voice is perfect for animation. David Fane also feels so natural that I had to check he wasn’t in the original. The Rock continues to do what he does, and Auli’i Cravalho is still one of the most perfect castings any animation has ever done, she sounds like how her character looks (although I still maintain that Moana herself looks like an animated version of Jennifer Freeman, the second Claire from My Wife And Kids).

The movie looks GORGEOUS. Water is generally really hard to animate due to the unpredictable nature of how it moves (second only to George Best in the 1966 European Cup quarter-final against Benfica), so it’s very easy to mess up. There are no moments here where the animation takes you out. It looks so perfect and real that it almost feels live-action. This is why it’s so baffling that a live-action version of Moana is being made. Why? It hasn’t been long enough since the original to justify it, and there is no way it will look as good, so what’s the point? The high quality of Moana 2: The Ocean Strikes Back means that audiences are fully invested in this iteration of the character, all a live-action version will do is dilute or taint the love for the franchise.

In summary; this film is good, only tainted by how utterly superb the first one was. The reviews are wrong, except for this one, I am always right.

Dear Santa (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A dyslexic child accidentally writes a letter to Satan instead of Satan. That’s it, that’s the movie.

The Farrelly Brothers have directed some of the most well-regarded comedies of the modern age; Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary etc. Jack Black also has a pretty damn good history in comedies; the modern Jumanji movies, School Of Rock, Kung Fu Panda. With that much comedy pedigree, and with such a simple premise, this should be fantastic.

It isn’t. It isn’t the worst film Jack Black has been in recently (Hello, Borderlands), but it is definitely in the lower half. None of the issues are with the performers, Black is on form, and even though she’s only in it a little section, I LOVE Cate Freedman as the crossing guard (disappointingly she’s not even mentioned on the Wikipedia page). The issue is the script. It’s incredibly disjointed. The main problem is a lack of cohesion in terms of audience. Much like Red One, this feels like it needs to either age up or down. At times it feels like a kids’ movie. The “here’s what I can do for you” sequence feels like it’s aimed at pre-teens. Some moments feel like they’re lifted directly from a 90s Christmas movie. But then it makes jokes about the sexual abuse of a minor and the consequences of fucking a dog, which makes you feel it’s aimed more at 15-year-olds who want to be thought of as mature and think that just means swearing and sex jokes.

There’s also a surprising lack of heart to the whole thing. It attempts to have heart with a dead brother subplot, but it feels incredibly tacked on, and the way it comes back at the end just raises more questions than answers, to the point where the “wait, but how does the world react to this?” reaction overshadows any sense of narrative closure. That would be acceptable in a kids’ movie, but not in a film with some of the jokes that Dear Santa has.

I get why a studio would diversify their jokes, to appeal to a wide audience. But the way they’ve done it here means that it ends up appealing to nobody. It’s too childish for kids, too mean-spirited for kids, and too one-dimensional for adults. I put more thought into this review than the scriptwriters did into the screenplay, and considering I did this while watching an episode of Smallville, that says a lot.

Timestalker (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Girl meets boy, girl gets decapitated, girl meets boy again in a future life. Repeat.

I’m a massive fan of Alice Lowe, from her television work in Darkplace or Horrible Histories, to her forays into films. She’s weird. I mean that in a good way. She’s one of those actors who could turn up in almost any comedy or horror and it would make sense, how she didn’t make an appearance in Paddington or Wonka is astounding to me. It’s not just a performer, she’s gained a reputation as a pretty darn good writer/director too; giving the world Sightseers and Prevenge. The latter, she made whilst pregnant, and is highly recommended. My plan for this review as to gush over how much I adore her and everything she does, this is the first film of hers I’ve reviewed on this site, and it’s about damn time(stalker) I showed her the love she deserved.

With that in mind, it’s a shame that Timestalker isn’t quite as good as you feel it could be. I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m not even saying it’s not good, but it’s not brilliant. It doesn’t feel as essential as some of her other work. It’s got a really unique premise, and some great visual styles, but there are times when it feels like that’s all it has. Timestalker does have the bad fortune to be released in 2024. It would be impossible to compare this to anything else any other year. You could legitimately say you’ve never seen anything like this. In 2024? It brings to mind Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast (as reviewed here). They take different approaches to it though, whereas The Beast gives you existential dread and nihilistic thoughts, Timestalker gives you laughs and playfulness. It’s certainly more consistent than The Beast, better than the worst parts, but nowhere near as good as the best parts.

My biggest gripe is that Timestalker is that it feels like it is not making the most of the premise. It needs more links between the times, with repeated themes and visuals in different contexts. There are some visuals that keep cropping up (the pink heart for one) but they feel too forced and instead of suggesting a connected universe, this makes it feel more like that object has magical powers. The music, especially, is a component that definitely could have had a lot more fun with connective moments.

This is very negative I know. In truth, I did like Timestalker. It’s darkly funny with many moments where you catch yourself laughing at things you know you really shouldn’t. There are some terrific colours throughout, so it’s never an ugly watch. Aneurin Barnard is a revelation (which I realise now is a borderline offensive thing to say considering how many things he’s been in), he has innate star power, which helps you buy into the idea that she would fall in obsession with him. You see him on screen and you just know “That’s a star”. He backs this up with a good performance too, his performance in the 80’s timeline is a particular delight. The 80’s section was probably my favourite part, and not just because Lowe fits that decade visually. It’s also the part with the best story development, characterisation, and music. Her unspoken romance with Meg is also incredibly sweet.

In summary, it’s weird and wonderful, but not quite great. Alice Lowe is still one of the most unique creators around, and it will take something truly terrible for her to lose stock.

Woman Of The Hour (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s 1970 and Sheryl Bradshaw is so desperate for TV time that her agent books her on The Dating Game, unaware that one of the male contestants is harbouring a dark and disturbing secret: he’s from Texas. Oh, and he kills people. That’s bad too.

Woman Of The Hour (or WOTH, pronounced to rhyme with cough) is like a six-dicked Calydonian boar, a strange beast you can’t turn away from. It’s helped by a truly fascinating story. This actually happened. In 1978, serial killer Rodney Alcala made an appearance on The Dating Game, and he did win, which has to be a real kick in the teeth of the guys who were rejected. Everything else about the story is fiction. The entire story of the woman who went out with him? Fake. The woman in the audience who reports the killer and is ignored? Fake. The host of the show is a complete dick? Fake (for this one specific person). A producer making creepy comments about Anna Kendrick whilst pointing at her breasts? Fa-oh wait, that’s real, happened to her when she was 19, which sadly meant she was too young to drink, so she couldn’t go to a bar, buy a bottle of drink then use the bottle to slit the throat of that producer.

I’m okay with that kind of approach to historical accuracy. This is mainly because it never pretends to be anything other than what it is; it is a fictional narrative that occurs during a real historical story. If it was presented with a subtitle like “The true story” then I’d object. The reality isn’t important, the story and the setting is. The setting is significant. This was a time when, according to the letter of the law, women were mostly equals (sometimes), but the reality was very different. Men still felt comfortable being sexually aggressive with female strangers, who would then be told to “take it as a compliment” or “stop complaining” when they mentioned it. It’s very different from now, I’ve spoken to many men on the subject and they all agree women are treated equally now. The time is just as much a character as the serial killer (now there’s a sentence I’ve never said before).

The other essential half of the jigsaw of WOTH is Anna Kendrick. This is her directorial debut and it’s pretty damn impressive. She does have a tendency towards being overly arty and “oooo look at this” as opposed to using the camera to tell a story. There are no moments which are “bad”, nothing which makes you think “Ooof, I wouldn’t have done that”, and more experienced directors have done that (A Quiet Place: Day One, for example, featured one of my least favourite shots of the year from a coherence standpoint, and that was from a guy with experience). I hope Kendrick continues to direct, and I’m curious as to what her next move would be. I’m hoping she continues to do stories she has a passion and personal interest in (she donated her fee from this movie to charity, because she’s lovely and a badass). She’s about 2 movies away from making an INCREDIBLE feminist AF drama which I will absolutely LOVE.

Her performance is good too. The moment where she calls everyone out on their misogyny is glorious to watch. I’ve seen some reviews state she was the wrong choice, and that she feels too modern for a 1970s character. To those people I say, you’re wrong. I won’t debate this, I won’t explain this, but you are wrong.

The weakest part, for me, is the narrative. The fact he was on a tv show (you know, the whole selling point of the film) doesn’t matter. It’s not his appearance on TV that leads to his downfall, his downfall wasn’t until the next year. So really, the main crux of the film is entirely inconsequential. It’s still a good watch, but I do wish that more things mattered, that the timeline was more coherent, and that the side characters were memorable. So much focus went on the “serial killer on a dating show”, that it feels that not enough effort was put on anything else in the narrative, so it feels incredibly underbaked.

That being said, there is one BRILLIANT scene that’s not set on the show. The date. Specifically, the aftermath when she’s creeped out by him in the car park. It’s CHILLING, and makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on edge. It’s also (I imagine), a scene in which pretty much every woman alive has a “yeah that happened to me too. When? Well the first time was when I was 12, then the next time it was-” series of anecdotes which are similar.

In summary, an easy film to be impressed by. An easy film to be moved by. But also a film in which you can’t help but feel there’s something better from the creators in the future.

Gladiator II (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: After his home is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum and must look to his past to find strength to return the glory of Rome to its people.

Some films are successful financially, some critically, some are successful in terms of their influence on pop culture and some are on my list of favourites of the year. A film rarely manages to hit all the targets. Gladiator 2 manages it. Two of those are assumptions, but they’re fairly safe ones. I wasn’t that big a fan of Ridley Scotts’ last two films (Napoleon and The Last Duel, as reviewed here and here) but Gladiator 2: Electric Boogaloo is a great example of what he can do.

The performances are all great. Surprisingly, Matt Lucas is in it. He’s only in it for around 3 minutes but evidently, that was enough for him to be named in the opening credits, which elicited a noticeable “wait, what the f*ck?” reaction in the screening I was in. Derek Jacobi seems to be in it only to make a connection with the first movie. Pedro Pascal continues to be incredible. Paul Mescal is at times brilliant, but there are a few moments where he feels too much like a character from Skins. He is genuinely one of my favourite performers so I love that he’s getting trusted to lead films like this. Denzel Washington is damn superb, injecting his character of Macrinus with a sense of dangerous playfulness.

Gladiator 2: More Lions is helped by how well-defined the characters are. Here are the characters:

A young man with a claim to the throne who is a skilled fighter, showing no mercy to those he defeats and is on a one-person mission to kill.

A general who has become jaded with the constant wars he is sent to fight in, he plans to overthrow the bloodthirsty emperors so he doesn’t have to keep watching young men die in needless wars.

A former slave with ambitions of governance and a strong sense of what is right.

A ruler thrust into a position he is ill-suited for. Since a young age, he has suffered cognitive erosion in his brain. His own brother/co-ruler clearly pities and doesn’t respect him, with his only friend being a pet monkey.

Let’s say you didn’t know this was a Gladiator movie, if you read those character synopsis, would you know FOR CERTAIN which ones are heroes and villains? That’s the beauty of Gladiator 2: Citizens On Patrol. Every character is clearly the hero of their own story. They’re all incredibly believable as real people, which really helps the story because it means character motivations are easier to gauge, they don’t need to say out loud “No, this revelation has now made me sad and reconsider my feelings on the matter”.

Gladiator 2: The Second Story also looks GREAT, sometimes. There are no shots which you would print and hang on your wall, but the battles and fights all look REAL. When characters get shot by an arrow, it doesn’t feel like an action movie, it feels like reality. Even the deaths of unnamed characters are injected with the shock and fear that they would have in reality. The Naumachia is a masterpiece of combat cinema in terms of staging and tenseness. You get the feeling that the characters who survive don’t do so because they’re special or talented, but because they were lucky. The deaths are also VERY brutal, with stabbings galore. Oddly enough, the “smallest” blade death felt the most painful. Probably because it involved a needle going into someone’s ear and that instantly sets me off. Some people will criticise it for historical inaccuracy, but lets be honest, nobody is studying this as a piece of historical truth. There’s an unspoken understanding that this is entirely fictional, but possibly featuring real people. But that doesn’t mean it can’t teach us history. You can’t use it for facts and dates, but it does do a pretty good job of showing what life could be like on a day-to-day basis.The idea that someone could rise from slave to emperor was not only an ideal, it happened. So in some ways, it was more advanced and egalitarian than modern society. But in other ways, they still had slaves, so fuck ’em.

On the downside, some of the visuals look fake as shit. There’s one near the end which is particularly awful in terms of realness. The other downside is some of the characters feel like they only exist to die. There’s a character we meet in the opening scene who, from the second you see them, you know they’re going to be killed.

Whilst I’m talking about the opening; the opening credits take place over a series of watercolour painting recreations of the first movie. A stunningly beautiful way of doing it, and very unique.

It’s when it does stuff like this that Gladiator 2: Back 2 Da Hood is strongest. When it’s unique, showing its creative flourish. It’s when it does what every other film does that it’s at its weakest. When you feel you’ve seen this before. When it foreshadows a bit too obviously.

These are minor quips though. Still a damn fine movie and well worth checking out at the cinema. I mean, what else are you going to do, spend time in the wonderful grey and bleak weather of winter? Nope, go to a cinema, buy a hot chocolate, and stay warm watching what I’m sure will become a classic movie.