2022 In Film: Day 3 (The Meh)

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Films I don’t hate, but I don’t like. Ones which I’m likely to forget about quite quickly.

Black Medusa

Ups: Stunningly brave and creative,

Downs: I feel it could show a little bit more.

There are moments where things happen and we don’t really see them on camera, or we just see the set up but not the payoff. It works a lot of the time, but there are one or two moments where it would have helped to see.

Best Moment: The scene in the woods. not saying it’s “good”, but it’s artfully shot and harrowing without feeling exploitative.

Worst Moment: There’s a scene which is like a minute of a guy masturbating outside. That’s it, it had a point but that point was made much sooner than the film thinks it was.

Best Performer: Nour Hajri

Opening: Shows people dancing etc, but then has narration over a black screen. A weird choice. But then the story starts and the main character rapes a drunk guy with a broomstick.

Closing: The relationship she’s been building up with ends, so beautifully done. Then the 9th night happens and it’s clear she’s probably going to continue doing what she does

Best Line: The story about the man in the hole, wondered why it was there but then it pulls it in at the end.

Original Review here

Fisherman’s Friends: One And All

Ups: Very feel-good

Good music.

Downs: Predictable.

Kind of dull at times.

Instantly forgettable. I’m going to have to break from the format here and not put a “closing, opening, best line” etc, because I genuinely can’t remember anything from this film. There are things I might remember, but they could be from the first one. I have nothing.

A bit too boomer.

Best Performer: James Purefoy.

Original Review here

Munich – The Edge Of War

Ups: A fresh take on WW2 movies.

Downs: Could do more with the flashbacks.

Should have been a mini series.

Best Moment: Everybody shouting abuse at a Jewish couple. Really demonstrates how normalised the hate was.

Worst Moment: Paul’s whole character arc.

Best Performer: George MacKay

Opening: A party. A unique way to start a world war 2 film, they normally start with horror, the idea of starting with celebration is great, it shows exactly what people have to lose. The party is a graduation party for 3 students in 1932, one of whom is German. It’s good to show the friendship between the two countries. It also shows how Germany had hope at that time, they were excited about a “New Germany”. Spoilers, 1930s Germany did not end up a good place.

Closing: War is postponed. I mean, it still happens, but later, and once Britain is better prepared. That’s the point a lot of people miss when they criticise Chamberlain. Britain was not ready for war with Germany at the time, and the peace deal was a way to buy time. As soon as he got back to Britain, Chamberlain started preparing for war. Without it, we’d have lost.

Best Line: We don’t choose the times we live in. The only choice we have is how we respond.

Original Review here

Studio 666

Ups: Endearing

Really good deaths

Good music

Very rewarding for fans of the genre

Downs: Not funny enough to be comedic, not scary enough to be a horror.

Best Moment: The opening.

Worst Moment: It tries to have “But then it turns out Dave Grohl is the killer” as a reveal. But we already would have guessed that.

Best Performer: John Carpenter. He obviously doesn’t give the best performance, but how am I not going to give Carpenter an award?

Opening: A woman tries to crawl away from someone trying to kill her, she fails and dies in a much more brutal way than I expected. Good way of setting up the brutality, and the music is amazing. Then goes into a very unique opening credits sequence.

Closing: Dave Grohl has survived but is possessed. Reminded me too much of the ending of Leprechaun In The Hood

Best Line: “get your own song! nerd” not great, but the circumstances are hilarious.

Original Review here

The Gray Man

Ups: Passes the time.

The moment of him refusing to assassinate someone because there’s a kid standing near him does a great job of telling us who he is, and the “do it anyway” shows what kind of people his bosses are.

Downs: Despite being released recently, still feels incredibly dated.

Has some really clunky ways of introducing certain characters.

Best Moment: Gosling has a fun blink and you’ll miss it moment where he screws in a light bulb mid-conversation whilst walking through the street. Just a fun little piece of character work.

Worst Moment: Most of the action scenes, just because they’re a bit dull.

Best Performer: Chris Evans.

Opening: Gosling in prison. He gets offered a job as an assassin by the CIA, based on the fact he killed his abusive dad 8 years previously. It feels like they would have a more extensive recruitment process. Sets up the central premise well enough, and gives us a title drop. But overall it feels like a “this could have been referenced rather than shown” moment.

Closing: A slightly understated rampage of revenge. Sets up a sense of hope that the previous scenes didn’t have. Leaves it open for a sequel, but a sequel isn’t needed, as there’s enough narrative closure that the story does have an ending.

Best Line: You wanna make an omelette, you gotta kill some people

Original Review here

The Night Doctor

Ups: Interesting story.

Some tense moments.

Downs: Needed a gimmick.

Has no idea how to treat the main character.

Loses steam a bit in the middle.

Best Moment: When he goes to visit Ossip, the drug dealer to whom his brother owns money. It’s a great subversion on what you’d expect, and changes how you feel about the characters.

Worst Moment: There’s a moment when his cousin turns up at his flat. The camera movement isn’t quite as smooth as could be and it’s a bit weird to watch

Best Performer: Vincent Macaigne

Opening: Him giving prescription medication to someone, in his car. A discussion follows about a mutual acquaintance who recently died, which leads to a discussion about the futility of existence and mortality. Not the most “wow” opening. But it sets up who the character is, and that this is going to be a very serious film that goes to dark places.

Closing: He ends things with his mistress and tries to get back with his wife by performing an anguished declaration of love. Nice, but feels a bit hollow. And then he gets stabbed by someone he punched earlier. Kind of feels like the writer had no idea how to end it so just killed him (like in the original Clerks ending)

Best Line: “helping people nobody cares about is always political. As is what you’re doing, making insinuations about my ethics because I help addicts, that’s political”

Original Review here

The Outfit

Ups: Very strong directorial debut.

Rylance is damn good.

Downs: Not as good as similar films.

World building is a little weak.

Best Moment: The reveal at the end is done well.

Worst Moment: The opening drags.

Best Performer: Mark Rylance

Opening: Mark Rylance talking about the love and care that goes into making a suit. It’s weirdly interesting, but did nothing to make me wonder if this was essentially going to be Kingsman. It’s not. That’s backed up by the fact that it goes on for about 5 minutes, getting less interesting as it goes on.

Closing: He sets the shop and fire it’s revealed he’s actually been a badass this whole time. Obvious but it was set up beautifully. One thing I especially liked is they showed someone standing up behind him slowly, but didn’t draw attention to it.

Best Line: When talking about Big Ben: “they have clocks in Chicago, they look startingly similar in London”

Original Review here

2022 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

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Films to which I say “oh, I hated them, but……”. Make no mistake, these are not good films. But the people involved have potential to make good ones in the future, if they stop being shit.

Ambulance

Ups: Some good performances

Unique idea.

A few very good shots.

Downs: All the action scenes feel hollow, when cars crash they’re filmed in a way that has no weight to them so you don’t really feel the carnage.

Too much fluff.

Some baffling shot choices.

Best Moment: The split second where Will gets shot. Changes the ending completely.

Worst Moment: A moment we don’t see, we don’t see the beginning of the bank robbery. There’s no sense of planning.

Best Performer: Jake Gyllenhaal. He makes a good sociopath.

Opening: The character needs money because his wife is dying of something (I’m not sure they ever say what). It really unsubtly mentions/shows his war veteran status. All character work, setting up who he is, and his motivations. Also really long and there must have been a better way of doing it.

Closing: One of the brothers dies, the other one lives but is likely to get away with it because the witnesses like him. I mean, yeah, he was roped into the worst parts, and he wanted the money for a good reason. But he still took part in a bank heist and caused millions of dollars of damages. He’s good, but not innocent.

Best Line: You are all gonna have the greatest story to tell at dinner tonight!

Original Review here

Licorice Pizza

Ups: Looks stunning

Wonderful soundtrack

When the characters are apart from each other, they are actually fun to watch.

Downs: Unlikeable characters.

Meandering plot.

He’s 15, she’s 25. That’s creepy. That’s why this film is rated so low for me. It’s a dealbreaker. Otherwise it would be about 2 blogs higher.

Best Moment: The Jon Peters scene. Funny, and completely disrupts the myth of fame.

Worst Moment: After telling Alana “say yes to whatever a casting agent says”, Gary then gets annoyed when she says “yes” to being asked whether she’s okay with nudity. He then goes full incel and shouts at her that it’s fucked up that she won’t show him her tits, but is willing to show them on camera. She then shows him them. So he’s an asshole, and she’s an idiot.

Best Performer: Sean Penn. He’s not in it much, but he’s so sleazy when he is.

Opening: They meet. There’s not much to it really. Would have felt more natural if he wasn’t 15, and she wasn’t an adult.

Closing: They run together and kiss. Yay, the adult and the child are now able to be together.

Best Line: Fuck off, teenagers!

Original Review here

Men

Ups: Technically, it’s very good.

Smart ideas.

Looks incredible.

Great performances.

Downs: I much prefer narrative.

Very unsubtle.

A bit anvillicious.

Best Moment: When you realise her attackers are getting the exact same injuries her husband had when he died. Sooooo smart.

Worst Moment: Rory Kinnear as a small child. It looks weird.

Best Performer: Jessie Buckley.

Opening: Harper travels to a holiday home. There are some things which could be standard but are instead really creepy shots.

Closing: Batshit insanity. Can’t sum it up.

Best Line: “what is it you want from me?” “your love”

Original Review here

Minions 2: The Rise Of Gru

Ups: Weirdly good opening credits. Very Bond-like

It is much better than the first one.

Downs: For one thing, the timelines doesn’t work out.

Can’t contain the momentum over a long period of time.

Does anybody want this?

Waste of supporting cast.

Best Moment: The opening credits.

Worst Moment: The plane sequence, a bit too silly.

Best Performer: Taraji P. Henson

Opening: A villain steals a map in the 70s. Just an excuse for cheap puns. Some of which did make me lol though. Then leads through to a character called Wild Knuckles (terrible name), who steals something, then gets betrayed by the villain group he’s with. Does a good job of setting up the villains.

Closing: The person you thought died, didn’t. He was never referenced in the other films so I assume he died like 5 minutes after the events of this film.

Best Line: “Call your mom, it’s ransom time” “She might pay you to keep me”

Original Review here

Unhuman

Ups: The line “What in the upper-case fuck?” is one I’m going to have to steal.

Oooooo pretty colours.

Downs: The directing could be better, there’s a conversation at the start which is weirdly shot, with some editing decisions which are definitely conscious choices, but seem like mistakes.

The bus crash itself is well shot, but there’s one a moment in it where someone bashes their head on the chair in front and it has no impact at all, but she gets a broken nose.

Should be gayer. That may not make sense, but watch the trailer. That makes it seem like it will, at the very least, have some degree of non-straight sexuality to it. But it doesn’t.

Best Moment: There’s a great split second moment where a guy is handed a menstrual pad to pass over to someone with a broken nose to help clean up the blood. The pad is new and in an unopened box, but the guy still acts with utter revulsion. I don’t know where that was the actors decision or the directors but it’s really smart.

Worst Moment: Whilst the mid-point plot twist is pretty cool but depends on things happening exactly as they do. So if you think about it for more than a single second the whole thing falls apart.

Best Performer: Brianne Tju.

Opening: Really happy joyous music over a blumhouse logo. Unexpected but fun.

Closing: Everyone who survived is back on the bus, the teacher turns out to have survived. The two villains then get recruited by an anti-drug crusader.

Best Line: “Let’s just hope we hit a racist so we don’t have to feel bad”

Original Review here

X

Ups: Is well aware of what it is and what it’s trying to do.

People who like it, will really like it.

Downs: Very cruel to the characters.

Just not my kind of horror movie. That’s the biggest issue. I can talk about a lot of my issues with it, but my biggest one is it just wasn’t for me. Like how I never vibe with Rob Zombies work for some reason. Some just don’t gel with my horror sensibilities.

Best Moment: Pearl pleading with her husband to have sex with her. Very sweet.

Worst Moment: Same moment, but the fact it was met with disgust and laughter by some of the audience in the screening is kind of bleak. “ewwww, old people want to have sex”

Best Performer: Jenna Ortega

Opening: A group drive to a house, planning to make porn. Could have slipped in a few more Texas Chainsaw references, or get rid of it.

Closing: One of the cops finding a camera, “what’s on there?” “probably some fucked up horror movie”, END!

Original Review here

2022 In Film Day One: The Awful

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And so begins our annual end-of-year round-up. As you can tell by the title, these are the worst films of the year. Unusually for me, most of these are fairly obvious, I don’t think there are any here that people will be too surprised/offended by. Although I did use to know someone who genuinely said Fant4stic was one of her favourite films, so I wouldn’t be too surprised if these did have fans. I’d be disappointed, yes, and would definitely judge that person, but I wouldn’t be that surprised. For most people, these will be fairly obvious.

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore

Ups: Has some good visuals

Nice to see some of these characters again

Jacob is still entertaining.

Downs: Whilst Jacob is entertaining, they need to think of a better way to get him into the story as it feels forced.

Villain is neutered

Incredibly dull

Ezra Miller is in it.

They released a “homophobe-friendly” version in China, all it took was removing 6 seconds. But no, it’s “soooooooooo vital” to the plot.

Best Moment: There’s a moment where Jacob tries to get Queenies attention and she just ignores him, weirdly heartbreaking.

Worst Moment: The rescue of Newt’s brother. Just felt like padding. If you took it out wouldn’t effect the plot at all.

Best Performer: Dan Fogler

Opening: Dumbledore and Grindlewald have lunch together. A moment that’s so inconsequential that (as of writing) it’s not even mentioned on the Wikipedia page.

Closing: Jacob and Queenie get married, Dumbledore slowly walks down the street. Makes me think they should have changed the opening. The third main scene is on the same street, and starts off in the standard Harry Potter way of “Normal scene, then it turns out this character is magic”. So if they started with that, not only would it have kicked off the plot better, then it would have had bookends.

Best Line: “Our war with the muggles begins today!” A line that promised so much, in a film that delivered so little.

Original Review here

Firestarter

Ups: Good colour scheme

Downs: Incredibly stupid adults.

No sense of a cohesive style.

Feels like it was made to create a franchise.

Best Moment: At the old mans house. The only bit of the film with actual emotion.

Worst Moment: “it’s different for us we know what it’s like….”. That scene has THE worst piece of editing I’ve seen this year. Or a bad performance. The line is delivered as if it’s half of a sentence. She doesn’t get interrupted, she doesn’t slow down or lose her bearings, the camera just cuts away and there’s no sound of her talking anymore. It sounds like she’s been cut off by silence.

Best Performer: Ryan Kiera Armstrong. The biggest flaw with her performance is that she isn’t McKenna Grace.

Opening: They had creepy music over the production logo, I appreciate that. In terms of the opening of the film itself; there’s a baby in a crib, and when the parents walk away, a fire starts.

I actually typed that whole thing as soon as I saw the baby in a crib because I knew what was going to happen. I know it is a remake, but it’s a remake of a film I’ve never seen, so it should not be that predictable. It had a much better opening during the opening credits, and if it fleshed that out it would have been better.

Closing: She’s on the beach, and meets up with someone who tried to kill her, but who is no longer being telepathically controlled. He carries her. Emotionally lacking, not great narratively, and looks a bit dull.

Best Line: “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”. Definitely not the best line, but one that sums up how much effort went into the script.

Original Review here

Halloween Ends

Ups: It’s different.

Provides a definitive and fitting end to the franchise.

A good study into social grief and how demonisation of people can create demons.

Downs: Haddonfield doesn’t feel real.

Characters have changed personalities since last film.

So preoccupied with providing a twist, it forgets to have a decent story.

Needs more Michael Myers.

And more Laurie Strode.

So much wasted potential.

Best Moment: The opening.

Worst Moment: Corey and Michael locking eyes, which makes Corey evil. So stupid.

Best Performer: Jamie Lee Curtis, always.

Opening: Corey is babysitting a kid and accidentally kills him. Apparently, this is frowned upon in babysitting circles. It was an accident (and kind of the kids fault), but the town still blames him. The film never gets close to this level of small town paranoia and fear again.

Closing: The dead body of Michael Myers gets thrown in an industrial shredder. Perfect way to end this franchise. There’s a weird cult-like nature to the whole thing and it’s weirdly beautiful.

Best Line: “My son. This town turned against him after the accident with Jeremy Allen. They would’ve felt for him. They would’ve helped him heal. But because your boogeyman disappeared, they needed a new one.” This is the crux of the plot, but it’s handled as well as I handle things when I’m juggling.

Original Review here

Morbius

Ups: Show’s that Sony does have a plan for a future universe.

Something new

Downs: Terrible fight scenes.

Poorly written.

Leto is a prick.

Best Moment: Him testing out his powers.

Worst Moment: The fight scene near the end. An incomprehensible mess.

Best Performer: Matt Smith.

Opening: Morbius goes to a cave to get bats. Completely unnecessary. Could have been covered in dialogue. The scenes of them growing up would have been a better start.

Closing: Vulture somehow ends up in this universe. It may seem stupid at first, but the more you think about it and how it happened you realise it’s actually REALLY stupid.

Best Line: “Vampire bats weigh almost nothing yet can take down an animal 10 times their size”. This film thinks dialogue like that is smart. It’s not.

Original Review here

The 355

Ups: Some good performances.

Good editing outside of the fight scenes.

Downs: Incredibly bland.

Lazy.

Seems very netflix

The shadow of the villain doesn’t loom over the film.

Best Moment: There’s one piece of editing which is GENIUS. They go from a fight scene to someone slicing a tomato and the match-cutting is SUPERB.

Worst Moment: The ending where they all walked in the room to face not Bucky Barnes. Reminded me of that bit in Endgame where all the female characters ended up in the same scene. Just there to get a “woo you go girls” moment.

Best Performer: Fan Bingbang. Not in it enough but she’s incredible when she is.

Opening: Sets up Jason Flemyng’s character well, and the electronic macguffin. But then the film relegates him to the background. You never feel his presence.

Closing: The aforementioned worst scene. I’ll say again, the film did not need all the characters there. 2 of them only said 1-2 lines each, I can’t remember if Penelope Cruz or Lupita Nyong’o said anything, if they did it certainly wasn’t anything of substance. Jessica Chastain then explained what will happen for the benefit of the audience, in a very dreary monotone.

Best Line: When they explain the title. Completely unnecessary, but interesting nonetheless. It would be like if an Adele song was interrupted by a lecture, but a good one.

Original review here

The Bubble

Ups: Interesting idea.

Downs: It does a terrible job of juggling the performers’ time.

The hotel staff are the best part of the movie, and they’re not in it enough. Which is weird as it starts with them.

Tries too hard.

Best Moment: Beck’s dinosaur rewrite of Ladies’ Night. The only music sequence that actually works in the film.

Worst Moment: The TikTok dance section

Best Performer: Guz Khan

Opening: Establishes the universe this film is set in. Does a really good job of setting the in-universe franchise. But I feel it would have been more useful if we actually saw footage instead of posters. Just seeing the posters feels cheap.

Closing: A documentary about the making of the film has been released. Seems a bit cruel, and not really that narratively satisfying.

Most Notable Line: “you remember the reviews from your last film Jerusalem Rising”. Terrible dialogue, clunky as hell, and is unnatural. That sums up this film.

Original Review here

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.

The Adam Project (2022)

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Quick synopsis: After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self for a mission to save the future.

Ryan Reynolds and Netflix Originals don’t have the best reputations. Red Notice was thoroughly mediocre, and when I mentioned I was watching 6 Underground, the reaction I got from people on Twitter was one of sympathy. This should be better though, directed by Shawn Levy, who made Free Guy, which was a lot of fun. So this could be awful, or it could be brilliant, either way, it wouldn’t surprise me. So is it worth watching? Kind of. I mean, it’s good, but it’s “streaming good”. By which I mean, it’s good, but not good enough that you want to make an effort. If you had to go to the cinema to watch it, or pay to stream it, you’d be very disappointed. But since it’s on netflix, you’re not paying for this individual film, so you have no financial investment in watching this. That’s for the best as it’s only ever a 7/10. I watched it about a week ago and still can’t remember that much from it.

That’s not to say it’s bad. It’s very funny at times, and whoever decided to cast Walker Scobell as a younger Ryan Reynolds? Give that man a raise. It’s one of the most perfect child castings I’ve seen in a long time, not so much visually, but Scobell absolutely NAILS the mannerisms where even if you weren’t told he was a younger version of Reynolds’ character, you’d know it. Reynolds does his usual, which is all he needs to do in a film like this. I am a massive fan of him but I will freely admit he doesn’t always pick the best films. But when a film he’s in is bad, it’s never because of him. Jennifer Garner and Zoe Saldana feel too inconsequential in this to comment on. It’s strange as they both play characters who have the potential to add a lot of emotion; the main character’s partner, who was declared dead so it’s the first time he’s seen her in years, and his mother, who he regrets being rude to whilst she was alive. Both of those have massive potential to be heartbreaking, but they are underdeveloped by the story. Jennifer Garner, especially, seems to disappear from the film after a short while, only meeting her future son once, and not really having too in-depth a conversation with them. Catherine Keener is her usual delightful self, she’s going through a real purple patch in terms of roles, and this continues that run, I’m now at the point where I can tell the difference between her Mary Steenburgen, and Kathryn Hahn which considering that in reality they look absolutely nothing alike, isn’t worth bragging about. Again, she should be given more to do. She’s also unfortunate that she is subject to CGI de-aging technology, and it doesn’t quite look right. Wouldn’t it have been easier to age up future-her with make-up rather than de-age with CGI? Probably cheaper too. Feels like they CGI de-aged just because they could, not caring if they could do it well.

The plot? Well, there’s nothing in here that will surprise you. It’s not exactly a film that you’ll struggle to follow, no matter how drunk you are. Time travel stories lend themselves well to narrative trickery and weirdness, and it never really happens in this. It never goes beyond the surface level. That’s fine, not all movies need to be EEAAO, but it is frustrating to see potential wasted like this. This could be fantastic, but it never does anything to stand out. The visuals are only okay, the story is basic, and I can’t even remember the music. Compared to how music is used in similar films like Back To The Future, where certain songs are now impossible to separate from the film, this has nothing. Well, I say nothing, there’s a scene near the end which is damn near perfect. If the rest of the film was as good as that, it would be among the best of the year, as it is, I can already forget I’ve seen it.

Avatar: The Way Of Water (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Many years after the first film (which this really could do a better job of reminding you what happened in it btw), Jake Sully continues to live on Pandora, but is forced to move for his families safety as humans continue to try to colonize the planet.

I know this is going to start weird, but don’t worry, I am going somewhere with it.

January 26, 2014, a day that will live in wrestling infamy. It was the 2014 edition of the Royal Rumble event and the fans were hyped for Daniel Bryan to win the main event and go to Wrestlemania. But that didn’t happen, and if you watch that event live it’s fascinating to hear the audience’s reaction. Once they realise that Bryan is not even going to be in the match, let alone win, they openly revolt. You can feel the air get sucked out of the arena, and all goodwill has left. No matter how good things were before that, it was that moment that stuck with everyone there. That moment reminded me of this film. The audience were into this throughout. They were entranced by the visuals, sold on the story, and completely sold on the world and characters that had been created. But it felt like at that moment the audience kind of tapped out and gave up on it. It’s the first time I’ve seen a cinema audience seem to get restless at the same point. People started checking the time on their phone, or talking to the person next to them. Ordinarily, this would get them a good hard stare from everybody, and if they continued making a scene, they’d receive a tut of disapproval, possibly even a headshake. On this occasion, the general reaction seemed to be more “yeah, fair enough mate. Makes sense”. It’s just too long. It’s over 3 hours long, and it feels it. I know not every film can be short, some films have too much story to fit into 90 minutes. But this feels unnaturally long. It’s not helped by the fact that it has an extended sequence which film language tells us is the third-act showdown, involving all the characters, and some glorious action set-pieces. But then there’s another scene. They have another scene which is similar, just in a darker location and with fewer characters. It’s that scene which lost the audience btw.

It’s a shame that happens, as before that, it is an enjoyable film. Considering how much of it is CGI, it looks INCREDIBLE. There are zero moments where the visuals don’t look real. Animating water is always difficult, especially in 3D animation, not just due to the physics of it (each part of water affects the rest of it, but also moves independently so you have to try and take that into account with the way it moves), but also the colour, it’s transparent (kind of), but also reflective, and it refracts when things enter it. So a film set almost entirely in water could end up looking terrible. The only time the visuals don’t really work for me is when there’s a fight between characters who are light blue, in an ocean, in front of a blue sky. That’s far too much blue, and is one of the few moments where the film isn’t visually compelling.

The story? It’s kind of basic. There are long periods where you can zone out and not miss anything important. But you don’t go into this for the plot, and it’s not as though the plot is bad enough that it harms the film. Yes, it could be better, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. The biggest issues plot-wise all relate to one character; Spider. His entire arc makes no sense. He goes from hating his dad, to trying to impress him, to be annoyed with him for attempting genocide, to saving his life (for sequel reasons). It does not work at all, and is one of the biggest missteps it makes.

For a lot of people, that won’t matter though. The film is beautiful enough that you won’t care. The performances are all great, especially Sigourney Weaver as a teenage girl. It is a simply stunning piece of cinema to watch. Just, you know, be fully aware that you can take a pee break at almost any point and it won’t matter.

Violent Night (2022)

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Quick synopsis: An elite group of mercenaries (all with Christmas-themed codenames) plan to steal a family’s millions, not counting on their heist being interrupted by a drunken Santa Claus.

I won’t say this often, but this is better than the trailer made it seem. The trailer makes it seem like Santa was magically wished into the house because he answered the call of a child in danger, which makes you wonder why it doesn’t happen more? Of all the children in the world to help, he only answers the call of a girl in a large house who is being held hostage in an armed robbery? Not children being abused, or abandoned? That kind of motivation sort of makes him a dick. Luckily that’s not the case in the actual film. In the film itself, he just happens to be in the house when it happens, and his deciding to fight against the robbers isn’t just a case of “It’s the right thing to do”, but because the reindeer fly off. The film leaves it open as to whether he would have just left if he could, he’s certainly conflicted about staying or not, but the character losing that agency makes him a more interesting character, there’s a moral ambiguity to him at the start of the film, his character is more a shade of grey than morally black or white (well since it’s Santa, more red and white). That’s as it should be, this isn’t a happy jolly Santa, it’s one who’s bitter and jaded. So him having heroic actions thrust upon him means that the moments later on in the film when he CHOOSES to be a hero have more weight.

It makes sense he would hesitate to fight, this Santa comes with a violent history he’s trying to atone for. Again, that makes him a much more interesting person than he would otherwise. The violent history also means that you know that when he lets loose, it’s going to be spectacular, and it is. The violence in this film is damn fun, not just from Santa, but also from Trudy, the small girl who he wants to help. She sets up some Home Alone-style traps, doing a great job of demonstrating just how much damage they’d do in real life.

The violence is improved by how well we know the characters. They’re all so well-written and defined that it helps us feel their pain. Well written, but not likeable though. Most of the characters in this are selfish, boorish, and kind of stupid. They’re so believable though. They suit the cynical tone of this. This is one of the most cynical Christmas movies I’ve seen, but it’s cynical with a hopeful message. It’s saying “yes, people are shit, but they can do better”. It’s the hope, and the heart, that ultimately drives this film. It’s what elevates what could be a standard action movie into a real delight. As do the performances. Alex Hassell has leading-man quality by the bucketload, not “Major Hollywood Leading Man”, but he’d be perfect for a Hallmark Rom-Com. Alexander Elliot is amazingly detestable. David Harbour is absolutely perfect as the lead, like he was born to play a violent Santa. Leah Brady has a great future. Plus it’s nice to see Beverly D’Angelo in another Christmas movie so she still gets Christmas residuals without having to be reminded of working with Chevy damn Chase.

So go see this, it’s funny, weirdly heartwarming, and violent as hell.

Midnight (2021)

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Quick synopsis: A young deaf woman and her mother battle with a serial killer after they accidentally interrupt one of his kills.

This probably has the highest score on Rotten Tomatoes than any other film I’ve reviewed, a full 100%. Sadly that’s more a representation of how few reviewers recognised by the site have reviewed this film (only 13), and not a representation of the quality. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, it’s very good, but it’s not the “best film ever”. It’s a really well-made thriller, well-directed with a superb cast. I think I’m a little bit in love with Jin Ki-Joo after this, she’s incredibly likeable and easy to root for. That’s a massive plus because it means no matter how charismatic the killer is, you’re still rooting for her. A lot of films make the mistake of making the killer too charismatic, too sexy, and too “cool”, so when they approach people and prepare to kill them, you’re kind of cheering them on, you want to see the kills. Because the characters in this (all of them, but especially Ki-Joo’s character of Kim Kyung-Mi) are so well written and performed, you want them to survive, you’re devastated when harm (or even just the threat of harm) comes to them.

Normally in a thriller, the thing that makes it work is the directing; the visuals and the music combining to create an air of tension and claustrophobia. This is the writer/director’s debut film, but you wouldn’t have guessed considering how slick everything looks. Saying that the visuals are probably the weakest part, there are moments when you can’t really get a good sense of what’s happening and it would have helped if certain things were clarified visually in terms of who is doing what to who. This is very evident in the opening, which is fine the second time you watch it, but on initial viewing it does make you feel like you’ve just woken up from a nap halfway through a film, wondering “okay who’s that?”, “am I supposed to know that person?”, “is that the same person as before?” etc. If you’re the sort of person who decides whether to judge a film by the opening scene (like that one reviewer for Toy Story 3 who maintained that Hamm was the villain, showing that not actually watching the film you’re paid to review doesn’t mean you can’t review it and win awards for your writing somehow), you’ll avoid this. If you watch past that scene you’ll end up with one of the early highlights; Kyeong-mi in her job (customer service). She’s dealing with a very angry woman, but maintains a joyful smile on her face, even when she decides to respond to the woman by slowly raising her middle finger to her. It says so much about who she is as a character and highlights how the director knows people (apparently some of his ancestors were people). That’s something we all want to do, and it’s hilarious to see her do it. Even more hilarious is when she uses her deafness to her advantage when dealing with a group of clients, using sign language to insult all of them directly to their faces without them noticing. It’s great at showcasing not only how personable she is, but also how smart she is, you realise that in a film like this, she is smart enough to survive if she needed to.

In a decent world, this film would not work. Not just because of the whole “murder” thing, but also because there are moments that only happen because the majority of people have no idea how to communicate non-verbally with someone. It’s not just they don’t know how, but that they don’t care to attempt. They make no effort to communicate with her, they just say “we can’t understand you”, slowly, and loudly (a bit like when English people go on holiday and speak to the natives).

I suppose I should mention the villain; Do-Shik, played by Wi Ha-Joon. How can I put this delicately? He’s a gosh darn psychopath, a big meany, and a stupidhead. A total cunt. He seems dangerous, but also like he’s watched a lot of television. He’s clearly basing himself off murderers he’s seen on television. That’s very believable, the prevalence of murder in media means that real-life serial killers are starting to base themselves on fictional ones, so it’s only natural that fictional murderers would do the same. He’s played brilliantly, I’m not familiar with Wi Ha-Joon, but he seems like he’s playing the character as the lead from a romantic comedy, which is the absolute PERFECT way to play someone like this. The moment where he loses control of the situation near the end is great, he seems like a completely different person, a complete personality switch that is incredible to see. That moment also allows something that could only happen in a film like this; it does the traditional “yes you stabbed me, but I still win, haha” moment, but because of the deafness of the character, she delivers it via bloodstained fingers. Adds a different layer to it and I love it.

So in summary, I’d suggest this. It’s not a nice watch, but it’s incredibly compelling, and you won’t find a better friendship chemistry than the one between the two leads here.

Spirited (2022)

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Quick synopsis: A musical version of Charles Dickens’ story of a miserly misanthrope who’s taken on a magical journey.

It can’t have escaped your attention that there are quite a few streaming services available, and they all need a hook to justify their own existence. Netflix has Stranger Things (and good branding), Amazon Prime has more recent movies (and the ability to add digital purchases to it), Shudder has horror (and also a shocking customer service team, but that’s a story for another time), Mubi has an extensive range of foreign-language cinema and independent films (as well as a sending you a notification when a film on your list is leaving), whereas AppleTV+ has…………yeah I’m not sure. I’m currently on a free trial of it, and it has a select few things, but nothing that makes me think it’s going to be worth paying for while the trial ends. It is aiming big though, and this film is an example of this. You don’t hire Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell if you’re not aiming for mass-market appeal.

I’m not really sure this is going to be the film to break Apple into the next level. I mean, it’s funny, and it is good at what it does. But it’s not essential. It also hasn’t really been advertised much, a film like this needs to be unavoidable to the point of being annoying. If this has any hope of becoming a Christmas cult classic, it needs to be everywhere, it needs an audience. It also needs to be fun.

It at least achieves that. It’s almost two hours long, but doesn’t feel it. That’s helped by the music being very good. Music is a big part of Christmas films, think of how much the music improves Home Alone or The Muppets Christmas Carol. This is a musical, so obviously the songs are even more important. I can only remember one song from it. I try to remember more and all I get is the one from Community. Outside of a few songs I can’t see listening to the soundtrack in full, you can probably cut all of the songs from here and it wouldn’t affect the story that much. It makes it feel like the script was written, and then the songs were handled separately and inserted randomly, and nobody likes random insertions (citation needed). I get why this film is a musical, Christmas films have a higher allowance for joy and music than others. But it doesn’t really work for me, I think part of that might be because, let’s be honest, Will Ferrell isn’t a great singer. At least they have a logical reason for it to be a musical. Apparently the afterlife is a musical, so whilst heaven isn’t clarified as existing, hell does.The script could be improved too. There’s nothing inherently bad are embarassing about it, but moments could be better. Ryan Reynolds establishing character moment should be better. The movie talks about him being irredeemable, but doesn’t show it. He has moments of heartlessness, but not enough. Yes, he lies, manipulates, and stokes fear/division, but that doesn’t make him the worst person in the world, it just makes him someone involved in sales.

On the plus side, this film does have the suicide of a child in it. I didn’t think it would include that, but it does. So that shows that it’s not afraid to get dark and disturbing when it needs to, so if they did that at the start it would make his character arc more effective. I appreciate it taking a new angle on the cliche Christmas Carol plot. It approaches it in a way that works, and makes sense in-universe if you don’t think about it too much. I like a fresh take on something I’ve seen before as it makes it easy to compare and notice the strengths. The strengths are that it’s funny, has some great scenes (the opening is the best way for this film to open), and is unique.

But that also highlights the weaknesses. The biggest weakness being, of course, that it’s a comedic musical film based on Christmas Carol, and the best one possible was already made in 1992. You can’t be better than that, and it’s just not different enough to work.

Clerks 3 (2022)

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Quick synopsis: Randal Graves, after surviving a massive heart attack, enlists his friends and fellow clerks Dante Hicks, Elias Grover, and Jay and Silent Bob to make a movie about their lives at the Quick Stop Convenience store that started it all.

Could this work? I don’t really think it’s a secret that the Kevin Smith who made Clerks is very different from the Kevin Smith of today, and it could be argued that he’s a different Kevin Smith than he was when he made Clerks 2. The original is almost 30 years old and will it still be entertaining to see these characters? There is a point where the characters reach an age where their humour and pop culture obsessions would just seem kind of depressing. Thankfully these characters do use this film to move on in their characterisation.

I’m going to get the negatives out the way first; the most obvious one is that this will be impenetrable to those who haven’t seen the first two, but if you’re going into the third film in a series without watching the other two then that’s on you. People who see this will know what they’re getting. It didn’t get a wide cinema release over here so it’s not as though there’d be many people wandering into the cinema to kill time and see this.

Now onto the other negative, and this is a lot bigger for me. The first two films primarily took place over two separate days, years apart. These seem to be the only days that mattered to these characters, as they only ever reference people and situations we’ve already seen. There are no other running jokes from the over 30 years these two have worked together, nothing funny has happened in that entire time. I know it wouldn’t be fun to have this filled with orphaned references, but we could see them via flashbacks or them describing the events. As it is, the only times these characters refer to are the two days we’ve seen, so it makes it feel like the characters aren’t real people. They haven’t lived outside of these films.

There is one notable exception to this, where we find out a character died between films. I’m normally opposed to that thing happening as it feels lazy, but here it works. If we saw it it would have wasted time.

It is a comedy, but it is at its best when it’s not trying to be funny. This has more emotion than Smith has allowed in any of his films before. But there are moments where he feels scared of showing that. When it’s getting emotional and heavy, so he decides to pull back to comedy and pop culture references. It’s a shame as when he lets the emotions continue it’s genuinely heartbreaking.

So if you loved the first two, you’ll love this. If you’re the kind of person who listened to the audio commentaries and watched the DVD special features on the original, you’ll enjoy seeing the behind-the-scenes moments work their way into the script. I’ve missed these characters, and I’m glad to have them back, but the ending means if I ever do see them again I’d be kind of disappointed. The ending to this is so perfect that any attempt to add to it will just ruin it.

This has been a somewhat more dry review than usual, in my defence this film made me feel so many things that it’s hard to get back into normal review mode. That says more about this film than me raving about how much I loved it will.