Tag: Film

Deep Water (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A plane crashes in shark-infested waters. Well, not really infested; they live there.

This is the third film I’ve reviewed this year about sharks. That’s weird. The entire film is full of people who should be beyond this sort of film by now. Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart onscreen, with Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) directing. Downside, Gene Simmons is involved. Not entirely sure why, but he gives me the ick. The performances are fine. Aaron Eckhart constantly switches from being on the cusp of greatness to being a “straight-to-TV” actor. He’s definitely an actor who’s aided by a good script. Ben Kingsley is doing the standard “dramatic actor who dies early”—oh, spoilers, I guess. Molly Belle Wright is much better than a child actress without a Wikipedia page should be.

I said earlier that Eckhart is aided by a good script. He’s not helped here. It’s not that the script is bad; it’s just not that exciting. It’s not that well-crafted. You can see the strings too clearly. There’s a difference between foreshadowing and flat-out telling people what’s going to happen. Deep Water keeps presenting things that could be exciting, nay, should be exciting, but nope. Plane crash? Great premise. Sharks? Great premise. Survivors trapped together? Great premise. Conflicting personalities? Great premise. Limited resources? Great premise. Put all of those things together, and you should have a pretty reliable survival thriller.

Instead, it feels like the film has all the ingredients but hasn’t quite worked out the recipe. There are some good sequences, particularly the plane crash, and Harlin clearly knows how to stage large-scale action. There are moments where you can see the much better film hiding underneath this one. But every time it looks like it’s about to become that film, it pulls back and settles for something much more generic.

As I said, it’s not a bad movie. But there’s not a lot to recommend it for. It could have been made at any time over the last 20 years, and it would have been the same movie, probably with the same main cast too. The big change would be the portable batteries in the airline hold. It’s interesting that the plane crash isn’t caused by terrorists, but by customers not adhering to safety protocols. Just the kind of thing I want to see before I fly in a few weeks’ time; very comforting.

The plane crash itself is pretty damn good, and shows what Harlin is capable of. It’s dynamic, large-scale, and exactly the kind of thing a film like this needs. It is a little too long, though. It’s clearly the main centrepiece of the movie. So it’s baffling to see another crash near the end. We’ve already seen a really good plane crash; we don’t need a lesser one near the end. It feels like a studio note: there isn’t enough action here, so let’s have another crash. They can’t expect audiences to stay just for the characters.

The characters could only be flatter if they were two-dimensional. They’re introduced so quickly that you don’t really feel like you’ve met them. There’s a lot of shorthand characterisation, as if the script doesn’t realise you don’t need to get EVERY character trait in the opening scene. It has 106 minutes to show us who these people are. They’re not even characters; they’re archetypes.

This becomes a problem as the film goes on. People get in danger; people die. But you’d be hard-pressed to remember which ones. Obviously, people dying is bad. But we’re not told why we should care whether THESE particular people live or die. I genuinely can’t remember who died or how they died. There are a lot of opportunities for unique and fun deaths. Deep Water doesn’t take any of them.

Clearly, the sharks are the selling point. But they’re not a consistent enough presence. There are long stretches where the film seems to forget it has sharks in it. It’s not necessarily an issue to hold the sharks back sometimes; anticipation can be incredibly powerful (look at the first Alien movie or Jaws). But for that to work, the rest of the film has to be interesting, and this isn’t.

It would have been so easy with some small changes. Reduce the characters and flesh them out so that the relationships matter. Plot out the danger beats differently so it feels consistent, with no breathing room between them. It’s a shame because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the basic idea. “People survive a plane crash only to discover they’re surrounded by sharks” is the kind of wonderfully stupid premise that I want to work. You don’t need to reinvent cinema. You just need to make the situation increasingly horrible and put some entertaining characters in the middle of it. It should be bombastic; it should be fun. What it shouldn’t be is what it ends up being: boring.

It would have been so easy with some small changes. Reduce the characters and flesh them out so that the relationships matter. Plot out the danger beats differently so the danger feels more consistent and keeps escalating. It’s a shame because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the basic idea. “People survive a plane crash only to discover they’re surrounded by sharks” is the kind of wonderfully stupid premise that I want to work. You don’t need to reinvent cinema. You just need to make the situation increasingly horrible and put some entertaining characters in the middle of it. It should be bombastic; it should be fun. What it shouldn’t be is what it ends up being: boring.

As I said, it’s not poorly made; it’s just bland. And I feel like that’s worse.

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Two hapless friends and aspiring musicians accidentally travel back in time to 2008 while trying to pull off a scheme to book a gig at a real-life Toronto music venue. Based on a web series, nothing to do with Kurt Cobain

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (NTBTSTM, pronounced Not-bot-tis-tum) is based on a web series and TV show that I’ve never seen. This could end badly for me. Humour is subjective enough without walking into a film that’s potentially packed with years’ worth of in-jokes and references I don’t understand. And then there’s the fact that it’s Canadian. There was every chance I’d spend the entire thing wondering what the hell everyone was talking about.

I mean, all of those things could still be true. But if they are, they were done skillfully enough that I didn’t notice. This is not a subtle movie. In fact, it’s about as far from subtle as you can get. At one point, a character says, “This whole 2008 sequence, which would be very hard to fake if this were not 2008, will not be filmed.” That’s not so much winking at the audience as batting eyelashes, buying them a drink and asking if they’d like to come back to theirs. And I love it. The film knows exactly how ridiculous it is and leans into that as hard as it possibly can. It kind of has to. If it played things straight, it wouldn’t be nearly as funny. And it is funny. Incredibly so at times. Some of the dialogue and situations are so absurd that you can’t help but laugh.

I can tell I liked it because I managed to get over a pretty big hurdle. I don’t think he normally does, but in this movie, Jay McCarrol REALLY looked like a guy I grew up on the same street as. This guy once beat the shit out of a kid and flushed his head down the toilet. You’d think that would be some kind of classroom hijinks. Nope. The dude was in his 30s at the time. Naturally, this led to me Googling what he’s up to now. I think he’s dead. Apparently, he died by suicide. For a lot of films, that would be enough to permanently ruin an actor’s face for me. Here, it barely registered. And then there’s Matt Johnson, who was in Matt and Mara, a film I detest partly because I should have loved it but didn’t. So yeah, the fact that this film managed to overcome both of those hurdles says quite a lot.

Not that it’s a great movie. The pacing is a chore, and sometimes it feels like a genuine struggle to get through. The narrative could be tighter, too. There is an overall story in there somewhere, but you’d be forgiven for forgetting about it at times. The original web series episodes were between 10 and 20 minutes, while the TV show episodes were roughly 22 minutes apiece. I don’t think they’ve quite worked out how to stretch that into a feature. It puts me in mind of Moana 2, which was originally supposed to be a miniseries before they merged the different episodes into a movie. The result was something that felt episodic and disjointed. There’s a similar thing here. It feels like a series of skits rather than a cohesive narrative.

That being said, I admire creativity, and this definitely has that. The way they use unsuspecting members of the public to drive the story through their interactions with the performers is genius. If you know what’s happening, you can spot it. But if you don’t, it just looks like incredibly clever foreshadowing. That’s the kind of thing I really appreciate in a film: something that is genuinely impressive once you know how it was done, but still works perfectly well if you don’t.

NTBTSTM is not among the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. But it is a lot of fun. More importantly, it made me want to watch the TV show. I’m sure there are running jokes and references I didn’t catch, and once I’ve seen the show, I’ll inevitably have to come back to this and watch it again with the missing context. If a film can make someone who has never seen its source material want to go back and explore it, I’d say that’s a success.

The Devil’s Mouth (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of college friends on vacation in Thailand take a reckless detour into a remote underwater cave system and must fight for survival after becoming trapped with a ravenous bull shark.

I’m going to start this review with some praise. The opening does a fantastic job of establishing the characters very quickly. I haven’t seen such an effective introduction to a group of characters since the opening scene of Friends. I have many issues with that show, but go back and watch that opening scene: within minutes, you instantly understand EVERYBODY’s personality and sense of humour. It’s remarkably efficient.

I also like that this doesn’t immediately present itself as a survival thriller. It starts like a normal, fun movie. I love a good genre fake-out. People don’t live in genres, and I think films sometimes forget that. If you establish immediately that you’re watching a horror or survival thriller, audiences start questioning why characters are behaving like normal people. “Why’s she opening that door? There’s definitely a killer in there.” Whereas if you establish it as an ordinary day, you don’t question someone opening a door because, well, why would you? People open doors. That’s what doors are for.

Not gonna lie, I watched this almost entirely because of Kathryn Newton. She’s appeared in some of my favourite 7–8/10 movies of the last few years: Lady Bird, Three Billboards, Blockers, Freaky, Abigail and Ready Or Not 2. So I was pretty happy to see her attached. Then I looked at the director. Jeff Wadlow wrote Fantasy Island, Truth Or Dare, Imaginary and Bloodshot, and directed all of those except Bloodshot. The highest I regard any of those films is Imaginary, and even that is, at best, a 3/10 movie, with its biggest strength being that it doesn’t put enough effort into being actively shit.

The Devil’s Mouth (which is what preachers call a vagina) is not a bad movie. It’s definitely the strongest movie Wadlow has made in a while. But that’s damning with faint praise somewhat, because it’s not exactly good. It’s homoeopathic filmmaking; there’s nothing to it, and you’ll forget it soon after watching. Proof of this is that I watched it two weeks ago and yet it wasn’t even on my list of films to review. I just forgot to add it. I also made minimal notes while watching it; that’s how little there is to say about it.

The stuff I do remember? It’s not good. One moment in particular stands out. A character says, “That’s not the first time her tiny bladder has caused mayhem”, and then the film randomly cuts to a scene much later where people are fire dancing. Was the tiny bladder line really so necessary? It felt like a quippy on-set improvisation that somehow survived all the way through filming, editing and the final cut. Surely at some point, a seasoned director should have watched that back and thought, “We can probably lose the bit about the piss.”

As expected, Newton is fantastic; she always is. The score, composed by Bear McCreary, is better than this movie deserves. And the visuals are genuinely impressive. Wadlow knows how to shoot scenery in a way that makes you stop and admire it. The freshwater caves look incredible. Sadly, that’s the only fresh thing this film provides. Everything else is bland. The sharks have no aura around them whatsoever, to the point that you almost forget they’re even there for most of the movie.

And that’s a problem. There are sharks in this movie, but it never feels like you’re watching a shark movie. It feels like you’re watching a film where sharks occasionally make appearances. There’s no “holy shit, sharks!” It’s more “oh look, sharks again.” They never feel like they’re lurking somewhere, waiting for the opportunity to attack. It feels like they’re at home with their fins up, watching TV and waiting patiently for the film to tell them it’s time to come back.

The survival aspect doesn’t fare much better. There’s a decent premise buried underneath everything: people trapped in an underwater cave system while something very large and very hungry (a shark, not me) is swimming around them. That’s a concept that should basically write its own tension. But the film rarely does anything particularly interesting with it. The characters make the obvious decisions, encounter the obvious obstacles and survive the obvious near-deaths. It’s all perfectly functional, but nothing ever made me think, “Oh shit, how are they getting out of this?” More to the point, I didn’t particularly care if they didn’t.

And the characters, despite that excellent opening, don’t really get much more interesting once the film starts. That makes the opening almost frustrating in retrospect, because it proves the movie can establish characters efficiently. It just doesn’t do much with them afterwards. I knew who these people were within minutes, but by the end I didn’t particularly care about any of them beyond wanting them to survive because, well, they’re the characters in the movie.

There’s also a weird lack of escalation. A survival thriller should keep tightening the screws. Things should get progressively worse until you’re wondering how the hell anyone is going to get out. Here, the film feels strangely flat. It has danger, but it doesn’t really build dread. There’s a difference between “this is dangerous” and “I really don’t want to know what’s around that corner”, and The Devil’s Mouth rarely reaches the latter. Nothing ever feels like it leads to anything else. It’s not story progression, it’s just stuff happening.

Which is a shame, because there are flashes of a much better movie here. The caves genuinely look fantastic, the premise is solid, Newton is excellent, and that opening demonstrates that the writers know how to establish a group of characters without spending twenty minutes giving everyone tragic backstories. There are enough good ingredients here that I can understand why someone might have a good time with it. I just didn’t.

It’s not offensively bad. It’s not even particularly boring. It’s simply incredibly there. It’s a cinematic skirting board. You appreciate the craftsmanship, but it’s not something you pay attention to or remember once you’ve left the room. And considering this is a film about people trapped in a cave with sharks, “yeah, that was fine” is probably the least appropriate reaction it could possibly have inspired.

Kathryn Newton deserves better. Bear McCreary’s score deserves better. Those caves deserve better. The sharks deserve better. Jeff Wadlow deserves a mentor.

I suppose on the plus side, it is the best of the three shark movies I’ve seen this year (Thrash, reviewed here. And Deep Water, reviewed nowhere yet because I haven’t written it, I can’t review everything at once, get off my back). But again, that’s not saying much. Weirdly, all three have been direct-to-streaming. And there’s probably a reason for that.

Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Kris, a 29-year-old filmmaker, is hired to resurrect and reboot the tired Camp Miasma slasher franchise for modern audiences. Wanting to pay tribute to the original, she tracks down the actress from the original; shit gets weird.

I have a somewhat complex history with the work of Jane Schoenbrun. I think she’s one of the best filmmakers around today. Her use of colour is among the best in the business. The way she weaves metaphor and storytelling into the shots is a thing of wonder. I always leave her movies feeling slightly like I’ve been hypnotised and entranced. That being said, I’m not a fan of her scripts. They always start promising but end up just on the wrong side of incomprehensibility, although I suspect cohesion and understanding aren’t really the point. I’m aware that this, more than almost any other criticism, is deeply personal and subjective. Some people will love it BECAUSE of that, because the audience is constantly wrong-footed and left in a state of confusion. Personally, I don’t mind being confused; I just want a place in the narrative to ground myself

If you loved her previous work, Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (TSADACM, pronounced Tee-Sad-At-Cam) won’t dissuade you from being a fan; if you don’t like it, this won’t change your mind. Everything that works about her previous films is now better in this. The shots are better, the music is incredible, and the performances are outstanding. Schoenbrun knows how to make a killer playlist, helped enormously by a returning Alex G. There’s a great selection of danceable synth pop for you to sink your teeth into. Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson have a chemistry that leaps off the screen. From the moment they first meet, there seems to be a magnetic pull between them, like the universe is begging them to kiss. They are helped by how unbelievably horny the script is. There’s an air of unashamed sexuality over the entire thing; arguably the sex is more important than the death. The supporting characters are all fine, but none are as fully fleshed out as those two, so the actors aren’t really given as much of a chance to shine.

It feels like a deeply personal story for Schoenbrun. Much like her previous work, this feels like she’s writing it as an exploration of her own personality, rather than worrying too much about whether the audience can follow along. It’s her examining her own sexual desires and feelings. And that’s fine, but if you do something like that, you have to be aware that it won’t fully land with everybody. Every time I felt I knew what was happening, the film was determined to throw me off. I’m still not sure whether the ending actually happened, was a fantasy, an alternate universe, or a dying thought. There’s a moment where the switch from “believable and understandable” to “confusion and oddness” happens, and it’s so abrupt that it becomes genuinely jarring.

So far, this review has probably seemed fairly negative, and it’s not meant to. There’s a lot to like about TSADACM. It has one of my favourite openings I’ve seen all year. The opening credits set up how Miasma is regarded in this world, complete with reviews, initial analysis, its place in pop culture, and how it’s viewed in modern society. There are multiple references to classic cinema, and problematic histories that a lot of long-running franchises have, especially when it came to how they treated characters who weren’t cisgender, straight white men. Fans of cinema and film theory will get a lot more out of some of the dialogue than casual viewers probably will.

So, is the in-universe movie believable? Kind of. Weirdly, Camp Miasma (the in-universe movie) has the exact opposite problem that Camp Miasma (the movie we’re watching, which I’ll refer to as TSADACM for clarity’s sake) has. The writing, characters and backstories of Camp Miasma feel convincingly rooted in the 80s. Yet the filmmaking itself definitely feels modern. If anything, Schoenbrun feels TOO good a director to make a believable, slightly terrible 80s slasher. Her use of camera movement and music is too advanced and slick for it to work. It pulled me out of the movie a little bit, despite the scene itself being incredible. If an 80s movie had used some of Schoenbrun’s techniques, it wouldn’t just have been good; it would have changed the genre. It’s the musical equivalent of Green Day attempting to make a ramshackle 70s punk record. Even without trying, they’d do things that wouldn’t have been done back then, either because the technology wasn’t available or because nobody had thought of doing them yet. Put all of that together on one album, and it would inevitably be too much

Gonna be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what genre this would fit into. It doesn’t really feel like horror so much as a video thesis ABOUT horror that uses horror scenes to illustrate its point. So you can’t really judge it like you would a traditional horror movie, by examining the villain, the scares, etc. I guess the closest I can think of would be *deep breath* Surrealsexual Romantic Psychological Thriller. It’s definitely unique, and for that alone it’s worth your time and money.

This is one of only two films I’ve paid to see in the last few years, and I watched it at the Curzon, which isn’t cheap. Plus it was on my birthday, and I was on my own. It had everything working against it, and I still want to see it again.

I should note that I’m not exactly the person these themes are aimed at. I love that films like this exist; it’s clearly going to be VERY important to someone, potentially even someone who feels seen by it in a way they haven’t felt seen before. But to me? I admire it and want to study it more than I like it. This wasn’t made with someone like me in mind, but it doesn’t need to be. It feels like it’s aimed at the confused teens (and adults) who need more films like this, and I think they’ll love it. Of course, I haven’t actually spoken to any people about this film, so for all I know, I’m woefully off the fucking mark.

Although there is one important thing to note, especially after what I just said. I don’t really feel comfortable explicitly stating what I’m about to say, so I’ll try to work around it. A few years ago, for my end-of-year awards, I noticed that EVERY film in the “most me” category had a female lead. It led me to ask myself a few questions about why that was, and whether those were questions I should actually talk to someone about. I did have a discussion with some friends, and they encouraged me to explore it further, many of them speaking from their own personal experiences. I never really got anywhere with those questions, but they haven’t entirely gone away either. So there’s something increasingly strange about the fact that TSADACM is almost certainly going to win the award this year. It’s another film that feels intensely, uncomfortably close to me in a way that I don’t entirely know how to explain. And every time that happens, I get a little closer to HAVING to ask myself those questions again.

The Testament Of Ann Lee (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A musical biopic about Ann Lee, founder of the Shakers.

I didn’t know much about The Testament Of Ann Lee (TTOAL, pronounced like Tee-total if you slightly miss the final t), I just knew it was highly regarded, and it involved religion in some way. I can see why people like it. It feels very much like an “important” movie. It’s incredibly well-crafted, and from a technical standpoint, it’s hard to criticise it.

But I’m still gonna. Really, most of my criticism is based on how they tell the story. It’s a (according to Wikipedia) “historical musical drama”. Musicals are weirdly viewed. They’re seen as “fun”: bright colours, big emotions and joy. There are some which are high-concept and serious (Les Misérables, Annette, The End), but they’re few and far between, and, with the exception of Les Misérables, they aren’t the musicals that really penetrate popular culture.

I’m not opposed to serious musicals, but I think there’s a fundamental flaw in using the format for a biography. Because of the inherently theatrical nature of musicals, biographies don’t always suit the style. It’s hard to suspend disbelief when everybody suddenly breaks into song. You’re never really given a chance to think, “Wow, this really happened,” because the music keeps reminding you that you’re watching a constructed performance. You know the singing didn’t happen, so your brain finds it difficult to accept that everything else did too.

It’s different when it’s a biopic of a musician, because music is naturally part of their story. But a religious person? It’s odd. TTOAL gets around this somewhat by making the music extremely religious, almost choral. But that creates another problem: a lot of the songs start to sound very similar. To be fair, they’re somewhat limited by the subject matter. It would be pretty strange if the characters suddenly started rapping or performing opera.

It starts off well. It lets you know very quickly that the religious themes will be heavy, as will the weirdness. There’s also some really good music. It’s an odd experience watching a film and not being entirely sure whether it’s a horror film or a biography. I like it, though. At the very least, it shows ambition. It immediately changes the expectations of anyone who went in expecting a standard musical.

The performances are all great. Some reviewers have described it as the best performance Amanda Seyfried has ever given. I disagree, preferring her performance in the criminally underrated The Last Word. Her performance in TTOAL is certainly more difficult, because of the added pressure of singing, but I felt she was more natural in The Last Word. They’re two very different roles with very different demands, though, so perhaps it’s unfair to compare them. The more obvious comparison is her performance as Cosette in Les Misérables. She’s MILES better in Ann Lee. She makes a very good Ann Lee. I like her when she’s Ann Lee. (That joke only works if you say it like “angry” in the Incredible Hulk voice.)

The supporting cast are similarly good, although I found myself more interested in some of the performances than in the characters themselves. This is partly because the film is so committed to its style. Everyone feels like they’re performing in the same strange religious nightmare, which is presumably the point, but it does make it difficult to become attached to individual characters. They’re often there to represent an idea as much as they’re there to be people.

I didn’t even notice Christopher Abbott or Shannon Woodward, despite both having appeared in two of my hidden gem picks from the last few decades. I’d actually made a point of keeping an eye out for them in future works.

Ultimately, my biggest issue was that I never really fully bought into the premise. I recognised that what I was watching was powerful and important, but I never felt that it was powerful and important myself. The story is inherently difficult to dramatise. The story of Ann Lee is, to a large extent, about what she felt; this means the film spends a lot of time dealing with ideas and concepts rather than events. For a biography, I don’t think I learnt much about her or her life. I remember that she was born on the 29th of February, but that’s about it.

On the positive side, it’s ambitious. And I’d much rather watch a film like that than something lazy. When I watch a film, I can sometimes find myself thinking, “Does the writer/director NEED to make this?” and the answer is usually lacking. But this? I can see why someone needs to make this. That shines through in every scene. So much effort has been put into everything: the production design, the costumes, the music. They all feel like they’re combining as part of a decisive vision. Even when I didn’t necessarily like the choices, I understood the decisions behind them.

Maybe that’s the frustrating part. I didn’t dislike it. I just didn’t connect with it as much as I needed to in order to really enjoy it. I completely understand why someone would see this as a five-star movie (7 stars in the Tokyo Dome). But it didn’t work for me. Maybe that’s because there was no part of me that was particularly interested in Ann Lee or the Shakers (which would be a great name for a ’60s band). Before the film, I had no interest in learning about them, and after the film, I still have no interest.

TTOAL is ambitious, technically impressive and often genuinely beautiful. Amanda Seyfried is excellent, the music is strong, and there’s enough weirdness here to make it stand out from the endless stream of conventional biopics. But I think the same theatricality that makes it distinctive also creates its biggest weakness. I was always conscious that I was watching a film about Ann Lee rather than feeling like I was witnessing her life. I never suspended my disbelief enough to become fully invested.

Perhaps that’s an unfair criticism of a musical. But if you’re going to make a musical about a religious figure rather than a musician, you’re already asking the audience to make a pretty substantial leap. TTOAL makes that leap confidently. It just didn’t always land where it wanted me to.

The End Of Oak Street (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A family’s suburban neighbourhood has been transported from 1982 into the age of dinosaurs.

In 2014, David Mitchell (not that one) released It Follows. I consider it one of the finest horror movies of modern times. Not just because it’s tense and full of pitch-perfect scares, but because it inspired questions and debate: did she sleep with the people in the boat? If so, does that really make her any better than Hugh/Jeff? And if you moved abroad and just waited for it to cross the ocean, could you theoretically outrun it? With The End Of Oak Street (TEOOS), the big question I had was this: can Ewan McGregor act? I mean, he must be able to; it’s his job. He’s been in some really good films, usually alongside people who we know can act, without seeming like he’s out of place. And he’s not cheap, so if he couldn’t act, you’d think studios would eventually stop hiring him. Yet I can’t think of a memorable performance, one where he really sold the role. I only ask because he has some of the worst line delivery I’ve ever heard. One line, in particular, robbed the scene of any tension because I assumed he was being sarcastic.

Maybe that’s harsh. He is performing in an accent that’s not his. Evidently, the studio believes audiences will buy into a town disappearing through a wormhole into a prehistoric land, but having someone live in America and use a Scottish accent is a step too far. He’s also not helped by acting alongside Anne Hathaway, who is one of the best performers on the planet. Even the child actors are strong in this. Maisy Stella and Christian Convery both give performances beyond their years. So his performance looks weaker by comparison.

I’ve been accused of being too picky with my criticisms sometimes. If you believe that, you should probably avoid this, because I’m about to make one of my weirdest criticisms in a while. Here goes: this didn’t need to be set in the 80s. It felt like it was done like that because it was based on a book from the 80’s and they wanted to be accurate. But nope, original concept. This wasn’t hinted at in the trailer, and it doesn’t have much impact on the plot. The only change it would have made is the method Denise uses to do research. And I suppose the kids would have recorded videos of the dinosaur on their phones, but that wouldn’t have helped because they wouldn’t have had a signal to send them with. None of those changes would have been major. Did they do it because it’s slightly Spielberg-esque and they wanted to make the most of that? They don’t even make the most of the time period by filling the film with wave after wave of 80s bangers. I’m not saying every film set in 1982 needs to pay out for Under Pressure, but I can’t imagine Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant would have taken a massive chunk out of the budget.

Thankfully, there is quite a lot to like about TEOOS. The dinosaurs look fantastic. I assume they took a lot of work and money to create, which is why the film cuts away from them at certain times. Or perhaps it was to stop the film getting an 18 because of the blood and violence. Either way, it’s frustrating. There’s never a point where you don’t buy them as real (unless you’re a palaeontologist, in which case you tear your hair out with frustration at the inaccuracies, none of which I know enough about dinosaurs to notice). They’re also constantly a threat. You can’t imagine someone throwing a saddle on one of the dinosaurs and using it to herd the others in like cattle. Usually, films like this treat the smaller creatures as mere nuisances, with only the bigger ones being a threat. TEOOS leaves you in no doubt that the smaller ones can still fuck your shit up.

It’s also weirdly funny, in a dark way. Believably so. Characters don’t sneak past a dinosaur, then say “do you think he saw us?” and wink at the camera because they just made a dinosaur pun. But there’s something oddly funny about some of the violence; people being killed should not be this funny. Yet the dinosaurs attack with expert comedic timing, akin to a Three Stooges skit with decapitations. That humour means that the characters feel like actual people rather than disposable bodies waiting to die or kill. They sometimes do stupid shit, but that can be explained by the fact that they don’t have much experience dealing with stuff like this. This means when characters are in danger, you want them to survive. At no point do you cheer the dinosaurs.

The core of TEOOS is the family dynamic. They’re not perfect; the relationship between the parents is strained, with alcoholism playing a role in the present and almost certain divorce in the future. These aren’t the “I will do anything to save you, my love” type; these are the “can barely stop arguing even when they might die soon” type. That being said, there’s one major death (that I won’t name for spoiler reasons) that isn’t really given enough time to breathe. They die, the plot immediately moves on, and we don’t get much time to experience the world without them. I get what they were going for, but it didn’t quite land with me. The same could be said for the mystery at the centre of the film. It doesn’t spend as much time exploring it as some people might want. It does provide an explanation, but it’s very quick and easy to miss.

There’s a good film hiding in here; play up the 80s nature or set it in modern day, aim for a higher age rating so you can show the blood, and let McGregor speak in his natural accent. Yes, they’re small problems. But together, they hamper the film more than they should. It’s a solid 7/10, and it annoys me that it’s not higher. Watch it at the cinema while you can, because I doubt the streaming services are going to be fighting over the rights.

Over Your Dead Body (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A married couple go to a remote cabin, both with plans to kill each other.

I like Samara Weaving. She’s developed a real reputation as a scream queen, but a very versatile one: being able to be both a villain and a final girl. It makes sense for her to be in this film. Jason Segel? Not so much. Best known for comedies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Muppets, and HIMYM. The closest he’s got to something like this would be his bit part in Dead Man On Campus. He’s not someone you’d think about if you were casting this. That’s why it works. You expect him to play his usual role of “sad dog turned into sad human, with occasional bursts of excitement”, so when we see that he’s planned this holiday to kill his wife, it’s a genuine shock (unless you’ve read the synopsis or seen a trailer). The two have weirdly good chemistry. They make sense as a couple with the way they interact with each other, albeit a strained couple; both waiting for the other one to be the first one to instigate intimacy. It helps that they both take this film seriously; they’re not looking for laughs, mugging for the camera, and that’s what makes it funny.

As for the film itself. I’m slightly disappointed by it, but only because Jorma Taccone also directed MacGruber and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and I love both of those movies. This is tonally different, and not quite as entertaining. That doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s absolutely hilarious at times, not just the dialogue, but also the violence. The violence never feels cruel or gratuitous. The gore could be slightly better, looking slightly cheap and fake at times, but it kind of works. Over Your Dead Body (OYDB, pronounced Oi Deb!) knows that it is ridiculous. It doesn’t try to turn the relationship into some deeply serious examination of a marriage falling apart. Instead, it takes the petty frustrations and resentments between the two characters and pushes them to their most extreme conclusion. Every argument, awkward interaction and moment of suspicion has the potential to become a matter of life and death. The plot is pure farce, but OYDB is careful not to make it silly to the point of parody. The characters take the situation very seriously, so the threat feels real. So when the characters do slightly humorous things, it’s funnier because we buy into them as people.

The villains are probably where the film’s balancing act works best. They’re not just generic obstacles for Dan and Lisa to overcome; they all have their own personalities and quirks, which makes them feel like actual people rather than characters who exist solely to move the plot along. I’m not too familiar with Keith Jardine, but he’s a lot of fun here, bringing exactly the sort of physical presence you’d expect from someone with a history of getting paid for punching people in the face, while also showing a surprising amount of vulnerability. He’s basically a more vocal Lurch from Hot Fuzz (the “yar” guy). Timothy Olyphant continues to be Hollywood’s secret weapon, seemingly incapable of being anything other than entertaining even when he’s playing a relatively straight role. And it’s nice to see Juliette Lewis transition from hostage in From Dusk Till Dawn to hostage taker here.

I think that’s ultimately why I enjoyed OYDB more than I expected to, despite the slight disappointment. It isn’t as relentlessly funny as MacGruber or Popstar, and I don’t think it’s going to replace either of those in my list of favourite Jorma Taccone films. But it doesn’t need to. It’s doing something different, and for the most part it does it well. The mixture of relationship comedy, thriller and violence works surprisingly well. That premise has been done before in films like Keeping Up With The Joneses, Mr & Mrs Smith, and others that surely exist but I can’t be bothered to look up. Of course, there’s a more obvious comparison than either of those: this is a remake of the Norwegian film The Trip. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t really comment on how the two compare, which is probably something I should have thought about before writing a review of a remake. But I suppose at least this way it means I’m judging OYDB on its own merits rather than making comparisons like, “In the original the person wore a blue t-shirt, in this they wear a red one. Film ruined!” The characters in Keeping Up With The Joneses and Mr & Mrs Smith were professional assassins. These characters aren’t. They’re an actress and a filmmaker who are both unsatisfied in their careers. It kind of reminded me of Game Night (damn, that was a fun movie).

That Game Night comparison is probably the best way of describing the action. There’s a similar satisfaction in watching relatively normal people get caught up in something completely ridiculous and having to improvise their way through it. Dan and Lisa aren’t Jason Bourne; they don’t have a special set of skills that makes them particularly well equipped for what they’re doing. They’re just two people who have decided that murder is the solution to their problems, much like how I deal with poor customer service in restaurants (my editor has told me to let you know that’s a joke; I don’t leave the house to go to restaurants). That amateurism makes the fights much more entertaining. There isn’t the slickness you’d get from a traditional action movie, but it would be weird if these untrained fighters suddenly became action heroes; this isn’t Shang-Chi. They’re grabbing whatever happens to be nearby, throwing themselves at each other and generally doing whatever they can to survive. It gives the violence a scrappy, unpredictable quality, and it also creates some of the film’s funniest moments. You can believe that these people are actually fighting for their lives rather than watching two stunt performers execute perfectly choreographed moves.

It also helps that the film never forgets that they’re an unhappily married couple. Even when they’re fighting for their lives against hostage-takers, they still argue and bicker, desperate to win points against the other. It’s childish, silly, and believable. When they start getting on with each other again, it’s weirdly sweet, much more than a film like this should be.

Not that OYDB is without its problems. It’s a solid 7/10, but it feels like it could be a 9 with some changes. But I’m not sure what. I can’t quite identify why I only really liked this rather than loved it. It’s not the reliance on flashbacks, which really bothered me in This Is Not A Test; I liked the way OYDB utilised flashbacks, as it provided us with setups to jokes where all we knew was the punchline. Maybe it’s just because it seems to lack visual ambition. Nothing really stands out as incredible or memorable. That’s fine with silly films like MacGruber or Popstar, but OYDB is slightly more serious, so standards are higher for it. If something looks cheap or fake in MacGruber, then you can get away with that being part of the joke. You can’t do that in OYDB; it needs to have a certain level of spectacle.

That’s not to sound too discouraging; OYDB is still definitely worth a watch. Prime hasn’t exactly been overflowing with great films this year, and this is definitely among the best they’ve done so far. And if nothing else, I now want to see Samara Weaving in more films where somebody spends two hours trying to kill her. She really does take a beating remarkably well. To make a wrestling comparison: she’s 90’s HBK, or 2010’s Dolph Ziggler, only she occasionally wins.

This Is Not A Test (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: A teenage girl who has spent years enduring abuse finds herself trapped inside her high school with five other teenagers when a mysterious outbreak turns people into violent, flesh-eating monsters

This Is Not A Test (TINAT) is not a new idea. I’ve seen 2 full-on zombie movies this year (TINAT, and We Bury The Dead, as reviewed here), and two zombie-adjacent (Cold Storage, as reviewed here, and Evil Dead Burn, as reviewed here), that’s just this year. In my lifetime I’ve seen a multitude of movies about them; Zombieland, Shaun Of The Dead, Warm Bodies. I’ve seen every iteration; fast, slow, comedic, serious, dumb fun, sharp social commentary. When you see an idea that many times, you do get a bit familiar with the tropes and ideas. So it’s not enough to just do a zombie movie. It needs to stand out. Either by being overly stylized, or having a gimmick.

TINAT does none of those things. It has a few ideas but not enough to carry the film. The closing credits being presented like a high school yearbook is pretty clever, and genuinely inventive. But nothing else is as new as that. For most of the run-time, it’s just a movie that exists. For long periods of time, it doesn’t even feel like a zombie movie. And unlike my review of We Bury The Dead, I don’t mean that as a compliment. That movie used zombies as a way of exploring humanity. TINAT doesn’t do that, instead it uses zombies because the writer wanted to make a zombie movie.

Some of my reviews are very easy to write, the one for Minions And Monsters basically wrote itself. This is much harder to write because, at some point, I just stopped giving a shit

It’s not helped by the characters. We’re locked in with these people for quite a while, and it’s not a particularly pleasant experience. It’s not that they’re unlikeable or annoying, they’re just bland. There’s nothing about them that stands out. No unique traits, no hints that there’s unexplored backstory between them. They’re not people, they’re character outlines and sketches. They’re first drafts just waiting for an editor to expand them. This lack of characterisation makes it difficult to become invested in what happens to them. And then there’s the swearing. I love swear words in movies. But it feels like this film has too many of them, and uses them badly. They make the whole thing feel slightly immature. It’s not adult language being used as punctuation; it’s adult language being used as sprinkles on a narrative ice cream, sprinkled haphazardly without care or finesse.

The film also doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a difference between tension and simply being slow. A slow scene can build tension, but being slow doesn’t automatically create tension. There are stretches here where I was waiting for something to happen rather than feeling suspense about what was going to happen. And when there are dynamic scenes, TINAT turns to the handheld shaky-cam style. When that technique is used well, it helps showcase high energy and panic. When it’s used badly it makes everything confusing and makes it feel like the film is using it to hide something such as poor effects or the lead actor is actually in his 70s.

On the subject of action scenes, there’s also a strange inconsistency in what the film seems comfortable showing. It’s perfectly happy to show people being killed, but draws the line at a dad beating a teenager. Obviously, the latter is still horrible, but I’d argue death is worse.

Another example of the film utilising story-telling techniques but not in a way that really helps the story is the use of flashbacks. They didn’t feel like flashbacks, they felt like “and here’s what you missed before the commercial break” recaps from sports shows. Their placement in the narrative is ineffective, to the point where it feels like they were originally all at the start and then edited into later on because the film wanted to get to the main story quickly. It does kick off the story quickly, I’ll give it that. Another positive aspect is the cast. Olivia Holt is great as lead character Sloane, showcasing enough trauma to make her believable. Also, the make-up effects are spectacular for a low-budget movie. And I liked the character using temperature to gauge whether someone has been turned or not, very clever from that character.

Ultimately, TINAT isn’t terrible. There are some interesting ideas and a few clever touches, but I found it increasingly difficult to care about the story or its characters. For a zombie movie to stand out these days, it needs to give me a reason to care beyond the fact that there are zombies. Unfortunately, this one never quite found that reason. It’s not “the zombie movie told from the POV of the undead”, it’s not “the zombie movie with incredible action scenes”, it’s just “the zombie movie that has zombies in”. There’s nothing new. Nothing to convince you to watch THIS specific zombie movie over all the others.

Side note: For some reason, the opening scene made me think the film was set in England. Maybe that’s because I recently listened to the Anna and the Apocalypse soundtrack, but there was something about the opening that gave me that impression. Not at all relevant, just wanted to mention it.

Outcome (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A beloved Hollywood star embarks on a desperate redemption tour after a blackmail threat forces him to confront the mistakes that could destroy both his career and his sense of self.

I’m going to start this review off in a manner which I can almost guarantee no review of this movie has done, by talking about OJ Simpson. The murder of his wife (and the accusations of his involvement in her murder) haunted him to the point he felt compelled to write a book entitled “If I Did It”, which was essentially him insisting he was innocent while describing how he would have committed the crime if he had been guilty. It’s generally regarded as a really stupid and crass idea. Similarly, in 2018, in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal that would end up with him being imprisoned for 31 years, R.Kelly released a song called “I Admit”, where he “confessed” to things such as not going to church enough, with the only mention of his crimes being a denial. Which makes sense, the only evidence the world had that he was a paedophile was a rape tape he made with a minor in 2002 (which the world knew about, by the way, so fuck EVERY musician who worked with him after that date). Now, art is art, and I’m not saying musicians, writers and filmmakers should be arrested or punished for doing this. But it is in bad taste. Certain people should not make art and attempt to make money from certain subjects. That’s my big issue with Outcome. Jonah Hill should not have been involved. It feels like this may have been his way of dealing with the accusations of emotional abuse levelled at him, when he told his partner who was a surf instructor, not to surf with men, post pictures online of her in a swimsuit, or spend time with friends he didn’t approve of. I’m fully on board with people using pain and trauma for art, but it feels like he’s using other people’s trauma that involved him, rather than his own trauma. That fact overshadows everything else about the film, especially when it discusses how “the best thing to be is a victim.” If he wasn’t involved, you could look at those moments as the film mocking them, but with his involvement, it’s not difficult to view it somewhat cynically.

So, outside of that, how is Outcome? Honestly, it’s fine. It’s not horrendously bad, but it’s nothing special. Its streaming release feels appropriate. It’s the sort of film that’s worth watching on a quiet evening, but not one compelling enough to justify a trip to the cinema. It’s an interesting idea, but all it is is an idea, nothing more. The conversations between Reef and the people he may have wronged are genuinely compelling; emotive, introspective, and full of sharp characterisation. But everything connecting those scenes is surprisingly bland.

The casting of Reeves, generally known as one of the nicest people in the world, is perfect. The rest of the cast? They’re okay. You wouldn’t have guessed by watching this that Cameron Diaz was once one of the world’s biggest stars; she no longer has the effortless screen presence that once made it impossible to look away. I don’t know if it’s the performer or the character, but Reef’s assistant Sammy doesn’t suit the style, feeling like a deliberately kooky Deschanel-type, all quirks and forced performative behaviour. Martin Scorsese gives a surprisingly good performance. Everybody is aware of his talent behind the camera, but his work as a performer in this is to be admired, giving a lot of depth to what could be a pathetic character. His almost-monologue is full of pathos, emotion, and regret. You could build entire stories around that.

Ultimately, the film never quite figures out what it wants to be. Is it attempting to be a character study about someone realising he’s kind of a dick? Is it a satire about how fame is based more around PR than actual behaviour? Is it about how our expectation that celebrities should be perfect is a doomed endeavour? Or is it about how cancel culture ruins the lives of famous people? It feels like it is aiming to be all of them, so never fully commits to anything. All of those ideas are good ideas worth studying, but they never fully mesh in Outcome. Every time it looks like it’s getting deep into something, it pulls out (sex reference unintentional but I’m keeping it).

Visually, it’s fine. There are no shots which are ugly or distracting, but nothing that will make you appreciate it. When I was younger, I used to think the director’s job was very easy; you just point a camera at what’s happening and press record. That’s the approach it seems was taken to Outcome. The camera isn’t assisting the story or themes in any way. There’s very little sense that the camera is being used to tell the story, rather than simply record it. It’s just watching from nearby. This restrained approach to directing means that the weaker stretches have nothing to lean on. When the conversation dries up, there’s nothing carrying you to the next scene.

Under different circumstances, I think I’d have come away describing Outcome as an above-average streaming drama with some genuinely compelling scenes surrounded by a lot of filler. But art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, especially when it’s so easy to draw parallels between the story being told and the person telling it. Whether that’s fair or not, it’s impossible for me to separate the two, and the film never gives me enough to overcome that discomfort. It asks you to empathise with a flawed man trying to navigate the consequences of his actions, but because of who’s making that argument, it never feels like simple fiction. It feels like self-defence.

Outcome isn’t a disaster. There are moments of genuine insight, some excellent performances, particularly from Martin Scorsese, and conversations that linger long after the credits roll. But the film never develops beyond its central premise, and Jonah Hill’s involvement hangs over every scene like an elephant in the room. Maybe that’s unavoidable. Maybe that’s the point. Either way, it’s a film whose most interesting discussion happens outside the film itself.

Little Brother (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Rudd Landry (played by John Cena) has a thriving real estate career, a wife/kids, a killer physique, and a chance to be on a reality TV show. But he has two problems: Josh (Christopher Meloni), his actual brother, who overshadows him. And Marcus (Eric Andre), his “little brother”, someone he mentored as part of a Big Brother program in college.

I’ll start with performances. I will always love seeing Sherry Cola and John Cena in films. Cena, in particular, has quietly become a really dependable comedic lead. For someone who was known in his wrestling career for showing his work (often shouting instructions so loudly that people in the back row could hear) and for being unable to take things seriously, it’s weird that his film comedy style is based mainly on being the straight man. He’d be great in an action movie parody in the style of Naked Gun. Christina Catechis gives a fun performance, reminds me of Grace Parra. No idea who the woman who is territorial about her window is, but I love her. Eric André can be brilliant, but he can also be exhausting.

That’s definitely the case here. He’s the central part of the emotional story arc, yet his personality makes that emotional arc far less effective than it should be. The audience doesn’t buy into him as someone worth the emotion. He’s not misunderstood, or troubled, or someone who’s a bit rough around the edges but is generally a lovely person. He’s kind of a selfish dick with no idea of societal expectations. Not in a “With multiple options for cutlery, move from the outside in as you go through the meal” way, this is “don’t piss out of a car window, dent someone’s car, or swear at strangers”. This isn’t Jack Black in most films; this is Jack Black in School of Rock. Someone you’re supposed to support, but is too immature and self-destructive to really care about.

That’s ultimately the film’s biggest problem. We’re supposed to care about Marcus, but it never does the work to make him someone you’d actually want to spend time with. Chaotic energy isn’t a substitute for likeability, no matter what the parents of toddlers tell you. You absolutely can build a comedy around an abrasive protagonist, but the audience needs to understand where that abrasiveness comes from. Otherwise, he’s just a dick. I never felt sorry for Marcus. I felt sorry for everyone who had to deal with him.

Rudd’s older brother Josh is a more believable character, but arguably an even less likeable one. He seems completely oblivious to Rudd’s admiration and feelings of inadequacy, yet there are moments where he almost appears to go out of his way to antagonise him. And the voice box gag at the end is simply too stupid for words.

Thankfully, Cena’s Rudd keeps everything grounded. He could easily have become the sort of bland straight man who exists purely to react while everyone else gets the jokes. Instead, the writing gives him enough warmth and frustration that he feels like a real person. The emotional core only works because Rudd behaves like a human being rather than a plot device. He gets annoyed, he occasionally snaps, but he keeps trying. Cena has become surprisingly adept at playing characters whose defining trait is patience rather than charisma, and that’s a much harder job in comedy than simply being the loudest person in the room.

The important question, though, is whether it’s funny.

Yes. It is.

There are plenty of genuine laughs throughout. Nothing groundbreaking or unforgettable, but enough to keep the film entertaining. Although it leans heavily on Eric André’s trademark chaos, it also has the good sense to avoid some of the more obvious, low-hanging dialogue jokes.

The ending, though, is bizarre. I’m used to films continuing the story during the credits, showing where the characters end up. I’m also used to films filling the credits with bloopers and outtakes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film try to do both simultaneously. Not one after the other, either. Instead, it constantly cuts between story epilogues and behind-the-scenes outtakes, forcing your brain to keep recalibrating whether what you’re watching is part of the narrative or just the cast messing around. It feels oddly amateurish and neatly sums up my biggest issue with the film: the comedy keeps getting in its own way.

That’s a strange criticism to level at a comedy. I’m not saying it shouldn’t have jokes. I’m saying it’s so desperate to remind you it’s a comedy that it often sabotages itself. Whenever the film starts building a genuinely engaging scene, it feels compelled to interrupt it with another improvised tangent or burst of randomness. Sometimes that works. Just as often, it kills the momentum and undercuts whatever emotional weight the scene was beginning to build.

That’s a shame, because there’s a better film buried underneath. The central relationship is strong enough to carry the story without constantly winking at the audience. None of that makes it a bad watch. It’s breezy, consistently entertaining, and never feels like it’s wasting your time. It just never quite figures out when to stop chasing the next laugh and let the ones it’s already earned breathe. Ironically, by trying so hard to be funny, it sometimes undercuts the humour that’s already there.

It’s an enjoyable comedy rather than a memorable one. You’ll laugh, you’ll probably forget most of it by next week, but for nearly one hundred or so minutes it does enough to justify its existence. Plus, it contains more Hoobastank than any other film released this year.