Tag: movie-review

Forgotten Island (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When childhood best friends Jo and Raissa are transported to a mysterious island inhabited by creatures from Filipino folklore, they must find a way home before losing the memories of their friendship forever.

When I first saw the trailer for this, I was completely sold on the idea. It immediately went onto my list of films to watch as soon as it came out. Then Raww, a were-dog, showed up in a series of supposedly comedic scenes. And suddenly, I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. It felt stupid, like the writers had decided they needed a comedic character and were going to make absolutely sure we knew it, regardless of how funny he actually was.

Having now seen the film, that initial assessment was pretty much correct. For the most part, Forgotten Island is great, but Raww is an unfortunate exception. His scenes are easily the weakest part of the film, and the only times where it feels like the humour is aimed exclusively at children. I can’t imagine many adults finding his antics particularly amusing. At best, they’re an inconvenience to sit through before the film returns to its considerably more interesting elements.

And those elements are VERY good.

The relationship between Jo and Raissa is enchanting. They feel like two long-term friends who are slowly approaching the end of their friendship, with all the awkwardness, resentment and unresolved feelings that come with it. In many ways, their dynamic is reminiscent of a soon-to-be-divorced couple. There’s so much history between them, and you get the impression that they’ve been drifting apart for some time. It’s not another friendship falling apart simply because the plot demands it. There’s a genuine sadness to watching two people who once meant so much to each other struggle to find common ground. Everybody has had what they thought would be a lifelong friendship fall apart as they age and change, making their situation particularly easy to relate to.

What about the other characters? Two of them are absolutely terrifying: Batiba and Manang. (I’m very glad this is a written review, because if it were a video review, I’d have fucked up the pronunciation of so many character names.)

Batiba initially comes across as kind, although her eventual villainous turn isn’t particularly surprising. Perhaps that’s just a consequence of watching as many films as I do (95 new releases this year), meaning I’m getting increasingly good at spotting these things before they happen. Manang is a different matter entirely. She’s visually terrifying, and there’s a suggested backstory lurking beneath the surface that’s just begging to be discussed after the credits roll. Part of me desperately wants to know more about her, but another part appreciates the decision to keep her history a mystery. Sometimes, what you don’t know about a character is considerably more interesting than what you do.

The visuals in this are absolutely gorgeous. There’s a definite anime influence to the animation, particularly in the movement and framing, which gives the film a really distinctive look. It’s refreshing to see an animated film that feels like it has its own visual identity, rather than simply following an established house style. One of the trailers shown before the film was Not Alone, and even from the very brief clips we saw, I could tell it was made by the team behind Despicable Me. The human characters looked exactly like those in their other films. Forgotten Island, meanwhile, feels much more individual. The character designs are great, but it’s the use of colour that really stands out. Everything is so vibrant and imaginative, and the environments have an almost dreamlike quality. It’s the sort of world that makes you wish you could jump into the screen and explore it yourself.

It’s not just the visuals that make this such a treat; it’s an audio treat too. There’s some great music throughout, with the song choices adding another layer to the film’s atmosphere. The use of Never Tear Us Apart is particularly beautiful. It’s one of those musical choices that just feels right, complementing the emotions on screen and giving the moment an added sense of poignancy. It’s also a lovely reminder of how effective a well-chosen existing song can be in an animated film.

I’ll admit, I’m approaching this as a culturally sheltered white English person, but I absolutely loved the incorporation of Philippine mythology. I don’t know a great deal about it, so I’m hardly in a position to judge how accurately it’s represented, but I haven’t come across any major complaints from Filipino audiences suggesting that the film is a disgrace. The voice cast is also packed with Filipino talent, from Liza Soberano to Lea Salonga, which is lovely to see.

I really like it when local folklore and mythology are introduced to an international audience, particularly through animation. There’s something quite special about the idea that a young Western audience might come away from watching this having discovered a little bit about a culture and its stories that they might otherwise never have encountered.

Of course, I don’t speak Filipino, so my assumption that there haven’t been any major complaints is really just an assumption that there haven’t been any widespread complaints in English. There’s every chance I’ve missed something, and I hope I haven’t, but I wanted to make that distinction.

Ultimately, Forgotten Island is a film with a lot more going for it than its less successful comedy might initially suggest. Its central relationship is genuinely engaging, its visual style is beautiful, and its use of Philippine mythology gives it a refreshing sense of originality. Unfortunately, Raww remains a persistent distraction, and I can’t help feeling that the film would have been considerably stronger had his character been handled differently.

But there’s enough here to make the experience worthwhile. Beneath the occasional childish humour is a surprisingly touching adventure about friendship, growing apart and finding a way to reconnect. I came away liking the film considerably more than I expected to after watching that trailer.

Really, the biggest downside is that I saw it in the same week as Wildwood, which is a bit like having a really good sandwich the same week as a Kobe beef steak. As good as it is (and it is very good), it simply can’t compare.

This is definitely worth watching, though, and I can easily see it becoming a kids’ favourite. The one they watch endlessly, annoying the hell out of their parents.

Wildwood (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When her infant brother, Mac, is abducted by a murder of crows, 12-year-old Portland teenager Prue McKeel launches a rescue mission into the Impassable Wilderness—a forbidden, magical forest

Despite what it may seem like, my review release dates actually do have some logic to them. If I watch a film on a streaming service, its review gets pushed to the back of the queue, with cinema releases taking priority so the reviews come out while people can still see the films on the big screen. There’s also a degree of thematic scheduling. I timed my reviews of Saipan and Balls Out (or Balls Up; I still can’t remember the title) to coincide with the World Cup. It’s Halloween week, and I have two horror movie reviews lined up (Ghosts: The Possession of Button House and Clayface), both of which are cinema releases and therefore need to be written urgently. The logical thing to do would be to write and publish those reviews today. Instead, I’m going with Wildwood. There’s a reason for that. I watched it yesterday, a Sunday, at a perfectly normal time to go to the cinema. Yet there were only three or four other people in the screening. This movie deserves better. Although, to be fair, if the cinema had been anything less than packed, I’d have said the same thing.

Laika have produced two of the best stop-motion films of all time: 2009’s “Now Damned By The Author” Coraline and 2016’s Kubo And The Two Strings. This is even better than both. There have been two Pixar movies released this year, and DreamWorks has given us Forgotten Island, the strongest movie they’ve put out in a long time. Wildwood is better than those too. I’m going to get straight to the point: this is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.

It has everything I want and love in a movie: striking visuals, complex characters, a well-crafted world, humour, emotional depth, great performances, and a fantastic soundtrack. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as close to perfection as cinema has ever come. Spoilers: it’s already pretty much guaranteed to win “Best Film” at the end-of-year awards. I won’t even be able to pretend it’s a contest.

The flaws? The length may put some people off. Over two hours is a LONG runtime for a kids’ movie. Also, as much as I loved the pre-credits scene, I can see the argument that it undermines the villain a little. We’re given a brief glimpse of her backstory that explains her motives, then see her at her most evil, only for her backstory to be explored in greater detail later. And there’s one reveal that’s foreshadowed a bit too heavily. But those complaints are the cinematic equivalent of complaining because the free meal you just ate wasn’t big enough. They’re valid criticisms, but they’re so minor in the grand scheme of things that they barely make a dent in my enjoyment.

It’s hard to talk about this film honestly, because doing so means endlessly praising it. It’s shockingly violent for a kids’ movie, with army massacres that rival Saving Private Ryan. But these aren’t just faceless deaths or animated nobodies. You get the sense that every one of them is a person with a family, a personal history, and an unrealised future. That gives the deaths genuine weight and makes them all the more emotionally devastating.

On the subject of emotion: the villain’s backstory. Holy shit, is that something else. I don’t agree with her methods, but I can absolutely understand what drives her to act the way she does. Sympathetic villains are nothing new, but they’re rarely crafted with this much brilliance. The other characters feel just as real. There’s a governor who only appears on-screen for a few moments, yet even they have their own clear motivations and reasoning behind their actions.

The voice work is brilliant, too. I’ve always thought Carey Mulligan was great, but even by her usual high standards, this is superb. Just look at the cast list: Richard E. Grant, Angela Bassett, Mahershala Ali. That’s a stacked cast. Yet it’s Peyton Elizabeth Lee who takes the lead, and she’s incredible, giving Prue a personality that makes it impossible not to root for her.

The visuals are as beautiful as the characters themselves. I’m not going to lie and say something like “you almost forget it’s an animated movie”; you never forget that. And why would you want to? Everything you see onscreen feels like it’s been crafted with love and dedication. It’s taken over half a decade to bring these visuals to life, and not a second was wasted. The buildings feel real and lived-in, the characters feel alive, and the landscapes are lush and bursting with life. Look, they’ve made a stop-motion movie featuring battles with multiple characters and birds in flight. How can you not be impressed by something like that?

It’s not just emotion and seriousness that drive this film. It’s also really funny. The jokes about Oregon and its hipster culture are hilarious, but never feel mocking. You can tell they come from a genuine place of love and affection for the area and its culture. That connection to Oregon extends to the soundtrack, too. It’s not often that kids’ movies feature so much shoegaze and indie music, but it works brilliantly here. That probably helps explain why the soundtrack feels so fitting: the original book was written by Colin Meloy, frontman of The Decemberists, whose music features on the soundtrack, too. Prue’s fish-out-of-water nature and Curtis’s nervousness also provide plenty of laughs.

The world-building? It’s pretty damn good. The universe is full of enough hints about its history that you can imagine countless untold stories taking place within it. My one small criticism is that I don’t think enough emphasis is placed on the divide between the Impassable Wilderness and the human world. The characters seem shocked when an outsider appears, but the idea doesn’t feel all that impossible. There’s no obvious sense of a magical barrier separating the two worlds; it feels more like someone moving to Tunbridge Wells from Glasgow. Not impossible, just not something that happens very often.

In summary, Wildwood is so good that I changed my review release schedule for it. I’m not going to be subtle about this: you should go see it.

The Dink (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A washed-up tennis prodigy turns to pickleball to save his father’s country club and confront his past

One of these days, Apple TV is going to make a great film. Some of its TV output has been superb, but its straight-to-streaming selections have been poor. It has made some good movies, but they’ve generally been films that received cinema releases. I’m not complaining about that: I’ll always support films getting a cinema release. But it does make Apple TV a difficult streaming service for me to justify once the new season of Ted Lasso finishes.

On the plus side, none of them have been particularly awful. They’ve had some that are bland, but nothing as bad as some of Prime’s offerings. It’s into this state of mediocrity that we’re given The Dink. That’s particularly disappointing because Josh Greenbaum has made two films that I have a strong fondness for: Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar and Strays. Based on those two films, he’s the correct choice to direct Spaceballs 2. Based on The Dink, I’m worried.

It reminds me of the worst parts of comedies made by what the media dubbed the “Frat Pack”, and the comedy that surrounded it: Judd Apatow, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, etc. The sort of films that would find a joke and then run it into the ground. Like they were improvising, but not bothering to edit because they wanted to make sure everybody got their shtick in. It would be improved if it tried to be less of a comedy. If it stopped trying to shoehorn jokes into scenes where they don’t belong. Especially since it derails both the realism and characterisation for the sake of getting another joke in.

The insistence on comedy also comes at the expense of emotion. The film reveals late on that Dustin didn’t break his wrist in a freak accident, but broke it on purpose because he was ashamed of losing in front of his dad. That’s powerful. It should be a turning point in the narrative, something that changes how we see him. At the very least, his dad should find out and realise the trauma he’s inflicted on his son. Nope. It changes nothing. It’s not helped by the way the film treats everyone as comedy characters rather than real people. So you don’t actually give a shit.

There’s some weird narrative logic here. The film starts with Dustin’s dad being annoyed at him for banning people from the club for playing pickleball. But then his dad holds a meeting saying they need to ban pickleball players from the club because he thinks they’re being too demanding with requests like, “Make it so our court isn’t a deathtrap.” If he’s genuinely that annoyed by the pickleball players being there, wouldn’t Dustin banning them be exactly what he wanted?

Not that it’s all negative. The John McEnroe bits are funny, particularly because of how absolutely absurd they are. It’s one of the few running jokes that doesn’t run out of steam. He’s weirdly good at comedy. Less so is Mary Steenburgen, which is strange because she’s usually REALLY good. But for whatever reason, she’s not at her best here. To be honest, it’s difficult for anybody to stand out when the characters aren’t people so much as caricatures. Nobody is given enough depth to really show what they can do. Aaron Chen seems promising, though. I get the feeling he’d make a great best-friend character.

The biggest problem is that The Dink feels like it thinks it’s funnier than it actually is. There are funny ideas here, but they’re buried underneath jokes that don’t land and characters that you don’t buy. There’s a better film hiding underneath all of this. If the father-son relationship had been explored properly, the movie could have been genuinely sweet. Instead, the comedy constantly gets in the way of what could have been a surprisingly effective emotional story.

Josh Greenbaum has already shown that he can make ridiculous comedy work. Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is completely bonkers, but it understands exactly how ridiculous it is. Strays is similarly stupid, but there’s a confidence to it. The Dink feels much less controlled. It’s as though everyone involved is trying so hard to make sure we’re having fun that they’ve forgotten to trust the material to actually be funny.

It’s not terrible. There are some laughs, a few good performances buried underneath the caricatures, and John McEnroe is consistently entertaining. But for a comedy with this much talent, The Dink is surprisingly forgettable. Greenbaum has proven he can do much better. Hopefully Spaceballs 2 reminds me of that.

Fall 2 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A grieving woman and her late sister’s friend get trapped thousands of feet up on a dangerous mountain plank walk in Thailand after a rockslide destroys the path.

I absolutely loved Fall; it was probably the most tense film I’ve ever watched. I remember watching it, and at one particularly intense moment, a guy sitting nearby stood up, loudly proclaimed, “fuck this”, and walked out. Honestly, I get it. It was an unsettling watch that made my stomach jump constantly (although that could have been the sweet popcorn). So I was incredibly excited by the idea of a sequel.

I was a bit nervous that it was only a few months away from release and there still wasn’t a trailer. Then the trailer came out, and it was… fine. It didn’t blow me away, but mainly because it was so short that it didn’t really showcase much. I figured the finished film would be worth it.

It’s not. I’ll state that up front. It’s nowhere near as good as the first one; it feels like a cheap knock-off. Part of that is because I now have expectations. But part of it is because it’s simply not as good. There are moments where it’s incredible, where you finish a scene and realise just how tightly wound you were while watching it. So it’s not a terrible film, but it isn’t a good one either. There are three main issues: the script, the characters, and the visuals.

The script. The idea for Fall 2 is simple: two characters are trapped on a wooden bridge high up on a mountain. That’s it. Everything is there. It doesn’t need complicating. But it does it anyway. It tries to be clever, adding unnecessary twists and turns.

I’ll talk about one of them because it doesn’t really impact the script, so it’s not a spoiler. Who we thought was called Luce is actually called Billie. She claimed she was a friend of Shiloh (the woman from the first movie, and the sister of Fall 2 protagonist Jax), and it’s a shock to discover that she was actually just a fan. All shocking, all effective. Well, it would be, if any of this had actually mattered before. The fact that Luce is friends with Shiloh is mentioned in dialogue that is so ineffectual it’s basically homoeopathic. There are no conversations about “so what was my sister like at college?”, or discussions of their supposed friendship. There are so many dialogue-heavy scenes that it’s impossible to remember every single thing that was mentioned in passing.

It would be like if I suddenly said: “I absolutely detest sweet popcorn, much preferring salted.” It would mean nothing, because nobody reading this review is going to remember that I mentioned popcorn in the first paragraph. Why would you?

The characters. This was a slight issue in the first film: people taking reasonable decisions for their safety are labelled “not living life”, and standard things to make sure you don’t die are described as “letting fear run your life”. That’s taken to the extreme in this. Especially in a flashback sequence detailing the time Jax and Shiloh went skydiving, and Shiloh pretended to pass out mid-air. When they land, Shiloh does the whole “It was to teach you not to let fear run your life”. No, if you’re skydiving and the person you are trusting to keep you safe passes out, you have every right to be scared, and it’s not unreasonable to be pissed off if it turns out they’re faking it. It’s why parenting books don’t recommend breaking into your kid’s bedroom swinging a chainsaw to teach them about stranger danger. Also, Shiloh’s death doesn’t come up that much. At no point does Jax say, “Yes, I’m scared of falling from heights, but I have a good reason to be; my sister died falling from one”. They mention how her sister didn’t let fear rule her life, how she climbed tall structures with abandon, but don’t mention that it’s that fearlessness that killed her.

Fall 2 also has issues with pacing. It takes seemingly forever for them to actually get to the spot, so it doesn’t even feel like the main part of its own movie. For an idea of how long it takes to get there, the current plot section on the film’s Wikipedia page is 678 words long. It takes over 200 words before we get to “The two women are then left stranded.” The entire section describing the two of them alone is just 232 words.

Finally, the visuals. What worked about the first film was that it was set on a small radio tower. The tower itself was a constant visual reminder that there was nothing between them and the ground. Here, they’re on the edge of a mountain, so most of the shots are the two leads in the foreground, with a huge chunk of rock behind them. You don’t get that same constant reminder of the peril they’re in. There are a few moments where you do see just how high they are, but they’re few and far between.

I also felt the opening was overly stylised, shot more like an action movie than a survival thriller, which detracted from the realism somewhat.

This has all seemed pretty negative, much more so than this film deserves. On its own merits, it’s perfectly fine. It has some incredible shots, and the performances are all good too. My only criticism of the cast is how much Tom Brittney looks like a mix of Tom Ellis and Santino Fontana, but that’s not his fault; it’s just my brain looking for shortcuts.

Harriet Slater and Arsema Thomas are solid leads, only really let down by the script. I get the feeling that if they were scripted as friends, they’d be allowed to be much more natural with each other. As it is, they have to play two strangers, which means there’s only so much chemistry they can show.

In summary, I really wanted to like this. I’m still waiting for the obvious contender for my favourite film of the year, and I hoped Fall 2 would be the one to do it. Instead, it’s a clear favourite for “Most Disappointing”. If this had been released on its own, I’d be much warmer towards it. But when the original Fall had me genuinely considering whether I could stomach another minute of it, it’s hard not to feel let down by a sequel that never comes close to that level of tension.

The mountain in Fall 2 is MUCH higher than the tower from the first one, but the biggest difference in height is the difference in quality between the two. There’s a third movie on the way, featuring the leads from both films, and it looks like it’s set on a snowy mountain. If it follows the same approach as this one, I’m expecting much the same thing, but with added snow and clearer skies – which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence that the visuals will be any more tense.

Coyote Vs. Acme (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: After years of failure, Wile. E Coyote decides to sue Acme over their products failures to aid him in eating a bird.

In the last few years, it’s become increasingly obvious that people judge films by their context. I try to avoid doing that in my reviews; I think a lot of films that are negatively reviewed and dismissed as “woke” are films nobody would have been particularly bothered by if they’d been released before the Internet Bad Times. But sometimes context is impossible to ignore. It’s difficult to enjoy a film if you can’t separate the actor from their sex crimes. Similarly, part of my dislike for Ella McCay was that I thought it was socially irresponsible to make a film about US politics in 2025 and have it be utterly toothless. I’m mentioning that for two reasons: 1) to fill my word count (which doesn’t matter because I don’t have a prescribed word count; it’s just “write until I run out of ideas”); and 2) because the context of CvA’s release is vitally important.

For those unaware, the film was completed in 2023, then Warner Bros. cancelled it for tax reasons/because they’re assholes (my editor made me refrain from using the c-word there, but in my opinion it would be fully deserved), alongside Batgirl and Scoob! Holiday Haunt (although the latter two were still in post-production). Clearly, WB decided to focus on high-quality films that would enhance their reputation. Films like Joker: Folie à Deux, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (the film that redefined how to do a sequel to a film where one of the main characters is a paedophile, and that’s not a compliment), and the nepo-film of the century, Trap. The decision was baffling, especially since early reviews were positive. Highly so, in fact. Some people were even calling it one of the best animated movies in recent memory. CvA was eventually saved by distributor Ketchup Entertainment, to the relief of everybody who likes good movies (so, presumably, nobody who works at Warner Bros.).

So it’s fair to say expectations were high. Does it meet them? Early reviews indicate yes. But those are professional reviewers; I’m not. I don’t give a shit about a lot of films that “proper” reviewers care about, and there are plenty of times when our opinions differ.

Not here though. CvA is a joy. It put me in mind of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but with fewer scenes that will traumatise you or turn you on. It’s genuinely heartwarming at times. It’s not exactly a complex movie, but there’s considerably more going on beneath the cartoon chaos than you’d expect. Beyond the obvious cartoon stuff, there’s a story about the dangers of corporate capitalism, what makes a conscious being deserving of rights, and the tragic tale of Sisyphus. That’s not exactly surprising, though. People have this misguided idea that Shrek was the first kids’ movie that had higher concepts and jokes for adults to understand, yet Looney Tunes has been doing that kind of thing for years. Bugs Bunny has been a lot of people’s first introduction to classical music for decades. Bugs Bunny wasn’t sitting around waiting for Shrek to show up and give him permission to be funny to adults. Looney Tunes has always been perfectly happy to put something ridiculous in front of children while also slipping in references that they’re not expected to understand. CvA feels like it actually understands that rather than trying to replicate the formula of modern animated films and occasionally putting a fart joke in to prove it’s still fun.

That attitude is why CvA is not just a great kids’ movie, but a great movie. I say that having looked around the screening and realised how many childless adults were there. It wasn’t exactly a cinema full of parents being dragged along by their children; there were a surprising number of us who had apparently chosen to spend two hours watching Wile E. Coyote sue ACME entirely of our own free will. CvA works because it operates under the assumption that kids aren’t idiots, while recognising that parents are the ones buying the tickets and need to be entertained too. Crucially, it’s not cynical; there’s no dark mysterious undertone. It’s also not ashamed of being a Looney Tunes movie. There’s a tendency with some films based on properties like this to make them too self-aware or retcon everything to make them darker. CvA just lets the characters be themselves. The closest it gets to a Cerebus-style reinterpretation is implying that Daffy Duck’s behaviour is because ACME drove him mad.

The film does expand the characters, though. That’s to be expected with the increased runtime. Coyote is no longer a two-dimensional villain. The character has spent most of his existence being defined by one thing: trying to eat the Road Runner. That’s basically it. He’s not exactly Tony Soprano in terms of character development. Giving him a proper personality works, and you actually feel sorry for him. He’s been repeatedly sold products by ACME that are either defective or catastrophically dangerous, and rather than anyone asking why the company is allowed to continue operating, everyone just accepts that Wile E. is an idiot. At some point you have to wonder whether this is actually a Road Runner problem or whether the coyote has just been the victim of one of the longest-running corporate scams in history. He’s sympathetic, vulnerable, and, importantly, he’s allowed to be right. There’s an actual injustice here. Watching Coyote fight against injustice adds a lot of emotional weight, more than you’d expect from a film based on short films where the punchline was usually “gravity”.

The performances? John Cena is perfect for stuff like this. His comically serious demeanour suits the ridiculousness of the film. I mean, he’s basically a cartoon anyway. Surprisingly, Will Forte brings the drama. More so than I expected. He seems genuinely beaten down by life, almost as if he’s spent decades pushing a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down again. He adds a sincerity to Coyote that would otherwise be lacking. I kind of loved Lana Condor. This is the third film I’ve seen her in this year, and the first one I’ve positively reviewed. She shows a warmth that was missing from the previous films. She wasn’t in it long, but I loved Kristen K. Berg as the court reporter. She kind of reminded me of Sarah Baker.

Those performances are helped by the script. It’s incredibly sincere. Beneath the standard cartoon jokes, there’s a story about someone being told his suffering doesn’t matter because of who he is. Not many animated films tackle this kind of complex philosophical debate, and even fewer would do it at a time when we’re increasingly likely to have debates about whether robots deserve rights while still denying those rights to people who are non-white or part of the LGBTQ+ community. It’s not the main thesis of the film, but it does underlie a lot of the characters’ motivations and narrative choices.

It’s also surprisingly anti-corporate. ACME is exaggerated, but compared to companies in the real world, not by that much. In-universe, ACME is a company that can sell you something that kills you through negligence, then refuse to accept responsibility. Meanwhile, in the real world, aircraft manufacturers can ignore safety concerns which lead to the deaths of hundreds of people, and have their main punishment be a fine that’s a fraction of the money saved by ignoring those concerns. It’s not exactly subtle, but in modern times we need stuff that’s unsubtle.

That depiction of large corporations has only become more relevant when you consider how Warner Bros. treated the film. It’s a film about a corporation screwing over an individual because it has enough money and power to do so. The film itself was nearly denied an audience because a massive corporation decided it was financially more convenient to make it disappear. I’m sure somebody at Warner Bros. has already explained why this isn’t ironic. I’m also sure their explanation involved the words “strategic” and “content”, which means I don’t want to hear it. Their actions only made the message of the film feel more relevant. It’s like when a guy argues he’s not violent, and if you say he is, he’ll punch you in the face.

That’s probably why the emotional stuff works. Underneath all the jokes, this is a story about somebody who has spent his entire life losing and finally deciding that he’s had enough. It’s not particularly complicated, but it doesn’t need to be. Sometimes a simple story works better than one with twelve twists, three cinematic universes and a post-credits scene teasing a spin-off that nobody asked for.

The Sisyphus references are obvious, but they’re also explained in case you’re not too familiar with Greek mythology. There will be people who learn about that tale through this movie. Whilst also learning how corporations suck. What more could you want from a film like this?

Even without the background noise of its production and release, this is still worth paying attention to. The early reviews were right. Annoyingly, sometimes critics actually know what they’re talking about. Coyote vs. Acme is great. Not “great considering it was almost cancelled”, not “great for a film based on a cartoon”, and not “great if you’re a fan of Looney Tunes”. Just great. It’s funny, it’s surprisingly sweet, it has more going on beneath the surface than I expected, and it manages to make a film about Wile E. Coyote suing ACME feel like a completely reasonable thing to spend two hours watching. The biggest problem with the film is therefore also the biggest problem with its release: I wish I’d been able to watch it sooner. Warner Bros. spent years sitting on a film that people actually wanted to see, while releasing films that made plenty of people wonder whether they’d accidentally walked into the wrong cinema. I don’t know what the exact financial calculations were, and frankly I don’t care. I’m a film reviewer, not an accountant. If your decision means I get to watch Trap instead of Wile E. Coyote suing ACME, I think I’m entitled to conclude that somebody, somewhere, has made a terrible mistake.

It’s not often that I finish a film about a cartoon character whose primary achievement is repeatedly running into walls and think, “That was considerably better than it had any right to be.” But here we are. And after everything this film went through just to be released, perhaps Wile E. Coyote finally got the one thing he’s been trying to get his entire life.

A win.

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.

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.

The Odyssey (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca, undergoes a long and perilous journey home after the Trojan War and encounters mythical beings as he attempts to reunite with his wife Penelope

I don’t think I need to see another Nolan film ever again. My problems with Nolan are well documented: his scripts often lack emotion, while his dialogue somehow manages to both overexplain everything and leave you wondering what anyone actually means (as perfectly encapsulated in this video). Of course, actually hearing that dialogue has always been another challenge thanks to Nolan’s sound mixing (a problem that’s cropped up throughout his career, but reached its peak with Tenet). The result has always been films I admire more than I actually connect with.

None of that is why I don’t want to see another Nolan film. I just wanted to lull you into a false sense of security. I don’t want to see another Nolan film because The Odyssey feels like what his career has been building towards. The fragmented timelines in Dunkirk, the sense of foreboding that hangs over Oppenheimer, the manipulation of geography in Inception, his exploration of mythic heroes from Batman. Everything has been building towards this moment. Seen in retrospect, the rest of his filmography feels like practice for The Odyssey. Homer’s epic demands a filmmaker obsessed with time, perspective, spectacle and impossible journeys, qualities Nolan has spent twenty-five years refining

The internet has spent an impressive amount of time arguing about the historical accuracy of a film based on a myth. Some of it has simply been misinformation, claims that Elliot Page is playing Achilles, despite actually playing Sinos. Some of it has been uglier, with people claiming Lupita Nyong’o is “too black” to play Helen of Troy (despite being one of the most strikingly beautiful actors working today, which feels rather relevant when casting Helen). Then there’s the debate over accents, with complaints that everyone speaks in historically inaccurate American accents, rather than the obviously much more historically accurate British ones. I didn’t invent that last argument, by the way. James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter was so annoyed by the accents that he wrote an entire article about it, arguing that the modern British accent is “traditionally considered universally pleasing and ‘just foreign enough'” to create a timeless quality. Apparently, the ancient Greeks were just waiting for actors to discover Received Pronunciation.

However, there is one criticism that does deserve to be taken seriously: Emily Wilson’s. Especially because her 2017 translation of The Odyssey formed the basis of Nolan’s adaptation. She argues that the film simplifies Odysseus, stripping away much of the complexity of the character and leaving little to say about the major themes of Homer’s work.

From the perspective of someone who has spent years studying the text, it’s a difficult criticism to dismiss. However, there is also a difference between experiencing The Odyssey as a scholar and experiencing it as a general audience member. Wilson has pored over every word of the original, examining it through historical context and the work of other translators and academics. A filmgoer is approaching the story very differently. They are not necessarily looking for every character, or comparing every choice against centuries of interpretation; they are experiencing the story Nolan has chosen to tell.

Let’s be honest, most audience members won’t leave the cinema wondering where Queen Arete is or which elements of the poem have been omitted. As historian Tom Holland (not the actor who appears in this film) has pointed out, there is no historically accurate version of Odysseus to recreate. He is a mythical figure. An “impressionist” interpretation of ancient history is arguably more valuable than a painstaking attempt to recreate every historical detail, because such accuracy is impossible. So with that in mind, how is the film itself? As you can guess from my second paragraph, I loved it. It’s long, you can’t deny that, but every scene feels like it earns its place. There is so much mythology packed into this story that removing anything risks making the journey feel incomplete. Some stuff you’ll be familiar with (the Trojan horse, the sirens, Circe), some you won’t (I can’t say because I don’t know what you’re familiar with). The impressive thing isn’t that Nolan includes these famous moments; it’s the way he reinterprets them. The Trojan horse isn’t simply a giant wooden structure waiting to be wheeled into Troy. The song of the sirens is not a beautiful melody, but a haunting lament for everything you’ve left behind. Circe’s transformation of men into pigs is one of the most disturbing versions of that event you could hope for, helped enormously by another excellent performance from Samantha Morton. Surely an Academy Award for one of her performances is only a matter of time?

The cast is one of the film’s biggest strengths. There are no real weak links. Robert Pattinson gives a deliciously sleazy performance that will make your skin crawl, somehow making every appearance both entertaining and deeply uncomfortable. Matt Damon is perfectly cast, and not just because this is another film where he spends the story desperately trying to get home. Somehow, that has become his very specific niche. As said earlier, Samantha Morton is excellent as Circe, bringing a genuinely unsettling quality to a character who could easily have become just another stop on Odysseus’ journey. The only criticism you can really make of Tom Holland is that his babyface means he doesn’t quite look like a 30-year-old, but that is hardly a fault with his performance.

Visually, this might be Nolan at his most impressive. Polyphemus the cyclops looks genuinely monstrous; the way he kills Odysseus’ soldiers brings to mind Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, not simply because of the violence, but because of the sense of something ancient and unstoppable consuming something helpless. The Laestrygonians are similarly nightmarish, not only because of their size, but because of the way they manipulate the landscape itself to trap and kill their victims.

This makes it the perfect opportunity to talk about one of Nolan’s greatest strengths: his understanding of scale. A low angle alone does not make something feel enormous; the audience needs something familiar beside it for comparison. This is partly why I think Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire did not work as well as it could have. The monsters were huge, but the films rarely gave us a true sense of that size. Nolan understands that difference. Here, everything that is supposed to feel massive actually does, from the mythological creatures to the buildings, landscapes, and entire worlds they inhabit.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Odyssey is not what Nolan builds, but what he allows us to see. The film takes us across coastlines, mountains and islands that feel almost untouched by time, and Nolan is confident enough to simply let them exist. The scenery becomes almost another character, shaping the journey as much as the people within it. Each location represents another stage of Odysseus’ journey, not just geographically but emotionally, giving the entire film a sense of scale and reality that artificial environments often struggle to replicate.

These are not historical places recreated for the camera. They are places that existed before the film and will continue to exist afterwards. Every mountain, coastline and cave has texture and history, making the journey feel less like a series of movie sets and more like an actual voyage across an ancient world.

For all Nolan’s strengths, emotion remains his greatest weakness. There is emotion here, but it comes mainly from the performances rather than the writing. The actors create feelings that the script itself rarely manages to reach. There are moments that should be devastating, but they are presented with such clinical precision that you end up more impressed than affected by what you are seeing. You understand what the characters are feeling, but you remain outside the experience rather than being pulled into it. There is an emotional distance between the audience and both the characters and the story.

The closest the film gets is near the end, when the fall of Troy is presented not as the glorious conclusion of an epic, but as what it actually was: the destruction of a city and a war crime. Even then, however, it does not have quite the impact it should. It is brutal, but in a film where soldiers are killed by living trees, transformed into pigs, or have their heads bitten off by monsters, the human horrors of war somehow feel strangely tame in comparison. You cannot present something as the tragedy that reshaped a civilisation if the audience does not feel its weight more than the fantastical violence surrounding it.

I meant what I said at the beginning: I don’t need to see another Nolan film. Not because I have lost interest, but because I genuinely cannot see how he could top this. The Odyssey feels like the culmination of everything he has spent his career working towards. Every other film now feels like a filmmaker refining the tools he would eventually need for this. Every obsession, every stylistic quirk, and every technical innovation finds the perfect material to justify itself.

I cannot imagine another Nolan film topping this because I cannot imagine another story that suits him quite this perfectly. But I hope I’m wrong. Because if Nolan somehow manages to surpass this, then we will have another one of my favourite films to add to the list.

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.

Apex (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mourning the death of her partner, Sasha travels around the Outback, finding herself being hunted by Ben, a cannibalistic serial killer.

Four years ago, I reviewed Beast, another film by Baltasar Kormákur that was about someone being hunted in a landscape. In that review, I specifically mentioned how great it looked, and how great a cinema experience it was. So I was sceptical that this was released straight to Netflix, doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I mean, it still looks pretty. But that might be due to the landscape doing half the work for him.

I need to open this review by talking about Australian actors. I mean, they must exist otherwise Home and Away wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did, so why cast a Welsh actor to play Ben? To be fair, they do touch on it, making it clear he wasn’t born there. But he tries an accent for most of it, so he’s supposed to be, at the very least, naturalised. It almost feels like the “You’re not from here, are you?” line was added after someone noticed the accent slipping. The only way it works is if it’s his gimmick, that he’s overexaggerating his Australian nature as part of his “public persona” for some reason, I dunno, because it’s “crazy” and wacky? That would suit the rest of his character. He is definitely supposed to be crazy. But it doesn’t work. It’s like the character isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be Heath Ledgers Joker, or the villain from a 90’s Saturday morning kids cartoon, and not even a good one. Every scene has him narratively screaming, “Look at how crazy I am!” rather than simply letting him be frightening. It’s annoying and kind of distracting, feeling like the character itself is going overboard, rather than the actor. The best screen killers don’t need to constantly advertise their insanity. Michael Myers barely emotes. Anton Chigurh speaks almost conversationally. Even Mick Taylor (watching the Kill Count video for Wolf Creek as I write this), another Australian outback killer, is terrifying because he feels like someone who could actually exist. The villain in Apex feels like someone doing an impression of what a movie psychopath is supposed to look like.

That’s not the only thing harming him as a character. For a serial killer, he doesn’t do much killing. Two people (I think) died in this movie; both died in the exact same way, killed by the protagonist. The antagonist apparently has a history of murdering people, but the audience barely gets to see him do it. We’re told he’s dangerous, but storytelling generally works better when you show these things. By the end, gravity has claimed more victims than the serial killer.

That’s a problem.

It’s like making a Friday The 13th movie where everyone dies in a bus crash. Eventually you stop worrying about the villain and start keeping an eye on the terrain. There’s an obvious rewrite staring the film in the face. Make him an Outback tour guide. It’s perfect. Tourists trust him. He knows the landscape better than anyone else. He can separate people from the group without raising suspicion. Better still, we get to see him operating before the protagonist becomes his target. We understand why he’s dangerous because we’ve watched him be dangerous. So, when he meets someone who refuses to become another victim, we’ve already bought into him as a threat.

Instead, the film spends most of its running time trapped in a hostage scenario rather than delivering the hunt it advertises. The premise promises a predator tracking prey across the Australian wilderness. What we actually get is people being stuck somewhere while the plot periodically remembers there’s supposed to be danger involved.

This is a shame, because buried under the clichés is a genuinely interesting premise. Imagine spending your life preying on easy victims, only to discover this one keeps surviving everything you throw at them. The hunter slowly becomes frustrated. The prey grows more confident. Suddenly the balance of power shifts. That’s a film. Instead, Apex never really commits to that dynamic. Scenes happen, and large stretches of the film simply wash over you. Rather than a tense game of cat and mouse, it often feels like everyone is just waiting for the next location. Also, because the cast is so small, narrative convention tells you neither character is going anywhere until the climax.

The result is a thriller that never quite finds its pulse. It’s never aggressively bad. It’s too well-shot for that, and the scenery genuinely is spectacular. But almost every interesting idea feels like it’s sitting in the draft immediately underneath the one that got filmed.

You can see the better version peeking through the cracks. But I don’t want to spend my time peering at cracks, I risk getting put on a list for that.