Tag: movie-review

2023 In Film: Day Four (The Meh)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

A Haunting In Venice

Ups: Solid mystery.

Branagh is always good to see as Poirot.

Some of the deaths are very shocking.

Downs: Some of the shot choices are a bit weird. By weird, I mean shit.

The “maybe magic, maybe mundane” nature doesn’t suit a franchise like this.

Features some truly terrible editing.

Venice doesn’t feel alive.

Not enough clues were given to the ending.

Best Moment: The reveal. The build-up isn’t great but the reveal itself is a lot of fun.

Worst Moment: All the ghost moments.

Best Performer: Tempted to say Branagh, but gonna give it to Emma Laird. She has great potential.

Opening: Poirot has retired. Would have been nice to see more details of what he did during the war, it would have backed up his feelings of despondency.

Closing: Poirot has started to investigate again, leading to potential more sequels. It’s nice to see an excited Poirot again, but we haven’t seen enough of that character in this series for this to feel like “he’s back”. He’s always been “oh no, I’ve retired now” in this film franchise.

Best Line: Scary stories make real life a little less scary

Original Review here

A Kind Of Kidnapping

Ups: Funny.

Ambitious

Good music.

Downs: A bit too sweary at times

It’s too surface-level. All it seems to be saying is “politicians are bastards”, we know that.

Once you’ve seen the trailer you’ve essentially seen the entire film.

Mean-spirited.

Best Moment: The moment with Leila Hoffman. Shocking and hilarious.

Worst Moment: The sex scene is a bit out of place

Best Performer: Jack Perry Jones

Opening: Dramatic music as a taxi drives down a country road. Both suits the film and doesn’t. Then straight into the kidnapping. Threats of violence and foul language immediately.

Closing: One of the characters leaves after finding out the other one cheated on them; leaving a dickshot politician and his former partner tied together.

Best Line: “This isn’t America, you can’t just walk into a corner shop and ask for a handgun and a Wispa”

Original Review here

Slotherhouse

Ups: Moves quickly.

Leans into its ridiculousness

Surprisingly, a REALLY good soundtrack of unknown rock bands filled with youthful energy.

Downs: Some of the crowd scenes in supposedly busy shopping centres are too sparse.

The “I don’t like seeing animals get hurt” line is far too obvious and unsubtle

The characters could react to being murdered by a sloth.

Best Moment: The title drop. The fact it was met with silence and “dude, not the time” makes it hilarious.

Worst Moment: The death of Mayflower. Goes on too long. Isn’t funny enough to justify its length, and she doesn’t seem to be taking her impending death that seriously.

Best Performer: Bianca Beckles-Rose

Opening: A sloth kills a crocodile, or an alligator (I don’t know the difference without knowing if I’m going to see them later or in a while).

Closing: Everything is back to normal and they’re celebrating, a kind of bland ending. We then get a scene back in Panama of a tour guide with a group talking about how animals are dangerous. Felt a bit superfluous.

Best Line: “We’re all gonna die slow, horrible deaths at the hands of an adorable little killing machine”

Original Review here

Strays

Ups: Funny.

Good allusions to domestic violence.

Original.

Downs: Does anybody really give a shit about Dennis Quaid? This film treats him like a source of memes like Chuck Norris is, but I’ve never heard anybody mention Quaid in that way. Or in any way in a long time, if I’m being honest.

Repeats some of the jokes too often.

Very basic plot

Requires too many narrative handwaves for it to work.

Best Moment: The rabbit massacre. It’s brutal.

Worst Moment: The couch humping, goes on a bit too long.

Best Performer: Will Forte. He’s utterly detestable. No attempt to humanise or make him sympathetic.

Opening: How Doug got Reggie. Essentially he’s a pawn in a break-up revenge. Very sad.

Closing: The dick gets bitten. It’s incredibly cathartic.

Best Line: Why is Doug so great? Where do I begin? He loves being around me so much, he doesn’t even have a job.

Original Review here

The Equalizer 3

Ups: A fitting end to the franchise.

Incredibly violent

Downs: Drags slightly.

Best Moment: The explosion. Shows how horrific the aftermath of something like that can be.

Worst Moment: The photoshopped picture at the end.

Best Performer: Denzil

Opening: A lot of dead bodies. A good reminder of how violent this franchise can be.

Closing: An incredibly bad photoshopped picture lets us know one of the characters in this is related to someone in the previous film. Doesn’t add much to the story really.

Best Line: That’s a 3. You don’t want me to go to 4. I go to 4 you shit on yourself. You don’t want that. I don’t want that. They don’t want that.

Original Review here

The Flash

Ups: Genuinely touching (but not in a Kevin Spacey way)

Funny.

Some fun action scenes.

Nice to see Keaton again.

Some of the cameos in the multiverse sequence are fun.

Downs: Underutilized performers

Woeful CGI

The centrepiece of the whole thing suffers from severe continuity lockout. The Nicholas Cage cameo etc will only make sense to people who know the story of the cancelled Superman Lives film. Otherwise, it’s just a random Cage.

The DCEU is being reset, so it means nothing.

Best Moment: Him saying goodbye to his mum. That is EXACTLY how I would have done it.

Worst Moment: The Multiverse of Superman. Mainly because the use of dead actors in CGI is still a bit icky.

Best Performer: Sasha Calle. Miller leads, but Calle is the one I want to see again.

Opening: The Justice League stop a hospital from collapsing. Nice to see Gadot and Affleck again, but there are a few bits which feel a bit too comedic.

Closing: George Clooney

Best Line: These scars we have make us who we are, we’re not meant to go back and fix them. Don’t let your tragedy define you.

Original Review here

They Cloned Tyrone

Ups: Really commits to the blaxpoitation effect

When he’s talking about wiping the blood off his brother, that shit hurts.

It made a scene of people laughing really disturbing

Downs: Little bit too dark to see things clearly at times.

Takes a while to get going

It could stand to be a little dumber

There’s a tonal conflict. It’s not sure whether it wants to be silly or a serious look at racism. It tries to do both, but the silly moments let it down a little bit.

Best Moment: Laughter in the chicken restaurant. It’s weird how a group of people laughing and enjoying themselves can seem so creepy and unsettling.

Worst Moment: A moment that’s not there, the clones exiting the church and meeting the news cameras. We get the build-up, and the news cameras already there interviewing them, but no connnecting moment.

Best Performer: John Boyega

Opening: Opens with credits made to look dated. I like the effort put in to make it seem like it’s front a different time. Then a discussion about how Michael Jackson is alive and works at a local shop “he’s black now”, putting the science fiction themes in your head. And then a convo about Spongebob. So in terms of time, it’s all over the place in a great way.

Closing: We finally meet Tyrone. Damn funny ending

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Three (The Not Great)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Dream Scenario

Ups: Unique concept

Good performances

Downs: Kind of dull.

Lacks purpose

Doesn’t seem to know where it wants to take the story

Best Moment: The fart joke.

Worst Moment: The sex scene leading up to that is kind of uncomfortable and not needed.

Best Performer: Cage

Opening: Cage’s daughter dreams of him standing by watching as she floats into the air. It’s a dream, surprisingly.

Closing: Cage transports into his wife’s dream and saves her, while wearing a giant suit.

Best Line: Do you think I could handle the emotional burden of having an affair?

Original Review here

Five Nights At Freddy’s

Ups: The central relationship between the siblings is fantastic.

The animatronics.

Intriguing narrative.

Downs: Feels too neutered.

The universe it creates doesn’t feel real.

How did Afton get a job after killing those kids? Even if you do the “he just changed his name and got fake identification”, the fact he looks like the main suspect in a mass murder case would have raised suspicion.

Constantly reminds you of better films

Best Moment: The fake-out death with Rubio’s character. You do wonder if they would kill a child.

Worst Moment: The reveal of the child murders. Mainly because that kind of thing would become a local legend, so people who live there would know about it, especially if the building was still there.

Best Performer: Piper Rubio

Opening: A security guard is murdered. Lets you know immediately what type of film this is; bloodless and without any sense of tension.

Closing: Everybody smiles and lives together. Oh, and the villain somehow isn’t dead because they want a sequel.

Best Line: “And you only have to worry about one thing. Keeping people out. And, and you know, and keep the place tidy.”

“That’s two things”

Original Review here

Good Burger 2

Ups: Some delightfully dumb dialogue, almost Airplane/Paddington-esque

Unlike the first one, it doesn’t have creepy Dan Schneider.

Downs: The characters haven’t developed since the first one.

Thinks the first one is much more iconic than it is

Very basic plot.

Best Moment: The “rousing speech” which is just Ed standing silently. Somehow, it manages to inspire everybody.

Worst Moment: The car chase scene, mainly because there are some really weird shot choices, random quick cutaways of glasses of water etc before they’re hit.

Best Performer: Kamala Fairburn

Opening: Ed opens up the burger place and starts a musical intro. I don’t want to be rude, but his voice isn’t suited for this. It then turns out he’s been dreaming and he wakes up being shouted at by Pete Davidson. Then see a scene of Dexter as an inventor who burns his house down demonstrating a fireproof spray. I think the fire scene would have been a better opener, it’s more engaging

Closing: Good Burger is reopened, and permanent ice has been invented. An obvious ending. The credit sequence of everyone singing We’re All Dudes is fun though. Especially since they seemed to get the crew in too.

Best Line: “He’s allergic to hippos”

Original Review here

Hypnotic

Ups: Well-performed.

Smarter than you’d think.

Keeps you on your toes.

Downs: Feels a bit too similar to other films which have been done much better

Hard to get emotionally invested.

Wastes potential

Best Moment: The rugpull. Superbly done.

Worst Moment: The post-credits scene. Feels a little optimistic setting up for a sequel.

Best Performer: Affleck

Opening: Affleck in therapy. Whilst watching this I thought this was a mistake, that they should have led with the bank robbery. But when the twist is revealed, I get why they did this.

Closing: The villain has survived. We thought he didn’t, but that was just because we saw a version warped by hypnosis. Not a surprise, but is narratively unsatisfying.

Best Line: I love you… don’t ask me why

Original Review here

Meg 2: The Trench

Ups: Some creative shots

If you like the first one, you’ll like this

Dumb, in an entertaining way

Downs: Doesn’t do enough to stand out

Should be bloodier

Doesn’t feel like a Wheatley film

Depends on you being able to remember a lot from the first film

Best Moment: The exosuit death. Shocking.

Worst Moment: The revelation of the villain, feels too obvious.

Best Performer: Shuya Sophia Cal

Opening: Dinosaurs killing each other.

Closing: The Meg might be pregnant. Sequel!

Best Line: After last time, y’all begged me to come back. “DJ, oh, we family, DJ. DJ, we need you.” Yeah, all right. Bet. But I ain’t stupid. I trained up, I learned how to fight, I learned how to swim, and I will never go anywhere without my survival pack

Original Review here

Talk To Me

Ups: Some good scares

Shows great potential for everyone involved

Downs: Doesn’t quite live up to what it could be.

Best Moment: Riley attempting suicide. Horrific.

Worst Moment: The possession party, only because they could be combined into one.

Best Performer: Sophie Wilde

Opening: A stabbing at a house party. Bit weird as doesn’t show enough to add to the story, it just introduces characters who never matter again. I got what they were going for, but didn’t work for me.

Closing: Mia is dead and finds herself summoned at a party. So we see what it’s like from the spirits’ side.

Best Line: “I let you in”

Original review here

We Have A Ghost

Ups: Has some funny moments.

Has heart.

Good cast

Downs: Odd sup-plots

Not enough funny moments to sustain it.

Best Moment: The TikTok response. It feels so real and how people would respond. It’s also one of the few “goes viral” moments in horror movies that feels legit.

Worst Moment: The Tig Notaro sub-plot, mainly because it goes nowhere.

Best Performer: David Harbour. Mainly because he does the whole thing without saying a word.

Opening: Static shot of a family running out of a house scared. Then the title card. It’s nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times before and it’s weird that THIS was how they chose to open it. A horror comedy has to nail the opening, and there’s nothing here which can be considered a joke or a scare in the opening. They then played the Jim Cornette theme song, which was the first laugh it got from me, and that was completely unintentional.

Closing: “Ernest” moves on. Expected, and very predictable. But handled so well. Annoyingly, it then moves on to another scene of the family moving house. That coda slightly broke the flow. It’s annoying as there’s a personal reveal that is nice to see and completes a narrative, so that’s needed. I just feel the place for it is wrong. If they swapped the scenes over it might have had a slightly better flow.

Best Line: “When your kids are little it’s easy to be a parent. They don’t see who you actually are, they just see the good stuff, what you want them to see. But eventually, as they grow up parts of yourself that you don’t like become harder and harder to hide”

Original Review here

Your Place Or Mine

Ups: I like the way she shoots phone calls. It does a standard split screen, but they’re all in sync.

Interesting idea.

Downs: Actors aren’t playing to their strengths.

The actors don’t share chemistry.

Everybody involved is capable of better.

Doomed by the concept.

Best Moment: The argument scene. Really creatively shot.

Worst Moment: The inciting incident seems too fake.

Best Performer: Notaro

Opening: “It’s 2003. How can we tell?” it then points to early 2000’s fashion choices made by the characters. It’s a fun opening. Even more so when the guy keeps interrupting sex to talk about short stories he’s written.

Closing: “They lived happily ever after. Just kidding, marriage is hard, but they had a good life”

Best Line: “Notes on parenting from someone whose only pet was a goldfish that died in a bong fire”

Original Review here

2023 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Films which I didn’t like, but I can at least appreciate brought SOMETHING to the table

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom

Ups: Great chemistry between the leads.

Potentially good villain.

Momoa is still the best possible Aquaman.

Always fun to see Randall Park.

Downs: Feels pointless.

Boring story.

The villain is defeated too easily.

Best Moment: The trident backstory.

Worst Moment: The final fight, is so underwhelming.

Best Performer: Momoa

Opening: Aquaman is telling his story to his kid. Cute, and a fun introduction to the character.

Closing: Atlantis reveals itself to the UN, something that won’t matter AT ALL as this iteration of the DCEU is over.

Best Line: No one hits my brother, but me!

Original Review here

Asteroid City

Ups: Unique look.

Fun performances.

Sweet at times.

Downs: Dull.

Far too Wes Anderson. I know such a shock for a West Anderson film. But if you don’t like his usual fare, this won’t change your mind.

Best Moment: The Montana/June subplot, because it isn’t really given enough time, and doesn’t seem to be saying anything that’s not said in any of the other plots.

Worst Moment: The conversation between the actor playing Augie and the woman playing his dead wife. Quite sweet.

Best Performer: Jeffrey Wright

Opening: Brian Cranston (playing a TV show host) introduces a televised production of the Asteroid City play. It’s at this point I realised what kind of film this is going to be, and how divisive it would be.

Closing: The quarantine is lifted and everybody leaves. Augie gets the address for Midge, and Woodrow receives a scholarship.

Best Line: We’re just two catastrophically wounded people who don’t express the depths of our pain because… we don’t want to.

Original Review here

Cat Person

Ups: It has some interesting themes.

Depressingly relevant.

Sometimes very funny,

Downs: Loses focus.

Since a lot of the worst things happen in her imagination, it doesn’t seem to ring true how terrible he is.

Best Moment: The sex scene. Fun, creative, and allows you a look into her psyche.

Worst Moment: The imagination spots.

Best Performer: Geraldine Viswanathan

Opening: She flirts with a guy at her work. Not really sure why. At no point did we see WHY she would be into him.

Closing: She meets someone at her work, thus repeating the cycle.

Best Line: Things have changed on the surface, which means they haven’t really changed at all

Original Review here

Dumb Money

Ups: Funny in parts.

Definitely has an audience.

Interesting story being told

Downs: But being told very badly.

Paced terribly.

Doesn’t do a good enough job of explaining itself.

Weird music choices.

Best Moment: Marcos quitting his job.

Worst Moment: Most of the editing decisions.

Best Performer: Paul Dano

Opening: I genuinely can’t remember.

Closing: A very depressing “here’s what happened to everybody”, but it doesn’t have the anger needed to be effective. It seems too morally neutral.

Best Line: “I like the stock”

Original Review here

Ferrari

Ups: Good race scenes.

Doesn’t sugarcoat history.

Does a really good job of showcasing the era.

Downs: Everybody’s an asshole.

Needs more Italians

Best Moment: The aftermath of the crash at the end. Really sells how brutal it is.

Worst Moment: The set-up to that. It foreshadows it way too obviously. Introducing another family just to kill them.

Best Performer: Penelope Cruz

Opening: Text telling us the company was founded in 1947, we then cut to 1957. Not entirely sure why we needed to be told that, and only that. Either give us more detail about the financial state of the company or say nothing.

Closing: The wife dies and finally the son can be recognised as a Ferrari and now runs the company. I think the film thinks that’s a happy ending.

Original Review here

Gran Turismo: Based On A True Story

Ups: Good performances

Interesting story

David Harbor is entertaining

Downs: Geri Halliwell is terrible

The theme of “it’s not like a video game” doesn’t mesh well with making all the races look like video games.

Best Moment: The section at the training camp.

Worst Moment: The crash, only because it’s a little weird.

Best Performer: David Harbor.

Best Line: You get extra points for that in the game?

Original Review here

It’s A Wonderful Knife

Ups: Some very creative shots, where she’s wearing red in a room that’s almost entirely washed out.

The town becoming more nihilistic due to a serial killer is a smart move.

Downs: A little too unsubtle.

Takes a while to become a horror movie.

Best Moment: Weirdo revealing they were going to commit suicide.

Worst Moment: There’s a shot of her exiting the house which is overexposed as fuck.

Best Performer: Jane Widdop/Jessie McLeod

Opening: An advert for a shopping/entertainment destination. Sets up comedy really quickly. Then a scene with the person from the video turning on a Christmas tree, in case you couldn’t tell this was a Christmas film from the title.

Closing: She goes back to her timeline. Somehow Bernie can remember from the other timeline but nobody else can. Maybe would have been better if they left it more subtle and hinted at a relationship starting rather than having her already remember, seems kind of cheap.

Best Line: “I wasn’t Clarence, you were”

Original Review here

Operation Fortune: Ruse De Guerra

Ups: Some funny lines

Talented ensemble cast.

It’s always nice to see Carey Elwes again.

Downs: Lacks identity.

Doesn’t feel very Guy Ritchie

Jason Statham has never come off more Garth Marenghi

Best Moment: The moments with Hugh Grant.

Worst Moment: When we meet the two tech moguls, mainly because of how underwhelming it all is.

Best Performer: Hugh Grant.

Opening: Carys has been summoned and told to retrieve something that gets stolen. A weirdly subdued opening for a Guy Ritchie film. Nice to see him again though. Also, they explain why it’s called Ruse Du Guerre.

Closing: Fortune takes a holiday and invested his money in a movie based on the events of this film. It’s a decent joke but it goes on far too long.

Best Line: “money doesn’t make you happier.” I tell you what, Danny, it fucking does.

Original Review here

Pearl

Ups: Commits to the style

Great central performance

Clearly a lot of research has gone into it

Downs: No likeable characters

Runs out of steam

Best Moment: Pearl’s monologue near the end. Absolutely stunning.

Worst Moment: The scarecrow sex.

Best Performer: Mia Goth

Opening: Time-period appropriate music, sets up the themes well.

Closing: A very long single shot of Pearl smiling through the pain.

Best Line: Her entire monologue at the end, I don’t have the space to type it all

Original Review here

Good Burger 2 (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Dexter Reed and cashier Ed reunite at fast-food restaurant Good Burger

Do people like Good Burger? I think it’s like Space Jam, where if you mention it then you will get positive response from people, but it’s not really brought up that much. It also is very limited in their fanbase, people who were kids in the 90s. There’s not really a large number of modern kids and teens being like “You should totally check out this 90s film I just found”. So the market for a sequel would be people who watched the original in the 90s, and now have both disposable income, and an impending sense of time passing which means they want to recapture their youth. So in that sense, a sequel does make sense, and would be a good way for a streaming service like Paramount+ to gain a foothold.

It doesn’t mean the film is good though. The director was asked about a potential sequel to this, and gave the world the following sentence:

“The character of Ed has not changed […] he now has a family, he’s got a bunch of kids and a wife, but he is still the same old Ed. As that doesn’t change, we can just do it again and again and put them in crazier and crazier situations.”

And that’s a problem. It worked when these characters were teenagers, but it’s 25 years later and Ed hasn’t changed, and seeing that level of naivity, stupidity and immaturity, is no longer charming or funny, it’s actually kind of annoying and makes you concerned. It doesn’t feel like a movie, it feels like a television show. A character like that is needed in a TV show because you need an excuse for them to not learn over the course of 25 episodes, but for a 90 minute movie? You’re allowed to have your characters seem human.

There’s also an issue with the way the film handles Kenan Thompson. He’s a TREMENDOUS comedic talent, but he’s forced into a straight man role that doesn’t really suit him. Most of his screen time is him watching crazy shit, and then explaining what he’s just seen in case the audience didn’t understand it.

The best showcase of Kenan Thompson has been his SNL stint, and people who have watched that will know he’s capable of much more than he’s been allowed to show here. Those who haven’t watched SNL? Best of luck with this, as that’s where a lot of the cameos come from.

With only 2 or 3 exceptions, most of them are relatively low-level outside of the US. I watched Wonka recently, and this feels like it’s aiming for similar, but not really doing it. It has a similar method of casting television comedy actors in small parts so that people who watch it can do the DiCaprio point. I felt it worked better in Wonka though, and not just because I actually knew who they were (although that helped). The cameos in Wonka felt like full characters, even if they were only on screen for one scene (thinking specifically of the couple played by Charlotte Richie and Phil Wang), so that they didn’t feel like cameos, they felt like characters who just happened to be played by comedy performers. Good Burger has the cameos be so obvious that it’s distracting. It puts them front and centre, over the lead actors. You can almost sense the “look, it’s [person]! Applause”. It’s like when I watched the Uncharted movie and the cameo of the original voice actor stood out like a sore thumb covered in fairy lights, begging for people to notice it. “I don’t know who that is, but I assume that’s somebody” is the general feeling.
It’s not all negative though, there is some tremendously funny dialogue with some genuine laugh out loud moments. The scene where Ed is introducing his family has some really randomly funny lines. “he’s allergic to hippos” was my personal favourite because it’s just so stupid and wonderful. Whilst I did say Thompson was miscast, he is still pretty good at what he has to do in this. Kamaia Fairburn is talented as hell and has great potential, as do the Hinkler sisters, who in their all-too-brief moments show enough that I feel casting directors need to focus on developing a vehicle for them.
There’s one area where this is a definite improvement over the first one: no creepy sex pest Dan Schneider, which as anybody who has read I’m Glad My Mom Died (or has heard anything said about him in the last few years), is a definite good thing. The ending reprise of “We’re All Dudes” is also pretty damn entertaining.

It’s A Wonderful Knife (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Winnie wants to see what the world would be like if she had never been born and is shocked to find out that if she didn’t stop a serial killer, people would die.

It’s hard NOT to compare this to Totally Killer. I mean, you can also compare to Freaky and Happy Death Day, but the “person in familiar yet new environment” is more applicable to TK. That was fun and had good ideas and logical storytelling. And I actually enjoyed TK. This? Not a fan. I think it’s because I expected it to be much better than it was.

If you’re doing a parody of an iconic film like It’s A Wonderful Life, you need to go all in. You can’t gently kiss or tease the concept, you need to fuck it. You need to make it as fun as possible and play with expectations and societal differences in regards to what was acceptable in the original, and what isn’t now.

Importantly, you need a lot of thought and love. This kind of seems like they came up with the title first, and then the idea whilst having no idea how to flesh that idea out. The Wonderful Life comparisons aren’t as central as they could be. For most of the movie, it doesn’t really matter. A lot of the central problems aren’t related to her, it’s just standard “there’s a killer on the loose” mixed with “alternate universe”. The “here’s what it would be like if you never existed” differences are ONLY related to the murders. Which is my central problem; she stopped a serial killer. She knows this. So her “I don’t matter, I’ve never done anything important” attitude doesn’t really ring true. Might have made more sense if her absence in the town CREATED the killer somehow, like she stopped someone on their path of darkness etc. Because at the moment it’s “without you stopping a serial killer, that serial killer KILLED PEOPLE!” *dun dun dun*. She only gets to that feeling of worthlessness because her parents take a personality change from the opening to the “one year after”. In the opening they’re normal and kind parents, afterwards, they’re swaggering bags of douche cleanse. If it played into “they’re traumatised too so they don’t know how to talk to their daughter” it would work. But at the moment they’re the kind of people who buy their son a new car, and their daughter a single item of clothing (I think was a jumper). To be fair, the rest of the characters aren’t that smart. One character punches the killer and then runs into the dark woods rather than BACK INTO THE HOUSE. I mean, luckily it ends up working for her but still.

The other timeline isn’t that interesting either. For one thing, it would have been more interesting if the killer from the first timeline died early in the second but the killings continued. Then there’d be a sense of mystery. And it wouldn’t make the characters seem so lazy. At the moment she goes into a new timeline, realises the mayor is still killing people, and then goes to watch a movie. This would be so easy, especially since there IS another killer in this timeline, but they don’t reveal that until very late on. The only twist is some mind-control gimmick, but that doesn’t count as a worthwhile twist because it’s fucking stupid.

We’re also not given enough time to really explore the new reality. Which is linked to another problem; the pacing. It takes 8 minutes for the film to realise it’s a horror movie, and 15 minutes to get to the title card, IN A 90 MINUTE MOVIE. It takes her almost half the run-time to discover what kind of movie she’s in.

Now onto the good, there are some beautiful shots, especially in regards to the use of colour. There’s a moment where she’s dressed in red whilst in an incredibly washed-out room. I like that the town somehow became more nihilistic in response to an active serial killer, that seems very realistic. There’s a romantic relationship between Winnie and Bernie that is very sweet. The reactions between the two of them are very genuine. They have great chemistry, and apparently, that’s why the relationship between the characters happens as it does, they wanted to take advantage of the actors’ natural chemistry. So whilst it is nice, it’s kind of sad that the best part of the film wasn’t written. The performances are all fine, but I kind of think it might have worked better if Joel McHale and Justin Longs’ characters were switched. As I said, the best parts of the films are all related to the central two; Jane Widdop and Jessie McLeod. I want to see them in a buddy road trip movie, or a weird millennial remake of Thelma and Louise. McLeod is delightfully weird, seeming to operate on a different level from anybody else, and I absolutely love her for it. Those kinds of performances are tricky to do because they can often come off as fake and over the top. McLeod is talented enough that she seems genuine throughout.

So in summary, maybe watch if it’s on TV at Christmas time, but you don’t NEED to see it. If you want a violent Christmas movie, watch Violent Night, if you want a Christmas horror movie, watch Gremlins, if you want a parody horror, watch Totally Killer. This is not the best option for any choice, which I’m sorely disappointed by. This has all the ingredients to be a classic; fun premise, bloody kills, Katherine Isabelle from Ginger Snaps. But instead of utilising those ingredients to make a delicious cake of greatness, it underbakes them and then adds a secret ingredient of piss. If I hadn’t watched Totally Killer 2 days before, I might have been kinder. But it’s hard to watch economy after watching first class.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: How did Coriolanus Snow rise to the position we see him in in the original franchise? Let’s find out.

I like the original Hunger Games movies, but I can’t really remember that much about them. So I’m glad this was a prequel and not a sequel, otherwise, I’d spend half of it wondering “Who’s that guy?”, like a gender-flipped 1987 Madonna film. Fun fact; the director of that movie later went on to direct two films in the Fifty Shades series. Okay, it’s not that interesting, but I thought if I didn’t mention the Fifty Shades series in this one, nobody will speak about them.

I will admit I wasn’t really a fan of the series during the original theatrical run. I wasn’t actively against it, I just never got into it. The first one I saw at the cinema was the second part of Mockingjay (it was split into two parts, I didn’t just wander in halfway through) and my main memory. One thing I did notice from going to a cinema screening is that despite this franchise not having a cinematic entry since 2015, it still has an audience. A young audience too, there were a lot of teenage girls in the screening, they couldn’t have been more than 10 when the last film was released, which indicates that the films are gaining a new audience as time goes on, which can only be a good sign (unless Suzanne Collins turns out to be a massive bigot, but what are the odds that would happen to two franchises?). Of course, none of that would matter if this film was a piece of shit. Thankfully, this matches the previous entries. It’s helped that (with the exception of the first one), all the films have been directed by Francis Lawrence, which means that visually and thematically they remain consistent. This is probably the most grounded movie in the franchise, where Panem isn’t quite the technological power that it grows to be. It’s the early days, and the colours represent that; instead of the blues and neon, it’s all brown and murky. You really get the oppressive poverty people are under.

The other positive for Songbird is that it doesn’t seem to miss the franchise characters as much as you’d expect it to. Katniss/Jennifer Lawrence was a big part of why the original franchise worked, so there was concern that the studio would get nervous and insist on forcing the character into it, even if just as a framing device of her telling the story. That doesn’t happen, and Zegler/Lucy Gray is given a chance to shine. The character of Lucy Gray (or Lucy Grey in England) is determined, likeable, and different enough from Katniss that she doesn’t just feel like a literary replacement. Rachel Zegler gives one hell of a performance and makes you think that she actually is going to be a great Snow White, everything about her screams “Disney princess”. The best bit of casting is Jason Schwartzman as Lucretius Flickerman, not because his performance is particularly outstanding, but because of how much he resembles Stanley Tucci from the original series. To the point where (because I couldn’t remember the name of Tucci’s character) I thought they were the same person, just younger.

Now onto the negative; the story is kind of weak. I think we’re supposed to be shocked that humanity can be so blasé about the suffering of people like we’re supposed to think “holy shit that’s terrible, how bad must a society be to let that happen? This is an indication of a dystopia”, but it’s a little difficult to be shocked when we live in a world where homeless people sleep under newspapers that brag about the good economy because of how well millionaires are doing, and the only part of that which looks like changing in the future is the existence of printed media.

It’s not helped by how the characters can sometimes seem like idiots. There’s a moment where Coriolanus records another character (Sejanus) talking about overthrowing the government, he then sends the recording off and then is surprised when the government arrives and executes Sejanus for treason. It feels like such a lazy way of getting rid of that character, and it derails the heel turn of Coriolanus. He should have admitted it and be proud of it, it should be an indication that not only is he now a dick, but he is proud of it.

Actually, the whole final third is a complete mess, both too short and too long. It feels completely disconnected from what came before, kind of like a quick epilogue, but one that takes about 30 minutes so isn’t really quick. But this is where Snow melts and becomes a dick, he doesn’t show that before this section. So his entire turn takes place in that 30 minutes, which feels too short. It feels like it could have been its own entry. Doing that would have allowed some of the other tributes from the games to be more fleshed out, as opposed to just the walking soon-to-be-dead. The games themselves are absolutely brutal, the lack of technology means that the deaths have an intimate feel to them, and a lot of them are quite disturbing (with points going to the girl with Down syndrome, and the starving girl who unknowingly drinks poison). The best death is one that belongs to Coral, where in her dying breath she expresses regret that she killed all those people for nothing. That one line is sooooo damn good. I haven’t seen a dying line change character motivations that much since The Suicide Squad when Starro said “I was happy, floating, staring at the stars”. It’s helped that Coral is played by Mackenzie Lansing, who is just fucking great in this. It would be easy for that character to be a caricature, but Lansing gives them enough reality that it’s easy to see them as a real person.

So in summary; go watch it. But only if you have a passing knowledge of the rest of the franchise. It is a weak point that this doesn’t talk about the distracts, or the rules of the games etc because it knows you remember them from the previous films, so if you are a newbie, you might be lost, which is a shame. Just be prepared to be incredibly disappointed for the final third.

Apocalypse Clown (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: After a mysterious technological blackout plunges Ireland into anarchy and chaos, a group of washed-up clowns travel the country for one last shot at their dreams.

Apocalypse Clown is ridiculous. But it’s aware of it. Comedy horrors can be difficult to get right because if they lean too far in the direction of comedy then the horror doesn’t work, and if they lean too hard into the horror then you risk the comedy coming off as inappropriate, with characters witnessing horrific and traumatising murders, and then making jokes about it like the deaths of people not named Henry Kissinger are funny. The director, George Kane, has previously directed episodes of Inside Number 9, so he has a track record of being able to balance the two genres effectively.

He’s helped by the characters taking the situation seriously, the threat feels VERY real throughout, so even when people are dying in ridiculous ways (Like when a character nearly died from being creampied repeatedly, I heard rumours that’s how David Cameron kills pigs), it still feels horrific enough to hit the right horror notes, like John Carpenter at a keyboard.

Now onto the (kind of) negative. If your exposure to British media is big-budget films, reality shows, or bleak murder shows, then the performances are fine. If, however, you’ve watched much comedy then you are left with feeling that too many of the performers seem to be doing tribute acts to other performers; David Earl is doing Joe Wilkinson, Fionn Foley is basically MC Grindah as a clown, Amy De Bhrun is very Sharon Horgan, Ivan Kaye is Roger Allam (he’d also make a good Desmond Tiny if they were to redo Cirque De Freak), so when you’re watching it, you are slightly distracted by thinking “who does that guy remind me of?”. That being said, Natalie Palamides is a f*cking delight. I mean, it’s weird for me to say that “being a tribute act to a better performer” is a bad thing but then also praise Palamides based on the fact she has a real Carol Kane energy. I think the difference is that cinema sees a lot of despondent clowns, but very manic excitable Carol Kane types. It helps that Palamides feels like the only performer who threw out the script and is just making shit up as she goes along. She’s the epitome of vulnerable chaos and I absolutely love her. It would be so easy for her to overegg her coulrophilia pudding (that sentence is clearly there just to make people google coulrophilia, and enjoy the strange targeted ads you’re going to get). Palamides plays it perfectly though, she never feels too much, like she’s trying too hard. She’s an incredible physical performer, turning a scene as simple as “eating ham” into something incredibly unsettling. Her tornado of chaos also means that when she acts scared, it sells the situation. If a depressed and nihilistic clown is worried, not a big deal, but if a psychopathic clown is scared, shit has got real.

In terms of visuals, it’s fine. There are a few moments where you feel a bigger budget might have improved it, but it mostly works. The opening scene showing the chaos is incredible for a film of this budget. The music could have been better, I can’t really remember any of it to be honest, which is a shame as this is apt for a scene of soundtrack dissonance, playing a bright and cheery song over scenes of brutality.

The script could be a bit more focused, there’s an entire subplot which could be removed and the only impact it would have is to slightly lessen the impact of the ending. On that topic; the ending reveal is SUPERB. I haven’t seen a reveal this satisfying and unexpected since Bodies Bodies Bodies. Before this, Killers Of A Flower Moon was locked on to win the award for best ending, now it has competition.

So in summary; it’s on Netflix so you really should watch it while you can. It’s not the greatest film in the world, but it’s a welcome distraction in a world full of war, famine, and Piers Morgan.