Tag: movie-reviews

Bride Hard (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Sam is a secret agent, which is quite handy when her friend’s wedding is attacked by mercenaries desperate for GOLD!

It may not seem like it, but I do actually like films, honest. I don’t often go in and focus on small issues I can nitpick. At worst, I go in with a “this could be terrible, let’s see if it actually is”. I never WANT a film to be bad, and even if I go in with low expectations, I can be won over. For example, I watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife expecting it to be among the worst films I’ve ever seen, and came out absolutely loving it (honestly, I might prefer it to the first one). That’s a rather long preamble to say that I do not dislike this movie because I’m expected to dislike it, I dislike it because there was very little for me to like.

First issue? The casting. I don’t dislike Rebel Wilson, but she’s the wrong actress for this, mainly because she plays the same character she plays often: a sarcastic quipper who’s quick to random punches in the face. That doesn’t work as a secret agent; it would be like casting Adam Sandler as Bond. You can’t watch this and picture her character as a competent agent, not just because of how loud she is, meaning she’ll definitely get attention everywhere she goes. But also because she does incredibly stupid things. For example, near the end, she blows up a house accidentally whilst catching a bouquet at a wedding. Makes her seem kind of shit at her job. I know, it’s a comedy, but if the characters aren’t going to take this seriously, I’m not. Although considering how quickly one of her friends tells everyone she’s a secret agent, I can’t imagine she’d be one for very long after the events of this film.

You can’t lay all the blame at the feet of her character. Genre mash-ups are hard if you get the genres wrong. Horror/comedy? That’s fine. Hardcore pornography/musical? That’s harder (pun unintentional). Wedding comedy/action? That should work. Both are full of recognisable cliches, and both require elaborate set-pieces. Yet it doesn’t really work for this. Part of it is because the characters never feel like they’re in a decent action movie; they all act as if they’re in a wedding-based comedy where the biggest problem is the colour of the cake, not the armed terrorists. So in the middle of hostage situations, characters start making jokes and making light of the situation. These are not the hero characters who are used to this; they’re normal, everyday people for whom being hostages isn’t normal. There’s no sense of urgency or fear. Even when a character is shot, nobody seems to care that much. It doesn’t even factor into the plot.

Overall, it feels like nobody cares. That it was written by A.I. and performed by (normally very talented) performers who just wanted to get back home and eat a Müller Light, maybe a Müller Corner, the banana one with the chocolate cornflakes. In case you think I’m underestimating the effort, this is from the IMDB page:

“At the party, the priest is at the bar with other guys. He picks up two full champagne flutes in 4 different cuts. Each cut is to two girls talking, but when it cuts back each time, the priest is still picking up the same flutes. This happens 4 times.”

That should not happen in a movie you want people to see. Someone should have picked up on that. Either they should have got more shots on set that they could cut away to, or the editor could have found different ones to use. Someone either messed up, didn’t give a shit, or ran out of time. I don’t particularly care which one, I just care that it happened.

This really should have worked; most of the situations and scenes essentially write themselves due to the situation mash-up; have the bride be nervous about the bouquet toss, but need to throw something similar in the climax. Make at least ONE joke about how tuxedos are worn by both men at weddings and secret agents in films. Have a drunk relative walk in on an action scene and assume it’s a sex scene. Use the centre-pieces to defeat people. Have a scene of the bride’s guests choosing their dresses, then echo that scene later on when they’re picking weapons. Really, there are SO many ways you could have incredible, unique action set-pieces; none of which happen. The closest we get is a fight scene in a kitchen set to It’s Raining Men. But even that has a negative; it’s not a high-octane scene featuring impressive stunts, it’s mainly slowly sneaking around a small room, and then throwing something. It’s like the film-makers knew they needed that song, but didn’t know how best to utilise it, so they just threw it into a scene where it didn’t belong.

This could have been great; instead, it’s not even passable.

The Bad Guys 2 (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Reformed criminals are forced to return to a life of crime.

I have to be honest, I can’t really remember that much from the first one. I know I’ve seen it, and I know I reviewed it. But none of the characters really stuck with me. My main memory of it is how it had the bad luck to be released very close to Zootopia/Zootropolis whilst exploring familiar themes.

The sequel has the advantage of being released roughly 4 months before the Zootopia sequel, so it doesn’t have the same comparison issues. It’s also much better paced, starting with a heist instead of a conversation. The initial heist is surprisingly well written. Not just in terms of the action making sense in terms of physics and geography, but it also showcases all of the gang’s talents. It could easily get away with “this is Ms. Tarantula, expert computer hacker”, but instead it just shows her expertly hacking. This is incredibly smart as it means that people who watched the first one recently won’t feel like it’s repeating itself, but people who haven’t watched it recently still get to know their personalities and skills. I admire the scriptwriting that goes into that.

I admire other parts of the script less. It feels very episodic, it doesn’t flow from one scene to the next, instead it feels like there’s a definite STOP at certain points, seemingly destined for a theme tune and a “How will our fishy friend find his way out of this aquarium of agony? Find out next week!” voiceover. Some of those moments are better than others. The section at the Lucha Libre show is a particular lowlight. If you’ve been on the internet, you may have seen people point out how impossible one of the Fast and Furious movies is because it has a scene that takes place on a runway, and for it to work in the film, it would need to be miles long because of how long the scene is. This has a similar issue. Characters run for far too long in a small ring without hitting the ropes. It’s a minor issue, but once I noticed it, it was impossible to ignore.

It’s a shame, as that moment could have been brilliant. The space-bound sections are much better, and it’s clear that the writers did their research on how rocket launches occur in stages. Yes, it’s incredibly unrealistic in parts, but mainly for the rule of fun. The action scenes on the space station make tremendous use of the situation, and it’s genuinely difficult to see how they’re going to top that in the sequel.

Overall, I liked this more than the first one. The first was too obviously indebted to its influences; this feels like its own movie; it has an identity that the first one didn’t. The bringing back of Professor Marmalade felt weird, though. Had some funny moments, but it felt needless. Also, there were moments where it felt like this was trying to appeal to furries, especially with the way they portray Kitty Kat. A bit uncomfortable, not gonna lie.

All Happy Families (2024) Review

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Synopsis: A family gathers to renovate their home. Truths are unearthed and memories dug up.

Josh Radnor appears to be following the Zach Braff career path of being the lead in a sitcom, which everyone eventually comes to hate, thinking the lead character is creepy and weird, to low-budget indie films, the only difference being that he’s starring in them instead of directing them. Braff’s films are weird. It felt like everyone loved Garden State, then watched it again and changed their mind. Josh Radnor is yet to even approach anything like Garden State, casting agents seem reluctant to cast him in feature films for some reason.

All Happy Families (AHF, pronounced Arth) isn’t going to change their mind. He plays the same put-upon character we’ve seen him play before. It feels like he was cast because he played a similar character, not because they wanted to give him a chance to spread his thespian abilities. That’s not saying he gives a bad performance. But you are going to compare his character to Ted Mosbey, who, love him or hate him, is a character audiences are familiar with and have notions about. His character here is never given enough to distance himself from that comparison. The closest he gets from stepping away from that character is when he’s interacting with his family members and the chaos they bring; and that’s only because that entire dynamic makes you think of the Bluths from Arrested Development (only in this case, it’s the brother character that is accused of sexual misconduct, not the actor who plays the father. Seriously, fuck Jeffrey Tambor, and the way the entire male cast talked over Jessica Walters’ experiences.) If you thought being compared to How I Met Your Mother is bad, try being compared to Arrested Development.

This may seem like I disliked it. The truth is, I didn’t. It’s a difficult film to dislike, mainly because it’s a difficult film to feel any powerful emotion towards. It’s sauceless pasta. Bland, dull, and everybody has tried similar stuff that’s better.

There are glimpses of what this movie could be. The scene on the boat is fun, and it displays the characters’ personalities very well. The mum (Sue, played by Becky Ann Baker) is the type of person who corrects a tour guide, Will (his brother, played by Rob Huebel) is famous and kind of smug, Graham feels overshadowed, and their dad, Roy (John Ashton,) just goes along with it. If the writers tweaked the narrative and put this scene first, it would have made a fantastic opening scene.

The moment where his mother has a discussion with his trans daughter is incredibly sweet, and the kind of scene which feels modern and like it has something to say. Other narratives are running throughout, every character going through their own trials: Sue has been groped by her boss, Roy has a gambling addiction that threatens to rear its head, his brother Will has been accused of sexual misconduct on the set of his TV show, and Graham is going through a personal crisis. All of these are very worthy plots, and all are narrative fruits that are ripe for picking. However, they’re so underdeveloped that the audience only gets a brief glimpse of each narrative before it is disposed of. This approach can work in real life; not every story gets an ending, sometimes it’s just that things happen. But it’s handled really badly here, especially in the closing section.

The end feels really rushed. You have all this drama colliding together, and you expect it to lead to something. Instead, it just kind of becomes nothing. I mean, stuff happens, but it doesn’t FEEL big. The payoffs are incredibly flat, and there’s zero intensity. It feels like a 10-episode TV show which skips episodes 7,8, and 9. Or the writer HAD to keep it under 90 minutes and wasn’t allowed to delete stuff they’d already done.

In summary, it’s cosy, sweet, and very heartfelt at times, with good performances throughout. But it’s nowhere near as good as what’s already out there. In a world of exquisite dining, this is toast.

The Second Act aka Le Deuxième Acte (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It genuinely doesn’t f*cking matter, seriously.

It’s weird how a trailer can win you over by not showing a single second of what’s in the film. It may seem counter-productive to not include anything from the movie in the trailer, but sometimes it’s not needed. Sometimes, all you need is a way to tell people “This is the tone and style”. The Second Act (TSA, pronounced Tizz-ah, but not like the drink) trailer did that brilliantly and is probably the best trailer I’ve seen in a while. It tells you everything while showing you nothing. The complete opposite of most Marvel trailers.

Now, the film itself. It’s meta and weird. Near the start, a character says something mildly transphobic and then is told “You can’t say that we’re being filmed” Then the character tries to rephrase it differently. He doesn’t say that as the character, he says it as the actor playing the character, if that makes sense? It’s a weird moment, the first of many, and how you react to that scene will let you know whether its worth continuing with the rest of the movie. Personally, I found it funny. But I will admit that it does highlight a small issue I had with this; it is occasionally too meta. As much as I do love the opening scene and how meta it is, there is still a small part of you that thinks “Get on with it”. I’m not saying be less meta, I never say that, but spread it out more among the story. As it is, TSA will stop the story for 5 minutes to focus on meta-commentary, then pick up the story again. In a film that’s less than 90 minutes long, that’s a lot of waiting around. There should have been a more seamless way of threading the meta-ness through the narrative without pausing. I typed that after 10 minutes. Really I should delete it because this film wouldn’t exist without the meta. All it has is “we’re actors making a film” and fourth wall breaks upon fourth wall breaks (16 walls?).

That kind of stuff is to be expected from fans of Quentin Dupieux, those who watched and enjoyed the *checks notes* sentient tire that kills people with psychokinetic powers movie Rubber, will enjoy this. It’s very similar, you have to go into it expecting it to break the very notion of narrative and cinema, you’re not watching it for the plot, you’re just watching it for the experience of watching it. If you are expecting some form of sense, you’re going to be deeply disappointed.

I’m quickly falling in love with Lea Seydoux, she was phenomenal in The Beast, and continues to impress throughout TSA. She’s charming, friendly, and seems believable as a slightly frustrated actress. The others are all fine, but Seydoux is the best of a very good bunch.

From a technical standpoint, this is a marvel (and not just because it stops the plot to make jokes), not in terms of special effects or even outstanding beauty, but because of the tracking shots. Oh my science, the tracking shots. They’re so prevalent that the pre-credits scene makes a point of showcasing just how long the tracks were to make them happen.

Really the only thing to take from TSA? Films are silly. Making them is silly. Writing them is silly. So what not make it so watching them is silly too? It’s not for everybody, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a slightly frustrating watch at times, but it’s also one that’s not entirely without merits.

2024 Film Awards: Day Four (The Visuals)

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Best Looking

Nominees

Poor Things

This will be divisive. The shots themselves are undoubtedly beautiful. But the weird fish-eyeness may put some people off. You’ll either be nauseous or entranced. but either way, they will affect your opinion of the film. I won’t lie, they are fucking weird, but so is the film, so it works. There’s a dreamlike quality to a lot of the shots, especially the exterior ones.

The Holdovers

Just watching the trailer gives you an idea of why I like the visuals. Yes, they’re not particularly stunning or incredible. But they really sell the period the film is set in. You can show someone this and tell them it’s from the 70s and they could believe you. I know it is something that just involved a filter and changing the lighting a little bit, but it was really effective.

Sometimes I Think About Dying

Sometimes beauty comes from bright colours, sometimes it comes from fluid motions, and sometimes it comes from making every shot like a painting from the 1800s. This is in the last category. Yes, there’s not much colour, but the use of greys, the use of blank space and desolate backgrounds, it’s art. No, it’s not complicated, but it’s stunning in its own way. This film is why “mise en scene” is talked about.

The Wild Robot

I’ve mentioned in a few of these about how sometimes the visuals match the story and enhance the viewing experience. I’ve mentioned mise en scene, I’ve talked about specific camera techniques etc. With this? All I can say is “Ooooooo, pretty”.

The Substance

Every film released this year was in focus, that’s an obvious point to make. But somehow, The Substance seemed more in focus. Striking visuals

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

It’s weird how something with so few colours can look SO good. I personally was not a fan of this movie. But it would be a lie to say it didn’t look absolutely sublime. Every inch of the screen is permeated with love, care, and artistic flair. Hey, I made a rhyme, and it was not even intentional. A lot of films (and video games, mainly video games) use dusty brown colour palettes as an excuse to look blander than a toast sandwich. Furiosa shows that up for the bullshit lazy excuse that it is. You can use that as the basis for your visuals, and still inject beauty, still inject moments of colour. Essentially, you CAN make it so it’s not fucking ugly.

Winner

I Saw The TV Glow

Much like Schoenbrun’s previous work (We’re All Going To The Worlds Fair), there are times when TV Glow makes you feel like you’re in a lava lamp being hypnotised. The bright colours, the cinematography, it’s absolutely stunning. It’s not just beauty for beauty’s sake, the ethereal nature suits the story too, enhancing the illusion the film is trying to sell.

Best Music

Side note, I’m not doing a “worst music”, but if I did, The Fall Guy would have won because of how often it played the same song by a band that f*cking sucks.

Madame Web

There’s a total of around 19 seconds where Madame Web is a good film. The music is 10 of them; when they play The Cranberries, and when they play Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That’s literally half of what is good in this movie, those two song choices.

The Iron Claw

A film’s soundtrack is not just “songs we want you to listen to in the car on the way home”. Sometimes they set the mood, sometimes they describe the characters, and sometimes (like in The Iron Claw) they PERFECTLY encapsulate the era. The visuals don’t really give away the period (outside of buildings which no longer exist), but as soon as you hear the soundtrack you know when the film is set, and you also KNOW it’s the United States, specifically one of the southern states. It would be like if a movie was soundtracked entirely by Blur, Oasis and Pulp, you’d know it’s 90’s England.

Sometimes I Think About Dying

For most of these, I have described the soundtracks as “the use of pre-made songs that have been chosen”, and haven’t delved much into the score. Obviously, that’s about to change, otherwise, that would have been a f*cking weird way to start this entry. Mute YouTube, then watch the trailer for SITAD. I can guarantee you know how it sounds just from the visuals. That’s not a criticism, by the way. It would be weird if this used joyful summer sounds. The music is PERFECT for this.

Winner

I Saw The TV Glow

Much like Worlds Fair, Glow is enhanced by the music choices. It’s not a soundtrack that will stick with you, there’s not really many songs that you’ll remember when its over. But while the film is playing? Alongside the visuals? It’s gorgeous. You can tell every song has been deliberately chosen to enhance the viewing experience. One of the few films I can imagine releasing its soundtrack on cassette and it wouldn’t feel like a gimmick.

Best Effects/CGI

Immaculate/The First Omen

Yes, I’m lumping these two together again, because there are moments for which I genuinely can’t remember which of the two they come from. So take this entry as if the two are a double feature counted as a single film.

The deformed fetuses are horrific, which considering what they are, is good. This has some truly wonderful body horror. When she witnesses the birth of something……well it’s not right, it looks awful, in a good way. There’s something truly unsettling about how the demonic hand comes out of the woman.

Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes

The modern Apes movies have always looked spectacular, and there were concerns this wouldn’t match it. Thankfully, it does. The original Superman movie was advertised with the tagline “You will believe a man can fly”. In this? You will believe an ape can speak basic English. You can make criticisms of this movie, but you can never say that the visuals took you out of it.

Abigail

Horror movies, particularly ones aimed at the audience Abigail is aimed at, need to make sure the kills are good. And how do you do that? By making them look good. If they look silly, or too fake, the audience is immediately taken out (unless the film leans into it). Abigail has some fantastic deaths, and the blood looks REALLY good. It doesn’t just look like water with food colouring, it looks thick, it looks heavy, it looks, well it looks fucking gross. So when you see someone covered in blood, the horror of the moment truly hits you, as opposed to making you think “That’s good makeup”, you think “Oh shit, that’s a lot of blood”.

Sting

Almost entirely due to how good the spider looks. Spiders are tricky to make look real when you increase the size because the way they actually move is weird as hell so when you see it close up there’s something “off” about it, and not in a scary way, in a “this looks stupid” way. Sting somehow manages to look real. I’ve said it before, there is an inkling of a GREAT movie under the surface here, and the visuals are a part of that.

Winner

The Substance

I was thinking twice about having this as a category. What made me decide to go through with it was knowing that The Substance was going to walk away with this award, and I feel I need to show this more love than I have done. In a film about beauty, it’s magnificent at showing ugliness. Not just the big moments, like the giant headf*ck at the end. But also the withered body parts that look suitably gross. The key moment is the first time she takes The Substance, where her back seems to rip apart. This could look painless, as if it’s just something that’s happening like someone opening their mouth. But the makeup up etc means that every inch of that back opening up looks like absolute agony, as it should.

Worst Effects/CGI

Nominees

Alien: Romulus

As much as I hate to give this a negative mark, the Ian Holm head is too off-putting to not mention. Apparently, they have fixed it for the Blu-ray release, but I haven’t got around to watching it yet. Also, I’m not rewarding them for fixing a mistake that shouldn’t have existed in the first place. Films shouldn’t need patches.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man

I’ve said it multiple times; this movie looks like low-budget porn, and the makeup is a big part of that. It looks like they didn’t have enough time to get it done properly, so it looks cheap and weird. Like it’s the base for a shot they’re going to improve later, rather than the finished shot.

Kraven The Hunter

There’s a scene in this movie where it looks like they CGI’d moving lips and blinking eyes on a still image to insert some ADR. It looks exactly as good as I made that sound. The rest of the CGI isn’t much better, with inconsistent effects, cartoonish blood, and “character in panto” levels of makeup, but the “look at what you became” moment is unforgivable.

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

When you want to make something look large, it’s not enough to just have low-angle shots for the whole thing. You need comparison, you need the giant monster to stand next to a building or a human, so you can truly be awed by the size. That’s where this movie fails, it spends most of the runtime with the monsters just standing around each other, so they don’t seem particularly impressive. It’s only in the final third when they start to fight in populated areas that you begin to get a sense of scale.

Winner

Argylle

I assumed the bouncing cat would be the worst CGI moment of this movie. Nope. There are multiple moments which look faker than a shop assistant’s smile. I know some things are difficult to make real, and that there will always be something that looks wrong with some moments. But when a close-up of a face looks fake, you’ve done goofed.

Best Stunts/Action Scenes

Nominees

Alien: Romulus

Normally, I reward action scenes based on speed. Romulus is different, the best moments aren’t really fast, but they’re SO well-crafted that I have to commend them. Some action scenes in movies are like smashing a snooker ball into a group of others, and watching them move. Romulus is more like dominos, you spend a lot of time watching them carefully be set up and positioned, and then they finally come down, it takes a while, but it’s immensely satisfying to watch them fall.

Boy Kills World

This came SO close to winning. The TV Show fight at the end is worthy of mention on its own. But there are so many other fights which come close to that. It’s especially remarkable considering its a directorial debut. It’s not just that they’re well-crafted, they’re inventive too, in an obvious way. By which I mean, there are things done that you haven’t seen before, but once they happen you think “Well now I’ve seen it, that was an incredibly obvious thing that should have happened before”. Boy Kills World was criminally under-advertised and undersold, and I highly recommend checking it out. Part of that is how funny it is, how sweet it is, how good the performances are. But none of them would matter if it wasn’t for just how damn entertaining the fights are.

Abigail

Mainly because of how the scenes perfectly blended the violence of death with the beauty of ballet. There’s a simple elegance to Abigail (Simple Elegance Of Abigail would make a grand album title btw) that helps it to stand out in the inevitable sea of clones.

Deadpool And Wolverine

The Deadpool franchise has always had excellent fight scenes, and DAW is no exception. From the moment the beats of Bye Bye Bye kick in and he’s beating people to death with a skeleton, you know you’re in for some inventive shit. The multi-deadpool fight could (and should) have been a lot better. But when the action scenes of DAW are good, they’re incredible and well worth checking out.

Gladiator 2

Have any of you played Condemned? I remember the first time I played that and beat someone with a crowbar. I was used to “hit thing, it falls down” standard physics in video games. But that’s the first time I remember thinking “fuck, that must have hurt” after hitting someone with a weapon. The hits had weight to them, meaning you felt every impact. That’s what Gladiator 2 does. Yes, the sharks are f*cking stupid, but the man-to-man fight scenes all feel spectacular, making you feel as if the lives of any of the characters could be ended in a single moment. It really helps to sell just how brutal and inhumane gladiator fights were, and why it’s a good thing Netflix didn’t make this movie otherwise they’d hold them for real, completely missing the “wow, look how horrible this is, and how horrific a society that allows this to happen would be” point of the movie. Yes, that was a Squid Games reference.

Winner

The Fall Guy

It’s a movie about stunts, if they messed up the action scenes then it would be a complete failure. What I loved about it was how practical the stunts were. David Leitch is tremendous at fight scenes (as anybody who has seen Bullet Train and Atomic Blonde can confirm), but action scenes involving non-humans are much harder. You can fully control a person, if you tell them to move backwards, you have a general idea of what their body parts are going to do, and they’re unlikely to suddenly do a backflip into a nearby fridge. Vehicles are different, a slight variation in speed or ground level can completely change how it reacts. So it’s amazing that Leitch managed to do what he did here, with every piece moving like a finely controlled part of a system. Also, they broke a world record for most cannon rolls in a car. I can’t watch a film that has that level of dedication, and not reward it.

Worst Stunts/Action Scenes

Nominees

Bad Boys: Ride Or Die

I wish the action scenes were better, I really do. But truth be told, they’re bland. I’m assuming they are anyway, I can’t remember them. As good as this franchise has been, it’s always been focused on the dialogue and plot rather than the gunplay. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be nice if some of the creativity in some of the shots was extended to the action.

Lift

There are many reasons why some action scenes fail. Sometimes it’s the performances, sometimes it’s the choreography, sometimes it’s the CGI. My issue with Lift is much simpler; the idea of the scene itself is too stupid. I’m talking about the “plane flying upside down” moment. It’s a scene so ridiculous (and not in a fun way) that it’s almost impossible to enjoy.

Borderlands

My main issue with the action scenes in Borderland is just how dull they are. There’s no creativity or skill to any of them. They’re also shot with the idea of “we need to see these actors” rather than logic, so characters supposed to be in disguise walk around without masks. There’s no sense of storytelling to them either, they’re just a series of action scenes with no connective tissue.

Winner

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

I’m actually not going to talk about the issues I have with size this time. Instead, I’m going to focus on one moment; when the titans etc are fighting on the beach near the end, smashing into buildings and destroying them. This should be epic, we should feel terrified for the people in those buildings. We should notice that there are people who’s lives are being ruined because their home/place of employment is being destroyed. Essentially, it should feel like this fight has an impact. It doesn’t. It feels like if you and I were having a punch-up in a model village. Yes, one of us will fall on a house, but we won’t feel any guilt for the people in it.

September 5 (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A retelling of the events of the 1972 Munich Massacre, from the perspective of the real heroes: Television journalists.

I went into this semi-blind (and also battling a HORRIFIC fever but that’s beside the point). I knew rough details about the event, but not enough to recall. So I didn’t know how many died, how it ended etc. This is because I haven’t seen Munich before September 5, and I also haven’t seen any of the (checks how many days there are between January 1 and September 5) 247 films in the series that are set before this (I have seen Friday the 13th, but that doesn’t give a month so I’m not sure if it’s set before or after September 5).

I think that ignorance of reality (great band name btw) actually helped though. It meant that the film could pull off a rug-pull. If I did know a lot about the event, then there’s a moment to the end which would have seemed a bit weird, you’d sit there thinking “hang on, that’s not what happened”, before the truth is actually revealed. As should be obvious by now, I won’t be judging this on historical accuracy, as I don’t know enough about it to do so. I didn’t see any characters use an iPhone or talk about the series finale of Gavin and Stacy, so I’m taking it as historically accurate.

Accurate, it may be, but is it really necessary? For those lucky enough to not pay attention to the news, the Israel/Palestine conflict has turned incredibly heated over the last year or so. With that in mind, it’s kind of uncomfortable to watch something like this, which at times feels like propaganda in terms of how it treats the conflict. Fun fact, one of the characters in this movie (Peter Jennings) was actually pro-Palestine. That’s why he refused to refer to Black September as “terrorists” on air. In the movie? His reasons for doing so are “it’s too early so we don’t know”. So the only pro-Palestinian voice in the movie has been neutered, and I’m sure that’s for creative reasons.

Other than that? I’ve never been so bored whilst also being fascinated. The story is interesting, but visually it’s lacking. If you like watching people speak on phones, this is the movie for you. I know there’s only so much you can do with a grounded story, but it does kind of feel like a documentary where someone has just grabbed a camera and started filming. The performances are all fine, but none of them really stand out.

The performances aren’t helped by the writing, despite characters expressing misgivings, they only ever feel surface level. So when they realise “Hang on, the hostage-takers are watching our coverage, so they know what the local law enforcement are planning”, none of them feel haunted by it. When they get caught lying at the end, a point is made that “you still did the right thing”, even when they clearly didn’t.

When the characters aren’t just talking, when they’re actually DOING, September 5 is fascinating. It may just be my educational background, but I loved watching them prepare everything. Seeing them set up the cameras, prepare the insets etc is delightful competency porn. As a piece of historical viewing, September 5 is incredible. It does a fantastic job of showing just how the team pulled off what they did. Which is why I wish this was a documentary instead. Trying to shoehorn the true tale into a traditional 3-act structure hampers the story they’re trying to tell. It also stops them from providing historical context, since all the characters obviously know what led to it, they never bother telling the audience. On the one hand, this is incredibly realistic, but on the other, it does leave some holes. What is the status of the Israel/Palestine war at this time? Is there active fighting? Has there been a recent ceasefire? These are important questions which the characters already know, but the audience doesn’t. Considering it’s about the news industry, it would have been such an easy fix too; just provide a news montage of a brief history of the Olympics/the conflict.

In summary; fascinating story, not too interesting a film. Reminds me of that film about the Chilean miners a few years ago.

Love Hurts (2025) Review

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Quick synopsis: Marvin is a mild-manner realtor whose past (and ex-girlfriend) comes back to haunt him

I like Ke Huy Quan, he’s one of those people who you can easily imagine being late for an awards show because he needed to buy a coat for a stranger he saw who looked cold. I’m also becoming a fan of Marshawn Lynch, who seems to always go all out into ridiculousness (for proof of this, watch Bottoms. As in, the film called Bottoms, don’t watch strangers arsecheeks, that’s weird).

So with that in mind, it kind of (love) hurts me to say that this movie is not good. The concept is good, but the execution is lacking. The fight scenes are mostly okay, but some are shot with a lack of clarity so it’s difficult to figure out what is going on. It also suffers from a lack of “that” scene. There’s no fight scene that you can tell people “You need to see this” and pull it up on Youtube to show them. There are attempts at this (i get the feeling the fight in the club near the end was an attempt at this). There a few moments within the scenes which are fun, teeth being ripped out by duct tape was a particularly gruesome and wince-inducing moment.

There’s a foundation of a good idea here; an action-based romcom could work. But the romantic notions feel really tacked on. There are two main romances, both of which feel kind of abusive in different ways. I had no desire to see the romances work, I didn’t buy into them as real or heartwarming. We’re not given a reason to care about the potential relationships. I did have a fairly decent joke/Always Sunny reference here, but I had to delete it as it will suit my review of Matt and Mara much more accurately.

If you took away the romance angle then it would improve the experience, but it would also mean the film would lose its hook, its gimmick, and would then have to advertise itself as “a mild-mannered man turns out to be a hitman”, which is kind of cliche at this point. That’s another aspect I felt was underdeveloped; we are constantly told how Marvin was a vicious hitman, dangerous and incredibly sadistic. But we never really see it. We get flashbacks of the aftermath, but we don’t get moments of the past version of him torturing and harming people; so it’s hard to buy him as a reformed hitman, because we only see him on the defensive. He doesn’t even kill the people hunting him, in fact it seems like he’s doing his best to make sure they don’t die. I know “he’s reformed and now a nice guy”, but if someone is trying to decapitate you, I think you’re morally allowed to kick them in the head until their brain resembles blueberry pie.

The lack of deaths leads to my other problem; the lack of consequences. Characters get tased in public (with witnesses), their are fights in offices (which at the very least, the cleaners would notice when they come in the next day), and his boss gets murdered. None of those moments matter. The police don’t seem to be ienterested in this random uptick in violence, there’s no news report about someone being found dead with a straw in his eye, none of the action scenes have any consequence, they’re just levels in a video game the main character has to get through.

Now onto the good, the performances are all good. And there are moments where the fight scene works. It’s also sweet at times (but never enough to keep momentum). And I do appreciate that is at least TRYING something different. There are also some very funny moments.

In summary, a mediocre film that’s about 2 rewrites away from being a 10/10.

2024 In Film: Day Three (The Too Flawed)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2024 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Madame Web
Ups: It starts with a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song and ends with a Cranberries one, just ignore everything else and you’ll have a good time.
Downs: A waste of the character.
Characters change personalities depending on the scene.
Dakota Johnson.
Best Performer: Adam Scott.
Best Moment: A car quickly drives away, turning as it does so. The shot is a standard “snow gets kicked up into the air by a speeding tyre”, but with broken glass. It looks absolutely stunning and may be one of my favourite shots of the year. It cannot be overstated how good it is. That shot, and ONLY that shot, is why this movie wasn’t in the “awful” section.
Worst Moment: Pepsi.
Opening: A scientist shoots a pregnant woman who then gives birth. So generic it’s barely worth having.
Closing: Madame Web is now blind but is fully clairvoyant. So whilst she can see the future, she is unable to read the reviews.
Best Line: And you know the best thing about the future? It hasn’t happened yet
Original review here

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

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

2024 In Film: Day One (The Awful)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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