Tag: movies

2023 In Film: Day Two (The Bad)

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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

2023 In Film: Day One (The Awful)

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Spoilers, but 2023 was actually a pretty good year for film. There was a lot of excellent stuff, much more great than awful, but tradition states we must start with the worst, and these are pretty damn bad.

65

Ups: It is good to see spectacle cinema again.

Fun idea.

Pretty good CGI.

Downs: Dull.

No sense of peril, obstacles are approached, defeated, and then forgotten in a few minutes.

Zero reason for it to be set 65 million years in the past rather than in the future.

Terrible title.

Best Moment: When Koa finds out the truth about Mills.

Worst Moment: The parasite nearly killed one of them. Completely inconsequential.

Best Performer: Ariana Greenblatt

Opening: Adam Driver’s character convinces his wife to let him go on a two-year trip to raise money for his daughters’ healthcare. She dies whilst he’s away. All of that information is delivered to the audience FAR too quickly. It would have been better if they opened with the crew members of the ship just sitting around joking, that way when they died we would actually feel something.

Closing: An asteroid hits Earth, killing most life. The audience feels NOTHING.

Best Line: “65 million years ago a visitor crash-landed on Earth”

Original Review here

Assassin Club

Ups: Good idea.

Made it very easy for me to pick “Worst Film of the Year”

Downs: Wastes so much potential.

Stupid character decisions.

Edited in a way that makes parts of it incomprehensible to watch.

Dull.

Best Moment: The subway fight.

Worst Moment: When a mysterious character is unmasked. Because it happens one scene after the concept of them was introduced, so felt like a waste of a mystery.

Best Performer: Henry Golding I guess.

Opening: He tries to kill someone, and helpfully explains his process to the audience, but is shot-blocked.

Closing: I genuinely don’t remember. I think he shot a woman. I stopped caring by this point.

Best Line: However they described the person in the worst moment section, only because it actually created intrigue.

Original Review here

The Pale Blue Eye

Ups: Some lush visuals

Downs: This could have been a chance to showcase some American talent, going with an almost entirely British cast is a strange choice.

Best Moment: The shot of the house burning down, elegant in its simplicity.

Worst Moment: The reveal, when you find out the whole film is balancing on an incredibly convenient coincidence in timing.

Best Performer: Toby Jones

Opening: With an Edgar Allen Poe quote, obviously. The last media I partook in that started like that was Eternal Darkness back in *coughs to obscure date*

Closing: The killer has been revealed. But the film then carries on for another few scenes where we get flashbacks about things we didn’t need to see.

Best Line: “I didn’t want them to confess, I wanted them to die”

Original Review here

Thanksgiving

Ups: Gory

Deliciously satirical

Creative kills

Downs: I hated every single character.

The villain makes too much sense.

Predictable.

Too bleak, stopped caring.

Best Moment: When the killer kidnaps them in the middle of a parade.

Worst Moment: The reveal, because it’s too obvious.

Best Performer: Patrick Dempsey

Opening: The store massacre. Bloody, chaotic, and quite fun. But also renders every main character too unsympathetic to give a shit about.

Closing: The killer’s body wasn’t found. Sequel!

Best Line: “Don’t slide into the killer’s DMs”

Original Review here

Good Burger 2 (2023) Review

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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.

Quiz Lady (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Anne and Jerry’s mother gets into debt with the mob. In order to pay off the debt (and get her pet dog back), Anne goes on a quiz show.

I fucking love Awkwafina. From the first time I saw her on-screen in Jumanji: The Next Level, through to Renfield, she has consistently been the highlight of almost every film she’s in. She’s carved a niche as a sarcastic brilliant mess. Conversely, Sandra Oh is best known for playing smart characters who are in control. So it’s weird that Quiz Lady has them do the opposite. It’s a nice subversion of audience expectations. Doing something like that does run the risk of coming off as an acting exercise, but it works in this. They’re both clearly having a blast, being surprisingly great at playing against type.

They have really great chemistry, to the point where it is easy to buy them as siblings. They’re helped by a script full of moments which showcase how much Jenny (Oh) really does care for her sister Anne (Awkwafina). There are so many moments where the script is damn near perfect. The story, however, not so much. It’s incredibly predictable, in a basic way. Just by watching the trailer you can probably pinpoint the three-act structure. But it’s what it does within those confines that make it interesting. Even though the moments are predictable, it still surprises you with how it does it. Even the traditional “what happened next” ending includes a random “Capitalism is broken” message in it.

It also uses the framework it’s in to create some genuinely heartfelt moments, mainly between the sisters. Weirdly (and never thought I’d say this), the most emotional scene comes from Will Ferrell, where he showcases his affection for previous guests on the show. He’s aided by his “rivalry” with Jason Schwartzman’s character, who feels like he’s just doing a Steve Carrell impression.

Now onto the bad; it has one of the worst uses of Eye Of The Tiger in cinematic history. Because of the Rocky movies (a touching tale of unrequited love between one man’s fist and another man’s face), that song has certain expectations attached to it. When you hear that, you expect something triumphant and epic, and that doesn’t really happen in this. It builds up to it, then neutered like a feral cat, only much quicker.

The rapid-fire nature of the jokes also means that some don’t work, there’s an entire character that clearly seemed hilarious on paper but just does not work on screen. I think it’s because it feels shoehorned in. It had the potential to affect the plot, all it would have needed was one conversation between that character and one of the sisters, one moment of meaning could have justified his inclusion. As it is, it just felt like “Okay, they’re staying in a hotel, add some jokes”, like they’re just jokes for joke’s sake, rather than having any thought between them, and they’re not even good jokes.

Overall, this is definitely worth a watch. It’s not going to change your life, but it’s not meant to. It’s escapism at its (almost) best. Sometimes that’s all you want in life. In the UK it’s available on Disney+, and you could do a lot worse.

Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: Ginger and Rocky are now raising a child, one with ambitions of leaving the farm they raised her in.

The original Chicken Run has a weird place in people’s hearts. It doesn’t feel like it’s many people’s favourite film, there’s not exactly a rabid fanbase who do yearly showings and conventions about it and discuss its themes at left. That being said, it is a comfort film for many people. It’s a film which whilst people don’t LOVE, it does give them a place of warmth and security. That’s, you know, if you ignore the Mel Gibson of it all.

The recasting of Gibson made a lot of sense, his career has never really recovered from people discovering he’s a massive racist (by which I mean, “he uses racist words”, not “he sometimes criticises Israel when they kill children”). Whilst he’s not box office poison (the reaction to Hacksaw Ridge proves that), he is box office Evri, his involvement will drive more people away than it will bring them in. Zachary Levi is a good replacement though, providing enough emotion and vocal depth to the performance that you don’t really miss Gibson. I have a bigger issue with Thandiwe Newton being in this. Julia Sawalha was great in the first one, and her being recast for seemingly no reason genuinely annoys me. It’s claimed it’s because she sounded too old, but Newton is only 4 years younger, so maybe it was to get a bigger name? Either way, it’s bullshit, and did kind of sour the whole experience for me.

It kind of sums up my issues with the film. It doesn’t seem to have the same warmth and cosiness as the original. It feels more, well not cynical, but more business-like, as if they were focused on the reaction it was going to get rather than what they were making. It has a Paloma Faith song. That somehow feels wrong, she’s too cool for this. Especially since it seems to be recorded especially for the soundtrack. It just kind of feels like a tonal misfire, it would be like if Wallace and Gromit used a Stormzy track.

That’s a shame, if this was a stand-alone film, I would rate it relatively high. It’s funny, it looks good, and it’s f*cking weird at times. A joke involving an eye-scanner made me laugh so much that I spat out tea (such a sad waste of tea). It is also genuinely unsettling at times, more kids’ films should aim to occasionally scare the living shit out its intended audience. There’s one area where this is better than the original; it has much more emotion. It definitely has an air of “aiming at the parents as well as the kids” with how it’s got themes of parental worry and a need for independence.

I mentioned the cast briefly, this has quite a few new voices, and they work. Bella Ramsey sounds exactly how that character should sound; with the right mix of youthful enthusiasm and paranoia. My personal favourite was Josie Sedgwick-Davies, who (at the time of writing) doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Her character could be annoying if it was voiced wrong, but Sedgwick-Davies makes it work, with her character coming off as endearing rather than frustrating (it helps that her voice makes her sound like someone who goes on Bake Off and bakes rainbow cakes which look weird). She’s absolutely fantastic and I love her in this. Curious as to what she does next, but she’s on my radar for now so I’m hoping it’s something good.

So in summary; because this is on Netflix, I’d say you should watch it. It’s a great Netflix film, but only a good Aardman one. If you’re looking for a good family movie, you could do a lot worse than go with this. I mean, you could also do a lot better, but still.

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Super scary villain fails to kill a baby.

It’s hard to give a shit about DC films at the moment. They’re clearly being written with the idea of building towards something, but the audience knows that with Gunn taking over and resetting everything, they’re not actually building towards anything. This is partly why The Flash was such a frustrating film, It was setting up questions that we knew would never be answered. Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (AATLK, pronounced Arterlook) doesn’t set up anything like The Flash did, but it also doesn’t feel like the closure that it actually is.

Like a lot of superhero films, it is hard to not wonder where the other characters are. Even considering that they couldn’t withstand the water pressure, there’s still a lot of stuff that takes place on land that they could have been used for. Even just a quick scene of “contact your friends” “There’s no time/they’re busy” would be useful.

Those absences would be fine if the story itself was engrossing enough. This film is so pedestrian, it’s at risk of being hit by a car that mounts the pavement. The visuals aren’t that exciting either. Something like this should create magical-looking worlds that you want to live in. We should forget that these worlds don’t exist. You never get that, everything looks so fake that it resembles a mid-2000s video game more than real life.

At least the performers are having fun. Momoa is having a lot of fun, and the sad thing about him not being Aquaman in Gunns DCEU means that that character is effectively over now, because they can’t recast it without it seeming like a downgrade. It looks like they’re thinking of having him as Lobo, which would kind of make sense, but I think we all know that Joseph Anoa’i would be a better option. Momoa is helped by him and Patrick Wilson having tremendous chemistry, much more than they had in the first one. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was good in the brief moments he’s seen as Black Manta, but isn’t really in it enough to be memorable. It doesn’t help that Black Manta doesn’t really do much. His whole thing is “I’m going to find this weapon and take over the world”, so the heroes need to stop him getting the weapon that will make him unbeatable, he finds the weapon and then is defeated almost instantly. It reminded me of something, but it’s so generic that I don’t know what it reminded me of. He also seems to know he’s a character in a film, so makes decisions based entirely on what the film needs him to do. The best example of this is when all he needs to do is kill Aquamans son, so he stands above him holding a knife, and pauses, raising it far too high, just so Aquaman can save the day. If he was actually bothered, he could/would/should have killed that baby immediately; would have been easy too, babies are shit at fighting, I reckon I could take like 10 of them on my own. Also, he knew he had to sacrifice the child, yet still did everything on his own. Logically he should have sent one of his henchman to fetch the child while he was off doing other shit. I’ve never said this sentence before and I’m not sure I’ll say it again, but if he was a good manager and effectively delegated his duties, he could have killed that baby instantly.

That’s how I’m ending it.

It’s A Wonderful Knife (2023) Review

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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.

Wonka (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It’s a Willy Wonka prequel, do you need a synopsis?

I will admit, I went into this knowing there was a chance that it would end up being terrible. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely ADORE the Paddington movies, I think they’re genuinely two of the most enjoyable films I’ve ever seen. But I didn’t know that much about Paddington, so I had no preconceived notions of what the character should be. Wonka’s different, I’ve read the book (and the sequel), watched both of the films, and really enjoyed one of them. So I already knew the character, I had an idea in my head of what he was like, and the tone. Where the Depp one went wrong (in my opinion) is it just made him weird and kooky, lacking the (weird description but it makes sense to me) sociopathic kindness of the character. The trailer did not ease my worries; I know Chalamet is a good performer, but I just don’t buy him as Wonka. My rule for Wonka is this; can I imagine them playing The Doctor? If so, they’re a good fit (and vice versa). Chalamet feels like he’s trying too hard. It always feels like he’s acting as Wonka, it never feels like he completely disappears into the role and becomes him. It’s not helped by the fact that his singing isn’t the strongest, which isn’t great for a musical.

It’s a shame because apart from that, this is a great watch. The songs are catchy as hell and instantly feel familiar. That’s probably helped by how even in Paddington, Paul King directed everything with a sense of rhythm so that everything flowed together and created a sense that you were in a musical. So really, an actual musical was the next logical step. Importantly, the songs don’t overshadow the narrative, there aren’t any moments where it feels like they spent 4 minutes singing about something they could have said in 10 seconds, the songs all have a purpose; either driving the narrative forward, introducing a character etc.

Much like Paddington, the supporting cast is a delight. Paul King has always had a talent for putting random British comedy performers in small roles, and thus, making those characters memorable. That continues here, with one-scene characters played by Charlotte Richie, Phil Wang, Isy Suttie etc. Even the main “villains” are mostly unknown outside of the UK; people will know Olivia Colman and might know Matt Lucas from Bake Off, but I don’t think performers like Matthew Baynton or Rakhee Thakrar can be considered mainstream names, even in the UK. But none of them are weak links. Special mention must go to young American actress Calah Lane, who outshines the aforementioned Chalamet at every moment. I hope she goes on to do something special, as she definitely has the potential to do something amazing.

This film is lucky, because of the universe it’s created, it allows things which could sink other films. Gaps in logic, contrived coincidences, things existing just for silly reasons. They don’t matter as much in this as they do in say Good Burger 2 (spoilers for that review btw).

So in summary, this is completely predictable, overstuffed with cliches, and also unbelievably fantastic.

Godzilla Minus One (2023) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Koichi Shikishima is a failed World War 2 kamikaze pilot who returns home and decides to earn his forgiveness by helping a homeless woman and her child in the destroyed ruins of Tokyo. Oh, there’s also a giant reptilian monster rampaging around the country killing people.

Godzilla movies always have so much potential, both positive and negative. They can showcase a director’s ability to use a sense of scale to create a spectacle, something you HAVE to see at the cinema because the big screen does it better. It can also be an overly CGI mess where the producers think they don’t need to bother with a story because “monster makes boom” (by which I mean “monster destroys city and buildings explode”, not “monster shits himself”, nobody wants to watch a monster shit, which is why the 90’s Godzilla movie is regarded so badly). There was almost no cinema chatter of Godzilla Minus One (GMO, pronounced Gee-Moe) pre-release, they didn’t play the trailer, no posters put up etc. There was a small amount of internet hype, almost all of it saying it’s incredible.

It is.

I know, you’re expecting something more in-depth, but that’s all there is to it. This is an excellent flick. Usually, the key to a film like this is simple; you subtly build up the threat and then reveal it in all their glory in the final act; blowing the audience’s mind with how impressive it is. Or you show them early but hide them in shadows or with trees. Minus One takes a different approach, showing the titular ‘ziller in its full glory in the opening, then showing them again as they undergo nuclear-infused evolution. But this isn’t just about the big G, the human story is the one that actually carries the narrative, and it’s a damn compelling watch. This is a story that only really works in post-war Japan, a country that just lost the war, suffered nuclear explosions, and yet still carries a sense of deep pride. The reaction to Koichi returning to his home isn’t “Oh you survived, Thank fuck for that, everybody here died and we’ve suffered great losses, but it’s good that at least one person returned home”, instead it’s “You survived? Coward. If you did your job, we might have won”. In most other countries that would be dismissed as absurd, but in Japan it works. So when Koichi is haunted not just by the giant lizard with the capital G, but by his own personal failings, it makes sense. He doesn’t just suffer survivor’s guilt, it’s also a deep personal shame to him that he didn’t do his duty. So when, later on in the film, he has a plan to fly directly into the mouth of G-Z Rider and detonate a device, it makes complete sense that he would attempt that. The audience knows he has a death wish, so it doesn’t feel like a lazy attempt at drama.

Weird thing to say, but even with the radioactive lizard, this would still be a compelling story. But the addition of the nuclear-powered scaly disaster adds things you couldn’t do otherwise. His giant beam of death is now more reminiscent of a nuclear bomb going off, which adds another jerry can of nightmare fuel. The Queen Liz isn’t as big as it has been in previous iterations, you’d think this would make him less scary, nope, more so. Previously, it’s felt like he’s been shown as a sort of protector of earth, humanity was so small to him that they didn’t register as a problem, so he was only used to fight other large threats. Because he’s smaller, he can see humans, they register to him, and he REALLY does not like them. This isn’t a monster that accidentally kills people like we think our benefits systems does, this is one that is actively trying to kill people, like our benefits system actually does.

The fact that this was done on such a small budget is mind-blowing. There are a few moments where the lack of budget is noticeable, but mostly it looks impressive. The Atoll Atrocity Animal (well, lizard) does occasionally resemble a man in a suit/model, but at least doing it that way instead of CGI means it does still feel like something you can physically touch (not in a sexy way, don’t have sex with a killer kaiju). I recently watched a trailer for Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire and I messaged someone “Is it just me or does this look fake as shit?”. It looks overly CGI and more like a video game. This isn’t a “booo new” viewpoint. This is an “I’m glad both of these versions can exist”. If you want a monster movie, you can wait for GxK, if you want a human story with a monster, you have GMO. Don’t be bad we have both, be delighted we have the option.

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.