Tag: Olivia Holt

2025 In Film: Day Nine (The Almost Amazing)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Companion
Ups: Bloody
Feminist as fuck
Great performances
Funny.
Genuinely great mid-twist.
Downs: It doesn’t seem to live up to its potential.
Too many important things happen that don’t affect the plot.
Best Performer: Sophie Thatcher
Best Moment: Her encounter with the cop. Genius.
Worst Moment: The suicide of Eli doesn’t quite hit as it should.
Opening: Iris talks about meeting Josh, then states she kills him later on. Doesn’t give the game away too much (unlike the trailer).
Closing: She waves to another companion. It should have been better.
Best Line: You’re right. I do know you. I know everything about you. I know you take almond milk in your coffee. I know you like your bedsheets untucked. I know your favourite hobbies are bar trivia, video games, and prattling on endlessly about everything the universe owes you. I know that you always need to be in control. I know that you have a below-average-sized penis. And I know that you think that having a few million dollars will disguise the fact that you are just a sad, bitter, weak human being.
Original review here

Heart Eyes
Ups: Some great kills.
Fantastic chemistry between the leads.
The attacks have weight.
Downs: The reveal is underwhelming.
The red herring is too obvious.
Best Performer: Olivia Holt
Best Moment: The meet-cute. May be a bit weird to put that in a horror movie, but it’s central to the characters working and you easily buy into it.
Worst Moment: The reveal. Easily.
Opening: Two (insufferable) people die. They really are annoying.
Closing: The couple are still together. Very sweet.
Best Line: I didn’t know that murder was a love language.
Original review here

I Swear
Ups: A touching look at an often misunderstood condition.
Highlights how far we’ve come in disability acceptance (but still not far enough)
Downs: Not every part of his story is needed.
Doesn’t mention he was part of a BBC documentary, which kind of undermines his message somewhat.
Best Performer: Maxine Peak.
Best Moment: When he meets the young girl with it.
Worst Moment: When he moves into a council house and ends up a drug dealer. Could excise that entire section and you wouldn’t notice.
Opening: Him receiving an MBE, and swearing at the Queen.
Closing: Video footage of the real person. He does actually punch Dottie in the face.
Best Line: The problem is not Tourette’s, the problem is that people don’t know enough about Tourette’s.
Original review here

Nobody 2
Ups: Violent.
Fun.
Sets up future films.
Good soundtrack
Downs: Not as good as the first one.
Some baffling decisions made by characters.
Best Performer: Bob Odenkirk.
Best Moment: The arcade fight.
Worst Moment: As much as I did enjoy it, Lendina killing everyone in the casino. Those are tourists, that would raise attention.
Opening: Hutch has to go on assignments to pay off the debt caused by his actions in the first movie (consequences!), we see how one of them goes.
Closing: A batshit insane Home Alone-style shootout in a fairground. Wonderful.
Best Line: Never bring a machete to fucking Katana duel,
Original review here

Predator: Badlands
Ups: Charming.
Wonderful world-building, the planet truly feels alive.
Ties into the Alien series, but not too obviously.
Downs: We don’t see enough of the Kalisk to make it feel like a genuine threat.
Characterisation snaps back too often, makes it seem like we’re being shown out of order.
Best Performer: Elle Fanning.
Best Moment: The trio taking over the base. So much fun.
Worst Moment: The tooling up sequence. Don’t get me wrong, it is pretty damn great, but it’s also not clear enough what some of the things are.
Opening: Introduces Dek and his brother, only to then kill one of them off. Sets the stakes up, and shows you just how expressive Dek can be.
Closing: Patricide. Really the only way it could end.
Original review here

Queen Of The Ring
Ups: Some GREAT music.
Genuinely fascinating story.
Friendly to newcomers without being insulting to fans.
Downs: Could explain some stuff more.
Skips some parts too quickly.
Best Performer: Emily Bett Rickards
Best Moment: When she wins the title.
Worst Moment: The shoe-horning of Vince McMahon Sr. seems weird.
Opening: Her fighting in Georgia. She’s struggling, in a lot of pain, and her son helps her back.
Closing: The match finishes in a draw, there’s shenanigans. Then text saying what happened to the main characters. “She never got to wrestle in the Garden” is tearjerking.
Best Line: “what we ask our wrestlers to put their bodies through in the ring, is what we ask our fans to put their emotions through in their seats”
Original review here

Superman
Ups: Very much needed at a time like this.
Understands its characters.
Great world building.
It’s nice to have a villain who’s evil. Not “misunderstood”, not “i can fix them”, just someone who is an irrefutable piece of shit.
Downs: Lacks iconic music.
Sets up films which might not happen.
Best Performer: David Corenswet
Best Moment: When Lex shoots Malik. Classic heel move.
Worst Moment: The whole “opening a crack in the earth” plot.
Opening: Quick text summary of metahumans and Superman, then footage of him after he’s had the shit kicked out of him. Brave to start a Superman movie with a shot of him being vulnerable.
Closing: Luthor’s scheme has been uncovered, and the billionaire has been arrested. Bit unrealistic.
Best Line: I am as human as anyone. I love, I-I get scared. I wake up every morning, and despite not knowing what to do, I put one foot in front of the other, and I try to make the best choices that I can. I screw up all the time, but that is being human, and that’s my greatest strength. And someday, I hope, for the sake of the world, you understand that it’s yours too.
Original review here

The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Ups: Nice time capsule.
Different.
Has heart
Never slips visually
The characters genuinely feel close.
Downs: The Natasha Lyonne sub-plot goes nowhere.
Doesn’t make you that excited for Doomsday
Best Performer: Pedro Pascal
Best Moment: The Silver Surfer flashback
Worst Moment: Sue Storm being brought back to life. Mainly because it takes sooooo long to happen, when everybody watching knows not only what will happen, but how it will happen.
Opening: Sue and Reed at home being domestic. I have very specific issues with this opening, the big one being that it’s kind of mundane and dull, especially when there’s a REALLY good introductory scene afterwards of a talk show host explaining the characters background. That would have been a much better opener.
Closing: The five are about to appear on a talk show but have to leave for some unspecified emergency. Would have been nice to see what it was.
Best Line: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
Original review here

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Ups: Great performances.
Good character development of Benoit.
NAILS the closing.
Downs: Not as good as the other two.
The central mystery isn’t that compelling.
Best Performer: Daniel Craig
Best Moment: The ending.
Worst Moment: When Nat stabs the body, doesn’t really work.
Opening: Priest punches someone in the face and reassigned.
Closing: Jud has reopened the church, the jewel being the hidden centrepiece.
Best Line: Here’s what’s gonna happen: Benoit freakin’ Blanc and I are gonna ask you all some questions, and you all are gonna answer them and we’re gonna get to the bottom of who killed Monsignor Wicks and why and then… that’s it!
Original review here

Heart Eyes (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: Every Valentine’s Day, a serial killer attacks couples. This year is no different.

I watched this the same day as Love Hurts, another Valentine’s Day-based movie with a twist. Heart Eyes is better, I’ll lead with that. Not to say it’s perfect, I have very specific problems with it that I’ll go into later, but it is mostly a pretty fun watch. My big issue is one that I can easily see some people actually liking, it’s all down to personal preference, as all reviews are.

I don’t think the script of the original Scream (as in the movie, not the painting, the script for that is only worth 1000 thousand words) is as highly regarded as it should be. It’s not just a horror movie, it’s a well-crafted mystery. There are clues, red herrings, along with lots of foreshadowing. The reveal is stupendous, when you hear it, you feel as if you should go “Ohhhh, well that’s obvious now I know the answer”. You don’t get that with Heart Eyes. Part of that is because it doesn’t build up the background characters that much. Scream had a large pool of suspects to draw from, so as you watched it, your brain was juggling between them, trying to figure out which one could be the killer. Heart Eyes only provides you with one option, doing all it can to signpost that this person is the killer. So either there’s no mystery, or it’s wasted its time giving you only red herrings instead of actual clues, neither of which is particularly narratively satisfying. The reveal itself is…..well it won’t end up on the list of greatest killer reveals, put it that way.

That’s a shame because if the mystery aspect was handled better, Heart Eyes would be a top 5 horror movie of the year, easily (probably still will be, but it is at risk). It does what I like my horror movies to do; have non-horror moments that are still interesting to watch. The central romance between Ally and Jay is lovely to see. It helps that Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding have really good chemistry. Their meet-cute is legit adorable. Take out the murders and you could easily frame this as a straight romcom.

So how about the horror moments? They’re fucking great. Companion (the other love-themed horror movie of the month) was a better movie, but Heart Eyes had MUCH better kills. They’re brutal, but not gratuitous. It doesn’t shy away from showing you the outcomes, people get squashed in machines and there’s a lot of blood, people get holes in their heads, and stabbed in places. “Holes in the head” does sometimes mean weird body physics in film, we’ve all seen horror movies where the killer punches someone and somehow their fist makes a hole in their skull. Moments like that can really pull you out of the movie because they’re not scary, they turn horror movies into cartoons with characters made of paper. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. Yes, characters do get attacked and end up looking like a polo mint, but the way it happens often makes sense in terms of physics, you can easily see how what happened COULD break through someone’s skull. The attacks all have weight to them, when people get hit with an object, you can feel the pain it causes, and you know they’re not going to get up. This helps it feel scarier and more violent, the realism makes it easy to buy into the concept that this is real.

What also helps sell the illusion of reality is how people react. They panic but try to not overdo it. There’s no “everybody in the country locks themselves in their homes”, because (as COVID showed), people wouldn’t do that. But people still took precautions (just like COVID), because everybody realised this is a big deal and to not do at least something would be incredibly selfish (just like…..oh wait, not like COVID, people were selfish during that). Restaurants that take bookings on that day carry out checks for weapons because you would in that situation. What’s not realistic is that this is still America, and there’s no “just because there’s a serial killer around doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to bring my gun everywhere I go. Yes, even into a restaurant, table for one since my wife left me, but gun didn’t. Gun still loves me” pushback from Fox News.

For two-thirds of this movie, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the reveal REALLY let it down. As did two characters who were just unrealistically stupid, even for a horror movie. It is still a really solid 7.5/10, but it could have been so much more.