Tag: Reviews

They Will Kill You (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) infiltrates a high-rise building in New York in an attempt to find her sister.

As anybody who has played The Executive – Movie Industry Tycoon can attest, release dates can drastically affect how a movie is received. Some are simple: don’t release Christmas movies in April, for example. But some are more unpredictable: can you imagine how badly an anti-military film would have been received after opening weekend if it were released on September 7, 2001? It’s not quite that unlucky, but my view of They Will Kill You (TWKY, pronounced Twick-ey) has certainly been negatively affected by its release date. 7 days. That’s the difference; if I had watched it 7 days earlier, I’d have liked it more. So what happened in those 7 days? Did I also get a job in a shady building to save my sister, only to find out that the building is full of immortal satanists that pray to a pig’s head? No, nothing like that (the ones I had to kill prayed to a hippo). What happened was I watched Ready Or Not 2. In some ways, there are no similarities at all. This doesn’t involve a game of hide and seek, the villains don’t rule the world, and the racial component of TWKY does add another layer to the satire. But there are spiritual similarities.

When you compare the two, TWKY is found lacking. The characters aren’t as compelling, the satire isn’t as sharp, and it doesn’t look anywhere near as good. The action sequences are fun, with some great fight scenes. But it’s when people get hurt that it doesn’t impress. Limbs are sliced off far too easily; there’s almost no impact to dismemberments and decapitations. It all feels a bit too rubbery for my taste. It’s not helped by not having any memorable music, so the scenes aren’t quite as good as they should be: to be perfectly honest, some of them feel unfinished.

I don’t think it realises how good some of the ideas it introduces are. A character says that each floor is tailored to a different vice, then only shows us two floors. It doesn’t even do the most with the floors it gives us. I remember Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, which had a fantastic action scene that incorporated sex toys; despite having a floor based around sex, this doesn’t attempt anything similar. It also seems to waste the emotional potential of that being the floor where Asia finds her younger sister. I don’t think every female character in fiction has to have sexual assault as a backstory, but if you find a young woman working on a floor dedicated to sex, that question does have to be asked. But again, think of all the fun they could have had with Asia working through multiple floors all dedicated to different vices: her fighting a group of drugged up psychopaths, against people who are much larger than they should be because they spend their entire days eating. To be honest, with the satanic themes, it could have been very unsubtle and have floor be a deadly sin. I’m not sure how you could have action scenes based on Envy, maybe a hall of mirrors, or people focused on destroying the face? I dunno.

It’s a shame, as this could have been great. It’s really just a mix of bad timing in terms of release date, and too low a budget (or a director who doesn’t know how to utilise the budget). On its own, it is pretty fun. Asia is a great character. It’s nice to see Paterson Joseph on the big screen. It is odd that Tom Felton is in a film based around satanists sacrificing people, and it’s still not the most evil franchise he’s been involved in. There’s not a single weak link in the case, and the characters they portray all make sense and are entertaining.

In summary: a solid 6.5/10, that had the misfortune to follow an 8. The scene where Asia sets an axe on fire and attacks a room full of people in the dark is fantastic, and if it kept that energy and invention up, it would have been a 9/10.

The Good Boy (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A couple try to rehabilitate a teenage criminal, by kidnapping him.

Thoughts Going In/Expectations: None. I didn’t even know this film existed, and considering it was a secret screening I had no idea what type of film it was until at least 5 minutes in.

This could have been terrible. It could have ended up being overly Guardian Newspaper, either going “we just need to teach those ruffians good manners” or “these louts are too low class to fit in. They should be killed”, both of which would have been extremely annoying. In the end, the most annoying part of this movie is the title: released as “Heel” in some locations, “Good Boy” in others, and even more confusingly, being called “The Good Boy” in some publications. I’m just gonna go with “The Good Boy” as it sounds more like a title than Heels, and I already have a film called Good Boy from 2025 reviewed in the archives.

So that’s an entire paragraph about the title, how about the film itself? It’s fine. I don’t regret watching it, but I won’t rush out to see it again. It’s narratively and thematically ambitious. Stephen Graham continues to give a performance that isn’t Oscar-worthy, but you can easily imagine being used as justification for a studio casting him in something that would win him one. Andrea Riseborough is up there with Sally Hawkins as one of the most consistent British performers around. Fun fact, this isn’t the first time the two have played a married couple; appearing together in the film adaptation of the Matilda musical, which I haven’t seen, but I’m guessing is tonally very different from The Good Boy (TGB, pronounced Ta-goob). Without those two performers, TGB would be terrible. It’s anchored by those two, with both giving just enough layers to their performance to make the characters believable.

As I alluded to earlier, I had no idea what kind of film this would be when I sat down to watch it. The opening scene depicts Tommy. Tommy is a dickhead. He starts fights, pisses at bus stops, and is generally the kind of person everybody hates to see walk into a pub. I was concerned he was our lead, and we were going to spend the film watching his everyday life; I was not looking forward to it. I detested this guy, but it turns out that’s what the film wanted us to think: so that when he’s knocked out and chained in a basement, our first thoughts aren’t “oh, that’s terrible”, they’re “oh, he probably deserves this, it’s probably due to something he’s done in the past”. Those thoughts are fleeting because obviously they’re terrible things to think. But they are there, and the film wants those thoughts there. It wants us to be morally conflicted. We have a couple who have kidnapped someone, keeping them locked in their basement, and beating them whenever they feel he gets out of line. That’s all shitty, obviously. But the audience isn’t completely repulsed by them. It’s an incredibly fascinating, morally complex piece of viewing.

Until the closing section. The film hints at a disturbing past for the characters: a past which shapes their motivations. It feels like it’s building up to a revelation, something big that will recontextualise everything we’ve seen: constant mentions of someone called Charlie who used to live there. We see Tommy bullying a child, maybe that child was Charlie and he ended up killing himself. Maybe Tommy drunkenly caused a car accident that killed him. Maybe Charlie took a wrong turn and ended up overdosing, so the couple try to stop others walking that path. Or maybe he wasn’t even their child, but was another hostage who they’ve failed so is now dead to them. But subtle hints towards the past are all we get, and it’s too vague to be satisfying.

That’s not the other way TGB runs out of steam: the Macedonian housekeeper is dispatched with all the narrative efficiency of an Evri parcel. You could excise her subplot completely and it wouldn’t matter that much. The only impact she has is when she’s attacked at the end and Tommy stands up for her. That’s it. Might it have made more sense if it was one of Tommy’s friends, and the moment functioned as a clear divide between his past life and his future?

In summary, a feature film is possibly not the best way to tell this story. A book would have worked; each chapter from the POV of a different member of the household. A play would be intriguing, it already has a limited number of locations so would be easy to do. Even better: an episode of a TV show. Specifically, an episode of Inside Number 9. It does occasionally feel like an extended episode of that show, for better and worse.

TGB is one of the most fascinating and interesting films of the year, and if it sorted out the final 10 minutes it would have stayed as such.

The Wrecking Crew (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Two estranged brothers are reunited after the death of their father. Surprisingly, this isn’t a movie from the 80s.

Thoughts going in: I fully expect this to be terrible.

I’m not sure I trust Amazon’s original movies anymore. Yes, they’ve made some good stuff, but they also gave us War Of The Worlds, which I’m pretty sure counts as a human rights violation. And as much as I love Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, I do question their choices sometimes when it comes to what movies they want to be in. Plus, The Wrecking Crew was written by Jonathon Tropper, who also wrote The Adam Project, which I felt was kind of underwhelming compared to its potential.

So it’s a surprise to me that I didn’t dislike this. As a whole, it’s a fun buddy action movie, with some interesting action scenes and creative choices. That’s a whole, taken scene by scene, there are some weird choices. The script definitely could have used an editor to tie up some small things. The whole “Character says they won’t do something, smash cut to them doing the thing” thing, can we stop that? It’s up there with ending a film with “here we go again” as jokes which are so overplayed they’re almost parody at this point. At one point, Momoa’s character says he’s going after his father’s killer so hard because he feels guilty that he couldn’t catch the person who killed his mother. That’s not so much a revelation as much as it is “pretty much exactly what another character said early in the film”. Can you imagine if The Dark Knight movies had a scene where Alfred told Bruce “you only do this because you’re in pain due to the death of your parents, and you’re weird”, then after a lot of character development, Bruce sat down and told Alfred “I only do this because I’m in pain due to the death of my parents”. You’d expect Alfred to reply, “I know, I’m the one who told you that. Also, you forgot to say you’re weird”. I get the reason for it (I think), it’s him admitting it to himself, but it still comes off as too “written”.

How about the action scenes? They’re mostly fine, but they do seem to happen around people. There’s one set on a busy road, which involves multiple cars crashing, people in helicopters firing at the road, etc. None of the other cars seemed to react. They don’t speed up or take the nearest exits to escape, etc., and there are no signs of panic. It’s like they know there’s no focus on them, so they’re safe.

“Did you at least call your brother in Oklahoma?” feels like clunky exposition. There must have been a better way to tell us the geographical distance between them. I dunno, maybe it was the delivery that made it feel fake, but I doubt that because the performers in here are all pretty damn good. But there are odd choices made in terms of casting. It’s weird they had Danish and New Zealand performers, and had them play English people, especially with the surname “Robichaux”. Just have them do their natural accents, right? At least, I think they’re English. They have English accents, but a character does refer to the male as a “French fuck”. Now he could just be being an idiot, but still. On the upside regarding casting: Miyavi oozes star quality. He doesn’t give the greatest performance, but he has a definite aura about him. I know next to nothing about Japanese music, but I could tell he was somebody just by the way he carries himself. He’d make a great Bond villain.

Really, The Wrecking Crew depends on the chemistry between the two leads, and they have it. I’d love to see them work together again. Without them, this would be a cheap B-movie, but with them? It’s a solid A-. The greatest compliment I can give this is that with a few tweaks here and there, it would feel like a cinema movie. It’s not perfect, but it’s competent and fun enough that it’s hard to dislike. Not a guaranteed watch, not even a recommended watch, but you could do a lot worse.

Mother’s Pride (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A failing pub tries to revive its fortunes by brewing beer.

Thoughts going in: Have I seen a trailer for this? I’m not sure. Also, it’s weird Martin Clunes is doing films now. Wait, did that say Josie Long? Interesting. (spoilers, it did not say Josie Long, it said Josie Lawrence)

This is not the greatest film I’ve seen, but it’s enjoyable. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a piece of toast (I compare films to food way more than most people do, I should look into that). By that, I mean that no matter how perfectly it does what it needs to, it will never be your favourite. It sticks to a formula, and as such is kind of restrained by that. You can guess almost every single plot point in this film from the opening 10 minutes. It won’t surprise you at all. But it doesn’t really need to, this is not a film to analyse and pore over, it’s a film to sit and distract yourself, and it does that well. The dialogue is razor sharp, the characters are loveable (and fully fleshed out, even the background ones have minor details to them which help you know them), and it will make you smile. The whole thing is just massively endearing and charming and, I don’t know, warm I guess is the word I’m looking for. You know how certain films have colours attached to them? I’d say this one is a warm sea blue. It’s just comforting and lovely, the kind of film the whole family gathers and watches on Christmas Day, in that post-dinner haze where you’re all too exhausted to move, and someone inevitably falls asleep on the sofa with their Christmas hat still on. It’s incredibly BBC, and I mean that as positive and a negative.

So yeah, don’t go out of your way to watch this, but if (actually, when) it comes on iPlayer, watch it immediately.

I’m actually genuinely annoyed that the opening paragraph of this review makes sense. Not because of any worries of accuracy, but because I just copied and pasted it from a review from 2022. Okay, the writer/director who made that movie (Fisherman’s Friends: One And All) also made Mother’s Pride, so it could just be said that it’s his style. So making two similar films isn’t too big an issue, right?

Except.

Except the Fisherman’s Friends review wasn’t the first time I used that paragraph, I used it (with minor word adjustments) in a review of Finding Your Feet, back in 2018. So this isn’t even a copy, it’s a copy of a copy. Yes, it’s well-made. But even if this is the first movie you’ve seen, you’ll feel you’ve seen it before. It did make me laugh, and it did make me feel things. So in some aspects, it is a success. It talks more about men’s mental health and depression/anxiety than most films dare, and the fact that even a the “I’m an old man who doesn’t like change” character is sympathetic to those issues is a nice touch. In fact, the film outright states that making light of mental health issues is a villainous activity. Which would hit harder if you didn’t get the feeling that every character is one minor inconvenience away from using ableist slurs.

It’s hard to criticise Mothers Pride, as there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. It just brings nothing new to the table. For a film which has clearly had a lot of effort put into it, it feels spectacularly lazy. Like I said, you won’t regret watching it. It’s too well-made for that. But it won’t inspire any passion in you once it’s finished. For a film about a musician, music really should play a bigger part in it, though.

Scream 7 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: When a new Ghostface killer emerges in the quiet town where Sidney has built a new life, her darkest fears are realised as her daughter becomes the next target.

Thoughts going in: I’m assuming Stu will be back. Curious how this will work, though.

Scream is an anomaly among horror franchises. For one, it’s protagonist-centred. Most horror movies are focused on the villain, whereas Scream has always been about Sidney Prescott (except for the sixth one, but even that featured characters we’d met before, some from the first movie). It has also remained relatively well-received. By this point, Friday the 13th had reached lows twice (the third and fifth movie), Saw had basically imploded, Child’s Play had gone past Seed, and Halloween had suffered The Curse Of Michael Myers. The low point for this franchise has been the third, and even that has its defenders. Personally, I think the sixth was the lowest because of the lack of Sidney and the unremarkable killers.

Sadly, Scream VII has more in common with the sixth than the others. Characters who should be here are missing due to studio bullshit (Neve Campbell for 6 because she knows her worth, Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega from this one due to the studio being anti-Palestine and pro killing children), characters survive what should kill them, and most of all, most annoyingly, incredibly weak killer reveals. Much like the sixth one, the reveal of the killers negated most of the goodwill the rest of the movie built up. It reminds me of Sherlock, the Benedict Cumberbatch TV series. The second series ended with Sherlock faking his death; to say fans were excited to see how it was done would be an understatement. The internet was full of fan theories and suggestions. Everyone was eagerly looking forward to the first episode of the third series, explaining it. Then the third series started, and the explanation was………not there. I think it’s fair to say that enthusiasm for the series has cooled down significantly, and it’s hard to think that the way the show handled this wasn’t a small part of it. That’s what Steven Moffat did, though; he would do tremendous setups, but they were only tremendous because the audience had a belief that things would pay off, but the resolutions were never satisfying.

For two-thirds of Scream 7, I was into it. Every time I thought I had the answers, they changed the questions. I was enthralled, making mental notes of everything that could be a clue or foreshadowing. Sure, there was a guy who worked at the hospital who was weird, but surely he is too obvious and is placed there as a red herring? I had faith that it would wrap together in a neat little package.

Did it fuck. The red herring turned out to not be one; it wasn’t a subversion, it was just bad writing. The other killer isn’t much better, being someone we’ve barely spent any time with. It’s like the script spent so long saying “this person isn’t the killer” that it forgot to write for the people who turn out to be the killers. I’d estimate that before the reveal, the killers have a total of 5 minutes of screen time, and even that feels generous.

Like I said, it’s a shame the reveal is so shit, because if it nailed that, then this would be among the best. I do appreciate that they turned Neve Campbell’s absence from the sixth one into a plot point/motivation. The kills are sadistic and brutal as hell. There’s no art to these deaths, just pure sadism and cruelty. Sidney’s daughter being named Tatum (after her friend in the first movie) is incredibly sweet. Gale’s entrance is pure brilliance. And the way the final killer is disposed of will make you feel like cheering.

Really, it’s all about the next step. If Scream 8 is a misfire, then seven will be seen as the place where the rot is solidified; if it’s an improvement, it will be seen as a set-up. It’s hard to see where they can go from here, though. Rumours have been circulating for years that Stu is still alive, which is why it was somewhat believable that he was the killer here. But now that the franchise itself has addressed that possibility, it makes it VERY hard for it to be true in the next film without it coming off as weak. I’d say they’re cut off from “person from an earlier movie who we thought was dead is now the killer” reveals for at least 2 movies now. Maybe by the time the next one comes out, the whole cast will be there, and it won’t feel like something is missing. It is hard to see where the next one will go, because when Scream has been successful, it’s been when it’s been satirising current horror tropes and trends. I’d like to see the Stab franchise matter again, maybe in-universe it can be rebooted, and the next film looks at that, mixed with overly gimmicky horror films. Essentially, the Scream series needs to remember to be ABOUT horror tropes, not be full of them. This series is at its best when it’s treating the horror genre as the set text that the audience is to study. Scream 7 treats its own franchise as the text instead. It’s not about horror movies, it’s about the Scream movies, and nothing more.

How To Make A Killing (2026) Review

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Quick synopsis: Disowned by his obscenely wealthy family, Becket Redfellow will stop at nothing to reclaim his inheritance, no matter how many relatives stand in his way.

Thoughts going in: Should be fun. Very Plaza-esque mixed with dynamic scenes.

I have a list of all the films I expect to watch at the cinema this year. Looking at the list for 2026, there’s not many that I feel excited about. It may seem a bit pessimistic, but I doubt that I will see a film this year that I’ll list in my top 100. There are still films which I’m looking forward to in a “that should be a solid 7/10” way. One of those was How To Make A Killing (HTMAK, pronounced Hah-two-mack). The trailers made it seem like a comedy darker than a nightime walk in the woods whilst blindfolded, and just as fun. Alas, it does not match those expectations.

It’s not helped by an indecisive view on how to view its characters. The film is uncertain whether we should hate the rich family members or crave their lifestyle. For a film like HTMAK to work you need to do one of two things: either lean into the moral ambiguity, or make the victims so despicable that we want to see them dead. At most, the victims are entitled rich pricks. nothing worse. Not pleasant people, not people you’d want to spend any time with, but not people who are reprehensible enough that you cheer their deaths. So really the film is just someone who feels entitled to wealth because of his birth, killing people who have a lot of wealth because of their birth. There could have been something done with that: the film could have played with the idea that he’s just as bad as the people he’s killing.

Those issues could have been ignored if the film was pacier, then your brain wouldn’t have the time to think about it as you’d be too distracted. John Patton Ford can direct, but his style doesn’t quite work for this. Personally, I think he should have taken The Running Man, he could have added a lot of the original novel’s satire and dark humour to the mix, and Edgar Wright should have taken this. He would have been able to add the one thing missing from this: energy, it’s incredibly sedate to the point of almost being dull.

The performances are fine, but there’s something about Glen Powell that makes it difficult to buy into him as this character. Margaret Qualley is perfectly cast as a sociopathic femme fatale. My personal favourite performer is Jessica Henwick, whom I last saw in Glass Onion. She plays a semi-similar character here; a grounded and likeable character surrounded by rich assholes. Her relationship with Beckett is very sweet, but it does happen a bit too quickly, and we’re not given a reason why she’d be into Zach Woods character in the first place.

Truth be told, most of the background characters could do with fleshing out. Most of the family members are introduced just before they’re killed; their entire existence is to be victims. I feel it may have been better to see them all at the start of the film, see how they react to their family members being killed, scenes where one of them worries they’re being murdered, but the fears are dismissed as paranoia (maybe because they smoke weed, IDK). That way, we’ll be given a reason to feel something for these characters, even if it is hatred. It would also allow us to see the family dynamics more. Think of Knives Out, how the family interplay was key to that film working. Imagine if that film was Benoit investigating them one by one, and the family never interact with each other onscreen. The other advantage of having the whole family shown throughout is it would stop the film coming off as episodic or like a video game where he’s slowly going through each level in no particular order (side note: it’s weird he never even considers killing more than one at a time at a family gathering, such as a funeral).

This has all seemed very negative, I know. HTMAK does have moments where it’s brilliant. The deaths themselves are fun, especially the death of Cassandra. It subverts expectations immediately by telling us he’s on death row. I hated the ending; it felt mean-spirited and not true to the character. And then it continued, and we heard his justification to himself. That saved it. I’ve never seen a voiceover save an ending as much as it does here. It turns it from a terrible ending to one that’s bittersweet and borderline poetic.

In summary, I don’t regret seeing this. It is fun at times, and it’s worth a watch. But it’s nowhere near essential or highly recommended. It’s “leave on if you’re in a hotel room switching channels” quality. As Alise Chaffins said here: “it struggles to figure out what kind of movie it wants to be, ultimately leaving it rather forgettable, if momentarily entertaining.”. It’s stylish, no doubt about that, but ultimately rather hollow.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Claiming to be from the future, a man takes hostages at a Los Angeles diner to recruit unlikely heroes to help him save the world.

Thoughts Going In: No thoughts, just singing the song from the trailer.

Finally! 2026 has not been the greatest year in terms of films. Nothing has stood out as being particularly innovative or exciting. It says a lot that I already have 2 possible nominations for “Worst Film Of The Year”, but nothing that will get beyond the “very good” in the end-of-year roundups. To be honest, looking ahead I can’t really see anything that I’m incredibly excited about. So I’m very glad something like Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (GLHFDD, pronounced Goo-lah-fa-dud) exists. It’s flawed, deeply. But it’s also a lot of fun.

It’s also very necessary right now. The world needs more anti-AI media. Creatives should be against AI. Someone using AI to make something creative is like hiring someone to do it for you and still claiming credit, only you don’t pay the person you hired, and they’re liable to make mistakes. Bragging about making art using AI is like bragging you wrote a perfect letter K using a stencil. GLHFDD isn’t exactly subtle, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be eye-opening.

I have a few issues with it. For a film predicated on “I’ve travelled back in time on multiple occasions and everytime I’ve seen failure”, we don’t see much from the other times. I’m not asking for every journey to be accounted for, or for the films runtime to be split between his different attempts, but a few quick cutaways of the main characters dying in different timelines would have helped make it seem a bit more dynamic. It also would have made this world seem a bit less important, as it is, it has definite “this is main timeline” vibes to it. The way it’s laid out, you get the feeling that even The Man From The Future feels this is the main timeline, that this is his only chance and all the others have been practices. On the subject of The Man From The Future, that’s his name in the credits, but to improve how this review will flow, I’m going to call him Carl from now on, no reason for picking that name.

Carl doesn’t seem particularly haunted by the other timelines, he’s seen these deaths 117 times, yet he only seems bothered when they happen right in front of him, almost as if he knows that this one is the one being seen by an audience. My other complaint is the ending. It really drags in the closing section. But it then drops a HUGE left-turn in the final few minutes. So it’s both too slow, and too quick. It feels like it needed 10 minutes or so, whether that’s 10 minutes added to expand the ramifications of the final plot point, or 10 minutes taken away so it has a more improved pace, I’m still not sure.

This has all been overly negative, for the most part, I absolutely adored this movie. At times it felt a bit like an anthology, when it went into the backgrounds of some of the group. They all provide backstories which add to the finale. It feels like Susan’s backstory (She cloned her dead son) doesn’t quite align with the world, or it’s not interested in explaining the ramifications: mainly how the world reacts to “didn’t your son die? How is he back now?”. It would have been an easy fix: just explain that once it happens you have to move cities. I don’t dislike it though, as it allowed some truly delicious bits of satire. Clones being cheaper if they come with ads is depressingly realistic. There’s a moment where two parents discuss the changes they made to their daughters personality for their own amusement which is shocking and brilliant.

That’s how I feel about this movie as a whole: you spend half your time laughing, and the other time with your eyes open in shock. Even more so when you see the budget. This was made on only $20million. That’s not exactly spare change, but that’s $5million less than it took to make domestic abuse drama It Ends With Us, which (as far as I’m aware) didn’t feature a Kaiju-sized cat made of other cats. I haven’t been this impressed/confused with a budget/product discrepancy since The Creator.

I love the performances. Asim Chaudhry’s accent is off-putting, but that’s probably only because I know what his actual accent is. Sam Rockwell is insane. Haley Lu Richardson gives the best performance I’ve seen from her, miles away from her role in The Edge Of Seventeen, almost Florence Pugh-like in how cynical and weird she is. Juno Temple continues to impress. Her roles are so varied that everytime I see her in something, I recognise her, but have no idea where from because the thing I’m currently watching is unlike the last thing I saw her in.

GLHFDD will not be everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s certainly mine. So far, my favourite movie of 2026, but I still REALLY hope that’s not the case by the end of the year.

Cold Storage (2026) Review

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Quick synopsis: Two employees of a self-storage facility have to deal with an escaping parasitic fungus. Shit gets wild.

Thoughts going in: I get the feeling Liam Neeson is going to die very early on. This was incorrect, by the way.

You don’t get enough films like Cold Storage. Films which are dumb fun without being stupid. Yes, there is a difference. Dumb means its just fun, not intended to have a deeper meaning or be too interested in plot twists and wrongfooting the audience. Stupid is when characters change personalities based solely on what the story needs; there’s no consistency in villain weakness, or everything is just too convenient. Cold storage is firmly in the “fun” category. It does occasionally get close to stupid, but the general tone allows it to do things I’d insult other films for.

The best example comes in the opening scene. There’s a character called Dr Hero. Most films, I’d insult that, but for this, it kind of works. The tone is so tongue-in-cheek you can swear it’s searching for an ulcer. It’s helped by the music. Lots of high-tempo songs to get the blood pumping, from Blondie, all the way through to a cover of Don’t Fear The Reaper. The performances are good too. Obviously, Liam Neeson, Vanessa Redgrave, and Leslie Manville are good performers; that’s not a shock to anybody. It’s been said before, but Neeson is great at comedy. Leslie Manville has done comedy before, but it’s usually been sitcoms or farce; this is a completely different ballgame, and she nails it. Georgina Campbell is the best performer throughout, but she is responsible for the worst line delivery of the movie. When she realises Neeson’s character set off the bomb before handing it to them, her “he set the bomb off” delivery sounds flatter than a freshly ironed shirt. It brings to mind someone saying, “My landlord, and my plumber are both here. And I don’t have the money to pay them”, in a low-budget porn. I get the feeling it was ADR’d, it certainly sounds like it, and it’s a weird blemish on an otherwise sensational performance.

I also wasn’t happy with the way this movie ended. What’s worse is I could sense it coming. I knew we’d get the “there’s still an infected creature out there” opening, and I knew it would end up with something either jumping at the screen, or exploding, or something similar, where it’s a split-second THING before credits. It’s a trend in modern horror movies, and I hate it. You wouldn’t write an atmospheric horror novel, have an incredibly well-crafted conclusion, then have the final line be “Emily sat down in peace, drifting into a peaceful slumber. AND THEN A SHREK ATE HER!” It would ruin the atmosphere, destroy the story you were telling, and get you sued by DreamWorks.

Those are minor complaints, though. Cold Storage is one of the most outright fun films of the year. It’s incredibly funny at times, a lot slicker than its budget would suggest, and has a script full of likeable and believable characters. It reminds me of Shaun Of The Dead, mixed with slight Kingsman energy. It’s only Johnny Campbell’s second film as a director, his first being Alien Autopsy. He’s most known for his TV work, directing two episodes of Doctor Who that could not be more different from each other: The Vampires Of Venice, and whatever the Van Gogh one was called. This has more in common with the vampire episode than it does the Van Gogh one, with emphasis on scares (with a small “S”) and shlock than emotion. That’s for the best, as emotion has no place in a film like this. If anything, it would just slow things down.

Which brings me onto the pacing. Cold Storage is efficient as hell; setting up the fungus very quickly. The opening scene could be a short film on its own. Fun fact: the part about a parasite that takes over an animals brain and makes it climb high so that the parasite can be released over a wider area? That’s accurate, and is why I’m deeply suspicious of mountain climbers. It feels longer than 99 minutes, but that’s only because of how much it gets done in such a short space of time. It juggles so many characters, so even characters with only a few minutes screentime have clear motivations and character arcs.

I won’t say this is among the best films of 2026, but it is one of the least flawed. Yes, it never reaches greatness, but it also doesn’t make too many mistakes. In the buffet of cinema, this is a lasagne. Not going to be the best meal you’ve eaten, but you’ll enjoy it more than you would most.

The Moment (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: As her arena tour debut looms, a pop star finds herself caught inside the afterglow of a breakout summer under the mounting pressure of what it costs to stay on top.

Thoughts/Opinions going in: I’m the only male in the audience, and I’m a good 10 years older than everybody else, this is unsettling.

I’m not a huge fan of the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. Not just because of the editing, or its somewhat creative approach to band history. My main issue is that it feels more like a film about Queen than it does a Queen film. Visually, it’s incredibly bland, with none of the excitement and overbombastic nature that you’d associate with the band. That wasn’t as big an issue until I watched Rocketman, which felt very much like an Elton John movie, change the scripts, etc., and make that a film about Bob Dylan, it wouldn’t work. That’s how I felt about The Moment. The way it’s edited, the colour scheme, it all combines to create something authentic. It’s what I imagine being at her gigs is like.

That approach won’t work for everybody, though. There will be people who find it too loud, too busy, too obnoxious. Those are valid criticisms, but I feel that the people who make them aren’t the target audience for this anyway. I get the feeling that Charli XCX, as well as the director Aidan Zamiri, are not only aware of how off-putting this film can be, they’re counting on it. A running theme is how Charli is determined to stick to her vision, not compromising for the comfort of others. It’s a huge part of what she wants her live show to be. So it makes sense that the film would be the same. So whilst a lot of criticisms can be levied at this film, you can never say it’s inauthentic.

There’s another thing that helps the authentic feeling; it feels like a documentary. Other mockumentaries make the mistake of shooting things that no documentary filmmakers would show: either it’s too slick, it’s the kind of thing where the subject would tell them to turn the camera off, or it’s too personal, and they end up shooting people in bed going to sleep, or waking up. Every single shot in The Moment, you can see why a documentary would film and show it. The realism does hold it back in some aspects, though: the satire doesn’t bite quite as hard as it could, seeming content with teasing nibbles (yes, I did double check I put B’s, not P’s there). There are times when characters motivations aren’t completely clear. And the incident which changes her mind on how to approach the tour feels too low-key, it would be like watching an action hero where the hero decides to finally go after the villain because they ate a life-affirming slice of bread.

As I said, that will put people off slightly. As the closing credits rolled, I saw a lot of “as herself”, full of people I didn’t know. Most of them just passed me by, so it wasn’t an issue, but there’s one that was involved in a core plot point. Again, I’m not the target audience, and I’m certain the target audience would recognise them. So I can’t really hold that against it too much. But there’s an easy fix. The Moment is made to look like a documentary, and what do a lot of documentaries have? Information on the screen telling you who people are. Not something overly obnoxious, just plain text. Like I said, a small issue, and it won’t affect most of the audience: that’s judging by the reaction from the other people in the screening.

I didn’t love this movie, but I did appreciate it. As a film, it’s good. As a showcase for the personality of Charli, it’s superb. It also kind of feels like therapy for her, and it’s hard to begrudge her that.

Crime 101 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A master thief and an insurance broker join forces for a big heist, while a determined detective pursues them to prevent the multi-million dollar crime.

Thoughts Going In: This should be slick, fun, and may end up being one of the most fascinating films I’ve seen all year

Sometimes I write reviews the day I see the film, so it’s fresh in my mind. If it’s a Netflix movie, I may write parts of it while watching it. Crime 101, I watched over a week ago. If I wrote it soon after, this may have been kinder. It’s not that the flaws have made themselves known (like they did the further I got away from IT: Chapter 2), or that horrific things have been revealed (like how the main character in The Penguin Lessons turned out to be a sexual predator). It’s just that, being a week removed from the experience of watching it, this is a difficult film to feel any enthusiasm about.

It’s not a bad movie, far from it. It’s just incredibly pedestrian (which is ironic for a film so heavily focused on cars). It’s clear that the director Bart Layton is a big fan of films like Heat, and this is the closest to that we’ve seen for a while. But we have seen it before. Although if you are going to make a film like this, you could do worse than borrowing from the best.

What Crime 101 does well, it does very well. It looks great, the performances are fantastic, and all three of the main characters have clear motivations. Barry Keoghan’s character of Ormon was less convincing. Not the performance, the performance was great. But the character? The character would have been caught much earlier on. Hemsworth’s character (Mike) is meticulous, doing everything possible to make sure he’s not caught, very deliberately not leaving any DNA evidence, or using violence. Ormon is less careful. It feels like almost every single scene starts with him taking off a mask to show his face, even whilst on camera.

The main issue is one of length. It’s 140 minutes, and it doesn’t deserve it. It doesn’t do anything near enough with its story to justify that length. It’s not interesting enough to keep you emotionally invested throughout. The romance subplot is one that could definitely be cut. Especially since the meetcute is “she drives her car into his”. There’s something about the whole bit which feels fake. It seems like it exists to tell us how lonely his life is. There are definitely more efficient ways of doing that. The section on Wikipedia for Plot is 538 words long. Here’s every mention of that character:

The lonely Mike strikes up a romance with a stranger, Maya, after she rear-ends his car.

Wary of Mike’s secretive nature, Maya ends their relationship after he reveals he will be leaving town.

Mike sends Maya a childhood photo, asking her for a second chance.

Completely unnecessary, although it has to be said that the character is played well by Monica Barbaro. I’d like to see her and Hemsworth lead a low-budget romcom, but I don’t want that romcom to be in the middle of a crime drama. There are times when it feels like Crime 101 lacks ambition; being perfectly content to give you the basics. Which would be fine if it didn’t have a $90million budget.

Budget does affect how you view a film. Not just action movies, even romantic comedies starring big names have higher expectations than ones with lesser-known actors. If the budget was smaller for this, I would commend it. But a budget this big, with actors this well known? It can’t afford to be as generic and forgettable as this is.