Tag: Reviews

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.

2025 Film Awards: Day Four

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Best Opening

Dangerous Animals

Two tourists go on a boat so they can swim with sharks. They’re then killed, with a knife. Wonderful way to subvert expectations. Up until the murder, it feels like a romantic comedy. It’s so sudden, blink and you’ll miss it.

Opus

Sets up how important the musician is. I like it. It didn’t just TELL us he’s a big deal, it showed us; his music, his talk show performances, his fans. It all feels real.

The Last Showgirl

The character performs an audition. Very nervous, and obviously lying about her age. Anderson is best known for essentially being Ms. Fanservice in the 90’s. So to see her so emotionally naked and visually honest in the opening scene? Shows you what it’s going to be.

The Woman In The Yard

Ramona watches a video of her deceased husband. It’s weird she filmed that moment, but it’s very sweet, and sets up SOOO much very quickly. Sets up what their relationship was like, sets up that they’re having problems fixing problems in the home, even the way she’s watching it sets up that he’s dead. Genius.

Winner

Final Destination: Bloodlines

The disasters have always been a highlight of these movies, and Bloodline is no exception. Some truly all-time great kills, with the funniest death of a child you’ll see. The childs death made you realise that nobody was safe in these movies; death will come for anybody, regardless of age. Subverts expectations slightly, with it being a vision from a descendant rather than the actual person. It’s been years since a Final Destination movie, and scenes like this make you curse that time.

Worst Opening

A Minecraft Movie

Steve wants to mine but can’t as is a child, he comes back as an adult. Overly long, plus I feel it would have made more sense if he first arrived in the other dimension as a child, would have explained how he became so good at building.

Black Phone 2

A young girl makes a phone call. Doesn’t really look like the rest of the film. Does come back later and tie into the narrative, which is a plus. But isn’t something that will hook people in. Plus, the central performance isn’t great.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

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.

Lilo And Stitch

Stitch is being investigated. Not how I would have opened it. Mainly because it seems weird to open a live-action adaptation of an animated movie with a scene that’s mostly CGI. Feels like you’d want to showcase the filming locations.

Renner

I know it’s a common joke to make that the vanity cards that open up films are so long they seem like an actual movie, but the opening credits for this legit seem like a vanity card.

Winner

The Accountant 2

A character dies, and it’s one of the blandest deaths you’ll ever see. It feels like it belongs in a lesser movie.

Best Moment

A Real Pain – Pictures At A Statue

The group posing for pictures with a statue. It shows everything that works. The character interactions, the warmth, and the sadness. You can show that scene and instantly know the characters.

Companion – Lying To The Police

Her encounter with the cop. She can’t lie, but she can change her language to non-English so the cop can’t understand her. Genius.

Eternity – Enter The Archives

The first trip into the archives is very sweet. This is one of best demonstrations of love.

Final Destination: Bloodline – Tony Todds Goodbye

This broke me. The subtext is obvious, but so beautiful. Any other year, this would have won.

I Swear – Fucks In A Car

Not fornication, just swearing. Lots of swearing. You wouldn’t think two people swearing would be so sweet, yet it is.

September 5th – Whoops, We Were Wrong

I wasn’t that familiar with the events of the movie. So I was genuinely blindsided by the reveal that their sources were wrong, the hostages haven’t been saved, they’ve been killed. This will catch people out, and it will horrify you, as it should.

The Ugly Stepsister – Makeover

Weird choice, as I didn’t even have this as best moment in the end-of-year roundups for some reason. Probably because I wrote that section just after seeing the movie, whereas this is new, so I’ve had time. With time, a certain moment has stood out; when Elvira is forced to go through a makeover. Not a “haircut and makeup” makeover, full on mutilation. There’s one moment in particular that stands out: chisel to the nose. It’s simple, not overly bloody, but it makes me wince whenever I think about it.

Urchin – Karaoke Bar

Three people singing an Atomic Kitten song should be skippable. But it’s incredibly sweet, and the way the three characters do it tells you so much about who they are. It’s the only part of the movie that has genuine emotion.

Winner

Sinners – Music Montage

Sammie plays in the bar, and we see it conjuring spirits of the past and future. It’s a good thing nobody was close to me at the cinema, otherwise they would have heard me say, “That? That’s fucking cinema”.

Worst Moment

Fear Street: Prom Queen – Dance Off

It feels so out-of-character for the people involved. It baffles me that this was left in there.

Good Fortune – Arj Gets Fired

He deserved to get fired. He stole from his employer. He has no justification for being annoyed. Which makes him kind of unsympathetic, and hurts the message of the movie.

Heart Eyes – Killer Reveal

Films like this have to nail the killer reveal. Part of my dislike for the sixth Scream movie is down to how much I hated that reveal. It’s similar here. It feels lazy. I get what they were going for; but the rest of the film is too genuine to do something so subversive this late in the game.

Kinda Pregnant – Threesome/proposal confusion

It feels incredibly fake. It would be like if you invited someone to your house on their birthday and all their friends were there, along with a birthday cake and a sign saying “Happy birthday”, but it wasn’t for their birthday, and you get annoyed at them for daring to think you were planning a birthday for them.

M3gan 2.0 – Villain Reveal

I called it within seconds of the character being introduced. I guessed not only that they would be the villain, but also their motivations.

Renner – Attack The Thieves

Purely because the way its shot (quick flashes whilst he’s asking what to do) makes it come off as a fantasy sequence rather than reality. The visually unclear storytelling happens a few times, but its most clear then.

The Bad Guys 2 – Wrestling Match

It’s weird how this film can open with a heist/chase that makes such great use of space and logistics, and then forgets that they’ve shown us how big the wrestling ring is, and you can’t run for more than a second without hitting the ropes.

Thunderbolts – Kid “Death”

Mainly because it reveals that the people shadowed away to oblivion weren’t actually dead, there’s no way Disney/Marvel would kill a young child in that manner.

Winner

Until Dawn – Explosions In The Bathroom

Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable, it was bloody, and it was entertaining. But it also demonstrated how luck-based the whole premise was. For a game based around “your decisions have consequences”, it’s annoying how the choices have no impact. “Don’t drink water or you’ll explode” is not a lesson. If the characters’ choices don’t matter, why should I give a shit?

Best Closing

Bring Her Back

Laura carries Cathy’s corpse into the pool and cradles it as the police arrive. The best way it could have ended. I did fear it was going to end with her winning.

Fear Street: Prom Queen

Someone gets bludgeoned with a trophy. Nicely thematic way to end their life, and I liked that they didn’t die immediately. They collapse, there’s not that much blood, but you can tell by the way they’re speaking that their brain is fucked.

Friendship

A hostage wig disaster. Nope, not giving you more information or context.

Novocaine

He visits Sherry in prison. Delightful surprise that there are consequences to actions. Always nice to see that in a movie like this.

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Stonehenge related disaster. And there’s some great stuff in the credits. It comes very quickly yet doesn’t feel unsatisfying. It helps that the jokes are very funny, plus the way the “disaster” happens makes sense and suits the narrative.

The Roses

The two reconcile. Awwwww. Then almost certainly die in a house explosion that we don’t see.

Wolf Man

He’s in pain and gets shot. Best way it could have ended, had actual emotion.

Winner

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Jud has reopened the church, the jewel being the hidden centrepiece. This franchise has a habit of NAILING the endings, and that continues here. It’s closer to the ending of the first film than the sequel, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s immensely satisfying.

Worst Closing

A Minecraft Movie

The ending song is not as good as the film thinks it is.

Avatar: Fire And Ash

The ending implies that Spider will play a bigger part in the next one. He sucks, so that does not bode well.

Final Destination: Bloodlines

Most of these movies end the same way: with the “survivors” about to die. As such, it’s getting a little hard to care about anybody in the franchise.

I Know What You Did Last Summer

One of the killers is still alive. This is revealed in casual dialogue. Far too casual. “wearing jeans to your wedding” casual. Tone-deaf. That’s without even going into the killer reveal, which is one of the weakest I’ve ever seen.

Opus

“haha you caught me but that was my plan all along”. I don’t know why, but for some reason this didn’t vibe with me. It just didn’t work or land the way it was intended.

Superman/Relay

Both of these suffer from the same unrealistic ending: rich people are punished for their misdeeds. That’s like if Casablanca ended with the characters becoming robots and assassinating Hitler.

The Monkey

A bus of cheerleaders die. Funny, but needless and a bit TOO stupid.

Until Dawn

A car pulls up to a snowy cabin. A clear reference to the game, I assume. It’s shot in such a way that it’s obvious it’s SOMETHING, so I can only assume it’s that. Incredibly unsubtle.

Winner

The Woman In The Yard

It cannot be overstated how much the final third absolutely torpedoes any goodwill the rest of the film provides. A visual and narrative mess which confuses deliberate confusion for scares, rapid cuts instead of tension, and a final shot “reveal” that doesn’t actually reveal anything going by online discourse which gives it two different meanings. It feels like the writer isn’t sure he’s going to get another shot at writing a horror film so crammed as many horror tropes and conventions as he could, regardless of whether it worked for the story he was trying to tell.

2025 Film Awards: Day Three

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Best Looking

Elio

It’s Pixar, Pixar will always look great, even when they let their story standards slip.

Fantastic Four: First Steps

A lot of Marvel films look the same; this is the first one in a while with a unique look. It has a future-retro style that brings to mind the original cartoon. It looks like what people in the 50’s thought the future would look like. Basically; the Jetsons.

Freaky Tales

I loved the parts that looked like they were from a comic book. It reminded me of Ninjababa, and I loved that movie.

Here

It’s absolutely stunning that a film set in one location with a static camera can look as dynamic as this.

The Woman In The Yard

They made daylight scary. That’s difficult. If anything, I think this would be less scary if it took place at night.

Winner

Avatar: Fire And Ash

I don’t love this franchise as much as most people seem to. But I have to appreciate just how damn impressive they are from a visual standpoint.

Best Music

A Complete Unknown/Deliver Me From Nowhere

If you fill a film with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen songs, it’s going to have a killer soundtrack. Deliver Me From Nowhere has a slight edge because its one of the best demonstrations of the power of live music. It’s not about sitting still and taking it in, it’s about jumping around in a dingy club, losing half your body weight in sweat as you dance with strangers.

Opus

A film about a reclusive musician has to have good music. We have to believe that he is a musician who will inspire a certain level of devotion. Opus manages it. The music is hypnotic, danceable, sexy, and weird. It’s exactly what you expect a character like that would make. It’s helped by how good a job the film does of setting up the universe; it’s very easy to believe that he’s real. But if the music was shit, or was too obviously written by a known artist, it would break that illusion.

Queen Of The Ring

I should have hated the music for this, as most of it isn’t era-appropriate. It somehow works though. The music clearly isn’t from the time, but does a semi-decent job of making you feel part of that time. It’s a risky strategy, but I think it works. The Larkin Poe version of Gods Gonna Cut You Down is one of the best songs I heard in 2025.

Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues

The Elton John version of Stonehenge would earn this nomination on its own. The other songs are good too, but the Elton John one is phenomenal.

Winner

Sinners

I can only really remember two songs: “Rocky Road To Dublin” and ” Magic What We Do”. Yes, the rest of the soundtrack is good, full of powerful and emotive blues music. But those two songs are sensational and are my main memories of the experience. Rocky Road To Dublin is terrifying the way it’s performed here, but also weirdly stirring. It makes you want to stand up and march on an unseen enemy. Magic What We Do is where it’s at, though; a surreal genre mash-up that takes you through over a hundred years of music and shows how much of modern music has its origins in blues. It’s a key scene, vital to the story being told. No matter how impressive the visuals are, if that song sounded like it didn’t belong, if it didn’t flow between the multiple genres effectively, that scene would collapse. As it is, it’s a frontrunner for best scene of the year.

Best Effects/CGI

Nominees

How To Train Your Dragon

I’m still not entirely sure what the point of this movie was (a point I am sure I will say again when the Moana remake is released), but I can’t fault how beautiful this film looks. There are some small visual changes from the original animated movie, but it still sticks to the same visual tone and spirit. The dragons are difficult to pull off visually in live-action: you need them to look fearful enough that you can easily buy that the characters are scared of them, but have an inherent cuteness to them that means the characters do eventually trust them studio can sell toys.

M3gan 2.0

Entirely down to the main character. Yes, she is portrayed by an actual human, but the mix of her performance and effects overlaying it means that you never forget that she’s not human. It’s so well done that I nominated this instead of Companion, which is overall a much better movie.

Wolfman

Sometimes a movie does something so good that it makes every other attempt look poor by comparison. No, I’m not talking about Wolfman, I’m talking about An American Werewolf In London. The transformation sequence in that is easily one of the top moments in movie history, ensuring the movie’s place in the public eye for as long as cinema is a thing. On the downside, every werewolf transformation will now be compared against it. A lot of movies have failed, Wolf Man is the closest thing that has been made since then. It genuinely feels painful.

Winner

The Electric State

Terrible, terrible movie. Among the worst of the year. The visuals are the only thing worth mentioning, and they just about pull it away from winning “worst film” this year. If these visuals were attached to a better movie; they’d be applauded. The movement of the machines is beyond slick, almost human. If anything, the robots are the only thing that DON’T take you out of the narrative. They weren’t overly shiny and “new”. They looked aged, they looked like they’d been through some shit. Importantly, they looked real.

Worst Effects/CGI

In The Lost Lands

Everything looks fake. I’m not sure if the entire thing was filmed in front of a green-screen; but it certainly looks like it. This is not a movie, it’s a videogame cutscene. It’s so bad that I can’t even nominate anything else, because as soon as I saw this, I knew “that’s winning”.

Best Stunts/Action/Fight Scenes

Nominees

Ballerina

The John Wick franchise has set a new standard when it comes to action sequences. The dynamic handheld-camera style populated by the Bourne franchise; now it’s about finesse. Ballerina continues in that tradition. It’s a slightly different dynamic. The Wick films are about someone who is skilled, someone who is the best in the world at what they do. Ballerina is about someone still new to this world, someone who goes into every fight against someone more experienced, bigger, and stronger than her. This gives the scenes a bit more of a comedic nature. It’s still serious, but there’s a sense of realistic ridiculousness to the whole thing, which is a breath of fresh air.

Final Destination: Bloodlines

Part of the fun of these movies is watching the deaths unfold. Seeing how the geography is set up for the events to happen. The deaths in FD: B are set up beautifully, especially with the death of Iris. Does this technically count as stunts/action? Probably not. But I had to give it its flowers somewhere.

Love Hurts

Terrible movie, but the fight scenes were great. Not quite as great as Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. This is nowhere near winning, mainly because it’s lacking “that” scene, one you can recommend to people to demonstrate how good it is. But it is a worthy mention, mainly because of how creative some of the individual moments within the fights are; and for how good Ke Huy Quan is in them.

Heads Of State

Purely for the fight once they crash. It’s fun, creative, and oddly humorous.

Winner

Novocaine

This makes the most of its gimmick; I have to respect that. The fact that he can’t feel pain is key to every scene. None of the fights would work in any other movie. It reminded me of Alien: Romulus in the way it looks at the toys it has to play with (in this case, a guy who can’t feel pain), and bases everything around that. I’m slightly hopeful there’ll be a sequel, because I want to see what else they can come up with. But I would also hate that, because I’m not sure there’s much else left to do.

Worst Stunts/Action/Fight Scenes

Nominees

Havoc

How can this film exist and not have a single memorable action sequence?

In The Lost Lands

I remember when I was at college, and a classmate made the mistake of lightly praising one of the Transformers movies. This set off the lecturer, who was very proud of his film knowledge (you know the type, the one who prefaces every film recommendation with “you probably haven’t heard of it”), and the lesson was disrupted whilst he spent 15 minutes talking about how that movie sucked. One of his main complaints was how poor the action scenes were; talking about how because the robots looked the same, every action scene just looked like shit bashing together with no idea who is who or what is happening. That’s pretty much exactly how I felt watching this.

Karate Kid: Legends

Not that the fight scenes were “bad” per se, but if you’re expecting a five-star hotel and you’re given a leaky caravan, you’re going to be disappointed. Scenes which should be iconic are just “there”. It’s a genuine shame as it brings the film down so much.

Winner

Bride Hard

Earlier (or later, depending on how I lay these out), I talked about how I loved Novocaine because the action scenes leaned into the gimmick; this does the opposite. It has action scenes which disrupt the character. The script wants comedic action scenes, but only knows how to do it by making the lead character seem shit at her job. I also have an issue with what’s NOT there. There are almost no scenes which are exclusive to a wedding-based action film. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of stuff you could use; going through the wedding gifts to find a plate they can use as a weapon (and finding mainly gift vouchers), use sex toys that were planned for the honeymoon, fight whilst trying to minimise damage to the place settings, etc. There’s an entire building of narrative doors that the concept presents, but Bride Hard is content to just sit on the pavement outside, staring at its shoes.

Shelter (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: On a remote coastal island, a former assassin living in self-imposed exile rescues a young girl from a deadly storm. As their lives start to intertwine, he must protect the orphan while battling enemies from his past.

Thoughts Going In: Jason Statham is going to punch people. I have to be honest, the first time I saw this trailer, I thought it was a sequel to The Beekeeper, that’s how interchangeable his performances are.

Years ago, I was reading about a script for a Robin Hood movie that was focused on the sheriff of Nottingham. Essentially, he was going to be a CSI-style forensic investigator. That movie was made into the 2010 Robin Hood movie that was just another generic retelling. I can’t imagine a bigger gap between potential and reality than that. Shelter is a close second, though. No, the script was never going to be the best in the world, and you won’t be able to improve on some of the stupidity, but it nearly had a much better director. The original director was Baltasar Kormákur, who has previously directed 2022’s Beast, 2018’s Adrift, and 2015’s Everest. I’m not saying those films are masterpieces, but Kormákur is an award-winning director, so at the very least, he can be depended upon to be visually interesting. Shelter needs that. The action scenes are lacking any sense of excitement. Even the non-action scenes make use of an annoying handheld camera that makes it nauseating to watch. Most baffling is the use of music: there are some action scenes with no music at all. When I first noticed it, I wondered whether that was the film’s gimmick, an action movie with no non-diegetic audio. That would at least be interesting and unique. But then the action scene ended, and the characters got out of the car and started talking normally, and that was deemed music-worthy. What made the non-audio scene so notable was that it was a car chase across mostly rural roads. Have you heard a car chase without music? It’s just a long droning whine (a bit like a speech from [insert politician you don’t like here, even one who is famous for being an entertaining speaker]). It genuinely made me think it was a mistake; that they just forgot to put music on.

There are also issues with the script, mostly logistical. I’m not speaking about “A person high up in British intelligence wouldn’t kill an innocent person just for convenience”, because that would DEFINITELY happen. I mean, “they drove from Scotland to London without being caught on a single camera?” Or when a teenage girl is dragged kicking and screaming into a black van, and nobody seems to notice/care/film it for social media. Top tip: go over to the O2 Dome in London, when all the clubs are still open, and the streets are occupied but not bustling. Then fire a gun multiple times, see if anybody notices, because they don’t in this. For a group of highly trained secret agents, they are shit at being secret. I mean, the main villain shot someone in the head whilst they were surrounded by police. Did that get mentioned again? Nope. In fact, none of the police members who are attacked there are referenced ever again. You’d think there’d be something, some kind of news report at the very least. Is the general public aware of what’s happening? No idea, the film isn’t interested in telling us. It doesn’t even stick around at the end to tell us the repercussions of a former head of MI6 being killed in his own house. I suppose expecting closure for that is a bit much, considering the film states the Prime Minister is in political trouble due to illegal surveillance of civilians, and then is never seen again, and nothing happens to that system. The controversy is never mentioned again. It’s as if the script set up a lot of narrative dominoes, then got bored and wandered off before using them.

I’m not asking for this to be groundbreaking. I’m not asking for it to be an intelligent study on human nature. But I am asking it put effort in. For someone to look at the script and take out stuff it doesn’t need. For someone to think of the logic of some scenes. For someone to make it so that the action scenes are actually entertaining. Shelter had zero chance of being my favourite movie of the year, but there’s no excuse for it to be as lazy as it is. Bodhi Rae Breathnach is pretty damn good, though.

Again, it’s not that it’s a bad film. It’s that even as a first-time viewer, you’ve already seen it. You can guess the dialogue before it happens. There are 1000 movies just like this, so what’s the point of this one?

Mercy (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: In a supposedly dystopian future, police officer Chris is on trial for the murder of his wife. He has to prove his innocence to an AI judge in 90 minutes, or he’ll be executed.

Thoughts Going In: This movie is going to be terrible. I’ve not seen a trailer for it; it was dumped in January, and it’s already rumoured to be a surefire bomb.

Films can be bad for different reasons. Sometimes it’s someone involved in it who is just not good at their job, sometimes it’s studio interference, and sometimes it’s just bad timing, and it’s released near something that’s clearly superior. Then you have films like Mercy, films which are so peculiar and flawed that it almost feels like a deliberate attempt to fail. I’m not too big a fan of Chris Pratt as a performer; he’s a good side character, but as the lead, his flaws are exposed, and you realise he is essentially playing the exact same character in every film. He’s not helped by the decision to have him spend most of the film locked in a room, tied to a chair and talking to a computer. You may think my problem would be the “locked in a room” or “talking to a computer” part. I have no issue with that. A guy trying to solve a crime while not being able to physically interact with anything is interesting. My problem is the “tied to a chair” part. If you do that with someone, you need them to have immense screen presence; you don’t need them to have the energy of someone who has just been asked to file a report at work 5 minutes before he’s due to leave. His being tied to a chair means there’s very little to praise in terms of visual dynamics. It’s him talking to a screen, yes, we see things on the screens, but the focus is still on a guy locked in a room ,whilst tied to a chair. He’s not allowed to pace around the room, break things in rage, hold his head in his hands; it essentially robs him of using body language. I’m not sure what the benefit of having him tied to the chair is. Could they not think of another execution method other than “sonic blast to the head”? Could they have not had the room itself kill them with a soundblast? If you want to lean into the computer aspect, have the room change into a 3D reconstruction of the crime scene, and then he can walk through that, have him haunted by the sights, cry at family mementos etc.

In terms of performance; Kali Reis continues to impress. It’s a shame that her performance in Catch The Fair One didn’t lead to the roles she deserves, but I hope if she continues to prove herself, those roles will come. Rebecca Ferguson is a definite highlight, Despite seeming for all intents and purposes, human, there’s something uncanny valley in her performance. Part of that is down to how her character is written. On the subject of characters, Chris is kind of an idiot. He knows he only has a short period of time to prove his innocence, he knows the system will investigate his history, yet he still lies to it. It would have been so much shorter if he admitted things straight up; if he told the system he was an alcoholic who relapsed. Yes, lying to the cops because you don’t trust them is a strategy. But when you’re a cop who’s trying to tell everyone this new AI judge is brilliant, you’d trust it.

A key thing to successful sci-fi is world-building. You need the universe created within to make sense and feel true. Obviously, this is the key to all movies, but sci-fi has it harder because it usually has to introduce its rules first. So how does Mercy fare? Not well. It cuts to occasional riots, but this never really feels like a futuristic LA with a huge crime problem; mainly because they’ve segretated most of the problem people into one area (the ethics of which are NEVER discussed). Outside of that, there doesn’t seem to be much day-to-day crime. The use of hover bikes is a nice touch, though. But they wouldn’t be needed if he was allowed to examine a VR version of the scene himself.

Every time I think of this movie, a new issue I had with the plot rears its head, which is strange as I’ve barely thought of it; I saw it, immediately forgot it until it came time to write this review. It doesn’t bring anything new or exciting to the table. The concept is full of possibilities. Possibilities which the film itself refuses to look at. The problem with AI deciding court cases is one of nuance and human nature; it’s not “if it’s controlled by the wrong people, it may go wrong”, it’s the system itself that is flawed. But Mercy has no interest in discussing that. It also isn’t interested in exploring the guilt he could (should) feel for being responsible for the execution of an innocent man. There’s no “The system I defend executed somebody when it shouldn’t have? Oh no, I caused this!” PTSD, which forces the film to discuss the ethics of this justice. It’s just “this guy died because of me? Ah well. Oooo, is that a sandwich?” Side note: When we see riots in this movie, the police tend to just leave them alone instead of teargassing them. And no children get shot in the face at point-blank range. So in some ways, the “dystopia” America in this movie’s 2029 is less traumatic than actual America in reality’s 2026

This could be great. It could be slick. It could be smart. It’s none of those things. It’s not even passable.

Primate (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Monkey goes mad

Thoughts Going In: Could be dumb fun. Also, I went to grab lunch before this movie, intending to order a small cocktail, I instead ordered a pitcher, which I had to drink by myself in 10 minutes. So this entire review should be read under the knowledge that I was pretty drunk, and based on a conversation I had before the film started, I was trying to think of how Snickers could possibly be a euphemism for lesbianism. and Mars chocolate bars refer to men. No, I won’t provide context.

In 1971, Daniel Mann released the horror film Willard, about a man who befriends an army of killer rats. This was followed by a sequel the following year, called Ben. The theme song (called simply, Ben) for this film was performed by Michael Jackson, and is genuinely very sweet. The rabid chimpanzee in this movie? Ben. The lyrics are surprisingly apt for this film, which meant I couldn’t unhear the song every time they said his name.

So besides my own weird shit, how is Primate? It’s okay. As an early-year blood-filled popcorn horror, it’s good. It does what it needs to, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. There are moments where it’s a bit too dumb to be enjoyable. Characters state that rabies doesn’t exist in Hawaii, then doesn’t bother to provide an explanation as to how it does now. Some of the stupid decisions only happen so that the plot can advance, with multiple people doing things that nobody would do. I can’t tell you that much about the characterisation, because there didn’t really seem to be any. Characters don’t really develop, and only occasionally dip into their personality traits. When I write, I like to do a draft where I cover up the characters’ names, and see if I can tell who’s talking based solely on the dialogue; it’s mainly a test to see if each character has an individual voice rather than just me doing a narrative ventriloquist act. I struggle to think you’d be able to do that with this.

None of that is meant as an insult to the cast; all of whom do their job well. Most of them are relative unknowns, but you wouldn’t know that by the performances. I like that they actually cast a deaf actor in Troy Kotsur, a disappointingly high number of films wouldn’t.

Now onto the best part; the kills. This film is bloodier than the firstborn daughter of Henry VIII. Primate doesn’t shy away from not just the blood; but the pain. When characters get their jaws ripped off, it’s not quick and painless, you can tell they are suffering. I’m quickly beginning to like the work of Johannes Roberts. With this, and the two 47 Meters Down movies, he’s finding a niche as a talented creator of animal-based horror movies. I’m not saying he should be given billions to remake Jaws, but he’d be a decent choice if you wanted to remake The Swarm and make it actually good.

In summary: exactly what it needs to be, but never anything more.