Tag: Reviews

Pretty Lethal (2026) Review

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Quick synopsis: A group of ballerinas tries to escape from a remote inn after their bus breaks down on the way to a dance competition.

Action movies are better in the cinema: that’s not an opinion: the bigger screen, the atmosphere, everything about it makes it perfect. That being said, Amazon has released some fairly decent ones in the last few years: Deep Cover, Heads Of State, and surely there’s a third one? That being said, they’ve also given us the My Spy sequel, War Of The Worlds, and they were the service that landed Bride Hard, so it’s hit and miss.

Pretty Lethal isn’t as bad as Bride Hard. But it’s nowhere near as good as Deep Cover. On the bright side, PL knows its gimmick. It never lets you forget that it’s an action film about ballerinas. There are times that the reliance on the gimmick works against it, where the characters do something physically complicated when something simple would have done. It doesn’t happen enough to ruin it, but there are times when they add a random twirl just because that’s what they would do in a dance.

I’m split on how I feel about the fight scenes. On the positive side: the hits themselves have an impact. When characters bleed, it makes sense, and it feels suitably distressing. But the choreography? It’s somewhat lacking. It’s the opposite of They Will Kill You. Whilst that was a horror movie that seemingly was made by a director more suited to action, this is a horror movie made by someone seemingly more suited to horror. If Vicky Jewson made They Will Kill You, and Kirill Sokolov made Pretty Lethal, I feel it would have improved both films. Rest assured, if Jewson were to make either a horror movie or an action movie focused on brutality rather than finesse, I’ll be second in line to watch it (not first, I’m not that eager). I’m trying to think how to phrase this without sounding creepy: I like that the women involved in this breathe heavily after and during intense scenes: it’s a little thing, but it really helps sell how physically taxing the fights are.

Even if the fights were better, it would be hard to see this as something incredible. There’s an issue with tone. At times it seems like it wants to be serious, then at other times it has something that sounds like a swanee whistle accompany someone ducking behind a table. I’ve yet to see anything to convince me that Iris Apatow gets cast based purely on merit. I’m not saying she gives bad performances, but her screentime is far beyond what her performance deserves. On the subject of casting, Michael Culkin doesn’t quite have the presence needed to carry off the role. Physically, he’s fine. But he’s missing that indescribable “it” factor that the character deserves. That’s not a slight, like I said, it’s hard to define and even harder to find, but when it happens, you know. The best way to explain it is professional wrestlers: show someone a clip of Hulk Hogan in his prime, even with the audio muted, you can tell that he is someone. Now play a clip of the Brooklyn Brawler, you’ll see the difference.

Millicent Simmonds is great, though (although I do question why the villains find it so hard to kill a deaf woman who’s lost her hearing aid). Uma Thurman is her standard, brilliant self. Avantika is so good that it almost made me forget she was in Tarot. Almost. Maddie Ziegler is the true star, though, with the perfect blend of physicality and facial performance.

In summary, only about 4 steps away from being great, but those steps are huge. Also, just once, I want to see someone attempt a Molotov cocktail and just have the glass bottle bounce.

California Schemin’ (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: The true story of how two men from Scotland convinced the music industry they were American.

This is unfortunate. If I reviewed California Schemin the same day I saw it, or even the next day, it would have been highly praised. It’s now been 3 days, and my feelings towards it have lessened. It’s not that I now dislike it; I’ve suddenly thought of things I hated about it, or it turns out someone involved is a sex pest. I don’t harbour any dislike towards it, but the warmth I have towards it is no longer at the same level.

It’s still good, though. It’s incredibly funny. It’s a concept that is ridiculous, but it leans into it. There’s a general air of “I can’t believe this happened” The music industry does not come off well. It comes off as shallow, stupid, and callous. I’m not exactly sure what is real, though. There are some parts I know happened differently due to extensive research (I quickly looked at the band’s Wikipedia page), but I’m not sure about the truth of everything. There is a documentary available on Netflix that I’ll watch, and then use that to ascertain where this film ranks at the end of the year.

But that’s viewing it as an adaptation of the truth; on its own merits, it stands up. Key to this is the relationship between Billy, Gavin, and Mary. The relationship between the three feels very honest; their reactions with each other all ring true. It helps that they have tremendous chemistry. You can sense the closeness between the characters. Seamus McLean Ross has one of the most difficult jobs: making the journey from a nervous, likeable wannabe to egomaniacal douche, but staying consistent throughout. You can easily see how this character makes that transition, looking back, all of the character traits that become visible later on, the jealousy, the anger, the entitled nature? The seeds are planted very early on, so his descent into darkness actually makes sense. Even when he’s at his worst, you still feel sympathy for him because you know that under all that bravado is still the scared, insecure person we saw at the start of the movie. For some reason, the whole thing reminded me of a wrestling angle, and I still have no idea why. But now I want to start a project where I rewrite classic films as wrestling angles.

On the downside, it could do us more to sell the illusion. We see how the band responds to it, we see how Mary responds to it, we don’t see how others do. It would have been nice to see media attention; journalists writing about them, fans saying how excited they were by the gig. John Malkovich’s character in Opus felt more real than the characters do in this. I know they didn’t exactly get front-page headlines and number-one singles, but enough people were fooled to make it notable.

I also feel it ended a bit suddenly. One of the characters attempts suicide near the end, and it’s never really touched upon. His former manager comes to see him, but his former best friend (and his sister) never acknowledges it. Are they aware? We don’t know. They only see each other once afterwards, and no words are spoken; they just stay whilst he sings a song apologising. It feels like there was a heart-to-heart between the characters that’s missing from the script.

In summary, this is delightful. More than anything else, it will make you want to know more about the real story. As a director, it won’t be enough for James McAvoy to be known as one of the best directors in the world, but it is a remarkably solid base for him to build a career on. He’s not going to be handed the reins to a new blockbuster franchise, but it will put him in the discussion when it comes to dramas and comedies.

The Drama (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A happily engaged couple get put to the test when an unexpected revelation sends their wedding week off the rails.

I don’t want to, but I feel I have to give spoilers for The Drama to discuss how I feel about it. Since I’m not a complete dick and don’t want to spoil for people who just click and have wandering eyes that briefly look over the whole page, I’ll add a certain amount of preamble, and won’t spoil anything until I say the words BUTTERED PARSNIPS.

I’m only doing that because it’s clear that a part of the marketing was based on curiosity about what the worst thing she ever did was. It’s a simple strategy: “You want to see what the conflict is about? Buy a ticket”. I was unfortunate enough to accidentally glance at a news headline about it, specifically how controversial it is. To be even more specific, they named the groups opposed to it, which automatically gave a pretty big clue as to what it was. It wasn’t this, but if the article header was “9/11 survivors object to The Drama”, you’d know it was something to do with 9/11.

The Drama was written and directed by Kristffer Borgli, who also made Dream Scenario, a film which I loved the concept of, but felt the execution was deeply flawed. After watching this, I have come to the conclusion that Borgli loves writing arguments and having characters scream and yell at the leads. The Drama has a lot of that, and unlike in Dream Scenario, those moments make sense. It helps that The Drama is much more grounded and has a more focused narrative. It does occasionally veer into dream sequences and imagine spots, which veer from the useless to the great. There are some moments which I’m still not sure if they were real or not, and if they were dreams, to whom did they belong? These moments will put people off.

Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. From the reveal (which I will get to), to the editing, to the scenes of characters loudly talking over each other, The Drama feels designed to make you uncomfortable. It’s not designed to be a lovely life-affirming watch. Sometimes that worked for me, sometimes it didn’t. The way it was edited did feel like it was building towards something huge. Shots of people who were clearly stressed out, staff at the wedding who are angry at being fired, the partner of a woman that Charlie kissed is at the wedding, etc. It all feels like it’s building towards a huge, explosive event that will scar you. Nope. Rude comments are made at the wedding, and Charlie gets headbutted. That’s it. Narratively, it’s like being promised a fireworks display and ending up with a sparkler.

BUTTERED PARSNIPS

The terrible thing she did? She planned a school shooting. She had a gun, trained with it, made videos online that she planned to be released after the event, etc. Truly horrible and unexpected. But pretty brilliant. It allows the film to ask questions about morality: is planning something that’s a 9/10 on a shithead scale worse than actually doing something that’s a 6/10 (locking a mentally challenged boy in a strange vehicle in the woods and not telling people he’s there)? It also talks about America’s obsession with guns, to the point it almost sexualises them (the random cuts of Zendaya posing with guns are artsy as hell). America (and yes, it is a uniquely American problem) focuses so heavily on guns as aspirational things to own, then acts surprised when kids shoot each other.

I mostly liked The Drama. When it was funny, it was laugh-out-loud hilarious. The fact that the thing that stopped her from carrying out the shooting was that another one happened nearby is funnier than it should be. The humour is darker than the POV of someone wearing a blindfold at midnight in a locked casket. I’m someone who has said multiple times that genocide is bad, and racism is the preserve of dickheads, so obviously I’m an easily offended snowflake, but I didn’t find this movie offensive in the slightest. It’s not making light of school shootings. The entire conflict is based on the notion that it’s a terrible thing to do. It’s obvious she’s haunted by her almost actions. All things considered, it’s actually handled relatively tastefully.

Now onto the downside: I didn’t think Alana Haim’s performance was at the level of everybody else’s. Charlie’s characterisation is a bit inconsistent, especially in the final third, where his actions seem to be stuff that drives the plot forward rather than stuff that the character would do. It also has far too many inconsequential moments; it’s as if the film is throwing as many moments at the screen and seeing what sticks. Personally, I don’t think the relationship between them is quite sweet enough for the ending to land. It’s sweet at the start, but they spend a lot of the film’s runtime in conflict with each other, so that’s our main impression of them as a couple. A buildup to a wedding is the perfect opportunity to explore characters’ pasts, so it would have been easy for them to have flashbacks to better times, so we could feel more of the love between the two of them. If the love felt genuine, the ending would have worked. It’s also so heavily tied to the reveal that if you happened to find it out before you watch, it won’t be as good an experience.

In summary, a truly divisive film that I kind of loved. People who love it, will really love it. People who hate it will consider it one of the worst films of the year. It’s 1-2 out of 10, or 8-10 out of 10. Nobody will give this a meh.

Crazy Old Lady a.k.a Vieja Loca (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A man is asked by his ex-girlfriend to care temporarily for her senile mother, Alicia. But Alicia won’t let him leave,

Okay, this is the second film I’ve reviewed in a row which starts with a male character running over a dog. I hope the next film I watch, “Man Runs Over Dog At The Start Of The Movie”, doesn’t start the same way. It’s not even a genre trope as the films have been two different genres. Not localised either, as from two different countries, continents, in fact.

Crazy Old Lady (COL) is a strange watch. For one, it doesn’t open like a horror movie. I love that. It means that people react believably, as real-life people, as opposed to characters in a horror movie. It contextualises actions and behaviours. As it goes on, it does become a more traditional horror movie, but that’s excused because it takes place at night, so of course it’s going to be dark. Otherwise, it is shot in a pretty standard way; there are no shaky-cam jump scares or weird walking towards the camera.

The downside to the traditional horror nature (when it becomes one), it’s sooooo dark. Not tonally (okay, slightly yes tonally), but visually. It makes it difficult to actually see anything. I don’t need to see clearly enough to make out the book titles in the background (I wouldn’t be able to read them anyway, what with them likely being in Spanish), but it would be good to be able to see characters facial expressions, or know where they are in relation to each other, rather than straining to work it out through the shadows.

Alicia is an interesting villain. You get the idea that she’s always been a little of a sociopathic monster; the things she says certainly allude to a past that’s darker than this movie’s visuals. There is always the question about whether her memory is accurate, though. So how much of her actions are due solely to her senility, and how much of it is just her senility leaving her unable to mask her true nature? It’s an interesting question which will leave audiences with their own opinions. The other interesting part is that it’s difficult to see how you personally would escape. Yes, she’s an old woman, so you could just punch her in the face. But she’s also an old woman suffering from senility, so it would be a bit weird to just punch her in the face without it feeling a bit weird. And even if you did, there’s not a Facebook group around that wouldn’t crucify you. The other nice thing about the villain is she’s so out of her mind with random non-sequiturs, blatant falsehoods, and overly sexual creepiness that I feel I don’t need to watch the Melania documentary now.

I respect Crazy Old Lady for having a sexual assault scene as skillfully done as it is, and for having a female-on-male one, which is very rare. The last one I remember is the first Black Christmas remake. This is certainly the first time I’ve seen it where it’s not a villain origin story, so kudos for that. Surprisingly, that’s not the most shocking moment. When Alicia stabs her daughter, it genuinely stuns you despite you somehow knowing it’s coming. It feels like she should have some sort of familial defence clause. “Yes, she’s stabbing this random man, but surely she’d recognise her daughter, and that will bring her back to normality?” Nope.

The performances are fine. Carmen Maura definitely gives a stronger performance. Daniel Hendler occasionally veers into comedic territory with how he portrays fear. It would have been nice to see footage of Alicia when she was a bit younger, maybe in family videos of BBQ’s and Christmases, etc., just to get a taste of what her actual personality is like.

Now for the negative. The ending feels lethargic. There’s a definite sense of “is that it?” It looks like it is intending to end with her getting deliberately hit by a train because she realises what she’s done. Nope, she just walks away as a train rolls nearby, leaving her Granddaughter alone in an unlocked car at night. It’s incredibly anticlimactic. It’s possibly the only moment where the fact it doesn’t feel like a horror movie lets it be down. Because it’s shot and feels like a drama, there’s no tension or fear in that scene. You don’t have that “is she going to now kill a child?” worry. It’s just, I dunno, nothing. It’s as if a rollercoaster ended with a slow, gradual descent into an empty room.

“Crazy Old Lady” is currently available for streaming on Shudder

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.