Tag: Reviews

Fall 2 (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A grieving woman and her late sister’s friend get trapped thousands of feet up on a dangerous mountain plank walk in Thailand after a rockslide destroys the path.

I absolutely loved Fall; it was probably the most tense film I’ve ever watched. I remember watching it, and at one particularly intense moment, a guy sitting nearby stood up, loudly proclaimed, “fuck this”, and walked out. Honestly, I get it. It was an unsettling watch that made my stomach jump constantly (although that could have been the sweet popcorn). So I was incredibly excited by the idea of a sequel.

I was a bit nervous that it was only a few months away from release and there still wasn’t a trailer. Then the trailer came out, and it was… fine. It didn’t blow me away, but mainly because it was so short that it didn’t really showcase much. I figured the finished film would be worth it.

It’s not. I’ll state that up front. It’s nowhere near as good as the first one; it feels like a cheap knock-off. Part of that is because I now have expectations. But part of it is because it’s simply not as good. There are moments where it’s incredible, where you finish a scene and realise just how tightly wound you were while watching it. So it’s not a terrible film, but it isn’t a good one either. There are three main issues: the script, the characters, and the visuals.

The script. The idea for Fall 2 is simple: two characters are trapped on a wooden bridge high up on a mountain. That’s it. Everything is there. It doesn’t need complicating. But it does it anyway. It tries to be clever, adding unnecessary twists and turns.

I’ll talk about one of them because it doesn’t really impact the script, so it’s not a spoiler. Who we thought was called Luce is actually called Billie. She claimed she was a friend of Shiloh (the woman from the first movie, and the sister of Fall 2 protagonist Jax), and it’s a shock to discover that she was actually just a fan. All shocking, all effective. Well, it would be, if any of this had actually mattered before. The fact that Luce is friends with Shiloh is mentioned in dialogue that is so ineffectual it’s basically homoeopathic. There are no conversations about “so what was my sister like at college?”, or discussions of their supposed friendship. There are so many dialogue-heavy scenes that it’s impossible to remember every single thing that was mentioned in passing.

It would be like if I suddenly said: “I absolutely detest sweet popcorn, much preferring salted.” It would mean nothing, because nobody reading this review is going to remember that I mentioned popcorn in the first paragraph. Why would you?

The characters. This was a slight issue in the first film: people taking reasonable decisions for their safety are labelled “not living life”, and standard things to make sure you don’t die are described as “letting fear run your life”. That’s taken to the extreme in this. Especially in a flashback sequence detailing the time Jax and Shiloh went skydiving, and Shiloh pretended to pass out mid-air. When they land, Shiloh does the whole “It was to teach you not to let fear run your life”. No, if you’re skydiving and the person you are trusting to keep you safe passes out, you have every right to be scared, and it’s not unreasonable to be pissed off if it turns out they’re faking it. It’s why parenting books don’t recommend breaking into your kid’s bedroom swinging a chainsaw to teach them about stranger danger. Also, Shiloh’s death doesn’t come up that much. At no point does Jax say, “Yes, I’m scared of falling from heights, but I have a good reason to be; my sister died falling from one”. They mention how her sister didn’t let fear rule her life, how she climbed tall structures with abandon, but don’t mention that it’s that fearlessness that killed her.

Fall 2 also has issues with pacing. It takes seemingly forever for them to actually get to the spot, so it doesn’t even feel like the main part of its own movie. For an idea of how long it takes to get there, the current plot section on the film’s Wikipedia page is 678 words long. It takes over 200 words before we get to “The two women are then left stranded.” The entire section describing the two of them alone is just 232 words.

Finally, the visuals. What worked about the first film was that it was set on a small radio tower. The tower itself was a constant visual reminder that there was nothing between them and the ground. Here, they’re on the edge of a mountain, so most of the shots are the two leads in the foreground, with a huge chunk of rock behind them. You don’t get that same constant reminder of the peril they’re in. There are a few moments where you do see just how high they are, but they’re few and far between.

I also felt the opening was overly stylised, shot more like an action movie than a survival thriller, which detracted from the realism somewhat.

This has all seemed pretty negative, much more so than this film deserves. On its own merits, it’s perfectly fine. It has some incredible shots, and the performances are all good too. My only criticism of the cast is how much Tom Brittney looks like a mix of Tom Ellis and Santino Fontana, but that’s not his fault; it’s just my brain looking for shortcuts.

Harriet Slater and Arsema Thomas are solid leads, only really let down by the script. I get the feeling that if they were scripted as friends, they’d be allowed to be much more natural with each other. As it is, they have to play two strangers, which means there’s only so much chemistry they can show.

In summary, I really wanted to like this. I’m still waiting for the obvious contender for my favourite film of the year, and I hoped Fall 2 would be the one to do it. Instead, it’s a clear favourite for “Most Disappointing”. If this had been released on its own, I’d be much warmer towards it. But when the original Fall had me genuinely considering whether I could stomach another minute of it, it’s hard not to feel let down by a sequel that never comes close to that level of tension.

The mountain in Fall 2 is MUCH higher than the tower from the first one, but the biggest difference in height is the difference in quality between the two. There’s a third movie on the way, featuring the leads from both films, and it looks like it’s set on a snowy mountain. If it follows the same approach as this one, I’m expecting much the same thing, but with added snow and clearer skies – which doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence that the visuals will be any more tense.

The Death Of Robin Hood (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A wounded and ageing Robin Hood retreats to a remote island, where he is forced to confront the violent legacy of his past and the legend he has left behind.

There have been countless adaptations of Robin Hood. Yet, much like King Arthur, the failures far outnumber the successes. My personal favourite? Men In Tights. Robin Hood: Men in Tights, that is. I’m talking about the movie; I’m not saying my favourite thing to see is men in tights. The Death Of Robin Hood (TDORH, pronounced The-door-rah) isn’t even the only Robin Hood movie released this year. I think. There are conflicting reports as to whether The Uprising even counts.

So, how does this compare to other Robin Hoods? Have to say, not well. There’s not much of the Robin Hood you actually know in here. He barely fires an arrow; there’s no Maid Marian, no Merry Men, and he doesn’t even spend any time riding through the glen. Yes, this is a deconstruction of the myth, but I’d like to have seen more of the myth they’re trying to deconstruct. Instead of starting the movie with him killing someone, start with an overly dramatic scene showing a courageous, heroic moment. Let us see him as the hero the myths say he is. Then, later on, show us the reality of that scene. Give us the legend first, so we have something to compare him to.

So that’s it as a Robin Hood movie. How about as a movie on its own merits? Does it work then? Kind of, eventually. But only once he gets to the island. It’s here that the film gets close to showing its potential. It’s atmospheric, haunting, and weirdly beautiful. It’s also where the film finally settles into exploring its themes. The road to get there is far too long, though. As I said, not a fan of the opening third.

It’s also weirdly confusing. Most of the characters look very similar, and the film is lit naturally, with a lot of scenes taking place at night, so it’s hard to figure out who is doing what to whom. You’re constantly having to recalibrate your thoughts about what’s going on. You think someone is being attacked and killed, then it turns out it was another white guy with a beard. It’s a visual mess, and it doesn’t really need to be. Everything in that opening could have been told through flashbacks once he’s already on the island. If Robin Hood wakes up on an island, near death, it would be perfectly believable for him to then explain how he got there.

The entire opening third could even have been told through creative opening credits. They could have tied it into the visual style by telling the story through old-fashioned paintings. Even a voiceover would suffice. This film seems to actively avoid voiceover, to its detriment. It’s like it’s terrified that people may actually understand the film.

The performances are fine. Hugh Jackman is good in the title role, the only negative being that the character draws parallels to his performance in Logan. Bill Skarsgård feels a little wasted in it; I’d have liked to have seen more of him. He’s such a good performer but isn’t really given enough to do here. Jodie Comer is as good as she always is, but the extended opening means she never feels as big a character as some of the others. I was surprised by Faith Delaney. Her performance was tremendously assured and confident for someone so young. I felt sure I’d seen her before, but nope. I think I got her confused with Alisha Weir. The music feels era-appropriate, which I appreciate. Nothing worse than a medieval movie soundtracked by fucking Katy Perry or Eminem.

There’s a lot of interesting ideas in TDORH. But the film never seems confident enough to explore them, preferring the audience to discuss them in the pub afterwards. The idea of myths being more powerful than truth is an interesting one. Maybe we should have seen that. Maybe we should have seen how, despite being a monster, he did inspire people to rise against oppression. The closest we get is Brigid responding to her family’s deaths at the hands of RH by deciding to dedicate her life to healing others. But that idea is said so briefly that it doesn’t really have any weight. We don’t even need something that complicated; even seeing other people tell the story would work. Cut between different groups of people telling the tale of Robin Hood around small fires, showing how his myth lives on.

It approaches guilt in much the same way, flirting with it but not being able to fuck it when they get to bed. It is aware the concepts are there; you can tell that much. In the end, it just feels like a thesis, a proposal, a writer saying, “These are the themes we want to explore,” then forgetting to actually do so.

I would mention how the villain is portrayed, but there’s not really one. There are various people who want to kill Robin, but no big bad. There’s nobody he fears or dreads. Really, the only villain is his own past. The whole “man versus self” narrative is valid, but we need to believe he’s genuinely at war with himself. He doesn’t seem broken enough as a character for that to work. This goes back to what I said about the theme of guilt; the exploration of it is paper-thin. We’re told he’s haunted by it, but he doesn’t seem to be.

This is another reason I think the opening third was unnecessary. We see him brutally kill people, with the implication being that he does this a lot. Yet we’re supposed to believe that he’s haunted by the deaths he’s caused? Compare this to The Odyssey, where Odysseus clearly carried the burden of his past. There’s not even a turning point as to why Robin feels this way. He doesn’t come face to face with the consequences of his brutality. Yes, people try to kill him, but they’ve been trying for a while, so that’s not a change which happens in the film. It needed a “wow, I’m a shit” moment.

The ending is fine. He dies. I’m not putting a spoiler warning because it’s in the title of the movie. And it’s what it should be: powerful, emotive, and with an air of redemption. Yes, it would have been nice if his death had some purpose, if he died defending the island from someone coming to take revenge on him. But there is something nice about how it feels like he just gives up. He’s old, he’s tired, and he’s looking after fucking children. It’s not a warrior dying on his sword, because the film recognises he doesn’t have the nobility required for that. It’s an old farm dog wandering out into the cold to be at peace.

It’s one of the few moments where the insistence on deviating from the legend helps it. The rest of the time, it feels so determined to avoid what we’ve seen before that it fails to present anything worthwhile. It doesn’t provide us with a villain to root against. It doesn’t provide us with a look at the country at the time, so we can understand why someone like him might become a legend. And it doesn’t tell us how his myth permeates among ordinary people. It’s so scared of being standard, it ends up being hollow.

I remember watching Avatar: The Way of Water in the cinema years ago. Just after the moment which should have been the ending, but was actually the bit before the closing section, I saw someone get their phone out. Ordinarily, this annoys the hell out of me, but in that instance all I could think was, “Yeah, fair enough.”

Something similar happened here. There was someone in the room who was asleep; I know this because he was snoring loudly. Whoever he went with felt no need to wake him up. Nothing I put in this review will sum up this movie better than that.

This should be great; it should change how we see the character. As it is, it’s just okay. If Uprising does actually turn out to be about Robin Hood, I can already tell I’m going to get the two movies mixed up. Deconstructions of this nature should be unique and unforgettable; they should not be as bland as this is.

It’s better than some of the other recent attempts at the character, but in a few years, when I’m on Pointless and I’m asked to name actors who have played Robin Hood, I can guarantee Hugh Jackman would be a low scorer.

Deep Water (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A plane crashes in shark-infested waters. Well, not really infested; they live there.

This is the third film I’ve reviewed this year about sharks. That’s weird. The entire film is full of people who should be beyond this sort of film by now. Ben Kingsley and Aaron Eckhart onscreen, with Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) directing. Downside, Gene Simmons is involved. Not entirely sure why, but he gives me the ick. The performances are fine. Aaron Eckhart constantly switches from being on the cusp of greatness to being a “straight-to-TV” actor. He’s definitely an actor who’s aided by a good script. Ben Kingsley is doing the standard “dramatic actor who dies early”—oh, spoilers, I guess. Molly Belle Wright is much better than a child actress without a Wikipedia page should be.

I said earlier that Eckhart is aided by a good script. He’s not helped here. It’s not that the script is bad; it’s just not that exciting. It’s not that well-crafted. You can see the strings too clearly. There’s a difference between foreshadowing and flat-out telling people what’s going to happen. Deep Water keeps presenting things that could be exciting, nay, should be exciting, but nope. Plane crash? Great premise. Sharks? Great premise. Survivors trapped together? Great premise. Conflicting personalities? Great premise. Limited resources? Great premise. Put all of those things together, and you should have a pretty reliable survival thriller.

Instead, it feels like the film has all the ingredients but hasn’t quite worked out the recipe. There are some good sequences, particularly the plane crash, and Harlin clearly knows how to stage large-scale action. There are moments where you can see the much better film hiding underneath this one. But every time it looks like it’s about to become that film, it pulls back and settles for something much more generic.

As I said, it’s not a bad movie. But there’s not a lot to recommend it for. It could have been made at any time over the last 20 years, and it would have been the same movie, probably with the same main cast too. The big change would be the portable batteries in the airline hold. It’s interesting that the plane crash isn’t caused by terrorists, but by customers not adhering to safety protocols. Just the kind of thing I want to see before I fly in a few weeks’ time; very comforting.

The plane crash itself is pretty damn good, and shows what Harlin is capable of. It’s dynamic, large-scale, and exactly the kind of thing a film like this needs. It is a little too long, though. It’s clearly the main centrepiece of the movie. So it’s baffling to see another crash near the end. We’ve already seen a really good plane crash; we don’t need a lesser one near the end. It feels like a studio note: there isn’t enough action here, so let’s have another crash. They can’t expect audiences to stay just for the characters.

The characters could only be flatter if they were two-dimensional. They’re introduced so quickly that you don’t really feel like you’ve met them. There’s a lot of shorthand characterisation, as if the script doesn’t realise you don’t need to get EVERY character trait in the opening scene. It has 106 minutes to show us who these people are. They’re not even characters; they’re archetypes.

This becomes a problem as the film goes on. People get in danger; people die. But you’d be hard-pressed to remember which ones. Obviously, people dying is bad. But we’re not told why we should care whether THESE particular people live or die. I genuinely can’t remember who died or how they died. There are a lot of opportunities for unique and fun deaths. Deep Water doesn’t take any of them.

Clearly, the sharks are the selling point. But they’re not a consistent enough presence. There are long stretches where the film seems to forget it has sharks in it. It’s not necessarily an issue to hold the sharks back sometimes; anticipation can be incredibly powerful (look at the first Alien movie or Jaws). But for that to work, the rest of the film has to be interesting, and this isn’t.

It would have been so easy with some small changes. Reduce the characters and flesh them out so that the relationships matter. Plot out the danger beats differently so it feels consistent, with no breathing room between them. It’s a shame because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the basic idea. “People survive a plane crash only to discover they’re surrounded by sharks” is the kind of wonderfully stupid premise that I want to work. You don’t need to reinvent cinema. You just need to make the situation increasingly horrible and put some entertaining characters in the middle of it. It should be bombastic; it should be fun. What it shouldn’t be is what it ends up being: boring.

It would have been so easy with some small changes. Reduce the characters and flesh them out so that the relationships matter. Plot out the danger beats differently so the danger feels more consistent and keeps escalating. It’s a shame because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the basic idea. “People survive a plane crash only to discover they’re surrounded by sharks” is the kind of wonderfully stupid premise that I want to work. You don’t need to reinvent cinema. You just need to make the situation increasingly horrible and put some entertaining characters in the middle of it. It should be bombastic; it should be fun. What it shouldn’t be is what it ends up being: boring.

As I said, it’s not poorly made; it’s just bland. And I feel like that’s worse.

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Two hapless friends and aspiring musicians accidentally travel back in time to 2008 while trying to pull off a scheme to book a gig at a real-life Toronto music venue. Based on a web series, nothing to do with Kurt Cobain

Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (NTBTSTM, pronounced Not-bot-tis-tum) is based on a web series and TV show that I’ve never seen. This could end badly for me. Humour is subjective enough without walking into a film that’s potentially packed with years’ worth of in-jokes and references I don’t understand. And then there’s the fact that it’s Canadian. There was every chance I’d spend the entire thing wondering what the hell everyone was talking about.

I mean, all of those things could still be true. But if they are, they were done skillfully enough that I didn’t notice. This is not a subtle movie. In fact, it’s about as far from subtle as you can get. At one point, a character says, “This whole 2008 sequence, which would be very hard to fake if this were not 2008, will not be filmed.” That’s not so much winking at the audience as batting eyelashes, buying them a drink and asking if they’d like to come back to theirs. And I love it. The film knows exactly how ridiculous it is and leans into that as hard as it possibly can. It kind of has to. If it played things straight, it wouldn’t be nearly as funny. And it is funny. Incredibly so at times. Some of the dialogue and situations are so absurd that you can’t help but laugh.

I can tell I liked it because I managed to get over a pretty big hurdle. I don’t think he normally does, but in this movie, Jay McCarrol REALLY looked like a guy I grew up on the same street as. This guy once beat the shit out of a kid and flushed his head down the toilet. You’d think that would be some kind of classroom hijinks. Nope. The dude was in his 30s at the time. Naturally, this led to me Googling what he’s up to now. I think he’s dead. Apparently, he died by suicide. For a lot of films, that would be enough to permanently ruin an actor’s face for me. Here, it barely registered. And then there’s Matt Johnson, who was in Matt and Mara, a film I detest partly because I should have loved it but didn’t. So yeah, the fact that this film managed to overcome both of those hurdles says quite a lot.

Not that it’s a great movie. The pacing is a chore, and sometimes it feels like a genuine struggle to get through. The narrative could be tighter, too. There is an overall story in there somewhere, but you’d be forgiven for forgetting about it at times. The original web series episodes were between 10 and 20 minutes, while the TV show episodes were roughly 22 minutes apiece. I don’t think they’ve quite worked out how to stretch that into a feature. It puts me in mind of Moana 2, which was originally supposed to be a miniseries before they merged the different episodes into a movie. The result was something that felt episodic and disjointed. There’s a similar thing here. It feels like a series of skits rather than a cohesive narrative.

That being said, I admire creativity, and this definitely has that. The way they use unsuspecting members of the public to drive the story through their interactions with the performers is genius. If you know what’s happening, you can spot it. But if you don’t, it just looks like incredibly clever foreshadowing. That’s the kind of thing I really appreciate in a film: something that is genuinely impressive once you know how it was done, but still works perfectly well if you don’t.

NTBTSTM is not among the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. But it is a lot of fun. More importantly, it made me want to watch the TV show. I’m sure there are running jokes and references I didn’t catch, and once I’ve seen the show, I’ll inevitably have to come back to this and watch it again with the missing context. If a film can make someone who has never seen its source material want to go back and explore it, I’d say that’s a success.

The Devil’s Mouth (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of college friends on vacation in Thailand take a reckless detour into a remote underwater cave system and must fight for survival after becoming trapped with a ravenous bull shark.

I’m going to start this review with some praise. The opening does a fantastic job of establishing the characters very quickly. I haven’t seen such an effective introduction to a group of characters since the opening scene of Friends. I have many issues with that show, but go back and watch that opening scene: within minutes, you instantly understand EVERYBODY’s personality and sense of humour. It’s remarkably efficient.

I also like that this doesn’t immediately present itself as a survival thriller. It starts like a normal, fun movie. I love a good genre fake-out. People don’t live in genres, and I think films sometimes forget that. If you establish immediately that you’re watching a horror or survival thriller, audiences start questioning why characters are behaving like normal people. “Why’s she opening that door? There’s definitely a killer in there.” Whereas if you establish it as an ordinary day, you don’t question someone opening a door because, well, why would you? People open doors. That’s what doors are for.

Not gonna lie, I watched this almost entirely because of Kathryn Newton. She’s appeared in some of my favourite 7–8/10 movies of the last few years: Lady Bird, Three Billboards, Blockers, Freaky, Abigail and Ready Or Not 2. So I was pretty happy to see her attached. Then I looked at the director. Jeff Wadlow wrote Fantasy Island, Truth Or Dare, Imaginary and Bloodshot, and directed all of those except Bloodshot. The highest I regard any of those films is Imaginary, and even that is, at best, a 3/10 movie, with its biggest strength being that it doesn’t put enough effort into being actively shit.

The Devil’s Mouth (which is what preachers call a vagina) is not a bad movie. It’s definitely the strongest movie Wadlow has made in a while. But that’s damning with faint praise somewhat, because it’s not exactly good. It’s homoeopathic filmmaking; there’s nothing to it, and you’ll forget it soon after watching. Proof of this is that I watched it two weeks ago and yet it wasn’t even on my list of films to review. I just forgot to add it. I also made minimal notes while watching it; that’s how little there is to say about it.

The stuff I do remember? It’s not good. One moment in particular stands out. A character says, “That’s not the first time her tiny bladder has caused mayhem”, and then the film randomly cuts to a scene much later where people are fire dancing. Was the tiny bladder line really so necessary? It felt like a quippy on-set improvisation that somehow survived all the way through filming, editing and the final cut. Surely at some point, a seasoned director should have watched that back and thought, “We can probably lose the bit about the piss.”

As expected, Newton is fantastic; she always is. The score, composed by Bear McCreary, is better than this movie deserves. And the visuals are genuinely impressive. Wadlow knows how to shoot scenery in a way that makes you stop and admire it. The freshwater caves look incredible. Sadly, that’s the only fresh thing this film provides. Everything else is bland. The sharks have no aura around them whatsoever, to the point that you almost forget they’re even there for most of the movie.

And that’s a problem. There are sharks in this movie, but it never feels like you’re watching a shark movie. It feels like you’re watching a film where sharks occasionally make appearances. There’s no “holy shit, sharks!” It’s more “oh look, sharks again.” They never feel like they’re lurking somewhere, waiting for the opportunity to attack. It feels like they’re at home with their fins up, watching TV and waiting patiently for the film to tell them it’s time to come back.

The survival aspect doesn’t fare much better. There’s a decent premise buried underneath everything: people trapped in an underwater cave system while something very large and very hungry (a shark, not me) is swimming around them. That’s a concept that should basically write its own tension. But the film rarely does anything particularly interesting with it. The characters make the obvious decisions, encounter the obvious obstacles and survive the obvious near-deaths. It’s all perfectly functional, but nothing ever made me think, “Oh shit, how are they getting out of this?” More to the point, I didn’t particularly care if they didn’t.

And the characters, despite that excellent opening, don’t really get much more interesting once the film starts. That makes the opening almost frustrating in retrospect, because it proves the movie can establish characters efficiently. It just doesn’t do much with them afterwards. I knew who these people were within minutes, but by the end I didn’t particularly care about any of them beyond wanting them to survive because, well, they’re the characters in the movie.

There’s also a weird lack of escalation. A survival thriller should keep tightening the screws. Things should get progressively worse until you’re wondering how the hell anyone is going to get out. Here, the film feels strangely flat. It has danger, but it doesn’t really build dread. There’s a difference between “this is dangerous” and “I really don’t want to know what’s around that corner”, and The Devil’s Mouth rarely reaches the latter. Nothing ever feels like it leads to anything else. It’s not story progression, it’s just stuff happening.

Which is a shame, because there are flashes of a much better movie here. The caves genuinely look fantastic, the premise is solid, Newton is excellent, and that opening demonstrates that the writers know how to establish a group of characters without spending twenty minutes giving everyone tragic backstories. There are enough good ingredients here that I can understand why someone might have a good time with it. I just didn’t.

It’s not offensively bad. It’s not even particularly boring. It’s simply incredibly there. It’s a cinematic skirting board. You appreciate the craftsmanship, but it’s not something you pay attention to or remember once you’ve left the room. And considering this is a film about people trapped in a cave with sharks, “yeah, that was fine” is probably the least appropriate reaction it could possibly have inspired.

Kathryn Newton deserves better. Bear McCreary’s score deserves better. Those caves deserve better. The sharks deserve better. Jeff Wadlow deserves a mentor.

I suppose on the plus side, it is the best of the three shark movies I’ve seen this year (Thrash, reviewed here. And Deep Water, reviewed nowhere yet because I haven’t written it, I can’t review everything at once, get off my back). But again, that’s not saying much. Weirdly, all three have been direct-to-streaming. And there’s probably a reason for that.

Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Kris, a 29-year-old filmmaker, is hired to resurrect and reboot the tired Camp Miasma slasher franchise for modern audiences. Wanting to pay tribute to the original, she tracks down the actress from the original; shit gets weird.

I have a somewhat complex history with the work of Jane Schoenbrun. I think she’s one of the best filmmakers around today. Her use of colour is among the best in the business. The way she weaves metaphor and storytelling into the shots is a thing of wonder. I always leave her movies feeling slightly like I’ve been hypnotised and entranced. That being said, I’m not a fan of her scripts. They always start promising but end up just on the wrong side of incomprehensibility, although I suspect cohesion and understanding aren’t really the point. I’m aware that this, more than almost any other criticism, is deeply personal and subjective. Some people will love it BECAUSE of that, because the audience is constantly wrong-footed and left in a state of confusion. Personally, I don’t mind being confused; I just want a place in the narrative to ground myself

If you loved her previous work, Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma (TSADACM, pronounced Tee-Sad-At-Cam) won’t dissuade you from being a fan; if you don’t like it, this won’t change your mind. Everything that works about her previous films is now better in this. The shots are better, the music is incredible, and the performances are outstanding. Schoenbrun knows how to make a killer playlist, helped enormously by a returning Alex G. There’s a great selection of danceable synth pop for you to sink your teeth into. Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson have a chemistry that leaps off the screen. From the moment they first meet, there seems to be a magnetic pull between them, like the universe is begging them to kiss. They are helped by how unbelievably horny the script is. There’s an air of unashamed sexuality over the entire thing; arguably the sex is more important than the death. The supporting characters are all fine, but none are as fully fleshed out as those two, so the actors aren’t really given as much of a chance to shine.

It feels like a deeply personal story for Schoenbrun. Much like her previous work, this feels like she’s writing it as an exploration of her own personality, rather than worrying too much about whether the audience can follow along. It’s her examining her own sexual desires and feelings. And that’s fine, but if you do something like that, you have to be aware that it won’t fully land with everybody. Every time I felt I knew what was happening, the film was determined to throw me off. I’m still not sure whether the ending actually happened, was a fantasy, an alternate universe, or a dying thought. There’s a moment where the switch from “believable and understandable” to “confusion and oddness” happens, and it’s so abrupt that it becomes genuinely jarring.

So far, this review has probably seemed fairly negative, and it’s not meant to. There’s a lot to like about TSADACM. It has one of my favourite openings I’ve seen all year. The opening credits set up how Miasma is regarded in this world, complete with reviews, initial analysis, its place in pop culture, and how it’s viewed in modern society. There are multiple references to classic cinema, and problematic histories that a lot of long-running franchises have, especially when it came to how they treated characters who weren’t cisgender, straight white men. Fans of cinema and film theory will get a lot more out of some of the dialogue than casual viewers probably will.

So, is the in-universe movie believable? Kind of. Weirdly, Camp Miasma (the in-universe movie) has the exact opposite problem that Camp Miasma (the movie we’re watching, which I’ll refer to as TSADACM for clarity’s sake) has. The writing, characters and backstories of Camp Miasma feel convincingly rooted in the 80s. Yet the filmmaking itself definitely feels modern. If anything, Schoenbrun feels TOO good a director to make a believable, slightly terrible 80s slasher. Her use of camera movement and music is too advanced and slick for it to work. It pulled me out of the movie a little bit, despite the scene itself being incredible. If an 80s movie had used some of Schoenbrun’s techniques, it wouldn’t just have been good; it would have changed the genre. It’s the musical equivalent of Green Day attempting to make a ramshackle 70s punk record. Even without trying, they’d do things that wouldn’t have been done back then, either because the technology wasn’t available or because nobody had thought of doing them yet. Put all of that together on one album, and it would inevitably be too much

Gonna be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what genre this would fit into. It doesn’t really feel like horror so much as a video thesis ABOUT horror that uses horror scenes to illustrate its point. So you can’t really judge it like you would a traditional horror movie, by examining the villain, the scares, etc. I guess the closest I can think of would be *deep breath* Surrealsexual Romantic Psychological Thriller. It’s definitely unique, and for that alone it’s worth your time and money.

This is one of only two films I’ve paid to see in the last few years, and I watched it at the Curzon, which isn’t cheap. Plus it was on my birthday, and I was on my own. It had everything working against it, and I still want to see it again.

I should note that I’m not exactly the person these themes are aimed at. I love that films like this exist; it’s clearly going to be VERY important to someone, potentially even someone who feels seen by it in a way they haven’t felt seen before. But to me? I admire it and want to study it more than I like it. This wasn’t made with someone like me in mind, but it doesn’t need to be. It feels like it’s aimed at the confused teens (and adults) who need more films like this, and I think they’ll love it. Of course, I haven’t actually spoken to any people about this film, so for all I know, I’m woefully off the fucking mark.

Although there is one important thing to note, especially after what I just said. I don’t really feel comfortable explicitly stating what I’m about to say, so I’ll try to work around it. A few years ago, for my end-of-year awards, I noticed that EVERY film in the “most me” category had a female lead. It led me to ask myself a few questions about why that was, and whether those were questions I should actually talk to someone about. I did have a discussion with some friends, and they encouraged me to explore it further, many of them speaking from their own personal experiences. I never really got anywhere with those questions, but they haven’t entirely gone away either. So there’s something increasingly strange about the fact that TSADACM is almost certainly going to win the award this year. It’s another film that feels intensely, uncomfortably close to me in a way that I don’t entirely know how to explain. And every time that happens, I get a little closer to HAVING to ask myself those questions again.

Over Your Dead Body (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A married couple go to a remote cabin, both with plans to kill each other.

I like Samara Weaving. She’s developed a real reputation as a scream queen, but a very versatile one: being able to be both a villain and a final girl. It makes sense for her to be in this film. Jason Segel? Not so much. Best known for comedies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Muppets, and HIMYM. The closest he’s got to something like this would be his bit part in Dead Man On Campus. He’s not someone you’d think about if you were casting this. That’s why it works. You expect him to play his usual role of “sad dog turned into sad human, with occasional bursts of excitement”, so when we see that he’s planned this holiday to kill his wife, it’s a genuine shock (unless you’ve read the synopsis or seen a trailer). The two have weirdly good chemistry. They make sense as a couple with the way they interact with each other, albeit a strained couple; both waiting for the other one to be the first one to instigate intimacy. It helps that they both take this film seriously; they’re not looking for laughs, mugging for the camera, and that’s what makes it funny.

As for the film itself. I’m slightly disappointed by it, but only because Jorma Taccone also directed MacGruber and Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, and I love both of those movies. This is tonally different, and not quite as entertaining. That doesn’t mean it’s not good. It’s absolutely hilarious at times, not just the dialogue, but also the violence. The violence never feels cruel or gratuitous. The gore could be slightly better, looking slightly cheap and fake at times, but it kind of works. Over Your Dead Body (OYDB, pronounced Oi Deb!) knows that it is ridiculous. It doesn’t try to turn the relationship into some deeply serious examination of a marriage falling apart. Instead, it takes the petty frustrations and resentments between the two characters and pushes them to their most extreme conclusion. Every argument, awkward interaction and moment of suspicion has the potential to become a matter of life and death. The plot is pure farce, but OYDB is careful not to make it silly to the point of parody. The characters take the situation very seriously, so the threat feels real. So when the characters do slightly humorous things, it’s funnier because we buy into them as people.

The villains are probably where the film’s balancing act works best. They’re not just generic obstacles for Dan and Lisa to overcome; they all have their own personalities and quirks, which makes them feel like actual people rather than characters who exist solely to move the plot along. I’m not too familiar with Keith Jardine, but he’s a lot of fun here, bringing exactly the sort of physical presence you’d expect from someone with a history of getting paid for punching people in the face, while also showing a surprising amount of vulnerability. He’s basically a more vocal Lurch from Hot Fuzz (the “yar” guy). Timothy Olyphant continues to be Hollywood’s secret weapon, seemingly incapable of being anything other than entertaining even when he’s playing a relatively straight role. And it’s nice to see Juliette Lewis transition from hostage in From Dusk Till Dawn to hostage taker here.

I think that’s ultimately why I enjoyed OYDB more than I expected to, despite the slight disappointment. It isn’t as relentlessly funny as MacGruber or Popstar, and I don’t think it’s going to replace either of those in my list of favourite Jorma Taccone films. But it doesn’t need to. It’s doing something different, and for the most part it does it well. The mixture of relationship comedy, thriller and violence works surprisingly well. That premise has been done before in films like Keeping Up With The Joneses, Mr & Mrs Smith, and others that surely exist but I can’t be bothered to look up. Of course, there’s a more obvious comparison than either of those: this is a remake of the Norwegian film The Trip. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t really comment on how the two compare, which is probably something I should have thought about before writing a review of a remake. But I suppose at least this way it means I’m judging OYDB on its own merits rather than making comparisons like, “In the original the person wore a blue t-shirt, in this they wear a red one. Film ruined!” The characters in Keeping Up With The Joneses and Mr & Mrs Smith were professional assassins. These characters aren’t. They’re an actress and a filmmaker who are both unsatisfied in their careers. It kind of reminded me of Game Night (damn, that was a fun movie).

That Game Night comparison is probably the best way of describing the action. There’s a similar satisfaction in watching relatively normal people get caught up in something completely ridiculous and having to improvise their way through it. Dan and Lisa aren’t Jason Bourne; they don’t have a special set of skills that makes them particularly well equipped for what they’re doing. They’re just two people who have decided that murder is the solution to their problems, much like how I deal with poor customer service in restaurants (my editor has told me to let you know that’s a joke; I don’t leave the house to go to restaurants). That amateurism makes the fights much more entertaining. There isn’t the slickness you’d get from a traditional action movie, but it would be weird if these untrained fighters suddenly became action heroes; this isn’t Shang-Chi. They’re grabbing whatever happens to be nearby, throwing themselves at each other and generally doing whatever they can to survive. It gives the violence a scrappy, unpredictable quality, and it also creates some of the film’s funniest moments. You can believe that these people are actually fighting for their lives rather than watching two stunt performers execute perfectly choreographed moves.

It also helps that the film never forgets that they’re an unhappily married couple. Even when they’re fighting for their lives against hostage-takers, they still argue and bicker, desperate to win points against the other. It’s childish, silly, and believable. When they start getting on with each other again, it’s weirdly sweet, much more than a film like this should be.

Not that OYDB is without its problems. It’s a solid 7/10, but it feels like it could be a 9 with some changes. But I’m not sure what. I can’t quite identify why I only really liked this rather than loved it. It’s not the reliance on flashbacks, which really bothered me in This Is Not A Test; I liked the way OYDB utilised flashbacks, as it provided us with setups to jokes where all we knew was the punchline. Maybe it’s just because it seems to lack visual ambition. Nothing really stands out as incredible or memorable. That’s fine with silly films like MacGruber or Popstar, but OYDB is slightly more serious, so standards are higher for it. If something looks cheap or fake in MacGruber, then you can get away with that being part of the joke. You can’t do that in OYDB; it needs to have a certain level of spectacle.

That’s not to sound too discouraging; OYDB is still definitely worth a watch. Prime hasn’t exactly been overflowing with great films this year, and this is definitely among the best they’ve done so far. And if nothing else, I now want to see Samara Weaving in more films where somebody spends two hours trying to kill her. She really does take a beating remarkably well. To make a wrestling comparison: she’s 90’s HBK, or 2010’s Dolph Ziggler, only she occasionally wins.

Outcome (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A beloved Hollywood star embarks on a desperate redemption tour after a blackmail threat forces him to confront the mistakes that could destroy both his career and his sense of self.

I’m going to start this review off in a manner which I can almost guarantee no review of this movie has done, by talking about OJ Simpson. The murder of his wife (and the accusations of his involvement in her murder) haunted him to the point he felt compelled to write a book entitled “If I Did It”, which was essentially him insisting he was innocent while describing how he would have committed the crime if he had been guilty. It’s generally regarded as a really stupid and crass idea. Similarly, in 2018, in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal that would end up with him being imprisoned for 31 years, R.Kelly released a song called “I Admit”, where he “confessed” to things such as not going to church enough, with the only mention of his crimes being a denial. Which makes sense, the only evidence the world had that he was a paedophile was a rape tape he made with a minor in 2002 (which the world knew about, by the way, so fuck EVERY musician who worked with him after that date). Now, art is art, and I’m not saying musicians, writers and filmmakers should be arrested or punished for doing this. But it is in bad taste. Certain people should not make art and attempt to make money from certain subjects. That’s my big issue with Outcome. Jonah Hill should not have been involved. It feels like this may have been his way of dealing with the accusations of emotional abuse levelled at him, when he told his partner who was a surf instructor, not to surf with men, post pictures online of her in a swimsuit, or spend time with friends he didn’t approve of. I’m fully on board with people using pain and trauma for art, but it feels like he’s using other people’s trauma that involved him, rather than his own trauma. That fact overshadows everything else about the film, especially when it discusses how “the best thing to be is a victim.” If he wasn’t involved, you could look at those moments as the film mocking them, but with his involvement, it’s not difficult to view it somewhat cynically.

So, outside of that, how is Outcome? Honestly, it’s fine. It’s not horrendously bad, but it’s nothing special. Its streaming release feels appropriate. It’s the sort of film that’s worth watching on a quiet evening, but not one compelling enough to justify a trip to the cinema. It’s an interesting idea, but all it is is an idea, nothing more. The conversations between Reef and the people he may have wronged are genuinely compelling; emotive, introspective, and full of sharp characterisation. But everything connecting those scenes is surprisingly bland.

The casting of Reeves, generally known as one of the nicest people in the world, is perfect. The rest of the cast? They’re okay. You wouldn’t have guessed by watching this that Cameron Diaz was once one of the world’s biggest stars; she no longer has the effortless screen presence that once made it impossible to look away. I don’t know if it’s the performer or the character, but Reef’s assistant Sammy doesn’t suit the style, feeling like a deliberately kooky Deschanel-type, all quirks and forced performative behaviour. Martin Scorsese gives a surprisingly good performance. Everybody is aware of his talent behind the camera, but his work as a performer in this is to be admired, giving a lot of depth to what could be a pathetic character. His almost-monologue is full of pathos, emotion, and regret. You could build entire stories around that.

Ultimately, the film never quite figures out what it wants to be. Is it attempting to be a character study about someone realising he’s kind of a dick? Is it a satire about how fame is based more around PR than actual behaviour? Is it about how our expectation that celebrities should be perfect is a doomed endeavour? Or is it about how cancel culture ruins the lives of famous people? It feels like it is aiming to be all of them, so never fully commits to anything. All of those ideas are good ideas worth studying, but they never fully mesh in Outcome. Every time it looks like it’s getting deep into something, it pulls out (sex reference unintentional but I’m keeping it).

Visually, it’s fine. There are no shots which are ugly or distracting, but nothing that will make you appreciate it. When I was younger, I used to think the director’s job was very easy; you just point a camera at what’s happening and press record. That’s the approach it seems was taken to Outcome. The camera isn’t assisting the story or themes in any way. There’s very little sense that the camera is being used to tell the story, rather than simply record it. It’s just watching from nearby. This restrained approach to directing means that the weaker stretches have nothing to lean on. When the conversation dries up, there’s nothing carrying you to the next scene.

Under different circumstances, I think I’d have come away describing Outcome as an above-average streaming drama with some genuinely compelling scenes surrounded by a lot of filler. But art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, especially when it’s so easy to draw parallels between the story being told and the person telling it. Whether that’s fair or not, it’s impossible for me to separate the two, and the film never gives me enough to overcome that discomfort. It asks you to empathise with a flawed man trying to navigate the consequences of his actions, but because of who’s making that argument, it never feels like simple fiction. It feels like self-defence.

Outcome isn’t a disaster. There are moments of genuine insight, some excellent performances, particularly from Martin Scorsese, and conversations that linger long after the credits roll. But the film never develops beyond its central premise, and Jonah Hill’s involvement hangs over every scene like an elephant in the room. Maybe that’s unavoidable. Maybe that’s the point. Either way, it’s a film whose most interesting discussion happens outside the film itself.

Little Brother (2026) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Rudd Landry (played by John Cena) has a thriving real estate career, a wife/kids, a killer physique, and a chance to be on a reality TV show. But he has two problems: Josh (Christopher Meloni), his actual brother, who overshadows him. And Marcus (Eric Andre), his “little brother”, someone he mentored as part of a Big Brother program in college.

I’ll start with performances. I will always love seeing Sherry Cola and John Cena in films. Cena, in particular, has quietly become a really dependable comedic lead. For someone who was known in his wrestling career for showing his work (often shouting instructions so loudly that people in the back row could hear) and for being unable to take things seriously, it’s weird that his film comedy style is based mainly on being the straight man. He’d be great in an action movie parody in the style of Naked Gun. Christina Catechis gives a fun performance, reminds me of Grace Parra. No idea who the woman who is territorial about her window is, but I love her. Eric André can be brilliant, but he can also be exhausting.

That’s definitely the case here. He’s the central part of the emotional story arc, yet his personality makes that emotional arc far less effective than it should be. The audience doesn’t buy into him as someone worth the emotion. He’s not misunderstood, or troubled, or someone who’s a bit rough around the edges but is generally a lovely person. He’s kind of a selfish dick with no idea of societal expectations. Not in a “With multiple options for cutlery, move from the outside in as you go through the meal” way, this is “don’t piss out of a car window, dent someone’s car, or swear at strangers”. This isn’t Jack Black in most films; this is Jack Black in School of Rock. Someone you’re supposed to support, but is too immature and self-destructive to really care about.

That’s ultimately the film’s biggest problem. We’re supposed to care about Marcus, but it never does the work to make him someone you’d actually want to spend time with. Chaotic energy isn’t a substitute for likeability, no matter what the parents of toddlers tell you. You absolutely can build a comedy around an abrasive protagonist, but the audience needs to understand where that abrasiveness comes from. Otherwise, he’s just a dick. I never felt sorry for Marcus. I felt sorry for everyone who had to deal with him.

Rudd’s older brother Josh is a more believable character, but arguably an even less likeable one. He seems completely oblivious to Rudd’s admiration and feelings of inadequacy, yet there are moments where he almost appears to go out of his way to antagonise him. And the voice box gag at the end is simply too stupid for words.

Thankfully, Cena’s Rudd keeps everything grounded. He could easily have become the sort of bland straight man who exists purely to react while everyone else gets the jokes. Instead, the writing gives him enough warmth and frustration that he feels like a real person. The emotional core only works because Rudd behaves like a human being rather than a plot device. He gets annoyed, he occasionally snaps, but he keeps trying. Cena has become surprisingly adept at playing characters whose defining trait is patience rather than charisma, and that’s a much harder job in comedy than simply being the loudest person in the room.

The important question, though, is whether it’s funny.

Yes. It is.

There are plenty of genuine laughs throughout. Nothing groundbreaking or unforgettable, but enough to keep the film entertaining. Although it leans heavily on Eric André’s trademark chaos, it also has the good sense to avoid some of the more obvious, low-hanging dialogue jokes.

The ending, though, is bizarre. I’m used to films continuing the story during the credits, showing where the characters end up. I’m also used to films filling the credits with bloopers and outtakes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film try to do both simultaneously. Not one after the other, either. Instead, it constantly cuts between story epilogues and behind-the-scenes outtakes, forcing your brain to keep recalibrating whether what you’re watching is part of the narrative or just the cast messing around. It feels oddly amateurish and neatly sums up my biggest issue with the film: the comedy keeps getting in its own way.

That’s a strange criticism to level at a comedy. I’m not saying it shouldn’t have jokes. I’m saying it’s so desperate to remind you it’s a comedy that it often sabotages itself. Whenever the film starts building a genuinely engaging scene, it feels compelled to interrupt it with another improvised tangent or burst of randomness. Sometimes that works. Just as often, it kills the momentum and undercuts whatever emotional weight the scene was beginning to build.

That’s a shame, because there’s a better film buried underneath. The central relationship is strong enough to carry the story without constantly winking at the audience. None of that makes it a bad watch. It’s breezy, consistently entertaining, and never feels like it’s wasting your time. It just never quite figures out when to stop chasing the next laugh and let the ones it’s already earned breathe. Ironically, by trying so hard to be funny, it sometimes undercuts the humour that’s already there.

It’s an enjoyable comedy rather than a memorable one. You’ll laugh, you’ll probably forget most of it by next week, but for nearly one hundred or so minutes it does enough to justify its existence. Plus, it contains more Hoobastank than any other film released this year.

Apex (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mourning the death of her partner, Sasha travels around the Outback, finding herself being hunted by Ben, a cannibalistic serial killer.

Four years ago, I reviewed Beast, another film by Baltasar Kormákur that was about someone being hunted in a landscape. In that review, I specifically mentioned how great it looked, and how great a cinema experience it was. So I was sceptical that this was released straight to Netflix, doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. I mean, it still looks pretty. But that might be due to the landscape doing half the work for him.

I need to open this review by talking about Australian actors. I mean, they must exist otherwise Home and Away wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did, so why cast a Welsh actor to play Ben? To be fair, they do touch on it, making it clear he wasn’t born there. But he tries an accent for most of it, so he’s supposed to be, at the very least, naturalised. It almost feels like the “You’re not from here, are you?” line was added after someone noticed the accent slipping. The only way it works is if it’s his gimmick, that he’s overexaggerating his Australian nature as part of his “public persona” for some reason, I dunno, because it’s “crazy” and wacky? That would suit the rest of his character. He is definitely supposed to be crazy. But it doesn’t work. It’s like the character isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be Heath Ledgers Joker, or the villain from a 90’s Saturday morning kids cartoon, and not even a good one. Every scene has him narratively screaming, “Look at how crazy I am!” rather than simply letting him be frightening. It’s annoying and kind of distracting, feeling like the character itself is going overboard, rather than the actor. The best screen killers don’t need to constantly advertise their insanity. Michael Myers barely emotes. Anton Chigurh speaks almost conversationally. Even Mick Taylor (watching the Kill Count video for Wolf Creek as I write this), another Australian outback killer, is terrifying because he feels like someone who could actually exist. The villain in Apex feels like someone doing an impression of what a movie psychopath is supposed to look like.

That’s not the only thing harming him as a character. For a serial killer, he doesn’t do much killing. Two people (I think) died in this movie; both died in the exact same way, killed by the protagonist. The antagonist apparently has a history of murdering people, but the audience barely gets to see him do it. We’re told he’s dangerous, but storytelling generally works better when you show these things. By the end, gravity has claimed more victims than the serial killer.

That’s a problem.

It’s like making a Friday The 13th movie where everyone dies in a bus crash. Eventually you stop worrying about the villain and start keeping an eye on the terrain. There’s an obvious rewrite staring the film in the face. Make him an Outback tour guide. It’s perfect. Tourists trust him. He knows the landscape better than anyone else. He can separate people from the group without raising suspicion. Better still, we get to see him operating before the protagonist becomes his target. We understand why he’s dangerous because we’ve watched him be dangerous. So, when he meets someone who refuses to become another victim, we’ve already bought into him as a threat.

Instead, the film spends most of its running time trapped in a hostage scenario rather than delivering the hunt it advertises. The premise promises a predator tracking prey across the Australian wilderness. What we actually get is people being stuck somewhere while the plot periodically remembers there’s supposed to be danger involved.

This is a shame, because buried under the clichés is a genuinely interesting premise. Imagine spending your life preying on easy victims, only to discover this one keeps surviving everything you throw at them. The hunter slowly becomes frustrated. The prey grows more confident. Suddenly the balance of power shifts. That’s a film. Instead, Apex never really commits to that dynamic. Scenes happen, and large stretches of the film simply wash over you. Rather than a tense game of cat and mouse, it often feels like everyone is just waiting for the next location. Also, because the cast is so small, narrative convention tells you neither character is going anywhere until the climax.

The result is a thriller that never quite finds its pulse. It’s never aggressively bad. It’s too well-shot for that, and the scenery genuinely is spectacular. But almost every interesting idea feels like it’s sitting in the draft immediately underneath the one that got filmed.

You can see the better version peeking through the cracks. But I don’t want to spend my time peering at cracks, I risk getting put on a list for that.