Tag: The Crow

2024 Film Awards Part 6

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Most Disappointing

A Quiet Place: Day One

I LOVE the first one, I was less enthusiastic about the second, but I still had high hopes for this. It’s okay, I guess. But it never quite reaches the heights of the first one and doesn’t even come close. Ultimately, it just comes off as lesser. Almost like a poorly financed spin-off that was dictated by the studio. There’s zero passion, zero creativity, zero reason to care.

Argylle

I like the Kingsman movies, except maybe the prequel. But I had an inkling this wouldn’t be as good. From the moment I saw the trailer I had worries. Those worries turned out to be well-founded. It should never have been a 12A, Matthew Vaughn needs blood and violence, and the rating stops him from achieving that. I don’t know why the studio didn’t push for an increased rating, and I’m not sure whose decision it was to aim for it. But either way, they should have stopped him. If you’re a record company and you land the Bee Gees, you don’t let them do a death metal album, you tell them to play that funky music.

Joker: Folie A Deux

If this was based on the biggest drop between “expectations when I first heard about it” and “expectations when I finished watching”, this would be top, number one with a bullet, numero uno, the head honcho, the casa del pene, I kind of forgot what I was talking about. Luckily for J: FAD, this is based on “expectations going in”, which saves it. I had heard a lot of talk that this was terrible. I hoped they were wrong, but it did mean I went in expecting it might be bad. Still doesn’t mean I was prepared for exactly HOW bad it was. I haven’t seen a sequel drop off this extreme since Mean Girls to the trailer for Mean Girls 2 (I’m not watching the actual film, I’m not insane).

My Spy: The Eternal City

I actually really enjoyed the first one. The second has all the hallmarks of a “straight-to-DVD sequel released in the 90s”. It feels low budget, it thinks you remember much more about the previous film than you actually do, and it tries so hard to be different (changing location etc), that it forgets to be good.

Mean Girls

I’m a massive fan of the original film, and also a massive fan of the dislike button on the trailer of the second one. I’m also a big Tina Fey fan, and one of my favourite TV shows of all time is a sequel. So I should love this. I did not. It had none of the charm of the original, none of the heart. Also, I didn’t find the songs that good, which in a musical is a bit of a problem. I couldn’t hum a single melody from the entire thing, meanwhile, I can still remember roughly 3 songs from In The Heights, which I watched once, back in 2021 (review here). I suppose I should have expected it when the trailer (which I repeat, is for a MUSICAL featuring original songs) had Olivia Rodrigo. Now, I love Olivia Rodrigo, her music is right up my street, but an existing song on a trailer for a musical just indicates the studio has no faith in the songs, and the stage musical itself doesn’t have enough bangers that people are obsessed with and will be like “OMG they do that song in this, I need to watch”, unlike the trailers for Wicked which showed snippets of songs from the musical, so fans of the musical would get excited. I’m right that that was a weird decision on the studio that released Mean Girls, right? It’s not just me being picky? Anyway, this film is weaker than my lawsuit for false advertising against the owner/operator of a bottomless pit in Spokane.

Winner

Unfrosted

I’m a big fan of Jerry Seinfeld, I consider his sitcom one of the best sitcoms of the 90’s (and there’s a lot of competition there). He has definitely been hit hardest by the Seinfeld Curse, with his biggest success being a vocal performance. That being said, Unfrosted looked promising. Not just with him as a writer, but with an incredibly strong supporting cast. Also, the idea was fucking weird, and I like weird. I don’t like Unfrosted though. It is funny, hilarious even. But it is so disposable. This does not seem like a film from one of the co-creators of one of the biggest sitcoms of all time. This feels like a group of kids dicking about with a video camera and making jokes up as they go along.

Most Surprising

The First Omen

The Omen is a franchise in name only. Nobody ever says “Let’s watch the entire film series”, in fact, I’d say a lot of people don’t even recognise there are more than two, the original and the remake. Added to that, prequels are normally pretty shit. So it’s quite surprising that The First Omen is actually solid. It has one of my favourite jump scares I’ve ever seen, a genuinely gripping story, and some good acting. Immaculate explored similar themes, but The First Omen did it much better.

Transformers One

I’m not too fond of the live-action Transformers movies. I know I watched one of them at the cinema, there’s a chance I might have watched the second one as well, but I genuinely can’t remember. Also, unlike Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, I never had any Transformers toys growing up (if anybody would like to fix that neglect and buy some, contact me), nor were there any video games I played. So I had zero emotional connection with the franchise, until now. This movie is superb. I think it may have helped that I had no connection to the franchise as it meant that I didn’t know who these characters were. This wasn’t like watching X-Men: First Class, knowing that Magneto and Charles will eventually become enemies, this was watching two complete strangers as their friendship slowly disintegrates. It’s a much more mature movie than you’d expect, dealing with themes such as colonialism, disability rights, hierarchal power structures, appeals to authority fallacies, and transforming into a car (all issues that we face). If it was a bit more “safe”, would it have made more money? Probably (it’s hard to tell because of how badly marketed it was). But by going as dark as they did, going as deep as they did, they’ve created something truly remarkable. This WILL be a kid’s favourite movie, and when they watch it again as an adult, they won’t be disappointed or embarrassed. They will fall back in love with it all over again.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F

I’m not saying this is a great movie, it’s not. But it’s A LOT better than a sequel 30 years after a disappointing (to others, I still love it) third movie should be. Every New Year’s Eve, me and my family sit down and watch a franchise, in the past, it’s been John Wick, the modern Planet Of The Apes, Back To The Future etc. As the years go on, the choices get harder and harder, primarily because the trajectory for a lot of franchises is downward, and you don’t want to end the night on a low (can you imagine if the last movie you watched in a year was Die Hard 5?). With Axel F, if we watched this franchise, the year wouldn’t end badly. And really that’s all you can ask for.

Winner

Alien: Romulus

I like the Alien franchise, kind of. I’ve watched the first two and enjoyed them, but I’ve also seen Covenant and wasn’t a fan. When Alien is good, it’s phenomenal, among the best thing that exists in the media it’s created in, when it’s bad, it’s Colonial Marines. Romulus could have been bad, it SHOULD have been bad. It’s not, it’s utterly fantastic. It’s creepy, intelligent, and makes the most of what it has. There are so many times when you’re watching films and, as an audience member, you spot things you would have changed, untaken opportunities or wasted moments. Romulus will have less of that than others. It takes a Blue Peter/artist approach to scenes. It looks at what it has to play with (acidic blood, messed up gravity etc), then tries to create something with them. It could have been dumb and made bank, instead they put A LOT of effort into it, and I cannot thank them enough.

I Don’t Get It

Essentially these are for films which received a lot of love, either critically or commercially, that I just did not care about.

The Beekeeper

I heard a lot of people say this is really good, that it would even appeal to people who aren’t fans of the typical Statham films. I’m not buying it. It’s about 5% more interesting than the rest, but that’s not a huge amount. Otherwise, it’s more of the same. It’s Jason Statham walking around and punching people, only this time he has a bad American accent.

Longlegs

A LOT of people loved this, describing it as one of the best horrors of modern times. I respect that, but I didn’t feel it. Primarily because of how exposition-heavy it was, particularly in the final third. Either the studio or the screenwriter didn’t feel confident enough that the story was clear enough for the audience. Once the writer gets more confident, they WILL make my favourite horror movie of the year, of that I am certain. But this isn’t it.

Winner

The Zone Of Interest

Obviously, this was going to win. The review of it was the hardest I’ve ever had to write. I couldn’t articulate WHY I didn’t like it, I just didn’t. That’s annoying as I feel I should. I love serious movies, so it’s not as though I was sitting there thinking “Need more jokes”. I love POWERFUL movies too, I actually went into HMV a few days ago and asked for “Something that will hurt me and make me feel things”. It genuinely got me worried, am I a shitty movie watcher? Why should anybody take my reviews seriously if I don’t like one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year? In a way, it still bothers me. I find it difficult to reconcile why you should value my opinion alongside my opinion being that I didn’t like this film.

Well I Liked It

The opposite of the last one, these are films which either the internet or professional reviewers hated, but I enjoyed (or at the very least didn’t hate them as much as others).

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

At the time of writing, this sits on Metacritic with a score of 46. That’s only 1 score higher than the new Hellboy, which is dreadful beyond comparison. I’m not arguing this should be in the high 90s, but it definitely deserves higher than that. Yes, it is a bit too long and unfocused, but it is SO damn charming that it’s hard to see where the hatred comes from. The relationship between Phoebe and Melody is damn sweet (and kind of gay-coded, can’t tell if that was intentional) and it warmed even my bitter and cynical heart.

Boy Kills World

I had no intention of putting this in this section. Primarily because I assumed it was well-reviewed. It was only when looking up the Metacritic score for Ghostbusters that I saw this had a score of 47. How? This is freaking insane. The stunts are badass, the jokes are hilarious, and the performances are everything they need to be. It’s one of the most fun experiences I had last year, and I ate ice cream TWICE!

Winner

Paddington In Peru

This has a Metacritic score 60. I don’t accept that. This deserves a 90 at the very least. It’s not quite as good as the first two, but it is still exactly what we need at this time. I know the world is going to shit: racism has become normalised, there’s war in the middle east, and I dropped my biscuit in my tea. But it’s at times like this when we need something like this; something optimistic, something cute, and most importantly; something kind.

Worst Movie

Nominees Everything here

Winner

The Crow

This was actually difficult. Whilst a lot of films were bad, there wasn’t one that stood out as a lot worse than the others. They were all equally bad. This wins pretty much just because it’s a remake. As such, there is a definite blueprint for how to make it work. They had over 30 years of focus groups and audience feedback to work from. The fact they did that, they had talented performers, as well as a wide variety of screamo bands to use for the soundtrack, and still couldn’t do better than this shit? Nope, fuck you, you suck.

Best Movie

Nominees: Everything here

Winner

Civil War

There are multiple ways to judge a film. Technical brilliance, personal taste, uniqueness. This has all three. But so do quite a few other films nominated. It’s difficult to think of one that stands out above the rest, unlike next year, where it’s already looking like A Real Pain is going to win best film (unless the new Knives Out is incredible), spoilers for a post I won’t write for another 365 days. Really, any of the nominees could have sneaked it. So why did I choose Civil War? Because there was a moment which was so harrowing I was close to leaving just to decompress for a few minutes. No other film has come close to having that effect.

2024 Film Awards: Day Two (The Genre)

On By troubledproductionsIn AwardsLeave a comment

Funniest/Best Comedy

Nominees

Abigail

A horror comedy with a focus mainly on comedy. The assumption that any root vegetable would work instead of garlic is hilarious. The deaths are darkly funny, and the characters are human enough that the jokes work. You won’t put it on if you need a comedy, but you are going to laugh regardless.

American Fiction

This got a huge laugh from me within a few minutes. When a very white woman says she’s not comfortable reading a book with racial slurs in, and is told by her (black) lecturer she’ll get used to it; with as much disdain as he can possibly manage. The laughs keep coming, and keep getting more inappropriate.

Deadpool And Wolverine

Yes, you can argue that Deadpools shtick is getting a bit old at this point, that the main reason you associate “red” with Deadpool isn’t because of his suit, but because that’s the colour of the flag associated with any man who says that’s his favourite character.

Seize Them!

This is not a great movie. It’s certainly not an intelligent movie, but it is funny. Sometimes all you want in life is a dumb distraction with jokes about cleaving people’s arses off and then shoving them up whatever remains of their arse. I respect a film that ends with a joke about a fatal wanking accident, perfectly sums up what the film is about.

The Fall Guy

Ryan Babygoose is a treasure and must be protected at all costs. His role in Barbie helped showcase that he’s actually pretty good at comedy, with great timing. That reputation continues with The Fall Guy; where his previous reputation as a leading man is combined with great dialogue and (lets face it) incredible stunts. You won’t remember many lines from it, but you will remember that you were thoroughly entertained.

Wicked Little Letters

America thinks of Olivia Colman as an Oscar-winning actress, which she is. Yet to British comedy fans, she will always be Sophie from Peep Show; a foul-mouthed ball of disgust and anger. It’s great to see her slip back into these roles, and part of that is due to how much of a surprise it must be to American audiences. Truth be told, Wicked Little Letters doesn’t reach the heights it can, but it is comedic enough to be worth watching. It’s not Olivia, the supporting cast get their laughs too; backed up by a very believable script.

Winner

Boy Kills World

Obviously the voice of Archer was going to suit a voiceover in a comedic action movie. Skarsgard has tremendous physical comedic reactions, but it’s really H. Jon Benjamin that makes it work. Part of that is his performance, but the script is tremendous. Voice-over is sort of an easy way to get laughs because you don’t have to worry about other characters hearing them, so you can say whatever without it affecting the script. At times it’s ridiculous, but it’s always entertaining.

Worst Comedy

Dear Santa

The main issue here is one of tone. It feels like they had two or three different screenwriters and none of them could decide what kind of comedy they’d make, and they made no effort to talk to each other to make a cohesive script. It veers from “this is a joke for 15 year olds” to kids comedy sometimes in the same scene.

Red One

Again, a question of tone. Christmas movies are allowed to veer a little young, but this takes the cookie. I don’t mind dumb, but this is borderline insulting.

The Whip

The script is fine—it’s the strongest part. But the performances (one in particular) are distractingly bad. There are also some really weird directorial choices that take audience members out. The most egregious example is when they walk past the place they plan to rob just so they can do the “turn around” reveal. From our point of view, it’s a reveal, but from the characters? It was in their periphery for most of the conversation.

Unfrosted

Just because you have a successful television show doesn’t mean your success will translate to film. None of the four cast members (nor co-creator Larry David) have managed to transition to film with much success. Unfrosted doesn’t break that streak. It wants to be Airplane, but is more like an air crash. It has too many different comedians all vying for space, with none of them doing enough to stand out. It is REALLY funny, but it’s also too forgettable for me to really recommend.

Winner

The Garfield Movie

Speaking of successful television that has not managed to transition to movies; Garfield. Part of that is down to Chris Pratt. He’s trying too hard, he’s not sardonic, he’s happy. The whole film is actually far too happy. It reminds me of the casting call for Artemis Fowl which described him as a happy child who spreads joy. There’s weird sci-fi elements that don’t suit the franchise. It feels like nobody involved actually wanted to make a Garfield movie.

Scariest/Best Horror

Abigail

Abigail is a movie of inconsistency. The heist elements at the start seem incredibly dated and ineffective. The horror moments? Now they’re pretty cool. I like when horror movies have an elegance towards them, especially vampire ones. Abigail is full of elegance, to the point where it feels like the movie isn’t so much happening, as floating through your consciousness. The scene where the titular character dances with a corpse is particularly creepy and wonderful.

I Saw The TV Glow

I was hesitant to count this as a horror movie. It’s not traditionally “scary”, but it has to be said there is something incredibly unsettling about it. The visuals, the music, it all adds up to something that will stay with you long after the credits roll. There’s something oddly ethereal about the whole experience, it’s akin to being hypnotised to sadness; draining you of any joy you have.

Late Night With The Devil

Yes, you’ll be able to telegraph every single story beat and twist. But you will still be unsettled by how well that cliches are pulled off. Yes, the scares are basic, but it’s effective. The old-school filter makes it feel like we’re voyeuristically viewing something forbidden. This isn’t a “watch alone at night and be terrified” movie, it’s a “watch with others and share that scared experience”, a bit like the parade of slashers that were released in the 90s, but much better.

Immaculate/The First Omen

I’m linking these two because they’re very similar. It’s highly unlikely there’s anybody who only likes one of them. They’re similar not just in terms of themes and styles, but also the scares. I recommend them both, but The Omen first because the way it ties into the first one makes it slightly more interesting; it also has one of my favourite jump scares of all time. Immaculate leans more into body horror, but not so much so that it’s defined by it. It’s difficult to separate them, but thankfully I don’t need to.

Winner

Alien: Romulus

There are different types of horror movies, there are ones which fuck your head up for days and mentally scar you (hello The VVitch), some are technically horror movies but are more entertaining than scary (Scream etc), and some are just hateful and gross (Thanksgiving). Then there’s Romulus, which is a masterclass of tension. There are times when it amps up the action and it becomes an action movie, but those moments are few and far between. Mostly, it’s slow-burn tension which leaves you on the edge of your seat. The Alien franchise is full of iconography which does half the job for you; once you see that familiar shape you’re already set up to be scared. The payoff still needs to be effective though, and Romulus pulls it off. The Xenomorphs are absolutely terrifying in this, coming off as something you don’t so much defeat as survive and escape from. THIS is the Alien we’ve been taught to fear, and with good reason.

Worst Horror

Nominees

AfrAId

This feels like they had nothing past the original idea. The idea is good, and is very timely. But the script itself is lacking. The trouble is, the characters can only exist within a horror movie. There’s no justification for some of the behaviour and character decisions outside of “this is creepy”. It’s trying SO hard to be a horror movie, that it ends up failing at being one because you can see the machinations too clearly.

Imaginary

This had so much potential. They could have gone literally anywhere with it, instead, they went so generic that if it was a meal it would be plain porridge. There are some neat moments, but nowhere near enough to justify its existence. It doesn’t play up the whole “child imagination” to its fullest extent. Think of Among The Sleep, how that managed to take childhood perspectives and fears, then transcend them to be fearful to adults. There’s none of that here.

The Watchers/Watched

Again, this had a lot of potential. For the majority of the runtime I was sitting there thinking “this is fine, nothing special but not too bad”. As it got to the end (as defined by cinematic language) I put my coat on and got ready to leave.

It continued, for a LONG time. The entire final third act feels tacked on. I remember when I saw Avatar 2: More Avatar, and there was a specific moment where you could feel the air get sucked out of the room. This was close to that, and the only reason it’s not closer is because nobody cared about this damn movie in the first place.

Tarot

It feels like every year we get a horror movie based on curses. They all have the exact same aesthetic, the same characters, and the same plot points. They’re essentially indistinguishable from each other. They’re usually all shit (this, Wish Upon, Truth Or Dare, which I’m double annoyed about because Truth Or Scare was right there). This is no different. They all have the same problem; characters who are so dimensional that they’re essentially Flintstones characters, lazy writing, generic soundtracks. There is nothing to make this stand out from any other similar films. I think even if you had the director at gunpoint, they couldn’t finish the sentence “you need to watch Tarot because……”

The Crow

I went in with low expectations but holy fuck! It couldn’t even match those. I thought it might be, at the very least, watchable. Barely.

Trap

A movie that disregards its most interesting premise. It’s called “Trap”, it’s about someone who is Trapped, he leaves the building. It would have been much more interesting if he was actually trapped, and the whole movie took place in the building. It would be incredibly tense and dramatic. Instead, we get a film so generic that if it was a colour, it would be light beige.

Winner

Night Swim

This movie is fucking stupid, and isn’t even fun enough to make up for that. I know for some of these, I have written an entire paragraph. Night Swim doesn’t deserve that.

2024 In Film: Day One (The Awful)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Borderlands
Ups: Some nice little visual touches.
Good cast.
Downs: Nonsensical action scenes.
Treats the audience like they’re idiots.
Inconsistent characterisation.
Keeps reminding you of better films.
Best Performer: Ariana Greenblatt
Best Moment: When Lilith meets Claptrap.
Worst Moment: The fight against the psychos. Remarkably unexciting. There’s no sense of danger
Opening: Quick explanation of the world. It kind of works and does its job. But it’s all stuff that could have been shown in the narrative rather than just narrated to us.
Closing: They all celebrate. Predictable, and doesn’t work to get you excited.
Best Line: I’m a bit old, I think, to be setting myself on fire for your amusement.
Original review here

Hellboy: The Crooked Man
Ups: Violent.
Some nice folk horror moments
Downs: Looks cheap.
Mind-numbingly dull.
The lead has zero presence.
Best Performer: Adeline Rudolph
Best Moment: Cora’s body is filled. It’s so creepy.
Worst Moment: No matter how much you try, you CAN NOT make “thing reaches out slowly to touch a bone someone is holding” scary, it looks more like someone was eating chicken and being told “There loads of meat still left on that”
Opening: Gothy text over woodland area. Then Hellboy on a train. Instantly, it makes it seem cheap.
Closing: They defeat evil. For some reason, Bobbie sleeps holding Hellboy arm. The words “beware! I am a witch!” are painted on the evil horse. So as long as that doesn’t wash up, it will be fine.
Best Line: “Come on snake, let’s rattle”. Wait, did I say “best”, I meant “worst, one that’s absolutely terrible and shit”.
Original review here

Lift
Ups: Good ensemble cast
Some good shots.
Downs: Predictable.
Boring characters.
Best Moment: When it looks like someone is about to be tortured. Could be a good way of showing the villain being a prick. Sadly it then cut away.
Worst Moment: The plane flying upside down for an extended period of time.
Best Performer: Billy Magnussen
Opening: Some absolutely STUNNING shots of Venice. A lot of the time when you see Venice on screen it seems like just one street with a river instead of a road. This makes it look like an actual city with historical significance. Essentially, it makes it feel like a city that isn’t just canals, gondolas, and a tourist industry that is killing it.
Closing: The thieves switched the gold around, much to the surprise of absolutely nobody.
Notable Line: “It’s too big a risk”
“you know how much I like risk”
It’s not a good line but it indicates the level of effort put into this. None.
Original Review here

Night Swim
Ups: Competently made.
Downs: Stupid premise that is taken far too seriously.
Characters don’t behave realistically.
Not enough meat to stretch out to a full-length movie.
So many logical inconsistencies.
Best Performer: Wyatt Russell I guess.
Best Moment: When he hits a baseball. Kind of majestic.
Worst Moment: The pool party. It displays that the real horror is ineffective health and safety.
Opening: A foreboding shot of a swimming pool. Then a young girl is pulled into it by an unseen force. It’s technically well made etc, but it’s still very difficult to get past the notion of an evil swimming pool. It’s almost a parody.
Closing: The dad sacrifices himself by walking into the deep end of the pool. The family then fill the pool in, which you’d think somebody would have done in the hundreds of years this has been an issue.
Best Line: It’s funny, isn’t it, though. I mean, we evolved out of the water, and some part of our reptilian brain knows we’re not supposed to be there anymore. But… I guess that’s why we try to tame it so hard. It’s like trying to conquer death.
Original review here

Tarot
Ups: Shows grief believably.
The flashbacks are well-made.
Downs: No horror movie should have a Howard Jones song.
Terribly written characters.
No decent scares.
Best Performer: Olwen Fouéré
Best Moment: The lead-up to Paige’s death has a cool elegance to it.
Worst Moment: The baby’s death flashback. Mainly because the Count seems to be waiting for the narrator to stop speaking before he reacts. It’s like the scene starts and he’s waiting for his cue.
Opening: A bunch of teens play “Guess the Future” or something. Where they sit around a campfire and guess “who’s most likely to get pregnant?” and the “winner” drinks. Weirdly, every round has a complete agreement between everybody. Personal truths are revealed but more shocking, they ran out of beer. This is treated as a new revelation, but wouldn’t they have noticed when getting the previous beers out?
Closing: “Fuck fate”. Then we find out how someone escaped death; someone opened a door. Kind of a cop-out.
Best Line: “Do you know why there are so many murder podcasts? Because people are always getting murdered”
Original review here

The Crow
Ups: Some pretty shots.
Downs: Bland.
Obviously sets up a sequel it will never get.
No memorable music.
Best Performer: Danny Huston. So threatening.
Best Moment: The first sight of purgatory.
Worst Moment: When the film ends and you realise you’ll never get that time back.
Opening: An absolutely GORGEOUS shot of a kid walking through mud and coming across a dying horse. He puts it out of its misery. Sets up the character okay, but my main takeaway is how pretty the visuals are.
Closing: His girlfriend comes out of hell.
Best Line: “If I’m ever hard to love, try to love me harder”. That just sounds abusive as hell.
Original review here

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Ups: Fun concept
Downs: Drags, a lot.
Completely forgettable. To the point where having watched it is VERY similar to having not watched it in terms of the impact it has on you.
Best Performer: Henry Cavill.
Best Moment: The opening, very violent and fun.
Worst Moment: Genuinely can’t remember anything else from the movie. And I’m writing this a week after watching it.
Opening: Text telling us that the following story is true and wasn’t discovered until Churchill’s notes were declassified in 2016. Which is weird as it’s based on a book made in 2014. Then we get a scene of Nazis threatening two people on a ship by saying “You can either die in the ocean or die on fire. The last person nearly made it and we rewarded him by shooting him in the head”, firmly setting up that, yes, despite some politicians best efforts to state otherwise, Nazi’s were the bad guys
Closing: A “what happened next” to the main characters. It’s nice to see, but it would have meant more if the characters were memorable.
Best Line: I’m not leaving until I have a barrel full of Nazi hearts.
Original review here

Trap
Ups: Some decent performances.
Downs: Stupid characters.
Wastes its own story.
Nepotism.
Best Performer: Josh Hartnett
Best Moment: The very end where one of the characters realises he helped a serial killer. Although that does back up a criticism I had where I was annoyed that he gave a stranger so much information.
Worst Moment: I want to say “every moment Saleka is onscreen” but I’m going to get very specific. There’s a shot near the end where Josh’s character is sitting down and talking, and there’s a HUGE corner of the screen being blocked off by an overhanging cupboard. In terms of shot composition, it’s hard to find anything worse in a seasoned directors work. It makes it look like he’s just poking his head around
Opening: It opens with a song by M. Night’s daughter. I’m not talking about the actual opening showing the father and daughter relationship. Because I can’t get past the nepotism.
Closing: He’s arrested but escapes. I hope we don’t get a sequel.
Best Line: There isn’t any.
Original review here

AfrAId (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: A family takes an experimental AI into their house. Everything works out fine. Psych! Stuff starts to suck.

AfrAId was directed by Chris Weitz, who also directed About A Boy, The Twilight Zone: New Moon, and The Golden Compass, which is a weird film history if you think about it. Not really relevant at all, I just wanted to mention it.

I went into this with lower expectations than I would if Gillingham were playing Barcelona (football joke, I NEVER make them), I knew it had bad reviews and box office, and bad horror movies are usually The Crow-est of the low. So I knew this would be terrible. But then something went wrong; it’s not terrible. It’s not good, but it’s not terrible. It is never bad enough to be awful, but also it’s never quite good enough to stand out. It doesn’t help that it’s quite derivative, it’s not saying that much which hasn’t been said before (primarily by equally stupidly titled M3gan). It can’t compare to that, and not just because the AI in this isn’t as memorable, or as well-written. Occasionally it only does things BECAUSE it’s a horror movie, there’s no “non-creepy” justification for many of the AI’s choices.

On the plus side, it does seem like it has something to say, which I always like to see in a horror movie. The proliferation of AI is a concerning development and one that’s too big for films to ignore. This film also says a lot about how families interact with themselves and with technology, especially concerning how that affects parenting. It doesn’t always work, though. There are some parts where the AI nature of it just

The revenge porn bit, in particular, didn’t sit right with me. I don’t care that it ruined that kid’s life, he knowingly made and shared porn of his girlfriend. I don’t give a shit that he won’t go to college or that he’s being tried as an adult. To be perfectly honest I hope he gets hit by a fucking car. Now it gets fun. No word of a lie, I legit wrote that line, and then that character died in a car crash. So that’s nice.

On the upside; the performances are good. John Cho is underrated (as anybody who has watched Searching will know), and I’m still waiting for the world to pay attention to just how utterly fantastic Katherine Waterston is. Both of them feel slightly beyond this movie, almost like this was a film made years ago and only just released now to make use of their fame. There’s also no issue with direction; it looks good, has decent audio cues etc.

The main issues are pretty much entirely down to the script. The pacing is like a drunk driver; all over the place, causing great damage, and indefensible. The ending is a huge letdown. It goes too “real”, with the AI making incursions into reality which are a bit too far-fetched and would be easily solved by humans. The closing scenes are also far too predictable, to the point where it feels like a parody.

In summary; not as bad as I expected, but not as good as I wanted. AfrAId is like people who discuss politics on Twitter, too concerned with saying stuff “now” than trying to figure out how to say it.

The Crow (2024) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: After the love of his that he’s known for a suuuuuuch a long time is murdered in front of him, Eric is given the power of face paint and healing to get his revenge.

I know how this is supposed to go. Reviews for this have been so negative there was concern it would somehow end up with a minus score on rotten tomatoes. The jokes would have been obvious, “This does to Skarsgards career what the original did to Brandon Lee”. About how it was a cynical cash grab, that forgot the “cash” part. Maybe comments about how this is the second review this year which would lead itself to jokes about Sting. Truth is, I won’t be making any of those jokes.

Not because this film is good, far from it, it’s definitely a steaming pile of crap that I wouldn’t recommend to anybody. And certainly not because I feel it deserves compliments for effort and you can tell the filmmakers are trying. The reason it’s hard to rustle up any anger and vitriol towards The Crow is because it’s so unbelievably bland. I haven’t encountered anything so devoid of taste since a Wetherspoons fry-up.

The original Crow movie is iconic, in the 30 years since it was released, the combination of a white face and black trenchcoat has inspired countless school shooters. It’s hard to imagine this version inspiring anything other than complete apathy.

It’s hard to think of anything about this that works. The romance, you know, the entire reason the character is so vengeful in the first place, doesn’t feel real. For some reason, The Crow thinks we need to see their whole relationship, including how it starts. We don’t NEED to see them meeting, in fact, that actually makes it worse because you then realise the “Love of his life” is someone he’s known for a few days. So his reasons for coming back from the dead seem less “I have lost EVERYTHING!” than they should. It’s not helped by the fact they don’t seem to have much chemistry. I don’t get how Skarsgards performance is so meh in this considering he’s basically made a living treading that line between corpse and hot. This is only the second feature film credit for FKA Twigs, and she’s better than that would suggest. Note “better” does not necessarily mean “good”.

The soundtrack is forgettable. I’m assuming that anyway, I can’t actually remember. This would have been the PERFECT time to play a shitload of dark pop. Get some stuff in there that’s both danceable and depressing; some Lana Del Ray, some Ashnikko, some Charli XCX, don’t play fucking Enya.

Nothing about this answers the question “Why was this made?”. Do we need a dark and gritty film which is a remake of a film that’s already dark and gritty? The only notable thing about this movie is that Danny Huston continues to be a solid choice for “threatening mob-like guy”. But even that’s ruined by the inconsistency in his character.

Even the fight scenes aren’t well done. We know Skarsgard can do fight scenes, but you wouldn’t know that if you have only seen this, because of how bland and weirdly neutered the fights are. I’ve never seen scenes so full of blood still manage to come off so sanitised and “safe”.

It’s not the worst film ever. It’s not a complete mess that fails at everything it attempts. What it is, is something much more offensive than that; dull. It doesn’t fail at what it tries because it never tries anything. There is zero effort, zero heart, and consequently, zero reason to watch this film.