Tag: Warfare

2025 In Film: Day Four (Could Be Better)

On By troubledproductionsIn Uncategorized, Year round upLeave a comment

All Happy Families
Ups: Cosy
Interesting points to make.
Downs: Really loses focus at the end.
Kind of reminds me of Arrested Development, and when you make that comparison, you can’t win.
Best Performer: Becky Ann Baker
Best Moment: When his brother tries to explain what actually happened and why he was accused of sexual misconduct.
Worst Moment: A moment which isn’t there; the bit before the end. It definitely feels like something is missing there.
Opening: Tolstoy quote. Letting you know this film is either going to be really smart, or really pretentious.
Closing: He kisses the girl, his mum goes for a drive, his dad is wistful, as is his brother. The audience is left with a sense of missing something
Original review here

Avatar: Fire And Ash
Ups: Looks beautiful.
Some good action sequences.
Fleshes out the world a bit more
Downs: Very similar to the second one.
Isn’t a marked improvement.
Far too long.
F*cking Spider. Why do they like him so much?
Best Performer: Oona Chaplin
Best Moment: The attack on the human base.
Worst Moment: The drugged sequence. I can see why it’s there, and it is good, but it’s kind of goofy.
Opening: The family decide it’s not safe for Spider to stay with them. Makes sense, but it really skips past why anybody suddenly gives a shit about him considering he saved the villain in the last movie.
Closing: Spider is welcomed into the Na’vi. So he’s gonna play a bigger part in the sequel.
Best Line: I am the fire! By my hand, my people grow strong! We do not bend down and die just because Eywa turns her back on us! We turn our back on Eywa! A weak mother, her weak children. We do not suck on the breast of weakness.
Original review here

How To Train Your Dragon
Ups: Looks magnificent.
The dragons look terrifying.
Good performances.
Downs: Utterly pointless.
Some of the side characters aren’t given enough to do.
Best Performer: Gerard Butler
Best Moment: First flight. Just as good as it was in the animated version.
Worst Moment: When he shoots down the night dragon.
Opening: Narration, pretty much exactly how the original opened.
Closing: Hiccup loses his leg, which was careless.
Best Line: You just gestured to all of me.
Original review here

Love Hurts
Ups: Some fun fights.
Ke Huy Quan
Funny
Downs: Missing “that” scene. The one that takes it from good to great.
One of the romance subplots feels a little forced.
We never really get the sense that he was dangerous in his past life.
Best Performer: Ke Huy Quan
Best Moment: Jeff’s death is funny and inappropriate.
Worst Moment:
Opening: Introduction to Marvin. His character would not work if it was played by anyone other than Ke Huy Quan. The opening is a good indication of that, he’s so pure.
Closing: Marvin admits he loves Rose. Obviously.
Original review here

Presence
Ups: Tense.
Good message
A believable look at a family suffering.
Downs: Dull. So dull.
Mismarketed
Best Performer: Lucy Liu
Best Moment: The bedroom destruction
Worst Moment: The ending.
Opening: POV shot of someone looking around a house in the dark. Kind of feels like you’re playing a video game.
Closing: We find out that the ghost is actually the son, travelling back in time. We find this out because for some reason, after fulfilling his duties, he stuck around for a few days.
Best Line: Have you ever noticed how your advice always corresponds exactly with us not having to do anything, at all?
Original review here

Snow White
Ups: Looks fantastic.
Downs: The Dwarves (sorry, “magical beings”) are kind of annoying.
Gal Gadot.
The songs aren’t great.
We don’t get a good enough sense of how disastrous the land is under the Queens leadership.
Best Performer: Rachel Zegler
Best Moment: When Snow White approaches the castle with her followers. Incredibly Les Mis.
Worst Moment: The evil queen destroys the mirror, thereby destroying herself. She’s not smart.
Opening: Some cute animals open a book, then narration
Closing: Snow White inspires an overthrow of the Queen, who then magically dies in a kind of body-horror way.
Best Line: “The name’s Jonathan, Princess. Not Jonathan Princess, just Jonathan. Princess”
Original review here

The Second Act
Ups: Creative. There truly is nothing else like this.
Ambitious.
Some great dialogue.
Downs: REALLY loses momentum in the final third.
The very notion of its metaness will put a lot of people off.
Best Performer: Léa Seydoux
Best Moment: The opening conversation, lets you know what you’re in for. Should have been the opening instead of the restaurant set up.
Worst Moment: The gunshot. The moment itself isn’t bad, but it was the moments just after this that the film tried to be a bit too clever and ended up getting lost.
Opening: A gentleman tidies up the building.
Closing: Miles and miles of tracking equipment.
Best Line: “You can’t say that, we’re being filmed”
Original review here

Warfare
Ups: Tense.
Realistic.
Downs: Doesn’t really have a narrative.
Annoyingly unpolitical.
No way for the casual audience to buy in.
Best Performer: Will Poulter
Best Moment: The vehicle explosion.
Worst Moment: Most of the opening third.
Opening: The army dudes watch a music video then break into a family’s house and hold them hostage so they can use the building. Sorry, “commandeer a building for tactical use”. Done just to establish the time period. If it started with them in the house, it wouldn’t affect the story at all.
Closing: They leave. The insurgents make their way out of hiding. We’re then shown photos of the actual people involved, nice, but weirdly it shows some of them with their faces blurred out. So…….why show the photos at all?
Best Line: “I’m fucked up”. Nice to see male characters admit that.
Original review here

Wolf Man
Ups: Violent
Some decent transformation sequences.
Characters have depth.
Interesting look at generational trauma.
Actual emotion.
Downs: The reason for the transformation feels off.
Looks goofy at times.
Predictable.
Best Performer:  Julia Garner
Best Moment: The switch from reality to his perspective, incredible.
Worst Moment: Blake realising his father is the Wolf Man, mainly because it’s obvious.
Opening: Young Blake goes hunting with his dad. Shows why he is like he is.
Closing: He’s in pain and gets shot. Best way it could have ended, had actual emotion.
Best Line: Sometimes when you’re a daddy, you’re so scared of your kids getting scars that you become the thing that scars them
Original review here

Warfare (2025) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: A surveillance mission goes wrong for a platoon of American Navy SEALs in insurgent territory in Iraq.

I’m still not entirely sure how I felt about Warfare (the movie, not the general concept). On the one hand, it is a superbly crafted experience, one that puts you in the shoes of those who were there, a real treat for those who are interested in modern warfare. On the other hand, it’s incredibly dull at times, and is so focused on being realistic and well-researched, it seems to forget that not everybody knows military terms.

I will praise Warfare (again, the movie, not the general concept, I’m not about to “big up” genocide, I’m not a politician) for how research permeates through the screen. People react realistically, and I will praise it for showing how even well-trained professionals still find it difficult to cope. This is the kind of masculinity that should be taught; the strength to know when you’re too fucked up and broken to be at your best, and how during those times you should relinquish leadership roles. They also have no qualms about screaming in agony and crying. Yes, this is natural when you’ve lost your legs. But think of how many films have shown people suffer severe physical damage, and don’t seem to emotionally respond to it. Warfare shows fear, and it shows pain. It’s disappointing that something so simple should be praised, but it should.

Sadly, that realism also means it can be difficult for people to “buy in” to the narrative. Army speak is kind of a code at times, people are referred to almost entirely by what type of soldier they are, and those names sometimes don’t give you a lot of clues as to what they actually do. Because everybody knows what they’re doing, they don’t explain it. So you often have someone say something like “okay, meet the Yorkshire Puddings at 06 to coordinate a Flipped Fletcher, and don’t forget your oily shepherd, you never know when you might meet a sleeping zebra”, but not give any clues what those terms mean (obviously not those ones, I invented them).

One of the most frustrating aspects is that it’s a war film without purpose. There are no moral quandaries or discussions. Which is odd considering they break into someone’s house and force the families who live there to let them stay there, pointing guns at their faces if they even look like objecting. Near the end, once the soldiers leave, the families are traumatised, and you know that there’s no chance the US army will compensate them for destroying their house, and they’re now targets for the Iraqis because they may be seen as helping the invasion. Despite this, we’re still supposed to support the main characters, because they’re the main characters. But outside of that, it’s difficult to feel more for them. They’re not given enough chance to show any personality, and most are interchangeable. Movies like this depend on personal connection to the characters, but Warfare is so insistent on telling its truth, it forgets to adhere to basic storytelling devices, which would allow us to care.

As a concept? This is fascinating. As an art project? Worthwhile. As a narrative feature-length movie to sit in a cinema and watch? Unfortunately, it’s difficult to recommend. Yes, it’s real, but there’s a reason most films don’t feature scenes highlighting a character pissing in a bottle.