Candyman (2021)

There are two things associated with this latest working of the Candyman mythos that can provide a lot of irritation and/or amusement. First, the amount of people that keep referring to it as a bloody Jordan Peele film, when it was directed by, and co-written by Nia DaCosta (ironically . . . say her name, and remember it). Peele also worked on the screenplay, and his name as producer most probably helped the studio get behind this, but the ignorance/laziness of people wrongly crediting Peele, whether they love or hate the movie, is astonishing. Not the first time, of course (remember "Eli Roth's" Aftershock, or poor Henry Selick so often being forgotten as the actual director of The Nightmare Before Christmas?), and it won't be the last, but if the past few years have taught us anything it is, surely, the importance of correcting inaccuracies and misinformation. The other main thing that you should choose to just roll your eyes it, well, it's the amount of people complaining about the content of this film, either trying to call it racist, or complaining about it being "too woke", as if the original films weren't exploring the racially-charged mistreatment and abuse of a black man, the social climate and systemic issues that bundled African Americans together in one small area where they could be left to their own devices, gentrification, and the power that can be gained by examining something in the open that has been left to fester for so long behind closed doors.

Anyway, let's get to the film itself, a continuation of the story delivered to audiences in the original film. This time the main characters are an artist, Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and his successful partner, Brianna (Teyonah Parris). Struggling to find his way back to anything like his previous form, to put it mildly, Anthony finds his imagination fired up when he bumps into William Burke (Colman Domingo), a man who confirms the tale of Candyman, and the subsequent incident that ended with a stolen baby being returned and the fiery death of Helen Lyle. Anthony creates a new selection of work, based around the phrase "say his name", and starts a chain of events that could drastically affect his future, while also forcing him to find out a bit more about his past.

From the very first seconds of Candyman starting, the focus of this film is crystal clear. Much like the first film, it's about exposing something that has been kept in the dark for too long. This is the perfect way to craft a sequel to a well-loved modern horror classic, despite the fact that some people will just want more of the thing they enjoyed most the first time around. You still have commentary on gentrification, you still have the amusing dissection of art and culture from people acting smug and superior while living outwith the main sphere of influence that helped to create that art and culture, and you have a study of an urban legend, and how it can be reshaped and turned into something better or worse over time. You also get a look at the ongoing problem of police brutality, something strongly underlined by the whole "say his name" mantra that runs through the whole film.

DaCosta doesn't go for many easy scares, but they're very well done when she does. She instead creates a growing atmosphere of unease, emulating the original film with a blend of fear of the boogeyman and fear of very real problems afflicting some of the main characters. The script, co-written by herself, Peele, and Win Rosenfeld, is smart, layered, and pretty much a textbook example of how to respect an original work while not feeling the need to slavishly replicate everything it did. There are mirrors, and other reflective surfaces, everywhere, and so many shots are framed to allow viewers to consider everywhere a danger could be lurking.

Abdul-Mateen II is a fantastic lead, someone charismatic enough to make it easier to stick alongside him as his journey takes him further and further away from the person he once was, and Parris does well with a character who is allowed to react naturally to someone who changed into what could be a very dangerous presence. Domingo is fine, but ends up overacting slightly in the third act, and Vanessa Williams reprises her role from the 1992 film. Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Kyle Kaminsky help to lighten things up a bit, playing Brianna's brother, Troy, and his boyfriend, Grady, respectively. Brian King, Miriam Moss, and Rebecca Spence play people who may well say "Candyman" five times while looking in a mirror, and the inclusion of Tony Todd will surely keep fans happy.

Is it a flawless masterpiece? As is the case with the majority of movies released throughout time, no. But it's easily one of the best mainstream horror movies I can think of in recent years, and it's a thought-provoking, and often beautiful (I didn't even mention the backstories told in shadow puppet form), piece of work. It also doesn't forget that people will want a hook-handed "boogeyman" to turn some victims into a mass of blood and gore. I would definitely be interested in seeing what could happen in a sequel to this, and I am very keen to see what comes next from DaCosta (say her name).

8/10

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Mubi Monday: The Harder They Come (1972)

A rather simple tale of the rise (and fall?) of someone who ends up pushed around by many people until he turns to a life of crime, The Harder They Come is a landmark film for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was the first hit movie to come from Jamaica, as far as I can tell. Secondly, the soundtrack is full of what you might want to call "absolute belters". 

Jimmy Cliff plays Ivan, a young man who returns home to his home in Jamaica with the hope of becoming a successful Reggae singer. He gets a job to tide him over in the meantime, and also makes time for the company of a lady who has caught his eye (Elsa, played by Janet Bartley). Things soon take a turn for the worse, leading to a crime that is punished with a harsh whipping, and then Ivan becomes more and more determined to record and release a song, "The Harder They Come". In typical producer fashion, apparently, the producer stiffs Ivan out of any chance to make some decent money, and this leads to the next main chapter in his life, a drug-running career that gets him into more and more trouble. That's not bad for the record producer though, who keeps making money from Ivan's song as he promotes it with the image of Ivan as an anti-authoritarian "gangster" on the run.

When you look at the actual film-making here, specifically the direction from Perry Henzell (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Trevor D. Rhone), there's not much to recommend The Harder They Come. It feels rough and very simplistic, in many ways, but that's also part of the charm, the way it is presented as if the screen between viewers and the lead character is thinner than it usually is. Ivan is shown at one point enjoying Django in the cinema, and you know that a lot of his spontaneous actions feel informed by his imagined creation of the kind of character he would enjoy watching in a movie, which is the character we end up enjoying watching in this movie. Whether deliberate or accidental, I really can't tell, it's a nice bit of characterisation that brings up parallels, as well as highlighting major differences between fiction and reality.

Cliff is decent enough in the man role, with the big plus being his vocal talent. Bartley is fine, but stuck with simply being there to cave in to the charms of Cliff, while there are decent turns from Carl Bradshaw, Ras Daniel Hartman, Basil Keane (an intimidating preacher), and Winston Stona. Everyone may feel a bit awkward and stilted at times, but they're essentially there to simply support the real star of the show, the soundtrack, which includes the title track, "You Can Get It If You Really Want", "Pressure Drop", and "Many Rivers To Cross", as well as a few other greats.

I may have enabled the subtitles, to make sure I could understand everything being said, but you can make a personal choice on that front, depending on how quickly you find yourself able to get the gist of the words being spoken in the Jamaican Patois. Let's face it though, this isn't about catching every syllable. The dialogue and plot aren't very complex, and the strong accent has a certain lyrical quality that winds nicely in and out of the soundtrack choices.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Silence (2019)

I left it too long to watch The Silence, but also maybe didn’t leave it long enough. Because this is a movie I could quite happily have gone through my life without seeing. The main draw for me was Stanley Tucci (damn you, Tucci), and he once again does great work, despite this being one of the worst movies he has starred in.

Some pesky people break through into a cavern, unleashing a flock of creatures that go on to cause havoc and carnage in our world. The creatures are like man-eating bats, and they react to sound. That should be okay for the Andrews family (headed up by Hugh, played by Tucci). The Andrews family have been learning sign language since their daughter, Ally (Kiernan Shipka), lost her hearing in a bad accident. Everything quickly goes from zero to the collapse of society, and you also get a cult (led by a preacher, played in full creep mode by Billy MacLellan).

Directed by John R. Leonetti (responsible for such masterpieces as . . . Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The Butterfly Effect 3, and Wish Upon, ALL films I enjoyed more than this), The Silence is one of those movies completely hampered by the contrivances thrown into the plot. That might have something to do with the script, written by Shane and Carey Van Dyke (names I know from their work with The Asylum, as well as them being part of the Van Dyke family, and they also wrote Wish Upon). It’s uniformly terrible, from the depiction of the main characters to all of the plotting that puts them in increasingly deeper peril.

Tucci, as mentioned, is great, and there aren’t too many reasons to complain about Shipka, MacLellan, Miranda Otto (playing the mother of the family unit), or anyone else involved. In fact, a lesser cast would make this much more painful. 

There are so many things here that don’t make sense, from the spiralling devolution of society to the fact that so many characters opt to use sign language and still speak some of the words, albeit at a low volume, at a time when silence is the most important thing. I was so irked that I even disagreed with Shipka having to deliver dialogue explaining how she has learned to live in silence, and therefore being equipped to deal with the current circumstances. She has had to adapt to a loss of hearing, which is actually no help at a time when you need to be wary of every noise that you might make.

The premise could have worked, if the writers had put a lot more effort in, and the director had better material to work with, but this isn’t anywhere near being the best way to make a movie around the core idea. Supporting characters don’t make much of an impression, the set-pieces are clumsy and ineffective, and none of the main acts have even one highlight (the beginning is flat, the middle is infuriating, the end is laughable at times).

The saying goes that if you don’t have anything nice to say then you should just say nothing. I still really like Tucci. Unfortunately, that may be the only good thing I have to say about this.

2/10

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Shudder Saturday: Edge Of The Axe (1988)

Although I now own some films from director José Ramón Larraz, this was actually my first time watching one of them. It hasn't inspired me with confidence about the rest of his filmography. Edge Of The Axe is a slasher movie that feels even sillier than many other films from the subgenre, and the fact that it was from the later 1980s, as opposed to that first half of the decade that proved to be the "golden period" for the slasher flick, meant that it should have been trying harder to stand out from a very packed field. 

The plot is very simple, and laid out by the title. There's a masked killer on the prowl with a big axe. People are disappearing, or turning up in corpse form. But that doesn't matter so much to young Gerald (Barton Faulks), who is enjoying getting to know a young woman named Lillian (Christina Marie Lane). The two enjoy computers, as well as the company of one another, but Lillian soon starts to worry when she finds that Gerald has a database on his computer of all the known murder victims.

Having looked up what others thought of this, I was bemused to see a number of positive takes. Some people think this is a superior little slasher. Fortunately, for the sake of the other Larraz movies that I own and have yet to watch, the director himself apparently considered it his worst feature. Slasher movie fans will find some fun elements to enjoy, particularly with an ending that is as predictable as it is amusing, but it's generally not as inventive or gory as it needs to be.

It's odd that four people are credited with creating this script, which is outright shambolic at times. The most egregious example of the poor writing is shown in the first third of the film, with a scene showing Gerald and his friend, Richard (Page Mosely), discovering the corpse of a murder victim sandwiched in between scenes of them being generally carefree and unbothered by the current situation. 

The blank mask isn't too bad, considering how important it can be to give a memorable look to your mystery killer in these things, there are some enjoyable bits of nastiness throughout (including an impressive removal of some digits as someone reaches to grab ammo for their weapon), and the set-pieces generally work well because of the brazen nature of the killer. The first main kill takes place in an automated car wash, and deserves props for being a bit different from many that we've seen before.

The cast vary wildly, in terms of acting quality, but none of them can do much to distract from the weak script. Lane is a more enjoyable lead than Faulks, who suffers from his earliest scenes working to make him the first main potential suspect. Mosely is okay, I guess, but it's the actresses who get to impress more while they are trapped in the more tense sequences. Patty Shepard, Alicia Moro, and May Heatherly all play characters who are stalked by the killer at one point, and all do well enough at being imperilled.

When this first ended, I was massively disappointed. I considered it one of the worst things I'd watched in some time. But it's not. And it's one of those films that retains a certain charm, despite (or because of) the goofiness of it. It's still not good, and I'd rate it as one of the many lesser slasher movies to be released in the 1980s, but it's a film that many horror movie fans will still be able to enjoy, just maybe not in the way that Larraz actually intended.

4/10

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The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (2002)

Famous for being a massive flop when it was released, The Adventures Of Pluto Nash is a film that you cannot help going into with low expectations. If you ever decided to watch it. So it's perhaps inevitable that it exceeds those expectations, but only does so by being generally watchable throughout. Not good. Watchable.

Eddie Murphy starts as Pluto Nash, an ex-prisoner who ends up owning the hottest nightclub on the moon. Having already been relatively famous for his criminal life, Nash is now a very big fish in the small pond that he swims around. He has a robot bodyguard, Bruno (Randy Quaid), and a buyer who really wants to buy his club for a lot of money. He also ends up with an employee named Dina Lake (Rosario Dawson) who ends up on the run with Nash when the lively nightclub is blown up. Someone really wants that club, and they also want Nash dead.

The last film written by Neil Cuthbert, I'd assume the phone stopped ringing after this was released, this is a comedy that isn't very funny, a sci-fi film that doesn't do enough for sci-fi fans, and a family film that won't satisfy any family who sits down to watch it. There's not enough of anything to make it of interest to any one demographic, and I struggle to think about who it was aimed at. There are no satisfying action beats, the jokes that feel more like adult humour feel out of place, and even the final sequence feels like something that just limps along to the end credits.

Director Ron Underwood does nothing to help, although I suspect that he was hampered by his star (Murphy seems to have a tendency to not listen to those who don't want to do things his way). He is at least helped by a supporting cast full of welcome faces, but that's about the only main positive. Don't even start me on the soundtrack, which put my back up from the very beginning with a horrible rendition of "Blue Moon".

Despite not being on top form, Murphy isn't terrible in the lead role. Make his character a bit more worthy of the attention that he receives and you could have a fun person you want to spend time with. A fast-talking hustler who made it big? Yes. And that's how the character is meant to be, but it doesn't really come across that way, certainly not after the first scenes. Dawson is a fine addition, because Dawson is a fine addition to most movies that she's involved with. It may be far from the best thing that Randy Quaid has ever done, but he has some mildly amusing moments throughout. Elsewhere, Jay Mohr is a club crooner, and annoying for almost every minute that he's onscreen, Joe Pantoliano and Victor Varnado are the main villains (both working for a mysterious boss figure), Peter Boyle and Pam Grier have a couple of good scenes, Illeana Douglas is a lot of fun as a doctor with shady ethics, and there are roles for Luis Guzmán, James Rebhorn, Burt Young, Miguel A. Núñez Jr, and John Cleese.

In much the same way that most films people rush to call the latest "best thing ever" don't actually end up being the best thing ever, most films that people rush to call the "worst of all time" aren't usually anywhere near as bad as the very worst of all time. The Adventures Of Pluto Nash isn't good, and it's not one I'd recommend anyone to watch, but it's not irredeemably bad. It's just bad, and mostly dull. The latter is quite an impressive feat, considering all of the stuff thrown around onscreen.

3/10

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Innerspace (1987)

An updated version of Fantastic Voyage, but with some better special effects and a fair amount of comedy added, Innerspace is another film from director Joe Dante made in the middle of a period where he could do no wrong (from the late '70s all the way through to the early '90s) . . . unless you were someone always wanting to see a decent, or indeed any, financial return from his films. Because as beloved as many of them are today, many Joe Dante movies only found a fanbase when they were discovered on VHS. The director himself perhaps views the underwhelming box office performance of this one with particular disappointment, having said that positive test screenings were followed up with a poor marketing campaign that didn't clarify exactly what kind of movie it was. An image of a tiny vehicle, and tiny pilot alongside it, being held between someone's finger and thumb may show the miniaturisation at the heart of the plot, but it doesn't reassure people that they will get a lot of laughs and entertainment.

Dennis Quaid plays Tuck Pendleton, a pilot who has volunteered to take part in a groundbreaking experiment. He will be placed in a small vehicle, miniaturised, and then injected into a bunny rabbit. But there are some villains who want the technology, which leads to some chaos, leading to Tuck actually being injected into the butt of hypochondriac Jack Putter (Martin Short). So now everyone wants the tech that is in Jack, and they’re not too bothered if Jack and Tuck survive the process. Once Tuck figures out where he is, he communicates with Jack and helps him avoid danger, also enlisting the help of Tuck’s on-off girlfriend, Lydia Maxwell (Meg Ryan).

Written by Chip Proser and Jeffrey Boam, Innerspace is a wonderful adventure that makes inventive use of the premise to blend a lot of comedy with many family-friendly thrills. Simply focusing on the voyager inside the human body could have been a showcase for special effects, but may have also become quite dull after the initial excitement died down, so having Tuck able to communicate and help Jack is the masterstroke that elevates this above the film it most closely resembles.

Whether you tend to love or hate the films of Dante, and I fall firmly into the former camp, there’s no denying that he excels at creating films that satisfy a wide audience demographic, with younger viewers impressed by FX work, laughs, and thrills, and older viewers also able to appreciate the many references to the history of cinema, and Loony Tunes cartoons.

The other thing that Dante so often does is cast well, and Innerspace certain benefits from superb casting. Quaid is at his cocky, charming, best as Tuck, and this is one of many fine comedic performances from Martin Short that serve to highlight what a superb actor he is. Ryan is at the start of a run of performances that would mark her out as a female lead that everyone fell in love with for a number of years. Robert Picardo, Kevin McCarthy, and Dick Miller all appear, of course, playing The Cowboy, a main villain, and a taxi driver seen in one scene, respectively, and all are as great as ever, with Picardo having the most fun of the three. Fiona Lewis is also a villain, working in tandem with McCarthy, and Vernon Wells is a menacing “henchman” who could easily be part of any James Bond movie (his fake hand providing one of the more amusingly risqué gags in the film). There are also great little turns from Henry Gibson, Wendy Schaal, and a number of other familiar faces.

Arguably the most straightforward family film from Dante during this period of his career, Innerspace is everything you could want from a polished blockbuster. Lots of fun ideas, a cast of memorable characters, great set-pieces, and an ending that is so enjoyable I end up watching the footage that plays out over the credits every single time. There’s also another great Jerry Goldsmith score, and great use of the song “Twistin’ The Night Away”. The only main issue is the pacing of the first half, which could have been tweaked to get to all the fun stuff a bit quicker. 

Sometimes the best things do come in the smallest packages.

8/10

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Prime Time: Point Break (1991)

It came from a story idea by Rick King, it was turned into a screenplay by W. Peter Iliff, it was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and it starred Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, with sterling support from Lori Petty, Gary Busey, and John C. McGinley. It threaded together a plot that featured undercover FBI work, surfing, skydiving, masks depicting ex-presidents of America, and the best ever foot chase committed to film. And Point Break became one of the best action movies of the early '90s. Tonally, everyone involved judges this just right, and you can take comfort in the fact that this pretty much holds up as well today as it did when you first saw it. Even that bit referenced in Hot Fuzz when Keanu Reeves shoots his gun up in the air and goes "aaahhhhhh".

Reeves is Johnny Utah, the new guy at an L.A. branch of the FBI. The area has seen a number of bank robberies over the past few years, really professional work by people who have barely left one clue at any crime scenes, which leads to Utah being sent undercover. Because one potential theory, thought up by Agent Pappas (Gary Busey), considers the notion that the robbers are a group of surfers. Utah soon finds his way in to the surfing scene via Tyler (Lori Petty), which gets him close to Bodhi (Swayze) and his buddies. They're a good bunch of thrill-seekers, but would they ever think of robbing banks? 

There’s so much to like about Point Break in pretty much every main sequence, even when you are just wallowing in the action movie tropes that crop up. The story is enjoyably ridiculous, and famously reworked to start a certain car-filled franchise, and the action beats remain slick and impressive. Bigelow often feels like a bit of a “get out of jail free” card when people are asked to make one female director they like, especially as she made so many films that seem steeped in testosterone, but she has the reputation that she has because she absolutely deserves it. And Point Break shows her excelling once again, and delivering a bit of a modern classic.

Reeves is excellent, physically capable in the role of Johnny Utah, while still wet enough behind the ears to complicate the situation when he finds himself making a whole bunch of new friends he could end up having to arrest. Swayze gives another one of his star turns from this period, once again playing someone trying to live by a certain code of ethics as things get tougher and tougher, although his character eventually becomes much more morally flexible. Petty may be stuck with the “potential love interest” role, but she does well, and is allowed some interesting little moments throughout. Busey is as gregarious as ever, and John C. McGinley is the stereotypical angry boss, a role that fits him well. There’s also a very small role for Tom Sizemore, playing another undercover agent, that means he was involved with two of the best action thrillers of the nineties.

The script may be more brie than brilliance, but that is part of the charm. Point Break delivers everything you expect from this kind of film, and then some, but it has a mix of earnestness and humour that helps to keep it near the very top of the action movie tree. And it is one that is arguably just as influential as some of the other action movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s.

9/10

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Mad God (2021)

If you have fallen in love with any major blockbuster movie from the past four or five decades then you have probably appreciated the work of Phil Tippet. He is a special effects master, known especially for his superlative stop-motion animation. If you've watched Star Wars movies, Indiana Jones films, Starship Troopers, Jurassic Park, Robocop (he animated ED-209), or even Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, to name just a few, then you have seen Tippet's work.

Mad God is an animated feature, largely utilising stop-motion, that Tippet has been working on for many years, a dark sci-fi epic displaying epic vision while relishing so many tiny details.

The plot is fairly simple, initially. A character descends in a diving bell to explore some dangerous and fantastical lands. Things get darker with his every step, viewing the strange creatures around him and observing some of their bizarre, and sometimes stomach-churning, activities.

There are a few actors used here, with director Alex Cox being the main one, but 99% of the characters onscreen here are created by Tippet and his talented team. And 99% of those creations are imaginatively grotesque, in terms of their physicality and how they spend their time. Think of diving down further and further into some incredibly deep underwater abyss, a place where the creatures are affected by the pressure and the darkness, and you will have some idea of what kind of experience Mad God provides. The closest comparison point might be the works of Jan Švankmajer.

There’s a lot more to it though, this is more than just a fantastical travelogue, but I am not going to pretend that I connected every single dot. A central plot point concerns a bloody medical procedure, and a baby being born, but I had already accepted the fact that I was just going to sit back and take in the minutia of this wild world being put on display.

It may be an indulgent project, and Tippet needed help from many fans to find the final vision, but sometimes allowing an artist to be indulgent is incredibly rewarding. It is art for the sake of art, visions created just because someone imagined them and felt an overwhelming need to turn them into a reality. There may be a mad god within the movie, or maybe not, but it is obvious that the title of this movie refers to Tippet himself. Someone who can build or destroy lives and worlds as he pleases. And there will be many film fans as ready to worship at the altar of Tippet as I was. You may not completely enjoy being thrown into his world, but you’re certainly unlikely to forget it. 

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Censor (2021)

There are a couple of things to bear in mind here, as my review for Censor unfolds. First, I never aim to be contrarian just for the sake of it. Second, something can still be original even as it brings to mind numerous other movies. Oh, and one more thing, this current nostalgic glow for the "video nasties" era is already overstaying its welcome, although I suspect I am in the minority with that viewpoint.

Censor is the story of Enid Baines (played by Niamh Algar), a woman working at the board of censors during the 1980s, the height of the moral panic over video content suddenly being available to most households. She struggles with every decision that she makes, battling against people who want their films uncensored, and also struggles with the weight of her sister's disappearance many years ago. During a time that sees her harangued by the public for some of her decisions, Enid views a film that contains an actress she suspects may actually be the key to unlocking exactly what happened to her sister. But maybe she is seeing what she wants to see, or maybe she is being affected by the material she watches every day at her work.

An admittedly fantastic feature debut from director Prano Bailey-Bond, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Anthony Fletcher, Censor manages to thread together a number of thought-provoking and unsettling scenes set against a background that will still feel fresh (sore?) to many horror movie fans. It's easy to romanticise that time - every horror fan of a certain age will have at least one tale of the time they were able to source a supply of fine "under the counter" nasties - but it's better to look back on it with the disdain and disgust it deserves. People were facing huge fines and jail time. Because of movies. And many of those movies are very easily available now, many of them uncut. The censors were enemies, viewing many adults with a horribly patronising attitude (covered by a sentiment of "won't someone please think of the children"), and maybe one or two stories could still be told with that focus. Censor doesn't want to do that.

What you have here is a mix of The Canal, Evil Ed, and Berberian Sound Studio. Those are good movies to want to emulate. Even Evil Ed. The aesthetics of the film feel spot on, and there are some nice touches that lend authenticity to an experience that feels admirably like a video cassette you've just put into a shiny new top-loader machine. What you don't have is a perfect and unique modern classic. Although nicely put together, and there are a number of impressive scenes throughout, Censor never really stretches itself any further than it needs to. Bailey-Bond does great work on the atmosphere throughout, but squanders the opportunity to present viewers with something smarter and fresher.

Algar is excellent in the lead role, very quiet and reserved until she starts to become more affected by everything going on in her mind. A number of other cast members do decent work, but none make a stronger impression than the excellent Michael Smiley, giving another of his enjoyably unsettling performances (a manner that is just too familiar, a smile that stays a bit too long). Clare Holman and Andrew Havill are excellent as concerned parents, and Felicity Montagu is very good in her small role, but Censor is more of a mood piece than an actor's showcase.

I really liked this, despite what you may think from reading what I have just written above. I didn't love it though, and I'm a bit surprised by just how much love it has been receiving recently. It's surprisingly straightforward and predictable, uses the VHS witch-hunt as little more than background noise to a plot that ultimately could be viewed as saying that the BBFC and others were correct to try to "ban this sick filth", and often feels more like an exercise in style than the more interesting, visceral, psychological horror that it could have been.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Flying Monkeys (2013)

No, this is not a spin-off from The Wizard Of Oz, which could have been a much more interesting movie. Flying Monkeys is a movie that barely needs any further explanation. It's about deadly flying monkeys.

Maika Monroe is unfortunate enough to star in the lead role, playing Joan, a young woman who seems to be consistently disappointed by her father, James (Vincent Ventresca). Things haven't been the same since her mother died. After he arrives late to her graduation ceremony, James tries to make up for his latest error by buying a pet monkey for his daughter. She wants to be a vet so owning a pet monkey should be good practice. Unbeknownst to everyone, however, the monkey isn't actually a normal monkey. It can turn into a dangerous winged creature, and when shot with standard weapons it actually multiplies. The local Sheriff (Michael Papajohn) ends up racing to protect the people in his local community, but the real solution can only be found in the blessed weaponry wielded by a woman named Yin (Boni Yanagisawa).

The only film, to date, directed by Robert Grasmere, Flying Monkeys is almost absolutely awful in every single respect, save for the fact that they got Monroe just before her star-making turns in some great genre movies a year or so later (and when I say star-making . . . I am referring to how she is viewed by fans of those movies who immediately adopted her as a new potential scream queen). This is also the only film to be written by Silvero Gouris, which is a situation I hope doesn't change any time soon. Flying Monkeys could have been a silly distraction, either a simple and fun creature feature or something with a tone to put it firmly in the comedy horror camp. It instead tries to play everything fairly straight, and is all the worse for it.

Where to begin? I started to think that the people involved with this didn't really know what they were doing when they decided to have an elderly character deliver a line of dialogue most famously spoken by Matthew McConaughey in Dazed & Confused. It shows that this was written by someone more interested in fitting in a small reference than creating some convincing characters to be caught up in the winged primate peril. Having said that, at least it is one memorable line. It just happens to be lifted from a much better movie.

Monroe remains likeable enough in the lead role, and Ventresca isn't terrible as the father who cannot do right for doing wrong, but there aren't many others who help to make the material more bearable. Yanagisawa is particularly poor, I'm sorry to say, but Papajohn isn't very good either, and their performance levels are equalled by Electra Avellan, Tyler Forrest, Zac Waggener, and others. Christopher Matthew Cook, billed as Matt Cook, manages to do well enough, playing the unscrupulous animal trader who unwittingly sells the killer beast to Ventresca's character.

You could say that this is on a par with so many other movies of this type. It's not though. I've watched, and enjoyed, many other films like this. I've accepted the varying quality of the acting, I've had fun with the terrible CGI, and I've known that they were a packaged product that I chose to consume. Flying Monkeys lacks a sense of fun, or some kind of self-awareness. Which means that none of the moments feel as enjoyable and entertaining as they should, even the main "punchline" delivered by Monroe, a line that should have been celebrated for how wonderful and terrible it is, but just ends up making you roll your eyes and groan instead.

Or maybe I am just annoyed that there still hasn't been a killer monkey movie titled The Apes Of Wrath.

3/10

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Shudder Saturday: Jakob's Wife (2021)

Barbara Crampton plays Anne Fedder, a woman who is married to Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden). Their marriage seems a bit stale, I think it's fair to say, and Anne has settled into a role that leaves her a bit (or a lot?) less satisfied than she should be. But that changes when she is bitten by a creature (Bonnie Aarons, working under a very impressive make up job). Anne may need to drink blood from others now, but she also has a confidence and aura that has been missing for many years. That changes her marriage, and not necessarily all for the worse.

Directed by Travis Stevens (who also helmed the very enjoyable The Girl On The Third Floor), and co-written by Stevens with Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland, Jakob's Wife is yet another fun film in a sub-genre that everyone assumes is dead until a fresh approach is presented. There are numerous elements and moments here that feel lifted from past vampire movies (e.g. how often have we seen someone be bitten and then try to satisfy their new urges with raw meat/blood from a butcher shop?), but the material is given a nice twist when the focus shifts to the state of the marriage between Anne and Jakob, using the bite itself as a metaphor for any big change made by a spouse that reinvigorates their mind and spirit.

It helps that the leads here are Crampton and Fessenden, with the former a particular boost to the production, considering I have been convinced for some time now that she has at least one bath full of blood a week to maintain her victory over the passage of time affecting us all. Crampton is fine while playing the more timid version of Anne, but she gets to have way more fun as her character blossoms. Fessenden is excellent, his character putting the pieces of a puzzle together while he wrestles with his conscience over the best way to move forward. Aarons gets to be the Nosferatu of this tale, and her physical presence is genuinely spooky and impressive. Nyisha Bell is a young woman who goes AWOL early on, and she does well in her role, and there's decent support from Sarah Lind and Mark Kelly, as well as a fun small turn from Robert Rusler.

Although never a film you would mistake for a mainstream studio horror movie, and I am not noting that here as any negative, Jakob's Wife is very well made throughout, from the visuals to the unintrusive score, by Tara Busch. There may be nothing here that stands out as being absolutely brilliant, aside from the core cast, but the script and direction are full of nice little touches, the pacing is pretty perfect, and the ending is deliciously dark and satisfying. What you have here is a good film that manages, thanks to the way it never once drops in quality, to become ever so slightly great. It's also interesting and fun enough to warrant more than one viewing, and I can easily see it becoming a film that some horror movie fans will choose to champion for the next few years. If it doesn't get the attention it deserves. So you can get ahead of the curve by giving it that attention now.

8/10

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Snake Eyes (2021)

AKA Snake Eyes: G. I. Joe Origins.

Directed by Robert Schwentke, who very possibly thinks it a minor miracle every time he is handed another film project, and written by Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse, and Evan Spiliotopoulos (the first two having worked together on many films before this one), Snake Eyes isn't a film with many signs of greatness from the list of names who worked on it. But it's a lead role for Henry Golding, and another film giving some screentime to Samara Weaving, so I decided to give it a go. 

It's not good.

It's not really that bad either. It's just there, not as much fun as the first live action G.I. Joe movie, but a bit better than the second one (which was weighed down by the presence of a somnambulistic Bruce Willis, who actually appears in dictionaries now right beside the definition of somnambulism). Annoyingly, this had potential. Some key characters are cast well, others not so much, and I'd love to see Golding get a vehicle that takes him to the superstar level he deserves. This isn't that.

Golding plays Snake Eyes, of course, a young man out to avenge the death of his father. He'll do anything to find his father's killer, and that journey places him alongside a powerful clan that includes Tommy (Andrew Koji), Akiko (Haruka Abe), Sen (Eri Ishida), and a powerful jewel which is desired by the dangerous Kenta (Takehiro Hira). Snake Eyes is tested a number of times, in challenges that involve characters played by Iko Uwais and Peter Mensah, and the second half of the film also brings in familiar characters such as the Baroness (Úrsula Corberó) and Scarlett (Samara Weaving).

There’s some stuff to like here. Golding being the main highlight, but also Abe, Ishida, Uwais, and Weaving. That’s a good selection of players. Unfortunately, they are alongside Koji, who drags down almost every scene he is in, saddled with a character who has to do little more than look brooding and wait to take on the name that fans of this property will know is coming. 

The action isn’t terribly done, but you wouldn’t always know that when the editing gets in the way of it. Whether out of necessity, to cover up some limitations from cast members, or due to a misjudged idea of stylisation, the editing gets in the way of most of the energetic set-pieces. It is far from the worst we have seen in this kind of fare, but this material was crying out for more fixed camera shots that could highlight the fluidity and speed of the fighters. 

The other disappointing main element here is the lack of wit. People may not want their action films to be overfilled with humour, but being too serious throughout feels just as bad, especially when you’re presenting a film developed from a toy line. The only person who gets to really have fun is Weaving, which then makes it feel as if she has wandered in from another movie. 

I know that I will end up watching this again, and probably owning it at some point, but that is more to do with my completist approach to movies. I wouldn’t really recommend it to many other people though, unless you are as big a fan of Golding as I am (which you should be). Maybe next time he will get a better script, or better director, or maybe he needs a better agent.

6/10

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Queen Of The Blues (1979)

It’s been a while since I continued my journey through the filmography of British adult superstar Mary Millington, but Queen Of The Blues makes me think that the best of her outings are already behind me. Because this is quite a terrible film, with a premise even slimmer than any of the previous vehicles planned around an appearance by Millington.

A pair of brothers are helped by an uncle to own a new business enterprise, that business enterprise being a lucrative adult entertainment bar. The fact that the bar also has appearances from the Queen Of The Blues (Millington) makes it an even more appealing business prospect, which brings it to the attention of a major crook, who sends some henchmen (Felicia Bowness and Milton Reid) to gain ownership of the club.

Once again delivered by writer George Evans and director Willy Roe, Queen Of The Blues barely has enough content contained within it to qualify as a movie. What you get feels more like a terrible documentary that simply allows you to experience a typical evening as an audience member in this kind of venue in 1970s Britain. There are lots of dull patches, some terrible humour from a compere who simply gets in the way of the attractive women, and then some unerotic nudity.

If you like Millington then you at least get to see her as the star attraction she is, at one point, but there’s very little else here to recommend this. Bowness and Reid are relatively fun in their small roles, being the best cast members used in the slim plot, and Ballard Berkeley is enjoyable in the couple of scenes that feature his character, Uncle Fred. Rosemary England is the other name that may be of interest to connoisseurs of this kind of entertainment, but that’s where all interest ends.

There’s not much else to say about this. It is what it is, and that happens to be more of a recreation of a night out in a particular type of venue than a decent movie experience. Millington was able to shine more in past roles, but she’s still the main reason for anyone to watch this. People who are unaware of her should stay far away from this, there’s no other reason for it to be of interest to you. 

2/10

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Prime Time: Boss Level (2021)

We really need more films from director Joe Carnahan, because I cannot think of anything from him that I have disliked. He may not aim for subtlety (although more people also need to watch the excellent Narc), but that’s no bad thing when you get such inventive ways to use and remix standard action movie tropes. 

Boss Level is, essentially, a timeloop movie. Written some years ago by Chris and Eddie Borey, and then rewritten by Carnahan, it is the story of Roy (Frank Grillo), a man unexpectedly reliving the same day over and over again. And that day is the day he dies, for reasons he is unaware of. As the plot develops, Roy starts to piece together a bigger picture, an actual explanation for his dilemma, and there may be a slim chance to eventually break the cycle. Roy certainly has the skills, being your typically talented ex-special forces type, but the odds are very much stacked against him, with the sheer number and variety of killers aiming to end his life. He also wants to ensure that his son (played by his real son, Rio Grillo) is safe, and maybe even hopes to avenge the death of his ex-wife, Jemma (Naomi Watts) when he starts to suspect that she wasn’t involved in the fatal accident he was told about by her boss, Col. Clive Ventor (Mel Gibson).

Starting right in the midst of an action moment that shows viewers how well Roy knows the routine of his day, Boss Level soon shows that it is made by someone who wants to maximise the potential fun of the premise. Roy dies in a variety of ways, and there’s usually a mix of gore and humour in every death scene, as he makes a number of mistakes on his journey. That’s okay though, because many of his mistakes provide an important learning moment.

Unlike many other timeloop movies, Boss Level minimises the timestamp details. Rather than specific repeated moments, although one or two do stay the same, we get shown the shape of a day, and that shape changes, and extends, as Roy learns more and more, and adapts his strategy accordingly. Some days he just wants to reach a diner and get drunk (with Ken Jeong playing the boss there, and Sheaun McKinney playing a fellow patron who happens to have a useful knowledge base), some days he battles villains until eventually (inevitably?) being bettered, and some days he just decides to take some time to connect with his son.

Grillo is perfect in the lead role here. He has a morbid sense of humour, an understandably flexible grip on his sanity, and a convincing physical presence. He also has a sense of pure grit. Jeong and McKinney are both fun, and the early appearance of Michelle Yeoh, as another diner patron, bodes well for fans who want to see a bit more of her later in the film. You do get that, but it’s sadly only a minute or two. Gibson is an enjoyable big villain, allowing himself a moment or two to deliver some great dialogue when people are right where he wants them, and Will Sasso is a solid henchman. The other highlight is Selina Lo, a sword expert who delivers a fun signature line every time she kills off our hero. Young Rio Grillo and Naomi Watts are involved in the moments that give the film some real heart, and both do well in roles that could have been totally thankless.

I heard the premise of this movie and thought it sounded great, but it also sounded as if it could be very silly, in a way that would make it hard to care about. It IS silly, but in a way that just helps you warm to the main character, and it turns into something more interesting, and deeper, than you might expect. It’s not exactly Kramer Vs. Kramer with added timeloop shenanigans and gunfights, but it’s quite a bit more than the opening act sets it up to be.

Another winner from Carnahan, and I eagerly await whatever he does next. Maybe I will just watch this one repeatedly until then.

8/10

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Free Guy (2021)

Another Ryan Reynolds comedy, another film benefiting from his voiceover narration (which seems to be the best way to utilise his onscreen presence), and another film allowing him to retain his current status as someone we can all collectively love for a variety of reasons, Free Guy also stands out from the crowd nowadays, much like the worthwhile Ted Lasso, by simply celebrating the benefits of being good. It celebrates the ability to be a nice person, even as the world around you tries to make you feel like a weakling for showing even a hint of kindness at times.

Reynolds plays Guy, a NPC in a videogame that doesn’t feel a million miles removed from Grand Theft Auto. The videogame may have been built using code created by Millie (Jodie Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery), and Millie spends as much time as possible within the game trying to find any sign of their old code, in an attempt to sue the rich and powerful head of Soonami Studios, Antwan. Guy has spent a lot of time just enjoying his days, working in a bank that is often robbed, and enjoying the company of his best friend, Buddy (Lil Rel Howery), but spying Millie AKA the woman he loves spurs him to take on a very different persona. Guy starts to level up, and he does it by doing good deeds, as opposed to the approach of robbing and shooting stuff that most players opt for.

Written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn (a great mix of family-friendly tone from the former throughout and the layered, referential, work that the latter has done a few times before), a lot of people have been busy finding comparisons between this movie and the likes of TRON and Ready Player One. While I can see those comparisons, Free Guy is actually more of a mix of The LEGO Movie and Wreck-It Ralph, with a hint of They Live in there (Guy sees the missions and extras around him when he puts on sunglasses that are usually only worn by player characters).

Director Shawn Levy is a dependable pair of hands, working with a team to create an interpretation of an online gaming world that crams in plenty of fun, in terms of the characters, the dialogue, and overall design of every scene. This is a film that will reward a number of repeat viewings, and Levy maintains a nice balance between the deceptively simple heart of the whole thing and the cavalcade of wonderful details throughout.

Reynolds is excellent in the lead role, very likeable and dialling down his standard smart-ass sassiness. Comer pairs up with him perfectly, being a skilled and tough woman always moving forward with a very specific aim. The chemistry between the two leads is almost perfect, all the way to a finale that manages to pull off what I thought was going to be the biggest hurdle, a truly satisfying ending. Keery gives good support, eventually helping Comer when he sees her getting tantalisingly close to finding the code, and Utkarsh Ambudkar is a lot of fun as Kerry’s colleague/friend who keeps trying to advise him to not rock the boat. Howery is wonderfully exuberant and sweet, Channing Tatum has a fun cameo role (and there are a few others to keep your eyes/ears peeled for), and Waititi seems to relish playing his douchebag character at a level of maximum douchebaggery.

The only thing working against Free Guy is a sense of familiarity as the videogame tropes are set up and played around with. But that’s not enough to drag it down much. As things stand, this is so far the best big cinema release of 2021, and I recommend it to pretty much everyone, but especially those who enjoy the two main animated movies that I mentioned earlier.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Welcome II The Terrordome (1995)

I remember hearing a bit about Welcome II The Terrordome back when it was first released, in 1995, and thinking that it had very little in it that appealed to me. Hey, I was 19, ignorant of the real state of the world around me, and not a fan of Saffron Burrows. Yet it was a title that stayed in my mind, something I knew was praised for being an important and vital work, and I am thankful to have finally seen it now, when I am of an age and mindset to more fully appreciate what it is trying to do.

The very basic core of the story sees Spike (Valentine Nonyela) living with his sister, Angela (Suzette Llewellyn). Angela has a young son that she tries to keep safe, and Spike has a pregnant white girlfriend (Saffron Burrows) who feels very much left adrift, viewed with disgust by her white ex-boyfriend and his friends while not exactly welcomed with open arms by the rest of Spike's family. There's a bit of drug-dealing going on, with the lesser-quality stuff being sold off to white people, and a simmering atmosphere of violence running through the Terrordome, an area meant specifically for black residents.

With the deliberate creation of ghettos, a sense of lawlessness allowed in areas that seem beyond help, and institutional racism being delivered to residents like some little pill they should be all too happy to swallow, Welcome II The Terrordome is a film that, like quite a few others I have watched recently, remains as relevant and powerful now as it did when first released. You also get racist cops, people playing enemies off against one another, and abusers so awful that they will target children (including the unborn) in an attempt to keep themselves in a position of power over others.

Writer-director Ngozi Onwurah may hang this material on a sci-fi skeleton, but it's all very identifiable, and simply manages to condense a number of black experiences into one of many flashpoint moments that have cropped up over the years, whether they were acted upon or not. This is a tale of slaves having their most basic freedom frowned upon and begrudged, to put it nicely, and it's only the setting and the warped timeline that sets it half a step away from our world.

Llewellyn and Nonyela both do well enough in their roles, although the theatrical nature of the acting is one of the limitations that Onwurah cannot quite overcome, and Jason Traynor steps up to play quite possibly the nastiest thug of 1995, all due to one specific act that will make many viewers queasy. I'm still no fan of Saffron Burrows, but she isn't at her worst here.

It's now over a quarter of a century since Welcome II The Terrordome was released. Maybe now we're at last able to appreciate what it is saying, and to accept how much still needs to change as we more forward as a society. But, then again, maybe everyone else already processed the film that way and I'm just decades behind the times with it.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Aftermath (2021)

Ashley Greene and Shawn Ashmore play Natalie and Kevin Dadich, a married couple who are trying to make things work after Natalie had an affair. They're dealing with the aftermath of it all. Kevin also has a job at which he cleans up the mess left by crime scenes. He deals with aftermath there. Plotting a fresh start, the couple buy a house that was the site of a grisly murder-suicide, but it soon turns out that perhaps the blood and guts at the scene wasn't the only aftermath. I think you can see how the makers of this film decided on the title. Strange things start happening once the couple have moved into their new home. Noises make it sound as if someone is in the house, things go missing and then reappear elsewhere, and deliveries of porn start turning up that Kevin swears he never ordered. There are also adverts placed online that put the couple at risk of harm, which escalates things to the point where they end up dealing with local law enforcement, specifically Officer Richardson (Sharif Atkins).

Directed by Peter Winther, and written by Dakota Gorman, Aftermath is the kind of enjoyable thriller that will be predictable to anyone who has seen one or two notable thrillers from the past few decades. It's pretty obvious from the start where things are going, and viewers will remains a few steps ahead of the main characters. Which isn't to say this is bad. There are a few set-pieces scattered throughout this that are genuinely creepy, and impressive in the way they're executed. This is a thriller that creeps very close to horror territory at times, and the third act is enjoyably satisfying and tense. Considering the relatively small filmographies belonging to both Winther and Gorman, this may stand out as the best from both of them. It's easy to dismiss as slick nonsense, especially when characters keep wandering around in the dark, but it's bloody enjoyable nonetheless.

Greene and Ashmore do well enough in the lead roles, fairly believable as the married couple with a very strained relationship. Atkins is solid in his role, Jamie Kaler and Travis Coles lighten things up slightly, playing workmates who help to clean up crime scenes with elbow grease and gallows humour, and Diana Hopper plays Avery, a classroom partner who is there to add potential strain/temptation to the central relationship, although she gets to show quite early on that she's just a good friend. Britt Baron is a highlight, playing Natalie's sister, Dani, and I'll happily watch any film that gives her a decent amount of screentime (having been a fan since enjoying her work in GLOW).

Set up at the very beginning as "based on a true story", be sure to take that with a pinch of salt and just enjoy the whole thing for what it is, an effective thriller that does enough right to make you overlook the more implausible moments. It gets a bit darker than you might expect, and is all the better for it. A perfect film to stick on for an evening when you want a few goosebumps.

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Dead Pit (1989)

Sometimes you want comfort food. Sometimes you want that fast food burger that you know isn't going to keep you satisfied until dinner time, but it will hit the spot for that moment of fleeting pleasure. And that's the way my mind works when I settle on a film like The Dead Pit, especially as I pass over so many other, potentially better, options.

This is not a good film. It's quite ridiculous, with a script and main characters that are laughable for almost every minute of the runtime. But it hit the spot.

Danny Gochnauer plays Dr. Colin Ramzi, the kind of "mad scientist" who likes to use patients in his own crazy experiments. Appalled by discovering this, Dr. Gerald Swan (Jeremy Slate) shoots his colleague and then closes up the basement that housed both Ramzi and the patients that he'd experimented on. This all happens just on the way to the main title popping up. Twenty years later, a "Jane Doe" (Cheryl Lawson) with amnesia arrives at the facility that saw such horrors. Jane senses something in the basement, and her presence seems to trigger a series of events that will lead to the dead rising, and many more deaths. Can she stop the evil Dr. Ramzi? Perhaps another patient, Christian Meyers (played by Stephen Gregory Foster), will be able to help her.

Directed by Brett Leonard, who has a filmography full of fun genre flicks (and would direct The Lawnmower Man as his next feature a few years after this), The Dead Pit just wants to get to scenes that show undead creatures killing off people who can't believe what is going on. The gore moments build up during the second half, culminating in a fun and visceral third act, but everything else is lacklustre, at best, or unintentionally comedic, thanks to the script co-written by Leonard and Gimel Everett (who worked with Leonard on a few of his features, including that contentious The Lawnmower Man script).

Lawson gamely endures the kind of role that many horror movie actresses were stuck with in the 1980s (well, not JUST in the 1980s, but other decades seem to provide at least a bit more range of opportunities). She is asked to look puzzled for a lot of scenes, and her wardrobe options are often limited to very small items of clothing that show off her physique. She has to deliver her share of bad lines, but at least she can remain thankful that the worst of the dialogue was given to either Slate or Foster, the latter getting to utter the fantastic "for dead people, they sure are smart" line. Geha Getz also has to deliver some enjoyably atrocious material, playing a character named Sister Clair who is a standard harbinger of doom until she also proves quite useful just in time for the final moments.

Nobody should tell you that this is actually a good film, there are so many other horror movies that you'd probably enjoy more, but it's a reasonably fun time while it's on. Which may just make it the fast food burger that you fancy one day.

5/10

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The Mummy Returns (2001)

Pretty much everyone returns for this enjoyable sequel to the 1999 supernatural adventure flick, and that's a large part of the appeal. Introducing a character named the Scorpion King (played by Dwayne Johnson, still being billed as The Rock at this point), it may suffer from trying to stir in a few too many new ingredients, but it certainly tries to keep the focus on simple entertainment throughout.

We start with a prologue that explains the origin of the Scorpion King and his army, then it's time to join the O'Connell family as they explore more ancient ruins. Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn (Rachel Weisz) now have a curious young son, Alex (Freddie Boath), with them. They find the Bracelet of Anubis, which locks on to the arm of young Alex when he tries it on. The bracelet shows him a vision of the modern location of the Scorpion King, where an oasis and pyramid now stand, and that means Alex is then of great interest to people once again trying to resurrect Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo). This includes his love, Meela AKA Anck-su-namun (Patricia Velasquez). Alex is kidnapped, the O'Connells end up in hot pursuit, and someone will probably end up fighting the Scorpion King, otherwise that whole prologue would seem a bit pointless.

It's Stephen Sommers once again taking on the writing and directing duties here, and he has a lot of fun with many of the action set-pieces. The Mummy Returns may be many things, but it's never dull. It is, however, just not able to recapture quite the perfect mix of fun and spookiness that the first film had. This is partly to do with the "let's throw more of everything in and that should be great" approach, and partly to do with the fact that the CGI on display here feels even worse than the CGI in the preceding film. Sommers clearly thought computers were already at a stage where they could create anything onscreen that he could envision. They weren't. The actual Scorpion King himself remains a real eye-sore, and comes along after an extended encounter with some fierce, undead, pygmy creatures that feels like a decent idea executed terribly (scaling back what viewers could actually see, and using some puppetry, would have made that sequence much more effective).

Fraser and Weisz continue to work really well together, and Weisz also gets to do a lot more fighting this time around (as well as take part in some poor flashback scenes that show her in a previous life). Young Boath does well enough, cocky enough until he is reminded of the fact that he is often in the company of adults who wouldn't think twice about actually causing him harm. Vosloo and Velasquez both do solid work, and The Rock makes a good impression before he's replaced by a 32-bit videogame representation of his character. John Hannah is also back, and still a lot of fun, as is Oded Fehr, and you get fun supporting roles for Alun Armstrong and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, playing villains, and Shaun Parkes, as someone who might be able to help the O'Connells.

Although it's more of a mess, in terms of both the attempt to bulk out the thin plot and the CGI, The Mummy Returns still offers up enough solid popcorn pleasure to be a worthy successor to the first film. A lot of that is down to the cast, but the familiarity, while not necessarily breeding contempt, works against it as much as it works for it. Many people, myself included, will always have a soft spot for it though.

7/10

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The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (2021)

You would, I think it is safe to say, be hard pushed to find someone who really LOVED The Hitman's Bodyguard, an action comedy that starred Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson alongside one another. It was decidedly okay, but below average for that kind of fare. The action wasn't great, the comedy was far too reliant on one of the lead actors swearing, and it just felt a bit careless. BUT you did have the charisma of both Reynolds and Jackson, and a small role for Salma Hayek.

And now, bewilderingly, we have a sequel. Reynolds is back, Jackson is back, Hayek has a bigger role (being the titular hitman's wife), and you also get some screentime for both Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman.

Here's the basic plot summary. Michael Bryce (Reynolds) is upset at the fact that he has lost his licence to bodyguard. Attending therapy, he is encouraged to try and relax for a while, keep away from guns and violence. It's during some relaxation time that he is dragged into action by Sonia Kincaid (Hayek), who believes that he is the only person her husband, Darius (Jackson), trusts to get him out of a very tricky situation. Unfortunately, Darius had been trying to tell his wife that she should ask for help from . . . anyone but Bryce. Banderas plays Aristotle Papdopolous, a dangerous man with a dangerous plan involving a major cybercrime, and Morgan Freeman allows the film to explore some amusing daddy issues.

Director Patrick Hughes returns, taking no time at all to reassure viewers that they will be getting exactly whatever it is they enjoyed the first time around. Yes, there may be a few more big names in the main roles here, but the format is very much the same as it was before. Bullets and cursewords fly around each act, neither of them as amusing as they're intended to be. Just keep reminding yourself that there was a time when Hughes made a brilliant impact on the cinematic landscape with his superb feature debut, Red Hill, and maybe one day he will find his way back to that kind of brilliance.

It's no surprise to find that the screenwriters, brothers Phillip and Brandon Murphy, are first-timers, and I can imagine a bit of improvising may have been encouraged, certainly between the three leads. The dialogue throughout is pretty poor, in between gags of varying quality, and the plotting is as predictable as you might expect from something like this.

The leads do lift the material though, just not enough to make this a good film. Reynolds and Jackson once again spark off each other brilliantly, and Hayek is a lot of fun as the fiery Sonia. Banderas is typically suave, Freeman is a fun choice for his role, and there's some time to include the likes of Frank Grillo (an Interpol agent), Richard E. Grant (a drug addict who used to be under the protection of Bryce), and Tom Hopper (a top bodyguard). Caroline Goodall plays another agent, with her scenes generally made more amusing thanks to her main colleague being played by Alice McMillan, confusing some people around her with her strong Scottish accent.

I've not watch The Hitman's Bodyguard in a couple of years, because I've never felt the urge to revisit it, but this sequel feels like a lazy retread. Which means I am sure enough people will enjoy it to somehow make a third movie viable. And that's making me feel grumpier already. That's never a good way to feel after reviewing a comedy film.

4/10

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Prime Time: Death Ship (1980)

I am sure I am repeating myself here, but if you were there when VHS changed the world of home entertainment then you will always have a number of films that you think you saw without actually seeing them. Because the trailer seemed to be on every bloody horror movie that was rented in the early 1980s. The main ones I recall were The Dunwich Horror, Superstition, Necromancy (a trailer boosted by the extra baritone provided by the mighty Orson Welles whenever he was shown), and Death Ship. It took me far too long to check out these movies, having assumed I'd already seen them, but I'd advise anyone seeking them out to try and consider them within the context of those well-remembered days of top-loading VCRs, tracking dials being adjusted, and people who had a collection of home recordings housed in covers that were designed to look like leather-bound books.

I'm saying that now because Death Ship isn't that good, but it also has enough moments throughout that remind me of the trailer to keep me happy. The basic plot revolves around a cruise ship being rammed by a big, scary freighter. A few people stuck in a lifeboat are relieved when they encounter a big boat that they can climb aboard, unaware that it is the very same freighter that put them into the sea. Once aboard, it's soon obvious that strange things are afoot. All of the WWII Nazi regalia is a bit unnerving, as well as the fact that there seems to be no crew. That could all change soon though, especially as unhinged Captain Ashland (George Kennedy) starts to feel more and more connected to the ship.

Directed by Alvin Rakoff, who has a hell of a lot of TV and film credits to his name (but this remains arguably his best-known work), Death Ship is a competent and atmospheric horror that I'd love to see get the remake treatment today. The actual ship is the star of the show, and there are lots of shots here that simply show various parts of the structure, be it corridors or chains and fittings, with a menacing score letting you know that every inch of it could be dangerous. The screenplay by John Robins may not work as well as it could, but it takes some time in the opening section to introduce the characters that will be dragged through the madness of the rest of the movie. It's just a shame that nobody was more creative and daring when it came to the death scenes here. Some memorable gore could have made this one an absolute corker.

Kennedy is a lot of fun in his role, throwing subtlety to the wind as his character develops from a tetchy and paranoid Captain to a . . . tetchy and paranoid Captain who would like to kill people. Richard Crenna is the new Captain, Trevor Marshall, who puts Kennedy's character out of sorts from the very beginning, and he tries his best to play the hero role, although the film continually moves back to focus on the ship itself, and Kennedy's kinship with it. Victoria Burgoyne has a memorable shower scene (no, not for the reason you may be thinking), Saul Rubinek is the light entertainment man on the cruise ship who proves less entertaining on the "death ship", and Sally Ann Howes, Jennifer McKinney, and Danny Higham make up the wife and children, respectively, of Crenna's character. Howes is fine, the children are just a bit too annoying.

There's enough here to make Death Ship an enjoyable horror movie, and the details littered throughout are interesting and unsettling, but it's a shame that it couldn't have made the most of the concept. Add some disposable teens to bulk out the cast of characters, and some more fantastical deaths, and it would be an easy one to recommend. As things are, one to watch if you have the fondness for the trailer that I did.

6/10

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