Mubi Monday: Kaboom (2010)

Although I am not overly familiar with the filmography of writer-director Gregg Araki, I have seen enough (I think I have now seen four) of his films to know that I tend to really like his work. He is an interesting voice in lgbtq+ cinema, often putting his central characters in states of heightened reality that allow some enjoyable cinematic escapism alongside familiar exploration of sexuality.

Kaboom may well be the quintessential Araki movie, in many ways, with a plot that includes a good helping of sex, plenty of confusion, the lingering influence of parents trying to control the lives of their children, and a strange cult possibly preparing for the end of the world.

Thomas Dekker plays Smith, a young man who declares himself as sexually “undeclared” when asked. He spends time with his friend, Stella (Haley Bennett), in between admiring his handsome roommate, Thor (Chris Zylka), and having a new, and intensely physical, relationship with the sexually confident London (Juno Temple). Smith is also having some strange dreams, meeting people he then meets in real life, and there’s a sense of impending doom about the way things are playing out around him.

Enjoyably frank and uninhibited throughout, Kaboom uses sex as a distraction from a central plotline that gradually takes on more importance. But it also often makes the sex, and sexual frustration, just as important as anything else in the film. This is what Araki does so well, especially as so many people have had times in their lives when sex HAS been the most important thing on their mind, and all else be damned.

Dekker is a decent lead, even if his character is often more passive than those around him. He has a great ability to convey a sense of both a lack of energy for everything going on and an inner turmoil from his raging hormones. Temple is the highlight of the film, her bright demeanour perfectly suited to play someone so carefree and frank. Bennett is good, and involved in a number of amusing scenes with a witchy woman named Lorelei, played by Roxane Mesquida, James Duval is fun in a small, but pivotal, role, and Zylka, Andy Fischer-Price, and Jason Olive all play a variety of “meatheads”.

Mixing dream imagery with typical teen angst, and nihilism with sharp wit, Araki takes viewers on a journey that embodies the constant battle many feel rages between our innerspace and the world around us. The cast and script are playful, the pacing allows things to really gain momentum in the third act, and the score and soundtrack works perfectly with the visual method of keeping close and intimate with the main characters. It’s highly recommended, as are most films from the mind of Araki.

8/10

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Dolittle (2020)

Here is a perfect example of a film that, while not necessarily as bad as the very worst of them, stands out in the way it saps some fun out of the central concept and makes everything worse by over-reliance on CGI to make everything possible.

Robert Downey Jr. plays the man who can talk to the animals, and he has decided that his Dolittle should have a strong Welsh accent. He also doesn't want to deal with people any more, spending many years locked away after the loss of his adventuring wife. He is forced to change, however, when young Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett) sneaks in to his home, carrying with him a squirrel that he accidentally shot. Dolittle is also forced to accept a request to help save the life of Queen Victoria, who has been struck down by a mysterious malady that can only be cured by the fruit of a tree that nobody has ever managed to reach. It's time for an adventure, and Dolittle has plenty of animals to help him on his quest. He also has at least one person, Dr. Blair Müdfly (Michael Sheen ), trying to stop him from succeeding.

After a slightly unsteady start, scenes giving viewers a quick summary of the life of Dr. Dolittle and then showing him talking to animals IN animal noises before we then get to the more enjoyable format of Dolittle and the animals all talking in English, Dolittle becomes a decidedly okay bit of family entertainment. The animals are enjoyably exotic (with three of the main characters being a parrot, voiced by Emma Thompson, a gorilla, voiced by Rami Malek, and a polar bear, voiced by John Cena),  things look bright and lively enough, and there's a sense that the whole adventure could be a lot of fun.

It's a shame that the script, written by Doug Mand, Dan Gregor, and director Stephen Gaghan, seems to have been written with the idea that the visuals and lead performances will carry everything along. The lead performances, voice acting aside, don't feel as strong as they could be. Downey Jr. may be having fun, I guess, but he doesn't feel right for the role, as much as I often like his onscreen presence. Sheen is more enjoyable, a proper pantomime villain, and Antonio Banderas is a welcome addition, although not involved for long enough. The same can be said for Jim Broadbent. Young Collett does fine, but he's really there to be caught up in the middle of the animal shenanigans. And while it is a bit of a coup to rope in such a variety of big names, including Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, and Selena Gomez, for the animals, few of them really add to their roles, unlike the standout, an ostrich voiced by Kumail Nanjiani.

It's also a shame that the makers of the film have decided to let the visuals carry so much of it when the visuals are, despite the fact that some may find me overly critical here, a bloody mess. So many scenes lose any sense of magic because it feels like CGI interacting with CGI, against a CGI background, with some more CGI being used to add flourishes here and there. I wouldn't mind if it was better, and some of the scenes have to contain what I assume is a lot of seamless CGI complementing the action, but some moments are jarring in how obviously fake they look. There's one scene in which Tommy is being taken on the back of a giraffe to catch a departing ship that looks, well, it looks as if it could have been lifted directly from some high-quality BBC programme from the early 2000s.

Younger viewers should find enough to enjoy, and there's an amusing fart gag during the finale that will prompt giggles, but this is a horrible attempt to reinvigorate a property that was handled better back in the late '90s. Maybe we'll get something better next time, when someone more suitable is put in the lead role.

4/10

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Shudder Saturday: Hall (2020)

The solo directorial feature debut from Francesco Giannini, Hall feels very much like that kind of film. In fact, it feels like a short that has been stretched out to feature length. This is a prologue that someone decided would make for a standalone film, and that person was wrong.

It's telling that this is also the narrative feature debuts for writers Derrick Adams and Adan Kolodny, making it feel very much like a concept everyone had misguided faith in. There are one or two good ideas here, including an interesting parallel between the virus at the heart of the plot and the behaviour of people behind closed doors that can hurt ones they love. It can be worth risking a journey through some dangerous and deadly environments just to escape a partner who has been abusive for many years.

Carolina Bartczak plays Val, a woman who is planning such an escape from her husband, Branden (Mark Gibson). This may have been on her mind for some time, but we see her resolve strengthen when she realises how her young daughter, Kelly (Bailey Thain), is also now a potential victim. This fractured family unit has just checked into a hotel, it's vacation time, and that is where Val meets the pregnant Naomi (Yumiko Shaku), a woman who is also secretly breaking free from her own abusive partner. Then a virus starts to affect most of the people in one floor of the hotel.

There's no way to really sugar-coat this, Hall is a bad movie. It drags everything out far too long, it gives you characters that it's hard to care for (despite obviously wanting them to get/stay away from abusive partners), and it doesn't really know where to focus. The way you can see the virus being similar to domestic abuse is interesting, and the finale goes one step further in showing it being something that is affecting one "lower" group of people while others can remain blissfully ignorant, but the weak script is further hindered by loose and unfocused direction from Giannini.

Performances are a mixed bag. Bartczak and Shaku do well, with the latter disappointingly underused, but Gibson is far too one note, and Thain cannot overcome the big hurdle of her character being asked to stay in one place for most of the second half of the movie, meaning that she has to convincingly show her worry and confusion as time continues to pass without her being taken somewhere safer. Unfortunately, although she isn't a terrible child actor, she is not up to that task.

It's almost as if every decision was made to hamper the end result here. Even playing some moments out of chronological sequence feels harmful, it makes a couple of scenes feel as if they drag on and on without having any sense of where they should be heading. Thank goodness this runs for just under 80 minutes, but it feels like it's so much longer than that.

I hope Giannini and co. take some time to seriously think about the mistakes they made before coming back with their next feature, especially if they end up developing a sequel to this.

3/10

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The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)

A rare, but enjoyable, occasion when a film is rendered fairly impossible to spoil by the title, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is also a film that I find it fairly impossible to view as nothing short of a near-masterpiece.

Based on the novel by Ron Hansen, it is, boiling it down to the most basic components, exactly what it says it is. It's also so much more though, starting with a look at who Jesse James (Brad Pitt) really was, a man who sometimes enjoyed his reputation and sometimes had it tightening around his neck like a noose, and then showing the things that would fall into place to lead to that fateful moment that gave Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) his moment of fame.

Adapted into screenplay form by director Andrew Dominik, a man who has been drawn throughout his career to the idea of criminals buying into/creating their own hype and the knife edge of fame and infamy, this is a film with a few people delivering some of their very best work, and that includes Roger Deakins, a man with no shortage of great cinema moments to throw into contention for the best ever. Even by his own high standards, Deakins delivers something here that has a perfect blend of grit and beauty.

When it comes to the cast, Affleck takes the top honours here. His character is never once likeable, and his presence often creates a sense of unease for those around him. Affleck plays it perfectly, showing us all the man who doesn't want to be seen directly by those he interacts with onscreen. His every attempt to charm backfires, whether it is due to him speaking "out of turn", taking a second too long to pick exactly the kind of smile he wants to offer, or sizing up any company to decide who he wants to side with if things suddenly go South. The next best performance may well come from Paul Schneider, pretty much the exact opposite of Affleck's character. I don't mind Schneider, but have rarely had cause to consider him as a really good actor. He really impressed me here. Other great turns come from names you expect to deliver great turns. Jeremy Renner does well, but both Garet Dillahunt and Sam Rockwell effortlessly remind viewers of why they are so welcome in any project they board. Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker, Pat Healy, and Ted Levine all remind you of how good they can be, and Pitt excels as someone who has enjoyed making himself into a legendary figure he is now trapped by.

There are small mis-steps here and there, with one being a moment of narration that goes out of its way to tell us how Jesse James had a condition that made him blink more often than most people . . . before we see him throughout the movie hardly blinking at all. This seems, and is, a very minor failing, but it just seemed so odd to have had this detail pointed out that is then seemingly forgotten for the rest of the film.

While James is the figure at the centre of everything, however, Dominik takes his time to eventually lead viewers further and further into the mindset of Ford, showing the divide between the romanticised ideas of gunslingers making their mark and the reality of knowing how it felt to take someone else’s life with one pull of a trigger. I won’t say that you ever really warm to Ford, but the journey he goes on shows his brief ascension to “stardom” before heading towards an inevitably miserable and troubled existence. He is a man defined by one act, an act he tries to keep justifying for years, and everyone gets to form their own opinion of him.

It would be rude not to mention the soundtrack, from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis (with Cave also onscreen for one very memorable moment), and the whole feel of the movie is superbly authentic, but it is the visuals and lead performances that will stay in your mind after the end credits have rolled. They are right up there with the very best of the 21st century, and this is a film that deserves the praise it has received over the years since it was first released. You won’t forget viewing this, and I doubt the lengthy runtime will put anyone off from revisiting it when they want to bask in the quality and gorgeousness of it.

10/10

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Eternals (2021)

If you want some wholesome and enjoyable content to make you smile then you should check out the many photos of Lia McHugh on her IMDb page. Most of them have clearly been out there by McHugh herself, complete with contextualising text descriptions that show how much she loves her acting career.

If you can spend two hours browsing that selection of photos then you will probably have a better time than you would if you actually watched Eternals, a Marvel movie that feels more redundant than any others we have seen so far.

Described as Earth’s first superheroes, Eternals are a group of people with different powers who work together to help care for the human race. They can only ever intervene when humans are being attacked by monsters called deviants, which conveniently explains why they never tried to help when “the snap” happened, and most of their time is spent just observing people and trying to act like one of them. There hasn’t been any deviant attack for a long, long time. And then there is one, one unlike the others. This deviant may be able to absorb powers while it takes lives. And it may reveal a truth about the Eternals that they will struggle to accept.

Although it’s not actually a bad movie, in many ways, I can feel my enthusiasm for this film ebbing away with every word I write. There is a mildly interesting development in the second half that takes things in a slightly unexpected direction, but the end result is still a group of people dealing with some giant CGI. What’s worse is that the more enjoyable characters seem to be too quickly dismissed from the action.

Director Chloé Zhao, who also helped write the screenplay (Patrick Burleigh and Ryan Firpo being the other writers on this), does what is expected of her, trying to liven things up enough with an action sequence here and there to distract from the fact that these are the dullest superheroes we have seen in a long time. Sadly, she cannot do enough to make up for the central problem.

At least the cast help, although the lead being played by Gemma Chan leads to the big problem of, well, the lead being played by Gemma Chan. Richard Madden does a bit better, as does the aforementioned McHugh, but the best cast members are Angelina Jolie, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kumail Nanjiani. Barry Keoghan plays an interesting character, but plays him as if he can barely be bothered to stay awake. I don’t blame him, it’s a tough job to stay energised with such a mix of deja vu and plodding mediocrity. Even Salma Hayek cannot help, although her relatively small amount of screentime was better than no Hayek at all.

There is a nice cross-section of characters here (Lauren Ridloff is a deaf Flash-like character who speaks in sign language), but the bad outweighs the good. By far. With the pacing issues, the inability to engage viewers properly, and the tired feeling the material has, I have to say that this is the weakest big MCU movie so far. I hope it is an anomaly.

4/10

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Prime Time: Ten Minutes To Midnight (2021)

A horror film starring Caroline Williams, an actress arguably best known for her role as a potential final girl/DJ in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, Ten Minutes To Midnight has her playing Amy Marlowe, a DJ about to slog through her usual late-night slot with the threat of impending forced retirement looming over her head. As well as the stress of the situation, which includes spending time with a young woman who may end up being her replacement (Sienna, played by Nicole Kang), Amy has some issues stemming from the fact that she appears to have been bitten by a bat on the way in for her shift. The weather outside is bad enough that the people in the station cannot leave the station, and Amy finds her mental state deteriorating.

I was wary of this film before I even pressed play. Although not too familiar with Williams, I knew that her name was being used as the main selling point. And I figured that once again putting her in the role of a DJ was an easy way to get some brownie points from horror fans, meaning there was a chance of less effort being made in other departments.

I was right.

This is a mess, albeit an occasionally entertaining one. The first half mixes some potential vampire shenanigans with the constant stress piled on the lead character, who knows her days employed at the station are numbered. Then things change, and not for the better, leaving you with a whole film that doesn’t succeed in being either scary, gory, funny, or insightful.

Directed by Erik Bloomquist, who also co-wrote the script with his brother Carson Bloomquist, this is a film that feels like the people making it may have had more fun than anyone who ends up watching it. It’s disappointingly repetitive and spirals towards a very weak conclusion, but some of the cast do enough to stop it from being as bad as it otherwise could have been.

Williams is okay in her role, at least able to put on a fantastic “fuck you” pose to those around her that she can’t even bother feigning niceness to. Kang is a highlight, acting sweet and nice until things take a severe turn. You also get some fun turns from William Youmans, Nicholas Tucci, and Adam Weppler.

The camera generally points in the right direction, and other technical aspects are competent enough, but nothing is done that helps to elevate the material. That could have been a case of making more of the radio station setting, or it could have been achieved by streamlining the concept away from the surreal turn taken in the third act.

If you have a chance to see this one, my advice is to “turn the dial”.

3/10

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The Night House (2020)

I haven't had much luck lately with a couple of interesting titles that I had hoped to enjoy, films that I presumed may have some horror genre tropes in the mix, even if they ended up playing out more like a straightforward drama or thriller. The Lost Daughter left me underwhelmed, as impressed as I was by Olivia Colman in it (who impresses me with everything she does), and now it's the turn of The Night House. This is much more of a simple genre piece, and moves further into absolute horror with each predictable bit of plot development, but it's yet another film not deserving enough of the central female performance (Rebecca Hall this time around).

Hall plays Beth, a teacher who is grieving the sudden death of her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). Owen took a small boat into the middle of the lake beside their home and shot himself in the head. Beth is understandably pained and puzzled by this, having had no idea that Owen felt any such depths of despair. She starts to dig around into the life of the husband she starts to suspect she never really knew, all while being pushed on by some presence that visits her at night.

Directed by David Bruckner, who previously gave us the excellent The Ritual, as well as segments in both V/H/S and Southbound, this is a film that suffers from a script, written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, stuffed full of familiar moments to anyone who has seen any popular supernatural thriller from the last few decades. It also feels unsure of itself, trying to play out as a supernatural-tinged drama for most of the runtime before diving fully into the potential horror of the situation when it feels like too little too late.

It's fortunate that Hall is in the lead role, she's an actress who has been delivering some great performances for some time now (although her project choice isn't on par with her talent, landing her in films as diverse as The Town, The Awakening, and, ummmmm, Holmes & Watson) and this is a fantastic turn from her. Her journey is depicted in a way that feels realistic and believable at all times. Sarah Goldberg is good support, playing a caring friend named Claire, but the other standout performance comes from Vondie Curtis-Hall, playing a neighbour/friend who doesn't want to see Beth's life undone by the grief she is processing. Stacy Martin also does well, playing a young woman named Madelyne who Beth finds after discovering photos of her on her deceased husband's phone. 

This isn't a bad film. It's just a film that doesn't have any faith in any direction it could take, and therefore seems to end up trying to do a bit of this and a bit of that, leading to end results that feel half-baked and half-hearted. Bruckner directs well enough, despite the fact that Collins and Piotrowski undermine things with a premise that feels very much like it could have been entitled The Entity That Jack Built.

5/10

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Mubi Monday: Water Lilies (2007)

Although I can only speak from my own place of personal ignorance, it can be hard to single out world cinema stars as quickly as the already-familiar US and UK actors being praised for breakout roles. They are not in every mass product that is being shoved down our throats, and they can often be much more chameleon-like in their range of roles, due to the fact that the film is not just being sold on their name. I am happy to say, however, that I am now a die-hard fan of the immensely talented Adèle Haenel, the actress who gained such great reviews for her performance in Portrait Of A Lady On Fire, another film by writer-director Céline Sciamma. This is the feature debut from Sciamma, and it is only the second onscreen role for Haenel, but both already show the talent that would become more and more obvious over the next dozen years (and here's to many more).

This story revolves around three 15-year old girls. There's Marie (Pauline Acquart), so impressed by the school synchronised swimming team that she wants to join them. There's Anne (Louise Blachère), a member of that swimming team, and friend of Marie. And there's Floriane (Haenel), the team captain, and the subject of numerous rumours about her active sex life. Marie manages to connect with Floriane, growing closer and being taken into her confiidence, which leaves Anne feeling increasingly frustrated and lonely. Unwittingly, a love triangle of sorts is formed. Others enter and leave the picture, but the focus stays on Marie, Anne, and Floriane.

Sciamma has such a great way of allowing her characters to explore their identity, and their connections with others, without it ever feeling exploitative. Just by the fact that it's not filtered through the male gaze, things are much more impressively and sensitively handled. The fact that these characters are young girls feels like we are seeing them at just the age when they are starting to get caught up in a maelstrom of different strong emotions while they figure out who they are, who they want to be, and who they want to be intimate with.

It helps that there's not a bad turn from any of her three leads. Haenel is the standout, and the one who unwittingly causes the biggest change in the moods of the characters, but Acquart is sweet and vulnerable throughout, but not as naive as some may assume, and Blachère is shown to act up when starting to feel abandoned, without it being a one-dimensional and over the top turn. The worst character in the film is a young man named François (Warren Jacquin), guilty of the kind of behaviour that a teenage boy will often put on when he becomes the subject of some female attention.

Sciamma has definitely grown into a more accomplished film-maker over the course of her career, but this is a strong debut. You should check it out if you’re a fan of her work, a fan of Haenel, or both.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Villains (2019)

Co-written and co-directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who I didn't exactly love for their previous movie, Body (2015), Villains takes a now commonplace idea of two bad people stumbling into a household owned by some much worse people and has some twisted fun with characters all willing to do horrible things to one another in the name of self-preservation.

Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe are Mickey and Jules, respectively. They are small-time crooks, shown in the very first scene committing a messy and amateurish robbery. Making their getaway, it isn't long until their car runs out of fuel. That leads them to a seemingly empty house, one in which a little girl (Blake Baumgartner) is chained up in the basement. When the owners, George (Jeffrey Donovan) and Gloria (Kyra Sedgwick), come home then it's time to see who can keep the upper hand and resolve the situation in the way that suits them best.

Helped by the fact that they have a bit more to play with this time around, Berk and Olsen maybe viewed Villains as the movie that they would have made their debut, if only they had made the connections and extra resources back then. It's obviously a central idea that they saw potential in, and this comes much closer to achieving that potential than their last film did. The only big thing working against it is the fact that it's a bit of an overused trope nowadays. It's still fun, but we've seen it so many times throughout the past decade or so, from The Cottage to Monster Party, from Don't Breathe to The Owners, and many more. Some of these films are much better than others, and a big part of the success or failure depends on just how well the plot mixes in the dark comedy, nastiness, and characters to root for.

They can also depend on the central cast, which is a big plus here. Skarsgård and Monroe are excellent as the young crooks who find themselves suddenly way in over their heads, with the former an especially likeable doofus, and Donovan and Sedgwick are so ready to turn from absolute calm to absolute madness that you suspect they already have a number of bodies hidden away under the foundation of their house. The most fun is had whenever Donovan tries to remain calm and composed in the face of increasingly brash and stupid escape attempts by the youngsters.

Although I had fun with this, and REALLY appreciated the lead performances, Villains doesn't manage to be quite as good as most of those other titles I just mentioned above. And I am sure there are some other movies that I have forgotten to name-check that are in the same ballpark. But I'd find this an easy one to rewatch. There just happens to be many others that I would prioritise ahead of it.

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: Greener Grass (2019)

Greener Grass is, basically, a riff on Blue Velvet for the 21st century. Instead of the youthful figures at the heart of it however, it focuses on the slightly older parents, people who live in the very same blend of idyllic "perfection" and nightmare fuel without often realising what exactly they have done to get themselves into the Faustian pact that seems to have been made.

Co-directed, co-written by, and co-starring Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, this is the tale of two women who start to see a real imbalance developing between them as one slowly starts to gain everything that she wants from the other. It all begins when Lisa (Luebbe) compliments Jill (DeBoer) on her gorgeous new baby. Jill, in a moment of extreme benevolence, offers the baby to Lisa. That's a minor pang of loss at the time, but things get worse when Jill starts to lose more and more of the components of her seemingly perfect life. There's a major incident with her son, Julian (Julian Hilliard), problems with her husband, Nick (Beck Bennett), and just all manner of awfulness that starts to pile upon Jill and ruin her composure.

To best describe the world in which Greener Grass is set, aside from the first paragraph (in which I think I pretty much nailed it . . . you're welcome), you can also take the "Cheddar Goblin" ad from Mandy and the brilliant and insane "Too Many Cooks" skit as reference points (both by director Casper Kelly). DeBoer and Luebbe often ground things in a world that is easier to believe actually exists, but it's just as prone to a sudden lurch into the world of the absurd, or even some outright horror. The other common ground they all have is the way in which they hit their targets with sniper-like precision.

From the many ways people either act blinkered, or mute, in an attempt to not rock the boat to the casual offers made in conversation that you don't expect people to accept (this film may begin with a "have my baby" bit of ridiculousness, but it's played out in the way you might be appalled if you hadn't done housework for a week and someone just turned up at your door because you'd once told them to pop round for a coffee any time). The effort to maintain a happy and content facade often feels like too big a price to pay for people who find themselves in a life they then cannot change, whether going through marriage troubles or dealing with a child who shows absolutely zero respect or restraint when throwing a tantrum in the home.

All credit here must go to DeBoer and Luebbe, who do superb work both on and offscreen. They are wonderful in the lead roles, all wide grins with fear and mild panic hinted at in their eyes, and they serve up their witty script in a world of bright colours and bubbling repression. It's a Douglas Sirk movie viewed after you've been slipped a tab of acid. DeBoer and Luebbe are well supported by Bennet and Neil Casey (who plays the other main husband, Dennis), as well as Hilliard, Ashler Miles Fallica (another problematic child named Bob), D'Arcy Carden (playing a schoolteacher) and many others joining in with the absurdity, including a scene-stealing Jim Cummings.

My only minor complaint is that this could have gone even further in one direction or another. Some scary moments could have been ramped up to make them even scarier. Some of the comedy could have been made even funnier. Then again, many other people will think that the mix here is absolutely spot on, and exactly what the film-makers were aiming for. I loved this. I cannot wait to see another feature from this talented duo.

9/10

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Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021)

The past couple of years have proven to be quite challenging for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as they have proven to be quite challenging to numerous movie productions and companies. But Marvel seemed to be in a more precarious position than most, already having many people voice their concern over where things would go after the massive success of the films that ended the superb, long-running, storyline that culminated in "the snap" from Thanos.

Let's not spend too much time worrying about them though. Despite a mixed reception, they have still spent the past couple of years releasing films like this one, Eternals, and Black Widow, and making a great mix of TV shows such as Loki, WandaVision, Captain America And The Winter Soldier, and Hawkeye. Whether you love or hate them, they keep making blockbuster entertainment with a consistent minimum standard of quality, in my view, and they keep managing to set things in place to give them many options of whatever path they choose to take in the years ahead.

Take this film, for example. This is another Marvel movie that now happily mixes in the magical and mythical with the sci-fi elements. It all starts when Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung) discovers ten mystical rings, allowing him eternal life and superpowers. He then meets, and falls in love with, a woman. Children are born. Love wins. Temporarily.
That happened some years ago. Back in the here and now, Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is a bit of a loveable loser who enjoys spending time with his friend, Katy (Awkwafina). He's not special, at least not in the eyes of most people around him. That all changes when members of the Ten Rings, the army headed up by Wenwu, attack Shang-Chi, desperate to gain ownership of a pendant given to him by his mother. Shang-Chi immediately heads off to warn his sister, Xialing (Meng'er Zhang), because she has a similar pendant. They soon realise that their father, because Wenwu IS their father, wants the pendants to find the mystical village his deceased wife lived in, convinced that he can be with her once again. But the messages he is hearing are lies, delivered to his mind by something that needs his help to break free.

It's pretty redundant to review a decent Marvel movie nowadays. Obviously there are more interesting words to say about the best and worst of their output. They know what they're doing, they have a great team of people working on each film, and they often get their casting pretty perfect. Such is the case here. Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings may lose steam in the third act, where it suffers from that blockbuster mis-step of big CGI battling big CGI, but there's easily enough here to please fans of this kind of fare. The extended action sequences which have Shang-Chi battling the Ten Rings are the highlights, leaving the film a little adrift when nothing else can top them, but you also get some good humour and a nice running commentary on determinism and real power. 

As good as Liu, Awkwafina, and Zhang are, and they are excellent (with both Liu and Zhang doing very well with the physical side of their roles), the real treat here is seeing the likes of Leung and Yeoh (for a second time) getting a small piece of that Marvel pie. It's also fun to see another small turn from Benedict Wong, reprising the character of Wong, and one other returning main character proved to be a very pleasant surprise, and had more of an involved role than the last time he was used onscreen in these movies. There's nobody doing bad work here, at all, but I do need to single out Florian Munteanu, who makes a strong impression as the aptly-named Razor Fist, a main henchman wielding a red-hot machete blade where his right hand should be.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton helped to write the screenplay with Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham, and the team work together well. They may have the might of Marvel behind/helping them, but there's nothing here that shows Cretton feeling out of his depth with his sudden leap from smaller fare such as Just Mercy, The Glass Castle, and Short Term 12. It might be easier to get this kind of thing right with a whole army of people ready to ensure you stay in line with the overall vision of the brand,  but that is no guarantee that the end result will show that. This gets much more right than wrong.

The interconnectivity remains the best thing that Marvel worked on, however, and that's why I know so many people will already know whether or not they are going to watch this. If, like me, you have been on the complete journey so far then you can't just stop, cold turkey. Things keep being set up that you know will pay off, be it this year, next year, or maybe a decade down the line. If you managed to resist the allure of the polished MCU product when they were a bit less practiced at lining up all of their cinematic stepping stones then you checked out by the time you read the title of this review.

I really wish the final act had been better, but I can't deny that the rest worked well for me. And the fight sequences at least have a fluidity and choreography that puts them on par with the best of Hollywood martial arts (which is still, lest we forget, rarely on a par with actual martial arts depicted in non-Hollywood movies).

8/10

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The Empty Man (2020)

Like many people, I had heard good things about The Empty Man over the past year or so. Also like many people, I didn't hear any of those good things while it was being messed about with a half-assed release schedule before basically being dumped straight to a streaming service. I really can't even recall if it had any kind of UK cinema release, between the non-existent marketing campaign and the pandemic that put so much on hold.

Written and directed by David Prior, adapting a graphic novel by Cullen Bunn, The Empty Man is a strange beast. It's overlong, for a start, clocking in with a runtime of 130+ minutes, and it doesn't really draw things together in a way that is satisfying enough for a big finale. That's okay though, because it is impressively consistent with the spooky atmosphere and scares, helped enormously by a sound department that has created arguably the best audio tapestry I have heard in a horror film in the past few decades.

Things start with a group of people trekking through some snowy mountain region. It is 1995. One of the party, Paul (Aaron Poole), ends up affected by a strange skeleton that he encounters. Things don't end well.
We then move to present day. Well . . . 2018. James Badge Dale plays James Lambrosa, a former detective who now makes a living selling home and personal security equipment. He is still grieving the loss of his wife and child, both having died in a car accident a year before, but ends up being able to keep himself busy when a friend enlists his help in locating her missing daughter, Amanda (Sasha Frolova). This leads James to discovering the idea of The Empty Man, a mythical entity at the centre of a fiercely loyal cult. 

Unsettling from start to finish, The Empty Man is probably harder to sell to anyone who has seen the poster/tagline. "THE FIRST NIGHT YOU HEAR HIM. THE SECOND NIGHT YOU SEE HIM. THE THIRD NIGHT HE FINDS YOU." It brings to mind the lesser horror movies we've had to endure, such as Slender Man or, urgh, Smiley, or any other number of films that have people doing silly things to call upon a spirit that will then cause harm and death. It's not like any of those films, with the spooky central figure something only really seen in a couple of enjoyable set-pieces. For the majority of the movie, considering his grief and views on the world around him, James could easily be said to be the empty man of the title. Things become even clearer as he moves closer to the truth, but it's also quite obvious in every scene.

Prior knows what he's doing when it comes to the pacing. Although the runtime is hefty, including that snow-covered intro that is just over twenty minutes long, before we even see the main title screen, it doesn't feel like a slog to get through. Big moments are impactful, small details are strewn throughout the film to keep you on your toes, and that impressive sound design and musical score (I wouldn't be able to single out when noise becomes music and vice versa) underlines everything with a perfect eerieness.

Dale gives one of the best performances I have seen from him, always looking competent but far too quick to jump out of his depth, and he carries the film effortlessly. The script and performance allow his character to be a potential "hero" without trying to smooth off all of the rough edges. Frolova is fine as Amanda, although she isn't onscreen for a very long time. The same goes for Poole. Both of these actors play characters who cast a long shadow over the proceedings with their absence, which also ties in nicely with the entire idea of The Empty Man. Ron Canada is always a welcome presence, and here plays a perplexed detective, and Stephen Root manages to be strangely charismatic and unnerving as Arthur Parsons, a man with a high position in the cult hierarchy.

Despite knowing how well it does much of what it is aiming for, it's easy to see why The Empty Man could remain a "hard sell" to horror movie fans. It's a hard one to categorise, it doesn't have an easy "hook", and it takes time to unravel the interesting ideas at the heart of it. But that's also why more people should seek it out. It's just a bloody good horror movie.

8/10

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Prime Time: Killer Concept (2021)

Directed by Glenn Payne, who also has a main starring role, and written by Casey Dillard, who also has a main starring role, Killer Concept is a film that definitely had the potential to be a fun, meta, slasher movie blurring the lines between onscreen reality and onscreen fiction. Unfortunately, it decides to continually lessen the fun factor en route to an ending that feels like nothing more than a poor Saw rip-off (even down to the music cue).

Seth (Coley Bryant), Holly (Dillard), and Mark (Payne) are trying to work together on a screenplay that will tell the story of a number of murders in their local area. The murderer is still at large, which means the screenplay will have an added frisson to it. But while arguing over the various details, one of the writers seems to have much greater insight than the others. Are they more in tune with the material, or are they actually the killer?

Although I am being coy with the plot summary here, Killer Concept reveals its tricks quite early. This is detrimental to the viewing experience, with ambiguity and playfulness cast aside in favour of disappointingly obvious reveals that start to pile up, one on top of another, without managing to make the most of the dark humour of the premise.

The three leads do decent work, but they are often hampered by Dillard’s script. Both Bryant and Payne are playing characters who feel a bit too one-note, especially while the former is playing the abrasive one of the trio. Dillard herself has the best character, perhaps that is where she was focusing during the writing process, and she also delivers the best performance. There are some other people onscreen, mainly potential murder victims, but this is mostly a three-hander. It’s a relief that the leads are up to the task, because otherwise this would have been unbearable.

Payne’s direction is simple and serviceable, I guess, but it is a step down from the last film I saw from him, Driven (2019), which was also written by Dillard. It can be difficult to cover up for limited resources in the world of independent film-making, but Payne doesn’t do himself any favours. Although competent, there’s no obvious growth on display here.

Maybe we will see an improvement with their next film. I will certainly keep giving them a chance, because I think they keep getting close to making something really good. This isn’t it though. Sadly, it falls just below average.

4/10

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Vice Academy Part 2 (1990)

Yes, I like to mix things up in my viewing schedule. And I like to keep a good mix of reviews on my blog. Which is why I didn’t use the space today to review The Great Beauty, which I watched just before this. I am also waiting for the right time to put down my thoughts on the excellent The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. Which is why you now have some words here on a film that barely feels like a film, Vice Academy Part 2.

A number of people return to reprise their roles from the first movie. The warring Holly Wells (Ginger Lynn) and Didi (Linnea Quigley) are still fairly new recruits in the world of the police. They are forced to work together, setting out to thwart a plan by Spanish Fly (Marina Benvenga) to pollute the water supply with an aphrodisiac concoction. They also need to work together to prove to the cocky Petrolino (Scott Layne) that women can be just as good at police work as men. 

Don’t worry. None of the plot here involves anything remotely close to actual police work. It is, once again, an excuse to make bad jokes, throw around some gratuitous nudity, and belatedly parody Robocop with a new member of the squad being tested (BimboCop, played by Teagan Clive).

Rick Sloane is the man responsible for all of this, again, giving himself the role of writer-director-producer with his main aim to make something cheap ‘n’ cheerful that will titillate fans of the leading ladies. Never mind trying to cover up the low budget, never mind attempting anything logical, this is a slight sketch stretched out to feature length. And it was even stretched out to a few more sequels after this.

Lynn and Quigley are quite bad, but that is part of the charm for anyone, like myself, who considers themselves a fan. I will watch Quigley in anything, and I have, and her constant overacting is inextricably part of her onscreen persona. Layne is a decent enough meathead, who you look forward to seeing mistreated, and Jayne Hamil is once again a bit of fun in the role of Miss Devonshire, the boss who tries to manage our leads. Clive is okay as BimboCop, despite the joke falling flat from the start, and Benvenga is a fun, non-threatening, villain. Nobody else is worth mentioning, with the exception of Jo Steele in the role of Jeannie, an attractive colleague who usually works on the switchboard.

You should already know whether or not you will already give it your time. It is, in many ways, absolutely terrible. It is also a bit better than the first movie. I wouldn’t rush to rewatch any of these, but I won’t hate myself for giving them some of my time. Although I don’t know if that sentiment will change when I eventually check out the rest of the movies in the series.

5/10

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Mubi Monday: Dogtooth (2009)

Although not the first feature film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who also wrote the script with Efthymis Filippou, Dogtooth is the film that gained him international attention, effectively springboarding him to a higher level (in terms of the resources available to him and the themes explored).

This is a tale of a father (Christos Stergioglou), a mother (Michele Valley), their son (Christos Passalis), and two daughters (the elder played by Angeliki Papoulia, the younger played by Mary Tsoni). The father has a job, but he is basically the only one to leave the house, and both parents provide a strange education to their children that keeps them sheltered from the world around them. But such a strange and twisted set-up can never last forever, surely. Especially with one visitor (Christina, played by Anna Kalaitzidou) who could accidentally reveal the lies that these child-like young adults are being fed.

Apparently a film that will be very familiar to anyone who has seen The Castle Of Purity, this is an uncomfortable film from the very first scenes, with relief provided by the decision to film most of the potentially claustrophobic scenes in a large, bright house. The casting of the children as unwitting prisoners shows just how much family units can so easily be polluted and fall apart. Parents always want to control the environment for their children, and perhaps try their hardest to control what they take in from their education syllabus, but children start to fully grow in the moments away from their parents. They need care and love, and much more, but they also need social interaction, they need to learn more for themselves, and they need time away from their parents. Because parents can be the ones who cause the most damage.

All of the performances in the film are excellent, with the cast often playing things in a very controlled and unnatural way. Stergioglou deserves particular praise, portraying a monster who is all the more horrifying for the lack of self-awareness of his own monstrosity. Papoulia and Tsoni are brilliant, with the former involved in a third act scene that will make everyone wince and want to look away, and Passalis does well with a performance that is almost zombie-like. The sisters have the extra bonus of sisterly company, while the son feels slightly more isolated, and that shows in the performances.

Lanthimos is a huge talent, I have raved about most of his other movies, and Dogtooth is an excellent film to watch as you decide whether his knack of exploring societal (ab)norms in an uncomfortable, and often sterile and stilted, way is something you can get on board with. I hope you do.

9/10

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Netflix And Chill: Don't Look Up (2021)

People denying facts that are literally about to hit them in a major death-strike, a three word slogan rallying round those who decide to politicise a major problem for the entire human race, and media that is complicit in helping to keep the masses placid and uninformed. Don't Look Up is a comedy that foregoes subtlety in an attempt to present something that is horribly close to the truth of our present times.

Written and directed by Adam McKay (from a story co-created by David Sirota), who has made a number of superb comedies in the past decade that use humour to probe major societal problems with surgeon-like precision, this may be an obvious allegory for the many people trying to deny climate change, but it's also yet another McKay movie clearly showing how so many ills of our world are rooted in the same place as every evil, money. A news team (Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) want to keep their audience happy for the ratings. A president (Meryl Streep) and her son (Jonah Hill) want to stay high in the polls, and nothing upsets people more than a potentially Extinction Level Event. There's also Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), a Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg/Elon Musk amalgamation, a very rich man with just enough scientific knowledge, and smart people on his payroll, to think he has all the answers.

The two lead characters, however, are scientists. Kate Diblasky (Jennifer Lawrence) spotted comet, which is then named after her, and Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) helped to work out the trajectory of it. It is these two people who spend the movie trying to warn everyone of their impending doom, helped by Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), but hindered by so many other people who have their own take on things, in defiance of the truth.

As well as those already mentioned, this packed cast includes roles of varying sizes for Melanie Lynskey, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Himesh Patel, Michael Chiklis, Robert Joy, and Paul Guilfoyle. Everyone is doing great work here, but the leads are surprisingly perfect in their roles. DiCaprio is allowed to be a very nervy individual, prone to anxiety attacks and a lack of confidence whenever he is in the spotlight. Lawrence's character is less nervy, but also less "media-trained", which works against her trying to warn people of impending doom. She doesn't care about who people are, she doesn't care about who gets upset, and her spiky demeanour is very funny, especially when she is arguing against a typically couldn't-give-less-of-a-shit Hill (who is both the son of the POTUS, and her Chief Of Staff). Morgan is the old hand at playing the game, as frustrated as the other scientists, but able to think up more strategic options to get the message out there. Streep isn't bad, she's certainly a lot of fun, but her character is the one who suffers most from the writing. She's a bit inconsiderate, trying to spin things the best possible way, but the comedy would have been strengthened by making her a complete idiot who couldn't stop herself from saying the dumbest stuff every time she had an opportunity to talk to scientists and people making serious plans. I guess sometimes you can't write anything stranger/funnier than reality. Blanchett is excellent, all super teeth and hair, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by Perry working so brilliantly in his co-anchor role, showing a real talent for being able to play comedy well by simply playing it straight (unlike the style of histrionics on display with his Madea character). Lynskey is a sweet and calm presence whenever she's onscreen, Rylance is amusingly unsettling in his constant awkwardness, and Chalamet is a great addition to the second half of the movie, as sweet and calming as Lynskey, in a way. Grande enjoys herself, and has a very amusing main scene talking to a character played by Kid Cudi, Perlman is hilarious in his very small role, and Patel is, well, his character feels completely extraneous, but he's as good as ever.

There's a decent score by Nicholas Britell and a number of songs that work well in the soundtrack, although the best one is the fake "Justt Look Up" song by Grande, as well as excellent sound design throughout, but this is a film mostly about the visuals, from the first sighting of the comet to the unavoidable ending. It's also a film about having your own kind of faith, something that McKay makes a hell of a case for in the third act.

The news keeps telling us how we can do better in our daily lives, with recycling, going vegetarian, using our car less, etc. Don't Look Up serves as a reminder that individuals aren't the big problem. The big problem comes from those with the money, with the power, and it is reassuring to think that their long-term plan for money to buy their way out of everything is a delusion. Because it is. That's not to say that we shouldn't all play our part in trying to ensure that we avoid being the species to destroy the entire planet. It's just that, as well as doing our small household part, we really do need to do whatever it takes to create a massive shift away from the unrelenting damage being done by companies headed up by people who will never make enough money to satisfy them. The irony being that this review will be shared on Facebook and Twitter after I wrote it on my beloved Macbook Pro, and you can all choose to read it on your smartphone of choice. But at least I have never been flown by private jet to a climate change conference. So, y'know, everything in moderation.

But I digress. This is a great comedy that consistently stays on point when it comes to the serious issue at the heart of it (the nonsensical equality that has developed between opinion and facts). A lot of the cast are giving brilliant performances, with the two leads absolutely perfect in their roles, and McKay continues his run of great films that have started to make his filmography a real treat for fans of comedy and social commentary.

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981)

Sometimes you want art and sometimes you want entertainment. Then there are the times when you want something so enjoyably bonkers that you can't quite believe what you just watched. Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker definitely lands in the latter caterory for me.

Things begin with a major car accident worthy of the Final Destination films, and it's genuinely up there with the best of these things I have seen onscreen (involving people tangling with a large truck full of huge logs and not winning out). We then move forward a number of years. Billy (Jimmy McNichol) lives with his Aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrrell), the woman who has raised him for many years since the day of that tragic car accident. The two are very close, which is why Cheryl is worried about Billy getting a good scholarship and leaving her for his years of further education. Cheryl starts to unravel, first killing a TV repairman who she accuses of trying to rape her, and then drugging and/or killing anyone she thinks can help to separate her from her Billy.

Directed by William Asher, who has a background stuffed full of great TV work (many episodes of I Love Lucy and Bewitched among them) and various beach party movies, as well as some other fare, this is enjoyably camp stuff that doesn't take long to show the real insanity of the killer. It then spirals quickly, leading to a third act that is anything but dull.

The screenplay has three names credited to it, although it is perhaps unsurprising to see that neither Steve Breimer, Boon Collins, or Alan Jay Glueckman have many screenplays to their name. Breimer just wrote this, Glueckman seems to be more a story idea kind of guy, and Collins has an even dozen to his credit, half of those also putting him in the director's chair.

Tyrrell is a lot of fun here, in all the right ways. Her performance is generally unrestrained and wild, turning her more and more into a complete maniac with each passing minute of the runtime. McNichol does what is asked of him, simply acting like a teen who doesn't suspect too much is horribly wrong until it's too late. Julia Duffy is nice enough, playing Julia AKA the threatening presence that will help Billy to leave his Aunt Cheryl. Britt Leach plays the slow and steady Sergeant Cook, his logical and calm approach juxtaposed nicely alongside Bo Svenson's bigoted asshole Detective Carlson. Other cast members worth mentioning are Marcia Lewis, who plays a neighbour named Margie, Steve Eastin, as a gay coach depicted in a surprisingly straightforward way for the early '80s, and Bill Paxton, billed as William Paxton for his role as a bully named Eddie.

There's nothing technically brilliant here, that opening car death sequence aside, but everything is done competently enough, considering the material and the tone. Everyone, both in front of and behind the camera, knows what kind of movie they are making, and they all do their bit to ensure it's a fun 96 minutes. I'd happily rewatch this, even if others may roll their eyes and dismiss it as being far too ridiculous.

7/10

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No Time To Die (2021)

I have to admit to being a bit Bond-fatigued by the time No Time To Die was released. It was a culmination of various factors. I was greatly disappointed by Spectre. I was as fed up as most people were by the seemingly constant whinging from Daniel Craig in between every instalment in the franchise. And, of course, the global pandemic meant that the release date was pushed back for quite some time. I decided that I would remain hopeful, but be prepared for disappointment.

Disappointment was certainly not forthcoming.

No Time To Die is immediately up there with the very best of the Bond films, vying for a top spot alongside On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and a couple of other superior 007 adventures, and it allows Craig to end his tenure on a real high note. It’s a film that gets so much right that it almost makes up for the stumbling steps that got us to this point.

The plot is simple. Bond is retired, he wants to get on with his life with Madeleine (Léa Seydoux). Retirement is interrupted by the pesky Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) being a sneaky schemer once again, and Bond eventually ends up looking to return to his old role when he learns of a deadly bioweapon that can be used to target not just individuals, but entire races. Bond being involved doesn’t make everyone happy. There’s a new agent using the 007 tag (Lashana Lynch) and M is under a lot of stress with the situation. Blofeld, still imprisoned, may actually welcome the chance to see Bond once more, especially as they both seem to have a common enemy, Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek).

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, who also helped on the screenplay with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, this is a near-perfect Bond film that packs enough into every main sequence to distract you from the aspects that aren’t present. You don’t get Bond the womaniser, you don’t get a whole load of gadgets, and you don’t get gunfights and explosions without a lot of consideration and attempts at diplomatic diversions by those giving the orders.

You do get just enough of everything though. There are glamorous women around Bond. There are a couple of decent gadgets used in the midst of the action. And it’s interesting to think that, for all the growth of the character we have seen over the last couple of decades, Bond is shown as essentially the same blunt tool used when needed. The world may have moved on, but new and different problems can be solved with the same old solution.

Craig does well once again in the main role, all blue-eyed piercing stares and pouting. Waltz is underused once again, but also once again superb in his limited amount of screentime. Seydoux does well with what she's given, and she is able to play her part with some ambiguity as others try to figure out whether or not they can trust her. Lynch is a badass, and quickly shows why she was assigned the 007 number, so I wouldn't be averse to a spin-off with her character in it (or seeing her have a similarly strong presence in whatever we get next in the series). I also wouldn't be averse to seeing another main role for Ana de Armas, playing an agent named Paloma in a fantastic set-piece that takes place in Cuba. Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, and Rory Kinnear are as good as ever in the respective roles of M, Moneypenny, Q, and Tanner. But what of the main villains? Dali Benssalah is a good henchman, and has a memorable look thanks to his character having one electronic eye alongside one normal eye, and David Dencik is enjoyably cowardly and selfish as the scientist who has created a scarily effective weapon. Malek is really the only weak link, sadly as Safin, a character who isn't written well played in a way that is far too quiet and lacking any real sense of showmanship (which all of the best Bond villains have). Can Malek do anything other than the soft-spoken and kind of awkward character he has made his specialty over the last few years? I'm not seeing anything to prove otherwise, and I don't think he was the best person to put in this role.

Transplant a better villain into this and you could have had the greatest Bond film of all time. As it is, well, it remains a strong contender. Fukunaga directs like someone who simply knows how to run a well-oiled machine, from the sound design to the sets, from the wardrobe to the lighting, and on and on. It's also well worth mentioning the music by Hans Zimmer, providing a score that pieces together various motifs while always complementing the visuals (as any great score should). The stuntwork is superb, the pacing means that the hefty 163-minute runtime goes by briskly enough, and there's at least one moment that feels like one of the most unexpected and iconic moments in modern action cinema. 

By the time the end credits roll . . . you may very well be slightly shaken. 

9/10

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Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)

It's no wonder that mainstream moviegoers are so often given the same product recycled again and again and again. It would seem that many, understandably, crave the comfort of familiarity over any attempts to strike out on some new directions. Sold on the line that "this is the sequel that the fans deserved"and "this is what fans really wanted", Ghostbusters: Afterlife is, essentially, a clumsy rehash of elements from the first movie. It relies so much on nostalgia, and has a plot that comes perilously close to simply being "evil dies tonight", that it's arguably closer in form to Halloween Kills than the first Ghostbusters movie.

I'm going to try to avoid spoilers here, but you can all rest easy in the fact that there are a number of satisfying cameos in this film. One such cameo is Egon Spengler. Well, it's the spirit of him. Due to Harold Ramis having passed away a few years ago, the writers of this film (Gil Kenan and director Jason Reitman) decided to kick things off with the death of his character, allowing for plenty of extra button-pushing and emotional manipulation throughout. With Spengler deceased, his property is handed over to his estranged daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Things start to get spooky, old equipment is discovered (including the ECTO-1, of course), and there's a local teacher, Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), who can provide exposition and become directly involved in the whole escapade. 

I enjoyed many parts of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and that includes many parts that worked for me by simply making reference to the first film. It's fun to see people practising their aim with a proton pack. It's great to see the engine of the ECTO-1 starting up. And a decent part of the plotting actually works well as a direct continuation of previous events. The good work, however, is undone by the feeling of laziness, smugness, and disrespect by the time everything if thrown at the screen in the third act to placate viewers who deserved much better. A large part of the problem is the reliance on the spirit of Egon, which would have worked better if it was just, as it is in much of the movie, a vague and undefined thing. There are another couple of major issues though, and they will be brought up shortly.

Cast-wise, everyone is fine. While I am not the biggest fan of Wolfhard, and he is the least of the younger players here, he doesn’t do a bad job. Celeste O’Connor does a bit better, playing a girl who catches his eye/heart. Rudd gets to play the character who is the most amusing and Coon has to simply be “the parent”, which she does fine with. But it’s the younger cast members who shine, with Logan Kim great fun as a young podcaster, imaginatively named just Podcast, and Grace being the best new Egon type since Kate McKinnon in the last Ghostbusters movie (oh stop pretending it doesn’t exist, it is a better idea overall film than this one). Grace is so good that she makes up for a lot of what Reitman and Kenan get wrong.

Directorially sound, everything wrong here stems from a script that is desperate to remind viewers of the original without the writers themselves remembering, Yes, people love the characters and the equipment, and we all want ghosts and beasties to create havoc at times, but there should also be a lot of laughs (which this is lacking). There IS, at times, a sense of fun, and it is often blended with that warm glow of familiarity, but there are very few actual laughs. What you also used to have were movies that stemmed from a legacy of films mixing chills and humour, so it wasn’t necessarily entirely original, but it felt entirely original. What we have here is a film that cannot go for more than a few minutes without repeating a well-known beat or referencing the cinematic past of the Ghostbusters business. That doesn’t seem so bad when it all feels effective (references to Shandor work well, and some returning faces feel like a logical choice for a big villain). It fails when you realise that it’s the height of laziness (cute they may be, and in the final trailers, but there is no reason for the mini-Stay Puft characters here, except for easy bonus points and merch).

It didn’t pain me while it was on. There are some nice shots, the soundtrack works well, and uses a number of familiar cues, and one or two set-pieces feel enjoyably cinematic and able to remind us all that “bustin’ makes me feel good”. It’s not a great film though, and I would argue that it’s the weakest Ghostbusters film yet. Maybe a sequel that doesn’t feel too beholden to the original film will work better. I hope we get to find out.

5/10

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Prime Time: The Protege (2021)

It always happens. Great success leads to others looking to emulate that success. Which is why we have recently had so many movies lately trying to rework the reluctant/retired/betrayed assassin schtick that worked so well in the John Wick movies. Not that those movies started this particular sub-genre, but they certainly made it more of an action movie staple over the past few years. And The Protege is another one trying to recreate the success of that movie. Unlike many others, however, it fails.

Maggie Q plays Anna, a dangerous young woman who works with the equally dangerous Moody (Samuel L. Jackson). Together, they specialise in finding people who don’t want to be found. Those people often then end up dead. The latest target is perhaps their hardest yet, someone who has managed to practically disappear off the face of the planet. One of his main men is Rembrandt (Michael Keaton), a charming and cultured individual who you can suspect is a villain due to him being . . . Michael Keaton. Bullets and fists fly, and Anna grows more and more determined to complete the job she was assigned.

There’s a good pedigree behind the camera here. Martin Campbell, who successfully reinvigorated the Bond franchise twice, is the director. He delivered some great swashbuckling with the most recent blockbuster Zorro movies. He also directed The Foreigner, which was a very good action thriller. And I am one of the few people who didn’t hate Green Lantern.

Then we have the writer. Richard Wenk. Wenk has written a number of top-notch action movies throughout the last decade, but he is also the writer-director of Vamp. So Richard Wenk is a firm favourite of mine. This isn’t his best work though. It’s a silly script aiming to be lifted by the main stars, but one seriously lets everyone down.

The disappointment here comes from Maggie Q. She just isn’t good here in the lead role, never convincing in the action sequences and never even able to get her line delivery just right. This is movie dialogue, not dialogue attempting to be realistic, but Q fails to invest the words with any energy or charisma. Jackson is better, playing a character he has played a version of in numerous other films, and Michael Keaton continues to be the magnetic star that he has been for decades. Q has the starring role, yet the film would be pretty worthless without the presence of her main co-stars. 

There is enough here to save this from being an awful viewing experience. It’s technically fine, the pacing is good, and I may have already mentioned Keaton making it better with his presence. But there’s too much here also dragging things down. No other characters stand out, none of the fights hit that sweet spot where they feel both grounded and cinematically satisfying, and I defy anyone to actually care about how things turn out in the grand finale.

The end result is ultimately a bit below average, which feels much more disappointing when the ingredients were mixed in for what should have been an easy success.

4/10

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Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City (2021)

Despite my inherent awfulness when it comes to playing videogames, and I know I have said this before, Resident Evil has been my all-time favourite gaming series since I first started battling zombies and solving puzzles when I first got a PSOne. I have enjoyed the games on various consoles since then (mainly different Playstations, but I also had a Nintendo Gamecube for a while) and have also taken some pleasure from the main live-action movie series, most often kept in the hands of Paul W. S. Anderson. The animated movies haven't been quite as good, but I can't deny finding enough in each one to ensure I have had to own them all, at least in digital form.

This, however, is a film that finally feels like the games (well, the first 2 anyway). That's not to simply dismiss all of the other movies now, not at all, but this is arguably the definitive cinematic interpretation of so much of what players love about the Resident Evil game series. And I am happy that we can enjoy both the other movies, often full of bombastic slo-mo and CGI-laden silliness, and this movie.

Written and directed by Johannes Roberts, although most of the events depicted here were already written for the videogames, what you get here is an adventure that throws together Claire Redfield (Kaya Scodelario), Chris Redfield (Robbie Amell), Jill Valentine (Hanna John-Kamen), Leon Kennedy (Avan Jogia), a young girl named Sherry Birkin (Holly de Barros), and Dr William Birkin (Neal McDonough). Raccoon City is about to become a very dangerous place to stay, full of infected people, dangerous dogs, and other mutated dangers, and not even the Police Station can offer safety for long. That's before we even  get to the reported disturbance at the Spencer Mansion.

While none of the cast may be causing Oscar-winners to start looking over their shoulders, they all do an excellent job with the material. Scodelario, Amell, John-Kamen, and Jogia show a variety of skills, and they seem to enjoy portraying the nominal heroes, while McDonough is an enjoyably untrustworthy potential villain. Tom Hopper makes for a good Albert Wesker, and it's nice to have a small role for the likeable Donal Logue, playing a Police Chief who knows that everyone should get the hell out of the city while they can.

It's the attention to detail here that really impresses. This is not really a great movie, but it IS a great Resident Evil movie. The characters all feel very much in line with their videogame origins (okay, Leon Kennedy may be overdone slightly, but his first adventure did have him as someone pretty heartbroken and hungover who just happened to be in the right place at the wrong time when the zombie nightmare began), the creature design is on point, making me wish we could see more of the monsters that cropped up in the games (please give me a giant snake or sharks in the next movie, and definitely a Plant 42), and the environment often feels as if it has been surgically transplanted from a console directly into the movie.

There's a good score by Mark Corven, great work done by the costume and makeup department, and everyone generally works in service to a script that allows viewers to feel a sense of familiarity without the potential accompanying boredom. Changes that are made are ones that make sense, cinematically, (the main one being how a character named Lisa Trevor is used, which is very clever) and I can't imagine any fans of the series thinking that any character or element has been done a major disservice. Even the relatively small amount of screentime for Ada Wong (played by Lily Gao) feels in line with her impactful involvement in the RE 2 game.

Roberts has a varied filmography, in terms of quality, but his best horror work is well worth your time. This is up easily there with his best. I really hope that it has done well enough to kick-start a whole new movie series in this vein. I'll still revisit all of the other movies available, but I already know that this is the one I will go back to most often. At least until I need my next fix of watching Milla Jovovich kick ass.

8/10

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