Avatar: Fire And Ash (2025)

The time may have come for me to admit that the shine has gone from the Avatar movies. Or maybe it's just that this particular instalment is the first one I was unable to get along and see on the big screen. Say what you like about these movies, they are most definitely made for the big screen.

The plot is basically the same as it was in the last movie. Jack (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are trying to live a peaceful life with their family, but still find themselves targeted by the vengeful Quaritch (Stephen Lang). There's also another powerful enemy this time around, the fiery Varang (Oona Chaplin), who is very interested in getting her hands on weaponry that will give her people a huge advantage over those they seek to rob and conquer. Meanwhile, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) is still trying to figure out how to best live in harmony with Pandora, and Spider (Jack Champion) has to ensure that he has a working facemask available if he wants to keep breathing properly while being the one full human living amidst the Na'vi.

It's James Cameron in the director's chair once again (I doubt he would ever hand the reigns over to anyone else), and he's also still one of the main writers (alongside the returning Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver). Avatar: Fire And Ash may be as derivative as the previous instalments, it may be as uneven in terms of the pacing leading up to an action-packed finale, but it's still one hell of a spectacle. Whether or not you enjoy that spectacle is entirely up to you, especially when a lot of the plotting seems to get sillier and sillier as the series continues. I still appreciate the beauty and detailing of the visuals though, and it's astonishing to see how much smoother and clearer everything is as the tech has evolved in the 17 years since the first movie was released.

Worthington, Saldaña, and Weaver are still very comfortable in their portrayal of the blue-skinned leads, and Lang remains an entertaining villain, although he's given a small amount of extra development this time around to make me consider referring to him in that role with quotation marks. There are some people here who are arguably worse, whether looking to hunt and maim some peaceful marine mammals or looking to rain down fire on their enemies. Chaplin is interested in the latter, and she's a great addition to the series. I'm not going to get into the problematic nature of some of the casting, but the supporting cast has time for many supporting names (Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, etc) and some welcome newcomers (Edie Falco being a standout). Sadly, the worst performance comes from Champion, the young man who seems to have become notably worse in his acting when he's not simply reacting to greenscreen elements and the wealth of CGI surrounding him.

Simon Franglen provides a very good score, and the soundscape throughout is fantastic (shout out to the oft-neglected foley artists), but this remains all about the visuals ahead of everything else. People may sneer when I say that it does feel like watching someone play a good videogame for a lot of the runtime, but that's not the insult it may once have been. Many modern videogames can look gorgeous, and the best of them have even better storylines than this, so watching someone play one isn't the disconnected and uninvolving experience it used to be.

Like a favourite holiday destination I've visited a few too many times, Pandora remains a beautiful place to visit. I just don't get as enthusiastic about it as I used to. I'll keep going back though, Cameron has maintained high standards that ensure my loyalty to the series, but I will no longer plan my calendar around it. 

7/10

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Prime Time: Relay (2025)

A slightly different look at the world of whistleblowing, and a slightly different way to create an enjoyably tense and entertaining action thriller, Relay is the first produced screenplay from writer Justin Piasecki, and it bodes well for what he may give us in the future.

Riz Ahmed plays Ash, a young man who helps whistleblowers, but not necessarily in the way that you might expect. He helps them when they want to put a stop to any intimidation tactics and threats to their lives, helping to negotiate a big payday that will leave his main client safe and a bit better off while the big business goes back to whatever status quo it previously enjoyed. The latest client sent to Ash is Sarah (Lily James), and there are some people who are increasingly desperate to cut off her "escape" options.

Directed by David Mackenzie, someone who has built up an interestingly eclectic filmography throughout the first quarter of this century, Relay is fascinating and intelligent stuff. The title refers to the phone messaging service used by Ash to communicate with his clients, trying to ensure that the two never make direct contact, and that their conversations are private and safe from even the most determined snoopers. A lot of the film, certainly in the first half, plays out through those phone conversations, with Ash also hiding his voice by using a telecommunications device normally thosed by people with hearing or speech issues.

Ahmed is great in the main role, believably smart and determined, seeming to come alive when in the thick of more "gameplay" with the dangerous people wanting him to fail. James is very good, and her attempts to develop a rapport with an anonymous caller feel believable, coming from someone who has had to become very solitary in a very short space of time. Sam Worthington is the main villain of the piece, just following orders from his corporate overlords (of course), and he does well, flanked by Willa Fitzgerald and Jared Abrahamson.

You get one or two very good chase sequences, you get a real sense of increasing danger as the net starts to close around our two leads, and you get enough small set-pieces and enjoyable moments to make the 112-minute runtime fly by. There's also an interesting attempt to consider the price being paid for the peace of mind that Ash gives to his clients. Is their personal safety worth more than the safety of so many others who may have been protected by the information that should have been put out into the world? Relay doesn't give a clean and easy answer, but I'm glad it even took the time to raise the question? 

Those after an action thriller would do well to give this a go, as long as you know that it's not aiming to provide you with gunfights and loud explosions. It's still propulsive, it's still got some physical confrontations, but this is a world removed from a Tom Cruise star vehicle or a Jack Reacher yarn. Personally, I thought that just added to the appeal. 

8/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Exorcism (2024)

Co-written and directed by Joshua John Miller, it's worth starting any review of The Exorcism by reminding people of who Joshua John Miller is. He's many things, including an actor, writer, and director. But, and it's most important in relation to this movie, he's also a son of Jason "Father Karras in The Exorcist" Miller. That's most important here because The Exorcism is very much in dialogue with The Exorcist. You could even consider one as an attempt to exorcise the spirits of the other, but maybe that's overthinking things.

Russell Crowe plays Anthony Miller, an actor trying to keep himself in order as he portrays a priest in a horror movie about an exorcism. The film is called The Georgetown Project, and it bears a major resemblance to the landmark horror film famously filmed in that area (although that film is namechecked, which means we're in a world in which that film already exists). Miller is trying to stay away from alcohol, trying to stay connected to his daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), and trying not to be too disorientated by the content of the film, especially while the director (Adam Goldberg) keeps pushing him to tap into uncomfortable memories of abuse and pain.

The last time I watched Russell Crowe get involved with some demon-wrestling exorcisms was when I watched The Pope’s Exorcist. That film was fun, and Crowe seemed to be having a lot of fun in the lead role. This film is the polar opposite of that. Crowe isn’t having fun, and neither are viewers. 

Alongside Crowe and Simpkins are a great mix of players who all deserve better. David Hyde Pierce gets to utter dialogue that his most famous sitcom creation would justifiably ridicule, Goldberg is a cartoon depiction of an angry star director, Chloe Bailey doesn’t get enough to do, and there are irrelevant amounts of screentime for Adrian Pasdar and Sam Worthington. Simpkins probably fares the best, mainly because she’s at the heart of the drama without having to do all of the contorting and snarling that Crowe delivers.

Miller has done good work before this, and I am sure he will do something else worth my time sometime in the future, but this is truly dire. Maybe directing isn’t his strong suit, especially when you consider that this is only the second feature he has helmed in twenty five years. M. A. Fortin doesn’t help in his co-writing role either, despite being a long-term collaborator with Miller, which makes me think the biggest problem here stems from someone wrestling with a project that they cannot view with any objectivity. Miller is the reason this exists, and he is the reason that it collapses like an underbaked soufflé.

Although it’s all put together with the level of technical competence and polish that the budget allows, The Exorcism still manages to sink to the bottom of the 2024 horror movie barrel. And I can only hope that it stays there, perhaps pinned under anything else that we can send down there to ensure it doesn’t try to float back to the top.

2/10

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Prime Time: Wrath Of The Titans (2012)

I can understand why people got upset when the news broke that we were getting a remake of the beloved Clash Of The Titans. I still ended up watching it, and I didn’t mind it. In fact, I eventually bought the double-pack that included both that film and this film in fun 3D. I have had that set sitting on my shelf for at least five years, and this week I decided that I should finally watch the second movie. There was probably some subconscious reason for that, considering the fact that the film is . . . well, we will get to the full critique shortly.

Perseus (Sam Worthington) is trying to live a peaceful life with his son. That peace is ruined, sadly, when his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson), gets himself in big trouble. Hades (Ralph Fiennes) has seen the writing on the wall - gods losing power, the titans almost set to break back through to their realm - and wants to end up on the winning side. He also has help from Ares (Edgar Ramírez), the son of Poseidon. It is up to Perseus to ensure that humanity survives, and he is soon joined by another demi-god, Agenor (Toby Kebbell), and the fierce warrior queen, Andromeda (Rosamund Pike). They will have to fierce a variety of huge and deadly enemies, including a cyclops or two, a minotaur, and at least one of the intimidating titans.

Written by Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (billed here as David Leslie Johnson), this should have been a much better, and much easier, film to craft. Moving a step or two away from the beloved original, all it had to do was take a handful of familiar characters and throw them into something spectacular and fun. I guess that is the aim here, but it just doesn’t work, mainly due to the weakness of the villains and the feeling that the structure is just a pale retread of the previous film. 

It doesn’t help that director Jonathan Liebesman is now at the helm. While far from the worst person to take on the role of director, he seems to bring nothing unique to any of his projects. He can sometimes emulate better films informing his own, at best, but he usually just delivers something that lacks any hint of style or proper authorship. If you are asked next week to name the director of this movie then I would put good money on you not being able to remember his name. And the same goes for every other film he has directed.

The cast is quite a mixed bag, but the good far outnumbers the bad. Unfortunately, the bad includes our leading man, Sam Worthington. I don’t mind Worthington, and he’s certainly not awful, but almost every other actor that he shares screentime with does a better job. Except Ramírez, sadly, which makes him a sorely unentertaining villain. Neeson and Fiennes have fun in their godly roles, Danny Huston is welcome for the minute he is onscreen, and both Kebbell and Pike are excellent additions to the ensemble. There’s also a very small role for Bill Nighy, who almost steals the entire movie with his wonderful turn.

There is an over-reliance on CGI once again, as expected, and the cinematography focuses on dirt and flames to the detriment of anything more visually interesting, but the runtime isn’t bloated, the pacing is brisk enough, and it’s always fun to see the creatures featured here that were previously so well-realised in a pre-CGI world by the legendary Ray Harryhausen.

I was still tempted to rate this as ever-so-slightly above average, because I didn’t hate it while it was on, but it’s just too forgettable, too bland, and disappointing for being a waste of such a good opportunity. So I will consider myself generous enough already by rating it as absolutely average.

5/10

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Netflix And Chill: Lift (2024)

I don't dismiss every movie that debuts on a major streaming service. I believe, at least most of the time, that people keep trying to do their best to make a proper movie, and if their budget for it comes from a major streaming service then so be it. But there are some times when the films feel much more like "content" than actual movies. Lift is content, and it feels as if it has been worked on to cover every possible main demographic quadrant that Netflix wants to lure in.

Kevin Hart stars as Cyrus, a master thief leading a team of talented, but good-hearted (of course), criminals. Cyrus is so good that he is always three steps ahead of everyone, never getting caught with his fingers in the cookie jar, until he's caught with his fingers in the cookie jar. And he's caught just in time to be forced to conduct a major robbery on behalf of a government agency looking to screw up a deal being brokered by a dangerous criminal named Jorgensen (Jean Reno). Looking to get some extra insurance for his team, Cyrus agrees to take on the job as long as they are also joined by Abby (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an Interpol agent he has some history with. And blah de blah de blah blah blahhhh.

The second film written by Daniel Kunka, who started his film career with the screenplay for the mediocre 12 Rounds (although maybe I will be more favourable to that film if I revisit it one day when in a better mood), this is flat and predictable throughout. Every time some obstacle cropped up to throw off the plan, I was able to figure out how it had already been considered, and incorporated, by our lead, because this is the kind of film in which the main character is always the smartest person in the room and the best person to be beside when the journey gets turbulent AKA the kind of role that Vin Diesel loves to play.

Although slightly better than the awful Heart Of Stone, the fact that F. Gary Gray is the director means that I should warn people that this is even worse than The Italian Job remake from 2023 (a film I know many people actively dislike, although I don't mind it). The action isn't staged well, the massive implausibility of each main sequence is glossed over with the standard editing techniques you'd expect and moments of the characters being cool, and a lot of the comedy falls flat.

Hart can be a lot of fun in movies, but it all depends on who he spends most of his screentime with. Put him alongside Dwayne Johnson and you get some great blockbuster entertainment. Put him in the midst of this motley crew and . . . not so much. Mbatha-Raw is a welcome presence, but saddled with the thankless role of being the authority figure who has a love/hate relationship with our lead. The other women (Úrsula Corberó and Yunjee Kim) are also slightly underused, with better moments written for the likes of Vincent D'Onofrio, Billy Magnussen, and David Proud. Jacob Batalon also does well, thanks more to his sheer force of personality than anything in the screenplay, but Sam Worthington, Jean Reno, Burn Gorman, and Paul Anderson all seem to be present to do nothing more than mess up the robbery in ways that Hart's character has already accounted for.

I'm sure that this will be an easy viewing choice for people who are browsing their many options and looking for something simple, fairly inoffensive, and entertaining. It's certainly simple, but I would argue that it's offensive in how it treats the viewer, and it's sadly not that entertaining. But I'll be generous with my rating, taking into consideration how much I enjoyed some of the smaller moments for the supporting cast members.

4/10

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Avatar: The Way Of Water (2022)

Over a decade has passed since James Cameron asked us to put on 3D glasses and join him on a romp around the planet of Pandora. As much as I loved the cinematic experience of Avatar, and I still think it holds up as a visual wonderland that is well worth watching on a big screen, it's hard to argue against people who point out that the film made no major cultural footprint, despite it spending a bit of time as the highest-grossing blockbuster movie in modern cinema. Yeah, we got some jokes and references, but then it all just . . . faded away. 

Now it's all back, and it's back in a big way. While it's unwise to ever bet against Cameron, many balked at how much this had to make to just break even. The fact that it's now on target to do more than that, and probably give Cameron yet another chance say he is the helmer of the highest-grossing movie of all time, is unbelievable. And yet . . . it's in line with how Cameron works. 

Jake (Sam Worthington) is now living happily with Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) on Pandora. They have three children of their own, two boys named Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), and one daughter named Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as an adopted daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), and the constant company of a human boy, Spider (Jack Champion), who was left on Pandora because he was too young to be transported back to Earth when he was a child. Everything is wonderful, which means it's all about to be spoiled. Enter Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the big bad from the first movie who is, with a small team of his fellow soldiers, sent back to Pandora in Na'vi form. Jake opts to take his family away from their forest home, asking permission from another tribe (led by Tonowari, played by Cliff Curtis, and Ronal, played by Kate Winslet) to hide away and make their new home in an idyllic reef environment. But trying to stay out of a fight doesn't stop the fight landing on your doorstep.

It’s hard to think of the best way to review Avatar: The Way Of Water. It isn’t a great movie, especially with a lot of it rehashing what we got in the first film, but it is a great cinematic experience, and that is what Cameron specializes in. In an ideal world, I would list all of the VFX and art department people here, as well as the production designers, stunt crew, and all of those who won’t receive their due credit while Cameron, who is certainly no slouch when it comes to pushing film-making tech above and beyond the limits of our imagination, gets to return to his throne and proclaim himself “king of the world” again.

The cast all do what is asked of them, but part of the fun comes from not recognizing them. Worthington and Saldaña are fine, but it’s more impressive to not realise when Curtis and Winslet appear. And it’s a delight to see Sigourney Weaver magically made youthful in a way that is equally realistic and magical. Lang is a great villain, once again, and the younger cast members, those already mentioned above, plus Bailey Bass and Filip Geljo, all seem good enough under their layers of motion capture. Champion is good as definitely not a feral kid lifted from the Mad Max movies, and there are one or two enjoyable scenes featuring Brendan Cowell and Jemaine Clement, actually allowed to play their characters in standard human guise.

The 3+ hour runtime may be offputting, but this isn’t a film that drags. The majority of the runtime provides plenty of spectacle and beautiful details to pick up on, and the action beats are brilliantly done, with the last 40 minutes or so being one extended battle scene that guarantees most viewers will feel surprisingly energised as the end credits roll.

Not only does Cameron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, rehash the main conflict for our hero this time around, he also revisits the themes of environmental awareness, living in harmony with a precious planetary ecosystem, and showing the value in traditional ways and community spirit. Is it all also problematic blue-faced cultural appropriation? That charge has been levelled against it, but I think that Cameron and co. put such hard work into creating an entirely fictional world, influenced by the history and many cultures of our own planet, that you have to accept it as it is presented; pure sci-fi.

Maybe it’s a sign of me being won over by the advertising, or maybe I just really enjoyed the whole cinematic experience THAT much (once I told someone to turn their phone off after tolerating the bright light of their screen for half an hour - aaaaaaarrrrgggggh), but this is the kind of escape that shows how far movies can transport us. It isn’t perfect, even the technical side of things can seem a bit rough occasionally (the HFR can take some getting used to, some of the colours clash horribly, and a number of shots are framed horrible due to the difference in size between any human characters and the much taller Na’vi), but I would easily rewatch it today if I had the time. And I will be keen for whenever we next get an opportunity to revisit Pandora. 

James Cameron may not know much about subtlety or self-restraint. Fortunately, he knows how to deliver eye-popping, jaw-dropping, cinema on a huge scale.

8/10

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Sabotage (2014)

Despite the addition of guns and gore, Sabotage is little more than another riff on And Then There Were None, a fine thriller by Agatha Christie. A group of people are invited to come together, their numbers start to dwindle, and everyone wonders whodunnit. I'm not sure if Christie first came up with the concept, in fact I highly doubt it, but she seemed to package everything in a way that was much more desirable to mass consumers. Unlike David Ayer, who seems to package everything in layers of unpleasantness and misanthropy. That sometimes pays off, and I actually like most of his movies, but not in this case.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the leader of a crack undercover team of DEA agents. They kick down doors where angels fear to tread. And the film opens with them setting themselves up for a nice payday. They're raiding a major drug den, containing a MAJOR pile of money, and skimming about $10M off the top for themselves. Unfortunately, the money then goes missing, the team are investigated, and nobody is happy as they are forced to spend a fair bit of time sitting on their hands, as it were. Things could be looking up, however, when the investigation is ended and the team can go back to doing what they do best. Which is when someone starts killing them off, one by one. And it must be someone good, because these guysare trained to stay alive in some dangerous situations.

Starting off strong, the first 5-10 minutes are pretty great, Sabotage quickly starts dropping in quality with each scene, all the way to a finale that it's hard to care about. That's not to say that there aren't moments of easy entertainment. The nasty deaths are a highlight, and you do (or . . . . should, hopefully) at least want to find out who the killer is. It's just a shame that the rest is such a mess, with a script, written by Ayers and Skip Woods, as weak as any I can think of in recent years. The macho posturing bullshit starts to grate after that opening is over and done, and that's pretty much all that the rest of the movie has to offer.

If you want an object lesson in how to waste a potentially great cast then this is a movie to watch with a pen and notepad beside you. Arnie is the leader of the gang, so he fares better than the rest, but Mireille Enos, Sam Worthington, Terrence Howard, Joe Manganiello, Josh Holloway, Max Martini and Kevin Vance are just one mass of muscular douchebags waiting for their potential deaths. Enos is particularly ill-treated, especially considering what a kick-ass first impression she makes in the opening sequence. And we get poor Olivia Williams struggling, both with an American accent and the fact that she has to be a tough investigating officer one moment and then warming to big Arnie the next. In comparison, Harold Perrineau, playing her partner, comes out of the whole thing relatively unscathed. Relatively.

You get some gunfire, you get some blood and guts, you get the eye-rollingly frustrating cliche of tough men and women who work hard and play hard, and you get one or two minor twists to enjoy. What you don't get are characters that you'll enjoy spending time with. Not a one, which leads to the growing apathy that will stay with you even during those last 20 minutes or so. You may as well watch the Beastie Boys video instead, which is much more fun.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sabotage-Blu-ray-DVD-DIGITAL-UltraViolet/dp/B00JU94ZPS/ref=tmm_blu_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-1&qid=1416355373