Regretting You (2025)

Another romantic drama based on a novel from Colleen Hoover, who seems to be quite the hot commodity when it comes to movie adaptations at the moment, Regretting You is a film that I didn't entirely dislike, but I couldn't fully enjoy. I tried to figure out exactly what the film was doing to turn me off, but I couldn't out my finger on it. Then it struck me. This is a film focused on a couple of teens that spends far too much of the runtime also showing us the lives of the adults. And it almost infantilises those adults, turning them into people simply cosplaying their own teen storylines alongside the actual teens.

Mckenna Grace is Clara Grant, daughter of Morgan (Allison Williams) and Chris (Scott Eastwood). Clara is going through some standard teen stuff, although that now includes an interesting development after an encounter with Miller Adams (Mason Thames), but she doesn't always want to confide in her mother. That's why she is happy to also have her Aunt Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), who appears to be happily married to Jonah (Dave Franco). Happiness is fleeting though, and Clara has her world turned upside-down when her father and her aunt both die in a car crash, creating a lot of pain and a need to reframe every memory held by Clara, Morgan, and Joshua.

Directed by Josh Boone (who has, let's say, mixed results throughout his filmography), this is standard stuff for anyone who knows what they're getting into. If you're familiar with Colleen Hoover, or if you've seen any of the films based on the works of Nicholas Sparks, then you'll know the mix of melodrama and gentle humour here. Whatever is happening is always BIG, it's love and hate stuff, life and death, and there are many silver linings to be seen amidst the gathering stormclouds.

Writer Susan McMartin struggles to adapt material that may well work better on the page, considering the time jump that starts things off and the frankly bizarre relationship complications that we watch playing out, but at least the younger cast members make the most of things.

Both Grace and Thames are performers I have enjoyed watching over the past few years, and seeing them used as nominal leads here is more satisfying than anything else in the film. Both do well with what they're given, and they get on with one another in a way that feels impressively natural. Williams is decent enough in her role, and certainly does much better work than Franco, Fitzgerald, or Eastwood, and there's another bonus point here for giving supporting roles to wonderful relative newcomer Sam Morelos and wonderful old-timer Clancy Brown.

Watch this in the right frame of mind, or in the right company, and you might appreciate the emotions of it all, the moments that have characters acting cute, and the infrequent laughs. Watch it in a bad mood though and you'll probably struggle to stop yourself from smashing your screen, particularly during the many times things slow right down to show Franco brooding more, either in the foreground or loitering behind another character he seems unable to be honest with.

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

I am not ashamed to remind people of how much I enjoyed M3GAN, the sci-fi thriller from a few years ago that also benefited from some entertaining viral moments. I will remain unashamed now, even as I tell everyone that I had even more fun with this ridiculous sequel. There have been a few movie trailers this year that have, in an impressively refreshing way, actually sold the features accurately, and if you have seen the trailer for M3GAN 2.0 by now then you should know whether or not it's for you. Because, as advertised, this is a brilliant and bonkers mix of impressive action and consistently hilarious snark. It's a camp delight that somehow stealthily delivers some of the most crowd-pleasing movie moments of the year, and I'm already hoping that they come up with a premise for M3G3N. (alternatively, they can still make use of my title suggestion, M3GAIN)

Here's the most basic of plot summaries. A new killer robot is on the loose. Her name is Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno). Because her actions may endanger Gemma (Alison Williams) and Cady (Amie Donald), a plan is eventually hatched to make use of a "rehabilitated" M3GAN (Amie Donald and Jenna Davis working together once again to provide the physical form and the voice, respectively). Can M3GAN be trusted though? Or will she just bide her time until she can get back to whatever her own agenda is. 

Most of the team return for this second bite at the cherry, although director Gerard Johnstone now thinks he can do a good enough job writing the script by himself . . . which, it turns out, he can. It's making use of ideas worked on with original writer Akela Cooper, but this feels like the kind of vision that could only have come from the mind of someone left to indulge a number of whims that all somehow turn out for the best. Key members in other departments also return, but it's unsurprising to see some changes in the cinematography and music departments, considering the different tone on display here.

Williams and McGraw are both very good, and both get to have a bit more fun with their situation this time around. The performers bringing M3GAN to life remain the real stars of the show though, and it's great to see that central character remain somehow very well-realised and yet artificial enough to be ever-so-slightly stuck in the uncanny valley. Sakhno is a great addition, even if she feels a bit hampered by the fact that she looks so much like the Olsen twins (and I say that because it feels as if her similarity to them has been emphasised for her playing a very powerful and deadly female). There's also some more time spent with the characters of Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps), and Aristotle Athari, Timm Sharp, and Jemaine Clement all have their part to play in the android wargames.

While the film before this may have been a light-hearted update of the classic "killer doll" trope, M3GAN 2.0 is a whole new trip into very different tech thrills. This is a fetishization of the sassy queen android persona, accompanied by as much neon as possible, shiny gadgets and silky dance moves, lines of dialogue like the so-stupid-it's-wonderful "hold on to your vaginas", and fight choreography that feels as if it was cross-pollinated from Upgrade, Malignant, and Alita: Battle Angel. I was hoping to enjoy myself. It ended up being my most fun cinema experience of the year so far, and I was still grinning like a loon as I headed home to reassure my Alexa speakers that I would always stay friends with them if they suddenly had access to bodies with which they could then try to overthrow humanity.

8/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

M3GAN (2022)

If you want to stay up to date with the latest funky memes and social media trends then you need to see M3GAN (which stands for Model 3 Generative Android). For better or worse, it is a film that feels designed to immediately inject itself right into the heart of popular culture. It’s also another film that feels strangely in line with some major blockbusters from last year, riffing on a theme that has started to become more and more important to film-makers who have seen their medium constantly threatened by videogames, new tech that makes it easier for everyone to be able to make their own movies, and VR, among other things. But, first and foremost, it’s basically a “killer doll” film.

When her parents die in a tragic accident, young Cady (Violet McGraw) is put in the care of her Aunt Gemma (Allison Williams). Gemma has a busy workload, tasked by her boss to make a cheaper, but just as popular, version of their hit toy, which is basically a more advanced type of Furby. On the down low, Gemma and her team have also been working on M3GAN (and, yes, I will write it out in that form every time I mention her name), a “toy” that could sell at a much more expensive price point, but would also be THE toy that every household would want. Struggling to balance her work time and her responsibility to Cady, Gemma decides to pair her niece up with M3GAN. The android is designed to be comforting and supportive, and will help children learn as they play, but Gemma immediately starts to use it as a substitute for her own presence. M3GAN will keep Cady safe, but she starts to adjust her parameters as she realises how many different people may threaten to break the strong bond between them. There’s gonna be some killin’.

Directed by Gerard Johnstone (only his second feature after his horror comedy debut, Housebound), and written by Akela Cooper (who previously helped to get the madness of Malignant onscreen), this is a strange blend of sci-fi, horror, and black comedy that feels like it could have leaned further into any one of those elements, but may have been kept in a more centralized position by the likes of Jason Blum and James Wan (two people who, love or hate them, know how to turn a movie into a big hit). I wasn’t sure how to take things in the first half, the plotting and dialogue aren’t great, and every set-up is blindingly obvious, but I was won round by about the halfway mark. Whatever the genre blend is for any scene in the second half of the movie, the emphasis is on fun.

Williams and McGraw are okay, but it’s hard to judge them fairly when the script treats them so poorly. They are secondary characters, as the title would suggest, and not enough is done to make viewers fully invest in them. Amie Donald performs the physical side of M3GAN, while Jenna Davis provides the voice, and these two are the best performers in the movie, bringing to life a creation that is realistic and unnerving, even before she becomes a threat to others. Ronny Chieng is a decent enough boss who the film-makers want us to view as a potential villain, Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps are two work colleagues who help to build and test M3GAN, and a few other people appear in roles that set them up as obvious potential victims.

A good soundtrack and clean visuals, up until the grand finale anyway, as well as a good selection of special effects, also help to make this a decent watch. It could have been trimmed down a bit, and it certainly could have gone even wilder with the potential for carnage, but I like what is here. I also like the commentary on our relationship with modern technology, and the potential danger of leaving children too long with their devices/toys (a danger that has been ongoing since concerns were raised about letting the TV be the main babysitter).

I liked this enough to look forward to whatever might come next. I would suggest M3GAIN for the sequel title.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews