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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Netflix And Chill: Runaway Jury (2003)

Note: I watched this film yesterday on UK Netflix, ready for thos review to be written today. Yesterday was the last day that Runaway Jury was available on the service here in the UK. Such is the fickle nature of streaming services.

Like many films from the '90s and 2000s, Runaway Jury now feels like a more comforting watch today than it did when first released. It's based on a John Grisham novel, coming along as seemingly the last major attempt to wring more money out of his legal thrillers (until they inevitably come back into fashion at some point), it has a fantastic ensemble cast anchored by two star turns from a couple of acting legends, and it delivers some tension and thrills without needing to shoehorn in any major action set-pieces.

Everything revolves around a trial that sees a woman trying to win a case against a firearms company. Nobody ever wins when they take on the gun industry, but some people hold on to the hope that this case could turn the tide. The one with the most hope is attorney Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), although that becomes harder to hang onto as he battles against tactics used by jury consultant Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman). Fitch and his team are bemused by one particular juror though, Nick Easter (John Cusack), and it soon becomes clear how important he is when they are contacted by a woman (Marlee, played by Rachel Weisz) who claims that she can deliver whatever verdict is needed for a big fee.

Adapted into screenplay form by Brian Koppelman, David Levien, Rick Cleveland, and Matthew Chapman, Runaway Jury is full of enjoyable lines of dialoge that are uttered with plenty of energy and power by leads clearly enjoying themselves in their roles. Director Gary Fleder may not put any stamp on the visual style of the film, but he does well to simply stay out of the way of his cast as they do their thing.

What can be said about Hackman that hasn't already been said many times over the years? The world of cinema was undoubtedly better while he was a part of it, and he's absolutely fantastic as the devious and relentless Fitch. Hoffman steps up his game for the scenes shared with Hackman, but he also spends a lot of the runtime focusing on his accent and trying to be almost childishly idealistic. Cusack is a lot of fun in what may well be the last film to make good use of the charm and wit that he used to have in every role, and Weisz enjoys herself in scenes that show her scheming and working hard to maintain an advantage against the powerful people she is dealing with. I won't go into detail on their characters, but the supporting cast includes the likes of Bruce Davison, Bruce McGill, Jeremy Piven, Cliff Curtis, Nick Searcy, Rhoda Griffis, Leland Orser, Nestor Serrano, Jennifer Beals, Gerry Bamman, Bill Nunn, Rusty Schwimmer, Orlando Jones, Luis Guzmán, and Dylan McDermott. If you don't recognise all of those names, trust me, you should recognise most of their faces.

Okay, it's not the best of the Grisham blockbusters (I think we all know that the "first wave" of movies adapted from his work gave us the best films), but this is a fantastic bit of entertainment. It's polished, it's intriguing, it has some obvious twists and turns that prove satisfying by the time everything is resolved, and the 127-minute runtime never drags, thanks in no small part to the feeling that you're never too far away from another great moment for Hackman, Hoffman, or Cusack. It's not one I think about too often, but it's one I am surprisingly happy to rewatch whenever the opportunity arises.

7/10

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Live Free Or Die Hard (2007)

AKA Die Hard 4.0.

I always quite liked this fourth Die Hard movie. It remains a big step down from the classic first film, of course, but it also remains something that looks like an action movie masterpiece when compared to the dross that would follow it. 

Apparently based on an article by John Carlin, this was developed into a movie by David Marconi and Mark Bomback, the latter receiving the main screenplay credit. It was then up to Len Wiseman to sit in the big chair and call "action", but, knowing what we know now, he was probably often guided by the instincts of the franchise star, Bruce Willis.

Willis is John McClane, of course, and we first meet him while he's once again not having a great time. He's concerned about his daughter, Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and hopes to ensure that no young man tries to get too fresh with her. Unfortunately, his unique parenting approach is interrupted by a request to pick up and escort a hacker (Matt Farrell, played by Justin Long) who might be able to provide authorities in Washington D.C. with some valuable information about a major cyber-attack. That attack is being carried out by people working under Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), and Gabriel is about to join the long list of people who discover that McClane can be a giant pain in the ass.

While I appreciate that this may not feel as much like a Die Hard movie as some of the other instalments in the series, I would argue that it's an enjoyable and natural progression. McClane doesn't have anyone to match him as he did in the previous film, but this time around he's in full-on protective mode when he starts to remember that the boy he's dragging around from gunfight to gunfight isn't exactly used to the full-on McClane experience. There's also his daughter to be protected, and that can be difficult and frustrating when the enemy seems so invisible and pervasive while making use of the tech that has become part of everyday life. He just needs someone to shoot and/or punch in the face, and the Die Hard films always work best when the villains are charismatic and entertaining. Thank goodness the casting director bagged Olyphant for that role.

Despite what many would view as a growing disinterest and laziness, although we now know that some of his later performances were sadly affected by aphasia what was later diagnosed as frontotemporal dementia, Willis strikes just the right balance here. McClane is very used to this kind of thing by now, but doesn't act like an indestructible superhero. Oh, he ends up doing some ridiculous things, especially in the finale, but he does them all with a shrug and an acceptance of what should be an instant shuffling off the mortal coil. Long is very good alongside him, believably wary and distressed at almost every turn, and he's a fun personality to pair up with our stoic hero. Olyphant, as he so often does, exudes a wonderful mix of charm and swagger, and even looks as if he might get away with his wild criminal plan if he just avoids making things personal with McClane. Uh oh. Maggie Q is also quite a fun baddie, Cyril Raffaelli showcases some of his physical prowess again, and you get decent little turns from Sung Kang, Cliff Curtis, and a before-their-relationship-soured Kevin Smith (okay, his turn is more fun than decent, but it's amusing to watch him work opposite Willis onscreen).

People might dismiss this because it's not on a par with some of the movies that preceded it. I think that's a bit harsh. They might dismiss it because of Len Wiseman directing. I think that's also a bit harsh. Wiseman isn't someone I would rush to defend as an unsung talent, but he had a few years when he did a perfectly good job with big stars in slick action movies (well, he had a couple of Underworld movies, this, and then it all went a bit squiffy with the Total Recall remake). This is one of those movies made during that time, and he does a decent job of trying to hold on to the essence of McClane while trying to escalate each big action sequence, and it all heads to a satisfying finale that leaves the big vehicles and tech burning in the background while the heroes and villains get up close and personal while viewers wait to hear the expected "yippee-ki-yay" punchline.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Fracture (2007)

It's hard to deny that Fracture is quite ridiculous. It's actually not very good. I would also argue, however, that it's hard to deny that Fracture is also entertaining. It's a legal drama with a focus on fun ahead of any pesky stuff like plausibility or reality. Neither of the two leads, Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling, are doing anything close to their best work, but they're perfectly in sync with the tone of the whole thing.

Hopkins is Ted Crawford, a man who we see at the start of the movie shooting his wife. He did it. He confesses to it. It should be an easy case. Gosling is Willy Beachum, a smooth and skilled lawyer who really likes easy cases. When he is asked to take on the case, despite readying himself for a move to a more lucrative private practice, he agrees, thinking it will be quickly dealt with. Complications soon arise though, and Crawford may be getting just as much satisfaction from playing with those around him as he got from killing his wife.

Director Gregory Hoblit has been involved with some landmark TV shows throughout his career, but his film work has been a bit more forgettable. There are some treats here and there, and most of his features actually came out between 1996 and 2008, but he's the kind of figure you would be more likely to describe as dependable rather than great. The same could almost be said of writers Glenn Gers and Daniel Pyne, although Pyne started strong with his first theatrical features at the start of the 1990s. It's clear that the draw here needs to be the cast, which is why we get Hopkins and Gosling.

Both of the leading men are working with accents that they would have been better to leave well alone, and both somehow play their parts well while also barely containing a smirk in response to how laughable everything is. Thankfully, there's a great supporting cast to help remind viewers of how actors can be great when not being pushed towards increasing silliness. Rosamund Pike, David Strathairn, Billy Burke, cliff Curtis, Bob Gunton, Fiona Shaw, Embeth Davidtz, and Xander Berkeley are the other names worth mentioning, although some do better than others, and some have much more screentime than others.

I cannot bring myself to make too many excuses for my enjoyment of this. The cinematography, editing, and other technical and production work stays decent throughout, but that's not enough to make up for the script and the hamminess. The script and hamminess are also part of the appeal though, and I have already watched this film twice while many much worthier films sit unwatched on my shelves. I won't rush to rewatch it, but I wouldn't speed by it if I was channel-hopping and saw it playing. Maybe that's down to the fractures in my own mind though.

5/10

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Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

I like nonsense. Anyone who knows me can tell you that, and many people who know me actually assume that I tend to choose to watch nonsense over anything else most days. That isn't true though. But I can be easily entertained by films that others don't want to waste their time on. Nonsense has to hit the right spot though, and that ties directly to the logic contained within a movie. If a film is full of magic or sci-fi elements that throw the rules of our world out the window then that's fine. If there are monsters on the prowl then that's fine. Unbelievable fights that look great and feature people who at least look as if they can handle themselves? Again . . . fine. Meg 2: The Trench is not the right kind of nonsense though. It's bad nonsense. The kind of nonsense that shows someone imploding when they have a problem with their suit deep underwater moments before it shows someone exiting a structure to swim elsewhere to open an airlock . . . at a depth of 25,000 feet. Yes, Meg 2: The Trench asks viewers to accept that a human being can swim around, however briefly, at a depth of 25,000 feet. I gave up at that point, saddened by a film that seemed destined to alternate between making me balk and making me bored.

While the first film was based around the appeal of watching Jason Statham versus a giant shark, Meg 2: The Trench moves away from the simplicity of that idea. There’s one trained shark in the mix (maybe, but maybe it’s not possible to train a shark), there are more megalodons, there are a few land creatures, and a huge octopus-like people-eater (shown via the huge tentacles that grab “snacks” and cause carnage). Statham is still present, of course, but he is wasted, alongside the rest of the human cast, for most of the runtime, stuck in a very dull plot about corporate treachery and sabotage.

Written by the same writers who delivered the first film - Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber, all once again working from source material by Steve Alten - and directed by Ben Wheatley, it’s clear that the main aim here is to revel in silliness. Unfortunately, the silliness doesn’t work, and it doesn’t fill up as much of the runtime as it should. Seriously, who wants a Meg movie with so much time devoted to a sub-plot about scheming business folk?

Statham gets to do what he does well enough, but not often enough, and he remains a good fit for this material, delivering awful dialogue with ease and jumping around between sea monsters that we know he will need to defeat in battle. The other main stars worth mentioning are Cliff Curtis, Page Kennedy, and Wu Jing. The former two reprise their roles from the first film, with Kennedy being a lot of fun whenever he gets to show how he has learned to try and protect himself more from the danger of ginormous sharks, while Jing lends his name to a project that sorely mistreats him (fans of his work may be disappointed by how he is ultimately sidelined in favour of the Statham versus sharks plotting. There are some others in the cast, there to either be kept safe or turned into food for the big beasts, but I don’t want to spend time complaining about bad performances from people who aren’t given anything decent to work with.

The Meg was a disappointment, but it had enough fun moments to still make it worthwhile, just. This sequel is an awful mess, arguably something that the film-makers assume is saved by some of the special effects and ridiculous moments packed into the finale. I disagree with them. I stopped caring about anyone onscreen very early on, and I certainly couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm when it seemed as if the film finally remembered what it was supposed to be for the last 15-20 minutes. I hope Wheatley is satisfied now that he’s got this out of his system (although it has brought in some big bucks thanks to the way it pandered to the Chinese market for a box office win there), and I hope any future instalments in the series avoid boring me as much as this one did.

3/10

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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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Deep Rising (1998)

Part action movie, part disaster movie, part creature feature, Deep Rising is one of those little films that genre films always view with affection, and rightly so. It may be very cheesy at times, and there are some moments nowadays that highlight the FX budget, but everyone is working well with the tone of the material.

Treat Williams plays John Finnegan, a cocky captain of a speedy little ship that has been hired by some tough guys to take them to an ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean. The liner has been rigged to sink, but not before it is looted. Things don't go to plan, however, and when Finnegan and co. get to the liner, it's already been attacked and raided by someone. Or something.

Deep Rising hits all of the beats that you want it to, from the enjoyable opening scene displaying some unseen threat to the big ship to the perverse and satisfying comeuppance that ends the storyline for one of the baddies. Williams is posited as a very reluctant hero, with his repeated refrain of "now what?" every time things seem about to go from bad to worse, and the supporting cast is a good mix of people who provide varying degrees of enjoyment.

Writer-director Stephen Sommers certainly uses every trick in the book to make the most of his budget and resources, with a lot of the first half of the movie benefiting from very little actually being seen onscreen (the creatures remain underwater, or can be seen/heard trying to get into rooms from the other side of the walls). And there are a lot of good moments that show off some special effects, it's just a case of them not quite having the capability to perfectly render everything they want to display in the third act. The dialogue is a grab bag of clichés and exposition, but it all works well enough. This is a film that isn't attempting to hide the many films influencing it, from the old b-movies with giant monsters in them to the adventure flicks with a square-jawed hero doing his best while out of his depth. It's a formula that Sommers would arguably hone to perfection in his Mummy movies, but it's here in an even more horror-tinged form.

Williams is decent in the lead. He never quite made the step up to full-on cinematic hero, but this is the closest that he comes. The main female in the cast is Famke Janssen, playing a thief named Trillian, and she's fantastic, but that is usually my reaction to any Famke Janssen performance. Wes Studi is the leader of the looters, he's a formidable bit of wretchedness, and Kevin J. O'Connor is supposed to be someone you root for, but is so bloody annoying that you're wishing for his onscreen death from just about the first moment he speaks. Elsewhere, you get Anthony Heald trying to stay smug in the face of overwhelming danger, Jason Flemying, Cliff Curtis, Clifton Powell, Trevor Goddard, Djimon Hounsou, Una Damon, and Clint Curtis making up most of the other players (I may have forgotten one or two main names, it's an impressive cast anyway).

You have some great set-pieces, a number of really impressive death scenes, and a finale that pulls out all the stops when it comes to some stunts involving a Jet Ski zooming along on the water (no sarcasm, more people should appreciate just how good that stuntwork is). Deep Rising is a very fun way to spend 106 minutes, and all the better for not having any cheap sequel coming along to sully the memory of it. Yet.

8/10

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Doctor Sleep (2019)

I don't think anyone was overly excited when Stephen King announced that he was releasing a belated sequel to The Shining. It was a story that was all done, and nothing else needed added to it. Yet King wanted to know more, he wanted to check in on the man that young Danny Torrance became, the man who must have struggled throughout his life to process all he had gone through. We'll come back to this point in a minute.

Directed, and adapted into screenplay form, by Mike Flanagan, one of my favourite people working in the horror genre lately, the movie version of Doctor Sleep is like a box full of hyperactive kittens. There's a visual appeal, there's a worry as things keep moving and you think one or two might run away and hide somewhere, and there's a transition from happiness to slight discomfort as tiny paws produce tiny claws while a brave little body starts to climb up your legs.

Ewan McGregor plays Danny Torrance, a man still battling ghosts and demons of his past. He's aided in this by the spirit of Dick Halloran (played this time around by Carl Lumbly). He also tries to aid himself with lots and lots of alcohol. While making a serious attempt to straighten his life out, and finally passing some years in relative contentment, Danny ends up on the receiving end of some messages from a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran). Abra also shines, and shines strong, which brings her to the attention of Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her friends, a group of powerful entities who increase their lifespan by taking the lifeforce from those who shine. Danny needs to put himself back in a position he thought he would be able to avoid for the rest of his life, and that may also involve a trip back to The Overlook Hotel.

The more I think about Doctor Sleep, the more I find to like about it. Flanagan gave himself the unenviable task of tying together The Shining movie, The Shining novel, and the main source material (which I have yet to read), in a way that would try to please everyone, but could end up pleasing no one, and he's done a remarkable job, in that regard.

I always say that Stephen King tales are harder to adapt when most of the content belongs in the heads of certain characters. See Dreamcatcher, for example. Or, y'know, don't. But Flanagan proved that he could work around that with his superb adaptation of Gerald's Game, and he tries hard to make this work. It's a bigger challenge this time. Different people have different headspace environments here, and psychic conversations are always tricky to convey without either the actors looking silly or the momentum of the movie grinding to a halt.

The other challenge is, of course, reworking the famous imagery film fans all know and love from The Shining. Making the wise decision to recreate certain moments with new actors portraying the characters in ways that are in line with what we've seen already, but absolutely not just impressions of previous performances, Flanagan gets this all just right. Lumbly is a wonderful Halloran, Alex Essoe is very good as Wendy Torrance, and Henry Thomas is a decent Jack, despite coming closest to imitation (perhaps because Jack felt quite like, well, JACK).

For those giving us all new portrayals of characters, McGregor does okay, but is the weakest link. Whether it's the script or his own take on it (and I usually find McGregor to be a very good actor), he never feels quite right in the role of Danny, and is overshadowed in any scenes he shares with the excellent young Curran, and even Cliff Curtis and Bruce Greenwood, who are both very welcome in small supporting roles. Ferguson makes up for her inconsistent accent with a physical performance that displays her character as one light of touch until it is time to rip open "a meal". The only other disappointment with Ferguson is that her character takes up more screentime than the brilliant Emily Alyn Lind. Lind, playing a young woman who can control the minds of most people around her, is arguably the most terrifying figure onscreen, due to the careless way she will wield her power without a second thought.

A dark fantasy drama rather than an outright horror, in my view (although labels are a constant source of frustration for us genre fans), Doctor Sleep may disappoint anyone looking for proper scares, or some gore, or even a hair-raising atmosphere. Sadly, it lacks all of those things. But it still manages to be a decent watch as you invest in the characters and root for them to overcome the many obstacles in their path.

Which brings me back to what I referred to at the start of this review. King wrote his novel because he got curious about Danny, and what kind of life he would lead. He wanted to check in on him, psychological scars and all. The film starts off with this as a focus. I am sure that Flanagan would argue it never moves far away from that, but it does. I was drawn in to the first scenes with McGregor, already anxious for him as he picked the absolute wrong ways to numb his pain, and that journey leads up to the halfway point of the film, before then veering off to drag us along on a psychic horror adventure. The second half isn't necessarily a worse film, not in and of itself, but it's just a shame that what started as an exploration of ghosts and painful memories becomes a tale of ghouls and fresh wounds, and we already have a lot more of the latter than the former.

For the details dotted throughout, for the many little touches that will please King fans, and for the exploration of the troubled and assaulted mental state of a survivor, this is probably still worth your time, even at two and a half hours. A reserved recommendation.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

Anyone who knows my view on the Fast & Furious franchise should predict that I was optimistic, yet also very cautious, about this spin-off. The car-based core series has often entertained me, they peaked with the mix of action and ridiculousness in the sixth and seventh instalments, and then eight just went too far over into the kind of silliness that kept taking me out of the movie. This film, pairing up Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham for their own action-packed adventure, looked enjoyably silly from the first trailer I saw.

And it is. Which was a huge relief for me. This film makes it obvious from the very beginning that the central characters are almost superhuman and your brain shouldn't spend too much time calculating the odds of all of their plans and stunts being physically possible.

Written by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce, the story concerns a deadly virus, a cybernetically-enhanced supervillain (Brixton, played by Idris Elba), and a young woman named Hattie (Vanessa Kirby) who has already tried to defeat Brixton, but finds herself defeated. Fortunately, Hattie is the sister of Shaw (Statham), which is why he is asked to help, along with the one person he really doesn't want to be paired up with, Hobbs (Johnson). This isn't a one-man job though, and working together may be the key to any chance of success, which would also basically save the world.

Directed by David Leitch (who previously did such good work on Deadpool 2), this is big dumb fun that runs for just over two and a quarter hours (do any major action movies nowadays manage to come in at a brisk 90 minutes?) and manages to entertain from start to finish, thanks to the comedic tone of the script, the charisma of everybody with a major role, and the pacing. The set-pieces are enjoyable loony, with as many challenges as possible thrown at our heroes while they generally outrun, out-think and out-fight everyone around them.

If you enjoyed the interplay between Johnson and Statham in Fast & Furious 8 (which, let's be honest, was at its best when they were onscreen) then I don't see any way that you wouldn't enjoy this. They remain amusingly antagonistic towards one another, and competitive when it comes to who can despatch the most disposable henchmen, and both men get an equal amount of time to show off. Elba is a fantastic villain, and he appears to be having a lot of fun in the role, and Kirby is as good as, if not better than, anyone else onscreen, with a tough attitude and a badass skillset ensuring that she can hold her own in any of the major action sequences (including a scene in which she believably takes on Johnson). Helen Mirren reprises her role, as the mother of the Shaws, and entertains once again in her one main scene, and Eddie Marsan is good value in a small supporting role, a Russian Professor who may be able to help ensure the virus can't harm others.

Plenty of punches are thrown, you get a few moments of vehicular mayhem, there are a couple of fun cameos (which I won't spoil here), and those who are patient enough to sit through the end credits will be rewarded with numerous little extra scenes, which are also a lot of fun. I doubt anybody is going to spend too much dissecting this, or searching for hidden meanings or metaphors, because it's absolutely not that kind of film. But I am pretty certain that it will please most action movie fans, and be on regular rotation when it comes to the home media market later in the year. I know I'll be getting it, and am already looking forward to a rewatch.

8/10

The Meg (2018)

Let's all be honest with one another, The Meg should have been advertised as "Stath vs Shark" because that is what everyone is paying to see. The shark in question may be a megalodon but that doesn't mean it has an advantage over the mighty Stath.

The plot is fairly simple, of course. Some deep sea explorers go even deeper than they expected, penetrating a cloud layer that hides a potential whole new ecosystem, and maybe even a new species or two. Unfortunately, their exploration gains the attention of a humongous killer shark (the meg of the title), and the majority of the movie is spent with the humans trying to avoid becoming fish food while they figure out how to destroy the monster.

Yet, whatever else is thrown onscreen, The Meg is all about Stath vs Shark, and it is in those pure moments that the film comes closest to being as entertaining as I wanted it to be. Stath uses his courage and smarts to outwit the killing machine, often escaping by the skin of his teeth (or, indeed, the skin on the soles of his feet as the shark bites the water just inches from him).

It is just a huge shame that the rest of the film doesn't come close, hampered by pedestrian direction from Jon Turteltaub, a lack of much-needed gore and bloodshed, and a script that makes the mistake of thinking viewers need fleeting attempts to be earnest in between scenes of a big shark out to chomp everything in its path. The novels by Steve Alten may be a lot of fun, although I haven't read them so cannot comment definitively on their quality or entertainment factor, but writers Dean Georgaris and Jon and Eric Hoeber are unable to shape and polish what should have been an easy "win".

It's hard to fault the cast, who work with a script that is constantly undermining them with poor dialogue and a wildly uneven tone, but it's also hard to forgive everyone when compared against those who pitch their performance just right. Statham does well in the lead, which is a saving grace, and he's almost matched by Rainn Wilson, playing the required douchebag of the film (although, to be fair, he isn't depicted as irredeemably bad, he's just not half as smart as he thinks he is). Ruby Rose, Cliff Curtis, and Page Kennedy all do quite well, as does the little girl playing young Meiying, the one child amongst the adults. Those faring much worse include poor Li Bingbing and Winston Chao, both suffering when involved in the scenes that try to be more earnest, and also Jessica McNamee and Robert Taylor.

There are fun moments throughout, and the whole movie is saved by the timing of the set-pieces, but The Meg is another big, dumb blockbuster that proves that size isn't everything. Great CGI and special effects can't make up for the laziness of the jump scares, the outright laughable dialogue, and the fact that the characters are so paper-thin that I'm amazed they don't disintegrate as soon as they come into contact with the seawater.

5/10

The Meg will be surfacing here.
Americans can give it a wave here.

Filmstruck Friday: Three Kings (1999)

Three Kings remains one of the best films from director David O. Russell, helped by a great cast and a fun script that generally updates Kelly's Heroes and adds more relevant politics and modern views on warfare. It's a film infused, at least initially, with cinematic cool that manages to walk a tightrope by sprinkling cool moments here and there without ever making the environment or war itself seem cool in the slightest.

George Clooney is Archie Gates, a soldier in Iraq as the Gulf War starts to wind down. He ends up leading three men (MarkWahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze) on a hunt for gold stolen from Kuwait. They want to steal the gold for themselves, allowing them a very comfortable life when they get back home to America. But as they set out to execute their plan they encounter a number of people who need their help. Trying to ignore them becomes more difficult after they witness what can only be desribed as a ruthless execution.

Based on a story written by John Ridley, Three Kings is almost a perfect look at machismo and how easy it can be to undercut that machismo. The biggest and strongest soldier can be caught and tortured, can be turned into a weak invalid by one bullet, and can be killed at any moment, by a landmine or a gun-wielding enemy, or even an ally making a mistake. The dialogue succinctly captures the essence of the central characters and how the war has sharpened their senses in some ways and yet also dulled them in others. There's no room for complacency, but that's not to say that complacency is something they are never guilty of.

Clooney gives one of his many winning performances, a perfect fit as the guy who comes in and takes over leadership of the three men (who only know where the gold is because they happened to find a map stuck in the posterior of a prisoner). Ice Cube is also very good, and Wahlberg and Jonze both do well, the former playing someone who can posture with the best of them and the latter playing someone wishing he could posture like his buddy. The supporting cast also features Cliff Curtis, Nora Dunn, Jamie Kennedy, Said Taghmaoui, Mykelti Williamson, Holt McCallany, and Judy Greer, and not one of them puts a foot wrong. Not even Jamie Kennedy.

Not quite all things to all people, Three Kings at least gives it a damn good try. It has enough standard soldiering to please those looking for a war movie, it has a nice line in wry humour to please those after a particular style of comedic entertainment, and it has enought thought-provoking moments regarding the politics of war, in general, and the situation in Iraq to please those who want a bit of depth to their slick entertainment.

20 years old next year, this holds up as a fantastic modern war movie, one you could nicely line up alongside Buffalo Soldiers and Jarhead for a smart and amusing triple-bill that reflects on the madness of modern life in wartime without taking anything away from the individuals affected by it.

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