Prime Time: Greenland 2: Migration (2026)

With most people back in their main roles, both in front of and behind the camera, Greenland 2: Migration is an unexpected sequel to Greenland, obviously. Considering that film was about an Extinction Level Event (ELE), you would suspect that the story was all done. Not so. There may be some hope for those who found a way to survive. Especially if you're the Garrity family (made up of Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, and Roman Griffin Davis, the latter replacing Roger Dale Floyd as the youngest family member).

It is five years after the events of the first movie. A number of people are living in an underground bunker, but more trouble is coming. The environment is still harsh and dangerous, which forces people to come up with a plan to move. There's rumour of a habitable environment at a major comet impact point, but getting there will be a hell of a challenge. Your odds seem greatly improved when Gerard Butler is the head of your family unit though.

Mitchell LaFortune joins Chris Sparling on the writing duties this time, and the two of them have a fairly easy task. Remind viewers of the current situation, put the latest events in motion, take characters on a journey that keeps putting a number of obstacles in between them and the potential safety and optimism of their final destination.

Director Ric Roman Waugh feels very much at ease with his job. He knows what needs to be done, and he keeps most of the scenes focused on the star, Butler. It's a shame that he doesn't do much else though, with the experience of watching this movie akin to the trudgery that the onscreen characters go through. You could argue that nothing in the rest of the movie is as intense or entertaining as the opening scenes, and that makes the 98-minute runtime drag out as it becomes a case of waiting for what seems like an inevitable finale.

Butler does fine in his role, once again being enjoyably stoic and a very capable, if reluctant, hero. Baccarin gets less to do, but remains alongside him in a pretty thankless role. Davis has one or two moments that show him struggling to stay adjusted to post-comet life, but it feels like lip service to something that would surely be much more intense and difficult to process. There are a few other characters allowed to pop in and out of the narrative, but things stay pretty firmly held on the fate of the central family unit.

If you liked the first movie then you'll find some moments to enjoy here, but it's a big step down. There's no real sense of urgency, aside from the moments in the first act, and it's hard to feel truly worried about people we last saw surviving "the end of the world". Fingers crossed that we don't get a third movie, although that would probably involve a war for Greenland between the people living there and the inane 47th President of The United States.

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  

Prime Time: Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera (2025)

Considering that this sequel was the reason I finally got around to watching Den Of Thieves, it took me a bit longer than expected to see it. That wasn't my choice, but rather tied to the way it was distributed here in the UK. Or just not really distributed at all, which would be closer to the truth. I kept checking cinema listings for this after it seemed to get a decent reception over in America, but there was no news. I kept an eye on VOD release dates, but didn't see anything (although that may have just been me missing the relevant information hidden somewhere on the internet). And now it's here, another title dropped rather unceremoniously on to the Amazon Prime Video streaming platform. Anyone would suspect that it's a bad movie.

Gerard Butler is back as Nicholas 'Big Nick' O'Brien, but this time around it looks as if he is leaving the world of law enforcement behind him. He is still pursuing Donnie Wilson (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), and gets himself in the middle of an intriguing plan to rob a VERY secure diamond exchange. Seemingly relishing the challenge, and also seemingly enjoying the camaraderie, Nick continues to tread heavily through the murky waters of gray morality, to put it mildly.

Christian Gudegast returns to the director's chair for this outing, and he also decides to go it alone on the writing duties this time around. I really can't make up my mind on how good or bad a decision it is, but he's opted to move away from the grit and violence of the first movie in favour of something that feels much more like a crime caper flick. There's still some tension, and the main characters are never portrayed as altruistic innocents, but viewers are allowed to root for the leads even as they get themselves deeper and deeper in a pit of their own creation.

Butler and Jackson Jr. are comfortable while reprising the characters they last played back in 2018, and they benefit from being able to spend more screentime together, displaying a nice rapport that creates a softer core than the first movie had, for better or worse. It's not quite a buddy movie, but there are times when it comes close. Others onscreen include Evin Ahmad (as a woman who catches the eye of Nick, despite her ex being able to cause them quite a bit of trouble), Dino Kelly (as the aforementioned ex), Salvatore Esposito, Orli Shuka, and Yasen Zates Atour. 

There are a couple of decent set-pieces spaced throughout the hefty 144-minute runtime, including the main robbery itself (of course), the tone moves deftly between the fun and the tension, and cinematographer Terry Stacey helps to give the whole thing a different look from the first film, but with the same clear choreography and focus during the action beats. The end result may feel a bit unnecessary, and there's a chance that it will annoy people who just want a repeat of the first film, but it's not a bad movie. It's not great, but it's not bad. Which puts it nicely alongside many other Gerard Butler vehicles from the past decade or two.

6/10

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, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
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 

Den Of Thieves (2018)

If you're going to emulate a modern crime thriller then Heat is one of the best that you could aim for, and that's exactly what Den Of Thieves does. The opening crime is a barrage of high-powered gunfire, and then things settle down a bit as we watch a number of professionals try to do what they're best at doing.

Pablo Schreiber plays Ray Merrimen, a professional robber about to lead a team on the biggest score of their lives. It's an audacious job, and he'll be helped by the likes of Enson Levoux (50 Cent) and Donnie Wilson (O'Shea Jackson Jr.). Donnie is the wheelman, but he's also the weak spot, having had his collar felt by 'Big Nick' O'Brien (Gerard Butler). First being shown at a crime scene where he takes a doughnut from a blood-spattered box, Nick is the kind of cop who will let his life fall apart around him while he focuses on getting his man. Ray Merrimen is determined not to go back to prison though, but he starts to feed Nick information about their upcoming score. Is he that confident, or is it all a bluff?

Written and directed by Christian Gudegast, making his debut in the big chair, Den Of Thieves often feels like a film that shouldn't work. And yet it does. The main character is quite ridiculous, as is the game being played between him and the villains, there are a number of implausibilities that build up as everything plays out in the third act, the 140-minute runtime is too long, and there should be some more familiar faces sprinkled throughout the substantial amount of supporting cast members. The main players seem to be relishing their roles though, and that goes a hell of a long way to helping make this worth your time.

Butler is a lot of fun, playing someone who is only one or two steps away from an irredeemable Bad Lieutenant (although, crucially, he always seems to be attempting to do his job properly, albeit in unorthodox ways), and he's the main draw here, but Schreiber is very watchable and intense, Jackson Jr. continues to build a good selection of acting performances, and Curtis Jackson (AKA 50 Cent) proves himself able to work well alongside the leads. Evan Jones, Brian Van Holt, Mo McRae, Dawn Olivieri, and Cooper Andrews are also worth mentioning.

Created by Gudegast and Paul T. Scheuring with no attempt to be coy about their main influences, this feels somehow both like a standard action thriller and something quite a bit more bonkers than that. There's a vein of sly humour running throughout many of the scenes, and the very end is enjoyably amusing for how much it seems to directly lift from another classic '90s movie (which I won't mention here, that would spoil the impact). I'm not sure I would choose to rewatch this, but I am sure that I had a pretty good time while it was on. And, as much as I love McAvoy in the role, it kind of makes me wish that Butler had been given the lead role in Filth, because some of the same rules apply to his character here that apply to that reprobate. Oh yes, the same rules apply.

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, and ALL of the links you need are here - https://linktr.ee/raidersofthepodcast
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

Prime Time: Kandahar (2023)

Although I sometimes pick movies with absolutely no idea of what I am about to watch, it is nearly impossible to watch as many movies as I do without some awareness of the content of them (whether it is due to their genre categorization, the main star name, or even just the thumbnail/poster, not to mention the various ads and trailers). So I don’t go into a recent Gerard Butler movie expecting a masterpiece. I did hope that Kandahar would be better than this though.

Butler plays Tom Harris, a CIA operative working undercover in Afghanistan. He is due to head home after another successful mission, allowing him to spend some quality time with his daughter and move his stuff out of the home he used to share with his due-to-be-ex-wife, when he is asked to take part in one more mission, and it is one with a huge payday. Unfortunately, Harris has his cover blown, which leads to a number of people desperate to capture him as he tries to get to an extraction point in Kandahar with his translator, Mohammad (Navid Negahban).

Let’s get to the point here. The biggest problem with Kandahar isn’t the cast, although they’re not doing their best work. Director Ric Roman Waugh is also not dire, but not helping as much as he could. The biggest problem lies with the confused script by Mitchell LaFortune, and it’s no surprise to see that this is his first feature. Where Kandahar could have been so many things, depending on the focus on action or drama, it ends up trying to be a bit of something for everyone. That wouldn’t be so bad if LaFortune isn’t also distracted by the idea of showing how people aren’t always easily placed into the category of hero or villain, with everyone given a chance to show how the circumstances dictate their thinking and actions. What that means is that we get a film with a runtime padded out by many scenes that feel completely unnecessary, and sometimes laughably bemusing. 

Butler is showing his years nowadays, age catches up to us all in the end, but he still Carrie’s himself with the confidence of someone happy to face overwhelming odds with his strength, intelligence, and skillset. Negahban is perfectly fine, and at least benefits from one of the many coincidences folded into the script, and our two leads are easier to root for throughout simply due to them being played by Butler and Negahban. Elsewhere, Travis Fimmel is the employer/ally, and both Bahador Foladi and Ali Fazal play two main characters aggressively pursuing our heroes (although the latter is given a motorbike that is superfast for some scenes and then seems to be capped at a top speed of 5mph when trying to follow the desert-traversing truck commandeered by our leads). 

Some may prefer the fact that this is an action film trying to explore ideas beyond the boundaries of most standard action films, but I would have much preferred this to get the basics right. None of the geography, timing, or choreography feels good enough, and there isn’t enough breathing space for the half-assed ideas lumped in alongside the poor action moments.

Ultimately pleasing nobody, apart from maybe the biggest Gerard Butler fans. Even they might find this one much easier to ignore than some of his other vehicles.

3/10

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

Plane (2023)

I quite like Gerard Butler. He’s a likeable screen presence, he always convinces me that he could take on a horde of enemies, and he’s a fellow Scot. He doesn’t always pick the best films though, whatever the genre (although he is most often found in either romance movies or action flicks). Plane is a film I wasn’t looking forward to seeing. Nothing about the marketing grabbed me. Thankfully, it’s much better than the marketing makes out.

Butler plays pilot Brodie Torrance, due to fly a plane with roughly a dozen or so passengers on board. One of those passengers is a handcuffed prisoner (Louis Gaspare, played by Mike Colter). Flying above some stormy weather, the whole flight changes when the plane is struck by lightning, frying the electrics. Torrance and his co-pilot (Samuel Dele, played by Yoson An) try to do all they can, but the best they can do is try a controlled crash landing. It’s looking like a dive into the water for everyone, but then Torrance spots a small island. Once they have landed, Torrance plans to call for help. Unfortunately, he doesn’t realise that they are now in danger from island inhabitants, a number of separatist “soldiers” who will happily take people hostage and use them to make demands from governments around the world. Everyone is in danger, but Torrance might have a skilled ally in Gaspare. If he wants to risk removing the handcuffs.

Written by Charles Cumming (his first script) and J. P. Davis (who only has a few other writing credits to his name), Plane is an entertaining mix of different elements that work because of the time given to each. The initial crash takes up most of the first act (no spoiler - the tagline mentions it), then you get the survival drama element, and the action thriller, all leading to a thrilling finale that also keeps the plane as a central figure in the plot.

Director Jean-François Richet has proven himself more than capable with this kind of thing before, I highly recommend most of his filmography, and he’s a great fit here. Everything is predictable enough, from the disaster movie moments to the big gunfight battles, but it’s all very satisfying and entertaining throughout, helped by the watchability of the leads.

Butler and Colter are both great in roles that play to their strengths, and they easily carry the movie between them, but An does fine with his fairly bland character, Evan Dane Taylor is an effectively menacing baddie, Daniella Pineda is the experienced stewardess trying to keep people calm, and Tony Goldwyn stealthily steals a few scenes, playing the man who swoops in amongst the airport staff to evaluate the situation and figure out the best way to locate and rescue the lost passengers and crew.

Are you going to feel like you’re missing out if you don’t see Plane? Not at all. It’s a fun film though, and it doesn’t try to be anything other than that. You might even say . . . it’s just plane entertaining, badump-tsshhhh.

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

Last Seen Alive (2022)

Sometimes you don’t realise how good a mediocre Liam Neeson action thriller can be until you see one that hasn’t been crafted around Liam Neeson. Last Seen Alive is one such movie, which could easily have been subtitled Taken 4: Taken The Piss.

Gerard Butler plays Will Spann, a man in danger of potentially losing his wife, Lisa (Jaimie Alexander), until they stop at a gas station and he . . . loses his wife. Desperate to figure out what has happened, and with other people viewing him with suspicion (they were about to have some time apart), Butler follows the one lead he has with the tenacity of a police dog. 

The second collaboration between writer Marc Frydman and director Brian Goodman (their first being Black Butterfly), this doesn’t have me hoping beyond hope that they work together again any time soon. Last Seen Alive is a full retread of things we have seen done so much better over the years, with any extra sense of real threat or danger offset by the growing realisation that absolutely nothing here is unpredictable. It’s pointless, and lacking any feeling of actual entertainment, but the only real threat is the threat to Butler’s career.

Speaking of our leading man, he is not helped by the cinematography and make up here, looking even older and more tired than usual. His hybrid accent, which could easily have been explained away in one comment, also doesn’t help, and I say that as someone always wanting to see a fellow Scotsman do well. The film rests entirely on Butler’s shoulders, but he also s hampered by the script, which makes his character seem quite stupid, plots everything out in a careless and lazy manner, and doesn’t even throw in the tropes we so often see in this type of thing (personally, I would have welcomed some extra cheese). Russell Hornsby is the cop on the case, and I have enjoyed his work since I used to watch Grimm, doing the kind of conscientious  police work he could do in his sleep nowadays. Alexander is, understandably, not on screen all that much, although viewers are also “treated” to flashbacks that show marital trouble. Ethan Embry and Michael Irby have a couple of solid supporting roles, with the former being the highlight of the whole film.

I cannot stress to you enough just how bad this is, and how much I was rooting for it to improve at every turn. Butler has charisma, but you wouldn’t know it from his performance here. The same goes for Alexander. If it wasn’t for Hornsby and Embry then this would be unwatchable. As it is, it is a tiresome and dull waste of your time. Don’t be suckered into watching it just because you like the lead actor. He has been paid already, and he probably wants to forget about this as quickly as any of us.

2/10

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

Prime Time: Greenland (2020)

Having done his time protecting the President Of The United States, saving the world from terrorists, and even catching a dangerous submarine, Gerard Butler now gets to focus on trying to keep his onscreen family safe. I'm sure he has had a previous family-in-peril needing his strength and courage, but I can't think of any specific title just now, Because so many Gerard Butler movies just blur into one another. Which isn't that big a deal for me, mainly because I happen to like Butler anyway.

Butler plays John Garrity, a structural engineer. He's currently going through a difficult patch with his wife, Allison (Morena Baccarin), but the two of them try to put a brave face on things for the sake of their young son, Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd). They need to work even harder to keep brave faces when John receives an automated call as people group together to watch a passing comet. It turns out that the comet isn't just going to provide a pretty lightshow in the sky. It has bits falling into the Earth's atmosphere that will destroy entire cities. And one major chunk will bring about an Extinction Level Event. Heading to safety, the Garrity family finds numerous obstacles in their path, and the clock is ticking.

Written by Chris Sparling, a writer with a filmography that varies wildly in quality from the greatness of Buried to the sheer awfulness of ATM, Greenland is an entertaining disaster movie that wants to pretend it's a bit more grounded than most. It's really not, especially when you consider the coincidences required during almost every major plot beat, but it somehow manages to find a nice sweet spot between the more bombastic disaster movies and the likes of the more thoughtful, and disappointing, Deep Impact (note, don't hold me to that, as I am long overdue a revisit of Deep Impact, having not seen it since it first came out on VHS).

Director Ric Roman Waugh has an action thriller background (his previous film before this one being the Butler-starring Angel Has Fallen) and he capably delivers the goods here. You get some chases, you get a fight or two, and you also get some decent CGI causing big problems. The fact that this is a disaster film is almost secondary to the fact that it's a Gerard Butler film, for better or worse.

Butler is good in the lead role, one that doesn't really stretch him or take him out of his comfort zone, but it at least places him in a developing situation that feels a bit different from many of his other interchangeable movies. Baccarin is also good, even if she has to spend a lot of the movie hoping that she can stay alongside Butler while he offers protection and the possibility of escape. And then you have Floyd, a young actor who somehow manages to avoid being too annoying, even as his character makes things a lot harder than they otherwise could have been. Hope David, David Denman, Scott Glenn, and Holt McCallany are the other main names appearing here and there, all in small supporting roles as Butler, Baccarin, and Floyd attempt the seemingly impossible.

If you like disaster movies then there should be enough here to keep you entertained. If you like dramas with a bit of action dotted throughout then likewise. And if you like Gerard Butler movies then, well, you've probably seen this before spotting this review.

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

Prime Time: Angel Has Fallen (2019)

Gerard Butler returns to the role of Secret Service agent Mike Banning in this third in the "Fallen" action series, and you could do a lot worse if you're after a decent action thriller with some fun set-pieces throughout.

Banning seems to be, to put it bluntly, getting a bit too old for this shit. Which isn't a problem, because the President (Morgan Freeman) wants to promote him. A nice job with less chance of people trying to shoot him and blow him up. That's not an automatic yes for Mike though, having spent his life in the middle of the action. He's right back in it when an attempt is made on the President's life, framing him as the main suspect.

Yes, Angel Has Fallen is basically The Fugitive with Gerard Butler in the main role, which means more brutal violence and swearing than you got from Harrison Ford. And more Scottishness. I wish there had been an equivalent to Butler in his band of pursuers, just for us to get the glorious "right, all a yous lot git tae work noo, I want you to check every coffee hoose, dug hoose, oot hoose, doss hoose, Muirhoose, Broomhoose until we catch this bam."

If you have seen the previous two movies then there will be no doubt in your mind how this turns out. Banning is always the smartest and toughest guy in any scenario, so it's just a matter of time until he gets himself in the right place at the right time to take down the main villain. And speaking of main villain, if it isn't obvious to you as soon as they appear onscreen then you've never seen ANY movie before.

Ric Roman Waugh does a decent enough job with the direction, working from a screenplay he helped shape with Robert Mark Kamen and Matt Cook. You're not getting any particularly memorable dialogue, but the plotting and pacing both work quite well, and the assortment of characters help to make a fun mix.

Butler is once again having a lot of fun in the lead role, which is slightly infectious. You can happily start laughing as soon as someone threatens him with harm. Freeman is very Presidential, although he has a bit less to do when he ends up incapacitated for a lot of the runtime. Piper Perabo is at the stage of her career now where she plays "loving wife to the hero", she does fine with what she's given, and Lance Reddick is his usual dependable self as David Gentry, the director of the Secret Service. You also get Danny Huston as Wade Jennings, an old friend of our hero who immediately makes you suspicious of him by the fact that he's Danny Huston, and Nick Nolte steals a few scenes as Clay Banning, the absent father who has spent years living off the grid.

Not setting out to be subversive or clever, Angel Has Fallen is simply an entertaining action flick with moments of satisfyingly cathartic violence against nasty villains. Butler, and others carrying weapons, can carry off the look and feel of it all convincingly enough, making it easier to digest all of the nonsense without being overly critical of it all.

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
Or Amazon is nice at this time of year - https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/Y1ZUCB13HLJD?ref_=wl_share 

Hunter Killer (2018)

Gerard Butler. Gerard bloody Butler. I have been a fan of his for quite some time now, but he seems intent on making it harder and harder for people to say that aloud. His movie choices are often problematic, at best, and some could say that he seems to deliberately pick some of the worst scripts around when he gets his name in the hat for potential blockbuster material.

In this submarine-based action thriller, Butler plays Captain Joe Glass, a slightly unorthodox type who is trusted by the men around him because he may seem a bit odd but he gets results, dammit. He's given a crew and immediately sent off to Russian waters, where there has been an incident involving the sinking of both a Russian and an American sub. Knowing just what is at stake if the wrong move is made, Glass is determined to do whatever he can to get to the bottom of the situation and avoid an all-out war.

Written by Arne Schmidt and Jamie Moss, two men without too many scripts already under their belts, Hunter Killer is just about as lazy and incompetent as you can get, at least without descending to the level of the laughably bad. I'm not sure if the source material (a novel named "Firing Point") is any better but this certainly doesn't have me in any rush to check it out. Almost every line of dialogue is a cliché, and director Donovan Marsh doesn't think he should do anything in his role to help distract viewers from that. He adds to it all, if anything, with every decision made, taking his cues from the back catalogue of Tony Scott and Michael Bay when it comes to moments that show slick and powerful military action but forgetting to keep things orderly when it comes to the geography of the action sequences.

While there's supposed to be tension under the water, there's also supposed to be some tension on land, as a small group of soldiers (led by Toby Stephens) attempt to get in and extract a Russian president being held against his will by the individual who wants to start the war. One decent sequence aside, involving an enemy sub hidden under a large ice glacier, no tension is to be found once the plot starts to unfold. There are also no characters to care about, and the ending is laughably bad.

Butler is still a decent onscreen presence, making this just about bearable, and the cast is rounded out by Stephens, Michael Nyqvist (also a highlight, playing the rescued captain of another submarine), Common, Gary Oldman, and Linda Cardellini. I like all of these people when they're in half-decent movies. This isn't even a half-decent movie.

The submarine movie subgenre isn't the biggest one around, by far, but I guarantee you that almost any other film you can think of featuring periscopes, men getting tense while standing quietly in a floating chunk of metal, and radar screens that go ping and bloop, will be better than this. That even includes Down Periscope.

3/10

Dive in here.
Americans can buy it here.

Geostorm (2017)

Gerard Butler. He comes so close to being an enjoyable movie star, for me, and yet his choice of movies keeps leaving him as a second-tier option, at best. He's given us fun performances in 300 and Olympus Has Fallen but he's also given us performances in The Bounty Hunter and, well, London Has Fallen (which I still sort of enjoyed, but perhaps only because it was better than the prospect of a sequel to The Bounty Hunter). And now he's the star of Geostorm, a disaster movie/thriller about a system of weather satellites that may well be commanded to fall to Earth and cause global chaos and destruction. If you don't want to read this whole review, let me just say that Geostorm does not sit alongside the better Butler films.

Directed by Dean Devlin, who has already destroyed large parts of Earth on numerous occasions with the films he produced with Roland Emmerich, the plot is, well, it's really just what I already mentioned above. Butler plays Jake Lawson, the man who helped to build the system, and who is then sent back up into space to figure out what is happening to the system. Meanwhile, on the ground is his brother, Max (Jim Sturgess), who might just be able to help him figure things out with the help of his secret service girlfriend, Sarah (Abbie Cornish, and don't start me on how badly she needs to change her agent for someone who won't leaver her to be wasted in such thankless roles). You have a mystery plot, you have a number of obvious villains, and you have Butler being the one man who may just be the person able to save our entire planet.

And yet it's all crushingly dull. Yes, this is another CGI-laden blockbuster that forgets to throw in characters you might care for, any hint of believability, and any real weight to the planet-threatening elements. It's so busy showing you the huge scale of the problem that you get nothing more intimate to make it seem more urgent and dangerous.

Butler isn't at his best in the lead role, he can't overcome the weak script, and this isn't a film that works on his strengths. Basically, he doesn't get to be sweary and violent enough. Sturgess and Cornish are almost completely wasted, their characters being used to move the plot along so predictably that I wouldn't be surprised if it was discovered that a scriptwriting app was used to write this film rather than the minds of Devlin and Paul Guyot. Andy Garcia and Ed Harris do a bit better, but that's more to do with the strength of their personalities as opposed to anything from the material, and Alexandra Maria Lara, Daniel Wu, Robert Sheehan, and all of the other cast members struggle to shrug off a script that weighs them all down like an overcoat made of wet cement.

But it's the dullness that remains the biggest problem. Many blockbusters can distract you from a bad script and thin characterisations if the spectacle is good enough. This just doesn't manage that. As realistic as the CGI may be in places, it is also never placed alongside enough actual real elements to ever feel completely convincing, which means viewers are never drawn in or made to feel any tension.

In his ongoing quest to make his disaster movies ever bigger it would appear that Dean Devlin has simply led himself along a path to bigger and bigger disasters, but not in the way he intended.

4/10

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 

How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

Considering How To Train Your Dragon was one of my favourite animated movies in recent years, my expectations were high for this sequel. Some early glowing reviews pushed those expectations even higher. While I disagree with some who think that this is even better than the first movie, I have to say that it comes pretty close (in fact, I rate it equally). I left the cinema happy, looking forward to whenever I get to watch it again in the comfort of my own home.

All of the main cast members return in a story that picks up, of course, some time after the events of the first movie. The island of Berk is now a bit of a dragon haven since everyone has been shown the way forward by young Hiccup (Jay Baruchel). In fact, most of Hiccup's friends enjoy spending their days dragon racing, with sheep being collected for points, while our hero disappears to fly around the clouds with Toothless, mapping out other territories. On one of his journeys, Hiccup finds out that a ship full of heavies are hunting dragons to take back to the fearsome Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). Drago wants to build, and lead, a dragon army. As if that wasn't enough to process, Hiccup also meets his mother (Cate Blanchett), a woman thought dead for years and years.

Taking a darker path than the first movie, How To Train Your Dragon 2 is, consequently, ever so slightly less fun. That's not a major problem, however, as everything is mixed together so perfectly. The characters are all as enjoyable to spend time with as they were the first time around, the dragons are just as colourful and cute as ever (and sometimes fierce), and the animation is just about as gorgeous as you can get.

Director Dean DeBlois, who also wrote the script based on the book series by Cressida Cowell, does a fantastic job, exploring themes of responsibility, treachery and loss this time around. The film has a number of emotional ups and downs, but it's all pitched perfectly at the level of the target age group.

The vocal cast all do a great job again, for the most part. Baruchel is good fun, joined once more by America Ferrera, T. J. Miller, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Kristen Wiig. Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson also return as, respectively, Stoick (Hiccup's father) and Gobber. Hounsou is an impressive villain, truly mean and menacing whenever he's onscreen. The only voice that doesn't quite work is Blanchett. I get what she's going for, but it just ends up coming out as a bit of a garbled mess, to my ears.

I don't think I can adequately convey how much love I have for these movies. They get everything right. Everything. Even in my late thirties, I now want a dragon. I want to fly through the air, skimming the tops of clouds as I go. I want to be just like any one of the good-natured dragon riders shown onscreen. If that is how I feel when watching the movies then I can only guess how they fire up the imaginations of the kids watching everything onscreen.

Even in the densely-populated field of quality animated movies, this soars above the rest.

9/10.

Be sure to pick up the first movie, if you haven't already - http://www.amazon.com/Train-Your-Dragon-Blu-ray-Digital/dp/B00I0VTPWA/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1404459519&sr=1-3&keywords=how+to+train+your+dragon

Please feel free to remember me whenever you're visiting Amazon and see my book there.

The UK version can be bought here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395945647&sr=1-3&keywords=movie+guide

And American folks can buy it here - http://www.amazon.com/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395945752&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=TJs+ramshackle+mov

As much as I love the rest of the world, I can't keep up with all of the different links in different territories, but trust me when I say that it should be there on your local Amazon.

300 (2006)

This is review number one, for those wanting to read a decent, standard review. Review number two can be found by scrolling to nearer the bottom of the page.

Based on the source material by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, 300 is a sword & sandals epic for the MTV generation. It's full of inaccuracies, can be interpreted in a number of different ways by people looking to drag the film down a notch or two, and almost every line of dialogue borders on the snigger-inducingly ridiculous (due to either the wording or the sombre delivery). It's also a rollicking good time, visually lush and rarely dull.

Gerard Butler plays King Leonidas, a fearsome Spartan leader who stirs up some trouble when he decides to stand up to the Persian army. He's not authorised to take the army into battle so just goes for a wander instead. With 300 men (hence the title). One fight leads on to another, and that's pretty much the entire movie.

Directed by Zack Snyder, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Kurt Johnstad, 300 is the usual stylish product that you'd expect from him. Many are quick to accuse him of making movies that are nothing but style over substance, but I think that he often blends the two very well. Oh, his emphasis is very much on the style, undoubtedly, but his movies often warrant further exploration beyond whatever lies on the surface.

300 remains one of his best movies, although his very best is still his feature debut (that fantastic remake of Dawn Of The Dead), and this is due to the enjoyable source material and to the solid cast.

Butler is all that is man in the main role, with a six-pack to make even healthier specimens than myself feel slightly inferior. He is, as all the actors are, believably tough and fearless in his role. Standing by his side in battle are the likes of David Wenham, Michael Fassbender and Tom Wisdom. Lena Headey is the strong and beautiful Queen who does her best to gain support for her husband while he's at war, Stephen McHattie tries to offer her some sound advice, and Dominic West plays a character who is clearly more of a conniving politician than warrior. And then there's Rodrigo Santoro, making quite the impression as the towering Xerxes, a man who believes himself to be a god, even in the face of such strong opposition from the Spartans.

You could say that this entire movie is just a small group of men fighting a much larger group of men and you'd be right. But there's also a bit more to it. It has enough content to encourage some interesting thoughts and conversations, even if all of those thoughts and conversations call into question a number of decisions made in the creative process.

Review number two: "This . . . . . . IS . . . . . . . . . SPARTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blu-ray-Region-Free-Gerard-Butler/dp/B000VE2NQ4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1380229438&sr=8-2&keywords=300

Coriolanus (2011)

Ralph Fiennes makes his directorial debut with this challenging film, an adaptation of one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays (certainly lesser-known to those of us who only know the Bard's greatest hits, anyway). The fact that he has made such a fantastic end product just shows that he really needs to kick himself up the backside and get some more directorial credits under his belt.

Fiennes also takes on the central role of Caius Martius Coriolanus, a great soldier who doesn't care for the love or respect of the common people. He's a proud man, an honest man and someone not interested in the political game. This all becomes a bit of a problem when others try to get him to run for consul. Mainly to please his mother (Vanessa Redgrave), Caius tries to do his best, but when his disdain for the role becomes abundantly clear he becomes a hated figure, so hated, in fact, that he is banished from Rome. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and so Caius ends up befriending Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), his old enemy, and joining with him to march upon Rome.

There is a lot more to the story than what I've briefly outlined. The central trio may be Caius, his mother and his enemy, but there's also some meddling from Menenius (Brian Cox), serious scheming from Tribune Brutus (Paul Jesson) and Tribune Sicinius (James Nesbitt), some loving concern from the wife of Caius (Virgilia, played by Jessica Chastain) and protests from common folk such as those played by Lubna Azabal and Ashraf Barhom. John Kani plays General Cominius, yet another character more swayed by the political machine and opinion of the people than any direct action, and Jon Snow (yes, THAT Jon Snow) pops up as a TV anchorman to discuss the situation with other commentators.

Taking Shakespearean source material and giving it a bit of a modern update is nothing new, of course, but Fiennes decides here to aim for a nice middle ground that suits the text. There are guns, cars, TVs and much more signifying that this is a tale set in the modern age, but that all falls by the wayside when the camera focuses on the characters and what they have to say.

The cast are all very good, and an interesting mix. It's unsurprising to see what gravitas is brought to the table by Fiennes, Butler, Redgrave and Cox, for example, but Chastain holds her own very well indeed and Jesson and Nesbitt have fun with their roles. The dialogue that you expect to hear, adapted into screenplay form by John Logan, is a treat for the ears and the whole presentation tries to keep things fresh and dynamic, an aim in which it largely succeeds.

Sadly, I am not familiar with the source material so cannot comment on how faithful it all is to the original text, but I do think that this is a very worthy drama to be enjoyed by fans of the Bard and fans of quality acting displays. Give it a try to see how you react to it.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coriolanus-Blu-ray-Ralph-Fiennes/dp/B006H10H2W/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1359127784&sr=1-2