For It Is Man's Number: greta lee

Showing posts with label greta lee. Show all posts

Sunday, 16 August 2026

Netflix And Chill: The Last House (2026)

Best known for the many action movies that he's helmed (some great, many not so great), director Louis Leterrier here turns his hand to something a bit more mysterious and dramatic. But he then has to throw some hard-to-follow action into the third act.

The story is quite simple. A family find themselves locked inside their own home. It seems to have been sealed by the rain. And it also seems to have happened to everyone else. The first few days are easy enough to tolerate, but things become very difficult as days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. The family are all alone . . . but they're not really alone. Not whenever the rain starts again.

Having Wagner Moura and Greta Lee in the two main roles here is a big help. Both are very good, and they make it a lot easier to believe in the implausible premise for a decent amount of the runtime. The actors playing their children also do well, with the younger performers (Riley Chung and Alexander Sosnowski) being slightly superior to those who take over the roles (Emma Ho and Gabriel Barbosa) after a time jump.

Leterrier does a decent job of keeping things well-paced throughout the first hour, and the screenplay from Matthew Robinson mixes some tension in with a lot of fun. It's just a shame that, like so many features today, this has to go on for just under two hours. It's actually 112 minutes, but feels a bit longer as the whole thing loses momentum once it starts to deliver the more predictable moments (someone always ends up needing medicine in a post-apocalyptic scenario, and there's a very standard creature feature ending that leads up to a frankly preposterous final revelation). There's also some voiceover narration that really doesn't work.

I doubt many will enjoy this. If you're intrigued by the idea of the family trying to survive while locked in their own home then you won't enjoy when the plot moves sideways. If you're after something more exciting then you won't enjoy all the time spent watching the family trying to survive while locked in their own home. As easily pleased as I am, I even spent some time wondering "when did the toothpaste run out?" and "how have the kids got clothes that still fit them as they have grown older?", questions which wouldn't have popped into my head if I had been more immersed in the film.

And, despite the fact that I usually forget to note such things, animal lovers would be advised to stay away from this. There's quite a lot of animal death here, enough to create what amounts to a montage of hunting/killing as Moura's character creates what he calls "chimney fishing" in an attempt to help keep the family from starving to death.

Maybe worth a single viewing for those with nothing else to watch. I enjoyed more than half of it, but my criticisms and questions were certainly not answered satisfactorily by the time it ended.

6/10

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Tuesday, 23 June 2026

Toy Story 5 (2026)

Every time I have heard about a Toy Story sequel I have had the same reaction. No sequel is ever really needed, but Toy Story felt as if it was even more deserving than most to be left as a solo feature. Then things went very well with what became a fantastic trilogy. All good. Crisis avoided. Then Toy Story 4 was announced. Oh dear. Thankfully, it was fun and entertaining. It still felt unnecessary, but it didn't do anything to really drag down the series. Now we have Toy Story 5. Oh dear.

Toys are now facing some kind of extinction event. Tech is taking over. Children are starting to replace proper play time with time spent looking at screens. While toys don't want to be abandoned, few feel more pained by the thought of that fate than Jessie (Joan Cusack). She's been through that before, and takes it very personally when her owner, young Bonnie, is seduced by the glowing screen of a piece of tech named Lilypad (Greta Lee). So begins a quest to get Bonnie offline and connected with other children, although every other child also seems happier to be looking at a screen now.

Co-written and co-directed by Andrew Stanton and McKenna Harris, the best thing about Toy Story 5 is the fact that it's very much focused on Jessie. Fans of the series will remember how sad her backstory is, and you should prepare yourself to be manipulated some more throughout this adventure, but I would argue that it deserves better treatment when being used as the spine of a full narrative. Without spoiling anything, there's one scene here that is supposed to be quite uplifting and revelatory, but I think the whole film would have been all the better if that moment was played to move us into much darker and more complex territory. That would be a trickier sell for kids, of course, but if anyone can do it then Pixar can.

As you'd expect, this looks absolutely gorgeous throughout. While I have fond memories of the first film in this series, there's no doubt that each instalment has seen the talented people at Pixar improve and refine their craft. The textures here are so realistic that there are times when you feel as if you're watching some actual footage of toys that have been caught moving around of their own accord.

The voice cast are also very good in their roles. Many people return, including Cusack, Tom Hanks, and Tim Allen, and Lee is a great choice for the calm and savvy Lilypad. She would be the main highlight, in fact, if it wasn't for Conan O'Brien, who voices a potty-training device named Smarty Pants. Offering some inventiveness and sheer fun that is sadly lacking elsewhere throughout the film, O'Brien is the best thing about this sadly disappointing mess, although I should also namecheck Ernie Hudson, a cameoing Alan Cumming, Shelby Rabaram Craig Robinson, and Tony Hale returning to the role of Forky. Everyone else does very good work with what they're given, but these feel most deserving of being in a much better film.

Coming along so soon after Disclosure Day, this is a strangely appropriate film to sit alongside that one. It's another blockbuster from someone very talented who now feels stuck in place while so many others have raced ahead. And the fact that the film-makers can't even maintain a strong stance set up by the main premise feels either like a) they knew that would be an impossible position, but figured the rest of the film would work well enough anyway, or b) they didn't want to upset the companies that make so much money from selling us our tech and apps and social media bubbles.

The fact that Toy Story 5 isn't as funny as I hoped it would be isn't the biggest problem. It's not really being sold as a comedy, after all. The fact that it stumbles around the main ideas being explored isn't the biggest problem either. The intentions are clear, and one or two moments still manage to work, especially in the best moments that were featured in the trailer. The biggest problem this film has is not knowing what to do with a handful of beloved characters. Jessie feels as if she's being forced to pick at her scars, Woody wanders in to basically show that he's still around, and Buzz Lightyear . . . well, Buzz once embraced the fact that he could fall with style. Now he can fly. And that might best exemplify how the series has now moved too far away from the fun feeling of "let's pretend" that was locked into so many frames of the previous films.

4/10

Sunday, 18 February 2024

Netflix And Chill: Past Lives (2023)

An exploration of childhood connections maintained over the years, of roots that inevitably intertwine with others in a way that keeps you tangled up with others for decades, and the dangerous quicksand that can be created by the clash of memories blending with fleetingly idealistic moments in the present, Past Lives is a confident and moving debut from writer-director Celine Song that is entirely deserving of all the praise it has already received before I add my own extra helping here.

Nora (Greta Lee, although played briefly by Seung Ah Moon in scenes showing her childhood) is a woman who has moved from South Korea to the USA. She has tried to keep in touch with her childhood friend/crush, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo, with Seung Min Yim as the younger incarnation), but they both struggle with processing the unsaid thoughts and emotions while maintaining a long-distance friendship. Despite Nora eventually marrying an American man (Arthur, played by John Magaro), she is excited by the prospect of Hae Sung arranging a visit to see her. Which feels like it could be a difficult, but necessary, experience for all three individuals.

Concentrating on the characters, the carefully-chosen words used around one another, and the elements of many modern love stories (Arthur comments at one point that he would be the main obstacle in a standard tale written about Nora's quest for a perfect romance), Past Lives is a film that should speak to many people about something we've all gone through, despite it not often being displayed in this way. There's plenty to digest about diverging pathways, as well as some comments about language and cultural differences, but, to me, Past Lives is about grief. The grief of a lost love, whether it's a relationship that ended or a relationship that never quite went the way you wanted it to go. Because it's not often talked about, that kind of grief can hang on you like a soaking wet coat, weighing you down for a long time as you go through your daily routine, leaving those around you wondering why you're seeming a bit out of sorts. It's draining, and you yearn for some moment, whether it's big or small, that leads to a cathartic release. That moment can be positive or negative, it doesn't matter . . . what matters is the reaction it gets from you. A big laugh at your own ridiculousness, or the unfairness of the universe, a scream of frustration, a flood of tears, a sudden bout of nausea, anything that pulls you out of that darkness.

Song helps herself enormously by casting the leads so well. Lee, Yoo, and Magaro are three perfect sides of an equilateral triangle, all treating one another with care as they work on untying knots of their past, present, and future. Everyone is easy to like, which is essential when you're dealing with these complicated feelings, and Lee shines particularly bright at the heart of everything.

I've seen criticism of this, some of it seemingly in response to the many compliments it has received, and I can understand why some people may not appreciate the central concept. I side with the overwhelming majority this time though, as I have made clear throughout this review, and I appreciate this as a delicately-crafted, near-perfect, gem of modern cinema. Everyone should give it their time. You may not agree with me, but if you who end up loving it then you will REALLY love it.

9/10