Roofman (2025)

This may not be the kind of film you'd expect from director Derek Cianfrance, but, to be fair, it's also not the kind of film you expect from pretty much anyone nowadays. It's a mix of drama and comedy that allows the main cast members to be as charming as possible, it's fairly low-to-mid-range when it comes to budget (for modern budgets anyway), and it's not using an established IP or an abundance of explosions and CGI to win over those with short attention spans.

Based on a true story, the film takes viewers on a journey with Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum). Jeffrey has a particular way of seeing the world. It doesn’t help him with job prospects, but it does help him when he decides to try his hand at robbery. Entering through the roof, trying not to hit anyone, Jeffrey soon has a reputation as “roofman”. The police soon come calling though, which leads to Jeffrey settling into a hiding space that is in the middle of a large toy store. And that's how he gets to know Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst).

A tale that would be impossible to believe if it wasn’t actually true, this is a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. You get to appreciate some of the resourcefulness of the main character, you get enough supporting characters to be equally interested in, and there’s a real bittersweet nature to hoping that the truth will out during the final act while also hoping that people are spared some broken hearts. The screenplay, co-written by Cianfrance and Kirt Gunn, certainly keeps the focus on Tatum's character, but it makes plenty of time and space for Dunst, as well as characters played by LaKeith Stanfield (a man who can help create false identities for people who can afford them), Peter Dinklage (the manager of the toy store), Ben Mendelsohn (a friendly pastor), and Lily Collias and Kennedy Moyer (the teen daughters of Leigh). 

Whatever you think of the real-life events adapted into film form here, none of this would work if it didn't have the right people being used in the right ways. Tatum gives one of his best performances in some time, making the most of his charm and his willingness to sometimes look foolish. Dunst is a sweet and lovely presence who manages to enjoy a strong connection with a new man in her life without seeming like a blinkered idiot. Collias and Moyer give very naturalistic performances, whereas Dinklage enjoys going in the other direction, and each artistic choice fits nicely with the respective roles. Stanfield is always good, Mendelsohn feels kind and caring without seeming too false, and the only downside of their inclusion is that they don't get even more screentime.

It's not a film that will have many people shouting about it from the rooftops, no pun intended, but Roofman is a low-key feature full of low-key delightful moments. The many scenes that could have felt too cutesy or saccharin are always balanced out by the constant reminders of sour ingredients that are lying in wait to infuse the third act. I would easily recommend this to people who want something entertaining that isn't tied to an extended cinematic universe, isn't making use of some currently popular genre trends, and feels somewhat original, especially when compared to so many other mainstream titles released in the past few years. 

7/10

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Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2026)

There's no way that this should have been as bad as it was, considering the talent involved. I have enjoyed a couple of other recent movies from writer Matthew Robinson, and I've also been a fan of Gore Verbinski. A cast that includes Sam Rockwell, Juno Temple, and Zazie Beetz? Sign me up. Alas, this is a half-developed decent idea in search of a much better movie.

Rockwell plays a man who bursts into a diner, reveals that he's wired up to explode, and claims to be from the future. Everything has gone horribly wrong in the future, but Rockwell just needs to find the right group of people to help him save them all from a powerful AI overlord. That group of people ends up including Susan (Temple), Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson), Mark (Peña), Janet (Beetz), Scott (Asim Chaudhry), Marie (Georgia Goodman), and Bob (Daniel Barnett). Each one of these individuals has something to make them an essential part of the plan, hopefully.

There are so many interesting ways this could have gone. You have potential timeloops, you have evil tech that might be able to tap into unlimited power, and you have Sam bloody Rockwell in a starring role. Unfortunately, the only one of those three things to work here is Rockwell, who gives another performance so enjoyable that I wish he would get more star vehicles worthy of his considerable talent.

Robinson does very little with the screenplay, apparently ensuring that the whole thing can be made with a reasonably low budget. I understand his thinking there, especially when the premise is so bonkers that you know it's not going to be breaking any box office records, but limited resources is no excuse for limiting creativity. Just look at any great sci-fi or horror movie made by people who often had a lot less to work with.

Verbinski doesn't seem to know what to do. It's been a while since he's had to show some self-restraint, perhaps he's forgotten how to do it. Perhaps he was never able to do it in the first place. There are certainly some moments in the second half of the film that show him making some horrible decisions that highlight failings in the screenplay. Robinson may have handed in a weak framework, but Verbinski moves it all around and ensures that it will collapse under the weight of his directorial additions.

Aside from Rockwell's winning turn at the centre of the madness, Temple, Richardson, Peña, and Beetz all do very well with what they're given, as do Chaudhry, Goodman, and Barnett, although they are given a bit less. Tom Taylor is also good, and given the chance to show a fair bit of range with the events that befall his character, while many others fill out the supporting cast without being given any chance to make a strong impression amidst numerous scenes that are often too busy and chaotic.

The 134-minute runtime is overlong, especially with a final sequence that proves to be so unsatisfying, and I struggle to think of anything to recommend here, the cast notwithstanding. I guess the title applies just as much to viewers as it does to the film, but it's only the last two words that I suspect most people will be able to follow as instructions.

3/10

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Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

I sometimes forget how much fun I had with the first two Venom movies, considering how low my expectations were for either of them. Both are an enjoyably refreshing mix of anti-hero shenanigans and superhero-type stuff, and Hardy has loads of fun in the central role. It's a shame that this is the final outing for the character in this iteration, but it's also definitely time to call it a day. This is the weakest of the three movies, and it's even messier than anything else we've seen so far, but at least it feels like a proper ending (in as much as these kinds of movies can ever feel like they have a proper ending nowadays).

Eddie Brock is back in our world, with everything established in early scenes that may confuse anyone who had forgotten about the multiverse shenanigans teasing treats in the previous movie. He and Venom continue to have a pretty good relationship nowadays, always finding the best lowlife criminals to enjoy as a tasty snack, but trouble is coming their way. The fact that they are such a successful fusion makes them valuable to a major villain who sends the alien equivalent of sniffer dogs to find them, and there's also a determined military man, Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who believes that Venom needs to be destroyed. Dr. Teddy Paine (Juno Temple) thinks otherwise.

It's no surprise to see that writer Kelly Marcel has finally been rewarded for her contribution to the series with a directorial gig here, and it's also no surprise that this is her directorial debut. Having worked with Hardy on the story idea, Marcel is also responsible for the screenplay. That makes it easier to know who to blame for this whole mess, although I think Hardy has broad enough shoulders, and enough invested in the series, to share the burden. There are individual moments of fun, but the third act is particularly painful to the eyes, as well as being hard to stay patient with while you wait for all of the characters to figure out how to make use of Chekhov's . . . well . . . something that was surrounded by neon signs and arrows pointing at it as soon as it was first shown onscreen.

Hardy is still good in the main role, although always more fun when he is free and loose to avoid acting heroic, and he deserves to be given this vehicle to bid a fond farewell to a movie series that seemed to succeed more due to his sheer willpower than anything else. Ejiofor brings his usual excellence to his role, despite the fact that he is just there to be the human-shaped threat in amongst all of the alien monsters and, to use the technical term, squiggly-wiggly CGI. Temple connects various plot points and provides extra exposition, and there's some comedy provided by Rhys Ifans, playing a believer in aliens leading his family on what will end up being a very eye-opening road trip. Stephen Graham and Peggy Lu both return, and both are given far less screentime than they deserve, and it's strange that the latter is involved with a scene that seems to directly reference a heavily-derided sequence from Spider-Man 3.

Fans of more variety in their symbiotes will find plenty to enjoy in the third act, there are set-pieces that at least maintain the mix of action and humour that has been a positive aspect of the trilogy, and you get more amusing exchanges between Eddie and Venom as the two discuss their plans and the path that they cannot seem to avoid hurtling along. I still have to end this review by reiterating that the whole thing is a big mess, but it's an intermittently entertaining big mess, helped by a 110-minute runtime that allows it to feel a step removed from the longer and more bloated blockbusters we've become used to in recent years.

6/10

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Prime Time: Year One (2009)

Some films you just watch once and immediately forget about. Some films become firm favourites. Some films require a few viewings for you to really clarify your thoughts. And some films you end up watching a few times simply because you keep forgetting about it almost as soon as the end credits roll. Year One is in that latter category. This is my third time seeing it, and it is a film that really doesn’t warrant repeat viewings. The fact that I also own it is neither here nor there (it was cheap and I have a retail-based obsessive nature).

Jack Black and Michael Cera play Zed and Oh, respectively, two men from ancient times who end up banished from their tribe and encountering a bunch of famous biblical characters. One of them is famous brother-killer Cain (David Cross), one of them is famous son-sacrificer Abraham (Hank Azaria), and there are a whole lot of citizens of Sodom to deal with. That is all you need to know, although the men are also interested in romantically pursuing two female members of their tribe (played by June Diane Raphael and Juno Temple) and there are cameo roles for the likes of Xander Berkeley, Olivia Wilde, Vinnie Jones, Oliver Platt, and quite a few others.

I like Jack Black, despite the fact that many of his best-known movie roles are based around him doing his usual Jack Black schtick. I like Michael Cera, also not really known for his range. They just don’t work here though, feeling wrong in their lead roles and having no decent chemistry with one another. So that has the film starting off with a major disadvantage.

Director Harold Ramis (this was, sadly, the last feature he directed before his passing) seems to think that the script, co-written by himself, Lee Eisenberg, and Gene Stupnitsky, is full of chuckles that will be improved by the performers. He couldn’t be more wrong. The highlights come about despite the writing, many of the jokes are disappointingly obvious, and there are a few too many instances of toilet humour that feel all the worse for being inserted in between the few scenes that have actual wit. The best thing here is the ongoing story strand that allows Cain to remain a central character, but even that is slightly undermined by the fact that his first scenes are so good that it ends up going downhill from there.

As you might have guessed from that last sentence, Cross is a lot of fun in his role here, and arguably steals the movie. Aside from Black and Cera, the rest of the cast often try their best with weak material they are unable to greatly improve. Jones comes onscreen to be tough Vinnie Jones, Azaria is amusing enough for his few minutes, Berkeley had to sit around and look regal, which he does, and Wilde is a potential “fair maiden” alongside Raphael and Temple, with none of them getting to do more than look pretty enough to motivate our leads. Although you can question the choices made in his performance, it’s Oliver Platt who almost rivals Cross for the added comedy value provided, playing his character as a lusty hedonist who takes a fancy to Oh.

Not entirely without entertainment value, Year One is just a huge missed opportunity. What should have been a rapid-fire cavalcade of jokes, be they new, old, smart, or silly, just settles for being a vehicle built around two sorely miscast leads. It is telling that every decent laugh in the film comes from moments not focusing on the main characters.

3/10

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Mubi Monday: Kaboom (2010)

Although I am not overly familiar with the filmography of writer-director Gregg Araki, I have seen enough (I think I have now seen four) of his films to know that I tend to really like his work. He is an interesting voice in lgbtq+ cinema, often putting his central characters in states of heightened reality that allow some enjoyable cinematic escapism alongside familiar exploration of sexuality.

Kaboom may well be the quintessential Araki movie, in many ways, with a plot that includes a good helping of sex, plenty of confusion, the lingering influence of parents trying to control the lives of their children, and a strange cult possibly preparing for the end of the world.

Thomas Dekker plays Smith, a young man who declares himself as sexually “undeclared” when asked. He spends time with his friend, Stella (Haley Bennett), in between admiring his handsome roommate, Thor (Chris Zylka), and having a new, and intensely physical, relationship with the sexually confident London (Juno Temple). Smith is also having some strange dreams, meeting people he then meets in real life, and there’s a sense of impending doom about the way things are playing out around him.

Enjoyably frank and uninhibited throughout, Kaboom uses sex as a distraction from a central plotline that gradually takes on more importance. But it also often makes the sex, and sexual frustration, just as important as anything else in the film. This is what Araki does so well, especially as so many people have had times in their lives when sex HAS been the most important thing on their mind, and all else be damned.

Dekker is a decent lead, even if his character is often more passive than those around him. He has a great ability to convey a sense of both a lack of energy for everything going on and an inner turmoil from his raging hormones. Temple is the highlight of the film, her bright demeanour perfectly suited to play someone so carefree and frank. Bennett is good, and involved in a number of amusing scenes with a witchy woman named Lorelei, played by Roxane Mesquida, James Duval is fun in a small, but pivotal, role, and Zylka, Andy Fischer-Price, and Jason Olive all play a variety of “meatheads”.

Mixing dream imagery with typical teen angst, and nihilism with sharp wit, Araki takes viewers on a journey that embodies the constant battle many feel rages between our innerspace and the world around us. The cast and script are playful, the pacing allows things to really gain momentum in the third act, and the score and soundtrack works perfectly with the visual method of keeping close and intimate with the main characters. It’s highly recommended, as are most films from the mind of Araki.

8/10

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Unsane (2018)

Steven Soderbergh has a way of presenting familiar material in a way that makes it feel fresh and interesting, whether it's the more naturalistic and low-key fights in Haywire, the glossy coating that encases the trashiness of Side Effects, or the effortless cool that transforms many of the films he has done with George Clooney in the leading role.

Unsane is quite a standard psychological thriller, competently put together but not spectacular in any way. The only new thing that Soderbergh brings to the table is filming it all on a phone (and it's not the first film to be made that way, but it may be the first relatively mainstream film to utilise that approach).

Claire Foy plays Sawyer Valentini, a young woman who goes to therapy sessions in order to deal with the big problem in her life, which viewers are left wondering about. Has Sawyer been seeing a stalker everywhere, was she traumatised by a past event, or is her mind refusing to give her any peace? Things get worse for Sawyer when she signs what she thinks is a standard bit of paperwork and ends up committed to a mental institution against her will. She is determined to be released, stating that she isn't crazy, but that's also what crazy people say. And then she realises that one of the staff members is her stalker.

There's a very good central performance here from Foy, who is supported by Joshua Leonard (as the possible stalker), Juno Temple (another patient in the facility), and Jay Pharoah (also another patient), all doing good work. And you get a nice cameo role for Amy Irving, so I have no problems with the cast.

The script, written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer, isn't as good as the cast deserve. It's okay, especially considering that these writers previously gave us films such as, well, Just My Luck and The Spy Next Door, but it's often either not as tight as it could be or it's just too predictable. The ideas here are more important than the dialogue, this isn't a film full of quotable lines, but the fact that those ideas end up lacking a certain something is a disappointment.

Soderbergh directs with his usual level of polish, even through a phone camera, but he never feels like the best fit for the material. Imagine what De Palma could have done here, or perhaps M. Night Shyamalan. Having recently been reminded of her talent, Lynne Ramsay could have taken us further into a troubled mind. But we're stuck with Soderbergh, who does fine. He just doesn't make things as interesting or thrilling as they could be.

6/10

You can buy Unsane here.
Americans can buy it here.

Noir November: Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

When Sin City came on the scene almost a decade ago, it was unlike pretty much any other slice of cool that mainstream audiences had ever scene. Hard boiled doesn't even begin to cover it. Those visuals, those archetypes, and that cool dialogue all just clicked together into a great celebration of everything noir.

It's a shame that Sin City: A Dame To Kill For feels tired from almost the first scene. Reprising the same stylistic choices from the first movie - largely black and white, but with splashes of colour popping out here and there - makes it feel like little more than a complete rehash, with less interesting characters for us to hang out with.

The tales to be told this time around had the potential to be just as entertaining as the tales that made up the first movie. Eva Green is the woman of the title, and she's pretty much a perfect choice for such a femme fatale. She gets one tough guy (Josh Brolin) in her grasp, but he in turn enlists help from another tough guy (Mickey Rourke, reprising the role of Marv). The badass girls of the street also return (led, once again, by Rosario Dawson), and Dennis Haysbert takes over the role, Manute, that was previously played by the hulking Michael Clarke Duncan. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a lucky gambler who is out for revenge. And lots of people rub each other up the wrong way.

Archetypes. That's all we have here, yet again, but they're just not as much fun this time around. For every moment of Eva Green being ridiculously sexy and callous, we end up having to endure a scene in which Jessica Alba tries to act drunk and tough and angry (hint = she can't). Gordon-Levitt and Brolin are great additions to the cast, but the film doesn't do well enough by their characters to make their tales as satisfying as they should be.

I'm assuming that most of what's here onscreen is hewn as closely to the source material, by Frank Miller, as it was in the first movie. In fact, Miller gets a co-directing and co-writing credit alongside Robert Rodriguez. Perhaps such slavish devotion to the material only works when it's cinematically strong? Or perhaps it was inevitable that the strongest tales were picked for the first movie, leaving any sequel to feel like second-tier stuff. A disappointing, disjointed air also doesn't help, with the stories never feeling that tightly intertwined, but there are still enough individual moments to make it worth your time. Just.

The visuals are as gorgeous as ever, if you go with the stylistic choices, and there's also plenty of fun to be had in the sprawling support cast, which includes the likes of Bruce Willis, Juno Temple, Ray Liotta, Stacy Keach, Jeremy Piven, Jaime King, Christopher Meloni, and even Lady Gaga.

Liked the first movie? You should find enough to enjoy here. It's just a shame that it never hits the heights of its predecessor.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Millers-Sin-City-Blu-ray/dp/B00N201WPM/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1415057588&sr=1-1&keywords=sin+city+a+dame+to+kill+for

Horns (2013)

Based on the popular novel by Joe Hill, Horns is a supernatural drama directed by Alexandre Aja. And a damn fine one it is too. I LOVED the book, it became one of my instant favourites of the past few years, and this movie is a decent adaptation. As long as you remember that things have to change from page to screen.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Ignatius "Ig" Perrish, a young man who isn't very popular in his home town, to put it mildly. He's just gotten away with the murder of his loved one, Merrin (Juno Temple), and nobody believes that he's actually innocent. Well, nobody except perhaps his brother (Joe Anderson) and his best friend, who is also acting as his lawyer, Lee (Max Minghella). And his parents (James Remar and Kathleen Quinlan), of course. Except . . . . . . . Ig finds out that his parents actually have concerns about just what their son is capable of. He finds out after waking up with horns growing out of his head one morning. Horns that seem to cast a spell on the people around him. They find themselves suddenly telling Ig their darkest thoughts. There's a chance that Ig can use the horns to find out what happened to Merrin, but there's also a chance that they will just cause him more pain and suffering than he's already been through.

Written into movie form by Keith Bunin, Horns gets a hell of a lot right for an adaptation. Changes are made that help maintain focus on the most important characters, extraneous background stories are ruthlessly chopped out, and the unfolding "whodunnit" structure is successfully ported over, allowing viewers to make discoveries alongside Ig as he tries to use his new powers to find out what really happened, even if it turns out that he still has some blame to carry upon his own shoulders.

Aja isn't as at ease with the direction here as he has been in with most of his past movies, seeming to struggle with the balance of drama, love and mystery here that he hasn't really had to deal with before now. Don't take this the wrong way, but this is more The Lovely Bones than Satan's Little Helper, although it has the streak of dark humour that helped make the book such a great read.

Radcliffe is pretty great in the lead role, it has to be said. It's another big stride out from the shadow of Harry Potter, and he seizes the opportunity with relish, making a great Ig Perrish (wavering American accent aside). Temple is a good choice to play Merrin, a character who has more of a presence in her death than many others have while living. Anderson and Minghella both do really well, Remar and Quinlan are always good to watch, Heather Graham has fun in a small role, and the always-great David Morse is great, obviously, as the father of the deceased, a man who wants to hate Ig more than his inner gut and heart will allow.

Horror fans may find this a bit lacking, it's not especially bloody and never tense or scary either, but it's something a bit different from the norm, and it mixes the dark and delightful in a way that should please those of us who acknowledge that "the devil has all the best tunes" and, as AC/DC once sang, "Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be".

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Horns-Daniel-Radcliffe/dp/B00O4UAXRM/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1413065972&sr=1-1&keywords=horns

Bonus Review: Maleficent (2014)

Maleficent, for those who may have forgotten, is the main villain in Disney's Sleeping Beauty, a film that remains an undeniable high point amongst so many animated classics from the House Of Mouse. This film is all about her, and allows people to see a different side to the famous baddie. Apparently, the story that we all thought we knew didn't play out quite as we were told. Maleficent changes that, giving viewers the other side of events. It is to Sleeping Beauty as Wicked is to The Wizard Of Oz, to make the obvious analogy.

I don't want to give too much away, as there are a number of pleasant surprises here in the way that the plot unfolds, so all I will say in my summation of the storyline is that Maleficent is introduced as a happy, winged fairy (played by Isobelle Molloy) and then experiences something that turns her into the scary adult that cursed a princess named Aurora. The scary adult version of Maleficent is played by Angelina Jolie, and the Aurora who is due to suffer on her sixteenth birthday is played by Elle Fanning.

Let me start with the positives here, because I liked a lot of aspects of Maleficent. The first, and main, ace up its sleeve is Angelina Jolie in the lead role. There may be scenes in which her cheekbones are far too distracting (no, really, I'm serious, I thought they were going to rip through her skin at some points), but her performance is almost perfect throughout. She puts on a decent British accent, looks superb in the costume and make-up, and manages to move from scary to funny to sad as the scenes demand. I know, I know, that's a basic requirement for many actors, although you wouldn't always know it, but she really dances through all of the mood changes with ease. The rest of the cast also do good work, although Sharlto Copley is left to go overboard as the distraught king/father who becomes obsessed with destroying Maleficent before any harm comes to his daughter. Fanning is very likable, and Sam Riley is an absolute standout as Diaval, a crow transformed into a man. Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, and Juno Temple are fine as fairies (although they are given far too many comedy moments that aren't really all that funny), and Brenton Thwaites is perfectly acceptable as the bland Prince Charming type, Prince Phillip, to be exact.

The production values, and the design of the world shown onscreen, are also excellent. There are often an over-abundance of FX shots in each sequence, but they're pretty gorgeous. This is eye candy, and it's eye candy that many will find most satisfying when things move from the sweetness and light of the opening scenes to the darker visual style of the next hour.

Unfortunately, that's about all I have in the way of compliments.

Director Robert Stromberg, enjoying his first time in the big chair, fumbles things from the very beginning. I have little doubt that many decisions were dictated to him, and I should have expected a final product like this from Disney (damn my eyes for letting the trailer deceive me), but the bright, colourful moments don't feel as if they belong in this movie. When things darken, however, they don't go dark enough. This isn't a twist on familiar material. This is an entire rewrite to make everything sweeter, which makes the movie lazy and clumsy when it should have been interesting and much more impressive.

Thankfully for Stromberg, he can quickly point a finger at screenwriter Linda Woolverton, because this is one stinker of a script. Oh, there are some great lines here and there, mostly made great thanks to the delivery by Jolie, but it's 95% awful, made worse by the fact that it's clearly meant to be clever and fun throughout. The voiceover narration, by Janet McTeer, is especially bad, often relating information that could have been shown onscreen. In fact, it's occasionally describing exactly what IS being shown onscreen. At the start of the movie I thought it was irritating, but acceptable, as a shorthand way to throw viewers into the world. But I soon wanted McTeer to just shut up, which she doesn't (okay, she does, but the narration keeps cropping up at various points throughout the movie).

This is a film made enjoyable by the sheer force of Jolie's adopted personality in the main role, and even she can't always do enough to improve the lines that she's given. That would take real magic, and there's none of that here.

5/10

Enjoy Maleficent's original appearance when this is released in the UK in a few days - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sleeping-Beauty-Blu-ray-Ken-Anderson/dp/B00JGTSWBK/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1401307120&sr=1-2&keywords=sleeping+beauty

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