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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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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Netflix And Chill: Love And Monsters (2020)

No matter how often it happens, it can always be surprising to see the Netflix effect in action. Everyone and their dog, ironically, seemed to have watched Love And Monsters last week. It was a film on my radar for some time, but I didn't realise it had appeared online until I saw everyone giving their opinions on it. And the general census seemed to be that it was a good one.

Yeah, I don't disagree with the majority here.

Set a number of years after a chain reaction of events that led to our planet being overrun by mutated creatures, we follow Joel Dawson (Dylan O'Brien), a young man who has recently reconnected over the radio comms system with Aimee (Jessica Henwick), the potential love of his life. He decides to leave his own colony to travel the seven days over land and meet her again in person. The only problem is that Joel is not a fighter. He tends to freeze when faced with any nasty monster. Thankfully, he meets a very smart, and helpful, dog along the way, and also meets a couple of other survivors (Clyde, played by Michael Rooker, and young Minnow, played by Ariana Greenblatt) who have skills they can teach him. Growing more and more capable, Joel starts to rate his chances of getting to Aimee. But the threats keep getting progressively more dangerous.

Directed by Michael Matthews (who has a small filmography that doesn't indicate a sudden move in this direction), Love And Monsters is a fun post-apocalyptic creature feature that moves some very likeable characters around in a world chock full of influences, ranging from the obvious (A Boy And His Dog and a number of films featuring Ray Harryhausen effects) to the not-so-obvious (there seems to be a few nods to the famous journey made by Frodo Baggins).

The script, by Brian Duffield and Matthew Robinson, manages to be light and amusing while also maintaining a sense of threat. Our hero is woefully unprepared for so many steps of his journey, but improves on the way. His chances of survival, however, tend to remain the same, depending on what luck he might have on the way. And the comedic approach to the material means that you're not entirely sure that there won't be a way to kill the main character off (temporarily, or for good).

O'Brien is very good in the main role, believably naive and optimistic, and able to step up to some big challenges without suddenly seeming superhuman. It's a world in which brains are just as valuable as any other resource, and O'Brien convincingly plays his role wide-eyed, but not dumb. Rooker and Greenblatt are a great addition to the middle section, and provide some great set-ups that are later paid off. Henwick is also very good, although her character development is undermined by a complete lack of surprise. There are also good turns from Dan Ewing as a yacht captain offering to help a colony move and, best of all, a couple of very talented canines playing a dog named Boy, arguably one of the best scene-stealing animals I can think of from the past decade.

With a finale that even manages to make you think of the wonderful Clash Of The Titans, consistently impressive special effects throughout, a surprisingly positive approach to living in a post-apocalyptic world, and the potential for at least one solid sequel, Love And Monsters is well worth your time, if you like creature features. Although, as far as I'm aware, everyone else has seen it by now anyway.

8/10

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