The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Although they've never been my personal favourite superheroes, The Fantastic Four certainly hold a special place in the hearts of many comic book fans. They are, after all, often referred to as the "first family" of Marvel, and many other characters made their first appearances in Fantastic Four adventures. They've been ill-served at the movies though. In fact, most people can agree that the best Fantastic Four movie to date is actually The Incredibles. The Fantastic Four: First Steps hopes to change that though. It wants to be a fun slice of retro sci-fi adventure, establishing the main characters as new key members of the MCU.

So it's a shame that I left the cinema feeling more like shrugging than rushing to tell others to get along and see it. 

It's quite a familiar set-up, behind the camera anyway. The writing team (Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer) has a mix of old hands and newcomers. Director Matt Shakman has no other movies under his belt, but he has been honing his skills in the land of TV, and has clearly shown something that made him seem to be a good fit for this property. Maybe his handling of the family relationships explored in WandaVision.

There's no need to give a plot summary, but I will nonetheless. Marvel tries to pretend that we're not getting any origin story here, with a lot of the background related by Ted Gilbert (Mark Gatiss) on his TV show, but it still very much feels like one, considering the standard structure about our heroes coming growing into their roles as they face a new and major threat. The threat this time is the planet-destroyer known as Galactus (voiced by Ralph Ineson), and his coming is heralded by the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). The timing of this encounter would never be good, but it couldn't be worse as Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) prepares to give birth to a baby. Not only is Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) worried about the fate of the world, he gets very anxious as he tries to baby-proof their home. That means smoke alarms that go off whenever Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) flies by and safety gates that are far too easily broken by Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach).

There's nothing really wrong with this movie. The cast are generally good, and a good fit for their roles (although I suspect Joseph Quinn must say a prayer every single day for the Duffer brothers taking his career to a whole other level thanks to his Stranger Things character), the retro look and feel is appropriate and sweet, and the grand plan is played out well enough. It just doesn't ever really impress. Maybe it's a case of superhero fatigue, although I didn't have that feeling with the other big superhero movie released this month, or maybe the central quartet are just a bit too bland in comparison to so many other options we've had in recent decades.

Pascal, Kirby, and Moss-Bachrach are wonderful casting choices. Quinn does okay, but is arguably the weakest Johnny Storm onscreen yet (and, yes, I am including the Corman-produced film from 1994). Ineson and Garner are both brilliant, and there are also fine moments for Gatiss, Sarah Niles, Natasha Lyonne, and Paul Walter Hauser. Oh, and there's a cute little robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. Unfortunately, you get the usual tease during the credits, which is perhaps another reason for me leaving the cinema without the spring in my step that I have had after some other big movies from this year. 

There's a suitably fantastic score from Michael Giacchino, a smattering of humour that felt a step removed from the winking punchlines that became the MCU standard for a while, and some genuinely impressive spectacle in the second half, leading to a super-sized finale. There are no surprises though, and no risks. Marvel wants to recalibrate, to get fans back on board with their cinematic outings, and this feels like a very safe and tame way to do that. I have no major complaints, but nor do I have any major compliments. 

7/10

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Nosferatu (2024)

I'm not going to start this review of Nosferatu with any plot summary for Nosferatu. If you're a horror movie fan then you should already be aware of it. And if you don't think that you're aware of it then, rest assured, if you're at all familiar with the classic tale of Dracula then you're aware of it. The names are changed, but the essence of the tale (a vampire heading overseas to deliver death and destruction as he also seeks out a woman he loves) remains the same.

There have been at least two previous Nosferatu movies (a 1922 film directed by F. W. Murnau and a 1979 film from Werner Herzog being the two main features referenced by fans), but this version comes courtesy of Robert Eggers. That means some stunning visuals, of course, and maybe one or two ingredients added to the recipe that haven't been used before. Maybe.

Cast-wise, Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult play the ill-fated Ellen and Thomas Hutter, newlyweds who find their marital bliss interrupted when Thomas is asked by his workplace to head overseas for the benefit of a treasured new client, Count Orlok (an unrecognisable Bill Skarsgård). While Thomas is away, Ellen resides in the home of Anna and Friedrich Harding, played by Emma Corrin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Ralph Ineson is a local doctor, Willem Dafoe is a Professor with some unorthodox ideas (aka the Van Helsing of this escapade), and Simon McBurney is Knock, this film's version of Renfield. Most of these people do very good work. Hoult fits his part well, as do both Ineson and Dafoe. Taylor-Johnson is also very good with the role given to him. Corrin isn't quite as comfortable here, but that may be tied to the fact that she has a number of scenes with Depp, who is sadly the weakest performer onscreen. Although Skarsgård does more than enough to make up for the dullness of the woman his character is supposed to covet, it's hard to watch this and not think of how greatly it would have been improved by any number of other actresses in that main role.

It's worth mentioning the efforts of everyone involved in bringing such a sumptuous version of this tale to life, but I have to single out the music by Robin Carolan, the editing by Louise Ford, and the beautiful cinematography by Jarin Blaschke. They, and many others, have worked hard to present something that is both very much a Nosferatu film and also a Robert Eggers film.

What else does Eggers bring to the mix though? What are those extra ingredients that he has added? Actually . . . nothing. And that's where the film falls down slightly. This is 132 minutes of very familiar moments (even the scenes showing Orlok travelling by sea to his new lair just made me remember how much I recently enjoyed The Last Voyage Of The Demeter). While it may be worth watching for the visuals alone, Eggers is enraptured by the source material(s) in ways that leave him hamstrung. This is often incredibly cinematic, but it's also, in a number of ways, the safest and tamest film we've had from someone who has previously managed to both entertain and challenge viewers with all three of his previous features.

Not a bad film, but it sits behind the versions from Murnau and Herzog, and it ultimately feels a bit redundant. I'll certainly rewatch it a number of times though, and I wish all redundant movies were this much of a treat for the senses.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Lord Of Misrule (2023)

I might not have taken a chance on Lord Of Misrule if I'd remembered some of the past films from the director and writer. William Brent Bell has more good than bad in his filmography, just, but writer Tom de Ville was responsible for one of the worst mainstream modern horror movies of the last decade (although his screenplay for The Quiet Ones was then filtered so thoroughly through a trio of other writers that I barely mentioned him in my review of it). Anyway, it's thanks to the cast that I decided to give this a go. I am glad that I did.

Tuppence Middleton plays Rebecca Holland, a new minister in a small country village. The area has the usual traditions and local lore that you'd expect to encounter, especially if you have seen any folk horror movie over the years, but Rebecca tries to balance her traditional approach to ministering with the unique sensibilities of the locals. Things change for the worse when her daughter, Grace (Evie Templeton), goes missing, leading both Rebecca and her husband, Henry (Matt Stokoe), to believe that everyone around them is actually conspiring to ensure that there's not going to be a happy resolution to the situation. Jocelyn Abney (Ralph Ineson) should know how this feels, having lost his own son about twelve years ago, but he's resolute in his belief that everything happens for a very good reason.

There's nothing here that is going to surprise anyone with even the slightest experience with movies in this vein, but neither Bell nor De Ville ever attempt to convince viewers that they are looking to surprise anyone or create something startling new to add to this particular area of the horror landscape. It may be a bit too predictable and derivative, but at least there are a number of individual moments that all simply work. There's less chance to build a sense of dread when you know roughly what's going to happen, but Brett Detar tries to help with his musical score, and Simon Rowling's cinematography also helps add to the atmosphere.

The biggest plus point that the movie has is Ineson though, a fantastic actor who is used to great effect here. Brooding, often slightly ambiguous even as everything around him becomes much more overt and obvious, and with that distinctive voice making every word he utters feel like a tombstone being moved into place, Ineson is the essential ingredient that helps to make this a success. Not to take too much away from Middleton, Stokoe, and Templeton, or anyone else appearing onscreen. Everyone delivers solid performances, whether they are shown acting in a relatively normal manner, or getting ready to don masks and robes and join in with the kind of festivities that would amuse and please Lord Summerisle.

I liked this. A quick look around shows that most people didn’t, and the main complaint tends to be the familiar feeling that permeates it, as well as many claiming that it just isn’t scary. I can see their point, but I felt that the atmosphere and pacing worked well, even as I knew where we would be heading for the third act.

7/10

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The First Omen (2024)

When I first heard about them making a prequel to The Omen I was as sceptical as most people. While I love the original trio of main films, and the first is the absolute highlight, there have been unsuccessful attempts to move beyond that, with the TV movie that was the fourth film in the series and a competent, but comparatively weak, remake. Sometimes it is best to just let things be. 

But then I started to hear some good things about it. Horror fans seemed to be pleased, and even fans of The Omen claimed that this was a surprisingly decent prequel that put all of the pieces in place to lead nicely into the events of that landmark 1976 horror. I strongly disagree with those people.

Nell Tiger Free is Margaret, a young American who ends up in Rome to serve alongside other nuns helping to support young mothers, and expectant mothers. There’s something afoot though, something that starts to affect the mental state of Margaret. Her suspicions about things are confirmed when she is approached by Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson), a man on a quest to get proof of grave misdeeds committed in the name of the church.

The feature debut of director Arkasha Stevenson, who also worked on the screenplay with Tim Smith and Keith Thomas, this is a film that does itself no favours by calling to mind a number of much better features. It obviously cannot avoid the fact that viewers will think of The Omen, but inserting a sequence that references an iconic moment from Possession is a sign of hugely misplaced confidence, at best. Fair play to the lead actress for giving it a go, but few people could deliver anything that compares favourably to that amazing turn from Isabelle Adjani.

While Stevenson doesn’t do that bad a job in the director’s chair, especially with the lighting levels and the overall look and feel of 1970s Rome shown onscreen, she is sorely let down by the screenplay. The best moments are the ones that try to put a twist on classic deaths from the series, but the rest of the film is just a tiresome and overcooked descent into paranoia and potential madness, with a couple of key scenes that should have horror movie fans thinking “wait a minute, why are they sometimes trying to link to the original movie while changing or removing others details that connect to iconic moments?” 

Free is decent in the lead role, although she fails to add any real depth or warmth to a character who is there to be nervous and frail for most of the runtime. Ineson is great, albeit undermined by a crucial change to his character that is never addressed, and therefore never integrated well into the messy “pick ‘n’ mix” continuity. Bill Nighy has fun in a main supporting role, Sônia Braga likewise, and there is solid work from Maria Caballero, playing the only other character I was actually interested in.

I kept forgetting to write this full review, having seen the film some time ago, but was reminded to get it done when I mentioned my dislike for this film during my review of Tarot. That film is a tame teen horror that won’t please many genre fans, but actually plays out well enough, for the most part, in the way it is intended. The First Omen doesn’t actually work how it should, with the exception of moments that remind you of the superior source material. It is decent, on a technical level, but it is never truly effective, never feels worthy of the IP it is warping, and sorely lacks any real imagination and creativity. So I stand by my negative opinion of it, although I suspect it will work much better for those who haven’t watched The Omen as many times as I have. 

Oh, and Immaculate is a much better wander through similar territory.

4/10

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Gunpowder Milkshake (2021)

The first feature directed by Navot Papushado without sharing those duties with Aharon Keshales( the two made quite an impact with their first two films, Rabies and Big Bad Wolves), Gunpowder Milkshake is a well-paced and fairly enjoyable action movie that boasts an excellent cast and some fun fights. It suffers in comparison to many other films that have been released in recent years though, ending up as something ultimately too insubstantial to be anything more than disposable fun.

Karen Gillan is Sam, a talented assassin who, as so often happens, ends up becoming a target when a job goes slightly awry. We find this out after watching some backstory showing us that her mother (Lena Headey) was an equal shining star in the same profession. Sam ends up looking after a young girl (Emily, played by Chloe Coleman), and she needs to enlist some help, in the form of weaponry and more assassins, to have even half a chance of staying alive for more beyond the next 24 hours.

I like pretty much everyone in this film. I'm saying that now because I think that's why I ended up liking this as much as I did, despite the clunky editing and ridiculousness undermining most of the set-pieces. Gillan is good in the lead role, and she looks capable enough while fighting off numerous enemies. Headey is equally talented, and the fact that she's never been given a lead film role worthy of her considerable talent is always bemusing to me. I would have been happy enough if Gillan and Headey were the two characters kicking ass here, but they're joined, albeit all-too-briefly, by Carla Gugino, Angela Bassett, and Michelle Yeoh. That's a hell of a selection of badass women, which boosts the movie, but also makes things slightly disappointing when sequences don't feel planned around their star power. Michael Smiley is fun in his supporting role, and Paul Giamatti adds another entertaining baddie to his rogue's gallery of villainous characters. Coleman just has to look young, cute, and vulnerable, and she does that perfectly well.

Having spent that much time listing, and praising, the cast, it's a shame that I can't find a lot of positives elsewhere. Papushado's direction is disappointingly straightforward, and the script, co-written by Papushado and Ehud Lavski, feels a bit too lacking in confidence (it's unsurprising to see this as a first feature from Lavski). The violence never seems truly threatening and the quirky comedy is clumsily shoehorned in, making you wish that the film would either ramp up the action or strive for more comedy, as opposed to positioning itself awkwardly between the two.

Technically, everything else is fine. Not great, not awful. Just fine. Nicholas De Toth may not do his best editing work, but it's in line with standard action movies that don't have the choreography and fluidity of the recent high points of the genre, and there's decent enough production design, music, etc. to keep everything simple, clear, and moving along at a good pace to make the 114-minute runtime go by quickly enough. Ironically, considering the two movies share Giamatti in a bad guy role, this might pair up nicely with the whackier Shoot 'Em Up. That film had the confidence to revel in some moments of inspired lunacy, however. This film, with one brilliant highlight that stands out as notable exception, doesn't.

6/10

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Prime Time: The Green Knight (2021)

A green knight confidently strides into the court of a king. He puts forth a challenge. Someone needs to face him in combat. But whatever injuries they cause will be returned to them in exactly one year. Step forward Gawain (Dev Patel). The fight is over when Gawain beheads the green knight. No need to wait a year for a return injury if your opponent is dead, obviously. Except there is no death here. Reattaching his head, the green knight reminds his opponent of the terms of their duel, and leaves. The clock is ticking.

Written and directed by David Lowery, taking inspiration from a 14th-century poem entitled “Sir Gawain And The Green Knight”, The Green Knight is a fantastical drama that benefits from sterling central performances and gorgeous cinematography throughout (from Andrew Droz Palermo, who collaborated with Lowry on A Ghost Story). It is loaded and layered with intriguing imagery, in line with both the tone of the film and the main themes, but manages to be both dense and accessible.

Also, and I feel this is important to note here, The Green Knight is cinematic and entertaining for the entire runtime. I say that because I wasn’t sure if it would be, which is why I didn’t get to it sooner. I expected/hoped to enjoy this, but I assumed it would be a film that I would need to then spend more time digging into and contextualising. While there is a bit of “further reading” you can seek out, Lowery puts everything in the film that you need, with every well-considered detail available to piece together into a number of fascinating character studies.

Patel is brilliant in the lead role, happy to show his character in a poor light as he wrestles with situations that allow him to either realise his full potential or find an easier, less courageous, way out. Alicia Vikander plays two roles here, both equally important in different ways, and she is just as good as Patel. And disguised as The Green Knight himself is Ralph Ineson, putting his memorable timbre to great use. There are also enjoyable supporting turns from Sean Harris, Barry Keoghan, Joel Edgerton, and Sarita Choudhury, all playing a crucial part in Gawain’s journey. There’s also a gorgeous bit of VFX work that allows Patel to share the screen with a helpful fox for a number of scenes.

Alternating between moments that are intimate and moments that are epic, this is a film that has clearly been made with a great deal of love and care, and it shows. It could have ended up in any number of final incarnations, but I am glad we got this version. Cinematic, thoughtful, and one that will reward rewatches as much as it rewards patience. Having taken inspiration from a poem, it translates the material into cinematic poetry, to hopefully be appreciated and enthusiastically examined by film fans for many years to come.

9/10

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Prime Time: Brahms: The Boy II (2020)

I'm not going to spoil anything that happened in the film, but The Boy was a pleasant surprise. A supernatural tale that became an enjoyable thriller, it managed to perfectly mix the silly and the effective in equal measure. It was no classic, but I'd happily recommend it to people looking for some tame entertainment. 

It certainly didn't need a sequel though. And it certainly didn't need a sequel as daft as this.

Katie Holmes and Owain Yeoman play the parents of a young boy named Jude (Christopher Convery). After the traumatic experience of having their home broken into, Jude stops speaking. They head off for a little convalescence, and happen to end up in the same location as Brahms, the doll that seemed to spooky and lively in the first movie. Jude grows immediately attached to Brahms, and wants his parents to abide by a number of rules that ensure people treat the doll as he likes to be treated. Things start to get increasingly tense within the family unit, and anyone trying to separate Jude and Brahms does so at their own peril.

Director William Brent Bell and writer Stacey Menear both return for this second doll-centric tale, and it's almost as if they resent some of the decisions they made in the first film. This decides to push things further, to remove any ambiguity, and to take viewers on a journey that ends with some moments that are so ridiculous, and so far removed from the first film that I'm surprised Bell and Menear even decided to use the name. You could argue that the developed backstory makes it obvious that this follows on from the first film, but all of that could have been tweaked (or, better yet, just dropped).

Yeoman is the more passive of the two adults, just following the lead of Holmes, who has to show stress and worry from her earliest scenes. Neither of the leads ends up faring well, considering the nonsense they have to work with, but it's Holmes who suffers the most, mainly due to her having to seem freaked out by the doll even before things start to get stranger and stranger. Convery is good enough in the role of Jude, spending a lot of the film almost shielding himself with Brahms, and it is always good to see Ralph Ineson pop up in movies recently, even when his role takes him to as silly a place as this one does. 

If you're morbidly curious about this after seeing the first film, let that morbid curiosity go. There's a minimum degree of technical competence throughout, saving it being the very worst of the worst, but it's a pretty terrible movie. All it does is undo the goodwill earned by the first film.

 

3/10

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The Hurricane Heist (2018)

The Hurricane Heist is quite terrible. The characterisations are laughably bad, every scene is overloaded with CGI, and there are moments in which it's very difficult to remember just what the hell is going on, thanks to the choppy editing and fast and loose nature of the screenplay.

Toby Kebbell and Ryan Kwanten play two brothers, Will and Breeze Rutledge, respectively. At the very start of the movie we see the younger versions of their characters in the middle of a super-strong hurricane that kills their father. This has led to Will becoming a meteorologist and Breeze being at a bit of a loss after his time in the military. One of his recent jobs involved working on a generator in a treasury facility that has the task of shredding millions and millions of dollars. When very bad weather causes generator problems, a Treasury agent named Casey (Maggie Grace) calls on Breeze to take him to the facility and help fix things, not realising that while she is out of the picture the place is being taken over by robbers. The weather keeps getting worse, but Casey is with the right people to help her use the conditions to foil the robbers.

Directed by Rob Cohen, who has a few other titles in his filmography in the same vein as this slice of silliness, The Hurricane Heist is the kind of entertainment that you put on when you don't want to think too much. It has spectacle and decent pacing, although anyone after stuff like decent characters, logic, and surprises should look elsewhere.

The script, by Jeff Dixon and Scott Windhauser, is the big weakness. Revelations and character developments are awkwardly shoehorned in between action sequences when the best approach would surely have been to take a bit more time during the opening act to set everyone up before then leaving them to battle robbers and insanely strong wind and rain.

Kebbell and Kwanten may not want to put this film on any highlight reel but at least both know exactly what movie they're in, and they have fun in their roles (with Kebbell involved in a couple of the more enjoyable set-pieces). In fact, everyone at least plays their part well enough, with Grace also doing a decent job as the agent facing overwhelming odds as she tries to foil the robbery, and Ralph Ineson as another agent mixed up in the whole mess. Nobody else really makes much of an impression but that doesn't really matter, as they're mostly there to be a threat to our leads while the hurricane continues to build and build into an even bigger threat.

Not the worst film of last year, not by a long shot, but enjoying this movie is only possible if you know exactly what you're letting yourself in for. It's definitely not as good as it could be, and the first few set-pieces show how good it could have been (I was impressed by both the car chase sequence and the later moments showing Kebbell using the strong wind to his advantage as he threw stuff around a corner to be blown into the baddies), but it's an easy, disposable, watch.

6/10

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