Netflix And Chill: Apex (2026)

The last film that I saw from director Baltasar Kormákur was the disappointing effort that had Idris Elba fighting against an angry lion. If I had remembered that he was responsible for that then I may have been a bit less excited to see Apex, but I was excited by a trailer that showed me Taron Egerton working with an Australian accent and telling Charlize Theron that he was about to hunt her. Thankfully, while nothing spectacular, Apex just about does enough with the main premise to make it an enjoyable and satisfying thriller. It's very predictable, almost everything in the first main sequence is used to set up moments later in the movie, it skirts around the darker elements, and most of it really stretches the limits of credulity, but it's tense and fun throughout.

Theron plays Sasha, an adventurous woman who ends up in a particularly perilous part of Australia. After trying to ignore some local hunters (who claim that they're just being nice, of course), Sasha meets the pleasant and friendly Ben (Egerton). And then Ben turns a bit less friendly.

The first feature screenplay from Jeremy Robbins, this is a solid slice of entertainment that benefits from decent stunts, good special effects, and a willingness to skirt much closer to some surprisingly dark content than I expected. It also helps that Theron and Egerton are the focus for 90% of the runtime. 

Director Baltasar Kormákur has a filmography that shows him trying to deliver a popular hit every 4 or 5 years, and this is the right time for his latest attempt to appeal to a large mainstream audience. The 95-minute runtime allows for it to be paced well, and you get a classic opening sequence that sets up a main character and one or two challenges you know will be revisited before the end of the movie, and the central premise is handled with just the right mix of danger and excitement. I was enjoyably dizzy during some of the more vertiginous sequences, and that sensation was helped by the thought of both leads being capable of at least trying some of the daring climbing and swimming on display.

Theron can do this kind of thing easily, and she does. She's tough and capable throughout, but also carries a core of pain and insecurity stemming from that tense opener. There may be one or two times that you want to shout at the screen while her character misses some opportunity to stay ahead of the game, but she's generally working with patience and intelligence to give herself the best chance of survival. Egerton has a blast, and doesn't do too bad with the Australian accent either. Whether being nice and pleasant in his earlier scenes, dancing to his tunes while he gives Theron's character a head start, or spitting out dialogue that enforces the idea of him being far removed from sanity, he's a great movie villain.

There could have been a few things added here (maybe some animal encounters, a bigger selection of potential victims, etc), but I generally appreciate what we got. It's an enjoyable thriller that sets everything up, allows it all to play out as you generally expect, and then cuts to the end credits before overstaying its welcome. 

7/10

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Netflix: Robin Hood (2018)

AKA Robin Begins. This is an attempt to make the character of Robin Hood cool and modern and sexy. If that appeals to you then you should find enough to enjoy here. If you would much prefer your Robin Hood to be more like either Errol Flynn or the fox from the Disney animated version of the tale then I would suggest you move along.

Taron Egerton is our Robin here, accompanied back from his time at war by "John" (Jamie Foxx). Upon his return to England, Robin finds that his beloved Marian (Eve Hewson) has started another relationship with Will (Jamie Dornan), believing that Robin died overseas. He also finds the people being forced into poverty by the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn). Thus begins a campaign that turns into "rob from the rich to give to the poor". Robin makes many enemies, but he also maintains a few valuable allies, including Friar Tuck (Tim Minchin).

Although director Otto Bathurst has no other theatrically-released features to his credit, there's nothing here that shows him unsuited to this kind of thing. Whatever criticisms you might have about this film, and there are many things to be critical of, it at least makes decent use of a good cast to stop it from being anywhere near the actual nadir of blockbuster entertainment. The same can be said of writers Ben Chandler and David James Kelly. They may not be as sharp or clever as they think, but they're far from the worst offenders when it comes to the plotting and dialogue (although I could have really done without the narration basically telling us "you think you know the story of Robin Hood, but here's the REAL story as you've never seen it before").

There are a few decent action set-pieces, enough to make the 116-minute runtime feel just right, but your opinion of this may very well depend on how you feel about Robin Hood being given the bombastic style usually used with more modern action heroes. I'm still not sure if that in itself is a bad idea or if I was irritated by the times that overused the same tricks and effects.

Egerton is a good choice for the lead, having shown us before how well he can do the charming rogue figure. He's a great fit, and always believable, even as the stunts become wilder and more dangerous. Foxx is a fantastic partner for him, and seems equally capable in the inventive action beats. Hewson is an appropriately lovely Marian, Mendelsohn is an appropriately nasty Sheriff of Nottingham, and they complete a central quartet good enough to make up for the lethargic Dornan and a sorely mis-cast Minchin.

Arguably too old-fashioned in content for younger viewers and too modern and flashy for older viewers, I'm not surprised that this didn't set the box office alight when it was released. I wouldn't have minded if it did better though. I may not rush to rewatch it, and I'm not sure who in my friend circle I would recommend it to, but I'd prefer to watch a sequel to this than watch yet another Sony superhero movie.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: Carry-On (2024)

Taron Egerton plays Etahn Kopek, a young TSA agent who ends up having a very difficult shift in a busy airport on Christmas Eve. It's all thanks to a mysterious stranger (Jason Bateman) who ends up threatening Kopek to let a piece of luggage through the security system that really shouldn't be anywhere near an airport. Kopek doesn't want to co-operate, of course, but there's also another villain (Theo Rossi) keeping an eye on his pregnant partner, Nora (Sofia Carson). Meanwhile, one detective (Elena Cole, played by Danielle Deadwyler) senses something unusual about the latest case she is working on, and her investigation may eventually lead her to the same airport where our hero is desperately trying to stall for time.

Sometimes I watch a film and have such a strong reaction to it (whether positive or negative) that looking around online to see myself being very much in the minority makes me wonder if I missed something major. Despite what many others may tell you, Carry-On is awful, and not often in a fun way. I've seen people praise it as a throwback to simple action thrillers of the '90s, but that is just being rude to the simple action thrillers of the '90s. I've also seen people go on about how it's just a bit of fun that allows viewers to switch their brain off and enjoy the ride. There's switching your brain off and then there's being placed into an induced-coma to stop you asking too many questions. This film would have to do the latter to be considered anything more than an insulting mess.

Let's start with that dire script, written by T. J. Fixman, who unsurprisingly has a history made up of various Ratchet & Clank projects, as well as one other videogame. I don't always mind films that set everything up in entirely obvious ways, offering a comforting familiarity with how predictable it all is, but there's no finesse here at all. Even worse, there's absolutely no attempt to make things feel plausible. The main plan is silly enough, once you think about it for more than a moment, but would be perfectly fine if the rest of the film didn't try to find a breaking point for anyone suspending their disbelief. Want to warn your loved one about a potential sniper threatening their life? Do it in front of the biggest set of windows possible, as opposed to a backroom that has already been described as a total blindspot earlier on in the film. We're told many times at the start of the movie how busy the airport will be on this particular day, which doesn't seem to matter when people are looking for other airport staff or members of the security team. And let's not even waste energy rolling eyes at how amazingly quiet the airport car park becomes when someone is being chased by a van, and then a gun-toting killer who vacates said van. Those are just the "highlights", but you get the idea. None of the dialogue feels natural and flowing, and everyone is hampered by the silliness of the central idea.

As for director Jaume Collet-Serra, he represses any of his style and skill to deliver something that simply sits alongside numerous other "identi-kit" features paid for by Netflix. Okay, he no longer always shows off the eye he had while making the likes of House Of Wax and Orphan, but I defy anyone to watch this without credits and then name him as the director. 

I wish I could say that the cast at least work to improve the material, but they don't. Egerton is someone I normally enjoy watching onscreen, but he has to spend a lot of his screentime here responding to a voice speaking to him via an earpiece. How does he show his worry and stress? A twitchy left eye. It's distractingly overdone, and he isn't helped by the fact that his character has to wade further into the waters of implausibility than anyone else. Bateman is decent, but not entirely convincing as the manipulative criminal mastermind. Carson and Deadwyler are both slightly underused (although Deadwyler ends up involved in what is arguably the worst sequence in the film, an eye-wateringly bad stunt sequence involving cars soundtracked to "Last Christmas" on the radio), Rossi never feels as competent as he should, and everyone else, from Logan Marshall-Green and Dean Norris to Sinqua Walls and Curtiss Cook, is completely wasted.

I liked some of the very end scenes, but even that felt like some small consolation after expecting another twist that didn't happen. I wasn't just unhappy as the end credits rolled, I was bloody annoyed at once again being won over by a trailer for a film that turned out to be, while harmless and fairly inoffensive, another slick and empty waste of time (for both myself and those involved in making it).

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: Rocketman (2019)

Okay, here's the thing about my review of Rocketman. I had to decide early on whether I wanted to mention Bohemian Rhapsody. Part of me thought it was unfair to do a piece comparing and contrasting the two. Another part of me realised that this film highlights just how much was wrong with the other film, and they do have a lot of connective tissue (from the onscreen subject matter to the use of Dexter Fletcher behind the camera).

This is the story of how Elton John became Elton John, from his humble and quite difficult childhood years, as Reginald Dwight, through a number of years blurred by a quest for love that also saw him embracing excess in every part of his life, from his stage presence to his problems with alcohol and drugs. That's about all you need to know about this musical journey through the life of Elton John. And it obviously helps if you like at least some of his songs . . . and who doesn't like at least some of his songs?

The best decisions made by director Dexter Fletcher and writer Lee Hall involve the staging of this material. What you get is a proper musical, with a proper feeling of artifice at every turn. Hall has a solid background in films that either make great use of music or adapt stage work to screen (having worked on the likes of Billy Elliot, War Horse, and, errrrr, Cats). And Fletcher had a big hit with the film adaptation of Sunshine On Leith, of course, and seems to have a knack for creating rousing moments that prove to be easy audience-pleasers. It helps that Elton himself is the kind of figure you can imagine seeing the world in such an overdone and stylish way, working for many years with a hazy filter of booze and drugs over his trademark spectacles.

Taron Egerton is superb in the lead role, very much a believable combination of the tortured artist and the constant showman. It's a superb transformation, and arguably his best onscreen performance to date (which comes after a burgeoning career already full of pretty great turns). Jamie Bell is Bernie Taupin, a vital figure in Elton's life, and he's okay, left to be the one really decent figure in a sea of people who seem to be either manipulating or using our lead, or both. Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh are fairly horrible parents, but both are outshone by the deliberate coldness and cruelty of John Reid, which allows Richard Madden to impress in a performance that paints him in a very unflattering light, both physically and in terms of his character.

Although there are moments in which Elton John licks his wounds and indulges in a session or two of self-pity, deservedly so, the other big plus about the film is the self-awareness. We're not being shown a saint, at times we're not even being shown someone being very nice at all. We're shown someone with a huge amount of talent who took a long time to find the coping mechanisms required to maintain some kind of mental equilibrium. And he's often mistreated by those who should have been there to help him.

It's a happy film, overall, but there's plenty of unhappiness to wade through on the way to the ending we all know is waiting. The songs help to offset the darker moments, as do the wardrobe choices and the cutting wit of the dialogue at times. It's also deceptively inspiring. I hope anyone who has spent time trying to maintain toxic relationships can look at this and realise that cutting those people from your life can absolutely complement any attempt to cut out any health-endangering vice that you may have. As the life of Elton John proves, you can start to focus on your health and true happiness at any age. You may stumble, you may not always have the focus or motivation, but making that start is the best thing you can do. And it may just lead to a whole new lease of life for you. It did for him.

And one last testament to the film, I wrote this review while listening to a playlist of Elton John songs. Because I was reminded of how many of them I really like.

8/10

Here's the bit everyone ignores . . .
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