Tag: 2023

The 2023 Box Office Breakdown

Posted on by fenrisfil

When looking at the box office, in past years I’ve used a more accurate spreadsheet that takes into account the slight variation in percentage of ticket sales that goes to the studio for the opening week and global territories. This year however I’m just using the simple 3 X production budget formula. What that effectively does is assume the marketing costs are about 50% of the production budget again and that the ticket percentage is a flat 50%. The actual figure is far more complicated. I’ve split this years films into Epic Wins, Success, Met Expectations, Disappointments and outright bombs. Let’s start at the top!

Epic Wins of 2023!

This is a relatively short list. The biggest winner of the year is “Barbie“. A movie that most expected to do well, but literally no one expected to cross $1.4 billion. There’s a lot that could be said about the movie, it certainly isn’t perfect but it does seem to have truly resonated with fans of the franchise. Regardless of if they agreed with the treatment of the Ken’s, the real world or the crude humour, they also recognised that this really looked like Barbie’s world. Barbie wasn’t the only franchise though to give it’s fans something that felt right and the second biggest winner of the year is again way out in front of the rest of the gang this year and that is “The Super Mario Bros. Movie“. Another film most expected to do well. My particular prediction was it would do “Minions numbers”, but it blasted even past that to a whopping $1.36 billion globally. I feel there is a lesson to be learned here about, but I’ll get to that later.

After these two phenomenons things get a little more subjective. Here we need to look at which movies massively exceeded all expectations rather than the gross ticket sales. The first such hit is unsurprisingly Oppenheimer. In what was probably the strangest viral marketing tactic of any movie people were encouraged to go an see “Barbenheimer”, a double bill of Barbie and Oppenheimer. Bizarrely this was embraced by audiences and both movies saw a considerable boom in ticket sales. The two movies couldn’t possibly be more different, but it’s an important lesson in never underestimating the power of a good meme. Is it something we’ll ever see again? Well Barbie is almost certainly getting a sequel and Christopher Nolan isn’t going to stop making movies any time soon, so who knows?

Two more movies to land in the epic win category are “The Sound of Freedom” and “Godzilla Minus One“, both with low budgets and both massively over performing. On top of that the audience response was off the charts. The Sound of Freedom is an emotional thriller from Angel Studios made for $14.5m, originally meant to be distributed by Fox, but after the company was purchased by Disney the movie remained on the shelf until Angel Studios requested out of the deal and found alternative distribution. Disney screwed themselves out of a good bit of money on that one, but they are full of bad decisions these days. Godzilla Minus One meanwhile is a Japanese Godzilla film made for a mere $12m and looking every bit as good as a $200m Hollywood blockbuster. The film takes Godzilla right back to his roots and is widely considered the best Godzilla film since the 1954 original.

Success Stories of 2023

At the higher end of the production budget scale there isn’t a lot of success stories for 2023 (Outside those epic wins). It’s pretty much just the animated Spider-Verse film “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse“, largely coasting off the great reception the previous Spider-Verse received back in 2018 as well as the continuing strength of the Spider-Man brand. Fan reactions to this one were mixed, with a few of the character portrayals not quite landing with viewers and the ending feeling anti-climactic. Turns out this was only half of a story and the continuation is already delayed thanks to the writers strike. However, the animation continues to receive praise and the Spider-brand remains the one guaranteed cash cow in the Superhero genre.

The most successful horror movie of the year was the video game adaptation “Five Nights at Freddy’s“. With a $20m production budget, perhaps on the higher side for horror the move raked in $300m globally, The thing to note here is that was with a day and date streaming release. That means no one actually had to go to the theatres to watch this legally but they chose to anyway. That is a huge success and honestly could have pushed this one to the epic win column. The movie itself was very true to the game and absolutely nailed the look of the animatronic monsters. That said it wasn’t without flaws, most notably how light the horror elements actually were. As a result the reaction to the movie was decidedly mixed, but the important thing was fans of the game loved it.

Not too far off the success of FNAF was an early release in 2023 the horror film “M3GAN“. A personal favourite of mine from the year, the film drew in $181m worldwide against a production budget of only $12m, making around $145m. That’s a considerable amount of profit and you can bank on this film seeing a lot of sequels in the coming years. The latest entry in the Saw franchise “Saw X” made itself a healthy profit with $109m against it’s $13m production budget. That’s a $147m profit and you can bet Saw XI won’t be too far off. Surprisingly, the sequel no one asked for “The Nun 2” managed to earn itself $268m against it’s $38.5m budget, netting $152m in profit.

“Talk To Me” had a production budget of just $4.5m and raked in $70m, with many calling it the horror film on the year. The latest Insidious sequel meanwhile, “Insidious: The Red Door“, had a $16m production budget and raked in $186m globally. Despite it’s financial success though, The Red Door was not well received and it remains to be seen how much life this franchise has left. Last but not least The Evil Dead series had it’s second reboot with “Evil Dead Rises” drawing in $146m against it’s $19m budget. That’s a profit of about $89m. though it’s worth noting when the production budget is under $30m the P&A cost (Mostly marketing) is likely more than 50% of the production budget so these films possibly made a bit less than I am listing, but they still did well.

Business As Usual – Meeting Expectations

I’m not going to cover too many lower budget movies here as it’s quite hard to judge what expectations are for a lot of those. Many of those films will be of more value on streaming after their theatrical run or are more about studio prestige than actual profits. But there are still a few films to talk about. First up, the most successful live action superhero film of the year “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3“. This was the final part of the James Gunn’s Guardians story and his final Marvel movie before heading over to DC and Warner. With that in mind, expectations for this film were high and because of that it could be debated this is actually a disappointment.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 3 is the fourth highest earner at the box office with a worldwide haul of $845m. The problem is the production budget of $250m pushes the break even point to about $750m, meaning the movie likely didn’t even bring home $100m of profit. On top of that it brought in less (Inflation adjusted) than the previous GOTG movie and represents a creative dead end for the MCU. That said, outside of the depiction of Adam Warlock the film was well received and made for a strong send off to the team and James Gunn.

Also rounding off a well love movie series was “John Wick: Chapter 4” and in doing so achieving about what would have been expected. The movie drew in $430m against a production budget of $100m. Despite the lower numbers it likely ended with a greater profit than GOTG3 and kept in line approximately with the previous movies. The reception from audiences were positive, despite a few noting how over the top it has all become now and how John Wick is basically a superhero at this point. The choreography and camerawork in the action scenes though was pretty spectacular. While the movie ended John’s story, it opened up the world in which is was set to any number of spin offs, so the franchise is still alive and strong.

Doing about what was expected in the box office was “Creed III“, the now Stallone-less Rocky spin off franchise pulled in a franchise best box office of $275m, but against a production budget of $75m (Also a franchise high), giving it profit of only around $50m. Fan reaction for this one was down on the previous two movies and it is doubtful we’ll see as many of these films as we did from Rocky. Still, no one will be too upset with this performance. Last on this list is “Scream VI” pulling in $168m against a $35m budget and with mixed reception from fans, it’s not lighting the world on fire but for the sixth entry in a horror franchise that should probably not have had sequels at all it’s not a bad showing.

The Disappointments of 2023

Obviously flops and bombs are also disappointments but we’ll deal with those separately. First film on the list is the latest out, “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes“. This is a movie that seems to have landed precisely at it’s break even point of $300m against it’s $100m production budget. No one will be celebrating that, but at least it hasn’t lost money. The tepid box office about reflects the audience and critical responses for the movie. If ever there was a movie that could be described as “Mid” it is this one.

Next up we have “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem“, a movie that sort of farted onto the cinema coasting off general franchise popularity and then heading into the sunset with a haul of $180m against it’s surprisingly high $70m production budget. The theoretical break even point for that is around $210m meaning this probably made a loss of a round $30m. It’s close enough to the break even point that it may have cleared it’s costs, but it could also be a lot more. That ambiguity is why it is in the disappointment section instead of outright flops, but it’s safe to say no one will be happy with this. Seth Rogen continues to be franchise poison.

Next up on the disappoint list is a director for who the word “Disappointment” has become somewhat synonymous with his career. Shyamalan M Night is a capable director that occasionally just makes very bad decisions. His movies tend to revolve around twists and that is always going to leave a lot of viewers disappointed if that twist just doesn’t resonate with them. The movie in question here is “Knock at the Cabin“, Drawing in about $54m global against it’s $20m production budget. Again technically under it’s break even point, but close enough that only the studio and their accountants likely know if it is in the black or in the red.

The last movie on this list to avoid being full on flops or bombs is somewhat debatable and that is Pixar’s “Elemental“. Going just on it’s theatrical performance of $486m against a $200m production budget it would be in definite flop territory. However, it has done very well on streaming and perhaps enough to remain out of Bob Iger’s nightmares this year. After all he has a lot more to be concerned about. The movie is pretty generic pixar stuff, but there’s been far worse animated movies out this year. No one is going to celebrate this one, but it could definitely be worse.

A few movies came out this year and flopped but avoided going “Full bomb”. First is Neil Blomkamp’s “Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story“, pulling in $117m against it’s $60m production budget and losing about $60m. This will certainly not help Blomkamp, which is a shame because he is a very talented director that should be the one making those big franchise movies. “A Haunting in Venice“, the third Kenneth Branagh Poirot movie had a $60m production budget, but drew in only $114m, losing about $66m. These last two I’m told are good movies, but am yet to see them. Last on the list is Trolls Band Together” drawing $139m against it’s $95m budget and losing about $45m.

In the genre of Horror an interesting one is “The Exorcist: Believer“, which technically did okay $136m against it’s $30m production budget. But Blumhouse paid out $400m for the rights to the franchise, meaning that they likely expected more from the film. If future movies do about the same, scraping out under $50m in profit, the franchise won’t actually have made any money until it’s ninth installment (Which would technically be Exorcist 10,12 or 13 depending how you count it). That definitely isn’t what they had in mind when they purchased it.

BOMBS AWAY!

This is where most of the big budget movies of 2023 ended up, so since I’d like people to actually read this article I’m not going to be verbose on this one and just plow through it. First up “is “. Next on the bomb list. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves“, a movie I found disappointing but one not without support, it drew in $207m against it’s $150m production budget, losing around $200m for Paramount. Second on this list is Disney’s controversial live action remake of “The Little Mermaid“, which generated $568m globally. An impressive haul, except that with a production budget of $250m it’s break even was a whopping $750m, meaning the movie actually lost $182m for Disney.

Big franchises were no guarantee of success in 2023. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” drew in $438m globally against it’s $195m production budget, losing around $147m for Paramount. It’s worth noting on this one, domestically the last three Transformers movies have made about the same, but the international numbers have been plummeting movie after movie, going from $555m to $391m to just $280m. Also Bumblebee had a more modest $118m production budget putting it’s break even point at $354m, had Rise of the Beasts been as careful with it’s spending it would have made $84m instead of turning into a bomb. However, there is no denying internationally Transformers may have run it’s course.

One of the years more surprising failures is “Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning part one“, a movie that drew in a whopping $566m globally, yet still ending up losing $300m due to it’s insane $290m. The lesson there should be obvious, but I would add that I don’t feel audiences are too keep on going to see what they perceive as half a movie either. In practice the movie did have a conclusion but seeing “Part One” in the title probably put some people off. The movie also had unexpected competition from surprise “The Sound of Freedom”. Joining in the insane budget club is “Fast X” with an astronomical budget of $340m, meaning it needed to make over a billion to break even. It made $714m, loosing $306m.

Disney attempted to turn an amusement park ride into a successful movie franchise again this year with Haunted Mansion. The movie cost $158m, had a break even of $474m and generated just $115m. That’s a whopping $359m. If that is embarrassing it’s not as embarrassing as their centenary celebration movie “Wish”, whose nonsensical plot managed to pull in only $146m against it’s $200m (that they admitted to) budget. That means the movie lost Disney $454m, probably not how they planned to celebrate. It’s worth noting last year I was optimistic about Wish since it was supposed to be a return to classic hand drawn animation. However, that plan was abandoned and they reverted to rather poor looking CGI instead. The plot apparently was changed too and I Can’t imagine for the better.

But as bad as all that looks….Well, then their is “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny“. Another movie with a $300m production budget (bang on $300m supposedly, which likely means it was a lot higher but that’s all they’ll admit to). Indie 4 drew in a mere $381m worldwide losing Disney $519m. That is half a billion lost digging up a long dead franchise that already had two send decent send offs (I’m talking just of the end of “Crystal Skull” there, not the entire movie). It could be argued most of the damage was done with Crystal Skull or that the trust in Lucasfilm after it’s horrendous mismanagement of Star Wars is so low it didn’t matter what they put out, it was doomed from the start. Then again word of mouth wasn’t good either. Technically this was the biggest box office bomb of all time, at least for a few months….

Superhero movies were, with a couple of exceptions, box office poison this year and with Marvel and DC dominating the genre that means Disney and Warner Bros took a big hit. Disney’s “Ant Man & The Wasp: Quantumania” only brought in $463m globally against it’s $200m production budget, losing $187m for the company. But if that sounds bad, it was a huge success compared to some of the other movies in the genre this year. DC’s “Blue Beetle” could only manage a minuscule $128m against it’s fortunately more sensible budget of $120m. That means a loss of $232m for Warner on that one. The Shazam Sequel “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is in a similar situation earning $132m globally against it’s $125m budget, losing Warner $243m. It’s worth noting had Quantumania cost $120/125m, it would would have broken even. Warner’s due meanwhile would have had to be produced for $40m to break even, but then let’s remember Godzilla Minus One cost $12m, so these things are possible.

So, as bad as those losses were they are nothing compared to the this years true super villains, “The Flash“, Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom” and “The Marvels“. It’s worth noting the Aquaman sequel is still out in theatres, though after the first full week and the first few days of the second we can make a pretty reasonable prediction. Least disastrous of the bunch is theoretically “The Flash”, but a lot depends on if you believe the official production budget of $200m. This film had a *lot* of reshoots. But even going by the official it’s break even would have been $600m and it only managed a paltry $266m. That means at best The Flash lost Warner $334m. Between this bomb and his personal issues it’s fairly safe to say Ezra Miller’s career may be over.

Speaking of people with no Hollywood career anymore, Amber Heard’s controversial legal feud with Johnny Depp may well have cost Aquaman II a good portion of it’s box office, but in a year where every DC movie has bombed it’s unlikely to be just that. The first Aquaman movie reached the billion mark, this one has barely scrapped $145m and going by it’s current legs will probably finish somewhere around $188m. The movies official budget was $205m and again this movie had a lot of reshoots. At one time Michael Keaton’s Batman was in it, at another Ben Afflecks, but the final released version contains neither. Going by their numbers it needed $615m to break even and will likely end with a loss of around $334m (Yes, the same as The Flash). Add it all up and Warner’s DC brand has cost them $1.14 billion this year. Ouch!

Remember when I said Indiana Jones was the biggest box office bomb of all time… for a few months. Well, that was until “The Marvels” came out. The movie probably winning the award for dumbest name of the year (Marvels The Marvels? Really?) and demonstrating that perhaps requiring the global audience to need to watch a load of Disney+ TV shows to have an entry point on a movie is not the best plan. It also suggests that perhaps Marvels D and E list characters just aren’t popular enough to lead a movie, at least not without the hype of an impending “End Game”. I’m not exaggerating about the character tiers either, Captain Marvel was always D-List and Kamala Khan is E list at best (Though Iman Vellani could have raised her up in better circumstances).

The movie’s official production budget was $275m making it’s break even a whopping $825m. How much did it make? $199m global. That’s a crippling $626m loss. That’s over $100m than Indiana Jones loses. I’m reminded of that time Kathleen Kennedy posted a “Passing of the Lightsaber” to Kevin Feige for breaking the $2b point with Infinity War (After The Force Awakens had previously hit that mark). How times have changed. Now if they were to pass that lightsaber around it would probably be to commit harakiri… except these days being stabbed through the guts with a lightsaber is something you can walk off, so maybe not.

Since I charted Warner’s superhero loses, it’s only fair I do that for Marvel too. Thanks to the small gains of GOTG3 that figure is around $715m in loses. While that may make Marvel seem healthier than DC, at least Warner is able to do a full reboot. Plus Disney have to add those other loses from Lucasfilm and their animation wing into that pile and those sting. The final tally is a loss of $2.4 billion for Disney’s movies. So yeah, Warner got off light.

Conclusion

Appearances can be deceptive, when you look at a list of films with the highest box office for this year you will probably see a few of these disasters and perhaps be mislead into thinking they are successful, but the level of production budgets and marketing costs these days means those big Hollywood movies need to make an incredible amount of money just to break even. Meanwhile most horror films, dramas and independent movies need to make very little to be a success. Hollywood tends to favour the bigger budget movies though because when they are profitable they tend to be incredibly profitable. But it is always somewhat of a gamble. This year most of those gambles ended in disaster.

Indeed it’s probably safe to say this is the worst year in history for the box office. The problems though are pretty clear. First of all, there is no denying that superhero fatigue is a thing now. People may debate on if it’s just over-saturation or too many low quality movies, but the truth is both of those are symptoms of a genre trend reaching the end of it’s road. Superhero movies won’t disappear, just as westerns never disappeared or horror movies after the 80’s boom. Quite often the best movies in a genre come out after it hit’s decline (For example both “Unforgiven” and “Tombstone” came out long after the western was supposed to be dead).

Not that superhero movies were the only clangers this year. Disney movies were almost entirely bombs this year, with only GOTG3 bringing in some bacon for them. It’s notable James Gunn’s swansong at Marvel was probably Disney’s most universally accessible movie that year, the rest of their output tended to be on the divisive side and when your budgets are at $200m and higher you really can’t afford to turn any potential fans away. Elemental was probably their next most accessible movie and that ended up the most likely to claw back into profitability via streaming and physical media sales. There is a definite pattern there. It’s not to say you can’t make heavily progressive leaning movies, but you need to budget them appropriately. When you are talking about huge franchises, it would be seriously stupid to turn off half the audience.

But accessibility goes for the global audience too. It’s not just about left and right leaning English speakers, it’s about global cultures. If you have stories and themes that resonate with people no matter where they live or what their politics are, then that $1 billion + box office will be in reach. If your film only really appeals to the population of California, then you need to realize that it’s probably capping off around the $200m mark. That means you need a budget of around $60m or less if you hope to make a profit. It’s as simple as that. Even aside from being divisive a number of films this year have shown that you can make spectacular looking movies for much less than Hollywood has been spending. Outside of a James Cameron Avatar movie, I don’t see why any film should cost more than $120m for it’s production budget. If CGI is so expensive, stop relying in it!

On the positive side though, for me at least, there is a clear indication that Horror is a sensible way to go right now. The “Success” section of this article was almost entirely horror movies because you can make them cheaply and the audience is fiercely loyal, both for horror in general and for specific franchises. Personally I don’t feel we need an eleventh Saw movie or a Seventh Scream, but chances are the fans would turn out for them. The first Evil Dead movie came out in 1981 and yet the second reboot in a row is 42 years later is still able to make a solid buck. The Exorcist is a trickier one, but had they not spent so much for the rights that would be considered a success. Considering the film had terrible word of mouth and fell off a cliff in it’s second week, it did surprisingly solidly. Certainly “The Nun 2” had no business being a success and yet it made more profit than “Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3”. Right now, horror films are the only safe bet that a studio can rely on and studios love a safe bet.

When I look at this years epic wins though one thing becomes really clear. The top end of the movie market isn’t really driven by the studios or the mainstream movie media anymore. They are driven by the fans and social media. Mario Brothers and Five Nights at Freddy’s cashed in on a very dedicated gamer fan base. Barbie and Openheimer meanwhile, while likely to be successful in their own right, made huge gains due to a simple meme. It’s worth noting too that Mario, Barbie and FNAF all gained praise from the most dedicated fans of those non-movie franchises. It seems once again giving the core fanbase what they want pays off. Sound of Freedom and Godzilla Minus One were never expected to be hits (At least not in the US), but word of mouth can have a huge impact. In this instance it seems the secret is just make something worth watching!

Anyway that’s all for now… Thankfully! A year like this gives me far too much to have to fit into one of these. It remains to be seen if Hollywood (And more specifically Disney) will learn anything from this. In previous decades Kevin Feige and Kathleen Kennedy would be out of a job for taking the mantle of worst bomb of all time, but we don’t live in those times anymore and some producers seem untouchable. That’s not a good situation for Hollywood, but as we’ve seen if they aren’t willing to give people the entertainment they want, they will find it elsewhere. Not necessarily in movies either, we’ve had a good 100+ years of cinema, it would be foolish to think future generations would be as passionate about these films as you or I. Happy New Year!

Bad CGI Gator (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Yes, you read the title correctly. It’s time to dive into the world of modern B-Movie horror with this ridiculous horror comedy from Full Moon Features. If you know the name, you will know this is Charles Band’s company, so this is a studio (In one form or other) that have been making low budget horror (and some sci-fi) since the 70’s. They know how to get the most out of the budget and how to make movies quickly. That doesn’t make this movie sound any less silly of course! This feature is just under an hour in length and is directed by Danny Draven (Also taking composer duties) and penned by Zalman Band (Charlies son).

There is some controversy with this film. The makers of “Bad CGI Sharks”. Obviously they feel their idea was ripped off. It’s worth considering though gimmick shark movies aren’t exactly original either, so maybe it’s fair game maybe not. You can decide that one for yourself. There’s certainly no doubting they stole the “Bad CGI” idea, the only question is, does that matter? Personally I’m not sure, but I do know at this budget level there is a lot of band wagon jumping in general. Anyway, let’s get back to the Gator and see if it has any teeth!

A Reptile Dysfunction.

The synopsis for this one is short. It’s a 1 hour horror comedy B-movie, what did you expect? A group of friends (Well four friends, one sister and a guy dragged along apparently to set him up with the sister), head to a lakeside cabin for spring break. The nearby lake has an alligator living it, though the friends aren’t aware of this. One of the girls, a tik-tok “Influenced” wants to throw the groups college laptops into the lake for a video (Because “The college will just replace them”). After the stunt they return to their cabin, however the laptops electrocute the lakes alligator transforming it into…. Uh, BAD CGI GATOR! Yes, that happened.

It’s worth reminding you, this is meant to be a comedy, so don’t expect anything to make sense. Anyway, the now CGI Gator starts attacking the friends picking them off one at a time until only the sister “Hope” (Played by Madie Lane) and the non-friend “Sam” (Michael Bonini) remain. Sam and Hope are also quickly developing feelings for each other after Sam romantically stalked her instagram account. Between them they must find a way to escape from this gator, which by the way can also fly and after consuming a bluetooth speaker, grow in size because that’s how it works now.

Bad CGI.

Okay, so this is a ridiculous plot. But for a horror comedy it isn’t really a problem as long as the film is funny and fortunately this is. I laughed out loud several times and in a movie that is less than an hour in length that is a win. Honestly the film probably could do with being a little longer, especially as the ending is a little on the quick side. That said, something like this being too short is probably better than being too long. The effects are what you’d expect and despite the severed limbs I wouldn’t really describe it as “Gore”. Indeed the severed limbs are mostly used for comic effect and quite effectively. There’s also some nice ironic elements with the corpses, which I always approve of in horror films.

The bad CGI gator is of course bad CGI, which you would expect. One issue with this though is the quality of CGI is actually no worse than I’d expect in a low budget horror anyway and case in point, even before the alligator is transformed it is bad CGI. My criticism here is they probably could have made the transformed version a bit worse! It would have been a nice touch to have had it “clipping” into the scenery and stuff on occasion too. For example they could have had it unable to pursue people at some point because it’s tail has clipped into the ground and so it is stuck. Missed opportunity.

Spring Break.

The characters and acting is around about what you’d expect for a low budget B, but there are definitely three tiers to it. Effectively you have three couples (Though the lead pair aren’t a couple until the end) and each couple is about on par for acting talent. One pairing is notably bad, especially the girl’s dialogue delivery, but the movie helps us out here by making them the gators first victim. The next tier are actually in some ways the most fun characters in the film. Both characters are shallow college kid stereotypes, but the actors go all in on the roles and that really helps the comedy. When we are introduced to them I rolled my eyes, but since they provide most of the comedy it was almost a shame to see them killed off.

The final pair is our two leads, Sam and Hope. As actors Bonini and Lane are better than you would expect at this budget level and with the right breaks could probably go a lot further in their careers. It’s always worth remembering just how many big Hollywood stars started out in low budget horrors (Maybe not always this low, but sometimes). Demi Moore for example was in another Charlie Band produced movie “Parasite” from 1982. So they are worth keeping an eye on. Not that this was an Oscar level performance or anything, just better than I expected.

Conclusion.

So overall, this is actually a lot better than most people would expect a movie called “Bad CGI Gator” to be. The plot barely exists, there is bad acting and bad effects, but the movie is fun, funny and in it’s own B-Movie way, clever. Some of the acting is better than you’d expect at this level and some of the characters you’d expect to hate turn out to be the most entertaining. Overall, while it’s not going to get a high rating, when I put this on I figured I’d be lucky to get a 4/10 but instead it’s a high 5/10. Not the best, but higher than I’ve rated some Hollywood horror movies. If you love your B’s, you’ll get a kick out of it.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

The Equalizer 3 (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

For today’s review I’m stepping away from horror and film noir and checking out the recently released “The Equalizer 3”. This sees star Denzel Washington reunite with his favourite director Antoine Fuqua for the third installment in his race swapped Equalizer reboot series. I never really figured out why they decided to make the first film as a reboot of an 80’s TV series franchise most people didn’t even know. It always seemed to me there was more clout from having Denzel than their was from the franchise. It’s particularly puzzling since they dramatically changed the character and the franchise as a whole. At this point it’s only the name and the name of the protagonist that has any ties to the original. Ultimately though it doesn’t matter since the first two installments were really good. Anyway, let’s see if this one holds up to the others!

The Equalizer Busy Equalizing.

Our movie starts with Robert McCall (Washington) taking out a Mafia stronghold, to recover something (What is revealed at the end and is not relevant to the main plot, though it is to the character of McCall). While leaving he is shot by the grandson of the Mafia boss. Being a good guy McCall naturally didn’t want to kill a child and this left him injured and even considering taking his own life. In the end though he drives off, but falls unconscious somewhere along the Amalfi Coast and is rescued by Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea), a local carabiniere. Bonucci brings him to the remote coastal town of Altamonte, where he is treated by small-town doctor Enzo Arisio (Remo Girone).

As McCall recovers he grows attached to this little town and it’s people. He perhaps considers making his retirement permanent here. However it becomes apparent the local Mafia has plans for the town and it’s relentless shakedown of the working people there is part of a greater scheme. To protect this little pocket of paradise he has found, McCall must go back to what he knows and start equalizing things. Eventually he will have to face off the local Mafia boss, but he must also protect the town people.

Small Town Charms.

This is not an action film. This is the first thing to take into consideration because it doesn’t really work as an action film. Robert McCall is basically an unstoppable killing machine, so as an action film it would need a real physical threat to our hero and this film doesn’t find one. Instead it is a drama story book-ended by two major action scenes and with one very small action scene towards the end of the second act. In some ways it would make a good superhero film and it’s interesting because it does remind me a lot of Spider-Man 2. Specifically how the turning point in that movie is regular New Yorkers stepping up to defend Spider-Man. In the same way the town folk step up to help McCall, saving his life and effectively allowing him to do what he does.

While this is mostly a drama, the action that is there is well done. It’s nothing that wouldn’t be out of place in the first two movies. However the strength of this movie is in the heartwarming retired hero finds a home story. We get to see day to day life in a picturesque Amalfi Coast town and it is certainly charming. Italians love to socialise and this makes it impossible for McCall to stay aloof from things, he can’t help but love the place. After being nursed back to health there Robert it seems wants to stay. So when the village is threatened by the Mafia he has to stand in their way. It’s a very simple story. The side plot with CIA Agent Emma Collins is almost irrelevant. With or without that larger criminal activity, McCall would still need to protect the town.

Conclusion.

I have mixed feelings about this film. I can’t help but feel plot wise there is pretty much nothing here, at least not in the case of genuine stakes and plot that feels important. Yet, what is here works well. Perhaps it is a triumph for character focused storytelling. Perhaps it is proof that the charm of a small town is pretty much irresistible. Then again maybe it’s just Denzel Washington. He is after all one of the last genuine movie stars out there. Anyway, I’m giving this film a 6.5/10. About on par with the previous more action orientated sequel and a notch below the original film (Which is a strong 7/10).

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Five Nights At Freddy’s (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

For the penultimate review of my 2023 October Challenge I’m checking out the long anticipated and recently released “Five Nights At Freddy’s”. This is of course based on the hugely successful survival horror video game series from 2014 onwards. So disclaimer up front: Although I own the first few games, I never got around to playing them. I know a reasonable amount about them, but I no doubt missed a lot of references. That said, that also means I’m not going to give the film any bonus points just for including Easter Eggs. This is directed by Emma Tammi

 A Magical Place.

The movie is set mostly at “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza”, a closed down 80’s diner that is likely based off Chuck E. Cheese that features large animatronic robots that resemble anthropomorphic animals. In the prologue we see the death of the previous security guard at the hands of the animatronic monsters and we are then treated to a pretty cool intro credits sequence involving what appears to be a tribute to the 8-bit style minigames from some of the games. We’ve then introduced to our protagonist “Mike Schmidt” played by Josh Hutcherson (Mike was also the protagonist from the first game). This version of Mike has a young sister Abby (Piper Rubio) he takes care off and a traumatized past where his brother was kidnapped and never seen again.

Mike is desperate to find a job so he doesn’t have to give up custody of his sister to their greedy Aunt Jane (Mary Stuart Masterson). As a result he takes the job of the new night security guard at the Pizzeria. The place has a strange effect on him though, where his recurring dream about the kidnap of his brother is altered to including five mysterious children that he believes may hold the secret to the identity of the kidnapper. Things reach a whole new level of crazy though when he discovers the animatronics are possessed by the souls of murdered children and it’s these children that were appearing to him. This revelation puts him and his sister in imminent danger however, both from the animatronics and their mysterious master.

Horror In The Hallways.

So the first thing to mention here is as far as being a horror goes, the movie is very light. There isn’t really much in the way of jump scares, though the animatronics are done very well and do look pretty menacing. There are kills of course, mostly in one section where Aunt Jane sends a group of thugs to smash up the diner in an attempt to get Mike fired. The problem here really is that all the kills are either people we don’t know (The original security guard) or bad people we are meant to dislike and none of the kills are themselves particularly interesting. The horror elements are also very spread out, so if you turned up to watch people slaughtered by animatronics you will probably be disappointed.

That out of the way, there’s actually a lot of positives with this movie. It just may not be what people expect going in. What it does excel at is the general look. As I mentioned above the animatronics look great and it’s satisfying to see quality practical effects on my screen again. The monsters have enough life to both be able to express basic emotions and to provide a suitable amount of menace. The diner also looks great and the general feel seems to fit really well with what I would expect for something with 80’s ties. Of course 80’s nostalgia has been done to death, but here it used right. Never really pushing it too far, though of course it’s not set in the 80’s that’s just where the diner originates.

The Players And The Game.

The second thing I liked here was how they managed to take the basic premise of the game and work a character driven story into it. This is very much Mike’s movie, but his sister and officer Vanessa Shelly (Played by Elizabeth Lail) all get decent character development. Even the con woman babysitter (Secretly working for his aunt) actually has an implied crisis of conscience after having grown attached to Abby. Through this the movie actually has the feel of a family film and with its PG-13 rating I think parents could find this quite a suitable Halloween film for the family.

In regards to the actors performances I can’t say any particularly stand out. Probably Mary Stuart Masterson is most notable, though her role is short and her character one dimensional. The other characters are absolutely fine, but nothing more. The music is a little hit and miss, in places working very well but in others feeling sort of generic. Having not played the game I don’t know if there were any musical references, but I gather the first game largely used modified public domain music so probably not. The story itself appears to be very true to the main story/theme of the game, with only a few minor modifications which were entirely reasonable to make it work as a film. Of course big fans of the game may disagree on that, I can only go by the broad strokes I’m aware of.

Freddy Vs Willy Vs Banana!

Since this movie was beaten to the screen by two knock off’s of its concept, it’s worth examining how those contrasts with them. The movies I’m talking about here are “The Banana Splits” (2019) and “Willy’s Wonderland” (2021). The Splits was the first out and utilized a licence for the Banana Splits franchise, a legit children’ s program’s variety show that ran from 1970-1982. A bold movie and the movie itself was perhaps the most straight horror of the three. I actually quite enjoyed it and anyone that hasn’t seen it and wanted more horror to this movie should probably give it a shot.

Willy’s Wonderland however was largely a subversion of the concept, where the animatronics (In this case possessed by a serial killer and his acolytes) come across something more terrifying than themselves… Nicholas Cage. It’s actually a huge amount of fun, but must be said is really more about Cage’s character. This one was far more action orientated and far less of a character story since Cage keeps silent the whole time and outside of some obsessive compulsive behaviour is largely just an ass kicking machine.

Despite coming out last, Five Nights At Freddy’s contrasts really well with it’s imitators. It provides something they don’t with its more family friendly, polished and character driven approach and with that, carves out it’s own place in the world of psycho animatronics. Perhaps most importantly though in the head to head, the animatronics simply look much better in this Movie (Credit to the Jim Henson team for that). Is it better though? I think all three films will have their supporters. Personally I preferred WIlly’s Wonderland, but I would say Freddy’s is the objective best of the bunch.

Conclusion.

Overall this was an entertaining film. It dragged a tiny bit in places and the actual horror elements were a bit disappointing both in their number and quality. However it has a great atmosphere, solid character writing and appears to be relatively true to the game. Far truer than most video game adaptations anyway. So this is a strong 6/10. Worth a watch, even if you aren’t a fan of the games.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Nefarious (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight’s October Challenge Review is the recently released independent horror film “Nefarious”. Directed by the combo of Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon and based on the novel “A Nefarious Plot” by Steve Deace. This isn’t a combo I would usually expect to entertain me as they’ve mostly done religious movies in the past, but I’d heard good things about this movie so wanted to check it out. The two leads for the movie are Sean Patrick Flanery and Jordan Belfi. Flannery is probably most famous for “The Boondock Saints” and was always a capable actor, though probably has more misses than hits to his name. Belfi meanwhile is mostly a TV actor, but a capable one. Its a solid choice of actors for an independent movie.

A Nefarious Plot.

The plot of the movie is relatively simple on the surface. The psychiatrist Dr. James Martin has been called in at the last minute to assess the mental state of prolific serial killer Edward Wayne Brady so that he can be executed (By the electric chair, something he requested himself). He is a last minute replacement since the previous psychiatrist committed suicide. Most of the rest of the story is the conversation between the two of them, with the occasional brief interlude. In that conversation Brady claims to be a demon, and begins a psychological battle with the psychiatrist in an attempt to get him to publish his book, a sort of demonic bible. The demon has been studying Martin ever since he was a boy and knows exactly what buttons to push and when.

During the interview and while Martin is still fully skeptical Brady/Nefariamus convinces him to invite the demon inside him to prove that he is lying. Nothing happens, at least not at that point. But from then on Brady/Nefariamus has the upper hand. He tells Martin he will commit three murders before he leaves. These murders are entirely subjective and part of the mind games. To cover any more of the plot would be spoilers though.

Interlude.

This is a movie that had great word of mouth from viewers, but has been slammed by politically partisan critics that effectively review bomb anything they even suspect of leaning right or being at all Christian. For example “Joker”, which I don’t personally consider right wing, but the critics did, not just suffered unfair review bombing from those critics, but also a media campaign to dissuade people from viewing in fear of supposed “Incel murder sprees” they claimed would take place in the cinema. Yes this is a thing that happened and it’s bizarre people still give those that manufactured that panic a pass.

In this case the critics seem to object to the Christian leanings in the film and yet the idea of complaining about such leanings in a film literally about demonic possession is the kind of absurdness that leads to… Well, the recent Exorcist film, that presents a demonic possession based on a very Christian demon and yet seems ashamed of the existence of Christianity. Bizarre. It used to be the scene in the Exorcist that offended people was when Regan masturbates with a crucifix. Now it’s saying “The power of Christ compels you”.

Yes it’s undeniable that it has Christian leanings especially considering Konzelman and Solomon’s previous output, but having seen the film it’s clear in this case the reviewers are not being objective. One of their complaints is that they think the demon is acting as the mouth piece for the directors views. It’s odd to complain about a character that is the embodiment of pure evil expressing opinions they don’t like. Maybe it’s a demon rights thing. Anyway, let’s get back to the review.

Two Men In Alone In A Room… Or Are They?

Considering this movie is almost entirely two men in a room talking, it is incredibly effective. A movie like that requires two strong actors and we have that here with Flannery and Belfi, both of whom put in a career best here. Flannery especially is remarkably good both as the demon and it’s victim. It also requires strong writing as it’s going to be very easy to pick at a film that is almost entirely dialogue. Not all the dialogue was completely convincing for me, but about three quarters of it worked well and that’s a pretty good ratio for a movie was so much of it. I have to give credit to Konzelman and Solomon. Of course I’ve not read the source material, so I don’t know how much is them and how much is from the novel.

In regards to the possession side of things, this feels to me in some ways a spiritual successor to the Denzel Washington movie “Fallen” from 1998. The demon can’t jump bodies as quickly as that one, but using it’s victims to commit horrible murders is pretty similar and the demon feels a lot like the one in that movie. The main difference of course is the smaller budget and scale. There’s only two scenes that come close to action here, so the style is different but the tone really reminds of that 90’s classic. While not unique, it is a rarer way to portray demonic possession. It’s nice to occasionally break away from the usual child possession stuff.

Letting Evil In.

There’s nothing really to talk about effects wise and there is very little music, though what is there is used effectively. Where there is music it is very subtle, slow and suspenseful. Mostly it is present in the scenes between the interviews. During the monologues it is mostly silent and that makes those scenes even more menacing. Despite being dialogue heavy, it’s actually a relatively fast paced movie with a lot of intensity. Even though I am agnostic and this does have an undeniable Christian slant, ideas such as the dangers of inviting evil into your life are universal to the human condition. Plus of course from a mythological/story point of view, the idea that evil may be winning the eternal war in always a great horror premise

Conclusion.

This one deserves a strong 7/10 and I think most people I think will find this compelling. The exception being if you are offended by the Christian slant. It probably would have benefited from toning that down a little (and it may have cost it a 7.5/10 from me). However, it’s definitely not required to be a believer to find this compelling. I mean, you don’t need to believe in vampires to enjoy Dracula do you? For me this is the best movies I’ve seen so far this October, but there are a few more days left, so we’ll see if it still has it’s crown by the 31st.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Totally Killer (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight’s October Challenge Review is the Horror Comedy “Totally Killer” from Amazon MGM Studios and Blumhouse, released direct to streaming on Amazon this year. This is from Nahnatchka Khan, a comedy writer/producer/director in her first foray into Horror and her second feature movie as director. Written by the team of David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo, the latter of which being the most experienced. This is a team clearly coming from TV comedy backgrounds, but sometimes people can surprise you so let’s see if this movie does.

Back to the Screaming.

The movie stars Kiernan Shipka (Who played Sabrina Spellman in the darker 2018 Sabrina reboot series) as Jamie Hughes. The main support comes from Olivia Holt (Dagger from the Cloak and Dagger series) as the younger version of Jamie’s mother “Olivia”. The movie obviously takes influence from “Back to the Future”, “Scream”, “Heathers” and 80’s nostalgia in general, but also seems very similar to the 2015 movie “Final Girls”, though it’s unclear if that is intentional. In regards to the other influence though these are all referenced directly or indirectly in the movie.

The starts at the 35th anniversary of a spree of murders by a killer called “The Sweet Sixteen Killer”. A killer that was never caught (Disappearing after the original three murders) and who was famous for wearing a BIlly Idol/Max Headroom mask and stabbing his victims 16 times. After Jamie’s mother is murdered the town assumes the same killer has returned. After being chased by the killer into an amusement park Jamie takes refuge in her friends experimental time machine and ends up going back in time to the 1980’s where she attempts to prevent the murders and stop the killer, with the primary goal of saving her mother.

Culture Clash.

This is a fish out of water film, where Jamie faces constant culture shock at the differences between the 80’s and the modern day. The lack of caution and security when doing things, people being politically incorrect and even the weaker marijuana. This is the source of most of the comedy and for the most part it lands quite well. Along with this Jamie having to deal with the fact her parents weren’t always the mature responsible over protective types they are now. Indeed her first interaction with her mother is getting a dodge ball to the face from her.

This all works pretty well, though is perhaps a little overplayed in places. The only exception really is her friend who put together the time machine and her mother who are pretty much duplicates of each other (And it is her friends mother that helps her out in the past). That makes the pair the least interesting characters who are basically there just to facilitate the time travel. The rest of the characters though are a colorful goofy bunch that fits the tone of the film well.

90’s Slasher In An 80’s Setting

In regards to the horror/mystery aspect, it was pretty easy to figure out who the killer was. Not from the plot itself as they don’t reveal the key fact that would have made it obvious until after the killer is revealed, but instead by the way the character is presented in the story. It only really made sense they were introduced for the purpose of ending up as the killer, though I do have to praise how they tried to use elements specific to the mask to throw people off the scent, but it didn’t work. It’d be spoilers to say much more about the murders so I’ll leave that one there, but suffice to say there are no shocks in the reveal.

This is base level, Scream knock off stuff (On the level of most 90’s slashers). it’s clear though that this isn’t the focus of the story, even though it’s the driving element of the plot. There was nothing particular of note in any of the kills and there wasn’t a great deal in the way of stalking or anything along the way. The killer isn’t really scary and even when we are first introduced to them they mostly get their ass kicked by their victim (Which is especially reminiscent of the Scream series).

Then and Now and Then Again.

The movie’s approach to time travel is one of convenience. It still has the characters in the original timeline get a linear run of updates to their timeline that happens to match events happening in the film. This is obviously done to cover up the events yet to happen in the film, but it doesn’t really make that much sense. The irony here is the film takes a shot at Back to the Future’s take on time travel and then lays down it’s own rules that don’t make much more sense.

We are told that should her parents not get together that she will persist as a character out of time and yet that is merely one theory on time travel. Yet, the entire existence of the “Grandfather Paradox” is evidence this is a debate and not fact. Indeed the main theory of persistence is based on multiple timelines and if this movie was doing that the characters at her exit point wouldn’t notice any changes and as soon as some were made they would have been isolated from their friend. The truth is the convenience of Marty’s photograph wasn’t any less unscientific than the minute by minute updating of the past/future in this film.

Conclusion

Overall this is a fun but flawed movie. It’s strength is it’s comedy and not for the horror or science fiction aspects. You can tell this is from a team of comedy writers simply using horror as their theme. It’s also very hard not to compare this movie to “Final Girls” as despite that involving characters getting sucked into a movie instead of using time travel, they share a very similar plots. Ultimately though Final Girls is the superior movie and a good part of that is it seemed to understand the genre better. As a Horror this would be a high 5/10, as a comedy it would be a solid 6/10 so I’ll balance that out with a high 5.5/10. If you have Amazon Prime then it won’t cost you anything to view and you’ll probably get a laugh out of it.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

The second movie of my 2023 October Horrorthon is one I’ve been looking forward to for a fair while. This is a Dracula movie with a bit of a twist in that it focuses on one specific chapter from Bram Stoker’s Novel. As the name suggests this is about Dracula’s journey to England on board a vessel known as “The Demeter”. For those that haven’t read the book, it’s worth noting it is an epistolary novel, that is the story is conveyed via a series of letters, diary entries and logs. This chapter in particular is written in the form of the Captain’s Log. This gives a lot of freedom in telling this story on screen since the source material is intentionally vague.

The Long Journey ahead

The movie is directed by André Øvredal (Troll Hunter, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) and written by Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room) and Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train). The cast features some strong acting talent (If not the biggest name draws) with Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton, The Tragedy of MacBeth) taking the lead, and Game of Thrones alumnis Liam Cunningham (As the Captain) and Aisling Franciosi (A Stowaway) offering the main support.

The first thing to note here is that Hawkins’ character of “Clemens” is original to this movie. Clemens is a Doctor looking to travel back to England, as a man of Science he naturally will have to face that the world has more to it than he can easily understand. In the book the crew had sailed with the Captain many times, but this tweak in minor. Anna (Franciosi) is also an addition and a little more against the source material as she is a stowaway (In the book they searched the ship thoroughly and found no one not meant to be there). Still it’s a reasonable change and her role is important to the story, as she is the primary exposition character.

Nosferatu

The most interesting element of the film is Dracula himself, who is presented in a far more monstrous form than we are used to. It is a little reminiscent of Count Orlok in “Nosferatu” (1922), a film that still holds up shockingly well for a hundred and one year old silent movie. I appreciate this approach not just because I’m a fan of Nosferatu but because I like Vampires that are actually terrifying. This is about as opposite to something like “Twilight” that you can get. On top of this they kept his presence mysterious and minimal so as to maintain the atmosphere of terror throughout.

Despite the miniscule amount of source material (Honestly, it’s barely a chapter), you may be concerned that with a nearly two hour run time things may drag but the pacing is spot on and builds perfectly to it’s climax. In regards to the characters, none really stand out but they do have depth and all fill their roles adequately and believably. As I mentioned at the start this is a strong cast of quality actors, none of them are big name draws but for a horror film you don’t really need that.

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too

The film manages the impressive feat of both maintaining accuracy to the source while putting their own twist on the story and it does it in a way that adds to the original instead of taking away from it. This is a rare example of an adaptation actually getting to have it’s cake and being able to eat it. All too often there is a battle between staying true to the source and finding something new to say. but here that is a non-issue. Of course it helps when you are adapting something short and deliberately vague!

In conclusion, while not the best Dracula film ever made this is a strong entry into the mythos and refreshingly original. Vampires are finally scary again! This is a 7/10.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Cocaine Bear (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

This is a fun B-movie by design, yet it has been given a substantial push by the studio, a $35m production budget and opened in a surprising number of theatres (3500 in the US, compared to Ant-Man 3’s 4300 and Creeds 4000). There was a lot of hype for this and in most cases I would say that would raise expectations, but the movie is called “cocaine Bear” so not so much here.

The movie doesn’t really focus on any one particular lead though Sari (Keri Russel) is probably the closest to a protagonist. The Cocaine Bear itself starts out as the villain of the piece but by the end has largely passed that mantle on to Ray Liotta’s “Sid”. That switch changes the tone of the film somewhat from a monster horror to a family adventure film (with added gore). Effectively it ends up as comedy adventure with over the top gore which would this a good double bill with “Violent Night” from 2022.

We’ve Got a Taste for You!

The early part of the movie is where it is at it’s best. Here the rest of the ensemble cast take center stage and do their best to survive against the cocaine driven beast. We get a mixture of comedy moments and violent gore with a few notable highlights (Such as the ambulance scene). The bear itself looks great and is pretty convincing when it needs to be. The production budget was quite high for a horror movie, twice the cost of “A Quiet Place” (2018) for example, so I would expect the effects to be top notch and I was not disappointed.

The plot is pretty straight forward, but a movie like this doesn’t really need complexity. It does what it needs to. The actors performances were okay, some performances were less convincing then others, but again for this kind of film it was fine. Elizabeth Banks is still early in her career as a director and with two clangers to her name (If you include her segment on 2013’s abysmal “Movie 43”) and the music drama “Pitch Perfect” she seemed like a strange choice, but I respect her going for it and she did okay. Much like with the actors, it could probably have been better but it was good enough for a horror comedy about a cocaine addicted black bear.

Conclusion

A straight forward movie that doesn’t take itself seriously and does what it can with a story based on a real life event where a bear ate some cocaine and basically just died. It won’t bother the Oscars and it probably won’t end up as a cult classic, but if you like the combination of laughs and gore, it’s well worth checking out. 6/10

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Marvel has lost all momentum in the cinema in recent years, so much so that some of their movies have even lost money. Everything is relevant of course and these movies are still bringing in hundreds of millions. However when your budgets reach$250m (That they admit to), you are basically looking at $600m just to break even. These are films that need the majority of the general audience to turn up to make a profit. Yet, Marvel have been putting out an increasingly niché product, that fails in broad appeal. On top of this franchises tend to suffer a delayed impact on box office from underwhelming entries. In this instance the previous MCU film, clearly made people cautious for Guardians 3.

Marvel of course is fairly unique in having sub-franchises. Two of these run largely independently from the greater MCU, namely Spider-Man and Guardians. Despite the long gap between the second and third movies there is still a strong fanbase for this franchise. What we’ve seen in the box office so far is a cautious opening weekend. This reflects a lack of faith in the MCU in general right now. The second week however had a very strong hold. My interpretation of that is that a lot of people held off until they heard the word of mouth. So is it worthy of that hold? Let’s dig in.

Synopsis (First Act Spoilers Only)

Part three part picks up a fair way after the second movie. Like many characters in the MCU, the team were heavily impacted by the Infinity War. The Gamora that was in a relationship with Quill was sacrificed by Thanos and is not coming back. However an alternative version of her from her own past has been transplanted into the modern day, rolling her back to where she started with the franchise. Quill is naturally not too happy with this and has found himself spiralling into depression.

This story actually picks up shortly after the Christmas Special, but with minimal impact. Basically just the groups new home and the revelation that Mantis is Quill’s brother.

The Guardians have settled down on Knowhere (The former base of the Collector) and renovated it into a a decent sized settlement for former Ravagers and other space misfits. Things are relatively peaceful (Outside of an increasingly drunken and mopey Starlord). That peace is disrupted by the sudden appearance of Adam Warlock. You may remember Adam as the genetically modified super being from the end of GOTG2. Warlock attacks the settlement, leading to Rocket Racoon being badly injured. As the Guardians attempt to give him medical treatment, a failsafe inside Rocket activates threatening his life. The Guardians then find themselves in a race against time to deactivate the failsafe so they can safe their friend.

Their quest brings them into conflict with The High Evolutionary, a powerful super genius whose past is heavily linked with Rocket’s. They find themselves working with another group of Ravagers, including the alterative Gamora. Neither Quill nor Gamora are especially happy with this arrangement. In classic James Gunn style, every character big and small gets their moment in the story. The downside is this pushes the run time up to a whopping two and a half hours. That gives us a lot to talk about, but don’t worry I’m keeping this as spoiler free as I can.

Villains

Let’s have a look at the move’s characters, starting with the big bad, The High Evolutionary. It’s hard not to compare Chukwudi Iwuji performance to that of Jonathan Majors as Kang. It’s a comparison that has Iwuji coming up on top… by a long way. Frankly Majors is overrated and has been over promoted.That’s understandable given how important the character is to the Phase Five. Iwuji however is severely underrated, has not really had any kind of push. Indeed he is barely in the promotional material for this film.

This is a shame, because he really nails it. He brings a sinister calmness to the role with a dangerous rage quietly bubbling under the surface. Iwuji delivers a superb performance and in my view is the best Villain the MCU has given us since Thanos. Admittedly that’s not a terribly high bar for phase 4/5 of the MCU. This is a villain you could build an entire phase around. But, Iwuji is a Gunn recruitment not a Fiege one, so this was probably never on the table. Fans of the Gunn TV series “Peacemaker” will recognise Iwuji from there and I wouldn’t be surprised to find him returning to DC in the future (In a new role).

We have a different story with Adam Warlock however, but this is a complicated one. Will Poulter is fine in the role. The problem is that Warlock feels superfluous to the entire story and has been made into yet another goofy, fish out of water “Bim-Bro” type character. Effectively he’s MCU Thor. Now fans of the comics will know that Adam Warlock is actually a great character. They will also know he was central to the entire Infinity Saga. So here he’s effectively missed his own destiny leaving him directionless. So it’s unsurprising he’s being set up as the next Thor. I fully expect his next few appearances in the MCU to involve him going off to find himself.

A character missing their own destiny isn’t new for the MCU. The Mandarin also missed his chance as Iron Man’s primary antagonist by not turning up until Tony had sacrificed himself. At least that character managed to slip into the role left by Shang-Chi’s comic book father Fu Manchu. Adam has no role to take over and it tells. It is likely only here because he was promised in the post credits scene in the previous Guardians movie. It’s impossible to know if Gunn had larger plans for him originally, but now he’s just sort of there. To be fair, he does get to kick some ass early on. For the rest of the movie though he’s just sort of hanging around. Honestly, he could have been cut entirely and the movie may have been better for it.

Heroes

So that leads us to the heroes. This is a bit of a mixed bag. As I mentioned earlier, everyone gets at least one moment to shine, but not much more. It is possibly too large a cast at this stage to do give everyone serious character arcs. Gunn’s style is somewhat similar to Joss Whedon in that the stories are heavily character based and rely on smaller moments of character banter to gradually develop the characters. The result is that many of the characters don’t develop in a significant way throughout the movie. This is a bit more realistic but not always as satisfying as a story focused approach.

Case in point Quill (Minor spoilers) doesn’t really develop much. He starts out lost and ends up trying to find himself. At this stage that is basically a generic Marvel cliché for the male characters. Drax meanwhile has his character arc sort of thrown at him late in the movie. This is very small, but is actually quite satisfying for the character and will no doubt resonate with some audience members. Nebula is just sort of there. To be fair she has gone through a lot of character development prior to the movies and the Infinity War. What we get instead with Nebula is to see just how much she has evolved since her introduction.

Alternative Gomorra has some development, but is effectively just repeating the development her other version had during the first movie. Mantis has a small amount of development, but quietly in the background and Groot is Groot. Kraglin, despite being a minor character, basically get’s an 80’s martial arts movie character arc. Just replace the special ancient technique with controlling the Yaka Arrow). Perhaps though Kragin’s real story is in his relationship to the telekinetic super-dog Cosmo. That’s one thing I’m sure all the dog lovers in the audience will get a kick out of.

Then we get to Rocket Racoon and be in no doubt this is his movie. We get to see his origins and what made his personality the way it is. Through all that, he gets a serious amount of character growth. It’s just a shame that the set up to all this actually eliminates the popular character from the majority of the movie. Despite this it is an emotional journey for him and the audience. If you are a fan of Rocket Racoon, expect it to be both frustrating and emotional.

And the Plot?

Story wise, I have issues and this really reflects how much of a character based writer Gunn is. The first point of note is the often self defeating actions of the antagonists. On several occasions the villains do things that seem to sabotage themselves for no readily apparent reason other than to drive the plot forward. This wouldn’t be so bad, if those errors of judgement weren’t the driving force for the majority of the movie. The film is very lucky to have such a capable actor as it’s main villain, since his performance can at least in the moment let you ignore all that. Hard not to question it after though.

A big issue for the movie is it’s length. There is a lot of debate to be had on whether the inclusion of either Adam Warlock or Gomorra was really necessary for the movie. The truth is they are both there just because they were expected to be there. Gomorra is there because she was a key character in the first two movies and that’s it. There is some purpose for her though in showing how circumstance can change where someone ends up, but doesn’t change who they are at heart. It’s a nice sentiment, but wasn’t really needed to conclude the story.

Adam Warlock is perhaps the films biggest issue since his presence seems to damage both the movie and the character. The truth is he wasn’t needed for the film and had he not been revealed in the post credit scene after Guardians 2, he probably wouldn’t have been in it. Removing either him or Gamora would probably have reduced the films run time by a good 15 minutes without any real impact. There was also a random scene involving giant space monsters that basically don’t do anything, making the entire section superfluous. Removing all of that would probably have had the runtime down to a solid 1 hour 50. Just about perfect for a superhero movie.

That said, the movie doesn’t drag much. It is basically split into three very distinct acts, each with their own build up, major action scene and wind down. The format kept me interested and each section had it’s positives and negatives. They movie is packed with references and cameos too, which while not something that helps the overall quality. It does add a little bit of fun on the first viewing though, and some talking points. Naturally the cameos include yet another appearance from Howard the Duck, but we’re also treated to a brief appearance of Sylvester Stallone, reprising his role of Stakar Ogord from the second film.

Mix Tape Vol. 3

That brings us to the final element we all expect from a Guardians movie: The music. Well… yeah, it’s not that great this time out. It’s not that the music is itself bad, it’s just not quite up to the level of the previous movies and when the music has been so good previously, you notice the drop off. Some of the choices are quite strange too, for example Alice Cooper’s version of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”. That is far from Alice’s best track and the song itself is a cover, with the original being over a hundred years old.

I can’t help but wonder if the music clearance budget for the film was slashed this time or if Gunn simply chose to keep back the really good tracks so he can make use of them in his upcoming DC movies. Gunn has good taste in music, but his choices are usually pretty big hits from their era/genre. Not obscure gems such as the ones Tarantino tends to dig up. I imagine there is a limit to how many good tracks he can dig up. Perhaps he didn’t want to waste his best ones at a company he is departing? Who knows. Either way, the soundtrack is the least memorable of the series. It’s not actually bad however, it’s just not a selling point like it was for the previous films.

Assessment

As a critic, I have to be critical. But despite all that I want to be clear, I had a lot of fun with this movie. Despite the flaws and the step down in some regards from the previous movies this was an emotionally satisfying movie with fun action scenes and some good humour. The length didn’t damage my enjoyment, at least not on the first viewing (Remains to be seen how I feel in the years to come) and while I didn’t leave the theatre humming any of the tunes I wasn’t putting my fingers in my ears either. The story focus on Rocket definitely works and the villain is the best MCU villain since Thanos.

That said, we don’t have a very high bar in regard to villains in the MCU and even when Marvel was more consistently good, the villains were rarely the selling point. They really need to nail that Doctor Doom casting if the MCU is to have any hope going forward. This was a final chapter for the Guardians and it may be a final chapter for many’s journey with the MCU, but the good news is it’s a pretty satisfying ending. If you were to watch Phase 1-3 and follow that up with just Spider-Man No Way Home and then this you would feel pretty content with your journey. This movie is a strong 6.5/10 and a hairs width short of a 7.

VERDICT: 6.5/10 – Recommended, especially to fans of the previous movies.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Bonus Round – The State of the MCU

With this movie and Gunn’s departure it seems certain this is the end of the Guardians as we know them. Sure Disney still owns the rights, but without Gunn, it won’t be the same and many of the actors will not want to return. On top of this there is no announced Spider-Man film suggesting that Sony may be pulling out of their deal with Disney. Things look bad for the MCU. This of course follows the departure of Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, T’Challa and probably Thor. The MCU desperately needs to bring in some top name draws again to prop up the smaller sub-franchises, but there is no sign of this happening any time soon because of Kevin Feige’s stubborn refusal to change his plans for Phase 4-6 despite the Fox purchase.

The comic book giants of The Fantastic Four, The X-Men and huge names like Doom and Wolverine have just been sitting on the shelf while Marvel rolls out it’s E, F and J list heroes. I’m not kidding with that either, there are definite tiers for Superheroes, the A list for Marvel is just Spider-Man. The B-List are Hulk, X-Men and until a string of failed movies downgraded them, The Fantastic Four, then you have Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Wolverine and Magneto/Prof-X as the C-List. That was the level on which the MCU was built. Blade, Daredevil, Ghost Rider and maybe She-Hulk and a few of the X-Men as individuals are the D-List level. The rest, including Ant Man and The Guardians would have been E-List or lower, which shows you can make it work on an individual basis, but you need some bigger names for the larger franchise.

The Downward Spiral

The problem with using the lower tier heroes is you need someone with real talent and creativity to make it work. They had that with James Gunn and now he is gone and Marvel don’t have anyone else that can pull that kind of thing off. With budgets increasing and returns decreasing, each new Marvel movie represents an increasing poor ratio of risk to reward. Ant Man Quantumania lost money, Guardians 3 will likely only generate the same profit level as a successful Horror (About $100m in profit), but Horror does it on about a tenth of the budget of a Superhero movie, so far less risk. The next three movies Marvel has on it’s slate may struggle to even achieve Ant Man numbers and when they finally get to Blade, it most likely will be back in that Horror film profit range (But with a Superhero film cost).

Logic would suggest Disney needs to radically slow down on the number of Marvel movies it puts out and focus on the bigger B and C list names, leaving the D and E list to the TV shows and relegate the rest to supporting characters for now (Until they can find a new Gunn or Whedon and even then probably best to focus on the teams instead of individuals at that level). It’s worth noting that the original plan was probably for Phase Four to cash in on the momentum from the Infinity Saga, bringing in the expectedly large audiences by default for those lower tier characters. But Covid struck and by the time they could get any of those titles out, the momentum was gone. Still, the failure to find a pivot to a new plan is entirely on Feige.

Meanwhile at DC…

But as one door closes another opens and a new chapter begins over at Warner/DC. James Gunn has a vision, it remains to be seen if that vision is any good but chances are it will be better than what Warner has been doing for the last decade (Aside from the excellent Joker movie of course). Before we get there though, we have to find a path through the last remnants of the older regimes. Namely we need to get past the Ezra Miller Flash film and Jason Momoa’s likely final appearance as Aquaman. Momoa is probably not going anywhere, but if rumours are true may be switching roles to one he is better suited for, namely Lobo. Miller meanwhile is almost certainly gone after The Flash, yet his movie is the pivot on which the old DCEU morphs into Gunn’s new DCU.

The new era truly begins with “Superman:Legacy”, a film that will make or break DC in the coming years. But even if it turns out to be a good film, it could be a case of too little, too late for Warner to properly cash in on the Superhero fever of the last decade. Superhero fatigue may well be a thing. We will have to wait and see. At the time of writing, though Gunn has announced a slate of films, he hasn’t cast anyone for them yet and we are a long way away from seeing trailers. Who knows where he goes from here. Chances are though, as someone that likes to work with the same people we may well see the actors behind the Guardians turning up in DC. Karren Gillan has already suggested she’d like to play Poison Ivy for instance. Sounds good to me.

Infinity Pool (2023)

Posted on by fenrisfil

For today’s review I’m looking at the 2023 movie “Infinity Pool”, staring the underappreciated Alexander Skarsgård (Most recently staring in one of the best movies and yet biggest flops of last year “The Northman”) and rising horror starlet Mia Goth (Who hit a double whammy last year with “X” and it’s prequel “Pearl”). The movie is written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg. This is his second feature film after 2020’s “Possessor”, which I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing yet, but much like this film it sounds very much like something that could have been made by his father. So let’s find out if the apple falls far from the tree!

Under The Sun.

Our movie starts with obscure novelist James Foster (Skarsgård) and his rich wife “Em” (Played by Cleopatra Coleman) spending time at a resort in the fictional island of Li Tolqa, which appears to be, at least on the surface, some form of Banana Republic. Despite claiming no one has read his book, one of the fellow tourists, “Gabi” (Goth) claims to be a fan. She invites the pair to join her and her husband “Alban” (Jalil Lespert) to spend time with them and despite warnings that they should not stray from within the resorts walls, they decide to spend the next day driving in the countryside.

After an evening on the beach drinking heavily, James drives the group home and accidentally runs over one of the locals. The group panic and return to the hotel hoping it will go unnoticed, but the local police turn up the next morning and haul James away. It turns out the justice system in Li Tolqa is swift and harsh, with James condemned to be executed by the eldest son of the man he ran over.

Killing Yourself to Live.

However, this is where the film introduces some science fiction elements. It turns out for a hefty fee (Presumably paid for by his wife) they will create a fully grown clone of him, including his memories and kill that instead. Confused, but desperate he agrees. On return to the hotel James finds his passport missing and so must remain at the resort while this is sorted out. His wife however heads off.

Stuck on the island, James finds himself falling in with Gabi and her nihilist friends, a spoiled, dangerous group of people who seem to get their kicks from tormenting others and abusing the islands legal system and it’s loophole for the rich. This isn’t a spoiler review, so I’ll stop there with the plot. Suffice to say this is going to be a life changing experience for the man.

Tomorrow’s Dream.

Probably the main thing David Cronenberg is known for is using body horror as a study on humanity. The focus has never really been on the plausibility of the situations since they largely exist as a sort of metaphor anyway, instead they are really more character studies with a focus on their deeply flawed and often self destructive protagonists. Brandon has clearly gone for a very similar approach.

You have to basically just accept this island nation that in every other regard is a typical banana republic has the technology to create perfect clones of people (Including their memories) and that they use this amazing technology in the most bizarre and twisted way, as a frankly unnecessary side show to allowing the rich to pay their way out of trouble. None of it really makes any sense if taken literally. But beneath the surface it is clear that the film is a study in Nihilism.

Into the Void.

To some extent it is about the form of Nihilism that comes naturally from power (Specifically the power that comes from being rich). Certainly this is where bored sociopath Gabi comes in. James however, is not especially rich and not at all powerful. His wife and step-father are rich, but his Nihilism is somewhat different and perhaps more related to his creativity. He wrote a book no one read, married his publishers daughter and has effectively landed on his feet but without any real sense of achievement. He is empty inside and without a real direction or purpose. This much is obvious.

At one point in the story the dangerous crowd James has fallen in with poses the question: “How do you know if you are the original or the clone”. It’s a common sci-fi trope and the first place my mind went once it was revealed it was a clone story. However, the important part of the conversation was the follow up: “Perhaps you just watched the real you die” to which James answers “We can only hope”. The group seem to approve of the response and there we have it. The ultimate nihilism, death without consequences. This sets up James journey for the rest of the film.

Thrill of it All.

Infinity Pool is ultimately simpler than the usual David Cronenberg affair, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. The story still contains the elements you would expect from a Cronenberg body horror, but it’s presented a more accessible package. It is dark, violent, horrific, filled with deeply flawed characters and ultimately thought provoking. The ending is in some ways disappointing, but has purpose. This probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but if you like the films of his father’s this Brandon Cronenberg movie may be worth your time, otherwise probably not. I do, so it’s a solid 6/10 for me. Would be higher, but you need a LOT of suspension of disbelief for this one.

Rating: 6 out of 10.