Tag: 2024

Gladiator II (2024)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Somewhere near the top of the list of sequels I never expected to see is Gladiator II. But Ridley Scott making a return to the Roman Colosseum was also something I wasn’t going to miss, so here we are. The unexpected sequel see’s Scott return as director but this time around the story is by Peter Craig and David Scarpa instead of David Franzoni. Since most of the characters from the original (And sadly two of the actors) are dead, the only returning ones are Connie Nielsen as “Lucilla” and Derek Jocobi as “Senator Gracchus”. They are joined by Paul Mescal as “Lucius/The Barbarian”, Denzel Washington as “Macrinus”, and Pedro Pascal as “Marcus Acadius”. Dual Emperors Geta and Caracalla are played by Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger respectively. John Mathieson returns to cinematography duties. Hanz Zimmer however is replaced by regular Scott colaborator Harry Gregson-Williams for the soundtrack.

Set sixteen years after the events of the original, the movie starts with the roman siege of Numidia and the capture of Roman refugee Lucius Verus (Living under the name “Hanno”). Lucius is enslaved and brought to Rome to be a Gladiator. Sensing something in him he can use to further his ambitions the stablemaster, Macinius promises him revenge against the general that took his city and killed his wife. Things are more complicated than they seem though. That general, Aracius, is actually a good man and married to Lucius’ mother Lucilla. Lucius is actually the heir to Rome and was sent away to protect him when he was a child. Sensing an opportunity, Macrinus tries to manipulate all the sides against each other in an attempt to seize power from the dual Emperors Geta and Carcalla.

The Gates Of Hell Are Open Night And Day

One of the things that made Gladiator so compelling was that it was actually a pretty straight forward yet compelling plot driven by superb ground breaking action and incredible performances from top tier actors, many of which were at their peak (Notable Russel Crowe). It wasn’t a perfect movie, but issues of historical inaccuracies felt unimportant next to such a triumphant performance. This was all wrapped up in one of the best movie soundtracks of all time. So we knew when they announced the sequel there were some pretty big boots to fill. Sequels rarely ever live totally up to the original, though the audiences are wise enough not to expect them to. But it is impossible not to draw comparisons especially given the trend of sequels to constantly reference the originals. This is even more of an issue for those late sequels released decades after the original.

Overcoming that comparison is where this movie fails. As I mentioned, the original had a straight forward plot. A great wrong was done to Maximus. He was betrayed and the rest of the movie is his journey towards righteous vengeance. The story for Gladiator II seems set up to be both a parallel and a subversion of this story. It’s not a bad plot, but it is far more complicated than Gladiator and this reduces the emotional impact of the story. It is a story that would be better suited to a TV series than a film. On top of this, frankly the acting is nowhere near as good. Again, it’s not actually bad and Denzel steals the show, but he had no real competition. The original had Richard Harris, Oliver Reed, Joaquin Phoenix and Russel Crowe all weaving gold. Here Denzel is largely propping the rest of the cast up.

Smooth The Descent

Gladiator 2 has another issue. Creating a story that makes sense as a follow up to one where protagonist and antagonist both died. They just about succeed. Some consider there to be a few too many callbacks, but it makes sense in context and to justify it as a sequel. Scott has taken a lot of liberties with history here, but then he did with the first film too. The story utilizes historical facts and characters, but twists them to fit his tale. It mostly works at least as an alternative history. The movie steals much of the music from the soundtrack of the original too, but this is a positive. The score for the original is famous and memorable. Referencing such music instantly evokes an emotion response. It is a reference that works and doesn’t get in the way of storytelling. Instead it enhances it.

What I can say about the plot is that it is very Roman! Remember all that political maneuvering and backstabbing from Game of Thrones? The Romans invented that. So while I do consider the plot overly complicated for an emotional character driven action fantasy, it entirely fits a story set in Rome. The characters are a bit more of a let down. Outside of the protagonist none of the Gladiators really feel like full characters. The same goes for the Roman senate and the military. Instead the film effectively hyper focuses on three characters: Lucius, Lucilla and Macrinus. Everyone else around them are pretty much just extras including the duel Emperors Geta and Caracalla and Pablo Pascal’s Marcus Acacius. None of them offer anything that memorable in their performance. Pascal seems to be trying, but the audience isn’t really given any reason to care about his character.

Easy Is The Way

Last but not least, let’s talk action. This was a key aspect of the original and it was always going to be vital here too. In this instance the movie doesn’t really make you feel the stakes as strongly, but the spectacle is certainly there. Of all the movies aspects this comes closest to the quality of the original. The only problem is this is 24 years later and we’ve seen a lot of spectacle since then. Indeed just recently the TV series “Those About To Die” had the Colosseum filled with water. The set piece in that series was a simple execution and not a battle, but it does make the spectacle feel less ground breaking. Still, I was happy with the quality of the action and the effects. It was as good as I hoped.

So on to the verdict then. Ultimately this is a good film, but it’s not a classic like the original. If it was a stand alone movie it wouldn’t make my physical media collection but as a sequel it is just about good enough for a double bill. While the story is a little over complicated and the acting and characters a little under whelming, I was reasonably gripped for the duration (Two and a half hours, about the same as the first film). Denzel Washington does a good job of propping everyone else up and is the glue that keeps this warship sailing. It all just about works. It just doesn’t excel. So I’m giving this a firm 6.5/10.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

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October may be over, but I have one more horror review for you before I move on to other things. This one comes a little late, but unlike others I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about this movie. I’m talking of course about the latest addition to the Alien franchise “Alien Romulus”. The trailers had some cool visuals but I had my doubts that this would be anything but a less good version of Aliens, updated with a few modern cliches. The movie is from director Fede Alvarez and written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues. It stars Cailee Spaeny and David Johnson with support from Isabela Merced,

Aliens: Romulus is set between the first two Alien films, which is a little strange on the surface but does fit with the trend of going back to the original movie in these franchises. What is unusual here is it’s not a retcon sequel, everything else is still canon. The story follows colonist Rain Carradine and her friends as they attempt to escape their apparent indentured servitude to the Weyland-Yatani company at a mining colony. To do this their plan is to break into an abandoned space station that is orbiting the planet and steal the left pods so they can utilize their cryo sleep capsules and reach another colony. Unfortunately for them the space station was abandoned for good reason as this outpost has been used to experiment on the infamous Xenomorphs.

In Space No One Can Hear Your Callbacks

I predicted what this film was going to be back when it was first announced. That is basically the same as “Prey” (2022) but for the Alien franchise. A watered down less good version of the movies that worked with endless references from those better movies put in simply for the sake of it. Not a bad movie as such. but it’s like watching a tribute band perform the greatest hits of your favourite artist. The music is good, but given the choice I’d always rather watch the real thing. That’s the difference between tribute bands and this kind of safe overly meta sequel movie, you can’t always see your favourite band. You can however always see your favourite movie. So movies like Prey and Romulus are things you watch once and then go back to only re-watching the first two movies as you have been for decades.

What I didn’t realize was just how much of a greatest hits Romulus would be. It doesn’t just reference the first two movies, it throws callbacks to the more divisive ones. When it does reference the first two movies it lays it on so thick it takes you out of it. This is the very definition of “‘Member Berries”. It is not “Nostalgia done right”, these things are shoehorned in. Actually the elements from the divisive movies are actually done better than the ones from Alien/Aliens, because they do service the plot. This is not a movie created to do something new or interesting with the franchise, it is one designed to get bums on seats in the theatre with little care for if anyone will remember the movie in five years time.

Alien Queens Greatest Hits Vol 2

Nostalgia bait is one thing. But what about the movie in it’s own right? Well, on the positive the music and the sound design are fantastic. I really did enjoy both those elements. Indeed the only callbacks to older movies I liked were the musical ones. Visually the film is mostly good. I say mostly because there is one bit of horrendous CGI. Naturally, this is tied to the pointless nostalgia call backs. The characters inclusion is itself a dumb and lazy plot element but the CGI just makes it embarrassing. Unfortunately, the character is in the film throughout. One of the worst callbacks to past movies includes a particular type of Alien. While the concept is still bad, I think this version looks marginally better.

The characters are a strong weakness for this movie too. Indeed these are just the dregs from an overly dystopian colony that is typical of the unimaginative modern view of the future. In Alien and Aliens while the company had nefarious goals, there was no indication that this film was set in a dystopian future. The crew of the Nostromo were just blue collar working Joes/Janes. They weren’t oppressed, they just weren’t pampered. Romulus though launches us instantly to a universe where the company effectively has slaves, who have no control over their destiny. The Company meanwhile have moved on from nefarious to full mustache twirling villainy. That makes the universe no longer feel real. The characters themselves have no real background to pull from and so feel generic outside of Andy the android and he’s not that much better.

Conclusion

Ultimately this is a movie that does nothing for the franchise. It is pretty, it is loud. Indeed one may say it is full of sound and fury yet ultimately signifying nothing. It has an extreme deficit of creativity and relies on nostalgia and callbacks. I originally thought this would be like Prey, but in many ways it’s more like “Terminator: Dark Fate”. It’s nowhere near as bad, nor does it remove the older films from canon. It does however repeat the same mistakes from those movies that derailed the franchise previously. That said, I did enjoy Romulus more than Prey (Or Dark Fate). That is mostly due to the visuals, sound design and music. It’s not a strong entry in the franchise, but it makes a reasonable popcorn movie. This is a 5.5/10.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The Substance (2024)

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The Substance is a new body horror movie from French writer/director Coralie Fargeat. It was made for a mere $17.5m by Universal through their “Working Title Films” UK subsidiary. It stars Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley with support from Dennis Quaid. The movie has not had a particularly large release, but has done well for it’s budget. Notably though it has had very positive reviews with many calling it the film of the year. So naturally I had to work this into my October horror reviews. Side note, this is my 100th horror review on the blog!

Moore plays “Elisabeth Sparkle”, a fading star that is about to loose her aerobics show due to her age. After being in a car crash a surgeon slips a USB stick into her pocket with a note saying “This changed my life”. On the stick is an advert for a treatment known as “The Substance” that promises to perform miracles. Specifically to create a better version of you that will then share your life. There are rules though, the most important being that you switch every seven days without fail. Being desperate to rekindle her fame and be loved by the audience once more, Elisabeth agrees. Thus “Sue” (Qualley) is born. The instructions warn “Remember you are one”, but that may be easier said than done.

Every Seven Days Without Fail

This is a film that heavily indulges in itself. Everything is heavily stylized, but each shot hangs on a few moments more than it needs to and the arty stuff is thrown in almost every second. The style is actually good, but the film milks each idea for far too long. This leads to the main problem with the film it is far too long. You just don’t need two hours and twenty one minutes to make a body horror. The story is actually pretty simple and you know where it is going from fairly early on. Dragging out each scene wasn’t really necessary artistically, to tell the story or to enforce the themes.

My other issue with the film is the predictability. Any film that literally lists rules, you know the the direction of the film will be to break every single one of them. It’s just a matter of time (and it’s a long time). The pay off on the last one is pretty impressive though, I’ll give them that. To be fair, body horror tends to be predictable, so this is a minor issue. I did wonder early on if most of the story was meant to be a hallucination after the car crash or even something experienced as Elizabeth died. Neither came to pass, but to be fair also wasn’t ruled out. The truth is this is a film where reality isn’t really important.

You Are The Matrix

The world in which the film takes place doesn’t feel very much like a real world. That’s not a criticism though since this is clearly intentional. But it is a sign of just how much this film is about style and themes. All the characters outside of the main two (who are in fact, one) are shallow shells of characters that don’t feel real. This is because they aren’t important to the story. This is a story about one person and one person alone. One person and two actresses so it’s a good job Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were up to the task.

To me this seems to all be a metaphor for plastic surgery. More specifically for how it is crutch many Hollywood actresses reach for at a certain age. It’s an unfortunate thing and almost every time they end up looking worse than aging naturally. This movie really looks into this from the perspective of the women that go through it. It is ultimately a tragedy. It’s not an entirely sympathetic one though. It’s also not a film that shies away from the grossness or comedy of a body horror. The former it indulges in throughout, but the latter kicks into gear for the final act. This is an act that wouldn’t be out of place in a Charles Band or Troma horror comedy.

Termination Is Final

This is a good movie, but I’m not sure it warrants the “Best movie of the year” labels it’s been receiving. The ending is more funny than tragic and the movie drags a lot getting there while they show you a few more close ups of peoples teeth or piles of meat. The themes are sort of in your face and the plot is a straight line towards disaster. That is a plot that works, but it’s nothing special. The visuals however are good. The sets, sound design and editing (Length aside) are very impressive. The body horror is sufficiently gross (Which is the entire point) and everything more or less works. So, how do I score this? I think a strong 6/10 is fair. It’s a recommendation, but I do think you need to like body horrors or art movies to enjoy this.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Longlegs (2024)

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It’s Nick Cage time! Nick has been killing it on the indie and B-Movie scene for the last few years making a mixture of art, comedy and horror (Often at once) and clearly having fun with it. He’s been prolific too, you can pretty much count on 2-3 new Nick Cage films every year and they’ll all have something positive about them. Part of this has been a run of good horror movies. Everything from the crazy “Mandy” (2018), the solid Lovecraft piece “The Color Out Of Space” (2019), fun movies like “Willy’s Wonderland” (2021) and “Renfield” (2023) and recently the dark and underrated “Arcadian” (2024). But “Longlegs” is a movie that had hype long before anyone realized Cage would be in a central role. A number of cryptic trailers certainly helped put the movie on a lot of peoples radar, including myself.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Longlegs is written and directed by Osgood Perkins. The directors previous feature movie “Gretel and Hansel” was praised for the cinematography and criticised the script. However, since neither the writers nor cinematographer from that movie are involved here that leaves Perkins somewhat of a wild card. The movie stars Maika Monroe as “Agent Lee Harker” a young FBI agent with a somewhat psychic talent and a mysterious dark past which she can’t quite remember. Nicholas Cage plays creepy occultist villain “Longlegs”. Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt and Michelle Choi-Lee fill out the rest of the key cast.

Agent Harker is recruited to a special task force trying to solve the “Longlegs” murders. The murders are unique in that the families all seem to have been murder/suicide situations, but are tied together by cryptic notes left at each scene in the same handwriting and the date of birth of each of the families daughter. Harker immediately is able to make progress on the case but as she does she begins to realize things are a lot more personal to her and her mother than she could ever have guessed.

Atmosphere

The film has a good atmosphere. That is the big selling point. The story breaks down a little bit at the ending, and has some issues throughout but is serviceable. Nick Cage finds another character that allows him to make the most of his skills at playing the unhinged. This time though he pushes for more unsettling than comedic and mostly achieve that. Perkins does a good job of showing only as much of Cage as needed. This keeps the mystery and makes sure that the performance from cage doesn’t cross into “Not the bees!” territory. Maika Monroe’s character on the other hand drifts through the entire film like it’s a fever dream. This is entirely intentional and while it doesn’t ask a lot of the actress she pulls it off well. Alicia Witt is a pleasant surprise here too and as Agent Harkers mother Ruth.

The plot certainly has a lot of interesting elements but it ends up somewhat cluttered. . Because of the dream like state that Agent Harker is in throughout the movie it’s hard to get any kind of emotional attachment to the character. She never actually does any detective work. Instead, all the solutions just magically come to her. It’s fairly clear early on (Perhaps from the start), what the Gotcha will be. When it happens, Harker’s reaction to it remains muted due to her continuing dream like state. It’s not quite the emotional pay off it should be. Her mother has an important roll, but we have no reason to care about her. This is largely because she isn’t introduced properly until half way through the movie.

Final Fate

The movie does spend some time humanizing Agent Carter, though Blair Underwood seems to be mostly phoning it in. It’s also done for somewhat obvious reasons, yet isn’t really effective. When these events pay off I was spending most of my time shouting at the screen for Agent Harker to do the obvious thing and stop standing around drooling instead of caring about what was happening. The ending left me somewhat unsatisfied, where as it should have left me feeling unsettled. I think part of this are that too many elements are introduced to this puzzle late on. The movie should have pushed a feeling of inevitable doom hard from the start.

The ingredients are here for a great movie, but the end result doesn’t quite live up to its potential. It is however a good step forward for Perkins as a director and I hope he builds on this in the future. Overall, while not entirely working the movie scores points for atmosphere and for Nick Cage’s performance. This is a 6/10. If you like atmospheric horror or Nicholas Cage being goofy, it is a recommendation. On the other hand, if you like deals with the devil and big gotcha moments in an atmospheric horror check out the vastly superior Angel Heart instead.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

In A Violent Nature (2024)

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“In A Violent Nature” is a 2024 slasher film with a twist. The movie takes the killer perspective idea (Used so effectively in the intro of “Halloween” (1978)). The movie is written and directed by Chris Nash and is his feature length debut. Chris previous made short films including one entry for “ABC’s of Death 2”. Ry Barrett plays the killer “Johnny” and Andrea Pavlovic plays final girl “Kris”. The story begins with a group of teenagers taking a necklace they find hanging on the remains of a fire tower in the woods. This wakes up long dead killer Johnny who sets out to recover his necklace.

As the story progresses and Johnny starts to kill everyone in his way as he searches for his necklace we gradually learn the killers backstory. As a child he was tricked up to the fire tower where someone scared him and he fell to his death. Later Johnny’s father confronted the killers and dies in the ensuing brawl. The local folk law is that the vengeful spirit of Johnny has been responsible for two killing sprees decades apart. Eventually Johnny narrows his sights on a young woman called Kris and her boyfriend Colt (Cameron Love) who desperately attempt to fight back.

Not Every Idea Is A Good One

This is an attempt to bring some art and perhaps originality to the slasher sub-genre and I applaud the attempt, but for most part the art detract from the atmosphere. Since we are following the silent killer and not the victims, we don’t really get to know any of the characters. I didn’t find myself caring at all about any of them, including the killer. They are all about as generic as slasher film characters come. Some of the scenes are approached in interesting ways but none of this is consistent. We switch from observing a murder quietly from a distance in a detached way, to a horror effects guys wet dream a few minutes later. The ending even abandons the killers perspective gimmick, making it feel tacked on from another film.

While conceptually interesting, in practice this is a movie that falls flat. It feels like the writers just threw together every idea they thought was “Cool”. Then packed it with a vague Jason Voorheese knockoff story. As a result, some of the scenes in isolation are pretty cool (For various reasons). As a full movie however, it’s hard to really feel much of anything for it. While not a complete disaster it is a disappointment. “Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon” (2006), did the killers perspective better admittedly in a more meta and dark comedy way. This was more like someone watched the opening of “Halloween” (1978) and wanted that to be the entire movie. Had John Carpenter done that, I very much doubt we’d still be talking about that movie 46 years later. This is a narrow 5.5/10. It has some merit, but basically one to skip.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The Watchers (2024)

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The Watchers (Known as “The Watched” in UK/Ireland) is a mystery horror written and directed by Ishana Shyamalan, the daughter of M.Night Shyamalan. This is her feature debut. The movie stars Dakota Fanning as “Mina” who is stranded in a strange Forrest when her car breaks down on an unfamiliar road. She follows a woman named “Madeline”(Olwen Fouéré) who hurries her into a nearby bunker like building she calls “The Coop”. Inside she meets two other strangers Ciara (Georgina Campbell) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan). Madeline explains that it is impossible to escape the forest and that every night they must return to the coop where they are observed by mysterious and menacing beings. Mina is determined to find a way out and to find out who or what is observing them.

Chip Off The Old Block

The Watchers is another film with an interesting premise that falls short on delivery. It’s interesting to see how much Ishana Shyamalan takes after her father. Like most of his films, the movie throws out a mystery right at the start. Then it gives you the expectation for twists, challenging you to figure them out. Like many of M.Night’s films, those reveals underwhelm and/or are predictable. That’s not to say the Shyamalan formula can’t work, but the success rate is low. Like her father, Ishana seems technically competent and has a good eye for visuals. The problem for this story is that the main twist is particularly predictable and the characters are especially stupid. On the positive side it lands a similar running time to most of M.Night’s work at around an hour and forty and keeps a relatively quick pace.

It’s interesting to note that there is one notable change between the movie and it’s source novel. I can’t reveal that without hitting spoilers but effectively the big reveal of who the watchers are is totally different. The strange thing is from what I can tell (I’ve only read reviews/synopsis of the novel) very little else is changed. But then I recall M.Night did something similar with Old. I don’t think the change improved the story but to be honest neither twist seems especially good. As far as the smaller twists go though, that is far too predictable. The movie runs into a lot of the pitfalls of the science fiction trope strangers trapped in a location. Why does it take the protagonist turning up for anyone to figure anything out? Why do people blindly trust the person that was there the longest?

Conclusion

I had to laugh early when after running around trying to escape for half the day, the protagonist is show the “Point of no return” markers. These are the furthest you can go and have time to return before dark. But heading there part way through the day and then having a conversation at the location make it pretty clear you could definitely go beyond that and still make it back. Especially if you ran instead of casually walked. It made no sense, but no one questioned the bad logic. That sort of sums up the film really. It does have something going for it though as far as the atmosphere is concerned and the fast pace means it isn’t boring. I am going to write this one down as a reasonable start for a first time director, but ultimately not a recommendation. 5/10

Rating: 5 out of 10.

The First Omen (2024)

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Shortly after I was born, the world was introduced to the ultimate devil child. Not me though, this was 1976 and June (November in the UK) of that year saw the release of one of Richard Donners masterpieces of cinema, “The Omen”. A movie that terrified me as a child (Not sure how old I was when I saw it, but far too young to be watching). The movie expanded to a trilogy (In 1978 and 1981) that told the entire story of the antichrist. The final part was the weakest but did take the story to it’s logical conclusion. This was followed by an ill advised fourth movie in 1991 that was universally panned and a disastrous remake no one asked for in 2006. After an even longer hiatus the franchise finally returned in 2024 for another ill advised entry. This time a prequel.

The First Omen is directed by Arkasha Stevenson in her feature length debut, based on a story by Ben Jacoby. Stevenson, Tim Smith and Keith Thomas provide the screenplay. All relatively new but not totally inexperienced talent. Nell Tiger Free (Servant, Game of Thrones) plays the protagonist “Margaret”, a novitiate awaiting to take her vows. She is sent to an orphanage to finish her training but is caught up in a series of unexplained events and disturbing visions while there. A priest, “Father Brenan” (Ralph Ineson), explains to her that something nefarious is going on here and that the fate of the world may be at stake. However not even Brenan fully realizes the entire truth of the situation.

The Devil’s Greatest trick

Okay, so the first thing that comes across to me with this film is that it is really, really, boring. Not much of anything actually happens throughout the entire film and the plot twists are so easily guessed that there is very little pay off. The entire story of the Omen has run it’s course, a prequel was always an ill advised concept, especially since it was effectively done to absolute perfection decades ago with Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby”. Not technically of the same franchise, but the best telling of the antichrists birth you are likely to see on screen. If the idea behind a prequel was to avoid comparisons to the original they failed as with this the movie will be compared to both The Omen and Rosemary’s Baby.

But this isn’t the only problem. like many demon/devil related horrors of recent years the makers have tried to steer the story into a somewhat anti-Christian frame and this is something that always works against the impact of this kind of horror. Demonic possession and the rise of the antichrist are Christian fears first and foremost and as such work best when the Christian element is leaned into instead of shun. This is the very reason why I felt “Nefarious” worked so well. That film was as biased towards Christianity as films like this and the recent Exorcist sequel are against it, but the simple fact is being biased towards it makes the film work! If you don’t want to lean into that, don’t make demon/devil films! H.P. Lovecraft is always a viable alternative as are Pagan deities or aliens.

Final Judgement

Tonally they did try and make the film at least feel like an Omen movie. In practice though, that mostly meant playing heavily discordant choral music over scenes of… well, not much at all. There were some references to events of The Omen but these didn’t serve that much purpose on their own. Mostly the film tries to create an uneasy atmosphere through the music and occasional unrelated visuals instead of from the plot itself. That plot involves a twist that is so painfully obvious that the swerve is really more irritating than anything else. This is no Angel Heart. The plot here has very little wriggle room due to the constraints of the other entries in the franchise and where they have found room for originality the directions are all disappointing.

Ultimately this is a confused offering. Politically speaking it is a very right wing franchise (Given the Christian element) taken in a very left wing direction. Which means the fears it tries to reflect are left wing fears, specifically female body autonomy and the danger of Christian fundamentalism. That couldn’t contrast more with the originals very Christian fear of the rise of the antichrist. As bad a fit as that is, my main issue with the film remains that it was just boring! This is a 4.5/10. Go and watch Rosemary’s Baby or the original Omen instead of this.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Trap (2024)

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Is there any director more all over the place in quality than M. Night Shyamalan? Most of his movies are divisive with the audience, rejected by most but loved by a solid number. Some of his movies are universally panned and some are universally loved. It could be argued that he is doing exactly what a director should do (When making original content). Taking big risks and following his inner muse. However, his work always follows a certain formula, namely the big twist. As a result, he has all the hallmarks of both a good and bad director. Auteur’s do tend to have their own unique style. But when that style makes the stories predictable it does more harm than good. In many ways Shyamalan is his own worst enemy, because technically speaking at least he is a good director.

Here he has a conceptually interesting story. John Hartnett stars as “Cooper”. A family man taking his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert by “Lady Raven” (played by M. Night’s daughter, Saleka Shyamalan). Cooper though has a dark secret (Revealed in the trailer and early in the movie, so not a spoiler), he’s a notorious serial killer known as “The Butcher”. It turns out the FBI was aware he would be at the show (Though they don’t know who he is or what he looks like) and have the venue locked down. Having caught on to this it is down to Cooper to find a way out, preferably without ruining his daughters big day. He is being hunted by FBI profiler “Dr. Josephine Grant” (Hayley Mills).

Two Sides of Night

This is very much a film of two halves and it is the first half which is by far the superior. The interesting thing is this first half is entirely free from Shyamalan style twists. Sure the concept itself is somewhat of a subversion, but you find out very early that Cooper is the butcher and his attempts to escape the trap plays to M.Night’s actual strengths as a director. Scenes play out with a tension underneath where the audience understands the stakes but most of the characters on screen do not. This is classic Hitchcock style tension and Shyamalan pulls it off well. The pacing is pretty solid too leaving you on the edge of your seat. The problem is there is only really enough content here for half a movie. Horror films don’t need to be long, but all too often these days we see a horror with a cool concept that just can’t sustain itself for even 90 minutes. These ideas are better off as anthology shorts.

The second half of the movie is where we see the bad side of Shyamalan. Where the obsession with twists and subversions actually leads to the film becoming clankly and predictable. Here we see Cooper constantly outsmarted by almost everyone he comes across. He loses all ability to inspire fear and with the mask now off he turns out to be far less interesting as an antagonist/protagonist. In some ways it reminds me of the 2018 Halloween sequel since you effectively have three “Final Girls”, from three different generations taking down the villain. The difference is that none of these three are really main characters. Lady Raven comes closest but she doesn’t take a central role until the second half of the film and leaves the story a fair while before the climax. The result is a complete disconnect between the audience and these characters. It’s also a noteworthy horror for the total lack of deaths during the film.

Conclusion

This is a difficult film to rate. This represents the best and the worst of the M. Night Shyamalan. The first 40 minutes are very solid and would probably have garnered a strong 6.5/10 from me. The rest of the film though is disappointing and probably would have landed a 5/10 if I was feeling generous. I’m going to balance those out to a 5.5/10. Ultimately this is not entirely bad and you won’t regret watching. However, it’s not worth going out of your way for it and it certainly won’t be bothering your physical media collection (If you have one). Slightly above average, but with the good weighted so heavily towards the early half you will likely walk away with a bad taste in your mouth. I don’t really recommend it, but if it’s on streaming and you have nothing else you want to watch, go for it.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

Posted on by fenrisfil

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed a superhero movie. The truth is most of them aren’t that interesting to me these days. However, this team up is too appealing to resist. If the box office is any indication, I’m not alone in feeling that. This is a truly unique situation for a movie. It’s not just along overdue team up (We don’t talk about “X-Men Origins:Wolverine”). It’s also the first time Deadpool, regular breaker of the fourth wall has been able to directly reference the MCU. Last but not least it is more than nostalgia it is the farewell to the Fox X-Men universe. Truly, the end of an era. Effectively this is the “End Game” of the the Fox Superhero franchises.

Spoiler Free

This installment of the Deadpool franchise is directed by “Free Guy” (2021) director Shawn Levy. Writing credits go to Levy, Reynolds, Rhett Reese, Paul Warnick and Zeb Wells. Ryan Reynolds obviously returns as Deadpool and is joined by Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. Emma Corrin and Matthew MacFayden play the movies main antagonists (“Cassandra Nova” and Mr. Paradox” respectively). The rest of the cast will remain unnamed by me since that is basically spoilers (Don’t look at imdb btw, they are listed). Before I give you the basics, it’s important to know this is a spoiler free review. However, I will reference the material in the trailer, so if you have been avoiding even watching that you may want to skip to the conlusion.

I will keep the plot summary minimal. Effectively Deadpools universe is going to collapse due to the death of it’s “Anchor”. Being the universe of the Fox X-Men it’s no surprise that the anchor is none other than Wolverine. Don’t think to hard about an entire universe revolving around one single person from Earth, it is what it is! Deadpool is recruited by the Time Variance Authority and offered a new life in a certain other universe (Yes, the MCU). However, he would prefer to try and fix his own world. To do that he needs to find a new Wolverine. From here on things get complicated and spoiler filled, so that is all you are getting from me on the plot!

The Fox Multiverse

The movie features a lot of cameos, some of which actually turn into substantial supporting characters (At least for the middle act). If you have seen the trailer you know of two of these cameos, X-23 (From “Logan”) and Sabretooth. X23 is one of the characters with a more substantial role and it’s good to see the character grown up. Alongside her though there are three more characters that get a bit of a story arc and one more big (If short) cameo. On the villain side there are several cameos but most are blink-and-you’ll-miss-it affairs. The selection for all of these are well balanced and will give some surprises while providing at least one long overdue return of a fan favourite.

In some ways the use of the multiverse for these characters is similar to how it was used in Spider-Man: No Way home. It actually provides somewhat of a redemption arc for characters and actors that were not given the best of send offs or really even given a chance. But it’s important to note, these characters are mostly limited to the middle act. The first and final act still make use of the multiverse but in very different ways. But while this is all fun and creative the film never loses sight of what is important: Deadpool and Wolverine. This is their journey. Of course this is a Deadpool film first and foremost and that means Deadpool style humour and fourth wall breaking, but Wolverine fits into that world almost perfectly.

The Good, The Bad and The Other Stuff

So what about the weaknesses? Well, the plot never really feels that important. Perhaps because it is approached in a such a meta way or because the multiverse removes all stakes anyway. The movies two antagonists are okay and Emma Corrin does a great job as Cassandra Nova but their motivations for the entire film effectively feel like they just need to make the plot happen. It’s like they didn’t want a plot to get too in the way of the comedy. That’s fine but it is still the movies weakness. The TVA (As revealed in the trailer) are basically just here to initiate events and in many ways feel like an unwelcome interloper into a movie that is very much about the Fox Marvel films. It’s not a major issue though as they don’t dwell too heavily on any of the MCU elements.

The best thing about the movie is that it is fun! Of course it’s a Deadpool movie and you know what to expect. Outrageous comedy, meta comedy and outrageous meta comedy. The movie dives head first into the last of those right at the start. They found a remarkable way to simultaneously respect and disrespect the ending “Logan” (2017). This, they managed in a way that I think most people will be okay with it. Many watching will have no idea who the cameos are and won’t get a lot of the references. The humour though, should all still land. That is important because technically to get the most out of this movie you need to have seen every Fox and Disney Marvel movie, but if you haven’t seen a single one of them you should still have fun.

Conclusion

So what does the future hold now for Deadpool, Wolverine and the MCU? Impossible to tell. This movie has a lot in common with Spider-Man: No Way Home. That movie firmly remained an outlier for the MCU. The wrong lessons were learned and Marvel ultimately dived blindly into the multiverse to the point where everything seemed unimportant. Outside of that the MCU stuck to the plan that Kevin Feige had laid out before the Fox acquisition with extreme tunnel vision. This movie should show them that those Fox characters are still well loved. Ignoring them is leaving money on the table. That said, they need to have their own take on these characters. I don’t envy anyone stepping into High Jackman’s shoes.

The MCU is a juggernaut of a franchise and course correction takes a long time. We will have to see if they can manage it while there is still an audience. Whatever fate has in store for the MCU, this movie is a success in every way that matters. It is a final emotional farewell to the Fox era of superhero movies, a long overdue team up and highly entertaining movie in its own right. Oh and it’s also making bucket loads of money at the box office. This is a success and it’s a big recommendation from me. Is it the perfect movie? No, frankly the plot is paper thin and that limits the rating, but the movie is so much fun I’m still giving it one of my highest ratings 8/10.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

Posted on by fenrisfil

The only movie franchise that can get away with having “Of the” in the title twice, returned once more this year with “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”. The previous trilogy of films (Rise/Dawn/War) effectively told a complete story over the three films documenting how the world of Man could turn into the world of Ape. That story is over and to be honest was starting to get a little boring by the end. So, to come back to the franchise means finding something new. This is the test to see if there is any more to squeeze out of this franchise. A series that already sat at a total of nine films (this now being the tenth). One more film after this will see this reboot series equal the original in number. Quite a feat for a reboot. But anyway, is it any good? Let’s find out!

Building A Kingdom

Taking the directors chair for the franchise return is Wes Ball. Wes is only really known for the Maze Runner series, which was probably more miss than hit. However, Nintendo/Sony have enough faith in him to give him the tent pole “Legend of Zelda” movie. Josh Friedman (creator of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”) provides the script. Owen Teague stars as the voice of “Noa”, and Freya Allan as lead human “Nova/Mae”. Support comes from Kevin Durand as his nemesis “Proximus”, Peter Macon as wise old Orangutan “Rakka” (A librarian of sorts, which has to be a Terry Pratchett reference) and William H. Macy as the only other human with a notable role, “Trevathan”.

The film is set an unspecified number of years after the reign of “Caesar” (the primary character of the previous trilogy) and depicts a world where humans are feral and rare and where most apes live in isolated villages with their own customs and cultures. Once such village is Noa’s which has a tradition of raising and working with Hawks. The apes here form an almost spiritual bond with the birds of prey. Noa’s village is attacked by local warlord Proximus Ceasar. Noa’s father is slain, the rest of the village are captured and Noa is left for dead. Waking up to find his home destroyed, Noa sets off to find and attempt to rescue his tribe. Along the way he teams up an Orangutan historian “Rakka” and an intelligent human they call “Nova”. She has her own reasons for finding Proxima’s base, a location that has many secrets of it’s own to reveal.

Echoes From The Past

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The previous two movies while relatively solid simply trod the same ground as “Rise”. That movie ultimately implied the completion of that journey and didn’t really need sequels to flesh it out. Those were movies more impressive visually than they were with their storytelling. I was hoping we would get something different here and we did. That said, the movie is very much a post apocalyptic adventure and hits many of the tropes you would expect from such a story, just with the twist of the world now being dominated by Apes. Proxima’s base could be straight out of a Mad Max movie or possibly a Fallout game. The Ape perspective though is interesting, when they find an observatory, Rakka sees murials depicting humans and concludes it was some kind of reserve that the apes homed the humans in.

One potential negative is the deliberately vague passage of time. At some points it seems like centuries have passed, but the surviving intelligent humans act like they actually remember the old world and their goals and places they inhabit don’t quite fit with it being centuries after the fall of man. This can be explained a little by humans having about twice the lifespan of most apes. So twice as many generations of ape will pass in the time of one human generation. Also while these apes can talk, they appear to not be able to read, making it more difficult to pass on information between generations. Still, there are a lot of questions that remain. Future entries may prove this to be an interesting bit of world building instead of a flaw, time will tell.

Evolution Of The Franchise

Visually the movie is a big winner. It looks great and the action scenes involving the apes are impressive. The film takes a journey through a great variety of locations and provides some action in each. Each environment looks unique and provides something new for those action scenes. That said, many of these set pieces are only unique within this movie, not the action genre in general, so there is nothing ground breaking but it is definitely entertaining. But it’s not just the action, the characters all have somewhat of an emotional journey and their own agency and goals. The movie is longer than I would like at 2 hours and 25 minutes, but it doesn’t drag. While there are elements that could have been cut, there wasn’t anything I felt needed to be left on the cutting floor.

This is a good, fun movie. Not terrible original and definitely not ground breaking (Ten movies in, no surprise). However, compared to the last trilogy it changes things up enough to not be boring. The story feels like one worth telling and while I’m not sure how much more life the franchise has in it in general, I would like to see more of this branch of the story. That said, the movies largest flaw is it is predictable and that is largely the franchise at this point. There are only so many times you can push the “Apes used to be kept in zoos” reveal. At some point this reboot series needs to break away from setting up the events of the 1968 original and answer the final question: Can humans and apes actually live in peace? This is a strong 6.5/10 and a recommendation.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.