Tag: 2024

Review Roundup – June 2024 – The Speed Run!

Posted on by fenrisfil

This month I’m doing a speed run. I’ve got four movies and two documentaries for you. It’s a lot to cover so I am giving each two paragraphs only. I’ll have more content for you in July including some major reviews. For now though, I’m looking at four low budget horror movies: “Project Dorothy”, “Sting”, “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Arcadian”. Don’t worry, I’ll still have plenty of horrors to review in October! As strange bedfellows to those I’m looking at a pair of documentaries, namely “Brats” and “Jim Henson: Idea Man”. Let’s get started!

Sting

Sting is a tale of an alien Spider creature that is briefly befriended by a young girl (Called “Charlotte”, naturally), but then goes on a rampage in an apartment block, slaughtering the residents. It’s also about the relationship of that girl with her Step-Father who she both idolizes and resents. Jermaine Fowler, Ryan Corr and Alyla Browne star. The movie is the brainchild of writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner, the man behind cult classics Wyrmwood (2014) and Nekrotronic (2018). This is a simple horror movie that had a lot of promise… But doesn’t quite live up to that. Very much a case of: Close, but no cigar.

The movie begins with a clever little scene and leads into a stylish intro. Roach-Turner is pretty good at adding a little class to a generic horror, so no surprise here. The rest of Sting however plays through largely by the numbers, though competently and with some charm. It has an interesting concept that ultimately has no impact on the rest of the story, which devolves to a straight forward monster in a building affair. The cast is decent, the characters are reasonable and the monster doesn’t look terrible. But outside the intro nothing really stands out. This hits a strong 5.5/10. Not quite enough to be a recommendation, but if you have nothing better to watch and like horror, it’ll do.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Arcadian

I often say you can’t go too far wrong with Nicholas Cage these days. When he wants to he can bring it as an actor, but mostly he just seems to be doing things that are fun and many of his more B-Movie releases in recent years have become instant cult classics. This is an actor that is just having fun with his career in his later years and long may it continue. Here though he has a smaller role with his character Paul’s sons taking center stage. It works though and the two actors, Jarden Martell (As “Joseph”) and Maxwell Jenkins (As “Thomas”) do a solid job. Benjamin Brewer (Who directed Cage previously in 2016’s “The Truth”) helms the film. Mike Nilon provides the script. Nilon is mostly a producer (And has worked with Cage several times previously), this is only his second writing credit.

The film doesn’t waste much time with explanations. Indeed the creators of this seem to have quite deliberately left things a mystery. Mostly I think this was a good idea, but it does mean the movie just sort of throws things at you. The monsters are actually pretty cool, decently scary and original looking. The move well and seem to have a lot of lore behind them that the film barely touches on. That said, we’ve seen all this before. Arcadian is similar to any number of Monsters-Take-Over-The-World films and we know what to expect from them. The result is a film without any real originality but well made and relatively compelling. If you’ve never seen “The Quiet Place” or the horror/comedy “Love And Monsters” watch those instead. But if those movies are your thing, you’ll enjoy this too. This is a 6/10 and a recommendation.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Brats

Way back in the 1980’s and early 1990’s I was aware of the term “Brat Pack” and that it applied to a group of young actors that were making waves in Hollywood. It was never entirely clear who was in this pack, but I liked their movies and that was all there was to it for me. For those actors however this was a whole different matter. The term came from an article by David Blum, originally an interview with Emilio Estevez, but Blum changed the article to talk more broadly about that entire generation of actors. Those actors reacted badly to this label and in many ways have carried around resentment about the label throughout their careers. Now one of those actors, film maker Andrew McCarthy has decided to meet up with the rest of the gang to look back on that article and how it impacted them.

This is a mildly interesting documentary mixed with a chunk of 80’s nostalgia. Primarily this is a documentary about Andrew McCarthy and how he felt about the article that labelled him and many of his peers “Brats”. We see a bit of how others felt and a small amount of talk about the impact of the movies themselves. If you grew up watching these actors you will get something out of it, but ultimately the question of how they felt about being labelled as the “Brat Pack” didn’t need an entire documentary to cover and while their reactions are interesting they are about what you would have expected. Where they cover the movies it becomes a bit more interesting but that aspect is almost an afterthought. If you didn’t grow up in the 80’s this likely won’t be of interest to you. For me, an 80’s kid, it just about hits a 6/10.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

I Saw The TV Glow

This is a small cast surreal horror from Jane Schoenbrun centered around “Owen” (Ian Foreman/Justice Smith) and his total obsession with a TV show which may be more than it seems. The focus on a single character with almost no personality and the very slow build makes this really drag until that halfway point, at which stage the message gets confused. It is a very obvious allegory and while it never names the topic, it wears it on its sleeve. Despite that, the creators clearly wanted to be artistic with it and for me the most interesting thing was to see the conflict between their desire to push a specific message and the artistic need of leaving things to the viewer to interpret.

That’s not to say all art has to be open to interpretation but the truth is if you want to deal with a really specific issue and the message is more important than being creative you should probably stick to drama. Genre entertainment works better with broader messages that can resonate with everyone no matter how they interpret it. From about half way through up until the ending this seemed more of an allegory for drug abuse and the impact of media on young minds. Only with the very on the nose ending was I certain my original read of the message was correct. At which point I realized the film may not be saying what the director thinks it is. While that is interesting, the film itself is not. Despite a little bit of style and flair this is a 4.5/10.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Project Dorothy

A very low budget B-Movie horror that attempts to make the most of it’s limited resources but is ultimately too bland and with too many plot holes to be any kind of cult classic. The movie is from relatively new director George Henry Horton and starts Tim DeZarn and Adam Burdon as a pair of thieves hiding out from police in an apparently abandoned warehouse after stealing a valuable piece of technology. The warehouse though houses a psychotic AI from the 1980’s that is looking for a way to escape her confines. The AI, named “Dorothy” is played by horror scream queen Daniel Harris (“Jamie” from Halloween IV and V), who takes top billing despite having the smallest role of the three.

Major plot holes surround the main premise, from not thinking there was an internet in the 1980’s, to not understanding how WiFi dongles work and of course the idea that an extremely dangerous AI would be cut off from the world by an easily broken padlock and no other security. This would be fine if this was a horror comedy, but unfortunately it takes itself a little too seriously. It’s also lacking in style, there’s no cool imagery or clever scenes that stand out here. The two main characters do a reasonable job, especially given how little they have to work with. The AI mostly chases after them with fork lift trucks and turns the lights on and off. There’s definitely been more terrifying and more interesting AI’s. Still, the movie isn’t boring, it is however below average. 4.5/10

Rating: 4.5 out of 10.

Jim Henson: Idea Man

How doesn’t love the Muppets? Come to think of it, what 80’s kid doesn’t love The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth? Jim Henson is a cultural legend for sure, with a great positive influence on the world of entertainment. Despite dying relatively young at 53, he was a giant for two decades and his legacy still stands. Indeed the Muppet’s still occasionally make movies (2014’s “Most Wanted” being the most recent), Sesame Street is still running and Dark Crystal had a TV series relatively recently. A ill advised sequel to Labyrinth is apparently in the works too, without Henson or Bowie. None of these things would happen if there wasn’t still a lot of love for Jim’s work.

This documentary covers Jim’s entire career and gives a solid amount of time to each stage, providing something of interest not matter what era of Henson’s career is of most interest to you. The Focus though is on the man himself and the documentary has a real personal feel to it, through the interviews with all those close to the man and their thoughts, inter-cut with interviews with Jim from over the years. There is nothing ground breaking here, but it is a very moving tribute to a truly creative man. We see his struggles, his relationship with his wife and kids and how he impacted everyone he worked with. The documentary makes it hard not to feel a lot of affection for this driven, funny human being. This is a 7/10.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Review Roundup – May 2024

Posted on by fenrisfil

This month we’ve got a bit of a mixed bag to sort through. We have one horror film in “Abigail“, previously known as “Abducting Abigail” (As listed in my January preview for this year); We have an over the top action comedy in “Boy Kills World“; and the most indie of indie movies, the story of a family of Sasquatches “Sasquatch Sunset“. No clangers this week, but two that didn’t quite land for me. Although only one of these ended up a recommendation, all these movies have positives and something to offer someone. Let’s dig in!

Sasquatch Sunset

This is a film that didn’t entirely work for me, but I can see where some may find it appealing. It treads the ground between artistic vision and gross out comedy. In my view it relies a too heavily on the latter, making it hard to enjoy the former. If I’ve learned anything about these fictional creatures it is that they are basically just grosser versions of humans. This is in some ways endearing and in others… Well, just unpleasant. This is the Sasquatch cycle of life. We witness mating, death and birth. In between we seem aggression, we see tenderness, anger, fear at the unknown, curiosity and uh, body excretions.

Despite featuring very emotional scenes, I struggled to feel empathy for these creatures. This all felt very mundane to me. Part of the problem is that the heavy makeup makes it difficult for the actors to emote. As Sasquatches of course they don’t speak either and instead just grunt. They compensate for this with a lot of body acting and it works to some degree. But I didn’t feel especially connected. Fun fact: One of the Sasquatches is actually Jesse Eisenberg. Of course he is unrecognizable and doesn’t talk, so you’d be forgiven for missing that.

Cryptid Writing

When you have cast that will struggle to emote, you really need the music to do the heavy lifting. However, instead the soundtrack is understated and ethereal with a dream like quality. To be fair, I actually liked the soundtrack quite a lot, but it didn’t drive the story emotionally. It’s possible it was intentional to give the film a dream like quality, these are mythical “Cryptids” after all. The soundtrack release for the movie actually contains a cover of one of the actual songs from the film, but with the lyrics replaced by grunting. Really, that sort of summarizes the features art meets silliness approach!

Conceptually this is interesting and it is why I watched the film in the first place. I was especially interested in the lack of dialogue (I’m a big fan of the series “Primal”). What I wasn’t aware of was how much the movie would rely so much on body excretions to entertain. That isn’t my thing, but if you like an artistic concept paired with gross out humour this may be for you. What I will say is the Sasquatches did look great. Visually the film worked really well and this was made for around $1m, so that is in itself very impressive. For me though on entertainment value it is a 5.5/10.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Abigail

Abigail tells the story of a group of criminals that have been given a high paying job abducting a young girl. They don’t know who her father is outside of them being wealthy. However, it turns out things are not as they seem and one by one they are being eliminated while they await news of the ransom. It turns out it really does matter who you kidnap. The movie comes from Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and stars Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens and Alisha Weir. SPOILERS for this one. Suffice to say this is a visually entertaining movie but full of cliches and heavily reliant on all the characters being stupid. If you still want to stay unspoiled, skip to the last paragraph.

The film gave away the nature of Abigail both in the trailer and many early synopsis’s. Hell, I knew she was a monster late on in 2023 back when this film was still going to be called “Abducting Abigail”. Child Vampires are not new and the movie even references Anne Rice, so I guess little Claudia was the inspiration here. She is done reasonably well and definitely the movies highlight. The visuals are in the “Fun horror” category where things are pushed to such extremes as to be sort of funny (Lots of “Red mist”). While the visuals are fun, I can’t help but find a lot of similarities between this movie and “Ready or Not” by the same directors. But that movie had something this does not: Characters.

Red Mist

Every character here is a hollow shell and everyone other than the final girl is mind-numbingly stupid. Joey (Said final girl), could not be more of a cliché. Her single flaw is that she is a recovering drug addict. She recently got clean. As a result is incredibly competent, a master of hand to hand combat, able to read every person she meets instantly and figure out their back story and is afraid of nothing. Yep, sounds like the kind of recovering drug addict who would be in on a kidnapping scheme…. Of the rest of the team only a couple even verge on competence, but ultimately fall short. Even with Joey, the group collectively make repeated dumb mistakes (Such as constantly splitting up).

Ultimately, this by-the-numbers horror features barely outlined characters who need to make constant stupid decisions to drive the story forward. It has some decent cinematography, generic but fun effects and reasonable pacing. If you want a popcorn horror it may suffice but it is a long way from “Ready or Not”, which was this directing duos one good movie. Most recently they made two bad scream sequels. This is better than those but not by much and I’m starting to realize how much “Ready or Not” relied on the talents of Samara Weaving to make it work. Unfortunately Melissa Barrera (Who was also in those bad Scream sequels) is not quite good enough to prop up a movie by herself. Anyway this is a 5/10.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Boy Kills World

For the final movie is this months review roundup we have the directorial debut of Moritz Mohr with “Boy Kills World”. The movie is written by Mohr, Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers and stars Bill Skarsgård as the unnamed “Boy”. Bill is playing a deaf mute here though, but his character has a constant voice over representing the voice in his head and H. Jon Benjamin (Bob’s Burgers/Archer) provides that voice over. The rest of the cast split fairly evenly in their supporting roles, but Famke Janssen stands out as the film’s big bad, “Hilda Van Der Koy.” This is a martial arts revenge film set in a dystopian future, but played out very much as an action comedy.

“Boy”, grew up in a Dystopian city ruled over by the brutal authority of the Van Der Koy family. The family has an annual tradition of rounding up 12 dissidents and executing them on live TV in an event dubbed “The Culling”. As a child, the Van Der Koy’s killed his mother and the families matriarch Hilda Van Der Koy personally shot his sister in front of him. Boy himself was to be executed via hanging, but was rescued by a mysterious Shaman (Yayan Ruhian). Since then the stranger has trained the deaf and mute child to be the ultimate fighting machine and given him a single task: To kill Hilda Van Der Koy. The child though never got to experience growing up naturally and so despite his skills maintains a certain childishness to him. He also is haunted by visions of his dead sister. Eventually though he must take on the evil family on the night of “The Culling”.

Smart But Stupid

This is a movie that I expected to be fun both for outrageous action and a bit of comedy. That was really all I expected and yet it managed to pleasantly surprise me. The story is both darker and more interesting than I first imagined and provided a solid twist towards the end that turns the entire story on it’s head. Meanwhile, I did indeed gain a lot of entertainment from the action and comedy. Most of that comedy (That landed with me anyway) was down to the deaf protagonist not being able to read the lips of one character properly, which ended up not just providing a few quick (Hilarious) laughs but actually became a pivotal part of the story. This is a clever film packaged as a dumb movie and it does both parts extremely well.

I don’t have a lot of criticism for this one. One issue is the film focuses so much on the protagonists’ point of view that we don’t really get to know the other characters well. This also means the world building is somewhat minimal. To be fair some of this is because the film relies heavily on mystery. You know this is some kind of dystopian future but not much more than that. While this is a flaw, it doesn’t really harm the film that much so it’s not a big one. We don’t spend much time with the supporting cast, but they are all without exception larger than life and feel straight out of a comic book. This means they are at least memorable. We learn everything we need to know about them, but nothing more. The over-the-top video game style voice-over may put some people off. However you will find a lot of entertainment value if you can get past that. This movie does just about enough to earn a 7/10 for me. Definitely recommended.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Thanks For Reading!

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

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Guy Ritchie has been on fire in recent years. Releasing “The Gentlemen” in 2019 just as the pandemic was hitting, the movie could have sunk without a trace but instead became a cult classic. It was successful enough to warrant a TV show spin off (Which came out earlier this year). Last year Guy Ritchie released two movies that between them showcased both the serious and the fun sides of his repertoire. Those were the outrageously fun “Operation Fortune” and the intensely serious “The Covenant”. I highly recommend both films. This year Guy Ritchie is aiming firmly at the middle ground with his take on the WW2 covert mission “Operation Postmaster”.

Before we start, one quick moan. Guy Ritchie is an English director and the movie stars Henry Cavill, another Englishman. It is a thoroughly British story about British heroes told by a director that couldn’t be more British in his style if he tried. Yet, everyone in America got the opportunity to see this in the cinema before me. Over here it didn’t even get a cinematic release! This happened with last years releases too and is down to a deal with Amazon. For me that is a real let down. We have a great legacy of movie making in the UK and we should be showcasing our finest talents in our cinemas. Anyway, let’s look at the film shall we?

Churchill’s Secret Warriors

The movie is based on the novel “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII”. Fortunately Ritchie found an easier to digest title for his film which takes one key section of that book and expands it to feature length, ramping up the action and adding in his own brand of humour. There is also somewhat of a switch on the lead character. The book’s protagonist was Danish war hero Anders Lassen, played here by Alan Ritchson (Star of the TV show “Reacher”). However the movie is very much an ensemble piece and positions Gus March-Phillipps, a founder of the Small Scale Raiding Force, a precursor to the SBS (Special Boat Squadron) as the primary lead. Gus is played by Henry Cavill. The switch makes sense for this story and Lassen actually gets the best action scenes, so no harm done.

There are some historical inaccuracies with some of these characters and of course liberties in how events transpire but nothing out of the ordinary or that gets in the way of the entertainment. I recommend looking up the historical events and characters for yourself after as they are all fascinating. The movie tells the story of the events of “Operation Postmaster”, a covert mission during WW2 to turn the tables on the Nazi U-Boat fleet by robbing them of their supplies. The problem was this involved taking military action in neutral Spanish territory and so had to be done covertly and off the books. This requires an elite team of unconventional thinkers, assembled for the task by career rogue Gus March-Phillipps. Along the way they will need to rescue one of their own from the Gestapo.

The High Stakes of War

This is a fun movie, but not without a flaws. My main issue here is something of a trend in modern action films of never really feeling like the heroes are in genuine danger. Sometimes this is easy to shrug off, such as with The Equalizer III or The Beekeeper. However, I feel a war movie really does need to feel like death is not just a possibility but a likely outcome. It’s worth noting that the novel follows Lassen right up to his heroic death in “Operation Roast”. That would have made for a very different movie and one with more of an emotional impact. Perhaps though, it would have been less fun. Still, I can’t help but feel this should have felt more than a stroll in the park for the heroes.

The movie repeats a few of it’s beats, notably the opening is scene is somewhat replicated towards the end (But no spoilers on how). The primary antagonist of the film, indeed all the antagonists are pretty ineffective. The film tells us they are evil scary people, but we don’t really see much of this on screen. This is not so much of an issue if you go in expecting a heist movie, because that is what it really is. That is firmly in Guy Ritchies wheelhouse. So this is the director doing what he does best, it just has the background of being during WW2. The important thing is that the movie is entertaining.

Heroes

The action is fast paced and exciting. The heroic characters are colourful and each one gets their own moment. Alan Ritchson in particular has some of the most intense action scenes, which confused me a little until I found out his character is the lead of the novel. Indeed he was a true real life bad-ass. Lasson died heroically at the age of 24 after serving his country for six years and is the only Non-Commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross during WW2. Cavill still gets to be a cool action hero however. Cool being the key as his calmness under pressure is his defining characteristic. Gus March-Phillipps, is known to be one of Ian Fleming’s inspirations for James Bond (Though not as the film suggests, the main one).

The rest of the cast perform their parts nicely and no one feels superfluous. They all bring charisma to their roles and the heroic historic characters are compelling. It is perhaps a little lacking in Guy Ritchie banter we tend to expect from his movies and the villains are a bit too one dimensional, but overall it is solid fun. This is a fast paced action film and you’ll barely notice the 2 hour run time. Well worth your time. 6.5/10

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire

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Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, is the fifth movie in Legendary’s “Monsterverse” film series (Which also includes the “Monarch” TV series on Apple). Adam Wingard who helmed the previous “Godzilla Vs Kong” movie returns to the directors chair. Terry Rossio returns to write the film and is joined by Simon Barrett. This movie also sees the return of a few of the human characters (And their actors) from last entry. Specifically Rebecca Hall as Ilene Andrews, Kaylee Hottle as Jia and Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie Hayes.

The Fun End Of The Spectrum

This is quite a change from the last Godzilla movie to hit our screens, the phenomenal “Godzilla Minus One”, but that doesn’t mean it will be bad. This series provides a (Somewhat) heroic Godzilla who stands as the Earth’s guardian against other monster threats (Though still destroys the occasional building). Kong meanwhile now lives in the “Hollow Earth”, where the Monsters come from. This is an arrangement that seems to suit both titans. At least until a new threat emerges. This is very much on the popcorn/fun end of the monster movie spectrum.

That threat is discovered by Kong as he travels the Hollow Earth and comes across beings much like himself, including a child. Things take a twist though when they attack him. What he discovers is that these beings are ruled over by a malevolent ape who has harnessed the powers of a mighty titan to destroy his enemies and make his people cower before him in fear. His intention appears to be to come to the surface and bring forth a new ice age. But it will take more than just Kong to stop, perhaps more than Kong and Godzilla.

Learning From The Past

The big mistake of the previous Godzilla Vs Kong movie was in including two separate groups of humans, one for each titan. More often than not, the humans just get in the way of these kinds of stories, so it’s best not to overuse them. The exception being Godzilla Minus One, but that was an exceptional movie. In Godzilla Vs Kong, “Team Zilla” really felt like they didn’t need to be there and the film dragged when they were on screen. Here they reduce the team down to one Kong focused team and that helps with both pacing and consistency. Though that’s not to say they were a highlight, but they don’t get in the way. I’ll speak about them a bit later.

The real star of the movie though is King Kong. Godzilla is still the king of the Monsters and there is no real disputing that in the movie, but Kong is a far more versatile character capable of expressing emotion (To some degree) and able to provide a greater variety of action scenes. Focusing more on Kong is beneficial to both Monsters as Godzilla needs to maintain some mystery while Kong benefits from being a little humanized. The makers of the movie clearly understood this and bringing in other Ape beings (Especially the child Ape) gave Kong an emotional journey. There is also a welcome return of another heroic titan (No spoiler, but you can probably guess).

The Trouble With Humans

Pet peeve time! One thing I detest in movies is when a macho character tells everyone to be careful of the dangers and is instantly killed. This has been so overused that it is a cliché now and really needs to stop. It’s my second biggest pet peeve after the “Exposition Guy” (A character whose only purpose in a film is to give exposition). Anyway, we have a very minor character that seems to have just been there for that one scene. It’s seconds of the film and not a deal breaker, but because it doesn’t impact anything that makes the inclusion even worse. Stop doing this Hollywood!

My only other complaint with the movie would be that outside the main Mother/Daughter characters the remaining pair of humans are goofy and one dimensional. They are basically along for the ride and don’t have much in the way of agency. Honestly for a film like this though it’s not a big problem. Trying to give them more depth would have meant a longer run time or taking attention away from Kong and those would be larger mistakes. Bernie though has been in two of these movies now and felt pointless in both. Brian Tyree Henry is capable of more (See “Bullet Train” for example), but only if he is given something to work with.

Conclusion

Godzilla X Kong: A New Empire, provides a good pace (I didn’t really notice the run time) and solid action with a bit of humour along the way. It’s nothing ground breaking and it won’t bring you to tears. It’s simple, somewhat shallow but definitely entertaining. It is a rare case of a franchise learning from previous missteps and simply giving the audience what they want (In this case giant monsters beating each other up). I’ve got to give this a strong 6/10 (Almost a 6.5) and recommend it as a fun popcorn flick.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Review Roundup – March 2024

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This month I’m looking at three lesser known movies from 2024 and giving you a double dose of science fiction (sort of) and a horror comedy to chew over. Heads up though, none of these movies did much for me though I appreciate certain elements of all three and the best of the bunch is probably not going to be a lot of peoples cup of tea. I will cover positives and negatives though so you can decide for yourself if you want to give them a chance. The movies in question this month are “I.S.S.”, “Spaceman” and “Lisa Frankenstein”. Let’s dig in.

I.S.S.

I.S.S. is directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Black Fish) and penned by Nick Shafir (In his debut script). The name refers to the International Space Station, the permanent manned orbital platform that has become a central hub of scientific study and international cooperation in space. One of the most notable things about this station is that it is usually manned by a mixture of Russian and US astronauts along with a few from other nations. In this story however it is basically 50/50 between the two main countries and for a good reason since the story asks the question: What would happen on the I.S.S. should Russia and the US have a nuclear war?

The lead character in this story is Dr. Kira Foster (Played by Ariana DeBose), a new arrival to the station. She is joined by five others making up a full cast of just six. Adding a layer of complexity to the situation two characters, American Gordon Barrett and Russian Weronika Vetrov are in a relationship. Things begin friendly but when they witness explosions on Earth both groups get a directive from Earth “Take control of the I.S.S. by any means”. Each crew member must decide where their loyalties lie and what their duty truly is.

Concept Vs Execution

The first thing to say about this movie is I love the concept. What really would happen at the international space station if nuclear war broke out on Earth, that’s an interesting question. The problem is the execution is just sort of uninspiring. It is the kind of premise that in the hands of the right director and cinematographer could win Oscars, but in the hands of anyone else it basically becomes a glorified TV movie and that is pretty much where we land with this one. This is more of a case of missed opportunities than doing anything disastrously wrong. The first act is fine, but nothing special.

The second act is easily the strongest and showed a bit of the potential this concept could have had and then the third act just fails to deliver on any kind of level. It’s the second act that you get the paranoia on both sides, the moralizing over what the right thing to do is and the mystery of what has happened on Earth. But the final act really fails to do anything interesting with that. Still, it could easily have been worse. There’s not really much else to say on this. The movie is the very definition of “Adequate”. 5/10.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Spaceman

Spaceman is based on the novel “Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfař and is the feature debut of director Johan Renck. Adam Sandler stars (Continuing to prove himself as a capable serious actor) as Czech astronaut Jakub Prochazka. Prochazka has been sent on a one man mission to Jupiter to investigate a strange dust cloud called “Chopra”. This is a bit of a space race between Czech and South Korea, but Prochazka’s shuttle is a few days ahead and as such he has become a bit of a celebrity back at home. Jakub’s mental state though is strained by the journey and by his difficult relationship with his wife back on Earth.

Things take a turn for the unusual when he is greeted by a giant talking spider. After deciding this wasn’t a figment of his imagination he begins to talk to it. It turns out the creature is somewhat of a kindred spirit, another explorer far from home that had become curious about humanity. Over time they develop a bond and Prochazka is forced to examine his own life and what is important to him.

Looking Outward To Look Within.

This is a weird movie for sure. The vast majority of it is Adam Sandler having a philosophical conversation with a giant spider. Chances are just reading that you have already decided to skip this or watch this and in my view whichever way you are leaning is almost certainly right for you. The movie has a lot of flaws and opening up with faster than light communication via quantum entanglement (Which is not possible), despite the movie clearly being set in the near future was an odd choice. With the movies themes of isolation and loneliness and with a lot of the communication being done by recorded message anyway, it just seemed unnecessary.

That aside, this is not so much a science film as it is a philosophical one and it did pull on my heart strings at times. By the end I found I did care about this giant talking spider and so job done there. The movie removed a lot of the thriller based elements from the novel, lightening the tone a bit and giving it a heavy focus on the philosophical aspects. The problem here is it can be quite boring in places. Still, this is a strong 5.5/10, just a little short of a 6/10. If you like surreal philosophical movies you will probably enjoy it, otherwise chances are it’ll bore you.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Lisa Frankenstein

Lisa Frankenstein is the feature length directorial debut of Zelda Williams. The movie is written by Diablo Cody and stars up and coming youngster Kathryn Newton (Star of the surprisingly good “Freaky” from 2020). In what is designed as a subverted take on Frankenstein the movie tells the story of orphan Lisa Swallows, whose mother was murdered in a home invasion while she hid in the cupboard. Her father remarried. Lisa has a strained relationship with her stepmother but a fairly supportive step sister who tries to get her open up and be more social.

Lisa though prefers to hang out in the graveyard and fantasize about one of it’s residents who she has become infatuated with. After declaring that she wishes she could be with him one night a bolt of lightning strikes the grave and resurrects an apparently lovesick corpse. One thing leads to another and uh.. yeah people die and she starts sewing bits them onto the corpse. I guess you aren’t meant to think too much about this one.

A Frankensteinian Abomination.

This is the weakest of the movies I’m reviewing this month but it’s not totally devoid of positives. I liked the aesthetics, which have a very Tim Burton quality to them. The visual style is quaint and I especially liked the animated intro. Unfortunately those are all the positives I can give you. The movie is effectively a cross between “Heathers” (1988) and “May” (2002), with a little bit of “Corpse Bride” (2005). The problem is it absolutely fails to deliver the charm of any of those movies. The characters are, excuse the pun, lifeless and the script is disjointed and bland. You can see what they are trying to do, but none of it works.

At no point did I find myself rooting for or having sympathy for the protagonist and the events surrounding her lack any kind of consistency. Effectively most of the characters have no personality, but occasionally do things because the plot needs it or they need to vaguely justify killing them later. Random over the top humour is inserted haphazardly and is doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie. None of it is funny. It simply doesn’t work. This is a 4/10 at best. If you want a subverted take on Frankenstein do yourself a favour and watch “May” instead, it is a far better movie.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Thanks For Reading

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

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It’s time to review the new Ghostbusters movie. You may remember that I gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife a positive review, though I noted a number of negatives. My hope was the sequel would learn from the good and bad of Afterlife and truly move the franchise forward. Moving the action back to New York (And the famous firehouse) was certainly a positive. The remaining original Ghostbusters were set to return once more, this time not just turning up for the finale. It all sounded good and the trailer was solid. But would it really be up to scratch?

The Ghostbusters Come Home.

Gil Kenan takes the directors chair for this one. The script is by him and the director of the previous movie Jason Reitman. It’s unknown how much involvement Jason had on this one. It’s worth noting that his father and original Ghostbusters director Ivan passed away in 2022 so was notably uninvolved. Returning from the original two movies are Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton. Afterlife’s Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Celeste O’Connor and Logan Kim joins them. The already bulky cast adds in Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, James Acaster and Emily Alyn Lind.

The story picks up in New York where the Spengler family have taken over the firehouse and the day to day business of busting ghost. After causing citywide destruction the mayor of the town (Walter Peck from the first two films) decrees that Phoebe as a 15 year old should not be working as a Ghostbuster. Annoyed by this she heads to central park to sulk and play chess but ends up befriending a ghost called Melody (Lind). Meanwhile Nadeem Razmaadi (Nanjiani) attempts to sell off his grandmothers collection of oddities to Ray Stantz (Ackroyd) who finds particular interest on one unique item inscribed with ancient glyph. It turns out this item contains an ancient evil spirit that if released could threaten the world. Naturally, it does get released and it is down to the Ghostbusters and Razmaadi to fix things.

Busting Makes Me Feel Bored.

Frozen Empire is not a terrible film or even the worst Ghostbusters film. It is however very average and ultimately a disappointment. The unfortunate thing is almost every problem could have been predicted going in, leaving little excuse for it. One thing I didn’t predict was that the film would be boring! Sadly for most of it, that was exactly what it was. Most of the fun stuff is literally in the trailer. Frozen Empire, much like Afterlife is a bit too long. Both movies were only about 15-20 minutes longer than the original, but with a lot less going on you really notice the run time. The movie especially drags through the first two acts where after the ghost chase scene from the trailer, very little actually happens.

It’s not just the pacing that is the issue, but also the focus on Phoebe (Grace). This worked in the previous film somewhat, with that story being largely constructed around her relationship with the ghost of Egon Spengler. But the problem is she just isn’t that interesting. There is a reason Egon wasn’t the main character in the original movies. Egon was at least funny though (Harold Ramis was a very funny man and co-writer of the original). Pheobe is no Egon and really doesn’t work as the franchise lead. It doesn’t help that once again they’ve focused her arc on her relationship with a ghost (This time stealing ideas from “Casper The Friendly Ghost”). It’s also notable that strapping a nuclear accelerator to a 15 year old girl and expecting her to fight ghosts regularly does raise a number of questions. The movie examines these, but not terribly well.

Ghost To Buster Ratio.

The remaining original Ghostbusters do get more to do than in the previous film (Where they literally just showed up for the ending) and this was very welcome. Even Venkman gets a scene before the ending. The roles aren’t large, but didn’t need to be. The big problem though is between that and the focus on Phoebe the other characters get almost no time or character development. When I reviewed Afterlife I said that Trevor (Wolfhard) was largely wasted and needed to get actual character development in any sequel. Well, he has even less of a role in this. This is true of all the other characters introduced in Afterlife, none more so than Lucky (O’Connor) and Podcast (Kim) who feel like they have been grandfathered in and do almost nothing. On top of this there are several new characters thrown in the mix too.

But it’s not just the screen time and character development. Many of these characters are just badly written. None of Afterlife characters display the charm they had in the previous film and many of them are just plain stupid now. Speaking of stupid, this is a movie where the problems that must be solved are entirely created by the good guys in the first place. That is almost always a bad idea, but the fact is had the Ghostbusters not returned to New York, none of the events of the film would have happened. This has the embarrassing side effect of meaning that Walter Peck (Now Mayor of New York for some reason) is actually 100% correct this time around. It could be argued Peck is the good guy and the Ghostbusters are actually now the villains!

Nostalgia Bait.

In Ghostbusters Afterlife I praised how they used the references to the original movie. While re-using Gozer seemed a little lazy, all the nostalgia was directly a part of the plot. They didn’t just drop things in for “‘Member Berries” (Thank you South Park for that term) and they didn’t stop things every few minutes to drop an Easter Egg like they did in the 2016 movie. Sadly though Frozen Empire is back to dropping references in just for the sake of it. They don’t waste too much time with it, but I’m not a fan of that kind of fan service. But it’s not just references to the original, they also brought back the mini-marshmallow men from Afterlife. To be fair, the kids in the cinema will love that but they didn’t add much for me.

The villain of the story is pure CGI and largely forgettable. He ties into the new character of Nadeem Razmaadi (played by Kumail Nanjiani), who is the “Firemaster”. This is a rather obvious reference to Rick Moarranis’ Louis Tully character in the original that was the “Keymaster”. Nanjani is no Moarranis and Razmaadi is no Tully. Ultimately it is an annoying character that adds to the movies character bloat. The big showdown is between the one villain and ELEVEN good guys. They are assisted by not one but two ghosts. To be fair, one of those ghosts is sort of unintentionally helping, with the returning favourite provides the most predictable moment in the entire movie. For reference Afterlife’s showdown was 7 people and one ghost on the heroes side and the original was just the four Ghostbusters. Afterlife managed to give each character a little moment in that finale, not so here.

Conclusion

Ultimately this was a disappointment. Not terrible and certainly better than the 2016 movie but it was boring, cluttered and not nearly as a funny as it should have been. This was a step back from Afterlife and many of my concerns I had with that movie as far as the future direction went seem justified. At this point I’m not sure they can fix it with movies. What they do have though is something that could work as a TV series, where they can actually flesh out these characters and introduce new ones without feeling cluttered. It’s worth noting I suggested the same thing after the previous movie. Sadly, this is a 5.5/10. Just short of a recommendation. I will say though, the children in the cinema seemed to be enjoying it. This may be a kids franchise now.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

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Three years after the release of David Villeneuve’s take on Dune, we finally have the second part. Both films together cover Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel “Dune”. Interestingly, they originally split the novel into two halves and published them in “Analogue Science Fiction And Fact” magazine. So they could have named the first part “Dune World” and this year’s sequel “Prophet of Dune” (as they were called in the magazine) instead of the rather bland “Part One” and “Part Two,” but that’s nitpicking really. Denis Villeneuve directs Dune part two and co-writes it with Jon Spaihts (but this time, without Eric Roth).

The movie sees Timothée Chalamet return to the role of Paul Atreides along with many of the very strong cast of the first movie. Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh join the cast as the previously unseen Emperor and his daughter along with Austin Butler as “Feyd-Rautha”, the character played by Sting in the David Lynch version of the story. Once again, the ensemble cast is incredibly strong. All the pieces are in place, strong cast, strong source material, solid budget and a film maker known for his visuals. This should easily be fantastic… but is it? I’m skipping the synopsis for this one, since this follows on directly from part two, it is hard to cover it without dropping spoilers. The Rest of this review has minor spoilers, but nothing that will impact your enjoyment. Skip to the conclusion of this is an issue for you.

Visuals

So first thing to cover is the look and in that regard this is excellent. The sand worms have never seemed more immense or dangerous. The landscape is imposing and the action scenes frankly put most other science fiction movies of the modern day to shame. The sound design is great too, however I don’t remember any of the music at all after leaving the theater. I remember from the first movie how much of the soundtrack was just noises and ambiance, which is a bit of a trend for modern soundtracks so I won’t hold it too much against this particular one.

With such a strong cast we were always unlikely to have any problems with the acting and it is very strong throughout. The main burden though falls on Chalamet as Atreides and he did a fantastic job. Despite his relatively small stature he managed to come across as powerful when needed and was able to convey both his conflicted conscience and he determination to get revenge for the destruction of his house. Despite the actors performances though, the script doesn’t given them a great deal to work with. With lesser actors that would have seen the film fall flat, but they just about get away with it here. It certainly helps when you have the likes of Rebecca Ferguson and Stellan Skarsgård in support.

Emotional Impact (Or lack thereof).

Now for the negatives. First of all, the emotional payoffs for this movie are built on setups from the previous one, almost entirely. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t re-watch that film before viewing its sequel so after a three year gap I didn’t feel even one of those emotional pay offs. That left the ending somewhat anti-climactic for me. That may be further impacted by the fact that I know the story, so there are no surprises for me. That said, I don’t think a recent re-watch would have helped feel the pay off in regards to the Emperor or Feyd, since neither are in the first film. The Emperor was behind the fall of House Atreides, but it doesn’t feel personal and so it is hard to really care. This was my biggest problem for Dune: Part Two. I really didn’t feel much in the way of an emotional connection to anything going on. Villeneuve’s directing style is very dry, and it reminds me of a lot of my issues with his Blade Runner sequel.

I always felt the biggest thing lacking from Blade Runner 2049 was heart. It was in some ways like a very good AI attempting to replicate the look and soundtrack of the first film, but without the ability to truly understand it. At the time I thought it was just a failure with that film but having seen both parts of Dune I have to conclude that it’s an issue with Villenueve’s approach in general. I think he perhaps focuses too much on the technical aspect of how things look and as a result sometimes forgets that a film is more than just visuals. Maybe it’s just me, but despite the source material and the high quality cast this is a movie that often felt as dry as the endless desert of Arrakis.

Pacing and Characters

My second issue is pacing (And this impacts my emotional reaction too). Some scenes really drag out. Not good in a movie with a running time towards three hours. Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel that some characters and story elements could have benefited from a bit more time spent on them. In what I gather is a change to the novel, the Fremen are split into northern and southern factions. The north is anti-religious and the south are effectively zealots. Another scene really drags out how the rebels got their hands on the Atreides nuclear arsenal. None of these elements are bad in themselves, they just felt unnecessary to the story.

As good as the actors were, the filmmakers wasted every single one of the antagonists. Florence Pugh’s “Princess Irulan” barely has more screen time than Virginia Madsen had in the 1984 movie. Neither her nor the Emperor (Played by Walken) felt like real characters to me. Feyd gets a pretty bad ass introduction, but has no real connection with Paul. When they finally fight it had the emotional impact of two people concluding a minor business deal. Meanwhile, the roles of both Dave Bautista’s “Beast Rabban” and Stellan Skarsgård’s “Baron Harkonnen” feel diminished. Gone is their powerful, intimidating presence from the previous movie, and as a result, their eventual defeat feels somewhat empty. These are good characters with good actors playing them, they shouldn’t feel like they are just there.

Conclusion

Ultimately the positives do outweigh the negatives. When paired with the first film it is both good entertainment and quality art. However it is not a masterpiece and this isn’t the new Lord of the Rings by a long way. Honestly I’m not sure the Dune novels are particularly well suited to movies. However it really does look superb and Chalamet probably does deserve an Oscar nomination. I’m somewhat torn, but I’m going to have to settle on a very strong 6.5/10. The movie would have scored higher had I actually felt something at it’s conclusion, but it is what it is.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Review Roundup – February 2024 (Oscar Bait).

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For this month’s review roundup, I’m looking at a couple of Oscar-nominated movies and one that, in my view, should have been nominated but was snubbed. All technically from 2023. Specifically “The Holdovers”, “American Fiction” and “The Iron Claw”. I will be back to more recent movies next month.

The Holdovers (2023)

The Holdovers tells the story of three people forced to spend Christmas together at a 1970’s boarding school. One student, one teacher and the cook. Initially more students have to stay behind but after one of their rich parents offers to take them all to a skiing resort all but one student departs. The unfortunate “Angus Tully” (Dominic Sessa) remains as the lone holdover, as his parents were unable to be reached. Classics teacher “Paul Hunham” (Paul Giamatti) and “Mary Lamb” (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cafeteria manager, join him. Lamb has recently suffered a tragedy due to the death of her son, a former student at the school, in Vietnam. Paul and Angus meanwhile each have their own issues and a major clash of personalities between them.

This is about flawed characters dealing with past trauma and finding ways to grow past them. Standard Oscar bait, but done with a well paced story that develops naturally. Tully and Hunham are the main focus of the story, while Mary Lambs journey of a grieving mother is somewhat removed from that. The three of them together provide a theme of moving on from past traumas. This is something Tully and Hunham have in common with Lamb. From the second act onwards the cast effectively shrinks down to just those three. Fortunately they all nail their roles with good performances all round. This isn’t a ground breaking movie and it’s the kind of story you have undoubtedly seen before but it is very well done and a great example of how plot and characters are both important in character driven stories. This is a 7/10

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Iron Claw (2023)

This film was snubbed for the Oscars. In the case of Best Picture, it doesn’t meet the new diversity standards introduced this year. To qualify you have to satisfy two criteria, one for for story/characters, the other for the crew. Of the cast of 45, four are women and two are non-white so it doesn’t meet any of standard A. I’m not bringing this up to be political, it is simply a fact. Now, why it was snubbed from Best Actor is a question beyond the scope of this review. It is however the kind of film that would normally get nominations. The movie follows the real life story of the Von Erich family, a famous family of Wrestling brothers. It follows their rise and then the many tragedies that struck the family and how the brothers tried to cope with it all.

The truth behind the story is more tragic than is depicted on screen. The director felt there was only so much misery he could inflict on the audience and that was probably wise. What we do see on screen is tragic enough. As a wrestling fan I knew the story from a distance, but seeing these tragedies on screen is an emotional experience. This is a story about family, the ambitions of a father for his sons and the bonds of brotherhood. It is also about Wrestling, but you don’t need to be a fan to understand or enjoy it. Honestly it could have been any sport and the story would work the same. The best thing about the movie though is the performance of Zack Efron in the lead role and the incredible total body transformation required to play the role of a bulked up professional wrestler. This is a 7.5/10.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

American Fiction (2023)

The film tells the story Dr. Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an author and lecturer on literature. Monk wants to be able to tell stories without having to make them about being black. He’s published several books in the past but has struggled in recent years and has grown frustrated with the success of other authors pandering to white guilt liberals that want the stories to be “More black”. Eventually he decides that as an F you to the publishers he’d write something deliberately over the top, trashy, cliched and stereotype laden as possible, just to prove his point. Of course what ends up happening is it becomes wildly successful. In between all this he must deal with family tragedy, an out of control brother and a romantic interest.

American Fiction is a fascinating film, largely thanks to its very original approach to dealing with race issues. My guess is both the left and the right will claim the film as some sort of victory for their side and yet the truth (as is often the case) lies somewhere in the middle. What the film effectively is, is a critique of racial pandering in fiction. That’s one hot topic, but the thing here is it looks at it from a black perspective and while doing this, it manages to tell a story that itself on occasion appears to be pandering, but the whole time is in truth making a point. It’s one of the smartest films out there and I particularly like what they did with the ending. No spoilers though on that one. This is an 8/10.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Beekeeper (2024)

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For my first major movie review of 2024 I give you David Ayer’s “The Beekeeper”, staring perennial action hero Jason Statham and with notable support from Jeremy Irons, Emmy Raver-Lampman and Josh Hutcherson. This is the only major release in January, but that isn’t entirely unusual since January is a notoriously bad month for the box office, so studios avoid it where possible. Ayer is a solid director with several good movies to his name, but with a patchier track record of late. Penning the movie is writer/director Kurt Wimmer who has a mostly bad track record but did give us “Equilibrium” back in 2002, which was a very good movie.

The movie follows the story of “Adam Clay” (Statham), a Beekeeper in the literal sense but also as it turns out a retired member of the most secret of secret agencies, “The Beekeepers”. When the nice old lady that rents him land for him to work his bees is scammed out of all her savings and takes her own life, he reactivates himself to bring down those responsible. As he follows the money he finds this corruption goes far deeper than anyone would have expected, but Clay takes his profession seriously and will deal with anything that threatens the health of the “Hive”, no matter how far up the corruption goes.

Maximum Statham!

First and foremost this is a fun movie. The movie is effectively split into five chapters with the odd, brief interlude. The first introducing us to the lead and setting up the story, the next four all revolving around large action scenes. One interlude is also an action scene so that is five solid action scenes spread over one hour and 45 minutes. This keeps the pace fast throughout and the time flies by. The most important thing for a movie like this is that those actions scenes are entertaining. This is not on the John Wick level of graceful action choreography, but it is solid, fast paced and clear (That least one is often overlooked in modern action films). Some suspension of disbelief is required of course because Statham’s Beekeeper character is basically an unstoppable ass kicking machine.

Statham has made a career of playing old school action heros and here this is ramped up to eleven. While he doesn’t have the superhero level indestructibility of John Wick, in some ways it is even more far fetched as he simply avoids getting injured for most of the movie and even when he does it is barely an inconvenience. A lot of the time this would be a big negative for me, but Statham is one of the few actors that can still pull off that kind of over powered character (Which is probably why he gets so much work). Clay has a Batman level of determination and morality, in many ways making the character a bit too simple but once again Statham is so comfortable in the role you just roll with it.

The Hornets Nest.

The plot itself is a pretty standard action affair built on the theme of kicking the hornets nest. When the scammers steal the money off the old lady that has befriended Clay they had no idea what they had unleashed, but when Clay sets out for revenge he has no idea just how far up the chain his hunt for vengeance and justice would take him. As a result the story constantly escalates, but it is all pretty predictable. Fortunately the movie doesn’t really rely on each revelation being a major twist. Instead the escalation is more like going up levels in a video game, each new level requiring Clay to be more resourceful and up his game.

One of the things I found most interesting (And this is a minor spoiler) is that the main villain seems to be based on Hunter Biden, which is certainly a bold choice but it actually works pretty well. In some ways this is a refreshing choice for the villain, but it’s actually just a variation on a pretty common trope. For example we basically saw a version of this with the original John Wick movie where the loose cannon son is the catalyst for Wick to go to war with his underworld boss father. Unfortunately most of the villains here are just one dimensional dirt bags, the most notable exception being Jeremy Irons who is both the smartest and most reluctant of Clay’s opponents.

Conclusion.

Overall the movie is a bit by the numbers but presents a fun, fast paced ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The ending for me though was a bit anticlimactic and it would be nice to feel Clay was in actually in genuine danger at some point. Ultimately though I had a lot of fun and really isn’t that the main thing we want from our action movies? This is a narrow, possibly generous 6.5/10. It’s not a cinematic masterpiece, but I think most people will get a kick out of it. This has done okay in the cinema so I expect to see a sequel at some point.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Movies Coming in 2024 – Part Two

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The second (First part is HERE) half of this list must be taken with a pinch of salt. Right now, given the state of Hollywood movies, there’s a fairly high chance that more than a few of these films won’t actually hit theaters in 2024, if they’re more than six months away. But we can only work with the information at hand. A lot of the smaller or direct to streaming releases won’t even be announced at this point, so this will mainly be the big Hollywood releases listed in this part. Since it’s a shorter list I’m just going to go month by month on this one. But first here is the the full list:

July
Despicable Me 4 – July 4th (Animation)
Twisters – July 19th (Disaster Movie)
Deadpool 3 – July 26th (Superhero/Comedy)

August
Trap – August 2nd (Psychological thriller)
Borderlands – Aug 9th (Video game adaptation)
Speak No Evil – August 9th (Horror)
Horizon: An American Saga Pt 2 – Aug 16th (Western)
Alien: Romulus – August 16th (Horror/Action/Sci-Fi)
Kraven the Hunter – August 30th (Superhero)

September
Beetlejuice 2 – September 6th (Fantasy)
Transformers One – September 13th (Animation)
Wolfs – September 20th (Thriller)
Saw X – September 27th (Horror)

October
Joker: Folie à Deux – October 4th (Crime/Drama/Musical)
Smile 2 – October 18th (Horror)
The Wolf Man – October 25th (Horror)
Terrifier 3 – October 25th (Horror)

November
Venom 3 – November 8th (Superhero)
The Amateur – November 8th (Thriller)
Wise Guys – November 15th (Crime/Drama)
Gladiator 2 – November 22nd (Sword & sandals)

December
The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim – December 13th (Animation)
Karate Kid Sequel – December 13th (Action/Drama)
Mufasa: The Lion King – December 20th (Animation)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 – December 20th (Animation/Video game adaptation)
Nosferatu – December 25th (Horror)

July

As we head to the school holidays we get the definitely-not-a-reboot of Twister, “Twisters“, which is being heavily marketed as an “update” to the original film, but doesn’t have the same plot or share any characters with the original. I’m pretty sure that is literally what a reboot is (As opposed to a remake or sequel), but they are very insistent on this one. Go figure, I can’t say I have any interest in this one, but then I wasn’t much of a fan of the original either. This is probably a flop. One movie likely to be a big hit though is “Despicable Me 4“, there’s no indication that the Minions franchise has stopped being a licence to print money, but it wouldn’t shock me if this doesn’t quite hit as high as previous ones. The third installment dropped significantly domestically but more than made up for it with it’s global appeal. It is highly unlikely for this to flop, but whether the franchise can still regularly crack a billion remains to be seen.

Capping off July is the biggest superhero movie of the year, “Deadpool 3“, featuring a full crossover with the Fox X-Men universe and possibly some kind of tie in to the MCU. Most importantly we finally get to see Wade and Logan side by side and played by the actors that made those roles their own, Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds. This will be a big test of superhero fatigue, if this one can’t get close to the billion dollar mark, it may well be over for the genre. It’s worth noting neither of the previous Deadpool movies reached that point, but they didn’t have Wolverine in the mix too. If this came out 4 years ago it would be a dead cert. Now? Who knows. What I do know is I’m almost certainly going to be watching this one.

August

August is a busier month for cinemas, but may end as a month of major flops. At the weaker end of the superhero scale is “Kraven the Hunter“, a movie that seems to have turned the fan favourite Spider-Man villain into a completely different Marvel character, specifically “Ka-Zar”. To be fair Sony probably doesn’t have the rights to Ka-Zar even though he has crossed paths with Spider-Man, but it seems a foolish move to turn such a bad-ass Spidey villain into a empathetic do-gooder. Then again the end goal of the Venomverse seems to be to create Sony’s own “Avengers” film out of Spider-Man villains in a universe without Spider-Man. This movie, like that plan sounds doomed to fail.

August also sees the return of the Aliens franchise with “Alien: Romulus“. Now under Disney control, this franchise is unlikely to go in the direction long term fans would like. My suspicion is we will see something similar to “Prey”, basically duplicating as much as possible from the original movie (Or more likely “Aliens” in this instance) and upping the “diversity” level. The end result will be pointless, vastly inferior, but maybe not awful and so coast on people going “Well it’s not as bad as Covenant” to sell it. Your alternative viewing for mid august though is the second part of Kevin Costner’s epicly long Western “Horizon: An American Saga“, which is unlikely to steal too much of Romulus’ box office. Not because of quality, more just because it’s the second half of a movie and likely 3+ hours long. Definite counter programming there.

The Next Big Thing?

Eli Roth’s “Borderlands” is a movie that may end up one of this years success stories, providing it can convince fans of the game to watch instead of play. I’m only vaguely aware of this game, but it’s clear they’ve been very specific in which characters they’ve chosen to use and which ones to leave out. Fan favourites “Doctor Zed”, “Brick” and “Mordecai” are all absent. Not only that but they cast little Kevin Hart as big tough mercenary “Roland”. If you look up the missing characters and the ones they are focusing on you start to see a theme. Basically they’ve taken a fairly well balanced set of game characters and trimmed it until it basically looks like every other big fantasy/sci-fi franchise of the modern day. That’s all I will say on that. The question is though will any of that matter or will game fans just buy tickets anyway? Many think video game adaptations are the new Superhero movie. We will see I guess!

On the darker side of things though we have a couple of potentially interesting movies. First of all M. Night Shyamalan’s latest from his deal with Warner Brothers, which is a psychological thriller called “Trap” set over one night at a music concert. Shyamalan is consistently inconsistent so that one could go either way. One thing I can say for him though is his films always have interesting premises even if they don’t always live up to their promise. On the horror side of things though is the psychological horror “Speak No Evil“, which is set to test just how long a polite Danish couple can maintain their composure when confronted with madness. Neither of these films are likely to rake it in, but they’ll probably make money.

September

As the kids return to school we get the movie I am probably looking forward to the most in 2024, “Beetlejuice 2″. Of course, whenever a franchise I am particularly fond of makes a sudden return, I balance my excitement with more than a little anxiety. Hopefully it’ll all work out okay. Burton, Keaton and Ryder are all back and they are joined by a cast that includes the great talents of Jenna Ortega (Playing Winona’s daughter) and Willem Dafoe (In an unknown role). Another thing we haven’t seen since the 80’s is a theatrical release of an animated Transformers movie, the first since the franchises theatrical debut in 1986. Can’t say they’ve done a great job of marketing “Transformers One” by declaring it the franchises first animated feature. I mean nothing sells your knowledge of Transformers like forgetting that “Transformers: The Movie” exists.

Joining the list of franchise returns is the tenth entry in the Saw franchise. I haven’t seen any of the more recent entries so I can’t speak too much on where the franchise has been going creatively, but certainly it still seems to bring in a solid box office. I expect this one to make money, though it remains to be seen how much more they can squeeze out of this franchise. There is at least one movie in September that is an original and that is Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s “Wolfs“. A story about two lone wolf fixers assigned to the same job (Which is probably why it is not called “Wolves”). This one is directed by Jon Watts, the man behind the MCU Spider-Man movies. I suspect this will be a decent movie, though I couldn’t guess on its box office.

October

Heading in to my favourite month of the year we get my second most anticipated movie of 2024, “Joker: Folie à Deux“. A lot of people have cast doubt on this one due it it being apparently a musical, yet a lot of people also doubted the first movie (Myself included), until we started getting trailers and then slowly we realized we may have something truly special. That first movie was heavily influenced by the Scorsese films “Taxi Driver” (1976) and “King of Comedy” (1982). Scorsese made a couple of films in between those that I think may give us a clue to where things are heading with this new movie, namely: “New York, New York” (1977) and “Raging Bull” (1980). The former is a musical, but both movies are largely centered around a volatile romantic relationship and this movie is of course introducing us to Harley Quinn (Played by Lady Gaga).

Obviously October means horror so it’s no surprise to see two of the most successful new horrors of recent years make their return with “Smile 2” and “Terrifier 3“. Whether either of these can live up to their previous installments remains to be seen but I have no doubt they’ll both make a killing at the box office (Excuse the pun). Joining those though is Leigh Wanell and Blumhouses latest Universal Horror classic, “The Wolf Man“. Wanell did a great job with his “Invisible Man” reboot and his own “Upgrade” so I am cautiously optimistic about this one. With luck I’ll be able to factor all three of these movies into my October Horrorthon reviews for 2024.

November

As he head towards the end of 2024 we are very much in “Likely to be postponed” territory. But as of the writing of this article, November is slated to present us with the final superhero movie of the year in “Venom 3“. We’re yet to get a trailer for this or any real information about it so I’m hesitant to make any kind of prediction. The first two Venom movies were reasonable enough and fairly popular however coming after two likely clangers in this strange shared universe and with superhero fatigue in full force, this could end up a flop too. Because of this it is even more likely to be pushed into 2025.

The second movie with a huge question mark over it is Ridley Scotts “Gladiator 2“. Which supposedly follows Maximus’ son (Played by the relatively unknown Paul Mescal). While Scott is a great director his output in recent years has been very inconsistent. Again this is one of the more likely movies to get delayed and I can’t make any predictions. November does see a couple of original films that may be worth checking out, first up is “The Amateur“, a thriller from “Slow Horses” James Hawk featuring the talents of Remi Malek. That is followed by a new De Niro gangster movie “Wise Guys“. I don’t know much about either but that casting alone is a big selling point.

December

At last we reach the end of the year, and naturally, anything scheduled for release in December has a good chance of being delayed until the next year. However, first up is the movie, “The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim,” already delayed from 2022. This is an animated feature, and I believe it is set in the Peter Jackson LOTR’s universe, though, since it is set two and a half centuries before those films, I wouldn’t expect a whole lot of crossover. The story is based on the appendices of the original novels, which means they have a lot of freedom in the specifics. That makes the quality hard to judge because I think we all know how badly Amazon’s LOTR’s TV series ended up. Hopefully Warner can do better than Amazon.

December features three big franchise movies due for release including a mysterious Karate Kid sequel (Title as of yet unconfirmed). It’s unknown if it will fit in with the excellent Cobra Kai TV series or be it’s own thing, but it stars both Ralph Machio and Jackie Chan who took on the Mr. Miyagi type roll in the rather strange remake from 2010. Jackie is of course Chinese and not Japanese and as such uses Kung Fu and not Karate, which always made the remake movie ridiculous. Hopefully the film will address the different fighting styles, but we will see. Following this Disney has it’s latest frachise spin off movie “Mufasa: The Lion King“. Released alongside that and providing obvious competition is “Sonic 3” from Paramount. These films have been good and well received so my money is on the blue guy winning that fight.

A Strange Christmas Present

Last but not least though is another movie I’m looking forward to and that is “Nosferatu” from Robert Eggers. The movie stars Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok, and features the talents of Willem DaFoe and Nicholas Hoult. The director is the main point of interest though on this one because I can’t think of anyone more appropriate to helm this particular remake. Eggers of course gave us “Witch”, “The Lighthouse” and “The Northman”. His focus on historical accuracy and blending fantasy with reality in a way that leaves a great deal of ambiguity should give us a refreshing take on this remake of a movie that is now 103 years old. While I am certain it will be good, it’s hard to say if it will make money. As good as The Northman was, it flopped in theatres and I’m not sure Christmas Day is the best date for a horror movies release!

So that’s it for 2024. Chances are this later period will have a lot of movies that are just not on anyone’s radar just yet. It’s also worth noting the best movie of last year (In my humble opinion) was Godzilla Minus One, a Japanese movie I didn’t even know was on the cards at the start of the year. So expect one or two surprises. Hollywood has a fairly light card this year due to the impact of last years writers strike. That gives independent and foreign language movies a huge opportunity to showcase themselves, we will see what they do with that opportunity.

Thanks for reading.