Madam Wed Film Review

Sony…

Is this a tax thing?

Or is it like when you made that Fantastic Four movie back in 1994 purely to keep the rights to the characters? I mean at least you had the decency not to release that one.

Or has someone kidnapped one of your executive kids and has threatened to kill them if you don’t keep churning out terrible super-hero films?

I mean, you don’t seem to want to release these things, no-one particularly wants to see them, the actors don’t seem to have enjoyed anything other than the pay check. I mean poor Dakota Johnson – who seems to have wished on a monkeys paw to be a movie star but can only star in unwatchable drokk that comes out around Valentines Day. I mean she allegedly left over this debacle, not 50 shades, Madam Web.

It’s not like you put together a dream team behind the camera either. Director S.J. Clarkson has worked purely in TV – which may explain why this whole thing feels like the first episode of a mid-budget CW show. The writers… The writers the writers the writers…. Somehow four people allegedly wrote this film (shockingly Alan Smithee wasn’t one of them ) and the only two who’s names I could click on Wikipedia were responsible for Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt, Morbius and Madame Web.

Yeah… The signs for this one weren’t good.

But, every film deserves to be seen on its own merits and the fact that this is a standalone film in it’s own universe (I truly hate that I have to specify this but it’s nice to know that you can go in ‘blind’ and not worry about feeling like you’ve missed anything.) Is somewhat refreshing.

Well, I think that covers all the positives, lets get back to business.

Apparently this film has been rewritten and reshot to hell and back which normally results in a film coming in to the 90 -100 minute mark but instead this film comes in at nearly two hours? Why? A film this simple should easily be an hour and a half long. And no longer.

And I do mean simple, essentially, Dakota Web has to save three insufferable brats from a Spider-terminator whilst at the same time dealing with the fact that she’s started to glimpse the future. There’s a few other bits a bobs, a random group of Spider-Cenobites keep turning up to do nothing but repeatedly beat us over the head with the same tedious exposition in a film where the dialogue is seemingly nothing but stilted, repetitive, delivered like I’m in a Shamalan film exposition and references to one character’s un-named nephew.

The guys name is Ben Parker…. Gee, I wonder what his nephew will be called? Oh, he won’t because of… I’m going to guess legal reasons?

Anyway, the saving point of any super-hero film is our villain, our dark Spider…. Ceiling guy. What? Don’t look at me like that, the film calls him Ceiling Guy, why, I couldn’t tell you but I’m just going to assume lawyers again. But he’s got the usual spread of powers, speed, strength, agility and the ability to produce poison from his hands of whatever strength and lethality the script needs at that point in time.    

He’s trying to kill our insufferable leads because at some point in the future, our leads (I think they had names but it doesn’t really matter, Johnson could be protecting 3 pot plants for all they actually do in the film) are going to acquire spider powers and kill him, so he’s going to kill them first. So I’m just going to quote Kung Fu- Panda 2 Panda Harder and move on “One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.” Because I fully support him in his mission.

Also, the three don’t get any powers in this film, they only appear kitted up in dream sequences. Maybe Sony thinks they can make a series out of this and I wish them the best of luck with that. Like I said, this film feels like the beginning of a TV show but it isn’t. It’s a mid budget film with nothing to recommend about it. It’s too dull to become a so-bad-it’s-good film, it doesn’t need to be watched to understand Venom 3: Venom Hard with a Vengeance, it’s just sort of there.

And very shortly it won’t be.

What passes for action scenes are generally very dull, boring car chases, the physical action scenes are terrible, there’s the most obvious product placement for Pepsi I’ve seen since World War Z (2013) and they couldn’t even be bothered to put in any end credits scenes.

I mean, they cut “that” trailer line out of the actual film and we can’t even convince Sony to re-release it again like we did with Morbius.

Am I done?

Yeah, I think I’m done. Whatever Sony thinks it’s playing at, can it please stop because these films are just getting duller and duller. I can’t even call this “The Cats (2019) of super-hero films” like the folks at Rolling Stone did because it’s not even that interesting, and I think that’s because the budget ($80 million) seems too low for what the director wanted to do, or all the reshoots soaked up all the cash and she was forced to do whatever she could with the 83p that was left.  

 Yes, this film is less interesting than Cats (2019) I mean, that WILL generate a cult-following in time. You mark my words. This won’t though. This is just going to be fodder for listicles of “Worst Superhero films ever” forever and ever amen.

I just hope everyone got paid and Dakota Johnson finds a way to break her curse soon.

My Score- Bomb

Silent Night (2023) Film Review

Sometimes in life you just have to feel sorry for Joel Kinneman. I mean the man has a knack for picking projects that sound good and safe on paper but just don’t work on the planet Earth. I mean this poor sod has been in the robocop remake (2014), both Suicide Squad films (2016 and 2021) as well as Chil 44 (2015) That one starred Tom Hardy and was based on a really good, really solid book.
Check it out if you need a detective thriller to read one holiday.
It’s set in Stalins Russia.
And today this poor unfortunate soul has agreed to be in Silent Night. Which whilst plot wise is basically your bog standard Punisher origin story movie that you’ve seen a million times before – dead kid, dad swears revenge, becomes badass, police are useless and or corrupt, big firefight at the end with evil drugs gang – Except it completely screws it up.
All right so the first interesting idea is that this film has virtually no spoken dialogue. Which I find interesting but there’s nothing really done with it beyond demonstrate that this type of film so is basic that it doesn’t NEED dialogue for everyone to understand what’s going on.
Or it’s that the characters or so thin that you could shine a light through them with a 2 watt lightbulb but that’s neither here nor there.
No, I have a spurious unresearched feeling that what attracted poor sweet Joel to this film was the director.
John Woo.
Now for any energy drink addicted, Tik-Tokking, vaping Fortnight playing 12 year olds currently scratching their heads in confusion, John Woo made films before the dark times, before Iron Man in 2008. Films like Face/off, Broken Arrow and Mission Impossible 2 amongst others.
Films with panache, style, doves!- Ask your dad if you don’t get that one.
And then there’s also the fact that our Punisher wannabe learns all of his bad assness not from being a former Ranger, Seal, Marine etc.
He gets it all from YouTube.
So… you see where my head was at, right?
A fairly solid actor with a decent grounding in action films with comedic leanings, a director who made erm… interesting action films back in the day, a basic, tried-and-true story structure full of one dimensional characters..
I mean the freaking John Wick films were partially based upon his work and here he comes back to show why he’s the master!!!!
Except at some point in the last few years he’s had a bash on the head and forgotten everything or been replaced by his evil twin or he was replaced by an alien clone or ….
Because this went down faster than my script editors lead balloon juggling “cancel me if you dare” stand up comedy routine on the titanic.
Let’s start with the basics – The pacing sucks. There’s only one major fight scene towards the end by then most people have checked out. It takes way too long to get going, there’s normally a fight scene at the mid-point to show everyone that now everything’s getting going but there isn’t, the fact that there’s no spoken dialogue means that by default you don’t really care about anyone, the villains are just cartoonishly evil, there’s only really one fight scene in the entire film, our lead learns to fight via YouTube videos and there’s only one major if very dull fight scene.
And speaking of our ‘badass via YouTube’ lead, he’s established early on to be an engineer of some description (no dialogue means no exposition. Or the terrible Marvel quips that are ruining cinema.) So I was wondering if he was ging to come up with some kind of budget gadgets- smoke bombs and the like but no. We get one tripwire and that’s your lot. Oh, sorry, you wanted something fun, exciting and interesting to happen in this film one fight scene? No. Just frowny faced people very seriously shooting each other in silence.
Oh, and this film is also very depressing to look at and somehow left a nasty taste in my mouth.
But my main issue with this film is simply that… It plays it all straight.
I mean all the ingredients are here for a really cool, dark satire of the standard Punisher origin story, no dialogue because we know it all by heart, our lead is a no-one who learns all his skills online- our villains are an evil drug gang who know the local train timetable by heart.
Now imagine what someone with a twinkle in their eye and their tongue in their cheek could do with that. Hell, imagine what the JOHN WOO of 15 years ago could have done with that! Instead it’s just this dark, miserable little film where it’s dialogue-free gimmick quickly becomes tiresome because the soundtrack isn’t very good, the fight scenes show no marital arts, swords (which I’m 100% certain a dingus who got all his training online would defiantly have done.) Gadgets, or anything but guns, which quickly becomes tiresome. Even the final battle was a snoozefest.
So yeah, Silent Night is an amazing idea for a dark satire which plays it completely straight whilst at the same time being dull, uninteresting, slow and mean spirited film being made by a director who seems to have regressed to being a straight-to-streaming hack for hire.
Just watch Violent Night instead (2022)
And please, if you see Joel Kinneman in a bar, buy him a pint. Poor sods earned it. And needs to fire his agent.

My Score- Skip It

Five Nights at Freddy’s

So, after The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) reached the astounding heights (for a video game film) of being basically ok, the bar has been raised for Five Nights at Freddy’s.

A bar which it sorta, kinda mostly of cleared.

Because it’s mostly ok. I won’t watch it again because Willy’s Wonderland (2021) exists and watching Nicholas Cage Cage out on possessed killer robots beats watching Josh Hutcherson Hutcherson out on killer robots.

Full disclosure before we properly get going – I’ve never played any of the Five Nights at Freddys games, I’ve never seen a let’s play or even so far as watched a trailer so any nods or easter eggs would have gone straight over my head.

However, strictly as a film I found it slightly confused as to what it wants to be, constrained by its age rating with a soggy mid-section and somehow strangely bland despite having very interesting ideas. It’s also not scary. Which is kind of an issue for a so-called horror film.

On paper the plots fairly simple –   A troubled security guard begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza and soon realises that things may not be as they appear. He’s also dealing with the fact that he’s trying to raise a younger sister and keep her out of the clutches of his money-grubbing aunt and trying to climb inside his head so that he can try to solve the mystery of who kidnapped his brother when he was a child because he thinks he may have forgotten a key detail which can lead to justice.

Does that sound like a lot for a film about hiding from killer animatronics?

Because it’s a lot.

I mean they do try to weave them together but they don’t really gel and the payoff seems kind of “We have twenty minutes until this script needs to be submitted so wrap it up quickly!” Either that or they realised that the ninety minutes mark had been passed and they needed to get this over with because they were eighty-nine and a half minutes past the tik-tok generations attention span.

Plus the casting isn’t great.

I know that’s not the main draw of a film based on a video game but the lump of playdough trying it’s hardest to convince us that it’s a traumatised young man who can barely hold down a minimum wage job in order to keep a roof over his and his sister’s head. I mean I can see it working with a better actor but if wishes were horses, then fools would ride.

Also, the age rating constrains what this film feels like it wants to do with itself. Rated 12a this film feels constrained by that. Not that a 12a rated film can’t be scary – Jaws is rated PG as is Watership Down – it got upgraded from a U for reasons that I can’t even begin to understand.  But here? It feels like there’s a directors cut out there with roughly 90 seconds of extra footage that wouldn’t look out of place in a Saw movie.

There’s some other bits and bob’s that I didn’t quite get on with as well. I wasn’t quite sure how fast or how stealthy the robots were supposed to be and whilst I get that the clues in the title, maybe three nights at Freddys would have been enough to get the films point across.

It’s not all bad though, the robots are practical which I liked and there were some moments where thought “This is it, now were getting going.” Only it never quite happens.

Look, there’s nothing wrong with Five Nights at Freddys, but there’s not much right with it either. It’s baby’s first horror movie which can work in some circumstances but once it gets out into the world, I can’t see it having much of a shelf life.

If you want something tepid to keep your eight-year-old happy which won’t do much harm to you then yeah, this will do.

But that’s all it is.

Horror as this will do.

Just go watch Willys Wonderland.

My Score- If Nothing Else

Fast X Film Review

Sometimes I wonder who would break first, a physicist asked to analyse a Fast and Furious film or a historian asked to review Churchill: The Hollywood Years. That’s the one where Christian Slater plays Winston Churchill as a US Marine trying to stop Hitler from marrying the queen.

I don’t recommend it.

Anyway, interesting thought experiments aside, I always find it amusing that a series which I swear started off as… “inspired” by Point Break whereupon a police office is sent undercover with a group of extreme sports enthusiasts and winds up joining their ‘family’. Also, they were stealing TV VHS players. If you don’t know what that is, then ask your parents.

Back in 2023 and the ‘family’ is now… I don’t know what they are now. Secret agents? The Avengers? Rich people in need of a hobby? Anyway, our hero’s are forced to do battle against… The Joker!

Hmm?

Aquaman isn’t playing the Joker? But instead the son of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes? You remember, from the 5^th one? No, not the one with the runway, or the submarine, the one with Brazil? The safe? Whatever, just accept in this universe Jason Momoa can be sired by Joaquim de Almeida, possibly because his entirely offscreen mum was related Hagrid.

I swear, the first time we same them onscreen together, my wife burst out laughing and stated to me that she could no longer take this film seriously.

I was impressed she lasted that long.

As for the film itself, it’s an odd beast. For my money the best action sequence is in the first third, to call the cast overstuffed is an understatement – why is Brie Larson there? She could very easily have been replaced or removed, but I guess she’ll come into play in Fast and Furious 11 – Fastraker.

Yeah, the overstuffed cast is a major problem as all 837 of them need something to do and as a result the back half of the movie basically consists of them all trying to get from point A to point B and I started to get a bit fidgety.

I mean a film with an alleged budget of 380 million dollars (in the same way that my alleged budget for my last night out was £30) Shouldn’t really feel like a collection of people wondering around various sets when I paid for vroom vroom boom boom!

I mean, there is vroom vroom boom boom but just not enough for me. I’m just going to assume that most of the budget went to the cast. Or were spent on rebuilding every single set after every, single take featuring Ronon Dex off of Stargate Atlantis because the last time an actor was having this much fun on set, they were Jeremy Irons on the set of Dungeons and Dragons. The terrible one. Not the one starring Chris Pine that you already forgot existed.

It was pretty good for a Guardians of the Galaxy clone wearing Dungeons and Dragons clothing.

But as for The Cars Who Loved Me, my main issue with it, is that this is clearly the biggest part one since that exercise in cinematic nihilism “Avengers Infinity War” I swear if it had finished with a musical sting and the phrase To Be Continued showing up onscreen, I wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.

I mean it does seem to have dialled things back a hair after the last one just dialled the silliness up to eleven which to my mind can only e a good thing but there’s just a whiff of the checklist/ production line about the whole affair.

 Let’s face it, were it not for Conan (Skip his version and watch Arnies instead) having the time of his life, this whole film would feel a little flat. It’s very similar to the terrifyingly over-rated Dark Knight, whenever there’s a non-villain scene the whole thing drags slightly and everyone’s mumbling their lines because everything’s VERY VERY IMPORTANT.

And you’ve also got the usual grumbles, everyone’s taken their invulnerability pills this morning, it’s too long, the plots ludicrously simple yet at the same time overly complicated, and like I said there are way too many characters with basically the same objective- putting the band back together- and look, it’s a fast and furious film. If you’ve liked them before, then you’ll like this one and if you didn’t like the last one then this won’t change your mind.

I’m just waiting for Jeremy Clarkson to turn up in the next one.

My Score- If Nothing Else        

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Film Review

Before I get started on the latest offering from Marvel starring a bunch of CGI and the anti-Tom Cruise, (an actor whose blandness is bent by the studio into any shape they wish, as opposed to using their blandness to bend the studio to theirs) pottering about in the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism- space. We first have to talk about film classification.

You see, some parents believe that their poor, innocent, ickle tykes have been traumatized that a film rated 12a (Which has permitted children under twelve to see films provided they are accompanied by a responsible adult.) So for them, let me just clarify,

15 and 18 rated films cannot be seen by anyone under those ages.

U or Universal films such as Watership Down are ‘Universal’ and suitable for everyone.

PG Or Parental Guidance films such as who Framed Roger Rabbit admit anyone, although the PG certificate contains an implicit warning that the film might contain material unsuitable for children.

And since Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Guard Hard With A Vengeance, is two and half hours long and directed by someone who’s got a background in horror (Slither) and horrible (Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed) director James Gunn has made a film that your 7 year old shouldn’t see but your 12 year old should.

Got it?

Now, on with the show.

I liked it, I liked it a lot.

I mean it’s an overstuffed mess with serval character’s that could go with no great loss to the film (Looking at you Adam Warlock looking like someone who was spray painted by Essex’s 2^nd best spray tanner! When everyone else looks amazing.) And yes, it’s nice to see Malcom Reynolds back in space but erm…. Why was he looking like a Boobah? And given way, way too many lines for his one joke-character?

Whatever, it was very, very clear that Marvel just let Gunn of the leash for his last hurrah for good or ill.

And on the good, it’s nice to see the Guardians go up against an actual good villain for once in the High Evolutionary, who’s supervillain origin in the comics (according to Wikipedia) is that he’s from Manchester but here, he just sort of is. Which I like. No origin story, no sympathy, no redemption arc, just a moustache twirling villain with one eye on the nearest train timetable. Fantastic. I was starting to think decent villains were a lost art.

I also like the large practical sets, the toned-down but better in quality humour, (especially from Drax, a welcome relief after whatever they did to him in Guardians 2 Guard Harder) and the fact that this movie has a massive, massive heart.   

I mean, the plots simple enough – a McGuffin hunt with a ticking clock… sorry I mean our heroes have to get a widget which will save Rockets life after he gets attacked by The Only Way Is you guys are getting paid.

It’s fun, with a massive heart, and Rockets prequel story could pretty much have been a fantastic film in it’s own right and is rightfully winning plaudits from all sides.

The actions good, I loved the dog but… The usual grumbles apply.

It’s too long. Another trip round the editing suite wouldn’t have hurt. If you go in blind then you’ll not have much of a clue what’s going on, everyone’s taken their invincibility pills this morning, it’s too long, there are too many characters and it’s way too long.  

But it’s the best Marvel film for ages and it’s a sign that the reborn DCEU is in good hands with a guy who clearly loves comic book films and thankfully has a Dark Knight free top 5 superhero films.

Just leave your seven year olds at home, Ok?

My Score See It

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

Well, I guess it’s that time again,

Where I have to try to explain

The not really shocking revelation

That a film made by illumination

You know, that minion company?

The one with a licence to make currency

Has released another product!

Because the manner of business that they conduct

I just cannot call art,

Because to even try do so hurts my heart.

All they do is try to sell toys

To others, girls and even boys

And as you’ve probably guessed

Talking about them in rhyme is how I manage best

Because otherwise I simply find nothing interesting to say.

It’s here will and will entertain your kids whilst you go about your day!

Is my opinion of all that they have made

And my opinion hasn’t changed with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, I’m afraid.

It was on and made me smile,

But after a small while

I won’t remember a single frame

And I certainly can’t say that will be a shame.

Because, is it better than what came before?

Well, yes but that was no great chore,

Because the Mario Brother film from 1993?

From it both audiences and critics did flee

All though the BBC did put it on during Christmas Day

Which is probably why the licence fee has had to go away.

But this is bright and colourful and fun!

A song from the soundtrack might even be number one!

Except that song is dull and not much fun

When I think what the man from Tenacious D might have done…

The plot is simple, there’s not much to say,

As a group of strangers must unite to save the day!

Although even at a near perfect 92 minutes

I felt the ned for a glass of pinots (noir)

Although I simply must declare

That to my mind it simply isn’t fair

That instead of talented voice actors

The studio decided to use the audience attractor

Of celeb voices!

Of which they made the most obvious dull predictable choices

Lead by the omnipresent overexposed Chris Pratt

I think there’s a law enforcing that.

There has to be in every film made these days

A Chris! And so, on poor defenceless cinema this great weight weighs.

But as for this… product,

It’s a good bit pf business that they conduct,

The first act drags, of that, I’m sure.

That if you were to cut it, nothing of value would be lost, I’m sure.

Instead, we could have simply gotten on with the show

As video game Mario and (Luigi) has no backstory of which I know.

Also, this film simply has no tension!

Although this may have been the film-makers intention

But it makes fights dull and without excitement

Perhaps Mario with a bruise got nixed by management.

But it gives the whole thing a mechanical air.

The whole film is simply going from here to there.

The money it’s made, is more than one billion!

But the whole things… simply reptilian.

It made a billion?

So did Jurassic World: Dominion.

No wonder for the people that made the minion

It simply made sound financial sense

To get ever more dollars and cents

When a huge brand known for simply being there!

Never out of the spotlights unblinking glare

Decided to return to my beloved silver screen

To make a glorified add

Neither good nor bad

It was simply there,

To “entertain” me as I sat in my chair

Some more songs would have been fun so we couldn’t have that,

And as I said the action falls quite flat.

So, bravo Illumination you’ve done it again!

Your tedious catalogue continues to sustain.

But this isn’t full of joy or love or anything so human

As Kryptonite is to Superman, to Illumination it’s passion.

A commercial to sell toys is what they’ve made

To make something with simply a passing grade.

And that they’ve done, well done I say.

You’ve managed to pay the bills for yet another day!

But when I think what you could have done…

Well, that thought alone simply spoils my fun.

My Score If Nothing Else

Ghosted Film Review

Every now and then someone in Hollywood twigs that action films and romance films have very similar beats and figure that if they can somehow blend both together then they can get money from two different audiences as opposed to just the one genres money pool.

When this sort of works you get films like Mr and Mrs. Smith but more often than not it just doesn’t work. I’m talking about dross like Day and Knight and The Spy Who Left Me as examples off the top of my head.

And Ghosted is no Mr and Mrs Smith. If you can plough through the first twenty minutes (and I only did so with the help of my friends Mr. Gin and Mr. Tonic) you’ll find a fairly uninspired generic find the McGuffin action film.

Which is a shame because I like a lot of the things in this films favour. Ana Di Arnas was arguably the most beloved part of No Time To Die, Captain America can be fun and talented when someone knows what to do with him, I love spy films and the genre lends itself to the dying art of live action stunts.

And to be honest, it would be nice to see a spy film where the hero is still allowed to have a romantic interest.

Which I did sort of get.

It’s just that the film as a whole just doesn’t work.

Like I said, it’s a generic McGuffin hunt, which can be fun and is generally the easiest thing to build a spy film around. Hell, Mission Impossible 3 never even told us what the McGuffin actually was! But here, the McGuffin is well defined, the plot beats are generic and the action is pretty obvious CGI where someone like Tom Cruise would have done it for real in his spy franchise. It also didn’t help that for the first twenty minutes I swear by James Bond that the two leads were never in the same shot at the same time. Or that the villain sucks, or that the plot is so predictable that had I dozed off for some reason I would have known what was going on within seconds of waking up.

Plus, if you have to keep having side character’s literally say “The sexual chemistry here is off the charts” so many times that I could have created a much-needed drinking game. I mean I personally thought they had less sexual chemistry than I do with the lizard people in HR the last time I was told to attend an unexpected meeting.   

 But just because the film as a whole doesn’t work that doesn’t mean it has nothing good about it. There’s a fun scene in a market and, erm…. Well there’s a fun scene in a market.

I also liked the idea that And Di Arnas was the super spy and Chris Evans was the civilian. That’s a nice twist on the formula. It would have helped if Evans wasn’t basically a stalker but nobody’s perfect.  

I also liked that erm…. Did I mention the scene in the market? I did? Blast.

I mean, once the film gets going it’s harmless enough but the trick is just getting there. And even once it does get going, there’s nothing you haven’t seen before, just because the two leads are very attractive that doesn’t mean that their going to spark off of each other.

And the thing is, this idea could work. Ana seems to be having fun, Chris is there, there’s a fun location for the final fight scene that was underdeveloped but still worked, and I did enjoy this films cameos.

But Ghosted is just more proof that spy films and rom-coms just don’t work together. It takes too long for things to start going bang because we’re trying to set up our leads meet cute and the fish out of water element long ago stopped being fun in spy films.

So yeah, this film is a mess and I didn’t enjoy watching it. You could have had the Chris Evans character be a former lover of Anas character who comes back into her life as she tracks down the deadly McGuffin and she has to navigate her feelings versus the mission and it would have been better. Or make him a lover turned foe. But whatever, I’ve seen it, I won’t see it again and I don’t think you should go near it with a ten-foot barge pole.

My Score- Skip It

The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan Film Review

I feel like it’s some sort of law that every ten years or so you have to have another go at remaking something to do with Andre Dumas Musketeers, a bunch of 17^th century heroes who hang around with the king of France getting in and out of trouble with lots of swashbuckling, daring do, colourful character’s, high stakes yada yada yada.

In my youth that version was the unwatchable mess starring Leonardo Di Caprio, about a decade ago we got the 3d mess starring James Corden, a punch of flying ships, filmed the whole thing in 3d and yet somehow, and, I swear this is true, I once read an article where David filming Lynch declared it one of his films of the decade! Naturally I can’t find said article but I swear on my script editor’s life that I read it.     

Anyway, this decade’s attempt is different on several levels from both of those unwatchable disasters. For a start its’ in French. Which makes sense, it’s a French film, made in France, starring Eva Green and several people who aren’t Eva Green. But I feel that this alone will doom the film amongst the unwatched masses who long ago traded the ability to read for the ability to enjoy the repetitive CGI infested sludge masquerading as blockbusters that Hollywood routinely pours into their eyes  

That 15 rating isn’t going to help in the UK either. Film like this should top out at a 12a because that’s where your going to get bums on seats. Families going to see a film together which they remember from their youth being full of swashbuckling, daring do, colourful character’s, high stakes, yada yada yada. And in theory it could have filled a nice hole in modern cinema especially since blockbusters appear to be taking a few weeks off.

But let’s leave aside the fact that it’s in the wrong language to do well here, it’s in the wrong rating to do well here and the fact that there’s no marketing and advertising that I’ve been able to spot.

Its also not a very good film. With some of the worst day for night filming I think I’ve ever seen. Film, I was more convinced it was night-time the last time I put some sunglasses on during a baking July day.

Well, actually, that’s not entirely fair. There’s a lot here to like, Eva Green is a very good Milady D Winter, although she suffers from one of the major issues in this film. But I’ll get to that later. The rest of the cast is passable but I felt that the cardinal was miscast as not quite slimy and smarmy enough.

Plus, well, the action sucked. And in a swashbuckling adventure film that’s sort of an issue. I mean the sound design of the film is fantastic with every pistol shot sounding like a cannon but it’s wasted. The director has a thing for long, single take fight scenes which didn’t work for The Last Airbender and it isn’t working now. It also doesn’t work they their following the Jason Bourne approach of shakey cam, close ups, and me having no idea what the living film is going on.

I’d buy shares in aspirin companies if I thought this film was going to bring that back. But I don’t, so I won’t.

But I think my main issue with this film is that I didn’t have any fun.

All the ingredients are there, the story and characters have stood the test of time but this version is Musketeers Begins. I mean, is French cinema just a decade behind English cinema? Because I’m getting the vibe that this should have been released ten to fifteen years ago. Its dark (both in tone and visuals), gritty, serious, shakey cam filled and it’s also got the biggest hint that it’s a part one since that Marvel movie where the single dad ended world hunger with his rock collection.

But there were some moments I liked, even if it did seem to be labouring under being an origin film, a setup for part two film, a film that doesn’t really seem to get going until the second act but a film with some good moments, not enough to make me excited for part 2, but enough that I’ll probably check it out. Because ending films on cliff-hangers gets my but back into the seat.

But that still doesn’t change the fact that if I do want a fun, exciting, swashbuckling film then the Mask of Zorro hasn’t gone anywhere.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see if I can find what Lynch was talking about.

My Score- If Nothing Else

Tetris Film Review

As a wise meme once said, Tetris is the ultimate game to teach you about life, it’s a series of constant unending challenges where your success vanish, your failures accumulate and it’s all going to end in tears.

The story behind Tetris is also fascinating, I mean, it’s a game made in the USSR, in the dying days of the Cold War that somehow took over the world and is still arguably one of the most popular, high selling, influential games of all time.

You know what it probably didn’t need? A car chase. And a Russian henchvillain who I’m convinced wondered in off the set of a bad kids movie from fifteen years ago. He’s even got the evil billionaire with an idiot son backing him. It didn’t need a few other bits and bobs as well, but this is a film, not a documentary (Check out The Gaming Historian’s The Story Of Tetris on YouTube. An hour long historically accurate documentary of the story of Tetris) Or a book (I recommend The Tetris Effect by Dan Ackerman, My scriptwriter recommends Taken by the Tetris blocks: An Erotic Short Story by Leonard Delaney – He’s currently very, very single.)

Back on topic, we find that this is very much a film that you can tell where planet Earth and planet Hollywood collided. You can also tell that this film did not have enough budget for the amount of budget that was provided which makes sense. A film about a bunch of middle aged people having meetings does not need a ton of CGI. Because if the writing is strong enough, that can stand on it’s own. Look at something like one of my favorite films of all time, Bridge of Spies which deals with similar topics i.e. trying to get something out of the USSR whilst ensuring that you don’t get trapped in there.

That film didn’t need a car chase. Or a cartoon evil billionaire and his devious Russian Henchman and idiot son.

But I can sort of see why. After all, the MCU generation tends to get bored if something doesn’t explode every 15 seconds and what kind of person would enjoy a film where someone risks their house and marriage to secure the rights to a video game from a crumbling totalitarian regime whilst a scheming billionaire tries to do the same. Not to mention the standard issue KGB honeytraps and corporations all wanting their piece of the pie.

Nope, nothing interesting there at all.

I mean this film isn’t boring, I liked the little 8 bit style graphics that popped up on screen to illustrate something and Taron Egerton is always good fun, but I was watching this thinking that maybe it would have worked better as a short series? Certain scenes felt very rushed and I think that the extra time dealt given by a mini-series would allow for depth and tension and character development.

It would also have allowed certain threats to develop naturally as the aforementioned honeytrap is a character that the film doesn’t quite seem to know how to use so she just does whatever the film needs her to do in order to move the plot along.

At the end of the day, Tetris isn’t as good as it should be but it’s still fun to watch, I think that it just needed to pick a lane. Did it want to be a sort of serious film about a man trying to get a contract to sell some videogames or did it want to be a wacky comedy about a man trying to get a contract signed whilst fighting off wacky villains whilst trying to get someone to sign off on his contract. Either way would have worked, in the middle?

Not so much.

My Score- If Nothing Else

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey Film Review

Well, I don’t know what I expected.

A little backstory, at midnight on the 31 of December 2021, AA Milne’s legendary character Winnie-the-Pooh went out of copyright and naturally enough the first thing that someone thought to do with  it was to make a cheap and I mean cheap slasher movie out of the poor thing.

And on one level I get it, I really do. You want to be the first out of the gate to capitalise on… well, being the first to do something with the newly sort-of free to use characters and what’s quicker, easier and cheaper to make than a slasher movie?

A cheap, terrible, awful, no good slasher movie.

So, here’s the thing. I have no inherent peal clutching “Think of the children” reaction to seeing Pooh turned into a killer. Nor do I have an issue with it being bloody, violent and full of characters who deserve to die.

I don’t have an issue with it being dark, if your going to do something like this, go big or go home.

I do have an issue with this film being shockingly bad. That I have an issue with. Let’s start with…. Everything. Everywhere. All at once.

First, the plot.

This film has the wrong plot.

You see in this world, Pooh, Piglet et all are monsters who get abandoned by Christopher Robin, go feral and then start killing every human who crosses their path.

Fine.

Nothing wrong with that plot outline. It even explains why Eeyore doesn’t turn up. But where are Kanga? Roo? Owl? If you want to show them being a feral pack, then show them being a feral pack, show Roo having died from starvation, Owl being the one who locates the human prey, then Pooh and Kanga hunting them down before Piglet cooks the meat. Instead, Kanga, Roo and Owl are MIA.

Also, the victims are wrong. In a film like this, you should have the victims being linked somehow to the animals. Perhaps a group of wannabe writers or a group of English students making a pilgrimage to the hundred acre woods before getting picked off by the very creatures they’ve come to be inspired by.

Instead, we get the redshirts from a much better, more interesting, if still generic film.

Because our redshirts are in fact a group of friends who have come for a weekend in the country to help one of their number recover from a terrifying stalker. Which, why not make that film instead? A group of friends, trying to help a friend recover form a stalker by having a weekend at an isolated country house instead discover that the stalker has followed them and will stop at nothing to be reunited with his ‘love.’

Like I said, generic but it works.    

And it’s thematically consistent. Instead, here, they just sort of appear in the narrative about twenty minutes in and immediately start to get rid of all those pesky limbs via a series of very disappointing kills.

Ans speaking of the kills, there are no real kills here that lean into the idea of feral human animal hybrids. I know that your Winne-The-Pooh looks like a tall guy in a cheap mask with his human eyes showing whilst wearing some yellow washing-up gloves and Piglet doesn’t look much better but could you not have done something with the idea of a bear? Just one person being disembowelled with a swipe of Pooh’s paws, that’s all I’m asking.

Instead, you could swap out Pooh and Piglet for Michael Myers, or just some random killer and nothing would change. Pooh has taken a vow of silence (probably for legal reasons) which means he doesn’t even get to say “Oh’ Bother” Nor does he don his famous red top or use the cork firing shotgun that the Americans lumbered him with. No, really, they did that.

And on top of the confused plot, terrible, interchangeable monsters, you also have the requisite terrible acting and there’s just something off about the dialogue as well.

I mean it’s terrible, but if you go to a cheap slasher expecting amazing dialogue and well developed character’s, then I’ll have what your having. Instead, it sounds off. Like the actors were only shown the script ten minutes before shooting started and haven’t quite memorized their lines and blocking yet which results in the whole thing sounding strange. And also, it sounds like the entire cast was taking some downers before shooting started. Possibly to help them cope with the fact that they were making a film called “Pooh: Blood and Honey.”      

There’s also something mean spirited about it. I was expecting the film to have a mischievous “I can’t believe I’m getting to make this and the lawyers can’t stop me” kind of feel. Instead, it just feels mean. Couple that with the film being shot nearly completely at night- probably to hide just how terrible the make-up actually is- and It’s just unpleasant to watch.

Look, I was expecting something terrible because this film was made on a shoestring and quickly but I’ve seen great horror films made cheaply and quickly. Colin was allegedly made for £50 and that’s a solid zombie flick. Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween were also cheap but they made it work for them.

Instead, the scariest thing about this film is not the confirmed sequel, that much was obvious and hopefully the increased budget will allow for masks that actually look realistic and actually move when the monster is eating, licking it’s lips or just breathing. If at the end, Pooh was demasked like a Scooby-Doo villain I wouldn’t have been surprised. Instead, the scariest thing to discover is that the ‘director’ wants to create a Copywrite Exempt Cinematic Universe (CECU) featuring Bambi and Peter Pan to start with. And who’s going to stop him? He’s copying the Blumhouse model of low cost high return for people drawn in hoping it’s going to be awful (It is but not in a fun way. I found the whole thing rather dull and padded even when I could see what was happening on screen.)

The idea of a killer Winne The Pooh is a solid one. But everything else is a lost cause. The victims need to be completely done away with -both onscreen and rewritten,- The tone needs to be changed, the monsters made less interchangeable, the kills less generic, the actors need time to rehearse their lines, blocking and to be kept off the downers.

It’s not the worst slasher I’ve ever seen- Death Rink still holds that dubious award because at least the blood doesn’t look like strawberry jam. It doesn’t look like blood,  as that would require someone on this shoot to be competent but it doesn’t look like strawberry jam, which is something at least.

So go make your Copywrite Exempt Cinematic Universe Mr. Rhys Frake-Waterfield, go make your films that you write, direct, produce and edit yourself. What you’ve done is an achievement in and of itself.  

But, you could have made something so much better if you’d just taken some time, put in more effort, gone further with the idea which could have worked. If you’d just put in the legwork and not been so desperate to be the first.

Because it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.

MY SCORE – BOMB