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        

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  

John Wick 4 Film Review

And so we return to ongoing adventures of John Wick, arguably the most lethal character in cinematic history who, as far as I can tell, is basically in trouble for coming back off of gardening leave.

Now, I think my reaction to this franchise is the same as most peoples, I was blown away by the first, loved the second and felt that the third was overlong, baggy, full of story beats that could be cut and way, way too many McGuffins and Doodads.

So, when I saw that this film was a Lord of the Rings long, my initial response was that it was going to be more of the same, with widgets and fidgets, an unstoppable protagonist and a screenplay that could have easily been half an hour shorter.

I’ll say I was half right

Thankfully, all the McGuffins have been dialled back to a more tolerable level. There are still several story beats that could have been taken out, sadly one involving a really interesting and fun side character could have been removed completely and the pace picked up a bit because a film like this does not need to be a Lord of the Rings long. Lord of the Rings didn’t need to be a Lord of the Rings long. Cut out a story beat or two, pick up the pace a little and this could have been a tight two, two fifteen which I think is a much better runtime for this sort of film.

I mean yes, this film still looks gorgeous, every single character is fun and interesting, the fights, though overlong are still exciting and varied. But Wick is still overpowered, to the extent where, at one point in the film where Wick is doing an amazing impersonation of a human slinky, my audience almost to a person, just burst out laughing.

Look, you can put as many The Warrior references into the film as you like, but at the end of the day, if a film is overlong and the audience are laughing at what I think is meant to be our leads last, desperate attempt to overcome impossible odds then maybe you could tweak it a bit?

To be honest, watching this film feels like watching a movie made from cut scenes from a video game. Wicks goal is X, but first he has to talk to Y, who asks him to do a fetch quest or kill someone else and after a while, I was wondering if this film was a victim of it’s own success. Are there great and inventive moments here? Yes. Are there endless clips and scenes for YouTube to get excited about? Yes. But clips and scenes don’t make a movie.

Look, I had a lot of fun here and it doesn’t technically do anything wrong besides too much good stuff. Too many beautiful fight scenes, too many great shots, too many fun and interesting character’s, after a while I felt full. I wanted the film to get a wiggle on because the actual plot was very, very simple despite of all the side quests that all got resolved very, very quickly. Any two of them could have been removed and replaced with a single line of hand-wave dialogue.

It’s the kind of film where the person next to me could have several ten to fifteen-minute naps, wake up and still understand completely what was going on. Which is either the sign of a film being told perfectly or a film that doesn’t have a lot going on plot-wise despite having more actual non-green screen action than the last dozen MCU films put together.

Look, Is Keanu giving it his all? Yep.

Was I ever truly bored? Nope.

Will I ever watch it again on a lazy Saturday instead of the first two? Nope.

Should this be the last one? Yes. 100% yes.

Because at the end of the day. A single tight 100 minute film is worth countless bloated messes.

My Score- See It

Mad God Film Review

Time was I would say, before watching something that had the smell of the bottom ten about it or starred James Corden “You don’t scare me, I’ve seen Cats.”

I have now updated this to you “You don’t scare me – I’ve seen Mad God!” Before sitting in a corner sucking my thumb and rocking backwards and forwards because I’ve just remembered that Mad God exists and by film is that a tough load to bear.

I mean maybe it’s one too many jokes about how writer, director, cinematographer… Oh film, this should have tripped my passion project alarm long before I clicked play but I just got so carried away with watching someone’s thirty year passion project that I chose to go in blind.

So, like I was saying before I got side-tracked, this film was made by legendary special effects guy Phil Tippet, who –apart from having to deal with decades of jokes about being the Dinosaur Supervisor in Jurassic Park has worked on such little films as the original Star Wars trilogy, Starship Troopers, the original Robocop and so, so much more.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that he’s either the second or best stop-motion artist of all time behind Ray Harryhausen and in a close-run race with Nick Park of Wallace and Gromit fame for the silver medal depending on my mood.

But, enough preamble, let’s get onto Mad God, the reason that we’re all here.

It’s horrific.

Not in the this is awful kind of way that gets movies into IMDB’s bottom 100, but horrific as in I physically couldn’t finish this film in one sitting. I got to appoint, realised I’d hit my limits and physically had to stop the film because I’d had enough.

I went back, I finished it but this film is just bleak, miserable, hopeless existential horror. Set in a world without anything even beginning to resemble even the beginnings of hope or redemption we… erm…. We watch things do things.

I mean most of those things are horribly murdering, torturing, eating or pursuing other things but there are most definitely, things doing things in this movie. We, whilst trying to keep down our dinners follow an assassin who is trying to stay alive long enough to blow the whole thing up and good luck to him.

Look, the films going for a whole no dialogue thing which is fine, I didn’t need a Shakespearean sonnet or epic monologue about why this lone assassin is trying to blow this whole place to somewhere slightly less depressing like Milton Keynes, but something to set the scene. Something to show that his mission is important enough that he keeps refusing to help the beings being murdered, tortured, eaten or pursued. But we never get that. He’s got his mission and that’s all he’s going to do.

Which, is this films main weakness, the first half is a relentlessly horrifying assault on the senses, again and again we see things that would be the traumatic height of any other film but here? After a while they just become part of the landscape. Here’s something else being horribly murdered, here’s something else that’s proof there’s no such thing as loving God being horribly tortured or torturing something else for no reason that I could work out.

Maybe it’s me, maybe I’ve taken one too  many Marvel films to the head to understand this work of sheer genius but if I’m watching something and I keep checking to see how long there’s left then I guess I’m out. I mean yes, it’s only 83 minutes long but Wallace and Gromit: The Curst of there were-rabbit is only 85 and that actually is a masterpiece.

Oh, and I would say it all falls apart in the last fifteen minutes but it wasn’t all that there to begin with and those visuals were pretty cool. They didn’t fit with the tone of the first hour but it was nice to know that there was someone out there on as many drugs as I wanted to be.

Look, you can see in every frame that this is a labour of love, some of the images will stay with me forever- whether I want them to or not but that’s neither here nor there. Mad God is a cinematic endurance test that gets boring and that’s it. There’s nothing to hang onto. Nothing to root for or against. It’s got some cool moments and character designs but no actual characters or anything to turn this moments into a film.  

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to find a priest and reconsider my life choices.

My Score- If Nothing Else

Creed 3 Film Review

So, I think we’ve all agreed that sports movies peaked with 1993’s Cool Runnings, with 2019’s Ford v Ferrari a close second, right? And ever since then, sports movies have kind of stagnated for me. As a general rule, I find them very enjoyable, very formulaic and they work on me… carry the four…. Roughly 100% of the time, I laugh when I’m meant to, cry when I’m meant to and cheer when I’m meant to.

And I’ve enjoyed the Creed franchise a lot. Never been a fan of boxing but even I can understand that man punch man until man fall down is a solid idea to base a sport around. And it makes for some cracking fight scenes.

But even the Creed franchise and the Rocky franchise before it has been formulaic to the point of almost being a Saturday morning cartoon. New threat arises, our hero trains and then punches it until it either goes away or we learn our lesson of the lesson of the week. Usually something to do with family or picking your own battles. Whatever, it’s been focused tested and it works.

And, because of backstage ‘shenanigans’ Rocky Balboa doesn’t appear in this film allowing Creed 3: Creed Hard With A Vengeance to finally step out of his franchises shadow and become it’s own thing.

Which I’m supportive of. Michael B Jordan is a formidable force and this is an amazing directorial debut, with something happening in the last fifteen minutes which I thought was almost as cool as Sam Jackson in an icebox. Jonathon Majors – shrugging of whatever the film the MCU thinks it’s playing at – is truly a force of nature as Damian, the blast from the past who upends Creeds comfortable life pulling him back in just when he thought he had gotten out. I just wish they’d gotten more out of Tessa Thompsons storyline as a musician who has been forced to give up her one true love – performing live- in a bid to protect what remains of her hearing whilst Jordan gets to do what he loves for as long as wants to. I feel like that was a bit of a missed opportunity.

Not as big as the missed opportunity that was Jonathon Majors. And I know that I said back in the last paragraph was a force of nature – he is- but he’s also not really given a lot to work with- we’re lead to believe that he’s this hyper focused chess playing force who knows all your weaknesses and does whatever it takes to win but that’s all established in the first twenty to thirty minutes and then he just kind of vanishes for the back half of the film.

Which means that he’s never really given a chance to develop beyond the blast from the past villain, a piece or two of his game plan went by so quickly that I didn’t realise they’d happened until I read the Wikipedia entry for this review. And I’m not sure if this is meant to encourage rewatching or an inexperienced director not knowing what to highlight and when. Much like with Tessa Thompson, there’s a missed opportunity to develop this character.

Look, the fight scenes are amazing with a lot of influences from anime and the film passes its two hours well enough, but I just didn’t feel that it did enough. If it had spent ten minutes developing its villain, then instead of watching these fights we could feel these fights. If we knew more about their past, their failed attempts to become friends again before the past came between them then it would have been so much better, deeper, more effective.

But like I’ve said, it’s a sports movie and much like last years Star Wars remake – The Top Gun Strikes Back- it stick pretty close to a tried, true and effective formula.

If it just could have been so much more if it had taken fifteen minutes to develop two very important characters.

My Score- If Nothing Else