Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Film Review

Hands up all those who think cinema needs another CGI infested overwritten, quippy franchise based on a decades old IP where the villain doesn’t really pose a threat to so much as is something to be quipped at after several vaguely entertaining CGI infested quippy action sequences?

Well, good news because Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is here for you! And just you. Because I think that there are quite enough CGI infested overwritten, quippy franchises based on a decades old IP where the villain doesn’t really pose a threat to so much as is something to be quipped at after several vaguely entertaining CGI infested quippy action sequences, but that’s just me.

For those unaware, Dungeon and Dragons is a way to summon Satan so that you can pledge your allegiance to him for reasons known only between you and the Prince of Darkness all the while masquerading as a tabletop role playing game.

Now obviously this is not the first D and D (as the cool kids call it) film. There was a ‘film’ (Mazes and Monsters- really not worth it) released in 1982 which is notable only for being Tom Hanks first leading role. Then, there was the 2000 film which was awful in the best possible way, a made for TV trilogy and now we have Dungeons and Dragons Honour Among Thieves – shouldn’t that be amongst? Among just doesn’t seem to sit right with me.

Anyway, Settlers of Catan isn’t based on any of those films and since I’ve never played the games, I can only tell you that it’s fine.

It’s not great, It’s not awful, it’s on, it’s entertaining and then it went away. It’s a perfectly functional product starring perfectly functional actors lead by the most wooden of all the Chris’s – Chris Pine (get it? Wooden – Pine? I’ll get my coat.)

Now, you would think from the adverts that it was a Guardians of the Galaxy style film about a group of losers teaming up to stop a big bad who they accidentally gave some sort of world ending McGuffin to a big bad that they then have to stop. And Hugh Grant is there for some reason.

Instead what you’ve got here is a Guardians of the Galaxy stye film about a group of losers teaming up to stop Hugh Grant from running on with Pine’s daughter. And a big bad who they accidentally gave some sort of world ending McGuffin to is there for some reason.

Yeah, that’s one of the films main issues. In so far as perfectly functional products have issues.

Look, the closest I’ve every gotten to playing Dungeons and Dragons is watching Stranger Things. I have no idea of the lore or character’s, or different classes, I get the feeling that there were a lot of nods to that sort of thing because of the reaction of my audience to certain words and phrases.

Mostly I was just confused.

Because the action was fine, the CGI was fine, the cast was fine, there was too much of the terrible over-written dialogue that infests so many modern blockbusters these days where the scriptwriters either have one eye on going to work in the MCU or have recently left it.

No, instead I was wondering how you can set up at great, length flashback length that in this world there is a group of evil wizards who have a McGuffin that can create a red mist which turns everyone into zombies and have them feel so…. Pointless. I could have removed them completely from the plot and nothing would have issued bar the third act CGI punch up to wrap this whole thing up but surely there’s an orc or something that could have been used as a henchman?

Because I liked the films actual main plot where Pine has to try to save his daughter from Hugh Grant (Still playing the slightly creepy villain from Paddington 2: Paddington Harder/ The Gentleman/ A Very British Scandal) a con-man who’s spent years pouring poison into the daughter’s ears turning her against him. At the same time ruling over the land of Far-Far Away which he became lord of via… plot. I forget why.

You try remembering this thing.

I just feel that you might want to keep the zombie plague group of fashion disasters for a sequel after hinting at them in this film where were getting used to this world or, have them be the main focus? Either or. Either you have the world ending plot or the intimate family plot. Pick a lane.

I mean the middle of the film, where our leads chase after various helmets and medallions of izzy whizzy lets get busy because no-one in this world can think of anything better to do then enchant every random thing they see, seems pretty indifferent to which plot thread it’s helping to wrap up. It’s got some good scenes and funny moments but the one I’m going to remember the longest is pretty much a rip-off of one of the best scenes in Hellboy (2004- the 2019 one had NO good scenes)

So yeah, Settlers of Catan: Paramount Really Needs A New Franchise is a good fun functional franchise opener which just needs to remove a world ending threat in favour of getting rid of Hugh Grant.

 Just don’t expect to remember it the next morning.

My Score- If Nothing Else

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

Shazam! Fury of the Gods Film Review

Shazam 2: From Shazam With Love is a bigger definition of “Film that has been sent out to die” than Disneys Strange Worlds. I mean at least strange worlds had merch.

It’s not a high bar I know, but that’s my method for finding out if a studio has confidence in their latest product. I call it the ‘tat test.’ No tat (T-Shirts, funko pops, action figures tc.) No trust.

I mean it’s not like the signs were good, what marketing there was, was mediocre at best and very hard to spot compared to the marketing for every other large film that’s come out in the last few weeks. I mean several people I spoke to had no idea this film was coming out or even remembered the first one.

You’ve also got the fact that people who are tuned into this sort of thing know that James Gunn is about to reset this whole universe with The Flash movie in a few months.

And worst of all this film simply isn’t very good.

On paper it doesn’t do anything wrong- a bunch of bored looking actors (Lucy Liu, Dame Helen Mirren and Rachel Zegler) in ridiculous costumes are after a McGuffin that’s going to destroy the world and the only thing standing in their way is a way too large bunch of idiots in terrible costumes.

And that’s the film.

I mean, I rewatched the original before going into this and I was struck by how, whilst you did basically have a pretty standard superhero origin film it also had at it’s core a pretty solid independent film about someone trying to find a family – first biological and then foster which I really liked.

This film doesn’t have a B-plot. It’s barely got an A-plot (see above)

I’m not entirely sure that it’s got a main character either.

Now, being a bluff old traditionalist, I always thought that if someone was all over what little marketing I could find, is top of the IMDB/Wikipedia page then the film should be about them? Nope. I’m pretty sure that with very little effort I could reduce Sahazam from the lead to a sidekick. I mean he doesn’t really drive the plot, he doesn’t get a love interest, doesn’t get the majority of screentime and to be honest I didn’t really care for him.

I mean here is a character who’s supposed to have the wisdom of Solomon but instead has the wisdom of someone who finds Mrs. Browns Boys funny. He’s also supposed to have the courage of Achilles but I’d swap that out for the courage of the cowardly dog.

Instead, I’d make the case that the lead is  Freddy Freeman who gets the lead actor spot. He drices the plot, struggles with his powers and responsibilities, gets a love interest, gets the majority of the screentime and actually has an arc.

There are also some other Shazamers but I’m not 100% they all had names and could all have been very easily gotten rid of. I mean, why have a comic relief sentient pen (No, this is a thing that happens) If you could work out what to do with all of your alleged leads.

The second act drags, the third is overlong, repetitive, nothing you haven’t seen before and everyone just seems bored and desperate to get off set so that they can go back to acting.

I saw people sleeping, walking out and considered them lucky, because this is a film that could have been put out on streaming to no great loss. As opposed to releasing it onto the silver screen which HAS incurred a huge loss.

But whatever, like I said, this was film that was sent out to die. Was it missed around by the pandemic? Probably, as there is an attempt at a B-Plot which seems like it was meant to be something when the actors were a few years younger or maybe it got edited out to make room for more unfunny improv but at what I think was supposed to be the emotional high point of the movie I was less moved to tears and more vaguely confused.

So Yeah, Shazam 2: Wrath of the indifferent public, nothing you haven’t seen before, doesn’t really stand on it’s own as a fun superhero movie, is a serious downgrade in quality from the first and doesn’t even have the old Marvel fall back of ‘If you miss this then nothing that follows will make sense’

So I guess what I’m say is….

My Score- Skip 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

Cocaine Bear Film Review

Cocaine Bear is a film in which a bear takes a lot of cocaine.

Brilliant.

It’s allegedly based on a true story but where that bear probably died alone, in pain and probably with a vision of a long dead cub crawling towards it, this bear just seems happy enough helping itself to this film’s way, way too large human cast.

Yep, not since the heady days of Snakes on a Plane has there been a creature feature with such a fun and exciting premise. And whilst Cocaine Bear doesn’t have anything along the line of Samual L. Jacksons legendary line “”I’ve had it with these monkey-fighting snakes on this Monday through Friday plane”. It doesn’t seem to have the vague air of embarrassment and bad CGI that SOAP had throughout its runtime.

No, what cocaine bear has is a human cast that is way, way too big, way too varied in what they want to achieve and take up way too much of the runtime remaining stubbornly attached to their limbs and intestines.

I mean, you could have given us a scout troop, a bunch of highschoolers with a broken down bus, a bunch of prisoners on a broken down bus… Something, anything other than the smorgasboard of…. (deep breath)

The inevitable kids, the kids mum trying to get them back, a ranger assisting the mum along with the ranger’s crush, some paramedics, three local toughies. two drug dealers trying to get the drugs back except one of them just lost their wife to cancer which led to a dodgy tattoo, their boss, and that’s not forgetting Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub …..

I think there may have been a few others but you get the gist. All of which leads to a slow, overlong and bearless first twenty minutes as I tried to work out why everyone was talking like they were out of a sup-par Tarantino knock-off. I mean I know that most of the people in a film like this are there to die, but I’m fairly certain that their death is supposed to affect me in a negative way and not in a come on Winneh! You can Pooh it! Kind of way.

I mean the bear itself is brilliant. Apparently the director tried to make it as accurate as possible with what it can do except with the whole, you know, Cocaine thing which must have been a fun phone call to ZSL London Zoo.

Which basically sums up the film in a nutshell. Bear=fun, bear killing people= more fun. People interacting with other people in their sub Tarantino, Lock Stock era Guy Ritchie way? Not fun. Not fun at all. Nope, nope, nope.

Which on another level is fine. Anyone who goes to a film called Cocaine Bear for the humans, probably needs their head looking at. I’m here for the bear.

And once the film gets going it’s a fun romp. I mean what passes for plot twist would be obvious to a small child but again, the film is called Cocaine Bear. If you want to be floored by a cinematic plot twist, go and watch The Empire Strikes Back or something. But the action scenes are fun, varied, and make the most of a bear full of Cocaine alternating between being a badass and actually rather funny and sometimes cute. The CGI is never too obvious and several of the death scenes were cool, unique and inventive.

They just needed to trim down and unify the human cast into… I don’t know a bunch of low rent drug dealers being sent into the forest to get the drugs back or else instead of the smorgasboard we got lumbered with here.

But yeah, grab a few mates, grab a few beers, fast forward through the first twenty minutes and you’ve got yourself a fun old time. I mean this is by far the best bear on a killing spree movie of 2023, right?

Right?

My Score- If Nothing Else

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania Film Review

So, I once read of review of 1999’s classic monster movie “The Mummy” which, (as far as I can remember- it’s been a while) stated that CGI should be viewed like glace cherries on a Bakewell tart. Used sparingly, they can enhance a desert. Use too many, and the whole thing turns out rather sickly and unpleasant.

Ant Man 3, Ant Hard With A Vengeance, is nothing but glace cherries with maybe the odd crumb of tart thrown in every ten minutes or so.

I mean, there’s so, so much CGI that you could very, very easily have just made this a straight CGI film and I wouldn’t have noticed. It might even have made it better as your eye wouldn’t suddenly notice how much CGI of variable quality is on the screen.

That’s assuming that you can see the CGI of variable quality because at least for me, I could barely see what was going on as the film was so dark. Seriously, Disney, you have all the money in the world, could you not afford a few lightbulbs on set? How much does Paul Rudds anti-aging regime cost? Or is it down to the fact that you apparently overwork your CGI people to the extent that you don’t give them the time to do their jobs properly?

Is that why MODOK looks like something from a bad PS1 game? And speaking of MODOK, much like most the people working in the MCU, I’ve read very few Marvel comics- I’m more a Judge Dredd guy – and I’ve never read a one that’s he’s in. But I’m fairly certain he’s not a sidekick. Or created by Kang, or suddenly becomes a good guy. Whatever, I get you have to change things for live action and it’s so much easier to use a recognisable character then create your own.

Whatever. I’m sure you’d like to know what happens in this week’s episode of the MCU.
It’s setting up the big bad for the rest of this season.

Seriously, this whole film is just exposition, fight scene, exposition, fight scene. That’s it. There’s loads of stuff happening on screen but I just didn’t care. We didn’t get a chance to learn the names of the new people, let alone give a flying glace cherry about their struggles, wants and desires.
Allegedly the plot is that the Ant-Family (a way too large cast of human characters) get sent down to the quantum realm where Janet ( Michelle Pfeiffer) has a few dark secrets/ past that she’s been trying to keep from her family… yada yada yada. I’ll be honest, I was quite intrigued by the films first few minutes as Scott Lang tries to puzzle out what to do with his life going forward and trying to make sense of the last few years events. However, before that story gets a chance to breathe, we’re off to the races and it never really comes up again.

But like I said, this episodes real goal is to set up the new big bad – Kang – and to be honest I’m more scared of the Ninja Turtles villain Krang because at least he seemed to pose some sort of threat to our heroes. I mean, I get through a few YouTube videos that his history in the comics is somewhat complicated but you’d think a time traveller in a stolen time ship who gets exiled by his society for his constant meddling with time might pose something of a threat? I don’t know, maybe if they gave him a plot advancing screwdriver.

I mean the film does a good job of bigging him up to begin with, and Jonathon Masters is doing his best but he’s just not that threatening after the two-thirds point and not at all toward the end. Thanos (last seasons big bad) had PRESENCE, he was menacing, he had a plan and you could just feel him looming after the whole MCU, but Kang? He just looks like he could be defeated by a good hug, a cup of tea and a listening ear.

Oh, and the unique and beautiful quantum realm is seriously underused as a location. I wanted to explore that place and its people and all I got was a random Bill Murray Cameo.

Then you’ve got all the usual gripes- way too much humour undercutting everything, the third act is just two CGI armies slamming into each other with more steaks in a Vegan restaurant, there’s way too many indestructible heroes and after a while I just sat there numb wondering how that scene of Iron Man taking out a tank from mid-budget 2008 film looks so, so much better than a gazillion dollar movie in 2023.

One last thing, I always see Marvel movies on opening night surrounded by the Marvel fanboys, but even then, there were no cheers like when I saw Spiderman- too many cameos, MODOK inspired laughter when his face was revealed, walking out the atmosphere was tepid. People saw this film out of obligation, not desire. Not excitement. The best part of the last two Ant-Man films was playing with scale, using a van as a skateboard, turning a tank keychain into an actual tank. But here, there was nothing.
Just glace cherries as far as the eye can see.

My Score- Skip It

Black Adam Film Review

Do you know what the world needs now?

Not love, sweet love but another 12a CGI infused “film” where a load of action figures get smashed together whilst a vague plot about stopping an under described McGuffin from falling into the ‘wrong hands’ and causing something bad and usually but not always related to yet another sky beam.

Yeah, my enthusiasm for superhero films has fallen from pleasing my inner 8 year old to, you’re joking!, Not another one! Oh for god’s sake, I can’t stand this, there is too much supereroing going on, why do we need this one?”

Anyway this one is going to be good because it stars a vaguely grumpy looking Dwayne the Rock Johnson who in order to stop starring in films like Tooth signed his soul away to become one of the biggest film stars on the planet but he go only star in 12a CGI infused “films” where a load of action figures get smashed together whilst a vague plot about stopping an under described McGuffin from falling into the ‘wrong hands’ and causing something bad and usually but not always related to yet another sky beam.

Whatever, he’s got a gas bill to pay, same as me.

And to be honest, this film doesn’t really do a lot wrong. It just doesn’t do a lot right either. It’s not boring but it’s not entertaining either.

And it’s not entertaining because nothing seems to be at stake. Johnson allegedly has it in his contracts that he cannot lose a fight so there’s no tension. None of the other action figures never seem to get so much as a bruise so the fight scenes have no tension because they just repeat and repeat and repeat with the same characters using the same moves to the same result until the end credits start rolling.

Seriously, this film could have been cut down to the first, hour long episode of a TV show and I doubt anything important would have been lost.

I mean, seriously, what has the online discourse been for this film? Not interest in Adam himself, the world he inhabits or any of the new action figures who barley seem to exist as characters ion their own right but in a mid-credits scene with no connection to the central plot.

The locations are repetitive, the villains pose no threat, the one liners are all things we’ve heard before and what passes for twists in this thing are either horrifyingly obvious or spoiled in this films marketing and don’t affect what passes for the actual plot in any way.

Which is a shame because there is actually an interesting thread in this film which could have been basically been a much better film in and of itself except it would have required the room full of energy drink powered 8 year olds to calm down for five minutes.

Essentially, four of the action figures – someone called Hawkman, a vaguely confused looking James Bond, A Storm knockoff and a growy punchy man with less brainpower than Liz Truss, come from the Justice Society (Me neither, but I guess even the people IN the DCEU want nothing to do with the Justice League) ignored the fact that an I think Middle Eastern nation was under armed occupation from something called Intergang for years but the second that Black Adam shows up they can’t get their tights on fast enough. Which could have made for a really interesting conflict within the film. Why was a so called Justice society unwilling to aid a civilian population under what one has to assume is an illegal armed occupation for several years but only turns up when their interests are threatened?

But then another truckload of Red Bull got delivered and that idea vanished into the ether. Also because it might have required a touch of subtly shades of grey writing in the script which also mentions a massive “Superhero Industrial Complex” in passing and does nothing with it because people speak bad. Moke more smashy bangy fight now!

Look, I’m done sacrificing brain cells to this… well to call it a carton would be an understatement. You likely knew what this was going in, – another 12a CGI infused “film” where a load of action figures get smashed together whilst a vague plot about stopping an under described McGuffin from falling into the ‘wrong hands’ and causing something bad and usually related to yet another sky beam. Yes, I’ve used the same sentence three times but I really and truly don’t care. I was on, I was vaguely bored and I have neither the time nor inclination to near it ever again.

Forget a horse, my kingdom for a competently made exciting blockbuster with actual, practical effects.

My Score- Skip It

Halloween Ends Film Review

So that happened.

Ok, so Halloween Ends is the 13^th film in the Halloween franchise which should have been a straight one and done film back in the 70’s about a silent masked killer slaughtering a bunch of teenagers (who suffer from a terrible allergy to clothes) before probably being shot by Earnst Stavro Blofeld.

It’s kept pottering along with varying degrees of quality for the last forty years and has now allegedly finished with Halloween Ends. And if you think it’s going to be the final Halloween film, then I have a bridge that I’d love to sell you.

And it’s definitely a finish of sorts.

It’s not the finish that I would have gone with, but it’s got some interesting ideas. It doesn’t pull any of them off but they are interesting.

We pick up four years after the worst horror film ever theatrically released and Laurie Stroud has decided to become a Stepford wife despite knowing that The Shape is still out there and liable to return at any minute but whatever. There’s also an interesting thread about how the fear of his return has infected the town, making it a place full of anger, fear and violence where every murder is suspected to be by his hand. Where Laurie is held at fault because she ‘encouraged’ and ‘annoyed’ him.

Which is a really, really interesting idea. It just doesn’t really seem to go anywhere beyond Laurie occasionally getting a nasty comment from someone.

As for The Shape themselves, they.. don’t really seem to do anything. They don’t even seem to want to kill people which to me seems a bit off but whatever, given five minutes any competent screenwriter could have removed him completely from the narrative. Which I actually think might have actually served the story better now I think about it. But that’s neither here nor there.

It’s the films main thread which I think holds the most promise as we witness the decline of an innocent, who, almost through no fault of their own falls into becoming almost The Shapes apprentice which is an amazing idea and builds upon the themes established in the first two movies, but at the same time somehow manages to fall flatter than a jelly baby after an argument with a steamroller.

Mostly its because the love story he’s given as a sort of hope at redemption I just didn’t buy for a single, solitary second. We see him meet his partner and they fall in love quicker than a Disney couple. If it had been an already established relationship, him already struggling with is dark side then I think that it would have been a much better and deeper story.

But you didn’t come to Halloween Ends to get a hint as to how much better that unwatchable Joker film could have been if had been written by someone with talent and not just some talentless hack trying to remake Taxi Driver. You came here for violence and scares and I’ve got one of those.

Quite nicely, this film takes the time to sort of establish it’s killers victims so we at least understand why they have to die horrible deaths from the point of view of our killer but it’s just not scary in the slightest. There was no dread, no slow build up, this film was in such a mess that there wasn’t any time for that. It was just kill and then back to whatever thread the film felt like following at that moment in time.

And I get why people are mad at this film, we want Halloween to be the film where a Shape for no seeming rhyme or reason kills loads of people in graphically different ways but that’s been done 11 other times and this is at least trying something different. It’s not quite pulling it off, it’s a mess with some good ideas, with some kills that could have been good but there was no tension or dread leading up to it, so it’s all just surface level.

I won’t be watching this again when the unsurpassable original is right there but I can appreciate this film for trying something different than shape gets it’s steps in whilst slaughtering teens. It just didn’t work.

That’s all.

My Score – Skip It

Thor Love and Thunder Film Review

Thor Love and Thunder is the MCU’s latest attempt to work out what the film it’s doing with itself now that Josh Brolin is no longer around and attempting to solve world hunger using his rock collection.

Whilst I did enjoy this film in parts, there were times when it just seemed to be in a rush to be over and done with itself. I mean, there’s enough here to make maybe three films but it’s all just crammed in with no space for each of this films threads to breathe.

I mean it’s fun and all, with any twelve-year-old going to go to this soon to discover their new favourite film, full of bright colours and flashy images with lots of gags, jokes and visual images, but it’s all just visual. Great for the eyes and ears but there were much more interesting ideas here that just weren’t developed.

I mean take Batman for example. No-ones told him that he’s in a fun goofy 80’s style movie, he thinks he’s in one of those 80’s movie where the whole point was to scare the living daylights out of any kidywinks who were somehow able to see it. He’s funny, scary, empathetic, with loads of really cool interesting and suspiciously varied powers which are amazing at moving the plot along and…. In the film for roughly ten minutes.
Which is kind of par for the course in these sort of MCU films, the villains more here to teach our hero’s a lesson rather than actually pose a threat in and of himself. Which is a shame as I feel that given some more screen time he could have been up there with Spider-Man 2’s Doc Oc in legendary villain circles.

Then you have the return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster in another thread that could have been a film in and of itself. A rather weighty film as well and you could feel the films gears clunking as it tried to balance it’s fun and goofy side with a completely different type of film which didn’t completely work in my book.

I mean Chris Hemsworth’s still great fun as Thor but it seems like he’s regressed since his last film, back to the goofy role rather than the person trying to find out who he is via a journey of self-discovery that was promised to us at the end of the last Avengers film.

In this film, I would have removed him completely and just had Batman going up against Queen Amidala, him determined to wipe out all the Gods and her, having recently being given the powers of a God, struggling to find her place and trying to work out if she should be a God at all.
But we don’t, all of Natalie’s character development as she adapts to her powers happens off screen.

Actually, a lot of things in this film happen off screen or just get sort of glossed over. But when your so determined to keep your film under the two-hour mark rather than doing a Batman and seriously outstaying it’s welcome by whacking an out of no-where fourth act onto your amazing three act movie, but that’s a rant for another time.
I mean if someone did want to cut something from the film then I’m afraid Maximus Decimus Meridius should fall to the cutting room floor. Not that I wasn’t entertained, it’s just that… you could have removed the entire segment and pretty much nothing would have changed apart from an accent that makes Dick Van Dykes from Mary Poppins sound authentic.
Actually, the person who decided that that accent was ok, can I have what your having? There’s a lot going on in the UK at the moment, what with the Sex Yeti currently squatting in Dowing Street leading a zombie government and whatever you where on was probably amazing.

Not as amazing as the amount of ambulance chasing lawyers getting work for all of the whiplash that people viewing this are going to get as the film careers from an almost indie film feel, to the bright colours and visuals we got from the last film and then were off into nightmare land for a few minutes because yeah, sure, why not?

Again, multiple threads, all rushed and a lot more that I would like to have seen being developed a lot more.

But, yeah, Thor: Love and Thunder is fun for twelve year olds but feels rushed and is a complete tonal nightmare. Don’t go in expecting some deep think piece on the human condition and everything should be fine and dandy.

My Score- If Nothing Else