VOD: Outside The Wire (dir: Mikael Hafstrom, 2021)

"I don't have any specialist training as a field agent."
"Don't worry - I'm special enough for the both of us."

This standard hybrid of military-action-sci-fi feels so familiar that in an earlier straight-to-video life it would have starred Van Damme or Lundgren, but of course it has a contemporary glossy Netflix/CGI sheen.  In a near/alt-future in which robots serve alongside squaddies (and are integrated into the on-screen action effectively here), an ice-cold protocol-breaking drone pilot is sent to the front line for a taste of real action and its consequences, paired up with a realistic android AI to scupper - you guessed it - a villainous Russian's nuclear attack plans.  Damson Idris and Anthony Mackie are solid performers and are paired well here, and whilst everything is delivered in a slick and well-staged manner, as a whole the film never really manages to rise above doing anything more than average or merely interesting. 

 

VOD: Invasion Planet Earth (dir: Simon Cox, 2020)

"We gave it our all, didn't we?"

Invasion Planet Earth cannot be faulted for its ambition, and the fact that a low-budget crowdfunded British sci-fi movie not only managed to be completed but also become available to view is to be commended.   The film itself is an extraordinarily mixed bag in almost every way: it has too many half-realised ideas crammed in, yet dialogue and character development are stretched very thinly; some scenes have less visual appeal than most TV soaps, yet other location shooting is spectacular; effects work ranges from some truly impressive shots for low-end CGI to the downright shoddy; and whilst the story's big reveal is easy to spot very early, when it comes it actually services the third act quite effectively.  It feels as if there is a solid 45-minute TV sci-fi episode buried in here, but in spite of its glaring inconsistency as a viewing experience, it bears repeating that the scale of ambition is evident.
 

VOD: Tenet (dir: Christopher Nolan, 2020)

"Don't try to understand it.  Feel it."

As we have come to expect from a Christopher Nolan film, Tenet engages and challenges the viewer right from the outset with its dynamic and arresting opening.  Its reputation as a head-scratcher is well-founded, but once you get the idea of what it is trying to do, Tenet has a rewarding central conceit to see played out, even if the final twenty minutes feel a bit like everyone had given up on it trying to make sense and fulfil its own internal logic.  With gorgeous cinematography, mind-bending effects, some effective action sequences, a committed central performance by John David Washington and a cool hard-synth soundtrack by Ludwig Gorannson , Tenet is a secret agent thriller like no other, and whilst fans of the genre will find its sci-fi trappings way too esoteric, it is sometimes good for us as viewers not to have everything handed to us on a plate as easily as most films offer.

VOD: 3022 (dir: John Suits, 2019)

"Do you know something that we don't?"

This murky and ponderous sci-fi potboiler sees a space crew unravel as the Earth suffers a massive extinction-level event in a way that is earnest but really rather dull.  Dialogue is slow-paced, performances are largely unengaging, and the little that actually happens is underwhelming.  The film is also not served well by the jarring time-jumps at the beginning, with a circular narrative that grinds its way listlessly to the already-seen end.

 

VOD: The New Mutants (dir: Josh Boone, 2020)

"Oh, it's serious...."

It seemed a great idea when Josh Boone wanted to do something different with the cinematic X-Men world, and even better with the intention of given it a horror twist, but this much-delayed movie (even before Covid closed cinemas in Spring 2020) proves underwhelming.  Five underwritten and quite uninteresting teenage 'Mutants' with emerging and potentially dangerous powers are incarcerated in a shady facility with a blandly villainous doctor in charge and are saddled with a dull script and a blindingly laboured and well-signposted story.  The horror elements are anaemic, and there is an evident lack of scale and scope on screen, reflected in a drab and very grey mise-en-scene reminiscent of Josh Trank's disappointing reimagining of Fantastic Four.  One jolting mid-point scene really crackles with potential, but as for the rest the relentless dullness makes what could have been an exciting prospect a real test of patience.

 

VOD: Savage (dir: Sam Kelly, 2020)

"Ain't none of us are angels...."

Clearly going for the use-of-f-word record, this is an unflinching and uncompromising look at gang culture in New Zealand through the story from boyhood to impressionable teen through to manhood of the heavily tattooed central character Damage, based on real accounts.  The Antipodean setting provides an interesting cultural twist on what could have been simply another show of the toxic masculinity inherent in such movie takes on this lifestyle, but the impressive performance of the towering Jake Ryan is eminently watchable, even more so as he even generates some sympathy for this violent and seemingly adrift soul. The backstory integrates well with understanding the man he is today, and the relationships between the gang members come across as effectively natural.  At times this film is not an easy watch, but it tells a compelling story well.

VOD: You Should Have Left (dir: David Koepp, 2020)

"God-damn nightmares!"

Two decades on from the director-star pairing on the similarly-styled Stir Of Echoes, genre veterans David Koepp and Kevin Bacon try to inject life into very familiar tropes and only  occasionally succeed.  Lots of issues get thrown awkwardly into the mix in order try to make a difference to the material, such as the Americans-out-of-water Welsh setting, the age-gap relationship between Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried, the death - possibly murder - of Bacon's first wife and Bacon's partner's acting career and infidelity, but ultimately it comes down to a creepy battle with an oddly-inhospitable modern designer holiday house with a mysterious owner and inexplicably odd dimensions that do not match up (as in House Of Leaves).  There is a stern and cold feel to the film that works well at times, but inevitably, the supernatural influences get ramped up and have their effect on the family in a run of quick-fire set pieces that never surprise, all leading to a fairly inevitable final scene.  Bacon and Seyfried are as dependable as ever, but You Should Have Left proves to be an appropriate title for this underwhelming supernatural thriller.
 

VOD: Rebecca (dir: Ben Wheatley, 2020)

"...and why shouldn't a woman amuse herself?"

Ben Wheatley's much-heralded Netflix version of the classic novel/film has made great pains to sell itself as 'the story not as you think you know it', but the reality is that it does pretty much what you expect.  It is a lush, sumptuous staging of the tale of an ordinary lady's companion (Lily James) who falls in love with a prize widower (Armie Hammer) in a gorgeously-created sun-soaked South of France but finds herself battling the past and the echoes of his previous wife at his grand isolated country estate of Manderley.  This new more commercial arena for Ben Wheatley has flashes of his usual directorial wit and flair, and the whole film is beautifully staged and shot from start to finish, but it feels a little uninspired overall.  Armie Hammer' intelligent acting is a real plus, and  Kristin Scott Thomas was born to play the frosty and manipulative housekeeper Mrs Danvers, but Lily James rarely make more than an adequate impression as the bewildered new bride.  This 2020 Rebecca is perfectly acceptable, but seems something of a missed opportunity to do something more adventurous with the material and the resources it clearly has at its disposal.

 

VOD: Spree (dir: Eugene Kotlyarenko, 2020)

"I told you The Reaper was close!"

At the start Spree seems like a very obvious idea: an enthusiastic but unsuccessful vlogger decides to go on a live-broadcast killing spree in order to achieve his dream of going viral.  What the film manages successfully is to take the viewer on the journey of a day-in-the-life story in which the stakes are continually increased and some interesting and unexpected diversions maintain interest well, all held together by a strong central performance from Joe Keery, who does well with the character's almost constant on-screen presence.  The character's amorality and the bursts of casual ultra-violence give the film interest, and the liveliness and ambition in the direction, camerawork and editing with limited set-ups make Spree very watchable, 

 

VOD: The Titan (dir: Lennart Ruff, 2020)

 "Yeah, well, the first one through the wall always gets a little bloody."

With Interstellar as the jumping-off point but with a fraction of the budget and mostly  Earth-bound, The Titan sees the earth once again being rendered imminently uninhabitable and outer space colonisation the potential solution; the solution here is the experimental genetic mutation of the test astronauts and its consequences both on the test cases and family, with some consideration of the ethics of genetic experimentation along the way.  This is for the most part a steady consideration of its subject matter punctuated by occasional lurid violence and body horror, and its pace may prove too slow for most viewers, but its treatment of the issues and the developing story of the central family are mildly interesting.  

VOD: Ghosts Of War (dir; Eric Bress, 2020)

 "What's not to love?"

Starting off as a standard World War II supernatural story, a small troupe of soldiers is sent to guard a chateau that had been liberated from the Nazis but very quickly discover that all is not right with the place.  The usual tropes are trotted out, from bathtubs to footprints and many more, but the piece is delivered by some good performances from strong TV veterans, notably Brenton Thwaites and Alan Ritchson who rise above the material.  The final act pulls off a massive narrative swerve that you will either buy into wholeheartedly or will make you roll your eyes in despair, but Ghosts Of War has just enough merits to put it slightly above standard low-rent genre fare.

VOD: The Midnight Sky (dir: George Clooney, 2020)

"Well, you know....life...."

Clooney delivers another of his carefully-considered, impeccably-mounted pseudo-philosophical mood pieces that is more skill than heart but delivers appropriately in performance.  Just about on the right side of slow without being dreary, a non-specified global apocalypse is spreading from the major population centres whilst a gruff terminally-ill scientist (played gracefully by Clooney himself) stays behind at an Artic research station, only to find himself stuck with a young child who was seemingly left behind and trying to warn off a returning deep-space exploration vessel.  The (small) set pieces are well-crafted and effectively staged; it is just a shame that the 'big twist' is so blindingly obvious from early on that it feels like a long time before it is underwhelmingly revealed.
 

VOD: We Can Be Heroes (dir: Robert Rodriguez, 2021)

"No, no, no!  We were so close!"

The set-up is familiar - leading superheroes are kidnapped by aliens, and their superpowered children are called upon to rescue them - and this decent but slightly cheap-looking movie sees Robert Rodriguez mining a similar style, tone and visual palette to his Spy Kids franchise, so you know what to expect.  There are a couple of nicely-delivered gags, the child actors are variable but tolerable, the lurid pop colour palette gets wearing inevitably, and the unsurprising messages of discovering yourself and learning the importance of others is hardly subtle, but the film is good-natured enough and will please its young target audience immensely.