VOD: People Just Do Nothing - Big In Japan (dir: Jack Clough, 2021)

"Apparently they've got a massive drugs problem over there.  You can't get drugs anywhere!"

The very definition of the fish-out-of-water comedy, this enjoyable feature-length outing for the cult TV reality/comedy show finds our hapless Kurupt FM pirate radio gang suddenly having a huge hit in Japan via the use of a song in a game show and being whisked over there to capitalise on their new-found moment of fame.  The characters and shooting style remain true to the TV show with a travel-show Japanese backdrop for added interest, and the gang's self-deluded cluelessness plays out most effectively in the inevitable culture-clash scenarios.  There is the occasional Borat-styled moment, but the film puts the gang in a bigger story and still remains true to the characters, and the key to making it work - like The Inbetweeners - is in conveying the surprisingly deep and unbreakable bonds they share, making the good times and the bad times have real impact and heart, and making this a very entertaining, funny and successful transition to the big screen..
 

VOD: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (dir: David Blue Garcia, 2022)

"Newsflash - we're in deep Texas!"
 

Taking the Halloween route, this modern-day direct sequel to the original classic horror film starts by placing the events of nearly fifty years ago as the fodder of unsolved cases reality TV, as the now-abandoned nearby town sees the arrival of a group of young idealists  set on reviving its fortunes, who encounter the old lady who runs the town's orphanage with one final inhabitant...  As the franchise's Jamie Lee Curtis figure, the 1973 film's survivor is now a watchful aged ranger, joining in the cross-generational female-led battle to survive the onslaught of an aggrieved Leatherface.  The trailer gave away the key scenes, with Leatherface chainsawing his way through a busload of trapped victims a highlight. Coming in at a very lean 83 minutes, and with most of the cast dispatched before the hour mark, the final act is a drawn-out cat-and-mouse affair that surprisingly keeps its momentum going fairly well, and with its very upfront gore effects this 2022 outing for the franchise is no worse than the other reimagings/reboots from the last couple of decades and is hardly essential, but as a competent old-school-style slasher it passes the time acceptably.

VOD: Fistful Of Vengeance (dir: Roel Reine, 2022)

"Do I need to remind you that we need to stop a god from destroying reality?"

...or Wu Assassins go to Bangkok, as the central trio from the Netflix show relocates from San Francisco to Thailand, in what starts off as Kai seeking vengeance evolving into a quest to take out a supernatural demi-god villainess.  There is little down-time between the extensive over-heavily-choreographed fight sequences, which are occasionally a little bloodier than the TV show, but there is a good mix of fighting styles and wirework.  The second half hearkens back to the Asian supernatural films of the 1980s oddly mixed with an occasional Fast and Furious vibe.  Location shooting is vibrant, and the returning main actors are good value, with Lewis Tan especially swaggering his way through the mayhem effectively, and an Iko Uwais fight scene is always worth a watch.  Fistful Of Vengeance is as generic as its title, and will not appeal much beyond fans of the TV series.

VOD: Snake Eyes - G.I. Joe Origins (dir: Robert Schwentke, 2021)

"It's not your skill that's lacking, it's your heart."

At its core, this simple revenge tale (for the death of his father) is an origin story that no-one really needed and which fails to deliver much of real interest.  With competent but anaemic fight scenes, everyone growls their lines in hushed serious tones with much familiar talk of family, loyalty and honour.  Henry Golding fits well into the enigmatic and charming protagonist role here, coming across like a young Chow Yun Fat in the A Better Tomorrow movies, and the vibrant colours and location shooting look great in HD.  Snake Eyes simply lacks the naff cheesy fun of its parent films, going instead for a serious if slightly dull approach, competently mounted but routine and lacking real energy or emotion.

VOD: Old (dir: M. Night Shyamalan, 2021)

"Stop wishing away this moment."

A suspiciously-diverse bunch of holidaymakers are dispatched on an excursion to a 'secret' paradise beach, at which the children start ageing rapidly, a knife wound heals instantly, and attempts to the leave the beach appear futile...enigma codes rapidly pile up as the characters face increasingly inexplicable and life-changing events.  Typical of Shyamalan's films, the storytelling is far from subtle, some dialogue is wince-inducing and there are some extraordinarily over-ripe melodramatic scenes, but the actual concept driving the story is engaging, bringing home the inevitability of the relentless march of time (compressed here) and our inescapable ultimate fates, even if the contrived trademark twist/explanation in the final act is somewhat eye-roll-inducing.
 

VOD: The Most Beautiful Boy In The World (dirs: Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri, 2021)

"You're not an uncomplicated person, Bjorn."

This interesting and haunting documentary about Bjorn Andresen, the child star of Visconti's Death In Venice, seems to bring full circle the long-standing arguments about how the then-proclaimed 'most beautiful boy in the world' was also exploited, by showing a brutally open exploration of Bjorn Andresen today that shows a fragile and disconnected figure, trapped in and by that big early success.  It is shot through with sense of darkness, foreboding and that singular Swedish melancholy, as the documentary covers the hysteria around Death In Venice, Andersen's subsequent manufactured pop career in Japan and an ill-fated film project in Paris, but also as the film progresses it unravels the scarring tragedies that have shaped the man's adult life.  Some scenes are immensely raw, from confronting the police evidence over what happened to his mother and the recounting the death of his son, and whilst the material cries out for the film to take a clear position, especially about Visconti and the treatment of the young actor which feels underdeveloped (although the uncomfortable screen-test footage speaks for itself) it never quite gets there as it makes a blunt link between his childhood experiences in the film industry and the rest of his life.  One striking sequence sees Andresen playing a reel-to-reel audio recording of himself at seventeen playing the piano, a clear talent hidden by the overwhelming image that defined him.  Placing the now-elderly Andresen in film locations is beyond nostalgic, the juxtapositions not just reflecting on early innocence lost but also the sadness of life that preceded and followed it.  

DVD: Resident Evil - Welcome To Raccoon City (dir: Johannes Roberts, 2021)

"Look, I think there's something seriously wrong with this place."

With the Anderson/Jovovich sextet of Resident Evil films concluded, here comes a new dingy and sweary reboot with the intention of authenticity to the games, as Claire Redfield returns to a near-deserted and almost-abandoned Raccoon City just as the T-virus manifests itself in the remaining population.  The action is set over one night with a ticking-clock deadline, which helps to generate what little tension there is.  The film is relentlessly obvious in its deliberate 1990s stylings, but unfortunately this also applies to the overworn genre trappings and offers little that is new, although one late sequence does manage to capture the relentlessness and claustrophobia of the early videogames.  It is reasonably cast - Kaya Scodelario and Robbie Amell as the Redfields and Tom Hopper as proto-Wesker are reliable - but in spite of an optimistically sequel-baiting mid-credits sequence, on this showing this take on the franchise is not too promising.
 

DVD: Eternals (dir: Chloe Zhao, 2021)

"How long were you two together?"
"Five thousand years."
"I guess you could call that a long time."

One of the obvious reasons for the success of Marvel's Avengers films over DC's Justice League was Marvel's careful investment in the introduction of characters through their own films before the group outings, so it is a bold Phase Four move to showcase all of its next ensemble in one movie.  From the outset, Eternals looks and feels like a different kind of Marvel movie - well-placed between Shang-Chi and No Way Home - which brings together the mystical, mythological and technological elements of the MCU fused with director Zhao's particular cinematic style and sensitivities, but which still delivers very well on the action/FX superhero elements that we have come to expect.  The dynamic of this disparate and dysfunctional 'family' is interesting, the characters are sufficiently differentiated and introduced well - although inevitably some fare better in terms of screen/story time than others - and there is some thoughtful consideration of the weight of universal matters and responsibility on beings who have lived for millennia.  The first half jumps around time and place considerably, with copious flashbacks to fill in backstories, but it is controlled effectively.  Heavy themes of relationships, family and grief are here given a much less comic-book-style exploration than might be expected, and with the added weight of the fate of Earth and the human race, there is a lot of frowning and slow-paced walking to sit through, but Zhao's juxtaposition of the individual and huge landscapes (location shooting is an absolute bonus here) once again adds real resonance.  Of course there is a big old CG-laden punch-up at the end (and very effective it is too), but Eternals provides a very solid, considered and interesting introduction of this god-like gang of Celestials to the MCU - and if you are a fan of the Marvel franchise, do watch right through the end credits for two important scenes that set up the future of these Eternals and more...
 

DVD: Ghostbusters Afterlife (dir: Jason Reitman, 2021)

"Are you prepared to die?"
"No - I'm 12!"

Following Paul Feig's only moderately-successful female-led reboot attempt, this direct sequel to the original 1980s films takes the bold but very effective step away from familiar New York to a remote rural town to which a penniless single mother and her two children relocate following the death of her estranged father...who happens to be Egon Spengler, one of the original Ghostbusters, and with strange events hitting the town of Summerville, the new generation discover and take on their grandfather's ghostbusting legacy.  With Jason Reitman at the helm of the project (son of the original films' director), this new take is clearly made with true warmth, real affection and the best intentions to create a genuine and reverent sequel, in which it really succeeds.  The narrative reveals of connections to the past are well-paced, dialogue is effective and the film treads a very successful path between respect to the originals and creating something fresh.  The new family is quickly engaging, Paul Rudd is cast reliably as the wryly anarchic science teacher (he keeps his classes occupied watching inappropriate horror films) who becomes the adult ally of the gang, and it is the passing of the ghostbusting torch to a younger generation that makes the film work so well.  The film has a surprisingly leisurely feel at times, punctuated by well-staged action/effects set pieces, together with a lazy hazy Summer vibe that again marks it out from its predecessors and fits well with the change of location from which the film truly benefits.  It all builds to a contained but spectacular finale that manages to have big emotional impact and is a fitting finale to this warm, entertaining and very enjoyable movie.  Do stay watching for the short scenes that appear in the middle and at the end of the credits.
 

VOD: Dune (dir: Denis Villeneuve, 2021)

"Dreams make good stories, but everything important happens when we are awake, because that's when we make things happen."

This film delivers everything that you would expect from a Villeneuve take on his dream project Dune - an intelligent, ambitious and largely faithful adaptation that is visually stunning, technically flawless and delivers superbly on both spectacle and story, and it is a clear culmination of the director's films and experience so far.  The main difficulty of adapting Herbert's sprawling saga - like with Arthur C. Clarke's novels  - is taming the author's huge-scale imagination and world-building to fit a cinema screen and run-time.  Unlike the 1984 version that tried to shoehorn too much into a single film, Villeneuve made the sensible decision to approach the project as two films (the second thankfully greenlit), and whilst this film is very clearly Part 1 of a pair, it does a good job with the story and character arcs so far (and with Chalamet giving easily and thankfully his best and most truthful performance since Call Me By Your Name in the key central role - indeed, casting in general is spot-on and performances terrific).  If you know the books, this is a terrific visualisation of all the fan-pleasing elements and both the location shooting and effects work look ravishing.  It is a clear culmination of the director's films and experience so far.  The film will seem too slow and ponderous to the casual mainstream viewer, but this is no popcorn-action movie, making it a bold and spectacular hard-sci-fi experience.

VOD: Time Is Up (dir: Elisa Amoruso, 2022)

"What's Maths got to do with love?"

This uber-glossy and banal romantic 'teen'-drama feels like a painfully drawn-out episode of 90210, as wealthy, good-looking and impossibly-old-looking students play out an uninspired and thoroughly unconvincing love-triangle narrative (buff closeted golden-boy of the swim team and his model-looks Physics-student girlfriend hit the rocks as she falls for his team rival, the sensitive tattooed trailer-park Italian with cheekbones) with a lot of truly wince-inducing dialogue delivered with stilted indifference along the way. Bella Thorne's peculiar central performance is quite something to behold, her character's musings on love, science and the universe are delivered ridiculously, the intrusive and overbearing music score becomes irritating very quickly, and it is hard to imagine that even its presumed target audience - very idealistic and undiscerning teenage girls - would take to this film.

The Trip (a.k.a. I Onde Dager) (dir: Tommy Wirkola, 2021)

"Can't we just try to forget everything and have a nice weekend?"

Pitched somewhere between the dark personal horror of Haneke's Funny Games and the gory horror slapstick of Raimi's Evil Dead II, The Trip sees a bickering TV-director husband and his actress wife plan to end their marriage by each killing the other at a weekend retreat to the remote family cabin, just as the TV news announces that three dangerous criminals have escaped custody... You can almost write the rest yourself from the set-up, but the story delivers some fun and unexpected detours from expectations along the way.  Noomi Rapace and Askel Hennie deftly trade insults, the gore-gags are very entertaining in the no-holds-barred battle for survival from each other and from their unexpected criminal visitors.  As ever, Wirkola's direction is confident and his storytelling clear, as he once again demonstrates precisely how to deliver horror shocks and defuse them with perfectly-timed humour.  If you like very dark blood-soaked comedy, The Trip is a very entertaining ride.
 

VOD: Censor (dir: Prano Bailey-Bond, 2021)

"We can't afford to make mistakes."

With a strong festival reputation preceding it, Censor is an intriguing film set around the real mid-80s controversy over video censorship, as an emotionally-closed ratings board worker' sister goes missing and her sense of reality starts to crumble.  From its well-realised 80s mise-en-scene to the clever shifting of screen aspect ratios, this is a very well-made film with a an engaging central performance from Niamh Algar which portrays the protagonists's life as a sombre Kafka-esque nightmare in an alienating and alienated world that sees reality and video fantasy bleeding into each other with horrific results.  The film also does a good job of reflecting the then-Government's (and tabloid) hysterical viewpoint of horror fans being undiscerning and unintelligent as well as the responsibility held by the nation's appointed moral guardians.  
 

VOD: The Wretched (dirs: Brett Pierce and Drew T. Pierce, 2020)

"Witchypedia?"

This low-rent but capably-mounted by-the-numbers thriller sees the troubled teenage son of separated parents spending the summer with his father in a small lakeside town, where coincidentally a thousand-year-old witch is out to seek fresh child victims whilst inhabiting the body of the neighbour's wife.  The escalating tension between the suspicious teen and his nemesis is perhaps a bit too slow-burn to really catch fire, but the film is quite mild and clearly aimed the younger end of the youth audience, although the tone does darken noticeably in the final act which also contains a neatly-played narrative twist.
 

DVD: Halloween Kills (dir: David Gordon Green, 2021)

"Join me in commemorating the victims and the survivors of Michael Meyers."

As a long-time and unashamed fan of this franchise, Halloween Kills had me at its sumptuously ominous synth pads scored over the opening Universal ident!  Like the original Halloween sequel in 1981, this second film in the latest trilogy continues that fateful Halloween night in Haddonfield from the successful 2018 reboot but in a much more expansive way.   It is a very smart reimagining of elements from the 1978 and 2018 films with a ludicrously high and brutal body count - this is The Boogeyman with the brakes off - and the much-vaunted exploration of community and collective trauma is really effective in the light of this particularly sadistic rampage of Michael across the town.  It is rare to see a commercial horror film display such high-impact emotional stakes as displayed here, and it is a credit to both the screenplay and core actors that it comes across so well (Curtis is great as ever, and Judy Greer is really strong in this film).  This is the ultimate in fan-fiction, made by people who love the franchise for people who love the franchise, which means that the deep dive of characters and mythology will probably mean little to the casual viewer, but the seamless call-backs and integration of generations is admirable both on-screen and in the writing, making it a delight to watch for both Halloween fans and horror fans in general.  Objectively, the film is a bit messy at times and Jamie Lee Curtis gets worryingly sidelined for part of the film, but it all leads to a humdinger of a final scene that sets up the trilogy-closer - Halloween Ends - in a shocking and personal way.