VOD: Disenchanted (dir: Adam Shankman, 2022)

"Does anyone in Andalasia ever just SAY stuff?"
"Not if we can help it!"

Following a nifty animated recap and set-up at the start, Disney's belated sequel to the delightful Enchanted finds time moved on with Giselle and Robert now parents to a stereotypically sarcastic teen daughter and a baby moving to a new life in rural suburban Monroeville, with a wishing wand MacGuffin and Giselle's desire for a fairy-tale life quickly unravelling and corrupting and pitching her against the local queen bee, played here by Maya Rudolph.  Some of the strengths of the original film are evident here - Amy Adams again charms magnificently, James Masters's Prince still blusters preposterously (but is criminally underused this time around), and the juxtaposition of fairy-tale and real-life values has some effective moments - and the freshness of the first film is here tempered with more maturity and an interesting character arc for Giselle as she moves into antagonist territory.  However, the other characters have little to do other than to grind through the plot mechanics (even Robert's fairy-tale character growth segment feels shoehorned in), Rudolph's character feels underwritten, and the industrial-strength songs feel more like a commercial Frozen necessity than integral to the plot.  Nevertheless, Disenchanted runs with its inherent silliness, written and delivered with a largely effective lightness of touch and sense of playfulness that overall does not match the original.
 

VOD: Nope (dir: Jordan Peele, 2022)

"It's the dream you never wake up from."

Jordan Peele writes, produces and directs his third success in a row with Nope, in which the excellent Daniel Kaluuya plays a down-at-luck Hollywood horse wrangler dealing with very strange goings-on at his isolated desert ranch.  Clues are as usual seeded cleverly into the long slow-burn first two acts, in a film which doesnot necessarily go quite where you expect.  At times gloriously disorientating and with some striking images, Nope is also a masterclass of sound and visual composition, with excellent building of tension and suspense.  Kaluuya gives another perfectly-pitched performance, with Keke Palmer having real presence as his more open and sassy sister.  The film never goes full-tilt horror as a couple of sequences suggest it could, and the finale seems a little low-key - in keeping with the film as a whole, however (this is more Arrival than Independence Day) - but the overall concept works well and the movie entertains and impresses.
 

VOD: The Noel Diary (dir: Charles Shyer, 2022)

"Are you ready for this?
Absolutely not."

Another Netflix Christmas 2022 offering sees the ever-reliable Justin Hartley playing a successful single jazz-loving crime author with a tragic past who returns to the family home after the passing of his mother and gets involved with the adopted daughter of his former nanny looking into her true background.  Together, they embark on a backwoods road trip to find Hartley's estranged father for answers.  Unlike most festive-themed films, here Christmas almost provides an unnecessary backdrop to this heartfelt but very restrained film that rarely strays beyond one-note but which nevertheless quietly unfolds its quite intimate and adult tale with sincerity and clarity. 
 

VOD: Christmas With You (dir: Gabriela Tagliavini, 2022)

"Okay...I'm not feeling it."

Conveyor-belt Christmas movies tend to tread a very fine line between whimsical feel-good and crass nonsense, and this latest 2022 Latin-inflected Netflix festive offering falls firmly in the latter category, as a pop singer is under threat from upcoming talent and being dropped by her label unless she delivers a hit Christmas song.  Landing with a teenage fan and her music-teacher father when snowed in at a small town, unlikely romance and that elusive song inevitably follow.  With an unlikeable lead character and an ageing Freddie Prinze Jr as the musician/widower trying to charm, the general lack of warmth, sincerity and basic credibility do not help to sell the film, and neither does the simplistically unrealistic portrayal of the music industry.

 

VOD: Terrifier 2 (dir: Damien Leone, 2022)

"Something really bad's going to happen tonight..."

The cult hit that had Americans fainting in the aisles sees maniacal serial killer Art The Clown mysteriously resurrected to wreak further havoc on Miles Grove one year on, trading up the cheap grindhouse aesthetic of the first film for a more shiny and ambitious 80s Elm Street vibe.  The selling point here is obviously the showstopping practical gore sequences which punctuate the story, which viewers will either find revolting or spectacular.  Right from the opening sequence, Terrifier 2 takes Grand Guignol to excess with the swift, sharp and impactful scenes of carnage that are very well realised and given a nastier twist with Art The Clown's childishly gleeful disregard for human suffering.  The film is unpleasant and unapologetic - and yes, the bedroom murder scene is as grimly unpleasant as its notoriety suggests - but the film is not remotely scary, having at times an hypnotic hallucinatory style that feels like David Lynch meets early Sam Raimi.  The film is surpisingly effectively structured, touching on internet influence on a young boy who becomes obsessed by Art's previous rampage, and an early Clown Cafe sequence plays like a demented version of Pee-wee's Playhouse.   Perhaps in terms of the overt violence it is no more extreme than some of the 70s and 80s Italian genre classics, and Terrifier 2 is ultimately little more than an ultra-cheap slasher done well, but to its credit it has punched through to provide a new horror icon for our times.
 

VOD: Falling For Christmas (a.k.a. Christmas In Wonderland) (dir: Janeen Damian, 2022)

"What we need is a miracle."

Netflix's first big Christmas offering of 2022 sees the much-trumpeted return of Lindsay Lohan as a spoiled privileged woman at an elite ski resort, who loses her memory after an accident that brings her into the orbit of a nice handsome widower who runs a failing hotel and she slowly learns the meaning of life and true love.  True to the genre, the film is full of broad stereotypes (obnoxious self-absorbed influencer boyfriend, cute young girl missing her mummy, wise grandmother, etc), eye-rolling very simplistic slapstick comedy and absolutely no subtlety whatsover.  The film lurches along in an unconvincing and uninteresting manner, which thankfully does not make many demands of Lohan's talents, with Chord Overstreet twinkling appropriately in the widower role.  Lazy cynicism even extends to a 'comedy' moment when Lohan switches on a TV to be greeted by the Netflix ident and another of their Christmas movies and the sudden end gambit taken from It's A Wonderful Life.  At least the film has real snow and the scenery is very pretty in this otherwise gaudy, obvious and insincere film.
 

VOD: My Policeman (dir: Michael Grandage, 2022)

"Nothing happens unless you dream of it first."

Amazon Studios brings us this poignant but restrained love triangle that sees a later-years married couple taking in a now-stroke-afflicted old friend, juxtaposed with extended flashbacks to the 1950s that sees the early years of their relationship/marriage and the husband's secret affair with the male friend.  With a similar feel and use of locations to 2020's Hope Gap, the big selling-point is Harry Styles as the young policeman drawn into a clandestine affair with the more-secure museum curator before settling down to marriage, and he gives a charming if adequate performance appropriate to the character, overshadowed by other more experienced players such as Rupert Everett as the older version of the friend.  The film captures the Sussex Coast beautifully, from wintry modern day to sunnier times past, and a 'business trip' to Venice conveys a nice sense of release for the two young men, but in terms of the overall story the two halves both feel underwritten and neither fully developed, with two films seemingly vying for attention within the same space in this worthy if slightly unremarkable presentation.
 

VOD: The Takeover (dir: Annemarie van de Mond, 2022)

"Not all of us understand this stuff."

This inexplicably-popular Dutch cyber-thriller follows eco-warrior/ethical hacker Mel, who uncovers unexpected malware during a routine software check that leads to a global conspiracy and finds herself out of her depth and on the run with an unexpected ally in the form of a former failed date.  The film feels somewhat quaintly old-fashioned and has a decidedly mixed tone that veers from taking a children's-TV-level approach to its topic that rings somewhat simplistically to adults (even servers make bleepy generic sci-fi noises), yet it also has moments of unforgiving on-screen violence.  Unconvincingly linking a global threat to - er - Rotterdam's first self-driving bus system, this gloomy and underpowered TV-style drama is a rather vapid and unengaging affair overall.  
 

VOD: Enola Holmes 2 (dir: Harry Bradbeer, 2022)

"If you stay true to yourself, your path will always find you again."

Quite literally hitting the ground running, this delightful sequel is thankfully a case of lightning striking twice, as we find Enola Holmes with her own failing detective agency but quickly becoming embroiled in a missing person mystery that threads through this interesting tale.  The sequel takes everything that worked in the original film and goes larger: it is bright, breezy, funny, solidly-written and tightly-constructed, and the self-aware/fourth-wall-breaking moments are played very nicely indeed.  Enola Holmes 2 is very efficient lightweight entertainment, but it does an extremely good job of engaging and maintaining interest and drawing in the viewer - even its movie-world vision of 19th Century London is not too distracting.  Again, Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill (as Sherlock again) really sell the story with aplomb through their own performances and their excellent partnership, and even Louis Patridge as Enola's love-interest seems to have a better hang of the style this time.  With the excellent Himesh Patel set up as Watson right at the end, a third film is a must.
 

VOD: Wildhood (dir: Brettan Hannam, 2022)

"It's hard to do things alone."

As Link and his younger brother flee their violent, abusive alcoholic father and hit the road in search of their long-estranged mother, the brutal and jarring domestic/child abuse opening scenes soon give way to the more familiar road-trip/coming-of-age format and a much quieter and gentler journey of self-discovery follows, as they hook up with a young guy on their journey and Link tentatively starts to trust and find love.  This Canadian indie is unhurried and beautifully-lensed, with an enormously sensitive and appealing performance by Phillip Lewitski at its heart that drives this understated and pleasantly engaging movie.
 

VOD: Firestarter (dir: Keith Thomas, 2022)

"I hoped this would've gone better."

Another Blumhouse remake/reboot, this time of a not-so-classic 80s horror originally penned by Stephen King, sees a father (who underwent experiments by a shady government corporation as a student, leading to special abilities) and a mother shielding their daughter and her emerging psychokinetic powers from being tracked down by a ruthless mercenary to bring them back into the company fold.  The film kicks off with a couple of interesting and dynamic opening scenes, but it quickly turns into a very soft and underwhelming affair that never really takes off.  Zac Efron acquits himself acceptably in the father role, and there is a suitably menacing score from the reliable Carpenter/Carpenter/Davies trio, but ultimately an awkward mix of underbaked telekinesis/mind-control/firestarting concepts and a very thin story undermine the promising start. 
 

VOD: Grimcutty (dir: John Ross, 2022)

"If it's trendy, Amir, kids will do just about anything."

Working with the hardly-revolutionary idea that mobile phones, social media and videogames can be addictive and bad for the youth of today, Grimcutty is a very basic bargain-basement thriller with dull dialogue, slow pacing and flat presentation.  As the Grimcutty meme drives teens to self-harm and somehow finds physical form (via an unconvincing large-scale animatronic puppet), and paranoid parents try to take away their children's tech and cut off their internet access, the theme is terribly laboured, acting certainly won't trouble the Oscars voters, and with most of the film limited to an ordinary-looking family home, there is little here to hold interest.  There is an unexpected attempt at sincerity in the final moments, but it is unclear whether this is a genuine moment of reflection on real-life teenage problems or an attempt to give the film some sort of credibility and validity.
 

VOD: The Black Phone (dir: Scott Derrickson, 2022)

"I want this to really hurt."

This Blumhouse release of Scott Derrickson's adaptation of a Joe Hill short story pitches an ordinary community terrorised by a series of child abductions and murders, and the latest victim trapped in his abductor's basement plots to escape with the assistance of the spirits of past victims by that black (disconnected) phone.  Set in the late 1970s, the retro-stylings contribute greatly to the grimy feel, and the ever-present threat and reality of both high-school and domestic violence is openly and unflinchingly well-handled - and on top of that the masked child-snatcher becomes a horrible part of everyday life for the community and its children.  The nerve-jangling soundscape is very effective, and the confined space of the kidnapper's basement is shot very effectively.  The film makes great demands of its young cast who perform admirably, especially Mason Thames in the lead role, and Ethan Hawke gives an eerily controlled performance as The Grabber.  The Black Phone is a simple and solid idea which is executed very well here.
 

FILM: Black Panther Wakanda Forever (dir: Ryan Coogler, 2022)

"We are home."

In Wakanda Forever, Ryan Coogler has created a sequel under difficult circumstances that is superior to the first film and also somewhat different to the usual Marvel fare (rather more complex than the standard superhero/antagonist formula).  The loss of T'Challa/Chadwick Boseman runs deservedly deeply through the film, not least in the powerful and emotional opening and closing scenes that had some audience members audibly weeping.  Surviving grief is indeed the overwhelming theme here, but the interesting thread of responsibility and consequences of choices (developed from the first film) drives the well-constructed narrative in interesting and compelling ways.  With T'Challa gone, Wakanda Forever belongs to the female characters, who are formidable talents to watch in this film: Angela Bassett is simply extraordinary, Danai Gurira is an utterly magnetic presence, and Letitia Wright steps up absolutely in her expanded and more mature central role that displays an excellent blend of lightness and depth.  It is interesting to use this closer to MCU Phase Four to look back at the first phase of the Infinity Saga; if this group of films has drawn criticism for its lack of evident cohesion, it functions in a similar way to that first MCU batch by introducing new key players that will (most likely) form the next planned Avengers ensemble.  However, here the introduction of new antagonist Namor in this final and solo outing Phase Four film is a bold move that pays off, with Tenoch Huerta giving real substance to the character, not just in his physicality and power in the role but also the excellent moments of calm, measured and understated menace as a somewhat more nuanced villain than usual.  The introduction of Namor also allows for a new and creative visual palette (for the underwater kingdom and its denizens) to be utilised together with the addition of its South American heritage perspective.  It pushes towards three hours but never feels overlong, taking its time to allow the characters and plot developments to breathe in a careful way but always engaging in its storytelling.  The film is inevitably more serious and calmer than Black Panther but it still has some well-placed wry moments, and the action sequences are again sharp and energetic, leading to an epic concluding battle that still manages to focus on very personal choices and emotions.  To nit-pick, some weak CGI Wakanda backgrounds in particular are distracting like in the first film, but by confronting the sad circumstances of real life head-on, Waklanda Forever is an admirable and very worthy sequel indeed.  Note: there is one mid-credits scene (after the beautiful Rihanna song) that is significant for the (presumably very long-term) future of the MCU!