FILM: Saw X (dir: Kevin Greutert, 2023)

"That is a lot of pain to inflict on others."

Nearly two decades on, the tenth Saw film sees many of the original band reuniting, and it ranks almost up there with the original trilogy and is certainly much better than any of the subsequent entries.  The idea of presenting a 'lost chapter' from early in the series works extremely well, not least for the fact that it gives Tobin Bell the opportunity to play John Kramer as a living character and in more than just cameo form - indeed, he is on screen most of the time and gives a wonderful controlled character performance, as he wreaks moral vengeance on the team who scam him with an alleged cancer cure.  The personal stakes make this entry more compelling than most (no random insurance agents here), storytelling is focused, tight and particularly smart in the final act (even an apparent big Plot Hole actually plays out very well in the final stages, but one random discovery remains unexplained), Amanda (the great Shawnee Smith) gets a good arc to play, the signature uneasy green/blue grading with pops of red lighting works well, and Charlie Clouser provides an excellent score/soundscape.  The first act may be a little slow yet sets up the story well, but the traps/games this time are pure Grand Guignol and suitably unpleasant, and overall Saw X marks a real return to form for the franchise.  The fan-pleasing end credits scene also wraps up one of the film's dangling character storylines nicely.   
 

FILM: A Haunting In Venice (dir: Kenneth Branagh, 2023)

"Scary stories make life less scary."

Agatha Christie's moderate potboiler novel Hallowe'en Party gets transplanted to 1947 Venice, providing another sharp turn in mood and tone for the third of Kenneth Branagh's Poirot films and an interesting upgrade to the source material.  Here, a hardened and weary retired Poirot (again played with wonderful precision by Branagh), living in Venice, is pressed by his famous crime-writing friend to attend and debunk a séance conducted by the renowned and convincing Mrs Reynolds (the magnificent Michelle Yeoh) at a haunted orphanage, but as a murder takes place and the party is locked in and stormbound, Poirot finds himself positioned to unveil the medium as a fraud and solve the murder.  The mood of the film is very sombre and melancholy, the case itself is relatively simple (clues are obvious) but it is elegantly presented, and the film proves to be a sound technical exercise for director Branagh, full of noir-ish flourishes (Dutch angles, long shadows, very-high angle shots, unsettlingly-foregrounded close-ups).  The film boasts another excellent ensemble cast, notably including Tina Fey as an excellent foil/side-kick to Poirot and Jamie Dornan as the war-haunted doctor.  The film may he high on atmosphere yet low on real thrills, but it is very well-presented on all fronts and interesting to look at.

 

VOD: Marcel the Shell With Shoes On (dir: Dean Fleischer Camp, 2023)

"That's perfect."

In this bizarre but completely charming and loveable film, Marcel is a one-inch tall, one-eyed shell (with shoes on), who lives with his grandmother Connie in a house being used as an AirBnB and becomes the subject of a documentary made by director Dean Fleischer Camp (staying at the house), which goes viral and leads to a road trip to find Marcel's missing 'family'.  Utterly sweet and captivating from the opening moments, presented in the form of an intimate online documentary, the film is inventive, silly, smart, funny, cute and emotionally engaging (be prepared to have your heart broken around one hour in), as we share Marcel's life from everyday practicalities to his new celebrity status and then exploring the big wide world.  The film absolutely rattles along, it is full of little delightful moments, and it also manages to include considerations on the role of the film-maker, the nature of social media, and even old age.   If you buy into the film's uniquely quirky charm you will find this film an absolute delight.
 

VOD: Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse (dirs: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson, 2023)

"I just have a lot going on!"

This follow-up to 2018's much-admired Into the Spider-Verse had a lot to live up to, and it delivers superbly.  Fully embracing the multiverse concept from the very start, the sequel is even bolder than the original in terms of its staggeringly creative visual stylings and epic storytelling on offer that fuses East/West and traditional/cutting-edge animation with ease.  Its relentless energy and sheer speed is almost overwhelming and utterly absorbing.  What this film also does incredibly well is maintain its teenage perspective/sensitivity through Miles and Gwen, even with Miles being slightly older this time round, and the other lead characters are fleshed out satisfactorily.  With the central relationships between Miles and Gwen/his parents at the fore, a purposeful new villain and the useful addition of the multiverse-policing Spider Society, visuals and story are well-matched and offer a wealth of content for the viewer, and the rather abrupt ending of this much-publicised 'part one of two' makes the promise of the (next) concluding movie very welcome indeed. 

 

VOD: The Flash (dir: Andy Muschietti, 2023)

"Sometimes you just have to let go."

Hitting the ground running (sorry) with a mini-Justice League episode, the first big-screen 'solo' outing for The Flash may have underwhelmed at the box office but - damning with faint praise - it is perhaps one of the more interesting and entertaining of the recent DC movies.  Here, Barry Allen uses his powers to undo the death of his mother, inadvertently rewriting history wholesale and teaming up with his dorky alt-dimension-ego, Michael Keaton's Batman and a new Supergirl to thwart Zod's invasion (given little time here) and correct the timelines; to say that the film is stuffed with competing elements is self-evident, but Muschietti just about holds it all together.  Grant Gustin's excellent TV incarnation of the character may be more genial and mainstream, but - controversies aside - Ezra Miller is always a quirky and watchable character actor, and here he plays not only the emotional and comedic beats well but also the two Barrys (often on screen at the same time).  The film sometimes strains a little too hard to be zany, but it delivers the alt-timelines/time travel/multiverse shenanigans effectively.  As for the current oft-criticised quality of CGI in superhero movies, it is simply the ambition of some sequences where the CGI can look somewhat unconvincing, but in general The Flash fares much better than, say, Aquaman or Quantumania, as there is a lot of nice design on display.  This film may feel inconsistent and a little rambling, but it has many fan-pleasing moments, one terrific use of the f-bomb, and it fulfils its purpose to provide easy blockbuster thrills and entertainment.

 

VOD: Love At First Sight (dir: Vanessa Caswill, 2023)

"I'm down for a cheesy rom-com...as long as there's a happy ending..."

Adapted from a novel, this popular Netflix rom-com finds twenty-year-old American Hadley missing her flight to London and consequently crossing paths in the airport and then on the next plane with British Yale student Oliver, and so the 'love at first sight' theory is tested over the next twenty-four hours.  Although she is the slightly chaotic and quirky American and he is the data-driven and slightly uptight Brit, the stereotypes and underplayed in favour of following two pleasant and emotionally-battered young people, played engagingly by Haley Lu Richardson and Ben Hardy.   Separated on arrival in London, the second and third acts are about finding out if fate and serendipity can bring them together (alongside Jamella Jamil playing various roles as Narrator/Muse), with Oliver's story evidently sensibly boosted up from the novel and some good supporting work on show, especially Sally Phillips as Oliver's mother.  Pitched somewhere between the Bridget Jones films and When Harry Met Sally but much younger and more innocently, Love At First Sight is simple, really sweet, and generically on the nose (very middle class, utterly improbable, annoying wispy acoustic cover of an 80s banger), leaving little impression but doing what it does well.
 

VOD: Nimona (dirs: Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, 2023)

"Rhinoceros?"

Based on a graphic novel, Nimona is a shape-shifting teenager within a walled city that fuses courtly myth and future tech, who crosses paths with a disgraced knight who is framed for murdering the Queen and the pair go on the run.  This is a brash, bright and lively concoction , very much in the current SpiderVerse trend of mixing different styles of animation with its punk and traditional stylings and vibes.  The script is quirky, snappy and funny, and the simple streamlined story zips along breathlessly.  Chloe Moretz Grace and Riz Ahmed do great voice-work as the leads, delivering the film's big themes of acceptance and understanding engagingly, all swept along by a gorgeous Christophe Beck score.   Managing to be sweet, funny, anarchic and moving, Nimona is an unexpectedly delightful animated treat.
 

VOD: Women Talking (dir: Sarah Polley, 2023)

REVIEW No. 1,500!

"So when something like this happened there was no language for it. And without language for it, there was a gaping silence. And in that gaping silence was the real horror."

Inspired by real events in the 2000s, where the females in a remote isolated Bolivian religious community were being systematically drugged and sexually abused by the male followers, Sarah Polley's adaptation of Miriam Toews's novel takes place in rural America, as the women face what is happening in their lives and those of their children, and we follow a cross-generational group chosen from three families tasked to make a decision - "Do nothing.  Stay and fight.  Leave." - in a barn over twenty-four hours.    Whilst not without moments of levity, this is a very sombre and solemn examination of not just female empowerment and self-realisation but also of religious belief and personal (female) identity.  The muted visual palette capably reflects the life drained from these women and the stark simplicity of the attitudes and way of life they endure.  The quality of the writing is sublime - frequently, the utterance of single line can be devastating in effect - and this is a true ensemble of extraordinary performances by all of the (female) cast led by Rooney Mara as the pregnant Ona, plus a heartbreakingly sensitive turn by Ben Whishaw as the minute-taking schoolteacher.  Being set in 2010 makes the juxtaposition of attitudes in this seemingly old-fashioned community with the current climate makes for some challenging thoughts on societal roles and attitudes.  The film is extremely measured and theatrical in style, but what is actually being said and considered - together with the individual lives of these characters - is utterly compelling; to create a movie that is so gentle and yet so powerful and impactful is a terrific achievement.

 

VOD: Moonage Daydream (dir: Brett Morgen, 2022)

"All is transient."

This music documentary takes on the creative/performance and beliefs/philosophy aspects of the life of David Bowie, starting with Nietzsche and a kaleidoscope of 20th Century cultural/sci-fi beats set to the Hello Spaceboy remix that instantly sets up the outsider/alien facade cultivated in the media in the 1970s, and then sets out to attempt to discover just who this unique artist was with reasonable results.  Largely chronological, it picks up from Bowie's rapid rise to success in the early 70s - the 1960s and the later years are given little time here) - and it covers key points in his life/career well (London, L.A., Berlin, the 80s commercial resurgence).  Although the content of Bowie's 'philosophy' is rather repetitive, the film does give a fair insight into the eclectic experiences and ideas that fuelled his artistic and personal life.  We are left with a picture of a fragile and often lonely drifter/chameleon who spent years failing personally to resolve the commercial/artistic tension as a creative in the music industry in particular, but who found a degree of control and happiness in his later years, and whilst the director's creative flourishes are occasionally distracting, the film conveys what made Bowie special as a performer to a good extent, with the music and ideas evident in the (choice of often stripped-back) live footage and later more reflective interviews.

 

VOD: Magic Mike's Last Dance (dir: Steven Soderbergh, 2023)

"I don't really do that any more."

The law of diminishing returns is very evident in this bizarre trilogy-capper that finds Mike (Channing Tatum) bartending at a high-class charity function held by a wealthy near-divorcee Max (Salma Hayek Pinault)...and one private dance and rapid-fire montage later, he is charged with transforming a staid rep theatre in London (somehow involved in the divorce settlement) into an exotic male dancer experience, i.e. a one-step-removed half-movie-length advert for the Magic Mike stage show.  The film is essentially a two-hander between the leads, who thankfully have enough easy-going chemistry and knowing experience to deliver the woeful script, there is a dreadful intermittent voice-over by Max's daughter that adds nothing, and there are annoying moments of fly-on-the-wall documentary-style shooting at odd moments.  Ostensibly the film is about re-tooling a period costume drama into a statement on female empowerment (i.e. by adding male strippers), but this is simply a silly film with a quite ridiculously daft final act. 

 

VOD: The Matrix Resurrections (dir: Lana Wachowski, 2021)

"I remember this."

It is difficult for today's generation to imagine the impact the original film had in 1999, catching us almost unawares as the build up to the eagerly-anticipated Star Wars - The Phantom Menace was in full swing!  This unexpected and hugely belated fourth entry in The Matrix series got lost in the pandemic to some extent, but it was also not really needed after the epic wrap-up of the original trilogy story and - as it turned out - not really wanted by cinemagoers.  Here, something is afoot in The Matrix game, whilst in the (seemingly) real world Thomas Anderson (Keanu) is a world-leading but troubled game creator; with Warner Brothers demanding a belated sequel to his property in the film(!), this initially meta-driven tale soon gives way to the Matrix world, and its intricacies demand attention and an in-depth knowledge of the franchise from the start.  Familiar action beats are delivered well but offer nothing to raise the bar.  At the film's core is a consideration about what The Matrix really is and -unexpectedly - becomes a love story, as Neo/the audience grapples through a pick-and-mix remix and alt-staging of scenes and characters from the first three movies.  Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return and are terrific as expected,  Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jonathan Groff work well as the 'new' Morpheus and Smith (with another great duke-out scene with the latter), and Neil Patrick Harris is good in the interesting role of Thomas's psychiatrist.  Resurrections is a clear nostalgia-grab that fulfils that role but also carries with it some of the weaker aspects of the second and third films, it is visually beautiful and sporadically interesting, and it frequently disappears up its own backside, and while it is interesting and diverting enough, it really could have done with more of its own individual identity as a late sequel.
 

VOD: The LIttle Mermaid (2023) (dir: Rob Marshall, 2023)

HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY TO MY BLOG!

"Then I'll use her as a prawn in my little game..."

Clocking in at a third longer than the original classic animated movie, the latest in Disney's back-catalogue plundering gets the (semi-)live action treatment, with disappointing results. The undersea first act is vividly colourful and rendered in extraordinary detail, but it drags, the CG-made-over characters look odd and they never look fully integrated with the environment, and things do not improve much as it moves to dry land and the royal castle.  In terms of the humans, Halle Bailey is acceptably sweet as Ariel if alarmingly young-looking, Jonah Hauer-King is rather - um - wet as the Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy is good value as the scheming Aunt Ursula, and Javier Bardem is oddly restrained as King Triton but livens up eventually.  The occasional songs are given the full-tilt Frozen approach, but even they underwhelm.  The whole approach here is rather tepid and twee, with the extended running time not really used to any great purpose, making this easily one of the weakest of Disney's live-action-remakes so far.    
 

VOD: Fast X (dir: Louis Leterrier, 2023)

"It's like a cult...with cars..."

The beginning of the end of the Fast saga, Fast X cleverly opens by retro-fitting Part 5's big heist sequence to provide a new villain and give Jason Momoa an excuse for familial revenge as this episode's big bad and then re-establishes the importance of family at the iconic Toretto home, before a set-up mission finds the team separated, put on the world's Most Wanted list and pitted against an unstoppably deranged nemesis.  Fast X delivers exactly what fans will expect at this stage of the enterprise, built around a run of slickly-demented action sequences across the entire planet and relentless one-liners-filled dialogue, but here with real deep dives and call-backs across the whole of the franchise.  Highlights include a gobsmackingly destructive car/bomb chase through Rome, the return of John Cena at his comedy best, and Little Brian simply being adorable.  Particular kudos goes to director Leterrier for stepping in at the very last minute and doing such an effective job of marshalling the mayhem.  It might go down as one of the unusual 2023 blockbusters that unexpectedly did not set the box office on fire, but Fast X is well made, it has a credible threat (Mamoa is gloriously ruthless and unhinged and brings much to the film) and importantly it brings a sense of fun back to the franchise.  Fans cannot complain that it is left on a big cliffhanger (dambuster?) as this was well signposted in the promotion, but this Summer's Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One proved that you can wrap up the first of a two-parter effectively and leave room to carry on.  With vague threats of two films remaining rather than initial reports of this being the first of a two-part finale, perhaps the next film should wrap up the Fast saga before it really wears out its welcome.
 

VOD: You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah (dir: Sammi Cohen, 2023)

"Everybody in this house needs a shrink!"
"You need two."

Being sold on the presence of Adam Sandler, there is a real difference between 'an Adam Sandler movie' (excruciating attempts at comedy, horrible stereotyping/caricatures) and 'a movie with Adam Sandler in it' (where he does genuine character work), and thankfully this is one of the latter, as we have here a teen/coming-of-age movie filtered through the Jewish community and a 12-year-old girl's upcoming bat mitzvah.  With Sandler's real-life daughters playing the on-screen sisters with aplomb, Sandler takes more of a back-seat with a delightfully controlled and understated performance as their father together with the experienced professionalism of Idina Menzel as the mother.  The rest of the junior cast shows a range of young characters and are charming in their roles.  The delightfully snarky script rolls along effortlessly on a wave of relentless energy, nailing both the comedy and drama of navigating typical young-teen rites-of-passage moments including friendship difficulties, the generation gap, peer group, periods and crushes.  The film also manages to feel fresh and contemporary yet being respectful to the community and traditions it represents, making it feel sincere, and all leading to the sweetest feel-good ending for a very enjoyable film.
 

VOD: Knock At The Cabin (dir: M.Night Shyamalan, 2023)

"There's always a choice."

Clearly drawing on Hitchcock and early Stephen King, a couple and their eight-year-old daughter are vacationing in an idyllic isolated forest cabin, when they are visited by a group of four determined strangers, who inform them that they must sacrifice one of their family in order to prevent the Apocalypse.  After a somewhat talky and laboured opening, the stakes are suddenly raised dramatically, but the story and premise is so limited that this is barely a half-hour Twilight Zone episode stretched out to movie length, even with the largely-superfluous family flashbacks that pad it out and attempt to give rather blunt (and unnecessary) depth to the couple's story.  Nevertheless, the performances are good all round, Shyamalan's direction is unshowy, but the story never has the necessary impact it should have.  
 

VOD: Boiling Point (dir: Philip Barantini, 2021)

"Have I ever let you down?"

Shot just before the pandemic, Boiling Point follows the ever-excellent Stephen Graham as a tough put-upon head chef in a busy restaurant on a Friday night before Christmas; as well as Graham, the rest of the cast of very individual characters create a fascinating patchwork of stories across the evening.  The draw here is the single-camera/one-take approach, which gives the film not only its fly-on-the-wall real-time documentary feel but also keeps viewer attention with its constant movement and flow, with both direction and writing keeping the shift of story focus moving along very effectively indeed.  In the midst of the busy action there are some beautifully-created small moments that hit hard, and as the evening wears on the tension between the kitchen, front-of-house and different customers provides genuine interest, leading to an amazing ensemble scene about fifteen minutes from the end and a disturbing conclusion.  With its handful of limited-space locations and talented cast deftly deployed, Boiling Point is one of those cinematic experiments that pays off..
 

VOD: Killer Book Club (a.k.a. El Club De Los Lectores Criminales) (dir: Carlos Alonso Ojeas, 2023)

"Stop stealing stories, and start living your own."

This straightforward YA Spanish murder-mystery finds a college book club of horror buffs, all deliberate stereotypes (The Librarian, The Influencer, etc) - being picked off one-by-one by a clown-masked killer as each new chapter of the story is published online.  Following a revenge prank against a predatory professor that sets the wheels in motion, the film rapidly becomes a modern-day update and relocation of I Know What You Did Last Summer for the online generation , clearly inspired by the wave of creepy-clown TikToks, styled like a Happy Death Day/Christopher Landon movie and with Scream-like self-referencing (even with a lecture-room discussion about the state of the horror genre).  Storytelling is simple and literal (and it actually includes a feeble wispy-voiced slow cover of It's A Sin at one point!), the film is well edited, it has a huge generic music score and there is a visually pleasing use of a range of locations.  Of its type, Killer Book Club does what it does effectively enough and would mostly appeal to young teens unfamiliar with this type of story.