FILM: Civil War (dir: Alex Garland, 2024)

"That's the job."

A24's biggest film so far is well worth the resources on display, yet it is still clearly not a big Hollywood studio film.  Four photojournalists of varying age and experience go on a road trip through a near-future civil-war-torn America to try to get to the failing President in Washington for a final interview.  The film ably displays Garland's intelligence and craft, both in terms of ideas and execution on screen, and it is a perplexing experience for the viewer, who has to deal with big ideas and very personal situations as well as the strongly immediate and visceral experience presented.  Transplanting the kind of imagery associated with current Middle east news reports to the American homeland is a bold move that is pulled off very well indeed.  This is possibly Kirsten Dunst's career-best performance which is outstanding, with excellent support from Wagner Moura as her sidekick and Jesse Plemons almost stealing the film with a single terrifying scene.  This film is a tough and rewarding watch, which offers more than just its central metaphor - a camera is a gun - right through to its audacious, haunting and powerful finale.  Civil War delivers on every level.
 

FILM: Abigail (dirs: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, 2024)

"Now is NOT the time for sarcasm, OK?"

The Radio Silence team delivers yet another fun, commercial horror movie that is slick, efficient and very entertaining.  An eclectic gang is hired to kidnap the twelve-year-old ballet-loving daughter of a notoriously nasty crime boss and babysit her at an isolated mansion for twenty-hours for a huge ransom.  Soon they uncover far more than they expect, the big twist - as unnecessarily revealed in the trailer - being that she is a vampire as they become trapped and picked off as her latest victims.  Balancing humour and horror very well, sound design, set design, SFX and music score all make very strong contributions, and there are some absolutely gleeful Grand Guignol moments.  The ensemble cast generally works well, with Dan Stevens as ever head-and-shoulders above the rest, Melissa Barrera relentlessly adequate and Angus Cloud good fun as stoner-driver Dean.  Pretending to be nothing more than hugely entertaining popcorn fodder, Abigail delivers very well.  Whilst watching it on a cinema screen, a curious throwback thought occurred: this would have looked great in 3D!
 

VOD: Rebel Moon Part Two - The Scargiver (dir: Zack Snyder, 2024)

"I don't think I want to die at all.  But if I must..."

Opening with a voice-over recap of the first film, read by Anthony Hopkins like a shopping list of silly fantasy names, and a standard sci-fi resurrection of Ed Skrein's Admirable Noble, this is very much a Part Two that is - to some extent - an improvement on its predecessor.  To say that this film is a game of two halves is an understatement, as the first fifty-minutes are utterly skippable, unless you have a penchant for slow-motion farming and drearily-told unnecessary back stories for each of Kora's ragtag band of fighters assembled in the first movie.  However, once the baddies come to collect the harvest and the battle begins, The Scargiver picks up enormously and morphs into a terrific, relentless sci-fi actioner with genuine stakes, lives lost and a surprisingly grounded visual aesthetic that works very well indeed.  Whilst the 'one village takes a stand against the Motherworld ' story is worthy, its silly improbability and thinness of actual plot and concept makes the whole enterprise feel rather lightweight.  Nevertheless, if you like huge-scale, noisy sci-fi action then the second half is very strong indeed, and the threat of a hitherto-unmentioned Part Three set up right at the end would hopefully take it beyond the village confines.

 

VOD: Anyone But You (dir: Will Gluck, 2023)

"I feel you can't leave me alone."
"Same reason I slow down at a car crash."

This surprisingly popular American grown-up rom-com hits familiar tropes from the start in an unexpected coffee shop encounter between Bea and Ben - complete with splashing bathroom sink tap that soaks her jeans - and after a perfect night together, an unfortunate overheard conversation the next morning brings the budding relationship crashing down.  Six months later, a frosty chance run-in is followed by a trip to Australia for a friend/family wedding that forces them together into endless snarky dialogue and unlikely comedic situations, as they decide to pretend to be an item to keep everyone happy and off their backs.  It is all very polished, shiny and sunny, peddling the typical fabulously wealthy and good-looking rom-com fantasy lifestyle, but Anyone But You is generally quite well-written and performed effectively - as the lead couple, Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell absolutely give it all they've got - and there is a level of self-awareness that makes the film one of the more bearable and entertaining modern examples of the genre.   
 

VOD: Cobweb (dir: Samuel Bodin, 2023)

"Not everything is a s sweet as it seems."

Staring off one week before Halloween, young bullied loner Peter starts to hear noises in the walls of his bedroom.  Dismissed by his scared mother (an uneven Lizzy Caplan) and scary father (Anthony Starr bringing some of The Boys' Homelander menace) but supported by his naive substitute teacher, Peter starts to hear the voice of a girl who (supposedly) went missing one Halloween that moves into something much more sinister.  Familiar Halloween iconography works - the town is even called Holdenfield! - and the music score is mostly effective, but the story is extremely simple and the wheels come flying off around the halfway mark.  As the unconvincing story reveal descends into an oddly-placed home-invasion scenario and a dimly-lit runaround ending, little lasting impression is left.
 

VOD: The Tearsmith a.k.a. Fabbricante Di Lacrime (dir: Alessandro Genovesi, 2024)

"Are you just gonna stare at me?"

Adapted from a YA novel, Italian Netflix gives us this moody classy-looking crack at the Twilight market in another tale of two chiselled young men obsessing over a rather dull young woman.  Orphaned as a child, Nica eventually gets adopted as a teenager from a bleak orphanage together with distant, handsome brooding piano-playing Rigel, the object of her unrequited feelings who harbours his own dark desires.  Add in pretty blond Lionel, the new schoolmate who vies for Nica's affections, and the classic YA love triangle is set in motion.  Muddled fairy-tale motifs drift in and out, the characters have a propensity for talking in annoying metaphor-loaded one-liners, and after an hour of creepy scenes of sexual tension you will snigger at the father's classic unintentionally funny line at the barbecue.  It is somewhat glum and overwrought to the point of absurd hilarity at times, but no doubt its young target audience will take the story and its characters to their hearts fervently. 
 

VOD: The Boys In The Boat (dir: George Clooney, 2023)

"We need an edge, Tom."

Back to The Great Depression in Seattle, when an impoverished engineering student Joe Rantz (a solid and amiable Callum Turner) joins the rowing team to earn money and lodgings, who find themselves qualifying for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.  Bearing some of the hallmarks of Clooney's other directorial efforts - considered, emotionally restrained, earnest to the point of a little drab - it conveys some of the hardship of the era appropriately, but basically it is a handsomely-mounted, glossy, by-the-numbers basic sports genre movie, from forming the team to training montages to major-event underdog status with the usual trials and tribulations along the way and little to surprise at all.
 

VOD: Wish (dirs: Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2024)

"Never, ever, get your hopes up."

Disney's 100-years anniversary animated feature tries to capture the essence of the brand with a story about the power of dreams and wishes, which here can literally come true through a wish ceremony, but when young Asha rebels against the selective system and wishes on a star, she has to become a fugitive and try to save the kingdom from its increasingly-evil ruler.  The animation style has an interesting storybook-illustration quality, the frequent musical numbers are forgettably bland and upbeat, and the film follows the modern Disney template of relegating the male characters to egotistical idiots and minor supporting enablers.  With its feisty female protagonist, talking animals sidekicks and soaring Broadway-style numbers at the expense of plot development, Wish feels like a Disney greatest-hits compilation that is very familiar, unremarkable and not a classic.  The sweet little end-credits scene is a nice appropriate touch.

 

VOD: How To Date Billy Walsh (dir: Alex Pillai, 2024)

"Oh, f**k off, universe!"

This MGM/Amazon Original tries to make a full-on British teen rom-com version of Sex Education with very underwhelming results.  Here, Archie has been in love with his best friend Milly for years but cannot tell her, and in their final term at private school finds a rival for her affections in newly-arrived handsome stereotype American student Billy.  The tired tropes are relentless, from Archie's fourth-wall breaking to the camp gay kid to childish on-screen graphics and its unlikeable protagonist, all leading to the usual improbable end-of-year prom.  Unlike their Elite counterparts, for example, these characters do not seem to inhabit their privilege and merely come across as smug and irritating.  The sweary script occasionally raises a smile, and whilst the film might appeal to its very young and undiscerning female teen audience, this is a very silly and annoying film to sit through otherwise.
 

FILM: Godzilla x Kong The New Empire (dir: Adam Wingard, 2024)

"Buckle up, you beautiful people!"

Probably the most fun entry in the current MonsterVerse series, GxK hits the ground running and - slight mid-section lull aside - keeps on going.  Here, the creatures are mercifully to the fore, notably Kong, and the film does a surprising job of making Kong a character rather than just a giant monster.  Of course, it does not make any sense - especially the Hollow Earth/surface leaping about - but the narrative has a drive and urgency that has not always been present in this series, and it ties in with the mythos so far effectively and even expands it.  For the human element, Rebecca Hall is effectively serious when needed and says 'Oh, my God!' a lot, Brian Tyree Henry provides acceptable comic relief, Dan Stevens is clearly having a lot of fun, and Alex Ferns gets eaten by a tree.  It has some entertaining kaiju action, with a terrific brawl when Godzilla and Kong clash (so long, Pyramids!) before uniting to defeat the enemy in a throw-everything-at-the-screen finale that makes Michael Bay look restrained, featuring a supercharged Godzilla, Kong with a bionic arm and an appearance from a newly-detailed fan-favourite Mothra, shifting from Hollow Earth to Rio, which gets well and truly Emmerich-ed.  Loose theme of parenting aside - including Kong becoming surrogate parent to a Grogu-like Mini-Kong - GxK is a simple, lively, quite fun and entertaining romp.  It will be interesting to see if they can come up with an even sillier title than this one for the next film in this franchise.

 

VOD: The Beautiful Game (dir: Thea Sharrock, 2024)

"Nobody can save themselves.  We save each other."

Inspired by true-life stories, this warm and big-hearted movie follows new player Vinnie (Micheal Ward) as he joins the England team for the 20th four-a-side Homeless World Cup in Rome.  It is anchored by a beautifully gentle Bill Nighy as the coach and another charismatic and sensitive performance by the excellent Micheal Ward, together with a tour-de-force turn by Susan Wokoma as the South African team organiser/nun, but a real strength is the ensemble playing by an engaging group of actors playing the England team.  The characters and their backstories are written and treated with compassion and dignity, focussing on human beings rather than over-politicising.  Mixed with actual football as we follow the team through the rounds and some gentle humour, The Beautiful Game balances simple, clear storytelling with issues in a very enjoyable way, and whilst it may veer somewhat on the side of sunny feel-good romanticism quite a lot, it is a very pleasant and endearing film to watch.

 

VOD: The Wages Of Fear a.k.a. Le Salaire De La Peur (dir: Julian Leclercq, 2024)

"Stay calm!"

This new French staging of the classic thriller retains some of the basic premise, as a disparate group of mercenaries is commissioned to transport volatile nitro-glycerine across hostile desert terrain in order to put out a well fire and save a village, fully updated and executed for today's audience sensibilities.  It is quite well shot on location, but it is very much a case of style over substance, with an unnecessarily overlong prologue, barely-sketched and dull characters, a surprisingly uninteresting music score and a lack of pace, all of which tend to flatten the proceedings somewhat.  Even the order of fatalities is not difficult to predict, and overall the lack of real jeopardy is noticeable as it plods to the finish line.
 

VOD: Five Nights At Freddy's (dir: Emma Tammi, 2023)

"They just wanna play."

Courtesy of Blumhouse, the long-gestating movie adaptation of the popular videogame finds troubled Mike (Josh Hutcherson) trying to look after his younger sister and taking on a night security job at an abandoned 80s pizzeria complex, where the animatronic mascots come to life with seemingly murderous intent. The mise-en-scene is pleasingly authentic to the game, but generally the film is a routine grind through jump-scares and toothless violent scenes with a disappointing lack of tension and indeed few scenes with the giant animatronic creatures. It maintains some interest more than others of its type through some good editing and interesting use of camera, together with a solid performance from Hutcherson who is on-screen almost all the time, even if pacing and tone tend to wander and plot strands never really convince or gel, such as the dour child-abduction sub-plot.  The ending smacks of rather desperate sequel-baiting, but on this evidence there is little to convince that the material would warrant another outing.
 

VOD: Next Goal Wins (dir: Taika Waititi, 2023)

REVIEW No. 1,600!

"I can't believe that pretty much actually happened!  With a couple of embellishments along the way..."

This delightful feel-good comedy-drama follows the fortunes of the notoriously weak American Samoan football team which, following their famous 31-0 defeat by Australia, employs a new (foreign) coach in order to try to score one goal in the World Cup qualifiers.  With its mix of comedy of embarrassment, underdog and fish-out-of-water story, it is consistently gently amusing, and it both embraces its silliness and digs into the emotional drama when necessary to good effect.  It is well played and nicely written with a wry tongue-in-cheek style that is very much Taika Waititi, led by a fun and genial performance by Michael Fassbender and bolstered by a breezy pop soundtrack and sunny vibe. The end-credits gag is also worth a giggle. 
 

VOD: Anatomy Of A Fall (dir: Justine Triet, 2023)

"What do you want to know?"

This award-winning (largely courtroom) thriller has the seemingly simple premise of a writer's husband falling to his death at their secluded chalet in the mountains, the movie then following the subsequent investigation and trial with a bleak elegance and intimate precision.  Exploring the justice system, truth vs. fiction, relationships and the impact of grief together with their interaction makes for absorbing viewing as the evidence unfolds in determining the innocence or guilt of the wife.  Sandra Huller totally inhabits the role of the wife in every frame, on-screen for almost all of the movie and negotiating a not-particularly-likeable character, young Milo Macada-Graner is notable for handling the demanding role of the son well, and director Triet controls the film with a quiet clarity, such as a terrific scene which juxtaposes the huge courtroom arena with the claustrophobia of marital discord in a blistering piece of recorded evidence, also played out in intercut flashback.  Anatomy Of A Fall is a demanding but superbly-executed piece of work.
 

VOD: Thanksgiving (dir: Eli Roth, 2023)

"No-one appreciates subtlety any more."

Eli Roth's output has been of very variable quality, but Thanksgiving - belatedly expanded for the trailer made for the Grindhouse project - is one of his better efforts simply by being nothing more than an adequately-executed generic old-school holiday slasher.  Starting off with a singularly out-of-control Black Friday stampede, the film moves one year later when key players in the superstore massacre start getting picked off by a masked killer, who is also live-streaming a macabre Thanksgiving dinner party.  With its insipidly-anonymous old-looking 'teenage' leads, swift and efficient kills, Patrick Dempsey as the name player doing his best to keep his dignity and a very obvious killer, Thanksgiving sits comfortably alongside its 80s/90s predecessors (with added social media and mobiles of course), with reasonable production values and a couple of nicely-done set-ups for horror fans but little more.