VOD: Roofman (dir: Derek Cianfrance, 2025)

"He's a very smart individual.  Super-intelligent, probably.  But he's also an absolute idiot."

In this quirky and surprisingly gentle drama/comedy, based on real events, Channing Tatum plays Jeffrey Manchester, a nice-guy low-level criminal who escapes jail and lives surreptitiously in a Toys'R'Us store while laying low from the police, as he tries to win back his estranged family and unexpectedly falls for one of the store's employees.  The oft-underrated Channing Tatum here invests Jeffrey with a clumsy likeability that is impressive, Kirsten Dunst plays the church-going recently-divorced love interest with a delightfully understated dignity and openness and Peter Dinklage plays the spiky store manager precisely in a strong supporting role.  The film's gentle whimsical tone - largely driven by Tatum and Dunst pushing charm to the max together with a wonderful musical score by Christopher Bear - makes the film very appealing, and Roofman is a winning, warm and easy-going but very engaging watch.  Real-life photos and interviews play out as the end credits roll.
 

VOD: Thrash (dir: Tommy Wirkola, 2026)

"Does this mean we have to get new foster parents?"

Norwegian director/writer Tommy Wirkola brings his off-beat dark humour and violence of the hugely fun Dead Snow movies and The Trip to the American shark-attack genre, as a small coastal town is flooded by a huge hurricane, and the few remaining trapped residents find themselves having to contend with the ever-rising water level and a few hungry sharks in this Netflix high-concept survival thriller.  Telling its story with a well-realised mix of CG/practical effects real-life footage - the storm's landfall sequence is particularly effective - the film is designed to torture its usual eclectic mix of characters to the max, with echoes of Jaws and 2019's Crawl in particular.  With a game cast (led by Phoebe Dynevor, Whitney Peak and Djimon Hounsou), Wirkola's penchant for silly comedy moments deflates stoic disaster movie tropes and may not play well with all viewers, but nevertheless Thrash is a disposable but fairly entertaining if daft romp.
 

VOD: Five Nights At Freddy's 2 (dir: Emma Tammi, 2025)

"People are obsessed with that old pizzeria..."

The somewhat moribund Five Nights At Freddy's movie clearly drummed up enough business to spawn this unnecessary early-2000s-set sequel one year on from the events of the first film which - somewhat inevitably - sees Mike (Josh Hutcherson), troubled Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) and young Abby (Piper Rubio) drawn to the original abandoned fast-food joint for Round 2, along with an expendable reality-TV crew and a suspiciously creepy security guard, and this time unleashing the animatronic killers on the local community.  With an unwarrantedly long running time, the film crawls along, mostly in darkness, with general dullness nullifying the occasional attempt at generating shock or suspense.  Apart from Josh Hutcherson outclassing the material once again, it all feels rather forced and half-hearted - even Sembello's Maniac appears in the 1982-set opening flashback one year before it was released, and the returning Matthew Lillard joined by a Skeet Ulrich cameo (though not appearing together) feels like simple genre stunt-casting.  Perhaps the mixing of a largely children-led story with more adult horror is awkward and neuters the scenario of potential scares, and as a gateway horror it may employ some classic Scooby-Doo period genre tropes and has a fair throwback music score, but overall this sequel offers little of interest and has a mid-credits scene that threatens a trilogy-closer.  

 

VOD: Wicked For Good (dir: Jon M. Chu, 2025)

"Your very own vehicular spherical globule!"
"So, like, a bubble?"
 

Picking up soon after the closing moments of the first film, the sequel kicks off with the construction of the yellow brick road, Elphaba out to expose The Wizard and Glinda and Fiyero newly-engaged, and the general opinion that the second half of the original stage show does not quite live up to the first half more-or-less applies to this filmic version as well.  Many of the elements  that made the first film work are still present, from its killer lead cast to the huge-scale world-building/staging and the powerhouse performances of Erivo, Grande, Yeoh and Bailey (the latter two perhaps rather underserved this time round).  Elements of The Wizard Of Oz - partly blunted by copyright - are used sparingly and integrated smartly in order to service this story.  The songs this time are rather non-descript with more big-Broadway yelling but they are generally pleasant enough and well-orchestrated.  It treads a very fine line between expansion and padding out, the big set-piece musical numbers occasionally feeling stretched and attempts at more down-to-earth moments not quite hitting the mark.  With some dark character arcs and grim reveals, Wicked For Good is a solid but hardly fun wrapping up of this remarkable project.

VOD: B.O.Y.-Bruises Of Yesterday (dir: Soren Green, 2025)

"Why don't you say anything?"

In this much-lauded Danish coming-of-age drama, teen Tobias is sent to the countryside for the Summer to stay with his grandparents, where his desperation for connection and affection leads him down some dangerous paths.  Very big teenage issues are all thrown into the mix - parental separation, mental health, mortality, bereavement, body image, sexuality and self-harm - but for most of the film they are handled without histrionics and with a gentleness that is effective and considered throughout.  The film - and indeed the story- is shot with a quiet and simple clarity as shots linger beautifully, doing an excellent job of showing the young man struggling to connect with the world in which he finds himself.  It has three clear acts, the first act melancholy but with moments of optimism, the second  dealing with profound family tragedy and worrying red flags popping up in Tobias's behaviour, and the third showing the realities and consequences of his choices that is both harsh and brutal compared with what has come before.  The film is carried by a wonderfully sensitive performance by Noa Risbro Hjerrild as Tobias, with a notable supporting turn by Jens Jorn Spottag as his caring grandfather.  This is a gentle and fragile movie that plays well with its sad restraint until it moves into the frank, gritty cautionary territory of the final act.
 

VOD: Mercy (dir: Timur Bekmambetov, 2026)

"Mercy does not make mistakes."

In this high-concept near-future crime thriller, an L.A. crime epidemic and civil unrest leads to offenders being speedily tried and - if necessary - executed by AI, and the film follows Chris Pratt as Chris Raven, a robbery/homicide cop accused of murdering his wife versus Rebecca Ferguson as his advanced AI courtroom judge.  Told through a patchwork of digital/camera/internet sources, to which the accused is given access to mount his defence, the reliable Pratt and the usually-excellent Ferguson (plus a largely weak but negligible supporting cast) do as much as they can with the limitations imposed upon them as the film turns into what is essentially a hi-tech game of electronic Clue(do).  Bekmambetov has long been a good and creative director, but here the film's flashy gimmicks - a ninety-minutes real-time trial, relentless CG visual overload, rapid-fire editing - do not distract from its odd mix of painful melodrama and dull court procedural that proves ultimately unsatisfying.  With the bulk of the drama having Pratt sitting in a chair and Ferguson framed in immovable Medium/Close-Up Shots, it is not quite Ice Cube in a cupboard in War Of The Worlds, but there is some good-looking and purposeful aerial/drone footage used and it takes a rather bizarre U-turn into action movie territory for the finale.