FILM: Deadpool & Wolverine (dir: Shawn Levy, 2024)

"Let's give the people what they've come for."

Any worries that this third movie in the the Deadpool franchise might have been Disney-fied following its acquisition of Fox are dispelled very quickly with a bloody, sweary, funny, irreverent and brutal opening scene that sets the tone for the whole movie. The actual story - the TVA (of TV's Loki) is on a mission to eradicate Deadpool's corrupted timeline, which Deadpool can only save by teaming up with a Wolverine from the multiverse - feels a little slight at first, but it builds nicely as the film goes along, aided by a good (if slightly underused) and effective turn by Emma Corrin as another bald-headed Brit villain of the piece.  What is particularly enjoyable is that this is not a Deadpool-with-occasional-appearances-by-Wolverine movie; Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman share the screen for most of the running time, their bickering and banter frequently very amusing and both play their characters successfully to the hilt, with Deadpool here possibly even more campily silly to play against a very full-blooded Wolverine.  Diehard genre fans will have a field day with the unexpected references, cameos and callbacks, some of which are joyfully surprising, and multiverse storylines/the MCU/Fox/Disney all get a good kicking.  All the familiar elements are present, and as always, not every joke lands but the hit-rate is high.  There is a real sense that this is film has been written and made for the fans (rather than a wider audience) to have a good time, and there is no question that it delivers plenty on that front.  The compilation that plays alongside the end credits is a delightful love-letter to the franchises, and the scene at the very end of the credits is a funny pay-off worth waiting for.

 

FILM: Twisters (dir: Lee Isaac Chung, 2024)

"It's old, but it's field-tested."

Nearly thirty years after the original film, Twisters sees the return of the good old-fashioned Summer blockbuster disaster-movie, and very welcome it is too.  It follows the template of the first film quite closely (sparring male and female lead protagonists, lulls between the big special effects events) but with notable upgrades along the way, from basic ideas such as drones and social media to more distinctive elements such as character shading and motivations.  The film opens with a blistering sequence in which Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) leads a group of university students on a disastrous field project; cut to five years later, and she is a New York meteorologist, persuaded by an old friend to give a week for a new tornado 3D-mapping project in stricken Oklahoma, where she locks horns with cocky self-proclaimed 'tornado wrangler' YouTuber Tyler (Glen Powell).  Edgar-Jones is very good indeed in this big action role, Powell is confident as uses his on-screen star-power well, and the actors are given more to do between set pieces this time round.  Whilst the 1996 film's original ground-breaking CGI effects still hold up reasonably well, here they are more nuanced and used to give some more immersive perspectives, with the final two events being spectacular indeed.  If you are familiar with Twister then a lot of this energetic new film will feel comfortably familiar, but for the new generation watching, Twisters will, um, blow them away.
 

VOD: Immaculate (dir: Michael Mohan, 2024)

"Death is a part of everyday life here."

Sharing some similarities with The First Omen, here the excellent Sydney Sweeney - also the driving force behind getting the film made - plays Sister Cecelia, a young devout American nun who travels to a convent in rural Italy but - as a virgin - soon finds herself inexplicably pregnant: immaculate conception, or something more sinister?  Effectively structured through the   trimesters, Cecelia's journey becomes more visceral and unpleasant as truths are revealed.  The film is directed and edited with care and precision with good construction and visual flow, under-lit (sometimes a little too much) to create a gloomy and claustrophobic feel.  Close-Ups and Extreme Close-Ups abound, with a soundtrack that mixes modern sinister synths with old-school Euro-score stylings, giving an overall feel of classic Italian horror/thriller films mixed with more modern genre elements.  Likewise, Sweeney's central performance is focused and very well controlled, conveying an effective mix of naiveté and religious purpose that is slowly broken down.   The full-on third act leads to a provocative and interesting ending.
 

VOD: Madame Web (dir: S.J. Clarkson, 2024)

"What are you doing?  I don't... I don't understand!"

After a heavily-pregnant scientist's expedition to The Amazon to find a supercharged spider ends in tragedy, thirty years later her daughter is a New York paramedic, whose uncanny ability to see the future kicks in after a work accident and she starts to experience flashes of immediate future events, leading to finding herself looking after a trio of very bland and underwritten girls who figure in the future of a very one-dimensional villain.  The film suffers from an  underwhelming script, delivered by the seldom-convincing Dakota Johnson and an underplaying Adam Scott.  With the exception of a mid-point underground train sequence that is executed quite effectively, the whole film comes across as silly, uninteresting and somewhat dull, as entire scenes crawl by like the equivalent of cinematic tumbleweed.  Just as critical and box-office reception suggests, Madame Web is very much the D-List of superpower movies.

  
 

VOD: Beverly Hills Cop - Axel F (dir: Mark Molloy, 2024)

"I'm chasing bad guys with Axel Foley!  Hell yeah!"

The stars finally aligned at Netflix for this long-gestating legacy sequel that sees an older and slightly wiser Axel Foley colliding with 80s/90s action tropes for a daft but reasonably entertaining ride.  Starting with a couple of mindless vehicular action sequences and necessary fan-favourite character revisits, the film perks up with the arrival of a slightly-underused Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a modern-day detective and Taylour Paige as Foley's estranged lawyer daughter.  Nostalgia fans should not worry, as the film is totally unafraid to mine its past, to the extent that The Heat Is On and Faltermeyer's Axel F theme both appear in the first five minutes.  The fractious relationship between Foley and his daughter works well, with Murphy faring much better with his recent mature-actor persona rather than resorting to his old-school comedy schtick (which does occasionally intrude). The actual police story is perfunctory and almost irrelevant, and the relatively low-key action set pieces are a little underwhelming, but seeing Axel Foley in action once again is the real draw here, a little more subdued but still just about entertaining enough.  
 

VOD: The Iron Claw (dir: Sean Durkin, 2024)

"We loved our father...and we loved wrestling."

This sprawling drama is based on the true story of the close-knot Von Erich brothers, professional wrestlers in the late 70s/early 80s, following in their ambitious father's footsteps until the alleged 'family curse' of repeated tragedies begins to strike.  Leading the way is an impressively measured performance by Zac Efron, here scarily bewigged and bulked up looking like a He-man action figure, with further excellent turns by Jeremy Allen White and Harris Dickson in particular, but the whole ensemble is very committed and credible. The film does quite a good job of exploring the artifice and industry behind professional wrestling, but first and foremost this is a film about family, which it conveys very well, and when tragedy inevitably hits, it hits hard, making the third act particularly relentlessly and unbearably sad.  This is a deceptively slight but very sincerely performed tale that is easy to watch and takes the viewer on a rather unexpected and emotional journey.

 

VOD: Bob Marley - One Love (dir: Reinaldo Marcus Green, 2024)

"Sometimes the messenger has to become the message."

Set against the Jamaican political unrest and violence of the mid-70s, this focused music biopic follows that key period of Marley's decision to hold a peace concert, the subsequent move to London to record the Exodus album, his popularity explosion and European tour, and ultimately his return home and the cancer that took his life prematurely.  Kingsley Ben-Adir creates a charismatic and sympathetic portrayal of a principled man devoted to family, faith and music that mostly comes across as very easy-going and likeable, with very strong support from the excellent Lashana Lynch as his wife Rita.  The film wavers between glossy biopic and the very real physical and physiological threats that Marley faced, and overall it is a slick, beautifully shot but curiously emotionally flat retelling of events. 
 

FILM: A Quiet Place Day One (dir: Michael Sarnoski, 2024)

REVIEW No. 1,650!

"I'm gonna clap for that."

Any concerns that this high-quality franchise could maintain and survive without Krasinski and Blunt on screen are dispelled quickly by Lupita Nyong'o playing new central character Samira, a terminal cancer patient whose hospice chooses an unfortunate day to undertake a trip to New York City, just when the aliens from the first two films mount their invasion.  All the attributes of the previous films are delivered but in the context of a significantly bigger scale (that is well-realised for its budget), yet maintaining the focus on an actress of the extraordinary calibre of Nyong'o means that it can continue the intimate experience of the previous films, as she convinces the viewer of every moment she goes through.  Dangerous noises, from a ring pull to an emergency generator kicking in, make the viewer flinch every time as the tense use of silence works so well once again.  There are some creative shots and scenarios drawn from the basic premise - even a couple of moments of Idiot Plot are excusable by their execution - and the devastated city backgrounds and the creature effects are very well presented.  Overall, the shift to the big city works well, making this prequel compelling and well-executed as part of the series and in its own right. 

 

VOD: Norwegian Dream (dir: Liev Igor Devold, 2023)

"Haven't you ever wanted to be someone else?"

This sombre Norwegian drama follows young Polish worker Robert as he relocates to a bleak Norwegian fishing port to work at a salmon processing factory in order to support his family, where he falls awkwardly for the boss's son.  The film does not shy away from the harsh working/living conditions, which eventually lead to divisive strike action as a stark comment on emigrant workers and the conditions they face.  Shot in semi-documentary style, mostly in grey wintry Scandinavian half-light, the film is carried by a focused and committed central performance by Hubert Milkowski, and whilst there are a lot of big issues being juggled - displacement, homophobia, workers' rights, familial responsibility - the film tells its story effectively and sympathetically. 
 

VOD: Baghead (dir: Alberto Corredor, 2023)

"What's it like?"
"A bit creepy, to be honest."

In this low-budget British horror, expanded from a short film, a young woman returns to her estranged father's somewhat grim-looking pub following his grisly demise, only to find that she has unwittingly taken custody of a supernatural creature that lives locked away in the cellar - the titular and literal Baghead - which she must not let out.  With the arrival of her best friend, plus a grieving husband willing to pay to see the creature in order to contact his dead wife, the film is awash with eerily ominous synth sounds, sudden extreme close-ups and plenty of very slow walking in the dark.  Based around two classic genre premises - the creature in the basement plus a set of rules (delivered via VHS tape!) that are subsequently systematically broken - the film is perhaps a little slow overall, but it is suitably atmospheric and has enough ideas to keep it moving along.
 

VOD: Inheritance a.k.a. Spadek (dir: Sylwester Jakimov, 2024)

"What won't people do for money, huh?"
 

Netflix Poland's smaller-scale answer to the recent Agatha Christie popularity finds disparate and estranged members of a family gathering for a will reading at a remote snowy mansion, who then find themselves competing in a series of games and puzzles in order to claim the inheritance, with plenty of twists and red herrings along the way.  The film quickly establishes a  kind of deft and daft energy which it maintains very well right to the very end, playing like a Scooby Doo version of Knives Out: light, breezy and somewhat silly with a very game cast.  If you are looking for a lightweight bit of fun viewing, this film delivers.

VOD: Trigger Warning (dir; Mouly Surya, 2024)

"I'm just trying to wrap my head around all of this."

This time it is Jessica Alba's turn to do the Netflix mature-woman-with-special-skills action/revenge routine, as the no-holds-barred soldier returns to her desert hometown on the death of her miner/bar-owner father and takes on a local crimewave, alongside a military weapons sales conspiracy and the local senator re-election campaign.  Alba is a s reliable as ever, but the whole enterprise feels lethargic and very low-key to watch as she tries to piece together what is going on, accompanied by an irritating broodingly-ominous music score that rarely leads anywhere, especially in the very drawn out and barely-lit third act and silly final.  
 

VOD: Maybe Baby a.k.a. Bytte Bytte Baby (dir: Barbara Topsoe-Rothenborg, 2023)

"The cake is in the oven!"
 

In this Danish comedy, successful middle-aged power couple and an alternative-living younger couple cross paths at a fertility clinic, but when both women fall pregnant, an 'administrative error' means that the eggs were mixed up and they are carrying each other's baby.  As class, values and personalities clash inevitably, all four players in the two main couples play the comedy well, led by the wonderful and indomitable Mille Dinesen (TV's Rita).  The film does briefly address issues such as age, pregnancy and the workplace and nature vs. nurture, but for the most part this is a pleasantly engaging comedy with a lot of good lines (mostly at the expense of men) that is delivered well.  

VOD: Memories Of A Teenager a.k.a. Yo Adolescente (dir: Lucas Santa Ana, 2019)

"Someone somewhere has to be going through the same thing."

This Argentine youth drama tells the story of Nicolas, who blogs about his mid-teen years.  It is a familiar cocktail of navigating friendships, relationships, sexual identity, soft drugs and finding your place in the world without being too melodramatic, in spite of the heightened catalogue of experiences that Nicolas goes through, including suicide and his girlfriend's pregnancy.  As the protagonist himself proclaims, not all teens are stereotypical, and the film portrays more grounded and regular everyday life, even if bigger events like his best friend's suicide rubs shoulders with sun-dappled scenes accompanied by gentle lilting music.  Renato Quattordio hits the right tone in the lead role, as does Thomas Lepra as his best friend, Tomas.  For the most part, as an affirmative view of teen life the film fulfils its mission, even if it does come across as a little too shiny and optimistic at times, until it turns very serious and sombre at the end where an unexpected bleakness hits hard and drives its overall message home firmly.