VOD: The Thursday Murder Club (dir: Chris Columbus, 2025)

"I feel like we're in one those Sunday night dramas, about two bright-eyed, feisty old lady detectives..."

This Netflix adaptation of Richard Osman's first hit novel finds four sparky seniors who live at a residential home trying to solve a cold (murder) case from 1973, battling potential redevelopment of their home and being embroiled in a very current whodunnit as murders close to home start to mount up.  A smooth and polished adaptation, the film is delivered by a veteran top-notch acting cast (led by Dame Helen Mirren, Pierece Brosnan, Sir Ben Kingsley and particularly Celia Imrie here) and the experience of director Chris Columbus, and it is perhaps because of this that the grittiness of the story feels at odds with the rather glossy and cinematic-styled presentation.  The film is comfortable, unchallenging and pretty to look at, playing heavily into plenty of upper-middle-class/Middle-England/elderly stereotyping, and the mystery's clues are presented in such a way that they might as well have giant neon arrows pointing at them along the way.  The second half of the film is far more interesting and relatively pacy, and it all comes together satisfyingly at the end, making The Thursday Murder Club a safe, cosy and undemanding watch.

 

VOD: The Map That Leads To You (dir: Lasse Hallstrom, 2025)

"Does anyone really know where they're going?"

Veteran Lasse Hallstrom directs this nonsensical but attractive romantic-fantasy drama that is as generic as its title.   The film follows Heather (well played by Madelyn Cline) and her two mates travelling around Europe on a last summer of freedom, where she encounters free-spirited Jack (a much-older-looking KJ Apa) and fun, shenanigans, tourist traps and whirlwind romance follow, all leading to the inevitable heartbreaking third-act tragedy and bitter-sweet ending.  The locations are gorgeously picturesque, both the young Mamma-Mia!-esque trio of friends and the Heather/Jack romance are easy to watch, and the gorgeous summery soundtrack is gently winsome and well curated.  It all gives the impression that the actors had a lovely time on their working holiday, but the film does have an interestingly persistent melancholy undercurrent of an ever-present awareness of the ephemeral nature of even the best of times and experiences in life.   In spite of some heavy-handed hints about where the story is heading and clunky/preachy 'embrace life, but safely' messaging, The Map That Leads To You is very pleasant and undemanding to watch, with the delightful soundtrack and settings outweighing the unlikely love story.

VOD: Babygirl (dir: Halina Reijn, 2024)

"We have to pay more attention to the avalanche that is gonna cover us all very soon."

In this romantic adult drama set over a holiday season, Nicole Kidman plays  powerful married CEO Romy, who falls into a passionate affair with handsome new young intern Samuel (Harris Dickinson), putting both her career and family life at risk as the power dynamics shift between them.  Indeed, the power-play between these two controlling and manipulative personalities is portrayed in an interesting way, as Samuel increasingly inveigles his way into Romy's work and personal life and Romy wavers between dominance and submission.  The film is of course carried by its two fantastic lead actors, with Kidman giving yet another of her compelling and precise character performances that has marked her later career, and Dickinson again proves himself to be a nuanced and committed screen actor, and there is a nicely-judged supporting turn from Antonio Banderas as Romy's oblivious devoted husband.  At its heart this may be pulpy female romantic fantasy, at times playing like an oddly elevated and classy 50 Shades story, and the may be some confusing gender messaging in the third act, but for the most part this is a mature, quiet and carefully-controlled drama that positively luxuriates in the skills of its two lead actors. 
 

VOD: The Monkey (dir: Osgood Perkins, 2025)

"No, it's not, uh...a toy...it's a...it's a...I don't exactly know what it is!"

Based on a Stephen King story, The Monkey very quickly sets itself up as a daft, pulpy and squelchy comedy-horror romp, when young twin brothers discover a wind-up toy monkey in their deceased father's souvenirs closet and its evil influence spreads causing random mayhem and Final Destination-style deaths, which follows them into the later-estranged brothers' very different adult lives and ultimately pits them against each other.  Playing both of the adult twins, Theo James differentiates the characters well and balances the comedic and dramatic elements of his performances to  purposeful effect, reminiscent of Bruce Campbell.  It may be rather thin material, but the film is filled with arch and cheesy dialogue, a silly knowing devil-may-care attitude and effective deployment of horror mechanics, making The Monkey a fun and well-made piece that succeeds in its aim to deliver a lightweight entertainment experience for genre fans.

 

VOD: Eenie Meanie (dir: Shawn Simmons, 2025)

"What crazy s**t are you about to do?"
 

Here Samara Weaving plays Edie, a struggling student/bankworker, who finds herself dragged back into her former world as a getaway driver when her feckless hustler boyfriend incurs the wrath of a druglord, who is also a former boss of Edie.  Perhaps darker and less action-packed than the trailer suggested, this is little more than a couple of well-executed bookending flash-cut car chases stitched together with a very basic heist story, but it takes its time to flesh out the character of Edie and her self-destructive relationship to good effect, and the snappy dialogue flows easily and is occasionally very funny, as if Tarantino were making a very low-budget Fast & Furious movie.  Samara Weaving seems to have the ability to make any character credible and engaging with another feisty and focussed performance here (and giving the final scenes a knockout emotional punch), matched by a nicely-judged performance from Karl Glusman as her partner John.  The mid-section may drag considerably, but the core relationship (and its two central players) makes Eenie Meanie interesting to watch.

VOD: Weekend In Taipei (dir: George Huang, 2024)

"You don't get to judge my choices."

This Korean-set glossy action-thriller stars Luke Evans and Lun Mei-Gwei as former DEA/undercover agents and lovers who are reunited as a shady drug-dealing billionaire under investigation goes to trial and the events of fifteen years previously catch up with the long-estranged duo and have very real consequences that out them on the run.  The ever-reliable Luke Evans makes for a worthy Jason Statham stand-in here, and expected mismatched cops/fish-out-of-water elements rear their heads.  There is plenty of supportive backstory in play, and the actual dramatic elements are sincere if occasionally somewhat undercooked or overmelodramatic.  There is a playful throwback sense of glee and energy in the over-the-top action sequences that lift the film and sit effectively next to effective thriller sequences that are played absolutely straight.  Overall, Weekend In Taipei is a mid-ranker of the genre that aims to please and generally makes a good effort to do so.
 

VOD: Alien Country (dir: Boston McConnaughey, 2024)

"Well, that's different."
 

In this lightweight sci-fi action-comedy, set in remote small-town redneck America, home of motorbikes, dive-bar brawls and demolition derbies, hapless loser/dreamer Jimmy and his accidentally-pregnant long-suffering girlfriend Everly inadvertently open a portal that allows some malevolent alien creatures to get through and wreak havoc in their home town of Blue River. With a big, brash noisy music score and the barely-glimpsed creatures/action mostly happening off-screen, this low-budget affair has ambition and presents itself with lively energy , snappy banter and one-liners, a nicely-played fractious relationship between the two leads in particular, limited FX work that is well-realised and there is some dramatic desert-location shooting that looks good on-screen.  Uncomplicated, competently-made and with a whiff of the tone of Tremors, some aspects feel a little underdeveloped but overall Alien Country is straightforward and effectively entertaining.

VOD: Fixed (dir: Genddy Tartakovsky, 2025)

"This is a goddam s**t-show!"
"Excuse me, its pronounced shih-tzu!"

This adult-themed animation is a less-subversive canine equivalent of Fritz The Cat that follows the antics of Bull, a sex-crazed family dog who discovers that he is about to be neutered and escapes for one last night of partying and debauchery in the big city with his mates.  It has a couple of recognisable voices, such as Idris Elba (whose voicework stands out there) and Kathryn Hahn, but like Sausage Party the film is very basic, relentlessly and childishly crude, unapologetic, drives its jokes into the ground and grinds along in a largely flat and uninteresting manner.

 

FILM: Weapons (dir: Zach Cregger, 2025)

"What the f**k...?"

Following up on the promise shown in Barbarian, writer/director Zach Cregger presents what is for the most part an old-school mystery-thriller with impactful moments of gleeful gory horror (think Sam Raimi and Eli Roth), as seventeen students from the same school class leave their homes and disappear at 2.17am, with the town's anger and frustrations pointing very firmly at the young class teacher Justine Gandy.  Telling the story of a month after the appalling event, the film takes the form of chapters, telling the events through different interconnecting characters' lives and allowing the viewer to piece together the solution to the mystery.  The film is meticulously crafted in storytelling, sound  and on-screen presentation, with Cregger in complete control of his narrative and audience, largely through use of camera and editing; the film held the cinema audience in the palm of its hand for two hours, including the moments of shock and of humour release (especially in the all-out finale).   It is stacked with a quirky cast of strong character actors, notably Julia Garner, Josh Brolin, Alden Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong.  It is also fun to try to work out how some of the striking moments from the trailer will fit in along the way.  To say any more would spoil the mystery, but Weapons is a very accomplished and engaging commercial movie. 
 

VOD: My Oxford Year (dir: Iain Morris, 2025)

"So, would you care to come up for some...tea and crumpet?"

Almost two films for the price of one, what starts off as a standard Netflix rom-com sees bookish, focused American MA student Anna take a year to study Victorian Poetry at 'The University Of Oxford' and her privileged, handsome British substitute-lecturer initially clashing as obvious binary opposites, but ultimately they start to find common ground and much more, leading to a revelation that takes the second half of the film in a very different direction.  The early scenes are so culture-clashingly genre-predictable that even Anna has a tick-list of touristy and sterotypically US-view things to do and see as she goes to the pub, eats fish and chips, etc. all set to the always-photogenic sights of Oxford, which looks great on screen.  With the locations and occasional poetry lending a sprinkling of elevation to the first half's routine rom-com shenanigans, it is down to the two leads (Sofia Carson and Corey Mylechreest) to carry the dramatic weight of the second half, which they do as a couple very effectively, and a strength of this generally pleasant-but-not-earth-shattering movie is that it offers a credibly strong female protagonist for the most part.   The on-screen conceit used to deliver the ending is powerfully delivered through effective construction, and listen out for a gloriously-delivered line of salty dialogue in the dinner-table scene.
 

VOD: Mickey 17 (dir: Bong Joon Ho, 2025)

"Nice knowing you.  Have a good death!  See you tomorrow."

Bong Joon Ho's English-language follow-up to the critically-acclaimed Parasite is certainly a curious sci-fi headscratcher, with Robert Pattinson playing an Expendable, a lowly employee on a deep-space mission to find a habitable plant who undertakes lethal tasks and is simply replaced ('reprinted') with memories intact every time he dies.  The film is full of visual/conceptual and serious/wacky ideas that keeps the film consistently interesting over its indulgent running time.  It is part strange love story, part hard sci-fi, part political/colonisation satire and part goofball comedy, which is a somewhat peculiar mix that makes it hard to define its audience.  The first act is the most successful, a self-contained circular narrative that tells the story of Mickeys 1-17, but when 17 goes missing presumed dead on a hostile planet, his unexpected return and encounter with the newly-printed Mickey 18 leads to all manner of complications, and the movie becomes more melodramatic and wayward.  Pattinson makes the oddball protagonist (the focal 17th iteration) surprisingly engaging and likeable, and he handles the multiple versions - at times sharing the same screen - very effectively, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo go full panto mode as the morally-corrupt expedition leaders, Naomi Ackie gives sterling support throughout, and the director brings a familiar gentle classiness to the proceedings (regardless of the actual style of a particular scene).  This is basically a meditation on life, death, power and identity which is at its heart quite simplistic and blunt, wrapped up in large-scale sci-fi trappings, and whilst its ambition is evident, the different strands and themes get somewhat lost or underdeveloped amidst the tonal unevenness in this undoubtedly interesting but not wholly satisfying movie.

 

VOD: War Of The Worlds (2025) (dir: Rich Lee, 2025)

"You hacked my fridge?"

Having sat on the shelf for five years, Ice Cube's name above the title may give a level of expectation for this contemporary tech-savvy update on the classic tale, and to some extent the film sets itself up for the remarkable public and critical kicking it has received on release.  Ice Cube plays an American cyber-surveillance officer fighting online conspiracy-theorists/hackers/freedom-fighters and ultimately the global threat from data-hungry invaders from space as they disable the entire world's systems ready to take over (apart from - oddly - CNN, Amazon and a few select communications networks in order to enable the plot to progress!).  Told mostly through screens and devices and a variety of media sources (phone and computer screens, webcams, CCTV, news broadcasts, etc.), this film does try to balance the recognisable iconic core elements of the original story with new tech, and it occasionally raises questions about personal freedom versus state intervention (and indeed the actions of this obsessively protective father).  Ice Cube has always proved to be a reliable performer, but the constraints of a computer screen give him little room for range in his main role as story-enabler, backed up by a small but largely solid cast.   To its credit, the 'screens' conceit is delivered with a brisk and snappy energy (particularly the aliens' arrival) and keeps the story moving along, but it all comes undone when it turns into a narratively-unconvincing and blatant Amazon advert leading to a really rather desperate third act.  Whether or not the story needed re-telling yet again, the zippy immediacy of the presentation style keeps attention even if the unconvincing narrative choices undermine it.
 

VOD: Happy Gilmore 2 (dir: Kyle Newacheck, 2025)

"We're not done with golf, Happy, and golf's not done with us..."

Happy Gilmore is probably best remembered as one of the less-awful Adam Sandler movies, here getting a very belated sequel that starts with a useful recap and a morose accident that brings the story up to date, with a dissolute Happy abandoning golf, working in a supermarket and bringing up his four rambunctious sons and aspiring dancer daughter.  Naturally, the desire to pay for his daughter's Parisian ballet training spurs Happy into recovery and on the comeback trail - cue 80s-style progress montage - with the veteran Tour Champions pitted against the modern Maxi Golf League and his old nemesis Shooter McGavin on the loose.  With some apt references to ageing and how modern sport has changed since Happy's heyday, this sequel is laden with flashbacks/callbacks and real golf pros aplenty making it feel comfortably familiar, all trundling along flatly and harmlessly with its humour determinedly simple, basic and childish (just like Happy's quartet of knuckleheaded sons).  Typically, Sandler nails the smaller, quieter and more dramatic moments, even if they are few and far between, and there is a nicely-tuned performance from Benito Antonio Martinez as Happy's clueless caddy, but overall Happy Gilmore 2 is a mid-level Sandler movie that offers little and leaves little impression.
 

VOD: Rebirth - Home Sweet Home a.k.a. Home Sweet Home - Rebirth (dirs: Alexander Kiesl and Steffen Hacker, 2025)

"This is so friggin' weird!"

This entry in the wild Asian supernatural/demon/monster genre finds American police sergeant Jake (an almost-unrecognisable William Moseley, giving a quite unique performance here) holidaying  in Thailand with his wife and young daughter, when he unexpectedly gets caught up in a mass murderer's ritual at a mall and  inadvertently opening the Gates of Hell, plunging the city into chaos and leaving him to save his family and indeed the whole world from evil.  Throwing a scenery-chewing Michele Morone (365 Days) into the mix as the mass killer, the film offers a combination of effectively-executed action sequences with messily-constructed fight scenes, yet any (brief) appearance by the CG demon-creatures of various sizes is worth a look, especially as the human cast gives generally lacklustre performances.  With lots of talk of destiny and prophecy, body-inhabiting and a mid-point twist that you will probably have already guessed at that point, this lively but muddled nonsense is delivered with utter seriousness but feels like Sam Raimi on a bad day.