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.

 

VOD: Greatest Days (dir: Coky Giedroyc, 2023)

"Yeah, to me, it's important!"

Adapted from the stage play The Band, the musical featuring the songs of Take That comes to the silver screen in very British fashion.  Mercifully better than the similar 80s jukebox musical Walking On Sunshine, this movie finds five estranged schoolfriends reuniting as adults for a reunion concert by their favourite band as teenagers.  Mamma Mia! and its sequel are very much (and inevitably) the touchstones here, as the timeshifting device of the latter flits effortlessly between the teen and adult incarnations, the consciously diverse band and group of fans for today's audience focuses more on the youngsters initially until halfway through when the film unashamedly relocates to Greece for no other reason than the reunion gig.  Both groups (of girls/women) have a warm, lively and easy presence on screen, led effectively by Aisling Bea giving her usual focused and grounded style of performance, but the very thin story is stretched to its absolute limits.   What also becomes clear very quickly is that Take That's back catalogue is neither substantial enough nor - like Last Christmas - relevant enough to fit a narrative in a precise and sustained manner, but there are some good moments when the performance/music video recreations collide with real life in the story.  Utter nonsense Greatest Days may be, but astonishingly the ending works well as it moves from the big dramatic/emotional story resolution to a joyful singalong finale that brings everyone together,   
 

VOD: Puss In Boots - The Last Wish (dirs: Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado, 2023)

"You're a talking cat?  I'm a talking cat!  Let's talk!"

This belated sequel to the very successful 2011 GC-animated Shrek franchise spin-off has the effective premise that Puss has used up eight of his nine lives and, pursued by both Death and bounty hunters, gives up his swashbuckling persona to live incognito as a rescue cat, but with his adversaries hot on his tail he soon sets off on a new set of adventures, meeting up with companions new and old, to search for the famous Wishing Star to restore his lives.  The film rattles along furiously with devil-may-care abandon, and it is smartly written with many movie references and plenty of entertaining silliness along the way.  Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek make for a great (vocal) double-act, and the depth and detail of the animation impresses, making The Last Wish a watchable and quite entertaining romp.  
 

VOD: Take A Chance (dir: Maria Thulin, 2023)

"...because it's not over..."

Amazon's controversial documentary film about Dutchman Gert van der Graaf, the obsessive stalker who developed some kind of relationship with - and ultimately terrorised - ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog finally comes to the UK without fanfare and proves to be a chilling watch.  Shot like a classy version of a Channel 5 exploitationer, it charts his unwavering and obsessive determination and attachment for the star (since their Eurovision win when he was eight years old), as the documentary tries to take a sombre and restrained tone that enables the perpetrator to detail precisely the extent of his years-long campaign and demonstrates how a deluded mind can shape the world as they see it.  Faltskog declined to participate, which is unsurprising given the negative impact the stalker had on her which ended in a very public court case in Sweden and his deportation, but it does leave the questions around the extent and nature of their relationship unclear to say the least and leaves his own take on events unchallenged in an uncomfortable way.

VOD: T.I.M. (dir: Spencer Brown, 2023)

"I think we're gonna be very happy here."

In this glossy indie sci-fi drama, a female robotics scientist and her adulterous husband relocate for a new start and her work to a pristine smart-house in the countryside, and they are gifted a humanoid robot by the company to serve their needs.  Set in a similar near-future to TV's Humans, inevitably the robot starts to break programming as it becomes fixated on the woman and manipulates the situation as her trust in her husband starts to erode.  Although competently shot and performed, this rather simple and low-powered story trundles along in a somewhat  listless fashion, livening up a bit in the final act, even if it ends with a generic Final-Girl-on-a-roof sequence and a final shot that will make your eyes roll.