VOD: Mates (dir: Arno Craus, 2023)

"I'm always quiet."

In this micro-budget British indie, three stereotypes (the Alpha one, the sporty one, the quiet one) go on a hiking weekend, and the more introspective man attracts the attention of another (gay) hiker - and that's about the sum of it.  It is all very gentle and restrained, with repetitive dialogue, uninteresting performances and a soporific soundtrack; the slow pacing and editing also contributes to making the dialogue sound stilted and awkward at times.  The South Downs scenery is used to its full advantage and looks great, and the film does mildly challenge toxic masculinity occasionally, but overall the film just floats by with little impact or point.

 

VOD: Haunted Mansion (dir: Justin Simien, 2023)

"Ghosts don't exist!  Life is dirt!  We're all dirt!.....Sorry....."

The New Orleans setting and vibe is a promising start to Disney's reboot of their theme-park property, as a mother and young son move into a, well, haunted mansion, and a dissolute 'ghost photographer', quirky priest, out-there medium and a professor all become bound to the house and try to solve its past mysteries in order to be released from it.  The fundamental issue, as with the previous movie iteration, is that it wants to be so child-friendly that it is not remotely scary and the comedy is beyond twee, rendering the whole enterprise bland and somewhat uninteresting, in spite of a solid cast (Rosario Dawson, Danny DeVito, LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and even Jamie Lee Curtis).  The film is saddled with an over-talky script, a numbingly relentless melodramatic score and a lot of murky visuals.  It is not that a PG-13 movie cannot provide requisite scares; maybe this incarnation should have concentrated more on creating genuine thrills and chills rather than a convoluted and elongated backstory. 

VOD: Planet Dune (dirs: Glenn Campbell and Tammy Klein, 2022)

"Happy crew, happy ship - right?"

This unashamed mockbuster from The Asylum completely eschews the mythos and mysticism of its titular influence and instead simply strands a rescue squad on a planet where they become under siege from giant sandworms in a desert sci-fi rerun of Tremors meets Aliens.  There are some reasonably rendered and quite ambitious VFX and there is a lot of unusually acceptable sound work for this level of film.  The throwback star this time is Sean Young, who has a good time chewing the control room scenery, and Emily Killian in the troubled pilot lead role shows commitment to the task.  Of its type, Planet Dune has a reasonable energy and a generally tolerable cast, but do not raise your expectations beyond that.
 

VOD: Battle For Pandora (dir: Noah Luke, 2023)

"I've seen some stuff, and I've seen even worse stuff, but this..."

This very-cheap and not-very-cheerful sci-fi actioner sees a U.S. Space Force team sent on a rescue mission to one of Saturn's moons (i.e. Pandora) where they get attacked by the water tentacle effect from The Abyss and try to stop the sentient water - hell-bent on infecting the squad - from getting off the planet. For a lot of the film it is effectively a bottle show, as the rescuers get holed up in the spaceship's medical bay and shout at each other, but there are some occasional ambitious and reasonable  CG effects on offer.  There are some interesting and wildly varied interpretations of the art of acting on display, with sounding angry and unwarrantedly hysterical seeming to be the default mode that becomes very wearing to watch. 
 

VOD: No One Will Save You (dir: Brian Duffield, 2023)

(screaming)

In this reasonably interesting sci-fi thriller, a young woman living in an idyllic isolated house in a forest one night finds herself at the mercy of an alien invader... and seemingly ostracised by the community nearby, it becomes an exercise in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers paranoia and ultimately survival as the scale of the threat grows bigger.  The USP here is that there is no dialogue. therefore three main factors become crucial: sound design works very well indeed throughout, the story pieces come together gradually and effectively, and the (almost solo) lead performance by Kaitlyn Dever is strong.  In spite of quite a lot of murky night shooting, the film acts as a technical exercise in giving a different take on the well-established alien abduction/invasion sub-genre and displays good effects work but, central gimmick aside, this is a standard alien/home invasion film that shows commitment but offers little that is new.
 

VOD: Marry My Dead Body (a.k.a. Guan yu wo han gui bian cheng jia ren de na jian shi) (dir: Wei-Hao Cheng, 2023)

"I'll be waiting for you..."

In this Taiwanese supernatural/cop comedy, a homophobic hotshot young cop picks up a red envelope from the pavement when collecting evidence and finds himself supernaturally 'married' to a dead guy's ghost, and together they try to find the spirit's killer.  Presented in the broadest of comedic strokes, with some culturally-dated attitudes akin to 1970s TV sitcoms, the film's strongest aspect is Greg Hsu's relentless energy and obvious leading-man quality in the lead role, balanced nicely by Po-Hung Lin giving a sensitive performance as the ghost.  When it is not trying too hard to be self-consciously wacky, there are many really nicely-played scenes, and although the sudden tonal shifts may prove jarring to some Western viewers, overall Marry My Dead Body is at its heart quite sweet and entertaining. 
 

VOD: Clifford The Big Red Dog (dir: Walt Becker, 2022)

"Step aside - I know sheep!"

The beloved children's book character comes to the big screen, as 12-year-old Emily is left in the care of her unreliable Uncle Casey (played by Jack Whitehall) and inadvertently takes ownership of a cute little red puppy which - in a 'careful what you wish for' scenario - grows very large and high jinks ensue.  Saddled with a weak villain, the rather uninteresting script chugs along listlessly but delivers some effective sight gags, and the film aims for the charm and whimsy of something like Babe but is just too underpowered.  The CG rendering of the titular character is about as convincing as Whitehall's interestingly wayward American accent, but look out for Emily's friend Owen (Izaac Wang) who is quite good fun when he appears.  Overall, Clifford is a very mild film, patience-testing at times, but pleasant enough.
 

VOD: Spy Kids Armageddon (dir: Robert Rodriguez, 2023)

"I never cheat.  I use creative sportsmanship!"

The fifth Spy Kids movie skews even younger than its predecessors in its Bond/Mission: Impossible-for-the-very-young quest.  Here, the spies' all-powerful codebreaker Armageddon Code is stolen by a megalomaniac tech giant who wants to control the world's tech-reliant lives.  At times barely rising above TV Power Rangers level, the film looks cheap and somewhat empty, and even given its target audience, Armageddon is rather over-talky, the action and villain are anaemic, and the very simple messaging - it's good to be good, kids are better than adults at videogames - is mindbogglingly basic. Sadly, even the sense of fun from the earlier franchise entries is missing, making it quite a grind to watch, but it would likely hit the target for its intended audience.
 

VOD: Elemental (dir: Peter Sohn, 2023)

"Sorry, buddy.  Elements don't mix."

With Pixar's Golden Age well and truly over, Elemental takes on immigration and identity with moderate results.  Opening with a Fire couple arriving at New Yo.. - sorry - Element City and facing a tough start, we see their new-born daughter grow up in the space of ten minutes in true Pixar fashion and become a fiery-tempered young woman, whose encounter with a Water guy leads to a Shakespearean-style relationship of opposites.  The film is presented with all the expected vibrancy, detail, inventiveness, colour and attention to detail, and the different elements and their districts are realised wonderfully on-screen.  Thomas Newman's smart multi-cultural-referencing makes the family's immigrant experience relatable to anyone.  With generations and cultural identity at the fore, the film does nothing really wrong and is pleasantly enjoyable enough, it just, um, fails to catch fire.  Maybe the lead voices sound a little too old?
 

FILM: Saw X (dir: Kevin Greutert, 2023)

"That is a lot of pain to inflict on others."

Nearly two decades on, the tenth Saw film sees many of the original band reuniting, and it ranks almost up there with the original trilogy and is certainly much better than any of the subsequent entries.  The idea of presenting a 'lost chapter' from early in the series works extremely well, not least for the fact that it gives Tobin Bell the opportunity to play John Kramer as a living character and in more than just cameo form - indeed, he is on screen most of the time and gives a wonderful controlled character performance, as he wreaks moral vengeance on the team who scam him with an alleged cancer cure.  The personal stakes make this entry more compelling than most (no random insurance agents here), storytelling is focused, tight and particularly smart in the final act (even an apparent big Plot Hole actually plays out very well in the final stages, but one random discovery remains unexplained), Amanda (the great Shawnee Smith) gets a good arc to play, the signature uneasy green/blue grading with pops of red lighting works well, and Charlie Clouser provides an excellent score/soundscape.  The first act may be a little slow yet sets up the story well, but the traps/games this time are pure Grand Guignol and suitably unpleasant, and overall Saw X marks a real return to form for the franchise.  The fan-pleasing end credits scene also wraps up one of the film's dangling character storylines nicely.