It always amuses me how rarely American actors are allowed to act. Ryan Reynolds stars as Ryan Reynolds - with the exact same delivery and intonation as all his other rôles. The same semi-improvised witty asides. The same fourth-wall breaking memes. Hey, look, it works for him and audiences seem to love it. I just think it'd be nifty to see him playing something other than Ryan Reynolds. Anyway, Free Guy is a fun, uncomplicated movie about the perils of cross-licencing GPL code within a …
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This movie is dogshit. Obviously, some movie producer has a stack of compromising material. That's the only logical explanation as to why so many good actors would appear in this schlock. What if Groundhog Day was an action movie? OK, that's Day After Tomorrow. So what if that was direct to video? It would be this mess. Interestingly, disgraced racist Mel Gibson doesn't actually appear in many shots with the main cast. I can only assume lots of the cast refused to be on set with him.…
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ULTRAVIOLENCE: THE MOVIE!!!! This is a complete splatter-fest with an unremitting obsession with cartoon gore. The paper-thin plot is contrived to give maximum gunshots and throat-punches per minute. Which is fine, if you like that sort of thing. Some of the action sequences are brilliant. For once, we get some fight scenes which don't rapid-cut every few frames. There's excellent use of the built environment and props which are a definite homage to early Jackie Chan movies. One fight in…
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Here's a movie about objectively terrible people making bad choices! I love a quirky little indie-comedy. The problem is, there aren't too many laughs to be had here. Part of the issue is that I'm an old-fart. Celeste, the antagonist, seems like a lovely person! It's not her fault that Emily, the protagonist, abandoned her boyfriend and life. If Celeste picked up the pieces of a broken relationship and helped fix it - what's wrong with that? Celeste makes smart, competent choices - and is…
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This is a slightly unfair review as I fell asleep about 30 minutes from the end. I'll attempt to avoid spoilers - but I guarantee you've seen this movie before. I felt like I was watching a supercut of a dozen different movies and TV shows. Loving American parents secretly spies? The Americans! Tank driving through an urban centre? GoldenEye! Dropping a knife to a free hand? Game of Thrones! Masks that transform you into someone else? Mission Impossible! Underneath the metal mask is a…
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I'm still unsure where this fits in the MCU... After the complete lack of chemistry between McCarthy and Bateman in Identity Thief, it seems inexplicable that they've been paired together in yet another movie. Just like Identity Thief, Thunder Force is two good ideas for separate movies squished into one bad film. It suffers from an almost complete absence of jokes - other than that the leads are a bit too fat to get out of a car in a graceful manner. Melissa McCarthy plays the same…
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One of my favourite movie moments is in the 1998 movie Antz - when one of the ants turns to camera and says: It's the workers who control the means of production! Even though we're not in the age of the Hollywood Blacklist, it's still rare to see overt - and literal - Marxism on the big screen. "The Mitchells" might be the most insightful critique of Silicon Valley and the AI hype that I've ever seen. Sure, on the one hand it's a daft kids' movie which flings memes at your face to the…
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ACTORS! ACTING! Here's a quick summary of the film: "I AM ACTING!" "YEAH! WELL I AM ACTING LOUDER THAN YOU!" "OH? REALLY? JUST LOOK HOW GOOD I'M ACTING!" It's a relentless argument between two gormless gargoyles. Yes, the director is very clever in using lots of long and unedited shots. And, gosh, isn't the aspect ratio quirky?! Hey, isn't that... you know... the actor from the thing...? And literally all that happens is that horrible people scream at each other. It's not a movie, it's a…
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What if Red Dwarf were given a big budget and re-made "Backwards"? I'm only teasing a little bit! It is impossible to do a good Time Travel story. The closest I've experienced is "This Is How You Lose the Time War" which, similar to TENET, has sort-of-spies chasing each other through time. Most sci-fi movies are an excuse to advertise the prowess of the special effects team - and TENET is no exception. Even on a TV screen, it is blisteringly clever the way they seamlessly interweave the…
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This is an excellent and illuminating documentary of the state of algorithmic bias. If you've read recent books like Algorithms of Oppression and Race After Technology - you probably won't find anything new. But it is nice seeing academics in their natural habitats. It really helps to personalise the problems by placing them in social context. Some of the arguments are simplified a little for a Netflix audience. That's understandable - they're trying to change minds in 90 minutes rather than …
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So, farewell Christopher Plummer. This might be one of the most bizarre role he's ever played, in this charming - but flawed - production of the stage classic. I met my wife at a University production of Royal Hunt of The Sun. As an anniversary gift, she got me the DVD. The film is incredible - the DVD is terrible. So this review will be in two parts. The Film Would your lust for gold drive you to kill god? Is divinity a reality or a coping mechanism? RHoTS asks us to watch men sacrifice…
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This is a frustratingly good movie. I wish I had the film-making vocabulary to describe it properly. As a fun sci-fi heist, it is a triumph. The special effects are light-years beyond Star Wars - both the original and the sequels. The multi-lingual world it presents is possibly the most realistic depiction of the future that I've seen. It is Firefly with a grander vision, bigger budget, and more focussed plot. And yet... It is aesthetic without being iconic. It outdoes Blade Runner and…
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