Reviews & Rants, Films for You?

  1. Tron: Ares
    [10/october/2025] Score: 5/10
    If you like gaming with your Tron then this will work, but it’s messy. The story tries to follow up on the previous ones, but divorces the link to the original characters and tries to introduce the generic Evil Corp conspiracies we’ve seen a score of times. In the process, as it tries to make a link back to the original stories, it becomes a twisting confusion of plotlines and generic conspiracies.
    There is an attempt in there to tell the story of Ares, the AI that struggles to become human/America, as they all do, but it gets swamped in everything else.
    As for the physics, best leave that alone and totally suspend disbelieve or you’ll get far too confused about how and why the “Tron” effects seems to continue working in the real world.
    Verdict: May need a reboot.
  2. Good Boy
    [10/october/2025] Score: 8/10
    And everyone is giving such a tremendous rating for the “performance” of the puppy, but it’s really about the quirkiness and the subtle, and very clever direction and writing that bring this to such a dramatic perfection.
    If you don’t know already we have a generic horror story of Urban Jerk who ignores ALL THE WARNINGS to live in a cabin in the woods, only this time brings his Best (and only?) Friend with him. And it’s all told from the view of Last Puppy Standing and the nightmares, the horrors and hauntings slowly, chillingy unfold. And such a careful photography and direction to tell it all from the point of view of the real hero, trying to save his master’s life.
    Prepare for Oscars.
    Verdict: Go, Sit, Watch, Good Boy!
  3. One Battle After Another
    [26/september/2025] Score: 5/10
    A somewhat eccentric story that veers more to kooky realism, where you have a mix of drama, sex, thriller, blackly-comic, drama, and more. Not then the simple, straight drama or story you might expect, in other words, more like real life in all it’s twisty weirdness, and not the kind of easy tale to get into or enjoy if you’re for the simple escapism.
    If you want thoughtful and intriguing twists on common ideas and more complicated characters then this might intrigue, but I fear it might not reach a broader audience.
    Verdict: Quirky, with bangs.
  4. Caught Stealing
    [30/august/2025] Score: 5/10
    Beautifully shot with amazing attention to the detail of the 1990s, this, after you look under that gloss, is a standard crime drama of one “ordinary” chump getting dragged into a situation of his own making and dragging others down with him. For this it’s a good drama, but if you wanted something unique and inspiring, something to take you that one extra step, this it’s not enough.
    Verdict: Steal into it for a break from all the dross.
  5. The Fantastic Four: First Steps
    [29/august/2025] Score: 6/10
    Another new set of heroes transferred, for the third time, from comicbook to film. Except this time the origin story has already been told, so take this as a continuance of the past and savour the dream-like idealised imagery of a 1960s America that never suffered reality as we know it.
    And for all that they are “out there” defending mankind against the Evil Enemy of the Moment. For that you have the reassuring formula of the Marvel Universe(s) to carry you through another adventure. If that’s for you this this will serve you well, until the next time.
    Verdict: For Fantastic enthusiasts.
  6. Nobody 2
    [28/august/2025] Score: 5/10
    The first film was a neat little twist on the “ordinary man facing overwhelming odds” and going through breakneck insanity to defend himself, while revealing he has a “certain set of skills” which seem to be possessed by assorted other characters we’re all familiar with.
    This time it’s sequelitis which causes this one to be slight less surprising and entertaining as he is back “on the job” and now taking a break with the family, all familiar with his antics.
    So no surprise this time, but filling enough if you enjoyed the first. Only, don’t expect so many surprises.
    Verdict: Good enough for somebody.
  7. Superman
    [11/july/2025] Score 9/10
    This is new, a Superman who isn’t grim and dulled by the pessimism of the bleak world outside. this is the Superman who harks back to the original spirit of Superman, the confident emblem of hope and justice in the world, even if he doe mess up a lot, just like the rest of us.
    And this is no origin story, we’ve had enough of those to last forever.
    Here we are flung straight into his world and one of all the other “supers” surround him, and that makes for a whirlwind experience to enjoy. There is no deep lunge into one character but such a swirl of action and brisk dialogue, where just a couple of lines can convey an entire story. Direction is swift and confident with the usual humour from the director and writing to bring much-needed light to the world while introducing enough material for a whole “universe” of future production.
    Oh and the super puppy steals the story away from everyone, so that’s your merchandise sorted for Christmas.
    Verdict: Flies through and sparkles.
  8. Jurassic World Rebirth
    [2/july/2025] Score: 5/10
    Big noisy pack of human idiots, accompanied by screaming children, are chased and eaten by daft dinosaurs. So there you have it, the standard “Jurassic” formula, idiot scientists and big evil corporations, complete failure of any kind of sensible logic (no one has invented satellite phones for when lost on remote islands full of monsters) and a whole series of appropriate coincidences that leave them on the edge of survival, like the complete inability to look behind you when a dinosaur is plodding towards you. Disorganised? Yes, you’d better believe it. Someone ready to betray it all? Damn right chummy, we’re not on this island for nothing! Huge scientific and moral dilemma? Well maybe we will and maybe we won’t.
    As always there’s the desperate instant rush to action, with little or no advanced planning and contingency, as if they haven’t had decades of dinosaurs to deal with?
    This might appeal to hard-core fans who just want the very stuff of Jurassic nightmares – see above – but if you thought it was time for something every so slightly smarter – that’s on the other island.
    Verdict: More yawns, less Jaws.
  9. M3GAN 2.0
    [27/june/2025] Score: 8/10
    Insanely funny murderbot has returned, with an evil big sister and mother of all boards to thwart in a potentially stupid attempt to save the human race.
    Every young girl’s cute toy murder-doll grows up to learn more about “being human” (no idea why, go ask an AI) and races through the lives of all those she tried (“I was just programmed that way”) to murder first time around.
    If you enjoyed the blackly comic twist on the entire “evil doll” genre then this just plays along with the fun and passes the time while the real world gets it (well, we won’t bother with that).
    Verdict: Toy with this.
  10. F1 The Movie
    [26/june/2025] Score: 8/10
    For the power of the soundtrack, the cars on the track and the roaring drama it holds your attention. For the dribbly generic human drama we’ve seen untold times – of the arrogant youngster receiving wise lessons from the older man of the world – that is normal routine here. If you need intense action without a single gunshot or murder in sight then the drama of the F1 race team, a whole team, of engineers, designers, financiers and so much more, that makes F1 work, then this will take you through everything behind the scenes.
    Performances are okay, nothing distinct, but fitting right in the story, given the needs to show so much of so many.
    Verdict: Flag this one for your fun.
  11. 28 Years Later
    [20/june/2025] Score: 8/10
    Not your typical zombie horror, as this focuses very much on the experience of the young, the horror they face from zombies and their world, the desperate fight for survival and the horror of living in a world traumatised by BREXIT/COVID, as Britain sits isolated from the world and surrounded by warships to keep the contamination in check.
    The story maintains a brisk beat and the performances maintain the tense horror of the situation as their characters struggle to retain their humanity.
    Reports say the film was shot in smartphones and there is a filmic sense of texture to the imagery as if shot on film and slightly off-focus, which adds to the grim environment, while the frantic pace and tension takes you forward without too much time to reflect on the details.
    Verdict: Race to get a bite before it disappears.
  12. How To Train Your Dragon
    [13/june/2025] Score: 7/10
    Live-action version of the earlier animation and just a good young adult adventure and coming-of-age with “pet” dragons to deal with. Usual themes of growing up, needing to be acknowledged and more. The CGI dragons fits well dipping more into animation when many are onscreen but without taking away from the live-action elements.
    Verdict: Cuddles.
  13. Ballerina
    [6/june/2025] Score: 8/10
    Guess how many strange, weird, surreal ways there are to kill your opponent. Now more. Welcome back to the John Wick universe of insanely mad balletic physical combat where the game is to not get killed in a boring fashion. Today’s contestant is a young lady who has a long list of special skills in dance and shooting and, in the fine tradition of Grand Master Wick, is out on a blazing, battling and bruising quest for revenge against all those who killed her daddy.
    The rest you already know. Inventive, blackly comic and intensely physical this adds another madly brilliant demonstration of near non-stop fight choreography to Master Wick’s shadowy culture of assassins, rogues, gangs and sophisticated hotel experiences.
    Verdict: Come dance.
  14. Karate Kid: Legends
    [30/may/2025] Score: 6/10
    The Kids return, and legends arise. And all that. There is no stress in this episode of the Karate sage, no long build-up dragging on for hours, no massive drama, we’ve all been here so many times this is just a fun, dramatic return of the original Kid to pass the head-banner/band on to a new generation and well done with its brisk action and drama.
    The key players show they all still have the acrobatic moves and sudden punch needed for any martial artist, with the emphasis on art, and entertainment.
    If that’s your pleasure then so is this.
    Verdict: This is The Way.
  15. Mission: Impossible – The final Reckoning
    [22/may/2025] Score: 8/10
    In the final mad stunt-filled action drama we race around the world and plunge into spy-nuttiness, spy drama and the kind of stunts that will hold you gripping the edge of your seats, admiring the action or really scary if you don’t like claustrophobic underwater or insane aerobatics.
    We know the story so far, and everyone holds up their end in another dramatically-mad and convoluted “Impossible” rush to save the world.
    If you’re happy to suspend your sense of disbelief, possibly from a long wire over the edge of a cliff, then this fills nearly three hours of action, adventure and American spy kookiness we’ve come to enjoy over the years, and worth every penny in this concluding(?) adventure.
    Verdict: Impossible not to enjoy.
  16. Thunderbolts*
    [2/may/2025] Score: 8/10
    Going into a sadder place, no more Avengers and a world bereft of its protectors leaves us with the B-team, the cast-offs who didn’t make the A list. And what a miserable bunch they are. Maybe the “Angst Team”? And perfectly suited to our current world, the fear, the uncertainty the issues everywhere, tapping into a deep core of the real world and all it’s gong through. The characters are drawn out to bring us their troubles, their doubts and argumentative fears as they struggle with each other, the challenge of the day and the potential that they, alone, might have to become the last line of defence when trouble looms from beyond.
    It has all the usual Marvel elements for those who love the formula, but at least tries, successfully, to bring something new, a new sense of tension and humour, a sense that things may not turn out happy ever after for anyone.
    Verdict: Bolt in and see it before it thunders away.
  17. The Accountant 2
    [29/april/2025] Score: 7/10
    Not up to the quirky flair of the first movie, we all know the players and situation now, so it veers into somewhat generic, with quirks, themes of action-comedy, but allows itself time, over two hours, to provide some greater character development to the key people we met in the first movie.
    There are the standard themes of “secret conspiracy”, evil gangsters and innocents in peril, who can only be saved by the quirkiness of our autistic heroes, which makes a sweet change, but there is nothing memorably outstanding in the overall story. However, if you’ve enjoyed the first this return after so many years takes it forward rather than a standard rinse-and-repeat of the original.
    And perhaps when they return in a few years we’ll see something more and new?
    Verdict: Sums up neatly.
  18. Penguin Lessons
    [23/april/2025] Score: 7/10
    Partly romanticised, partly beautiful human drama of one time in a man’s life, lost in the world and gradually finding his way back to humanity through a time of personal and world trouble, with the help of a lone penguin. No special effects required, tears optional. Don’t expect anything dramatic, as it slowly, delicately unfurls the character and his new life.
    Verdict: Beautiful lesson.
  19. Sinners
    [19/april/2025] Score: 6/10
    A brilliant musical composition as powerful music of the soul lifts and carries you throughout. Comparable visual quality that invokes both the era and the place, complimented by the performances.
    However, this is no easy simple story, blending strikingly different genres of music, gangster and magical-horror, which leads to some confusion at times. In that, it reaches a greater sense of the real world – nothing is ever simple black and white – and throws so much at you that you just have to immerse yourself in the experience.
    For this I’d consider it a more challenging story, and yet, a more mature one. No comicbook superheroes here.
    Verdicts: Soul’s music.
  20. Warfare
    [18/april/2025] Score: 7/10
    Two lovely peaceful families, sharing one building as their home deep in the heart of Iraq, are visited one night by The Americans, leaving their lives and community permanently traumatised.
    OR
    Based on the true-life experience of a group of American Navy SEALs in 2006 in Iraq, fighting at their Emperor’s command and stumbling through another edge-of-death experience against terrorist/resistance fighters on behalf of The Force (of Allah). At least that’s the way it seemed for a few moments as if the locations had been stripped straight out of Star Wars.
    With no disrespect to those, all of those, who’ve fought through all these terrors on behalf of Prime Ministers and Presidents out for blood/votes in the post-9/11 era, we have seen so many of these traumatic tales from American forces and how their lives were changed forever while leaving an endless trail of ruined civilian lives and communities behind them.
    There is never a black and white story in any of these events, just people struggling with their situation and the bigger political force of the world crushing everyone in its path. We do what we can to survive and move forward.
    Verdict: Hell to all.
  21. Drop
    [15/april/2025] Score: 8/10
    Not 100% plausible, but then nothing in film is ever really plausible, but a tight little thriller of threat, investigation and resolution in the usual dramatic fashion. The female lead carries the bulk of the story and does it well, with the tension racking up step by step as her character’s life is pressed to the command of a remote controller, until tables are turned.
    Found it the best of a recent underwhelming batch.
    Verdict: Drop in to see it before it drops off the screen.
  22. The Amateur
    [11/april/2025] Score: 5/5
    The same generic and tedious moment when a woman is killed to motivate the “hero” to embark on a raging path of vengeance against her killers. Well someone, somewhere has to churn these out for those who want it, but there are so many better ways to craft a story of a highly intelligent man who steps out of his career comfort zone to challenge terrorists, without the ritual sacrifice of a woman at the beginning.
    Verdict: Amateurish.
  23. Minecraft
    [6/april/2025] Score 6/10
    Marvellous rendition of the minecraft universe and the excessively enthusiastic heroes who fall through the portal into this madness.
    Verdict: Block this one in for your next visit to the pictures.
  24. Death Of A Unicorn
    [4/april/2025] Score: 6/10
    I think the title tells it all and then its a satire against all the exploitative greed of big business wanting to squeeze the world, the environment, dry of any value in their vacuous lives. It’s a little unicorn. It’s roadkill, then all hell breaks loose. No great dramatics. We’ve seen plenty of similar, cabin in the woods-style tales of “something out there” as the darkness comes closer and closer, while a tiny sparkle of hope slowly rises like the dawn sun amidst a father-daughter angst session.
    Verdict: Cute fluffy unicorny.
  25. A Working Man
    [29/march/2025] Score: 6/10
    There’s a man with a darker background, some past history he’s trying to escape from. Know that one? Here we go again as events drag him back into those “special skills” he alone possesses to embark on a furious journey of justice and revenge against those who’ve offended him.
    But it’s a Jason movie! Weeee!
    Verdict: Get to work on this one.
  26. Novocaine
    [28/march/2025] Score: 8/10
    Crazily insane and insanely crazy comicbook action, that starts as a kind of love story and goes into madness of comic ultraviolence to the end. It’s the gloriously hyper-realistic totally stupid stuns that grow madder and madder by the minute that will test the boundaries of how far you can be injured and still stagger around.
    Verdict: Injures plausibility in the most entertaining way.
  27. The Alto Knights
    [22/march/2025] Score: 5/5
    It’s this decade’s mandatory New York mafia gangster movie. Set deep in the mythology of those heady days of The Commission, the Boss of All Bosses, etc., etc., and murder incorporated into the story. Here is The Mob at the height of its glory and on the edge of ruin. Here were those magic tragic times when men really could bribe and corrupt their way to the greatest heights of power without the law ever knowing. And then it all went to hell. If you’ve seen on of them then you’ve seen most of this legend of dark urban evil and corruption, of the poison of drugs that ruined America. so there you are done for this decade.
    Verdict: Another shot in the dark for you.
  28. Black Bag
    [20/march/2025] Score: 8/10
    A spy mystery set in the depths of Britain’s espionage, so forget all those SOE/SAS style Bondesque helicopter chases and guns blazing, this is slow, deliberate investigation for a “mole”, a rotten apple in the heart of British spydom. Yes, another mole hunt, with wry intrigue, subtle play, clever investigation and wit as a narrow list of suspects are investigated and narrowed down to reveal the truth.
    Verdict: Bag this before it slips into the night.
  29. Mickey 17
    [15/march/2025] Score: 8/10
    A witty, surreal and blackly comic adventure with a bunch of religious nutcases embarking on a bold adventure to colonise a new world, and sacrifice a human on the way, again, and again, and again. The perfect antidote for anyone who believes it should all be a bright sunny journey into the future. Loving performances and great adventure.
    Verdict: Be nuts to miss it.
  30. The Monkey
    [27/february/2025] Score: 7/10
    A cursed creature, witless owners of a toy from hell. So there we are again as one hysterically surreal death tragically follows another in a stream of bloodshed.
    If you love your laughter dripping in blood then this will suit your tastes. Well presented and performed.
    Verdict: Bananas of bloodshed.
  31. Captain America: Brave New World
    [14/february/2025] Score: 6/10
    Another trip into the Marvelverse to develop the characters and storyline further, mixing Capt. America and Hulk elements together. A continuation of the story rather than an outstanding tentpole to hold everything together and drive it all forward. To this end it is just a serviceable story.
    Verdict: Tent peg not tentpole.
  32. September 5
    [6/february/2025] Score: 10/10
    It’s difficult to judge a story based on such a tragic event, but the production has kept a very tight focus on the role of the American ABC sports broadcast team during those few hours of the hostage-taking until its conclusion. The performances show the opportunities and moral dilemmas faced by the crew which draws you deeply into the events.
    With so much set in and around their studio a tremendous attention to detail of production in those times of the 1970s immerses you in the moment and sweeps you through the story with barely a lag in the drama and actions they have to take. For all this the drama, the production, performances and direction it must be seen.
    As for the events, the Palestinian taking of Jewish athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games, they are perhaps too topical and uncomfortable for some, but will remind the world that recent events in Gaza are not new.
    Verdict: Gold medal performance and production.
  33. Companion
    [31/january/2025] Score: 8/10
    It unfolds slowly as you come to understand a depressively, obsessively sulky woman who’s fallen deeply in love with an ordinary gut, and then it all twists. For that witty build-up it deserves your attention. For the rest it’s a brisk run around the woods as everyone reveals their own murderously inner nature. Somewhat more generic but still keeping the surprising pace needed for this cute thriller.
    Was it a demonic possession or something else that took her into his arms and a final revelation? I didn’t think to look into the story in advance heard it might be a horror of possession and then the nature of the possession is revealed with no build-up.
    Verdict: Runs like clockwork.
  34. The Brutalist
    [25/january/2025] Score: 8/10
    For the visual glory, the spectacle, the drama. If you have an interest in either rich human drama and/or the styles of modern architecture or the huge scope of such architecture, then this is a sumptuous visual experience, each grand scene posed and displayed with delicate elegance, distanced from the small human presence against towering and sweeping scenery, you can sit back in this three and a half-hour experience to follow the human drama post-1945 as refugees come to huddle in American and learn the scale and scope of ambition in the art of the architecture.
    It is this balance, where the architecture is just as much a role, that allows such a vast scope to be explored. You cannot tell, just, of architecture, and loose your audience, but when matched by the trauma and struggles of the characters the work becomes the vehicle for their story.
    Verdict: Brutal truths in a brutal time.
  35. Flight Risk
    [24/january/2025] Score: 5/10
    A tightly composed flight drama, three characters trapped and struggling for survival in one closed moment. We’ve seen the basic idea played out many times and this one just adds another few little elements, the setting of the remote Alaskan wilderness, the desperate fight as power shifts from one to another, lives in peril against a tight deadline. No vast drama and no complications as the machinations of the invisible distant enemy are played out and no long-winded debates, talk or other nonsense, just a straight fight and flight to the end.
    Verdict: Enjoy the ride.
  36. Wolf Man
    [18/january/2025] Score: 5/10
    Okay, it’s a werewolf, with a few little twists and turns along the way as a man sets out to the usual cabin/farm in the woods only to have it all go horribly wrong. It sets the scene and doesn’t stop along the way as it’s well-handled by cast and crew in a brisk story tightly confined in one location, at night, deep in the wilderness. So you’ll be happily satisfied with all the usual elements with few surprises but a more humane turn to the tale and its conclusion.
    Verdict: Satisfyingly savage.
  37. A Complete Unknown
    [18/january/2025] Score: 10/10
    The early years of Bob Dylan as he launches his career and changes the world of American folk music, tapping into the pain and sufferings of the times of the 1960s to set the world on a new road. Only a great film if you enjoy such a story and the music, the rebellion and the challenges of the times, its detail and texture of the time. It doesn’t lag at any time, but carries you through those times through the eyes and experiences of young “Dylan” and those around him. If you want to know where it all came from then this will serve as a great foundation.
    The detail and textures of the settings immerse you into the era that you don’t think of it, just the story.
    Verdict: Masterpiece.
  38. Nosferatu
    [6/january/2025] Score: 6/10
    A spectacular reproduction of the dark, surreal style and horror of the original Nosferatu from 1922, this stylised production ought to be enjoyed for that is nothing else. For anyone who has followed the story so far it’s a straight, blatant rip-off of the original authentic vampire horror Dracula, stealing the story and almost all details, characters and settings, the only originality can, then, be the style.
    Verdict: Take a bite.