Archive for 2025

88 posts from 01 January to 31 May 2025.

  • Blue Beetle

    This doesn’t start in the best way: ripping off Men in Black II and segways into reggaeton. But it gets much better.

  • Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

    A faithful adaptation of the actual story of the game, that’s what you get for adapting games with an actual plot, not Super Mario. The action is also very much inspired by Assassin’s Creed (the games, not the film).

  • Last Night at Soho

    A nice little musical horror. Falters towards the end, but it does not drown in a pool of its own blood, it only has some scars from deep knife cuts.

  • The Man

    Police-brutality-based “buddy cop” film, but where Mel Gibson is a Midwestern dentist supplies salesman. There’s a lot of police brutality, but the rest is funny.

  • Queen and Slim

    Extremely powerful stuff, the entire thing is brilliant. Then you check the release date and this is before George Floyd, before Breonna Taylor, before Jacob Blake. It only makes it more poignant.

  • Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

    I really thought this was a regular biopic, until the father beats the shit out of the accordion seller. Al murdering Pablo Escobar and Madonna taking his place is just another escalation.

  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

    I can’t believe how much Inception just downright stole from this. Not just the entire plot, but also smaller details. I could excuse Adam Sandler, but Nolan?

  • Black Hawk Down

    Is this a Sikorsky ad? Maybe an anti-ad, since two 10 million dollar gunships are shot down by simple unguided RPG. Sounds like a skill issue from the largest military in the world.

  • Attack the Block

    This is a small scale version of War of the Worlds or Signs, if the technical side was a Doctor Who episode. It includes pretty intense social commentary, bruv/fam.

  • Ali G Indahouse

    As if Seth Rogen, Airplane! and Mr. Bean had a filthy baby. How the fuck did they get Working Title to go for this, is it another Bad Santa? Poor Charles Dance, I guess he had a contract to fulfil.

  • The Green Hornet

    I have to say that Seth Rogen is extremely annoying, but if he’s the buffoon egotistic sidekick, I don’t think I mind. The action scenes are a bit chaotic, but there’s some stylish ones that take the cake.

  • Lost in Space

    This is surprisingly hard sci-fi for something for kids, very progressive in social mores, and absolutely against any kind of militarism. This is basically what the Star Wars prequels should be.

  • Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

    Oh lord, an origin story, where the boring ass analyst gets sent in a misguided op that turns him into Bourne. With a touch of Tenet, as Keneth Branagh is once again the evil Russian guy, more Byronic this time.

  • Star Wars IX

    Fucking Palpatine was the mastermind all along, get the fuck out of here! Motherfucker George Lucas and the fucking prequels, fucking JJ, fuck that shit! “Do it! DO IT!

  • The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

    A very Noir parody, it’s almost Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid levels. Both Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley hit it out of the park, what incredible performances. The deadpan faces are absolutely hilarious.

  • Star Wars: The Last Jedi

    Downright trolling the fans, this fucks up the continuity and makes the job of the next director extremely difficult, in service of yet another generic bloated action film.

  • Star Wars: The Force Awakens

    The fan wank, pandering, and outright stupid shit continues unabated. Incredible how anodyne vanilla dude like JJ Abrams has an iron grip on both Star Wars and Star Trek, and both are generic action films.

  • Solo: A Star Wars Story

    Ha, Han shot first! No wonder he’s so cynical, he was used by the mobster lieutenant to kill her boss. He really thought they were eloping.

  • Rogue One

    Nobody asked for this Star Wars prequel, but the House of Mouse demands the milking process to start. Milk, milk, milk the franchise, gently down the screen, merrily merrily merrily, the plot is but a dream. I head this Andor guy has a nicer show.

  • Sinners

    Is this… O Brother, Where Art Thou meets Carpenter’s Vampires, with just a dash of The Banshees of Inisherin? A smashing combination, another great bona-fide musical.

  • Godzilla Minus One

    This is a cool looking war movie where the enemy is Godzilla, avoiding all moral qualms. The politics of the whole thing are iffy, but it doesn’t seem so jingoistic as its critics say, it explicitly rejects death cults of the kamikaze. The woman get the short end of the stick, but it’s a war film set in the 40’s, that’s expected.

  • Black Mirror: Bandersnatch

    This is a baby’s first videogame for the masses, it’s only a breakthrough if you have never played anything. It’s closer to a walking simulator than an Black Isle or Obsidian RPG.

  • A Time To Kill

    This is literally Anatomy of a Murder meets Mississippi Burning, that’s why it’s over two hours long. Jake is just a poor, country lawyer, so anarchist he thinks the NAACP are ghouls slumming it on sweet home Mississippi.

  • Vantage Point

    Rashomon, but ripping off Bourne, with a Kennedy-style assassination in Salamanca, ironically produced by “Original Films”. The most unrealistic part is how Spaniards can talk and understand English, and an American Secret Service guy can drive stick.

  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show

    Ah, this is a musical version of Ed Wood, except weirdly sexual and extremely campy, to the point of parody. I can see why this is such a classic, it’s like the pop song version of musical theatre.

  • The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Do The Time Warp Again

    A PG-13 version of the original. What was edgy and cool, is now banal and mainstream (after Hairspray). Emotionally worse, even thought it’s a mostly faithful remake better in all possible ways: it’s nicer looking, the music is better arranged, the actors sing their own songs.

  • Spies Like Us

    Another trademark schizo “comedy” with not many jokes, a Landis/Aykroyd collab. It’s Ghostbusters meet Rambo III, our allies the mujahideen of Afghanistan!

  • Hancock

    Wait, this was re-written by Vince “Breaking Bad” Gilligan, and produced by Michael “Heat” Man? And written by a random recluse writer? What the actual fuck.

  • Full Metal Jacket

    This is my rifle, this is my gun! This is my rifle, this is my gun!

    This is for work and this is for fun.

  • Reality

    Reality Winner is an American hero, and now there’s the modern equivalent of a bronze plaque on a bench in a public park: a prestige no-budget filmed play, consisting of the FBI transcripts, where she is played by the latest sex symbol trying to upgrade their career into serious films, not just schlock.

  • Death Wish 3

    Charles Bronson murders everyone. Jesus Christ, how much more can you milk this idea? At least two more, I guess.

  • Moonfall

    I thought this was a real film, but it’s just a Independence Day /The Day After Tomorrow ripoff with industrial amounts of product placement, in service of Asylum-level CGI. But then, it’s also Interstellar with precursors.

  • Fargo

    Yah, just small town people being super competent and city slickers being buffoons. Extremely low cosmopolitrometer, but not phoney like Ben Affleck. Give all the Oscars to Frances McDormand, she deserves them.

  • A Travessia

    Suck it, rich people! Our broke ass country did it first, with technical trickery (and three planes).

  • Mayhem

    This is like the first Black Mirror episode, with a Neveldine/Taylor style, but with a good ending. What a crock of shit.

  • The Quick and the Dead

    That’s a ginormous cast of supporting roles, and bona fide stars being type cast. The plot is extremely bare bones, leaves much to the imagination.

  • On Falling

    A realistic Nomadland, with Million Dollar Baby vibes, produced by Ken Loach. Not ultimately uplifting like The Old Oak, just depressing and extremely blue.

  • Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom

    Captain Planet in the Aquaman suit. Amber Heard being sidelined. Even more Tolkienesque plot.

  • Wonka

    Well, this is the opposite from Tim Burton’s film, where Wonka is not the villain, and it’s about mommy issues instead. Lovely, but safe and not iconoclast.

  • Manodrome

    Is this the Christian critique to the manosphere cult? With a Jewish main character? There’s so much religious imagery (and songs), it can’t be a coincidence.

  • Collateral

    LA Heat. It’s not LA Vice, it’s all about the relationship between two guys, the amoral nihilist and the meek pushover.

  • Black Bag

    Mr. & Mrs. Smith meets Ocean’s Eleven. The music and overall direction is straight out of Vegas, bit the visuals are quite weird. It’s better to no think too much of the plot either, the heroes are non-ideological Cambridge Five, but for Putin instead of the Soviet Union.

  • My Girl

    So this is where Anna “I would rather eat my own shit” Chlumsky came from? No wonder she works on the Veep’s office in the future.

  • Infinity Pool

    A writer goes to a resort for inspiration, and gets a forced bout of self-discovery. An extremely forceful discovery of who he really his. Not even his girlfriend can keep him grounded in noblesse oblige.

  • 12 Rounds

    The title is a reference to Hercules’ twelve labours, but this is just Die Hard with a Vengeance without Zeus. John Cena cannot carry a movie all by himself, and there’s nobody else. Even the villain is weaksauce.

  • Jumanji: The Next Level

    Whaddaya mean, The Rock is an old Jewish guy from Brooklyn? Ya know, he’s on the ‘burbs!

  • Barbie

    This is way too meta to be taken “seriously”. Some extreme howlers, like multiple “fascist!” accusations, the president of Barbieland saying “motherfucker” with Mattel’s logo in her mouth, and so many Kens wanting to beat each other off. Better than Oppenheimer.

  • 2 Guns

    This is a low brow action flick that includes a couple of high brow scenes, so they can cut two trailers, I guess. Sicario with Marky Mark cannot be taken seriously, he’s like Arnie, the film warps to his personality, not the other way around.

  • Central do Brasil

    This is a more classic arthouse film, a bona-fide bingo of neorealism. Just because Walter Salles is a billionaire doesn’t mean he can’t be a class traitor.

  • Mickey 17

    Such a nice Starship Troopers spiritual remake. It’s all there, but trades some satirical punches for a more uplifting message. Would you like to know more?

  • Judge Dredd

    I AM THE LAAAAAAAW! Jon fought the law, and the law lost. I would believe if Diane Lane was pranked into thinking this would be a serious film. One of the weirdest source materials to adapt into a children’s film.

  • Deep Water

    A good old sex thriller, this is a dying genre. Not a problem, when you got Arnon Milchan bankrolling and Adrian Lyne directing, he did so much of those before.

  • Clear and Present Danger

    John Milius adapts a Tom Clancy novel. His influence cannot be so big, if the coast guard captain is a woman in the opening credits. No one drinks deer blood either.

  • Without Remorse

    Yet another victim of current events, this plot is absolutely mad. It was bad enough after the first Trump presidency, but after the second one, is just crazy. Why do even serious action films have to ape Marvel with shared universes, and post-credits scenes? Just do regular sequels, no need to tease so much!

  • Patriot Games

    Just a bog standard Blob propaganda piece, but very much focused on Jack Ryan himself, not much political stuff surrounding it. He’s a family man now, apparently.

  • Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

    This just IP, it has barely anything to do with Jumanji. It’s a souped up The Breakfast Club instead, with 30 year olds playing teenagers. In the Jumanji game universe, it’s a non-parody Land of the Lost.

  • Mission: Impossible – Fallout

    Number 6, brought to you by Chinese money, sponsored by BMW. The James Bond ripoff levels are off the charts, Rebecca Ferguson is Vesper now.

  • Eraserhead

    What. What? What! What‽ what, what. WHAT¡ WhAaaaaaT¿ Whattttttt⸮ Who? How? Why?

  • The Brutalist

    That’s a brutal runtime, but fitting for an epic story. Ironic how a film about brutalism is so stylish. Kinda tone deaf to make a big deal of making aliyah in this conjecture, they should have used AI to change that instead.

  • Don't Breathe 2

    They pull a Terminator 2 and the bad guy is a good guy now. But it’s really about a little kid’s FAMILY, the biological murderous deadbeats, and the kind killer that raised the kid. After some twists and turns towards the end, she goes self-made orphan and chooses the old SEAL Team 6.

  • Silent Night

    It’s a John Woo film, everything is extremely intense. Intense emotional scenes, intense training montages, then an intense John Wick ripoff. How the mighty have fallen.

  • Boy Kills World

    The visual style is extremely well-troden, it has been seen over and over and over again, and they even quote tastefully from the masters. But a story based on brotherly love, two children raised together bonding for life? That’s basically unheard of, it’s fresh just for that fact.

  • When Harry Met Sally...

    This is the quintessential romcom, written by Nora Ephron even. Harry is such a jerk for so long, I don’t see what Sally sees in him. That’s the hardest thing to suspend disbelief over.

  • Father of the Bride

    It’s not THAT funny, but what can you expect from a goofy Disney cash in on those comedian people they have in storage, with every single bit of edge sanded down to nubbins.

  • Presence

    This is too straightforward for Soderbergh, there’s no twist, no nothing. Feels just like The Whale, particularly the ending. His least good film since Haywire

  • The Report

    A Senate-based Three Days of the Condor released post-Snowden, in the Trump years. Delusional insanity, trust the process? The slimeballs hint at but never fucking say the name Gina Haspel!

  • Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

    The Cruiser does some shitty James Bond ripoff, with bad copies of other action films: The Matrix Reloaded freeway chase, The Bourne Legacy motorcycle chase, and The Man Who Knew Too Much opera assassination. Then they have the pointless legacy cameo: “should you choose to accept it”, “this message will self destruct in X seconds”.

  • Death Wish II

    Vigilantism comes to the streets of LA. This is much less downright fascist, it’s less ideological, most plot decisions are done for Doylist reasons.

  • Green Knight

    This is very beautifully shot and acted, but there’s an overall weirdness, it’s extremely thematic, not a straightforward story. Some enormous amounts of themes stuck in there.

  • 28 Days Later

    This is much lower budget and esoteric than I remembered. Some of the images are simply timeless, like trashed and empty London, the zombie on a leash, or the Christmas lights on the apartment.

  • Barbarian

    Oof, this is filled with twists, but it’s actually very conventional. It has themes, but they do not really gel with the movie itself until the last 30 minutes or so.

  • Machete Kills

    Now this is even more silly, if that could be possible. Less politically charged, absolutely ridiculous with a sci-fi vibe this time. Lady Gaga kills it as the Mission: Impossible assassin with perfect latex masks.

  • Top Gun: Maverick

    That intro is straight out of Hot Shots, and so is the first plane ride. Played completely straight, this is absolutely ridiculous, it’s basically a remake.

  • Ainda Estou Aqui

    I mean, it’s no Marighella (not even Central do Brasil). It’s a tragedy, but they live in Leblon, just across the street from the beach. It’s completely focused on the wife. How did “the help” survive so long without wages? Where did she went afterwards? A lot of glossed over things.

  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

    They go full circle, there’s a blatant Cutthroat Island meets Fast Five ripoff in the bank heist. The cold open includes two openings in fact, the new lore and the nostalgia factor. For fuck’s sake, there’s also some deepfake Johnny Depp as teenager.

  • Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

    Mermaids, Blackbeard, and shit, but also some historical empires struggling for conquering an exotic landmark. The new couple falling in love is Morrigan from the bad King Arthur, and some priest of unknown denomination.

  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

    The NeverEnding Story, oh oh ohhh, never ending story. They have the guts of ending the third one with yet another adventure in the making.

  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

    It’s Davy Jones locker for the lot of ye!

  • Nomis

    What the fuck is this, I can’t understand all this acting talent doing jackshit. Some British director bring a fuckton of English people to Canada, teams up with a lot of local talent, to write a crappier Nordic thriller. A much shittier version of Wind River.

  • Fast X

    Here we go, this is gonna be a rambling stream-of-conscience review.

  • JFK

    This is a squeaky fucking clean Hollywood film, about as left wing as morally possible in America: the f-word (fascism) is dropped only once in the final monologue.

  • Wicked Little Letters

    One of those Saturday afternoon BBC period pieces, exquisite production values, with a lot of old school accented swearing. Better that Queen Victoria shoving a spiky flower up her twat, that’s for sure.

  • The King of Comedy

    This is just a pitiful version of Network, from the audience perspective, there’s no satire here. Up there with Bringing Out the Dead.

  • Don't Breathe

    Damn, this thriller has so many twists and turns, it alternates many times between “this sucks” and “this is awesome”. A very fine film for such limited budget and cast.

  • Nosferatu

    That trademark Eggers purple prose and visual portent, with a nearly monochromatic colour scheme. Not as foul and vile in its wickedness as The Lighthouse, but a well rounded effort, even with seemingly the guild forcing some performers that fail to meet the high bar required for this.

  • Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget

    Aardman still got it, incredible. This is more grandiose (maybe with a smidgen of CGI, but probably not), and apes silly old James Bond films and Mission: Impossible, instead of The Great Escape.

  • Maestro

    A typical Hollywood people biopic. Glosses over any professional drama, it’s purely about the personal relationships. As a melodrama, it lacks some grandiose and bombastic scenes, unlike the music, ironically.

  • Whiplash

    The first half of Full Metal Jacket without the critical second bit, where we learned it was all for nought. No one is really cancelled, like Tár.