Reviews

Strangely boring gothic chiller involving much stilted menace, red herring and latent insanity to make it fun finding out how it resolves but by the time the third act comes along, common sense is abandoned as the plot relies on an absurd twist that seems unlikely at best involving hypnosis and a coffin with a glass top.

The acting, make up and costume, even the sets are all good, the direction effective without being impressive, it's an Italian Edgar Allen Poe set in Scotland. Women wander around in nightgowns, there's a dream sequence and a madman on the loose but it's all played so matter-of-fact there's no real scares or tension as it meanders to a conclusion that everyone seems fine with despite the body count and horror.

Ridiculously camp tale of outer space shenanigans involving mad scientists and secret lairs, robots and countdowns and explosions.

It's hard to put your finger on quite what's wrong with it; it's no worse than an episode of Blake's 7 or Buck Rodgers; apparently on a budget of $3 million dollars it appears televisual and lacking anything decent in terms of costume, effects, music or ideas wouldn't seem out of place as a TV movie.

Instead it's a hugely derivative trope-fest, which along with its spiritual follow up, the more adult Saturn 3, seems terribly dated and out of step with contemporary cinema. Instead it's an unintentionally hilarious pilot episode for a nonexistent tv series with plenty of cheesy acting, lame effects (check out the slow motion time dilation) with high ambition but seriously low on quality and originality.

I haven't watched this.

I saw the trailer and Freevee helpfully started playing it without request leading me to surmise it's Spam, but Prime Spam.

It's got Morgan Freeman being a world weary authority on bad folks and a tortured cop that eats well. It's a bit about magic and voodoo or whatever and there's stuff about dead children in there.

It looks glossy and expensive and not without some action; but caveat emptor as they say. Has no one seen Se7en? Apparently 6 script writers and 18(!) producers have and it's probably their favourite movie ever. I bet they wish they'd thought of it so here it is again with some bits changed so is not too obvious.

But with the genre continually being reinvented this looks like a facsimile with none of the invention or style or the pervasive dread of its progenitor. Amazon and AppleTV may champion their exclusive product but with people returning to the cinema it's the new "Straight to Video" and that's not a compliment.

The big door prize started as a quirky comedy drama with nice characters, charming and funny with a bit of awkwardness and sadness. The story begins after a tragedy which becomes more apparent.

I was hooked on the first three episodes; laughs, tears and a bit of magic.

Now I'm really starting to dislike it; the last 2 episodes have changed focus to Beau and his grief for his dead son; a bit grim in theory but instead there's a palpable sense of threat if he finds out his son was the infidel.

This episode was centred around Beau's increasingly toxic behaviour and Giorgio's manipulation of Dusty. With Dusty's increasingly infantile carry on, the complete lack of chemistry with his wife Cass and the stalling plot i am losing interest in these people.

Where at first the characters were charming and engaging, they've become grotesques. Perhaps this is the arc; in preparation for the finale, rather than unlocking potential, they will become the worst version of themselves. Maybe Dusty will have been right all along.

But as the horrors start to unfold I'm not sure this is what I had hoped for from such a magical beginning. I genuinely hope they can rediscover some of the heart of earlier episodes or it's all going to end badly, not just in the show but for the show.

It's a quality tv show; the production standard is high, the verisimilitude is authentic, the subject matter and the horror/ spirituality is an interesting angle to refresh "war is hell".

Unfortunately seven episodes in I am baffled why it's so terminally dull. It seems each episode is in recursion, except for the one episode that was completely different. Hector is a perennial manchild sacrificing his adopted family, his grieving mother of his children lurches between catatonic and delivering inconsequential expositions. The melodrama is so high it's practically soap. Everyone else mopes around looking sullen.

Every episode someone (a minor character) will deliver a "you don't scare me/ death with honour" soliloquy while being tied to something and brutalised. Any real drama (stolen children, outbreak in the hospital) gets ignored to allow for yet another racially charged standoff.

It's a shame because their is an interesting story buried underneath the shock and awe and macho postulating, but the sensational drowns out the intrigue like a pianist bludgeoning keys with a hammer to MAKE A REALLY IMPORTANT MESSAGE ultimately breaking the piano and alienating listeners.

Sure zombie ghost ladies are creepy but after 7 episodes even her antics are wearing thin, so the makers resort to horror and shock to cover up the lack of substance in their tale of racism is bad. There are no laughs, and there's nothing to make you cry, but you will feel angry and frustrated that no one seems capable of acting with any decency or honesty or integrity. There's no one to root for and no one to love. Intentions are universally selfish and hostile, actions are spiteful, cruel and cowardly.

Makes you wonder what the fighting's even about. National pride? Or just the wheat and oil show again.

Zany spy caper with an American James Bond and an assortment of British b-movie stars.

It's bookended by two crazy freak out style montages of hippie youths doing dangerous antisocial things like dancing and taking off their clothes which the cops put a stop to, but it neatly introduces Judy Geeson who repeatedly shows up in each change of location so often I was convinced she would be revealed as some sort of British intelligence operative masquerading as a nymphomaniacal socialite junkie, stealing every scene she's in by giggling and pouting. Her omnipresence is so remarkable she is the mugaffin.

The rest of it was something about missiles and piano recitals and scenes of torture, the victim of which gets moved around almost as often as Judy Geeson but happily delivers his expository dialogue before expiring giving necessary depth to the hapless stooge before killing off everyone else without worrying about the ethical quandary.

Sadly it's neither funny enough to be a spoof nor serious enough to be a thriller. The violence/ action scenes are a bit unnecessary and the diabolical masterplan seems too fantastic and risky to be plausible. Happily there was no secret underground lair but there were henchmen wearing stripy T-shirts.

A host of familiar faces play small roles including David Prowse, Diana Dors, Kenneth Cope and Veronica Carlson and there's a bit of humour involving a hearse chase but like the diegetic theme song which appears at least 3 times including the hippy dance at the end, it's highly derivative and repetitive. Our man Hood in one scene names the artists of various paintings to demonstrate his cultivation; but does it so many times in succession the he ceases to resemble a gentleman and turns into a tour guide.

Like the crazy kid/ stoner at the end, lowering his caged self into the bay water while everyone dances; it all seems kind of random, dangerous and stupid and someone really should put a stop to it.

Stanley Kubrick used to make good films. That was before he made IMPORTANT films. This is one of his good ones.

Before Tarantino and Nolan did the same, here he told the same story from different vantage points to let the audience figure out, not just what's going on, but to see the intricate planning of the job and wonder how it's going to turn out.

The "genius" of Tarantino in Pulp Fiction is to set up a story line and then deviate from expectation in a shocking way, gimps in cellars, cpr with hypodermic etc. There is a wonderfully tense and unexpected scene in The Killing where the goon tasked with shooting the race horse faces the most unexpected and unstoppable of foes: Luck, here personified in a genial security guard brandishing the most potent of lucky symbols: a horseshoe. A horseshoe at a racetrack, piercing a tyre, and so puncturing the most elaborate of criminal planning bubbles. And on such simple twists of fate the outcome of the most diligent of criminals become completely unstuck.

Of course, such plays on verisimilitude are, thanks to modern movies shamelessly pilfering past classics, to be expected rather than lauded. Which is fine, it means everyone had to raise their game. And to that Hollywood has to raise a glass, to Kubrick and the Killing, not just reinventing genre but rewriting cinematic language.

It's the mid 70s and a post Bond Connery has to explore the options available in order to expand his "range". Hollywood has gone "youth" with genre breaking thrillers from new talent ushering in a new realism and political awareness.

These things are evident in "Ransom" which is not particularly violent but seems to want to play a dystopian understanding of global hypocrisy while keeping a fairy tale ending, kind of like another airport bound thriller, Die Hard 2 would do with a higher body count and more sophistication.

Bad guys are loosely sketched, the wife of a diplomat hostage goes nerve shreddingly irrational, the plot is moved from signpost to signpost as our hostage negotiator solved the case almost completely out of nowhere. There's crosses and double crosses but nothing that surprises and no sequences that hold the tension.

Sadly, it's got the talent, it's got the movement and the intent but it's only got an idea for a script rather than a fully realised screenplay. A real missed opportunity.

A late Joan Crawford vehicle which places her as a ringmaster for her own circus while performers are being killed. Is not long before the police investigate possible murders.

What follows is a bizarre mash up of real circus action, a murder mystery and melodrama. The circus scenes are a treat, probably because most of the action would be illegal now and is great to have it documented. The poodles were particularly hilarious.

The story is a bit thin, the performances adequate by a myriad of faces familiar to British cinema and tv of the 60s and introduces genre favourite Judy Geeson as a rebellious teenager. The ending comes out of nowhere and it's all a bit silly but great fun.

If Hammer were the masters of the genre in the 60s, Amicus gave them at least some competition. Tigon also made some genre flicks and even took up residence in Hammer's offices but didn't have the filmmaking talent to compete. Apart from Witchfinder General they produced a series of exploitation nonsense like this, a sub hammer tale of witchcraft and hippy shakes.

It's disappointing when a movie boasts legends of the genre (Karloff, Lee, Steele) and then gives them nothing to do. Instead we are treated to Mark Eden looking like a bank manager at a rave investigating the disappearance of brother by interviewing Christopher Lee twice while seducing his niece.

Granted Karloff could barely walk as is demonstrated in a scene where he gamely leaves his comfy chair, but the mind was sharp and his is the best performance.

That plot is souped up by running around and dream sequences that drag out the running time while characters drift in and out just to remind there's a bad man somewhere maybe.

There's a "freak out" style party early on which serves no purpose in the story and only serves to remind which decade we're in; i wasn't around back then and I don't know if kids really did duel with paint brushes in their underwear or chase girls with their cars but it feels like these scenes are superfluous, other than to reflect the changing audience, or the filmmakers perceptions of their audience no matter how wildly inaccurate.

Twice the hero puts a pin in his own verisimilitude; he comments he expects Boris Karloff to appear, then reveals the set dressing is in fact set dressing, designed to trick him. It might have seemed clever but it feels like a cheat.

Ultimately the whole thing is a bit boring, probably as nothing happens until very late on, and the denouement is as confusing as it is obvious.

Not the insult to my intelligence that it first appears to be, and after the negative reviews, it's a film version of a book of a play that's been remade 6 times previously but seems anachronistic because it's100 years old and has nothing new to say.

As far as comedy goes; it has no jokes. The acting is universally bad, except for Peter Cushing's rather tragic and vulnerable performance, and although the third act races past with a couple of decent special effects, the whole thing is a televised stage play. Fine if you can't get to the theatre, but there are no other reasons to make such a non-cinematic experience for the cinema.

The wrap around narrative (I must confess I don't know whether that was included in any of the original adaptations) only serves to highlight the paucity of anything approaching subtext, so instead of being a murder mystery/ ghost story it attempts to address the human condition and since it was from Cannon, providers of delta force 2, death wish 3 and superman 4, that feels a bit pretentious. Now they've ticked their ontological box they can crack on with 'splosions and breasts for the remainder of their roster.

As a swan song for these legendary actors it's a real disappointment.

Strangely boring action film about a mumbling stone faced assassin touring Hong Kong after being betrayed by his employers.

Completely unaware of it's own nonsense (the camera gun?) Shatter takes on the bad guys with some particularly gory head shots and a camp as buttons falling-out-of-a-window finale. In the meantime his new pals; a kung fu wizard takes out the trash and a hooker with a heart of gold....oh dear. Who could have predicted that?

The story is basic but there's no hope of following it as plot elements are explained only using exposition heavy dialogue and things happen for no real reason and make less sense. (The missile? Severing his vocal chords won't stop him writing things down? Surely there were easier solutions to the syndicate's woes than double crossing a third party?) But at least there are no secret underground layers and no one goes into space. There's misfiring dialogue like "(Shatter)'s not just a name. It's a way of life" Eh?

(In what way? I'm Scottish and I if I was "shattered" I'd be exhausted.

"I'm not just tired. I'm really tired" Tired like this movie.)

He doesn't know who he was working for, does no investigation and makes terrible decisions, his plans are awful and he gets lucky in the end. Just what you need from the world's top hitman. Why try harder?

Apparently the original director got fired after Michael Carreras didn't like the early footage but still lays claim that it's 80% his original cut, it's easy to see why he was replaced; a city as exciting and cultural, exotic even, as Hong Kong should make excellent eye candy but looks dull and impoverished, the action sequences are adequate but introduced far too late after nearly 60 minutes of one-dimension Shatter wandering around and getting beaten up a few times. It's as if they thought "we're in Hong Kong and we need to make a movie but we haven't got a script or any time or money but we've got some actors." And then cobbled together some spy/ hitman shenanigans from the cliche mill, just so long as it goes all the way to the top...

A back alley, a harbour and a hilltop. And some cable cars. It's desperate stuff.

The only good bit is the fight scene in the club full of tension and kinetic drama, but ironically is of no consequence plot-wise and seems to come from a different film. Second unit?

As a Hammer film; it's near the end. The studio had more or less lost its identity and was attempting to break new ground in order to continue but duffers like this only served to accelerate its collapse. Tellingly it also ended the brief friendship with Shaw Brothers.

Frugly was apparently first coined in 1975, which is (I'm assuming) when the writers got their degrees in psychology, if indeed they have them.

Neither funny enough to be a comedy, nor serious enough to be a drama, it's essentially a sitcom soap opera with Hollywood wattage, natural wastage recycled. Everyone knows death; the question remains what makes his special? Is he a good man? Unfortunately the idea a counsellor would resort to unethical behaviour to help patients is pure fantasy as would inevitably lead to malpractice suits and the sack. So there goes verisimilitude in spite of how grounded it appears to be. It's really just about the feels and that feels like a cheat when the show is purported to be about psychiatry.

The premise is good; the old adage of Physician heal thyself is as good today as it was in 1975 and death and mourning never get old, but underneath Shrinking's smug offbeat sentimentality there's only twee nothing happening.

So you're a parent and you want to bond with your child; you can enjoy playing a game together or having a heart to heart. Take a long walk or solve a puzzle. In short; if your parenting is dysfunctional, find something that matters to to your child and make it matter to you.

No. Be lazy and take the couch potato option. What to do is subject them to a ruthless assault of their endocrine system as you brainwash them with an £85 million dollar light show about a movie you liked when you were 5. Don't let up until you've watched their salty tears roll down their face as your chosen surrogate ghost granddad (played by Bob Gunton) says all the things you never will without even saying a word. Now THAT is acting. Their hormones will thank you like you're a god. You though ecto-1 was cool. Now you were right.

And so is Ghostbusters afterlife; I liked it! I really did. But here's the problem; it's essentially just Ghostbusters done again and in some places word-for-word. Even the same jokes. It doubles down, triple downs and keeps on downing the downs on the nostalgia so that there is not another part of the original movie left to exploit. Ultimately you are watching a simulacrum of the original film with some child actors and the real thing occupying the same space. None of the actors have anything to do except show up, along with the special effects which look like things haven't really changed since 1984. The only exception being McKenna Grace who delivers the movies only performance and cruelly overlooked on awards because you don't get Oscars for comedy.

I liked it; it's cheesy and fun and impossible to hate but again I'm completely aware it's a cynical exploitation of nostalgia and it's cloying sentimentality of a nonexistent past make it hypocritical. It's fairy tales and fantasy. The dedication before the film has ended to Harold Ramis is too much; he never wanted to make another and he and Bill Murray never spoke for 25 years before his death due to his onset behaviour. The fact it's directed by Jason Reitman may again be a cynical sentimental overdose as nepotism in the workplace may be a form of discrimination, or at the very least a conflict of interest. Keep it the family indeed.

I liked it I really did. Or was I just beaten into submission by manipulation par excellence, successfully brainwashed by an electronic babysitter? Radicalised into accepting people are good and everything works out in the end? As long as I know the difference between movies and real life I'll be ok. There is a difference right?

Wacky splice of a Boris Karloff talkie and a swinging London slasher.

Although the movie starts with hokey weirdness about the most dreaded of all horrors - "mind control" as the mad scientist and his missus flash lights and turn knobs to the Saint's disadvantage (long before get out's teaspoon routine) then sending him on a series of macabre errands, it then becomes quite an exciting chiller as the twisted old bat asks more and more until the inevitable climax. Even the ending makes sense as much as it can. What's more it gets quite violent and horrific in a way which is not gratuitous but made all the more shocking for the transition from is mad scientist beginnings.

It's worth watching for the nightclub scenes however authentic or otherwise they may be and an early outing for Susan George who would go onto things far more controversial.

Fairly straightforward Hitchcock thriller with a wonderful Stacy Keach and a barely-in-it-but-top-billing Jamie Lee Curtis.

The Australian backdrop is a fascinating culture clash wilderness akin to the Wild West; there is a particularly oppressive mural in a cafe, hints of latent sexual violence and even cannibalism while Keach's Quid is unbalanced enough to seed doubt about his own innocence in proceedings. Not Mad Max but one bend short of completing the circuit. He even has the same dog to accompany his white line nightmare.

The Australian cast are charismatic and enjoyable with naturalistic dialogue portentous of events adding menace. It's a tight script rewarding attention to detail without relying heavily of coincidence, red herring or cheap shocks. Ok one cheap shock involving a kangaroo.

It's a shame the Australian film industry collapsed and descended into The Howling Marsupials as Roadgames has energy, smarts and personality far better than it's reputation.

It's the Star Wars that Star Wars fans want Star Wars to be like without being like the Star Wars that they don't like from the " other" Star Wars.

"Can it be more like Star Wars this version of Star Wars?" they asked. And instinctively Jon Favreau knew what they meant.

Yes it is a good show. Earnest and serious, a little bit violent and with bags of charisma and heart, and no corn or goof. The puppets work better than cgi, the cgi is still there but is not overcooked. The story is smart and engaging. Lots to like.

On the downside the dialogue still doesn't work (reminiscent of Harrison Ford's immortal "you can type this..." witness Katie Sackhoff's info dump about how to find a Jedi at the end of the heiress) and too many episodes are handed to non directors to direct; Bryce Dallas Howard may be a fantastic actress but she is not comparable to Payton Reed; her inexperience is jarring, less so Carl Weathers but still not great.

In the final episode too much expository dialogue by Giancarlo Esposito renders him practically a narrator while the surprise reveal takes so long to fight every last dark trooper that for the first time the show starts to feel a bit stuck in a loop.

My only concern with the series is that a lot of it exploits characters and creatures that already existed out of place, Admiral Akbar's memorable appearance in Rotj as an officer; the mandalorian placed his species squarely back working in the shipyards, the same for snaggletooth and squid face and others resurrected to explore back stories that add nothing other than to revisit the characters post revolution back in a suitable habitat.

Maybe it's ok but Im not really a fan of nostalgia as it's usually a fraud. Better to introduce new creatures and villains than remain super true to the canon and what exists already. Better to feed the kids imaginations with inconsequential additions and weirdness rather than spoon feed them remnants of the past. That's my Star Wars. The biggest sin it committed was to simply rechurn the same formula; attack a gigantic super weapon in a dangerous assault while learning about a concealed familial connection. What detracted from its banality was the richness of the universe it inhabited. What the Mandalorian got wrong for me was to make it seem less interesting by reusing too many already familiar elements.

Grumbles aside; I am not a Star Wars nut but am delighted the real fans have got a product to champion even if much like the Alamo it's the Star Wars they want to remember in place of the one that actually exists.

Essentially a millennial remake of the original movie; prey takes the best bits of that and retcons them to the 18th century with a feisty female Comanche fighting gender stereotyping in the form of a 10 foot alien.

There's a bit of predator porn, I can't help feel his revealing from the start is a bit premature, but as he's no secret and more or less the star, it's to be expected, but thankfully the makers treat their cash cow with respect and at no point allow him to look silly.

It's gory and exciting, and as an apology to Comanches it works just fine. In fact some of the best parts of the movie are Predatorless (the quicksand, the bear, etc) but the none too subtle gender politics transport it into fairytale Disney Princess territory as our plucky heroine defeats all men before her, friend or foe, to gain the respect of her brothers who are now confusingly all dead.

It is unfortunate that looking at the 80s version with its subtext about emasculation and the exaggerated machismo and the predators voyeurism was a smart film open to interpretation, modern movies like this take a far less subtle approach to subtext, conscious that concerns would be raised on social media damaging brands and forcing contrition.

A far more interesting angle is the relationship between the human settlers and the native Americans and their predatory nature compared with the alien, hunting for commerce hinted at by the buffalo field and the introduction of guns as technological advancements as America gears up for more fierce debate about gun control and sustainability.

Sadly it's more about validating the filmmakers themselves than about gender or racial equality. Aside from the dreaded virtue signalling it's a fantastically entertaining action movie.