Because Everybody Else Has One

No spoilers here, folks. The only plot details I've revealed are those that are contained in the opening crawl. That doesn't stop this from being quite a long review, weirdly enough - but don't worry, another Justice League screed this isn't. It's just as geeky, to be sure, but in a much, much, more positive way. This review is also up on Channel 24  if you prefer to check it out there. What it's about Picking up immediately where The Force Awakens left off, Rey tries to enlist Luke Skywalker to train her in the way of the Force and to return to his sister's side in the fight against the First Order. Meanwhile, with the New Republic annihilated, the rest of the resistance fight for their life against overwhelming odds as the First Order bears down on what remains of their forces. What we thought J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens, the seventh film in the Star Wars saga, drew equal parts admiration and disdain for its reverent, back-to-...

Yeah, I know I'm late with this but after some less than effusive reviews of late, I figure it's only right to highlight some films that are actually worth your time. No promises, but hopefully this will only be the first of these this week. I'll do my best to keep these short to try and make sure that happens... Before I get onto the business of praising this film to, well, the Land of the Dead, in this case, a word or two about that accompanying Frozen "short" that has been the cause of so much controversy. The backlash against it has been so bad that Disney will be pulling it from all prints of Coco - at least in the US - from this coming Friday. And rightly so. It's very bad, it's very long, it doesn't fit at all with the main feature and it took the place of one of those usually wonderful Pixar shorts that we normally get with most of their movies. It's total rubbish and their plans to use it to advertise the upcoming Frozen 2 has clearly...

I missed the press preview for this so I went out to see it the midday screening on opening day and then wrote this straight after. So, if you think my reviews are too - haha - thoughtful this should be for you! Also, this really wasn't very good. I need to review something good to balance the scales, methinks. Stay tuned... This review is already on Channel 24 What it's about Andrew and Garrett Foster are half brothers and, as car thieves at the top of their game, are literal partners in crime. When the two accidentally steal from one of France's greatest crime lords, they and Andrew's girlfriend, Steph, are forced to carry out a car-robbery for the man they stole from, and in the process get caught up in a crime war that may end up making them very rich or very,very dead. What we thought Overdrive is, by any metric, a very bad movie. The acting is universally poor, the script risible, the plot overstuffed and the characterization thread-ba...

Or, as I like to think of it: Justice League of America in the Case of the Uncanny Moustache! Seriously, I know it's not politically correct or necessarily accurate to call it Justice League of America but "Justice League" always sounds to me like only half a title. Yeah, things are probably about to get a bit nerdy... Plot: With Superman dead and the world on the brink of facing a full-on invasion by an ancient evil, Batman and Wonder Woman recruit a team of like-minded individuals to stand for Truth, Justice and the American (?) Way! Review:  After Wonder Woman proved that films set in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe, for those not keeping track at home) don't have to objectively suck - and, in the case of Wonder Woman, could actually be pretty damn good - all eyes were on Justice League of America  to see if Warners/ DC would learn from its recent success, or if Wonder Woman was just a fluke and we would be back to the low, low levels of Batman V Superman...

Anthropoid-ish? This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about The true story of Operation: Anthropoid, where a pair of British soldiers teamed up with a small group of Czech resistance fighters at the peak of the Second World War to assassinate Reinhard Heidrich, one of Hitler's most ruthless generals and a major architect of the Final Solution. What we thought Based on the historical novel, HhHH by Laurent Binnet - inevitably, some of this story had to be based on conjecture and even pure fiction as the film will make very clear; but the basic events apparently really did happen – the Man With the Iron Heart originally shared the same title as its source novel but presumably out of wanting to spare everyone the embarrassment of having to try pronounce what is less a word than an exasperated sigh, they wisely opted to settle on this generic but far more comprehensible title. They could have also called it Anthropoid but, as it so happens, anoth...

Yes, that's how you punctuate this film's title. And, no, that's not the weirdest thing about it. Not by a very, very long shot. Please note, I may discuss some plot points in this review but I am reluctant to call them spoilers - because the film isn't really about its plot, which, as it so happens is literally thousands of years old. Still, if you want to know absolutely nothing about the film going in then feel free to not read this review until you've seen it. Then again, in this case, you might actually want to know a bit about what the film is before deciding to see it. That start-rating should give you an idea of how much I loved it but it's certainly not for everyone. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who walked out of the screening I saw of the film who actively liked it. Take that as you will. Incidentally, I know I am guilty of using the personal pronoun a lot in my reviews, perhaps even too much so, but that practice has never...

A film that is almost as ridiculous as its title. And don't necessarily mean that in a bad way! This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about Set in 17 th century Amsterdam, Tulip Fever tells the story of Sophia, an orphaned girl who marries a much older merchant named Cornelis Sandvoort but as her failure to conceive a child for Corenlis tears their already friendly but ultimately loveless marriage further and further apart, she meets and falls in love with Jan van Loos, the young painter that Cornelis hires to take their portrait. Sophia and Jan's illicit love affair soon turns out to be only the beginning of a series of events that spins all their lives out of control; all revolving around the rather peculiar practice of investing ludicrous amounts of money around tulip bulbs in Amsterdam's underground market. What we thought Coming hot on the heels of a racy “Red Band” trailer, Tulip Fever is a hot-blooded bodice-ripper that is as unafr...

Not the Hawkeye/ Scarlett Witch reunion you might be expecting. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about After the body of a girl is found brutally raped and murdered on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, Jane Banner, a rookie FBI agent sent to investigate the murder purely because of her proximity to the reservation, joins forces with Cory Lambert, a white man and wildlife tracker who has lived on the reservation ever since marrying his ex-wife, to solve the crime. The more they dig, however, the more is revealed – not just about the crime but about each other and Wind River itself. What we thought Taylor Sheridan has gone from being a respected, if not overly famous, character actor to a writer responsible for the scripts of two of the greatest crime dramas in recent years. Sicario and Hell and High Water – directed by Denis Villeneuve and David Mackensie, respectively – mixed the Outlaw Nation feel of your classic westerns with slow-b...

It's really hard to complain about Marvel's endless stream of movies when they continue to be this good. This review is also up on Channel 24 .  What it's about Thor and Loki join forces with unexpected allies against a new foe that has arisen unexpectedly out of the ashes of tragedy; a foe who intends to fulfil the Ragnarok prophecy and bring ruin and destruction down on Asgard and the other realms of the multiverse: their sister and Odin's first-born, Hella. What we thought By this point, it has become rather cliché to state that the latest Marvel movie is the quirkiest and funniest yet. After solidifying their formula with their so-called “First Wave” that culminated in the Avengers, Joss Whedon's excellent game-changer that made it clear just how much Marvel's “shared universe” works on the big screen, the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't so much abandoned its winning formula as it has stretched it and played with it to create incre...

Yay, a new contender for the worst film of the year! This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it's about After Tiffany defies her father and goes to a Halloween party at a camp site where a string of murders once took place, she soon comes face to face with a number of apparently supernatural terrors that seem intent on replicating that bloody past. Things get increasingly complicated when Madea, Joe, Bam and Hattie set out to “rescue” Tiffany from the camp site – and that's before learning about the horrors that await them. What we thought This may be the tenth Madea movie but it is the first once I've ever seen. I enjoyed Tyler Perry is his small role in Gone Girl and I've endured some of his other films (and in the case of something like For Colored Girls, “endure” is definitely the word) but I haven't actually seen a full instalment of his signature series. Frankly, there was enough unbearable awfulness to be found in the two-minute trai...

Oops, forgot to post this. But hey, at least this review has already been up at Channel 24 for over a week. What it's about A successful businessman is sent to prison for culpable homicide after being involved in a drunk-driving accident that ended up with his best friend dead. Sent to a maximum-security prison, he is left with no choice but to join a white-supremacist gang in order to stay alive; a decision that leads him down a dark road from which he will never be able to return. What we thought Pitched somewhere between a tense prison-thriller and a serious, character-driven drama about the horrific effects of the American penal system, Shot Caller may boast strong performances, moments of real tension and a (potentially) interesting story of a good – if yuppy-ish – man going very, very bad but it' inability to find a balance between its two sides makes for a frustrating and not particularly enjoyable near-miss. Game of Thrones' Nicolaj Coste...

So simple a title, such a mess of a movie. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about After his personal life is ripped apart by a brutal terrorist attack, Mitch Rapp starts a one-man war against radical Islamist terrorism. His actions soon catch the attention of the CIA who enlist him to be part of their most elite counter-terrorism group – if, that is, he can survive training by Stan Hurley, a celebrated, tough-as-nails CIA and army veteran known for breaking his recruits. What we thought American Assassin has the sort of title that immediately brings to mind fairly straightforward action-thrillers that, more often than not, find their home on late night TV, where they can be enjoyed by insomniacs and undiscerning action junkies. I've long railed against these kinds of films taking the place of much worthier films in our local cinemas – and I stand by that – but in the case of American Assassin things aren't quite so simple. And, sadly, ...

Question: How do you turn 15,000 pages of story into a 90-minute movie? Answer: You don't. This review is also up on  Channel 24 What It's About Loosely based on the Stephen King fantasy series, the Dark Tower tells the story of Jake, a teenager whose visions of another world may be written off as a sign of madness by his parents, doctors, teachers and friends but when a series of events leads him to that other world, he comes face to face with his visions brought to life: an eternal battle of good and evil between the The Man in Black who wants to bring darkness and death to multiple worlds and Roland, the last Gunslinger, the one man who could stop him. At the centre of their conflict is the Dark Tower, a single structure that lies at the centre of reality and is the only thing standing between the Multiverse and whatever darkness lies outside it. What we thought Spanning three decades, seven novels, a number of spin-off books, comics and thousands up...

Exceptional? Maybe not. But pretty worth seeing. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about Set during the height of World War 2 where Adolf Hitler had effectively exiled the German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm, and his wife to the Netherlands to “wait out the war”, a young soldier is assigned to the Kaiser's home as head of security but whose main mission is to spy on the household and to report any seditious, anti-Nazi activities going on there. He quickly falls for a bold, outspoken housemaid who has plenty of secrets of her own – not least of all being that is Jewish. What we thought Despite its setting and its plot, it would be a stretch to call the Exception a “Holocaust film” - both because it only touches on the Holocaust and the rampant anti-Semitism going on in Europe at the time and because these truly dark historic events are used mostly as context for the story it's trying to tell, rather than the story itself. The result is a film th...

Too soon? This review is also up on  Channel 24 What it's about As the Twin Towers are attacked on that fateful day in September 2001, a group of people stuck in a broken down elevator in the North Tower struggle to survive, while confronting their own and each other's personal demons. What we thought 9/11 is an uncomfortable watch – unfortunately, not always for the reasons that the filmmakers clearly want it to be. On the one hand, it is a taut, if overly generic survival thriller with, to be honest, fairly b-grade level performances from most of the cast and some seriously creaky dialogue. On this level it works, just about, even if there's little about it that demands paying the high price of a cinema ticket to see it. The problem is that this perfectly adequate b-movie is taking place within the context of a still fairly recent tragedy; a tragedy whose effects still resonate with even those of us who have never been within a thousand miles of...

Soon to be known as the one where Anakin Skywalker acts John McClane off the screen. This review is also up on Channel 24 . What It's About A big-time city man returns to his small-town home to take his young son hunting but while they're on the hunt they witness one man shooting another after a clearly illicit deal goes wrong. Things quickly go from bad to worse as they are drawn into a web of dirty cops and dangerous bank robbers. What we thought It says something about just how far Bruce Willis has fallen that he is acted off the screen at every turn by Hayden Christensen. Christensen will clearly never be able to escape being the man who played Darth Vader as a whiny adolescent but, to be fair, he is probably never going to be a genuinely good, let alone great, actor. He's certainly a much better actor than the Star Wars prequels suggested but when you consider the pool of seriously talented young actors out there right now, he seems destined to co...

Cruise is back! That didn't take long... This review is also up at Channel 24 What It's About Barry Seal is a successful TWA pilot whose small-time smuggling side business catches the eye of the CIA who enlists him to help spy on communist training camps in Latin America. It's not long, however, before he comes to the attention of the up and coming Medellin drug cartel who in turn make him an offer he can't refuse to smuggle their drugs into the United States while on his missions for the CIA. Based loosely on a true story. What We Thought After the Mummy proved to be Tom Cruise's first genuinely bad movie in a very long time, it's particularly pleasing to see him back on such fine form just a few months later in a role that seems all but written for him. Cruise's particular mix of serious charisma and just the right amount of crazy has long made him one of Hollywood's most undeniable movie stars and it's that very combination t...

Because 14:22 isn't catchy enough a title... This review is also up on  Channel 24 . What it's about Dylan is an air-traffic controller whose preternatural ability to see patterns in everyday events makes him both very good at his job and gives his life a certain amount of predictability. His life soon takes a turn for the decidedly unpredictable, however, after he nearly causes two planes to crash into one another and meets the woman of his dreams – who also happens to have been a passenger on one of those planes – on the same day. It's around this time, as well, that he starts to notice certain events repeating themselves day in and day out – all culminating in a “bang” at 2:22 PM – a “bang” that may be related to an act of violence that happened decades previously. What we thought The fact that 2:22 bears more than a passing resemblance to a mixture of the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer episode, “Amends”, the X-Files episode, “Monday”, and whole chunks of ...

So, I apparently like this more than most critics. Who knew? Oh, also why isn't this the only poster for the film, rather than that bland action-pose poster we have in all South African cinemas? I literally chuckled at this play on the old Bodyguard poster. But then, I'm apparently more easily amused than some... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about A disgraced bodyguard is called on to transport a notorious hitman from the UK to the International Court of Justice at the Hague so that he can testify to the crimes of of a brutal Eastern European dictator, with whom he once had dealings. What we thought Take your basic Midnight Run premise, mix it with Deadpool's irreverence (and star) and add some Fast and Furious chase scenes and you have the Hitman's Bodyguard, an unoriginal, silly and way overlong action-comedy that is also frequently funny, effortlessly enjoyable and immensely likeable. Ryan Reynolds' career has taken ...

Tear Jerker/ Vomit Inducer/ Whatever This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about A high-powered recruitment agent neglects his family for his job but when his son turns gravely ill, he is forced to confront his priorities in his life and just what he's really living for. What we thought Taking a hiatus from his usual wham bam action fare with a convincing enough turn as a (spoiler) douchebag-turned-softie in this by-the-numbers tear-jerker, Gerard Butler headlines a perfectly good cast in a film that is to family dramas what the Olympus Has Fallen series is to action films. It's not egregiously terrible and it's not even entirely unmoving but the only thing that really sets it apart from your average made-for-TV weepie that used to find a home on the Hallmark channel is just how often it manages to miss its mark – which is actually not something you could say about those otherwise pretty rubbish melodramas: they do, at the very least, mana...

A bit of an odd pairing this but bear with me... Despite their pronounced war aspects, Dunkirk and War for the Planet of the Apes are two rather different films. One is a fantasy that makes heavy use of metaphor to talk about real-world issues, while one is an on-the-ground look at a real military event of some 300 000 Allied Soldiers being evacuated from German-occupied Belgium. One is actually a war movie with its emphasis firmly on military battles; one just uses its war trappings as the dressing on what is basically a near-Biblical fable. One centres on the trials and travails of ordinary young men during a horrific historical incident; one features talking apes in a rather (one hopes) unlikely future. These are not the same film by any stretch of the imagination and, yet, as I slouched out of Dunkirk in a state of abject disappointment, all I could do was think back to the latest - and best - Planet of the Apes movie. Both films, you see, are staggering technical achiev...

Another year, another big-screen Spider-man reboot. Things are a bit different this time, though. For all that people love complaining about the plethora of superhero films, this year has been a rather interesting showcase for why we should be glad they aren't going away soon. For a start, despite appearances to the contrary, superhero films are not the only "tentpole", big budget blockbuster being released, it's just that - for this year at least - they seem to be well on their way to being the only good ones (update: as of a screening I saw today, that's no longer the case!). While the Mummy brought us a stale take on a well-established property, Logan gave us the most genuinely mature take on a "Big 2" superhero to date. As King Arthur lived down to its director's worst tendencies, comics' most classic female superhero got a film of her own that not only more than did justice to the character but deservedly became the biggest movie of the...

Well, not all eyez... This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about The life story of Tupac Shakur, the infamous rapper, activist and actor, from his rise as one of the pre-eminent “gangsta rappers” of the '90s to his still unsolved violent death in his mid-20s. What we thought Comparisons between All Eyez on Me and Straight Outta Compton are inevitable thanks to both their close proximity and their dealing with fairly similar subject matter. Oddly, though, most people ignore Notorious, which is basically the other side to this particular tale but, considering that I have never actually seen it and that it has been all but entirely forgotten from the public at large, I don't feel too bad hanging onto those particular coat tails. Despite the major upset surrounding Straight Outta Compton being shut out of that year's Oscars, I was never a big fan of the film and I stand by my belief that there's a great ninety-minute film to be found...

Is this the film to finally fix the heretofore atrocious DCEU (DC Comics Extended Universe)? Read on to find out - though if you've seen the rating, you can probably already guess the answer. OK, that was my original intro. I had hoped to have gotten this review out before the film came out but paid work got slightly in the way. On the plus side, I have now seen the film twice and for all that I liked it the first time round, I loved it a whole lot more after seeing it again. As it has been out for a while, I'm also going to get into a few spoilers towards the end of the review. Don't worry if you haven't seen it yet, though, all spoilers will be contained to the bit that's been marked as such. Wonder Woman is a really, really terrific superhero film that not only course corrects the previously disastrous DC Extended Universe, but is a genuine standout in the overall superhero landscape. It is not, to be very clear about this, a film without its flaws but t...

It's like Deja Vu all over again. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about An ancient artefact holds the key to saving the world from a new Transformers threat. What we thought This being the fifth – fifth! - Transformers movie, it's hard to go in with anything but the worst expectations as every single one of the last four easily rank among the worst blockbusters released this century. Yes, even the first one – which some critics of the series like for some reason. And yet, director Michael Bay has surprised in the past. The Rock and the first Bad Boys were very solid action comedies and he even managed to pull out a surprisingly good black comedy in the form of Pain and Gain a few years back. Granted, I'm still convinced that the latter was good entirely by accident but the point still stands. So, does Bay redeem himself? Is the latest Transformers movie even remotely worth watching? No. Of course, not. Even the most open of min...

This is too lame for me to even bother coming up with some sort of pithy pun on its title. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about After the rest of her family is murdered, Ella, a teenage girl attending boarding school in Switzerland, enlists the aid of the assassin sent to kill her to avenge her family. What we thought I'm getting slight tired of asking this, but how on earth did this movie get a cinematic release when so many better – and more cinematic - movies don't? Is it the pun-tastic title? The C-list action star at the centre? Or maybe it's the starring role for the up and coming, beautiful Israeli actress who is quite possibly only a film or three away from her big breakthrough - Wonder Girl, maybe? To be honest, the answer is probably all down to the distributor buying this film as part of a bundle of cheap flicks to go along with their bigger releases but that just makes the whole thing sound all the more crass doesn't...

Fantastic might be a bit of a stretch but it's not far from beautiful and it is plenty charming. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Bella Brown is an idiosyncratic young woman, trying to make ends meet, as she works on the children's book that she can never quite compete. When her cantankerous next door neighbour starts to pester her about the state of her garden, the two outsiders start to become increasingly involved in each other's lives. What we thought This Beautiful Fantastic is the sort of film that would be all to easy to pick apart if it weren't for just how likeable and charming the whole thing is. Put on a “critical hat” and the film's self-knowing quirkiness, its obvious character arcs and its obvious and oblivious sentimentality become all too clear and all too easy to damn the film for indulging in such “indie dramedy” pitfalls but it's so big-hearted and its characters so charming that, for all but th...

You know, people like to complain about the gamut of superhero movies but, is it just me, or have the only blockbusters to be any good at all this year have been adaptations of Marvel and DC Comics? That's rather troubling to sure but, really, who in their right mind would complain about Wonder Woman or Logan when the alternative is so often something like the Mummy. And that despite the fact that the Mummy clearly took a huge chunk out of the corporate superhero rulebook...  This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about Nick Morton is a career soldier and amateur thief who uses his tours in the Middle East to unearth valuable antiquities to sell on the black market but when he and his partner in crime come across an ancient Egyptian tomb in the middle of Iraq, he soon finds himself targeted by a powerful evil. What we thought Taking a cue from the “shared universes” of DC and Marvel, the Mummy – which actually has almost nothing to do with the 19...

Yes, I know, I still haven't reviewed Wonder Woman. IT's rather pointless at this point but still, expect that soon. For now, here's my Channel 24 review of a movie that's rather less good. The Whole Truth is the sort of film that would make for a very fine two-parter in your average network legal drama but seems completely out of place on the big screen. That is has a number of relatively big names, including the always bankable Keanu Reeves, does little to shake that feeling – especially in this new golden age of TV where shows like Big Little Lies, Twin Peaks or Fargo feature some serious A-list talent. There's just nothing about what's on display here that's even remotely cinematic. The direction by Courtney Hunt is fine but it feels distinctly televisual, which is backed up by the fact that most of her directorial credits to date have been on small-scale TV projects. Screenwriter Nicholas Kazan has a rather more illustrious big-screen career,...