Because Everybody Else Has One

Godzilla Minus One has been out for weeks in South Africa and even longer elsewhere, but I only just saw it yesterday and I simply had to share a few quick thoughts on it. For context, I've seen a few of the American Godzilla movies, but I've always felt like I should enjoy Godzilla, and Kaiju (giant monster) movies in general, more than I actually do. I have no real connection with these movies and may well have skipped right past Godzilla Minus One as I wasn't asked to review it by my editor at News 24 were it not for the exceptionally good reviews and enthusiastic word-of-mouth. And let me tell you, the glowing reception to the film could not be more deserved: I was blown away by this truly brilliant film. I may not be a major fan of the approximately seven million Godzilla films that have come out since 1954, but even I know that a large part of what made the original Japanese version of the film such a hit was that it was about a giant lizard monster rampaging through ...

However tempted I am to give The Marvels 10/10 just to piss off the women-hating troglodytes who have, for months, been piling hate on the film for committing the unforgiveable sin of being led by not one, not two, but three female superheroes, that would rather be stretching the point. What I would say, though, is that they're wrong, wrong, wrong: not just morally, but because for all its faults, The Marvels, which is directed by Nia DaCosta and written by DaCosta, along with Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik, is really rather good.  And perhaps more importantly, considering that the real world is such a horrifying shit show right now - especially for those of us who have the audacity to be both Jewish and Zionist - it's just such a relief to sit back for 100-odd minutes with something that is this joyful, this funny, and this centred on three women - well two women and a teenage girl - of different races, religions and backgrounds, literally tied together to a single fate, ...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a phenomenon that has been quietly blowing me away since the late 1980s when I discovered the original cartoon at the impressionable young age of seven (or thereabouts) and became a massive fan almost at first glance. Like those famous Marvel and DC superheroes before them, the Turtles have managed to transcend their humble comic book origins to become an entertainment juggernaut that have caught the imagination of now generations of kids and even some adults along the way. All the more so because unlike the massive success of, say, those early Superman or Captain America comics, the Turtles started life as a truly independent, self-published, black-and-white comic book that were written and drawn mostly as a parody of Frank Miller's gritty, neo-noir takes on Daredevil and Batman. And here we are, most of four decades later, with the seventh (?) big screen outing for our heroes in a half shell (following countless TV series, comics, video games and a...

Posting this late again but hopefully, you already say this over on Channel 24 . Not that you need another review telling you how much fun the latest Spider-Man movie is but hey ho... What it’s about Picking up from the events of Avengers: Endgame, Peter Parker has to come to terms with a world irrevocably changed. After helping to save the world from Thanos and his minions, all Peter wants is to get away from superheroing for a bit by going on a school-sponsored, educational European trip with his friends and to declare his feelings to MJ at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately for Peter, Nick Fury and a mysterious new superhero from another Earth have other plans for our Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man...  What we thought Warning: It’s impossible to talk about Spider-Man: Far From Home without spoiling the end of Avengers: Endgame. If you still somehow haven’t seen the biggest movie on the planet and don’t want to know what happens in it, do not read any f...

I totally forgot to post this last week. Ah well, I'm sure no one really cares that much about the new Men in Black flick, right? Either way, it's been up on Channel 24 since last Friday so hopefully, you saw my review of it there. What it’s about After finding her way into the Men in Black, new recruit Agent M teams up with the roguish Agent H on the seemingly simple assignment of showing an alien VIP a good time before he leaves Earth the next day. When things go horribly wrong, M believes that a mole in the MIB organization betrayed them but can she prove it before a new enemy threatens Earth’s human and alien populations alike. And, worse, can that mole be her new partner, H? What we thought Between the fact that both Men in Black sequels were, at the very least, disappointments after the fresh, funny and inventive original film took the world by storm and helped solidify Will Smith as one of the era’s definitive leading men, and that news of this new sequel/ r...

You wanted more Godzilla? Well, you got that at least. A good movie, though... not so much. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it’s about Five years after Godzilla wreaked havoc on Chicago, Dr Emma Russell has finally broken the code on how to communicate with Godzilla and other Titans like him. This is not a moment too soon as an eco-terrorist organization unleashes a succession of other Titans on the world – including Godzilla’s arch nemesis and rival apex predator, King Ghidora. As different human factions squable over how to deal with the new threats, humanity’s last hope may lie with Godzilla himself. What we thought When Gareth Edwards took on the gargantuan task of bringing Japan’s biggest and most classic movie-monster to a new generation of filmgoers, he came up with something that was significantly less effective than his own low-budget monster movie, Monsters, as it delivered far too little of the titular monster and far too much of instantly forgettable h...

Considering just how many misogynist garbage-people have come out in protest of this film and its brilliant star, I'm tempted just to give Captain Marvel 10 stars, call it one of the must-see films of the year and leave it at that. But, let's be honest, unlike my reviews on Channel 24, which apparently get pretty good numbers, I don't think I'm going to make too much of a difference on the international box office by appealing just to you, my dear three readers, to be sure to catch this in cinemas. Most importantly, though, it has made a hilariously large sum at the Box Office, both "domestic" and international so that takes care of that. Here instead then, is my slightly more muted review of what just happens to be yet another damn good addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's not the best MCU film but it's far away from the worst. And, again, if it pisses off so many women-hating troglodytes, it must be doing something right!     Just a...

We've already had Hollywood trying its luck with Ghost in the Shell so how does it fare with another iconic manga property? Like Ghost in the Shell, adapting Alita: Battle Angel has been, if nothing else, more interesting than one might expect... This review is also on Channel 24 What It’s About Hundreds of years in the future, much of the world lays in ruins as a nuclear World War between Earth’s sky-cities have decimated humanity. One of the planet’s last remaining sky-cities, Tiphares, hovers above a place known simply as Scrapyard City, so named because it is literally a dumping ground for the trash and waste coming from the affluent city above it. When biomechanical expert, Dr. Ido, finds a cyborg head amongst the heaps of garbage routinely discarded from Tiphares, he attaches the head to a mechanical body that he made for his deceased daughter. The transplant is a success but the cyborg has no idea who she is or where she’s from so Ido adopts her as his own and na...

I couldn't decide whether to go for the pun-tastic "Kea-NO!" or the simpler "I feel like we've seen this one before" as a pithy intro for this review so I'll go for both.  This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it’s about After his wife and three kids are killed in a car accident a neuroscientist named William Foster joins forces with a biological engineer to first clone them and then implant an electronic copy of their minds onto the brains of their new clone bodies. Despite their ground-breaking work in their fields, nothing of the sort has ever been tried before – but even if they succeed, will things ever be the same again for him and his newly reborn family? What we thought Replicas is based on a very familiar but still always interesting science fiction premise that asks what it is to be human and if we were somehow able to transfer our minds to a new body, what does that say about our souls. Unfortunately, rather than even botheri...

I'm still in shock. This review is up on Channel 24 as well. What it’s about With the war between Decepticons and Autobots tilting very much in the favour of the former, Optimus Prime sends one of his scrappiest fighters, B-127, to Earth to find refuge for their group of righteous rebels but things don’t quite go as planned when B-127 gets severely damaged and is forced to transform indefinitely into a VW Beetle for self-preservation. The years is 1987 and when B-127 is discovered some months later by an alienated teenage girl named Charlie in a junkyard in her small, coastal hometown, the two form an unlikely friendship. It’s not long, however, before both the US Army and a pair of Decepticon scouts start closing in on Charlie and B-127 – or as Charlie has renamed him, Bumblebee. What we thought I’m writing this review just half an hour after the credits rolled on the preview screening of Bumblebee that I attended and I’m at something of a loss for words. D...

Boy, do I have a lot to say about this one. And for good reason.  Please note, though, that the opening section is some background to the character of Miles Morales and my current and initial reactions to him in his comic book form. The review of the film proper only begins with the second heading but if you're looking for more information about this new Spider-Man, I have hopefully filled in some of the blanks. This isn't available on Channel 24 but it is *spoiler*  included in my top 3 films of the year that will be available there soon. I'll post the link when it's up but, yes, this is that good...   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: A Look Back When Brian Michael Bendis killed off the Ultimate Universe version of Peter Parker in 2011 to make way for a new, half-black, half-Hispanic Ultimate Spider-Man with artist Sara Pichelli, he received no small amount of often fairly ugly criticism. A lot of the pushback came from those who decried the change as a c...

If the box office so far is any indication, "mortal" is just about right. Whether it deserves to be neglected in quite the way it has been is, perhaps, a different question altogether but you do have to wonder what the idea was of releasing something like this against a half dozen films that are all but guaranteed to bulldoze over it. Did studios really have that much faith in the Peter Jackson name? This review is also on Channel 24 .  What it’s about In a distant future, Earth has been ravaged by man and nature as anything that massive shifts in the tectonic plates hadn’t done to destabilize the old world order, man-made warfare certainly did. The world now consists of small pockets of Easterners who are able to maintain some of the past in hermetically sealed cities where peace and prosperity are matched by glorious natural landscapes and roaming, mobile cities that pillage the land of any resources left, both natural and man-made. When a young woman with a trauma...

And now for bad movie #2.  Not to be all reductive about this but we already have an atrocious "chick flick" being released this week (Nobody's Fool for those of you who don't read every review I ever post) so why not have an atrocious "dude flick" to balance things out. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it’s about It’s been years since Ray Breslin fought his way out of a maximum-security prison and in that time, he has built up a top-of-the-line security force. When Shu, one of his top guys, gets kidnapped and imprisoned by mysterious forces, Breslin’s team works from the outside to free Shu as Shu himself starts to concoct an incredibly risky plan for his own escape. What we thought For a film that featured Stallone and Schwarzenegger teaming up as a couple of tough guys breaking out of a futuristic prison, Escape Plan was an astoundingly forgettable movie. It was released all of five years ago but, as far as I’m concerned, it may as ...

Sigh. Back to the slums with a movie that I really wish I liked a whole lot more. This review is also up on Channel 24  (though I actually changed a couple of lines later on in the review to make them a bit less clumsy than my initial review. This is why I shouldn't reread my work - it just makes me notice all the mistakes.) What it’s about After years of war and man-made climate change, the Earth is on the brink of becoming entirely inhospitable for human life so a group of scientists, working both with the United Nations and a part of the US military, launch a program to allow humanity to withstand the hostile climate and general inhospitality of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and our greatest hope for survival. Assembling a crack team of military men and women, the scientists behind the program start experimenting on them to transform their human physiology into a new kind of human that can survive on an entirely different homeworld. It’s not long, however, before it ...

A whole bunch of reviews this week... if only the films themselves were better. Starting things off with what is easily the stinker of the week... This review is also up on Channel 24 What it’s about Miles is a young, working-class motorbike racer struggling to make his way in a field dominated by those who can afford the most state of the art racing equipment and don’t have to rely, as he does, on shoestring repairs and salvaged second-hand parts. His fortunes take a sudden change when he comes across A.X.L. a robot-dog that was created by the military as a lethal weapon but with which he soon forms a bond. What we thought Based on his own 2015 short, Miles, Oliver Daly’s feature film début as both writer and director feels like a first film and, unfortunately, in all the wrong ways. What we have here is a fairly basic, borderline banal, take on a “boy and his dog” story (yup, the second in two weeks) but with some Short Circuit and Robocop thrown in for, frankly, no good measur...

Always nice to see original science fiction films - even when it's not as good as it could have been. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it’s about The year is 2028 and the city of Los Angeles is a warzone with cops on the one side, rioters and criminals on the other. In this hellscape lies Hotel Artemis, a secret hospital for criminals couched in an old hotel that is run by an old woman known only as the Nurse and admits only those who are members of the hotel. As a number of “guests”, both welcome and not, find themselves at the doors of the Artemis, the Nurse is forced to confront her own past and a suddenly uncertain future. What we thought Setting Hotel Artemis in 2028 is a fairly bold statement by writer/ director Drew Pearce as he presents a very near future when one of America’s largest cities has descended into absolute chaos, while the most incredible nano-technology is used even by outlaw doctors to heal even the most fatally wounded patients. It seems incre...

Hey, we're getting this a full two weeks before the US! Too bad it's such a dud... As always, I will try my best to avoid spoilers, especially as the trailer actually didn't give very much away, but there is a section in this review that deals lightly with what happens from the beginning of the second act on that you may want to skip until you've seen the film. It is clearly indicated, though, and, fairly vague but proceed with some caution for that paragraph.  Plot: Two years after the Jurassic World theme park was destroyed by dinosaurs, the island on which it resides, Isla Nublar, faces total annihilation as its volcano roars to deadly life. In a last-ditch effort to save the dinosaurs, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) once again joins forces with former dinosaur-trainer and current ex-boyfriend, Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), to return to the Island at the behest of the co-creator of the original Jurassic Park and John Hammond's former partner, Benjamin Loc...

Wait, didn't we just have a Star Wars movie? This is going to take some getting used to. No spoilers for anything here beyond the first act, incidentally, but I do get into that first act slightly more than some may prefer. From where I'm standing that whole section may have its own twists and turns but it's still mostly just setup for the meat of the film. Still, proceed with some caution but, for fairness sake, I have provided a slight spoiler warning for the paragraph(s) you may want to skip if you prefer to go in knowing as little as possible. Just six months since the Last Jedi moved the Star Wars franchise in a fairly new and unexpected direction (much to the consternation of many fans - myself very much not included), here we are with a Star Wars movie that, once again, is all about looking back. It's a somewhat odd decision, not only because the prequels were generally not met with the utmost enthusiasm by fans but because it's the complete opposite t...

The culmination of ten years of Marvel films deserves a longer review than usual, don't you think? Please note: I have done my best to avoid anything even vaguely resembling a spoiler, but if you really want to know NOTHING going in, feel free to read this only after seeing the film. This should give away even less than the trailer, though... This review is also currently up on Channel 24 . What it's about A culmination of the past ten years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thanos, the Mad Titan, puts the final plans in motion to collect the final four Infinity Stones: six gems of incredible power formed from the Big Bang that, when uses together, allow those who wield them the power to instantly rewrite the Universe however they wish. All that stands between Thanos and his insane wish to rid the universe of half of its living beings are the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy – but do even the Galaxy's Mightiest Mortals have what it takes to stand up to...

Just a quick one, this time. OK, maybe not... I had the pleasure to see Ready Player One again with visiting friends from Cape Town in IMAX 3D this past weekend and the difference between my first and second reactions to the film is really quite profound. Certainly profound enough that this may just be the first re-review in all my years doing this blog. A few of my issues do remain with the film but it's a much better and much more enjoyable experience than I first gave it credit for. It's true, for example, that the (admittedly super impressive) video-game-inspired CGI is something of an alienating factor and it does at time feel like watching someone else play a video game but I do think that Spielberg actually does give even these sequences some weight by having them transposed against the dangers of what's going on in the real world of the film. This is especially well done later on in the film but it's true in all but the introductory sequences - which ar...