Reviews

I love sci-fi and I'm always eager for a good female action lead. We get so few of them. But I truly did not enjoy watching Rebel Moon.

This was inspired by Seven Samurai. So was Adam Sandler's Ridiculous 6. Yet for all its flaws, that movie had better ideas and more fun than Rebel Moon can muster. Even the forgettable Magnificent Seven remake was better.

This movie starts with a lengthy narrative intro, then dumps us on a medieval moon, only to take a astoundingly predictable forty minutes of shallow character archetypes doing and saying EXACTLY what you'd expect.

There are no original ideas here, which the movie masks by being unnecessarily serious. That just leads it to drag out moments and constantly show its hand (and doubles down with so much exposition, narration, and flashbacks).

Technically, Rebel Moon is very impressive. But as a story, it's enormously derivative which it tries to cover by being overly self-important.

Forgot the high-minded plot, the Poe references, or the moral nosethumping. This show is a slasher. Most of the episodes revolve around awful characters and guessing how they die, and the most apt comparison is Final Destination.

The story cleverly stages across different point in time, allowing it to tease a lot of stuff - primarily reasons why we should dislike a character - then off them in an entertaining way. Even the very end (where the show cannot help but make its metaphor very real) with the final two characters is a hoot for how they go out. It makes up for the tedious moralising that at times dog the show and almost sinks the finale.

House of Usher's journey is the most fun part of this show. It's not as smart as it thinks and the plot barely holds together for all the holes and contrivances. The twists are obvious and telegraphed. Most people will quickly guess correctly who the woman is or what's behind the wall. This is not nearly as well-written as the amazing Midnight Mass. But take it for what is actually is, a slasher, and it's a lot of fun.

The Creator could have been one of the greater science fiction films. But it lacks focus. There are too many inconsistencies, script armour, and deus ex moments to ignore. Some parts make no sense, and the world is woefully underdeveloped.

If you don't set a high bar for sci-fi and you want a simple feel-good movie that will make you laugh and cry, but soon forgotten, The Creator is okay. The acting, art design, and special effects are impressive. But the story is shoddy, the hero barely has any arc, and the world-building is very shallow. The Creator feels like two movies: one that wanted to tell an interesting story, and the other that just said 'What cool stuff can we shoehorn into this?'. The two never really meet.

I didn't really enjoy it. I had too many questions. Why is the AI nation less advanced, practically third world? Does that nation actually know it's at war with the US or does its police just randomly intervene? Is anyone at least trying to protect their big weapons or do they always give up once the enemy is through the front door? And what idiots go on super-covert missions with a giant blue space laser following them as backup?

This film is too full of stupid ideas to be a sci-fi classic.

If this is the final Indy movie, I'd be happy. Not that they should stop but that this is a fitting end to the legendary film series. The opening, in particular, is a fantastic example of why Indy is a popular character, and the rest of the film holds up well, keeping the action more grounded (mostly) and mixing new ideas with franchise homages.

But there is a glaring issue, at least for me. The script is full of unresolved issues and ex machina intervention. For example, Indy is framed for murder, but that never plays a role again whatsoever. There are many more, but I'll leave it at that.

It feels like there was a longer edit for this movie, then they trimmed it down, leaving a lot of strange gaps and strange edits. Nothing that breaks the stories or characters. But it is very sloppy, and not appropriate for a blockbuster movie. I give the film 8/10, but the directing gets just 5/10 for the many inconsistencies and dead-end points.

Other than that, a fun film. It even sorta redeems Crystal Skull.

A historical epic with greater acting in a believable world, but let down by Ridley Scott's occasional habit to be profound without any real substance or avoiding risks that allow the audience to actually think.

This is less Gladiator or 1492, and more Exodus or Robin Hood. It starts as well as Scott's best movies yet by the halfway mark has devolved into on-the-nose delivery that undermines the nuance it was building.

It can't settle on being an epic morality tale (ala Gladiator) or a thoughtful study on the risks of ego, miscommunication and personal flaws (ala American Gangster). Eventually, it ends up being a film that overestimates its cleverness and considers its audience as dumb and passive.

Maybe my expectations were too high. I really wanted to like this film and really did for the first half. But it falls apart, and at its lowest is as bad as Alien Covenant or. Kingdom of Heaven's theatrical cut.

It's not a 10/10 movie (more like 8/10) but Renfield does not deserve the bad reviews.

It's fun, well-paced and everyone does a great job. There are some flaws: the editing causes a few mistakes, the CG blood seems tacky, and the action scenes' cinematography is a bit shaky. But this is funny, clever and destined to become a cult classic. The jokes land, and while Nick Cage is amazing, this is not a so-bad-its-good film. It's all good, assuming you get into it.

Don't believe the bad press. If you want an over the top film with humour and violence, Renfield is really good and well worth your time.

I was so keen on this. But Harry Melling's scene-chewing acting and heavy-handed accent just ruins it for me. It sucks all the subtlety out of the scenes with Christian Bale.

Now, I can appreciate that an actor would raise their game when working with such a titan, but there is no restraint in Melling's performance. It's like he's trying to steal the scenes but he's not good enough to match Bale.

Normally I avoid criticising a specific person in a movie. But Melling's outlandish Poe felt out of sync with this movie, its tone and Bale's understated acting. I just could not watch more than 20 minutes.

I watched this based on its reputation and felt let down.

Just the day before, I watched Adam Sandler's Murder Mystery. It's an inferior film but a better whodunnit than this. And the recent Poirot films are better murder mysteries than Knives Out. In fact, I'm not sure why this is called Knives Out since nobody seems to even try backstab each other.

The acting is great and I like the characters. But most of them do nothing of consequence. The murder is solved early on, apart from a lazy twist in the end that was a bit too obvious. There was no air of suspicion or interesting dead ends. There is no real build-up.

I'm not sure why this movie is so hyped. It was okay but not at the level I've experienced from this genre. It's certainly no reinvention, just a lazy stab.

The new Hellraiser is very decent and a rare sight: a movie in the franchise that actually takes its content seriously.

The original Hellraiser is a triumph, a tight and different kind of thriller that was a welcome change from the era's many slasher films and Exorcist copies. Hellraiser 2 was two-third boredom (apart from skinless Clare Higgins), but saved by an excessive third act that at least added to the canon. Hellraiser 3 was even duller, saved again by some lore, the outlandish but fan-pleasing club finale, and Terry Farrell's main character.

From there it's a terrible and rapid downward spiral, subjecting the franchise to worse tortures than the Cenobites could ever dream up. I'll at least tip my hat to the noir-style take of Hellraiser: Hellseeker. But the Hellraiser sequels are among the worst to grace any franchise.

Then there is Hellraiser 2022. I watched it with low expectations, but early on it already won me over with much better production values and acting than most of the previous movies. It also introduces and expands the lore very convincingly, and it's nice to even see the 'black pyramid' return. Furthermore, at the very end you'll see a transformation sequence that eclipses the scenes from Hellraiser 2.

Some people complain that the movie doesn't have enough 'hell' or Cenobites. I guess they must have forgotten how little we saw of those in the first film. In fact, you see plenty of Cenobites with a mix of old and new designs. Yes, we don't visit their dimension, but we never did in the first movie either. Granted, this movie is less gory than the original, but there is still plenty of action with hooked chains.

The acting is solid and the characters are believable. I enjoyed how the movie retained its edge without overtly venturing into gore or torture porn territory. It has the same subtleties of the first movie. Above all, I appreciate that this Hellraiser doesn't assume you've watched any of the previous ones. It is in spirit and design the closest to the original movie.

Many people are reacting badly to this Hellraiser. Maybe it's nostalgia or perhaps they forgot that Pinhead and its entourage are more of a thriller brigade than the typical horror icon. Speaking of which, the new Pinhead is great. I partly wished they stuck to the original black costume, but on the other hand the lighter design makes for some nice spooky distance shots. Credit to Jamie Clayton for doing her own thing and not just aping Doug Bradley.

Is Hellraiser 2022 a great movie? Not on all levels, but it comes the closest yet to recapturing the original film. I think people who criticize this movie against the franchise should really go revisit the other sequels - they range from average to downright awful.

Hellraiser 2022 brings fresh blood and ideas, not to mention quality and forethought, to a franchise that desperately needed it. This is the second-best Hellraiser movie yet made. If you disagree, please tell me where this movie does a worse job than CD Man or the end-to-end mess called Bloodlines.

Yeah, there is no 'Jesus wept' moment. But you can't reinvent a classic. You can, though, make a solid continuation, and Hellraiser 2022 finally graces the franchise with what it's needed for over 30 years.

The lead is good as Batman. In fact, all the casting choices are good. The aesthetic is interesting and even the relentless dim darkness with little contrast works fairly well. But at some point it starts to collapse on itself and by the end I was bored and frustrated. And while the nods to Se7en and Saw were better than the Joker movie's rampant plagiarism of its particular genre, at the end this Batman film lacks the touch and soul that made the first Burton and second Nolan movies work so well. I really tried to like this one, but it's ultimately a hollow experience that borrows more than it gives.

I outgrew superhero comics a long time ago, and I feel they set a low bar for what comics as a format are capable of. Invincible, though, breaks through with a more thoughtful and complicated narrative that you could compare to the Watchmen comics, or more matured genre work such as Largo Winch and Transmetropolitan. I'm not sure why people complain this is 'woke' - there's no agenda here. Just a reminder that Rob Kirkman might one day sit alongside the likes of Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman in terms of contributing to the evolution of storytelling in comic books.

Yes, the show is an adaptation and not the comics. But I'd go buy and read Invincible right now if I didn't worry it would spoil season 2!

Great atmosphere, but full of loose threads, cheap plot twists and sloppy writing. A lot of it just doesn't add up in the end. There are lots of plot holes and the final two episodes just pave over the cracks.

Good acting and an interesting premise that flows well and doesn't really spoonfeed. It's not deep and you can kinda see where it's going, but it gets there nicely.

It could use a few more scenes, though, to explain the world a little (like, what's the bad guy's deal?) and some more gunslinger in New York moments.

But overall, good movie. Pity it bombed.

This show should not be confused directly with the Chinese Monkey King legend. If that's a complaint, it can be directed at the original Japanese show Saiyuki, later dubbed into english as Monkey.

It's nuts: I looked it up after watching the Netflix reboot (I didn't know about it before this) and you can find episodes online if you do a little trawling. The good reviews here already cover it: this is like Xena and Hercules of old, and a pretty neat modern rendition of the original show.

It's nutty camp fun and full of dry humour that fits its New Zealand cast pretty well. It's totally a daft, guilty pleasure, but I had fun.

Complaints about disrespecting the source material are completely misplaced. If anything, they underplay things. Saiyuki aka Monkey Magic seems to have been some really classic TV camp. The reboot seems to do it proud.

I don't know why there is so much hate being piled onto this show. It's not brilliant, but it's not bad either. I'm three episodes in and I'm enjoying it.

Sure, the scifi elements and in particular the coherency isn't there, but most scifi shows fail there. And yes, it's neither the most profound story nor the deepest of characters.

But it's fun and paces nicely (certainly better than the knuckle-dragging Altered Carbon). The characters are pretty cool, while the effects and design are really nicely done. Lost in Space won't change your life or become the next great television event. But ignore the reviewers - take a look for yourself.

If your Alien movie features the classic alien for all of fifteen or so minutes, you have a problem. But when the preceding movie seems entirely devoted to mashing Prometheus into the Alien universe, it's a disaster.

The problem is not that they try to mash the two together. It's just that it's done in such an unbelievably sloppy way, full of pointless exposition. I could hardly figure out who the characters were, yet somehow it was deemed important that I know who hooked up with who. Ridley Scott's recent tendency for over-stuffed character development is in full force here.

This movie shouldn't be called Alien. It should be called David, as it is mostly about the creepy robots that the early films in particular used to great effect. None of it really adds up, not in the tradition of any of the previous movies, nor as a standalone experience.

Would it have been so hard to just create a new Alien horror? Even the new game is scarier and better than this. And at least Prometheus, for all its stupidity, made a little sense.

Alien Convenant is just a bunch of nonsense. Wait to watch it at home instead.

Ethan Hawke and John Travolta are great in this movie. But everyone else overacts and chews the scenery, something I'd have preferred to see from the leads. It's as if every other actor is star-struck and trying to match the two. If only the director guided them to being a bit more subtle. The story wants to explain itself all too often and is too keen to show off all of its dialog. Even Hawke's character, which is the silent type, at times talks a ridiculous amount.

This film is a love letter to spaghetti westerns, as the title sequence and score make obvious. From how it is shot to the characteristic faces of extras - it's all from the spaghetti play book. Sadly it lacks the mood and nuance of the genre, where less is more.

Opinions are clearly divided about this movie, so I will keep my criticism to a few points:

• This movie drags. The pacing is really uneven, even though the plot seems to be pretty lean. Perhaps its the large cast, so the action is always jumping around to contend with different threads. Eventually a lot of it isn't surprising and a number of twists get telegraphed way in advance.

• Travis Fimmel phones it in, which is a problem since he is the lead. He also appears to often be the comic relief, which is an issue since he is one of the tragic characters as well. His jokes mainly fall flat. Contrasted to his role in vikings, there is none of the screen chemistry that makes him so watchable.

• Overall the acting is tonally all over the place. The director didn't seem to pay much attention to guiding his actors.

• The special effects are good, but also very clearly special effects. At times it felt like an animated movie. This constant shift in tone doesn't help suspension of disbelief.

• Some design is great, especially among the orcs. But then some design or costume choices seem really dumb. The king looks like a parody of the prince from Men In Tights and in some parts it is clear when sets were recycled for different shots.

• The lead female Orc looks like they painted someone green and stuck halloween fangs in their mouth. A far cry from the detailed designs of the other orcs. Again, this is a leading character, so it is very jarring. This lack of coherency can be found all over the movie, as if they paid too much attention to some areas and totally slacked on others. Sometimes you'd go from a gorgeous CG render of a building exterior to what is clearly a prop interior.

• Ultimately, though, the real problem is that the movie tries to do too much. It is so focused on setting up a franchise and establishing characters that it forgets to be a standalone movie experience. So it commits the ultimate movie sin: Warcraft is just confusing and boring.

Deeply flawed doccie. It failed to convince me of its claims about the school. Though certainly there are questions about the school's conduct, Kidnapped for Christ doesn't offer any substance to back those. What it offers is anecdotal and even the interviews appear to be handpicked for some hope of controversy. At no point does it do what a proper documentary does: build a broad scope of all sides then narrow in on the flaws of what people said. Instead this was highly subjective and built its case not around the school or its inductees, but the gripes of a small group of pupils.

I'm not defending the school or saying that there wasn't something wrong. But this film is more interested in picking a certain bone than building a thorough piece of investigative journalism. In fact, this is hack journalism - seemingly making something out of nothing. Perhaps there was something, but the filmmakers failed to put any substance to it.

Jesus Camp and Fatherland are far better examples of the dangers of indoctrination camps, as well as how to tackle those subjects. Kidnapped for Christ is just lazy subjective bashing.

I liked the idea of Clown since seeing the first trailer and I was curious to see how far it would go. With Eli Roth behind it I knew it wouldn't cop out easily, but I was afraid it would go overboard. Luckily neither happened: Clown is funny, scary, interesting and bewildering all at once. It pulls no punches, but doesn't go for sneaky sucker-punches either. The plot plays out at a good pace, the characters feel real enough, the acting is solid and the ultimate transformation is certainly memorable.

This is not a gore-hound film, nor torture porn. It doesn't pander to specific subsets of the horror world. Instead Clown simply plays the cards it was dealt with great effect. It is true that the movie doesn't quite hit the lights, but it is far better than so many higher-profile horrors we've seen the past year or so.

I really enjoyed Clown and I hope to see a sequel!

At its core I love what this doccie does: it presents some front line perspectives of American soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. That in itself is impressive and at times harrowing.

But then the movie wraps itself in a jacket of awful ideas. The soundtrack feels ripped from every reality show made in the past few years. I almost started to expect a host from something like Fear Factor to show up. The storytelling is also very convoluted. It skims details and personalities, briefly introducing them before running to the next plot point.

While it goes out of its way to highlight the sacrifices made by the soldiers, The Hornet's Nest gives little clarity on what is going on half of the time. Other than bring across the intensity of firefights, much more isn't revealed.

But my biggest problems are the cheap narrative tricks. At times moments are made more dramatic than they are, especially if it involves one of the journalists potentially getting shot. This is done twice and both times it's more a trick of editing than what actually happened.

I'd liken this to Ross Kemp's Afghanistan doccies: intense, but vapid and a little bit exploitative. You don't come out of The Hornet's Nest learning much, other than Americans are great soldiers. If that is the point, this succeeds. But it could have done so much more with its material instead of feeling like a made-for-reality-TV special.

In the mood for a quirky comedy that also tackles the human condition? It would be hard to do better than this gem. A man's failed suicide leaves him stranded on a river island in Seoul. He is so close to civilisation, yet completely removed from it. After several attempts to escape, he resigns to his lot and starts scavenging an existence on the small speck of land.

Meanwhile a woman, who hasn't left her room in three years due to her scarred face, spots him by accident as she looks through her camera. In a sense she is as isolated as he is and the two start an unlikely relationship.

It's hard to pinpoint here what makes this story work so well, but it walks the line between comedy and drama without becoming either ridiculous or sentimental. It's also an impressive film considering the few characters and narrow theme. This is a unique film - one of those rare types that defy genres and even cultures. The only thing foreign about this film are the subtitles - everything else is so close to being human that anyone can relate to its story.

Luc Besson's stories of late have been prone to exaggeration, especially the excessive From Paris With Love. The Travolta bomb is also the most apt comparison to 3 Day To Kill and not only because both take place in Paris. Both are very lopsided and filled with a lot of jokes that are perhaps funnier in its French context. Films like Taxi and The Family (both also written by Besson) have exactly the same sense of humour - which is not exactly universal.

Yet 3 Days To Kill is ultimately let down by an indecision of what it wants to be. At one side it is a hard-nosed spy thriller ala. Taken, with a family drama on the side. On the other it is absurd - from the strange humour and numerous illogical plot points to our hero's over- the-top handler who appears to keep robbing Cruella De Vil's cabinet.

If you have enjoyed Besson's recent films - specifically the two mentioned earlier - you can enjoy this. It is certainly entertaining in parts, but drags through its two hours with convolution and unlikely reactions by the characters. It's a pity - this could have been a great film.

Good casts do not guarantee a good movie, especially if everyone appears to be running around doing their own thing. Seven Psychopaths is very character-driven, so while each of the actors do their bit it never comes together. Perhaps it's a problem with the direction or editing, but the movie relies too heavily on being quirky. As such it just becomes a muddled mess where all you have to rely on is the very absurdity of the various roles.

It's like taking a good cake recipe, gathering quality ingredients and then getting lazy when mixing it all together. The whole thing does eventually get to a point, by which time you've stopped caring.

I'll echo what other reviews here have said: Jason Momoa is perhaps the sole reason to watch this film. Bullet To The Head at least delivers in the action department and Momoa caps it all with a solid final fight. Stallone also carries his weight here. But he has no chemistry with Sung Kang, so the 'buddy cop' side of things falls flat. It's worse than the interplay in From Paris With Love. As a result you have some strange dialog between them that feels completely manufactured. This is far from Tango & Cash or Walter Hill's own Red Heat. The story also takes some huge liberties, most which wouldn't be too glaring if the two main characters had any spark in them.