Monthly Archives: October 2025

Regretting You – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A delightfully funny film filled with earnest emotion.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Standing at the town limits.

Setting the Scene

In my line of work, you tend to get a good sense of a film before you have even walked into a cinema, that is because so much of it gets released in the marketing process. However, today we have one of those gems that I knew nothing about before walking in, other than what you could glean from the theatrical poster. So, I could be completely surprised by the fun yet emotional romp I was about to watch.  
 
So, to set the scene, back in the day when they were teenagers, Morgan (Allison Williams), her sister Jenny (Willa Fitzgerald), and their boyfriends Chris (Scott Eastwood) and Jonah (Dave Franco) were inseparable. But when Morgan gets accidentally pregnant, she and Chris build a life together. Seventeen years later, Jonah has popped back into Jenny’s life after being away for over a decade, and they now have a new baby, Elijah (Ryan Conner Simmons/ William Burnham Simmons). Also, Morgan and Chris’ baby Clara (Mckenna Grace) is now all grown up and giving lifts occasionally to the cutest boy in the school, Miller (Mason Thames). Everyone is content with their lives, knows what their future will be, which is the right thematic moments for a tragedy to rip that all apart.

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Neighborhood Watch – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Anchored by two solid character performances, it does make for an interesting if slow watch.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes and language that may cause distress.

Jack Quaid standing in the middle of an alley.

Setting the Scene

Today, we are looking at a very odd film. It is a very slow burn; you can never be entirely sure as to what is going on, and it is filled with fascinating performances. It is the kind of film that will captivate some, while leaving others cold, and that is an interesting intersection to explore.

So, to set the scene, Simon (Jack Quaid) has spent a long time in and out of hospitals, which has made much of his life, including getting a job, difficult. It is hard to make connections when someone is yelling in your head and only you can hear them. When Simon sees a woman get kidnapped, he tries to report it to the police. But no one believes him because of his medical past, but there is one hope, his neighbour Ed Deerman (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who used to be the head of security of the local college. They are not the most convincing pair, but they may be this woman’s best hope, if she exists at all.   

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Tron: Ares – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While it was not the complete disaster I feared, at no point (okay, maybe the music) did it reach the heights of the previous two films in this series.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

A Recognizer approaches a real life city.

Setting the Scene

Well, here we are, a place that I didn’t think we would see again, another Tron film. I am on the record as to how much I love it, and even more so, Tron: Legacy. They are films that live rent-free in my brain, and I was heartbroken when the original sequel to Tron: Legacy was canned in the wake of the disastrous Tomorrowland. But the wheels of time turn, and sometimes you get a second bite at the apple. Which means today we see if you can capture that Tron vibe in 2025? Also, can one casting choice torpedo your film?
 
So, to set the scene, in the years since Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) disappeared, the world has changed, and two tech companies have risen to prominence. ENCOM is led by their new CEO, Eve Kim (Greta Lee) and Dillinger Systems is run by CEO Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters). Both companies are in a race to find the code that will let items and programs from the digital world stay in the physical world for more than 29 minutes. While Eve goes looking into the past, Julian is not beyond a little dirty underhandedness and sends his chief security AI, Ares (Jared Leto), into the ENCOM systems to find out what they know so that they can steal it first.   

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Scurry – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A strong premise brings you into this world, but the narrative does not quite have the six legs to get all the way to the end.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

A man holds a lighter up for light.

Setting the Scene

This has been an excellent year for Sparke Films, with its flagship Primitive War showing that you absolutely can do a dinosaur film without the word Jurassic in the title. But that was a big, bombastic work, and I was interested to see what they could do on a more concentrated effort, and today we find out.   

So, to set the scene, chaos reigns as something is causing a city to be evacuated and destroyed in equal measure. At the bottom of a sinkhole lies Mark (Jamie Costa), who had the unfortunate luck of standing on the road as it gave out underneath him. Stuck and with no phone connection, things are not looking good for him, nor is that car hanging precariously over the edge, filling anyone with confidence. There better not be a helicopter crashing from the sky that will make this situation worse, and what was that chittering sound in the background?

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One Battle After Another – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a chaotic, uncomfortable, taut, and downright weird film, but it is also completely captivating from the opening frame to the closing credits.  

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

A road meandering up and down over some hills.

Setting the Scene

2025 has been an odd year for noted Indie directors trying to tackle the political situation in America at the moment, because most of them have floundered in the attempt. They have been trying to capture the moment, but their stories get lost in comedic attempts or a poor understanding of the very topics they want to analyse. However, today we are looking at a film that just might have cracked the code with one secret weapon that gets lost in cinema at times, intentionality.   

So, to set the scene, we open as a number of self-labelled revolutionaries, including Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who are staking out an immigration detention facility near the border in California. In the middle of the night, they strike, liberating the camp and beginning their revolution against corporate and oppressive elements of America. The French 75 group places bombs in courthouses, robs banks, and causes general calamity. However, you don’t make that much noise without attracting foes, and little do they know that Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) is hunting them all down, or maybe just Perfidia.   

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Fight or Flight – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is what happens when you build a film entirely around your leading star’s personality, and it works.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

A phone with a bounty image of Josh Hartnett.

Setting the Scene

If there is anything that 2025 cinema is going to be known for, it has been the bountiful number of action films we have gotten. Some look back to the past to find inspiration, some work in the medium as it stands, and some are still looking forward and charting their own path. Today’s entity is trying to do a bit of all three, and while I don’t think it landed all the aspects, it does get points for the pun in the title.  

So, to set the scene, Aaron Hunter (Julian Kostov) is not having a good day because one of the teams he is overseeing just got wiped out in Bangkok by a ghost. Not a literal ghost, but given how The Ghost has eluded capture so far, it might as well have been one. His boss, Katherine Brunt (Katee Sackhoff), knows that capturing The Ghost will be a fantastic stepping stone in her career; the only problem is that, with the Bangkok team dead, and The Ghost heading to the airport, she doesn’t have time to get a team onto the plane to capture the target. She is left with only one choice, Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett), a man burned by the intelligence agencies, but might be willing to take the gig, only to get off the no-fly list. He agrees, reluctantly, however, as he boards the plane, what he does not know is that he might not be the only person on the plane hunting The Ghost.

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