Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Movie Review – Geostorm

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TL;DR – Its, well it’s, ok, it’s not great, it’s not awful, it’s just ok.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Geostorm. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –
So there is a satellite system that controls all of the world’s extreme weather, with a flip of a switch you can take out that cyclone barrelling towards the Australian coast, that heat wave over Paris gone, that mark-5 tornado, what mark-5 tornado. It all sounds great, but if you can see the flaw with this plan, well you can see where the film is heading. Overall, it has been a while since I have seen a big scale disaster film, maybe 2012 was the last one, so it was at least interesting to visit this genre. However, just be prepared that this is science-fiction, not science-fact film, I’m pretty sure there are some laws of thermodynamics that get thrown to the wolves to make this movie happen, nor do we have enough material to build a partial Dyson sphere. So overall I found Geostorm to be well fine, it had some things I liked and some others that I didn’t, and mostly they cancelled each other out. So today we will look at both sides of Geostorm, the good, the bad, and the surprisingly Scottish.


So to set the scene, in 2019 global warming sent the plant into a spiral of extreme weather events which killed millions. Looking death in the face, the world on the brink of destruction put aside years of amenity to create the ‘Dutch Boy’, a series of satellites around the world, designed to stop the extreme weather events. The main engineer of the project was Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) a man who is equal parts brilliant as he was obstinate, and after many years of work his brother Max (Jim Sturgess) who is employed by the White House was forced to fire him after a bad Senate hearing. Well three years later, and a couple of weeks before Dutch Boy is meant to be officially handed over to an international oversight team, a village in the heart of Afghanistan is discovered to be completely frozen. The Dutch Boy system had never failed before, and given the potential fallout from the lack of trust, or even a cascade of failures, it was a serious issue. So the Secretary of State Dekkom (Ed Harris) recommended to President Palma (Andy García) that there is only one person for the job, yep fired former main engineer Jake, so up he goes, but the clock is ticking.

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Movie Review – The Foreigner

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TL;DR – This is a movie with a lot of moving parts, some which are simply amazing and others that don’t quite work as well.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

The Foreigner. Image Credit: STX Films.

Review –

The Foreigner is a really interesting film, because it is a film with a lot of moving parts, and it is delving into an area and setting you don’t see very often these days. However, while some parts of this film are simply amazing, others just don’t work at all, which creates a kind of juxtaposition. You’ll be sitting there during these moments of high intensity, or fascinating filmmaking, but then something from the story will just rip you out of it. So today what we will do after setting the scene is break down this juxtaposition.

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Movie Review – Blade Runner 2049

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TL;DR – Visually stunning, and a wonderful follow up to a true Sci-fi classic.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Blade Runner 2049. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

Besides Star Wars later in the year, I don’t think there has been a film as anticipated in the sci-fi world more than Blade Runner 2049. As I mentioned in my retrospective of Blade Runner (see retrospective) the first time I watched the original was just the other day so I came into 2049 with that whole story being very fresh in my mind. Which turns out was a good thing, because Blade Runner 2049 is not just a sequel in name only. So without getting into spoilers here, you may want to go watch the first film in preparation of seeing it here, not that you should need an excuse to see one of the most transformative science fiction films of the last century. I do have to say from the start that I went see Blade Runner 2049 at a premium showing (Gold Class for those in Australia) which I paid for, and I went during the middle of the day when there is usually fewer people. However, still with all this, I was in a session with a couple that loud talked throughout the film, in the quiet contemplative moments, and even answered an unmuted phone at some point. So while I am professional, I can’t put aside the possibility that this might have impacted my perception of the film. Now overall I really liked Blade Runner 2049 but it is hard to talk about it without hitting spoilers, hell even the cast list is a spoiler at this point. So just for the sake of precautions be prepared for [SPOILERS] ahead if you have not seen the film, which you should.

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Exploring the Past – Blade Runner (1982)

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TL;DR – The legacy of Blade Runner is not overstated, even if parts of the film have not aged well.

Blade Runner. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

I continue my look into the gems of films from the past that I missed the first time round by today looking at the most topical of films Blade Runner. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey (see review), Blade Runner is one of those films that came out before I was born, so I missed it the first time around, and due to its content it didn’t get a lot replay on TV as I was growing up. Now while I haven’t seen the film before today, I have read the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As well as this, Blade Runner has appeared in so many countdown and best of lists, and multiple parodies and had homages have been made of it over the years. So even though I have never see the film, I have seen so many separate bits that I have probably seen a decent chunk of the film over the years. So with all of this I was a bit apprehensive before sitting down and watching it, would it live up to the huge cultural impact it has had, well could anything really, let’s find out. Now before we go on just a moment of clarification, the version I saw was The Final Cut, which as far as I can tell is the cut that Ridley Scott prefers, so there is likely to be differences between this and the theatrical release.

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Movie Review – It (It: Chapter 1) (2017)

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TL;DR – No No NO No NO Nope Oh Hell NO

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

It. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –
So originally I wasn’t going to go see It, as the week it premiered I was up to my neck with essays to grade, as well as this, I’ve never really been a fan of horror films in general. However, last week a good friend of mine wanted to go see It, so what the hell, what’s the worst that could happen … Now to make a couple of things clear before we start, I haven’t seen the original miniseries, nor read the book, so I can’t tell you how good of an adaptation this is, though given we are talking about Tim Curry and Stephen King I am going to assume there is a very high barrier this film needed to meet, which not all Stephen King adaptations this year have met, yes I’m looking at you The Dark Tower (see review). As well as this, as I said I am not a fan of the horror film genre in general, so that has probably affected how I looked at It.

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Movie Review – Battle of the Sexes

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TL;DR – When it actually gets to the Battle it is a thrilling film, you just have to get through a lot of setup beforehand, a lot of setup, too much setup.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Battle of the Sexes. Image Credit: Fox Searchlight.

Review –

This is a really odd film, some aspects of it work amazingly, yet other parts fall flat, so it is both fascinating, yet also hard to recommend. Whatever the case, it was interesting to read up on this real-life event, this is because I was not born when it happened, and until this film came out I didn’t even know it existed. So today we are going to look at what did work and what didn’t of this both frustrating and yet also fascinating film.

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Movie Review – Pork Pie

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TL;DR – Some of the best car chases I have seen, but this is coupled with a story that just doesn’t work all that well

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Pork Pie. Image Credit: Studio Canal.

Review –

So this is a bit of a perplexing film because there are some parts that really work, they pull you into this world, and you be sitting there having a ball watching it unfold. However, then the story, or lack of story, or some other factor rears its head and yanks you right out of the film. This creates a dissidence that on the one hand makes it difficult to review, but on the other makes the film interesting to dissect. So since I’m a cup half full kind of person, we will look at what worked before explore some of the film’s issues, however, before we dive into all that jazz, let’s set the scene.

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Movie Review – Victoria and Abdul

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TL;DR – A beautiful film, wonderfully acted, but it does glaze over history

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Victoria and Abdul. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

So we are about to look at Victoria and Abdul a film that promotes itself as ‘Based on Real Events’ … ‘Mostly’. Now, on the one hand, this could sum up most ‘based on true events’ films, but it is telling that they had to add the disclaimer which we will see as we go through it. Overall I did like Victoria and Abdul despite its many issues, but it does present a very one-sided view of the past and that is deeply problematic. Though I must say it was interesting watching the BBC make something that is almost irreverent about the Royal Family.

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Article – The Beauty of Ghibli

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Studio Ghibli Logo. Image Credit: Studio Ghibli.

TL;DR – Art, Story and Music, it is a studio that excels at it all

Article –

So it has been an amazing few weeks here in the great Down Under as local cinemas have brought all of Studio Ghibli’s (株式会社スタジオジブリ) films back to the big screen. This has meant that for the first time I got to see some of my favourite films on the big screen and it has had me thinking, what is it about these films that has engendered so much love around the world? For many people in the world, Studio Ghibli films are their first introduction into the world of Japanese animation or anime, and what an introduction they are. After much thought as to why they work as well as they do, for me, I think it distils down to one factor, on the whole, Studio Ghibli films are full of beauty. So today we are going to look at the different factors that make that so, by taking a broad brush stroke across Studio Ghibli’s entire catalogue from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind¹ (風の谷のナウシカ) to today. To do this we are going to look at the stories, art, and music. Now while we will be talking about these components there may be some minor [SPOILERS] ahead for some of the films.

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Movie Review – Kingsman: The Golden Circle

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TL;DR – A great follow-up, but it does struggle to find its feet in places.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Kingsman The Golden Circle. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

So the original Kingman: The Secret Service was one of the first films we reviewed back in 2015 when we started (and you can read it HERE). Overall we really liked the film, it had great action, a fantastic cast, a magnetic lead villain, and it was a star-making turn for lead Taron Egerton. Overall the movie worked bar one ill-placed ‘joke’ at the end which was out of place, tacky, unnecessary, and literately brings the whole movie to a stop to get it out, but that didn’t stop Kingman from getting on our Top Films of 2015 list (see HERE). So I was wondering if they could make the follow-up as good as the first film and I think they may have just pulled it off.

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