Tag Archives: Aldis Hodge

Black Adam – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a film where nearly anything of interest was sandblasted off to give us a bland expedition with some moments of interest.     

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.

Black Adam floats in the ocean.

Black Adam Review –

I came into this film with a lot of trepidation. To say that Warner Bros has had a challenging year with its merger would be an understatement, losing nearly any goodwill they had with them. Add to this that the DCEU has struggled with very straightforward hero narratives. How would they go with an anti-hero? But if nothing else, the charisma of Dwayne Johnson is strong, and if anything can help a film, it is that.

So to set the scene, 5,000 years ago, in 2,600 BCW, in the land of Kahndaq, Black Adam (Dwayne Johnson) was chosen by the wizards to stand up to the local despot. SHAZAM, and the palace explodes. In the present, Kahndaq is still under the control of occupiers, and Adrianna Tomaz (Sarah Shahi) is trying to hide treasures from the Intergang mercenaries when she finds Black Adam’s tomb. He is finally let free, but all that time has not blunted his desire for revenge and rampage. Seeing a potential threat, Hawkman (Aldis Hodge) and the Justice Society Doctor Fate (Pierce Brosnan), Cyclone (Quintessa Swindell), and Atom Smasher (Noah Centineo) try to show him a different path or at least get him to surrender peacefully. But then, the Black Adam is not peaceful.   

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Movie Review – The Invisible Man (2020 film)

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TL;DR – A film filled with amazing acting, and technical brilliance, however it was one of the most difficult films I have reviewed due to the issues of abuse that it explores.

Score – I am honestly not sure what to score to give this film

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene that I saw

Warning – Depicts scenes of abuse

Awards –

Nominated: Explosive Action, Best Australian Film & All The Tension
Winner: All The Tension

The Invisible Man (2020 film). Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

Review –

A couple of years ago I stumbled upon Upgrade and thus discovered the wonderful work of Leigh Whannell. Since then, I have been waiting to catch his next film, so I was really excited to get the invite to see The Invisible Man. This was also a film that was going to reframe an old classic monster film and bring it into the modern age, which also intrigued me because that is my jam. However, while watching the film, I found myself feeling very conflicted with the subject material. All of this left me very unsettled in a way that I have spent the past two weeks wondering if the film approached it in an appropriate way or not.  

So to set the scene, we open in on a mansion on the top of a cliff, waves crash against the rocks on a cold winters night as we zoom in on the isolated house. In the house, there is a couple asleep in a bed, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) and Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), but only one of them is actually asleep. We watch as Cecilia slowly slips out of the bed, at first you think it is just that she does not want to disturb Adrian, but soon you discover there is something more to it than that. In fact, she is leaving him in the middle of the night, the only time she could, which means that when every sound could be her undoing. The moment she grabs her hidden go bag you immediately understand why she is leaving. As she escapes over the high walls of the house everything starts to get better, that is until things start moving in rooms that should be empty.

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TV Review – Star Trek Short Treks: Calypso

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TL;DR – When it is working in on the relationship between the two characters it shines, but it does present some interesting implications that I am not so sure about.  

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Star Trek Short Treks: Calypso. Image Credit CBS Studios.

Review –

We continue our dive into the world of the Star Trek Discovery Short Treks by looking at the episode that is to date is the furthest we have been on the official timeline (depending maybe on that one Voyager episode).

So to set the scene, The USS Discovery has been sitting in a nebula for 1000 years when a surprise escape pod comes across it in the dark. When Craft (Aldis Hodge) awakes he find no one on board bar just a voice called Zora (Annabelle Wallis) who explains where he is and he lets her know that the world has dramatically changed.

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Movie Review – Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

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TL;DR – The action is there, the characters are there, but something is just missing from this sequel that stops the film from excelling.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

So full disclosure I didn’t watch the first Jack Reacher, nor have I read the books in the series by Lee Childs, and I was kind of tired of the film before I even went to see it because you could not open a Twitch stream, nor YouTube video without having to suffer through the trailer (yep that one right above you here). So I may not have come into the film with the best mindset but then honestly I don’t think you needed to see the last film or read the book to get the narrative because the writers use the opening sequence to pretty much set up the character of Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) and his motivations, and thankfully it is that one scene in rural America with the sheriff and a phone call that you have probably already seen over and over again and they get it out of the way right at the start. So as far as American PG-13 action films go, Jack Reacher is not bad, however, it did feel like something was missing and because of that, it fell short of being a great film.

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