Tag Archives: American Cinema

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – I may have entered my curmudgeon phase, because while I could appreciate the stunning animation, the film completely disconnected from me on a foundational level.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I received a free ticket from the distributor to watch this film.

Shooting stars.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie Review Introduction

Well, today I have a sort of unpleasant job to do. I have much love for Mario and the games that spawned from him. I also found the first The Super Mario Bros. Movie was fine, not great, but fine. But maybe I no longer have any joy in my heart because I walked out of this movie feeling nothing.   

So, to set the scene, deep in the galaxy, Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) is giving her Lumas a bedtime story when her castle/spaceship/world is invaded by a mechanical creature driven by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), who is on a mission of revenge for his father, Bowser (Jack Black). Meanwhile, Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are living full-time in the Mushroom Kingdom, going around helping the locals, like finding a stuck Yoshi (Donald Glover). But when a meteor storm shows something is wrong in the galaxy, Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) go on an adventure through the stars.

Continue reading →

They Will Kill You – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A taut action film, which has some of the most succinct worldbuilding in the business, in-between all the creative carnage chaotically clamouring betwixt cleaved clavicles.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Asia looks down an empty hallway.

They Will Kill You Review Introduction

Today, we look at a film that is a very odd juxtaposition of extremes. On one hand, this is one of the tightest, stylish action films I have seen in an age. On the other hand, it suffers from a repetitive nature that it can’t seem to escape. A lot of highs, some lows, and enough fake blood for a blue whale to swim through.  


So, to set the scene, Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) has had a troubled life and is haunted by a choice in her childhood when she ran and left her sister behind. Living in the margins, Asia takes a housekeeping job in the luxurious Virgil apartments. Here, Lilith Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette), the superintendent, shows Asia to her rooms, a place of safety from the storm outside. However, as she sleeps, a masked man enters her room through a secret entrance, armed for violence. For the Virgil is not just an apartment block for the rich; it is a Satanic Temple, and each year they must sacrifice one soul to their god, and tonight it is Asia on the chopping block.

Continue reading →

Frontier Crucible – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – While the scenery is delightful, not much more can be said to recommend this film.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Monument Valley.

Frontier Crucible Review Introduction –

Have you ever started a film and gotten an immediate odd vibe, wait, why isn’t there a credited writer … wait, they cast who in this film … in 2024 … oh, that not great. But it is so long since I have seen a good Western, I persisted. I am not sure I should have.  

So, to set the scene, in the Arizona Territory of 1872, A man alone by a campfire realises he is surrounded, and it soon becomes clear that they do not have friendly intent as blood is spilt. Two years later, Major O’Rourke (William H. Macy) is trying with Merrick Beckford (Myles Clohessy) to work out how to get much-needed medical supplies past the Apache to a town full of an epidemic. On that mission, he runs into Mule (Thomas Jane), an outlaw in disguise, whose luck ran out with some Apache people. Beckford takes mercy on them because they have a wounded man (Eli Brown) and his wife, Valerie (Mary Stickley). But he will regret this choice.        

Continue reading →

Cold Storage – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – While filled with fascinating concepts, it becomes a film that is less than the sum of its parts.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Masked troops drive away from a town being bombed in fire.

Cold Storage Review Introduction –

If you have been on our site before, you know that we are here for an interesting new Zombie work. While the genre can be overstuffed at times, the good films use the zombies as a reflection on society and have interesting things to say. Today, we are looking at a film that is filled to the brim with interesting concepts, but struggles to make a great film out of it, despite all the building blocks being there.  

So, to set the scene, when Skylab crashed into Western Australia in 1979, NASA thought it had collected all the debris, but it missed one. It housed a fungus they were experimenting on, but what went up was not what came down. Luckily, the canister landed in the barren Australian desert, though unlucky for the small township that needed to be napalmed to contain the spread. A small sample was kept in the top-secret Atchison Storage Facility in Kansas. But time is a fool to us all, and decades later, what was stored on sub-level 4 was forgotten, the facility was sold off to a self-storage company, and life went on. Well, it did right up until an internal warning system that has not been activated since the Cold War started blaring in Washington.  

Continue reading →

Project Hail Mary – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – Project Hail Mary is everything a sci-fi film should be: bold, evocative, immersive, and wonderous.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Warning – Some scenes contain flashing lights.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

The Hail Mary floating next to a much larger alien ship.

Project Hail Mary Review Introduction –

As I sit down to write this review, I feel like I am floating a touch on air, as if I had just witnessed something glorious to behold. Something I hoped would be good, but which delivered in ways not even I was expecting. It’s a rare film that not only meets expectations but exceeds them.   

So, to set the scene, a man wakes up sealed in a bag, not able to talk, and is accosted by some persistent medical device. He does not know who he is. He does not know where he is. He does not know why there are two dead bodies with him. And you better believe he does not know why he is on a spaceship, or why the star he is looking at is not Sol. There are flashes of memory, of a dying Sun, a Petrova line to Venus, and microbes called Astrophage eating it away. But the man whom the computer says is Dr Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) doesn’t have much time to think about things when the computer alerts him to Blip-A, and he realises he is not the only spaceship out here.     

Continue reading →

Reminders of Him – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – While conceptually interesting, I never bought the romance and the heart of the film, which is a problem when your film is all about the romance.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

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

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

An orange truck drives into the sunset.

Reminders of Him Review Introduction –

Having decided, probably wisely, to steer clear of everything to do with It Ends with Us, my first dive into the world of Colleen Hoover came last year with the very interesting Regretting You. It was a film that I fundamentally liked with interesting characters, so I was interested to see what other worlds she could create.

So, to set the scene, Kenna Rowan (Maika Monroe) is making a trip back to her hometown, but this is not a celebratory return. She has just been released from prison after serving 5–7 years for vehicular homicide. She is also not just returning to her hometown to reminisce, because the homicide was her former lover Scotty (Rudy Pankow), and their child Diem (Zoe Kosovic) now lives with their grandparents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford). Kenna had her parental rights stripped from her, and now needs to reunite with her daughter. First step, finding a place to live, and a hotel aptly named Paradise is the place for that. The second step is finding a job, and that is where she runs into Ledger Ward (Tyriq Withers), Scottie’s old best friend.

Continue reading →

OBEX – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A wildly imaginative, if slow burn look at the blurred lines between the real world and a video game.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Warning – This film contains scenes which may cause distress.

Have you plugged your computer in today mug.

OBEX Review Introduction –

This year, Iron Lung taught me one very important lesson. That is, some of the most interesting work in the cinematic landscape is coming out of the work of small teams. Working on bringing a very niche thing to life can be rewarding when you take some big risks. Today’s entry OBEX looks to be doing just that as they mix horror and nostalgia together in a retro landscape.

So, to set the scene, it’s 1987, and Conor Marsh (Albert Birney) is an agoraphobic who lives alone, making a living out of creating ascii art, and spending much of his time playing these new-fangled video games on his computer. He would have been a complete recluse had it not been for Sandy (Dorothy), his dog, who is his one joy in life. However, when he opens the new video game OBEX, the line between reality and fiction starts to blur as technology starts going awry and thinking for itself.   

Continue reading →

The Bride! – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – I’d be honestly surprised if “what if Bonnie and Clyde were Frankenstein and his Bride” was not written somewhere prominently in the pitch deck for this film.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Warning – This film contains scenes which may cause distress.

Ida staring across a room, almost right in your soul.

The Bride! Review Introduction –

If you had told me a few years ago that Gothic Romance would come crashing back into the zeitgeist, I would have called you a fool. But indeed, it seems that I would have been the foolish one. Because we have had multiple big entries into this space, including other works adapting Frankenstein. Today, we are looking at a work that takes that classic tale and twists it on its head, and I am intrigued to see just how that works out. 

So, to set the scene, it is Chicago in the 1930s, the casinos are hot, the liquor is flowing, and the mob has their fingers in everything. Frank (Christian Bale) has been going through this world alone, but now he wants a partner in crime, and Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) might be just the person to do it. Thus, a local murdered and possibly possessed woman’s body becomes The Bride (Jessie Buckley). It was all very simple to pull off, but they may have got more than they bargained for.

Continue reading →

The Bluff – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – While the story might not have the strength of wind behind the sails, the action and setting make up for it.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service to view this film.

Rowboats approach the shore.

The Bluff Review Introduction –

Today I was thinking that I have not seen a good Pirate action-adventure film. Well, call me surprised to find that when I opened Amazon Prime tonight, I found that a new film starring Priyanka Chopra and Karl Urban had landed, promising to do just that. Well, there is no time like the present to dive in and see if it works or not.   

So, to set the scene, in crashing waves and the gale of a storm, a pirate vessel is making its way through the Caribbean Sea in the tail end of the Era of Pirates in 1846. In the gloom, it finds its prey, a merchant vessel Swiftsure with a curious captain, Theodor H. Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova), holding gold marked with their pirate brand of Captain Connor (Karl Urban). Gold, they got in the small town of Cayman Brac. But while Cayman Brac looks inconsequential, it holds many secrets, and Ercell Bodden (Priyanka Chopra) is no sailor’s wife, well, she is, but she’s also a lot more.  

Continue reading →

The Wrecking Crew – Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

TL;DR – A solid action film that works as two big personalities collide with vengeance.

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.

Johnny (Dave Bautista) and James (Jason Momoa) in a police office.

The Wrecking Crew Review Introduction –

Today, it is time to dive into an action film full of explosions, guns, big muscles, and bigger personalities. It is the kind of glitzy action film that we would get once a month, but now get sent straight to streaming. But as this is a very dad-film coded entry, it might just be the best place for it.   

So, to set the scene, it’s Chinese New Year on the streets of Honolulu as Walter (Brian L. Keaulana) walks through Chinatown, being stalked by unsavoury people as fireworks explode. But just when he escapes, a van mows him down in the street. The man was a private eye with a long list of carnage in his wake, including two children, half-brothers Johnny (Dave Bautista) and James (Jason Momoa), who have not talked to each other in over ten years. But when the Yakuza show up at James’ place with violent intent, looking for a package Walter sent him before he died, well, it just might be time for James to go back to Hawaii to see who really killed his father.

Continue reading →