Tag Archives: American Cinema

Unit 234 The Lock Up – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It understands that when you cast Don Johnson, you give the man a monologue.

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 – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

A truck pulls up to the storage lot at night.

Unit 234 The Lock Up Review –

One of the more interesting shades of drama out there is the surprise trapped. You are going about your day, and then all of a sudden, bam, through the machinations of others or nature, now you are fighting for your life. These are films that live and die on the believability of the scenario and how the characters respond to them. It is in that space we dabble tonight.

So, to set the scene, Laurie Saltair (Isabelle Fuhrman) works, well, is more stuck working for her family’s old storage unit facility. It is a job she inherited, but it is not great for her work/life balance. But what she doesn’t know is that her self-storage unit is about to be at the centre of some regrettable circumstances: a mighty storm is about to hit the coast of Florida, she just crushed her mobile phone in a fall, and some idiot stashed the one thing the wealthy and powerful construction tycoon Jules (Don Johnson) needs in one of her units. What could be in there that he wants so much, and why is there a warning alarm going off?

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Darkgame – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While there are some conceptually interesting ideas here, the fact that everyone is playing a one-dimensional character greatly limits its potential.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Prisoners around a table.

Darkgame Review –

As the internet becomes all persuasive in our lives, we are becoming more and more accustomed to the negative possibilities that can exist. But whether real or imagined, one genre that has been populated on popular media is what would ancient Colosseum games look like in a modern era where anyone anywhere can watch on? Today’s review leans into that wholeheartedly as we delve into the world of the dark web.    

So, to set the scene, Detective Ben Jacobs (Ed Westwick) is a detective who is famous for finding two lost brothers who have been kidnapped. However, something new has come across his desk: a disturbing video feed from the dark web called Russian Roulette. A masked Presenter (Andrew P Stephen) is making contestants play games against each other. Only the loser meets a grizzly demise. Imagine Sam Reich with a murder kink and making a truckload of money from betting customers. One of those contestants was Fay (Sophie Rankin), who is one of the missing cases Ben was working on, so this is now personal. But when another person is kidnapped, Katia (Natalya Tsvetkova), only time will tell if they catch the perpetrators before more bodies drop.

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Mapping Sony’s Spider-Man Universe – Map-It

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TL;DR – As requested, we mapped all the locations featured in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.

Venom. Image Credit: Sony.

Mapping A Failed Experiment –

Whenever I post a map, I always ask for suggestions of pop-culture things that people would like to get mapped. Sometimes, you have interesting suggestions like Indiana Jones that make you think. Other times, it feels like someone wants to make you suffer. Well, today is the latter, as some of my readers have asked me to map Sony’s ill-fated Spider-Man Universe without Spider-Man in it. Now, for clarity, these are all the films that make up the Villain series of films, well villain-lite films, such as Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, Madame Web, Venom: The Last Dance & Kraven the Hunter. They don’t include the MCU Spider-Man films Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home & Spider-Man: No Way Home, which you can find on our MCU Map. Nor do they include the Spider-verse films Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse & The Spider Within because they are their own thing.

So, with this map, I have tried to find every location that I could, but this has led to some issues. There are a lot of places where there are no precise locations. With that in mind, I have made some educated guesses, such as putting Chameleon’s Club in Soho. I have used the actual filming locations as a guide where possible, but there is not a lot of data on that, especially for the later films, and a lot of times, different cities are subbing in for another. For example, the car chase in Venom jumps from San Francisco to Atlanta and back again in between cuts. 

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The Phoenician Scheme – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Weird and wonderful in equal measure.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

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

Zsa-zsa looks up at you from a bath.

The Phoenician Scheme Review –

Today, we are going to experience a touch of tonal whiplash when it comes to our film reviews. Because we are going from Fountain of Youth, where I could not tell was directed by Guy Ritchie as all his signature stull was sandblasted out of the film, and in the days since I am still wondering if he actually directed that film. But now we are hard cutting to the opposite side of that spectrum with the most stylistic director working in the field today. A man with a stylistic pallet that is oft copied but never replicated. I was first introduced to Wes Anderson’s work through Isle of Dogs and Asteroid City and was delighted by his reinterpretations of Roald Dahl’s short stories like Poison a couple of years ago. This means I came into this with somewhat high expectations, and I think they met them and more.  

So, to set the scene, in 1950, Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio del Toro) is flying above the Balkin mountains when an explosion rips apart his plane, yet miraculously, he survives, for this is not the first assassination attempt on his life. He feels like his life work might get cut off by influential players seeking to ruin him and realises that his legacy is not going to be passed down to his ten other sons. Zsa-zsa calls upon his one and only daughter, Sister Liesl (Mia Threapleton), who is about to take her nun oaths. However, he offers her a deal, well, a trial run, at being his sole heir to his fortune, as long as he can fill in the gap in this funding that the shadowy powers just forced upon him. Oh, and stop all the many, many, many people trying to kill him.

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Fountain of Youth – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Dull.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the AppleTV+ service that viewed this film.

The Austrian Library.

Fountain of Youth Review –

There is a genre in the Action-Adventure that leans into hunting lost artefacts, which, of course, makes you think of Indiana Jones and National Treasure or more. I honestly love these films because they capture that childlike wonder when I was discovering the world and learning about history. So, when I heard that Guy Richie was going to take a stab at a film in this world with a fantastic cast, I was fundamentally excited to give it a watch. I probably should have reset my expectations.

So, to set the scene, we open in the streets of Bangkok as Luke Purdue (John Krasinski) needs to outmanoeuvre a local gang to escape with a painting. As he takes an emergency train ride to Chiang Mai and tries to get some rest, he is woken up by a business opportunity. Esme (Eiza González) gives Luke the ‘opportunity’ to go easily or difficultly. A fight/flirt on the train proceeds. Luke escapes and now has a mission in his life. He is going to need a team to pull it off: Murf (Laz Alonso), Deb (Carmen Ejogo), Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson), and his sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman), which he may or may not have just gotten into a lot of trouble with her boss, ex-husband, oh and also INTERPOL.    

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Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Does it nail those moments of spectacle? Absolutely, in ways few can. But it is also filled with a lacklustre antagonist, a meandering narrative, and a desperate need to find some relevance. Look, it is just okay, and that’s fine.  

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.

Tom Cruise Running.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Review –

Well, we have apparently reached the end of an era, though I will believe that when we see the box office earnings. But if this is the end, does it create a satisfying narrative to justify this massive franchise coming to a close? Can it create a level of visual excellence that makes it stand out from those who came before it? Will it make Tom Cruise run the most? These were the questions I had in my mind as I sat down with my popcorn and drink.

So, to set the scene, it has been a few months since Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning [now minus the dangling Part One] and Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team of Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg) have gone to ground with the Crucifix Key. While hiding, the AI Entity has infiltrated most of the world and has artificially created tension among the nations. The Earth is a powder keg waiting to go off, The Entity has created a doomsday cult to forward its means, and Gabriel (Esai Morales) is still out there causing chaos. However, Ethan Hunt has a plan; the only issue is how many of his friends he might have to sacrifice before the end.

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Thunderbolts* (The New Avengers) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a perfectly fine film, with strong performances and an interesting villain. Unfortunately, it feels like it is constantly being held back from reaching its potential.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

A Humvee gets yeeted into the air.

Thunderbolts* Review –

I think it has been no secret that the MCU has been struggling to find its way in a post-Endgame world. It has had more misses than swings, which has forced a course correction into safety in many places. Thus, Ant-Man loses its charm and Captain America becomes just okay. It is in that space where they announced: what if the MCU did their version of Suicide Squad with a bunch of characters left over from the other films but also make it PG for some reason? It honestly sounds like a poor pitch, but then the first trailer dropped, and all of a sudden, there was a ray of hope. Now we see if that hope was warranted.   

So, to set the scene, Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is the head of the CIA and totally not still working for her own company that is up to so many illegal activities that she is now under impeachment from the US Congress. Knowing she has to clean house, she sends her undercover agents across the world to destroy any evidence of what she was working on. However, then they are the only link between the illegal stuff and her, so what do you do? Oh, maybe you get Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) & Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) to go to the same secluded warehouse, each with the mission to kill the other and then incinerate all the evidence one there are just bodies left … what could go wrong … Oh, and why is Bob (Lewis Pullman) down here?

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The Accountant 2 (The Accountant²) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A surprisingly fun romp that finds a way to make an odd 8-year-old sequel work in the context of now.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

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

A precise breakfast of three eggs, bacon, and pancakes.

The Accountant 2 Review –

When I got the invitation to see The Accountant 2, I was honestly surprised. I had not heard much about a sequel, and I think that the first film might have aged a bit better than some of its contemporaries. I still only have vague recollections of the movie with an interesting premise, a strong performance, but it is also profoundly messy on every level. But, even if that first film didn’t quite live up to the potential it merited, there was enough there for me to wonder what would happen if they got a second bite at the apple, and this is what we are looking at today.

So, to set the scene, it has been eight years since The Accountant and Christian “Chris” Wolff (Ben Affleck) is still auditing banks and deals for organised crime, travelling around in a trailer home, and also giving tips to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Well, the former head of the FinCEN, Raymond King (J. K. Simmons), is only semi-retired because now and again, he picks up a case that means something to him. But when a meeting with a mysterious woman (Daniella Pineda) goes wrong, he leaves a note for his successor Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to contact The Accountant. Because only they might be able to solve this puzzle.

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Sinners – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Soulful, Sanguine, Sensual, and more than a little Scandalous. It is the kind of film that one second will seduce you with the nectar of the Blues as your whole body moves along with the music but then horrify you with its brutality in the next instant.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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

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

People dance in ecstasy as fire whips around them.

Sinners Review –

Sometimes in life, you discover, ‘Ryan Coogler is making a vampire film set in 1930s Mississippi,’ and the moment you hear it, you know that you want to see it. Few directors have had such a remarkable track record as Ryan Coogler, and that alone would make this a must-see film. But add in a cast list like this and all the world and themes you know are going to be fascinating. Goodness, what a film this could be.

So, to set the scene, Smoke (Michael B. Jordan) and Stack (Michael B. Jordan) are two legendary twins from the Mississippi Delta who left to make their names in Chicago nine years ago. But they are back with a truck full of assorted booze and enough money to make even the most racist guy in the town still want to sell them the old mill. They have a plan to create a club/bar/gambling den/music hall for the people of the plantations. Part of that was getting the best food from Grace Chow (Li Jun Li) and her family, cooked by the one person all can trust, Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), with some of the best music around headlines by their cousin Sammie (Miles Caton). It was a glorious night, but sometimes music can be so good that it can pierce the veil, and not all that is good can flow from it.   

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Drop – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Drop is uncomfortable and unsettling but also deeply compelling. It’s one of those thrillers that has you on the edge of your seat, wondering if anyone will make it out alive.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

A phone message to check your security cameras.

Drop Review –

Even though film is an old visual medium, it is always trying to connect with and incorporate modern technology. While some films like Searching take that concept to the extreme, others sit back and pick the lazy option and just show a message pop up on a screen. It takes a lot to have modern technology fit naturally into your movie. But today, we look at an entry that just might pull that off.

So, to set the scene, Violet Gates (Meghann Fahy) is a single mother to Toby (Jacob Robinson), and that and her work supporting victims of spousal abuse and coercive control have meant that she has not gone on a date for a very long time. But today is different; her sister Jen (Violett Beane) is coming over to babysit, and tonight, she is going out on a date with what seems like a perfect gentleman who has been chatting to her for months and has not asked for a feet pic once. Her date, Henry Campbell (Brandon Sklenar), is taking her out to a fancy restaurant called Palate, with a view right over the Chicago cityscape. It could be a perfect date, right up until she starts getting obnoxious messages on her ‘Digi-Drops’ app. They are annoying, and she is about to turn the app off when it tells her to look at her home security cameras and do whatever they ask her to do, or her sister and son are dead.

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