Tag Archives: Comedy

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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The Bad Guys 2 – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A film full of energetic characters, stunning animation, and a wonderful, uplifting vibe that permeated every part of the story.

Rating: 4.5 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.

The Bad Guys driving a car out of a building.

The Bad Guys 2 Review Introduction –

Back in 2022, Dreamworks Animation was in a bit of a creative quandary. It had just finished up its Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon series, but then it kind of just floundered for a while. But then The Bad Guys happened. It was an explosion of energy in a way the studio hadn’t found in the past years. But it was also stepping into a brand-new animation style that blended 2D and 3D styles into something that perfectly understood the medium they were adapting. We dipped back into this world with The Bad Guys: Little Lies and Alibis earlier in the year, but I am glad to say that it is time to dive into the sequel I have been waiting for.


So, to set the scene, ever since the events of The Bad Guys where the team of Mr Wolf (Sam Rockwell), Mr Snake (Marc Maron), Mr Piranha (Anthony Ramos), Mr Shark (Craig Robinson), and Ms Tarantula (Awkwafina) turned good to stop the master villain Professor Marmalade (Richard Ayoade). They have been serving their time and trying to reemerge in society. But they can’t find a job, because everyone thinks that they are just undercover waiting to rob everyone. This is made more complicated when the Phantom Bandit starts robbing the city of all its MacGuffinite in the style of The Bad Guys. What’s worse: being blamed for a crime you didn’t commit, or knowing someone’s out there copying your old moves? Well, The Bad Guys need to get to the bottom of this before Governor Diane Foxington (Zazie Beetz) and police commissioner Misty Luggins (Alex Borstein) must act.

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The Roses – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A film built entirely on the chemistry of Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, which is a fundamentally good idea. But then the film makes several choices that make you pause.

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.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman.

The Roses Review Introduction –

Unfortunately, 2025 has not been kind to the satirical Dark Comedy, with many noted filmmakers falling in the attempt to capture that vibe. With film after film falling in its wake. However, can a remake of a classic from 1989 find its footing? Well, to pull that off, you would need to cast two leads with impeccable chemistry and bring it into the 21st century, but there is a chance you can pull it off.    

So, to set the scene, Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman) are both professionals working in London and being held back by their respective bosses. However, fate brought them together one day, and the chemistry was instant, so instant that they took a gamble to fly off to California after one meeting. Ten years later, they are married with twins, and Ivy has put her career on hold to raise the family. But when a calamity strikes and Theo is fired, Ivy steps up to take the slack, working in her new restaurant. It is a complete 180° shift in their marriage dynamic, which I am sure will have no lasting repercussions.   

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Holy Cow (Vingt Dieux) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A delightful romp set in the French countryside, in a world of cheese, stock cars, and the perils of growing up.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Comté cheese.

Holy Cow Introduction –

One of my favourite films to review is when directors/writers have been putting in the work to build their craft and finally get the chance to bring their first feature outing to the big screen. Today’s entry is just such a film, with Louise Courvoisier bringing so much of herself to the big screen. Well, it is time to fly to rural France and into the world of cheese.  

So, to set the scene, Totone (Clément Faveau) has just left school and is enjoying that time in his life where all he needs to do in a day is have fun, go drinking with his friends, and occasionally get into fights with kids from the other village. However, his entire life is upended when his father is killed in a car crash, and suddenly, he must care for his young sister Claire (Luna Garret). Totone must sell almost everything to survive; however, when he discovers there is a €30,000 prize for the best Comté cheese. Well, Totone takes it upon himself and commits some minor theft to make the best cheese in the valley.

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The Naked Gun (2025) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While not every joke lands, and runs too long, it is still one of the funniest films I have seen this year.

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.

Police Squad Headquarters.

The Naked Gun Review –

Some films are called iconic for a good reason, whether that is because of the time, the cast, the writing, directing, or more than likely a combination of all of them. Which is why reboots decades later rarely work, they are trying to recreate something that does not exist anymore. But every now and again, someone finds a way to recreate that magic. Today, we look at a film that just might have pulled that off.

So, to set the scene, we open as criminals start tearing a bank apart looking for money, gems, and a P.L.O.T. Device. The police have the bank surrounded when a little girl breaches the barricade and runs into the bank. The criminals think this is a joke, but in reality, it is Lt. Frank Drebin Jr. (Liam Neeson) in disguise. Drebin’s overzealous tactics land several people in the hospital, thus he and his partner, Capt. Ed Hocken Jr. (Paul Walter Hauser) are reassigned to a car crash in the mountains by Chief Davis (CCH Pounder). But after meeting with Beth Davenport (Pamela Anderson), sister of the deceased, Drebin discovers that there may be more going on.

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Freakier Friday – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A delightful film full of silly shenanigans.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid-credit scenes.

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

The whole family realising they were swapped.

Freakier Friday Review –

There is a lot of choice in the body change genre of comedy. You can take an older person and make them young again, or make a young person old. You can even swap some twins around if you want to change things up. However, sometimes you want to get more bang for your buck, and that is where we enter body swap territory. In today’s entry, we look at the film that might be the queen of the body swap genre, and it is time for a sequel to do it all over again.

So, to set the scene, back in the 2000s, calamity came to the lives of Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her daughter Anna (Lindsay Lohan) when they read a fortune cookie at the same time and swapped bodies, living each other’s lives until an act of selfishness broke the spell. It has now been twenty-two years since that fateful time. But with Anna about to marry her new fiancée, Eric Davies (Manny Jacinto), there is a significant change in the lives of her daughter Harper (Julia Butters) and new stepdaughter Lily (Sophia Hammons) coming. Well, it seems like it is the perfect time for another switch-up.   

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M3GAN 2.0 – Movie Review

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TL;DR – When it lands on the surreal nature of the premise, it is a blast to watch. When they need to forward the plot, you can feel the gears grinding to a halt.  

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

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

M3GAN stuck in a child's toy.

M3GAN 2.0 Review –

Back in 2023, there was this weirdly wonderful thing that sliced its way into the world. M3GAN was filled with equal parts of camp and horror, but ended in a tidy, neat bow. Well, suppose you know anything about horror, especially artificial antagonists, you know that there is always a way to bring them back from the dead, and sure enough, it is now time to jump into the second iteration of M3GAN.

So, to set the scene, in the years since M3GAN (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis) was deactivated during her murderous rampage, trying to protect Cady (Violet McGraw) by killing everyone around her. Her inventor, Gemma (Allison Williams), has been looking at ways to bring the world forward without the dangers of technology. But after a heavy-handed FBI raid after a botched operation on the Iranian/Turkish border led by Saudi Arabia, they discover that someone has stolen the coding for M3GAN and built their own robot called AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno), who has gone on a rampage, killing everyone involved in her construction. There seems to be a theme here. But this could also include Gemma and Cady. So, how do you stop a robot on a murderous rampage? Well… maybe you can look a bit deeper into who is running the tech in your house and perhaps let them out of their digital cage. I’m sure nothing could go wrong …     

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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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Daniel’s Gotta Die – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is an amusing and chaotic film that does hold back a bit when it should embrace its premise.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

The family at a funeral.

Daniel’s Gotta Die Review –

Today, we are looking at a fundamentally odd film out of Canada. One that leans into chaos at almost every turn but never truly embraces it. Full of character actors playing right into their caricatures but finding them quite two-dimensional. It’s quite engaging, but it always holds you at arm’s length.   

So, to set the scene, one evening, Daniel Powell (Joel David Moore) woke up feeling something was off like someone was in his room. He wonders who is out there, but just when he resigns himself to it being nothing, he is attacked from behind. The Powell family is incredibly dysfunctional, more dysfunctional than anyone should be. Not that Daniel really knows his siblings because they were gone to boarding school most of the time. But they were all untied after the patriarch Edward Powell (Iggy Pop) died suddenly. All the kids need to get along for a weekend to get their inheritance, but we know that does not go well.  

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Dog Man – Movie Review

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TL;DR – This is a profoundly silly premise. However, they commit to it with such gusto that you can’t help but be brought along with it.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was given a free ticket to see this film.

Dog Man jumping in the air.

Dog Man Review –

There are animation studios out there that are defined by the visual style that they use in their films. You can look at a Studio Ghibli or Pixar film and know it comes from one of those studios. This was once the case for DreamWorks Animation. However, in recent years, I have been fascinated by the different experiments that they are taking with their animation styles. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Wild Robot, and The Bad Guys have all shown this in action. Today, we get to see the next entry in this experiment with Dog Man.   

So, to set the scene, Ohkay City is under threat from Petey (Pete Davidson), the world’s most evil cat. Chief (Lil Rel Howery) sends out the only team that can take Petey down, Officer Knight (Peter Hastings) and his Golden Retriever Greg (Peter Hastings). They may be a menace, but they are the only hope the city has, that is, until tragedy strikes. A bomb set by Petey explodes badly, injuring Knight and Greg. There is no hope until a nurse has a bright idea: why don’t we attach the good dog head and the good human body, and Dog Man (Peter Hastings) was born?     

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