Tag Archives: Film Review

Movie Review – Battle at Big Rock (Jurassic World: Battle at Big Rock).

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Battle at Big Rock (Jurassic World: Battle at Big Rock). Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

While I was not alone here, I know when I walked out of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom I was greatly disappointed at all the talent that went into what felt like a missed opportunity. It was a film that had an end goal in mind but not how to get to that goal in an organic way. Well, today a little surprise was dropped on the internet with a short film showing the aftermath and if anything it shows just how good the goal they were shooting for was.

The setup is really simple, you have family with a Father (Andre Holland) and Mother (Natalie Martinez) cooking food from their three children (Melody Hurd, Pierson Salvador, Noah Cole & Ethan Cole). There is the usual bickering with a little extra edge because this is still a family coming together when the father notices that nobody is outside anymore and that is when you hear the first rumble.

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Movie Review – Shanghai Fortress (Shànghǎi Bǎolěi, 上海堡垒)

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TL;DR – There is an interesting concept here, but the film goes out of its way to make its characters come off as bland and one-note     

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

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

Shanghai Fortress (Shànghǎi Bǎolěi, 上海堡垒). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

It has been an interesting couple of years for the Alien Invasion genre after being almost abandoned in the years since September 11. Long gone were the triumphant speeches and bold proclamations and in were gritty scenes of dirt and muck. However, then there was a resurgence with different countries taking a look with Attack the Block in the UK and Occupation in Australia to name just two. Well, today we get to see China’s take on the global destruction masterpiece. But will it soar or will fall, only time will tell.    

So to set the scene, in the not too distant future the first manned Chinese space ship brought back a new energy source Xianteng that revolutionised the world. Everything was great but the energy source was like a beacon drawing the aliens to Earth. Starting with Rio de Janeiro the mothership moved across the planet, destroying city after city. In a last-ditch effort, the United Nations and what was left of the world’s government set up base in the last major centre Shanghai. Here they hope to make a last stand and maybe just maybe fight back and take back the planet before more cities like Los Angeles and New Delhi are turned to ash.

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Movie Review – Downton Abbey (2019)

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TL;DR – This is sort of the cinematic equivalent of sitting down under a doona in your PJs eating ice cream while vegging out on some TV. Perfectly pleasant and even enjoyable in places, but with not really any substance with it.    

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Downton Abbey. Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

Review –

Well, I am going to get something out of the way right from the start, I have not watched a single episode of Downton Abbey before today. I, of course, know what it is and also thanks to the internet and the enormous fan following it has, I know most of the main plot points but it never interested me to hunt down the DVDs. I say this so if you are a fan of the show you can put my critiques in context, however, I am mostly writing this for those like me who have never seen it before and may get brought along for what is billed as the cinematic event of the year.

So to set the scene, it has been two years since the series finished off and life at Downton is moving on at its usual pace, but no one could be prepared for the letter that is making its way through the Royal Mail system all the way from London. For you see King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) will be spending the night at Downton as part of their Yorkshire tour. Suddenly everything is thrown into chaos as Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) and Cora Crawley (Elizabeth McGovern) rush to get the house ready, but there are more problems on the horizon and I am not just talking about the boiler kicking it in.

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Movie Review – Good Boys

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TL;DR – This is a film that on the surface is really crass, but they use that crassness as a cover to tell a story with real heart    

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Good Boys. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

Well, this might be one of the biggest surprises that I have seen so far this year. To be honest, I was not really sure what I was going to see when I sat down at my screening of Good Boys. However, given it was being produced by Seth Rogan, and written by this guy who wrote Year One there may have been some subconscious preconceptions floating there. But what I could not expect was a film with real heart.

So to set the scene, we open in on our main trio Max (Jacob Tremblay), Lucas (Keith L. Williams), and Thor (Brady Noon) who are in the first weeks of Middle School in year six. They have been friends forever and call themselves the Beanbag Boys, but while they have been inseparable in life to this point things are rapidly changing. Max is trying to get the courage to ask out Brixlee (Millie Davis), Lucas is struggling with changing family life, and Thor is trying to escape his past reputation and be accepted by the cool kids like Soren (Izaac Wang). All of this comes to a head one day when Max is invited to a kissing party setting off a chain of events that change everything.

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Movie Review – The Flying Fish

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TL;DR – An interesting experimental short film that unfortunately never graduates from allegory into something more.    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

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

Rocky Head in The Flying Fish. Image Credit: Murat Saygıner.

Review –

Today we get to step back and look at something a little bit different with a film that is less a narrative exercise and more an experimental experience. This was a little bit of a new area for us so it was a nice change of pace and an interesting twenty minutes.  

The Flying Fish is a composition of a number of short films by artist/filmmaker Murat Saygıner assembled into one work of art. It is here where the strengths and weaknesses of the work come to the surface. Because it is a collection of many different works, there is always something new entering into the frame to switch things up. However, because there are many different works being combined together there is not a strong unifying force that makes it feel like this is one work.

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Movie Review – Back to School (La Grande Classe)

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TL;DR – Mistaken identity, reflections on the past, and the scourge of time, all of these and more in a school reunion that goes very wrong.    

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Back to School (La Grande Classe). Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –


School reunions are a fraught time, especially if school was not a fun time for you. It can be crash into past emotions, get a blunt showing of the passing of time, and revisit a time when you were at your most awkward. Well, this means that if you set your film around this event you have a set of emotions that everyone can understand but that universality can work against you if you get it wrong.

So to set the scene, growing up Johnathan (Ludovik) and Pierre-Yves (Jérôme Niel) did not have the best of times at Diderot Middle School being constantly bulled by the dragon gang. Well, in the preceding years the boys have gotten out of the town and all the way to Paris where they have just found ten-years funding for their algorithm. In their moment of triumph, they run into an old acquaintance from school who casually mentions that they’ll be talking more on the weekend. Confused they discover that everyone in the school had been invited to the reunion but them. Well there is only one thing to do in that situation, rock up as if you were invited, the first of many mistakes they make.

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Movie Review – Kardec

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TL;DR – A biopic that had a real chance of being something interesting that unfortunately could never quite stick the landing.     

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

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

Kardec. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

For a while now in the evening before going to sleep I have been taking to watching a couple of episodes of Penn and Teller: Fool Us. Penn and Teller are American magicians and one of the many things they are known for is debunking a number of things including the techniques behind spiritualism and mentalism. It has been interesting getting little hints as to how some of these tricks are done, so when a biography of one of the key spiritualists in France dropped on Netflix I was really interested to see how it would go.

So to set the scene, it is the 1850s in Paris, France and Rivail (Leonardo Medeiros) is a professor and teacher. He is a man of reason of logic and takes deep offence when a priest bursts into his classroom to give the catechisms. The influence of Catholicism in the classroom is a deal-breaker for the teacher and he retires. Struggling to find work, he agrees to do some translating work and it is here that is he is drawn into the new fad exploding among the fringes and not so fringes of French society.

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Movie Review – Falling Inn Love

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TL;DR – A really solid rom-com with a kiwi twist.   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Falling Inn Love. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

As time marches on there are three things that remain inevitable, death, taxes, and Netflix will drop another adorable romantic comedy on you when you least expect it. Now while we hope your day is not filled with the first two, the question that we will try to answer is if it should be filled with the third.

So to set the scene, Gabriela (Christina Milian) works in an investment firm in San Francisco and is getting ready for her first big pitch only to get stuffed over by her dude-frat-bro colleagues. Well, time to regroup, but then the company she works just collapsed and then she finally realised that her wanker of a boyfriend has severe commitment issues. Well time to smother your sorrows in ice cream and then sign up to what is clearly a scam to win an inn in New Zealand. Well surprise she won the inn, but like all things the profile pictures on the internet can be misleading.

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Movie Review – Kaake Da Viyah

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TL;DR – A really interesting scenario with some memorable performances, but it could have been streamlined a bit and it could have dialled the zany back a bit.

 Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Kaake Da Viyah. Image Credit: Yogmaya Productions.

Review –

If there is one genre that I always find interesting, it is the family politics of conflicting generations. There is that divide between tradition and the future, people taking sides, and in the case of Indian cinema a good song or two. Well, today we get to look at a film that is just that as three generations try to use marriage to outmanoeuvre the rest.

So to set the scene, Navi (Jordan Sandhu) is studying and spending as much time away for home as possible because he has found his one true love Mahi (Prabh Grewal). That is because at home his mother Tej (Priti Sapru) and his grandmother Bebe (Nirmal Rishi) are constantly fighting. As Bebe never forgave that her son married Tej without her blessing. He wants to marry Mahi, but he is not sure how to break it to both of them, well the one day he finally finds the courage disaster strikes when he discovers that both his mother and grandmother have found wives for him and they are not Mahi.

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Movie Review – Angel Has Fallen

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TL;DR –  I don’t think anything here will surprise you, but it was still a solid action flick, touching on all the big buzzword fears of the moment.   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Angel Has Fallen. Image Credit Roadshow Films.

Review –

A couple of years ago I popped and on a whim caught a showing of London Has Fallen. It was a perfectly fine if boilerplate action film and overall I did quite enjoy it. Though my mileage was a lot further than a lot of people as I had not seen the first film, so the fact that they hit almost the same plot beats was not as much of an issue. Well the third film in the series is out today and overall it’s pretty much the same as last time, with maybe a little something extra.

So to set the scene, we open with United States Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) holding off a bunch of goons while under attack only for it to be just a paintball exercise. His old Army buddy Wade Jennings (Danny Huston) runs a training outfit and with Mike probably about to take over has head of the Secret Service he’s hoping he can send some training contracts his way. It is not likely as President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) has but a ban on contract armies. Well one day after visiting a doctor’s to discover how bad his back really is Mike is out protecting the President when they come under attack by drones. When he wakes up all of his team is dead, the President is in a coma and he is under arrest because they think he was the one who set it all up.

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