Movie Review – The Cloverfield Paradox (God Particle)

TL;DR – Great casting, an interesting premise, and a fascinating history behind it, but there was something that just didn’t work The Cloverfield Paradox, and honestly it left me feeling a bit meh at the end.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – No

The Cloverfield Paradox


Review

So back in the day in the olden times of far way 2008, a little film called Cloverfield exploded onto the scene. Now I was not a big fan of it, but ‘found footage’ films are not really something I like so that was no real fault of the film itself. There were talks of a sequel but nothing ever came about in the years that followed, and then one day 10 Cloverfield Lane (see review) kind of appeared in 2016 with almost no promotion and it was amazing, one of our Top Films of 2016. So given there was some similarities but also differences between the two films that preceded The Cloverfield Paradox there have been a lot of discussions as to what their relationship was. Are they all connected together, or are they more like an anthology series, for example, American Horror Story? We today we get the answer … well, sort of, when the sequel to both films dropped on Netflix with no warning. So let’s dive in and take a look.

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Movie Review – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

TL;DR – No matter how well it is filmed or acted, I can’t recommend it on the story alone which is a deeply disturbing slog with no real redeemable features.

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

The Killing of a Sacrificial Deer. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review

Oh boy, is this is a tough film to review, and I am going to be honest right from the start that I’ll be quite negative towards the film because of its subject material. Now you might agree with this or not, but for me personally, I found this film to be deeply disturbing and frankly I completely understand why people walked out of my showing. Just a warning that there will be major spoilers in this review.

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Movie Review – Happy Death Day

TL;DR – A surprising solid film, even if it is just Groundhog Day with murder

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Happy Death Day. Image Credit: Blumhouse/Universal.

Review

What if at the end of the night you were murdered, but the next day you woke up at the start of the day again, destined to live your life out, day after day after day, each night murdered by the same masked killer. Now, of course, you might be going, ‘isn’t that just Groundhog Day with murder’ and you would be correct, Happy Death Day joins a long list of films/TV Shows using the same narrative device. Now is it as good as Groundhog Day, no, it’s not even the best redo of this narrative device, that would go to the Stargate SG1 episode Window of Opportunity. However, it is still a good film, mostly because you can see some real effort has gone into the production, that plus the entertaining cast and some unexpected emotional themes make Happy Death Day a really good film.

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Movie Review – It (It: Chapter 1) (2017)

TL;DR – No No NO No NO Nope Oh Hell NO

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

It. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review
So originally I wasn’t going to go see It, as the week it premiered I was up to my neck with essays to grade, as well as this, I’ve never really been a fan of horror films in general. However, last week a good friend of mine wanted to go see It, so what the hell, what’s the worst that could happen … Now to make a couple of things clear before we start, I haven’t seen the original miniseries, nor read the book, so I can’t tell you how good of an adaptation this is, though given we are talking about Tim Curry and Stephen King I am going to assume there is a very high barrier this film needed to meet, which not all Stephen King adaptations this year have met, yes I’m looking at you The Dark Tower (see review). As well as this, as I said I am not a fan of the horror film genre in general, so that has probably affected how I looked at It.

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Movie Review – Alien: Covenant


TL;DR
– Beautiful sets and locations, fantastic suspense, interesting action, and some characters that make some really odd misstates.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

P.S. – There is No after credit scene

Alien: Covenant. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review

Wow, this was kind of unexpected, to be honest, I’ve not watched an Alien film since Aliens and from what I have heard the quality of the movies since have been not that great. So I didn’t have high hopes when I walked into the cinema, but honestly, this is one of those times when I’m glad to be wrong because Alien: Covenant was really great. In today’s review, we are going to break down the acting, set, music and action before looking at Alien: Covenant’s big problem. So we are going to avoid spoilers as best we can but given it is a part of a franchise there may be some inadvertent spoilers and also some general assumption that you will probably already know before going to see an Alien film. Now there will be a section a bit later when we go full spoiler but that will be clearly marked so you can avoid it if you wish to do so.

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Movie Review – Get Out

TL;DR – Get out is a masterpiece in tension, cinematography and action, it is perfectly cast, amazingly directed, and deeply affecting.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

Get Out. Image Credit: Universal.

Review

Wow, I had no idea, absolutely none, about just how good this film would be, and from a first-time features director no less. Get Out is a masterpiece from the acting, to the cinematography, to the music, everything, seriously this is the first 5 out of 5 film for 2017. Now because of the type of film that it is I can’t really discuss it without immediately getting into spoilers, so because of this, and also because it has been out in the rest of the world for months, this is going to be a [FULL SPOILER REVIEW] so if you have not seen it beware that we will be holding nothing back and it will be best if you go in as spoiler free as possible, a sentiment not held up by the trailer it seems. So if you want a non-spoiler review let me just say no movie has affected me in this way in a very long time and I highly recommend it as it is a masterpiece of cinema. So with that in mind, this is your last chance because we go full spoiler now.

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Movie Review – A Cure for Wellness

TL;DR – A truly unpleasant film, there are not enough interesting individual shots in the world that can save this overlong mess of a film

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

A Cure for Wellness. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review

Oh my, where do I begin with A Cure for Wellness, it is a difficult film to approach because individual aspects of the film are quite interesting, but yet other parts of the film were horrific, and yet still so much of was just an overextended morose mess. Ok, to start the review off we will go through the setup of A Cure for Wellness, talk about its interesting aspects, and then look at its many, many issues.

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Movie Review – 10 Cloverfield Lane

TL;DR – Wow, just wow, this film has just 3 actors, is basically filmed in the one set, and yet it is one of the most tense films I have ever seen.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

10 Cloverfield Lane. Image Credit. Paramount.

Review

Tension in films is a very difficult thing to pull off, if you keep things tense for too long the audience gets exhausted, but if you try to apply the brakes you can shatter the suspension of disbelief and you can’t get that back. I bring this up because 10 Cloverfield Lane is a masterpiece in managing tension, and is a testament to what you can do with such a small budget.

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