Tag Archives: movies

Trigger Warning – Movie Review

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TL;DR – When things click into place, this can be quite an entertaining film. Unfortunately, a lot of the connective tissue is full of awkwardness that holds it back.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

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

Parker mourns her father.

Trigger Warning Review –

Okay, so I am going to be upfront with you right from the start. The reason I sat down to watch this film is because it has been an age since I have seen Jessica Alba in anything. She was one of those tent pole stars when I was growing up, and I am always here for a new renaissance.   

So to set the scene, we open in the Bādiyat al-Shām Desert, Syria, as two pickup trucks with machine guns chase down an aid vehicle that clearly is not delivering aid. Instead, it is driven by spec-ops operative Parker (Jessica Alba), who is very handy with a knife. But when an apparent cave-in kills her father at the mine he works in, Parker travels all the way home to deep rural America to find out what really happened. However, one look shows that the cave-in might be a very convenient conclusion.   

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Deadland – Movie Review

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TL;DR –  It is a film with a lot of intrigue, but I wish it had a bit more going on under the hood.  

Rating: 3 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 man standing on the river's shore.

Deadland Review –

I do love when films get weird, when they play with your perceptions of what is real or not, though I should maybe stop playing them before bed. Today, we are looking at a film that does just that with the people in the movie, but does it have the same effect on the audience?

So, to set the scene, we find ourselves on the USA/Mexico border with US Customs and Border Patrol, where they find a suspicious van trying to cross. Agents Angel Waters (Roberto Urbina) and Ray Hitchcock (McCaul Lombardi) find just a kid behind the wheel and a whole lot of drugs in the back. It was just a routine day for The Patrol, but when Angel is alone and finds the body of The Stranger (Luis Chávez) floating dead in the river, he is the most surprised when the man wakes up out of his body bag on the drive home. But when Angel’s father, Ignacio Coronado (Manuel Uriza), returns and the dead man, now alive, turns up dead again, things start falling apart, and this is when Internal Affairs starts to sniff around.  

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Despicable Me 4 – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Look, the kids started laughing with the title card and stopped with the end credits, and I am not sure that truly does matter in the scheme of things.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid credit sequences but you don’t need to stay for them.

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

Minions in a pool.

Despicable Me 4 Review –

Well, it is time to get the banana papayas out because it is Minions time. Look, I have generally liked these films because there is an almost charm to the slapstick comedy that permeates every frame. Also, while my mother is not a fan of this, I don’t have any kids, so I only have to watch this film once—my deepest sympathies to those well into the double-digit viewings. But now we are six films deep into this world, can there be any more fun to be found? Well, that is what we will find out today.   

So to set the scene, Gru (Steve Carell) is still working for the Anti-Villain League, and this time, his mark is Maxime Le Mal (Will Ferrell), a heavily ‘French’ accented villain and former classmate of Gru. Indeed, Gru takes him down in the middle of their class reunion. Things are also looking up at home, where he and Lucy (Kristen Wiig) have welcomed a new child into the family, Gru Jr. But when Maxime escapes and threatens to ‘cockroach-ize’ the baby, well, the whole family has to go undercover to keep safe. You better hope your new neighbours are not secret supervillain fans.

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Hit Man – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A wild film with commitment in the subtext, the literal text, and also a promise to the audience.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

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

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Gary just got promoted.

Hit Man Review –

There has been a lot of talk about who is going to be the next leading man in Hollywood. Indeed, I think the last person to claim that honestly might have been Tom Cruise, maybe Robby Downer Jr., but then the question is always who is going to fill that role in the near future. When it came to raw power, we have seen that Glen Powell has that in spades, but does he have the range? Well, that is the question I think we will get an answer about today.   
So to set the scene, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) is the epitome of a mild-mannered professor. Who spends the day teaching psychology and philosophy and nights feeding his cats. Oh, and he just shop happens to have a side hustle working undercover for the New Orleans Police Department. Traditionally, he stayed in the van working on all the tech stuff he installed. Still, one day, when the undercover officer Jasper (Austin Amelio) was not able to make it, his boss Claude (Retta) was out of options. In a moment, Gary was a hitman for hire. At least, that is what he pretends to be.  

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Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a film that roars to life and explodes on to the screen, captivating you with every turn.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

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

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Furiosa stands alone in the desert.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Review –

Well, this was always going to be an interesting film for me. The last entry in the Mad Max Saga, as we are now calling it, Fury Road, blasted onto the world and had a profound effect on me. It is one of those rare films that I have watched over and over again, and each time, I found a new detail I had missed before. It is in my Top 10 Films of All Time list for a reason. This means that there was some trepidation when I walked into the theatre wondering how a prequel to that film could stand up, but the second my seat reverberated with a motorcycle roar, I knew that I was in for something exciting.

So, to set the scene, a young Furiosa (Alyla Browne) is living in the green land of many mothers when she comes across three bikers who have discovered their hidden sanctuary. Being captured, her mother (Charlee Fraser) chases Furiosa across the desert till they make it to the roving camp of Praetorian Jack (Chris Hemsworth). He sees her value as the one person who knows where the place of abundance is and brings her into his collection, which is where she first meets the leader of the Citadel, Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme).

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Planet of the Apes (1968) Review – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – You can feel its iconic nature at every turn, even if not every part has aged well. 

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ series that viewed this film.

The spaceship crashes in the lake.

Planet of the Apes Review –

This week Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes landed in cinemas, and while I was watching it, I was reminded of the musical score from the original film. This unlocked a memory of being a kid and watching through all of the Apes films as a family. Well, there is no better time than the present, so I thought tonight would be an excellent time to dive back in and see just how it stacks up with my memories.

So, to set the scene, George Taylor (Charlton Heston) leads a crew on an experimental spaceship that is going near the speed of light. While it was 1972 on Earth, they were sure that it would be 2673 when they all emerged from hibernation. However, something goes very wrong, and the ship crashes into a lake on a barren, unknown planet sometime after 3978. As the survivors, Taylor, Landon (Robert Gunner), and Dodge (Jeff Burton), try to find their footing in this new world, they discover that there are humans, but they are mute and run around in herds. The more concerning factor is that humans are being hunted by apes … who can talk …!        

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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – Movie Review

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TL;DR – While you can feel some tension in the script at times, this is still a solid entry into the franchise with characters you care about and a world you want to explore.

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.

Noa rides through the ruins of the old world.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Review –

Without a doubt, I have loved the Planet of the Apes reboot films. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a great foundation, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was this sad meditation on the legacy of trauma, all before ending the trilogy with this grand biblical epic of War of the Planet of the Apes that hit the big 5 out of 5 stars. So, there was a bit of hesitance to come back to this world after such a long time and a new creative team, but thankfully, I had nothing to worry about.

So to set the scene, we open with the final funeral of Caeser, a leader who brought his people out of danger and into a new promised land but was unable to enter himself. Led by Maurice (Karin Konoval), it is a solemn event, but it is the start of something, and you see that in the world several generations later. It is here where Noa (Owen Teague) and his friends Soona (Lydia Peckham) and Anaya (Travis Jeffery) climb up through the ruins of the old world to find eagle eggs. They are a village of eagle trainers, and Noa’s dad, Koro (Neil Sandilands), is the leader who sings to the new eggs. However, when Noa sees an Echo (human), little does he know the carnage that is following in their wake and how his world is about to change forever.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) Review – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR – It is a profoundly emotional work that builds on the first film in nearly every way.   

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

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

Caesar in war paint.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Review –

It has been ten years since this movie first came out, and I was taken aback by just how good visual effects had grown, even by the high standards that the Lord of the Rings brought us. But with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes coming out this week, I wanted to take a moment to go back in time and see how well this second entry before War of the Planet of the Apes holds up.

So to set the scene, it has been ten years since the Simian Flu pandemic spread across the globe with a survival rate of only 1 in 500, as was seen at the end of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. As human society completely collapsed, the ape colony founded by Caesar (Andy Serkis) began to thrive in the growing woods outside of what was once San Francisco. It has been two years since they even saw a human, which made that first sound of a gun going off echo throughout the colony. One of the few human settlements left on the Earth has set up shop in the ruins of San Francisco. Caesar does not acquiesce to the drum beats of war but gives the humans an ultimatum: stay away from their area. Peace has a chance, just as long as no one on either side decides to fall on the animosity of the past.     

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) Review – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR –.It is a remarkable film that still holds up today and provided a strong foundation for everything that followed.  

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

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

Caesar looks down on San Fransisco.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Review –

Back in the 2010s, remakes were all the rage, and most of them were not great. So, I am not sure that anyone was expecting a prequel remake reboot of the beloved cult Classic Planet of the Apes was going to be any good, let alone spawn one of the best trilogies of the modern cinematic era concluding with War of the Planet of the Apes. Well, with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes coming out this week, I knew it was time to jump back in and refresh myself in this world.

So to set the scene, we open in on a rainforest where a troop of chimpanzees is led into a trap by poachers. In San Fransisco, Dr. William “Will” Rodman (James Franco) is desperately trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, using chimpanzees as part of the trial. But when the first trial goes terribly wrong, they discover a surprise: the trial chip was pregnant. It is this new baby called Caesar (Andy Serkis) that Will discovers the hope he has been looking for as his father, Charles (John Lithgow), slips further behind. But will the world see what Will sees, or will they see a threat?  

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Corner Office – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It has its moments, and it very much lands its vibe, but there is an intensity that loses its impact halfway through.

Rating: 3 out of 5.
The brutalist concrete building they work in.

Corner Office Review –

Today we are looking at a film that I can’t quite place into the world of genre’s it is not quite a comedy, or a drama, or even a mystery. It has elements of all of those, but not enough to categories it. The only thing I can say is that it is a film about facial hair, and how there is probably a reason those styles are not popular anymore.

So to set the scene, we open in a car park covered in a layer of snow as the wind howls around. Orson (Jon Hamm) is arriving for their first day at work at The Authority Inc. in a large brutalist building. He is trying to stand out in the office, which is full of quirky characters, including his tablemate Rakesh (Danny Pudi). One day, while trying to find where they hid the printer paper, he stumbled across a room Orson had never seen before: a beautiful corner office. The room calls to him, like a forbidden lover, a place worthy of who he thinks he is, even if that does not match reality. The only problem is that no one else acknowledges that the room even exists.  

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