TL;DR – Today, we map the two different trips on top of a magic carpet as Aladdin tried to woo Princess Jasmine.
Over the weekend, I realised it had been a while since I’d made a Map‑It entry. And because old Disney films happened to come up in conversation, I started wondering whether the magic‑carpet route differs between the 1992 animated film and the 2019 live‑action remake. So, I booted it up to see.
Continue readingTL;DR – While the story might not have the strength of wind behind the sails, the action and setting make up for it.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I paid for the Amazon Prime service to view this film.
Today I was thinking that I have not seen a good Pirate action-adventure film. Well, call me surprised to find that when I opened Amazon Prime tonight, I found that a new film starring Priyanka Chopra and Karl Urban had landed, promising to do just that. Well, there is no time like the present to dive in and see if it works or not.
So, to set the scene, in crashing waves and the gale of a storm, a pirate vessel is making its way through the Caribbean Sea in the tail end of the Era of Pirates in 1846. In the gloom, it finds its prey, a merchant vessel Swiftsure with a curious captain, Theodor H. Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova), holding gold marked with their pirate brand of Captain Connor (Karl Urban). Gold, they got in the small town of Cayman Brac. But while Cayman Brac looks inconsequential, it holds many secrets, and Ercell Bodden (Priyanka Chopra) is no sailor’s wife, well, she is, but she’s also a lot more.
TL;DR – A solid action film that works as two big personalities collide with vengeance.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.
Today, it is time to dive into an action film full of explosions, guns, big muscles, and bigger personalities. It is the kind of glitzy action film that we would get once a month, but now get sent straight to streaming. But as this is a very dad-film coded entry, it might just be the best place for it.
So, to set the scene, it’s Chinese New Year on the streets of Honolulu as Walter (Brian L. Keaulana) walks through Chinatown, being stalked by unsavoury people as fireworks explode. But just when he escapes, a van mows him down in the street. The man was a private eye with a long list of carnage in his wake, including two children, half-brothers Johnny (Dave Bautista) and James (Jason Momoa), who have not talked to each other in over ten years. But when the Yakuza show up at James’ place with violent intent, looking for a package Walter sent him before he died, well, it just might be time for James to go back to Hawaii to see who really killed his father.
TL;DR – A kaleidoscopic blend of restored archival footage and electrifying performance that cuts through the spectacle to reveal the man behind the myth.
Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.
There are many reasons to watch a film, and sometimes that reason can just be the story of how it came together. A bunch of mostly unseen documentary footage, hidden in a salt mine, was found while Baz Luhrmann was researching for his Elvis movie. Missing audio and needed extensive archival work to bring back to life. Well, that is a narrative that begs you to take a look, which is why we are diving into EPiC or EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert or Baz Luhrmann’s EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, depending on how you want to slice it.
So, to set the scene, Elvis has been touring all over America, spent time in the armed forces after being drafted, and then spent years in Hollywood bringing so many films to life. However, at the end of that period, it was time to change things up and go back to what he loves doing, performing for people, and the best place to do it was Las Vegas, Nevada.
TL;DR – I truly do not know who this film is for. It is an unpleasant experience for those who have never read the novel, and changes so much from the source material that it would be alienating for those who loved it.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.
Warning – This film contains scenes which may cause distress.
Okay, I feel like this is one of those films where I need to clarify where I am coming from here. When I was growing up, there were a number of classics on the curriculum, but my school didn’t dive into the works of the Brontë sisters. So, it didn’t form a strong bond with me when I was young. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not dismiss those who did form a bond because if someone did a film of Dinotopia and botched it, I would also be mad. However, I’m coming into this film without those built-up expectations, for better or worse. [Editor’s Note: It would not have helped either way]
So, to set the scene, Cathy (Charlotte Mellington) is the only daughter of a drunkard fool, Mr Earnshaw (Martin Clunes), who once owned considerable land and prestige but has both figuratively and metaphorically pissed all that away through gambling debts. Cathy has one companion, Nelly (Vy Nguyen), who is, retrospectively, more of a paid lady-in-waiting than a friend. But her life changes when her father brings a boy home, who is given the name Heathcliff (Owen Cooper). They become a fast pair in a land of isolation. But years later, the adult [and probably too old for the source material] Cathy (Margot Robbie) is joyous to hear that they finally have a new neighbour, Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif). While Nelly (Hong Chau) advises against it, and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) clearly does not want her to go, Cathy goes to visit the new family, but one sprained ankle changes everyone’s lives.
Continue readingTL;DR – This is an insipid, soulless, and excruciating attempt to appear relevant, but it ends up having little genuine intellectual fortitude.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.
Now, I’ll be honest from the outset, while I always try to go into a film not knowing the general reaction towards it, sometimes you simply can’t escape finding out. In that vein, I did know that Mercy was generally considered a bit of a dumpster fire before I walked in, but people and critics can be very wrong, so given the cast and the premise, I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. I should not have given it the benefit of the doubt.
So, to set the scene, in the not-too-distant future, Los Angeles is under attack from crime, civil disturbance, and a court system about to fail. To change that up, they institute the Mercy System, where violent offenders of capital crimes are sent to the Mercy Court, where an AI judge (Rebecca Ferguson) gives them 90 minutes to lower their guilt probability to under 92%, or they are instantly executed. One of the early proponents of this new system is LAPD Detective Christopher “Chris” Raven (Chris Pratt), who supported it after his partner (Kenneth Choi) was killed in the line of duty. Which is unfortunate for him, because he now sits strapped to a chair with that same AI judge staring down at him watching a clock count down and a guilt probability that he killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), sitting at 97.5%.
TL;DR – A film that is all-vibe, but it leans into that vibe with a gusto you rarely see.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.
Today, we are diving [pun intended] into some fascinating independent cinema: a film made from an Indy video game, and then independently financed by a YouTube star in their directorial debut. That is such a fascinating combination that I had to take a look.
So, to set the scene, sometime in the future, a calamity has occurred where every inhabited planetary system disappeared in a catastrophe called the Quiet Rapture. Only those living on artificial structures survived, and there are not many humans left. Humanity is heading fast into extinction when a random moon AT-5 is found covered in an ocean of blood. Using convicts, they explore this ocean for answers. One of those “volunteer” pilots is Simon (Mark ‘Markiplier’ Fischbach), a man with a lot of blood on his hands. He is welded into a submersible called SM-13 and sent to the bottom of the ocean to explore, only to find there might be horrors in an ocean of blood.
TL;DR – I look at one boy’s life during truly unrelenting times.
Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.
Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.
Today, we explore a film that touches on one of the juxtapositions of humanity, our propensity for great evil, but also our profound ability to survive in the face of insurmountable odds. Add to this the fact that this is a real story written by the person who lived through it, and you get a profound setting for a film.
So, to set the scene, during the height of World War II, Poland had been occupied for about two years by the Nazis. It is a place of ghosts as Jewish towns and quarters across the country have been devastated, with few remaining. Maxwell Smart (Jett Klyne) and his family are among the few left, and as they were being rounded up for ‘relocation’, he manages to escape after his mother tells him to run. His aunt finds a place for him to hide out, a farm run by Jasko (Richard Armitage). It is a tough transition for Max, who had spent all his life in the city, but when you are hiding from the Nazis, you need to become someone else. Jasko teaches Maxwell how to survive in the wild, which soon becomes a necessity.
TL;DR – This is a wild and weird film that makes you feel like you are walking around a Bunnings at night, not knowing when you will step on a rake hidden in the gloom. A cavalcade of catastrophe in all the right ways.
Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.
Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.
Warning – This film contains scenes which may cause distress.
Wow. It’s rare that I walk out of a film genuinely unsure how I feel, but this ending was so wild it forced me to rethink everything. Well, this is what happened today, and what is happening to me as I process my thoughts while writing this review. But you, dear reader, can’t help me out of this predicament, so let’s stop the prelude and dive in.
So, to set the scene, Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) is not precisely a people-person, but she is very good at what she does in the Planning & Strategy Department. But when the company CEO dies and is replaced by his son, Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien), her life gets turned upside-down as her promised VP position gets usurped by the new dude-bro atmosphere. As a sympathy move, Bradley invites Linda on the trip to Bangkok, but what neither of them can expect is that the plane would crash into the sea somewhere in the Gulf of Thailand, and what Bradley doesn’t know is that Linda is a Survivor fiend, and this might be her dream situation.
So far, in our awards, we have looked at Action, Cinematography, Costumes, Emotion, Fun, Music, Tension, Worldbuilding, Best Animation, & Best TV of 2025
However, in this last entry into our Best of 2025 awards, we crown our Best Film of 2025.
All films are subjective, so our list might look completely different from yours. We reviewed 107 films that had their Australian Theatrical/Streaming Release in 2025. This is the list from which we draw our entries, and you can see the complete list of movies HERE.
Much like last year’s list, we have had many staggered releases towards the end of the year in Australia. So we may have films here that were released in 2024 for you but 2025 for us, and there may be some omissions here because we won’t get those films until later in 2026.
A Complete Unknown, The Accountant 2, The Brutalist, Dog Man, Drop, Elio, F1, Heads of State, How to Train Your Dragon, Kangaroo, Karate Kid: Legends, KPop Demon Hunters, The Long Walk, The Lost Bus, Primitive War, Regretting You, Roofman, The Running Man & Zootopia 2
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50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong
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freelance film critic with an interest in multilingualism, feminist perspectives in cinema and crime dramas.
TL;DR Movie Reviews and Analysis 