Tag Archives: Sofia Boutella

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a visually impressive film that is narratively shallow, even though everyone is trying their best.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

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

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

Jimmy

Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver Review –

I had an odd sensation as I sat down to watch this sequel, in that even though I had only watched the first film back in December, for my life, I could not remember anything that happened. It had evaporated into the ether, bar was Anthony Hopkins a robot? This meant I desperately needed that what happened last time the introduction that started the proceedings. But it did not fill me with confidence as I sat down to watch the follow-up.

So to set the scene, at the end of Rebel Moon, the plucky rebels had found and won a massive victory against The Motherworld. Kora (Sofia Boutella) and her group was able to return home to Veldt after killing Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein). But you see, you can never count The Motherland and its technology out. Because Noble is still alive, and now he has a more than personal reason to burn Veldt to the ground and the village has only five days to prepare.

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Argylle – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A film that makes one of the worst mistakes it can: constantly remind you of better films you could be watching.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film

Agent Argylle is captured.

Argylle Review –

Today is a bit of an awkward review because I am exploring a work from people both in front of and behind the camera who I have deeply loved before. However, today, I am looking at a film that fails at almost every single step. It failed so badly that I had moved from frustration to disappointment, to wholly checked out by the time I rolled my eyes at the mid-credit scene. With that in mind, we will explore just what went wrong because, like many things, it was not just one road bump that led to this.

So to set the scene, we open with Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) infiltrating the lair of Lagrange (Dua Lipa) and initiating a pretty intense dance-off. However, Lagrange knew he was coming and what he looked like because someone in his organisation was a mole. In fact, it could be one of his teammates, Keira (Ariana DeBose) or Wyatt (John Cena). However, just as the big reveal happens, we discover that this story is not real. It is a novel written by noted author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), whose Argylle series of spy novels are best sellers. However, as Elly takes a train ride with her cat Alfie (Chip) to her mother Ruth (Catherine O’Hara), she is interrupted by the unkempt Aidan Wilde (Sam Rockwell), who might be leading her into a world she wrote about in fiction, that just might be real.

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Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Moments of interest in the middle of a sea of mess.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

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

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

Gas Giant.

Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child of Fire Review –

Before we begin our best of 2023 list, there are a handful of movies that I want to catch up on, one of them being this new Science Fiction magnum opus from Zack Snyder. Snyder has always been at least an interesting director because he has a clear visual style, and that has worked for him in the past. The question is if this will work for him today?

So to set the scene, there is a large empire that spans across space, reaching out and conquering all they could find from the Motherworld. That is until assassins kill the King (Cary Elwes) and Queen (Rhian Rees) in a coup d’etat. There is a power vacuum filled by a Regent (Fra Fee) who sent his ships out to the edge of his domain to make sure no plant picks this moment to rebel against them. On the backwater moon of Veldt, things are proceeding as they always do until the ship commanded by Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) appears in orbit over their settlement. While some in the town see an opportunity, Kora (Sofia Boutella) knows the reality: they are here to take, and take, and take.

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Movie Review – Fahrenheit 451

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TL;DR – While it is wonderfully acted and beautifully filmed, unfortunately in the attempt to update the source material it loses some of the core parts of the narrative in the attempt to tell a more straightforward narrative.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

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

Fahrenheit 451 banner

Review –

Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is one of those titan works of literature that kind of looms over narrative and speculative fiction genre. It was both miles ahead of its time but also very much a product of its time, making it a difficult work to adapt especially as time has gone on. It is one of those books that is weird and at times off-putting but entirely compelling as it sucks you into a world without books. When I heard that they were going to do a remake of it starring Michael B. Jordan I was really excited because it held such promise and now that I have seen it well, I don’t know, but somewhere along the way, it lost something. Today we are going to look at just what that might have been and yes I am writing this from the perspective of someone who has read the source material, and if you have not you might get something completely different from the film and that is completely fine. I am not someone who believes that you have to read the book before seeing it updated, but seeing that I have it shapes the way I experienced the film.

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Movie Review – Atomic Blonde

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TL;DR – Atomic Blonde is a technically brilliant film, but unfortunately the story does not quite live up to the rest of it

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Atomic Blonde. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

So I have a pitch for you: we have an MI6 agent who romps through Berlin in the closing days before the Wall falls, they take down Soviet goons, drink vodka, seduce foreign intelligence agents, whilst acting condescendingly toward their superiors. Oh and no this is not a missed Bond entry during its Dalton-Brosnan hiatus, oh and the MI6 agent is played by Charlize Theron, it’s an interesting pitch, you have to at least give it that. However, while this pitch is interesting, Atomic Blonde is a very peculiar film, because it has a lot of things that really work for it, but it also has some other issues that really hold it back. So let’s jump in and discover the underworld of Berlin in the late 1980s, but beware there is at least one David Hasselhoff reference in your near future.

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Movie Review – The Mummy (2017)

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TL;DR – This is a good start for the Dark Universe and I really enjoyed it, but there were just a couple of things that needed to be worked on that held it back a bit

Rating: 3 out of 5.

P.S. – There is NO end credit scene

The Mummy. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

Now from the start, I have to say I do have a lot of love for the 1999 Brendan Fraser Mummy film, I mean I even like its only follow up The Mummy Returns because they were wonderful camp fun with a horror veneer. Indeed I will always remember the first time I saw The Mummy as a kid, it was at a friend’s place and there was a whole lot of people crowded around the TV and VCR and someone was passing around cups of tea when the mummy awoke and it scared them so much tea went everywhere. So whether I like it or not, I’m going to bring those memories and that nostalgic feeling with me when I go see The Mummy because it has to hold up to the ones that came before and for the most part I think that it does. So today we will breaking down how well The Mummy does as a standalone film, how well it does as the starting point for the Dark Universe, and also look at some areas where the film needed improvement.

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Movie Review – Star Trek Beyond

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TL;DR – They finally found the right formula for the reboot series and it is glorious, the cast is amazing, the action is good, and every joke hits its mark.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

Star Trek Beyond. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

I think I need to start with some context before jumping into this review, on the whole, I do really like the Star Trek franchise, however, I have not been a fan of this rebooted Star Trek movie series. The first movie had great casting, but the story was full of logical problems and lazy short-cuts, that it removed any real emotional weight to killing off Vulcan, and I just really did not like it (2/5 stars). The second film Into Darkness did a little better with me, as it had some reasonably good character moments, and some interesting set pieces, but the need to recreate one of the most iconic conflicts in Star Trek, and then the ability to not quite pull it off left the movie feeling quite flat (2.5/5 stars). I want to say this upfront so you understand this 5 out of 5 I am giving the film (only the second one of 2016) is not because I am enamoured completely with everything Star Trek, I am giving this film a 5 out of 5 because it has bloomin’ well earned it.

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Movie Review – Kingsman: The Secret Service

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TL;DR– A really great action film, with a good story and great action set pieces, let down a bit by a ‘joke’ right at the end that fails.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Kingsman. Image Credit: Marv/Fox.

Review –

This is a really interesting film, but one should say straight off the bat, it is nothing like what the trailers portrayed it as. This isn’t some kind of young Bond film that you can take the family to, it is extremely violent and contains a lot of course language etc.

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