"Abigail" - Review

The mysterious "Lambert" (Giancarlo Esposito), assembles a team: focused medic "Joey" (Melissa Barrera), sarcastic driven bespectacled sociopath "Frank" (Dan Stevens), perky young out-of-her-depth hacker "Sammy" (Kathryn Newton), big lovable muscle lug "Peter" (Kevin Durand), quiet sniper "Rickles" (Will Catlett), and shitbag stoner driver "Dean" (Angus Cloud). They have a simple job: kidnap a young girl named Abigail (Alisha Weir), hold her in this house for 24 hours until the ransom is paid by her wealthy father, and disappear into the night, never to see each other again. But this Rat Pack may find that there is a lot more to this girl than meets the eye, and they are in for a long, long night...

An absolute fucking riot and a hell of a good time.
Razor sharply written, and 100% my jam: blending 2 genres together and having so much fun with it. For about 45 minutes I could just happily watch these 6 assholes bounce off of each other in a kidnapper movie, and they are delightfully written: you want Dean dead SO SO MUCH, Peter and Sammy have an adorable double act going on (I love Kathryn Newton and am ELATED that people remember who Kevin Durand is, here relishing the chance to play a guy who's not simply 100% evil or a generic douchebag), Melissa Barrera remains fantastic and Dan Stevens? I am pretty sure he treats all scenery as a sumptuous, spicy buffet to dine upon and it is delicious. I am delighted that Dan Stevens has simply chosen to embrace his career as "B-Movie Legend" starring in weirder, bloodier fare like this and "The Guest" (watch "The Guest", that's a great movie). He steals the show as the sarcastic, sassy, furious, perpetually irritated Frank, surrounded by idiots.
That is, he steals the show until Alisha Weir does her thing.
It's a star-making, wonderful turn from her.
When the blood starts flowing and the carnage is unleashed, as you know it will be, they don't let up: you still root for these characters, and some of them last a LOT longer than you think they will in these sorts of films.
And everytime you think you know where it is going, or that you understand how these kinds of movies operate, it takes a sharp left turn, and remains on the rails.
A rollercoaster I am DEFINITELY going to watch again. A riot, so, so, so fun.

"Civil War" - Review

In the 3rd Term of an unnamed President's reign, his grip on the country is loosening, as rival Americans draw closer and closer to him. Jaded veteran photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst) and her amiable colleague Joel (Wagner Moura) are determined to get an interview and photograph of The President (Nick Offerman). Accompanying them, to Lee's reluctance, are aspiring rookie photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) who hero-worships Lee, and old-school New York Times reporter Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who mentored Lee in the past. As they embark on a journey across a ruined America, they find and lose their humanity along the way, as they attempt to remain "objective"...

Obvious parts out of the way: the movie is political in the sense of "it's about a Civil War in America" but beyond that? It is focused not on what started the war, who the sides are, or what they believe, but simply on the effects such a war will have on the landscape and the people and the communities its participants claim to be fighting for. We get excellent glimpses of its horrors, all told through the passing views of these journalists: a man nonchalantly claiming to know the looter he is torturing from high school, and how he bets he wishes he'd spoken to him more now (petty grievances and the gleeful thrills of power in a vacuum); a small town seemingly uninterested in the war and trying not to think about it, only for Sammy to tell Lee to look up and (in a fantastic camera shot) see armed snipers on the rooftops; a standout is a sequence involving an utterly surreal showdown between a sniper and 2 of their targets at a Christmas themed golf course, where we have no idea who they are fighting for, which sides they are on and what led up to this, only that they are attempting to kill each other. The central arc is of the loss of humanity and generally HORRIBLE nature of the 2 leading journalists: we get a visceral and brutal shootout covered by the gang, and then Joel chatting amicably and joking around with the winners as they commit war crimes, all done to some "Tribe Called Quest". It's effective, brutal and jarring, especially when early on we have flashbacks of things Lee has covered and they are just as horrible. I rather appreciate the simple shot of Joel relaxing in the back of a car, surrounded by cigarette smoke, and the ruined backgrounds of a Midwestern landscape loom behind him.
The standout moment comes from a cameo by Jesse Plemons in a remarkably tense, knuckle-biting showdown, where the gang realise that their "Press" badges are not bulletproof shields... Genuinely the Plemons scene is a highlight and worth the praise I have seen it getting.
Its use of snippets of worldbuilding and the horrors being glimpsed at allow us to elaborate, and draw our own conclusions, because at the end of the day it doesn't matter who started it: this is what is happening. We follow a visceral, rapid chase to reach the drain before the regime circling around it finally collapses. The ending is bleak in the parallels it draws, and the character arcs of Lee and Joel tight, though Jessie is a tad superfluous to proceedings.
Makes a good double bill with the excellent, criminally underrated "Bushwick".

"Monkey Man" - Review

At night, in the grimy, bloody flea pit fighting arenas of India, a man wears a monkey mask and works as a jobber (Dev Patel), earning money by allowing others to beat him in these games. He waits, he focuses, he dwells on the past, hoping to cross paths and seek vengeance upon the ones who wronged him. But like the hero Haruman himself, he shall have to conquer pride, and become the underdog champion that is needed, his vengeance and wants be damned. Where there is injustice, one must fight it.

Fuck yes.
Fuck, yes.
Taking the standard revenge movie tale, Dev Patel honestly had no choice bu to subvert it, adapt it, change it in some way so as to leave his own mark, and boy did he succeed.
A stunningly edited, visceral, primal, ferocious tale of the underdog, rooted in faith, redemption, rebirth and justice. It feels like a "John Wick" movie but where the guy has no money, and is a claustrophobic, anxiety inducing nightmare to boot. It's grimy, brutal, grim, bloody and feral, a primal angle of film making. The editing is God-tier, and even the shaky-cam (normally I dislike it, fuck Greengrass for popularising that shit) actually serves a purpose here of jamming us in this spinning, out of control world of our protagonist, and the fight scenes are awesome enough on their own that they aren't trying to "Iron Fist" it and hide shit. The movie is honestly a lot slower paced than one would expect: focusing a lot on spiritualism, rebirth, and the myths and power of faith, unashamedly so. And it tackles the root idea of (refreshingly) not that the cycles of violence must be broken, but that one must channel that rage, that fury, that violence into changing things, into a righteous cause and being just: using one's fury and rage and justifiable hatred of the systems and cruelty around us, to destroy that which binds and ruins us. It is unashamedly political (saying, essentially, fuck conservatism and religious extremism, fuck Modhi, fuck the cruelty of the rich, and until all of us are free none of us are free), and uses the grimy, sleazy underbelly refreshingly starkly without being pornographic. There's no sexual assault either, kudos! Patel devotes himself heart, body and soul into making this.
Seeing a hench Dev Patel is fucking weird, not going to lie, but I love it.
There's a stunning final act fight sequence making use of a kitchen and (weirdly) Boney M, and a brutal chase through the slums, and in between we have a journey of rediscovery, and the power of faith.
Also, trans rights motherfuckers.
Trans fucking rights.
Oh, and Sharlto Copely is in this and fucking rules, as he always does.
Dev Patel has offered us not only a delicious main, but a delectable course of hors d'ouevres, some lavish sides, a sumptuous dessert and a palette cleansing cocktail to enhance. There is a righteous, divinge, raw and palpable fury and passion behind and in front of the camera here, but feels not like a screed, but a roar of triumph and just excellent cinema. (I cannot emphasise how good the editing is in this).
I am exceedingly keen to see where he goes next.
Presumably, if this movie is anything to go by, the fucking jugular.

"Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire" - Review

Years after the events of the 1980s, and a few years after a new "generation" of pest controllers dealt with the plot once again; a band of plucky Studio Executives (Gil Kenan, Jason Blumenfeld and Jason Reitman) band together in order to squeeze blood from a stone where the very idea of nostalgia and corporate expansion of it, is antithetical to the original film. I don't even like the first one that much!

A soulless source of corporate drivel, fuelled excessively by nostalgia (for a project that was, basically, just about greedy 80s pest controllers accidentally saving the world with the timing of their grift) painting its protagonists as heroes for the sole reason that they are the ones the audience remembers.
Now taking place in the modern day after an especially cynical, "tug at the heartstrings because one of the cast is dead, and let's waste Bob Gunton" legacy sequel, the film struggles to justify its own existence. The plot is a carbon copy of the first film (an evil, unspecified entity seeks to enthrall all ghosts and take over the world, and an ordinary guy civilian must step up to the plate in the interim, even being called "The Fire Master" this time around) but peppered with a dozen or so ideas to pretend as if it was written, and to give screentime to its myriad of hastily sketched characters rather than arcs. Our protagonists are essentially merely present for proceedings, Carrie Coon receiving about 8 lines and having no arc beyond the (quite justifiable) "Daughter, stay at home because you are 15, and thus it is illegal for you to work with us"; Paul Rudd gets a scene and a half about taking on the mantle of stepfather (almost certainly a Gil Kenan addition, watch "Monster House" instead) before just having a "Wow she called me dad!" line at the end, no payoff, just "huh, guess that's done!"; Finn Wolfhard is here, and sits in the basement. Slimer is there. Also, Finn Wolfhard wants to drive the car in the opening scene. Then in the final scene Carrie Coon throws Finn Wolfhard the keys. Way to use Finn Wolfhard guys...
McKenna Grace almost gets the throughline and story: she has a relationship with a burned up ghost (Emily Alyn Lynd, really relishing her "Nora Zehetner" energy, and making me wish for more Nora Zehetner movies, and wanting to watch "Doctor Sleep" again), which could be sweet and touching and gentle in the right hands, and given room to breathe, but like all things here it is underwritten, and serves only to have an "oh no! She was using her, and is conflicted!" cursory reveal halfway through, removing tension, stakes, drama and comedy.
Slimer is in it.
Dan Akroyd and Ernie Hudson get, again, perfunctory lines about "maybe we're old..." but they go nowehere, and the introduction of a ghost research lab serves entirely to justify not just Ernie Hudson but the rest of the supporting cast, and maybe the threadbare plot.
Bill Murray says things. I guess they're funny? I never really got the Bill Murray hype, he has done some good movies, and some bad movies.
Janine the secretary wears a Ghostbuster uniform! That's cool, right guys? That's a joke! That's an arc, right? Right?
Celeste O'Connor, the token non-binary actor and the token black actor in the new cast, is present. They are there, they are in the lab, they technically are in the film. Once again, Hollywood wastes the excellent Celeste O'Connor, so I suppose they are at least keeping to tradition.
Kumail Nanjani threatens to make the film funny, as a lovable waster who must save the world after pawning off his grandmother's Ghost Guardian Gear for 50 bucks, that could have been fun. He got a few smirks out of me.
And I must give my sincere thanks to James Acaster: not just in general, he's bloody brilliant, but for getting the token laugh, the only actual joke in this film.