"Out of Darkness" - Review

The year is 43,000 BC. A disparate group of humans stumble into the unfamiliar shore of a new world seeking shelter, food and a new beginning for their story. Adem (Chuku Modu) is the brutal hunter leading them. His mate Ave (Iola Evans) carries life within her. His brother Geirr (Kit Young) carries the spear to protect them. His son Heron (Luna Mwezi) is their hope for a new beginning. Old Storyteller Odal (Arno Luening) is the keeper of wisdom. And the new, recently rescued stray Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green) will be whatever their leader deems her to be, regardless of her wishes. These disperate, hungry people find themselves on the precipice of a new age, with something in the woods stalking them, blending into their nightmares, and bringing their nightmares to a horrifying reality which they must band together to face if they are to survive...

A startlingly bleak, stripped back and refreshing debut from Andre Cumming and screenwriter Ruth Greenberg, taking things back to basics.
The film is, at first, a minimalistic tale of survival: hunting for food, keeping an eye on one's children, escaping the cold, and chafing under the brutal but perhaps necessary rule of the leader. It's done with sweeping, cold, vast shots of the skyline which illustrate just how alone they are here; and the entire film is spoken in an artificial language, which is a really, really cool touch. The whole thing evokes those brutal, stark survival films we've been missing all these years, and its attention to details and superstition lay the bedrock for an increasingly dread-fuelled atmosphere. But Cumming and Greenberg don't neglect character either, weaving a complex dynamic in the tribe with simple choices from the actors and screenplay: Adem's rule, Geirr's idealism, Beyah's search for her place here, it's good writing. Safia Oakley-Green is the real standout here.
Then when the supernatural comes in, the monster beyond the treelines and the haunting, bloody horrors it brings, and the film keeps up the pace, though wobbles a little bit, before sticking the landing: becoming a movie about violence and its cycles, and the primal, deep rooted horrors of the unknown...
It stays brutal, stark and on message, and ends on a dark, grim, but still somewhat hopeful note.
I highly recommend it.

"Madame Web" - Review

Paramedic Cassie Webb (Dakota Johnson) has a terrible bedside manner and general awkwardness about her. When she falls into a river and is rescued by her partner (Adam Scott), she realises that she has the ability to see the future! Things get worse, for our plucky little weirdo, when she has visions of three women cosplaying as teenagers (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor) being tracked, hunted and murdered by a barefoot goblin named Ezekial Sims (Tahar Rahim), who may have a connection to her past. Webb must go on the run with these kids, master her powers, and find a way to stop him...

Nobody expected this to be good. But I will give it this: it's a lot better than "Argylle".
It's surprisingly coherant, I was following it scene to scene, it was never out and out incompetent, it was merely a bland and forgettable, underwritten exercise in pondering why the writers of "Morbius", "Gods of Egypt", "The Last Witch Hunter" and "Dracula Untold" keep being allowed to commit their works to the screen. The film is almost good when the three girls (superfluous characters, but welcome additions to the proceedings) are giving each other shit, bantering and bandying about with each other. Their characters are underwritten archetypes (O'Connor is the sassy, punky rebellious rich kid, Sweeney is the quiet, meek girl, Merced is the science geek) but with the little material that they have, the three steal the show. Johnson plays Webb with what can only be described as a dare: she deliberately gives the worst possible line reading, layered in sarcasm in every scene, and it kind of works as a massive prank on the makers of the film?
There's little to say about the film, in all honestly. Hyperbolic "content" goblins have their knives out describing this as "the worst film yet", and you and I and even they know that that is not anywhere near the truth. It just washes through you. The 2003 setting (I TOLD you this was going to be a thing!) is never quite prominent enough or timely enough to work, and is relegated to a few uses of a Beyonce poster and a couple of lines here and there though, INFURIATINGLY, they use "Toxic", a song which was not released until 2004. But I'll allow it, because it's "Toxic".
The use of stolen NSA surveillance technology is a cute enough little commentary, but again it's never really used or dwelt upon and is there to help our villain do his schemes. But I did appreciate that I knew what the villain was doing and why, it's you know, worryingly rare? I know that Rahim can act: I've seen "A Prophet", so it has to be a scripting issue.
Adam Scott is a genuine, unironic highlight, even if he's playing "Uncle Ben" for absolutely no reason other than corporate mandated links to a superhero I don't actually like that much but whom Sony are trying to sell a series of movies on teasing his appearance. It's corporate swill, but Scott is a funny and engaging performer, and again the film threatens to have interesting things when it's the girls staying at his place and becomes "Ben Wyatt babysitting some kids".
I honestly love Isabela Merced, and Celeste O'Connor to death and am delighted to see them getting more work and paycheques, and I like Sydney Sweeney from "Anyone But You" (though here she's dressed in a fetishised approximation of a schoolgirl, somebody's kink I'm sure), and I wish the actors in this and director SJ Clarkson all of the best in whatever their future projects are. It never soars, but it never nosedives into oblivion either. It just treads water.

"Anyone But You (Valentine's Day Encore Edition)" - Review

Struggling self-conscious law student Bea (Sydney Sweeney, with Kat Dennings energy) is trying to use the toilet at a cafe. She meets himbo Ben (Glenn Powell) in the line, and they hit it off. She spends the night at his house with a grilled cheese sandwich, and they fall asleep after opening their souls to each other. But a misunderstanding next morning leaves both furious with each other, though happy to never meet again. However, fate intervenes when Bea's sister Halle (Hadley Robinson, who looks like Kirsten Dunst) and Ben's best friend Claudia (Alexandra Shipp)) meet, fall in love and invite them to the wedding. Despising each other, the pair will have to put on a show of pretending to be a couple, in order to not ruin the weekend, and simultaneously hook up Ben with his ex girlfriend Margaret (Charlee Fraser) and keep Bea's parents (Rachel Bloody Griffiths and Dermot Bloody Mulroney!) off her back about how she left her perfect ex Jonathan (Darren Barnet, with Dave Franco energy). Sparks fly and worlds collide, into maybe something more...

Director Will Gluck (behind the great "Easy A" and nice enough "Friends With Benefits") is, in the nicest possible way, stuck firmly in the 2010s. The film is highly polished fluff, with no real frills or surprises, and it is sleekly done. It's not as witty as "Easy A", it's not as romantic as "Broken Hearts Gallery", it's not got the electrifying chemistry of "Past Lives": but it doesn't need to. It's a standard romcom retelling of "Much Ado About Nothing" with cute little title cards and quotes throughout, in a rather Will Gluck touch. It works for what it sets out to be: its leads are likable enough (Powell is the stronger of the two, but for the first thing I've seen Sweeney in, she's not bad. Oddly cast maybe, they wanted a Molly Gordon or Emma Stone I think, but she works) and the supporting characters are sweet and kept me chuckling enough to be entertained from scene to scene. There are a couple of gem lines and reactions, and whilst the stakes are exceedingly middle class and lower than the box office returns of "The Flash"; it ticks along sweetly enough. Again, it is not setting out to ignite the world.
I am happy that this is getting word of mouth praise: the concept is sweet enough, and of all things deserving of making money, a script not trying to be "expanded universe" swill, it's cute and honestly endearing and refreshing to see this. I think that nobody is more surprised than the cast: my edition (which has been extended and placed in theatres for longer, because also what else are you going to watch?) came with a wholesome little thank you message at the front from Powell and Sweeney, and a post credits selection of bloopers and rendition of "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield. I was smiling and cheerful throughout the film, and the ending credits are a wonderful celebration of people who just seem happy to be there and making movies, and honestly that is refreshing. I recommend it for what it is! Kudos Mr Gluck and company!
Also, Bryan Brown from "F/X" is in this! Sweet! And it's always nice to see Alexandra Shipp and Dermot Mulroney get more work.

"Argylle" - Review

Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is the author of the bestselling spy fiction series "Argylle", where a globe-trotting secret agent (Henry Cavill) captures evil but-surprisingly-easy-to-seduce dames, punches villains and wishes to spend time with his boyfriend (Jon Cena). But when taking a train ride to see her mother (Catherine O'Hara), she is approached by a droll and dishevelled man namd Adrian (Sam Rockwell, ALWAYS welcome, and often the saving grace of anything) who claims that he is here to save her, for she knows too much and an evil agency is on her trail. But all with Elly Conway may not quite be as it seems...

I am absolutely delighted to report that "Argylle" is in the running for the worst movie of the year already, and I do not long for whatever its competition may be. It is the sort of movie which makes you question why its director was ever popular to begin with, and retroactively start to re-evaluate work of theirs you previously thought was good.
I'm going to get this out of the way quickly, because his big face is all over the marketing of this movie: Mr Henry Cavill is in this movie for about 8 minutes, right at the start, and right at the end, peppered throughout like a spice for weirdos who think his portrayal of Superman was good; and he is ironically emblamatic of one of the movie's myriad of problems.
This is one of those movies where I want to dissect it on a table, to cut it open and figure out just what went wrong, but also where its beating heart lies. I've just exited this movie and cannot tell you what this movie is about.

The 2.5 (!) hour runtime already should ring alarm bells, clarion calls of self-indulgent smugness not seen since Joss Whedon was allowed to make "Age of Ultron" or Matthew Vaughn committed "Kingsman: The Golden Circle". Its first hour is spent telling us that none of this matters, because after all what is real and what is not? Henry Cavill blends into the fight scenes as hallucinations of our main character, only he may be real only he may be not, only he may be her sub consciousness or Elly herself (a reveal later almost made me fucking walk). Just calm the fuck down, these add and enhance nothing, you're literally telling me not to care about any of this. Its comedy and attempted rapport of the ever-wonderful, trying his best Rockwell and Bryce Dallas Howard is aiming for "Romancing the Stone" but leans more into "Fellating the Vaughn", smugness and snide sneering contempt for tone and sensibilities permeating every single scene. The jokes land flat on their face, and its cartoonish attempts at "over the top fight scenes" are a far cry from the legitimately stunning church set-piece in "Kingsman": a smoky sequence set to Leona Lewis (why? Not in general, though that too, but when the rest of the movie has been using entirely disco music for every single action scene up until this point, often playing them in their entirety. Honestly, "And we Run" by Xzibit and his backing band Within Temptation would have made as much, if not more sense in the scene, but I digress as usual) and a limp, flaccid cartoonish ice ballet on oil in a pale imitation of the works of "The Transporter" of all things just become anemic shadows of movies I would rather be watching. There is no tension, there is no drama, there are greater stakes in a number from "Oklahoma!". Here there is a black hole of excitement and vision. Here there is no God.
There is only "wackiness". This isn't even "Kingsman", this is "The Golden Circle", and woe betide anyone who remembers that film.

Vaughn and co tell everybody to play it with their tongues beyond their cheeks and instead slathering the scenery with the saliva of people who hate the very concept of cinema. The script has the audacity (in between 7, I counted, separate exposition dumps) to have a character complain about tone and how it shifts. Not even the villain (Bryan Cranston, trying his best) plays it straight, except for when he wants to, only not really. When the remainder of the twists join an already overloaded script, it becomes something akin to "Glass" filtered through a half-remembered "Perfect Blue" or, Remar help you, "Hypnotic", but with a sensibility best described as "more is more". Ironically this all falls completely flat. Even the thing Vaughn is normally good at: crafting candy coloured mayhem, is absent here. I remember the teleportation murders in "X-Men: First Class" (RIP Oliver Platt, wasted in every movie you do), and of course I remember the church sequence in "Kingsman" (despite Lynard Fucking Skynard: every small-town boomer's favourite band that the kids just "don't get"), I even remember the great diner sequence in "Layer Cake". But here? There's one on a train clearly aiming for "Bullet Train" and "John Wick" vibes, with the addition of aforementioned jump-scare Cavill; and the DIRE physics defying ice skating on oil with a CGI Dallas Howard; but they are not going to be remembered, and are in service of nothing. It makes a lot of hay about its Bond movie pastiche at the start, trying to tie it into the script's "real world" implications later on, like "The Manchurian Candidate" (which I believe it references. Golden rule, Matt: never name drop a better movie than yours in your film) but instead just come across as tacked on: it's not a case of mismatched tones (that's for the rest of the script) but instead quite the opposite problem: they're the same tone. There's no volume button, the broad comedy of the Cavill sequences is not differentiated from the Dallas Howard sequences. Hell, the entire thing could have been saved by having one of them play it straight. It wants us to believe Cavill is parodying his "James Bond-esque charm" and Sam Rockwell is playing his "action movie persona", but I've not had those things. I do, in fact, want a played-straight Sam Rockwell action movie in the vein of "Nobody" or hell, just "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" again but not a mentally ill person. I do, in fact, want a movie where Cavill and "Jackson Hammond 4-Time Nominee" Dua Lipa play Bond and the Bond Girl, but instead have to put up with them smirking at joke only Vaughn finds funny.

In another world, this would have been funny.
That world requires an editor, and a script superviser. And a merciless set of scissors. Only 9 year olds could find the appeal in this, but funnily enough it would never work for them because it's too slow, boring, convoluted and messy, and full of half-written in jokes with no punchline, to work.
Was "Kingsman" ever good? I'll have to rewatch it.
Fuck me I picked the wrong month to not drink alcohol.

"Baghead" - Review

Struggling artist Iris (Freya Allen) inherits a pub owned by her estranged father (Peter Mullan). In need of a place to live, she decides to stick around the dilapidated building, particularly when a wealthy man named Neil (Jermy Irvine) offers her a large sum of money to be allowed to go down into the basement and "see her". Along with her friend Katie (Ruby Barker), Iris uncovers an old woman with an unusual "gift"...

An interesting idea and debut, about death and confronting the past (the main character is "Iris", there is a focus on the eyes, etc) and a nice, simple setting. It aims for a character and thematic focus, and there is a fun, lizard like performance from Ned Dennehy as a lawyer; and Peter Mullan is always wonderful. There are strong performances, and it has a few creepy and sinister moments.
Unfortunately its reliance on loud, loud noises and a score of "man playing a bassoon into a megaphone attached to the amplifier". It mars an otherwise okay film.