"Alien: Romulus" - Review

Orphaned daughter of miners Rain (Cailee Spaeny) is forced to rethink her life when her work quota at Weyland Yutani Corporation is suddenyl lifted. Alongside her repurposed android brother Andy (David Jonsson), she hitches a ride with a bunch of scavengers: her old friend and ex-flame Tyler (Archie Renaux), his lovable sister Kay (the eternally wonderful Isabela Merced), their utter shithead cousin Bjorn (Spike Fearn) and their pilot Navarro (Aileen Wu) - they plan to scavenge the wreck of the old starship Romulus for the parts they need to leave the star system. But all is not well aboard the Romulus, and things take a turn for the worse...

It's great to have Fede Alvarez back making movies (his "Evil Dead" is great fun, and "Don't Breathe" is his best), and here he has a good time with the film. There's a fun sequence in Zero Gravity involving acid blood, the opening is a solid, faily good examination of capitalist hellscapes and dystopia. We get the very Fede Alvarez character archetypes who do the job wonderfully, the strongest arc and performance belongs to Jonsson as Andy: he moves with an excellent stillness and careful calculation. He easily steals the show, and shows off impressive range. Plus his dad jokes are a cute touch.
There is enough well done planting here to make me think that Alvarez has a future in agriculture, and when everything hits the fan it does so with aplomb: you can tell particularly in the final act that this is from an "Evil Dead" fan. It's a good recommend.
However.
All too frequently there are moments of lazy pandering (Andy says "Get away from her, you bitch!") and lines from "Alien" are quoted verbatim, there are shots designed solely for the audience to go "oooh, just like that movie I'm watching a sequel to!". But the most egregious, pathetic example comes early on as a major plot point when a CGI rendition of Ian Holm is there solely to make you go "Oh! It's Ash! From that film!". A ghoulish sneering, contemptuous blot on an otherwise good solid work.

"Trap" - Review

Pop Star Lady Raven is coming to town, and devoted father Cooper (Josh Hartnett) has brought his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) along. But something seems off: there are police everywhere, and Cooper seems on edge. This whole concert is designed to trap notorious serial killer "The Butcher", and Cooper can feel the net drawing tighter.

I like Shyamalan, I've decided. He gets a lot of shit, and is something of a meme in the world, but I enjoy his campy style and how he'll always have the genesis of a great idea. His movies have his fingerprints all over them (usually) in terms of his weird dialogue and tightrope of a tone, and the other thing. You know.
This one is one of his better films in a while: the central conceit of following a serial killer trapped like a cornered rat, making him our protagonist, is certainly a refreshing and unique one. It's pretty fun too: watching him spin and improvise and work out things on the fly. It almost leans into the camp, and could therefore be fantastic fun, but what is already there works: Cooper having to run back and forth to his daughter (a rather good Ariel Donoghue), trying not to let the mask slip. Hartnett is great, clearly relishing the role: he uses his natural charm well, and there are wonderful moments when he twitches or has a darkness loom over his eyes (the conversation with the mother of a girl who is bullying his is great); and honestly his performance carries the whole thing. He'll be a myriad of emotions in a moment, without overplaying it. I like him in this. Also, somewhat amusingly, they still find a way to write him removing his shirt into the script: you can take the heartthrob out of the 2000s, but you can't take the 2000s out of the heartthrob... So yeah, he's great, way better than he needs to be in a movie like this, and it's a good showcase for his talents as a performer.
Then comes Act 3.
It gets a bit wobbly when he goes backstage, but even then it somewhat recovers in a house sequence...
It should have ended there.
It drags into real "Looney Tunes" territory in the last 20-30 minutes, before settling back down at the house once more, as if it is freewheeling and padding for time. It's a shame, after a quite good Hartnett variety hour, that instead of cutting it short and making a well made thriller with his own touches, Shyamalan instead succumbs to thinking he's saying things about trauma and motherhood and being clever. Still, Pill is good.
The build up featuring people clebrating and relishing Shyamalan's daughter as Lady Raven is... hmm, but you know, it's fine.

"Borderlands" - Review

In the distant future, a gruff bounty hunter named Lilith (Cate Blanchett) must return to her run down home planet of Pandora in order to rescue Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the daughter of corporate magnate Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), who has been kidnapped by rogue soldier Roland (Kevin Hart) and hulking madman Krieg (Florian Munteanu).

I'm so happy Eli Roth has brought back the 2000s videogame adaptation.
Well, that's a little unfair: this is not an Eli Roth film. Suffering from a, shall we say "troubled" production", this has been going on and off for a while now, and finally staggering into cinemas this year. I'll confess that I was never a "Borderlands" fan - I found it repetitive, grating and boring, and am also hesitant to ever give money to Grease Baron Randy Pithcofrd. I have always had a troubled relationship with Roth's art: he loves the kind of trashy movies I do, but has always struggled with making them fun and likable. Only "Thanksgiving" (which he dropped out of "Borderlands" to make) really turned me back around to liking him, and his kids' movie "The House With a Clock in its Walls" is easily his best work. On paper, Roth is the best kind of person to make a high energy, blood fuelled adaptation of "Borderlands".
Too bad it's an Ari Arad movie.
Yes folks, it is that refreshing kind of shittiness where the stench of production interference is lingering over it: much like that last terrible "Hellboy" reboot (they even use "Supermassive Blackhole" here too), where the movie is sliced to ribbons and all traces of Eli Roth are sanded away. Therer are moments when it should be an Eli Roth bloodbath: Lilith uses a sniper rifle to take out a man with a headshot, but there is no blood; and the gang turning an acid pipe on approaching goons, only for us to see nothing as they just fall over. A bloodless "Borderlands" is the least of its worries (it's still based on "Borderlands") but it is an enormous strike against the project, sucking and draining all life from it. I'll just say that it was bold of them to have a trailer for "Kneecap" before this. The editing and fight scenes are reminiscent of "Suicide Squad" - lots of cutting and jarring nonsense which makes it hard to realise where anybody is in relation to anything else. It's all just, fucking amateur hour, and a clear sign of the tinkering and dicing behind the scenes.

But okay, fine, the movie has poor fight scenes (all of them, to a T, are a character shooting a gun off screen and then cutting to a new scene of a character being shot, bloodlessly, and usually from a different angle to where the bullet should come from. Fucking shocking.), Civvie11 in his "Max Payne" video effortlessly broke down one of them better than I could, if you want to give it a whirl. Honestly Civvie11 is fun anyway...
But fine, poor fight scenes? As long as we can giggle at some jokes and-
NO.
Ooooooh boy.
Wow.
Okay.
So.

I'd like to thank the makers of the film for getting one thing right: they've actually made a film which accurately captures the writing of "Borderlands". This is the most obnoxious, tiring, dreadful scripting I've seen: all of the humour is characters yattering at a million miles an hour, repeating the obvious things on screen. "Time to make it rain! ... With your body parts!" Yeesh.
I don't fault the actors, nobody could make this dialogue enjoyable or interesting, and we know this because they cast Jack Black and he was honestly the worst one. My partner was writhing in her seat and begging for his character to die every scene, that bad was his writing, and it gave me some form of enjoyment in proceedings.

But writing obnoxious characters is Eli Roth's bread and butter, right? Well, no, as we've established: this is an Ari Arad movie.
The characters are annoying in a new, fresh way uniquely different to Roth's brand of terrible: and by the time we're expected to believe that they're friends in a cut price "Guardians of the Galaxy" moment - I genuinely had to ask why. They've done no bonding or chatting, it's all been them hurling quips, and one scene of Cate Blanchett talking to Ariana Greenblatt. Poor Ariana Greenblatt, by the way: she seems to have been placed in an arms race with Jack Black for who can be more annoying on screen, but I'll give her a slight pass as she's a child, and a Gearbox approximation of "quirky and funny". Though, judging by what Randall Greasy Pitchford keeps with his company documents, maybe we should ask around about the thought process behind that character... I imagine that the scripting was thus:

And then there's the colour and design angle: some of it looks good and delightful:there are bright poppy colours to lure the attention and distract you from the dialogue on screen, a close attempt to that cel-shading we've had in the games. And Gina Gershon shows up for 6 minutes as Mad Moxi in Jessica Nigri cosplay, and it's cute. But then, in between rough and raw greenscreen, we get the market: which looks like an aisle from a convention warehouse, honestly it's rough. But by that point I was bored and checked out, I spent about 6 minutes going "Wait, is that Jessica Nigri behind Gina Gershon?!" And it turns out that she was in this too! A cute cameo, I'll give them that.

A representation of Nigri and Gershon on set.

I'll give the movie 2 other positives: Jamie Lee Curtis is such a talented actor that when given the part of Dr Tanis (a nothing character), she chose to play it in the least obvious way, and I like that. It's still not good (it's "Borderlands" dialogue) but kudos to her.
And Florian Munteanu got the one legitimate laugh from me.

"Kneecap" - Review

An Irish language teacher (JJ O Docharteigh) is asked to come and translate for a young man (Liam Og O Hannaidh) arrested and refusing to speak English. The former connects with his charge, and find that he is a skilled lyricist and, alongside his fellow degenerate (Naoise O Caireallain) reluctantly embarks upon a musical career with the pair.

A debauched and hilariously filthy "rags to Primark" tale. On the surface a simple music biography (Kneecap play themselves in this), it instead becomes a springboard for discussing colonialism, the Irish language, and how the simple act of speaking it can be rebellion unto itself, particularly in a a conservative and (shall we say...) "wrought" environment. It goes into gatekeeping of revolution and rebelliousness, and has a lot to say about it all. It's a snarling, uproarious, punky form of cinema and art; with neat flourishes like the use of subtitles and squiggly, cartoony graphics. It's cloaked in irreverence, and exceedingly, gut-bustingly funny debauchery of drug trips and parties. The soundtrack is excellent (as one would hope) and I have heard it best described as "the soundtrack to getting blackout drunk".
Its cloak of lunacy and debauchery is a veneer for passionate, ardent defence of language and rebellion. The jokes come thick and fast, but it never neglects character, and is both uproarious and righteous in equal measure. You'll be cackling like a maniac at the antics of getting ketamine confused with cocaine, and then pondering why speakers of an endangered language are told to be perfect "presentable" spokesman, as if they NEED to be, when for years an entire culture has been hammered down and told not to speak their language with pride. You'll have a funny, perverted, filthy romance as a girl begs her lover to talk dirty by saying proud Catholic slogans and retorting with Protestant filth (an excellent Jessica Reynolds); and then one of the gang will be hungover and high as a kite from the night before, trying to go to his job. It's like if "Deadpool" was witty and had anything to say.

"Twisters" - Review

Meteorologist Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar Jones) loses her friends in an experiment to map tornados, and shuts herself off from the world. When fellow survivor and scientist friend Javi (Anthony Ramos) convinces her to come out of self-imposed exile and try it again, the pair fall into the orbit of storm chaser and YouTube star Tyler Owens (Glenn Powell) and his team, embarking upon adventures in storm chasing.

"Twister" was not as good as people remember.
This one is thus a good sequel to that first film. Its characters are perfunctory, the screenplay is honestly a good exercise in dissecting screenplays: you can time each beat and moment and turning point to the very second and page, ala "Save the Cat", and you're here for some tornado silliness. It ticks along nicely, and you remember the characters because they've cast quirky actors and rising stars in these perfunctory parts: the team who die at the start are played by Kiernan Shipka (wearing glasses, and you know she's the quirky smart one); Nik Dodani (so you know he's the nervous one); and Daryl "I Don't Actually Sleep with an Older Actor This Time" McCormack (so you know he's the charming, likable one). That trend continues into the present day setting: we've got Sasha Lane as the drone pilot (fun side note: every time we see a film with her in at our local cinema, it's in the same screen. Henceforth it shall be the "Sasha Lane" screen); Brandon Perea from "Nope" is the right hand man of our lead; Katy O'Brien plays a mechanic with about 6 lines, but you know - it's the lady from "Love Lies Bleeding" so I let it pass; Future "Superman" and star of "Pearl" David Corenswet turns up as the "douchebag corporate" character you enjoy seeing get splattered in mud; and there's honestly a nice little bit with a reporter played by Harry Haddon-Paton, where he goes to take photographs of people in danger but instead places it down and goes to help.
Powell and Edgar-Jones are the stars here, and the former is lovable and engaging, and Edgar-Jones holds the ship steady with a less flashy part. It's a servicable, trundling along disaster movie. Everybody can sit down and watch it, it's fine. And thus, it is a perfect sequel to the mediocre "Twister". Hell, I was more interested in seeing this than "Ryan Reynolds and Wolverine".
I do kind of want that gadget drill gimmick truck Tyler drives though, that's stupidly fun.

"Longlegs" - Review

Promising FBI Agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is plucked from a pool of newcomers to aid in the investigation of a serial killer on a decades long spree who murders entire families, seemingly never entering the house, and leaving only a cryptic note at every crime signed "Longlegs". Harker begins discovering a deeply rooted, horrifying evil which threatens not just her life, but her very soul...

Absolutely fucking terrifying. Beginning like a clawing at the back of the skull thanks to excellent sound design and experimental, stripped down music, the film has an eye for detailed staging which makes the Midwest look stark, bleak, empty and nightmarish. It's like listening to Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" - a quaint little place, homely yet peppered with a dusting of snow (this is a Christmas film!) and festering beneath with evil, like a rot, like peeling paint exposing a vile monstrous corruption. It slithers and snakes its way into your mind in a serpentine creep beneath your flesh, lingering on stunning and stark and frightening imagery throughout.
I cannot praise it enough. The classic police procedural detective story is the framework, and will easily draw comparisons to "Seven" and "Silence of the Lambs", well earned. About 40 minutes in I realised that I had cut off blood flow to my hand and thigh from gripping them absent mindedly.
The opening shots in a 4 by 3 aspect ratio are in the style of a projector slide of home movies, adding to the sinister "kitchen sink horror" they're aiming for. When Agent Harker explores a suburban street, the houses are reminiscent of churches... The strongest parts are the simple pieces of imagery: Harker looks up in the library from her studies, and there is nobody there; Harker spreads out her work on the floor to study it, and it is evocative of a summoning circle. Its setting is the early 90s, but even more timely now: the Satanic panic and dread of the Reagan years are in the rear view mirror and we're entering a hopeful new age, but that rot creeps back in, having lingered for new age: Harker sits in front of her supportive boss as he talks through their work, and the portrait of Bill Clinton lingers above him, leering down at them...
Its edits and transitions continue the serpentine, insidious comparisons and thematic emblems, whilst the staging and sets and shot composition will burn themselves into your brain (there's a reason that the poster is so striking, and is indeed in the film proper!) - check out the agents entering the barn, made up like a belly of a beast...
Refreshingly, the movie also has been keeping its trump card close to its chest. Maika Monroe is fantastic as always (want your horror movie to be good? Just put her in the lead. "It Follows" is one of my favourite movies of all time, "Watcher" was fabulous, "The Guest" fucking rules), but Nicolas Cage? Exceptional.
Granted I'm biased: the man is the greatest living actor. I've seen pushback to his performance, and without spoiling all I will say is:
You all loved Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight".
He's an unhinged toxic, festering nightmare of a man, ghoulish pallid and corpse-like, certainly nothing to forget anytime soon.
I absolutely adored this movie, and unusually for a horror movie it pulls it out of the bag and goes stratospheric with its ending: a soaring, terrifyingly ambiguous, all too fitting coda to this horrible dream.
Fuck. Yes.

"Maxxxine" - Review

Six years after a massacre at a farm killing best girl and leaving her the only survivor, Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), is attempting to break out of the pornographic film industry and make it into mainstream fare. She has landed a leading role in horror movie "Puritan II" directed by visionary English director Elizabeth Bender (Elizabeth Debicki, always welcome), has a supportive agent in Teddy Knight (Giancarlo Esposito) and seems to be making the best of what life has given her, not settling for a life she does not deserve. But when a private investigator named John Labat (Kevin Bacon) comes sniffing around, upturning her life and making insinuations, things start to go South. And all of this falls against the backdrop of a Puritanical push against pornography and horror, the killing spree of The Night Stalker, and 80s excess...

"X" was a fantastic surprise and homage to horror films gone by, and Hollywood finally learned what I have known and been proselytising since the late 2000s: Ti West is great. It got more people (my partner included) to know who the hell he is ("Innkeepers" is good, "The Sacrament" fantastic, his sequel to "Cabin Fever" far outdoes the original film, and "House of the Devil" is an absolute fucking barnburner and easily his best work) and "Pearl", whilst weaker than "X" in my eyes, is a strong companion piece and ode to envy and the Hollywood Golden era. This movie attempts to mash the two together: the strong character work of "Pearl", the horror and sex of "X" and the Hollywood blending of both.
There are some amazing shots to this effect: the most striking image is of Kevin Bacon in a nightclub chasing after Maxine, lights flashing chaotically and brightly, like things are shot in slower shutter speed and a nightmarish vision of the sequence in "Fright Night". The opening manages to contrast what people THINK the 80s was with the grimy nastiness and terrible parts it actually was. The house from "Psycho" is used for a sequence, and Debicki drolly remarks that "they made a sequel, can you believe that?". Hah.
Bacon's character is dressed as Jack Nicholson from "Chinatown" and honestly steals the show, relishing the part and chewing both dialogue and scenery. Many of the supporting cast have similar fun: Lily Collins gets a scene as a working class Yorkshire girl actress who cannot even be bothered to remember her co-star's name, Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan have literal buddy cop adventures on the trail of the Night Stalker, and Giancarlo Esposito is refreshingly against type as "Teddy Knight: Hollywood Super Agent". The cast have fun with these parts.
But the film struggles with what it wants to say and be about. It has fun gore effects (an alleyway castration is particularly fine) and its reach attempts to juggle the censorship and hypocrisy of "Christian Values" and the links drawn between the worship of sex, violence and cinema, but it loses its core identity in the shuffle and struggle. Is it about Maxine getting her big break? Is it about fame corrupting? Is it about a woman trying to run from her past? Well the last act gives us some answer where it devolves into "No, it's about a scenery chewing serial killer (sorely missed honestly untilt his point, and yet rather out of place) trying to murder our lead". The film kills off several important characters off screen, seemingly in a "let's get this over with" drive, and tries to recapture the delirium of "Pearl" towards the end. I didn't dislike the film on the whole, but it is certainly the weakest of the trilogy. It will likely get some love from the "You Go Girl, Slay Queen" fandom, and may even drive people to the kinds of movies he clearly loved and attempts to evoke. But the entire exercise feels more akin to a tour through a video shop than a coherent, driven, passionate film. We have hints and glimpses of ambitious greatness, but it focuses on the wrong parts, and whilst it is admirable to have gone in the direction it did, he could have had more fun and better luck and results by embracing the "Video Nasty" style or hitting the beats of "Slasher Movie in the Big City" and playing it straight.
Ironically, West has been embraced by Hollywood in a tale of its excesses, but lost some of the joys which made him great, though he gets some mileage out of his big stars in parts normally played by quirky character actors. He even gets to hint at it a little, with a much-obliged and delightful cameo appearence from Larry Fessenden as a security guard. I appreciate him as a film maker and see this doing well with a queer horror crowd, but would prefer a return to his stripped back affairs.