Expend4bles (2023) - Movie Review

2023 has been a really, really fucking good year for action movies. John Wick: Chapter 4, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Sisu, Dead Reckoning Part One, the new Dungeons & Dragons movie, even Transformers has really started to turn back around.

In light of all that, while it’s been a long-ass time since anyone paid any heed to the Expendables, it at least makes sense that the ultimate action team-up fantasy would get another crack during this time. The third film may have come woefully short of what the first two accomplished, but even that had its moments. Unfortunately, with this fourth instalment… can this even be called an Expendables movie at this point?

The Mule (2019) - Movie Review

After the tumultuous trainwreck that was last year’s 15:17 To Paris, I’ll admit that I was somewhat hesitant to see what Clint Eastwood had in store for his next feature. I mean, I’ve gone on record about how I don’t exactly agree with his politics, but I’m still willing to admit that when he has the right material, he can pull through with some genuinely moving cinema. And with him teaming up again with writer Nick Schenk, the scribe for one of Eastwood’s true classics with Gran Torino, and stepping back into the lead role for the first time since that effort, this at least has the potential to be a step back in the right direction. Well, as I’ll get into, this definitely works… although I question some of the aspects it ends up aiming for.

Book Club (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: For the past thirty years, best friends Diane (Diane Keaton), Vivian (Jane Fonda), Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) have met up every month for book club. One month, they choose Fifty Shades Of Grey as their book, and as they read on, they find themselves questioning where they are in life and love and whether they're going to do something about it.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), now in-charge of her mother (Meryl Streep)’s hotel on the Greek island of Kalokairi, is under a lot of stress for the hotel’s grand re-opening. As she seeks advice from her mother’s friends Tanya (Christine Baranski) and Rosie (Julie Walters), as well as her dads Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgård), she also learns about her mother’s trials when she was younger (Lily James). Between all of them, Sophie might just find the resolve she needs to pull through.

Geostorm (2017) - Movie Review

There’s always been something rather perverse about the natural disaster sub-genre. Starting and subsequently nose-diving during the 70’s, disaster films have always presented themselves as a showing of solidarity between people of different backgrounds working together to avert the titular disaster. However, in recent years with the continuing threat of climate change, it has kept that same mentality but added the spectacle nature of visual effects into the mix. Rather than watching people unite to show the world working as one for a change, it turned into taking joy out of seeing the world get crushed by the forces of nature. I know that some men literally just want to watch the world burn, but given how the writing quality of these films have spiralled out into thin but plentiful casts who exist solely to witness the hand of God flatten the Earth, these films aren’t being made with actual humanity in them these days. I’d be far more disheartened by this if it wasn’t for the one shining positive that a lot of these films share, but all in good time. For right now, let’s look at the latest attempt to pull off global carnage in the cinema.

Passengers (2017) - Movie Review

Movie trailers, by their very design, are rather strange devices. At the base line, they are meant to intrigue the audience into possibly checking the film in question through basically whatever means are necessary. This usually involves quick-cutting the most visually interesting moments together, combined with music that will rarely if ever be a part of the film itself. Since I made it my mission to see everything that I possibly can at the cinemas, trailers don’t have the same effect on me as they used to (for the most part, at least), but they are still interesting to watch as part of my general fascination with marketing.

Some end up underselling their film by not isolating what generally makes the film good, instead focusing on the surface moments that make it look worse than it actually is, some oversell their film by combining the film’s best moments to make the film look better than it is… and then there’s trailers like those for today’s film. Seeing as this isn’t even the only film out right now to do this, I figure it would be worth getting into with some depth before the potential flood begins: What happens when a trailer shows you a film that is markedly different from the final product?

True Memoirs Of An International Assassin (2016) - Movie Review

I’ve briefly touched on this topic before, but still, the question begs to be asked: Why do people tell the stories that they do? More to the point, why do people create the stories that they do? The answers are great and varied from a want to convey an emotion that is too potent for mere verbal communication to contain on its own, to an innate need to comment on something wrong with society, past or present. Hell, sometimes it can be just a desire to tell a story and using whatever elements are at your low-to-nill disposable income to make it happen. Insert joke about how Happy Madison’s alumni don’t need a reason for the films they make and just do it for the money.

That mentality that looks into why these stories exist is the main reason why I love metafiction as much as I do; I love stories that question the inner workings of its own making and the people pulling the strings to make it happen. So, even considering this film’s current standing at a flat 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, I’ll admit that I was curious about this one. Since we’re all thinking the same thing at this point, that I’m giving this film too much credence to exist, let’s just get into this thing already.

Let's Be Cops (2014) - Movie Review

The trailer for this movie made it look absolutely awful; the premise at face value is one of the worst for any film this year, if not the last few years; the comedy bits we got were limp and just not funny; and when the best part of the whole thing is a Method Man song being played over it, you’re not doing a good job at selling your movie. But I have written before about my expectations with movies and how they aren’t always on par, so really this could go either way.