The Lion King (2019) - Movie Review

This has been quite a year for Disney revamping its classic properties. Alongside sequels to their genuine classics like Mary Poppins Returns and Toy Story 4, 2019 has also marked the year where they have given us not one but three remakes/retoolings of some of their older works. We started with the surprisingly strong Dumbo that basically took Disney itself to task for its business practices, and then we had the astoundingly shite Aladdin which can rest easily among Disney’s worst productions ever. And now, we have a remake of the perennial favourite Lion King, with the director of the quite fantastic Jungle Book remake returning for another bit of photorealistic animal shenanigans. The end result, however, is… well, it’s certainly not the worst to come out of this trend, but it is easily the most pointless.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Struggling to survive in the slums of Corellia, Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) and his lover Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke) have plans to get away from their surroundings and explore the galaxy. However, between the numerous mercenary factions that populate their sector of space and the lurking presence of the Galactic Empire, that task may prove more difficult than they first anticipated. As Han gets deeper and deeper into the criminal underbelly, he begins to make connections and friends amongst the scum and villainy that would lead him on a path to becoming one of the galaxy's greatest heroes.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Movie Review

Over the last several months, I’ve probably shown every conceivable pre-conception that a person can have for a movie. Whether it’s down to my own weird tastes or just how surprising this year’s releases have turned out, I’ve gone into the cinema with some odd ideas about what it’ll be like. Well, today’s film will likely represent my absolute worst expectations for a film: I want this film to be bad. Now, as much as I’ve talked about the therapeutic power of cinema, I don’t actively like watching bad movies; I rarely if ever want films to be bad, and it’s even rarer that I would want a film to suck to prove a “point”. Basically, after the clusterfuck that went down in the wake of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which I still maintain is a genuinely good movie despite some definite flaws, learning that the guys behind what is properly the worst film I’ve ever sat through would be behind the next Spider-Man reboot seriously pissed me off. It even got to the point where, and I wish I was joking, I made this claim on Reddit last year:

Just so we’re clear, this is how badly I not only didn’t want to see those numbnuts get rewarded for their lack of effort, but how badly I wanted some hubris to kick in after the honestly OTT reactions ASM2 got. But as I’ve already established, I’m a bit of a fanboy for comic book movies and I’m usually a lot kinder to them than I probably should be; I may not be happy to be proven wrong in this instance but I definitely get that the possibility of it happening here is pretty high. Anyway, enough waffle, let’s see where my cold-hearted cynicism gets me as we look at the latest iteration of the New York Webslinger.

The Lazarus Effect (2015) - Movie Review

At the core of humanity’s fear of all that is different and/or strange is the ultimate embodiment of that fear. The unknown to end all unknowns, the dark abyss, eternal inferno and pearly gates all wrapped into one: Death. I’ve discussed before fiction in relation to the idea of avoiding it entirely through immortality, but there still exists a certain fascination within us about what lies beyond the veil. I’d even argue that the question of what happens after that final heartbeat is the source of one of the longest-running debates in human history: Religion. Do we ascend/descend to another plane, or just rot in the ground? Personally, while we have access to enough medical technology to determine what happens to the body post-mortem, I still think we don’t have the means to absolutely determine what happens beyond that. As such, any speculation to that end is just that: Speculation. I have no more right to say that it’s abjectly wrong than anyone else does. With all this in the melting pot, time to slice into today’s film about what happens when you mess with the natural direction of life.

The Martian (2015) - Movie Review

To paraphrase one of the more boisterous names in space exploration: “Space: the final frontier”. However, something that is becoming clearer and clearer with every day since that phrase was first uttered is that space will always be the final frontier. Unlike our home planet, there is an infinite amount of, well, space outside of our atmosphere and it is expanding every second. The distance between points of interest (stars, planets, space fog, etc.) is occupied by a vacuum that seems to exist at the exact opposite of our ideal living conditions, and that’s if we even have a vessel that can stay in one piece during all that travel.

Is it any wonder, with all this in mind, that space travel and exploration is frequently used as the setting for dramas and thrillers? Sure, space combat will always be enticing, but the thought of how claustrophobic, hazardous and ultimately liberating leaving Earth for greener pastures can be has produced some truly amazing works of art, particularly in the realm of cinema. So, when director Ridley Scott decided to return to the cold void that yielded him a bona fide sci-fi classic with Alien (and a modest success with Prometheus), how did it turn out considering his last cinematic venture?

Magic Mike XXL (2015) - Movie Review

Every so often, a film comes along that makes me go “Please, for the love of all that is good in this world, do not screw this up.” And it seems that it’s about that time again. I have been seriously looking forward to this film and, no, it isn’t for the obvious sweaty reasons: I love Steven Soderbergh. To me, he is just about the most versatile filmmaker out there, being able to weave in and out of genres with surprising ease. Not only that, he is able to take very awkward premises and scripts and turn them into films capable of besting whatever else is out at that time.

Probably the best example of these traits would be 2012’s Magic Mike, a film about male strippers that had a lot of heart and intelligence behind it. Yeah, I may have been like everyone else at the time and left it alone because… well, beefcake wasn’t exactly my thing at the time, but after seeing Soderbergh turn the very unsettling story of Liberace and his relationships into the disarmingly warm Behind The Candelabra, I gave it a chance and found a lot to like about it. So, when I heard that there was going to be a sequel made of it, I was all for it. Then the news hit that Soderbergh was going to take a sabbatical from feature filmmaking, meaning that he wouldn’t be directing this one. Then the trailers and extremely cheesy poster came out for the film. I want a film about interesting characters and smart dialogue that just happens to centre on male strippers, and all I’m seeing so far is nothing but more grinding than a skateboarding MMO. Time to see if I get proven wrong, in one of a growing list of situations where I would gladly accept being so.

Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (2014) - Movie Review

Sometimes, we see movies for reasons that are in no way rational; the fact that I have seen The Room in cinemas twice this year is proof enough of that. I’ve said before that I try not to let my expectations dictate how I anticipate a movie, but every so often I’ll get kind of hyped for a movie just because an actor I like is in it. This is… a weird case. I say weird because the actor I wanted to see here isn’t even one of the main characters. In fact, I had no idea just how much screen time he was going to get. Who that actor is, I’ll get to momentarily.