Crawl (2019) - Movie Review

In a year where the biggest hitters have been culminations of several years’ worth of production work-up, films like this are easily cherished. These low-stakes, high-tension B-movie genre exercises where the focus is placed more on making the audience feel something rather than just see something. It follows in the footsteps of previous review subjects like The Shallows in pitting a tough and determined woman against the forces of nature, and much like Shallows, the under-90-minute run time means that there’s no time to waste time. And the end result is a very taut, very gripping, very wince-inducing offering.

Skyscraper (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Will Sawyer (Dwayne Johnson) has been hired by financier Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han) to assess the security of the Pearl, a super-structure that will be the tallest skyscraper in the world. However, that might have to wait as the building is taken over by terrorists, led by Kores Botha (Roland Møller), who hold the entire structure for ransom. As Will tries to figure out what exactly is going on, with his wife and children still inside the Pearl, he will have to work fast before the whole building goes up in flames.

Adrift (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: While journeying by boat from Tahiti to San Diego, Tami (Shailene Woodley) and Richard (Sam Claflin) end up in the middle of Hurricane Raymond and both their boat and themselves end up bearing the brunt of it. As Tami tries to get the boat back into working order, and caring for Richard's post-wreck injuries, she must find a way to get to dry land before the sea claims them.

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.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) - Movie Review

There are few filmmakers working today that I so thoroughly despise as much as Roland Emmerich. The jester pretending to be the king of the modern disaster film, his understanding of science and history is matched only by his ability behind the camera; i.e. he fails at all of them. Ever since the late 90’s, the man has maintained a steady reputation for absolute garbage, latching onto conspiracy theories (or, in the case of The Day After Tomorrow, what the popular consciousness has warped into a conspiracy theory despite the reality of things) to create stories about that honestly feel like an alien’s attempt to understand humanity, relating to the common man only through the broadest and laughable of stereotypes.

People give Michael Bay crap for making money out of dumbing down his own audience, but Emmerich is far guiltier of the same sins while not getting nearly as much widespread loathing. His 1996 work Independence Day, the first real taste the world got of how he thinks the world works, is held in relatively high regard but, quite frankly, I don’t see it. I’d say that I welcome the chance to proven wrong in thinking that this sequel is going to suck, but let’s be honest: There’s no chance of that happening.

Shin Godzilla (2016) - Movie Review

Back in high school, I went through something of a Japanese cinematic phase. And no, this was before I found the Critic; this was less classy A-movies and more splatsticky B-movies. Specifically, those connected with goremeister Yoshihiro Nishimura: Mutant Girls Squad, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, Tokyo Gore Police, right up to the film that started it all for me Robogeisha. It was around this time that I developed a liking for that style of filmmaking, getting into Grindhouse shortly after. This is probably where I also got my appreciation for the more insane films out there so, for those who find reason to object to my defending of films like Yoga Hosers and Zoolander 2, you can thank the land of the rising acidic breast milk for that. So, when news hit of a new Godzilla film coming out with Nishimura himself working on the effects, a particularly abnormal wave of nostalgia washed me into my local cinema to check it out. I’m a bit rusty on recent language-other-than-English cinema, so I don’t know how this will turn out.

Deepwater Horizon (2016) - Movie Review

I have no real opinion when it comes to the use of fossil fuels. I understand that its current use is having certain hazardous effects on the environment, but I also understand that alternative energy isn’t yet at the point of replacing its ubiquity. I see it as a necessary evil for the time being more than anything else, something aided by the fact that we as a species have a history of decisions that have adversely affected the world around us, and the living things that live on it; trust me, burning oil and coal is a serious step-up compared to the other things we’ve historically burnt. Yeah, I’m just as surprised as you are that my usual soap-boxing stances on social issues didn’t quite translate on this one. So, as we get into today’s film, understand that I’m going in without any real bias at all; a rarity in these parts, I know.

San Andreas (2015) - Movie Review

Even though there are a lot of easy parallels to be drawn between wrestling and any other form of televised fiction, it’s kind of surprising how badly the transition from wrestler to full-fledged actor goes for most people. Usually, it consists of a lot of straight-to-DVD action fodder that still keeps the actors in their ultraviolent comfort zones, with only a handful making it to cinemas and even less of that sample being successful; not every film can be the Expendables, after all. But even with all that in mind, Dwayne Johnson, Actor Formally Known As The Rock, has experienced an track record that is far beyond his peers, The Tooth Fairy notwithstanding.

Ever since I first saw him act proper in the surprisingly good Get Smart remake, I immediately got why this is: He is one of the few that has successfully managed to translate his on-stage charisma to the big screen, using it to sell whatever dialogue and/or premise he is handed. Hell, as bad as The Tooth Fairy was, Dwayne by no means half-arsed it. So, when he was cast as the lead in the latest addition to the natural disaster genre, usually wrought with enough inaccuracies to make anyone question the film’s reality, it came across as ideal casting to help sell the film. But did it ultimately work out? This is San Andreas… and no, as much as I wish he was, Wu Zi Mu is nowhere to be found in this film.