Dragon Rider (2021) - Movie Review

You know you’ve seen too many bad talking animal movies when you start to cherish the ones that are merely passable. Nothing all that special, not all that particularly entertaining, but at least it isn’t a total trainwreck to sit through. That itself is quite surprising, coming from a film that the marketing is desperately trying to convince is on par with How To Train Your Dragon, made by a director whose only past credits are with sideways-glancing nature mockumentaries, and a writer who helped unleash The Queen’s Corgi on an unsuspecting public. And yet, all three of those preconceptions do add up to why this film turns out as purely average as it is.

On The Basis Of Sex (2019) - Movie Review

For both understandable and woefully misguided reasons, feminism as it exists in the modern conversation is not what it used to be. A branch of civil rights activism that remains at the core of some of the most vital changes in human society, it has gone the way of an unfortunate bulk of activist stances and become a hotbed for all things on the fringe of the discourse. I myself have railed against the current face of feminism, and while I know the precarious position that puts me in, I also recognise what feminism represented at its peak.

It wasn’t a way of thinking that insisted on the same pedestaling as the opposition, acting as a mirror that only reflects prejudice rather than a hammer that reshapes it, but a movement that wanted equality among the sexes. The stereotypes that bind one half of the binary do the same for the other, and until both sides are placed on even ground, both end up suffering. It is because of this, among other things, that this film strikes a serious chord with yours truly.

A Monster Calls (2017) - Movie Review

With how many times the average person comes across it in a standard day, we tend to underappreciate the strength of storytelling. With the right words and imagery, something as mundane as what a person had for breakfast can tell some poignant things about the human condition. Or, at least, I’m assuming that’s the case; quite frankly, I can’t think of another reason why people seem to be so intent on sharing every single meal they ever have on social media.

 

But even that easy target, how people use social media, itself is a form of storytelling. Sometimes, it’s just to provide snapshots of a person’s life that might a few disparate thoughts into place and help things make a bit more sense. Other times, it’s to completely detach from the real world for a time, absorbing one’s self in the fantastical and frequently loopy details of fiction. But there are times when we tell each other stories, and even tell ourselves certain stories, because the reality that they represent is a little too confronting to take on without some form of filter. That particular situation will be the subject of today’s film; as someone who prides cinema as a highly effective method of storytelling, I’ll admit that I’m quite curious about how this will turn out.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) - Movie Review

As I explained around this same time last year, I’m not the biggest fan of Star Wars. I recognise its cinematic significance and I get a certain amount of enjoyment out of the films themselves (even the ones that the rest of the world seems to hate with a passion), but I never really bought into the hype that those films carry to this day. Incessantly pushing The Force Awakens in my face for pretty much all of last year definitely didn't help, even with how much I ended up liking that film.

So, with all that in mind, even I am legitimately hyped for this film. The lack of obnoxious advertising could be a part of it, but there’s something else here that makes me anxious to check it out. Knowing how other cinematic continuities have been going of late, with even DC figuring out that some form of variety would be much appreciated, this film could present something different and help strengthen the series, considering this will be the first of the Star Wars cinematic Anthology with more already on the way. But even I couldn’t have expected this film to be this different.

Inferno (2016) - Movie Review

Growing up as I did when the big debacle concerning The Da Vinci Code made headlines, I’ve probably got the same mental association with Dan Brown films as the rest of the world: Convoluted mystery stories justified by a business-casual approach to history. Of course, I’ve spent the years since first watching Da Vinci and Angels & Demons playing a lot of Assassin’s Creed, so fidelity to history and genuine science clearly isn’t an entertainment factor for me… most days, at least. As such, I don’t take as much issue with these films as the general consensus. Sure, they fall into some pretty illogical pitfalls with alarming regularity, and main character Robert Langdon can shift erratically from smartest man in the room to worst investigator ever, but as a couple of potboiler mystery thrillers, they serve their purpose. Yes, I realise how long I’ve spent lambasting Akiva Goldsman’s work, but the Dan Brown adaptations are easily some of his most tolerable contributions. Since Akiva has stepped away from the typewriter for this one, there’s nowhere to go but up for this series… maybe?