Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) - Movie Review

I’d make a joke about needing this to get the taste of Vanquish out of my mouth, but this is actually me clearing up some unfinished business. Like, more so than usual when it comes to my December catch-ups. I was originally set to see this film at a preview screening for FilmInk earlier in the year but… well, you can probably guess what happened that caused the screening to be cancelled. Which was really a shame because, beyond the deliciously idiosyncratic title, the cast is quite enticing, and I could do with some more consistent female-led action material from this year. And sure enough, I feel quite cheated not getting the chance to see this on the big screen, because this is dynamite.

Morgan (2016) - Movie Review

Among the many things that can affect the initial impressions we have when watching a film, from the marketing to word-of-mouth to just our mentality concerning what makes a good story, one of the bigger contributors ends up being other films. Once the realisation sets in that pretty much everything is a remix of everything else, and brand spanking new ideas aren’t as prevalent (or as important) as some of us may assume, the fact that we will end up seeing a lot of similar shit on screen is a little easier to swallow. Of course, when it comes to discussing what gets used and re-used, especially if it’s from more popular works, we end up drawing comparisons to the same works over and over again. Now, even though this runs the risk of limiting the overall conversation, just because it’s an easy point to make doesn’t mean it’s any less true. Tl;dr this is basically me covering my own arse because this film makes it impossible not to bring up comparisons to last year’s phenomenal sci-fi effort Ex Machina… even though pretty much every other critic already has. Ugh. Let’s just get this over and done with.

Ratchet & Clank (2016) - Movie Review

Knowing the track record for video game adaptations by this point, I should have no right to be looking forward to any of them… okay, save for Assassin’s Creed, but all in due time. Until then, we have a theatrical version of a pretty heavily ingrained part of my gaming childhood, one which continues to be awesome to this day. Even considering the PS2’s track record when it comes to platformers, R&C is still one of the most beloved by the fans, myself included. Its creative weaponry, its memorable characters, its utter lack of shame when it comes to toilet humour; Insomnia Games made a serious gem of a series. Have to admit, knowing that most of the original voice cast as well as the writers of the games are helping bring this film to life, I’m genuinely hoping for something good this time around.

Love & Mercy (2015) - Movie Review

The Beach Boys; the gods of surf rock that are challenged only by Queen as the group with the best ear for vocal harmonies… and beyond the respect I have for them as a group, I’m not really able to listen to some of their bigger hits anymore. Not that they’re in any way bad on their own, far from it; it’s just that their songs have gone the way of so many other classics and are largely mangled and distorted for commercial jingles nowadays. Here’s exhibits A and B for why the Beach Boys have become so tainted for me.

But even still, their place in the annals of pop music history is solidified and I am not about to try and question that; hell, while Pet Sounds may be one in a very long list of classic albums I’ve yet to listen to in their entirety, I still recognise that the production techniques Brian Wilson employed were amazingly unprecedented for the time. But what about the man himself? Well, equipped with only surface knowledge about his life story, I set out for today’s film to find out.

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.