The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On The Run (2020) - Movie Review

I’m in the mood for something fun today. And we’re already off to a good start since, with all the release schedule shuffling, I’m surprised this even made it over here this year. But man, am I glad it did because this is Spongebob doing what Spongebob does best.

Replicas (2020) - Movie Review

After having quite the phenomenal year in 2019 (not to mention knocking it out of the park more recently with Bill & Ted Face The Music), I was honestly willing to give B-movie Keanu Reeves an honest chance. Hell, the plot for this one really intrigued my itch for sci-fi philosophising, all about the ethics of cloning and transferring a human consciousness into another body. Then I discovered that this is written by Chad St. John, who also gave us the jingoistic claptrap of London Has Fallen and the entitled tedium of Peppermint. Then I found out the director, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, is better known for writing the glorified business expense of The Tourist, as well as Roland Emmerich’s woefully unhelpful take on global warming with The Day After Tomorrow. Can’t win them all, I guess.

Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019) - Movie Review

Y’know, after how the last review turned out… I need something light. Something simple. Something to pick me up from this unexpected haze of self-loathing I’ve found myself in. So how about a film version of a popular Funny Or Die web series?

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) - Movie Review

John Wick may be the single most important non-superhero action franchise still active today. While Fast & Furious and Mission: Impossible may have the longevity and their respective fanbases, it’s hard to argue that John Wick didn’t still have the larger impact on the landscape. Whether it’s the fight scenes, the visual style, the kind of world-building that puts most comic books to shame, or even just the moment when people finally started to take Keanu Reeves seriously as an actor (even The Matrix, as popular as it remains, couldn’t manage that), it has captured the zeitgeist in a way that very few film franchises ever could, both past and present. And with how Chapter 2 concluded, stakes are very high for the latest in this series to measure up to the grandeur of what came before. To the surprise of likely very few, this film manages to do just that and with gusto.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) - Movie Review

2014’s John Wick, one of the first films I covered on this blog, is one that I didn’t give nearly enough credit to the first time around. Largely due to my own inexperience in the art of critique and not knowing how to properly articulate what I think makes for good action beats (neither of which may or may not have improved all that much since), I didn’t end up giving that film its fair due in how stone-cold brilliant it is.

 

From the sharp-as-a-razor writing that I still struggle to believe isn’t directly based on a pre-existing work, to the excellent fight choreography, the finesse behind the camera, the acting, even the lighting; it is a bona-fide classic film and it finally gave main star Keanu Reeves mainstream recognition that has been long overdue. Needless to say, I was eagerly anticipating this although I honestly don’t know how it could improve on the first attempt. Well, they found a way.

Point Break (2016) - Movie Review

 

What is it about crime flicks that make them probably the most widely referenced and quoted of any genre? Even if you’ve never seen a Lethal Weapon film, chances are you’ve heard someone say “I’m getting too old for this shit” at least once in your life. Among the more widely influential would be 1991’s Point Break, which established a blueprint that would be followed by every film involving a cop/agent going undercover and making a connection with their target. Sure, it hasn’t aged well as a result of how much it’s been copied, not to mention its 90’s surfer musings about finding that rush, but it’s still a decent film in its own right. Can’t go wrong with Keanu Reeves giving one of his better performances and Patrick Swayze as the equally charismatic and recklessly thrill-seeking antagonist. So, naturally, it was going to get a remake at some point, and apparently no-one wanted to compete with it because this was the only film to be released come New Year’s Day. Or maybe it was because they didn’t want the shame of having to be connected to it in any way, even if just by the release date. Even though the real answer should be pretty damn obvious, let’s take a look just to be sure: This is Point Break.

Knock Knock (2015) - Movie Review

Every so often, the Hollywood scheduling system looks at the crap that gets screened and bestows a boon on the viewing public with a double feature from an acclaimed director. 2013 was an amazing year in this regard as we got not only two releases from David O. Russell with Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, but also the ‘supposedly’ final two theatrical releases from Steven Soderbergh with Side Effects and Behind The Candelabra. But then, there are times when the scheduling results in a dual release from a… less reputable director. This is unfortunately a latter case as we are discussing another film by Eli Roth. I once again don’t want to completely badmouth his abilities as a director, as the guy definitely has talent in certain areas. However, his insistence on filming his own scripts is his biggest flaw; the guy has character sensibilities that make Mark Renton look like Oskar Schindler. For as much credit as I was willing to give his last film, it still makes me feel slightly ill thinking back on it. So, is this film as bad as that… or is it, by some terrifying miracle, even worse?

John Wick (2014) - Movie Review

Keanu Reeves, in my opinion, gets a bad rap. Everyone just seems to gauge his performances with either Bill & Ted or The Matrix, as if the guy hasn’t made any other movies apart from them. His method of acting, which is definitely low-key but not as banal as others make him out, did him well in movies like Devil’s Advocate, My Own Private Idaho and A Scanner Darkly. Hell, I even liked him in the much-maligned Constantine, which I seriously think people were too harsh on as a whole. Then again, even I can see his duds: Much Ado About Nothing, while excellent, proved that Shakespeare isn’t Keanu’s style in any way, The Day The Earth Stood Still was phenomenally dull and 47 Ronin from earlier this year was just plan terri-bad. So, where does his latest effort John Wick stand?