Locked Down (2021) - Movie Review

I was raring up to like this movie quite a bit just from genre association alone. A rom-com/heist flick made and set during COVID lockdown, after films like Host proved that there’s pathos to be wrung out of the timeliness, with a plentiful cast of actors I’ve grown to love over the last few years; what could possibly go wrong? Well, in short, just about everything, but I’m not exactly in the mood to show this thing the mercy of brevity.

War Machine (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: With the U.S. government really wanting to put an end to their military campaign in Afghanistan, they send in renowned general Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt) to lead the charge and, more importantly, prepare an assessment on how to resolve the matter. However, it seems that McMahon doesn’t want the troops to leave before the job is done, and so sets out to “win” the War On Terror. Everyone outside of his main platoon look at him aghast that a single person can get so much wrong in so little time.

The Jungle Book (2016) - Movie Review

In the canon of important modern directors, I’m honestly surprised that Jon Favreau doesn’t get brought up more often in conversation. Sure, his work is sometimes hit-and-miss with critics (sometimes for no good reason like with Cowboys & Aliens) but when you put him into context with the current state of superhero films, he played a crucial role in getting where we are right now. 2008’s Iron Man was a serious make-or-break situation for the Marvel Cinematic Universe; if they screwed up, we wouldn’t have gotten the proceeding 8 years of astoundingly consistent output from Marvel Studios.

Hindsight does funny things to people, and sure, Robert Downey Jr. set a precedent for pitch-perfect casting in Marvel films, but if it wasn’t for Favreau’s engagingly populist style, we’d be looking at a far different landscape right now. After the lukewarm response to Iron Man 2, which admittedly wasn’t amazing but still decent, he went on to Cowboys & Aliens… and then he made Chef, which was basically his own admission of how difficult it is to break out of the big leagues and just make his own products. Well, he seems to be working with Disney once again with today’s film, a re-telling of one of Disney’s perennial classics.

The Walk (2015) - Movie Review

There are very few filmmakers whom possess such a stranglehold on pop culture history as Robert Zemeckis. Whether it’s his audience-pleasing favourites like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Back To The Future trilogy, his critical darlings like Forrest Gump and Cast Away or even his cult classics like Used Cars and Death Becomes Her, the man likely owns a decent part of the collective cinematic mindset. Through his willingness to adapt not only to newer filming techniques but also to the Hollywood system at large, he has more than earned his place in the pantheon of directing greats. That, and he will also hold a very near and dear place for me personally, since he’s also one of the only directors still working today that has a consistently good track record in terms of effects work; it’s kind of astounding just how well a lot of his films have visually held up. So, when news hit that the king of dual role casting was behind a new release, it became clear that this is something I would be watching even without the whole critical routine.

Self/Less (2015) - Movie Review

If I had to point to a singular reason why I love speculative fiction as much as I do, it’d have to be the inherent freedom of it all: Within the confines of the umbrella that is SF, you are capable of writing about pretty much anything the human imagination can conjure up. The personification of dreams going to a convention for serial killers? Done. A go-go dancer who uses a machine gun leg to kill zombies? No worries. A man in a magical telephone box that travels through time and space? That story’s been going on for over fifty years now. A piece of burnt bread philosophising about the nature of life, death and the pursuit of happiness? You can trust Japan to deliver on that front. So, when a film comes out with a pretty high concept idea in its framework, it will immediately grab my attention. Whether or not it can hold my attention for the running time is another matter.

Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb (2014) - Movie Review

It’s a very bittersweet experience seeing a film like this; Robin Williams is one of my favourite comedians of all time with a wide pedigree of talent (despite a couple of film clunkers) whether it’s his excellent stand-up shows, his classic film roles like the Genie in Aladdin and Peter Pan in Hook, or his surprising talent at darker roles like One Hour Photo and his guest spot on Law & Order: SVU. It is a tragedy when anyone dies, but knowing who he was and how it happened… I’m getting choked up as I write this just thinking about it. But his works still remain to warm the hearts and tickle the funnybones of audiences for a long while yet; I firmly believe that men live on so long as they are remembered, and I doubt that Williams will be forgotten anytime soon. With that, let’s take a look at his final live-action film role that was also dedicated to his memory.

Exodus: Gods And Kings (2014) - Movie Review

It seems that we are in the middle of a major influx of Christian-oriented films: Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, Son Of God, Heaven Is For Real, the Left Behind remake, the previously thrashed God’s Not Dead, as well as the recent Christmas… anomaly that is Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas. I may have a fair bit to catch up on concerning this list but I welcome the experiences faith-based films can offer. Today’s film is possibly the most mainstream yet to come out of this, with veteran director Ridley Scott at the helm.