Morbius (2022) - Movie Review

Once again, the Sony side of the Marvel cinematic landscape has released a film that has garnered… mixed reactions, let’s say. Much like with the first Venom, it has become yet another invented battleground for casual audiences to rail against The Critics™ (forgetting that we are all critics at the end of the day), with lashings of terrible official write-ups while the #MorbiusSweep movement… honestly, even in these post-irony days, I can’t tell if this is just a meme or if people are actually getting into this film. Unlike the first Venom, though, you won’t find me ‘picking a side’ in this particular pissing match. I don’t really get the intense backlash this has faced (well, mostly don't, but we'll get to that), nor do I think it’s an underrated gem worth white-knighting for. It’s just… okay.

Last Night In Soho (2021) - Movie Review

I’ve been looking forward to this film for a very long time. In fact, this goes beyond pure anticipation, as this film’s existence is tied directly to my big break into this film criticism gig. Long story short, when I got to interview Edgar Wright during the press tour for Baby Driver, he mentioned that he wanted to make a straight-up horror movie one day. For a while, everyone was abuzz about him possibly doing a sequel to Baby Driver which, while I like and is certainly the most technically polished film he's made yet, I wasn’t as hot on as his previous work. No, I was holding out on that raw genre experience, and sure enough, my prayers were answered once news of this film first broke. And even with the curious levels of backlash this has gotten thus far, I am incredibly happy with the end result.

His House (2020) - Movie Review

For the longest time, haunted house movies have been plagued by a single question: Why the fuck haven’t you left yet? Easily one of the most mockable cliches in horror (and it’s not as if there’s nothing else to make fun of within the trope-ier corners of the genre), it has likewise fallen into the realm of cliché to even point it out. The presence of something beyond this world makes itself known to the family living in a new house, and because the plot demands it, they never question that they haven't taken that as a sign that maybe it's time to move.

Not that all movies hand-wave this away, though. During the 2010s, James Wan and Mike Flanagan treated the question with a lot of postmodern clarity, and even further back, Beetlejuice remains one of my favourite examples of the sub-genre purely because it answers that question in a delightfully kooky fashion. Today’s film, however, is far less kitschy. In fact, it makes for one of the more sobering features I’ve ever seen from the haunted house clique.

Pride And Prejudice And Zombies (2016) - Movie Review

For as much as I try and deconstruct the films that I watch, with varying degrees of success, I am quickly discovering something about myself when it comes to films: I love dumb zombie movies. Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse, Cooties, Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead; sure, these are all meant to be comedies, but even then these are incredibly silly films and more than a little wrong-headed in their own ways. And yet, as I look back on them, I still love them a hell of a lot more than I probably should, given the pseudo-intellectual air that can be felt around these parts. Hell, I’m still laughing at a bit from Cooties where a character just says “Word”. So, knowing my own weakness for the more goofy iterations of the living dead, I look at today’s film with a general idea of what I’m getting myself into. I mean, look at the bloody title; my love for all things surreal and ultimately silly can’t help but be triggered by something that gloriously inane. But, I have to maintain some level of professionalism around… here… yeah, I can’t even pretend that that’s what I do in the first place. Let’s just say that my opinion on this film may already be skewed before we even get into it proper. Anyway, time to sink our teeth into this thing.

Lost River (2015) - Movie Review

Remember Ryan Gosling? That guy who became the toast of the town back in 2011 thanks to the unexpected success of Drive, then just seemed to largely disappear from the public spotlight? Unless you’re among the confounding number of The Notebook fans, that is? That’s not to say he just isn’t working anymore, as he was in the surprisingly decent Gangster Squad as well as the upcoming Adam McKay flick The Big Short; just that it seems like he didn’t make the best use of his rejuvenated exposure. Probably the two big contributors to why this is is as a result of two films he made after Drive: One of them was Only God Forgives, a film by the same director that wasn’t nearly as well received by the general public nor by critics. The other was his debut as writer/director that… got probably the most perplexing response in recent years. As in, it got both a standing ovation and an audible collection of booing when it premiered at Cannes. Well, no matter happens in the following review, I am guaranteed to disappoint someone. Fine by me.

Terminator: Genisys (2015) - Movie Review

Back in the tail-end of May of this year, I looked at the latest instalment of the sand-encrusted cult series Mad Max with Fury Road, a surprisingly amazing offering. Then, a little while ago, we had Jurassic World, a mildly entertaining but ultimately pointless addition to the already flagging franchise. Today, we conclude this look into how Hollywood today deals with reviving older sci-fi series with a reboot of the Terminator series. Terminator undoubtedly has the strongest footing of the three series for a follow-up, regardless of how my opinion of Mad Max differs from the norm: The first film is a seminal classic of neo-noir and sci-fi in general, and Judgment Day is the epitome of the ‘perfect sequel’, along with being one of the greatest films in any genre without question. Then came Rise Of The Machines which, through a baffling mixture of self-parody, re-hashing of the second film and just plain disrespect for the series mythos as a whole, heavily contrasted what came before it by being one of the worst sequels ever, not to mention a pretty atrocious film in its own right. Salvation had its fair share of issues, but it was nevertheless a fun watch. Yeah, lots of baggage behind this one even without getting into its core theme of bending the space-time continuum over every table. So, how does this work as a means to reboot the series?