Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) - Movie Review

I did not like the first Venom film. And as much as me even bringing that up again is just adding more fuel to the underlying “critics hate movies that audiences actually like” conversation… fucking hell, that entire line of thinking, predicated on insisting that film critics might as well be a completely different species than every other kind of filmgoer, is one of the most annoying parts of the larger conversation regarding cinema. I mean, it’s a superhero film made by one of the biggest studios working today; it doesn’t need to be defended like it’s this groundbreaking indie underdog. At any rate, we now have a sequel, and what is being presented here is not only a lot more likeable than what came before, it’s honestly a comic book idea that hasn’t really been done before on the big screen.

Mowgli: Legend Of The Jungle (2018) - Movie Review

 

Much like its titular character, this latest iteration of the archetypal feral child finds itself stuck between two worlds. It finds director Andy Serkis back in his theoretical wheelhouse of CGI-boosted fantasy, but his abilities behind the camera show a marked step down from his previous outing. Not of lack of trying, as this film’s darker tone on the source material and the extrapolation of its nature vs. nurture themes definitely give it solid footing alongside the more recent Jungle Book adaptation, but the results of pretty much everything here is inconsistent.

Rampage (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: In an alternate present where gene manipulation has become a prized asset in the development of medicine and biological weapons, a space station housing a number of mutated specimens has crashed into Earth… and had a rather monstrous effect on the animals that got near them. As Energyne corporate leaders Claire (Malin Åkerman) and Brett (Jake Lacy) race to recover the valuable specimens, primatologist Davis (Dwayne Johnson) is brought into the equation after one of the specimens affects George (Jason Liles), an albino gorilla in his care. It’s up to George and medical engineer Dr. Caldwell (Naomie Harris) to get to the bottom of this calamity before the overgrown George and the other affected animals reduce Chicago to rubble.

Moonlight (2017) - Movie Review

I digest films the same way I digest food: Quickly and without it even touching the sides. I make it a point not to toot my own horn where I can, but when I comes to films, I often pride myself in how quickly I’m able to process films as I watch them, a skill that has grown significantly over the last 7 years. With all that said, in a way, I hate films like this; there’s a reason why I mainly stick to mainstream films on this blog with the odd indie/foreign release here and there. Films of this nature go against my sort-of instant gratification approach to media, and for the first time this year, it’s a film where I am still trying to sort out my opinions on the thing as I’m writing it. So, join me on what I’m sure is going to be a long, winding and occasionally navel-gazing attempt to break this film down in my usual style.

Collateral Beauty (2017) - Movie Review

Every couple of years, Will Smith looks at an empty place on his mantle and decides that he wants to fill that space with an Oscar. With that in mind, he goes into full-blown Oscar bait mode and stars in a vehicle meant to give him that acclaim. Unfortunately, up until this point, it hasn’t worked out for him yet. He’s gotten a couple of nominations for Best Actor, most recently in 2006 with The Pursuit Of Happiness, but he has yet to win one. Given the whole media furore over Leonardo DiCaprio’s similar position until his inevitable win for The Revenant, I don’t hold much stock in this need for this particular brand of validation, but nevertheless, he ends up bringing this side of himself to the screen every so often… with very little success, even ignoring the obvious intent behind it all.

I personally have a liking for some of his works in this style, like Seven Pounds and even last year’s Concussion, but there’s a very deliberate and manipulative air to most of them that ultimately make them fall short of their lofty ambitions. Then again, this is something that befalls an awful lot of Oscar hopefuls: They spend so much time trying to tap into some form of emotional complexity that the Academy loves so much, but they don’t spend enough taking a step back and realizing how those emotions are being presented to us and how insensitive it can get. And oh boy, nothing in recent memory embodies the term “insensitive” quite like today’s film.

Spectre (2015) - Movie Review

You’d be hard-pressed to find a single film franchise that’s more iconic than the exploits of agent 007. The actors, the girls, the gadgets, the quips, the cars, even the booze; all of it has reached a phenomenal level of cultural relevance. It is almost to the point where, a thousand years from now, future civilisations are going to assume that British people did nothing but drink rocket fuel martinis and snark at each other all day… okay, bad example. What I’m getting at with all this is that, with each new instalment, there is an automatic expectation that comes with them. Now, bear in mind that anything and everything that is said here is from the perspective of a very recent casual fan of the series; hell, the first Bond film I saw in cinemas was Skyfall. To be fair though, that’s a pretty damn good place to start. But how does its sequel turn out?