Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (2023) - Movie Review

The DCEU has finally come to an end. The never-ending Crisis of bad timing, bad management, and just generally bad decisions on the part of Warner Bros. is about to be laid to rest and reborn as (hopefully) something better. Not that it’s been all bad, though. Hell, I’d argue that it wasn’t even mostly bad; Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad (both of them), the Snyder Cut, and, where today’s subject is most pertinent, Aquaman all still hold up as worthy adaptations of the DC pantheon of heroes. I still have my issues with the franchise’s lesser moments (all the turning-around I’ve done on Zack Snyder still hasn’t made Man Of Steel look any friggin’ better), and the tail-end has led to some truly inexplicable releases like Black Adam and the Skittles movie, but as someone who still holds a torch for capeshit, I want these movies to be good. Which is why this last hurrah is especially disappointing.

Insidious: The Red Door (2023) - Movie Review

Patrick Wilson is one of my favourite actors working today. Whether he’s fighting underwater King Arthur, stuck with late-career Katherine Heigl, or being the face of James Wan’s post-Saw horror catalogue, the man just seems to shine no matter where he goes. As such, the prospect of him making the transition to director has certainly got me intrigued, especially within a franchise that had already launched a major directing talent in Leigh Whannell. But as I look at his debut here, I can’t help but think he would benefit from having a completely different starting point, because this doesn’t really do him any favours.

The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) - Movie Review

Over the past couple years, my opinions on the Conjuring cinematic universe have gone from strength to strength. To the point where I’m likely in the minority for such things, given how favourably I’ve been towards the recent run of spin-off features. I still maintain that the first two Annabelle movies are a hard pass, but The Nun, The Curse Of The Weeping Woman, and even Annabelle Comes Home are still in my good books at the time of writing this.

As such, I was reasonably looking forward to the new mainline Conjuring film, albeit slightly taken aback by the real-life inspiration this time around (making it about a real-life murder case hits a bad note that just a haunted house doesn’t manage). But it turns out that I was looking in entirely the wrong direction as far as misgivings with this feature, sad to say.

The Assistant (2020) - Movie Review

Films like this have the capacity to sneak up on you if you’re not careful. Ostensibly, nothing really happens in it, at least by the metric most films are measured by. It covers a single work shift of Jane, an assistant at a film studio. Over the course of its 80-minute-and-change running time, we see her do menial office work like getting coffees and fixing the printer, and there’s no substantial character change that takes place; this isn’t the kind of movie that ends with a big rousing moment for our heroine when she decides to pursue a better career or hooks up with her dream guy or anything like that. But within that framing, and anchored by Julia Garner’s performance as Jane, this film is fucking terrifying.

In The Tall Grass (2019) - Movie Review

Write a story about two people in a room. For the entirety of that story, these two never leave that room. There is nothing in it except for themselves. There is nothing that they can do except interact, either through basic conversation or something more… physical. There might be flashbacks to their lives before entering that room, but otherwise, this is where the story takes place. This one room with just two people in it.

Sounds boring, right? Well, it’s one of the more classic tests of great filmmaking: Take that conceit and make it interesting. And writer/director Vincenzo Natali, when he isn’t making genre flicks about bioengineered rape shenanigans (seriously, Splice is a weird movie), has made a career out of pushing that idea to its breaking point. From the theological twists of Cube to the existential dramedy Nothing, whose most memorable scenes show two people in a void of bright white nothingness, he knows how to do a lot with very little scenery. If there was any Stephen King story he'd choose to adapt, of course it’d be this one.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019) - Movie Review

As much as The Conjuring has put its boot print on the face of modern horror cinema, its spin-offs have been… less than ideal, Annabelle in particular. The first Annabelle marks one of the most unintentionally funny ‘horror’ flicks I’ve seen, to the point where its infamous elevator scene still makes me giggle to this day. Given what I went into with Shazam! earlier in the year, I won’t revive that whole mess but, suffice it to say, Annabelle: Creation wasn’t all that good either. Even though I went to bat for The Nun when few others did, I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting much out of this one. Thankfully, I can report back that I finally, finally have an Annabelle movie I can get behind.

Aquaman (2018) - Movie Review

 

For several decades, Aquaman has been the laughing stock of DC’s core group of superheroes. Try as creatives like Paul Dini and Bruce Timm tried to rescue him from his ‘underwater Doctor Dolittle’ perception, his depiction in the Superfriends Show has remained his rather undignified persona in the popular consciousness. In a stable of characters that include Space Jesus, World’s Smartest Emo and Bondage Princess, Aquaman remained the one that was the hardest to take seriously. Of all the characters that have been itching for a big-budget blockbuster about them, the king of the oceans is the one who could benefit most from some cinematic re-examination. And with a story credit from Geoff Johns, a comic book writer who has seen tremendous success in reinventing large swathes of the DC universe, it looks like his chance to shine has finally arrived.

The Commuter (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Insurance salesman Michael (Liam Neeson) is taking the train home, same as he has done consistently for the last ten years. However, this trip turns out to be decidedly different as he is approached by a mysterious woman (Vera Farmiga) with a proposition. She tells him that someone on the train doesn’t belong, and he has until the end of the line to figure out who it is. As a reward, he will be given $100,000 once he locates the person and places a tracker on their person. As he considers the proposal, it seems that shadowy forces are about to force his hand, and if he doesn’t do as the woman asked, he could end up losing everything.

The Conjuring 2 (2016) - Movie Review

While the original Saw gave James Wan his official debut and Insidious gave audiences a real taste of what Wan’s style of filmmaking was, it was The Conjuring that gave him the break he desperately needed. Aside from being a critical darling when it came out, and being a friggin’ awesome horror flick in its own right, it also proved that Wan wasn’t completely dependent on Leigh Whannell’s scripting to deliver a gripping story. With a nicely retro approach to scares and an insane level of dedication to adhering to the era in which the story was set, not to mention a great cast, it’s the kind of horror film that I can easily see being remembered several years from now.

Then came the spin-off film Annabelle, Wan teaming back up with Whannell for Insidious: Chapter 2, and then Wan being a creative consultant for Lights Out… wow, that’s a bad track record in terms of horror flicks. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the guy’s work but, in terms of confirming that this sequel to probably his most celebrated work will actually be a success, it is less than convincing, shall we say. Of course, because I will never get tired of saying it, I’m willing to be proven wrong on this one.

The Founder (2016) - Movie Review

It’s a pretty safe bet to say that McDonald’s is very popular. In fact, it may be one of the single most powerful brands in the history of commerce. Were it not that advertising and marketing is as ubiquitous as it is, I reckon that McDonald’s the world over could completely stop advertising on screen and print and still be in business; name a single fast food chain with a logo as recognisable as the golden arches. Making a film about how the company went from a single location to a global powerhouse is pretty much a no-brainer by this point... but given how wide the company’s influence is, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some "corporate oversight" when it comes to how the characters are shown here. Conspiracy theories for the win.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) - Movie Review

When Saw first came out to phenomenal box office returns, people soon became familiar with director James Wan’s supposed ‘torture porn’ style. After taking a producing role for the rest of the series, and his subsequent releases Dead Silence and Death Sentence barely received any critical attention (let alone positive attention), it seemed like he was going to stuck with that label for the rest of his professional career, if it would even survive beyond all that. Then came Insidious in 2009, and audiences took note. Rather than the industrial grime and twisted morals that have been attached to him thanks to the original Saw, Insidious blasted its way into cinemas and showed off Wan’s true style: Old-school horror thrills reminiscent of the haunted house flicks of the 70’s and 80’s. After that film set a far better preconception for the man, he would go on to even greater success with The Conjuring and even show his proficiency in genres outside of horror. However, same year that Conjuring was released, he went back to that staple that gave him the credit he desperately deserved… and critics weren’t all that into it. Time to dive in and see if it really deserves the flack it got.

Home Sweet Hell (2015) - Movie Review

Trying to make a commentary on modern-day sexual politics is probably one of the more difficult things to do right. I say this not because making such statements are all that tricky; it’s because of how said statements are often interpreted by audiences. Rather than taking on board the fact that there is a reason why characters in a given creative medium are acting the way they are, they will instead fixate on the fact that you have people acting in rather sexist ways. Not to say that there aren’t cases where they are just being sexist; I mean, possibly because of how unfortunately common such behaviour is, we don’t even notice when it is being done for reasons other than the writer doesn’t know how to socialise properly. Take, for instance, Gone Girl. A sharply written look into gender roles and the media, yet people only seemed to notice how sexist the two main characters were… despite that kind of being the point of the film. Just because they’re the focus doesn’t necessarily mean we have to sympathise with them. With all this in mind, we have yet another film that wants to try its hand at similar subject matter… and going just by the approval ratings it’s gotten, it’s not looking hopeful.