Minions: The Rise Of Gru (2022) - Movie Review

Illumination might be in trouble. While they’ve certainly found their lane with a mixture of old-school animated slapstick and embracing the popularity of villains, their most recent features have been the epitome of diminishing returns. Their take on The Grinch was okay, but not exactly going to replace Jim Carrey anytime soon, the Secret Life Of Pets sequel was closer to a pilot for a TV show than its own film, and Sing 2 showed a noticeable drop from the rousing effect of the original. At this point, it’s easy to argue that the studio should stick with their prime cash cow (the Minions), since their ability to deliver with other franchises isn’t working out… but as their latest has shown, even that is in question.

Coffee & Kareem (2020) - Movie Review

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Some chucklehead really thought they were being clever with that title, huh?

What Men Want (2019) - Movie Review

Situations like this are why I’m not as staunchly anti-remake as most others. What Women Want is an awful movie, the kind of attempt at gender analysis that does everyone a disservice and finds that lovely middle ground between hating men and hating women in equal measure. It’s really sad to think that the idea of casting Mel Gibson as the lead in a romantic comedy isn’t even in the top 10 worst decisions that went into making that pile of utter garbage.

But at the same time, the concept at its heart about being able to read the minds of the opposite sex is something that has potential for something that isn’t painful to sit through. So naturally, when this remake was announced, I admit to being a bit sceptical at first… but then I watched the original in full and realised that there’s nowhere to go but up with this story. And thankfully, this film actually does that.

Hidden Figures (2017) - Movie Review

One of the relatively smaller drawbacks of the Oscar season is that you end up finding certain releases that make a little too much sense in terms of why they were made. Between how space exploration has been framed as an example of where and why humanity should unite under a common cause, and anything involving racial prejudices makes for easy Oscar bait, it’s no wonder that this film exists. Of course, it’s not like I’m not complaining about this; we’re just reaching the end of February and I’ve already seen a handful of films that have pretty much no reason to exist. Films with rather obvious intents aren’t inherently bad things, so long as the people behind them can make those intents ring true in the work proper. So, with all that said, which side of the Oscar bait line does this land in?