Alita: Battle Angel (2019) - Movie Review

 

Well, this is one hell of an unexpected team-up. On one hand, you’ve got director Robert Rodriguez, one-man film crew, vanguard of modern exploitation and the guy behind the film that got into cinema in the first place. And on the other, you have co-writer James Cameron, a filmmaker responsible for some of the greatest 90’s action flicks and the guy behind the two highest-grossing films of all time. Of course, since Rodriguez hasn’t been in the director’s chair for a few years now (and his last couple of offerings were quite inconsistent) and Cameron is apparently dedicating himself solely to building an empire of unnecessary backwash off the back of Avatar, this could easily turn sour. But man oh man, am I glad that this film is as entertaining as it is.

Downsizing (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: As a means to combat overpopulation, a group of Norwegian scientists have come up with a ground-breaking solution: Literally shrinking the population down to a height of only five inches. Suburban couple Paul (Matt Damon) and Audrey (Kristen Wiig), unsatisfied with their current living conditions, decide to take part in the procedure… only for Audrey to back out at the last minute. Now shrunken and alone, Dave takes part in this brand new miniature society, only to discover that even this scenario has its drawbacks.

The Legend Of Tarzan (2016) - Movie Review

Since getting back into a regular routine with my movie-watching again, I’ll admit that what I’ve been looking at over the last little while have been pretty good overall. Hell, the only real down point of late (Jem And The Holograms) was only watched by yours truly as a Plan B; I originally set out to see Suicide Squad with a friend but, due to matters outside of both of our controls, we were unable to. Will that film break the streak when I eventually get to it? Too late, honestly, because this film seems to have done it for me. Now, even though the classic Disney iteration of Tarzan was the first film I ever remember watching in the cinemas, that isn’t going to factor into how I see this. The problems with this one are so numerous that I don’t even need to.

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?

Big Eyes (2015) - Movie Review

It’s fan-boy time again, this time looking at the newest film from Tim Burton, one of my favourite directors. Of course, openly admitting to such things isn’t exactly the safest of prospects considering his more recent output like Alice In Wonderland and Dark Shadows, some of his older work like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Sleepy Hollow or even just the fact that his style is just that recognisable that, quite frankly, an awful lot of people are getting sick of seeing it, especially given how influential it has become. But I couldn’t give a monkey’s about any of that: I grew up watching his films from Beetlejuice to Sweeney Todd, I’ve always dug his garish yet Gothic style and I genuinely think that his cinematic sensibilities helped make me the person I am today… although, to be fair, that might just give readers another reason to hate him for all I know. Not to say that all of his films follow his usual aesthetic, as today’s film will no doubt attest ; this is the first Burton film I can remember seeing that wasn’t playing at a mainstream cinema and after seeing it, I kind of get why.

Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) - Movie Review

Given my compulsion to review every new film I see, I will inevitably come across some films that are easier to talk about than others; whether it’s because it’s easier to talk about bad films than good ones or because some films engage me more and leave me more to work with in terms of writing, not every film will give me the same amount of content. This is such an occasion, only for different reasons than usual. It isn’t because this film is entirely good, leaving me with less to talk about, nor did it fail to leave me with much to talk about. No, this time the difficulty in writing a review for this movie is, put simply, because it is just plain unpleasant to recollect.