The Creator (2023) - Movie Review

2023, in all facets of the film industry, is likely to be remembered as ‘The Year Of AI’. Production-wise, Hollywood has seen a once-in-a-generation workers’ strike (partly) out of fears of artificial intelligence threatening the livelihood of creatives. Narratively, stories about the looming threat of replacement by machines have reached a point of relevance that, even considering sci-fi’s rich history of prescience, is still kind of bizarre to contemplate at this point in time. And on the critical side of things, it seems like every goddamn person who writes about movies has uttered some variation of “it’s as if an A.I./ChatGPT/an algorithm made/wrote this film” as a go-to criticism for films that feel assembly-line or generic. Yes, I resorted to this very thing during the year-end lists for 2022, but the extent to which it has since mushroomed into a genuine cliché is… getting kind of irritating.

At any rate, alongside films like Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, The Creator feels like one of those emblematic releases that help define a year as a pop culture moment. That it’s one of a shrinking minority of tentpole sci-fi flicks that aren’t based on pre-existing material (directly, at least, but we’ll get to that…) adds to that battlefront mentality. What can I say, this is the kind of metanarrative shit I crave in media.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019) - Movie Review

Imagine a disused wrestling ring. One that has been left abandoned for so long that anthills have formed on the foam-padded floor. The ants have made it their home… but something happens. All of a sudden, the stage lights turn on. The rumbling of the audience is heard as they take their seats. Gladiators take to the stage to throw down and see who is the true champion. All while the ants can do nothing but stand and watch as the place that was once their home is ravaged by creatures beyond their comprehension. Now stop imagining, because this is exactly what watching Godzilla: King Of The Monsters feels like.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019) - Movie Review

After a long line of films based on video games that have made both gamers and general audiences heave into their popcorn buckets, it seems like the levy has finally broken and we have a good one out in cinemas. We’ve been leading up to this for a while now, between the genuine attempts at artistry in Assassin’s Creed, the outright fun of Rampage, even the frenzied glee of video-game-inspired Hardcore Henry, and while not everyone is raving about this particular feature, this has caught fire in a way that video game adaptations really haven’t managed to in years past. The reason why, having watched it, seems fairly obvious: Both as a continuation of an adored IP and as a film in its own right, this production does justice to both.

The Sea Of Trees (2016) - Movie Review

Gus Van Sant is easily one of the most frustrating filmmakers in the history of the medium. Not necessarily because his work is out-and-out frustrating, although it sometimes is, but rather because of the wild inconsistency throughout his filmography. He has had some seriously incredible ideas behind his films and has even given us some great works, but good lord, has he also delivered some of the worst or otherwise weirdest films I’ve come across. I don’t think any director who can make something as soul-crushingly dull as Gerry can be trusted, and Even Cowgirls Get The Blues is strange beyond definable terms and another sign that, when not fishing for Oscars, the man is kind of insane. Yeah, needless to say, my scepticism is even greater than usual on this one, and considering this has been regarded as his worst film… this is not going to end well.