Willy's Wonderland (2021) - Movie Review

... Well, that’s a horrifying tagline.

Anyway, as soon as news first hit about this movie, with Nicholas Cage beating the holy hell out of animatronics in a former party restaurant for kids, the Internet was ablaze with comparisons between the premise of the film and the premise of the long-running video game series Five Nights At Freddy’s. To the point where that comparison seems to be the only thing anyone can talk about when it comes to the film itself. Now, I’m not exactly known for the hottest of takes in these reviews, and I admittedly did decide to check it out because a FNAF-esque movie experience is right up my alley, but do I really want to sit here and write out the same shit every other critic has repeated ad nauseum? Well... sort of.

Bigfoot Family (2021) - Movie Review

Oh goodie, another movie from nWave Studios, the people who thought implied dog rape in a kids film was a good idea. Yeah, I was not looking forward to this one, and if it weren’t for the fact that this made it to Netflix rather than cinemas this time around, I’d be looking forward to it a whole lot less. But thankfully, this isn’t anywhere near as heinous as The Queen’s Corgi. Admittedly, that means it’s closer to the studio’s average of bland, inoffensive bargain-bin material, but I’ll take that any day over whatever fresh hell they tried to pull last time.

Mortal Kombat (2021) - Movie Review

This is likely the only time that a new film will have to meet the benchmark created by Paul W.S. Anderson. And I’m not even remotely kidding; the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie remains one of the best video game adaptations of all time. Yeah, it’s a dense slice of action cheese, but with that casting, that soundtrack and those one-liners… in all seriousness, I went into this actively hoping for that same level of all-out fun. And truth be told, that is exactly what I got.

Ascendant (2021) - Movie Review

Independent Aussie films rarely look this good. While its very insular setting (most of it takes place in an elevator) and smaller cast (we largely stick with Charlotte Best in the lead as Aria) mean that there aren’t many spots for budget deficiencies to present themselves, this still holds up visually to just about any American film I’ve seen this year. Even the computer effects, which ramp up quite a bit as the film goes along, are genuinely impressive, whether it’s the more supernatural aspects of the characters or just the realisation of the brakes on the main elevator as they jut and throw its occupant around. But once you get past that presentation, things to start unravel very quickly.

Two By Two: Overboard (2021) - Movie Review

In 2015, around when the big PureFlix boom of Christian films was taking place, I watched and reviewed a kids’ film called Two By Two (or Ooops! Noah Is Gone, or All Creatures Big And Small, depending on the market). Aside from being thoroughly annoying and containing one of the dumbest creature designs of any animated feature, it’s also a film I never expected to think about again after writing that review. But then posters for this sequel started turning up, and it seemed that my preordained path was to once again wade into the hideously-textured waters of family-friendly Bible shenanigans. And much like the first time round, this was not pleasant to sit through.

The Father (2021) - Movie Review

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to look at a proper mind-screw of a film. And what’s more, this is about as far from the high-concept sci-fi trappings or Lynchian dream narratives I’ve come to associate such things with. This is as grounded as grounded gets, focusing on one man (Anthony, as played by Anthony Hopkins) as he interacts with his daughter (Olivia Colman), her husband (Rufus Sewell), and… well, beyond that point, it’s hard to tell. Because, for as domestic as this is, it might be one of the most disorienting films I’ve ever watched, let alone reviewed on here. And that's not an insult; that's me praising the fuck out of this movie.

Nobody (2021) - Movie Review

Okay… after the last three films turned out to be absolute shockers, I figured I’d hedge my bets on something that wouldn’t make me burst a blood vessel in anger. And for a modern action movie, it’s hard to think of a production in more stable hands than this one. From the director of the (in my humble opinion) criminally underrated Hardcore Henry, and the writer of John Wick (with Wick co-director David Leitch also on hand as producer), I was gearing up for something that matched those levels of transmedia fusion and world-building splendour. But I didn’t get that. No, these guys just found different avenues to make something awesome.