davidwalker-94471

The main difference between the monarch-verse movies and the shin and minus one Godzilla movies is the balance between the monster story and the human story.

This one is pretty near perfect.

The human story is engaging and I was genuinely invested in the characters much more than the throw away cannon fodder of the monarch-verse.

At its heart this is barely a monster movie at all. It's a story about survivors guilt and post war depression. It's a love story set against unbearable tragedy and a story of friendship, loyalty and sacrifice.

It just so happens that there is also a seemingly unstoppable monster that keeps coming ashore and wrecking stuff.

Like shin, there's a bit of satire and a critique of government policy.

The beast is wonderfully rendered and the effects are superb. The understated score and emotional scrip and brilliant and there's some pretty decent turns from the acting leads here. Kamiki Ryunosuke and Miname Hamabe in particular are excellent but the supporting cast is very solid.

This might just be the best of a very large bunch.

When you watch a Zack Snyder movie, you know what to expect.

Slow motion shots, over stylised violence, slow motion shots, gritty location, slow motion shots, explosions and slow motion shots.

The first one wasn't very good and this one isn't very good.

Despite some attempts at tragic backstories I just don't care about any of the characters who are all pretty cliche. Ed Skrein is super annoying.

You have all kinds of idiocy going on here: a guy fighting in a laser cannon battle with an axe, pound store furiosa, one dude lobbing a bunch of grenades in the open door of a moving shuttle, teaching a bunch of farmers and villagers to fight in 2 days, digging impossibly complex tunnels rigged with explosives in the same timeframe, one scene where everyone is dressed like 13th century nobility and another where they're dressed like 1920s Chicago, name your cliche relationships some kind of subplot about a coup and being framed for it, an all-hope-is-lost-oh-wait-friends-arriving-at-the-last-moment ex machina bit, lots of yelling in victory despite literally half the village being dead and yet another sequel set up.

It's about flour remember.

I really enjoyed this.

Sort of found footage, sort of faux documentary, I really loved how this movie was presented.

David Dastmalchian is really very good. And the supporting cast are enjoyable, particularly Ingrid Torelli.

This movie is pretty creepy, and there are tones of exorcist and of VHS 85. There's a kind of Faustian deal at the stories core that I really liked and I found myself smiling quite a lot during the third act.

This movie may not be for everybody. It's obviously not big budget and the effects may not land with everyone but I thought it was a whole lot of creepy, campy fun.

First things first: the first omen is much better.

It might seem unfair to compare but they were literally released the same time give or take a coupe of weeks so here we are.

Sydney Sweeney is ok and I really liked the location but this movie is just full of flaws.

Primarily it isn't scary. Nothing about sister Cecilia says nun to me. That's also true of sisters Gwen and Isabelle. Aside from that, the motive for the antagonist is bonkers.

There's some gore that I kind of liked and the very final scene is my favourite of the whole movie but the climax up to that point is laughable.

I have a huge issue with characters surviving significant injury and this one really annoyed me. There's also a torture scene that made absolutely no sense at all.

I just didn't really like it.

Denis Villeneuve is some director. He is a visionary and has produced something truly epic in his Dune adaptation.

This movie is an incredible piece of cinema.

Visually phenomenal. Fast paced. The action is terrific and it really moves along from the first film which, although equally visually awesome, felt a little like an establishing chapter.

If I'm totally honest I am really tired of chosen one, prophecy type stuff but knowing the age of the source material (1965 I believe) and that it predates all those tropes I am more than willing to overlook what is my only potential gripe. It wouldn't be a fair critique.

I've seen some Star Wars comparisons. Mainly claiming that Star Wars ripped dune off in a number of ways. Consider the timeline and there is some credit to that claim.

I have not read any of Frank Herbert's work so I genuinely don't know where this series is going but if Denis Villeneuve keeps putting out visual spectacles like this, long may it continue.

I liked this one a lot.

It's pretty tense and atmospheric. The cast are all decent and I thought it was all pretty well executed.

There's a real sense of threat throughout and young Woody Norman was fantastic.

The movie plays on a number of childhood fears and the weird parents with something to hide are played well and with due creepiness.

The third act was perhaps a little far fetched but there's some good gore and nice scares. I get the feeling the ending might leave some people felling a little conflicted. For some it might seem unnecessarily ambiguous but for me it was a simple continuation of the childlike fear that featured throughout.

There are some effects that some may not like. I'm happy enough to forgive that.

This was decent.

This is a nice little slow burn psychological thriller.

I'm a fan of Maika Monroe, she seems to pick her movies carefully and I like her work. This is director Chloe Okuno's feature debut and I was intrigued to see this. I liked it.

It's a bit old school, playing on paranoia and suspicion rather than anything overt. I think it has a bit to say about how safe women feel and how suspicious that can make them. I thought the movie was throwing a curveball and it was a kind of double bluff.

As usual, there's the trope of disbelieving partner, so common in thrillers and horrors and which is a bit tired but I guess does add to the paranoia.

Overall, I really enjoyed this.

I think this serves as a pretty decent stand alone sci fi. I like quite a lot about this movie. The cast is good. Noomi Rapace in particular is very good.

I like the idea of the engineers, I like the idea of the black goo, I mostly like the idea that this all spawns the xenomorphs we know and love but I don't really understand why.

Not everything needs an origin story and I preferred Alien when we just thought they were out there somewhere. I don't think we needed an origin/backstory/genesis story.

Take out the final scenes which, if I'm honest, felt a little forced, and Prometheus would still have been a fairly decent sci fi.

And most notably, Prometheus does teach us not to run in a straight line.

This is a pretty bad movie but it is peppered with cool moments.

Obviously there's a lot that absolutely stinks. This crew is the dumbest crew of any spacecraft in any sci fi ever. The flute playing scene just really annoys me and there's so much utter stupidity on show it's almost a spoof.

That said, the back burster scene is cool, the shower scene called back to lambert in the original Alien and I like the evolutionary progression of David's experiments.

It's just a shame that they can't seem to reproduce the formula that made the first two so great. Great characters, high tension and good scares.

Nope. Didn't like this at all.

Every now and again I will watch the whole franchise and I will watch resurrection as part of that but I wouldn't reach for this movie any other time.

There are two things I like about this movie: the Xenos look good and I enjoyed Brad Dourif. I can't say much else for this movie besides that.

I don't like the space pirates. I don't like the Ripley clones. I don't like that they found any DNA in the furnace from Alien 3.

I didn't like the acid spitting.

I didn't like the human xeno hybrid.

I didn't like that it's still a surprise that there's an android.

This movie has no place in the Xenoverse and I do not consider in cannon.

Look; it doesn't hold a candle to the previous two instalments. That is clear. Alien is arguably the greatest sci fi horror ever made and Aliens is one of the best sequels ever. Alien 3 was always going to be tough.

I have always quite liked it though.

I saw an interview with Sigourney Weaver back when Alien 3 was released where she described aliens and a rollercoaster ride and Alien 3 like being trapped in a closet with the xenomorph. I like that analogy.

Obviously this movie was beset with production issues and ended up not really being the movie David Fincher wanted but still, I don't think it's all that bad.

I like the setting, I like the third act, all that running through the tunnels is pretty stressful. I like it a lot.

Things not to like include just doing away with newt and hicks in the opening credits. How did an egg get on board? Why are there two 'birth' scenes; one with a dog and one with an ox? And there's a line from Ripley "you've been in my life so long I can't remember anything else" which makes little sense. Follow the timeline and once you factor in hyper sleep it's only a few weeks since she first saw Kane's chestbuster on the nostromo.

It's not amazing and I'd love to see what was intended but honestly. It's not that bad.

If Alien is one of the greatest sci fi movies of all time, Aliens must be one of the best sequels ever made.

Aliens is fantastic. It's a sci fi, a horror and an action flick all at once. The ante has been upped in every way. The tension is unbearable at points. The introduction of a child to increase the threat. The sleazy company man, the armed-to-the-teeth military platoon and a swarm of xenos. Oh, and a huge, egg laying queen.

Ellen Ripley completely bosses it again. Sigourney Weaver really is absolutely terrific. As are all the cast in fact.

The directors cut is a must watch in my opinion. The extra scenes add lots of additional context to the scale of the threat, the reason Ripley changed her mind and agreed to go back to LV426 and also adds a dimension to the face off with the queen.

Some of which makes less sense when you add David and the black goo into the origin.

This movie is the franchise peak and is in my top five movies of all time.

This is an all time classsic movie. A sci fi masterpiece and a seminal horror trailblazer.

There's a documentary called "memory - the origins of alien" which is fantastically interesting and I would thoroughly recommend.

This movie is incredibly tense. The acting is great, the production is claustrophobic and grimy. The creature is an all time classic and HR Giger's visuals will live long in cinema lore.

Sigourney Weaver is simply terrific and although the "final girl" trope was already established in cinema Ellen Ripley could rightly be considered queen of the final girls.

There are some of cinemas most iconic moments here, not least the chest burster scene and Veronica Cartwright's reaction. Absolute gold.

There's some interesting themes about penetration and impregnation offered in a gender reversed way.

Alien is just a great movie. Genuinely terrifying too.

When I think sci fi I think Alien.

This is a middle of the road horror movie. It's a feature length remake of a short from 2017 by the same director.

The central idea is solid enough and the ending is okay. I like a bleak ending.

I didn't find it particularly creepy or scary at all.

Freya Allan tries hard enough but I didn't find that the rest of the supporting cast carried much weight.

There are themes of loss and trauma and undertones of patriarchal control but I don't think this is a movie trying to have any kind of purpose or meaning.

It certainly isn't the worst horror movie of 2024 but it is just pretty unremarkable.

I thought this an unnecessary prequel but I actually enjoyed it a lot.

This movie has a lot going for it. The cast are great. Nell Tiger Free is good as the lead and there's plenty of great support. Sonia Braga is suitably sinister, Bill Nighy is earnest and Ralph Inneson manages to give a bit of Patrick Troughton.

Fans of the original will spot plenty of callbacks or rather, as a prequel, plenty of foreshadowing I guess.

There's a handful of jump scares but overall there's a decent sense of foreboding and tension that grows as the movie progresses. I thought Arkasha Stephenson builds the atmosphere nicely.

There's a couple of scenes slightly more graphic than you might have expected. A little less 'subtly suggested' than previous franchise instalments.

This is a decent effort.

I was torn on afterlife. The whole digital Harold Ramis was problematic and the big bad being a rehash of the original seemed like an exercise in nostalgia porn.

I was looking forward to this.

It is okay.

Loads of callbacks and legacy characters which is fine. The big bad was terrifying but honestly, just how many super powerful ancient deities are we expected to believe exist in this franchise? Gozer, Vigo now Garakka.

The cast are decent. The comic relief seems forced and not actually very funny. The sub plot where Phoebe befriends a ghost was actually interesting and I wish that had been explored more. Might have added some depth to the franchise.

The effects are hit and miss. Garakka looks like he's from a 5 year old Xbox game.

I almost groaned at the "I know someone who can explain all this" cliche. With pictures.

All in all it's fun enough.

Honestly I found this movie so boring.

I like Joaquin Phoenix, he is fantastic in everything he does and I guess he's fairly solid here. Vanessa Kirby is okay.

I just found this movie slow, long, ponderous and kind of unnecessary.

Mainly it's so inaccurate from a historical sense, I just can't understand why it isn't so much more engaging. I mean if you are going to ignore history in a historical biopic, at least make it fun.

It isn't totally awful, it's shot well and like I said, the leads are decent. I didn't enjoy the dialogue and I'm not completely sure what kind of picture Ridley Scott was actually trying to paint.

I guess I was just expecting more.

Dakota Johnson has done well to recover from the 50 shades series. Man I hate those movies.

This is a new career low.

If you'd never seen a superhero movie and you watched this, I fear you'd never watch another.

All of this movie sucks. All of it.

I'm not going to say anything that hasn't been said besides the fact that i just can't find anything to defend. Literally the only thing I enjoyed was the cranberries song 'Dreams' during the closing credits.

I only watched this because I wanted to judge for myself rather than believe the hype. Well, anti hype.

I'm just glad I didn't pay to see it.

I actually enjoyed this one.

The opening sequence was interesting. It laid bare much of the real horror of society and set out what would be the killer's motive nicely.

Once we got into slasher territory it was actually pretty decent fare.

Some of the kills were gnarly and creative. There's a couple of real standouts for gore hounds involving a trampoline, a circular saw, a parade pilgrim ship and some creative cookery.

There's a fair bit of slasher cliche. A red herring suspect you could spot coming a mile away and I actually guessed the real killer. The cast is okay. Pretty and not that likeable, standard.

Overall it's not a bad effort. Eli Roth has been divisive but this is one of his more enjoyable offerings.

Some people will hate this film. I've yet to speak to anyone who really loved it. But I guess that's kind of the point. There's no real hero here. Nobody for the majority of the audience to relate to. There's some pretty rough scenes that will make you wince and squirm and I really think that's what is intended.

It's a satire about late stage capitalism and class and elitism. It's darkly comic.

At its heart, I think it's a movie about sociopaths doing sociopath things and if that made you feel good or comfortable then, well..... Barry Keoghan is decent although his Liverpool accent is occasionally a little shaky.

I like the soundtrack, I like the direction and I like the ending.

I read an interview with the director Neil Marshall that he had read a review of (the excellent) Dog Soldiers where the reviewer asked "when will a British director make a genuinely scary Horror?".

Gauntlet thrown, the result was the Descent.

I have always liked this movie. It is genuinely scary. It's claustrophobic, atmospheric and extremely well made.

It is also a growing force that asks a different question each time I watch it.

Basic story is a group of friends go caving in an uncharted cave system, get stuck, realise they're not alone and have to fight for survival against a subterranean population of mutated humanoids. It is much, much more that that. Early on the main character suffers unimaginable trauma which hits you hard. The caving trip happens a year later and the groups is still hugely grief stricken (for various reasons) and the trip is an attempt to restore some semblance of the lives they used to know.

The film is about grief.

There are also overtones of female identity. An all female cast, an exploration of what it is to be a mother and a wife and I've even read about the cave system itself being representative of a woman's body. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not but it's interesting.

The film is about womanhood.

What is fantastic about this movie is the ending. It's a little ambiguous and very much open to interpretation. Pretty bleak either way. Theories abound as to what the descent is. A descent into a cave system or a descent into madness. Our final glimpse of Sarah might indicate the latter and that then poses questions about the whole movie.

The film is about madness.

It's a proper horror and a cracking piece of British cinema.

Yeah, it's a film about a haunted pool.

It's what you think it is.

Well, its not really a haunted pool, it's a kind of sentient spring on which a pool has been built. A spring with magical powers to grant your wishes but at a cost.

It wants to be amityville in the water; aquatyville?!? But it's just so boring.

No tension, no frights, no atmosphere, no surprises.

There's a movie somewhere about a pair of haunted jeans. I haven't seen that but I imagine it's a bit more enjoyable than this yawn fest. January releases are normally a fair indication of a studio realising they've made a piece of garbage.

I think that's a fair assessment.

This might be the greatest TV show ever made.

I know the ending was divisive and disappointing but during the run of this show we saw some all time iconic TV moments. I've not read the books so I'll not comment of the source material or any inconsistencies with George Martin's epic saga.

Some of my favourite characters exist in this series. So many richly written and well acted heroes and villains with so many interlocking arcs it really was an ambitious project.

The big budgets, the fantastic cast, the brilliant storytelling, the huge production and even the special effects are mesmerising. Honestly, even the title music is just epic.

Every good show needs a decent antagonist and here we have a succession of some of teh best (worst) TV villains ever. Joffrey, Ramsey Bolton, Cersei, the night king and his horde. I cheered at Joffrey's demise and a almost clapped with glee when Ramsey got his.

I've heard thrones described as "peter stringfellow's Lord of the Rings" and it's certainly not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I mean episode 1 sees a small boy thrown from a window because he witnessed incest and that's nothing like the most shocking thing we're shown.

If the purpose of TV is to entertain then all the dragons, sword fights and incredible dialogue, quite a lot of which is delivered by the quite excellent Peter Dinklage, will hold this show up. If the purpose of TV is to stir an emotional response from an audience then check out the red wedding or just consider the phrase "hold the door".

I don't really go in for hype and I don't like watching stuff because everyone else tells me it's great. I didn't start watching thrones until season 5 was airing but we binged up to date and for a while I measured the passing of time by how long it was until the next season of thrones.

I really enjoyed this series. It's as harrowing, as tough and as unforgiving as the terrain traversed by the Duttons and their cohort.

There are a number of very well written characters in this series and the acting is terrific. Sam Elliott in particular is fantastic but Tim McGraw and Faith Hill put in brilliant turns. Isabel May, who you might argue is the main character and also the narrator, is brilliant and you really root for her.

The show is the story of how the Dutton family of Yellowstone fame, came to settle in Montana and follows their often perilous and extremely harsh journey from Texas with a band of German immigrants, a couple of war veterans and some colourful cowboys.

It serves not only as a prequel to later series but also as kind of dramatised historical documentary. The trials and tribulations faced travelling by foot along the pioneers trail are harsh and unforgiving and shown here in harrowing ways. Bandits, rattlesnakes, tornadoes, wild rivers, smallpox and about 1,000 other ways to die.

Shot beautifully, it really paints a dual picture of how tough life was back then but also, what incredible countryside the USA has to offer. As a Brit, it's tough to get my head around the sheer scale of untouched and unspoiled country still available in the rural US.

The genre of the western kind of canalised itself out of mainstream existence a couple of decades ago but there have been a number of very solid offerings in recent years. 3:10 to Yuma, Hostiles and the Hateful Eight to name just a few. 1883 is well up there.

The first Godzilla film I ever saw was the 90s Hollywood blockbuster and having seen a few since, I understand why that was so widely hated.

OG Godzilla is clearly a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear power. Coming from the one country to have suffered the rough end of that it has a huge significance.

Shin Godzilla has lots to say too. There are themes about international relations, Japan's history and its anxieties about its place in the modern world.

Gojira himself doesn't have a huge amount of screen time but what we do get is a very different monster than we've seen before. Evolving and mutating before our eyes, adapting to eliminate its own weaknesses.

The effects are solid enough although I have to say the first form does look a little daft and reminded me of one of those memes where someone had stuck Cookie Monster googly eyes on a xenomorph from alien. The scene where Gojira develops his atomic breath is pretty frightening though.

At its heart this is a political tale and it's not really subtle about that with all the character focus being on government officials and nothing really given to the 3.5million evacuated refugees apart from being mentioned. The repeated use of the term "collateral damage" serves as a stark reminder of average Joe's place in the order of things.

There's a widely discussed ending shot which is open to interpretation and has spawned a number of theories. Which I like.

Overall this is a decent film and I enjoyed it.