jtindahouse

Something that's creeping into more and more films I'm noticing is beginning with a scene from the end and then flashing back to however long before to find out how they got there. I suspect it's related to the success of 'The White Lotus' but it needs to stop. It adds nothing to the film and it takes all the suspense out of earlier scenes when those characters are in peril.

'Valiant One' was a passable movie. It's very short which helps it hide a lot of its flaws. It knew it had to get in and get out and it did. And the flaws are there if you look hard enough. The acting isn't great, there a number of highly implausible scenes and the characters are all over the place.

But if you switch your brain off and just decide to have a good time for 80 minutes then the film can work. Military survival films are always fun on some level. 6/10.

Everything that I've come to expect from Netflix films was blown out of the water in 'Havoc'. When I first heard about the film I thought, oh no, it's Tom Hardy's turn to show up for a Netflix paycheck like many before him. But I couldn't have been more wrong.

This was a wild ride. It's a film that takes itself very seriously. There's almost no humour to be found in the film. It's also extremely chaotic. There isn't a second to find yourself bored. The action starts and it never relents.

The film gets a lot of stuff right that these types of movies often get wrong. For example the main villain of the movie is genuinely menacing. This is proven in a great opening scene they gave her that told us everything we need to know. You do not mess with this woman.

The action sequences were also pretty incredible (to be expected from the director of 'The Raid' movies though of course). Unfortunately all future nightclub sequences are going to be compared to 'John Wick', but if you weren't comparing at all you'd say it was an amazing scene.

I don't know what the kill count was in the movie, but it would be truly enormous. And this is with a set of bad guys who couldn't hit a boat if they were standing on water.

If this is what Netflix is going to start producing going forward then sign me up. 8/10.

'Children of Men' is based off P. D. James novel, and while the film is good, it's impossible not to think the story would work better in written form. There's so much to explore with the concept, but the film is really just telling a survival tale.

One example, not once in the movie does anyone mention that the world may be better without humans. Meanwhile every single person left on the planet is seemingly a selfish scumbag bombing and shooting everything in sight. Maybe we're meant to come to those realisations on our own as an audience, but I would prefer to see characters explore the ideas.

It's a very good looking film. No effort has been spared in the set creation. It is clearly a film that has had a lot of loving care put into it. You'd expect nothing else with Alfonso Cuarón at the helm.

Ultimately I enjoyed the film, but not as much as I expected to. I wanted some more depth and more thoughtfulness put into the script. Even if it needed to be an extra 30 minutes long that would've been okay. 7/10.