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I really don't really remember the last time I felt this much constant, gut-wrenching tension for the entirety of a film's runtime but that's exactly what Civil War sets out to accomplish and I was totally gripped from almost the first scene to the final one. Make no mistake; it's a frequently tough watch but that's clearly by design and I'm in complete awe at what Alex Garland pulled off with this film.

I can't say enough about how well this film utilises tension. It's relentlessly bleak but it's not joyless and those moments of levity make the atrocities that Garland portrays all the more impactful. This whole thing is a love letter to journalists and their importance (as twisted as that might sound) and every situation these characters find themselves feels totally earned and with the overwhelming awareness that they're not action heroes who can fight their way out of any danger. Something as simple as car approaching in a rear-view mirror in instantly anxiety-inducing and I constantly found myself scanning the frame for the next threat these characters were going to face, something I haven't found myself doing since the likes of Dunkirk or 1917.

This central group are relentlessly likeable and the acting is outstanding. Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny really are the heart of the movie and I loved the mentor-mentee relationship they developed. They've got excellent chemistry and I loved the ways in which their relationship develops. There's a choice Spaeny's character makes towards the very end that I know has rubbed some the wrong way but it felts totally earned to me and a totally natural progression. Stephen McKinley Henderson might've just managed to be my favourite character in the film and despite hearing non-stop acclaim about Jesse Plemons role nothing could have prepared me for how terrifying he and his scene truly was. It's one of the best one-scene performances I've ever seen and it's proof more than ever that he's one of the best actors we have.

I hesitate the call the fighting depicted in this movie action scenes but they are brutally realised and I loved the documentarian approach Garland took. I watch a lot of war films, filled with violence, but this is the first time in a long time I've been genuinely disturbed by a film's content. The gun shots are genuinely terrifying, I jumped more than once, and all the gore on display is unbelievably effective. I know some have taken issue with Garland's apolitical stance but with the film being from the perspective of these characters, namely as observers to the conflict and not participants, it felt totally right to me. My only real issues come down to some of Garland's creative choices. I think the editing overall is very solid but sometimes the transitions between scenes could be too abrupt for their own good and it did leave me wanting more from certain sequences. There's also some fairly irritating music choices that frequently felt jarring, sometimes for the better but mostly for the worse.

I definitely had some concerns going into Civil War but Alex Garland may have just made his magnum opus for me. I was riveting from the first scene to the final one and it's one of the most brutally effective films I've seen in recent memory. It does such a good job at drawing attention to the importance of journalists and I for one appreciate the apolitical approach that the script took. It's one of A24's best offerings and I want nothing but success for it going forward.

The biggest issue this movie has is that it seems to be much more focused on pay off than it is set up. The inciting incident of the whole thing comes way too early before the characters and dynamics have time to be properly established. It also has a pretty bad habit of bringing up plot elements right before they come into play so it makes some of the twists and turns less impactful. At 94 minutes things do feel a bit too rushed through for it's own good but I always felt as though I was feeling what I was supposed to.

Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain are outstanding and make this thing almost constantly riveting to watch. It's also a great vehicle for tension and the filmmakers did such a good job at creating situations to get the most anxiety inducing results. It surprisingly manages to blends it's grief themes and thriller elements extremely well and even if some of the reveals feel as if they come in the wrong order nothing felt out of place or jarring.

Knowing this film is based on a novel does make me think there's a more sturdy execution of this story available but it's still not without impact. It's got 2 phenomenal performances at it's centre and when these character are sharing scenes is where this movie feels the most effecting. While it's definitely a flawed experience, it's something I can absolutely see myself recommending.

The best thing I can say about Dev Patel's work behind the camera in Monkey Man is that it really didn't feel like a directing debut. Honestly, given some of the action feats he pulls off in this movie it felt closer to fairly seasoned pro delivering a long time passion project.

Apart from the occasional overuse of shaky cam, I thought this was gorgeously directed. It's really colourful from a cinematography perspective and it's brutally well realised as an action experience. There aren't quite as many action scenes as I was expecting but I don't really mean that as a criticism. A lot of people have lamented to first 30 minutes or so of this movie as being slow but to me it felt more like deliberate character developing and world building. When the action scenes eventually do come they feel that bit more satisfying because of the build up. Even if I see where some of the John Wick comparisons are coming from this felt far more dirty and raw as an action vehicle and I was just so impressed with Dev Patel's execution of his vision.

It's also actually pretty solid from a writing perspective, even if it is where a majority of the films flaws originate from. I think they do just enough to make this character endearing and invest us in the journey he goes on and Patel makes full use of this opportunity to play an against-type character. I already said that I appreciated the deliberate pace of the 1st act, it always felt something was happening and something of consequence was being built up to. It's after that first act however where the pacing starts to become a bit choppy. The whole thing sort of grinds to a halt after the first 3rd and it almost feels like the film starts over again with a whole introduction to new sets of characters and I already felt like I was as invested as I needed to be. I also think Patel spoons feeds us this characters backstory a bit too slowly for what ends up being a pretty run-of-the-mill origin.

Monkey Man might not reinvent the wheel from a story point of view but this felt like a fully realised vision from beginning to end. I'm so glad Jordan Peele saved this movie from the streaming wasteland because this deserves to be seen on a big screen and talked about for the experience that it delivers. Even if the script has its flaws, the writing is still a lot more solid than it had any right to be. Whether it's another entry in this character's story, another original action movie or something completely different I'll be very interested to see what Dev Patel does next as a director.

The New Empire doesn't exactly shed itself of all the issues I've had with the MonsterVerse movies so far but it thankfully lessens the things I've been frustrated with and it made for quite a fun ride.

Don't get me wrong the characters still aren't up too much. I don't think they're that deep or particularly memorable but they are likeable. They have genuinely good chemistry and even if I felt the film could've taken itself a bit more seriously at points, I still found it a lot funnier than it had any right to be. There's also significantly less of them compared to King of The Monsters and Godzilla Vs. Kong and it does wonders for the pacing.

Since they're not trying to balance so many characters and subplots it makes the whole thing feel much more streamlined and I can honestly say I was never bored, which was not my experience with the last films. It's very fast paced but more importantly it always felt like there was something important happening. Don't get me wrong it's no masterpiece of writing, the dialogue is still bland and the story non-existent but for what I needed from this film it hit just the right sweet spot.

I also loved the fact that there were whole sections devoted exclusively to Kong. In past instalments this time probably would've gone to boring human characters but this is much more along the line of what I want to see. The kills are brutal, the action's fun and even if it devolves a bit too much into CGI noise in the 3rd act I still thought it was fun with some actual sense of scale.

After very little anticipation from me in a long stretch of these movies that I haven't really enjoyed this was quite a pleasant surprise. It's not immune to all this series flaws but it's been more than refined enough to create for an enjoyable experience. It's no Minus One but it's a lot more fun than I ever would've expected.

Maybe I watched a different Kung Fu Panda than everyone else, or too many people have gone into it with a massive stick up their ar*e, but I thought this was a total blast. Honestly I'm kind of surprised at the more mixed reaction this seems to be getting compared to the rest of the franchise.

This definitely feels like it's more content to have a fun ride than have a meaningful message compared to the other films but it succeeds at the latter to a degree that it didn't bother me that much. The animation is gorgeous, I think that's something we take for granted too much nowadays, especially given the smaller budget and I also thought it was really creative visually. It's consistently very funny and yes it might be childish humour but I don't know what else I'd expect from this kind of movie. Jack Black is effortlessly watchable (listenable?), Awkwafina is proving to be a perfect comedic sidekick not to mention James Hong and Bryan Cranston who have a surprisingly fun subplot. I didn't really care much for the villain this time round, a bit of a waste of Viola Davis if I'm being honest, and I did think the climax could've been stronger but those are most of the things holding it back for me.

I knew exactly what I wanted from Kung Fu Panda 4 and it pretty much gave me want I was hoping for. It's not particularly deep, compared to the standard set by the other movies that is, but it's still a very enjoyable ride. I doesn't reach the heights of the second film for me but this is a really solid entry in a surprisingly reliable franchise.

I don't really think you can, or really should, talk about this movie without at least addressing it's use of AI in the creation of some of its images. Personally I do feel a bit disappointed that the filmmakers chose to take that step. It's not something I support and I don't think there are any justifiable reasons for its use in the creation of art. Having said that though I would rather a film of this scale and smaller budget use it in the creation of a few frames rather than a blockbuster of considerably more resources creating whole pages of dialogue or fully rendered scenes or sequences. I've been gratified at the intense response it's provoked here because the less acknowledgment it has the easier it'll be for studio heads to expand AI use in their future productions.

To the judge the film purely on its quality however, I thought this was a totally gripping experience and one of the most unique executions of a horror premise I've seen. I totally fell for the aesthetic these filmmakers were trying to create and I was frequently in awe at how successfully executed it was. It never felt like they were just going for a found footage format with a 70's filter over it. Everything from the grainy quality of the images and the slight echo added to all of the audio is done in aid of the recreation of this era of television. Although I was frequently impressed with it but thankfully more often than not I forgot about it and just became taken by the ride this movie takes you on.

It's not just the technical aspects either, the dialogue and character interactions feel so genuine and like they're ripped straight out of a classic episode of Johnny Carson or Dick Cavett. A lot of this success is also owed to David Dastmalchian who I've always loved as an actor in the usually smaller roles he's given and I got a total kick out of seeing him lead a film like this. He's essentially giving 2 performances; the on screen persona of a talk show host and the man we see behind the scenes and he pulls it all off perfectly. He manages to be funny and totally effecting in a way that made me never quite sure how to feel about the character and those are the kind of protagonists I really love, especially when it comes to horror.

My issues only really come down do how the directors deviate from the rules they establish for themselves. We frequently follow the character in the behind-the-scenes portions of the show and it isn't always handled with the same restraint that the on-air scenes are. Too often it felt like they resorted to normal shot compositions with a black-and-white filter and it did sometimes break the illusion the rest of the movie was going for. There's also a pretty large exposition dump that opens the film which felt like it was trying way too hard to deliver background on this character rather than spoon feeding it more naturally throughout the rest of the narrative. I also thought the third act went a little bit off the rails for what the rest of the film was trying to set up but I never didn't find it effective.

I truly think that the AI discourse should be, and needs to be, a part of the conversation surrounding this movie but I don't want that to eclipse just how fantastic it really is. I found this quite inspiring as a filmmaker and I have so much respect for the vision these directors went for with this film and just how well they executed it. After how many duds 2024 has given us so far, Dune: Part Two aside, seeing a film of this originality really made me happy. People craving originality in theirs movies really should be going out their way to see Late Night with The Devil because I've never seen a horror film quite like this one.

The Coens have historically been hit and miss for me but I don't think either of them have made this much of a nothing movie before. The whole thing just feels so flat and uninspired to the point where it just feels like the palest possible imitation of their own work. There's a few interesting flourishes behind the camera but they just end up feeling out of place in the overall dull experience that this movie ends up being. I thought Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan were solid but I never really bought into the connection these characters supposedly have and for a less than 90 minute movie this dragged unbelievably. I couldn't tell you what tone Coen was going for with a gun to my head and the humour just comes across as all the lowest hanging fruit imaginable. All l can say for now is thank god for Dune: Part Two because otherwise 2024 has been almost a complete pit for movies so far.

Dune: Part Two represents cinema in its purest form and is proof, more than ever, that it is alive and thriving for as long as we have masters like Denis Villeneuve telling stories on this scale. I rarely leave a theatre feeling as though I've witnessed the birth of a new classic but Dune: Part Two does everything to ensure its place in cinema history. It's everything film can possibly be but more importantly it's everything that it should be.

Villeneuve takes all of the world building and character development he established in the first film and just runs with it from the get go but not in the way that I expected. I certainly wasn't expecting a faced paced movie but I was amazed and just how much Villeneuve took his time in setting up this second chapter. We get a lot of one-on-one time with these characters both before and in between the jaw dropping spectacle on display and it represents a complexity of character and perfectly developed conflicts that we haven't seen to this degree since The Lord of The Rings.

We're really about an hour in before the war that's being set up truly begins to come to ahead and because of the immense amount of time taken to build up these character and stakes nothing feels anything less than perfectly realised. Despite all the set up from the first film, Part Two effortlessly builds upon and expands this world in ways that are both visually sumptuous but also perfectly developed from a writing perspective. The visual effects are astounding, the use of scale is incredible and it has some of the best battle sequences ever put to film all of which come to ahead in an all-timer of a third act. It's one for the history books and it's only going to further cement the legendary status that this entire cast and crew are operating on.

I haven't read the book because I wanted to experience this entire story through the eyes of Villeneuve and despite knowing some of the broad strokes of how this thing concluded, nothing could've prepared me for the way in which this story perfectly unfolded and was brought to a close. I left the theatre truly shaken and feeling as if I'd seen something that I couldn't fully comprehend upon a first viewing and it's already left me with a burning desire to go back and experience it for a second time. One of the highest praises I can give any film is that I'm saddened I'll never get to experience it for the first time again and I can't remember the last time I was this excited to see the conclusion of a trilogy.

I definitely need time to fully digest the experience that was Dune: Part Two but as of now I can truly call it a masterpiece in every sense of the word. There's nothing present in this film that doesn't feel as if it's operating on peak form and if this whole thing doesn't represent filmmaking perfection then I don't know what does. The hype surrounding this movie did not oversell this experience at all, I don't think anything could've fully prepared me for this and I know as of now that it won't just go down a phenomenal theatre-going experience but really just a memory worth cherishing.

I've heard many people say that Madame Web makes Morbius look like The Dark Knight but I'd say it makes it look like Batman Forever, Maybe? Because this film doesn't really work on any level and the only reason I didn't want to claw my eyes out from boredom was that I was constantly fascinated to see what basic filmmaking and storytelling techniques it was going to fail to execute next. It was like watching a car crash in real time and I couldn't take my eyes of it for all the wrong reasons.

Credit where credits due, there is actually some actual ingenuity behind the camera here but almost every scene feels like it's shot by a different director. At its best it's inconsistent but at its worst it's totally incomprehensible both tonally and visually. I liked this central trio quite a bit but the character's outside of them fell totally flat, to put it mildly. Dakota Johnson gives a boring performance for an even more boring character. Her power are poorly executed with some pretty nauseating editing and her connection to other characters from the Spider Man universe feels like a needle drop for no one.

I actually feel quite bad for Tahar Rahim here because this has got to be one of the worst villains I've seen in a movie, maybe ever, and that character is essentially the personification of everything that's wrong with this movie. His backstory and motivations make no sense, everything he does is horribly executed because of the atrocious CGI and almost every line of his sounds like it's been overdubbed and it's as distracting as it sounds. Every scene in this movie is either over too quickly or dragged out way too long. I think for the first half I couldn't help but be amazed at the disaster that was unfolding in front of me but by the time the second half came around I was just bored and I wanted it to be over.

I don't even know if I can truly blame the actual filmmakers of this movie because this entire thing just reeks of something that was torn apart in the editing room by studio execs. The problem is that I doubt it was a very good movie to begin with. I don't know who Madame Web is for but more importantly I don't know why it exists beyond the most cynical of corporate greed. I actually did kind of enjoy watching this movie to a degree but in the same way I enjoyed watching The Room or Cats. This entire film feels like the embodiment of all the worst aspects of the current superhero movie climate. I'm never happy to see movies fail but I need the incoming flop of Madame Web to be a sign that things have to change for this genre to thrive again.

One Love feels like a totally cynical corporate product and one that contains all of the worst aspects of the recent musical biopic trends in one film. I don't think it does anything to get to the heart of why Bob Marley was as revered as he was and it's completely lacking any of the impact or energy it needed to tell his story in an effective way. Like most of these movies, I know very little about the real life figures being portrayed and if I only had this movie to go off I would be completely dumbfounded as to why any of these events were worth being depicted on film.

The whole thing just feels totally flat and without life. Kingsley Ben-Adir is fine but usually the one thing I can usually count on with these movies is outstanding acting but the script here didn't give him much to work with and it comes across in his performance. Rather than presenting an actual depict of this person, the whole thing just feels like the expected snapshots of Marley's career and life and it's so scattershot in it's execution that nothing the character does has much of any impact. Even something as simple as seeing him perform for the first time just comes and goes without any sort of impact and the story itself didn't serve the legend that Marley was any better.

I appreciate the fact that the film didn't go with the cradle-to-grave structure but it still took a very expected and uninspired approach. After some very badly inserted text, it seems to be established that the whole thing is going to revolve around the build up to one concert but that's mostly done away with within the first 30 minutes. After that the whole thing just chugs along at a totally meandering pace full of bland montages and eye rolling family drama that just makes the entire film feel unfocused. That's in large part due to bad editing and also fairly uninspired work behind the camera.

The whole technical approach feels totally defunct and it never really felt like Renaldo Marcus Green or the writers decided what they wanted to say about this man's life and legacy. The film drops us into the middle of Marley's career without any kind of indication as to why he became such a phenomenon or how he came to be the way he is and because of that I was never that invested in the journey the film tries and fails to take him on. There's also a lot of political and social elements at play in this script that are supposed to motivate Marley and none of it feels tangible. The few moments of social upheaval we see are few and far between and even then they're executed it a totally uninteresting way that totally rob them of effectiveness. The film also ends before Marley can actually accomplish much of anything so the whole narrative just ends up feeling like a prolonged first act.

I always thought that something like Bohemian Rhapsody would be the worst thing to come out of the musical biopic phenomenon but I actually think I'd rate that movie over One Love. Because for all that films faults, and it has too many to list here, I at least thought it did some justice to the legendary status of Queen as well as having some genuinely riveting concert sequences. This film not only totally fails at presenting an interesting portrait of its title character but it's also totally un-engaging as a viewing experience. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on Marley or his music but even as a passive admirer I am still totally aware at how much this film doesn't do his legacy justice. As of now, I think it's time these musical biopics stopped until we get approaches that feel fitting for the lives and long lasting impact of these musicians.

American Fiction is the one of the best recent examples I can think of that takes a mundane subject matter and presenting it in a truly fascinating way. Because the idea of a black author writing the most stereotypical, cliche-ridden book possible on the so-called "black experience" and dealing with the consequences doesn't immediately sound like the most captivating watch. In the end though, I was honestly amazed at just how engaging this movie ended up being throughout.

This is without a doubt one of the funniest movies I've seen in the last year. It's very effective as a dark comedy but it also does what all the best satires should do and shock you at just how plausible all the situations it's presenting are. I adored Jeffrey Wright as this main character who I never quite knew how to feel about in all the right ways. He's part genius, part snake oil salesman and the scenes where he's having to wrestle with his own morality are my favourite in the whole movie, and also frequently the funniest. I also loved Sterling K. Brown as his younger brother who adds a good dose of wholesomeness to the whole thing. The script has so much to say about African American representation in the media and I never thought it missed a beat in how it's commentary. It's so fascinating in how it depicts this subject and I respected how it debated the ways in which modern society has created these cliches but also the ways in which the artists themselves are perpetuating them as well. I will say that the film does follow 2 distinct plot threads and anything away from the publishing world I was never quite as interested in, though I will say I was almost equally as invested.

I really, truly loved the approach this movie took and it's one of the most memorable 2023 movies I've seen. It's got so many quotable lines and I loved the experience of watching these hilarious scenes in a theatre. It has so much to say and I never found it clunky in its execution, honestly I already can't wait to watch it again to pick up on new details. Despite being an adaption of a book, it still feels wholly original and I really don't feel as if I've seen a film depict representation in this manner. Believe me when I say that this 100% deserves the massive amount of excitement it's generated and I could honestly recommend it to anyone.

First of all, a big thank you to the 3 teenagers I got sat next to for this. Who thought a foreign language, holocaust film was the right place to laugh hysterically between themselves, talk non stop and throw things at each other for the entire film.

That aside thought this is one of the best films I've ever seen that I'll probably never watch again. It's so brutally effective in every way to the point where almost every shot is designed to make you feel uncomfortable in some way. It's got maybe the best use of sound I've heard from a 2023 movie (yes I do remember Oppenheimer) and it constantly left me confused about how to feel in all the right ways.

It's really hard to make a good Holocaust movie because they all really need to have something unique to say about these horrific events. But I can honestly say The Zone of Interest is one of the best films I've seen in this genre. Really happy this lived up to it's massive acclaim and even if I'll never watch it again, I can't see it leaving me anytime soon.

Argylle is a disappointingly generic offering from Matthew Vaughn which does nothing to raise him out of the current slump he's in. Because up until now he's always been a master at taking familiar plot structures and using them to make a subversive take on tried and tested story tropes. He did this for superheroes in Kick Ass and for the spy genre in the first Kingsman movie. Argylle on the other hand barely has a single original idea in its entire runtime so it just doesn't feel like it's doing anything of substance with this fairly familiar story. It's not only totally uninspired as a viewing experience but also a pretty boring one at that.

I don't know what happened to the Matthew Vaughn of old who used to be so good at telling concise, focused stories because this yet another film of his that felt massively overindulgent. Though that may be to light a word to describe just how poorly paced this movie is because almost every single scene in this thing overstays it's welcome. No matter how many great action scenes and funny moments there were, when you drag these moments on for too long they lose almost all of their effectiveness. The totally bog standard story doesn't do anything to justify the runtime it's given and Matthew Vaughan's serious lack of restraint in editing robs the entire film of any pace or urgency.

I wouldn't really say I was that impressed in the writing or visual departments. It's a pretty bland looking movie overall with some impressive action but a massive overuse of CGI that frequently took me out of the film. There are many reasons my the 3rd act basically collapsed in on itself for me but the horrendous effects were a large part of it. It feels like ever since the first Kingsman, Vaughn has been trying to top the, now iconic, church fight scene to no avail. The last act dials of the insanity up to ridiculous levels and in no good way. Vaughn just throws a series of ludicrous, over-the-top action sequences in our face back-to-back and not only do they fall totally flat, they actually made me cringe.

But like any film other film, Argylle lives and dies by it's script and quite frankly it's terrible. There's barely a single original idea in this entire film and the whole spy-story-within-a-spy-story gimmick was interesting to begin with but it wore out it's welcome pretty quickly for me. The whole plot revolves around a standard McGuffin chase, a shadowy rogue spy organisation and hints of an amnesia plot. We've seen all this 100 times before and it's not used in a way that feels cheekily referential but just frustratingly lazy. I had very little investment in the Cavill sequences since they're established as fictional from almost the very start but I also didn't find Cavill's performance or the character to be that interesting. He's written as such a charisma vacuum and that's not something I'd ever associate Cavill with. It felt like they just kept forcing the Argylle character into the narrative to capitalise on Cavill's star power rather than because the character warranted repeated inclusion. I liked Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell as a pair and they did have good chemistry but some of the twists and turns related to their characters I found to be quite ridiculous honestly and it felt like Vaughn was pulling twists out of thin air rather than truly earning them.

I was truly hoping that Argylle would be the return to form for Matthew Vaughn that I've been waiting for but honestly this might just be the worst film he's ever made for me. I liked Golden Circle more than most but it was still a massive step down from the first, The King's Man on the other hand was a totally bland slog that never really justified it's own existence. But neither of those two films matched the level of wasted potential that Argylle exhibited for me. It just feels like Vaughn has totally lost sight of what made him and his films stand out in the first place and this feels like a bare template of a story without anything that makes it feel remotely original or subversive. I know it's only February but 2024 has already presented one of its biggest cinematic disappointments for me.

After the insane amounts of critical acclaim this movie has been getting it's disappointing that I found it to be a bit of a slog when all was said and done. Don't get me wrong it is beautifully performed, these 4 actors perform all of their emotionally charged scenes to perfection and I certainly can't say that I never felt anything while I was watching it. I just found the whole structure of the thing to be so repetitive that it started to become frustrating very quickly. Andrew Scott might be amazing at playing this character's long, protracted stares but when that ends up being half your movie I can't help but find it eye rolling after a while. There's also a development concerning one of these characters that I predicted from almost the very first scenes. I'm not always hyper critical of predictability as long as what's being foreshadowed is right for the narrative. But when it becomes so obviously apparent what the whole thing is trying to say so early on I can't help but feel like it loses a lot of its effectiveness. Not a film I would call bad per say but its very clear that I didn't get nearly as much out of it as most people.

It's certainly possible that the core story of The Colour Purple just doesn't do anything for me. Because I'm not a huge fan of Spielberg's movie either but at least I thought it was a consistent vision. It may have devolved into misery porn for me after a while but at least it was tonally consistent misery porn. That's not something I can say for this new movie because I can't remember the last time I felt this much tonal whiplash watching a film.

Because the choice to tell this story as a musical wasn't entirely successful for me. Because for as well produced and performed as these sequences are they are in constant clash with the overwhelmingly heinous actions taken against these characters. These women can go from experiencing physical, lawful and sexual abuse only for the filmmakers to jarringly cut to a highly choreographed, energetic musical sequence. It rarely feels smooth and it constantly makes the film feel as if it's at war with itself for what it wants to be.

Those sequences really are gorgeously produced and performed to their credit though as is the entire film. All though often to its detriment, there's energy through every single performance and shot in this film and I really appreciate that they didn't revert to the bare minimum of shot/reverse shot even for even simple dialogue scenes. But for as incredible as these performances are, character wise this script personally left a lot to be desired.

It makes sense that this main character is as passive as she is given the abuse she suffers but it took too long for her arc to come to fruition. Because the only time she ever takes any agency is through other characters. This might work for where she starts the film but it just robs the character of any real development. Supporting characters are constantly swooping in to make her important life choices for her, rather than having her actually receiving any growth of her own, by the time she finally starts making her own choices not only does it feel unearned but also far too late in the film to feel satisfying.

The resolution of her character arc might've been unearned but it pales in comparison to how these male abusers are treated. The husband characters played, admittedly very well, by Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins are portrayed as abusive to quite honestly ridiculous levels. Domingo's character is basically just portrayed as evil with almost no nuance or depth and Hawkins is written as wholly ignorant in a way that could've made sense but the entire resolution to those characters totally fumbles their entire arcs. There are elements of generational trauma given but it's not explored nearly deeply enough to justify their actions.

The script makes them horrific abusers from almost their very introduction and in the third act the filmmakers have the gall to try and redeem them. Not only does it fall totally flat but I actually found it fairly insulting as a viewer. Forgiveness should have limits but at the very least it should make sense from a writing perspective. Nothing in the first two acts gives any sense that these characters deserve redemption, nor that any other character would forgive them, and it made a large part of the last third totally infuriating to watch.

The Colour Purple was a frustrating experience for me. I may not totally connect with this story but I had far too many issues from a writing perspective to give the film the benefit of the doubt. It is an extremely well produced version of a deeply flawed script. It's completely lacking in depth or nuance and it's totally eye rolling in how it depicts the trauma of it's characters. Musical's are totally capable of dealing with dark subject matters but it's all down to tone and it honestly felt like this script had no barring on how it wanted to portray this story.

Look if you've seen the trailer for The Boys In The Boat you know exactly what you're going to get for better and for worse. There isn't a whole lot of originality in this movie, though to be fair you could also argue the real life story is one we've heard before as well. But it does a fairly solid job at presenting this premise we've seen before in an energetic way that I was more invested in than I expected to be.

Rowing probably isn't the most cinematic sport in the world but I think Clooney does a really good job at making it visually interesting and showing the physical toll it takes on these athletes. Even if the story itself is riddled with cliches it still worked more often than it didn't. It's fitted with a hardened coach, training montages and an extremely cheesy romance to cap it all off. I couldn't help but roll my eyes occasionally at all the familiarities but ultimately it helped to build up these characters and added real, tangible stakes to the final race that I did find quite gripping.

The familiar tropes aside, my biggest issues with this movie lies in some of the pacing and choices made by the editor. The first half in particular really lacks a lot of momentum which led to my attention wandering a lot because it felt like the film was hitting the expected beats rather than building to something meaningful. As much as I thought the climactic race itself was well done the build up to it did leave something to be desired. The film sort of feels like it has 2 climaxes when 2 separate curveballs are thrown at these characters in the 3rd act and sort of made me feel like the film was overstaying it's welcome by the time it ended. I also think the editing during some of the racing scenes could've been stronger. These boats all look very similar and I very often had a hard time distinguishing them on screen and I think cleaner editing would've helped with that.

The Boys In The Boat may not have had a lot of surprises but it's all about execution. It's a solid version of a story we've seen done before but these tropes are tried and tested for a reason. It takes a reasonably un-cinematic subject matter and translates it to the screen pretty successfully. It's definitely not the best of it's type but I was invested and I enjoyed my time with it and I can't ask for much more than that.

Poor Things is a movie that feels so telling of Yorgos Lanthimos as a filmmaker. Even in my limited experience with his movies, I'm genuinely not sure who else could've pulled off the very specific tone this movie employs. It left me with a lot to chew on thematically with scenes and imagery that are going to be burned into my brain always even if I had some issues with the actual narrative.

Emma Stone gives a fearless, awe inspiring performance as Bella Baxter that gave me a whole new level of respect for her as a performer and my respect for her was already high as it was. Her work here is a masterclass in cadence and physicality. There's a physical process that the character goes through and Stone plays it in a way that never felt showy or cartoonish but totally realised and I really enjoyed watching that process unfold. She is hysterically funny, as is the entire movie, and it's probably the best performance she's ever given. If she wins an Oscar for this it would be 100% deserving.

Even if I had issues with his execution, Poor Things makes me truly realise the auteur that Yorgos Lanthimos is. The film mixes so many different genres and themes in a way that could've felt chaotic in the wrong hands but Lanthimos never lost controlled of the unique vision that Poor Things is. It's gorgeously shot with some of the best production design I've seen all year and a use of colour that could've come across as pretentious but felt totally fitting for the journey that this character goes on. When it comes to the technical and performance aspects of this movie I was totally floored but I was left wanting quite a bit by the story itself.

There's just so much movie packed into the nearly 2 and a half hour runtime and it did come across as overly indulgent personally and I've got to say that the film felt longer than it actually was. It's purposefully quite directionless and episodic in nature as we follow Baxter on her adventures and various character interactions and Emma Stones committed performance and her impeccable chemistry with Mark Ruffalo makes even the saggier sequences engaging to watch. The problem comes with the scenes away from them. There's a subplot that develops with Willem Dafoe's character that sort of just felt like added on fluff when I was really enjoying experiencing this movie from the perspective of the Bella Baxter character. The film also grinds to a total halt in the last 30 minutes when a whole new plot point comes out of nowhere just as it felt like things were starting to wrap up. It killed the pacing of the 3rd act and felt like it was going out it's way to provide answers to questions I think I would've been better left ambiguous. A lot has been made about the explicit content and having seen it now I can absolutely see why. It never felt like Lanthimos was going for shock value but the amount of explicit sex scenes, particularly in the 2nd act, started to feel a bit tiresome for me and they did somewhat lose their impact after a while.

I certainly didn't come out of Poor Things feeling underserved, quite the opposite really. It's the most ambitious film I've seen in recent memory and I really loved the discussions this film provoked with the group I saw it with. I just wish I got more out of the story itself. I can honestly say I was never bored but my attention did waver more than I would've liked, especially in the 2nd half. It was such an interesting experience of a movie and even if I didn't love everything about it I was still left fascinating at just how much Yorgos Lanthimos gives you to chew on.

Priscilla is an interesting examination of fame and how it takes a toll on stars and their spouses but it falls short in one key area. Because for almost the entire film Sofia Coppola keeps Elvis as a character at a distance. Sometimes this works in the ways it portrays the growing wedge between him and Priscilla but as an audience member it made the character feel lacking for me. The central relationship starts extremely quickly and I never quite felt that the connection Elvis feels with Priscilla was earned. As a result I never really felt like the film got of the real heart of the relationship and I found the portrayal of Elvis to be widely inconsistent and I couldn't quite pin down what Coppola was trying to say about him. Granted I don't know much about Elvis as a person but I don't feel like I should have to do research to better understand a films depiction of a real life figure. I think Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi are great and even if the gradual tension building between them feels like it's missing key scenes they act it out perfectly. I wouldn't say this movie didn't do Priscilla Presley justice but the results did leave me wanting quite a bit. Not a misfire by any means but a film that absolutely falls short of its potential for me.

This was the perfect movie to watch on Christmas Eve for me especially after a long shift at a new job I've just started where I just wanted a comfortable viewing experience. I don't always go in for dramedy's but when they hit they absolutely hit and I really loved the journey this movie took me on. Despite the difficult themes it tackles, I found it so endearing as a viewing experience and I already cannot wait to see it again.

This movie made my cold, jaded heart feel something, many things actually, and I appreciate that on such a deep level whenever it happens. The recurring problem I've had with Alexander Payne movies is that I always find the characters unlikeable and in no endearing way but that wasn't my experience with The Holdovers at all.

This trio, played to perfection by Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, were such a delight to watch that I was constantly excited to see them interact more from scene to scene. The best thing I can say about their chemistry is that it always felt genuine and realistic. Despite the world class dialogue on display, I never felt like I was watching actors reading a script but real people working through their issues together as cheesy as it might sound.

The story isn't all that original but it doesn't really have to be. It's Payne's execution of it that makes the whole thing worthwhile. On a technical level, I really appreciate Alexander Payne's vision for this movie. It's very restrained and lets the performances speak for themselves and I loved the little stylistic flourishes that were meant to mimic the films of the 70's. Despite this being a story set up we've seen before, this movie still took some turns that I didn't see coming and every single character resolution I thought was basically perfect.

I loved seeing these characters together so much that I was actually disappointed when they spent time away from each other and some times for the better but occasionally for the worse. My only real issue with this script is the time devoted to the characters outside of this central trio. Any student characters who aren't Sessa are clearly there on a temporary basis and I was just waiting for Payne to remove them from the narrative and I do think he took a little bit too long to do that.

The Holdovers was just about everything I wanted it to be and I'm so glad it lived up to the hype after the long delay it's faced in the UK. I loved spending time with these character and I actually cared about where they were going to end up which is very difficult to do. I absolutely want to watch it again and I totally agree with the idea that this movie is going to become a Christmas rewatch for years to come.

Rebel Moon represents Zack Snyder is at his most self-parody like with a film that's all style without anything going on under the surface. I actually think Snyder is a much better filmmaker that he often gets credit for but all his usual gimmicks are dialled up to 11. It's boring, has no voice of its own, the universe never feels real or tangible with some pretty horrendously inserted exposition. The story itself is so basic which creates no sense of pace or urgency and none of these characters feel like they're given any real motivation to go on this quest Snyder is setting up. It suffers from major Part One Syndrome because the entire film just feels like an exposition dump to establish this world and never succeeds at building any intrigue. The whole thing just drags and the actual climax just comes out of nowhere and falls totally flat, as do all of the other action sequences. I've always appreciated the visuals of Snyder's films but the whole aesthetic of Rebel Moon is surprisingly washed out and kind of ugly. It doesn't have any of Army of The Dead's overuse of shallow depth of field thankfully but there barely a single memorable image in the whole runtime. Rebel Moon feels like Zack Snyder's ode to classic Sci Fi films without any of the understanding of what made them great or iconic in the first place. I have no interest in watching a directors cut when that's really the version of the film we should've been watching to begin with. The whole thing just represents all the worst aspects of Snyder as a filmmaker and it one of his worst films he's ever put out. I can hardly say I finished this with a burning desire to watch part two and with how it ends that's a pretty solid indication of the failure of storytelling that Rebel Moon is as a whole.

The most accurate word I can think of to describe Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom is annoying. Where the first film was hardly a masterpiece of the genre I thought it was over the top in all the right ways and because of that I actually mostly enjoyed it. This movie just doubles down on the insanity in all the worst ways and I ended up finding it borderline insufferable.

For the first 15 minutes or so I thought I could enjoy it in a so bad it's good sort of way but it's too stupid to even enjoy in that way. The script just makes so many errors on the most basic level that if you think about any thing about this story for more than a minute it just collapses. Nothing that gets set up pays off in any meaningful way and most of the resolutions fell totally flat. It can't decide on a tone, it drags majorly and most of the humour made me cringe in all the worst ways.

The performances really suffer as a result cause they're pretty poor across the board. I've liked Jason Momoa as this character but he's just too campy in this movie to take anything he's doing seriously, even actors of Yahya Abdul-Manteen II and Nicole Kidman's calibre deliver their lines in the flattest way possible but with the material they're given I can hardly blame that on them. I'm happy that Willem Dafoe was spared from this mess at least.

The finale is the most bog standard CGI noise of a climax that we've seen so many times before that I was just totally bored watching it, at least the first film had some sense of spectacle to it. There's the odd fun action scene but the pretty dreadful visual effects just constantly took me out of it. The villain is terrible after a decent set up in the first film with the most generic motivations possible.

The Lost Kingdom ends the DCEU with the biggest thud imaginable. It's been up and down since the beginning but it deserved a better conclusion than the soulless slog that this movie turned out to be. This might be the worst movie they ever made because at least Justice League had a happy conclusion with the Snyder Cut. There's nothing in this movie you haven't seen 100 times before and I've never been more ready for a total reboot of this universe.

Ferrari ends up being such a slog of a movie in place of what should've been a thrilling an interesting portrait of a complex figure. The performances might be solid and there's an effective moment here or there but the word that comes to mind when describing the film as a whole is flat. This filmmaker and cast telling a story with this interesting a subject matter should've amounted to a lot more than it ultimately did. For as exhilarating as motor racing is supposed to be I have to say I found the film to be overwhelmingly dull when all was said and done.

The whole aesthetic is totally without life which is the last thing I would've expected for a director of Michael Mann's calibre. Mann takes a very documentarian approach to the directing and it just robs the film of any energy or sense of direction. From almost the opening minutes there a serious lack of momentum. The scenes play out in very beat for beat type way with no sense of flair and as impressive as the racing sequences are they're too few and far between to save this movie from the drag that it ends up being. All the scenes away from the track are framed in the most shot/reverse shot manner imaginable so almost none of the dramatic moments had any sort of impact on me. There's an extremely effective moment in the 3rd act that felt like Mann was finally adding some stakes to the whole thing by then it was too little too late for me.

The script here is painfully unremarkable and it rears its head in how it portrays its main character. Adam Driver is solid in the role as Enzo Ferrari, though I wouldn't rate it as one of his best performances, but I never really found the depiction of the character to be that compelling. It's established early on that Ferrari puts up a wall around everyone but as an audience member it put me at a distance from his character. I didn't think there were enough moments where his guard went down and we see what really drives him so as a result I just found him to be a bit of a rich egomaniac with motivations I didn't find to be that interesting. There's a love triangle that's set up with Penelope Cruz and Shailene Woodley's characters that almost felt like it should've been the scripts main focus but after a while it just fades into the background for the central race to take up more screen time. Driver and Cruz have good chemistry but I never really thought that Mann got to the heart of their relationship and the exposition that's given on this three way dynamic feels like it comes in the complete wrong order. I was just waiting for characters to find out information I already knew and it just kills the pacing and any impact that these reveals could've had.

I never would've guessed that Ferrari was a long time passion project for Michael Mann because nothing in the final product gives any sense of a vision for this story. It's totally unimpressive on a script and technical level and the few effective moments and impressive race sequences aren't enough to save the total bore that Ferrari ended up being as a whole.

Godzilla Minus One is a classic case of film that is so much better than it has any right to be. I've yet to really have a film in this franchise really resonate with me but with how fantastic this movie turned out I think I finally understand the hype. The film goes out of its way to put character first and as someone who gets bored by these big CGI monster battles very easily I really appreciated that.

Minus One takes a leaf out of the Jaws playbook and uses its central monster very sparingly. We get a really well done scene early on with Godzilla wrecking it's havoc in a way that sets it apart from other monster movies I've seen but the film then slows down to explore this central character. The character arcs and dynamics might be ones we've seen before but I really think it's the time period that makes it feel fresh. I haven't seen post war Japan explored much in cinema which is a shame because this film presented it in such an interesting way and I never would've expected this much historical depth from a Godzilla film. The script spends just as much time on developing the time period as it does the characters and it added a whole new level of stakes to these battle sequences where I usually would've just expected empty CGI noise.

It's also supremely well shot with a great sense of scale and so many well executed, tension filled sequences. I would be amazed if the filmmakers weren't inspired by Dunkirk because it uses so many similar sequences to great effect. My favourite being an open sea chase with a mine sweeper trying to escape the titular monster. A lot has been made of the surprisingly low budget of this film and it is amazing to me the quality of the visual effects given that budget. Maybe Godzilla was featured sparingly because of the limited money but if so it honestly works so much better as a result. There was the occasional wonky effect but I'd rather have some iffy CGI in a film full of great characters than the inverse.

I do think the film is a bit clunky in some regards. Every time the filmmakers cut away to news footage building up this threat, my attention started to wain because I just preferred seeing everything from the perspective of these characters. There's also a good 15-20 minute sequence before the climax that grinds the whole thing to a halt because it just feels like a prolonged exposition dump. There's a reveal made right towards the end of the film that I think some people will see as a bit of a cop out but I thought was executed wonderfully and could've fallen flat in a lesser film.

I never would've expected a new Godzilla film in 2023 to be as fantastic as Minus One but this is honestly one of the biggest surprises I've had in a cinema all year. There were real tangible stakes, something that's been missing too often from movies like this, with a really interesting historical back drop that I'd love to see more of in mainstream cinema. If anything Minus One makes me like the Universal universes even less because I can't seem them ever competing with the quality Minus One presents.

I hardly ever used this word to describe movies but Wonka is absolutely delightful in almost every way. Honestly if someone watched it and told me they weren't at least charmed by it I might question their sanity. Sometimes it's just nice to have a film about good people doing good things with a really wholesome message and outlook on life and Wonka delivers all of that and then some.

Timothée Chalamet is amazing in this movie, very few actors could emulate that overly whimsy style of humour that Gene Wilder perfected and he does it so perfectly. The way he plays this character is so unbelievably endearing with just the right amount of sentimentality and it never made me cringe once, quite the opposite in fact. He's just the head of a whole cast full of unbelievably likeable characters that ensure that this entire film is chock full of satisfying moments some of which even brought a tear to my eye as cheesy as it might sound.

It really should come as no surprise how well produced this film is on a technical and script level considering the fact that it's the same man who brought about both the Paddington films. It's gorgeously shot, especially from a cinematography perspective, and I loved all of the musical sequences all of which I'm still playing in my head right now. It's laugh out loud funny with a lot more well rounded character moments than I ever would've expected. This clearly was not a pay check job for anyone involved and this is the kind of craft I would love to see more of in blockbuster movies.

If I had to knock the film for a few things it would be that a lot of the stuff away from the Wonka character wasn't nearly as entertaining. All the villainous characters were over-the-top in all the right ways but they did start to wear out their welcome for me after a while. Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa is such a great concept and he is fantastic but he wasn't in the movie as much as I would've liked because he and Chalamet made such a great pair. I also think the film was starting to feel a little long by the time the 3rd act came around but I was having such a good time watching it that it didn't bother me too much.

Wonka was far better than it had any right to be and I could absolutely see myself rewatching many more times. Chalamet is basically perfect and this role just goes to show how much range he has as an actor. I would fight back against anyone who thinks this is a corporate cash grab because the feeling it gave me is one very few other movies have given me all year. I think the best compliment I could give Wonka is that it's absolutely a movie I would show my kids one day.

Eileen is a case of not enough happening in the first two acts and too much happening in the 3rd act. Because for most of the first 2/3rds I just couldn't figure out where the film was going. Sometimes for better but sometimes it meant that a lot of those portions dragged considerably. The 3rd act takes a pretty drastic change that I found pretty intriguing but I don't think had enough set up to fully justify. It made me wish that the script focused on a different perspective than it did in retrospect. The ending is also pretty abrupt and left me with more questions than answers. Thomasin Mackenzie and Anne Hathaway are great though and every scene that they share are when the film was at it's most captivating. It's also very well shot with a really good 60's like aesthetic. Eileen as is was a pretty intriguing ride but it's hard not to think that there's better version of this story existed in the script somewhere.