Damsel: Millie Bobby Brown Proves She Is A One Hit Wonder

Summary

Netflix continues to try and make Millie Bobby Brown a thing, yet she continues to have as much charm as a true British great like Keira Knightly might have in one finger.

So if you needed a better example of what makes a modern Netflix film then look no further than this. Terrible CGI, a ridiculous and insulting girl boss story that makes little to no sense, and a world that feels like Bridgerton with dragons. Oh and it wastes the time of Angela Bassett and Ray Winstone giving them nothing to do and just using them as recognisable faces.

Do we need to go over the definition of a mary sue as it applies to cinematic archetypes? In case we do a mary sue is a character that has no progression and is great at whatever she tries for the fact that she is perfect and infallible. It is reductive girl power nonsense that strips away any humanity, flaws and character that a female lead can have and instead has her be this stoic, inhuman being. What sort of standard does this set for women? Again it is not empowering, they think it is with the idea that it is telling girls that they can be the dragon slayer, but girls already knew that, rather this film says that women have to be tough stoic and not feminine otherwise they are weak and part of the problem. It is incredibly reductive.

So Brown’s character is thrown by the evil male prince into a dragons lair as sacrifice, and even though we are not shown her sword fighting even for a scene in the film she is able to go toe to toe with it whereas a platoon of knights just got destroyed. Again this is cheap, rather than give her character an arc and make her human and fall and have to rise to the occasion the writers can’t be bothered to actually develop the female lead just having her immediately be perfect. It speaks to male writers that want to appear progressive but don’t actually care about their female characters so just use surface level girl boss tropes rather than make Elodie a developed character that you can actually care about.

Moreover, Brown is clearly a graduate of the Alaqua Cox school of acting as rather than try and make Elodie feel more human and real, Brown just plays the character with a constant layer of indignation ready to go on a lecture at any second. Though she is only young as we see her do more and more projects it is becoming clearer that she isn’t a good actor by any means and has clear limitations, maybe she is a one hit wonder, this would make sense why she hasn’t been cast in more Hollywood projects, outside of King Of The Monsters, and is largely now being propped up by Netflix.

Overall, just trash made by an algorithm with no care.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is unintentionally funny at times

Cons.

The CGI

It wastes Angela Bassett and Ray Winstone

The character is poorly written

The girl boss/mary sue qualities

It doesn’t actually update the trope it just recycles it and goes yes we know its bad

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The American Society Of Magical: Race Hate The Movie

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A film meant to stand up an archaic racist trope, becomes just as racist.

If a filmmaker made a film wherein the plot line said there was nothing worse than an upset or threatened man of colour and tried to release it in the contemporary market it would be rightly condemned as hugely racist. However, the idiotic idea that you cannot be racist towards white people is tested to the limit here and proven that you actually can. The way this film generalises about white people and uses blatant caricatures, even for the purpose of comedy, is racist there is no other way to describe it. If as I laid out at the beginning the tables where turned this film would not have been made, yet this film sees the light of day despite an almost pathological hatred of white people seeing them all as villains out to oppress the lead.

Racist humour exists of course one only needs to tune into an episode of Family Guy to see an outdated stereotype of some kind, yet there the difference is that the show doesn’t get up on a soapbox and tell you it is progressive and righteous, it knows it said a racist joke and rolls with it rightly or wrongly. Here however the film thinks it can be as racist as it likes towards white people, making them out to be lazy, stupid, violent and incapable of doing anything other than steal the hard work of those they oppress, and then wants to say it is progressive, when it is actually regressive and divisive.

The most stupid thing about this film is that it doesn’t understand the trope it is trying to comment on. Within films about said trope, it is in the title, the character has no agency other than to serve and help the white characters yet the characters here have no agency and only exist to serve, they don’t want to change the status quo. As such what is this film challenging? What is it updating? It is just repeating the trope again but saying ‘oh look guys we can see its wrong’, but do they do anything new with it? Nope, they just have a character point out how messed up the trope is something that everyone with a brain already knew.

Finally the lecture at the end of the film where the main character finally stands up for himself just feels like hate speech, it boils down to white people are bad, again sub out that for any other race and this film wouldn’t be made, but this film seems to have a bee in its bonnet.

Overall, there is a reason that this film has underperformed and been ravaged by critics it is race baiting plain and simple, the creatives clearly have some prejudice towards white people, in my opinion, and wants to inject that into the film seemingly unaware that it will alienate a large part of the audience. A well deserved flop that hopefully kills the careers of those involved with it.

0/5

Pros.

None

Cons.

It is disgustingly racist

It hates its audience

It preaches and lectures rather than try to be entertaining

It is tonally all over the show

It doesn’t actually update the trope it just recycles it and goes yes we know its bad

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Gran Turismo: Worse Than A Cut Break Line

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Sony continues to Sony and in doing so makes one of the worst videogame movies of all time.

Many games have great storylines and would lend themselves well to the idea of being made into films, a great deal of these already have. However, no one at any point thought that Gran Turismo a game without a story was desperately in need of adapting. Yes, I am aware that this wasn’t based on the game but rather a real life story involving it and does this change anything does this film suddenly have a valid reason to exist? Nope.

This film is so depressing, the main reason for this is because this isn’t what Neil Blomkamp should be doing with his talents, he should be making his Alien film. Blomkamp as a filmmaker is interested in both weighty themes and also grand science fiction vistas and worlds, he should be doing that and not wasting his talents on this generic film about a normal person who became a racer through playing a video game.

The plot of the film is exactly what you would expect and it feels so ten a penny that once you finish the film you find it hard to remember anything tangible about it. It is like waking from an uneventful dream, you can’t remember anything and you don’t feel bad about that, though sadly rather than finish it feeling rested and ready to go, to drag out the dream metaphor, you instead feel drained and like you have lost a few hours of your life you are not getting back.

Overall, Sony continues to be the most out of touch studio in Hollywood.

0.5/5

Pros.

A few funny jokes

Cons.

It is painfully generic

The story doesn’t justify the need for this film

It is predictable

It has no soul or substance

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Orion And The Dark: One For The Anxious Kids

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young boy realises that the dark is nothing to be afraid of.

I really liked this film for the most part. I thought that Orion was super relatable, and that anyone who was ever an anxious kid will immediately remember feeling his anxieties, it is like a shared collective trauma. I thought it was a bit weird when we stepped away from Orion and it was about his kid and then her kid, I thought this seemed a little confused and messed with the flow of the film it would have worked better narratively if it had just stuck with him.

I thought Orion’s interactions with and friendships with Dark and the other night entities was all quite sweet. You really believed the friendship between Orion and Dark and when they save each other from death throughout the course of the film at different points you can see they care about each other. It is very wholesome. Plus it was nice seeing Natasia Demetriou get some work she is always great. My one complaint on the character side of things would be that the film had too many and as such some of the side characters came off as wanting and lacking in the personality department, we could see them on-screen but knew very little about them.

Overall, a solid Netflix animated film.

4/5

Pros.

The lead is super relatable

The friendship between Dark and Orion is nice

It is very wholesome

The animation is nice

Cons.

The side characters are underdeveloped

Swapping to Orion’s kid and then his kid’s kid is a bit jarring

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How The Girl Boss Is Ruining The Advancement Of Female Leads In Movies

Written by Luke Barnes

This piece will talk about the modern Hollywood archetype of the girl boss, and why by its very existence it reduces women in cinema and makes them inherently stunted.

So to give you a quick summary the girl boss is a girl that takes charge, is in control, is usually fairly emotionless and needs no man. The idea of this character type comes with the idea of giving women more agency allowing them to have power and to be a dominating figure in a films narrative, in this sense the girl boss was supposed to be empowering. However, the fundamental issue with the girl boss is that it stops women being human, they may be powerful and in control but they are no longer allowed to have flaws or be well rounded characters, the character simply becomes they are great and in charge and that is where the exploration ends.

For the sake of this piece I want to look at two girl bosses side by side to show how the archetype has lost its way to the point of being parody at this point. Firstly lets look at the character of Sarah Connor from the Terminator franchise, Connor is a girl boss as she is in control she tells people what to do she fights Skynet and despite her fling with Kyle Reese at the start of the series she doesn’t need no man, she is a strong independent woman and mother. She is not immediately perfect at fighting terminators as she would be if the film was made today she has to train and work to get there, she is a flawed person but does everything she can to protect her son, she is human. Then you have Elodie, Millie Bobby Brown’s character in Damsel, in this film Elodie repeatedly says how she doesn’t need a man or want to get married as though having human wants and desires made you weaker, Sarah Connor had romance didn’t make her any weaker. Elodie preaches about the patriarchy and how she needs to be a figure head for all women, implying all women need to be activists and take to the streets otherwise they are enabling oppression, Sarah Connor fought the patriarchy and won she didn’t spend her time preaching. Finally and most damning of all where before I said Sarah Connor had to work to be a badass, Elodie just picks up a sword and bang she’s better than any soldier, why because she is a woman that’s why. It is reductive.

The modern girl boss archetype as a whole makes the idea of a female action hero or even a powerful woman generally inherently less human and takes it to such an extreme caricature like place that then makes the characters incredibly one dimensional and allows them no room to grow. The reason why Rey was a bad character in the new Star Wars films was because she was not a character you could root for as she didn’t have an arc she was just great and then saved the day that’s it there was no progression, no journey as there was with a Sarah Connor, Laurie Strode or Ripley.

The girl boss as an archetype reeks of work by committee or perhaps in Netflix’s case work by algorithm they go what do young women care about? Social justice, activism, breaking down gender norms. Can they be floored or need to grow as a person? No that would imply they weren’t inherently perfect that’s sexist. Can they want to be equal to men rather than better than them and needing to degrade them in order to make themselves look even better? No, once again that’s sexist wanting men and women to be equal that’s sexism if the female lead of your superhero franchise isn’t inherently better than all the male characters there that is problematic now- see She Hulk.

One would argue that the progressive idea of strong interesting and well developed female characters is being ruined by the girl boss archetype and that in many ways the view of women it presents is limiting and regressive

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Demon Slayer To The Hashira Training Event Film

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Tanjiro and co begin their training to become Hashiras

As I have already reviewed the Swordsmith Village Arc I won’t be talking about the first half of this event film. It was fine but I had already seen it and talked about it so why waste words.

The opening episode of the new arc however was intriguing. The Wind and Serpent Hashira chopping down a legion of demons and unwittingly discovering the Infinity Castle that has been used to organise demon meetings before is interesting as now the Corps will seek it out. I also liked that Tamayo is now going to be more directly involved in the series if she goes to help the demon slayers.

My main complaint of the film was that it didn’t show what the remaining high ranking demons were up to, the implication is that they will now all come for Nezuko but it would have been nice to have got a moment seeing them discuss this.

It would also have made more sense for this to be a combination of the first two episodes of the new season rather than the last episode of the last season and then the first new one as most of the people in the audience, myself included had already seen the first half of this compilation film.

Overall, a promising start to the new season but it would have been better if it didn’t rehash the end of the last season again.

3/5

Pros.

A promising new start

The opening is strong and heavy on the action

It is nice to see the characters react to Nezuko talking

Cons.

It would have been nice to have had a better insight into what the demons were planning

It shouldn’t have re-shown the last episode of the last season it just seems like filler

Wicked Letters: Naughty Words To Make Your Elder Relatives Blush

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A series of profanity laden letters cause havoc in a small town.

Comedy can be so subjective, in many cases you can think a film is brilliant if it matches your sensibilities but if it doesn’t it can come off as unfunny, boring or even depressing, and I find that in this case I am leaning towards the latter. Though there were funny moment in this film is was far more of a dramedy then the trailers suggested it to be and at times I found it to be very depressing indeed.

Jessie Buckley is the saving grace of the film and her character is likeable and easy to root for, over the course of the film you want to see her free and you want to see everyone that keeps punishing her for being a little different be put in their place. Luckily it is that sort of film and the ending does give you the resolution you were looking for. Without Buckley this would be a much worse film.

Olivia Coleman on the other hand, and I say this as a fan, needs to find a new schtick, she has played a mentally ill posh woman so many times now in almost every role that she has been type cast. Again I won’t spoil it for you but I will say it is super obvious very early on in the film who is writing the letters to Coleman’s characters and if it was a different actor in the role I don’t think it would be so obvious.

Overall, it is nice to see British cinema still has some life blood but this just wasn’t to my tastes.

2.5/5

Pros.

It has a few funny moments

Buckley

Spall

Cons.

Coleman

It is depressing

The tone is all over the show

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Killers Of The Flower Moon: Hours Of Your Life You Aren’t Getting Back

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A long and pretentious trip to the cinema that leaves you with cramps.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this one, hell its up for best picture as I write this, but I just thought that this was a Scorsese film that just didn’t hit the way you would want it to. Maybe it is because I just found it quite hard to connect to I don’t know but I found this film to be a slog.

I think my main issue with this and the Irishman is that they feel so indulgent and yes you can make the argument he has been making masterpieces for a long time doesn’t he deserve a victory lap but I think if anything he is risking his legacy by making these projects. There was a lot of stuff in this film that could easily have been cut and it would have been just as good if not better, I think this film is done a disservice being as long as it is.

The performances are all fine, they aren’t bad it is just it feels like it is awards bait the whole film suffers from that and as such just isn’t fun to watch.

Overall, overly long and damaging to the legacy of a great director

2/5

Pros.

It has an interesting premise

Robert De Niro is good

Cons.

A lot of the performances and the film itself feels like awards bait

It is pretentious and self-indulgent

It is far too long

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Madame Web: Sony Hates Spider-Man But Not As Much As They Hate Making Money

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Cassie Web, Dakota Johnson, learns that the greatest responsibility brings the greatest power, or some knock off trash like that.

Honestly was this film a joke? Is Tom Rothman so stupid, out of touch and delusional that he thinks this is what is studio should be making? This is why Sony is the butt of the joke to every comics fan.

I am going to obliterate this movie as it is what it deserves, but first to the pros, slim though they are. I actually liked Adam Scott as Ben Parker, and I thought Dakota Johnson was a likeable protagonist, that is it.

So the three other spider-women are barely even husks of characters, they are just bland character types. You could argue Sony included all these spider-women for one of two reasons, either they wanted them for the male gaze this is reflected by the table dancing scene, however, if this is the case they would have made their outfits more revealing. Or they wanted them in a diversity check box sort of way to add to the themes of female empowerment. The film tried to make itself the most empowering it could be but honestly it just comes off as a bunch of white male executives mind mapping the word girl power and then being like yes cats, loneliness and awkward people skills. Also you could call it false advertising that at no point do any of the spider-teens get powers but hey ho.

Then you have the awful product placement that shows that Sony does not care about the Spider-Man brand and will just whore it out for cash wherever they can. A supposed self-respecting studio has its villain killed as a giant Pepsi sign falls on him, it is just gross and it shows that they don’t care about the movie beyond them getting paid.

Then you have the villain, Tahar Rahim, who has all his lines dubbed over for some reason, and is stupidly over powered to such a point that it makes no sense he can’t easily kill them all. The character has no real motivation beyond he’s evil and scared of his dreams and so needs to kill some people, quality writing.

Moreover, the jungle spider-people are dumb, the effect of them coming down the trees like it is some sort of horror film is overused, and I have read many a Spider-Man comic book and I have never heard of these guys before I think they were made up for the film which makes them worse.

Oh and remember no one can say the name of Peter Parker because Sony doesn’t want to taint its good properties with this garbage.

Overall, one of the biggest misfires in comic book movie history.

1/5

Pros.

Andrew Scott and Dakota Johnson

Cons.

It is stupid and makes no sense

It actively ruins the Spider-Man mythology

The spider-teens are false advertising and shallow husks of characters devoid of anything resembling personality

The product placement

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Echo Series Overview: Who Cares

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Echo, Alaqua Cox, has an origin story before the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.

I am a big comics fan, and I like some other people knew of Echo long before she appeared in Hawkeye, I had remembered her from the pages of a Daredevil comic I had long since read. Within said comic she was a side character, important to the plot sure but a bit player overall, it was Daredevil’s book. Then you get around to Hawkeye a show that didn’t really need to exist, but that aside the clear breakout character of that show is Kate Bishop, Hailee Steinfeld, she should have been the one to get a spin off. In both of these cases Echo was a side character, no one at the end of that series said I wanted more Echo, no one, but hey Disney pushed ahead with a Disney + series. Was it because it was good optics for Marvel studios to be like we are so progressive look at how inclusive our projects are we are up lifting this disabled minority character and giving her a platform aren’t we magnificent, I’ll let you decide.

Anyway they dropped the series all at once because they had a lot of faith in it, not, Disney claim it broke records but then they always say that don’t they. Anyway, the series as it was had moments of interest, I liked seeing a superhero story take place outside of New York and I like the Native American Mythology that was woven into the series, both of these things helped to give the series some flavour.

However, I think the single biggest problem with this series is the lead, Cox cannot act and is not a believable action hero either. Whether she is hearing a touching personal speech about how loved she is, or being punched in the face she has the same look of being irritated throughout. I don’t know if this was poor direction or instruction for her but the character she looked angry all the time even when she wasn’t supposed to be it was jarring to say the least. Moreover, I just don’t believe her as an action hero taking down guys three times her size, it pushes the boundaries of believability to such a point that it is laughable.

Again the violence wants to be shocking but it just isn’t, it is still tame and boring and if this is what r rated Marvel looks like then its just more of the same we have already grown to hate. In the comics you get blood it feels real, here it just feels like watching a soap opera.

Overall, if I was Disney I would stop all these Disney + shows they are really truly hurting the brand, do you think Agatha later in the year will get people to care about the MCU again, let me tell you it won’t.

1.5/5

Pros.

It is only 5 episodes

It has a unique flavour

Cons.

Cox cannot act

The series didn’t need to exist

It is dull

It adds nothing to the MCU

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