Across The Spider-Verse: Spider-People Overkill

Summary

Miles Morales returns to the Spider-Verse.

I was very excited for this film going in, but have to say I was a little disappointed with what we got.

First the positives, I thought the character work was great particularly as it applied to parent child dynamics and the idea of finding a home/family, in this regard the film really nailed some deep emotional scenes that were genuinely moving. I also liked the addition of all the new Spider-People especially Spider-Man India, I did think they went a little cameo mad especially when they got to the clubhouse near the end of the film, but for the most part I liked seeing all the different variants I remember from the comics. Of course another pro of the film was the animation, which was incredible and a real feat to behold, the fact that the animators were able to blend so many different styles of animation so seamlessly together in one film highlights the artistry of Sony Animation and is really a big boon for them.

Now despite all of that, this wasn’t a perfect film. I disliked the act structure and thought it felt like one of the Hobbit films, this was mainly due to the fact that it didn’t have an ending or third act but rather one long second act that will then lead into the next film. I understand this film was written to end on a cliff-hanger, but I think that it could have had a degree of resolution within its own narrative as well as doing this rather than just abruptly cutting away. Due to this structure decision the film feels like it has quite bad pacing issues. I also didn’t like what they did to Miguel O’Hara, and admittedly this one hit me harder than most as outside of Peter Parker Miguel O’Hara is my favourite other spider-person, I think making him a villain was a bad call. I understand that in the third film it will be revealed that he was taking orders from/ coerced to work for Morlun and the Inheritors and he will redeem himself, but I just think that by making him so outwardly villainous here it takes away from a lot of his heroic potential in the future.

3.5/5

Pros.

Spider-Man India

Miles

The animation

The emotional beats

Cons.

The pacing issues

The ending

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Reality: The US’s Further Edging Towards Fascism

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The story of Reality Winner, here played by Sydney Sweeny, and her arrest.

This film made me angry. It so perfectly points out and captures the American hypocrisy with their love affair with free speech only ever extending out to what they agree with. I think the film wants you to be angry at what happened to Reality, who at the end of the day was leaking information that was in the public good, not selling nuclear secrets to the North Koreans.

It is a thoroughly uncomfortable watch from start to finish as the film ramps up the tension and the claustrophobic nature of the raid. You like Reality within the film feel the walls closing in and increasing escalation.

Sweeny is terrific here and really gives a layered and nuanced performance, I think there is something so heart breaking about the fact that her life is over essentially and she just wants to make sure her animals are okay. Perhaps it is because I am not American and am fairly detached from their news cycle, but this film made me feel bad for Winner in real life and think that the US government want to bully their own citizens into maintaining this image of them being infallible when that just isn’t true.

Overall, this is a great anti-US protest peace illustrating the US’s increasing slip into being an authoritarian fundamentalist nightmare.

4/5

Pros.

Sweeny

The tension

The emotion

The core of the story and the message it has

Cons.

It is unpleasant to watch at times

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The Little Mermaid: The Opening Salvo Of The Summer Movie Season

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The Little Mermaid gets the live action remake treatment.

So I went into this with pretty low expectations and thinking it wasn’t really going to be my sort of thing but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I will preface this review by saying that I haven’t seen the animated original so I wasn’t attached to one version of this story.

I want to say right off the bat that Halle Bailey is a great Ariel and really helps the character to feel likeable and rounded in a live action format. On top of that she also has a very believable and strong romantic chemistry with the male lead, played by Jonah Hauer-King, which helps the film to really work as a date movie. Bailey of course also has a great singing voice and pulls off all the songs truly very well, or as well as can be done with the woeful new songs.

However, the strong cast doesn’t extend across the board Awkwafina is terribly miscast as Scuttle and has a groan inducing rap sequence that also doubles as one of the terrible new songs I mentioned earlier. It is such as a shame the film felt the need to introduce a few new songs as the old ones are still great and are what the audience want, but hey they have to have new songs to try and enter them into awards races later in the year. Awkwafina’s miscasting is somewhat offset by Daveed Diggs as Sebastian who is damn near perfect casting and who makes that Crab the stand out character of the whole film, bring on the Sebastian Disney + show I say.

A final point I want to flag up is that the effects and pacing of this film are both noticeably off and that on a technical level these things hold back the film. The underwater effects look bad and unfinished and I know Disney has bad relations with effect houses but they clearly needed to fix this if they want to improve their CGI, because at times the CGI hear was shocking, especially compared to what The Way of The Water was doing at the end of last year. Moreover, the extra story for Eric and a few other characters is nice but it really doesn’t need the film to be an extra half an hour longer than the original, at the length it is being shown at this film has a second act that drags by at a glacial pace.

Overall, a better live action remake than most of Disney’s others

3.5/5

Bailey

The classic songs

The romance

Digg’s Sebastian

Cons.

The effects and pacing

Awkwafina

The new songs

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Love Again: Reading The Texts Of A Deadman

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A music journalist, played by Sam Heughan, finds himself in possession of a phone that is receiving texts from an unknown number, little does he know that he will end up falling in love with the mystery sender, played by Priyanka Chopra.

This film was strange, in many senses this misjudged a lot of things. Most noticeably was the tone, there are things in this film that are big deals like the male lead using the texts send to him unknowingly by the female lead, who thinks she is sending them to her dead ex, to track her down and pursue her, but rather than treat this as the red flag it is it is instead set up as a quirky meet-cute.

Moreover, Sam Heughan was entirely miscast with the film wanting more of a bumbling Hugh Grant sort but instead has a brooding and quite intense lead that doesn’t meet any of the boyish playfulness his role is clearly written to have. Additionally, the romantic chemistry between Chopra and Heughan is fairly non-existent.

Don’t even get me started on how much this film goes out of its way to plug Celine Deon, who no doubt Sony owns the rights to her music catalogue, it was off putting and made me feel like I was watching an advert rather than a film.

The film is passably watchable in a pinch and I did think the sequence in which Chopra’s real life husband Nick Jonas showed up was quite funny. Jonas shone in his little cameo role and it really was a shame he didn’t get more time or a bigger part as his character was far more interesting that Heughan’s.

Overall, Jonas is good for a laugh and it is passable if fairly generic and forgettable.

2/5

Pros.

It was passable

Jonas was funny in his brief cameo

Cons.

The leads have no chemistry

Heughan was miscast

It is generic

The tone is off

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Robots: Jack Whitehall The Rom-Com Leading Man

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

In a near future wherein people can have robotic doubles a pair of low lives use their doubles for depraved means only to have them then run off together and the low lives have to go and chase them down.

Whilst perhaps not the most original, I found there to be a lot of charm to this film. As it progressed I found myself caring more and more about the characters and the world itself.

The romantic pairing of Jack Whitehall and Shailene Woodley works surprisingly well and the two have great chemistry and by the end do feel like a believable couple. I never really viewed Whitehall as a rom-com leading man before but I have to say this film sold me on it.

I thought the comedy here was fairly hit or miss, there were a few jokes that hit hard and landed but also a lot of others that missed the mark. However the gaps in humour were more than made up for with the heart of the film which is big and quite effecting. By the end of the film I fully cared about the robots and wanted them to have a happy ending.

Overall, a sweet rom-com and a promising new career path for Whitehall.

4/5

Pros.

It is sweet

It is funny

Woodley and Whitehall have good chemistry

You care about the characters

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Are You There God It’s Me, Margaret: Finding Out Which Faith Is Right For You

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

An adaption of the Judy Blume book of the same name which tells the story of a young girl, played by Abby Ryder Fortson, coming of age and finding her place in the world.

I will preface this review by saying that I haven’t read the book this film was based on and am not very familiar with the works of Judy Blume.

I was excited to watch this film as the trailer gave off a very quirky sensibility, it reminded me of the works of Greta Gerwig and Wes Anderson. However, upon watching it I found it to be a much more straight forward coming of age tale then I was expecting. That is not necessarily a complaint as it was still enjoyable, and strong performances from most of the adult cast, especially Rachel McAdams, did a lot to elevate it.

I also thought the film’s focus on religion was interesting and nicely separated it out from a lot of other coming of age films that are obsessed with budding romances, dances and raging hormones. I liked that the film didn’t shy away from showing how much of a destructive force religion can be in some cases and that it tried to have more of a serious conversation on the topic. Sadly though, I will say that the conversation this film wants to have would have been made much better if it had gone just a little further, as what it is saying now is fairly surface level.

Overall, an interesting coming of age film that is boosted by its performances and decision to focus on religion over teenage angst.

3/5

Pros.

The focus on religion

McAdams, Bates and Safdie

It is fun

Cons.

It is a little surface level at times and an exploration of greater depth could have really been interesting

It has pacing issues in the form of second act lulls

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Sisu: Fighting The Nazi Charge

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A retired soldier turned gold prospector, played by Jorma Tommila , must take up arms once again when the Nazi’s try and hoard in on his find.

I had been looking forward to this one for a while, and after having seen it I can honestly say it was fine. Nothing more, nothing less.

I liked the setting and the fact that it explored a conflict that is not often covered within war films. Moreover, I thought the lore of the film and the prospector’s backstory, very much like with John Wick, were good and well developed. The creative teams behind both this and Wick really do worldbuilding well.

However, something I didn’t like about it was that it carried over something that really made me turn on the last John Wick film and that is the unbelievability. I like that within these films even though the protagonist is an elite killer they still face a threat of death as it helps to keep things interesting. However, here as with the last Wick film, the threat of death is removed and these characters are shown to be superhuman surviving everything with a grunt. Though this might seem amusing, and it is at first, it quickly becomes boring thereafter.

Overall, an interesting premise let down by a superhero lead.

2.5/5

Pros.

Exploring less common areas of history in cinema

An interesting premise

Good action

Cons.

By removing the threat of death it all just becomes pointless

It has pacing issues

The Nazi villains are barely even characters

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Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant: Can You Put A Price On Heroism?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

After a botched mission an Afghan interpreter, played by Dar Salim, must bring his commanding officer, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, back to base and save his life. Some time later it is the mission of the commanding officer to save the interpreter and get him out of the country.

I think this was a beautiful film in many ways, and reminded me of the good of humanity and how there are some real heroes out there, and by heroes I mean people who will go the extra mile no matter the cost to do what is right. I like that this film breaks from a lot of Ritchie’s recent output and tries for a more serious tone, the mature feel of this film is needed.

Moreover, I thought the bond of brotherhood between Salim and Gyllenhaal’s characters was palpable to see across the film and in many ways was the beating heart of it. Both Salim and Gyllenhaal bring strong performances to the film that highlight the cost of freedom and the extents people will go to in order to help their friends.

In my opinion the best thing about this film was how well it deals with tension. By this I mean the sequences involving dragging the commanding officer back to base wherein it seems like any minute the Taliban fighters will catch them. During these sequences things feel incredibly tense and you are biting your nails with anxiety to see if they will make it out alive. It really gets the blood pumping.

Overall, a powerful and weighty film from Ritchie.

4/5

Pros.

The bond

The performances

The message of never giving up on the people that help you when you need it

The tension

Cons.

Some slight pacing issues

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She Is Love: An Art House Rom-Com In All The Worst Ways

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A woman, played by Haley Bennett, traveling for business ends up staying at her ex-husband’s hotel.

So I will give this film props for trying to do something new with the standard rom-com formula, it does try and subvert some of the obvious cliches and that is to be applauded. However, instead of presenting tired and worn cliches the film instead encompasses a bunch of pretentious art house tosh that makes little to no sense and will leave you scratching your head.

The relationship held between the romantic leads, played by Bennett and Sam Riley, is deeply toxic, though I suppose that is sort of the point of the film. Yet you never really get to understand the ins and outs of it all as the conversations and wider narrative of the film seems to want to jump between things rapidly. The effect of this jumping around is disorientating and off putting.

Overall, though it tries to do something new this film falls headfirst into the well of pretentious art house nonsense.

1.5/5

Pros.

It is short

Bennett is trying.

Cons.

It makes little narrative sense

It is pretentious

The leads have no chemistry at all

It manages to have pacing issues despite being fairly short

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Paint: Wes Anderson Without The Charm Or The Heart

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A quasi parody of Bob Ross, mixed with an original story, creating a mess.

I am a big fan of Owen Wilson and so his presence drew me to this film. Upon watching it I can say that Wilson himself was good, but that he was probably the only good thing about the film ultimately.

The parody elements didn’t work, and the humour of the film felt incredibly flat. At times I didn’t know whether the film wanted me to view it as a comedy or as more of a drama as they try and put in character work, which suggests it views itself as more of a character piece, but ultimately this doesn’t help to make the film funnier or the characters more likable.

Building upon that the message of the film is all over the place, on the one hand we are told to like Wilson’s character and root for him in this journey to find new meaning in his life, but on the other he is shown to be a massive creep and all round pretty crummy, so which is it? I understand the film is shooting for the more nuanced answer of the character being bad but then turning it around, however, it just feels confused and not fully thought out.

Overall, barely even passable, if you miss this one don’t sweat it.

2/5

Pros.

Wilson

It is short

Cons.

The character work is confusing

It isn’t funny

It takes itself a bit too seriously at times

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