Cabin In The Woods: The Old Gods Want Blood

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of friends go out to stay in a cabin in the woods, insert Family Guy joke about saying the title of the film, and of course once they get out there things start to go awry.

I am a big fan of this film, minus the pervy Joss Whedon elements but we will get to those, and think that if you are a fan of the slasher genre this is a must watch. There is something so smart and so loving about this film, it both sends up the slasher genre but also revels in its tropey goodness. I think the entire meta reading of this film, as we the audience are the old gods wanting to see our slasher films play out the way they always do is entirely novel and well done.

Likewise the film does a good job of making you care about the characters, with Chris Hemsworth’s character being a delightful revelation. Hemsworth plays the dumb jock but the film goes out of its way to flip that cliché and do something new with it, the same can be said for the rest of the archetypal roles of the slasher. In that regard I thought Kristen Connolly’s Dana made for an excellent final girl and I liked that she failed to prevent the disaster at the end as it made her feel more genuine and real.

Furthermore, as a huge horror fan I got a lot out of the vending machine of monsters scene inside the facility where we were treated to tons and tons of references and homages, it was easily my favourite scene of the film.

Sadly, now we must talk about the issues. A lot of these issues boil down to one thing, camera angles and pervy intent. A lot of the female characters in this film are shot in a way where the camera is often not looking at their faces and is instead looking at other areas, this becomes incredibly transparent as the film goes on. I would like to blame this on Joss Whedon as we know he has a habit of doing this kind of thing from his other work, however Drew Goddard is not above suspicion as well. Regardless it is needless.

Overall, a strong film made stronger if you are a hardcore horror fan.

Pros.

Hemsworth

Connelly

The ending

The vending machine of monsters

Cons.

The perviness

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Dune: Adapting The Unadaptable

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The prestigious house of Atreides is given the fiefdom of the planet Arrakis and is forced further into a blood war between the previous rulers of the planet and its natural inhabitants.

I will say right off the bat I have recently developed a dislike for Denis Villeneuve as his ego has really come to light, and much like Christopher Nolan he seems to think his films are works of art and worse yet that he can tell people how to watch them. Much like Nolan, Villeneuve has also launched a series of outdated, out of touch attacks on streaming services which acts as a further point of irritation. However, for the purposes of this review I will put my thoughts about the man aside and just focus on the film.

For the most part this is a stellar adaption of the classic science fiction novel, I am currently reading the book to further my understanding of this film and I have to say there are scenes in it that feel directly translated with such precise attention to detail that you can really feel the love for the text coming through. Obviously, there are a few things cut out for brevity here and there such as a wider backstory for Dr Yueh, played by Chang Chen, which I feel hurts the film but for the most part this is a very faithful and well done adaption.

In terms of aesthetics and CGI this film is a dream, it has a clear and distinct style and is honestly beautiful to look at. The world feels so real and so refreshingly new it reminds one of watching Avatar for the first time. The only time I noticed the CGI looking a little patchy would be in one of the future, vison, battle scenes in which Paul, played by Timothee Chalamet, envisions himself fighting alongside the natives in battle armour and at one point in the conflict his face covering comes off and the effects on the characters face are poor.

In terms of performances it is strong across the board, everyone has a moment to shine, except for Chalamet and Zendaya. Zendaya is not given much to do beyond be the person Paul sees in his visons and is likely be saved more for the second film. Whereas Chalamet drifts through the whole film with an indifference that borders on boredom. I understand that once he gets the sight in the novel Paul becomes a little detached, but Chalamet is instead like that throughout even before he gets the ability to see into the future.

Overall, a strong adaption with only minor issues.

Pros.

Well realised

Beautiful CGI

A distinct personality

Mostly good performances

Cons.

Chalamet

Pacing issues and leaving some important things out

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Ron’s Gone Wrong: The Most Toxic Message Of The Year

0.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

In a dystopia where children need a personal robot to be their friend and post everything they do online one boy, voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer, complains to his family about not having one and then is unhappy when he gets a discounted one. An unhealthy friendship ensues.

Don’t take your kids to see this. Don’t waste your money. There are so, so many better animated films out there that actually have a positive message and enrich those who view them, this only serves to cause harm. This is one of the worst animated films I have seen in a long time.

Firstly, the main boy inspires no sympathy because whilst yes he is a social outcast once he gets a friend in his damaged robot Ron, voiced by Zach Galifianakis, he immediately puts him down and treats him like dirt. Insisting that he gets to pick his friends and because Ron is not perfect out of the box he doesn’t want to know him, what sort of message is this sending to kids? Yes, as the film goes on her learns the error of his ways, but by that point he is already a loathsome lead.

Secondly, this film seems to view the younger generation as being unable to function without constantly being online, which I don’t believe is true. Rather it is more likely to be a cynical Gen X or older view of ‘these young people today always on their phones’, which honestly was never more than a gross generalisation. The world that this film is set in is honestly a hellscape, with big tech companies being basically all powerful, and viewed in this context the whole film becomes incredibly depressing, was that the point?

Thirdly, and in my opinion the most grievous of all, this film treats online issues as throwaway lines and worse yet jokes. Within the film one of the characters Savannah, voiced by Kylie Cantrall, becomes the victim of online bullying as she is labelled ‘poop girl’. This presents the film with the opportunity to tackle an issue that is effecting a lot of young people around the globe, however, rather than do this it trivialises the issue, overlooks it in favour of continuing the main plot and then uses it as a joke as the film almost wants you to laugh at her for being called ‘poop girl’. In my mind not only is this a wasted opportunity but also it is incredibly dangerous.

Overall, this film highlights everything wrong with modern animation, and children should not be allowed to see it.

Pros

Ron is a nice character who made me laugh

Cons.

It is harmful

Using online bullying as a joke

The main kid is a brat and the film says his friend with Ron is good when in fact it is deeply unhealthy

Kids today, and how again Hollywood executives don’t know the first thing

It’s message is rotten

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I’m Your Man: A Human Robot Love Affair Is The Next Stage Of Human Evolution

4.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Scientist Alma, Maren Eggert, is tasked with completing a three week trial with a humanoid robot, played by Dan Stevens, who is designed to be the man of her dreams. When the three weeks are up she is to write either in favour, or not, of giving these robotic beings rights based on her experiences.

I enjoyed this film quite a lot. I thought it had such a huge heart that it was almost impossible not to like it. The film tries to further the questions of what does it mean to be human and can love transcend all bounds, in this case can a human woman love a robot man, is the robot man even capable of feeling love? I feel it does an admiral job of this and gives us a response to these questions that is deep and multi-layered, the response the question deserves.

I also found this film to be quite funny, there was a lot of humour situated around how Steven’s robot character responded to Alma’s initial rejection and also his day to day life, which is odd by human standards. Most of this humour landed for me and made me chuckle, it was not a laugh out loud sort of film, but there were plenty of chuckle worthy moments.

Overall, a sweet film that has a lot to say about life, love and robotics.

Pros.

Eggert

Stevens

The sweet love story

Trying to answer the big questions

A number of funny moments

Cons.

The beginning is initially confusing as the film doesn’t do a good job explaining early on what is happening.

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Star Wars Visions: The Village Bride

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Shortly after the Great Purge a fallen jedi is called to a world threatened by bandits wherein she rediscovers her connection to the Force.

I found this episode to be mixed, whilst there were some interesting things set up and explored for the most part this episode feels incredibly slow and dull. Things start to heat up as the action goes down later in the episode but until that point it feels like a slow meditation over man’s relationship with the world around him which is not what I am watching for.

F, voiced by Asami Seto, is an intriguing hero. We are left to speculate how they survived the Purge and who trained them, I think by not giving us a definitive answer it really helps to boost the mystery of the character as it leaves a lot open to our interpretation and imagination. Sadly, the non-F characters don’t fare as well, with most of them being bland and devoid of anything barely resembling a personality.

The animation/art style here lends itself quite well to the Star Wars world, with it really shining during the later battle sequences, probably my second favourite of the series so far after that of the first episode.

Overall, a slow start weakens the episode but a good climax becomes a new hope for it.

Pros.

The final battle

Leaving things vague about F’s origins

The animation/art style

Cons.

A very slow start

Weak side characters

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Star Wars Visions: The Twins

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A pair of Sith twins work to create a weapon that can destroy entire star systems but then turn on one another.

This episode was disappointing. It was not bad so much as it was deeply average, and I feel like they could have done so much more with it. I am a big fan of Studio Trigger and so I was very excited for this episode which only made the disappointment worse.

I think the issue with this episode is that the plot is played out. How many times have we seen two siblings turn on each other and battle now? To many times to count, and that goes outside of Star Wars as well. It was entirely obvious that the brother was going to turn out to be the hero.

Moreover, there were also weird gaps in logic that I found to be jarring. An example of this would be that the twins can breathe in space, but their robot butler can’t? It makes no sense and when you start thinking about it, it just ruins the episode more and more.

The one thing I will compliment this episode on is that I enjoyed how into exploring kyber crystals it was, and I think that we need more of this from the Star Wars universe.

Overall, I was expecting a lot more and was deeply disappointed.

Pros.

Exploring kyber crystals

The battle scenes

The ending

Cons.

It was predictable

The plot was cliched

The gaps in logic

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Star Wars Visions: Tatooine Rhapsody

1.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A young band must perform the show of their lives otherwise Jabba The Hutt will have one of their member killed.

This may be the worst episode of Star Wars Visions, though as of the time of writing I am only three quarters of the way through. This episode is just so disappointing mainly because it doesn’t feel like it fits into the Star Wars universe at all, swap out a few character skins and references and this could be any other anime. It felt jarring.

All of the characters bar Jabba were kids, and I don’t understand the reason why? For the central foursome it makes sense I suppose but why was Bobba Fett pintsized? It makes no sense.

Moreover, the whole episode is built around these big concert scenes where the band perform, this in an off itself is not a red flag, however, when the band actually starts to perform it quickly does become an issue. To be blunt the music just isn’t good, and as it is so pivotal to the episode having it be bad makes the episode infinitely worse.

Finally, the central cast of characters are annoying and whiney which makes it impossible to form any kind of attachment to them and again kneecaps the episode.

Overall, one to skip when binging the series.

Pros.

It is short

A few interesting visuals

Cons.

The songs are bad

The characters are annoying

It makes no sense that almost everyone is a child

It doesn’t feel like it fits the brand

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Star Wars Visions: The Duel

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Some time after the sequel trilogy a lone wanderer comes across a Sith lord and her army of stormtroopers terrorising a village, a battle ensues.

This was an incredibly strong start to Star Wars Visions, both artistically and in terms of story. The concept of the episode is interesting, and its setting post sequel trilogy is rife to explore; so far we have seen very little set after the Rise of Skywalker. I would love to see more of this world and its inhabitants, in that regard I think there should be another Star Wars show exploring Ronin and how he came by all those other Sith kyber crystals

Moreover, I thought the animation style was beautifully done and distinctive. I enjoyed the roughness of it and thought the hard edges and minimal use of colour really helped to form a strong personality for the episode.

The fight scenes were easily the highlight of the episode particularly those between the Sith and Ronin towards the end were each was pulling off crazier and crazier moves in an effort to best the other.

Overall, a beautiful start to the series with a keen personality and edge.

Pros.

The art style

The fight scenes

The ending

The tease for what comes after the sequel trilogy

Cons.

We need more.

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Rick and Morty: Rickmurai Jack

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Rick and Morty reunite after Rick learns empathy and the two form a partnership, finally.

To all those who were hoping for big cannon reveals this season you got exactly what you wished for, and then some. This finale answered a lot of fan questions such as Rick’s origins, Evil Morty’s plans and why Ricks always rule there Morty’s. The answers we get blow the series into a whole new direction.

I enjoyed the ending wherein Rick and Morty become partners after years of Morty taking Rick’s abuse. This character development feels earned, and I hope it is paid off next season in a big way. I think it is important for the show to move past its status quo and finally pay off the character development.

I thought the return of Evil Morty was a nice touch as he has become a fan favourite. They have nearly endless possibilities for what they can do with that character going forward now as the ending of the episode brought everything to the table.

I would say of all the Rick and Morty finales so far this was the most impactful.

Overall, the threshold for this series has now been expanded to crazy new heights.

Pros.

The ending

Evil Morty

Rick and Morty finally becoming equal partners

Where the series can go from here

Cons.

The reunion of the duo seems a bit rushed

Pacing issues

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Rick and Morty: Forgetting Sarick Mortshall

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Rick and Morty finally break up. Rick replaces Morty with two crows and Morty replaces Rick with a man called Nick. Both new partnerships teach each of our titular duo a lesson.

I thought the finale was going to be one big feature length episode. No? Did I imagine that? I thought that was why it was being delayed.

The days of Rick and Morty where the show was a comedy seem to be over, and now the show almost plays like an animated science fiction drama series. I think the uncoupling of Rick and Morty needed to happen, the relationship was so toxic, and something needed to be done to shift the status quo and to teach Rick a lesson- if nothing else this episode does that.

The Rick story line about him learning empathy from the crows seemed a bit too random for me and simply like they were trying to be different and out there with it but not for any reason other than because they could. The Morty storyline is slightly better, I enjoyed seeing the devolution of Nick and see the mask slowly start to slip.

I thought the ending of the episode was heart-breaking but needed, I thought it was done perfectly with the music during this scene being pitch perfect, pardon the pun, and I like that things ended on somewhat of a healthy amicable note.

Overall, an important episode of the show but not one that will make people laugh or enjoy themselves.

Pros.

Nick

The ending

The duo breaking up

Cons.

Rick’s story with the two crows seems pointlessly random

It is sad and depressing

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