The Toxic Avenger: Dinklage Says Little People Can’t Play Dwarfs But They Can Play Monsters.

Peter Dinklage doesn’t like little people playing dwarfs in fantasy films but he is fine with them being shown as mutant freaks. The many contradictions of a man who’s career ceased to exist with Game Of Thrones.

There is so much wrong with this film it is hard to know where to start. Firstly, it feels like it was written by current day James Gunn, and that is not a compliment. In that I mean that it feels like it was written by a teen boy, with all the juvenile humour that entails but also one that was off the current masculinity, who wants his male characters in skirts. There are multiple scenes of characters getting their genitals punched through or torn off, because that’s funny right, and then the character will likely make some kind of off colour joke to try and make it even more funny, but none of this works. The film wants you so desperately to think it is funny and cool, but it is neither. It is try hard.

There is a scene in the film wherein Dinklage’s Toxic Avenger saves a group of people who are at a restaurant taking hostages and why are they doing it because they are angry about DEI. That is how basic and simplistic this film views the world, oh do you not like wearing nail polish and skirts, do you have an issue when meritocracy isn’t employed then you’re some cartoonishly evil and stupid antagonist that deserves to die.

Overall, this film shows that Hollywood hates vast parts of the audience.

0.5/5

Pros.

It is short

Cons.

Dinklage is awful

It is cringe

It is hateful

It is gross out for the sake of it

It feels like it was written by current day James Gunn

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The Roses: The Left Wing Answer To The Rom-Com

Summary

The fetishisation of toxic relationships.

Fear not lonely blue haired middle aged cat lady the evil sexist rom-coms have finally be countered by this anti rom-com. This film has two unlikable people who don’t work together and don’t really like each other forced into a marriage and then end up trying to kill each other, see it is not your fault you’re staring down middle aged and have never been kissed, love isn’t real.

We have one character played by Olivia Coleman, who is appearing more and more the rabid antisemite by the minute, who plays a bumbling sort of mumsy character who gets some fame and is then keen to leave her family behind, despite then screaming at her husband for the rest of the film that he stole them from her. As personal accountability is outside of Coleman’s skill set seemingly both personally and professionally. We also have Benedict Cumberbatch playing a weak willed, alcoholic husband, who is constantly feeling sorry for himself and asking for forgiveness. The film details the breakdown of their relationship getting to the point wherein Coleman’s character tries to kill Cumberbatch’s with a gun only to them have them kiss and makeup.

It glorifies the toxic relationship at nearly every turn.

Oh and it features Kate McKinnon as a sexual predator who behaves inappropriately towards both the lead characters, but it is okay because it is a woman, that’s Hollywood’s morality.

1/5

Pros

Andy Samberg has a funny few lines

Cons.

It is not funny for the most part

Both the leads are incredibly unlikable

It is badly paced

It has a depressing ending

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Sauvages: Depressing And Icky

Summary

A tribe faces an existential threat and only a teen girl can save the day.

As far as kid’s films go this was incredibly depressing. There is unrelenting sadness to this film that never lets up, it’s hard to really encapsulate where this sadness originates from, but it’s unmistakably there.

I would say this film is more message focused than focused on being entertaining, but that is okay sometimes animated films are more about messaging that being entertaining see Inside Out. For me personally I thought this was a little heavy handed and needless at times but, I will give it props for clearly executing on its goal.

There is one thing that I thought was a uncomfortable about the film, and that is the nudity. Now this may be a cultural thing or me making something out of nothing, but during the let’s say last ten minutes of the film the lead character who as I said is a young teen is topless. Now you don’t see anything as she is not developed, but it has an icky and uncomfortable feel to it, I don’t understand why this was not thought about, in terms of international perception at the time, but I didn’t like it.

Overall, if you want a very hard environmental message and some uncomfortable scenes than this is the animated film for you.

1/5

Pros.

It is nice to see a stop motion animation film exist

Cons.

The message

The nudity

It is badly paced

That only part of it is translated

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The Surfer: Eat The Rat

Summary

A man, Nicolas Cage, wants to buy a house.

So this was a trippy film that made you lose the plot somewhere along the way on purpose. There are times in this film where even if you have been avidly paying attention the whole time you will be a bit lost, and not really understand what is going on and that is the fun of it.

If you enjoy Cage’s broader strangeness and want to get lost in a liminal space that resembles an Australian beach than you will likely enjoy this. However, if you find Cage’s shtick grating then you will not enjoy this film, really it is that simple.

In terms of Cage strangeness this is probably more of a subtle performance for him, there is less screaming and shouting, and he actually plays a man losing his mind in a more toned down way.

4/5

Eat the rat

The weirdness

Cage

There is fun to be had

Cons.

It is badly paced

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The Ritual: The Devil Is The Girl Boss

Summary

Dan Stevens and Al Pacino need some quick cash.

So what was this film? The possession sub-genre frankly put is used up, there is not a lot of new ideas there and by and large it is like the later stages of the slasher sub-genre, before it was reinvented with Scream, and this may be the sub-genre at its most generic.

You have Dan Stevens as a priest who doesn’t seem to understand how exorcism works despite being involved in it, and who has clear sexual tension with a nun which is addressed but not in a satisfying way. Worse yet there is a scene wherein Patricia Heaton who plays a Mother Superior talks down to Steven’s priest and says she is done being told what to do by men who aren’t even half as holy as her. This scene was the moment I knew the film was getting a low score. This is the catholic church in the 1920s, attitudes like that exclaimed by Heaton’s character would be enough to have them thrown out of the Church. The idea that in period a Mother Superior would have dared speak to a priest like that is laughable.

Another weird thing about the film is the way it is edited, there are scenes that feel as though the camera work and editing is trying to ape something like The Office rather than be appropriate for a horror film.

Overall, this is one of the lowest points yet for the possession sub-genre.

1/5

Pros.

Pacino is laughably bad.

Cons.

Stevens is phoning it in

The girl power nun

The editing

The fact that it doesn’t have an original bone in its body

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Squid Game The Final Season Overview: The Netflix Effect

Summary

Can this make-up for a disappointing second season?

The answer is no.

This never should have been broken up into two seasons, it should have been one long second season. The break creates a need for the first episode of this new season to explain what happened last time, which it doesn’t do very well.

Moreover, as you approach the ending of the series the writing seems to get a lot dumber and make a lot less sense, why wouldn’t they just take the baby, why would they make it a contestant, why would Lee Jung-Jae’s character leave the baby behind and sacrifice himself not knowing what would happen to it, why would you spend the whole series building up to the mercenaries finding the island and the battle therein only to have them mostly slaughtered by two fishing boat captains? All of these are good questions the writing doesn’t account for.

That is also without mentioning the Netflix of it all, with them needing to set up a spin-off show in the final episodes final minutes, with a gender flipped recruiter because why not inject in a girl boss. This leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth as the credits role and asks another very good question, why are they playing Korean games in America, why aren’t the American Squid Games playing American games?

Overall, just a massive disappointment.

1.5/5

Pros.

Some of the games are cool

There are interesting ideas

Cons.

The spin-off set up

The terrible writing particularly towards the end

The questionable character decisions

The pacing

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Humane: A True COVID Commentary

Summary

The idea of social conformity is put under pressure.

Whilst I admire Caitlyn Cronenberg for what she is trying to do here, I think she may be laying it on just a bit too thick. The idea is that the population is too large and people are volunteering to die, and when two people in this rich family volunteer and then one runs away they need to find someone else to kill otherwise they all die. Whilst this idea of state overreach and ridiculous responses to problems, a nod to covid, is interesting I find things quickly devolve into a cartoon.

The idea that the whole family turns on one member because they are a drug addict and not really part anyway, and then tries to kill him themselves so they can all go free makes them all intensely unlikeable. If the film had them all die then it would not be such a sticking point for me but it allows a number of them to live. We return to the notion of the cartoon.

Moreover, in the central scenario itself there are a number of ways in which they could try and escape it and get away, and yet they never seem to think to do that. Dumb writing at its extreme, I don’t mind dumb characters but when it gets to a point where you are sat there physically saying aloud why are you doing that you know something is wrong.

Overall, a good concept with poor execution.

2.5/5

Pros

The idea

The commentary

The world

Cons.

The dumb writing

The ending

The family themselves

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The Next Karate Kid: Better Than Daniel

Summary

Hilary Swank is the Karate Kid.

Now this will almost certainly be a controversial review, however, I put forward with this review the idea that The Next Karate Kid is easily the best film in the franchise. This is for two central reasons, Mr Miyagi, Pat Morita, gets more of a central focus and we get to see more of his world. The monks are a great addition to the mix. The second reason is that Morita and Swank have better chemistry than Daniel and Miyagi ever had.

I enjoyed that this film tried to do things a bit differently and was about Swank’s character opening up more and ended with her going to the dance, rather than yet another martial arts tournament. That said the action was still on point and Swank easily managed to pull off the moves.

Overall, I am a person who enjoys Cobra Kai more for the character moments than for the action so I was always going to prefer this film to the Daniel trilogy, reviews coming soon.

4/5

Pros.

Swank

The focus on Miyagi

The relationship between the characters

The change of setting and final act

Cons.

Not all the jokes hold up.

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The Amateur: Crying Over The Death Of Ms Maisel

Summary

Rami Malek, puts on his Jigsaw hat for a minute and heads out to seek some revenge.

This film is your standard revenge thriller, man loses loved one man gets vengeance, there is little beyond that. There is some fun to be had with the traps, however the trailers for this film spoil a lot in this regard.

The global span of the film is nice and feels realistic in line with how a terrorist groups/ wet work operators would work, rather than this idea of them all holding up in a fortress of evil somewhere.

I suppose the impression I am trying to impart in this review is that this film is fine, it is not particularly anything. The trailers spoil the best parts, so if you can try and go in blind, but yes set your expectations to meh and maybe you’ll enjoy it.

Overall, middling.

2.5/5

Pros.

The traps

It is unintentionally funny

You feel the emotion

Cons.

It been done before

The pacing

The trailers gave too much away

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War Of The Worlds: Ice Cube Whores It For Amazon

Summary

Ice Cube sells out.

So what can be said about this film that has not already been said?

A lot of people are enjoying mocking this film for being bad, and in a sense almost suggesting people watch it as a so bad it is good film, however, this must not be done. By sending people to Amazon to watch this because it is so bad it is good, Amazon will see they can get views out of garbage like this and keep doing it.

This film reeked to me of two key things, contractual obligations and a tax write off. I think everyone involved with this new where it was going, and I think having all the product placement in this film was done as a way to turn a turd into something that could still bring in some money for Amazon. Why else would they have long scenes where Ice Cube uses Amazon.Com to buy things? For the contractual obligations I am presenting an out for Ice Cube, as whilst he likely just did this for the money, there is also the chance that he had to do this film out of some sort of obligation to Amazon/

I would like to think the lampooning of this film means that the era of sat at a computer opening windows sort of filmmaking is over. That we may yet be spared more films like Unfriended, as this seems like the sort of film that kills a sub-genre stone dead. In many senses this is a Madame Web sort of film, but unlike that film Amazon knew what they were doing here.

Overall, trash that you shouldn’t even watch to see if it is as bad as everyone says.

0.5/5

Pros.

It allows you to see how creatively bankrupt Amazon is

Cons.

It is poorly acted

The product placement

It is badly paced

It is boring

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