The Innocents: Where Is The Line When Showing Animal Abuse On Screen?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A group of troubled children develop otherworldly abilities and use their powers for sinister means.

I forget who said it now, but a reviewer of this film that enjoyed it far more than I did said of it something to the extent of ‘finally a film for adults’, no doubt in a jab at the mindless blockbusters many don’t view as true cinema. However, I want to pose the idea that if this often excessive and unpleasant film is true cinema then maybe it isn’t such a good thing.

There are two examples I would like to point to that soured the film for me, both happen fairly early on and it only gets worse from there. The first is when a heavily disabled girl is tortured by our lead, played by Rakel Lenora Fløttum, and the second is when the lead and her friend shove a cat into a sack and then drop it from a height onto the ground. I understand that these elements are to show that the child is twisted and sadistic, but in my mind this is communicated to the audience in a needlessly tasteless way. A defence for this could be that it is a horror film so we can expect sights that sicken and disturb us, however, at least for me this crossed a line.

Animal abuse in film is always hard for me to watch.

Overall, this film was a bit too rich for my personal taste.

Pros.

The child actors do feel genuinely menacing

Cons.

The animal abuse

Bad taste

Pacing issues

The plot feels overly familiar

Some meandering subplots

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Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers: The Return Of Monstrous Sonic

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Yet another classic Disney property gets the reboot treatment.

I will preface this review by saying I did not grow up watching Chip an’ Dale and that this film was my first introduction to the characters. In that regard I felt like I understood who everyone was and what was going on so I appreciated that, there is nothing worse than watching a reboot and being entirely lost because it was based off an obscure property from a few decades ago.

Moreover, I did think this film had a few solid laughs, I enjoyed Ugly Sonic, voiced by Tim Robinson, and thought the film got a hell of a lot better when he was in it, I also thought J. K Simmons proved once again how great his comedic timing is and really shone as Captain Putty. The human characters fare far worse and really don’t need to be there at all, if KiKi Layne’s police officer character wasn’t in the film it wouldn’t really change it much at all.

I thought that the story structure and character arcs were a little generic and also far too overly familiar. I understand that expecting quality writing from an animated film aimed at children might be too much to ask for but I am still going to point it out.

Overall, it was a slightly above average film with a few good laughs.

Pros.

Ugly Sonic

Simmons
Samberg is always likeable

Cons.

Layne

The characters across the board feel generic and fairly two dimensional

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Everything Everywhere All At Once: Mothers Can Be Saviors Or Destroyers

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Evelyn Quan Wang, played by Michelle Yeoh, is a dissatisfied wife and business owner who becomes alerted to her multiversal significance.

In many respects the idea of multiverses in cinema is quickly becoming played out, a trend bound for death. However, I won’t be so cynical to say that the multiverse formatting can’t yet provide us with some interesting ideas, insights and emotions. This film proves that through the idea of a multiverse greater philosophies can be debated and explored, and the inner workings of the human mind can truly be taken apart and examined.

I really enjoyed the character work in this film as well as the mother daughter focus. Yes, I did think that having Evelyn’s daughter Joy, played by Stephanie Hsu, being the villain was a little obvious and on the nose, however, I also thought that despite this the film used their relationship to create fantastic emotional stakes and to nicely examine the concepts of motherhood.

The thing that many people will take from this film is how strange it is, there are often abstract and surrealist elements featured throughout the run of the film, and I think in many cases you aren’t supposed to fully understand what is going on so that you can form your own interpretation of events. I appreciated how strange this film got.

Overall, a fun film that won’t be for everyone but is well worth your time all the same.

Pros.

Yeoh

Hsu

The broader themes

The abstract strangeness

Cons.

The pacing, the film is on for way too long

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Senior Year: Is Rebel Wilson The Female James Corden?

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Rebel Wilson plays a seventeen year old who falls into a coma after a cheerleading accident waking up 20 years into the future and having to go back to finish off her senior year.

Prior to watching this I thought it was going to be trash, almost every red flag a film can give you was presented up front, a Netflix original, an adult going back to high school, cliched teens and finally the fact it starred Rebel Wilson. However, once I started watching it I actually found myself somewhat enjoying it and thinking that it wasn’t all bad at all.

The things I enjoyed were three fold, I thought the sentimentality was just right and that it managed to nail the emotional appeal it was going for, I also thought bringing back Alicia Silverstone, of Clueless fame, to play Wilson’s characters prom queen icon who has fallen on hard times was a stroke of genius, and finally the film features Sam Richardson it is very hard to go wrong with him.

However, by no means was this a great or even particularly good film. The mean girls rivalry between Wilson’s character and Zoe Chao’s Tiffany felt forced in and cliched. Moreover, the teen characters who become Wilson’s friends are all incredibly insufferable, they make constant references to contemporary political issues, social media and what it is not okay to say: to make matters even more on the nose in the final scene of the film one of these kids say that they are going to run for office- I groaned louder then I ever have in my life. I truly believe the trio of ageing male writers who put this screenplay together have no idea how kids talk, what they are interested in, or that not every single member of Gen Z is an activist.

Don’t even get me started on the ending dance number that feels like a throwback for the all the wrong reasons.

Overall, not as bad as you are expecting but still not strong.

Pros.

The sentimentality

Silverstone

Richardson

Cons.

All the teen characters

The ending dance number

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The Ghosts Of Borley Rectory: Britain’s Most Famous Ghost Hunter

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Famed paranormal investigator Harry Price, played by Toby Wynn-Davis, investigates the most haunted house in the UK, Borley Rectory.

In many ways this is what you would expect from a straight to DVD film, it is cheap, derivative and looks slightly better than what a decidedly average film studies student may create for an assignment. However, it is not all bad because in that see of roughness I did find some fun to be had.

I enjoyed the atmosphere of this film and thought that it did have a number of good scares peppered in over the course of the runtime. The demon nun angle was a bit cliched and overplayed and felt a little bit too much like they were trying to rip-off better films.

I thought Wynn-Davis was a commendable leading man and managed to keep everything together and going in the right direction. I don’t know if I would say this is the best take on the life and investigations of Harry Price I have ever seen however, as I think Rafe Spall was better in Harry Price: Ghost Hunter.

Overall, a slightly above average horror film with a few good scares. However, it is lowered by feeling too familiar and at times a little predictable.

Pros.

A few good scares

The atmosphere

Wynn-Davis

Cons.

It feels like a knock-off version of other better films

It is deeply predictable

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The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill And Came Down A Mountain: Looking For Love In Wartime Wales

4.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Two cartographers, played by Hugh Grant and Ian McNeice, visit a small Welsh town during World War 1 to measure local features, one of which is a large land mass that the locals say is a mountain -however the cartographers think is a hill. Hijinks ensue.

I think you can’t go wrong with young Hugh Grant, maybe Four Weddings but hey that was a fluke. Grant is at his charming best here and plays the tongue tied English man who of course falls in love with a local Welsh woman, played by Tara Fitzgerald, with gusto. You really end up caring about the central relationship but not perhaps as much as you do for the wider community who come together to turn there hill into a mountain. This is a community that has been ripped apart by war and suffering and to see them all come together to try and save their mountain is honestly heart-warming. There are a few moments wherein the sentimentality does feel a little sappy and American but for the most part the heart is just right.

One thing I would note is that it is pretty poor that none of the leading roles are actually lead by Welsh actors. The three leads are Irish and English. Now I am not going to go on a big rant about representation, but it is quite poor that they couldn’t have got an actual Welsh person for this film.

Overall, Welsh representation aside this film is a heart-warming delight.

Pros.

The romance

The emotion

The ending

It is a lot of fun

Grant

Cons.

The lack of Welsh actors

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Morbius: The Kind Of Film That Reminds You How Good Dracula Untold Was

2.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Michael Morbius, played by Jared Leto, develops a cure to the terminal illness that has plagued him since birth, however, his cure also turns him into a living vampire.

I am starting to see a lot of aesthetic similarities between Sony’s Venomverse and the Dark Universe, it is in the fact that so far every Venomverse film has felt like an edgy emo teenagers dream with that being especially true with this film. To further the parallels between the Venomverse and the Dark Universe this reminded me in a lot of ways of Dracula Untold, it has a very similar vibe and a lot of the bat related CGI effects feel like they carry over between the films. The writers of this film also wrote Dracula Untold and you can tell in almost every line of dialogue, in many ways a lot of the emotional elements and plot devices from Untold end up bleeding over into this film.

I think Leto was miscast in the role and doesn’t even seem awake for most of the film, to me at least it seemed more like Leto didn’t want to be there and was probably only there to get paid. Leto is a problematic actor and it is for that reason I didn’t watch this in the cinema when it came out, instead waiting for my friend to rent it on VOD so that I could watch it on a visit. No one is on good form here, bar I suppose for Matt Smith you at least seems to be having some fun. I wish Smith could have chosen a better project to jump onto the superhero train with.

I won’t even get into the post credits scene, which yes is as bad as you have heard. There is no rhyme or reason for this scene it stands in the face of any kind of logic, not making sense through No Way Home’s spell idea. It seems the only reason this exists is for the Sony executives, who can’t sleep at night unless they are running comic book characters into the ground, who want a Sinister Six movie for some reason even though the team has little wide appeal or brand value but hey. It makes no sense that Morbius who has spent the film not killing anyone bar the mercenaries at the beginning would team up with Michael Keaton’s Vulture to go and hunt down Spider-Man, it is just dumb.

Overall, a deeply average movie that you probably shouldn’t watch unless you are looking to be bored.

Pros.

It reminded me how much I liked Dracula Untold

Jared Harris

Matt Smith

Cons.

Leto

It is boring

The post credits scene is awful

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In Time: Not Enough Time To Sit Through This

2/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

In the future people stop aging on their 25^th birthday with a one year countdown then beginning until their death, however, this death can be averted if someone has the means to find and secure more time; usually through connections or cash.

My, my what an uninspired science fiction tale this is. Throughout the film it feels increasingly like the director is trying to shove a message down your throat, what of is hard to say, maybe something to do with seizing the day or capitalism being bad, but ultimately whatever the film’s message is it just comes across as tired and cliched. This is not deep science fiction despite it really wanting to come across like that.

Moreover, after watching I am left asking the question of if this film could have been better had someone else starred in it. The answer to that question is probably, I have never understood the appeal of Justin Timberlake as an actor as often he struggles with even the simplest of roles, as such if a more skilled actor had taken the lead here who knows maybe it wouldn’t have been so underwhelming.

The pacing of this film is also a major issue, it feels far too drawn out and indulgent. The second act feels like a slog that goes nowhere and only exists to kill time, it ruins any excitement you might have after the opening of the film, which is actually okay.

Overall, a lame science fiction film that was all style and no substance.

Pros.

An interesting idea

A few well put together sequences

Cons.

Timberlake

The pacing

The limp message

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The Social Network: Was Mark Zuckerberg Ever Human?

4/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

The story of the founding of Facebook.

I have seen this film well over 5 times it is just so good. The team of Fincher and Sorkin really come together to deliver something amazing here. The dialogue scenes are so impactful and tightly done that each one feels like its own mini action sequence, Fincher keeps the stakes up throughout the film and in my mind does justice to his subject.

I think this film for the most part doesn’t show Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jessie Eisenberg, as either good or bad but rather as just a human being who has seen some troubles in his life. I think Eisenberg is near perfect in the role and I don’t see how anyone else could have played the part, this is probably Eisenberg’s finest performance to date. Moreover, this film features Andrew Garfield which is always a good sign and he too has a strong turn here.

My main issue with the film is that the Napster stuff with Justin Timberlake feels quite like filler and doesn’t really need to be in the film, I think the piece as a whole would be tighter without it.

Overall, a magnificent biopic let down by a needless sub-plot

Pros.

Fincher

Sorkin

Eisenberg

The drama

Cons.

Timberlake and the Napster side plot

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Firestarter: The Remade Stephen King Universe

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A remake of Stephen King’s Firestarter. The plot follows Charlie, played by Ryan Keira Armstrong, a young girl hunted down for her supernatural powers.

A lot of reviewers out there are giving this film very low scores and personally I can’t see why. I don’t know if they were very attached to either King’s original novel or the previous film, but I haven’t read or seen those so I can only judge this film based on its own merits and not compare it to anything else.

I thought for the most part this film was good, the tension was well done and I got vibes of Doctor Sleep in this regard. I thought John Rainbird, played by Michael Greyeyes, was fantastic until the final 10 minutes, he gave off a strong amount of supernatural intrigue as such you constantly wanted to know more about his character but the film didn’t reveal anything which I thought was a smart move. Moreover, Zac Effron also did a great job here further proving his serious acting chops, I thought during the psychic battle sequences he was incredibly.

Another highpoint for me was the score composed by John Carpenter, his son Cody Carpenter and David Davies. It felt like the perfect 80’s call back mixed with just the right amount of excitement and intensity.

However, it wasn’t all roses. I thought the CGI fire effects were poor, to make matters worse whenever Charlie used her powers the camera would cut to a close up of her face with the fires happening off screen which felt cheap and obvious. In addition, there were several moments in this film were it became unintentionally hilarious and made me laugh out loud in the cinema, I don’t think that is what the filmmakers were going for. Finally the ending of Charlie forgiving Rainbird and then going with him despite all the trauma he has inflicted upon her makes no sense and just seems forced in so that the film can have a happy ending.

Overall, above average and certainly with redeemable elements despite not being a great film.

Pros.

The score

Effron

The mystery of Rainbird

The tension

Cons.

The ending

The cheap CGI

It is unintentionally hilarious

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