Small Soldiers: Lets Take On The World

Small Soldiers is a comedy action adventure film directed by Joe Dante. The plot sees toys be created that can come to life, but rather than be like Chucky and kill humans these toys seem pretty content killing one another. However, local kid Alan Abernathy (Gregory Smith), finds himself such in-between the sides and eventually finds himself the protector of the Gorgonites; it is up to him to end the bitter war once and for all.

When I was a lot younger I use to watch this film near constantly, I was unaware at the time that it was made my the same filmmaker who made one of my favourite movies of all time Gremlins, but I decided recently to rewatch it and see if it still held up. I am pleased to say it does.

The plot is laughably nonsensical, but everything is a lot of fun. It encapsulates the magic of playing with toys when you’re a kid, the very real war the toys fight is similar to what would have been going on in your mind when you were playing with your toys when you were a kid; no? Maybe just me.

I think the CGI and the animatronics still look okay, yes, it looks dated, but it still looks convincing enough and it the effects didn’t take me out of the film once.

I think the performances are all pretty flat, a young Kirsten Dunst does her best with a very whacky script thar probably just says ‘scream at the toys’, but this film was never going to be a marvel of acting.

Overall, watching this was a lot of good fun it remined me of being a kid and I still think it holds up in a lot of ways. If you haven’t seen it and are not too discerning, I would say it is a must watch.

Pros.

The dumb fun.

The spectacle.

Reminds you what it is like to play with toys.

It is very wholesome.

Cons.

The acting isn’t great, and the effects look dated.

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

Take Shelter: Are The End Times Nigh?

Take Shelter is a psychological thriller drama film directed by Jeff Nichols. The story revolves around family man Curtis (Michael Shannon), who starts having nightmares about the end of the world as the film progresses these nightmares get worse and start to bleed over into his real world and Curtis becomes convinced that something bad is going to happen.

I appreciate Jeff Nichols; he is one of the most consistent but also incredibly underrated filmmakers working today: check out his whole filmography to see what I mean. What I think Nichols does so well is deal with complexity, in his films nothing is ever clear cut, nothing is ever as it appears. In relation to this film, we are never given an answer one way or the other whether Curtis is getting visons of the end of the world if he is suffering a mental break. The film ends and then it is up to us to draw our own conclusions.

Normally, I would hate that kind of ending I would say it is pretensions and a sign of someone who can’t write an ending. However, here it works, the ending fits nicely with the overall feel of the movie; it is natural. Something that again helps to get rid of any notions of pretentiousness is how down to earth this film feels, everything about it seems set in our world with characters that could easily exist. This is very true of Shannon’s Curtis as well as Jessica Chastain’s Samantha, both feel very real and fleshed out and both actors give magnificent performances.

Overall, this is a terrific film, it is genuinely tense and surprising throughout. My one issue with it is that it does feel a little drawn out and could probably do with a much tighter edit to trim it down. A lot of fun all the same.

Pros.

Chastain and Shannon.

The ambiguous ending.

The tension.

Cons.

It is too long.

A lot of the supporting cast is very forgettable.

3.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Freaky Friday: A Modern Disney Classic?

Freaky Friday is a fantasy comedy film directed by Mark Waters, based on the 1972 novel of the same name. The plot sees Mother and Daughter duo, Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Anna Coleman (Lindsey Lohan), switch bodies for a few days so they can each grow to understand the others perspective.

In my mind this is a Disney classic, this is to me what something like Beauty and The Beast is to people who grew up with that classic animated film; maybe that shows my age. Anyway I grew up with this film I watched it many times, there is something of a comfort food angel about this one for me, so recently I decided to watch it again.

I have to say it holds up, there are some not so stellar parts of the film in terms of race relations that I didn’t notice when I was a kid that I really could have done without, but other than that it is still a fun, whimsical good time. I think fun is the word I would use to describe this film because that is what it is, it basically boils down to Lohan pretending to be Curtis and vice versa for an hour and a half. It is dumb, turn your brain off fun.

I think both leads do a great job. Lohan especially. I think Lohan is really promising in this film and you could practically see her movie star future stretching out ahead of her, however that was never meant to be. Curtis is as fantastic as always; she is always a very reliable person to cast.

Overall, it is films like this that remind me there was a time when Disney magic still existed, call it fond nostalgia if you want to, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Pros.

The Disney magic.

The Dumb fun.

Lohan.

Curtis.

Cons.

It does use stereotypes and some questionable depictions of race which could be viewed by some as offensive.

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

Skinwalkers: Hollow To The Core

Skinwalkers (Skinwalker Ranch outside of the UK), is a found footage horror movie directed by Devin McGinn. The plot sees a team of scientist and researchers go to a ranch in Utah to investigate reports of strange goings on and the disappearance of a young boy.

This is your bog standard found footage film, right now before reading this review, before even watching the film, you can tell me beat for beat what is going to happen and you will be mostly right. It is painfully average in a lot of ways.

I have written a bit about my issues with the found footage genre, my fatigue with it and this film encapsulates everything I am talking about. It is just so damn formulaic it is in no way scary or shocking. It is supposed to be about Aliens, so it does have so cool extraterritorial stuff in it, but mostly it is the same things that you have seen a million times before. The moment when a creepy little girl showed up and then her face distorted and her eyes turned black was the moment I gave up; there is nothing new here, nothing of substance.

The characters are generic, as you would expect them to be in something like this, they try and set up a wider world, but you just don’t care.

The only real pro I can give this film is that it is on for an hour and 17 minutes, so it is mercifully short. Overall, it is not aggressively bad by any means there are plenty of worse films out there, but it is painfully average and mind numbingly dull. Avoid unless you’re desperate.

Pros.

It is not terrible.

It is only on for an hour and 17 minutes.

Cons.

There is nothing to like about it.

Clearly it has been made with no real effort or consideration.

It is a waste of your time.

1/5

Reviewed by Luke

Alita Battle Angel: Trapped In The Uncanny Valley

Alita Battle Angel is a cyberpunk action film directed by Robert Rodriguez; based on 1993 Japanese anime series Battle Angel. The plot follows Alita (Rosa Salazar), a cyborg girl with a mysterious past who is rebuilt by roboticist Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz), she tries to adapt to life as a normal teenage girl but her past gets in the way. She is hunted down by a series of other cyborgs and must defeat them all to keep those she loves alive.

For a long time I have been meaning to watch this film, I know a lot of people love it, so I decided to check it out. I enjoyed it, it has a series of issues that stopped it from being a perfect film for me, but as an overall film I think it worked well and I would like to see a sequel to this film.

I think the strongest thing about this film is its world, it is dense and well explored, the lore never feels forced it feels natural and becomes something you want to learn more about. It is also left ambiguous enough that there is plenty of room for further exploration if I sequel does come out. The performances are all also excellent especially Salazar, she does a lot with a character that is mostly CGI she gives her a warmth and a personality that makes her instantly likeable.

However, I think ultimately what harms this film is it’s CGI. Sometimes, albeit rarely, the CGI is impressive and does standout, it is not Avatar level, but it is impressive. For the most part however, the CGI is poor and video game esque. This is mostly true of the faces of other cyborgs especially the ones she fights throughout the film. What’s more the CGI on Alita’s eyes bothered me throughout much of the film they are weird looking and are trapped in the uncanny valley, it was only midway through the film that I got use to them and even then I had to try not to look at them.

Another thing I didn’t like about the film was the angsty teen romance. This is only a brief subplot, but whenever the plot deviates to it, it slows down. There really is no need for it as it adds very little to the film overall.

Overall, this is a strong science fiction film that has a great world and characters, what lets it down is poor CGI and a needless romantic subplot.

Pros.

Rosa Salazar.

The characters.

The world.

Cons.

The bad CGI.

The romance subplot.

3.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Rabid: Beauty Has A Price

Rabid is a horror film directed by The Soska Sisters, based on the 1977 David Cronenberg film of the same name. The plot sees fashion designer wannabe Rose (Laura Vandervoort), get into a grisly car accident. With the very likely future of being disfigured for life, Rose decides to undergo experimental cutting-edge surgery that can supposedly repair her face; it also turns her into a monster with a taste for human flesh, but hey every medical treatment has side effects.

It was a little surreal to watch a film about a viral outbreak, even if it was a different kind of virus; rabies. I have been a huge fan of the Soska Sisters since they started out, they are incredibly talented and remaking Cronenberg is no easy task, however I do believe they manage to not only match the man himself but exceed him in a few ways.

Firstly, and most importantly for a Cronenberg film/ in this case a remake, the body horror. This film is a little light on that, not in a bad way though, because the few times this film does have some quality body horror it is used to great effect. Such as the scene at the end of the film when Rose is trapped in the room with the mad scientists technically, but not really, dead wife, in this scene we get to see the scale of monstrosity we would expect from such a film and it is haunting.

I thought that Vandervoort was exceptional in the lead role, this is due to the fact that you really buy her emotion and her sadness after the crash. The desperation that leads her to undergo risky experimental surgery is real and plain to see. Even when the more malicious side of her comes out later in the film, she is constantly shown fighting against her darker half and is a hero until the end.

My one complaint of the film would be that I would have liked to see the Sisters themselves more, they’re great actors and after recently watching Dead Hooker In The Trunk I would have loved to see them have bigger parts, maybe next time.

Overall, this film easily manages to live up to Cronenberg, which is the highest form of praise a film can get, great horror and very watchable; check it out!

Pros.

Sparing use of body horror.

Laura Vandervoort.

Well written.

It lives up to the original.

Con.

I would have liked to see The Sisters themselves play a larger role.

The ending was a bit too open ended for me.

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

The ABC’s Of Death: Bring Back Moral Panics!

The ABCs Of Death is a 26-part horror anthology film with each segment being directed by a different person and being about a different letter of the alphabet. The film features such popular directors as Adam Wingard and Ben Wheatley.

Before I get into the review in depth, I just want to say don’t watch this film! I understand the need in cinema, especially in the horror genre, to be shocking and boundary pushing, but this film is just cheap shock value, it has no class, no taste, it is just edgy for the sake of being edgy. An example of my point, in Ti West’s segment M Is For Miscarriage the whole point of the story is a women looking for a plunger to push her stillborn kid down the toilet, there is nothing more to it than that, it is handled poorly and with questionable taste; also that is one of the more tame examples from this anthology.

There are plenty of other segments that feature, rape, paedophilia, illusions to bestiality, dog fighting and many other horrible things, not one of them is handled with any taste, it is all shock for shock value. Surprisingly one of the ones I just mentioned the dog fighting one directed by Marcel Sarmiento, is probably the one with the most taste; that is not something I expected to be writing this morning.

I can break down the shorts into 4 categories, good or at least well done, these are the segments by Wingard, Wheatly, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Lee Hardcastle and Banjong Pisanthanakun. The weird stuff this includes the furry segment, the farting segment and the final segment. The average/ boring stuff, this includes the surfing segment and the life cycle one and then the offensively bad/ done in poor taste, which includes most everything else. So as you can see it is truly a mixed bag, with very few well done segments.

Finally, unlike something like V/H/S where are all of the segments worked together, they were separate and individual, but they all had the same feel and tone, the tone in this film is wildly all over the place, you have really dark unpleasant segments, followed by light and fluffy stuff and it is jarring to say the least.

Overall, this has been one of the toughest films I have watched recently and not only do I not recommend it, I advise you to stay away from it, you could probably find more cultured nuanced horror on Youtube. A black mark on some of the biggest names in horror.

Pros.

There is about 5/26 good segments.

Cons.

Most of the segments are horrible.

It is incredibly hard to watch.

It is done in such poor taste I would call it offensive.

The tonal inconsistencies and also the lack of effort by some, looking at you Ti West.

1/5

The Stepford Wives: The Perfect Spouse?

The Stepford Wives is a black comedy science fiction film directed by Frank Oz. The film revolves around former TV executive Joanne Eberhart (Nicole Kidman), who after a career mishap moves to a quaint little town in Connecticut to start anew. However, once she is there, she begins to become increasing alarmed at the strange goings on in Stepford Connecticut. The women are all subservient homemakers and the men spend all their time at the lodge, a place where business is conducted and people change, but what is going on? As it turns out, neural programming.

This film is a fascinating study of gender norms and what makes a woman a woman and what makes a man a man. The conversation proves to be illuminating, albeit a bit silly, as Joanne probes the depth of how far people are prepared to go to have the ‘perfect’ spouse.

Kidman is fantastic and manages to handle the more intense, scarier moments with a sense of weight and gravity as well as play off the other characters in the sillier, funnier moments. After all this is more of a wacky black comedy than a serious look at society. The film manages to walk the tightrope well never being too silly, nor being too serious; the tone is pitch perfect.

Christopher Walken plays Mike the leader of the Stepford men, or so you are led to believe, as always Walken is magnificent and oozes so much charisma it is hard to take you eyes off him. You buy him as this evil doctor/ cult leader figure, and he gives off palpable malice throughout.

Matthew Broderick as Walter Joanne’s husband proves to be the weak link in this film. This in my mind is all down to one scene, in the final act of the film there is a scene where it looks as though Walter has turned Joanne into one of the mindless Stepford wives, however he hasn’t. My issue with this is the character and Broderick plays him seems like the sort who would do it, the hero turn doesn’t suit the character and isn’t hugely believable. Broderick plays slimy well, so I find it hard to buy him as the hero.

Overall, despite a miscast Broderick, this film still manages to be both thought provoking and funny, something very few films achieve. Definitely worth a watch.

Pros.

Christopher Walken.

Nicole Kidman.

The underpinning social debate.

The good dark comedy.

Cons.

Matthew Broderick.

4/5

Reviewed by Luke

Vivarium: A Beige Hell

Vivarium is a science fiction thriller film directed by Lorcan Finnegan. The plot sees young couple Gemma (Imogen Poots), and Tom (Jessie Eisenberg), become trapped in a lifeless samey suburban nightmare with no way out. One day a package arrives that contains a baby the message on the box reads something to the extent of raise this and get out, things only get weirder from here.

I was quite excited for this before I watched this, however I was deeply let down by a number of factors throughout the film and I thought overall the film was subpar.

The two positive I will say of this film is that it has a great premise, it is suitably creepy and fills the viewer with a sense of existential dread, and that it has a get pair of actors leading the show. Eisenberg and Poots are a good pair, on a par with Eisenberg and Stone yeah probably, but not on the same level as Eisenberg and Stewart. Both give solidly good performances and are engaging.

However, both of these positives are undercut by a weak, smug and boring script. The how and why of the whole film is never really explained, as such you don’t know whether it’s aliens or hell or what; this was most certainly by design, but it does not pay off as it leaves the film feeling hollow and anticlimactic. The film seems to be in love with it’s own ‘smart’ premise and seems to think you should be impressed to, however the idea itself may be neat, but they never actually do all that much with it and a lot of it is a slog to get through.

How you know there is something wrong with this film is because it is only on for an hour and a half, but it feels like it goes on for years, maybe they want us to feel like we are trapped in a beige purgatory like hell just like the characters on screen.

Overall, this was promising, but it is the anthesis of everything it set out to be, it is a thriller that is not thrilling.

Pros.

Solid cast.

Interesting premise.

Cons.

It’s boring.

It is in love with itself.

It goes nowhere and explains nothing.

1.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

The Walking Dead:When A Show Lives Long Enough To Become A Zombie

The Walking Dead is a horror television series developed by Frank Darabont, based on the Robert Kirkman comic series. The plot sees a group of survivors lead by Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), who spend their days fighting for survival in a world that has sunk into a zombie apocalypse; they must do whatever it takes to survive, no matter the cost.

I am a big fan of the Walking Dead comic, as well as Robert Kirkman’s other series Outcast. Invincible let me cold, but that is personal taste. As such when the Walking Dead series was announced I was excited, when Andrew Lincoln was cast, I was even more so.

The first few seasons were good, strong, must watch TV. However, when they got to the prison things changed, I don’t know what it was, maybe it was the shift in the behind the scenes creatives, but something changed, and it was very much for the worse. Season’s started to feel more dragged out, more and more episodes felt like filler and less and less happened, which is a shame as this was the same season that had introduced David Morris as the Governor.

From there things got worse, as well as the pacing issues and the season by season increase of filler episodes, the show started doing something else that ruined the quality, I am of course taking about the fake outs. In the promos for coming episodes of the show, we saw characters in situations where it looked like they were going to die, this got taken to an extreme when Glenn looked all, but dead and then a few episodes later it turned out he was alive; then he died at the end of the season. The issue with this is that it makes the actual character death have less impact, it also feels like a direct effort to manipulate fans.

Now we are at a point the show, where it has lost a lot of its core audience, I personally tuned out at the start of season 6, I saw the stuff they did with Negan, I didn’t like it. It has killed off a lot of the main characters and the ones we have left are less interesting. I am sorry but, Darryl is not a good character. All the issues that I have mentioned before are still there, and now they try and include direct adaption of scenes from the comic to try and lure fans back in but guess what they aren’t coming.

It has reached a point where the show needs to end, unless they want to drive it into the ground. They could focus on the spin-off shows if they wanted to carry on the universe, but the main show should end.