Haunted Mansion Movie Review
The story as it exists involves a single mother Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase Dillon) who move into an old mansion in backwater Louisiana. When it turns out to be haunted they enlist the help of scientist Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield) to help rid the house of its unwanted visitors.
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If anyone has ever actually ridden on the Disneyland ride, it is quite impressive how many of that ride’s visual elements are incorporated into the movie. This ...
The Equalizer 3 Movie Review
The latest chapter of The Equalizer film franchise (which is based on the eighties TV series of the same name) sees the man of few words injured and recuperating in a beautiful Italian village. While there he learns to love the locals and when they are threatened by the local mafioso he shuffles into action.
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The pacing in this edition is even more deliberate than in previous incantations and this helps things build to a most satisfying climax. The body ...
Strays Movie Review
Reggie (Will Ferrell), Bug (Jamie Foxx), Hunter (Randall Park) and Maggie (Isla Fisher) are the canines in question and they prove there are consequences to miss-treating man’s best buddy. Just ask that human dropkick Doug (Will Forte) who ends up paying a very heavy price for his bad behaviour.
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Director Josh Greenbaum gets the raunch just right and keeps the profanity flowing. One would also hope that Jamie Foxx gets paid for every f-bomb he drops ...
Gran Turismo Movie Review
Accurate it is certainly not but it does provide a fun blast of racing histrionics amid a feel-good story of overcoming great obstacles to realise your dreams. Don’t be misled by the fact it is based on a true story and base your level of enjoyment on its sense of realism. This is pure fantasy stuff.
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The real racing driver in question is Brit Jann Mardenborough who beat 90,000 other entrants in the GT Academy competition. He had no real racing experience but ...
Asteroid City Movie Review
That idiosyncratic nature plays out in the look of the sets and costumes, the colour palette and lighting, the dialogue and performance of the actors and the whimsical nature of the stories they tell. Seldom laugh-out-loud funny, the humour is too dexterous for that, this is the kind of mirth that builds most in remembrance.
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Trying to reduce Asteroid City to a mere synopsis does it a disservice as it is a work filled with subtext, subversion and sublim...
Sisu Movie Review
The violence is ramped up to a ridiculous extreme but since the receivers of the carnage are Nazis you don’t feel that the actions are unwarranted. It is cartoonish in nature but always entertaining. The work is littered with nods to Quentin Tarantino so if you find that auteur's take on brutality palatable then this will be right up your alley.
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Set in the waning days of World War II, a scorched Northern Finland provides the backdrop for the actions of ...
Scandinavian Film Festival 2023: Let The River Flow Movie Review
In Let The River Flow when you combine the sad and racist treatment of the Sámi people with the emerging personality of its main character Ester Isaksen (Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen) you have the basis for some looming signs of emotion.
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Ester does her best to hide her ethnicity in an attempt to fit in but her undeniable sense of heritage is brought to the forefront. Her involvement in the protest of a government’s disregard for Sámi lands by building a dam that ...
Oppenheimer Movie Review
Julius Robert Oppenheimer was an exceedingly complex man and one many see as both a saint and a sinner. He was instrumental in putting the brain trust together for the Manhattan Project, The collection of minds that developed the first atomic bomb. When it was used twice to bomb the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki it divided both the world and scientific communities.
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Oppenheimer the pragmatist saw the bomb as necessary due to the race for its completion between ...
Barbie Movie Review
With a storyline that works the angle of Barbie (Margot Robbie) becoming a sentient being who begins to question the reality of her surroundings, it opens the door for some very assertive social commentary. Ideas delivered with a sly wink via an effective monologue by America Ferrera. The fully colour-saturated look is as imbued with robust ideas as those words.
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Casting Ryan Gosling as the Ken doll works well as he is unafraid to ham it up or play the fool and ...
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Those big risks give the action on-screen a much more visceral impact and the wow factor is elevated substantially. This is also needed as the character development in this, the seventh time out is minimal. Cruise is such a recognisable celebrity that it is difficult to see him other than himself but in that context, he rarely disappoints.
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The storyline of Dead Reckoning revolves around a hot topic in today’s news cycle Artificial Intelligence or AI as it is ...
