Film Reviews by Strovey

Hoorah, a one-off Marvel super-hero story that does not mesh into other stories or heroes and is entirely stand alone. What a breath of fresh air. How do you make a Marvel super-hero story and particularly a popular hero, Spider Man, who has had so many incarnations I think I might be up for the role soon, fresh? The makers of this movie, and there's a roster's worth of names, came up with an idea, whilst not original, certainly boosted the old tropes and made fun, in a loving way, of the whole Marvel Universe whilst creating an interesting and to point super-hero story.

What's more we're in a world of animation here and yet an old gimmer like me felt more connected to Miles, his parents and the jaded Peter B. Parker with his fat gut and pizza guzzling ways. How can animation hold my interest and make me genuinely laugh more than skilled on-screen actors and action?

The main protagonist Miles is the glue that holds the story together, more like a kid in a difficult situation than any host of live-action stories on the same tack. More believable, more fun, and more downright relatable. Aside from the animation and voice acting, it must be the writing, the feel for how a young lad might possibly react in these out-of-the-world and in-the-real-world situations.

The set up before the real story begins is engaging and enjoyable and drags you into Miles and his parents situation and once we get to the larger-than-life King Pin, voiced by Liev Shreiber believe it or not, and the funny but no irritating Peter Parker and the Peter B. Parker this show is on the road. Every character is well-fleshed and makes sense in their own ways without their own world and it was a blast from beginning to the very funny end.

The artwork and animation are superb and cleverly harks back to the comic-book origins and seamlessly mixes different styles to great effect.

Certainly, this movie came along at the right time for me, not a comic-book fan or particular big fan of Marvel, its strength was it dragged me in, and I enjoyed the characters and story. Maybe this alienated it from real fans of these films, but I cannot see it. If you like comic-books how could you not like this film? The voice acting is perfectly suited to each character, believable and fun, and not annoying as I can find these types.

So, there you go, a Marvel movie about a superhero, with fighting and explosions, that I enjoyed. I recommend Spider Man: Into Multi-Verse it is how comic-book films should be made.

There are a lot of negative reviews of First Man, but you will not find one here.

Taking a story that nearly everyone in the world knows but in fact few really do and then drilling down through the bombast and jingoism that infests these type of stories to bring us into a very personal and small account of a huge event is a breath of fresh Hollywood air and dare I say a stroke of genius. Then strip away as much dramatic artifice as you can, play most character and scenes in an understated and realistic way as you possibly can, and you've got me from the first scenes.

The principal characters are Neil Armstrong and his wife Janet with both playing pivotal roles in the emotional drive of the film, Ryan Gosling is the driven and controlled Armstrong, I seem to recall there was some criticism of the way he played the role, but the truth of the matter, pilots are trained in that way, you can't have panicking, arm-waving histrionics in that profession, take note Ron Howard, and Claire Foy playing his wife Janet is the softer emotional core of the film. How the rest of us normal humans would feel. That's not to say Gosling's Armstrong is a robot and one early scene shows his deep emotions but also says to the audience, this is in private.

Keeping it personal we are surrounded by a supporting cast of characters that were in Armstrong's life at that time, we get to see snatches of their personalities, their lives and what shaped them but only a small amount. Basically, mirroring real life - you don't know the intricate details of a work friends’ life. The once again emphasises the personal world view we are getting.

Then in a further stroke of cinematic genius we get to see the Gemini 8 launch as if you were taking part in it, what you would see were you Armstrong. Like I said personal.

All the acting is top notch in the film with even the dramatic effect scenes certainly having the brakes put on. Gosling is restrained to the point somnambulance at times but that is the point, Armstrong was this way, certainly in his professional and public life and it would make sense that a great deal of emotional outlet has to come from his partner in all this his wife Janet played by the sublime Claire Foy. In truth, women are not served well in this film with Foy the only major female character throughout which is unfortunate but perhaps also a sign of the period in which the film was set and of course we are seeing this primarily through the eyes of the Armstrong family.

The look of the 1960s seems tight and correct, but I was seven when the film's story ended so I am probably not the best person to comment, but to me it looked good. Being a true story but a dramatic film there are liberties with the truth and certainly if you go digging you can find many bends, stretches, and obfuscation in my mind though the spirit of the Armstrongs, the spirit of the time, the feel of it, or to go back to The Castle as Dennis said 'The vibe of it'.

This is where First Man gets it right, the very vibe of the times. Spot on. The pace, the look, the emotion, fits the story and the actors correctly. Sure, if you looking for screaming, exploding helicopters, flaming rockets at a breakneck speed you are going to be disappointed and without trying to preach not all films have to be like this, some can flow languidly like a wide peaceful river that makes it way slowly to a raging, beautiful waterfall.

I'd say give it a go, adjust your expectations if you love action, sit back and marvel at the millions of people did way back in the sixties, rightly or wrongly, to send humanity into space.

I have to say I approach this movie from not being a Marvel fan of any sort and not really caring about the extended universe, the storylines or the original comics. Some of this behemoth of a franchise I enjoyed others I did not. Thinking back I clearly preferred standalone stories that focus on a few characters and I care less about the massive three hours trials and tribulations of everyone that was ever created in the comics.

So as a ‘virtue signalling soy boy’ apparently, this film should have blown my socks off, well parts of it did, parts of it did not. I think in all honestly once the credits had ended, and of course I had to watch to the end because of the various little scenes you know are going to pop-up, I was left maybe unsatisfied. Entertained but unsatisfied.

The overall story is appealing, about Africans, in Africa, hidden away from the colonisation and exploitation by Europe and becoming advanced beyond the rest of the world but keeping themselves deliberately isolated. So there’s a message there and a lot of wishful thinking but hey how many times have the USA won the World War Two on their own and the Vietnam War? So there is absolutely no quibble here and nor should there be.

The usual Marvel problems pop up flat cardboard characters and a simplistic storyline that goes on too long. Giving a big window to an African-centric story is interesting in itself and kept my attention whereas if it were a standard white American hero story my interest would have waned having seen it so many times before. It did annoy me that this African nation, hidden away, developed a massive, technological, advanced society that looked a bit like the USA including the shopping and wandering about in the streets smiling and buying things…hmmm not exactly imagination gone wild in those scenes.

We have been here before though, many, many times. This is any old story, really old, the king dies, long live king, someone evil claims the thone deposing the king, the king wins back with allies. Nothing new.

The huge problems with my opinion of Marvel movies were still here. A long extended hero versus villain fight that I disengaged from after about a minute and a massive over CGIed battle where it looked like no one was really getting hurt because….well because it looks like CGI.

The acting varies but the good outways the mediocre and no one was so jarring it took me out of the film some of the dialogue is a bit hokey and cornball and pacing varies in part with some expository linking scenes skipping along and others just plodding along to the point where you could be forgiven for looking at your watch. The look and design of the film in Wankada is sumptuous and clearly some thought has gone into how an African nation left to itself would develop and look, although being isolated from the world, as I have said before, would they really go for shiny skyscrapers and the capitalistic wandering around rows of shops buying things model? There could have been other ways to go here.

Unfortunately, I have the sinking feeling that yet again this is another Marvel film I watched from start to end, would not watch again and I will mostly forget. Shame really the ball has been fumbled here

Little Haven, Christmas, a zombie virus is slowly sweeping the country and those that don’t prepare and fight back will end up zombies themselves. Only singing and dancing can save the day..sort of.

This is the best zombie-song-and-dance film I’ve ever seen. Okay, it’s the only zombie song-and-dance film that I’ve seen but it is still not a bad movie.

With a small-town setting, so all of the action is localised and personal, no wider world building here apart from some quick radio updates, and mainly in and around a school this film perfectly allows the cast to be young, full of energy and verve. This is clearly what you need for the song and dance routines and I have to say as no big fan of hoofing and jazz-hands, it works.

This type of film must rely on it’s cast and in this case, the delightful Ella Hunt and Malcolm Cumming absolutely smash the chemistry test as they interact on screen and rather pleasantly are just friends in the story, no romance. Ably supported by the wacky Sarah Swire as Steph North and other ‘friends’ from school the film sets out is stall early and you either quickly buy into it or it will leave you cold. For me it worked. I laughed and enjoyed the song and dance numbers that were full of energy and fun. The young cast are helped along by long-time British stalwarts Mark Benton and Paul Kaye who also give their pipes a working out over the course of the story, Benton I did not know about by I have seen former Dennis Pennis Kaye taking centre stage in the muscial production of Matilda at the RSC a few years ago.

The zombie side of the story is the what the makers hoped would be the catch and I understand this and applaud it as a brave move, I’m guessing the famous episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer would have been an early influence, where horror and song and dance could surely not mix but do.

The zombie plot, in all honesty, is slight and to my mind seems incidental, its not, and also what actually bogs down the movie as it goes on – people die, which some see as good point and others might not as it takes away from the comedy but the more the zombie plot plays out the more it holds back the film like a big undead anchor. The film starts to slow down at the midway and before the nihilistic open end, it had started to outlive its welcome. I just about held in there to end but may attention wandered.

The location’s in Scotland give the film an authentic real feel for UK viewers in particular and is another plus point for this odd film. The acting and performing from everyone is top notch and fun and overall this is a great interesting film to be added to the zombie pantheon.

Yet the nagging feeling I get overall is that this would have made a better hour-long special movie on say Channel 4 than a full-length feature film.

Overall its a winner though and it’ll be interesting to see what director John McPhail and writers Alan McDonald and Ryan McHenry come up with next. I’ll be looking out for it for sure.

As I have noted before many times on my Blog I am not a Marvel Comic Book or film fan. I’m not invested in the stories or characters and I do not look forward to the latest instalment of the franchises whatever they may be. I will watch the films and I will not dislike them for the sake of disliking them and being contra-cool.

I do have to say that explosions, leaping and punching for an hour of running time bores me rigid but this film, story and franchise clearly is not aimed at me.

Infinity War is the penultimate film in this huge rambling series. The final instalment coming up, it’s on my list, is Avengers: End Game. Which knowing this, even when Infinity War was first released into the cinema means that no matter what happens in this film you just know it’s not the ‘end’ and also the next film, no matter what happens there, is also not the end. There is a lot of money to make producing these films, superhero style piles of money. No film company is going to put a stop to this regardless what does or does not happen to the characters.

So for me there are problems, so many characters to fit in, even for a few minutes that it felt like appeasement to fans at times, the story rambling all over the place, with things that happened seemingly plotted to make the running time longer. Logic in the storyline goes out the window early on and then flies to the trees and stays there. It would be churlish to point out all the points that make little to no sense but once you give a single character the power to alter time, reality and all points in between you had better make your story is watertight otherwise it sinks in a sea of gooey contradictions really quickly. Avengers: Infinity War does this.

Having said this the film for most of the running time is entertaining and my attention did not wonder too much. The big battle scene in Wakanda, like the last one in Black Panther, lacked tension or thrills and bored me as it seemed to be interminable, the same with the big fight with Thanos, who was so powerful and able to control most of what was going on that it was easy to ask how was there ever fight in the first place? But I fully understand big flashy, non-stop noisy fighting scenes are what makes a Marvel world and it works for youngsters whose eyes and brains perhaps are tuned better than mine to this. I honestly find it boring if goes on beyond the actual endurance of real people.

Like all Marvel films the running time is too long, at least half an hour of bagginess and what on the surface seems exciting depth in character and motivation proves on proper examination to be slight and at times a bit silly. As an example Thanos’ motivation seems initially ‘wow I could see why he might do that’ then in the cold light of day it becomes ‘wait a minute…’ and this is the overall pervading feeling I had. Of course I’m aware I was watching a complete fantasy and just escapism but also the Marvel Comics have always been defended as more ‘adult than you think’ and covering ‘modern hard-hitting topics’. Well they skim the surface but they are just comic-book stories no matter what anyone might like them to be.

The acting throughout is good albeit with some people getting two minutes of screen time and at least Samuel L Jackson gets the best line in the whole film that made me laugh. The visual and special effects are better than usual with a feel of heft and reality to most heavy-laden scenes, which cannot always be said of a Marvel Universe film but any sense of peril or real danger, even at the very end of the film was just missing for me. These characters are expensive commodities and are laying some very big golden eggs. Everyone one of them will return in some form or another.

Usual Marvel fare, well produced, explosion infested and definitely slanted to fans but for me the same, it was okay, but I will not be going out of my way to watch it again.

There is no way to give an opinion on this film without in some way spoiling the plot twists but as the film is fifteen years old one would hope most people had seen it by now or probably will not care too much. We’re not talking Endgame spoilerage here.

The film has more than a few problems for me. It starts of interesting setting up two let’s be honest, fairly despicable, characters and gives us a good long insight to their short run cons, clearly laying out Sam Rockwell has the quick thinking, young ambitious buck, with Cage as the neurotic and challenged older mentor. How a person with this many mental problems is able to hold onto a high-stress process as conning innocent ordinary folk is the first flag the popped up and took me out of the film somewhat. The glue that holds this together is Rockwell, playing a role he has down to pat, and Cage much more controlled that some of his more outlandish roles, even the OCD which must have been like catnip to him is treated with some deal of realism and sympathy by the film and Cage.

With the introduction of a big risky con and the ‘didn’t know I had a daughter’ daughter the film suddenly careers off into to two distinctly different film genres. Do we get a scary but ultimately satisfying con of some thoroughly greedy and unpleasant people or do we get a redemption of a dishonest but flawed man as his real humanity is brought to the surface by a daughter he loves but never knew about?

Well actually the film is neither and tries albeit unsuccessfully to confidence trick us into taking one of those two paths. Except of course most people, if they are paying attention, can see what is coming before it gets anywhere near the conclusion. Which begs the question why doesn’t experienced long-time con man Roy see it all coming? There are some obvious signs and glaringly things that happen that make you think ‘oh come on’ and then you’re out of the film.

Even more insultingly as the film closes we get a never-asked-for injection of saccharine, a meeting that frankly (no pun intended) makes no sense after what happened in the previous hour and a half and a feeling of disappointment that stays with you after the credits and ended and long gone.

The Sting did this many years ago in a much more entertaining way and I suggest The Grifters for a more gritty story, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels for more fun and Paper Moon for a mix of both before you even look at this one. I’m honestly sorry to be this way about a Ridley Scott film and a film that features Sam Rockwell but it’s entertaining enough but is quickly forgotten and I would not go out of my way to watch it again.

Matchstick Men fails to ignite the senses, flares for a short while and then burns out quickly – yes I went there.

Hotel Artemis seems to have been billed as a hot action flick but in truth the action, kicking, stabbing and shooting really takes place in the final fifteen minutes or so with a character study build-up leading into it. Mainly a cartoonish set of boldly drawn characters but nonetheless the film-maker tries to give them interesting characteristics and back-stories. This partially fails and partially succeeds.

For instance I was interested in who they were enough to keep me watching but then I felt that they were very lightly sketched. Jodie Foster, very effective as ‘The Nurse’, is given the lions-share of background but the rest are given one-line lead-ins but not much else. Sofia Boutella, impressive as always in this type of role, is a top assassin who is very successful and she has to record her killing for her client, but that is it. Dave Bautista is huge orderly/minder but that is it. Take this away from the film and what really have is a light, not so fluffy, comic-book style story. The police officer played by Jenny Slate seems to have been a weird afterthought that lead nowhere – I just found the whole part of the story odd.

Overall the look is impressive with the slightly-future LA looking good, just scuzzy enough to be on the edge of riots and noirish Blade Runner look fitting in well. Also the future-tech whilst perhaps a bit too far ahead for ten years in the future was plausible.

All of the acting fitted in well with the type of story and film that Hotel Artemis was but as a whole, I couldn’t help something was missing. The run time at 94 minutes certainly did not outlive its welcome and I was happy to sit and watch from beginning to end but like many films I’ve watched over the years I would not go out of my way to watch it again and by the end of next week I’ll have forgotten most of it.

Which is a shame but Hotel Artemis could have been so much more than it was.

Well we’re in Shakespeare country here. One Cut of the Dead goes there, unashamedly, perfectly and so entertainingly it should be illegal.

This Japanese microbudget movie, that the actors paid to act in apparently, is nothing to do with zombies and everything to do with the reason you might be reading this review. Loving movies. The real fun to be had here is this is has been made with an obvious love of the creation of the films and real understanding of the frustrating, fun and at times bonkers processes that go into a tightly budgeted and difficult project. Without ruining the story by typing out the plotline and giving scene by scene recaps do not stop watching after the first end credits roll, apparently in some markets they did, and do not be put off by the cheapness, cheesiness and acting of the opening parts of the movie. It is worth holding on.

I’ll be honest the lengthy screaming put me off and made me consider my choice but I found out the reason and finding that reason out was worth the wait.

I would not be resorting to hyperbole if I said the last 30 minutes of the films tight runnning time not only prove to be entertainingly enlightening but genuinely, laugh-out loud, hilarious.

The opening part of the movie make you see everyone involved in one light that is basically not flattering and frankly a bit potty. Takayuki Hamatsu is the director from hell, but this turned on it’s head before the end by a charismatic and nuanced display by the actor who has one other credit to his name on IMDB. He is ably supported by all of the cast who get to play with their roles all of whom seem to have had no other acting experience with the exception of Mao who appears to be, and excuse my huge ignorance, a successful pop-star.

During the opening 37 minutes you are left hanging, no able to fully understand what is going and frankly in danger of stop viewing or letting your attention wander. I cannot emphasis this strongly enought DO NOT stop watching. Every question you ask, every annoyance you suffer by seeing what is happening on the screen, is answered and answered so well, so cleverly that you will be rooting for every character in the film.

If the ending of this film, the true ending, does not make your heart soar or even make you cry, perhaps watching films is not for you.

The whole story is directed with such subtle and consummate skill by Shin’ichirô Ueda that it takes a while after the film has finished to realise that everything you saw on the screen was meant to happen the way it did. Every single scene, every line of dialogue, every pause, all of it was planned, worked out an rehersed. This film is a glorious love-letter to low budget, fly by the seat of your pants, film-making and as such is a must watch for any and every person that professes a love of films. If you don’t love Director Higurashi and his friends at the end of the film – well, there’s no hope for you.

Every person in this film put in a great performance and were fun, interesting and quirky. They should all be so, so proud of themselves. I would be.

Finally, this film is funny, very funny.

“I’m fast, cheap, but average,” well it might have been made ‘fast’ it definitely was ‘cheap’ but there is no way it’s average.

Do yourself a favour, watch this film.

Dan Stevens is a charming and charasmatic presence as Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas but he is given a tough task, he has to portray a man in the midst of the creative process and a creative process that is blocked. In real life this is staring at a wall for most of us and doing lots of the things that come under the heading of procrastination. To make it entertaining Stevens has to play this type of dry spell like it is coursing through his veins like some stimulating drug rather than something that drags you down. For the sake of a screen version of this story it has to be this way, otherwise you have a dull film. Stevens plays this role perfectly and is the anchor that makes the film an enjoyable watch.

Fortunately the film is populated with some excellent British acting talent lead by the unredoubtable Christoper Plummer, Johnathan Price and Simon Callow although Callow is close to being a cameo as Dickens famed illustrator John Leech. I think he is contractually obliged to act in all Dickens passed films or TV shows. Having 'favourites' I was pleased to see Justin Edwards and Miles Jupp (Thackeray) popping up during the storyline so I am biased.

There is a good mixture of comedy sprinkled throughout the running but it is part of the story and not the overriding reason for the story. The story, whilst seeming original, is in fact close to Shakespeare in Love with events and people in Dickens life shaping his latest story. The method is different, yet not original, where the characters Dickens is creating appear and interact with him. On the plus side this could have been very clunky but director Nalluri and the actors handle is well and smoothly. It was fun.

The film definitely assumes you have some working knowledge of Dickens and his novels but this is in fact a plus point. There is no hand holding here or one-hundred weight exposition crushing the proceedings. The story leaves us in no mind that Dickens reinvented Christmas soley through Christmas Carol but does not really explore how Christmas was celebrated before then, other than nearly all bosses appear to be Scrooge clones, so much so that getting inspiration should not have been that hard for the author. These are all piffling points and you should not really go into the film looking for an accurate depiction of Charles Dickens or the times, that is another film.

The Man Who Invented Christmas is fun, well acted, film but like many in this type of category you watch it and enjoy it but it's soon forgotten.

I enjoyed the first film, despite not really liking these type of films, so I approached The Equalizer 2 with some trepidation. There is no doubt the Denzil Washingston’s charisma and laconic acting style made the first Equalizer a success and certainly would tempt a lot of people to watch it that maybe would not normally do so. But here we are with one of my least favourite film numbers ‘2’.

Having said this Denzil Washington is in the film, he does not do sequels, he does not phone-in performances and he certainly does not need the money so there must be something to it. Truth be told there is and there is not. When Washington is on the screen, whether it is being sage, or duffing people over, or just being nice or funny, you get your money’s worth. Luckily he is on the screen a lot. His character is interesting and appealing and to use a very overused expression he is ‘badass’.

No, the problem with the film is the story is a bit tired and saggy at the edges. McCall’s clearly has a strong sense of right and wrong and a strong moral compass he does not need a hackneyed and very old plot-point to drive him into a new and interesting story. A lot of story points could be spotted miles away and it was fairly easy to guess who was going to make it to the credits, who was not, and who were the baddies.

This is not say that the supporting cast acted badly or you did not feel a sense of peril for characters but there is a strong sense of ‘seen it all beforeism’ in the run time. The denouement was frankly disappointing and left me with some seriously raised eyebrows. It did keep my interest though as I tried to figure out who was going to ‘get it’ during the storm and I was dead-on, he with the least amount of lines and screen-time dies first.

More enjoyable was McCall’s earlier ‘equalizing’ which padded out the first part of the story but helped to established that if you do bad and he runs across your path you are in big trouble, they actually made more sense than some of the ‘main’ story.

Further to this the side-story involving Orson Bean’s holocaust survivor whilst having its heart in the right place was clunky and a bit saccharine particularly the way it was tied-up. A bit too neat and lovely.

Overall I found The Equalizer 2 enjoyable and watchable but it was definitely diluted from the original and to my mind perhaps Robert McCall should be allowed to live out his salad days in peace especially when you consider the amount of mayhem he seems to cause from time to time he probably is not going to get away with his vigilantism for too much longer.

It is often said the Shaun of the Dead was a love-letter to George Romero well Night Eats the World is easily a big soppy love-letter to 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead (remake), and various other Usain Bolt zombie horror stories, there is even a small tribute to my favourite zombie ever, Bub, playing a fairly central part in the story. This is not to say it is a bad thing but if you a familiar with the trope, I feel many viewers will be, then you'll recognise scenarios, frights and the basic premise. Again this is not a bad thing but it does lead to a game of 'oh I saw that in' or 'they did that better/worse in this film'.

Casting aside the who, whats and whys, which all good zombie films should do, and getting to the action and set-up of the story whilst cleverly foreshadowing the coming events starts the film on a good footing and the whilst we are in plus terrioritory the makers then say 'What would an ordinary person, with no real survival skills (nearly all of us) do?' and they try to answer it sensibly too. Sam is no genius, he's clever enough to know that the scabby bloody messes are no longer his friends and neighbours and want to kil him and he is smart enough to know that if he can lock them out of the apartment block he'll be reasonably safe. He is stupid enough to try and get a cat from outside though - I wonder what stupid thing I'd do if I managed to survive (which I would not)?

Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie plays Sam releastically and you believe from his reactions and the way he behaves this event has really happened. How he occupies the huge amounts of time he has is cleverly answered and is a question that no one asks in these type of films. After all if you make yourself safe and secure that is exactly what you'd do, stay save and secure, so many films end up with the protagonists doing ludicrous things that lead to disaster. Not Sam, he'll stay safe, make avant garde art music, listen to tapes, respectfully lay victims to rest, because he's a decent human not a monster that all survivors turn into immediately in US films, and like all of us, start to hear things and let his imagination carry him away.

The buckets on the roof are straight out of 28 Days Later but why not, it worked in that film and works for this story too. The zombies are very much World War Z, Dawn of the Dead (remake) and although I don't like sprinters, they make no sense at all for reasons I cannot be bothered to go into here, but to make them silent was a stroke of geninus.

I must mention the arrival of Denis Levant who now is my favourite zombie, trapped in the lift he cannot get to Sam so Sam uses him as companion sitting and talking to him. I will not spoil how that ends but it truly is original in its own way and definitely not what I was expecting.

The arrival of Golshifteh Farahani signals the end of the section of the story we would guess we were stuck in and takes Sam in a new direction and the twist to this part, whilst not original, was well played and actually made perfect sense due to what lead to it.

Night Eats the World tries to take a tried and frankly worn-out genre and give it some new clothes. It does not quite manage this as well as 'The Battery' which I recommend but it comes close. There are too many, seen it before moments, but the acting and real menace of the undead and the situation and how it is dealt with do give it a good spring cleaning at least.

All in all a better zombie movie - and considering the vast libaries of DVDs dedicated to this horror-trope most of which should really be forgotten about that is praise indeed. Would I go out of my way to watch it again? Probably not but if it was on TV and flicked onto it, I would flick to the next channel.

Certainly this is Taxi Driver for the 21st century but with director Lynne Ramsey’s distinctive stamp all over it. We stil see wet, seedy, dark locations as Joe traverses the underbelly of society but this is juxatobpose by bright, clear, colours and well-lit scenes. Joe is multilayered and fair from being portrayed as a somewhat likeable pyscho or even unlikealbe one he is shown, and amazingly acted by Phoenix, as a basically normal man with huge flaws. He has a disasterious past that bubbles to the surface from time to time, he is horrifyingly violent but only in when the circumstance arises, other than that he’s a somewhat scruffy, beardy bloke, you might pass on the street.

Sure the film is slow past with plenty of shots of Joe ‘thinking’ or wandering about, the flashbacks are cut-editted in, I liked this but I can see how others would get confused or irritated but let’s think about this. It’s slow-placed, a bit boring, so there aren’t enough flashy, explody, bang-bang-bang films out there for you? This is the opposite. You can drink this without scolding your lips.

The story is shockingly violent. Violence seams throughout the running time like some precious ore yet Ramsay very clearly says right from the beginning she’s not interested in the violence despite it being part of the life-blood of the film. In a lesser director’s hands I could have watching arterial spurting, brain splattering and hearing bone-crunching sounds alongside screeching and screaming. With Ramsay we see it remotely, in black and white through security cameras, or the aftermath, which is a bit gory, or it is entirely implied. I wish more film-makers did this, torture and gore porn have never been mine thing and worries me that so many people seem to get a kick out of it when at times it seems to he the only reason for the film – but I digress.

Joaquin Phoenix as Joe is centre and stage and fills the screen as a big bear of a man who seems on the outside normal although clearly troubled. all other roles and actors are bobbing in his wake. With this type of presence on the screen you need an actor with big shoulders to carry you and with the mercurical Phoenix, Ramsay got her man. Few other actors could have had the screen presence to carry this and the film would have been very different without him.

As a story You Were Never Really Here is actually as straight forward conspiracy that goes to the very top story with a loner tough-guy sorting it out but give it an actor and director and the top of the games, let them twist the plot and pacing the way they want it to go and you get something that is greater than the sum of its parts.

‘The man with the ball pane hammer’ will not be for everyone but if you give it a chance, maybe view it in the right frame of mind and perhaps watch it more than once you will see more than you first thought you did. It is good.

Finally like Taxi Driver is there a subtext to tell what is happening throughout the film – the title, the final scenes, well it should get some debate going but in the end you make your own mind up as you should with all good films.

Having never read the novel and only seen a few reviews of Ready Player One so I went into the film with no idea what to expect.

I’ll say from the start as a slightly dull, fifty-six year old man with a grey beard I find the current trend for nostalgia-porn dull in itself. Naval gazing and eulogising about the glorious past leaves me cold. I was eighteen in 1980 and it was not fantastic nor was it ‘crap’ it was just a time. Some of the music was good, some was awful, some films were great, some were dross – do you know what? Just like now.

The acting in this film is good with Olivia Cooke once again showing why she is getting picked for roles left right and centre, and none of the vocal-fry that irritated me so much in TV’s Vanity Fair. Tyler Sheriden is believable and sympathetic and very ‘normal’ for the role of ‘hero’ likewise the supporting roles – all are believable ‘video gamers’. It would be too easy not to miss the target of the video gamers avatar and what the real person is like and this film hammers that to the hilt – like I said it was too easy a target. The baddy, played with some lovely scenery chewing, by Ben Mendelsohn, seems to exist to be bad, his motive, like so many films, is just to be corporate greedy. I understand this trope and there is some truth in it but it would be nice to see some nuance from time to time.

The film moves along at an exciting pace and certainly has some great visuals of the near future and it was fun for ten minutes, when in the OASIS, to see which ‘characters’ and pieces of nostalgia you can spot but like so many modern blockbusters we do end up with hugely confusing set-pieces of explosions, impossible derring-do escapes and confusing pyrotechnics. This type of action must be for the younger generation because in every film I ever seen featuring these ‘exciting’ battle and set pieces I usually get bored and confused. Near the end of Ready Player One I had no idea what was going on and ended seeing how many repeated place-holder creatures were popping in the scenes – they are there too.

Certainly, as film, I don’t know the book, Ready Player One seems to be a blatant nostalgia-fest with constant references both oblique and obvious but this to me is the real reason for its existence, the story is fairly simple, made to appeal to the video-game generation but nothing that you have not seen here or there. The trouble is when I see Robo Cop for a fleeting second it makes me want to the original Robo Cop and not Ready Player One. For me that is biggest problem of Ready Player One, from time-to-time it reminded me of better films I had not seen for a while.

All in all, it is a well-made film, and well-acted, with some stunning visuals and rip-roaring storyline but on the negative side it is not as original as it thinks it is, it wallows in nostalgia, loves exposition and can be confusing at times, especially near the end with the battles and set pieces.

Ready Player One is okay but I won’t be watching it again in thirty-years time.

There is no doubt the easy charm and on-screen charisma of the always fun Paul Rudd drags Ant Man and the Wasp from the mundane to the fun. His amusing asides and observations are somehow more enjoyable and seem less acerbic than the more confident and brash Robert Downey Jnr’s Iron Man. With his crazy gang of friends, led by the ever-reliable Michael Pena, of the first film still in place the smile and laugh quotient is high and if you are not a big fan of comic-book films this definitely a much needed relief.

Luckily Rudd is surrounded by some acting chops to back up him with Evangeline Lilly back as Hope Van Dyne and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. Both seem to act effortlessly and the chemistry between the three is there to be seen on the screen. Smaller roles are competently played with Randall Park playing the comic-relief role of FBI agent Jimmy Woo to the hilt.

It wouldn’t be a fair review if Walton Goggins was not mentioned as his thankless task of Sonny Burch is played without over the top gurning and histrionics and it was pleasing to see a baddie whose motivation was fairly simply – he was greedy and wanted more.

For the all the fun and excitement of the little-big world Ant Man and Wasp does have its faults though. Certainly, on the small screen, and obviously this might by the reason, a few of the CGIs affects looked a bit ‘ropey’ but a bigger problems for me is the gap between ‘that was great’ and ‘hold on a minute…’ which sometimes, like with some Star Trek films, happens the next day but in this case they happened almost simultaneously. Now some people will say it’s only a comic-book adventure, a fantasy, relax, I get that and I can but some of the shrinking and growing parts of the story bordered on silly. In particularly the luggage sized office building doesn’t stand up to the slightest of scrutiny, unfortunately for me that means I’m thinking about it whilst the film goes on.

The story certainly whips along a fair pace and is not as baggy as some Marvel stories and villain is suitable villainy and isn’t motivated by world-dominance, he even has one of the Detectorists as a henchman, I could have done with the side-order of the Ghost, which felt it was shoe-horned in and was frankly a bit, well boring. Having said this equally within the ginormous Marvel Universe Ant-Man and the Wasp does not seem to move on the character much in any way. The only part that ties this in with that Universe is the ending which leaves you in no doubt what’s happened to three of the four heroes but there’s a huge clumsy clue to how this golden goose will carry just before the ‘terrifying ending’.

All in all I was entertained and found Ant Man and the Wasp fun not least because Paul Rudd dragged it way out of the mundane ably assisted by the film’s cast but after watching and reflecting on what I was going write the nagging feeling I get, despite all that has been said and written about the comic-book world and the themes they present to viewers and readers, is fair from adult fare the more I thought about this film and all the others I say is that are childish, very simple and childish.

There I’ve said it. Now I’ll put my tin-hat on.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is beautiful romantic drama about a part of real-life actor Peter Turner’s life in the late 70s early 80s. He met and had a romantic relationship with Gloria Graham, one-time Oscar winner and 50s silver screen star. The film centres on this tempestuous relationship that had its ups and downs, but the film makes clear was a true love between the two.

Jamie Bell plays Peter, already a fish-out-of-water actor within his own working-class household and neighbourhood who further pushes against the ‘norms’ when he starts a romance with the much older Gloria. Mr. Bell is on top of his game here, he rarely isn’t to be fair, and breathes believability into a working-class Liverpool lad who happens to love acting and really loves this older woman without actually realising exactly who she was. His relationship with his family, bewigged Stephen Graham and Julie Waters could be said perhaps to be conflicting, dramatastic, actor fodder but in all honesty it’s easy to believe that with Peter being an actor and all the problems and uncertainty that could bring and then being in relationship with a famous, albeit fading, eccentric movie star might bring a few errr conflicts. Still will all know actors love shouting and angry arguments.

The cast is uniformly fantastic with Annette Bening playing the older, insecure, Gloria Graham who ultimately proves to have a deep and caring love for Peter although he never finds out how much, but the audience is let in on it.

There is some great film-making creativity going on here and with trips back into the past a mere step through a door and some old-style backscreens during driving scenes which I think added to the charm of the story. The chemistry between the two leads is there to be seen and none more so than their first meeting a fantastically choregraphed and naturalistic dancing scene – and who doesn’t want to see Billy Elliott giving it some seventies disco?

There are many stand out moments in the film just two come straight to mind; the visit to the cinema and then the pan up to what film it is (not spoiling that) and Peter, his dad and the dog visiting the pub and a completely natural conversation between them that takes place.

All in all, this film is great piece of cinematic romantic drama that is acted impeccably by its superb cast made even more amazing by the fact it is based on a true story, a true romance if you will.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is a simple love story about a younger man and an older woman – at last, because I’m fed up with wrinkly old men copping off with twenty-something starlets. That the star-crossed lovers are actors and one of them a fading famous one is really incidental. If they had been a plumber and a shop owner, written as it was and acted as it was, it would have been as good.

This a story about love and how any true love no matter how short and sorrow-filled is better than no love. Without doubt this is a film that loves love but there is some love left over for the magic of film and the days when Gloria Graham was a star.

Great acting, great film, great story and you will get ‘something in your eye’.