Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten-year-old boy growing up in Hitler’s Germany during the end stages of World War II. His mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) leaves him to his own devices to explore his hometown and spend lots of time playing with his imaginary friend Adolf (Waititi), the Führer himself. An injury incurred at a Hitler Youth training camp will mean Jojo has lots of time to recuperate and discoveries will make him question his allegiances.

Jojo Rabbit is the third major film that Waititi has helmed that features a young child in the lead role. Boy is a spectacular film that explores the loss of innocence of its lead character. Hunt for the Wilderpeople takes the audience on a bizarre adventure as a juvenile delinquent bonds with a father figure who isn’t interested in children. Waititi coaxes excellent starring performances from his young leads in both of those films.

In Jojo Rabbit, Waititi is again considering the loss of youthful naiveté through the eyes of his hero, Jojo. And, again, Waititi helps Griffin Davis to excel in a comedic lead performance that many adults would be proud to have created. Matching Griffin Davis is Thomasin McKenzie as Elsa, while both Johansson and Sam Rockwell turn in accomplished takes on their supporting roles.

The first part of this film is an absolute riot: Jojo and Adolf have a blast (pun intended) preparing and then attending the Hitler Youth camp, and Waititi’s comedic skills are on full display. This is a satire with elements of slapstick and visual comedy thrown in, and it is really, really funny.

Considering the topic and themes under exploration, however, there inevitably needs to be a change in tone. Waititi tries to graduate the shift in the mood so that it isn’t so jarring, but there is a moment when the audience is assaulted by a thematic gut punch.

It is the difficulty of balancing the two different films Waititi is trying to make that means Jojo Rabbit isn’t as successful as it threatens to be. There is only so much an audience can be willing to trust a filmmaker, and Waititi breaks that trust when the gear change occurs. As a consequence, one wonders whether we are witness to a dream sequence and the cognitive dissonance causes a departure from the filmmaker’s world back into the real.

This is all incredibly lamentable, as Jojo Rabbit has enough heart to win most audiences. The film is mostly satisfying, and it is commendable that Waititi succeeded in creating it and then having it released. Were it not for its unevenness, Jojo Rabbit would be a miracle; as it stands, it’s just a very good film with a major flaw.

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Frozen II sees sisters Anna and Elsa venturing to the Enchanted Forest, upstream from their own kingdom. There, they will discover a land in need of saving and learn some shocking secrets about their own family history.

Astonishingly, the pre-title sequence is really, really rough. Like, first draft rough. (More likely, it’s the result of too many rewrites, but you get the idea.) The film soon picks up, but even at its best, the script needed one more dialogue pass. The writing simply doesn’t pop in the way that Frozen and Moana‘s scripts did.

We get a few new characters, none of which stick in the mind after the credits roll, except one, who exists purely for the purposes of further queerbaiting (seriously, the sooner Disney takes the plunge with regards to Elsa, the better.) There’s subtext to be found – something about the environment, something about addressing our colonial past – but there’s nothing bold or thought-provoking about it.

The animation is 2019-standard, nothing mind-blowing like the water or hair animation in Moana.

Acceptable describes just about everything in Frozen II. It feels like it could have been a Disney+ exclusive, rather than a fully-fledged cinema release. This film had the same $150 million budget that the first did six years ago, which surprised me. Surely the highest-grossing animated film of all time deserved a bigger, bolder sequel?

I’m curious to see what the legions of fans thought of this. A significant proportion of them may have actually ‘grown out’ of the property, which is the risk you run when you take such a long time developing a follow-up.

Whilst I was never blown away by Frozen, I could at least see why it captured the hearts and minds of so many. With Frozen II, there is very little to set it apart from the scores of other 3D animated movies of the past ten years.

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I’m not sure I can even go into this film in any depth – I’m too angry.

The Rise of Skywalker feels like it was specifically made to appease the group of fans who hated The Last Jedi. Like someone ran through the half dozen plot points that frustrated them the most, then set out to retcon them, one by one. It’s truly astonishing how many things achieved by the last film are undone by the return of J.J. Abrams.

Chief among The Last Jedi’s accomplishments was the notion that we have to move on from the past. Rey (Daisy Ridley) wanted to learn from it and take the next step; Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) simply wanted to kill it. “We are what they grow beyond”, Yoda said. Clearly he wasn’t talking about Episode IX, which has no interest in taking up the opportunity presented at the end of Episode VIII, instead content to retread old ground – even more than The Force Awakens. So expect to see old faces, endless callbacks and rehashed scenes from the original trilogy.

I won’t list the major plot points that infuriated me – to do so would be to spoil the film – but suffice to say, it feels like an apology. Which, historically speaking, is strangely fitting, considering Return of the Jedi was an apology for The Empire Strikes Back (which was not universally well-received at the time, despite what revisionists claim) and The Last Crusade was an apology for Temple of Doom. So yet again – it’s something we’ve seen before with George Lucas’ creations.

J.J. Abrams lets loose with a couple of things that annoyed Star Trek fans back in 2009 and 2013 – namely, messing with what can and can’t be done during faster-than-light travel, and giving his characters power over life and death. Sure, the end of The Last Jedi featured an astonishing show of power, but it also came at a cost. In Rise of Skywalker, Kylo and Rey are flinging the Force around like demigods.

What did I like about this film? Well, this won’t take long. The visuals are stunning, the VFX fantastic. There are some cool new worlds to explore. Most significant of all is the fact that the cast are acting their damn pants off. Despite the awkward exposition, plot contrivances and characters doing random 180s, they carry it off with aplomb. The undisputed hero of this trilogy is Adam Driver, who has consistently sold even the most ridiculous writing in all three of the films. But then there are so many characters that given short shrift. Leia, we can understand. But Lando? Luke? Rose? Finn? Wasted. Even new characters like Jannah (Naomie Ackie) serve little purpose.

So this is how it ends. At best, a constrained act of obeisance…and at worst, a whimpering apology. I’m sad to say that this trilogy will have to remain a two-parter on my Blu-ray shelf.

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6 Underground’s marketing is based primarily on the presence of Ryan Reynolds, and the incomprehensible trailer is matched only by the incoherence of the film. This film is a mess. It’s disheartening when one watches 127 minutes of a movie and then wonders what the f*ck they just sat through.

Reynolds stars as One, a billionaire who fakes his death to become the leader of a group of anonymous vigilantes operating on a global scale. Their mission is to take down the despotic leader of the fictional country Turgistan, but first they’ll have to complete a rescue mission and assassinate some generals.

Reynolds first came to my attention playing a pre-med student in the TV show Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, and it was clear from that moment that he could be a big star. After appearing in a series of college frat-boy movies, he has reinvented himself as an action man with a comedic edge in movies like Deadpool. In my opinion, Reynolds is one of the most watchable of all of Hollywood’s leading men. He oozes charm and has used it to achieve tremendous success.

Even Reynolds’ charm can’t save 6 Underground.

Bay deliberately obscures the narrative by employing a non-linear structure that confuses rather than enhancing the flow. Sometimes starting with a flashback or flashforward makes sense when considering the dramatic tension that can build, but in 6 Underground there seems to be no purpose other than to bewilder the viewer. The action sequences and set pieces make little overall sense within the disorganised narrative.

Melanie Laurent features opposite Reynolds but is strangely restrained, showing none of the vitality on display in her turns in Inglourious Basterds or Now You See Me. The remainder of the ensemble are placeholders and play their roles without ever becoming interesting. Of course, this is a Michael Bay film, and therefore the action sequences are given far more attention than character development.

There are moments – brief, but moments nonetheless – where the action threatens to become enjoyable or a chase scene surprises. It’s all shot in glorious Michael Bay Vision as well, so you know it’s going to look ok. Those moments are mirages, however, and things peter out into a disappointing and confusing film with little to recommend it.

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Boseman is introduced as Andre Davis, a grieving son at the funeral of his slain NYC police officer father. His righteous fury at his father’s death is presumably intended to make us sympathetic to his subsequent acts as a police detective. When a drug heist goes wrong and several police officers are shot and killed, Andre is asked to lead a manhunt to capture their killers.

Drawing from a long line of police thrillers that have come before it, 21 Bridges is formulaic filmmaking at its finest. Of course, Andre can’t trust anyone around him, including his partner. Of course, the good guys become indistinguishable from the bad, and Andre can only rely on himself. Of course, Andre is redeemed for his sins by the end of the film. Would that it were all not so predictable.

Andre is partnered by Sienna Miller’s Frankie Burns, and they share precious little chemistry. New York is shot as a dark and foreboding place – hardly the city that never sleeps of repute – and the characters are similarly lacklustre. Burns has a little girl she mentions at one point in a vain attempt to give her some depth, while Andre still visits his ailing mother. None of this information adds to the audience’s understanding of their motivations or actions.

The only performance that is remotely interesting is Stephan James’ turn as Michael. Here is someone who communicates the urgency of his situation, and who the audience can understand and perhaps even feel sympathetic toward. J.K. Simmons phones in his performance and the remaining cast are noteworthy only for their injuries: oh, there’s the fingers-missing guy! Hey, there’s the one with no eye.

At only 99 minutes, 21 Bridges is an outlier given the trend to long-form filmmaking and the inability of modern directors to tell their stories efficiently. I’d love to say the film doesn’t feel bloated but it really drags at stages.

21 Bridges is more miss than hit and is unlikely to satisfy fans of crime thrillers or action/adventure films. One can only hope Jonah Hill doesn’t feel inspired to create the ultimate 21 Jump Street Bridges crossover.

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Like many Stephen King stories from the past 20 years, this feels like a remix of things he’s done before. Specifically, it’s reminiscent of ‘Children of the Corn’, ‘The Stand’ and ‘Desperation’. Twins Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal (Avery Whitted) are driving cross-country when they stop to assist someone lost inside a field of tall grass. You won’t be surprised to learn that doing so is a bad idea…

I often find it exciting when King reverts to a back-to-basics story. As fantastic as some of his bigger, more complex tales are, sometimes you just want to read something like ‘The Raft’, you know? In the Tall Grass is like that, though it always hints at something else, just seen off-camera. It’s a bit like Lovecraft’s work in that way – there’s something bigger than us in the universe, it’s been here much longer than us, and will be here long after we leave. And it does not care about us.

The setup is intriguing, even if it does rely on the twins making some dumb mistakes. And the moment new characters appear, we as the audience are immediately more suspicious than Becky and Cal. It’s like they’ve never read a Stephen King story before.

Natali does some really interesting stuff with VFX here, as he has done all throughout his career. The budget is decent enough, but I never forgot that we were almost always in a studio, especially when there was obvious sky replacement going on…

I was never bored, but the film could have ended at any time after the 45 minute mark. There are dozens of mini-climaxes that felt like endings, and when the actual ending arrived, my only response was “ehh, good enough. That makes sense.” There’s no narrative urgency, no real oomph. The film successfully shifts gears from first to second act…and then plateaus.

In the Tall Grass is a competent film, well made. But that’s about it. The only highlights are Natali’s visual flair and Patrick Wilson, who is making a habit of hitting it out of the park even when the film around him is rather silly (see also Aquaman).

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After the discovery of the lifeless body of family patriarch Harlan Thrombey, his family come together at his gothic mansion to understand what could have lead to his murder. Old resentments resurface and the reading of his will escalates matters even further. Meanwhile, a mysterious private detective is investigating… something.

At a time when remakes and sequels are de rigueur and we’ve all slogged through 23 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alone, an original movie that is as fun and enthralling as Knives Out can lead to a form of ecstasy. This is the kind of film that so rarely sees the light of day any more, and it is so much more valuable for that. Knives Out is a reminder of what great cinema can and should be: a surprising laugh; a tragic mistake; a thrilling discovery.

And yet, Knives Out still needs to earn its stripes and it does so with aplomb. Paying homage to Agatha Christie while remaining stridently modern, the film is a hard one to encapsulate in a single genre. Is it a straight-out comedy? Not quite, but there are moments to make you laugh out loud, especially in seeing Captain America shed his lycra. A simple murder-mystery? Not exactly, but it certainly features many of the tropes of the oeuvre. There are elements of the caper; there are even some moments that shoot for political commentary although don’t let that put you off.

Quotable:

Marta Cabrera: I’ve never been to a will reading before.
Benoit Blanc: Think of it as a tax return by a community theater.

The entire cast seems to be loving their experience, although Chris Evans and Daniel Craig appear to particularly enjoy playing at variance to their most recent well-known characters. Craig is a revelation as private detective Benoit Blanc, a southern gentleman for whom the respect of the police detectives hints at an intriguing backstory. Johnson leaves questions about Blanc’s history unanswered, a decision that allows the film to feel deeper and more grounded. It must have been tempting to tell more of his story but thank goodness he resisted the urge.

Ana de Armas and Evans round out the leading roles, and de Armas is excellent in her part as the only one who really seems to care about Harlan’s death. Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Christopher Plummer, LaKeith Stanfield and Katherine Langford fill out an incredible leading cast. Unfortunately, a running joke about Jaeden Martell’s Jacob falls flat while Riki Lindhome’s Donna is wasted entirely and might have been excised to encourage focus.

The film moves along fairly briskly, although with a couple of brief edits to its 2h10m running time it would have been close to perfect. As released, the occasional redundancy keeps it short of that (high) mark.

Knives Out is a wonderful film and a must-see for film-lovers. This is the kind of filmmaking I wish audiences would encourage more with our box office money, rather than handing over yet more cash for yet another superhero money-maker. Please, go along and pay full-price: it’s the only way we can tell the accountants in Hollywood what we think is important.

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Surprisingly, this newest version isn’t actually a reboot – it acknowledges that which came before, all under the premise that there are now many, many Angels and Bosworths all over the world. (You know, that thing Ghost Corps was going to do until…well, we know what happened there.)

Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska play lead roles this time around, and they’re having a great time. Their performances spark off each other, and all three have oodles of charisma to spread around. The worst that can be said is that they clearly get along well – even when the film suggests they shouldn’t. The bickering is too friendly in the early stages, which takes away from the inevitable mutual respect that we all know will surface by the time the credits role.

Bosworth is played by Elizabeth Banks, who’s a triple threat here, having also written and directed the film. And the writing is interesting. Some have criticised the film for being stuck in turn-of-the-millennium girl power, but to me that feels unfair. The film is clearly feminist, the difference here being the inclusion of an incredible list of micro-aggressions that women have to face in their everyday lives. But at the same time, we’ve got a trio of women who are, of course, stunning in the most traditional of ways. For obvious reasons, I am not the right person to be suggesting how a 2019 Charlie’s Angels should approach feminism, but it’s clear that the concessions made mean the themes don’t land as well as they could.

The action is fun – and I mean really fun. The editing is a mixture of great and rotten, and there are some dodgy gravity-defying moments that make no sense, but the film has such a brisk pace that this isn’t a problem. Comparing the action to the likes of Mission: Impossible – Fallout, is simply unfair, because, well, nothing can compete with that film. At first I wondered if a gritty approach may have been more successful (considering we’re in a post-Bourne world where Daniel Craig’s Bond still struggles to find the fun), but then Kingsman did all right as a silly action-comedy five years ago.

So put this down as one of those pleasant surprises. If the responses online have put you off, consider giving Charlie’s Angels a go. It’s fast-paced, fun entertainment with some great action sequences. And if you need another reason, Kristen Stewart is hilarious as Sabrina, getting some of the funniest lines in the film.

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The original film is a curious beast. Supposedly beloved by many, I’ve yet to find anyone who genuinely enjoys Jim Henson’s film as an adult. Even as a child, I found it a slow, plodding affair that failed to excite any emotions. The puppetry was the only thing worth writing home about. Henson’s next film, Labyrinth, was an improvement in every single way.

So I’m damning Age of Resistance with faint praise when I say that it’s a marked improvement on the original film. A prequel, it shows the world of Thra under the benevolent dictatorship of the Skeksis. The various tribes of Gelflings pay tribute to their overlords, variously in a state of denial or blissful ignorance as to fact that they are being taken advantage of. Everything changes when one of the Skeksis discovers they have the ability to use the Dark Crystal to siphon life force from the Gelflings, and extend his own life. Meanwhile, a mysterious force known as the Darkening (seriously) is taking over Thra…

With an expansive cast of characters, Age of Resistance sees the individual story threads spread across Thra, then intersecting more and more frequently until it all comes together at the end. If you’re fascinated by fantasy world-building, then this show has it in spades. The different landscapes, flora and fauna, various tribes and races – there’s a lot to take in, and I don’t remember the last time I watched a TV show that paid this much attention to the setting.

I should make clear that Age of Resistance has wonderful production values. The score is bold and uplifting, even if the main theme sounds distractingly reminiscent of Tears for Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. The physical sets are incredible, and the costuming is stunning. When it comes to the puppets themselves, however, I’m on the fence. I’m not a huge fan of rubbery-looking puppets, so the Gelflings themselves are unimpressive. Then there’s the fact that the puppeteers aren’t providing the actual voices. Now, I mightn’t have noticed this if Brose Avard (head honcho of the Chatflix podcast) hadn’t mentioned it, but as with the original film, the voices are replaced by other actors’, which means that the physical ‘performances’ aren’t as impressive as they could be. Put simply, ‘Sesame Street’ puts on a better puppet show.

The voice cast is…overwhelming. Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jason Isaacs, Simon Pegg, Benedict Wong, Mark Hamill, Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina, Eddie Izzard, Helena Bonham Carter, Lena Headey…I have to stop, because the list goes on. It’s basically a who’s who of actors from fantasy and sci-fi productions of the last 20 years. Also, could we take a moment to note that Simon Pegg has appeared in reboots of Star Trek, Star Wars, Tintin, The Chronicles of Narnia, ‘Doctor Who’ and now this? Are there any iconic geek properties from his childhood left for him to take part in?

Age of Resistance is a love letter to the original, but thankfully much more entertaining. I wasn’t exactly enthralled, and was regularly conscious of scenes or plot points that only served to pad out the episodes, but perhaps that’s because I’m aware that this is yet another example of a proposed film being changed to a TV series by Netflix (see also ‘Stranger Things’ Season 1). The potential for more big budget puppetry on streaming networks does get me excited, however. I’m glad that the art can still get the big budget treatment in 2019.

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Mackenzie Davis stars as the naked young woman and she is the best thing about this – hopefully final – Terminator film by a good measure. Anyone who has seen Halt and Catch Fire will know how powerful she can be, but this is probably her most prominent role since her small but important character in The Martian. Davis brings just the right amount of strength mixed with fear and fragility. She is fantastic in an otherwise mediocre film.

For anyone who watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day and marvelled at James Cameron’s VFX chops while enjoying an almost perfect conclusion to the story from The Terminator, the hack job that is done on the story and legacy of those films is hard to believe. This film was released with a bunch of ‘James Cameron is back doing Terminator’ publicity and his involvement as story author and producer was trumpeted as a reason that this Terminator reboot will get it right.

One must wonder if Cameron has forgotten what happened at the end of T2 as the retcon performed here makes no sense whatsoever.

Talk about a slap to the face. Arnie’s T800 didn’t need to lower himself into a vat of molten metal? The iconic image of his thumbs-up sign as he sacrifices himself was meaningless? Oh, dear.

via GIPHY

This is a competent film, with action sequences that are sometimes exciting and yet very often things just feel flat. Robert Patrick’s molten T-1000 was terrifying because he was incredibly hard to conquer and completely soulless. It is hard to specify exactly why Gabriel Luna’s REV-9 doesn’t invoke the same sense of hopelessness, but it means the turmoil inflicted on the lives of Dani and Diego Ramos is harder to engage with.

It is enjoyable to consider some of the broader ideas raised by having a different apocalypse to consider after Sarah & John Connor avert the Skynet disaster in T2. The concept of the alternative future being different but equally bad is alarming and makes a good point about Man’s tendency to self-destruct. It will be difficult for fans, however, to ignore the canon and accept this new Dark Fate on its merits.

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