Tag: Action
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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword – Nah mate
The American reviews for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword came out last week. I try to aviod such things but the negative buzz was pretty overwhelming. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I thought, ‘it’s a Guy Ritchie film. I like Guy Ritchie films.’
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Alien: Covenant: A clumsy remix
Did you enjoy Alien? You know how Aliens took the approach of completely recontexualising the familiar iconography through the perspective of a different genre lens? What originally was a tension horror joint reinterpreted as military action, the very image of the xenomorph itself taking a completely different meaning through its multiplication. Difference of ten years…
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Mindhorn: These fair Isles
It’s weird seeing the title cards in independent movies that were never supposed to be on the big screen. At the opening of Mindhorn Isle of Man Film’s logo looks like a shitty jpeg, stretched out awkwardly to fill the screen. There’s been some talk, a surprising amount of films shoot on the Isle but…
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Sleepless: The double double
The posters for Sleepless ask us not to ‘judge a cop by his cover.’ Can we judge him for the fact that he seems to be a total asshole instead?
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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Pure indulgence
When I got to thinking about the original Guardians of the Galaxy and this new one, I keep coming around to the title sequences. The first one starts, as films irritatingly thought they could do for a while before, the production cards with that prologue about the death of Star Lord’s mother. Then it has…
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Fast & Furious 8: I don’t care what you Americans call it.
It’s called Fast & Furious 8 here in the UK. Seems to be Fate of the Furious in other markets. Misleading; there don’t seem much fateful or furious about this joint. We open in Cuba, I guess the lifting of the embargo has made it the new hot place for films to visit. It is…
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Some Cold Takes: The Lost City of Z and Ghost in the Shell
The Lost City of Z Patriarchy’s one hell of a drug innit? Percy Fawcett can just go off to Bolivia, searching for his lost city, neglecting his wife and children who carry on in England without him. Whiteness is toxic. He tries to disrupt paternalistic eurocentrism by searching for civilisation in Southern America, yet neglects…
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Free Fire: A competent film about incompetent people
Take how fast and kinetic you imagine Free Fire to be and then half it, and maybe half it again once you’ve done that. Despite being a film about witty gangsters and their high level arms deal, the film is shockingly dedicated to the reality of their incompetence. Seems to take place about an average…
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Saban’s Power Rangers: Chewing the cud
If Saban’s Power Rangers smacks of anything, it’s shame. Like, they can barely force the words Power Rangers out of their young actors’ straight faces. You know they gotta go on to say ‘Morphin” and ‘Megazord’ and all that other nonsense, at that point you’re scripting something impossible. John Gatins had what he must have…
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Kong: Skull Island – A better Sahara
Did you ever watch Sahara? I don’t think many people did, it’s not that good. I think it’s one of the contenders for the title of the biggest Hollywood flop. It’s the bizarre, sloppy, racist attempt to turn Matthew McConaughey into the action star he never was. Part of the joy of the thing is…
A Grand Quiet 