Dan Says its Alright

The Wicked musical has grossed a piddly $6 billion since its opening in 2003 so Universal Studios have decided to raise some extra cash with this film adaptation. Well, this and next years next years adaptation since despite no "part 1" in the title we only get half the story here. Duplicitous marketing aside, splitting proceedings in half seems to have been the savvy move. For the uninitiated, Wicked is the story of The Wicked Witch of the West, giving her a backstory and  retelling The Wizard of Oz from her point of view. Here, she is called Elphaba and this first film tells the story of her time at Shiz University, her frosty then friendly relationship with future good witch Glinda and encounter with The Wizard that leads to her being branded a villain. Despite only covering half the material this film is longer than the entire musical but it seems like that couldn't be helped. Movie audiences aren't accustomed to songs driving the plot so connective tissue has to ...

Despite his somehow enduring popularity, Venom is a conceptually rubbish character. He is born of a period in comics when publishers wanted to make their child friendly characters edgy and Spiderman media, be it comics, films, games or whatever else, tends to get worse whenever he shows up. "Kind of like the good guy but bad" is one of the most boring villain types to begin with and no writer has ever come up with anything interesting enough to make him deserve his top billing amongst the wall crawlers stacked rogues gallery. The previous two films managed to (somewhat) sidestep the blandness of the IP by hiring a great actor in Tom Hardy and letting him do Jim Carrey style physical comedy mixed with a heart felt love story between a man and his super powered alien parasite. Given it is the last in last in the trilogy, Venom : The Last Dance really wants to have epic stakes and emotional resonance, leaving little room for the things that made the first two movies watchable. ...

 If you're watching the opening battle of Gladiator 2 , where siege tower adorned ships attack a city,  and thinking "this isn't how it would have gone down", then this is not the film for you. Ridley Scott's twenty four years in the making sequel is a historical epic with emphasis firmly on the epic part. Is it as good as its predecessor? Obviously not. But you'll be too enthralled by the spectacle to care.  Picking up sixteen years on from the events of the first movie, Paul Mescal is Hanno, a Roman by birth who has settled in Numidia. Pedro Pascal's General Acacius brings his Roman army to conquer the city, leaving Hanno in chains and his wife dead. After watching the captive Numidians in a forced fight against some seriously savage  (and ripped) monkeys, a wealthy slave owner called Macrinus (Denzel Washington) is impressed by Hanno's rage and brings him to Rome to fight in the colosseum, promising him a chance to kill the general if he impresses ...

 Anora sees writer/director Sean Baker continue his quest to shine a light on the marginalised and in particular, sex workers. It also might be the biggest triumph of his unique blend of realism, playfulness and insight so far.  Mikey Madison plays Anora, or as she prefers to be called Ani, an exotic dancer and escort who is asked to look after 21 year old oligarch's son Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn) on account of her being able to understand his native Russian. After charming him, she is hired to be his girlfriend for a week which leads to the pair marrying. A win win situation that allows Ivan to obtain a green card, and give the middle finger to his controlling parents, and gives Ani access to a lifestyle she could only have dreamt of weeks before. There is no honeymoon period however, as Ivan's antics make the Russian news and his parents send his godfather and a couple of goons round to "convince" the pair the marriage should be annulled. When a film opens with toples...

 Say what you want about some of Clint Eastwood's recent output, the man delivers classic filmmaking and Juror #2 is no different. A cleanly shot and straight to the point courtroom drama about morals and justice, it feels like it could have been made anytime in the last seventy years. Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, a four years sober alcoholic who is summoned for jury duty. He'd rather be at home with his heavily pregnant wife but is happy to do his duty until a slight wrinkle emerges; a man is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend but Justin may well of killed her in a hit and run a year ago. Knowing the accused is innocent, but not fancying spending the rest of his own life in jail, he tries to convince his fellow jurors to return a not guilty verdict while not implicating himself in the death. A task made harder on both ends by Toni Collette's hotshot prosecutor, determined to land the conviction that will secure her the District Attorney position, and fellow jur...

 Heretic opens with two young Mormon missionaries talking about penises on a park bench. The light hearted opening is in stark contrast to the tension to come and serves as a fun introduction to two endearing characters. Sister Paxton (Chloe East) has been born and raised in the church, eager and enthusiastic she is desperate to land her first conversion. Sophie Thatcher's Sister Barnes is more experienced and more comfortable in the world at large. We spend some time getting to know them as they make their rounds, hearing about their hopes for a handsome husband and sadness at the way they shunned and considered "weird" by their peers. We are thoroughly on board with them by the time they encounter Hugh Grant's seemingly gregarious Mr Reed. He appears interested in their beliefs and impresses the girls with his religious knowledge but the conversation becomes more testy and they realise they can't leave Reed's house without playing his game. To say Hugh Gran...