This Week at Home

The Nun 2 is a weak follow up to a weak film. Has a couple of somewhat interesting visual flourishes so is slightly better than it's predecessor but that is a subterranean bar to clear. Plot is pointless and exists only to fill time between the scares, which would be fine if said scares weren't so lame. The Conjuring franchise is seriously patchy but as long as even the rubbish entries keep bringing home the bacon we're gonna keep getting them.

The Players is a new Netflix rom-com, although it's light on both romance and comedy. Centres on a group of friends whose lives seemingly revolve around helping each other con people into sleeping with them. The lead character being female and one of the crew being bisexual doesn't cover the whiff of early 2000's, although it has neither the raunch or the banter of comedies of that era. What it does have is people in their late thirties talking like frat bros and being so unlikable you'll be annoyed they get the traditional rom-com happy ending.

Its third film lucky with the excellent The Outfit, an under appreciated 2022 period gangster thriller now on Netflix. The entire film is set inside a cutter (don't call him a tailor) shop as the owner has to use his whits to stay one step ahead of the mob goons who commandeer his place of business. Slow but tense with well placed twists the film is elevated by an outstanding performance from star Mark Rylance (is he ever anything else?). Maybe a reveal too many come the end but a great little film that deserves more attention.

Mission Impossible 2 is regarded as the black sheep of the franchise but I've always loved it. I mean its a John Woo film starring Tom Cruise, what's not great about that? Sure, going from the shadowy subterfuge of the first film to the bombastic, sun dappled explosions here is a bit jarring but being a product of their directors is what makes the MI films interesting and the combo of whooshing cameras, slow mo, doves and The Cruiser bicycle kicking people rocks. Add in the soundtrack and you have quintessential late 90's/ early 2000's.

Film of the week : The subtler The Outfit just beats out the loud Mission Impossible 2, mainly by virtue of being a first watch. The other two can get in the bin.

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Space (and Body) Invaders

With Alien: Romulus , Fede Alvarez becomes the latest director to try and recreate the magic of Alien and/or Aliens. Unsurprisingly he doesn't get close to those two masterpieces but he does serve an atmospheric slice of sci fi horror that may well scratch an itch for those unimpressed with the heavy handed musings of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Set in the time period between Alien and Aliens, the story of Romulus is a back to basics haunted house but in space tale about a group of young miners attempting to escape corporate servitude by breaking into a derelict space station and liberating enough fuel to keep them in stasis while they reach another developed planet. Turns out the station is more decimated then decommissioned and they soon find themselves on the bottom of the local food chain. The break in may be a group effort but it's clear from the off that the main focus of the story is Cailee Spaeny's Rain and her "brother" Andy, a salvaged synthetic hu

Stone the Crows

One thing you can say about The Crow is that is that it has delivered on expectations. They are remaking that crap 90's action film The Crow? Sounds like a bad idea. It's been in development hell for over a decade? It's definitely going to be bad. The Snow White and the Huntsman guy is directing it? His films are quite bad. The trailers out? It looks bad. Film is here? Yeh it's bad. To call the film a remake is a actually a little unfair, it's really a new adaptation of the graphic novel source material (which sucks to begin with) and directer Rupert Sanders has tried to make the film something more than its 1994 counterpart, he just fails at a very fundamental level. This is still the story of Eric, brought back from the dead to kill those who offed him and his girl but this time we lean more into the romance side of the tale, with his rampage motivated by the idea of saving his loves soul rather than just seeking vengeance. The problem is that there is a compl

It's Always Showtime

1988's Beetlejuice is unique blend of visual style, humour, lite horror, performance and trappings of the decade. How to recreate this is a question sequel Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice doesn't even try to answer. Instead it throws its weird and wonderful characters into as many chaotic scenarios as Tim Burton and team can think of and do so at such a manic pace that the viewer doesn't have time to think if they are enjoying it as much. Thanks to the amount of talent on display, this method ends up working a treat. The story begins with Winona Ryder's Lydia Deetz, now the star of a TV show where she contacts the dead, receiving the news that her father has died. Consequently, she reunites with step mother Delia (Catherine O'Hara) for a memorial service come art project back at the old family home. Accompanying the returning cast members are Lydia's daughter Jenna Ortega and new partner Justin Theroux. Ghostly couple Gina Davis and Alec Baldwin are no longer in res

No Love Island

Blink Twice was originally going to be called Pussy Island, meaning it joins the likes of American Fiction (Fuck) and A Family Affair (Mother Fucker) in adopting a disappointing title downgrade. Fortunately, that's pretty much the only disappointing thing about this stellar directing debut from Zoe Kravitz. Naomi Ackie plays nail technician Frida who, along with her friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) is whisked away to billionaire Channing Tatum's private island after meeting him at A function they are working. The partying is more reserved than she was expecting and she is convinced she is having a great time but as the reality of accompanying a bunch of strangers to the middle of nowhere and giving up your means of contacting the outside world starts to creep in, Frida can't shake the feeling things might not be as idyllic as they seem. The film this will be most compared to is Get Out and while it doesn't quite hit those heights it brings the same kind of exuberant ener

Level Down

Borderlands is a strange game to make a film adaptation of. Being a "looter-shooter" it is light on narrative and character with the joy of the game coming from unleashing ludicrous weapons upon hordes of enemies. In order to succeed the movie really needed to nail the wacky tone and look of the game's world while adding in sufficient story and character to make the audience care about what is going on. You could generously say director Eli Roth succeeds at half of one of these goals. It may be harsh to pin the films shortcomings on Roth as it is unclear how much of this is the movie he signed up to make. Announced in 2015 and in active development since 2020 the script underwent multiple re writes and had Tim Miller come in for weeks of reshoots after Roth departed the project. The horror veteran certainly seems an odd fit for what ended up being a PG13 action comedy. There is defiantly a much better Borderlands movie that could have been made if he'd been allowed

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