Dan Says its Alright

  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...

  At the very least,  Trap cements M.Night Shyamalan's place as father of the year 2024. Earlier in the year he produced The Watchers, giving his daughter Ishana her directorial debut and now he sits back in the chair himself to bring us a movie dedicated in part to the musical (and to a lesser extent acting) talents of his other daughter Saleka. The set up is typically high concept Shyamalan. Friendly neighbourhood fireman Cooper (Josh Hartnett) takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see pop star Lady Raven (Saleka) in concert. Once there he notices a heavy security presence and discovers the whole thing is set up to catch notorious local serial killer "The Butcher". This a problem for Cooper as he is said serial killer and now he must try and escape the trap without spoiling his darling daughters big day. The majority of the film takes place completely inside the concert and is pretty solid stuff. Hartnett is great as the psychopath who also happens to be a dotin...

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 ...

  With German/American co production Cuckoo , distributer Neon looks to emulate the success of last month's Longlegs with another atmospheric chiller. Writer/director Tilman Singer's English debut is less occult tinderbox and more a modern twist on the classic horror tropes of mad scientists and monsters in the dark but it is another unique frightener with its own distinct style. Hunter Schafer plays Gretchen, an American teen who forced to move to Germany to live with her Father and his new family in a resort village in the mountains. It's immediately apparent that all is not well as creepy resort owner Herr Konig (Dan Stevens) is adamant she should not be outside on her own and her mute step sister starts to exhibit some strange behaviour. Add in parents seemingly completely in the thrall of Mr Konig and a detective trying to get Gretchen's attention and the stage is set for a messily plotted but enthralling 100 minutes.  There is a lot going on in Cuckoo as tension ...

  Depending on who you ask, Deadpool and Wolverine is either a glorious, long-awaited team up of two pop culture icons dripping in the best kind of fan service and stuffed with funny gags and uproariously OTT fight sequences or it's a vapid husk of a movie, trading solely on things that have come before mixed with dick jokes that's looking to make a quick buck by pleasing people who care more about the colour of costumes than substance. It's fairly easy to make an argument either way.  There is no doubt the film is absolutely stuffed with references to, and appearances from, all things superhero. Well, Fox superhero anyway. Deadpool and Wolverine is much more love letter to the now defunct Fox iterations of X-men (and many others that would be a crime to spoil) movies than it is attempt to slot Deadpool into the MCU proper. The cameos, or rather appearances (director Shawn Levy says they are too integral to be called cameos) do seem to be there in the spirit of genuine fun...