Dan Says its Alright

  The trailers for Hurry Up Tomorrow were fairly enigmatic (although claims to be a "cinematic odyssey" should have raised alarm bells), keeping the exact nature of the film under wraps. They do, however,  go big on it being a project from "It Comes at Night" director, Trey Edward Shults. Turns out this is a misdirect since, while Shults does direct and co-write, this is really a baffling vanity project for star, producer and writer, Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye. If, like me, you are only vaguely aware of the musical stylings of Mr Weeknd then this monotonous preen is not going to endear him to you. If you are a fan, maybe stick to getting your hands on the accompanying album and leave it at that. In fairness to the musician, he has tried to make something of substance and his pitch must have been fairly compelling as, in addition to Shults on directing duty, he has convinced rising stars Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan to get involved. It is nobody concerned...

Final Destination Bloodlines is the sixth instalment in the franchise but the first for fourteen years. Its a bit of an anomaly for a series to take such a long hiatus when the last entry was a resounding financial success, but the break has lead to one of the best Final Destination films to date. The plot is generally the same as always, a premonition leads to a bunch of people escaping their intended death so the Grim Reaper tracks them down and dispatches them in insanely convoluted ways. With the distance between entries making this a quasi reboot, there is a small twist on the formulae. This time round, the main character has dreams of their estranged grandmother saving hundreds from a disaster in her youth. Turns out Death has been working his way through the survivors for years, with granny holding him at bay (by isolating in the most dangerous looking shack known to man) for years. Now all her descendants are on the chopping block, making this a family affair rather than the u...

The Surfer is a 70's style,  psychedelic, psychological thriller set entirely on a beach and adjoining car park. Nicholas Cage is the eponymous character who may or may not be losing (or already have lost) his mind. It is simultaneously playfully fun and ickily unpleasant.  Cage (his character is not named) takes his teenage son surfing, his plan being to show off the fancy clifftop pad he is in the process of buying, which also happens to be the house he grew up in. He doesn't get the chance however, as a group of alpha male surf bros have taken over the beach and declared it for local use only. His son returns to school, but Cage stays in the car park, determined to finalise his house deal and find out what is going on with Julian McMahon and his cult like band of beach thugs. Suffering a series of mishaps, he ends up stranded in the car park, and the baking heat, for days and begins to resemble the local hobo more than the successful businessman he began as.  Two thin...

  Thunderbolts* takes a bunch of relatively minor MCU characters and scoops them up into a "Suicide Squad" type adventure where they face off against insurmountable odds. Given most of the characters have appeared in TV shows, there is a distinct whiff of Disney+ about proceedings but it is also one of the most solid films Marvel has put out in years. The execs must have known they had something decent on their hands as they waited until a whole weekend after release to spoil the end twist with marketing, as appose to doing it in the trailers.  The titular Thunderbolts are : New Black Widow, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), failed Captain America replacement John Walker (Wyatt Russell), former Winter Soldier turned congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Russian super soldier and Yelena's adoptive father Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ant Man 2 alumni Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and maybe mysterious newcomer Bob (Lewis Pullman). If you follow MCU events you will recognise ...

  Considering its lead character is (among many other things) a mathematical genius, it sure took the film makers a long time to crunch the numbers on a sequel to 2016's "The Accountant". Still, better late than never and The Accountant 2 is a blast, even if it is a very different film than its predecessor. Ben Affleck returns as Christian Wolf, an autistic accountant \ one man army who is about the only person more dangerous than the people he cooks the books for. When Raymond King (J.K Simmons) is killed, his successor as Deputy Director of the Treasury Department, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson), calls in Wolf to help her crack the case her former boss was working on. It isn't long before Jon Bernthal's Braxton (Christian's estranged brother) joins the party and the trio embark on an absolutely non sensical investigation involving human traffickers and acquired savant syndrome.  The first movie padded out it central story with a side plot of Simmo...

The video game, Until Dawn is essentially an attempt to make the player feel like they are controlling a horror film. Wisely, this is not a direct adaptation of said game, as that would simply be a bland reflection of a reflection. Instead, writer Gary Dauberman and director David F.Sandberg flip the idea on its head, making a film that uses video game mechanics (the characters respawn after death, with a finite amount of lives) to tell its story. An interesting premise, and given both writer and director have done sterling work in the genre , hopes were high. Sadly, this is an underbaked effort that doesn't come any where near the best work either has done before. Clover's is on a road trip with friends (including her clearly still into her ex-boyfriend). She is looking for her missing sister while her companions are hoping to help her move on. They soon end up at an isolated house that is miraculously untouched by the raging storm they are driving through. Come nightfall, a ...