Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park is one of my favourite films of all time. It is in my favourite four list on Letterboxd and will remain there until I draw my last breathe. I remember seeing this film at the cinema back in 1993 and afterwards when I got home I would imagine that T-Rex’s would come bursting through the trees at the back of my garden (I was 10 at the time!!!!).

The set up is that Hammond (Richard Attenborough) invites Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) to the island to say that it is safe and thus allow the opening of the park to take place but of course things go wrong and the rest of the film is about them trying to get off the island without being dinner for the T-Rex or the Velociraptor.

The effects are just as impressive as they were back in 1993. The first encounter with the T-Rex is still one of the most jaw dropping moments in cinema and everything comes together to make it heartstopping. The score is brilliant. I have grown to respect music scores more in the last year or two and even though I have always loved the theme, the score throughout the film is great. John Williams has created one of the greatest theme songs in movie history but there are several action scenes which are elevated by Williams’ great score. 

The scene where Nedry was killed is something that scarred me when I first saw it in 1993. Even now at 43 years old I find it a great little moment. It’s hard to feel sorry for Nedry and this shows how you write a good bad character and you feel satisfied that he got his comeuppance. 

I will admit I felt sad the first time that Sam Neill appeared on screen. As I write this its been about two weeks since he passed away and this is the first film I saw him in. It’s debatable whether its his best but its on the shortlist. He is introduced as a child-hating person but is forced to spend a good chunk of the film with Hammond’s grandchildren Tim and Lex. Despite being sidelined with the kids, Neill makes it work and the kids make him more of a parental figure and it feels genuine. Laura Dern is great as Ellie and she gets some cool action scenes. There is a love triangle that is hinted at between Ellie, Grant and Malcolm. Thankfully there is more to her character than the love triangle and her moment to shine is when she goes to reset the power and unknowingly electrocutes Tim. Jeff Goldblum is great as Malcolm because…..well he’s Jeff Goldblum. There is a fun vibe to the character and he goes get some of the funniest lines and arguably one of the most memorable when he says “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should”. It’s a great line and it’s makes even better because of Goldblum. 

The way that the characters are written is so good that when Hammond is looking sadly at his cane I still felt sad for him. Even after all the death and destruction it is because of Richard Attenborough that you even have an ounce of sympathy. The film also sees Samuel L. Jackson appear as Arnold and whilst the character get short changed with an off screen death, I always forget that he is in the film. This happens when I think of the actors in the film and its has created the ‘Samuel L Jackson rule’ which applies to well known actors who appear in films you really like and have seen multiple times but forget they are in it.

It may not be a huge shock to say that I love this movie. This is at least my third time seeing it at the cinema and I still love this film. It is a great story with some great action scenes and characters that likeable and are easy to connect with. The rest of the franchise never quite live up to this (although the first Jurassic World film gets the closest) but this was Steven Spielberg at the top of his game.

The Odyssey (2026)

Trying to follow 2023’s Oppenheimer was always going to be a tall order especially given that his next project was based on the Ancient Greek poem the Odyssey. The set up of the film is that Odysseus (Matt Damon) tries to get back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) whilst Penelope is trying to stave off the potential suitors to be her next husband led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson). 

Now there was a lot of rage bait articles making a big deal about Elliot Page being in the film as Simon (or just being in the film in general) and Lusitania Nyong’o (Helen) as well. The rage was always going to be over the top considering how people like to make a mountain out of a molehill but given that their combined screen time couldn’t have been anymore than 20 minutes in a near 3 hour film shows how people judging and criticising something before they have seen it in context is always going to be a foolhardy thing.

Matt Damon gives what I think is one of his best performances since The Martian. As Odysseus it is his story and Damon shows he is more than Ben Affleck’s buddy and this level of performance is not only in the same grouping as The Martian but also the Jason Bourne films. He doesn’t do anything as action packed as Jason Bourne but he is a great lead in the film and you want him to make it home just to stop Antinous. Anne Hathaway takes a rather simple role of and makes it interesting. Due to the fact that there are many stories being told, Hathaway (like Pattinson) doesn’t really get to shine until the latter stages of the film but she shines and does a great job.  Robert Pattinson is great as Antinous and almost steals the show. It was funny that in one of the trailers was Dune Part Three where a bleach blonde looking Pattinson appears to be the villain but thankfully he doesn’t have that look here otherwise it would have ruined the movie. Pattinson can do smarmy and evil quite well and is a great antagonist for the film.

Tom Holland puts in one of his best non Spider-Man performances I have seen from him but he is still one of the weakest in the film but that is only because the standard of acting is so high. Up until the last shot when he is wearing all the fancy crown or whatever it was, he was believable as a young man determined to find his father and stop Antinous but then things go wrong when he tries to look like a ruler. It’s the curse of looking as young as he does and maybe with someone else it might have worked.

Samantha Morton comes into the film and attempts to steal the film. As Circe she turns this portion of the film into some strange Guillermo del Toro film where she morphs the faces and bodies of Odysseus’ soldiers into pigs and its just absolutely bonkers but if you want someone to give an unsettling performance then Samantha Morton is just as good as it gets. 

Other notable names include Himesh Patel (Eurylochus), John Leguizamo (Eumaeus), Charlize Theron (Calypso), Mia Goth (Melantho), Benny Sadie (Agamemnon), Zendaya (Athena) and Jon Bernthal (Menelaus) are all great additions to the cast.

The film has an epic feel to it and Christopher Nolan is helped by Hoyle van Hoytema as cinematographer who makes everything look stunning and there are varying landscapes and they all look amazing. Also Ruth De Jong’s production design is great in every single scene and the editing from the amusingly named Jennifer Lame (cause there is nothing lame about her editing) all help create an epic world. Ludwig Goransson has delivered one of his best scores and I bought the soundtrack after I got home cause it was wonderful and works well when you are listening to it in the car going to work. 

As much as I think that this is a great movie, I don’t think that it is as good as Oppenheimer but its pretty damn close. It is like comparing Alien and Aliens or The Godfather Part 1 and 2. They are on a the same level but one is always slightly better than the other. I think the story is made interesting because of Christopher Nolan but it was something that I was unfamiliar with and to make a three hour film (nearly) of a story that would have had me running in the opposite direction and make it my film of the year shows why Nolan is one of the best filmmakers working today. Only thing was I didn’t see it in IMAX but that is something I am intending on putting right if possible.

Evil Dead Burn (2026)

If you would have said to me 10 years ago that not only would I have seen the Evil Dead films and enjoyed them, but that I would be going to see the latest film in the series (and looking forward to it), then I would have said you were mad but here we are. The great thing about these latest films is that they don't really have any connection to what’s gone before them. I did watch Evil Dead Rise the night previously but if I hadn’t then I genuinely wouldn’t have missed anything. 

Whereas Lee Cronin directed the last one, Sébastien Vaniček is sitting in the directors chair and Cronin decided to do his lighter version of an Evil Dead film in his Mummy film. The set up of the film is that Joseph and Will (George Pullar) are brothers with Will married to Alice (Souheila Yacoub) and Joseph (Hunter Doohan from Wednesday) is in a relationship with Thya (Luciane Buchanan) but when Will dies after the events of the beginning of the film which like the last film seem completely separate but are connected. Alice attends Will’s funeral and that is when things start to go wrong.

This film takes place largely inside one house which seems to have been borrowed from a James Wan film because it seems quite big and appropriately run down. I think that adds to the great atmosphere the film has because if it had been a nice new lovely decorated house then it wouldn’t have had the vibe that the film needs. It would have just come across as a generic Blumhouse film. The fact also that there is the subject of loss is something that hangs over the film and makes things feel awkward because it's clear that Alice and Will had problems so it remains a valid question as to why she stayed. 

The gore is something that is always something that I am wary of because I don't mind a little bit but I won't watch anything that has the Terrifier level of gore. This film manages to stay on the right side of what I can deal with. Don't get me wrong there is plenty in this film and its nice that its proper blood and not CGI that a lot of films tend to use these days. Using proper blood just makes it feel real and that's another way the film effectively uses atmosphere in the film.

The performances are pretty good. I think that Souheila Yacoub does a great job as the the final girl and even though they dont give her much character depth beyond being a widow with some marital issues that are at best surface level. Tandy Wright also does well as the mother having lost her son and caring for her elderly mother I found myself still sympathising with her even after she becomes infected. In the trailer it seems like Joseph is the lead for the film and maybe thats because of the Wednesday connection but his importance in the film is superseded by Alice. 

The cool moments include Thya drinking candle wax and Joseph falling onto a sea of knives and forks before being forced down onto them by Thya. The problem is that these were shown in the trailer thus making their impact lessened. There was a trailer for Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil and it doesn't give anything away. There was a way of making the trailer for this film worth seeing without those two moments. There are plenty of comedic moments which mainly surround the grandmother. Even when she becomes a deadite she still has comedy timing such as when she is tied to the stairlift chair and it slowly goes downstairs and she has a shard of glass in her eye. She manages to make it to the end of the film which seems like she might pop up in future films.

There is an end title scene which sees the return of Alyssa Sutherland’s Ellie from the first film even though she met quite the clear cut ending in the previous film. She returns to kill the Funeral Director’s daughter which might seem like a dark thing to do but bearing in mind an hour earlier they killed a dog then all bets are off as far as the franchise is concerned. It does raise questions about why they did this but if there are answers in a future film then it will make more sense (potentially). 

I prefer Rise to this one. They are very different types of film with Rise being a more atmospheric one and this is a much more visceral horror film. I did think that it took slightly too long to get going but once it did then it didn’t let up. The film is 110 minutes and i think that a perfect runtime for a horror film is 90-100 minutes so this could have lost about 10-15 minutes and would have been a much snappier film. Despite that minor issue, I thought that this was a very good horror film that definitely delivers on the gore and very much looking forward to Evil Dead Wrath which is due to come out in 2027.

Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026)

This was another mystery screening at my cinema and this was one of those rare occasions that I had absolutely no idea what it could be. I knew of the film and saw the trailer months ago but I forgot it was even coming out. Part of the Traumatic Childhood Universe (cause that is a thing apparently). The story sees Geppetto make a doll to be a friend to his grandson James but when talking to his ‘Wood Mother’ Pinocchio starts killing people who have hurt James and removing body parts so he will be a real boy. That is about the extent of the plot but you don't watch these films for the plot. 

It is the kills that you watch them for an the film does well with the kills. I must confess that I did look away because whilst I dont mind a bit of gore I dont like too much and the film did go a bit too far. The dentist's death in particular was quite horrible and I looked away whilst the dentist had her teeth smashed in. 

There were things that didn’t make sense. Firstly when Pinocchio goes to the gym and sees the two teachers die. Not only did the death make me feel like I was watching a scene from Final Destination, but the deaths are never mentioned at any point during the film so it is like they never happened. Also at the end, the house is burning and we don't see the fire brigade or the police but just hear a siren so there is no real fallout from the situation. The film just ends.

To be fair to the film the puppet is rather good. Considering how poor the masks and effects were in the first Winnie the Pooh film, it's impressive how far they have come. It’s easily the most expensive thing in the entire film. Whilst the film lacks any star power (the second Winnie the Pooh film at least had Simon Callow), the film has the voice of Freddy Kruger himself Robert Englund as the voice of Cricket. 

There absolutely no way I would have gone to see this in the cinema had I had the choice. There were two walkouts which is the first time that has happened for a while and normally I would think to myself that they left too soon, I completely understood why they walked out of this because unless you were aware of the other films then you would think this was the worst thing you had seen. As I have seen the other films then I thought that this was the best film in the series although that is a very low bar to clear. The Pinocchio puppet was very good and some of the deaths were good but the acting was generally poor but these films are fun enough to get through and it is quite amusing to see a cinematic universe made out of beloved children’s characters that have been turned into horrific monsters. 

Moana (2026)

There are two ways of doing a cash grab movie. One is subtle, which is to take something that people like and give us a new instalment in that series (TRON Ares) and then there are the more blatant ones like 2026’s Moana which continues Disney's ongoing mission to turn their animated back catalogue into live action. What is strange about this movie is that the original animated version is only 10 years old. It hasn’t had time to develop a cult like following to get people excited by it.

The plot of this follows the original so there is no point going into that but there are subtle differences which were most likely done more for budgetary reasons than anything else. The performances were all really good. I thought that Catherine Laga’aia played Moana as someone who wants to help her people and yet be an adventuress even though her father doesn't want her going beyond a certain point. Laga’aia and Dwayne Johnson’s dynamic works very well and like in the 2016 version, its the main thing to like in this. Dwayne Johnson brings his usual charm and charisma to the role of Maui but I am sorry its the hair that I found distracting. When I saw the trailer I could have been convinced it was an SNL sketch because the wig looks cheap. It looks like he is wearing a wig which isn't the point of a wig unless you plan to make it part of the story. I thought that rest of the performances were really good as well with John Tui as Moana’s father Chief Tui, Frankie Adams as Moana’s mother Sina delivery lovely performances but I thought that Rena Owen stood out as Gramma Tala. Her performance might come across as cliched by Disney standards but it was lovely and the scene where Moana leaves just as Gramma is dying is beautifully done by both Laga’aia and Owen.

The songs are all really good although I think that Laga’aia struggles with the ‘How Far I’ll Go’ song but the advantage of having Johnson star in both versions is this version of ‘Your Welcome’ is as good here as it was in 2016. Mark Mancina is another constant from 2016 and I think does a great job here.

Moana isn't bad by any means but it does feel largely pointless. The story is basically the 2016 version with some subtle differences and it directed competently by Thomas Kail. As I said earlier, not enough time has passed for people to get nostalgic about it. On a side note, I saw this in IMAX which is the first time I have seen a film in this format and to be honest I thought it was quite good. The size of the screen was massive and sitting in my usual spot in a screening (front row, furthest seat away from the entrance) meant I got a great experience. Moana should be a cautionary tale of how not to do a cash grab movie. You need to leave films at least a generation before remaking them.

The Last Viking (2025)

The Last Viking (or Den sidste viking) sees director Anderson Thomas Jensen and Mads Mikkelsen reunite in this black comedy which sees Anker (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) task his brother Manfred (Mikkelsen) with hiding a bag of money in the woods near where they grew up when they were younger. He story then moves forward 15 years and Manfred has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder and is now called John because he believes he is John Lennon. Whenever John is called Manfred he tries to kill himself and Anker needs John/Manfred to show him where the money is buried.

Anker is persuaded that the way to get John to tell him where the money is is basically by everyone around him playing along and so they get some other people who think they are the other members of the Beatles to play some songs although one of the band also think they are Bjorn from ABBA. This whole part of the plot might seem ridiculous but in the context of this film I found it worked quite well. I also thought setting this in the woods in the middle of nowhere helped make it work. The house where they grew up is now an Airbnb run by Margrethe (Sofie Gråbøl) and Werner (Søren Malling) who don't have the best marriage. It’s at this stage that the black comedy aspect of the story really shows although the slightly humorous ways that Manfred tries to kill himself was an early hint. The humour doesnt seem out of place alongside the flashbacks to when Anker and Manfred are growing up and due to Manfred always wanting to be a Viking, gets punished and this goes on until Anker takes an axe to their father and blanks it from his memory. This delicate balancing act in terms of tone is quite well handled by Jensen.

It seems like Margrethe has been killed by having her head smashed in with a sledgehammer but she isnt dead and appears at the end of the film with the side of her face disfigured. When the car Flemming was in crashed I did half expect him to turn up later on but I suppose one miraculous escape from death is the limit in this film. Having watched the Killing (the original and best version), I liked that Gråbøl and Nicolas Bro were in this film although they only had the sledgehammer scene together. The relationship between Anker and Manfred/John is at the heart of this film and both Kaas and Mikkelsen still have a lovely dynamic even though their characters are at odds. Mikkelsen is always able to give a great performance but this is definitely different to what I have seen him do in the past. 

I really enjoyed this film. I thought that it had a good plot with very good performances. If I had an issue with the film then it would be that the animated stuff at the beginning and end of the film don't really add anything but that is about the extent of my negatives. It felt quite appropriate to be watching this film that centres around the Beatles whilst in Liverpool. This was a nice surprise but not on the level of Blades of the Guardians but it is still worth watching when it makes its way to streaming.

Minions & Monsters (2026)

With the world being the joyless slog that it is right now, what the world desperately needs is a minion movie.  This is the third one to feature the Minions in the lead and sees James and Henry attempt to make their own movie but things go wrong when they bring Goomi back. The film feels like a celebration of early cinema.  When the Minions travel to Hollywood during the period of the silent movies and this part was a joy to watch cause there were references to Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, Buster Keaton’s house falling on him from Steamboat Bill, Jr and Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock in Safety Last.

I was worried that the Dort part of the story would get in the way of the main story but credit to writers Brian Lynch and Pierre Coffin, the story zips along so fast that there wasnt the time for anything to get in the way of the main plot. I like the trio of James and Henry along with Ed who was deaf and I wonder if that it is it the first deaf Minion. It is hard to dislike the minions as they are funny and adorable even when they are using slapstick violence against each other. 

The jokes are coming at you so fast that its is clear that it is going to require multiple viewings to get everything. Just the portion where all the Minions are in the space pods with one pressing a button and a chicken comes out for…..reasons and then there is another one where two of the minions are sharing a bubble bath The setting is the main reason why things work as well as they do. 

I really enjoyed Minions and Monsters and left the screening in a really good mood which isn't something that happens very often and this is definitely the best animated film I have seen this year. This is a film which on the face of it is a silly 90 minute animated film but has jokes coming at you at such a high rate and yet still work for adults and kids. I am still working my way through the minions films so I don't know yet where this ranks amongst them but rating it on its own I would say that it was a fun film that nods lovingly to the early days of cinema.