The Wizard of the Kremlin (2025)

 The Wizard of the Kremlin tells the story of Vadim Baranov played by Paul Dano as he talks to Jeffrey Wright’s Roland about his rise in Russian politics as he helps Putin go from head of the FSB to President. This is apparently based on a book and crucially sees Putin played by Jude Law which wasn't on my bingo card for 2026. 

The story is told mainly in flashbacks and shows Baranov go from trying to form some theatre director to a powerful ally of Putin. How much of this is true and how much of it is fiction isn't really the point because it's not told in a particularly interesting way. Unfortunately the film is directed by Olivier Assayas who directed Wasp Network which came out in 2020 and frankly that film had some good stuff but it wasn't told in a particularly interesting way. 

What does work are the performances. Paul Dano is always dependable and does a great job of maintaining what level of interest I had once I realised that only 40 minutes had passed when it felt like 90 minutes. Jude Law does a relatively good impression of Putin although it was his mannerisms that seem quite good. It was like Anthony Hopkins in Nixon. He looked nothing like Nixon but the way he carried himself came across like the former U.S. President. I also thought that Jeffrey Wright was very good as Rowland. There isn't a huge amount for him to do but he manages to at least make the most of it which is exactly what Alicia Vikander does with Koenia. It’s not a great role but Vikander brings some humanity to the role. 

Honestly this has to be one of the dullest films of the year. I think that at 2 and a half hours it is severely outstaying its welcome and if it lost an hour then it might have been much better to sit through. It’s only because of Paul Dano and Jude Law that kept me watching. The film thinks that it is Nixon but doesn't have any of the whit or ability to pull it off. 

Amélie (2001)

 Never seen this film before but with it being 25 years since it was released, I thought I would give it a go. I went into it not knowing anything which may have been a mistake because for the first hour or so I didn’t really follow the overall plot. I had to step out of the cinema for a few moments when the popcorn and drinks that I ordered didn’t turn up and I felt like I had missed something because when I came back she had found a box and then things were happening. 

The film does date itself by having Princess Diana in the background of this story. When the film came out, she had only been dead four years and it was still painful for some people. Didn’t realise the French were so emotionally connected. Again I don't know if I missed something when I stepped out but this didn’t really seem to have any significant impact on the plot.

Audrey Tautou was quite good as the titular Amelie. She brought a charm to the story and her character was very likeable as she spends the entire film trying to do nice things even though she did cross a line really when she almost electrocuted someone after stealing keys that were accidentally left in the front door. To be fair that is a minor issue with her character as she does drive the story well and the film does suffer when she isn’t around.

The film has a good core of supporting characters with the hypochondriac being one of the more amusing ones. I did find myself wanting the story to stay in that cafe because it was a hotbed of interesting things and interactions going on. 

The vibe of the film is part fantastical and part real. If I didn’t know any better then I would say that this was a Wes Anderson film. It is certainly the sort of film he would make today. The director probably wanted to make this after the disaster of Alien Resurrection which was just bad. Its a better film than Alien Resurrection and it certainly feels like this is the film director wanted to make.

I thought the running gag of the gnome going around the world was quite funny. I also thought the relationship between Amelie and her father was quite nice despite not being the best but it’s definitely not the worst. Rufus played her father and brought a coldness that wasnt off putting but made the dynamic between the two seem more interesting than it probably should have been.

I wanted to like this movie but I found it slightly disappointing. I thought the film had some moments but this is one of those classic films that does seem to have been overhyped just a little bit. I am sorry to those that think it a five star classic but it just didn’t work for me. It’s not the worst film ever by any means but it was a bit too quirky for my tastes.

California Schemin’ (2025)

 California Schemin is sold as ‘Based on a True Lie’ and tells the story of Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd as they pretend to be American rappers. The ‘true’ story seems to suggest (based on what I read on Wikipedia) that all this took place over the course of about six months. Their plan in the film after they get signed is to wait until they are on some MTV show and then confess to try and expose the business but Gavin gets seduced by the instant success they experience and when Billy wants to confess all he is overruled by Gavin and their relationship starts to feel the strain.

I thought the central performances were quite good. Both Séamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley have good chemistry together and come across as really good friends. You start to side with Billy and the story progresses because you know he is serious about exposing the truth and when Gavin starts to weasel out of the confessing, you know that he is the villain of the piece which makes sense as the novel this is based on is written by Boyd.

I did find myself feeling sorry for Tessa. She was desperate to try and climb up the ladder in the company she was in and pinned all her hopes on Billy and Gavin and when the truth is revealed she is the one that has to pay the price.  There were a couple of shots that reminded me of the Dev Patel film Monkey Man in the sense that there were a couple of shots with extreme close up and made me wonder if anyone on the production realised that cameras came with a zoom, the same issue happened in this film. Thankfully they were few and far between.

I enjoyed California Schemin’. It’s rather predictable even if like me you are not aware of the true story but its directed well enough but I dont think it will have a particularly wide audience outside of Scotland and people who like that kind of music. If you can get past the music then there is enough to like and well worth 107 minutes of your time.

Blades of the Guardians: Wind Rises in the Desert (2026)

 Sometimes going into a film not knowing anything is quite a good idea and that was the case with Blades of the Guardians: Wind Rises in the Desert. Directed by Yuen Woo-Ping, the story tells of Dao Ma (Wu Jing) as the ‘second most wanted fugitive’ takes the ‘most wanted fugitive’ to Chang’an along with his nephew. To be honest this was a mystery screening in all but name but what wasn't a mystery was the plot which took a while to really get going but that wasn't what made me a fan. 

I’m not going to wait until the end of the review to say that this is my film of the year so far, which isn’t what I was expecting when I sat down in the cinema. The main reason for me liking this film so much are the fight scenes. I have seen plenty of martial arts films but this manages to take it up a notch. They were amazing and so well choreographed. There was one moment where Dao Ma knocks someone’s head off with a sweeping kick. The film did not shy away from the blood with limbs being cut off and it makes me think that Quentin Tarantino would be a fan of this. 

There are only two real issues with the film. The first was that I was worried about the horses. Some of those takedowns looked really tough and I hope that someone checked to see if the horses were harmed. I doubt the BBFC would have given this film a certificate if there was actual animal cruelty.  I know the film says that no animals were harmed in the making of the film but it wouldn’t be the first time that a film or TV show has lied. The other issue is that there are too many characters in the film and the end result is that they don't get much screen time and so when they inevitably die then there is little reason to feel much towards them.

The landscape might have been just sang for most of it but it was still stunning. Peter Pau deserves a lot of credit for managing to make this dull landscape look so cinematic. Hats off to the set designer. There wasn’t a bad or mediocre set. Everything looked so good and there were a couple of sets (especially at the beginning) where I could have spent more time there.Another hats off must go to the costume designers. This was truly impressive and to some they might not look to spectacular they looked so good to me

The score was amazing and the song at the end was great. Steffens Thum had a great time with this and the song at the end was so good and it was a shame that it was used at the end although it was perhaps the only appropriate place it could go.

Despite the long title, this has to be my favourite film of the year and one of my favourite non English language films I have seen since Parasite. There is a sequel bait bit at the end but I wouldn’t mind watching more.

Akira (1988)

Akira is one of those films that I have heard people go on about but for some reason never got round to watching it. Well seeing as it was showing at the cinema I thought i would give it a go. Set in the futuristic 2019, a biker gang tries to stop a secret military project which could endanger Neo-Tokyo. 

Animation wise this is a stunning film. The first few shots made me just go….wow. This film is nearly 40 years old and the detail in this is up there with more modern stuff. Even when things became difficult to follow I thought that the animation seemed to flow beautifully. I did have to chuckle a few times when there were fully drawn characters that literally didn’t move. Not even a slight move of the head to indicate movement. 

Sadly I lost track of what was going on very quickly. Normally this would be a bad thing because it would make the rest of the film a torture to sit through however because the animation was so good I was able to look past the confusing story. I don't think it's a poorly written story but I just found it difficult to follow.

Akira is definitely worth a watch just for the animation. It’s a near 40 year old animated film that still looks stunning but does suffer from a complicated plot and if you can sit next to someone to explain what’s going on this you might have a batter experience. As I was on my own though I was able to enjoy what was on screen even if I could follow it for 90% of its runtime.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy (2026)

 Lee Cronin’s The Mummy or The Lee Cronin’s Mummy as it appears on the screen does seem to be the latest attempt to try and resurrect the Mummy franchise given that the 2017 Tom Cruise version was a failure on every conceivable level. The set up of this version is that parents Charlie who is a journalist and his nurse wife Larissa (who is also pregnant at the start of the film) lose their daughter Katie who is kidnapped in Egypt. The film then moves forward eight years with the family now living in New Mexico when they get the call that Katie has been found and the film follows the family coming to terms with Katie’s return and her strange behaviour.

The performances are decent enough although the detective in Cairo is sort of sidelined for most of the film until she arrives at the family home to deliver some exposition because the video tape she has come across is in Egyptian. She then gets a scorpion down her throat that pierces through and prevents her from speaking that leads her having to stick her finger in her throat to talk. The kids apart from Katie weren’t particularly strongly written. Maud (the youngest daughter) had some good moments including pulling out her own teeth without anyone noticing or making a scene and there is one moment where she calls her teacher a c**t which did make me chuckle although it did seem a bit out of place.

A main issue with the film apart from the runtime is that it feels very disjointed. It moves from Cairo to Albuquerque which look the same so it would have made much more sense to set it somewhere that looks different to the desert of Egypt. Also Sebastian does nothing of any worth in the story. He only does something in the final act when he is possessed. The rest of the time he is just…..there. There is also the fact that the woman who kidnapped Katie decided to record what she was doing and she did it on VHS and that people still seem to have VHS players including Katie’s parents. 

In the climax of the film it did come across as a bit like an Evil Dead movie which makes sense as Lee Cronin did direct the most recent Evil Dead which I actually did like but that was the moment when a film about a mummy stopped being about a mummy and instead became about a possessed girl. It could be argued that happened at the beginning of the film but due to the director’s connection to that other film it seemed obvious at this point.

The film is too long. It’s 2 hours and 13 minutes and it could easily have lost 40 minutes. I thought that it was a decent film. If they had tightened up the runtime then this would have been a much better film. It might seem strange to put the director’s name in the title but apparently it was Jason Blum’s idea in an attempt to differentiate it from the Universal Mummy films which will be resurrected in due course. Ultimately this film isn't quite as good as Evil Dead Rise but it is better than I thought it was going to be and definitely deserved its 18 certificate because I don't mind admitting that I did look away a couple of times because it is quite gory and definitely felt gorier than Evil Dead Rise.

Glenrothan (2025)

Glenrothan was a mystery screening and in the past these films have been generally enjoyable but occasionally they are ones that I probably wouldn’t have seen at the cinema. Glenrothan is one of those films and it sees Alan Cumming play Donal who owns a bar and when it burns to the ground he, his daughter Amy and his granddaughter goes to visit his estranged older brother Sandy (played by Brian Cox who also directs the film).

A character of the film that deserves credit is the Scottish countryside. There are countless shots of beautiful landscapes and along with the great performances help create a wonderful atmosphere and a film that doesn't end in the way you think it does. It was a possibility that the film ended with Sandy dying but it doesn't, it ends with Sandy and Donal reuniting and going on the road to catch up on the time they lost. Jess gets to run the business that she seems to have been groomed for and things are all ending on a sweet note but not too sweet. 

The central performances are really good. It’s nice to see Brian Cox in something other than Succession and playing someone who is nice. It’s been a while since I have seen Alan Cumming in something and he is equally as good as Cox. Despite the character differences, they have great chemistry together. Shirley Henderson is one of those people that can deliver a great performance no matter what the character or situation is. Despite being the supporting characters, both Alexandra Shipp and Alexandra Wilkie-Millar give strong performances as Amy and Sasha.

I really enjoyed this film. It has a straight forward plot that allows the performances to win you over. It is a very charming film and proves that cinema in 2026 can cope with films that don't rely on people being mean to each other or trying to take over the world. Cox’s direction style seems unfussy and it will be interesting to see if he decides to step behind the camera again because he is just as good as director as he is an actor.