Wildwood (2026)

Sometimes I am intrigued by a film enough to visit the cinema and Wildwood is one of those films. This is directed by Travis Knight who earlier in the year made the Masters of the Universe that we needed so it was going to be interesting to see if he could do the same job with this animated film. Film tells the story of Prue who while babysitting her younger brother ends up in a magical place after her brother is kidnapped.

The revelation that Prue was born as a result of a deal between her parents and the Governess with the condition that the second child is payment is one I didn't see coming and thought that it added something that I felt was missing from the story. 

I thought the character of Prue was a good one. She clearly loves her younger brother even though in another film she would have been irritating. It would have been nice if she had been nicer to Curtis but that's a minor issue with the character. I thought the character of Curtis was a good one. He starts off as the sort of geeky classmate of Prue but by the end of the film becomes a stronger and much more interesting person. I wasn't as keen on the parents, they came across as hippies which isn't as interesting as some would like it to be. 

With the kidnapped baby brother and older sister trying to rescue him in a magical land did remind me of Labyrinth (in a good way) although this was never going to pull that off in a better way. I also thought the big battle part of the film was reminiscent of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, interesting in scale but didn't quite have the impact that it should.

The main issue with the film is that the film is too long. 132 minutes is way too long for an animated film. 100 minutes is the ideal length and I think the film would have worked a lot better. As a result, I can appreciate the animation and thought that the story was good but suffers from being slightly too bloated and despite the strong voice performances, I was ever so slightly disappointed with what we ended up with. This is a very grown up animated film as the 12A certificate suggests so I think that people may struggle to stay focused with what is going on. It is worth your time just for the animation.

I Play Rocky (2026)

It does seem like perfect timing to tell the story of the making of the first Rocky film on the 50th anniversary of that film. In fact I am seeing this film just a few days after seeing that amazing film. This film is directed by the guy who co-directed Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary and also the notorious Movie 43 which I vow never to see. This film sees a struggle actor Sylvester Stallone (played by Anthony Ippolito) who guys by the name of Mikey cause its easier to say as he tries to get a screenplay off the ground with the hope of securing a role for himself but when the studio initially resists, they try and buy him off but when that doesn't work he is told that if he falls behind just one day, the studio can sack him and replace him with another actor. 

I thought that Anthony Ippolito was fantastic as Stallone. He doesn't just look like Stallone but sounds like him. There is a fine line between performance and impression and Ippolito manages to make it feel like a performance. Reminded me of how Robert Pattinson felt like he was doing an impression in Primetime. Stallone meets Sasha (AnnaSophia Robb) at the cinema they are both working at and in very quick time they are expecting a child and she is really the support that Stallone needs and even though the marriage doesn't last long the film does a good job of showing her as a supportive figure. 

It was quite interesting how they actually acknowledge that Stallone did a soft core porno before writing the screenplay. It didn't really need to include that but I suppose it is part of highlighting his struggles to find fame. 

Frank Stallone Sr. (Matt Dillon) is an interesting figure, he doesn't come across as a terribly good father. He's not being the warm and supportive person that a child should have but it wasn't to the extent that Sylvester doesn't want anything to do with him. It was during his first scene that made me wonder where the rest of the Stallone family were cause there is no mention of Jackie or Frank Jr. No mention at all of them which I found strange. 

P.J. Byrne (Irwin Winkler) and Toby Kebbell (Robert Chartoff) are a great double act as the buffer between Stallone and Sandy Maddox (Tracy Letts). They have a lot more faith in he project than Maddox who is still salty at the fact that The Godfather was offered to them and was passed. There are a couple of references to how this seems to have bothered Maddox and that is something I found quite funny. I also liked the performance of Jay Duplass as director John Avildsen. Avildsen comes across as being from the same school of thought as Roger Corman. It's an understated performance but I thought a very good one. 

Kiki Seto (Talia Shire) and Stephen James (Carl Weathers) aren't in the story as much as I thought they would be. I did like how James came into the story, as it felt like another good performance. Seto's was way too brief so it was hard to properly judge her performance. The only actor who didn't fit the person they were playing was Robert Morgan as Burgess Meredith. Morgan looked too young and didn't sound gravelly enough to match but given that he is in about two scenes it is a minor issue.

I enjoyed the attention to detail that they managed in recreating some scenes from Rocky. The meat scene is done here and it includes the moment where the cast are hiding in a cupboard from a union guy who would have shut production down. There is also the ice rink scene which only made in to the film after Winkler and Chartoff remortgaged their houses after the film ran out of money so that is why there are no extras in that scene. It's cleverly written into the Rocky film. 

I thought that the screenplay by Peter Gamble was very good. Some events or characters might have been missed out but the characters and story we did get was entertaining and at no point.Given the previous films I have seen of Farrelly's, I thought he did a very good job of directing. The pacing was spot on as it didn't feel like it was rushing or was plodding along. I could have done with a little bit more so that is a good indication that the film worked as it was suppose to.

I did think that the ending was a bit abrupt. At the screening of the film once the stair scene happens the film ends and we get a caption about the success of the film and the boxing match makes it into the end credits but its just felt very abrupt and it seemed like they didn't know how to end things. Despite that minor issue I really enjoyed this film. I think that it works as a good companion to the classic Rocky. There are no weak performances among the first cast and the underdog story of Rocky is perfectly woven into the story of I Play Rocky. Definitely worth your time if you are a Rocky fan and even if you are not then its a fun film to watch.

Rocky (1976)

With the upcoming biopic I Play Rocky due out soon and this film celebrating its 50th Anniversary, it was a great opportunity to see this iconic film.  Weirdly when the BBFC title card appeared it says it was a 12A for 'moderate violence, domestic abuse and mouthed strong language' or strong language as it seems more logical to phrase it. That aside, it was going to be great to see this great film on the big screen. 

The story is a classic underdog story. Stallone plays the titular Rocky who is having boxing matches at his local club when he is invited by Heavyweight Champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) to a title match after his original opponent pulled out just weeks before the match. 

Sylvester Stallone is very good as Rocky. It is very hard now to imagine anyone playing the role because he needs to be a convincing underdog and Stallone knows exactly how to pitch it which given that he was the writer of the screenplay makes sense. Talia Shire is also very good as Adrian. She starts off as quite a quiet and shy person but in a very short period of time. I like the dynamic between Stallone and Shire and thing that comes to the heart of the film. The thing about Rocky is that he knows that it's unlikely that he will beat Apollo but he just wants to last the 15 rounds which no one else has done. I think that this is a great bit of motivation and another reason why Rocky is so likeable.

Carl Weathers is great as Apollo Creed. He is the confident antagonist to Rocky. He dresses smart, has tons of confidence and doesn't take Rocky too serious as an opponent. Even during the match, Rocky's entrance is lowkey and Creed shows he is quite the showman. It's hard to totally hate on Paulie (Burt Young). Yes he is horrible to Adrian but like most people who try and bully women or people that don't or won't stand up for themselves is because of insecurity. Paulie is a flawed person and is played perfectly well by Young although Young's best performance comes in Rocky IV. 

As much as many people seem to like Mickey (Burgess Meredith), I have always found it quite hard to like him. He is not very nice to Rocky and is only slightly nice to him once the match is announced. When Rocky is shouting and Mickey can him all the way down the stairs, I thought it was perfectly reasonable. 

Stallone has written a great screenplay. There are some great lines such as "eat lightning, crap thunder'. There is apparently a blooper with the banner of Rocky at the match and Stallone works it into the screenplay like it was planned. I think it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I learnt about the blooper.  The score is great by Bill Conti. It's not the best Conti would do (that would be Masters of the Universe). The theme tune is iconic and the music during the match builds up well until the end of the match. Definitely worth buying if you can. 

I like the fact that Rocky doesn't win the championship because that isn't really what the film is about. The match itself is a slow burner and it's never really referenced that the title is on the line so we can be more focused on the fact that Rocky made it to the end of the match. I think if Rocky had won the championship in this film then it wouldn't have quite had the same effect that it did. 

Rocky is a very good film. It's arguably the best film in the series although  4 is my personal favourite, it's got a great screenplay and is directed very well by John G. Avildsen. The performances were all great with no weak links and it was easy to see why it won Best Picture at the Oscars. It does make me look forward to I Play Rocky and it will be interesting to see whether the two will work as a double feature.

Godzilla Minus Zero (2026)

After really enjoying Godzilla Minus One, we get the highly anticipated sequel which takes place two years after the previous movie. The film follows Shikishima and his wife Noriko along with her daughter Akiko. The new threat starts off as gelatinous blob that by consuming local wildlife turns into a new form and gets given the name Ghidorah. After failing to kill it and once they realise that Godzilla is in fact alive, they decide to let Ghidorah and Godzilla take each other out and hope that the surviving one is weak enough to get picked off by the Japanese. 

Ryunosuke Kamiki is ok as Shikishima. He doesn't have as much presence as he did in the previous film and it's only his connection to Noriko and Akiko that made his involvement have some meaning. Minami Hamabe is the stranger of the two as Noriko. One of the things that bothered me in the last film was that she seemingly died and when it was revealed that she had survived, all she had was a bandage over her eye and not a single scratch which seemed unlikely. That lack of cuts actually forms part of the plot because we learn about the fact that she has some of Godzilla cell would normally be totally ridiculous but in this film it works perfectly fine. I thought that Min Tanaka gave the best performance in this film as Kanji Murakami. He has the most substance to his character because he has some sort of PTSD from the terrible things he saw in the war including family members burnt to death.

I thought that the score from Naoki Sato. There are the classic Godzilla moments but the rest of the score is great to point which I actually thought it was better than the score from The Odyssey. That's a bad one by any means but this one was magical. I also thought that special effects were great. Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Takayuki Ueki and Eisin Okubo all did an outstanding job to make the effects look great, there were a couple of slightly iffy shots but for the most part every effect including the looks of Ghidorah and Godzilla were epic. 

Ghidorah's evolution in the film is rather good. He starts off with just one head and after the epic action scene, he grows two more heads to become the Ghidorah that we all recognise and the effect is very good. He is the main threat and he is an impressive villain to go against Godzilla. When Ghidorah first appears in 1964, the fights never looked entirely convincing because it looked like two people in costumes on a giant set. In this film with the improvement in effects 62 years later are much more awesome to watch. 

One thing that I wasn't expecting was the portrayal of the Americans as the baddies. They are prepared to give the Japanese the planes but won't give them the pilots. There is also the belief that they will weaponise Resonance wave technology and it's quite satisfying when the house has been set on fire. The last time we see Murakami is when he is being arrested by the Americans which suggests that there might be another appearance of him in a future film cause that is quite a downbeat way to end his fantastic involvement in the story.

The only minor issues I have with the film is that it takes a little longer to get into top gear. I was never bored but felt that Godzilla needed to get involved for things to start building up to something. Also there was a lack of Godzilla that always bothers me. It's about an hour before he appears properly but then he starts to fight Ghidorah then I momentarily forgot until writing this review. 

This film isn't as good as Minus One but that was sort of to be expected given how good that film was. It still pretty damn good. I had very high expectations and they were still met which shows how good this film is. I don't think we need another one in this period. The film does end with Shikishima, Noriko and Akiko riding off into the sunset so it's possible that we might get one several years from now. I think we are getting a sequel to Shin Godzilla which is something I am looking forward to because the Toho Godzilla films are better than the Hollywood ones and there is nothing anyone can say to change my mind.

Wild Horse Nine (2026)

Wild Horse Nine was another mystery screening at my local cinema and it was one that I really wanted to see so it was a nice surprise. I really like Martin McDonagh as a director, the only film of his I didn't like was Seven Psychopaths and had I seen The Banshees of Inisherin at the cinema then it would have been my film of 2022. This film follows McDonagh's previous films like In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin and sees two people who have a small conflict between them and they are in an unfamiliar setting.

With this being a mystery screening there were a couple of walkouts within about 3 minutes of the film starting which is about the second quickest walkout after Exit 8. I was planning on seeing this so there was no way that I was going to be For those who gave it a chance they would have seen that the film was about Sam Rockwell (Lee) and John Malkovich (Chris) who visit Easter Island with Lee tasked with finding out where Chris' rifle is that its alleged was used in the assassination of JFK. Lee has other problems with his wife and kids being held captive by Steve Buscemi's MJ to make sure that Lee gets the answer that MJ wants. There is a flashback scene where Lee is instructed by Chris to end Chris' life when the word Arkansas is used and this brings us to the saddest scene in the movie where after a great use of his sniper, Chris is killed by Lee and Lee goes into the distance just as the film ends. I will be honest that despite this film being just short of two hours, I could have done with a bit more. I enjoyed the performances from Sam Rockwell and John Malkovich and thought that their prickly dynamic made it interesting as is up there with Padraic and Colm in The Banshees of Inisherin and Ray and Ken in 'In Bruges'.

Steve Buscemi might only have a couple of scenes in the movie but being brilliant he makes the most of it and there is a running joke about him being a drug addict and when Chris is told that MJ is actually a drug addict he is surprised as he was only joking. Parker Posey has a rather small role as the wife of Lee but with this being a McDonagh character she is a lot more interesting because she 

The plot is relatively straightforward but like in all of McDonagh's stuff it is more about the characters and the black humour that makes the films work.

This film is nowhere near as good as The Banshees of Inisherin but it's typical McDonagh and that is still pretty damn good. I wasn't expecting this film to be better than Inisherin but I still had high hopes for it and they were met quite early on. It's a great script with a lot of humour (especially from Malkovich) and the supporting cast are all really good and I don't think I could name someone who let the side down. The setting of Easter Island was great because it looks stunning and was well used by McDonagh. It looked so good that it makes me want to actually visit the island but sadly I doubt I ever will. If you are a fan of his other work then you will like this film. Great stuff.

Primetime (2026)

Primetime was a film that seem to have gained some notoriety because the guy that the film is based on wasn't happy with how he was portrayed and decided to take out ads to seemingly discourage people from seeing the film. I do like the fact that he was confident to think that people would be rushing to see this film. This film is based on Chris Hansen who in the film is about to launch his show 'To Catch a Predator' and because it is being put up against a little known show called Lost, he decides that he needs a big 'fish' to beat Lost in the ratings. Also he is trying to stop news about his extra marital affairs from getting out (which might be the thing that Hansen is annoyed about maybe???). 

I got slightly excited when I realised Alex Winter was in it. I think because the film was so I thought that the film desperately needed some more strong performances. There is nothing wrong with this film because it's well acted with Robert Pattinson leading. I haven't seen a whole lot of the real Chris Hansen so I don't know how accurate the performance is but I just got the feeling that this was an impression instead of a performance. It's not the best performance from Pattinson this year but it's the one that he seems to be proud of the most. I thought that Skyler Gisondo was very good as Dan Plum who is hired to be an actor in the house with the 'predator' but because he slept in and was late to the house he wasn't prepared when he turned round to the guy who had dropped his trousers and was holding a can of whipped cream.

The ultimate problem with the film is that it feels very surface level. It was about the hour mark that I was wondering what exactly they were building up to. Then they decided to drop in the whole pervy politician because Hansen decided they needed something big because of a scene from Lost. It almost made me want to watch Lost again but then I remembered who downhill it goes after about the third season. They have spent so much time trying to make it feel authentic that they forgot they were making a film and trying to add some depth. The whole of the third act felt rushed to me and after Alex Winter's character killed himself, the film just ends with a mumbling VoiceOver.

Primetime is ok but it does feel like a missed opportunity. It's worth seeing because of Robert Pattinson and Skyler Gisondo but I think it is something that will be watched by most people when it arrives on streaming. I really think that they should have spent a bit more time on the screenplay because the whole infidelity subplot never goes anywhere on screen (the news seems to be broken by his wife on the phone). A bit more attention and I think this would have been a much better film.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

With Pan's Labyrinth celebrating its 20th Anniversary, I thought this was a great opportunity to visit this film on the big screen. I was surprised that this was a very well attended for a 7pm film on a cold Sunday night. Unlike when I saw Casino Royale, I didn't see this film when it came out because it wasn't the sort of film I would like but thankfully my film tastes have improved in the two decades since and I was more than happy to buy a ticket for this film. The film takes place in 1944 where 10 year old Ofelia and her pregnant mother are on their way to live with her new step-father but in an attempt to escape from her new reality, she enters a dreamlike world.

Guillermo del Toro is a master at creating bleak scenarios but still have enough humanity and warmth to make the films accessible. For close to two hours the film flips between the grimness of Captain Vidal and his harsh treatment of anyone that displeases him to the magical craziness of all the creatures and its great that after 20 years, the special effects still hold up. All the sets look amazing and usually filming in woods is quite a boring experience but del Toro makes them interesting.

The performances are all really good. Ivana Baquero is great as Ofelia. She is a rare example of a child actor that is actually good. Nowadays it is fairly common for this to be the case but in 2006 it was still a rare thing. You feel sorry for her because she is being forced to call a horrible man father even though her real father died in the war and she loses her mother. It is nice that Ofelia gets her nice ending even though she dies in the 'real' world. Sergi Lopez is a great as Captain Vidal. He is totally horrible and every time he is on screen I just found myself really disliking him with great intensity. When Mercedes cuts his cheek, I was cheering but disappointed when it wasn't the end. This is how to write a good strong villain.

Maribel Verdu as Mercedes is the mother figure that Carmen can't be because she is heavily pregnant. She is trying to kill Vidal and so she has some interesting moments in the film. She has some personal motivation to kill Vidal and yet she remains connected to Ofelia. It was lovely performance from Verdu. Despite being a monster, Dave Jones played Pale Man brilliantly. I would have liked more from the Pale Man as it is so iconic and is such a great creation. Thankfully he gets more screen time with Fauno and that is a better performance and it the design is brilliant and has aged perfectly in the last 20 years.

Credit has to go to Guillermo Navarro for the cinematography of this film. The film is a very dark film both literally and metaphorically and despite it being dark I could see what was going on which isn't the case with a lot of dark looking movies made today. The one scene where there is some colour I found myself relieved that we had some colour and its looked stunning as well. Javier Navarrete has made a stunning score for this film and made me want to buy it.  The only thing that wasn't great was the idea of screening this in 3D. It added nothing like in all 3D releases and as I am someone who usually wears glasses, it is always annoying to wear two sets of glasses. That gripe aside, Pan's Labyrinth is a beautiful looking film with a great central performance from Ivana Baquero and a story that is well written and directed by Guillermo del Toro.