Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

My knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons is pretty limited. I know its popular and the closest I have come to experiencing it is watching Stranger Things and The Big Bang Theory so I was able to watch this not really expecting too much. I also know that there was a version in 2000 which isn’t very good apparently. 

I thought that this was a good film overall. Despite characters and everything else being utterly alien to me, I didn’t feel like was missing out on an in joke. There may have been some references that I didn’t get but I don’t think my enjoyment would been greater if I was more aware of the ins and outs of D&D. The film follows Edgin (Chris Pine) as he escapes from prison and tries to reunite with his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman). Along the way he has a band of merry men & women who help him but one person stopping him is Forge who is played brilliantly by Hugh Grant. There is something about his performances recently (probably going back as far as Paddington) where with anyone else it would be a parody but with Grant it is fun to watch and whilst he is reigning it in, he is still fun to watch.

Chris Pine isn’t something that i think is the greatest actor in the world but I thought that he was really good in this. He worked quite well with Michelle Rodriguez who I have only really seen in the fast and the furious films but seemed to have a bit more of a personality that usual. Justice Smith and Sophia Lillis are also very good as Simon and Doric although Smith is at times reduced to the comedy role with his inability to do magic. 

The effects are very good and the whole thing is well paced to the degree that I thought the runtime was perfect. I would like there to be more but I don’t think that D&D is that popular outside of D&D groups which is a shame because its a recognisable property and movie studios love recognisable properties.

Air (2023)

Air tells the story of how Nike basically became the biggest shoe company in the world. Normally this wouldn’t be something that would get me to go to the cinema but as it was directed by Ben Affleck i thought I would give it ago. I think his previous track record is good and if anyone can make a story about a shoe work then its Affleck. 

There is a weird thing that goes on here that this film is about the creation of the Michael Jordan shoe and yet we don’t see Michael Jordan. We hear his name and he’s in the room when the big deal goes down but this a film essentially about Michael Jordan that doesn't feature Michael Jordan. That’s a brave thing to do, its like having a film about Richard Nixon that doesn't feature Richard Nixon, it could be done but it requires a lot of thought about how the film will work and to the films credit and given that the subject matter is about a business deal for a shoe, its surprising how much I enjoyed this film. Instead the story focuses on Deloris Jordan (played superbly by Viola David). She comes across as a smart but no nonsense person who is trying to get the best deal for her son instead of trying to line her own pocket. I don’t know how true the depiction in this movie compares to the real Deloris but i am willing to take the film at face value or close to it. One of the main reasons why this film works is the two leads. It helps that Matt Damon & Ben Affleck are very fun to watch and play the characters with a slight over the top style that keep things ticking along nicely.

I enjoyed this film for what it was and whilst I probably wont go back to watch this again unless I happen to stumble across it on TV but I think that it shows how good a director that Ben Affleck can be. He makes a story about a shoe interesting and whilst he may not have an acting career that matches up to his directing career, he shows that he has the skills to make dull stuff seem more interesting than it actually is.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)

I enjoyed Shazam! when it came out in 2019, I thought that they did a good job of making a superhero character I didn’t know about and making them interesting. So here we are with the belated sequel (belated probably because of the pandemic) and to say that its a step down from the previous film would be quite the understatement. 

There are many things that don’t work with this film. Primarily the trio of Anthea, Kalypso & Hesperian who are supposed to be on the same side but don’t appear like that. It seems to be Hesperian & Kalypso vs Anthea. They rarely seem to be on the same page so if you were smart then you could just let them take each other out. There is also a potentially cynical piece of casting because Rachel Zegler is clearly a lot younger than both Lucy Liu and Helen Mirren and it would appear that they have cast Zegler purely so it seems more logical when she flirts or develops feelings for Freddy.

There is also the Wonder Woman problem. So there is a scene where we just see the back of Wonder Woman’s head because it's implied to Gal Gadot but then Gadot appears at the very end for what appears to be a crowbar in the scene. Nothing seems to make sense, which is really weird because the first one worked very well. It’s a clear example of making a film just because the previous one was a commercial success and not having a single clue what to do with it. It does have an interesting end credits scene where Shazam! meets Emilia and John from the Peacemaker series although this might be crowbarred in at James Gunn’s request to work into his DCU plans. 

Overall I was disappointed with this film. It’s a massive step down from the previous one and think that it serves as a good reason why films should stop trying to make films tie into other films and have things that are going to be referenced into other TV shows or things several years down the road because people will less likely to watch this film again or think that it was good if they have to watch other films for this to make sense.

John Wick: Chapter 4(2023)

I came to the John Wick fan club quite late. It was only when the fourth one was announced that I decided to give the films ago and have enjoyed this a lot. They make lack anything approaching a plot but I don’t think the appeal of this series is the plot. It’s just watching Keanu Reeves beating people up and there is something satisfying about that.

There is something about Bill Skarsgard that means he can do evil with such ease but is probably a nice guy in real life. The inclusion of Donnie Yen was another reason why I was looking forward to this film and he didn’t disappoint. 

The fight sequence down what look like the longest set of steps ever is my abiding memory of this film. It was exhausting just watching them so its difficult to imagine what it was like to film it. The fight scenes in this film are of the same quality as they have been in the previous instalments. 

I don’t know if the ending was implied to be the end of the series. I hope not, i have genuinely loved these films even if they are light on anything approaching a story but sometimes things are just as much when its about people beating each other up and killing each other. Long may it continue.