Blink Twice (2024)

Today was National Cinema Day and like last year i took advantage of the bargain. This year its £1 more expensive but that's still pretty good compared to the normal price of a ticket. My options were more limited this year than in 2023. Most of the films I have already seen and there are a few kids films that would have been weird to see on my own.  To be honest, the trailer seemed quite interesting and there was another reason for wanting to see this and that is my parents went to see this earlier in the week and walked out so I wanted to see whether it was worth walking out of. 

The set up of the film is that Frida (Naomi Ackie) is invited to an island owned by Slater King (Channing Tatum) who a tech billionaire who has been ‘cancelled’ and is trying to improve himself. As the film progresses strange things start to happen.

GOOD POINTS

Central Performances

The performances from Channing Tatum and Naomi Ackie are really good. I thought that Ackie in particular was very good as Frida who manages to carry my interest when things went a bit slow. This is the third film I have seen with Channing Tatum in 2024 (Fly Me to the Moon and Deadpool & Wolverine) and this is a very different but equally as impressive. Seeing a manipulative Channing Tatum is fun to see in a strange way. 

Supporting Performances

Christian Slater seems like he is having the time of his life playing Vic. I must admit I didn’t stop laughing when he was laying down on the sofa after having his head bashed in. I would like to have seen more of Kyle MacLachlan in the film but he was fun for the brief time he was in. Haley Joel Osment seems to have agreed to do it so he could lounge around the pool and he is having fun doing it. Not sure why Geena Davis agreed to do this but I’m glad she did because its always fun to see her in a film and most of the time she’s in the background and doesn’t really add anything to the plot but I still liked her performance.

Soundtrack

There are some really good songs that are used in this film and they aren’t the sort that I would have expected when I saw the trailer. Given that they look like the sort of people that would appear on Love Island or some other reality trash, the soundtrack was surprisingly normal. Sadly as of writing, there doesn't appear to be a soundtrack available.

Twist

This is the sort of film I would have expected from M. Night Shyamalan because it has a twist that comes very late in the film. The twist in this film is that everyone is taking drugs to forget what happens during the night. It became obvious quite early on that they weren't remembering somethings when Frida was seeing dirt under her fingernails. I think they waited too long to show the flashbacks but when they did appear it was welcome.

A Good Directing Debut

Zoe Kravitz makes her directing debut with this film and she does a good job (she also co-wrote the screenplay which was originally called Pussy Island). She makes good use of the island even though all we really see is the pool, the dining area and a couple of rooms in the house. 

A good screenplay

The screenplay in general is rather good. Things are set up and paid off later on which sounds like a weird thing to put in the good section but is amazing how many films seem to find it hard to introduce things early in a film and have them payoff or mean something later on. The 

BAD POINTS

Too many annoying/underutilised characters

Despite their being some good actors in this film. A lot of them are either annoying or don’t get used enough. Vic (Slater) doesn't do much apart from take polaroid's and that's about it. Levon Hawke (Ethan Hawke’s son) literally does nothing and it even gets mentioned by Slater. Some are given a lot of dialogue and screentime and I barely recognise them because they hadn't done anything until that point. 

The bodyguard doesn't seem to serve much purpose apart from being in the shot every so often. There didn't seem to be an explanation as to why he was not getting in on the action or how he ended up their. He gets what he deserves at the end but he was given a lot of screen time for someone that didn’t have much impact on the plot

Way too long to get the point

The film is 102 minutes but about 45-50 of that is given to partying. The film follows a format. There is a load of partying and then something strange happens. So much focus is given to Jess’ cigarette lighter that it was clear that it was going to be part of the plot and it was. The film was probably about 15-20 minutes too long which is a shame because if it had been a little bit shorter then it would have worked much better. The women realise what is going on very quickly at the end of the film like they realised they were running out of time. I found it slightly distracting that there didn't seem to be anything that indicated why they would suddenly have seen the light. It felt like a scene had been cut.

Ending doesn't make sense

So the twist is that Frida has been on the island before and got her scar from hitting her head on a rock but I don’t get why Slater would run the risk of Frida remembering by letting her go back to the mainland. Also (unless I misunderstood), the drug that gets used to make Slater remember is in that bottle that was in Freida's room which seems a bit reckless. Also are we suppose to sympathise with Frida that she is the one in control over Slater who has seemingly had a personality change. She doesn't come across as a likeable person at the end and instead seems just as bad as Slater

Trigger Warning Not Needed

This was the first film that I have ever seen with a trigger warning. It uses the line “While this is a fictionalised movie, it contains mature themes and depictions of violence - including sexual violence”. Now I personally think this makes people think that the film is going to contain more than one scene of women being treated appalling. Truth is that the trigger warning isn’t necessary and should really be left to sitcoms and dramas from the 1960’s of 70’s not something made in 2024. There are some pro-feminist scenes which do feel a little bit forced and seem to have been put in there to show that this is a film about female empowerment. 

OVERALL

I am not surprised that my parents walked out because the film spends too long to get to the main point of the film but I still thought that it was a good film. It has some problems but its a good debut from Zoë Kravitz as director and has an interesting idea but with a more experience screenwriter or producer, the film would have tightened the film up and this would be a highly impressive film. Hopefully this leads to more films from Kravitz in the directors chair.

The Crow (2024)

The Crow is the 100th visit to the cinema since I started keeping track at the beginning of 2016 and the 29th film I have seen this year so a record breaking moment. This is a remake of the 1994 film of the same name which I watched for the first time a few days ago which was famous really for the death of its lead Brandon Lee. I suppose it was inevitable that they would try and give the film another chance. This time it’s Bill Skarsgård who plays Eric and FKA Twigs plays Shelley. The plot is that Eric and Shelley are killed by hired thugs (hired by Danny Huston’s Vincent) and he comes back from the dead to exact revenge on those responsible.

GOOD POINTS

CENTRAL PERFORMANCES

Skarsgård and FKA were quite good individually and worked well together. Danny Huston is really good at playing a villain. He doesn't seem to be trying too hard to come across as such a scumbag but he somehow manages it.

MOTIVATION OF THE CROW

The motivation of the crow is good because they spent a good amount of time making us care and because they work well together you understand why Eric wants to do what he does and why he trades his life for Shelley’s when he loses faith in Shelley

BLOOD AND GUTS

The film doesn’t look away from the blood and violence and one of the main things that this version of the film has over the 1994 version.. There is plenty of both with one shot of the crow pushing in his intestine. The action at the opera was by far the best part of the film because it is where Eric gets to show off his newly acquired skills and it does make all the disposable baddies look like idiots because they keep shooting at him and yet he comes back at them.

BAD POINTS VISUALLY ALL OVER THE PLACE

One of the main issues that I have with this film is that it doesn't seem to know what sort of film it wants to be. It takes little time for the Blade Runner vibe to come into this film. I say that because of how dark things are and also because of the rain. I don’t remember the last time I saw that much rain in a film. Yes it is atmospheric but I just think that it gets distracting after a while. The film never seems to go fully in on this and set it in the far future and have futuristic technology and graphics. They push the Blade Runner vibe enough for it to be noticed but not enough that it feels like what they intended.

MOTIVATION OF THE VILLAIN IS FUZZY

The main motivation for the villain is that FKA had a video on her phone that Vincent doesn’t want anyone to see because…..reasons. Unless I missed something then there is the bare minimum of plot motivation. I can only assume it's because he is an important figure and he doesn't want people to know the truth. The thing is that it's never really explained why he would be considered important and because no scene is created to explain why he should be feared apart from the fact he can manipulate people into killing themselves.

THE FINAL BATTLE DOESN'T HAVE THE WOW FACTOR

Normally the final battle should be epic and feel important but in this film it's over very quickly and its not really because of anything that Eric has done that defeats Vincent. It’s the creatures in the water that end up consuming him into the water and so Eric has managed to defeat Vincent but not really doing much. Eric does more damage in the Opera fight.

LACKS ANY SENSE OF IDENTITY

Despite my feeling that the 1994 version is overhyped, at least the film had an identity and it works to the film's benefit. The film seems to want to be a bit of Blade Runner, a bit of John Wick and it never seems to come together.

OVERALL

I wasn't expecting too much when I sat down at the cinema but I think that it's perhaps the most average film that I can recall seeing at the cinema and will probably go so far as to say that it is the worst film I have seen this year at the cinema. It’s not the worst film ever made but the worst I have seen this year and its probably worth waiting for it to come out on streaming in a couple of months.

Alien: Romulus (2024)

Alien Romulus is one of those films that seems to have attracted a mixed reaction which given how bad Covenant was is perhaps a win. The film is set 20 years after Alien with a line dropped that the company is still looking for Ripley. The Xenomorph from the first film that gets sucked out of the airlock ends up in a meteorite and they mine it for something to seemingly create a new breed of human. Meanwhile we meet Rain who along with her ‘brother’ Andy are trying to get off a planet with no daylight along with the Artful Dodger and his band of misfits who are trying to get stuff from a decommissioned space station but things quickly go wrong.

THE GOOD

The poster should tell you that the facehuggers are going to feature quite heavily and for the first part of the film they do in a way that they haven’t been before. They are an effective monster and keep the action going until the Xenomorphs appear. 

I also thought that Cailee Spaeny was really good as Rain. She was this film's Ripley and her character arc is similar to Ripley’s in the first alien film with her being a normal person just wanting to get off a planet cause it sucks and then becomes the hero. I last saw her in ‘Civil War’ and thought that this was definitely the better performance. I liked David Johansson who I last saw in ‘Rye Lane’ and I thought that he did a good job of playing two versions of Andy. He is perhaps the most likeable Android that the franchise has come up with although I don’t know if he’s as good as Lance Henrickson or Michael Fassbender.

The appearance of Ian Holm’s Ash was a surprise and after a bumpy few scenes the CGI worked and he became the menace of the story similar to in Alien which this film follows in chronological terms. I thought that he was just going to be in it for a brief moment or two but he was in it for at least 30 minutes. He is just as loathsome as he was in Alien. 

The scene where Kay gives birth is perhaps one of the most disgusting things I have seen for quite sometime if not ever. It’s done so well that I found myself looking away from the cinema screen. It wasn't on screen for an excessive amount of time but long enough to be uncomfortable.

They seem to have pulled off the Xenomorph hybrid that they messed up on in Alien Resurrection. With the advancement in special effects since 1997 it works much better. The film’s effects are very good. The space station’s interior is at times claustrophobic and  even though it seems vast from the outside it manages to feel quite small on the inside and Fede Alvarez manages to make us forget that the station is larger than we think it is.

I also thought that the film was the perfect running length. It's just short of two hours and I was never bored or felt like they were padding things out. It’s a rare thing in films nowadays that directors and producers seem unable to know when things should end and its builds things up perfectly and ends in the right way at the right time.

THE BAD

Bjorn was really annoying. In fact I don't think I have hate a character quite so much in a very long time. Not sure why every british character has to say f**k ever other line. Bjorn seems to say it to the point that it adds to the annoyance. Everytime he seemed to open his mouth it seemed to be angry at something that was quite over the top. When his death came I was relieved because I could enjoy the action.

The CGI Ian Holm belongs in the good section but the first few moments were quite rocky because it was a case of uncanny valley. Thankfully this quickly gave way to more reliable CGI. In the context of the series it might not make sense given that its been 45 years since Alien but in the timeline of the series, it works and it's always good to see and hear Ian Holm even though its been about 4 years since he passed away.

The nods to previous Alien films were plenty in Romulus but there was only one that didn’t work and it's when Andy says “Stay away from her….”. It was the only time that the references didn’t quite work. Everything else felt like fans of the series would get the references but it would make those unfamiliar with the references confused. 

Kay (Isabella Merced) does not have much to do for the first three quarters of the film because her importance doesn't show itself until for some reason she injects herself with the needle that has something that turns her baby into what was similar to the engineers in Prometheus. It’s a shame that she doesn't contribute anything until the very end because by that point it was late in the film and there wasn't enough time for me to be invested in her character.

OVERALL

I really enjoyed this film. It’s not as good as Alien or Aliens or even Alien 3. It definitely a huge step up from Covenant and definitely better than Prometheus so it's sort of in the middle in terms of quality. I don’t understand why people don’t seem to like this film. Yes it perhaps leans towards nostalgia a bit too much but I enjoyed this film and thought that it was the perfect running time. Fede Alvarez has done a good job of making an entertaining if slightly unoriginal Alien film. I do hope that we get more Alien films but perhaps lean less of recognisable references. We wouldn’t want this film to be turned into Jurassic World: Dominion.

Borderlands (2024)

Borderlands is a film that seems to be destined to make peoples worst top 10 and even a few top spots. I wasn't planning on seeing this at the cinema and instead waiting for it to arrive on streaming but because of the negative reviews it was getting I thought I would go and see if it was as bad as people were making out to be. For the record, I am not an expert on video games. I played the third one many years ago but I couldn't tell you anything about it in terms of how faithful it is to the games. 

This was the first film that I have ever seen that was directed by Eli Roth. He isn't a director known for making tasteful movies. I have no intention of seeing the Hostel films or Green Inferno so I am interested in seeing the one Eli Roth film that I would want to sit through. There was one red flag before I saw the film, the screenplay is written by Roth and Joe Crombie which is a pseudonym after original writer Craig Mazin asked for his name to be taken off the screenplay because of the changes that Roth had made who in interviews said he doesn't care if the characters in the film don't match the characters in the game.

Problems with the film don't just arise with the screenplay. The film was shot in 2022 with reshoots taking place in the summer of that year. Further reshoots were done in 2023 with Tim Miller taking charge. So to say that this film had a trouble production would be an understatement so the fact the film isn't a dumpster fire of a film is quite an achievement.

THE GOOD

Jack Black is funny in this. There is a fine line between love and hate when it comes to Jack Black and the humour that came from Jack Black worked quite well in the context of this film. I also thought that Ariana Greenblatt was fun as Tiny Tina. This character could easily have been annoying but I think it was played just right and she came across well. I thought that Kevin Hart was ok as well but his character didn't seem to have too much to do and I kept forgetting he was in the film when he was off screen. 

Visually it looked similar to the Borderland games. Like I said previously, my experience of Borderlands is minimal at best but from what I do remember about the visuals ring a bell and I quite liked the way this world looked. It could have gone down the route of mimicking Mad Max but they didn't do that and that showed restraint from a director that isn't known for restraint.

THE BAD

Jamie Lee Curtis looked like she didn't know what she was saying. She never seemed like she knew what was going on and so wasn't the big name lead that she was probably hired to be. Cate Blanchett is passable as Lillith but she seems somewhat miscast and I think that whilst she had moments like when she bonded with Tiny TIna, I couldn't help feel like this would have been done better by someone else. Also Edgar Ramirez is someone who I don't know why he keeps getting cast because I never find him believable and as the guy who put Lillith on her path it seems like he was lacking any menace or have something that would make me care about him getting his comeuppance. When he get dragged into the pit at the end of the film, I found myself not really caring because neither he or the film had done anything to make me feel something 

This one is a minor bad point but its that this film also owes a debt to Guardians of the Galaxy where it had a really good soundtrack but made me appreciate how natural in felt in those films whereas in this film it feels like Eli Roth just did it because it seemed fun to do.

OVERALL

So its easy to say that this film isn't terrible. The casting lets the film down but the visuals work quite well and I seem to like it a lot more than most people did. There is very little plot in the film but whereas the characters could do a lot to make the flaws in the narrative, it fails because with the exception of Hart, Black and Greenblatt, the casting was way off for what it should have been. Not sure this film would have been improved with a different director but any plans for a future film would appear to be non-existent.

Trap (2024)

This is remarkably the first M. Night Shyamalan film I have ever seen at the cinema. It’s also one that I have been intrigued with since I saw the first trailer. Set up of the film is the Cooper (Josh Hartnett takes his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a Lady Raven concert (Lady Raven played by M. Night’s daughter Saleka) but the concert is actually a trap for Cooper who is revealed (in the trailer) to be a serial killer. It’s fair to say that M. Night Shyamalan has had an up and down career but I do honestly think that he has turned a corner since After Earth and hoped this would be another step in the right direction.

THE GOOD STUFF

All the stuff in the arena is quite good. There is a sense of claustrophobia in such a huge building and that's not an easy thing to pull off. The question is how is Cooper going to get out and that is what the film should have been about. Josh Hartnett is very good as Cooper showing both sides of his personality with the nice father fireman side and then the horrible person who traps people in his basement for no clear reason. Ariel Donoghue was also quite good as Riley although she is a bit too willing to ignore things when Cooper's behaviour gets more extreme.

The proper twist being that it was Rachel that tipped the police off and ultimately set the trap in the final act was quite good. Some people might not like this twist but given that it came in the final act then it worked quite well. 

THE BAD STUFF

Pretty much everything after they leave the arena. Trap proves that M. Night has great ideas but has no idea how to implement them into a good story. There are ridiculous moments after ridiculous moments.  Firstly the FBI are quite stupid in this film as the Dr (Hayley Mills) says at one point that they are using ‘Protocol 4’ and then proceeds to tell us what it is. I know this is to give the audience the information but in the reality of this film it wouldn’t be needed just in case the target is listening. 

The subplot with Riley and her ‘friend’ Jody and Jody’s mom and Cooper having their conversation in the foyer ultimately led to nothing and so I could have easily done without that. I know it was probably something to distract us but I think that the film could have afforded to lose it.

So there is a moment where a crowd is surrounding a limo where Cooper is dressed as a SWAT cop and Lady Raven escapes and somehow Copper manages to take his SWAT clothes off, changes into something else and escapes the limo without anyone seeing him or pointing out that the guy is running away. The last moment of the film sees Cooper break free from his cuffs as he is being taken away which raises questions such as how is he going to escape when he will presumably be under armed guard when the door opens. A mate of mine says that this might be part of the same universe as Split and Glass and so this makes sense otherwise is a stupid way to end the film.

OVERALL

This was a disappointing film. The trailer makes it look like we were going to get something in one setting which are the kind of stories I like and even moving it away from the area wasn't a bad thing but it got so stupid towards the end that I was kind of annoyed at Shyamalan. Trap isn’t at the same level of terrible as After Earth but its a disappointment and another reason why I should watch trailers.