The Movie Addict

Video Games are a mixed bag so this was always going to be a risky movie to sit through. I have never played the game and was not aware of the premise although the name did ring a bell but I couldn't have told you anything about it before seeing this film. Until Dawn is directed by David F. Sandberg who returns to the horror genre after directing the slightly disappointing Shazam! Fury of the Gods.  The plot sees Clover and her Scooby gang of friends try and find Clover’s sister Melanie who disappeared and after getting some help from a gas station member of staff who definitely had nothing suspicious about him, end up in a house which appears to have been turned into a museum. All the gang are killed in record time and I was quite surprised but then they all wake up and have to go through it all again. There is a hidden secret of the house and the town where the scooby gang learn that experiments have been going on and people only last 13 times before they will disappear so they c...

The Accountant 2 comes nine years after the first film which saw Ben Affleck go through a film with no emotion and being quite handy with a gun. I’ll be honest that I thought it was ok at best but wasn't really crying out for a sequel especially nearly a decade after the first one but since we are in an era of belated sequels i suppose another one won't make much difference. The film starts with J.K. Simmons’ Ray King, killed after meeting Anaïs and Medina from the first film, is trying to find out who killed him and she enlists the help of Christian Wolff (Affleck) and he then enlists his estranged brother Braxton (Jon Bernthal) to help. The thing about this film is that it's very hard to like. I was never bored and felt like it was a massive step up from the first one but I just found it almost impossible to connect with. There are moments that I enjoyed such as when Christian and Braxton take on the compound and in fact the second half of the film is much stronger than t...

Warfare is another film that I knew very little about. I saw a trailer and was quite intrigued by it so I went into this with the hope that this might be a hidden gem and that proved very much to be the case. The set up of the film is quite simple, a bunch of soldiers are on a surveillance mission in Iraq and then some insurgents start attacking them and the film follows this group of soldiers as they try and escape. The film is told in real time which is one of many reasons why the film is one of the most tense films that I have seen for a very long time. The film starts off with one of the most bizarre beginnings I can recall seeing for a very long time if not ever. As the film begins we see the music video for Call on Me by Eric Prydz and then cuts to a bunch of soldiers enjoying the video. On reflection, this is done on purpose because for the rest of the 96 minutes the film doesn't allow for anything approaching happiness or enjoyment so it's like the directors saying ‘enj...

Sinners is one of those films that I saw purely because the trailer made me curious. I didn't know too much about it. This is despite the fact that trailers tend to spoil things with all the twists and turns which leaves you slightly disappointed and I feel robbed of those sort of moments. The plot sees twin brothers Smoke and Stack open up a juke joint after buying an abandoned sawmill from a racist landowner. Things seem to be going well until vampires turn up and start to ruin things. It’s fair to say that Michael B. Jordan is really very good as Smoke and Stack. There is just enough to separate the performances but from start to finish he brings something amazing to the film. Smoke and Stack are always throwing money around and always seem to be in control but when things go wrong he is just as powerless as everyone else. The true revelation of this film was Miles Caton. It's rare that an actor’s voice is so wonderful that you want to hear them read an audiobook, especially...

The Amateur sees Rami Malek play Heller who is a CIA decoder who loses his wife when she is involved in a terrorist attack in London. After the CIA seems reluctant to move with any speed  he decides to go into business for himself and track down the people who were responsible for the death of his wife. He is assessed by Henderson played by Laurence Fishburne who decides that he isn't a killer and then Heller goes off before he is caught. The rest of the film is a sort of cat and mouse affair with the end goal of Heller getting justice. As much as I like Rami Malek, I don't think he was particularly good as the lead. He was great in Oppenheimer where he has a supporting role and wasn't the worst thing in Bohemian Rhapsody but he was a bit disappointing in No Time to Die. He gives off that moody vibe but it seems to not work when he has to be the grieving husband. It was nice to see Laurence FIshburne in something good. I think the last time I saw him was in Megalopolis and ...

The Penguin Lessons was a mystery screening that my local Showcase Cinema put on. The clue that they gave was ‘They met in 97 on the hour’. Now I have absolutely no idea where they got the clue from. The plot sees Steve Coogan play Tom Michel who arrives at an Argentinian school to teach English during a period of instability in the country. He travels to Uruguay and after meeting a woman at a bar they walk along a beach and discover a penguin covered in oil from an oil slick and when he tries to get rid of it, the penguin keeps coming back to him and when he returns to the school he uses it to help teach the kids. Meanwhile he befriends a cleaner and her granddaughter who is then kidnapped and he tries to do some good with the backdrop of political turmoil ever present. I wasn't expecting very much from this film but it won me over in a way I was not expecting. First of all Steve Coogan is very good as Tom. He comes across quite grumpy and the oddball relationship he has with the ...

Death of the Unicorn is one of films that I have been intrigued by purely because of the title. With it being an A24 film it was clear that the film was going to have more than a hint of strangeness. The plot of the film sees Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega play father and daughter who are on their way to weekend retreat when they hit what turns out to be a baby Unicorn and the magic properties that it has are utilised by the pharmaceutical family lead by Richard E. Grant but the problem is the parents of the unicorn want their baby back and they are not very happy.  I really liked this film and the many reasons why. Firstly with a plot centred around Unicorns, the film should not work and yet it does. A key reason is the setting. I am a big sucker for isolated settings because it keeps the story contained and they can only work if the story is structured to cope with the restricted setting and it stretches the term isolated a bit because there are some scenes in the woods but it's stil...