M3GAN 2.0 (2025)

I’ll be honest but I don't know what made me want to go to the trouble of taking the time and money to go and see a sequel to a film that wasn't really screaming out for another outing but the first made enough money to warrant a sequel which I should applaud for trying to do something different. Normally sequels are the first film remade but with a significantly bigger budget. The ‘plot’ sees a killer robot called Amelia who is after something and M3GAN convinces Gemma to give her a new body to help take on Amelia.

Gemma and her Scooby gang work quite well in this film but the film’s biggest fault is that Christian is so clearly the villain even though he is introduced as Gemma’s love interest. It was a plot twist so obvious that it just made me roll my eyes and it wouldn't have been so bad had the actor been…..well better. Aristotle Athari is probably a good actor but he just never pulled off being a villain and when his true colours are shown it wasn't very convincing. 

The film does have some good aspects. I think that M3GAN is a good character and Jenna Davis’ voice is perfect for the character and Violet McGraw and Allison Williams work well together as Aunt and Niece. Ivanna Sakhno is good as Amelia although she loses a bit of menace towards the end. 

The problem ultimately is that it's just not very interesting. I liked the first one because it had a simple idea done quite well. This film feels like it has to throw everything at the wall to see what would stick. As a result I didn't really care about what was happening and didn't care about who was in peril. The fight scenes are good enough but the story centres around AI and I think that there are so many films and TV shows that deal with this stuff better that I thought that it was on par with another Blumhouse film ‘Afraid’. It thinks that AI is some exciting new concept when in fact it’s been around for decades and has become a bit cliched. The film should have stuck to it a simple idea like M3GAN has managed to come back and exact revenge on Gemma. 

As you can guess I don't think that M3GAN 2.0 is a very good film. My expectations were low and they were just about met. I think that going off the way that cinema is nowadays, there will be a M3GAN 3.0 and 4.0 and if they went back to basics then I think I would be prepared to see more. Maybe not at the cinema but definitely more but as a film, M3GAN 2.0 doesn't live up to the first.

F1 The Movie (2025)

Back in the late 90’s, I was watching Formula 1 and Martin Brundle was doing his gridwalk before the start of the race at Monaco cause there was talk of their being an F1 Movie. That ‘F1 Movie’ was an Indycar movie that was 2001’s Driven. So we had to wait until 2013 before we got a Formula One movie with Ron Howard’s Rush which is a brilliant film. 12 years later we get a full blown F1 Movie from the director of Top Gun: Maverick. I think your interest in this film will depend on whether you are a fan of Formula One and you might have guessed that I am. I don't watch it as much as I used to but know enough to be interested.

The film sees Brad Pitt playing Sonny Hayes who was once a driver in Formula One 30 years ago is enticed back into the sport by Ruben Cervantes (played by Javier Bardem). Hayes is told that if they don't win a race in the remaining 9 races of the season then the plug will be pulled. The team consists of his team mates Joshua (Damson Idris), Technical Director Kate (Kerry Condon), Team Principal Kaspar (Kim Bodnia) with member of the board Peter (Tobias Menzies) being the good guy at first but then appearing to want to take over the team and wants the team to not win a race.

There are many things that as a watcher of Formula One that I knew didn't seem right. The idea of a team that hasn't scored a point in two and half seasons of racing suddenly being in a position of winning races is quite ridiculous. There is also the issue that Sonny’s antics about causing the safety car to come out would definitely have caused him to get dragged in front of the stewards who would have really come down hard on him. Also the idea that Sonny after WINNING A RACE would just be able to walk through the crowd and not get stopped or having to do some interviews did ring a bit untrue. I suppose the argument that you could use is that it has to change things to appeal to a wide audience and you have to use some dramatic licence and for that I would forgive them. 

Generally the performances were really good. There is something about Brad Pitt that made this character work. In the hands of another American it would have come across as completely cheesy and eye rolling and Pitt comes across as arrogant but likeable. Javier Bardem does appear to be chewing the scenery but again makes the character work. He does make the owner of a Formula One team come across as way too nice but again I suppose they have to make some allowances for a wider audience. Kerry Condon is the love interest for Sonny but again she makes Kate someone who is there because she is talented and is good at her job instead of being there just so she can become the lead’s love interest. Damson Idris’ Joshua was slightly frustrating because he was understandably the arrogant young rookie but then seems to flip flop between that and someone who respects Sonny. This isn't a comment on Idris’ performance but just how the character was written.

The main reason why you should see this film is because of the racing and they are done really well. I did forget a couple of times that I was watching a movie because the scenes are edited together really well. I think that they were done during the races at a few circuits to add to the atmosphere (and probably save on production costs). There are a few racing scenes in this movie so you definitely get your money's worth. F1 The Movie is a very good movie. If you took the racing out then it wouldn't be worth watching but the racing scenes help you get past some of the more fanciful aspects that they try to pass off as part of the Formula One experience. 

 

28 Years Later (2025)

28 Years Later is my most anticipated film of 2025. I came to the 28 universe if you can call it that quite late cause gory horror wasn't my thing until quite late in life. I really like 28 Days and think that it deserves the praise that it got. It is perhaps Danny Boyle’s best film if not in his top 3. I quite like 28 Weeks Later even though it's not a patch on ‘Days’. 28 Years Later follows the growing recent trend of long time sequels. This is the first of an intended trilogy, we are getting Part 2 in January 2026 and on the basis of this film we will get the third one probably in late 2026. 

The film starts off with the Teletubbies playing and it reminded me of Warfare (co-directed by Alex Garland) where the soldiers are dancing to ‘Call on Me’ and it was that film saying that this was about as upbeat as the film would get (which was true) and I felt like the Teletubbies was Danny Boyle’s version of that. The film says straight away that they are going to pull no punches because about 8 kids are killed by the infected. Only one manages to survive and this was the first of many times that I found myself saying ‘bloody hell’. 

The film centres around Spike (played by Alfie Williams) who along with his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are on a little island with other residents that can only be reached by a causeway. Whoever thought that Alfie Williams was the right person to play such an important role deserves a huge bonus because he is brilliant. When he has to place his recently dead mother’s skull on the big pile it was such a sad moment and if you dont feel something for him then you might need to check for a pulse. He has to carry the second half of the film and when Spike is being trained to go hunting but he is very young and doesn't quite make it work but by the end of the film he has grown and becomes better with the bow and arrow. I have never been the biggest fan of Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I don't think he’s terrible but he just seems to pick terrible films (i’m looking at you Kraven the Hunter). He starts off quite likeable at the beginning as he is trying to teach his son how to survive in a world that must be quite scary and the film then makes you change your opinion on him when he sneaks off with another woman and then strikes Spike when he tries to stand up to him. He doesn't feature in the second half so it will be interesting to see where his story ends up.  His mother Isla (played by Jodie Comer) is not well and spends the first half of the film in bed and its the second half where Comer shows how good she is. The role isnt the strongest but Comer makes it feel genuine and you feel more sad for Spike when she keeps calling her son Dad. I am slightly disappointed by the fact that she doesn't make it to the end of the proposed trilogy but it does serve as the main reason why Spike grows up and becomes a man even though only a few weeks have passed by the end of the film.

Ralph Fiennes is very good as Dr Kelson. He is painted pretty much like a certain US President and it did generate some giggles in my screening. He is portrayed by the islanders as a madman but he is anything but and he has built the skull display that you see in the trailer. He gets very little screen time but it is suggested that he survives so he may appear in future instalments. I hope so because Fiennes is fun to watch as Kelson and his skills might be useful to the inhabitants of the island.  Edvin Ryding plays Erik who is literally introduced so that after a few minutes he is killed and his skull is ripped from his body. He is a little bit annoying for the brief time that he is on screen but at least his death is quite good.

It is worth pointing out Chi Lewis-Parry who plays Alpha who seems to be the main villain of the film and is way more powerful than most infected and he can only be stopped with a tranquilliser. It’s a performance with no dialogue yet is very menacing. He is responsible for a couple of quite gory deaths and I do mean gory because he rips people's skulls off their bodies with their spinal column still attached. 

The film ends with the young boy from the beginning now a grown up and we get a bizarre fight scene which did remind me of A Clockwork Orange and we have seen references to Jimmy throughout the film and he is clearly going to feature quite heavily in the next one (maybe the third). This is the second performance from Jack O’Connell in 2025 that I have thought was really good. Unlike Sinners, he is only in this briefly and I cant wait to see what O’Connell does in the next one. 

I think some people might be disappointed with the fact there is no Cillian Murphy (even though he is credited as an Executive Producer). Danny Boyle has said in repeated interviews that Murphy isn't in this film and whilst there was always the chance that Boyle and Alex Garland were trying to do a bluff but Murphy is definitely not in it and that works in the films favour because it means that we can focus on new characters and by the time that he does appear then we have characters that we care about and are interested in. Overall I really liked this film. I don't know whether it's better than Days because it was made at a different time but this is definitely one of my favourite films of the year. I had high expectations and they were definitely met. It's a good thing that we only have six months to wait for part two and I really hope we get part three.

How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

Like Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon is a ‘live action’ remake, I have never seen the original animated version which has spawned a trilogy. I can just imagine the executives at Dreamworks saw what was going on at Disney, saw they were making a ton of money (clearly before Snow White came out) and looked at their back catalogue to see what they could do that was similar and How to Train Your Dragon is what they ended up with. I won't be comparing this version to the original because it wouldn't be fair so if the plot is similar to the original then…..great. 

Mason Thames (last thing I saw him in was Black Phone), plays Hiccup who starts off wanting to be a dragon killer to please his dad before getting a change of heart and forming a friendship with Toothless. Like his dad, I never once believed he would be a good fighter and I suppose that was the point. Not sure how close he is compared to the animated version but I thought they cast well. Nico Parker is good as Astrid who starts off as a competitive figure and then becomes someone that Hiccup can trust and they end up being a couple She seems quite good at flipping and was good at the action scenes which is just as well as she does them a lot. Gerard Butler has had a strange career but it does seem like he’s having fun in this. He gets to be a shouty scotsman. All he does is get to be bombastic and shout a lot, disappear for half an hour and then come back so he can see his turn show that he thinks dragons are not bad. I think this is one of the better Butler performances although that's a low bar to clear. The film’s not really about Butler’s character but he does what he needs to do.

The film has a litany of familiar faces and names. Nick Frost (Gobber the Belch) becomes the father figure when Stoick the Vast does his disappearing trick and because it’s Frost, it's a great performance with the necessary dose of comedy. I saw Fishlegs and thought he looked familiar and upon doing some ‘research’ I found out he was Julian Dennison who was the kid in Deadpool 2. All the gang that Hiccup becomes friends are all good in their own way and could become regulars in future films. 

The animated dragons are all really good and I don't know what the budget was but it was probably less than Snow White and yet looks a hundred times better. Toothless is done well in the sense that he looks friendly but still looks imposing as a flying dragon. I don't usually review the score but I will this time and think that John Powell does a great job with creating a lovely score that helps make this film feel a lot more epic than it probably would have been in the hands of a less talented composer.

The plot is relatively straightforward, Stoick is on a search for the dragons’ nest and when Toothless shows Hiccup where it is then there is a race to stop bloodshed between the Vikings and the Dragons. The film builds up Hiccup’s skills as they are non-existent at the beginning but thanks to Toothless they become the envy of the entire village. By the end of the film Hiccup has his friend, he has the girl but only has one of his legs so it’s a mixed end to the film. I will say that I was worried that at two hours the film was going to drag but it was the perfect running time. It doesn't outstay its welcome which is a rare thing for a film to achieve these days. How to Train Your Dragon is a good film. I don't think it will do as well as Lilo & Stitch financially but it does what it needs to do and it is inevitable that there will be a sequel and to be honest, I wouldn't mind another one. I’m not sure where you would go after killing the big bad dragon but I suppose the animated sequels will be used to make them. 

Lilo & Stich (2025)

Lilo & Stitch continues Disney’s ongoing mission to take their animated classics and turn them into live action versions and after the disaster of Snow White, Disney needed Lilo & Stitch. I must confess that I haven't seen the 2002 animated original so I wont be able to compare that to this new version. The set up is that Stitch (aka 626) manages to escape to earth and befriends Lilo (Maia Kealhoa) who lives with her sister Nani (Sydney Agudong) after their parents died (classic Disney) and she has a social worker (Tia Carrere) trying to help her get on her feet. Meanwhile Jumba (Zach Galifianakis) and Pleakley (Billy Magnussen) are tasked with tracking Stitch/626 down. 

The film works because of Maia Kealoha. Bearing in mind that she is only nine years old she has a personality of someone several years older. There is a cheeky chappy style to her performance in the early stages and the relationship between Lilo & Stitch is lovely to see. Sydney Agudong has a tough role because she has to sort of just be there to interact with Lilo. To be fair their relationship whilst not the best at the start does become heartwarming by the end of the film. Galifianakis and Magnussen are fine as the comedy duo that is the staple of every Disney film but it worked in the context of this film. Courtney B. Vance is very good as the brilliantly named Cobra Bubbles although his sudden change of heart did seem a bit odd to this grown up trying to pick holes in a film aimed at kids. He’s not terrible by any means but you could probably have cut his part out. Amy Hill almost stole the show as the neighbour Tutu. She was funny when she needed to be and was loyal and reliable towards the end. The fact that she ends up being the foster parent of Lilo would normally come across as eye rolling plot contrivance but in this film it worked and I went along with it. 

I will admit that I did find the moment where Stitch is on the seafloor and there is a chance he could die quite emotional. It shows how much the film was working that I even had that reaction.

It is worth pointing out that bearing in mind I saw this 3 and a half weeks after it was released in the UK and it was around lunchtime on a Saturday, there was a decent number of people in it. Another thing worth pointing out is that the children were very well behaved. I have been in screenings where adults have made more noise so it was nice to see them paying attention and respect to the film.

Considering that this film was not aimed at a 42 bloke, I really enjoyed Lilo & Stitch. All the negative things that I have pointed out are classic nitpicking things. It is a film aimed at kids and it certainly worked. Still don't know what they have changed compared to the original but this shows the people involved with making Snow White that this is how you make a fun and enjoyable remake.  

Friday the 13th (1980)

Getting a chance to see Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th was too good an opportunity to miss. I thought it was a bit random to chose this Friday the 13th to screen this but the film is set on June 13th so that made a lot more sense. I never watched the Friday the 13th films until about 2020 so I didn't get to experience this film at the right age. The set up is pretty simple, a group of horny young people including a very young Kevin Bacon arrive at Camp Crystal Lake when it is in the process of being restored after the death of Jason. As the film progresses people are killed as they all get separated and then start looking for each other as the rain starts to fall and Ralph freaks everyone out although he is right (to a point).

The film is quite basic in how it progresses as the film is more about the kills and who is responsible. The deaths are quite good and bearing in mind that it was 45 years ago, some of the effects work quite well including the death of Jack (Kevin Bacon). It shouldn't come as a great surprise as the effects are done by Tom Savini and they are awesome. It's weird seeing Kevin Bacon now because all I think of when I think of Kevin Bacon is the EE adverts that he has been the face of for over a decade. Sadly he’s not in the film long enough but at least he probably gets the best death of the entire film. Ned is the most annoying of the group because he thinks that funny one but he’s about as funny a head cold and the only disappointment is that he doesn't have the best death. In fact his death is off screen and it did feel a bit cheap like they ran out of money in the middle of filming. 

Steve Christy is the owner of the Camp and completely useless to the plot. He is working when everyone gets there, goes off for something and then the next time we see him is at the diner about to make his way back. He then drives back, gets stuck and picked up by a police car and then has to walk the rest of the way back and just as he gets there he is killed. He adds absolutely nothing to the story and when got killed I found I didn't really care because he had such a minimal impact on the story and also wasn't very likeable and came across as a bit too up himself.

The main reason why I like this film and think it's one of if not the best of the franchise is the big twist of the film is that the one who is doing the killings is the mother of Jason. The idea that a woman is the big villain of a film doesn't quite get the credit it deserves for a film that came out in 1980.  Now bearing in mind that Jason is known to be what the films are about, it was surprising that Jason doesn't really feature in the film. We get a couple of glimpses but nothing more than that. Some might be disappointed that Jason’s mother is the killer but it totally works for me. Betsy Palmer does a believable job as the mother who lost her son and it seems to be a twist on Psycho where the parent is the mad one and the child is telling her what to do. The fight between Mrs Voorhees and Alice does seem a little slow by today's standards and I don't know how realistic it is how Alice is about to knock Mrs Voorhees’ head off as easily as she does but that's a minor issue.

Overall I thought that this was a good solid horror film. There are continuity issues in later films and plot holes that are created but as a solo film and  horror film that was trying to cash in on the success of Halloween, the film does what it does very well and it worked very well on the big screen. The picture quality was perfectly fine and I didnt notice any quality issue unlike when I saw 28 Days Later at the same cinema. Friday the 13th is a horror film that should be seen and despite the lack of Jason, the film is really just about killing people in creative ways in between them having sex or playing strip Monopoly. 

Ballerina (2025)

Ballerina is a John Wick spin-off which sees Ana de Armas play Eve who is trying to get revenge on the man who killed her father. There is something about Ana de Armas that makes her playing a role such as Eve work. If you were casting someone to play this role then you wouldn't pick someone like de Armas. To be fair to her, the main reason why it works is because she is convincing in the role and all the fights look like she is taking the punishment. I think that her short role in the last James Bond film got her this gig and was a good test but she hasn't really been able to lead her own film and so the question would be whether this would be the one that shows us what she could do.

This was a Len Wiseman credited film but it's clear that Chad Stahelski was either involved in a significant way in some or all of the fight scenes. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that all the good things were Stahelski and everything else is Len Wiseman because I don't think that Wiseman is the best director in the world and was probably a terrible idea to direct this film and the studio figured this out and got Stahelski to save the day. The flamethrower portion of the film was the highlight of the film. The shot of the flamethrower and the hose was in the trailer but in the film this comes at the end of a good portion of the film where lots and lots and lots of people are set on fire. This must get a Guiness World Record for most people set on fire in a major motion picture. I also thought the fight scene in the cafe was quite good although when the woman who worked there came out of the freezer and was instantly killed did feel a bit comedic and got an unexpected chuckle from me. 

The plot is straight forward and you don't really watch John WIck for the complex plot but the four films are entertaining at least and this one felt very plodding. Woman wants to get revenge on the person who killed her father does feel like we have been here before with John Wick 1 but with a dog instead of a human. The first 20 minutes had me worried because I wasn't very interested in it and thought that the story was going to get bogged down but mercifully Eve starts hitting people. There are a couple of references to the John WIck films apart form the obvious with Angelica Houston returns as The DIrector doing most if not all her scenes sitting down and we get Lance Reddick in what had to be one of his last scenes before he sadly passed away and Ian McShane returning as Winston. I like that they didnt bother trying to make McShane look younger when he’s talking to Young Eve.

The introduction of her sister could have been cut out of the film because it added nothing to the story. By the time the film reveals that the other woman is Eve’s sister she is treated as a real person for all of five minutes before Gabriel Byrne’s The Chancellor orders them dead and Eve’s sister is killed. Also the idea of The Chancellor being the head of a cult seems a bit silly and again not needed. Norman Reedus was wasted in this film. His character is not really the focus of the story so you could have given this to a nobody and it would have worked out the same because is sidelined pretty much straight away until the end when he is reunited with his daughter. I get the impression a lot of his stuff was caught you wouldn't cast someone like Reedus to that role.

The trailer showed that John Wick would feature in this spin off and its just the right amount. It’s not too much to steal the spotlight from Ana de Armas and not too little to stand out for being a missed opportunity. All his scenes are very good and Keanu Reeves gets to have a very good fight with And de Armas. 

I enjoyed Ballerina a lot more than I thought I would. If you go into it not expecting this to be as good as the John Wick films then you will have a much better time. This film suffers from bad pacing at the beginning but once the action scenes and fights happen then the quality picks up. It is clear that they are setting up a sequel and to be honest if Stahelski was directing then I would be up for another outing of Ballerina.

Karate Kid: Legends (2025)

Karate Kid: Legends continues the ongoing trend of bringing established movie IP’s and bringing old characters whilst introducing new ones. In this case, we get Ralph Macchio from the first three films (and Cobra Kai TV series which I haven't seen) and Jackie Chan from the 2010 terrible reboot. The story is that Li Fong (Ben Wang) and his mom move from Beijing to New York so that she can take a job at a hospital and ends up at odds with Conor Day who is the guy who wins the Five Boroughs tournament and acts like the school bully. The plot does follow the plot of the first film but there is enough to make the film feel fresh enough. Li is asked by Victor to help him train for a fight but when that goes wrong Li enters the Five Borough Tournament with help from his Uncle and Daniel. 

Ben Wang is surprisingly good as Li. He isn't cocky or low on confidence but someone who is trying to start a new life in a city he doesn't want to be in. This is the first film I have seen Wang in and to be honest I think he’s got the chance to be a big star. Jackie Chan is the main reason why I went to see this at the cinema. I was worried that he was going to be more of a cameo than anything else but thankfully he’s in it quite a lot. It's Ralph Macchio who feels like a cameo. He is in for about 40 minutes and doesn't really feel like he was adding anything vital. Don't get me wrong it was great that he was in it and he does have some good scenes with Jackie Chan but I do think that he could have gotten a bit more involved in the story. Sadie Stanley does very well as Mia in a role which is your typical love interest. The relationship between Mia and Li was quite nice to see throughout the film and felt like a big reason why the film worked as well as it did. Joshua Jackson was fine as Victor who is Mia’s father and an ex-boxer who owes money and gets hurt in a boxing match which gives Li the motivation to enter the contest. 

The fight scenes are well done but the earlier fights are ruined by constant editing. It felt like there would be multiple cuts in just one move and it was quite difficult to really appreciate things because it was difficult to see what was happening. This did remind me of ‘Monkey Man’ the Dev Patel film which has some not great editing during the film sequences. I don't mean to be too critical of editors because they are trying to make the best of what they have so it would be better to put the blame at the director’s door but this worked against the film. By the time we get to the final fight, it was better and easier to follow so it suggest to me that the editor did the best 

My main issue with the film is that it's too short. I reckon that it’s about 85 minutes without the end credits which means that it moves at an insanely quick pace and as such there doesn't feel like there is a moment where Li gets to be at his lowest moment before winning the big fight. I honestly believe that if this film were 15-20 minutes longer then it would have helped a great deal. That is about the worst thing of all because at the end of the day, this is a lot better than it had any right to be. The central performances are great and whilst the editing wasn't the best especially with the fight scenes, this still remains a million times better than the snoozefest that was the 2010 Karate Kid. Not sure if this will lead to more but if not then this is a perfectly serviceable movie.