The Movie Addict

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 convincin...

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 Direct...

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 be...

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 A...

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...

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)....

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 tha...

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 ...