Jaws (1975)

Jaws is the original blockbuster and in its 50th Anniversary year I took the opportunity to see it on the big screen and for some reason it was in 3D. It’s probably been 15 years since I saw a film in 3D and there were a couple of times I took the glasses off (that I had to wear over my normal glasses) and the picture was a bit blurred and it did look a lot nicer with the 3D glasses on. 

The thing about this film that I always know but forget until I see it is that it is effectively two films in one. The first half is on land and is dealing with the threat of a shark eating the tourists  in a town where tourism is vital and then the second half is about three blokes  trying to kill the shark. Both halves are very good. The Mayor has always been portrayed as someone who will do whatever it takes to keep the beaches open even when people are being killed because and this time I sort of understand why he does what he does even if I don’t agree with his methods. 

The second half is the better half and it works so well because of Roy Schneider, Robert SHaw and Richard Dreyfuss. They are people who don't really get on but are forced into this situation to help save lives. I always think that Quint is the most interesting character although Hooper comes a close second. I do think that Scheider’s Brody is fine but does fall into third place because once they leave the land he sort of becomes superfluous. I do like the scene where they are comparing scares and then start singing ‘Show me the way to go home’. 

This is nowhere near the best Spielberg film but it is the first one that shows why he is one of the greatest directors of all time. He manages to make sharks scary which is even more impressive when you realise that the shark in this film (nicknamed Bruce) is never really seen apart from some brief shots and half submerged in the sea (like you would expect from. A shark). The film is also helped by John Williams who is one of my favourite composers and manages to make an iconic score with just two notes. Again, this isn’t the best Williams score but like Spielberg, it shows how he would become one of the greatest at what he does. 

When I saw The Goonies on the big screen, there were a couple of shots which looked worse compared to the smaller screen. That wasn't the case this time as they have gone to the trouble of giving this the 4K treatment. We got a lovely little video from Spielberg himself explaining that they wanted to produce the best possible experience for the 50th Anniversary. Out of the 4 Jaws films, this is obviously the best and there should never have been any more. simple story and manages to make it engaging with a trio of characters that all have something different. The film also shows (or even created) the old adage that sometimes less is more. This film probably wouldn’t have worked had they shown more of the shark but we’ll never know. 

Jaws deserves to be seen on the big screen. I have never been a big fan of 3D especially as I have to wear the glasses over my real glasses but the experience overall was lovely. There was about 40-50 people in this screening which for a Friday night during the summer holidays when there is Fantastic Four and Superman still on shows the appeal that this film still has after half a century.

The Toxic Avenger (2023)

 So this was a mystery screening that I was 99.9% sure was The Toxic Avenger because somebody decided to list the mystery screening above the option for this film which had the same certificate and the same duration. This version is a remake of the 1984 cult classic which I confess I haven't seen (yet). The set up of the film is that Peter Dinklage plays Winston who lives with his step son and works at a dodgy place run by Kevin Bacon and after attempting to steal cash he is thrown into the toxic water and then exacts revenge and that's pretty much it. 

The plot is pretty straight forward, Kevin Bacon is the comedic baddie with Elijah Wood as his brother. Wood seems to be channeling Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It’s nice to see Kevin Bacon is something that isn't a phone advert. Last time I saw him was in MaXXXine and he seemed to be hamming it up and he has turned that up to 11 in this. When he turns he seems to be chewing the scenery and having fun with it. I was slightly distracted by Winston’s Doctor. His Doctor is played by Sunil Patel and he is currently featuring in a series of bank adverts alongside Dominic West and I did chuckle when he first appeared and then suddenly appeared at the end.

The tone is an odd one but it works very well for this film. The black humour might put some people off but I think that most of the time it did work. It's played straight enough that it makes it feel like there is purpose to the film but at the same time acknowledging the absurdity of the situation.

The thing that became distracting is that it clearly wasn't Peter Dinklage under the Toxie make up, there were a couple of shots where it is him but for the most part it's not. It’s his voice but some of the ADR doesn't quite work and it's clear that Dinklage’s voice is being played over someone else’s mouth movement. I saw a film earlier this year (Watch the Skies) which used AI to match the english dubbed dialogue with the swedish actor’s mouth movements. It does take me out of it at times but it doesn't make the film bad. The gore is also a bit of a let down. A lot of it looks like it is CGI and so doesn't have the horrific weight that proper prosthetics can have. The costume that Luisa Guerriero wears instead of Peter Dinklage does look good at certain angels but up close it does look like a costume. If they had applied slime to it to make it look more organic then I think that would have helped. Peter Dinklage is good as Winston and does add some charm to Toxie but I just don't understand why he didn't play Toxie all the time.

The Toxic Avenger is dumb but it's entertainingly dumb and that's not a bad thing. The film clocks in at just over 90 minutes and that is the perfect running time for a horror film. Not sure if it's worth trekking all the way to the cinema to see but it's the sort of enjoyable horror film to watch around Halloween. 

The Life of Chuck (2025)

The Life of Chuck is one of those films that I took a gamble on. The trailers that I had seen didnt really show very much but it did show that it had a stella cast including Tom Hiddelston, Karen Gillan, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mark Hamil and Matthew Lillard. This film is a genre bending, narrative bending film which strangely starts off with act three. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Karen Gillan are a former married couple and Ejiofor is a teacher and Gillan is a nurse. The internet stops working and at first people seem to be more concerned with whether it will come back or not and at one point someone is worried if porn is going to be back. As things get progressively worse and adverts appear for someone called Chuck who is celebrating 39 years even though he barely looks older than 39 and the planets start going out. No one seems to know who he is but that never really gets solved because the film isn't really about filling in the blanks.

I was worried when Ejiofor started talking about something with a calendar because it came quite close to being pretentious. Thankfully when this is over the film recovers and the story moves on.

Chapter two is next and it’s at this point we are properly introduced to Chuck which comes at the 40 minute mark. We learn that Chuck has 9 months to live which ties in with the first/third act and we see that Chuck has a rather mundane life and is just walking along when a busker starts playing music and he starts dancing. The dancing scene was enjoyable and arguably the best of the film. I enjoyed this act more than the previous one, there wasn't the level of waffling that there seemed to be in the first/third act and I thought that Hiddelston and Annalise Basso who played Janice Halliday were given enough time to seem like interesting characters. It was also more upbeat which helped.

Then we have act one with Chuck in his younger years. Chuck’s mom and dad died when he was young and his grandparents looked after him. There is a room that Chuck is told to never go in which is the same room and house that Ejiofor’s character lives in.  He learns to love dancing and this is how he ends up meeting his wife and this is where the time bending stuff happens because we soon see Ejiofor and Gillan’s characters who are now happy. It’s at this point that we get all the answers, the secret room is one where you will see how you will die which explains why the door was locked and the final shot is of the young Chuck seeing his older self and he decides to  live his life until his life runs out but apart from a few moments, we never get the feeling that he does live his life so its a slightly odd message.

Overall the film is fine. I didn't know what to expect and so it was difficult to know if  I was disappointed or not. The performances are fine although it would have been nice to have more of Hiddleston since he is on the poster and in the trailers. Telling the story in reverse worked quite well and I enjoyed the dancing scenes and its positive message is something that is delivered well and not told in a way that annoyed me even if the pretentious moments from act three risked that. 

Eddington (2025)

I got a chance to see Eddington a few days before its general cinematic release and the trailer seemed intriguing and it has some big names and I thought it was worth a try as I was disappointed with Beau is Afraid and Hereditary and Midsommar were slightly odd films. The film is set in May 2020 when the world was preoccupied with the coronavirus and the Sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) is trying to stop people wearing masks but the Mayor (Pedro Pascal) is the opposite and the film then seems to try and make it the Sheriff vs the Mayor before becoming about the chaos caused by Black Lives Matter.

This is the third Pedro Pascal film that I have seen in the space of a few weeks and whilst he doesn't feature as much as he did in The Fantastic Four: First Steps or Materialists but he is quite good in this and is the opposite of Joaquin Phoenix’s Sheriff in every way imaginable and that is one of the key things about the film. I do think as much as I think that Joaquin Phoenix is a very good actor, there is something about him that seems odd to me. It’s this oddness that makes the Sheriff come across as a nice person. Emma Stone is sort of in the film but it feels like all her stuff was filmed in a couple of days because she seems to spend 80% of her time in bed and then after the Sheriff says that the Mayor raped her, she gets up and leaves and that is it until a brief appearance at the end.

The whole BLM protests sort of deal with the idea of white privilege but it's said through people who feel like they have to be offended on other people's behalf. They are very pretentious and unfortunately seem like they have been cut and pasted from real life.

At two and a half hours the film surprisingly didn’t outstay its welcome. The film has enough going to make the time go by. Despite that though the film doesn't really have much in the way of action moments. There are moments of interest which did make me feel engaged with the story but it wasn't until the final 20 minutes to be quite good because it was the most action that the entire film sees and it was quite good how we got to see the passive Sheriff go full Rambo. The film does feel like it goes a bit like an Ari Aster when the Sheriff gets stabbed in the head and becomes a vegetable but is paraded about by his mother in law who in the last shot of the film shares a bed along with the male nurse. I got the feeling that Aster put this in as the film has been relatively straightforward until that point.

I enjoyed Eddington. Beau is Afraid was fairly terrible and this was a massive step up. I think setting the film in 2020 allows the film to deal with something that is in recent history but far enough that feels like it is trying to capitalise. Compared to what Aster has done in the past, this is his more accessible movie but I still think it might be a tough sell for a lot of cinema goers because it doesn't really have an exposition scene where someone comes on screen and explains what is going on and caused all this. I suppose as this was using a lot of real life events it's implied that mis-information is the real enabler and the reason why people and things get out of hand. Eddington is worth your time although it does depend on how comfortable you are going back to that really dark period in our recent history.

Nobody 2 (2025)

Not sure if the world was crying out for a sequel to Nobody. I remember liking the first one when it came out as I like Bob Odenkirk and it was fun seeing him do the John Wick thing as Odenkirk. The set up is that Hutch and his family go on a vacation that Hutch went on when he was a kid. Turns out that the town is hiding illegal operations run by Lendina (Sharon Stone) who controls Sheriff Abel (Colin Hanks). Just because Hank stares into the distance remembering a happy childhood memory this annoys the Sheriff and Hutch gets on the wrong side of the law very quickly.

The film takes a while to get started as it spends a long time setting things up which is odd for a sequel but there we go. They decide to take David (Christopher Lloyd) because…..well he’s Christopher Lloyd and he was fun to see in the first film. The whole idea about a nice peaceful town having a criminal dark side isn’t really fleshed out but I suppose the screenplay is written by Derek Kolstad who wrote the John Wick films and as much as I love those films, they aren’t the strongest when it comes to the screenplay but you watch those films to see John Wick kill people and the same goes for this film. Also the character of Lendina felt slightly underwritten. I think because they spent too much time trying to make Wyatt and Sheriff Abel seem like the threats in the story. It was good to see some like Lendina come across as a total psycho but again she was underwritten and it didn’t feel like they went as far as they wanted to. They go to the trouble of showing why she is a psycho when she stabs someone in the hand for cheating before ordering everyone in the room who doesn't work for her to be killed. It’s an effective introductory scene but it happens quite late into the movie and meant that from that point on she was rushed yet we were meant to take her as the main threat. 

The best parts are when Hutch is killing people. It’s not a one sided fight so he does get hurt but it's always quite satisfying when the baddies are killed off. The two best fights happen on the duck boat and then the fun fair which both feature in the trailer so I sort of knew they were coming. The film is a 15 certificate so you know that there isn’t going to be an excess of gore but to be fair to the film the deaths did seem good and there was a fair amount of blood. The film is directed by Timo Tjahjanto who did my favourite segment of V/H/S/94 and also directed one of my favourite non-English language movies of 2022 in The Big 4 and he does well with the fights that take place. They have an energy and pace to them that make them feel like you're getting your money's worth. 

Nobody 2 isn’t as good as the first one. There was a fun factor to that film that made it such a surprise hit and it felt like they didn’t know what to do to justify the hassle of making this film (all films are a hassle but it has to be worth it!). They do seem to be setting up more with Brady seemingly stepping up to walk in his dads shoes and Becca showing that she knows how to handle herself but to be honest unless they return to what made the first one so good then I don’t know if we are just going to get the Taken films but with Bob Odenkirk. Don’t do that to Bob Odenkirk, he deserves better.

Materialists (2025)

In an attempt to try and expand the sort of films I see, I decided to watch Materialists which is my second Pedro Pascal film in as many weeks. This is by far the worst of the two. The film sees Dakota Johnson play someone who pairs people up at a posh dating agency but whilst attending a wedding she bumps into Pedro Pascal and they start dating. Also at the wedding she meets her ex in the form of Chris Evans and the film becomes a love triangle. 

I can't understand what people find so appealing about romance films because everyone and I mean everyone is insufferable and I didn't really care what happened to Dakota Johnson’s character. The only character that I cared about was Sophie. Her story saw he get assaulted by a guy that Dakota Johnson’s character set up with because he ticked the right box. That stuff felt like it had some emotion to it and credit to Zoe Winters for making the character seem like a real person instead of the soulless characters that occupied the rest of this film.

Not the worst film of the year but definitely the reason why I don't watch romance films very often. They are filled with annoying people who I don't care what happens to them and they are extremely predictable.

Together (2025)

I’m normally not a big fan of body horror. I think that when it's done well it can be a bit too squishy and so it's something I tend to stay away from, however there was something about Together that made me curious. It was because it was given a 15 certificate and yet Weapons was given an 18 (which it didn’t deserve) so I decided to take the risk and see if I could cope with it. The set up of the film sees Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a couple called Tim and Millie who for ‘reasons’ move to the countryside and in no time at all they go hiking and fall into a cave, whilst staying the night they decide to drink some water and that is when things go wrong.

The whole process of Tim and Millie trying to figure out what is going on was quite interesting and it helps that Franco and Brie are married in real life as this means that you buy that they are a couple that are having issues and normally the differences would annoy me but Brie and Franco work well to make me care about what's going on. The joining effects were generally well done although the final one was not great and could have done with being a bit darker. This is a horror movie with some horrific moments. My worry that the body horror would be too much was unfounded. There were gory moments but they were brief and that is the level I can deal with. The sight of them dancing to a Spice Girls song was an interesting way to end their involvement in the film.

The biggest issue I have with this film is the pacing. The film is 102 minutes which is the perfect length for a horror film and yet it felt rushed. The cult stuff is a complete waste of time. We meet Jamie who works at the school that Millie does and it's clear from the moment he talks about the cult that it was clear he was a part of it and in no time at all we learn that he is. Instead of a couple of big scenes about the cult we get just one with Jamie and Millie and then that's it. Nothing after that so it seemed like it could have been cut and would have made no difference to the plot. 

Not going to lie but I was slightly disappointed with this film. The pacing lets the film down and it wastes the cult stuff and the quiet town aspect of the plot. It’s directed well and Franco and Brie are worth seeing but it feels like a bit more time could have been spent working on the plot and as a result its one of the weaker horror films in a year that has been great for the genre.

Weapons (2025)

Weapons is one of the most intriguing films of the year. I was a fan of Zach Cregger’s last film ‘Barbarian’. The set up is that all but one child in a class disappeared at 2:17am, the film is a Rashomon structured film where we see a certain time period from several different perspectives that seem unrelated but then there is a little moment that connects it to the overall story. Julia Garner is the teacher who is suspected by pretty much the entire city that she knows something and we see her story, then we see the principal (Benedict Wong) and his story, Josh Brolin plays Archer who is the father one of of the missing kids who believes that Justine has something to do with it, then we see James (Austin Abrams) who is a junkie who breaks into the house that has the kids then Alden Ehrenreich plays the cop who has a thing with Justine and finally we have Alex’s story and his is the most interesting.

Alex is the only one in the class and that was a mystery that was more interesting than what happened to the 17 kids and that's because it's sort of told about half way through. It’s his Aunt that basically ruins his entire life. He is tricked into believing that if he brings the 17 kids then she will leave and his parents will be let go and at that point I found myself feeling sorry for the terrible thing that Alex is doing. The performances are really good. It is funny that three of the main actors in this film are Thanos, Silver Surfer and the younger Han Solo. When Amy Madigan turns up as the Aunt, she reminds me of Pauline from the BBC show ‘League of Gentlemen’. It was like the soul of the character had been dug up and planted into this film. Despite this I still found myself enjoying what was happening and that is down to how well the film is structured and how the characters are written.

The final 10 minutes reminded me of Parasite in a good way. The moment where the guy is mowing the lawn, looks up and then sees the woman being chased by the kids got a big laugh and I chuckled myself. In that film it is one film and then changes tone to become amazing and this seems to have a great mystery and then turns into a comedy towards the end. That whole section is a big shift in tone and yet it completely works. The whole film manages to walk a tightrope and is in danger of ruining the tension and mystery but credit to Zach Cregger for using some creativity in keeping things going. At 2 hours I was worried that the film was going to drag but that wasn't the case, I thought the runtime was perfect.

I really enjoyed this film. I had high expectations which is normally a dangerous thing but I wasn't disappointed. You will benefit from not knowing anything other than what you see in the trailer. The trailer does a fantastic job where you know enough to get you intrigued but not too much and doesn't let the film down. 2025 has produced some very good horror films and this is definitely in my top three. Well worth your time. 

The Naked Gun (2025)

The Naked Gun is a much loved comedy which is a recognisable IP so it was inevitable that we were going to get a remake. I liked the first one and probably saw the other two many many years ago but I never had an emotional connection to them. The idea of Liam Neeson playing a comedy role works for me. He was funny in Ted 2 although he was only in it briefly but he has done other comedy shows and films.

When the first trailer came out I enjoyed it because of the OJ Simpson joke but when the second trailer came out I was less confident because it seems like the jokes were trying too hard compared to the ease that the original ones were pulled off. Sadly that proved to be the case. The film starts off with a bank robber and someone stealing a literal plot device. Neeson plays Drebin Jr and Drebin is trying to find what happened to a guy who died in a car accident. Paul Walter Hauser plays Hocken Jr and CCH Pounder is their boss trying to keep them under control. Danny Huston plays Richard Cane who is an Elon musk type person wanting to repopulate the earth.he seems to know what kind of film he is in and plays it perfectly. Pamela Anderson is the Priscilla Presley of this film. She’s fine although when she is doing the ‘funny’ singing  it didn't come across that way and just became frustratingly bad.

The biggest issue for this film is that the jokes seem out of place. As much as I don't like comparing this film to the original trilogy I have to because in the originals the jokes seemed effortless and felt like care was taken in crafting them into a scene that felt organic and natural. In this film they felt like the least amount of effort was used to insert the jokes. I did chuckle a couple of times but given that Seth MacFarlane was involved then even when you compare it to his other stuff it seems like they were over compensating for something. Hauser seems pushed to the side which begs the question why you bother to hire him if he’s just going to be used so little.

The snowman bit was the funniest part of the entire film. This felt completely out of place but I did find myself enjoying what was on screen and made me forget about how unfunny this film was. Sadly that part of the film only lasted a few minutes and we were back to the main plot of the film. 

Another reason why this film doesn't work is that it's a throwback to a type of film that most cinema going audiences won't be familiar with. They might know The Naked Gun but there is a reason there hasn't been a Naked Gun film for over 30 years. 

Leslie Nielsen made the jokes seem effortless and the jokes were subtle. He played it like he didnt know there was a joke or he was involved in the joke when obviously did. That was a skill that was under-appreciated for a long time but this film is the opposite, if Neeson took the film a bit more seriously then the film would have worked better.

Ultimately The Naked Gun is a big disappointment. Yes there are things that I found funny and it’s hard to dislike Liam Neeson but I think they made this too slapstick for what it needed to be. The film was 90 minutes which is the perfect length for a comedy so it didn’t outstay its welcome but I don’t think the world is crying out for another Naked Gum film.

Elio (2025)

Elio is a film that seemed like it could be a lot of fun based off the trailer which is a mistake as a trailer has more often than not made a film to look better than it is. The trailer didn’t suggest that Elio had lost his parents (deceased parents is such a typical Disney move) and he now lives with his aunt who works on an air force base. He gets interested in space and then wants to be abducted by aliens and gets his wish and ends up in the communiverse with a variety of different aliens. This includes a warmongering Lord Grigon. Elio is mistakenly thought of as the leader of Earth and soon finds himself trying to broker a peace with Grigon. In the middle of all this He makes friends with Glordon who is the son of Lord Grigon. Elio plans to use Glordon as a bargaining chip and when he comes to pick up fortis then things go wrong and that is when the plot really kicks in.

The animation is your typical Pixar sort and it’s nice and can work in any type of story. It’s weird to think that this year is the 30th Anniversary of the first Toy Story and that was groundbreaking and it has allowed stories like Elio to do what it does and even if this is nowhere near as good as Toy Story, shows that Pixar still know how to create visually stunning worlds (or galaxies). 

Elio is a likeable character. There is a moment where his clone refers to him as having low self esteem and that is pretty much why the character works. He’s not the confident and likeable person but a flawed kid. He wants to belong somewhere cause he doesn’t feel like he fits in with his aunt. Elio and Glordon have a nice relationship and that is the strongest part of the film. Glordon is likeable and a good support character to Elio because he is nice and friendly and doesn’t want to be the killing machine they his father wants and I liked when his dad mellows out and accepts his son's decision.

There is a sub plot about Elio being cloned and taking the real Eli’s place which goes great until his aunt suspects something is up. Around this time Elio is discovered to be a child and the action then moves to earth when Gordon accidentally goes there and his dad wants him back. It’s at this point that the film picked up for me.

I know that I’m not the target audience but I don’t think the jokes work as much as they perhaps should. The set up is fine and the characters are good enough but the film lacks the sort of light-heartedness that you would expect from a Pixar film. I did like the moment where clone Elio scares the crap out of the sceptical military officer.

I think that this at best an average story and not the sort of film that I can see being a big box office smash especially when there are better family films that have come out in 2025.