The Movie Addict

The Knives Out films have been a lot of fun. Despite Rian Johnson not being popular in certain circles because they believe he ruined Star Wars with The Last Jedi. The first Knives Out was a lot of fun and I thought that Glass Onion was when they realised they had hit on the American version of an Agatha Christie. The film has another high-level cast with not only Daniel Craig but Josh O’Connor plays Jud Duplenticy, Glenn Close as Martha, Josh Brolin as Jefferson Wicks, Mila Kunis as Geraldine Scott, Jeremy Renner as Nat Sharp, Kerry Washington as Vera Draven, Andrew Scott as Lee Ross, Cailee Spaeny as Simone and Daryl McCormack as Cy Draven. After Jefferson Wicks is killed in a seemingly empty room, Benoit Blanc is brought in to see who did it. Duplenticy is an outsider in every possible way as he says he wants to get rid of Wicks who at this point has gone slightly mad. The main mystery is who killed Wicks but then there is another mystery of how Wicks’ body ended up in Nat Sharp’s b...

The first Sisu film was an unexpected hit that came out in 2022 which saw a guy called Atari try and kill some Nazi’s who were after his gold. That was the film and it was a stripped down enjoyable action film. I was slightly worried when I saw the trailer because it looked like it was just going to be a dumb ridiculous version of the first film and it is but that is why i love it. The set up of the film is that Aatami is trying to relocate his home after his wife and kids were killed but the guy who killed them Yeagor (Stephen Lang) is released from a Siberian prison to kill Aatami. That’s it. That’s the plot. Slightly more than in the first one but not by much. Firstly the whole film is ridiculous because of pretty much everything that happens in the film. There is one moment where a plane flies sideways through a forest before clipping Aatami’s truck, then there is the tank that he ‘acquires’ and straps the wood from his house to it and just as it arrives at a border it flips throug...

Given that I’m not a huge fan of musicals, I was looking forward to the second part of Wicked. I enjoyed the first part a lot more than I was expecting and this film has to achieve a lot and do it in slightly less time than the first. The film doesn't attempt to do a ‘previously on….’ which is probably the wise thing to do even though the film came out 12 months ago, most people will have taken the time to watch it again because it's a lot of fun. The film sees Elphaba effectively turn into public enemy number one and starts off by causing the building of the yellow brick road to be disrupted. Glinda meanwhile seems to be firmly on the side of the wizard and happy to put up a facade of things being perfect and Elphaba being the baddie.  The main issue with the film is that it kind of buckles under the weight of The Wizard of Oz. It tries to weave its own story in with The Wizard of Oz and does it well enough but then it feels quite restricted. They go to the trouble of bringing...

  Wicked is based on the long running musical which does that tiresome thing of giving us the origins story of a particular character or characters. I’ll be honest that I have never seen the musical so how this compares to that version is something out of my expertise. The first part shows Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda (Ariana Grande) as they arrive at Shiz University. The film starts off at the end of The Wizard of Oz with the Wicked Witch killed and someone asks Glinda if she were friends with the witch and Glinda says yes but she was nice once and in some sort of Wayne’s World flashback we go right to the beginning. The film does a good job of introducing Elphaba and it's surprising that she didn’t turn bad before she got to Shiz. Galinda is hard to like at first. When she is the pretty girl at school and everyone is tripping over themselves to be nice to hear it just felt like they were going for a cliche but thankfully as the film progresses she becomes more likeable....

Trailers don't usually have me intrigued but Keeper did which I suppose is the sign of a good trailer. Liz was in quote marks whereas Malcolm wasn't so I was curious as to why Liz’s name was put up the way it was. The set up is Liz and Malcolm go to a cabin in the woods which was always going to end badly and shortly after arriving things start to go weird.  Even though this essentially features two main characters, Tatiana Maslany is really the star of the film as she goes through the wringer in. The scene where she is in the basement with the multi-faced woman was terrifying because of how Liz reacted to it. At first I was confused why Liz and Malcolm would be together because there seemed to be tension from the very beginning. Rossif Sutherland is ok as Malcolm. I never found myself thinking that he was sinister even when the twist happens. Birkett Turton is ok as Darren even though he has about three scenes in total that amount to less than five minutes and then there is E...

A film about the trial of the Nazi’s after the Second World War isn’t the sort of film I would have predicted being one of my favourite films of the years. Especially as it stars Rami Malek who starred in the The Amateur which is ok and Russell Crowe who hasn’t starred in anything well for quite a while. The film follows Malek’s Douglas Kelley as he is tasked with determining whether several members of the Nazi party are fit to stand trial with the key one being Hermann Goring.  Russell Crowe is amazing in this.  When he has the right material he is as good as he was in Gladiator. I recently saw Master and Commander and he’s great in that and I would say that this performance is up there. It wouldn’t surprise me to see him get nominated. He has some great scenes like when Goring brings up what the US did to Japan and when Kelley tries to defend it and basically calls out what he sees as the U.S hypocrisy and superiority. He goes on to say that Kelley isn’t standing in front o...

The Choral is a charming story about a choir group in 1916 Yorkshire who are led by Dr Guthrie who has spent many years in Germany. Ralph Fiennes is very good as Guthrie. His character is the one that always seems to have a disconnect from the reality of what is happening elsewhere. He also seems to be on the verge of crying whenever someone is singing although the singing was very good. Even though the war is a theme of the film we never see the war although we see the impact it is having on the town with a mixture of people waiting to be called up and people who have close ones that have served and are either severely injured or died.  The film also deals with conscientious objection which was a crime back then and Robert is the one who doesn't want to fight and despite being given a deferment he doesn't want to take it and the last time we see him in the film is when he is taken away by the military police. Robert’s character doesn't really have much impact in the plot u...

  I really enjoyed Prey but because it came out when confidence in visiting cinemas was low then it meant that it got put on Disney+. I also enjoyed the animated film Killer of Killers so I was concerned that this film might not match up. The film is directed by Dan Trachtenberg who directed the enjoyable Prey and also 10 Cloverfield Lane. So the set up of the film is that our Predator is having daddy issues and goes to a planet to kill the ultimate monster but then he comes across Thia (Elle Fanning) who is secretly after the same thing along with her ‘sister’ Tessa. There are plenty of things that I liked about this. This attempts to do something different and this film is a more family friendly film than we ever got. Some might take issue with that but I think it allows them to do something different. I still get shivers thinking about the 2018 version which was just terrible in every way imaginable. The fight scenes were pretty good and I did get the feeling that the film was...

Anyone who is prepared to go from critic to film maker deserves praise for putting their money where their mouth is and Chris Stuckmann goes from YouTube film critic to movie maker. He might have gone off the boil quality wise but not wanting to give negative reviews equating it to bashing a film maker, but I am prepared to be honest cause that is what people who review films do. Negative reviews can be constructive. Not sure if my negative comments are constructive but I don't mean them to knock Chris Stuckmann but they are just my honest opinion. The set up of the film is that we follow Mia as she attempts to find her sister who disappeared whilst filming some paranormal YouTube show having disappeared in 2008. The performances were surpassingly good. Camille Sullivan plays Mia who drives the story forward and there is a determination in Mia to find her sister when it's clear that the police have pretty much given up. There is a likeable vibe coming from Sullivan’s performanc...

It’s been four years since I last had the joy of watching a new Edgar Wright film at the cinema. The last being 2021’s Last Night in Soho which was my film of the year. This is the fourth Wright film seen at the cinema in the last seven days having enjoyed the Cornetto Trilogy. Technically this is a remake of the book and not the 1987 version so it would be unfair to compare the two. The set-up is that Ben Richards (now played by Glen Powell) goes on The Running Man show to get money to treat his sick daughter. He has to survive 30 days without being caught to win a life changing amount of money and he does the smart thing at first by hiding in a fancy hotel until he is found out. I haven't read the novel so I don't know what both versions of the film have added or removed but there are plenty of nods to the 1987 version. I liked the Arnie money which features a couple of times and then there is the manipulating TV footage to fool the public which happens just once in the 1987 ...

Bugonia is an English language remake of a 2003 Korean film that I am now going to have to watch to compare and contrast. The setup is simple enough. Jesse Plemons plays Teddy and Aidan Delbis plays Don who kidnaps Emma Stone's Michelle who is a powerful Pharmaceutical CEO who they believe is an alien. They shave her head so that they   The film is essentially a three-hander with Stone and Plemons getting the lion's share of the dialogue but Delbis is still important in this as you end up feeling sympathy for him as it's clear that Teddy is the ‘brains’ of the operation. The question for me is whether Michelle was actually an alien or was this just a case of two conspiracy-theorists being spectacularly wrong. I don't often get to say I guessed it before it was revealed but I did guess it. There was one shot where Emma Stone’s eyes looked a lot bigger than Plemons’ or Delbis. There are some quite tough moments such as when Michelle is being electrocuted whilst Green Day’...

  The third and final part of the Cornetto Trilogy is the weakest. When you come after one of the best horror comedies and one of the best buddy cop movies ever made then it was always going to be an impossible task to end this trilogy on a satisfying note. People can argue/debate which is the best and they will either say Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz but no one will say that The World’s End is the best. The film follows Gary King (Pegg) who convinces his old school friends to return to the village they all grew up in to complete the Golden Mile beer drinking challenge. The only problem is that Gary hasn’t grown up and yet everyone else has. As they progress things start to get a bit strange when the residents of this supposedly sleepy village. It turns out that the residents (or most of them) have been replaced by an alien race and after talking to Gary, the Network decide to give up and leave causing the world to basically end and things to go back to the dark ages. The idea o...

I always thought that if I had the chance to watch the Cornetto trilogy at the cinema that I would take it. I previously saw Shaun of the Dead at the cinema back in September 2024. Shaun of the Dead was Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s take on the George Romero films, Hot Fuzz is their take on the buddy cop genre of films. The set up of the film is that Simon Pegg plays Nick Angel who is a super cop and is sent to what appears to be a quiet country village because he is making the rest of the officers look bad. I like the pre-title scenes because it establishes just how much Nick is in love with the job, wanting the correct terms to be used.The problem is that he is making everyone look bad. The station that Angel is a part of has a nice collection of amusing people. The relationship between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost was one the things I liked about Shaun of the Dead and it’s even better in this film. Danny (Frost) looks up to Angel from the moment that….well sobers up and this quickly le...

Normally I wouldn’t go and see anything at the cinema if it’s made by Netflix but it felt like if anyone was going to make me break this rule then it would be Guillermo del Toro. I wasn’t sure how many people would share my viewpoint on this but there were about 30 on a Friday night which showed that a great director like del Toro deserves to have his films seen on the big screen. This version follows the basic plot of Mary Shelley’s original but there are a few differences which is how it should be when you are making the latest remake. The film starts off at the end with the creature encountering a ship stuck in the ice and also Victor Frankenstein. After seeing off the creature, Victor tells his story about growing up to make the creature and then we hear what happens to the creature after the house/castle is destroyed. Even knowing there were going to be some changes to the story, the main reason why I wanted to go to the cinema to watch something that will be on Netflix in a few w...