Crime 101 (2026)

 Crime 101 sees Chris Hemsworth play Mike who is a thief who after robbing people decides to plan his final score and encounters an insurance broker wanting out after being overlooked for promotion and the Incredible Hulk playing detective in pursuit. 

The first thing to note is that the cast is pretty impressive. Not quite sure when there was a film with this high calibre of actors in it. It’s nice to see Chris Hemsworth do something that plays in a cinema and isn’t Thor. I’ve seen plenty of non-Thor things but this is the first at the cinema that hasn’t seen him throw a hammer around. I quite liked his performance as Mike. He seems to want to have a quieter life but there is a part that seems like a pipe dream because he is too good at what he does. Mark Ruffalo plays Lou who is the cop who is after the 101 Thief and isn’t taken very seriously by pretty much anybody and even his wife leaves him. They do a thing later on where it's implied that Lou and Sharon have feelings for one another but it never really goes anywhere.

Halle Berry plays Sharon who is the Vice-President of the insurance company who is overlooked to be made a partner and decides to help Mike before getting an attack of conscience. It’s good to see Berry in a film again as it has felt like a long time since I can remember seeing her in a big film. Sharon isn’t the best written character but Berry knows how to make this character seem more interesting that she actually is (Storm in the X-Men film). Barry Keoghan plays Ormon who is someone that is working with Nick Nolte’s character. The thing about Keoghan is that he is very good in playing someone that isn’t full blown unhinged but enough to make him interesting. It’s a fairly 2 dimensional character but Keoghan squeezes everything out of the role.

Nick Nolte ‘stars’ in the film but that amounts to a couple of scenes where he is sitting down, mumbles and after a scene with Orion he is never seen, heard or referenced again. Not sure if there was meant to be more from him but given how hard it was to hear him talk it wouldn’t surprise me if they decided to cut their losses and just have him dropped from the film.

Despite the stellar cast which sees Thor reunite with Hulk, the film struggled with making the plot work. It really doesn't need to be 2 hours and 20 minutes. The only reason that it ended up being so long (I think) is that the film thinks it is Heat or French Connection but it really isn't. The film makes use of its star names to try and get you to the end and I think for that reason alone I was never bored.

The film probably wont win any awards for originality and its going to struggle to be remembered at the end of the year but its worth seeing for the star cast who are doing the best with a film that thinks it is Ocean’s Eleven but doesn't quite have the flair to pull it off. 

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Sometimes there are films that I get horribly wrong with the first viewing. One such film is The Witch and the other is this film. I watched about 20 minutes and got bored so I stopped it. I decided years later to rewatch it and I couldn’t believe how wrong I was. This film is as close to a masterpiece as it's possible to get. With One Battle After Another in the running to win all the big awards, it seemed like a good time to visit the cinema and rewatch this film but see it on the big screen for the first time.

Having recently started to appreciate music scores, I think that Jonny Greenwood’s score takes a great film and makes it even better. This is how I felt with the Sinners score. The score along with several shots of vast emptiness create a feeling that words never could. This is a great example of all areas of a film coming together to make something feel epic.  The final scene with Daniel Day Lewis and Paul Dano is one of the best final scenes that I have ever seen. It starts off seemingly pleasant enough but then ends with Daniel bashing Eli’s head in with a ten-pin and then tells the butler that ‘he’s done’. Not too long ago, Quentin Tarantino said not nice things about Paul Dano and didn’t seem to rate him as an actor and I don't know what bump to the head that Tarantino took but you cannot seriously watch this film and think Dano is a bad actor. There are moments where his performance could tip over to comedy but I think the skill that Dano has is to keep from tipping over. It’s hard to find a fault in Daniel Day Lewis’ performance and to be honest there isn’t one. There is a reason he has won so many Oscars and it's because he knows how to immerse himself in a role. I don't think it's as good or as menacing as the one from Gangs of New York but in this film it's a great performance.

The only thing that spoiled this screening was the fact that a couple got up and walked out. This is the third time this year that I have witnessed people getting up and leaving. I would expect people to have watched this film before and know that the film is very slow paced and yet this didn’t stop them from buying a ticket. 

If you dont like slow films that then this film would feel like torture especially as it runs at 158 minutes but if you dont mind things unwinding slowly and methiocically then I encourage you to watch it whenever you can. As I said this is a masterpiece and shows that you don't need to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make something epic. Just have a story that is told well and actors that do the screenplay justice.

Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (2025)

Normally Little Amélie or the Character of Rain is not the sort of film that I would normally go to the cinema to see however as it has been nominated for a BAFTA and I am trying to watch all the nominated films, I find myself sitting in a cinema on a Sunday evening in Glasgow watching a film that looked in the trailer I saw during GOAT like it was done on MS Paint. Things didn’t start great as a group of people seemed to be out to cause trouble as during the Super Mario trailer applauded when it finished and then when the credits for the film started seemed to be mumbling something to the extent that another person in the screening “Could you shut the f**k up?” I wish I had the courage to say that sort of thing and the best part was that it worked as we never heard another sound from them. Anyway the story of the film sees Amélie born and after starting life as a vegetable becomes verbal on her second birthday and after biting on some chocolate starts to see the world differently and thanks to her live in nanny Nishio-san she takes to thing around her and when her family has to move back to Belgium she is heartbroken to be separating from Nishio but after a near death experience (her second in the film) she learns to live with the realisation that she isn’t the god she thought she was but a normal human. 

Despite my initial thoughts about the film, I thought this was a fantastic film. A bit strange in the opening moments but when the film gets going then it becomes this lovely and heartwarming story. The film is set in 1960’s Japan and there is a character called Kashima-San who has a bit of a dislike for the family and it stems from Nishio losing her family during the Second World War and Kashima feeling that Nishio is betraying her family. That is the closest that the film gets to conflict but the film isn’t really about conflict, it's about watching this little girl find her place in the world and as she says during the film ‘When You’re Three Years Old, You see everything and understand nothing.’

This is an astonishly good film and one that caught me off guard. If you are expecting Pixar level of animation and nothing else will do then this film will not be for you but if you don't mind a film that uses mainly pastel colours then you will enjoy this film. I am grateful to BAFTA for nominating this film because I definitely would have given it a miss and think that lovely charming films can and should win the top awards which is what i hope this film does come the end of award season. 

100 Nights of Hero (2025)

We are only five weeks into 2026 and I think I might have found a contender for worst film of the year. The film takes place in a fantasy world where there are three moons and women are banned from reading or telling stories. Manila Monroe plays Cherry who is married to Amir El-Masry’s Jerome (last seen in Giant). Jerome doesn't want to consummate his marriage to Cherry for some reason and tasks his friend Manfred (played by Nicholas Galitzine) with trying to see if he can woo Cherry within 100 days for reasons that I forgot because I just didn’t care. 

As performances go, I can’t really fault them. Emma Corbin plays the titular Hero and she is fine although she doesn't really have much to do apart from get in between Cherry and Manfred. Nicholas Galitzine is probably the best although due to the screenplay I couldn’t figure out what his motives were for trying to woo his friend's wife. Manila Monroe does the best she can although spending 90 minutes or so trying to ward off the advances of Manfred gets boring after a while. 

Richard E. Grant and Felicity Jones pop up for what was hopefully a good payday. I am annoyed that they used Richard E. Grant for such a stupid pointless role. He was in it for about 30 seconds wearing a stupid bird like helmet and Felicity Jones has a better 30 seconds but seeing as she is credited as an executive producer it seems like that might have been more of an attempt to give her more money for doing next to nothing.

There were people talking constantly and normally this would be a source of irritation but I was so bored by the film that I just didn’t care. They also applauded the film although the chances of this because they had just seen the the best film ever are slim. This has to be one of the worst films I have seen at the cinema since Megalopolis. Like that film I spent a great amount of time debating whether I should walk out but I decided that I would only walk out if a film was offensive. Another was the fact that the seat I had was a recliner so I was relatively comfortable so I didn't want to leave it.

The issue with the film really centres around the fact that it thinks that it is smarter than it actually is. I dont have any issue with a film aiming high but on this occasion it feels like they thought that setting it in a fantasy world means that they can get away with a lacklustre script or at least get away with stuff that is boring. I walked out of the screening feeling that this film was a slog which isn’t what a film should be.

GOAT (2025)

 Being someone who doesnt have kids it feels a bit strange going into a cinema screening where 80% of the audience is children. GOAT tells the story of Will (voiced by Caleb McLaughlin) who goes to a roarball game (basically basketball) and wants to grow up and be like his hero Jett (voiced by Gabrielle Union), ten years later and the team that Jett is in are failing and in a desperate move they sign Will after he impressed in a viral video. 

I enjoyed this film. It took a while to get going and at 100 minutes its not like its a long film but once the film got into a high gear then it really picked up for me. I liked the character of Will and thought that he was talented without coming across as cocky or arrogant. He was someone who had a dream and was confident enough in his skills. Of the outcast characters in the team I liked Modo (Nick Kroll)  the most. He was funny and quite likeable as a result. I did like Flo (Jenifer Lewis) and the character was clearly a slime ball owner who never had much interest in the team. Patton Oswalt was great as Dennis the ‘coach’ before becoming the coach for real. 

As this film is done by the same studio that did the Spider-verse movies which i generally think are awful even though the animation is good, I thought that the animation was quite good. It’s not Illumination or Pixar level but it's still pretty good although I think the animation is more vibrant in those Spider-Man films. The games take place in various different themed arenas and whilst at times it looked like different worlds from Mario Kart, they all looked amazing especially the final one. 

I had seen a trailer for it and whilst it looked ok there didn’t seem to be anything special about it but I am not the target audience. GOAT is a good animated film that will keep the young one entertained as I heard more noise from the adults than I did from the kids. As they are the target audience it is more important that the film works on them but if it works on adults then it is a bonus. Whether it has the longevity of

Iron Lung (2026)

 For the second time in as many months, I am sat in a cinema watching a film made by a YouTuber. The film is directed by Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier) and is based on a video game which I have never played so in regards to authenticity I cannot comment. The plot of the film is that Fischbach plays Simon who starts the film in this iron submarine type thing and has to find something. The entire film takes place in this submarine and the closest that we get to coming outside is when we see through a window at some other humans and a couple of flashbacks. The film has very little space in which to keep things moving but to the film's credit it manages it. 

The last 40 minutes dragged for me and as a result I stopped paying attention so I didn’t keep track of what was happening or why. I don't know if the plot was based on the video game or they have just borrowed some elements but I felt like the plot was starting to get a bit convoluted after a while. It also felt like the longer the film went on the more the camera was shaking so much that you couldn’t see what was going on. The last shot was of the life jacket with the black box in it but we don't know if Simon’s sacrifice was in vain or achieved something substantial. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that if they had found a better actor then the performance might have kept me engaged with the story. Fischbach might be a popular YouTube but I don't think he is going to be a contender at the BAFTA’s or Oscars anytime soon. Normally the lack of star power might be a red flag but on this occasion i dont think that it was a problem.

The thing I liked about the film is the production values. As the film takes place entirely in the submarine it is important that it looks good and despite the low light I thought that it was a really good job. I also like the ‘photos’ that were produced when Simon pressed the button. They looked very creepy and showed us what threat there was outside in this world that we know very little about (unless its explained in the game)

The film cost a reported $3 million and has made around $20 million which for a film with very little traditional promotional stuff is quite an achievement and in the screening I was in which was 10pm on a Friday night it was pretty much full so it shows that you dont have to spend millions to get people to go and see your film. Will Hollywood learn a lesson from this? Of course not. It’s a great film by any means but on a technical level and on what it has achieved I think that it should be seen but maybe wait for it to come out on streaming. Just dont see it if you suffer from claustrophobia.

Primate (2025)

 Primate has a very simple premise. A bunch of young annoying people go back to Lucy’s home where they have a chimp that’s called Ben and gets Rabies and then goes apesh*t and tries to kill everyone. Sometimes films work best when they are stripped back to just being your typical b-movie schlock. This is directed by Johannes Roberts who previously did the most recent Resident evil film which I quite enjoyed. 

The film is rated an 18 which is quite a difficult thing to achieve but it definitely deserved it. On one occasion Ben rips a guy's jaw off and on another occasion rips a bit of someone’s scalp off. The girls ring some guys they meet on the plane and they are literally just in the movie so that Ben can kill them. Ok they were rather annoying but when they appeared I knew that they weren’t going to feature in the final act of the movie. 

If I had an issue with the film it's that the film is in constant darkness. I know that it's in the middle of the night but they could have jus stuck a couple of more lights on. As a result because all the girls kind of looked the same I could tell who was the main girl and her sister. The film only had one person that I recognised and it was the guy from CODA Troy Kotsur. He is in it briefly but he is rather good and it's quite nice and refreshing to have a deaf character in one of the central roles and others knowing sign language.

I like the fact that Ben was played by an actual person. It was obvious that they weren’t going to get a real chimp so as I was watching it I wondered if they were going to do a mixture of actor and CGI/AI. Thankfully they seem to have gone for the former and Miguel Hernando Torres Umba plays the role brilliantly and comes across as one of the scariest monsters that I have seen in a horror film for quite sometime.

Overall I enjoyed this film a lot more than I was expecting. There are some pacing issues especially when we have to spend a long time with the girls before Ben goes bad and when they move into the pool after the rampage starts there are moments where it feels like the pace is stuttering a bit. However the film is 89 minutes long and it doesn't outstay its welcome. The plot is simple and doesn't complicate itself although the dad disappearing just so he could come back and save the day did feel a little cliched. However despite these minor issues it is a film that I recommend but be mindful if you dont like gore then this might not be the film for you.

R.I.P Ben

Sherlock Jr. (1924)

 It just occurred to me that the showing of The Balloonatic was the equivalent of showing a short animated film before the slightly longer running time so it makes the £13 you’ve spent on one ticket worth it. I wasn't expecting it but I do appreciate it. As Sherlock Jr was the ‘main event’, it got the intro treatment which really wasn’t worth it but I suppose if you didn’t see Radiohead X Nosferatu then it wouldn’t have been as much of an issue.

The film starts off with Buster Keaton sitting in a theatre and reading a book about how to be a Detective and from pretty much that moment the good stuff happens. There is a bit where he is sweeping up outside and one women claims she has lost a dollar and Keaton gives it too her, then a moment later the same thing happens and he does the same thing. Then there is a man that comes along and as Keaton goes to give him the dollar, the man hands it back and it was a moment where you think he is being reward for his generosity but then hilariously the man rummages through the rubbish to find his wallet with what is most likely a lot more money.

The story then moves to a house where Keaton is trying to woo a lady but someone also has eyes on her and frames him for stealing a pocket watch. In an attempt to try and solve the mystery and prove his innocence, Keaton follows the man but then is ultimately unsuccessful. He returns to the cinema where whilst asleep he seemingly solves the mystery of who took the watch. By the end of the film the woman has been told by her father that they made a mistake and they end up happily ever after.

I had seen this film before (a few years ago) and I didn’t appreciate the technical feat that the film pulls off which is made even more crazy when you realise it was made 102 years ago. The use of colours is achieve much better than in Nosferatu although that might be because of the quality of the film. The billiard ball effect was really good and not only looked good but highlighted to us in a black and white film which ball was the one we needed to focus on. Another great effect was the use of the double buster in the projection room. That must have taken so much time to figure out and even now it looks like a good effect. The stand out effect was of him jumping through the hole in the women and then she walks away on the same shot showing there was no hole in the wall which is a mind blowing effect in 2026 let alone 1924.

The whole faux Sherlock adventure at the house with Keaton as Sherlock was clearly the best part and it was fun owners films were over a century ago. The thief and his butler trying to kill Sherlock Jr with an exploding billiard ball and only in a silent film could an example of an exploding billiard ball go off and no one in the house notices.

Second time this year I have been in a film where people have walked out. They were an older couple so clearly not a fan of R.E.M or hadn’t seen the Nosferatu X Radiohead film but it was nearly forty minutes into the double feature and I would love to have gone out with them to see what was the breaking point for them.

Like in The Balloonatic, the song’s transitions were done better. There were a couple of moments where the songs ended mid-scene but the gap didn’t seem to be as long as before. Still not convinced by using more modern music. I think you could give this to a composer today and the could come up with music that would appeal to a modern audience but crucially work better than R.E.M or any band really.

I enjoyed this film very much. I think that it again proves why Buster Keaton in my eyes was the better star of silent cinema over Charlie Chaplin. The story was good, the action scenes were well done and show how insane Keaton was for trying to do them in an age before stunt doubles were a thing and the humour was there and again better than what Chaplin did most of the time. Sherlock Jr. is definitely one of the best Buster Keaton films and if you are looking to get into silent films then this is one of the ones to start with.

The Balloonatic (1923)

 Back in October 2025, I went to a screening of Nosferatu that had music from Radiohead playing over it. I was intrigued to see whether it worked and barring a couple of minor issues (one with the cinema itself), back then I knew there was this screening coming and so I waited because this time it wasn't a horror film but a Buster Keaton film. There was a mystery before I even got there because on the website it said that the running time was an hour and 15 minutes and yet Sherlock Jr. is only 45 minutes. As you are reading this review then you know that there was another film before Sherlock Jr.

No intro like with Nosferatu. I didn’t mind that too much as I thought that they didn’t really add anything. Not being an R.E.M. fan I don't know if their music was used on this one but it would make sense if they did. The first couple of minutes were distracting as the image would go ‘funny’ when certain beats were hit in the song.

Bearing in mind its only 22 minutes, Buster Keaton manages to get through quite a lot. First he goes on a water ride to try and meet a girl and by the end of the ride he gets a black eye so clearly whatever chatup line (or what passed for a chat up like in 1923) didn’t work. Next up he is walking past a hot air ballon and gets asked to attach something to it, the balloon then ends up flying into the air prematurely and he is on top of it oblivious. The final part sees him trying his hand at fishing and this was the best part of the movie as he ends up walking unaware that a bear is following him and until the bear gets shot, it looks like it's a real bear which is definitely a brave thing to do. When the bear is shot it does seem to turn into a bloke in a costume but there was obviously no way of making a bear co-operate.

More happens in this 22 minute film that sometimes happens in a $200 million action film. I enjoyed this and it shows in my mind why Buster Keaton is better than Charlie Chaplin. I think he is a better actor and he manages to show more emotion than Chaplin. I get that Chaplin is more of a comedy performer but in this era I would have definitely been more of a Keaton fan. I thought that the run time was the perfect length and didn’t need to be any longer.

On the song front I thought that they were used better than they were in Nosferatu. Despite being a bit distracting at first they helped after a while and there wasnt the issue of awkward silences like in Nosferatu.I had seen this before and think that the music originally used worked better but as a fun experiment, this version did what it needed to do. Now onto the main event and what the four people in my screening were there for……Sherlock Jr.

Send Help (2026)

 Send Help is the latest film from Sam Raimi. It sees Rachel McAdams (Linda) and Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) survive a plane crash and have to survive but when Linda sees a boat passing by she tries her best to stay on the island to extreme measures. The plot is simple, the characters are not very likeable in different ways and there is a high level of slapstick gore. Rachel McAdams does really well as Linda. She starts off as a frumpy unlikable office worker but when the story moves to the island she seems to become a different person. Someone who is in her dream location and has an upper hand on her loathsome boss. Dylan O’Brien plays Bradley really well. He is unlikeable because he is the typical horrible boss that will say whatever it takes.

There are many moments which feel very much like you are watching a Sam Raimi film. One moment comes when the plane starts to crash and one of the passengers flies out the plane and his tie catches off the side and bashes his head on the side of the window which leads Linda to comically close the window blind. Another moment comes when Linda is attempting to give Bradley mouth to mouth resuscitation and between every breath attempt she is throwing up all over him. There are plenty more funny moments and this is why Raimi is such a good director because he makes it work and doesn't make the film feel farcical. 

I knew the exact moment when I loved this film and it comes quite late into the film when we discover what is on the other side of the big X that Bradley was told not to go past and it is in fact a fancy beach house with all the mod cons that you would want. In any other film this would have totally lost me and I would have rolled my eyes at but I found it quite funny in the context of this film. I thought that it fitted the humour quite well. The film ended in a way that I liked. Even though neither character is particularly likeable, I was happy that Linda literally drove off into the sunset. I can see some people not liking this but I thought that she sort of deserved this ending.

There is a plot hole that stood out to me during the film but it isn’t big enough to ruin my enjoyment but I would be failing in my review if I didn’t point them out. The plot hole is concerning Zuri and the guy who has the boat. Did neither of them let anyone know where they were going and did no one ask Linda if she knew anything about them. The only real issue with the film is that the opening 10-15 minutes is a bit unnecessary. The film spends too long hammering the point home that Linda isn’t that likeable and lives alone with her bird and has aspirations of being on a Survivor-style reality show.

There is enough Sam Raimi stuff in it that you will be entertained. I don't think it is quite up there with the first two Evil Dead films but it was definitely an enjoyable film. I think had the film started a bit better then this would have become my film of the year but I think that and some other pacing issues means that this is a fun if slightly flawed Sam Raimi film.

Shelter (2026)

There are some actors you know what sort of film you are going to get and Jason Statham is the modern day poster child for this. You know that you are going to get a film where people are sent to attack/kill the Statham character and he ends up killing them. Shelter is another example of an acting giving the audience what they want and it sees Statham play Michael Mason who is an  ex member of a black ops group black kite is hunted down by the th ex head of MI6 (played brilliantly by Bill Nighy) because 10 years earlier he refused to kill someone and now along with a young girl he has to try and avoid being killed.

The plot is simple but it doesn't really need to be anymore complicated or convoluted. It’s your typical Jason Statham film and it’s a lot of fun. The only real issue that I have with the film is that it does feel a bit rushed at the end but the action scenes are quite good and it’s worth seeing just for evil Bill Nighy. I was impressed with Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Jesse. I recently saw her in Hamnet but in this she is quite good considering her role is nothing special but she makes the most out of it and the relationship with her character and Mason was nice to see. The whole idea about surveillance isn’t really that explored very much but it’s a Jason Statham film so you’re not expecting Oppenheimer.

Bill Nighy is clearly having fun as the evil boss of MI6 Manafort but there is also a good performance from Naomi Ackie who is named as his interim replacement Roberta who uncovers what her predecessor has been up to but stops short of pardoning Mason. Daniel Mays pops up for about 10 minutes and they have his character dying from cancer and yet he doesn’t get to do a noble sacrifice which is a minor criticism as it’s always nice to see Mays on screen.

Shelter is a lot of fun and one of the better Statham films. The action scenes are fun and its clear that some effort has been put into making them look as good as possible. The thing about Statham is that he knows his audience and knows what they like so he gives them what he wants but what puts him above some in this genre is that he seems to still care. That might not sound like a big thing but given how many people seem to have been phoning it in in recent years you end up appreciating what Statham does a little bit more. Definitely worth your time.