Category: Movie Reviews

A QUIET PLACE 2 (John Krasinski, Emily Blunt) A Quiet Place Part II is quite literally a sequel, picking up directly where its preceding chapter left off, extrapolating on the first instalment’s cliffhanger ending, which had resilient  mother Evelyn Abbott (Blunt) killing off inhuman attackers who were threatening her and her kids Regan and Marcus. But there’s a prelude before the story continues, in which the viewer is taken back to the very moment the Abbott clan witnessed first-hand the horrific experience that would forever disrupt and change their lives. Via the flashback, we see how the Abbotts reacted to Earth’s new apex predator – blind, emaciated beings with chitinous armour and an acute sense of hearing – and provides…

WONDER WOMAN 84 Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristin Wiig, Pedro Pascal This year of living dangerously has been sparse in terms of major superheroes gracing the big screen. Ironically, after a golden period of box-office dominance, the one thing DC and Marvel’s greatest heroes couldn’t defeat was a pandemic. But now, as the gruelling past 12 months close, one comic book character has emerged like a true hero to defy the odds to make it to the big screen and rescue 2020 from total misery: Wonder Woman. Director Patty Jenkins embraces the same essence of innocence and optimism that she harnessed for the 2017 predecessor, illuminating the DC Extended Universe that was once so mired in morally murky seriousness and…

BIRDS OF PREY   Margot Robbie, Ewan McGregor  THE eccentric Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) has broken up with her psychopathic lover, the Joker, with whom she had a relationship in 2016’ mediocrely-received Suicide Squad. And now, without the big J’s protection, the scatter-brained Harleen Quinzel faces a life confronting previous enemies ready to cash in on karma, to the extent that she can’t even eat an egg sandwich without being pursued by a variety of riff raff that she has managed to offend in the past. That’s the basic setup as director Cathy Yan jumps around haphazardly in time, from mere hours ago to several weeks before, and then even further back to ‘80s Sicily, as she tries to introduce the…

JUMANJI: THE NEXT LEVEL Dwayne Johnson, DannyDeVito THIS sequel to the well-received Welcome To The Jungle reunites the cast of young friends Spencer, Martha, Fridge and Bethany, who previously entered the mystical video game world of Jumanji by accident and barely escaped alive. The meek and mild Spencer is unhappy ever since leaving Jumanji the first time, having moved to a dead end job in New York and missing his friends. To make matters worse, he’s broken up with Bethany. So he uses the broken Jumanji console from the previous movie and  finds a way to go back in, hoping to resume the life of the hulkish and heroic Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), the avatar he was landed with the…

CHARLIE’S ANGELS Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott The newest revival of Charlie’s Angels seems an unnecessary commodity, one no-one really asked for. That being said, the movie pleasantly surprises and entertains, and is notable for being directed by a woman, Elizabeth Banks, who stars as one of the agency’s management team of Bosleys. The plot, unfortunately, is a trite hackneyed, involving once again some eager scientist developing modern technology which will be used against humanity. But we can forgive that for the rollicking romp that follows. Lead scientist of The Calisto project, Elena Houghlin (Scott), has serious concerns about a flaw that could weaponise the self-contained energy source that was aimed at revolutionising clean energy. After being disappointed that her superiors…

ZOMBIELAND: DOUBLE TAP Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, Emma Stone IT’S hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since the original Zombieland broke new ground with a hilarious jaunt through the undead apocalypse. Remarkably, the four principal cast members return for the sequel looking hardly worse for wear, but they’re certainly wiser, having accrued either Oscar nominations or, in Stone’s case, winning the coveted award itself in the intervening decade. Thankfully, you don’t need to have seen the first chapter – or if you’ve forgotten what transpired – to understand the basic premise of Eisenberg’s nerdy Columbus, Harrelson’s redneck Tallahasee and Stone (Wichita) and Breslin (Little Rock)’s sister act banding together in a world infected with zombies. The…

ANGEL HAS FALLEN Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman THE third in the ‘Fallen” franchise has hit the screens, indicating there’s an audience out there for the adventures of a White House president constantly trying to avoid assassination. The “angel” in the title refers to the American leader’s guardian angel, Secret Service agent Mike Banning, played as always by Scottish slugger Gerard Butler, with his best American accent. This time around, the plot concerns an attack on Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), who’s become POTUS after serving as speaker and vice-pres in the first two chapters. After a well-staged hit kills off an entire presidential defence team except Banning, he is charged with the attempted murder of Turnbull, who is left in a…

THE LION KING Chiwetel Ejiofor, James Earl Jones, Donald Glover IF this photorealistic version of The Lion King had been the original, replete with all its beautiful songs, it would surely have been lauded as one of the most innovative movies ever made, a David Attenborough documentary set to music with a cluster of crooning critters. As it is though, it’s essentially an almost direct copy of the animated classic, retelling the film and making it look as lifelike as possible while keeping the story and soundtrack relatively the same. The movie starts off magnificently. Little Simba is such an adorable cuddly cub that audiences will surely warm to him, and the visual spectacle of all the jungle inhabitants congregating…