// Personal website of Chris Smith

I think I slightly preferred this to part one, but not by much.

My biggest issue with this (and its predecessor) is that not enough happens given the length of the film. It feels like most events happen, then we take a break to sing about them. The songs don’t move the story on, and they don’t really reveal anything we didn’t already know. If you cut a bunch of songs, or a bunch of non-songs, you could have a reasonably-sized film that told the full thing instead of splitting it across two two-hour-plus showings.

Anyway, the back half of the story shown here is more interesting than all the setup we got in Wicked. The way it winds around the original Wizard of Oz story is clever. There’s character development, although it’s rather abrupt in places.

I wasn’t a fan of the songs from the original Wicked, but I literally can’t remember any of the songs from For Good a few hours after leaving the cinema, whereas Defying Gravity is still living rent free in my head.

Some of the jokes are very predictable, some don’t land very well, but there’s enough there that you can maintain a chuckle through most of the runtime regardless. Basically what you’d expect for something from Jimmie Carr.

What a mess. Margaret Qualley and Aubrey Plaza carried this hard; without them it’d be more like a 2/10. I think the plot was going for a kind of meandering vibe, but it completely missed the mark and just ended up as a load of nonsense.

The whole thing felt very male-gaze-y. Pretty sure Lera Abova’s character only really exists so she can be naked in the opening scene for no particular reason. Then Charlie Day just did that high-pitched voice thing he does in IASIP, and Chris Evans played a larger-than-life character that was just… completely irrelevant?

I don’t really like the phrase “tour de force”, but I can’t think of any other way to describe Margaret Qualley’s performance in this. Christopher Abbott is great too, and they work so well together, but Qualley steals the show.

The whole film works really well, as well. The single location makes it feel intimate but confining; the camera work is at times playful but also a bit off-balance. The script is both superficially horny yet also pretty deep and heartfelt.

This might be the most I’ve ever struggled to finish a film. It’s a weird mish-mash of Lovecraftian Horror, Freaky Friday, and a really boring Mills & Boon novel.

There was no real suspense, the characters’ behaviour mostly didn’t make any sense, and it was about as sexy as stubbing your toe. Heather Graham does her best, but even the most astounding performance ever couldn’t make this film work for me.

Scariest moment: finding out that in the US they just have normal looking power outlets right above the sink. Like, right where the water splashes? What?

A somewhat muddled outing for Mad Max. The world building of Bordertown and its surroundings was great. The Thunderdome fight sequence was fun. I actually didn’t mind the second act even though it was a bit of a departure from the usual tone.

The biggest problems for me here is that Max’s character just… isn’t. He bounces around from plot point to plot point, without really being anyone. He’s a pushover when needed, empathetic when it suits the plot, etc.

Then the big chase scene felt more like it was something out of Wacky Races than a gritty, post-apocalyptic universe, and I’m not particularly sold as Tina Turner as an actor (although the closing song was perfect.)

I had some preconceptions about the Saw franchise, but there was a lot more to this than I expected. A lot of backstory, a lot of mystery, and a bunch of things I didn’t see coming.

The scenes with just Cary Elwes and Leigh Whannell were a bit underwhelming. The way the two characters interacted just felt weird. Their actions were a bit too hammed up, I think.

Samara Weaving is amazing. The whole thing is enjoyable, but I can’t help but wonder if it would’ve been better as a straight horror instead of a comedy.

I was bored for most of the runtime. Didn’t pull me in like The Grand Budapest Hotel. The cinematography was too over-the-top… Not every single shot has to be symmetrical. At times it felt like being frog-marched around an art gallery that I wasn’t particularly interested in.

Michael Cera was great. Possibly the best role I’ve seen him in. I enjoyed Richard Ayoade as well, but he was in his usual lane, more-or-less. Some of the comedy was very good. Not enough of those elements to make up for everything else, though.

Some of the same elements from Knives Out, but the characters are even more caricatures, it’s all a bit more absurd, and it feels like the film itself is working against you in the first half. None of those are improvements, at least as far as my tastes go.

Knives Out had a lovely slow drip of information as everything comes together, Glass Onion has an inflection point half way through where a load of previously concealed information is dropped on you. This is also the first point where you get a character that you can actually root for; in the first half they all come across as horrible and unlikeable.

Right near the end there’s a big reveal, set up to be really dramatic, and I was sat there thinking “what? wasn’t this revealed 5 minutes ago?”. Turns out that was just really heavy-handed foreshadowing, which is sort of a theme in this film. It could have been a real cool, mind bending saga, but instead it insists on telegraphing and sometimes even outright telling you about the twists before they happen.

I think if it was told more subtly — if those bits of foreshadowing only really made sense on a rewatch — it could have been a fantastic film. The ideas are interesting, Sarah Snook in particular does a very good job, and the cinematography works well. With the self-spoiling plot it’s merely… fine.

I’m not sure how young I was when I last watched this, but apparently too young to understand a lot of what was going on. I mostly just remembered it as a funny sci-fi action flick.

It still is a funny sci-fi action flick, but I think I actually appreciate it more now that I can see the (very obvious) message Paul Verhoeven was making about fascism, propaganda, and war.

It’s very much a b-movie. Some of the acting, especially in the action sequences, is wooden to say the least, but it sort of adds to the overall cheesy charm.

The one thing I didn’t really like this time through (that I was again blissfully unaware of last time) was how much the female characters served solely as love interests rather than people in their own right.

So much better than the original. Actually comes together into a good film, with a cohesive story.

It’s a bit weird how it keeps strictly to some events of the first film, but also retcons in a history that doesn’t really seem to mesh with it. Also does Mel Gibson have a rider that his nipple had to get so much screen time, or something?

Anyway… much improved plot, the score felt like it supported the film instead of clashing with it, much better characters all around, much better set pieces (and they actually saved some for the end, too!).

I like the setting (which bodes well, as I was mostly watching this before getting into the more recent films), but… not much else.

The score was downright annoying. I’m not sure I’ve ever been taken out of a film so often by the soundtrack. It’s like there’s an orchestra whose mission is to make it hard to hear what people are saying, or go completely over the top whenever anything happens. Like they were actively competing with the film not complementing it.

The ending was a bit of a let down, and some of the scenes in the back half were laughably bad. I knew it was fairly low budget, but it feels like they sunk what little they had into the earlier parts and left the high-tension high-importance bits at the end out to dry.

So overall: meh. Didn’t hate it, didn’t love it. Definitely interested to see what the future incarnations bring.

A truly epic war film. Despite it being quite long, it keeps a decent pace, and didn’t seem to drag out.

I have my standard war film complaint: too many characters that I end up not being able to distinguish, especially when they’re covered in dirt and so on. But I think that actually somewhat works in its favour in this case? The cast is SO broad that it doesn’t really matter if you can only follow a couple of them, it just lends more to the chaotic tension.

I had pretty low expectations — it’s a sequel after all — but even so I was disappointed.

Charlize Theron was great, still, but most of the other characters were sidelined. Some new characters pop up, which creates some weird plot holes. Those new characters don’t really get fleshed out very well, either.

The action sequences in this feel a lot more performative than in the original. In the original they felt fitting with the characters and plot, despite being visually and cinematographically interesting; in this they felt like someone just put “five-minute long cool fight sequence” in the script.

They seem to have forgot to put the ending in the film, too. There’s act 1, then act 2, then… come back at some point in the future to see The Old Guard 3, I guess?

I think this could have been a solid 9/10 if it had dropped 30 minutes out of the first half. There’s a lot of scene setting, introductions, and foreboding, but not really enough for me to track who was who later on, or where things were. It’s tricky, as obviously they want to feature the people that were there, but it didn’t quite work from a film standpoint.

Once the action gets going it’s one of the most intense and engaging sequences I’ve seen in a war film. And it felt like it was just trying to be an accurate depiction of events, rather than pushing a message one way or another.

Brilliant courtroom drama, with a hugely talented cast.

Despite all the other big names and amazing performances, Tom Cruise was the obvious standout. There’s a lot of growth and nuance in Lt Kaffee, something Cruise’s other roles often skip over in favour of rugged action, and he does a damn good job of it.

The plot is very well woven: it feels like the pieces are gradually falling into place, but naturally so not just by cinematographic dictum. The horror-esque soundtrack works really well, too.

A great story with lots of twists, featuring really interesting characters played by a fantastic cast, good humour, and spot-on editing.

Almost want to watch it again straight away to see if there are details I missed.

It’s really over-the-top in places, and those bits annoyed me at first, but then… it just started working.

Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri do a great job, it’s funny, and a nice twist on the usual formula.

A solid watch, funnier than I expected. Well made, well acted, and so on, but just a bit too in-your-face compared to some of Bong Joon Ho’s other works for my tastes.

A great film on many levels. Really good sci-fi. Near perfect cinematography and sound. Great performances. Emotional.

It’s just a bit too long for me. I’ve spent about a year thinking “I should rewatch Interstellar”, and every time I look at it I see the runtime and just… do something else. It’s definitely worth it, when you do manage to convince yourself to sit down for most of three hours, but that takes some convincing.

Weird. There were hints of horror throughout, but nothing cohesive. I’d probably describe it more as a violent thriller than a horror film.

Felt like it was trying to be clever, but the metaphors came across as very heavy handed. The characters were all a bit flat (although Mia Goth put in a good performance). And the rest was just… weird.

Is there a specific name for the kind of war film that just vaguely follows people around without much of a plot otherwise? This is a reasonable enough entry into that genre, whatever it’s called.

I really like the depth of the main characters, especially Jeremy Renner’s Sgt James, but it does put how flat and disposable everyone else is into sharp relief.

Similarly there’s a lot of detail in the visuals and audio, but almost none in the logistics/operations. They just kind of bumble around with main character energy and do their own thing, and no-one seems to care.

It’s a bit straight-forward in the plot department, but brilliant performances by Demi More and Viggo Mortensen more than make up for that.

Very cheesy, obviously trying to channel the feeling of the video game in places, not really much in the way of plot, but still fun.

Felt like Milla Jovovich was underused a bit, only really coming into her own in the second half. Oh, and the CGI has aged terribly.

Perhaps one of my favourite examples of competency porn. Still holds up incredibly well after 30 years. A little bittersweet to be watching a few months after Jim Lovell passed (thanks, brain, for remembering that little fact half way through the film.)

Great performances all round, good pacing, and a score that helps the mood in all the right places without getting in the way.

A near-perfect action film. Tight action sequences, interesting characters, good sound track. Feels like a glimpse into a wider world. Charlize Theron is great, too.

The only let down for me is the bad guy. Felt a bit too 80s villain-y, a bit too over-the-top, in a way that didn’t really mesh with the rest of the film.

Now I’m properly hyped up for the sequel, which definitely won’t be a massive let down, right? …. Right?

A very intense story, told reasonably well, but there was something about the cinematography that didn’t quite sit right with me. It just felt a bit clumsy and predictable in places. Like, the rowdy scene at the start cutting to them moving in silence… it’s so obvious it’s going to happen it feels clichéd.

Damn.

One metric of a good horror film is how long it keeps me twitching at dark corners. I think this one is going to last a while.

I didn’t think I was going to like the non-linear narrative, but the way it gradually layers more and more story on top, with lots of little interlinks, makes it work really well.

Oh, damn. I didn’t know anything about this going in, and I think that was the right move.

Great script, great acting, great music, great set pieces. There’s a bit of a Bong Joon Ho vibe to it. The only downside is it’s really hard to convey why it’s so good.

The songs were great. Everything else… meh. Not a huge fan of the animation style, and the story felt like it was the bare minimum that could possibly be done and still constitute a story. Then it did the standard Netflix thing of repeating every story beat 7 times in case you weren’t paying attention.

Three stars for the songs and singing, half a star for everything else.

The first half of the film was shaping up to be one of the strongest sequels in the franchise, but it went a bit too silly in the back half.

Still overall a pretty good entry to the series. A new setting, even fewer of the “legacy” characters being forced in, great action/kill sequences.

Quirky, enjoyable character story.

There wasn’t a whole lot going on plot-wise, but Asa Butterfield and Alex Wolff worked great together, and the supporting cast was good, making for a pleasant 85 minutes.

Eh. More product placement and time jumps than anything else. Had its moments, but there was a lot of drag between them.

Well done, thought-provoking take on AI, with an oddly dark basis.

Tatum Matthews was great, and while the overall plot was a bit predictable (it’s mainly in synopsis) there were enough inter-personal story beats to keep it interesting.

The opening was a bit clunky. I think it was trying a little too hard to have something to call back to at the end, and gave a pretty bad first impression. Thankfully the rest of the film more than made up for it.

Hmmm. The romance parts with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt were good, but the pure sci-fi bits just seemed incredibly ham-fisted. I don’t really understand what they were going for with the costume design and the stiltedness of the bureau characters, and a lot of that part didn’t really seem internally consistent.

I think I would have enjoyed it much more if they stripped the sci-fi aspect back and just made that part straight up action.

Enjoyable, but a bit all over the place. There are bits of a heist film, bits of action, bits of good soundtrack, bits of humour, bits of nice cinematography, but it didn’t quite come together properly for me. It felt like it had too much crammed in to try and give it a broader appeal. I would’ve preferred a version about half an hour shorter that was a bit more consistent with itself.

I’ve seen this 2 or 3 times before and, despite it having some of the most memorable characters of any film, I couldn’t have told you any part of the overarching plot. It’s not a terrible plot, it’s just not particularly interesting compared to watching Leeloo, Dallas and Ruby Rhod navigate the world.

Airplane! but with a cop.

I don’t think it quite had the density of laughs as Airplane!, but it’s a bit more cohesive overall which makes up for it.

The description of Juno never really enticed me to watch it until now. What a mistake that was.

Elliot Page is fantastic, but the rest of the cast are also up there. It’s one of those films where all the characters feel fleshed out and not just side pieces.

The soundtrack is great, the plot is heart-warming and is funny in the right spots and in the right way. All in all, great film I should’ve watched 18 years sooner!

Serviceable as a generic action film with a sci-fi lilt. The sci-fi bits and several subplots don’t really hold up to even passing thought, which is a shame. It’s a pet peeve: I don’t really get why you have a bunch of exposition to explain the science, and then don’t bother having the characters act consistently with it at all.

The overall plot was pretty predictable, but moment to moment you couldn’t really tell where it was going, and Jake Gyllenhaal pulled off his role really well.

Has a rough start, but it does get better once it stops imitating the cinematography of The Office.

I didn’t really hate anything, but I didn’t really love anything either. It could have done with something more. Maybe just being less predictable?

Still fails to recapture what made the original great. And I don’t think they’ll ever manage it in a sequel.

A much better attempt than The Lost World, though. It didn’t feel like Jurassic Park, but it was still a serviceable by-the-numbers action flick with added dinosaurs.

Wow, I really, really did not get on with this. There’s definitely something there but the whole thing just felt too pretentious, for lack of a better word. I also didn’t vibe with the faux-single-shot style, and the drums were interesting for about 30 seconds and then annoying for the remaining two hours.

This is basically my ideal sci-fi film. Doesn’t massively compromise on the science and features astronauts being all astronaut-y and working the problem (and boy do the problems keep coming).

There’s not a huge amount of plot, and while Sandra Bullock definitely isn’t terrible she doesn’t quite hit it out of the park, but the film is still a super enjoyable and tense 90 minutes.

A funny, absurdist homage to Scream.

Some of the humour is a bit blue for my tastes, but other bits had me laughing out loud.

Probably my least favourite of the franchise so far.

Felt very formulaic and forced in places. While there were some good performances by the cast, the characters themselves felt forgettable and boring. The opening was weak, most of the kills were fairly generic and predictable.

Another one knocked off the “how did I go so long without seeing this?” list.

What a masterpiece. The tension, mystery and horror elements all work well and build at a good pace. It reminds me a lot of Alien, but plays to slightly different strengths.

There were some great moments in this, but there was also a lot of bleh.

It has the veneer of hard sci-fi but the science is mostly bunk and slapped-on. I find it very hard to see past that, and it keeps dragging me out of the film.

The plot feels like a mashup and doesn’t really bring a lot of originality to the table. The cast were good but it felt like there were just one or two too many characters. The cinematography was occasionally beautiful but a lot of the time jarring and annoying (subliminal frames worked well in Fight Club, they’re just weird and out of place here…).

Mean Girls does witchcraft. Takes a little bit to get into its stride, but it’s fun once it hits it. The horror elements were well done, and Fairuza Balk put in an amazing performance as Nancy.

I didn’t have high hopes for this, but it spectacularly failed to live up to them anyway. The story is dull: there’s no tension, no drive, just nothing. The character interactions are awkward in the extreme. I think you’d probably get a better film if you just stuck Qualley and Mackie in front of a camera with absolutely zero script or prep.

Alicia Silverstone is fantastic, but the depths of the other characters is what really endears me to this film. They all have their own things going on in the background, they’re not just extras in the main character’s play.

I think I would’ve enjoyed this more if I watched it closer to the release. There’s a lot of hype around it, and it didn’t really live up to what I was expecting.

The sci-fi elements work well, but it feels like a load of action has been jammed in unnecessarily. I’m also not a big fan of DiCaprio - his characters always feels a bit flat for me. Elliot Page did a lot of lifting to bring some personality to an otherwise fairly drab set of characters, but wasn’t really given enough room to work.

Sweet, with some good performances, but a bit too dry for my tastes. There were some fun plot beats, but the overall story really didn’t hold me.

I loved this as a kid, and I’ve been putting off rewatching it because I was worried it wouldn’t hold up. Thankfully, it does!

It follows a bit of a standard if-you-try-hard-you-can-overcome-adversity formula, but it’s heart warming, funny in the right places, and the characters are great.

First off, it’s super impressive that John Carpenter co-wrote, directed and scored this.

It didn’t really land for me, though. The build up is very slow, and the setting and main characters have that 60s-Americana vibe ala American Graffiti which I just don’t get on with at all. The final 10 minutes or so were really good, but it was a slog to get there.

Jamie Lee Curtis was great, and I liked the score – the tubular-bells-esque leitmotif worked really well.

Oh, wow. There was fairly steep downward trend between Scream 1, 2 and 3, but Scream 4 goes back to its roots and bucks the trend dramatically.

I think Scream 4 has both the best intro and the best killer so far. It hits the right blend of old familiar faces and new people, and doesn’t feel as forced like earlier instalments have. Some of the new faces have fantastic actors as well: Emma Roberts, Alison Brie and Mary McDonnell are all great, and are given meaningful parts.

The horror elements are back on form as well. Lots of delicious telephone-induced suspense, people disappearing, and of course lots of stabbing and death. Again, it all works a lot better than the previous few incarnations.

Overall, I can’t quite decide if this is better than the original or not. It’s very close, if it’s not. And I think that’s probably the highest praise I can give to any sequel.

Thought I was watching the 2019 film of the same name. I was confused how it got OK reviews.

I don’t understand why you’d make the protagonists so unlikeable. And then have them overact so much. And not really behave like real humans.

And while we’re at it, why would you have such a long and boring intro that was completely and utterly irrelevant? Oh, and why are escape rooms some secret underground thing? And why do the puzzles mostly make no sense?

Why is it just terrible in every regard?

Hmm. Didn’t meet my expectations, but it was mostly OK, I guess?

I feel like Bong Joon Ho’s films normally leave you room to think for yourself about the contents, but Mickey 17 doesn’t really. Everything’s mostly cut and dry, or explained via exposition.

Dragged in the middle, and had a bunch of little side stories that didn’t really seem to add that much. And the US political stuff just felt clumsy and out of place… I’m here for sci-fi not SNL skits.

It’s a lot less male-gaze-y than the 1976 version (hey, look, the shower scene works fine without all the gratuitous nudity! Aren’t these things called towels wonderful?!), which is nice.

Julianne Moore is great as Carrie’s mum. Chloë Grace Moretz is good, but I think she was miscast as Carrie. She just doesn’t ever quite come across as someone as downtrodden and insecure as Carrie is.

The plot deviates a bit from the 1976 version, and paints the action in a different light. I’ve not read the original book, so I’m not sure which is the closer adaptation, but this version is far less satisfying. It also doesn’t really seem to do much about the pacing issues I had in the older version, so the second act was still a drag.

After a lacklustre opening sequence, the film never really recovers. It’s not terrible, but it’s definitely veering towards “cash-grab sequels that shouldn’t have been made” territory.

There are a few amusing moments of meta-humour, but it feels like it was just retreading the paths laid down by the earlier films and not really doing anything new.

The horror elements all seemed a bit tamer. Lots of off-screen deaths and very little attention paid to building up the tension.

Decent premise, decent cast, but overwhelmingly boring.

There’s plenty of things which could’ve made this work. More of a focus on the relationships, or on the peril, or on the comedy, but instead it takes a little homoeopathic sip of each and creates a snooze-fest.

Alright everyone, gird your loins!

I’m a sucker for a good character-based story, and The Devil Wears Prada scratches that itch with a vengeance.

Anne Hathaway gives an amazing performance, but so too do Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. It’s just a delight watching the four interact.

Maggie Q tries to carry this, but she can’t make up for the flat, boring plot, or the flat, boring cast. Even her own character is boring. Even the deaths are boring.

Action packed, in a unique and well-fleshed-out environment, with Bong Joon Ho’s typical disdain for the class system and capitalism.

So elephant in the room: this film seemingly has a lot to say about US politics. All the characters are caricatures of one extreme or the other. It’s all about as subtle as a grenade exploding in your trousers.

But ignoring that, I actually enjoyed it. The fights/deaths were fun, it got a couple of laughs from me, and the initial sequence when the hunt starts is brilliant.

The advertising campaign for this mostly seemed to revolve around showing Emma Roberts in a bit gag which is, frankly, genius.

I really like some elements of this. There’s a really satisfying symmetry to the plot, and it upends some of the usual horror tropes (who’s actually the bad guy, here?). Carrie is a great character, and Sissy Spacek does her justice.

The pacing didn’t do much for me, though. Most of the ending seemed inevitable, and it was a bit of a plod to get there. The tension didn’t really build, it just went for a nap and came back later.

Then there were big chunks where it felt like someone’s pervy old uncle had been put in charge. I can’t decide if that was deliberate, or a product of the time, or what, but it felt gratuitous and gross.

Just your typical French-Canadian coming-of-age vampire romcom.

It’s a cute story, and while you can predict the broad strokes the details are what makes it. Sara Montpetit and Félix-Antoine Bénard both do a good job of portraying their character’s… quirks.

I can see how this would be hilarious if the humour hit home, but it just doesn’t for me. There were a couple of genuine funny moments, but the rest just felt like one of those scenes in Family Guy where it cuts away to Peter doing something stupid and it just keeps going on and on and on and on and on.

A great romcom. Funny in the right places, good performances all around, a big dollop of character development, and an ace soundtrack.

A fairly lacking film pulled kicking and screaming up to being just about OK by the ending.

They went all-in on flashy graphics that the original proved weren’t needed, and just make the whole thing feel a bit weird. The plot feels even thinner than the first two; it’s just “MIB does time travel” for the most part without anything particularly exciting added.

Josh Brolin did a good job as young Tommy Lee Jones. Emma Thompson did a really weird job of being an old Alice Eve.

A wonderful little film. Each of the main characters is fleshed out really well, with their own attitudes, motivations, and off-camera lives, which is impressive given the runtime is under 90 minutes. The depth of the characters really makes the ending work. The performances all round are great, too.

Calling it a horror is a bit of a stretch, and I feel like the trailer was deliberately misleading as to what the film would be like, which feels like a terrible marketing decision given how well the film works.

Watched a dubbed version, I think subbed would’ve been better…

My main thought coming away from this was: that was weird. The plot, while outwardly straight forward, had a lot to say. There’s a lot of flash backs and references and things going on.

The obvious comparison to make is to the Hunger Games series. The latter is a lot more cinematically pleasing, but it feels that Battle Royale approaches the conceit in a much more adult, nuanced way. It doesn’t shy away from the violence or from complexity and ambiguity.

A brilliant film, let down only by Natalie Portman’s nails-on-a-chalk-board accent. She’s fantastic in every other way, but in a film that otherwise exudes Britishness it’s so very painful.

I’ll resist making any comparisons between the villains in this film and any of today’s governments.

Not quite the same calibre as the original, but still pretty good as sequels go. Goes big on being self-referential and a bit meta, and it works.

Neve Campbell is, as before, fantastic as the lead.

Another Spielberg + Williams classic. It’s amazing how much tension you can get out of a few yellow barrels and some music. And it’s actually music, unlike some other horror films that just sound like someone is murdering a cello.

Well animated, heart warming, funny, what’s not to like?

There are so many small details packed into this that I notice new ones each rewatch. That kind of attention to detail makes the world seem so vibrant, as well. I love films that feel like the story you’re seeing is just a tiny part of everything else that’s going on.

Weird, awkward, and unsexy.

It feels like they cut down a full TV season into a film, or something. There’s a bunch of random characters and side stories that get one mention and then are never looked in on again. Everything seems to happen way too fast, with no time for it to have happened or for anything to have developed. Neither of the lead characters have any real depth to them.

Secretary this was not.

I like the 70s porn film vibes, and there are some amusing parallels drawn between the porn film they’re recording and the horror film they’re in.

The horror portion starts off well, and the effects are all pretty great, but it feels like it runs out of steam somewhat and the ending was a bit of a let down.

Wasn’t overawed with this, but it wasn’t terrible. Amanda Seyfried does a lot of carrying. J.K. Simmons has hair, which is by far the scariest thing in the whole movie. There were a few funny moments. Just perfectly middle-of-the-road.

There’s a kernel of a good story here, and good performances by everyone. But the plot is full of holes and other annoyances.

The plot holes aren’t the worst thing though. Oh, no. There’s something more terrifying than the audio jump scares, more horrifying than getting torn limb from limb by CGI things that wished they looked as good as the alien from Alien: the Whiteboard of Exposition. Every time it’s on screen it takes me out of the film. It’s just such jarringly bad, heavy handed, nonsensical exposition with a massive dollop of clumsy foreshadowing it makes me want to scream. Even if screaming would get me killed. Maybe especially if screaming would get me killed. ARGH.

I absolutely loathe the way this was filmed. I think the performances and the story have merit, but I just can’t appreciate them.

The obvious elephant in the room is the POV shots. I don’t outright hate the idea, but it’s way too shaky-cam-y for me, and in places it’s very obnoxious about not looking at things you want to look at. I actually quite liked the opening as you got glimpses of Elwood through reflections, but I wish it’d have snapped out to a normal perspective after it establishes the character.

On top of that there’s the aspect ratio, the random cutaways, archive footage, jumps in perspective, flash-forwards, screechy discordant soundtrack, and so on. It just feels messy to me, and distracts me from what’s going on.

I don’t really know what this film is. The plot doesn’t really make any sense. Jim Cummings’ character doesn’t really make any sense. It’s not really a horror, it’s not really funny.

Is it just a vehicle for Jim Cummings to act like a crazy person? At one point it felt like he was channelling Jim Carey as Ace Venture, but it felt weird and out of place here.

I’m just confused.

Jack Nicholson is amazing and the sets/style/cinematography work really well. It’s a superlative film in many ways.

But it wasn’t that entertaining for me. The cello screeches every time anything happened were amazingly, distractingly annoying, and the plot and characters just seem excessively shallow. There’s over two hours of runtime and only really three characters we care about, but the closest to character development we get is realising that Jack’s a dick.

I loved this as a kid when it first came out. Now… meh.

The score is great, and it has one of the most star-studded casts of any film I’ve ever seen, but the humour hasn’t really aged with me. It feels like this is the cheesy-sci-fi equivalent of Scream, but it’s nowhere near as sharp as that.

Until recently I thought I didn’t like horror movies. Turns out I do.

A very cool blend of originality and pointing out and laughing at all the typical scary movie tropes. Neve Campbell was fantastic as the lead.

Somehow despite it being out for nearly 30 years I’ve avoided spoilers and was surprised by the ending.

An OK rom-com with a sci-fi lilt.

Feel like it would’ve been better if they hung a lampshade on how clichéd the romance parts were. Aubrey Plaza’s character is cynical and jaded, and could quite easily have quipped something about playing a guitar around a campfire or something.

Also the side plot was weird.

Ah, another one for my collection of films that everyone seems to like that are complete misses for me.

All the characters are flat as a pancake. Whatever judgement you make in the first 5 seconds of seeing them is about right and then there’s no character development so you don’t need to ever reconsider that.

Similarly the plot is entirely linear and predictable. It’s basically fully described in the synopsis, and there’s nothing to make up for that. No subplots, no interesting exploration of anything, just carry on chasing that insubstantial main plot.

Mikey Madison did give a great performance, and there were a couple of unexpected funny moments, but neither can carry it past the other problems.

Hard to believe this came from the same director as The Florida Project.

I didn’t realise a rom-com could be so… epic. It has way too much cinematic clout for what it is, and it’s amazing.

It’s also stunning how good Lindsay Lohan is. She plays both roles perfectly, even though it was her first film and she was presumably acting to a stand-in every time Hallie and Annie are interacting. The editing that supports that is top-notch too.

Outrageously, excessively good for a biopic. Hugely emotional, and the music manages to tie everything together. The Rock DJ set piece feels like it was torn out of a British La La Land.

The monkey thing is a bit weird, but it works amazingly.

At one point during a particularly tense scene, someone slammed a door downstairs from me and I jumped so hard I very nearly hit the ceiling. And nothing actually ended up happening in that scene. The film was just that good at building up the tension and making you expect something.

Not entirely sure about the ending… If you told me they ran out of time or budget after filming the first two acts I’d readily believe you.

I love this film. Every joke gets a laugh from me. The soundtrack rocks. Olive is a great character and Emma Stone portrays her wonderfully.

Towards the beginning I was waiting for the chaos to settle into a more linear story. It never did, but I got into it enough to stop thinking about it.

A good dramatisation, but I don’t think I know enough about (early) SNL to fully appreciate a lot of it.

About as interesting as American Graffiti (pejorative; also is “high school kids wander around not doing much on a night just before they graduate” a genre?), but with a boat load of added swearing and cringe-y sex stuff that somehow makes it even worse.

I didn’t really know what I was in for when I started watching this.

Bella’s journey is fascinating, and is captured beautifully. Emma Stone absolutely nails her performance.

Just… wow.

Good bits: Calah Lane was wonderful, there were some very nice callbacks in the score to the original, the sets were uniformly good, and almost every scene with Hugh Grant was fun.

Bad bits: Timothée Chalamet doesn’t really do whimsical and doesn’t bring much to the musical front; the original songs were mostly forgettable; the plot was dull and predictable; Matt Lucas exists.

A delightful time-travel romp. There aren’t any big-budget special effects but there is a wonderful attention to detail in how the time travel works, which is normally missing in bigger productions.

What a delightful ride. I particularly loved some of the visual humour – the escape sequence was perfection.

A bit slow, and there’s not a lot to keep you hooked.

Some interesting shots, and Emma Watson playing someone who’s not straight-laced is a delight.

Feels a little shallow in places, and I don’t get why you’d willingly spoil part of your film in the marketing materials, but Sophie Thatcher’s performance makes up for a lot of it.

Some of the song choices were inspired, as well. Iris by Goo Goo Dolls blasting out as Josh receives the delivery was perfect.

A mostly well-executed zombie romance. Nicholas Hoult made for a great zombie, and Teresa Palmer put in a good performance as his opposite number.

Could have probably done with leaning more into horror or comedy or building up tension, as it was a little pedestrian and I’m not sure it’ll stand up to many rewatches. Definitely enjoyed it the first time, though.

I didn’t think I’d enjoy the humour in this, but decided to give it a go and see if I was wrong, or if the story/cast/etc would make up for it. Nope.

It’s basically all the puerile bits of Family Guy mashed together into a film with none of the wit.

I think I’d have given this the same score if the entire film was just Anna Kendrick in a sound booth singing. Maybe slightly higher, as I could have avoided hearing Russell Brand’s smarmy voice.

There really wasn’t anything else to write home about.

Funny in places, but surprisingly tame given the main conceit. Seems to try and convey emotions by having people make long sequences of weird faces, which is just, well, weird.

Funny in places, and a good performance by the three leads, but the plot mostly retreads ground covered by innumerable spy/action type films.

One of those films where it’s not immediately obvious to me how I feel about it.

What I do know is that the performance by Brooklynn Prince was amazing, the cinematography was great, and the story heart wrenching.

Fun enough, got a few laughs, but could have done with 100% less Jack Black.

Well done adaptation of the book. Great performances by the leads, and a good soundtrack to accompany it.

I can see how I could have loved this had I watched it 25 years ago.

As an adult there’s not a lot there for me. It’s rather heavy handed in the metaphors, and the ending was pretty terrible.

What do you call a plot that has so many holes there’s nothing left?

It’s almost so bad it’s good. Almost.

Funny romp, with a great performance by Donald Glover. Makes me think of Community in all the right ways.

This would’ve probably hit a lot differently pre-COVID…

The opening scenes were amazing cinema. The rest of the film had its ups and downs, but didn’t quite ever hit those opening notes again. Still a damn good film, though.

Had pretty low expectations of this, but it was actually pretty good fun. Made me laugh out loud a couple of times, had some decent action scenes, and Radcliff and Weaving were pretty damn good.

You can predict the entire plot within about 10 minutes of the film starting, but it’s still an amusing enough journey even if you know where you’re headed.

A fitting sequel. Eddie Murphy is still great, and Judge Reinhold and John Ashton’s characters get time to develop a bit more.

Fairly standard high-octane plot much like the first. Nothing groundbreaking, but decently entertaining none-the-less.

Nothing really wrong with this. It’s entertaining, funny in places, and gives a bunch of nods back to the original. It just doesn’t really tread any new ground, which is a bit of a shame.

Good cast, and the three leads were great together, it was just almost completely lacking in the comedy department.

Alien felt like a labour of love. The sets were really detailed, the characters fleshed out, the way the tension ratcheted up and up was exquisite. Aliens feels a lot more like a hollywood blockbuster, but it’s still a very good hollywood blockbuster.

I feel like the ending went off the rails a bit, though. Newt went into a child dispensing machine, so Ripley duct taped a bunch of guns and shit together, and ultimately the day was saved by product placement?

Moving drama, made all the more special by the majority of the cast being RTA participants themselves.

I get that they’re following the books, but this feels like a very odd section of the story to make a film out of. It doesn’t really stand on its own, and doesn’t contribute that much to the overall plot. It’s the slow burn in the middle before you get to the climax.

It’s not a bad film, though. It felt more together than the first one, and Jennifer Lawrence gave a great performance as before. Also a big fan of Elizabeth Banks, who got to show a bit more emotion in this one.

I think I’ve kind of been in a bubble… thinking that fairness was gonna just happen. It’s not. People like me are gonna have to get up off their fathers’ laps and go out and fight for it.

Feel-good story, with a couple of outstanding musical numbers, and a good ensemble.

The start was a bit rough, but the third act was great. It’s not very often that I’m so completely wrong about which direction a film is going.

Overall pretty entertaining, some funny moments, lots of action towards the end.

There were a good deal of funny moments in there, and the orchestral soundtrack and effects were great, but damn was it long.

As good as it was, if I had the choice between rewatching this or watching Airplane and having over an hour free for something else, there’s no competition.

Basically Toy Story, but with a large and entirely forgettable set of characters, people with weirdly shaped legs, and Kevin Hart’s voice.

Probably fine for young kids, but there was nothing at all to keep me interested.

This is in no way a Star Trek film. And if you ignore that fairly critical flaw, it’s still not any good.

The plot is trite and trope-y, the cinematography obnoxious, the characters unlikeable.

I assume this was made during the COVID-19 lockdown/restrictions, so I have to give it some credit for pulling off a movie in those conditions.

I don’t have much good to say about it aside from that, though. I guess if you’re really into random non-sequitur cameos then you’d like it a bit? There’s not much to the plot, or characters, and the cinematography is mostly focused on trying to make people look close who are actually stood 6 feet apart.

The whole film feels like a teenage fever dream. It’s Die Hard-esque, but has none of the fun, and on top of the oddly-slapped-on Christmas elements there’s oddly-slapped-on, almost-nonsensical US politics.

Some of the action sequences were fun, but don’t really make up for the film’s many other shortcomings.

I started watching this not long after it came out, and bounced off after about 15 minutes. After the slow start, though, it really gets going.

It’s a good homage to D&D, without letting it get in the way. There are plenty of references for people who know the material, but it’s not forced down your throat.

A couple of the CGI effects look very, very bad 30 years later, but other than that it holds up surprisingly well.

Robin Williams gives an excellent performance, and holds the film together. There’s a few great comedic moments sprinkled in, too.

Hmm… I think I liked this more than Inside Out, but it’s basically the exact same story dressed up differently, which makes for a pretty lousy sequel.

Can’t decide if this was meant to entertain kids or adults. It seems like it tried to do both and didn’t excel at either…

Pretty basic plot, too much exposition, pretty flat characters. But the animation was nice, and in a couple of brief moments it was outright beautiful.

This is two movies in one: a charming, funny one about a video store and a community around it; and then one with Jack Black playing a really annoying buffoon. I really like the first one, and really hate the second.

Fine… just not really my kind of thing. Three hours of debauchery, even while shot and acted well, is still just three hours of debauchery.

There were some funny bits, some good story bits, but overall it was just messy. Felt like there were too many different story strands going on, none of which were particularly compelling.

Tina Fey and Paul Rudd had good chemistry, but not enough to carry the film anywhere above ‘mediocre’.

I saw the musical version before this, so thought I knew what I was in for, but damn… I wasn’t prepared for how much more emotion is packed into this version.

Keri Russell absolutely kills it as Jenna, and Nathan Fillion pulls off a charming doctor (of course). The supporting cast does a great job, too.

I think the musical is a bit funnier (although this still has some great comedic moments), and fleshes out Ogie and Becky a bit better, but does so at the expense of some of the poignancy that this version has.

Adrienne Shelly was evidently a fantastic writer, director and actor, and it’s sad and maddening that she didn’t even get to see this get released, or work on anything else.

Now I’m going to go bake a pie.

Hack the planet

I love the aesthetics, the costumes, the language they use. Yes, the computer visualisations are all nonsense, but just staring at a console would be terrible cinema.

The plot isn’t amazingly complex, but it’s satisfying, and almost all the supporting characters get their moment to shine.

And if that wasn’t enough: Angelina Jolie.

Bigger, longer, and much worse than the original.

The whole thing is so over the top it’s annoying, the action sequences are so long they become boring and the comradery between the two leads has become annoying bickering.

I feel like I need to watch this again to get closer to understanding it.

There were bits that didn’t really hold my attention, but overall there was so much going on in different layers it’s hard to stop thinking about it.

A lot of films feel like books, where you follow the story along and that’s that. This feels more like a painting with lots of detail that leaves you confused as to how you feel when you walk away.

Probably wouldn’t have watched this had I read the description, but I clicked on it by mistake and am very glad that I did!

It’s about an alien, but it’s also about getting old and things that come with that. Ben Kingsley was great as the lead, the soundtrack was lovely, and there were a few laugh-out-loud funny moments, too.

It’s hard not to pick fault in the allegory, but it’s impressive it works as well as it does. There’s lots of fun little details that make me smile (Oh no! These facts and opinions look so similar!)

I also appreciate the portrayal of depression – of not being able to feel anything at all – rather than the usual “oh they’re just super sad”. If only you could fix it that easily in real life!

Animation was good, voice actors were superb.

First few watches this was an easy five star. This time through there were still a few interesting bits that I hadn’t noticed before, but as a whole it dragged on a bit.

Still a very clever, memorable film with great performances from Edward Norton and Brad Pitt. It should be very close to the top of every “must see” list.

Not for me. I found almost every character more annoying than funny, and there’s basically nothing there except for the characters.

If hell is real, then I imagine they force you to watch this nonsense on repeat.

The worst script of any film I’ve ever seen. All the characters except the leads are over-the-top caricatures that are just not funny. Almost all the attempts at humour are gross and crass and not funny in the slightest. (And I’m not saying that crass humour is not funny. It can be. They just completely missed the mark here.)

The worst part is it could actually be good. The cast is brilliant, some of the concepts could be fun to explore. Instead we just got this pile of crap.

One of those films where you finish watching and you have to sit for 10 minutes to let your brain calm down.

Not sure what to say about it other than “amazing”.

It feels like this really jumped the shark but… it works? They dropped all pretence of being serious, and mostly just had fun with it.

Not sure it works as a stand alone film, and I can’t think how they’d follow on from this, but as the final film in the trilogy it’s a very nice conclusion.

Eddie Murphy is great as Axel Foley, and his humour carries the film.

Truly dismal. Bad songs, bad singers, boring presentation, worse plot.

I don’t get how the critical reviews of this are so good.

Classic, absurdist humour that’s aged remarkably well.

The opening credits are funnier than some modern comedies.

Wonderfully acted, choreographed, filmed, and so on. Some of the big set pieces are amazing. I really appreciate Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone actually singing, and not being dubbed or autotune’d to hell and back. Overall a spectacular film that deserved the slew of awards it won

But… I don’t really gel with the characters. I’m not invested in them, and that makes the whole thing a bit of a drag.

Classic, fun, light-hearted sci-fi romp. Still holds up well after all these years.

So I don’t really like superhero films, and have never been into Spider-Man, but thought I’d give this a shake based on the overwhelming reviews.

And… meh. The animation style is nice when it’s not super frenetic. The plot is standard boring superhero stuff. The characters are standard boring superhero characters that mostly just spit one-liners. Whatever it is that people love about this, I’m not getting it.

I loved this as a kid, but it turns out it’s really, really rough.

Wasn’t as smooth as the original, but it’s still a pretty good instalment.

Hailee Steinfeld was a great addition, and Elizabeth Banks and John Higgins continue to delight as the comic foils

Excellent cast, and it manages to blend funny moments in with serious action and heartwarming bits.

I don’t think I’m American enough or into cars enough to appreciate this. The most bored I’ve been watching a film in a long time.

I was expecting something like Pitch Perfect, not… whatever this was.

In the face of overwhelming odds, I’m left with only one option: I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this!

The novel is one of my favourites, and Ridley Scott certainly did a damn good adaptation, with a great cast.

My only complaint is that it cuts out a lot of the “working the problem” between things happening and subsequently being fixed. Mark comes across as almost super-human in his ability to pull a solution out of his ass, rather than just being a good astronaut who can work things out given enough time. I get that wouldn’t be compelling cinema to watch him look things up and work things out, but we could’ve probably dropped one or two “counting out the food” sequences in favour of it, no?

Dude, this thing claims I have mail!

Weird, but a good weird.

A great performance, wonderfully captured for film. You know you’re watching a stage show still, but it doesn’t get in the way.

Its tunes might not be as catchy as Hamilton, but it has a lot of heart (and sugar, and flour, and butter…). All the characters feel like real people with their own things going on, they’re not just side pieces to move the script along.

Gripping, disturbing thriller, with good acting and good cinematography.

Fun, wonderfully animated, and with great songs. The final number was peak Lin-Manuel Miranda.

I loved the TV series, but this was a bit all over the place.

It’s trying to tell a story after all the characters have moved on, but without deviating too much from the original formula, which doesn’t work terribly well. And in telling the story it seems like they pick plot (and sequel opportunities?) over actually honouring Veronica as a character.

Not terrible, but a bit of a let down as the capstone for an amazing TV series.

Who would have thought a tech company wouldn’t have our best interests at heart?

Great blend of comedy, references, nostalgia, superb animation, and good sounds. The plot isn’t anything special, but everything else keeps it moving and entertaining.

Oh, if we’re going to fanboy about a screw drive, then my good friend Mr Torx would like a word.

Maybe I don’t get on with American ‘dark comedy’ films. Wasn’t funny enough to be a comedy, and wasn’t interesting enough to be much else.

Ryan Reynolds actually played a character that didn’t just throw quips out, though!

The credits were the best part.

I don’t know why, but I’ve never been particularly taken with Indiana Jones.

Harrison Ford puts on a great performance, and the score is great, but other than that… meh?

The thing that really gets me with this outing is that Indy doesn’t really make any difference to anything. He’s running around like mad, doing all his cool action sequences and so on, but the Nazis end up with the Ark anyway and then they get deus-ex-machina’d. He’s entirely superfluous to the main plot.

Super tense, with a great performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Some interesting cinematography with basically everything being shot in a single small location.

Wonderfully animated, but it didn’t really do anything for me.

The White House is taken over by far-right nutjobs? Can’t imagine that ever happening in real life…

Fun enough action, albeit pretty generic and predictable, and it seemed to struggle to decide when to be funny and when to be serious.

Gibbs did always have a thing for redheads…

Enjoyable, and both Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis knocked it out of the park, but man did I get a LOT of second-hand embarrassment. Had to stop and take a break a few times in the middle.

Pretty standard over-the-top buddy cop flick, but Will Smith and Martin Lawrence work so well together.

Decent entry in the silly, over-the-top violence, vigilante genre

Weird and a bit skeevy but also not terrible?

Psych was a great TV show, and the movie does it justice.

Shame Timothy Omundson couldn’t be in it properly

Middling sci-fi, with Ryan Reynolds just doing his usual annoying thing.

Would’ve rated it higher but the ending of the final big set piece was utter nonsense.

Emotionally heavy, but also sort of cathartic. Felt like a really good approach, and Anna Kendrick was great.

I think I blinked and missed the comedy.

A bit cringey in places for my tastes, but overall still very enjoyable, with a satisfying ending.

Still stunning. The characters, the sets, the way the tension is built up…

I don’t know how to rate or review this. It’s obviously vastly different to any piece of modern cinema, but is an important piece of historical context.

Good cast, but nothing else really stood out for me.

Some good musical numbers, and a good supporting cast.

The plot was so thin you could see the three-act structure showing through, though!

Visually stunning, but otherwise boring as hell. I’m not sure there was a plot as such, it just bounced from one idea to another. The protagonist is flat and unlikeable, and no other character really has any depth or development.

Such a phenomenal musical. Every single song and every single cast member hits it out of the park. There’s so much story in there, and it’s told so well. The way the songs build up and riff on one another is fantastic.

I’m so glad they did a lightly edited film of the musical instead of adapting it for the screen and casting a bunch of hollywood stars that can’t sing.

Best romance between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling I’ve seen.

Weirdly, not the best film with Emma Stone that references The Scarlet Letter.

Seriously, though, funny in the right places with an excellent cast, and the way everything comes together towards the end is brilliant.

Horribly gratuitous in many ways, but underneath that there’s something interesting.

Reasonable adaptation. It’s still a YA novel at heart, with everything that goes with that.

Felt like it was laying things on a bit thick cinematography-wise, with the difference in colours, frenetic camera motions, and so on.

Emma is, of course, beautiful but she obviously can’t sing these kind of songs, and she didn’t seem to get on with most of the CGI-y scenes. Awful casting.

Speaking of CGI, the beast looks like a cheap X-Files monster-of-the-week.

Then I don’t understand why they stuck so close to the original yet messed around with it quite as much.

Both the leads are fantastic, as is the main story. There’s a few side arcs that just kind of peter out, but they don’t distract that much.

“INCONCEIVABLE” — Grand Nagus Zek

Funny, heart-warming, great casting.

Tina Fey and Steve Carell are my favourite comedic actors, but they don’t really get a chance to shine in this.

Holds up surprisingly well

Charming, nicely animated, but a bit slow and predictable in places for me

It’s a pretty formulaic action film, but it’s very good at what it does.

A bit like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, this doesn’t so much have a plot as much as a gentle meander through a day.

Went in blind with no expectations, and was blown away. It’s a wonderful tribute to early cinema, wrapped up in a great story.

Comfort film. What it lacks in interesting plot it makes up for with great characters and singing.

What a ride. I don’t know what I expected going in, and I’m not sure what I think on the way out, but it was a very fun journey in between.

A musical with a single good song, and just two good singers who weren’t really given room to do their thing. Instead of sticking too closely to the actually good story in Mean Girls they skip important points, watered it down, and interspersed it with too many faux-tiktok things and an obscene amount of product placement.

It’s weird they made an entire film based on that one episode of community.

Funny with a good cast, albeit somewhat formulaic and shallow

Often it seems that sequels forget most of what the original film was about, but Maverick manages to capture the best bits of Top Gun and bring them up to date.

Good fun, holds up reasonably well still

The homages to the original were nice, and Jenna Ortega and Michael Keaton gave good performances. It felt like the rest of the cast were basically sleepwalking, but maybe it was just their characters that were bad?

Urgh. Lacks any of the sense of awe from the original. There’s no world building. There’s none of the quiet competence that the scientists (and children!) had in the original. There’s an entire armoury of completely obvious, undisguised Chekhov’s guns. Even the score is forgettable compared to the original. What a mess.

Heartfelt, funny, but a bit on the short side.

Maybe this is some cultural divide thing, but I don’t think any of the humour landed for me.

I kinda hate Columbus as a character. Does he have any redeeming qualities?

So Ferris is kind of an ass, but there’s something about the wonderful carefree romp he goes on that’s just delightful.

Classic, easy to watch, great soundtrack

Still as good on the nth rewatch as it was to begin with.

Great cinematography, great performances by basically the entire cast (but especially Hugo Weaving), amazing world building.

I feel like this rests pretty hard on its “look, nazis are bad” laurels.

The short-lived action sequences are good, but everything else is just a bit phoned in. There’s not enough time given to explore the characters, events, motives, etc, the whole film is just an inexorable trudge through events.

Great cyberpunk, good story, interesting characters. Would be a perfect 10/10 if it wasn’t for the asinine decision to have a protagonist who’s firmly in the uncanny valley. Her eyes offend my eyes.

There’s a kernel of goodness, but it feels more like a 20 minute short gratuitously padded out to feature length.

Wasn’t expecting much, but actually really enjoyed it.

It’s standard spy comedy stuff, but Steve Carell makes for the perfect bumbling spy, and Anne Hathaway as his beautiful comedic foil is icing on top.

Slow and meandering, with twists telegraphed hours in advance, and a bunch of loose ends.

Err…. What?

Dwayne Johnson plays a generic Dwayne Johnson character; Ryan Reynolds plays a generic Ryan Reynolds character; the plot plays a generic heist plot.

I am not a computer nerd. I prefer to be called a hacker!

Jurassic Park might be the perfect film. It has one of the best scores ever, good action sequences, effects that still on the whole look decent after 30-odd years, a decent set of characters, and (of course) dinosaurs.

Perfectly serviceable, fun in places, but overall nothing to write home about

Andy Samberg is a genius.

Fairly generic sci-fi but still comfortably fun.

Yvonne Strahovski was amazing.

Phenomenal. Where part one felt a bit like it was being too big for its boots, part two filled them, and then some.

A fun, feel-good ride.

Got hit by massive secondhand embarrassment in a few scenes and struggled to get through them.

One of those “how on earth have I never actually watched this before?” films.

Kinda underwhelming.

Eh. I like Weird Al, but the absurdist humour just didn’t land very well in film form for me.

I knew my expectations were totally wrong (in a good way) when it opened with an homage to 2001.

Even Richard Ayoade couldn’t save this.

It went for lowest-common-denominator humour and then somehow managed to miss the mark even with that.

Such a good comedy, it’s impressive how many visual gags they pack in.

I can’t believe how offensively bad this is. I thought maybe all the other reviews just hadn’t played the games and there’d be some kind of redemption. But no.

So it’s the Borderlands universe, and Borderlands characters, but with barely any resemblance to their namesakes other than their outfits. Also for some reason all the female characters except Tina have aged 20 years?

The plot is basically non-existent, the humour from Borderlands is AWOL, character personalities are flatter than a pancake, and the CGI just has a weird uncanny valley effect for me.

It’s almost worth watching just to see how unbelievably bad it is.

I had almost no context going into this, other than knowing it’s a musical with at least a few catchy songs, and Lin-Manuel Miranda was involved somehow.

I was not prepared for the emotion.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing; only I will remain.

I loved Dune (at least the first trilogy), and this was a mighty fine adaptation of it.

My only note is that it just felt a bit… full of itself? So many big set pieces where they’re just not needed, it feels like a lot of time is spent trying to convey how impressive the film is rather than contributing to the actual story.

A romcom that brings the humour and narration style of Scrubs? Yes, please.

Not sure why it took me 15 years to get round to watching this, but there we go.

I love the cinematography. It feels like you’re watching something different, not just another generic action flick.

I don’t love the scalping so much.

Ryan from The Office being there was a bit weird.

Expected more to happen given the runtime.

A fair number of the songs just didn’t land for me.