Reviews

It's a reboot. It's a musical. Is it plastic fantastic? Maybe.

It's 2024 and a new generation of it-girl plastics are ruling the roost. Except in the age of socials, rather than dominating the halls, it appears the queens of the moment have to satisfy themselves with being legends on their own screens. The musical aspects are a fun new (ish) direction, but it seems the recycling process takes the edge off our rehashed polymer pretties. Are gen zalpha soft? Have our PC sensibilities made our hard drives go floppy? Or has Tina Fey just lost the nerve to sharpen her claws in her sixth decade? Probably a bit of all the above. We live in different times, and this iteration of the plastic fantastic go heavy on the back-references and plays on in jokes, pulling their punches in preference of froth and uplift.

The film is fun, and watchable to the end, but it is a different beast. This is most certainly not your mother's Mean Girls. And it clearly never intended to be. It's softer it's cuddlier. It's cuter. The monster teeth are definitely fake, and they're discarded almost as quickly as the book of burn.

The team behind this film clearly are fans of 80s B-grade classics like Once Bitten and its ilk. The film was clearly modelled on such fare, trying for the same sassy 1980s style with a few peripheral updates to pull the film into the 21st century. With tighter production it might almost have hit the mark. Unfortunately, the film as delivered falls short. Maybe 80s chatty comedy horror just doesn't work in the modern meilleau. Maybe a tighter package would have gotten it over the line...

The film is intermittently in possession of most of the key elements of its more successful predecessors (down to its synth-heavy soundtrack), but tends toward being loose and uneven, and prone to meander. Its cast is sufficiently attractive and adequately skilled, and most of them have moments of on-point delivery, but somehow their performances get lost in the folds of the films excesses. And in terms of excesses, I'm not talking about gore - the film virtually has none. In fact, it really could have gone far harder on the horror aspect, which might have acted as an elevating counterpoint to its more syrupy heart.

All in all, it has enough charm to keep you watching to the end, but could have been so much more than the parts it scatters around liberally.

This film is a masterclass in slow-burn tension. It hits an exquisitely unsettling tone from the beginning, and slowly works its way into the cracks in your foundations until nothing seems stable or reliable. You too will soon be trying to read the tea leaves to scry which signs are significant, and which are red herrings.

The stellar cast isn't selected to be a stacked deck - their true draw is in their chemistry. These old hands ring true, and their star status is quickly dispatched to the background of their excellent performances, their gravitas lending just the right tone to make these characters believable.

A family with problems is forced to mesh with another troubled duo, and everyone holds their cards close to their chests. Trust is a scarce commodity, and as the threads of the familiar unravel, choices about allegiances and priorities need to be made.

It is unclear who the aggressor is, but it is clear that the world's unravelling is of our own doing.

A litany of putrefied cinematic sins, sloppily contained in a thin polymer skin:

• Inane story
• Cardboard acting
• Self indulgent slo-mo interstitial sequence
• Infuriating dialogue
• Terrible effects
• Anachronistic technology with no explanation
• Strange scoring choices
• Deranged casting/geriatric 20-somethings
• Technobabble
• Non-existent cast chemistry
• Molecule-thin disposable stereotyped characters
• Redundant plot devices
• Inconsistent character behaviours
• Painfully unrewarding predictability
• Trying sooo hard for that 'R', not deserving it

Lawnmower man eat your heart out (this filmgives instructions).

This film is a deliciously crunchy social commentary comestible. Subversively slow-burn at first, almost to the point of being painful, it soon accelerates exponentially into flaming brilliance.

The casting is brilliant, the performances spot-on. Well crafted writing and sharp direction back this up to ensure the film delivers on all levels. If you like your humour dark, with a touch of the acrid, you will be in for a treat. This one grabs you by the gut and doesn't let up once it gets going.

No one, and I mean no-one, it spared from a skewering in this observation of human nature and social dynamics in a world that's lost its balance.

This is about as low budget as it gets. The acting is at best mediocre, and at its worse, plain terrible. And yet a couple of characters manage to elicit sympathy. Robert Posey even approaches something resembling charming likability on a couple of occasions (at least, I wouldn't kick him out of bed on a cold night).

Direction and camera work is cliched at best, and sloppy at worst, as is the writing and editing. Yet I willingly watched the film to its predictable end. Most of the film is glacial character ... um ...familiarisation. The action all happens in the third act. The perpetrator's identity is obvious pretty-well immediately, and any attempt to rotate through diversions and misdirections is managed ham-fistedly. There is nothing scary about the slicing and dicing in this gorefestlet, and scenes that try for tension are as phoned in as the film's many prank calls. But somehow, somehow, this film remains fun. Maybe it gets away with being so bad that it's good. Or at least not offensively devoid of any likability. Or maybe I just had a thing for Posey. We shall never know.

As a child in the 80s, watching this on VHS, DOTTT scared the bejibbers out of me. I actually started avoiding the lilies in our garden (I thought they looked like the beeb's well-realised, if plasticy, rendition). Rewatching The Triffids in my 20s, I was disappointed; it seemed dated and flat to eyes that were at that time wowed by early CG, and disinterested in practical effects. I don't think I made it through the 1st episode. Fast forward a decade or so, and this time around, watching on @plex, I quite enjoyed the mini-series, and appreciate it as a well-crafted product of its time. The sound design & score are awesome, and the acting spot on. Smart and artful storytelling, that was aware of its own production limitations and worked creatively to excel within its capabilities. A 'what-if' for the ages. And I still call lilies Triffids.

Wasted effort. Wasted resources. Wasted time.

The kinder part of my inner dialogue about this film murmurs that this is a potentially decent film that was decimated by COVID restrictions. There are indeed references to lockdown that nod at this possibility. But I don't think that COVID is what passed this film through the Blend-Tek. The writers had the seeds of a good idea, then cast them adrift into the winds of possibility. And they blew away.

The opening sequence had the makings of an ok teen adventure sci-fi, but the film makers' kludgy introduction of a "door" slammed that possibility shut. The subsequent sequences are unevenly paced, fragmented, mismatched and incoherent. Attempts at surrealism look like cheap stoner art. Attempts to tug on emotional heart strings and to impart a sense of eeriness or awe fall totally flat. Interwoven social commentary is ham-fisted and inelegant. Special effects look worse than cheap. The acting isn't even zoom-meetinged in. Even when it is.

Nothing useful is done to tie this jumbled anthology piece together. Rather than a symphony of unique, mind-blowing segments coming together and playing off each other to impart a cosmic message, this looks like a bottom-of-the-bin grab-bag bundle from a goodwill fire sale. A competent director may have done something interesting with this idea, even during the COVID lockdown. That is not what we have here.

M, F, K? K.

OMFG. Bruce Willis is an actor that a director has to know how to use to get the best out of. He has the acting chops, comic timing, and a star-quality presence, but to get an audience to buy what Willis is selling, the director has to package it right. This director couldn't wrap a Rubik's cube, let alone a complex beast like Willis, and he clearly couldn't afford a gift bag in which to hide his lack of packaging skills. Hence, Willis comes off as a cheap cardboard cutout, on which the film unfortunately blew the majority of its budget.

Thrown in with a discount-store 'junior Colin Farell and Jodie Foster knockoff Chinese Action Figurine' value pack, Willis doesn't even phone it in. In fact, I'm not sure if he even could be gifted with a generous "he texted it in". Thomas Jane gets off lightly by spending the great majority of the film in cryosleep - he may be able to wash off his association with this fetid puddle of space horror trope-vomit, given enough time.

This film lacks any originality, and is so mono-dimensional that any (possible?) attempt to tip its hat to the genre's greats telegraphs desperation, not pizzaz. The sets look like an elementary school cardboard diorama, and nothing is done to meaningfully disguise its low-budget nature. Foley frequently neglects to mask hollow, wooden clunks and thuds on walls and surfaces that should be metal. Lighting is flat and atmosphere-destroying (I've seen better-lit budget 1990s cable soap operas). Colour grading seems to favour uneven, generic "point and shoot" settings. Special effects are, well, bad. Some of the monster stuff is actually ok when hidden in the mist, but the ships and space scenes are worse than budget Dr who ships from the 70s, and effects such as muzzle flare look painted in with 80s paintbox technology.

I not sure what this film thinks it is, but it isn't. Urgh. Raw sewage.

Whilst I'm all for this indie's politics and messaging, as a cautionary tale this dystopian exploration of a near-term fascist America lacks the twists and turns it needs to make it a compelling view. It is blunt, direct and matter of fact, all of which is fine, but for all its starkness, there is little intrigue and no spark to keep the fires of interest burning. The scary thing is that the scenario depicted is so close to today's reality, we're already numb to the message held within. The film really needed to turn it up a notch, tighten up the narrative, and make something interesting happen.

Politics 8 Acting 4 Narrative 4 Cinematography 4

This tautly constructed thriller manages a continual slow-burn build-up of unease, knowing just how to twist and grate, and when to throw in the odd jolt, to keep you from settling into a dinner-party comfort zone as the narrative sails its course through various dinner-party ups and downs to a decisively delivered final act.

You will throughout the film find yourself yelling at the well-crafted characters, at times telling them to chill, and at other times imploring them to exit the dinner party, only to find yourself suddenly second guessing your instincts, as the characters' journey becomes your own. The director gives you space to see the lead protagonist's interactions with many of his friends, but doesn't allow you an objective view of events - your experience of his fractured night is subjective, and thus veiled by potentially distorting emotional baggage and mistrust. The world the director builds feels complex and textured, yet also claustrophobic and unsettling. Your inability to step back and see events in a broader context is the same constraint experienced by the key characters. This is masterful film making at work.

This film has been blessed with a layered and nuanced attention to detail. Smart choices in classic mid-century modern architecture and interiors ensure a sense of warm familiarity - even if you don't hold dinner parties yourself, the voyeuristic shots of hushed conversations and personal moments through gaps in dark-wood doors should trigger childhood memories of being in orbit of similar soirées. Part of your brain is telling you that you should be comfortable in this plush setting, yet we are never allowed to settle into a comfortable corner. The director denies us a coherent mental map of the home that acts as the universe in which this tale unfolds; every location feels subtly isolated, building on the sense that there is more to this night than meets the eye, always something hidden off camera or around a corner. Camera angles and framing ensure we are gently pummelled by shots showing stairs and doors that lead to dark, mysterious nooks and crannies, or views from high or low positions where we are unable to relax. Is everything what it seems to be? Your thoughts and wishes regarding this will evolve as the film progresses.

Well worth a watch.

The lead antagonist is not the only one suffering from delusions in this film. Adonis, like its Imperfect Host, has a little bit of an identity crisis. The film is unsure if it is a black comedy, a thriller, or a slasher. It never fully commits itself to any of these genres, and instead chooses to slowly oscillate between these three centres of gravity, managing an uneasy orbit through this trinary system of pathos and despair.

Somehow, this works. The acting is lumpy, and the pacing is a little deranged, yet it is watchable from start to finish. There are attempts at obfuscation, of layered narrative and meanings within meanings; all of this is fairly trite, but not so malodorous that I was compelled to rage-quit the movie.

There is little originality in this film, but that really isn't what this melange of genres is about. It does manage to engender feelings of unease and tension, and this is what counts. Watchable, if you have the time to give to an imperfect, but adequate, low-budget attempt.

Guide to those who choose to wade in - do not set your heart on a sophisticated, slick piece of Hollywood disaster-flare, nor on a deeply philosophical art house diatribe reflecting on our societal ills. This is low budget fare, unabashedly and to its core. More a buddy film / road trip set in after the apocalypse than anything else, this film isn't going to challenge your intellect or your adrenal glands. It is sweet, a little corny, and intermittently sticks it's tongue in its cheek often enough to keep things light. It ambles and rambles, but does manage to keep itself generally on course. One of those flicks that packs in a range of quirky characters and events, yet not too much of great consequence, but with enough of a glittery thread running through it to pull you through to its neatly woven end.

This low-budget melodrama has something going for it, because I somehow watched it to the end. It is based on a very shaky premise, and exhibits a poor understanding of physics; I nearly turned it off many times, yet somehow it keep me from committing to the urge to put it out of its misery. The acting is frequently over-wrought, and the dialogue cheesy, the narrative riddled with plot holes, continuity blasphemies, technical improbabilities and outright impossibilities, but the film is not without its charms. Beyond the pretty actors, I'm not sure what those are, but somehow a combination things, maybe even the fact that it is trying hard to be more than its constituent parts, is what gets it over the line. Somehow it does rise above its myriad imperfections.

It's not a new premise by any measure, but the narrative and dialogue has enough originality to hold some interest. There are moments of brilliance in the cinematography, like islands in a sea of low budget mediocrity. "Futurising" the present by dropping in the odd cheesy special effect really doesn't work; either go all the way, or be way more subtle. This is just disjointed world-building that drops the viewer out of the story.

The acting and dialogue is like the cinematography. Inconsistent. Moments of beauty and powerful nuance, drowning in acres of awkward and stilted.

I'm glad Dean can still get work. I've always had a soft spot for him. He's not a great actor, and his 50+ years sans A-grade Hollywood cosmetic surgery/stylist/nutritionist/trainer budget are showing, but he seems like such a nice guy. He deserves a shot, and this film shows not all hope is lost.

This confused no-budget creature feature has the narrative efficiency of a senile gas-bag. Padded with a megaton of listless filler, when the action finally kicks in, this nutty-whip treat delivers an infuriatingly unsatisfying payoff reminiscent of pure gut-wracking, watery, ass-burning amoebic dysentery.

In this subtly surreal and metaphorically deep tale of sex, identity, discovery and isolation, our adventurist hustler is the queer Everyman. Flowing, Chameleonic, from one encounter to the next, the handsome traveller is anything to anyone, finding his niche in everyone's cracks. His looks are the skeleton key to any door, his adaptability and relaxed air of authenticity a weaponised tool of disarmament. His ability to connect and expose a John's core needs are the ultimate instruments of compulsion with which he seals each deal. Fluidity is his craft, and his engaged, candid willingness to fill every desirous hole, be it emotional or physical, is the ultimate tool of his trade, satisfaction guaranteed. But the intimacy is illusory, and the deep, knowing connection merely artifice. What lives on the inside is hidden, even from himself. Crossing that boundary is the ultimate taboo, yet paradoxically the path to true elation, maybe even salvation.

The first act was a distressingly convoluted, high-speed multi-vehicle car-wreck. I honestly thought I might have to exit the cinema as I couldn't follow what was going on, and it was all happening so quickly that it bordered on an unbearable assault of the cerebral cortex. (I think JJ was busy trying to grab all the threads left flying in the wind by the previous 2 films, and weave something meaningful out of them. He didn't manage to knit together anything more than a face-full of sticky and annoying spiders' webs). Then things got better. Slowly. The second act calmed the pace down, developed something resembling a coherent plot, and was predominantly marred by poorly written dialogue and slabs of wooden acting. Oh, and some cheap narrative slight of hands that serve to distance the audience from the story through short-changing them on authenticity.

Then, amazingly, the third act was reminiscent Star Wars at its best. The characters developed depth, the narrative became emotionally engaging, and the audience was invested into what was happening on the screen. Focus was regained, and the film managed to approach redemption.

Three films in one - and only one worthy of the Star Wars name. At least that one ended the saga.

Cheesy, awkward, clunky, oddly-paced and sometimes disjointed... Yet somehow endearing. Every time I reached for the remote to put it out of its misery, I was somehow compelled to give it just a few more minutes. They may not be the best actors on the block, but the on-screen team managed to keep me entangled.

Has all the pieces, doesn't seem to know how to put them together. Far less witty than it thinks it is. Self aware to the point of being painful, yet way less "Meta" than it congratulates itself for being; it cranks all the wrong variables up to "11".

Predictable script, cheesy dialogue, flakey acting, cheap CG FX, bargain basement highschool drama club plane set (you could drive a truck down the plane's centre aisle, and the cargo hold looks like a storage locker, complete with concrete floor and vertical walls).

Watchable, but cringeworthy. Good for a laugh - good enough for a Halloween popcorn filler-flick... As long as you have better fare to pair it with.

As a low-budget Indy, Rink is relatively competently constructed and works quite well. Nothing in the film is exceptional, but the film is certainly watchable. The characters are often endearing - if overdrawn even for a quirky comedy - and the dialogue has enough spark to carry a plot in which not a great deal happens. This is a camped- up snapshot of American suburbia and its functional dysfunctionals that lacks finesse but has its charms. Timing could be tightened up, and some of the sequences compacted and/or removed, but as the work of a young crew, this team shows some promise. None of the acting is stellar, but Zach Honer is one to watch for possible future character roles that call for an awkward, quirky yet appealing type; along with Ann Keen, he is probably one of the best cast leads.

Another life starts off very thinly spread, with discordant performances, and thinly sketched characters seeming to bounce off the narrative's walls, doing odd things with seemingly little motivation. As the characters bed in, and the backstory is filled, the characters acquire depth and appeal, and the story becomes more engaging. Not Netflix's best work, but solidly watchable all the same.