I Just Watched (Films)

[Wrathbone]

True Romance

1993 classic, directed by Tony Scott, written by Quentin Tarantino. It's such a beautiful film; one of my absolute favourites. Everything about it is so good.

Funnily enough, I watched it for the first time a couple of months ago. Thoroughly enjoyed it, just a damn good film all round.

[Stormbringer]

I watched it many years ago; not sure when...but 20+ years for certain. It was a real treat to watch it again last night and find it still holds up beautifully.

[Lenny Solidus]

The Crow (2024)

Every once in a while a movie comes along that you love so dearly you find a way to directly incorporate it into your life by whatever form that might be and sometimes even for extremely near fate lead reasonings. For me the original Crow not only became a film I treasured surrounding everything from the story the look the soundtrack the action the characters acting messaging that all so completely captured my imagination. It goes without saying that it's a very special film to me.

Spoiler

I even at the time had a life-size poster of its star adorning my study wall for years that was a constant talking point leading up to its release. Next came my first sons birth and as a quick recap it went like this...awaiting the birth for over seven hours I was eventually told go home it's not happening today even though I insisted I stay, went home and The Crow just happened to be havings it tv debut that very same evening...halfway through viewing I get the call, get to the Hospital right now. I miss the birthing by mere moments and am obviously rather devastated after insisting so adamantly that I shouldn't leave. Upon eventually returning home once more, I find that the Crow poster that has remained unmoved for years has suddenly folded itself in half while I was away. It is right there and then after countless earlier discussions taking on all that had happened that we choose to name our first son after the late sure to be great Brandon Lee, the signs were all there - plain as day.

The original movie obviously became much beloved cult classic for multiple reasons you already know far too well, as such, to think of even attempting anything in the form of a reimagining or remake was never going to be met with anything but ire and complete and utter scepticism. Nobody wanted this thing made, many looked at it in poor taste to even attempt such a thing (of course given both the true life tragedy that directly inspired its creation and that which occurred during its production) and most made it clear that original The Crow should be allowed to be a - timeless classic...personally I have a bit of soft spot for City of Angels though which went through its own challenges to get made also and Iggy Pop's lurid mouth fingering still haunts my fucking dreams.

So now we have The Crow 2024 starring Bill (suddenly I'm in everything like Pedro Pascal) Skarsgård and yes quite overwhelmingly the calls to please don't attempt to make this no good can come of it cries were all spot on. There are so many misguided downright misaligned creative decisions made concerning this film given the wonderful source material, I don't even know where to begin that make one certain truth known...it doesn't work either in this format or in this modern era setting, at all. Ironically, I was one of the rare few who enjoyed Rupert Sanders Ghost in the Shell movie (for shame I know) but his vision of the Crow is an all filler convoluted disjointed passionless fucking mess that fails to confidently touch or deliver on anything it rightly should have been able to. Bill is portrayed as the weakest form of vengeful ghost I have ever seen in a movie, with more than half of the running time taken up by scenes that offer nothing and are so poorly jarringly handled/edited that you struggle to keep up. It's all over the place, with never enough time to get you invested in anything beyond the can we please please just get to the Crow aspect of the movie already type desperate wanting it holds at bay for far too long. And even when it does decide to entertain the whole Crow aspect, it's presented as little more than weak ass exposition and Bill being pushed into a puddle over and over.

I felt nothing...nothing for Eric and Shelly this time around...the movie serves up bugger all to make you even remotely invested in the two. Bill is just all out miscast, sure yes he has the look once he dons a leather jacket makeup but beyond that he offers us nothing to root for him and his usual competent to great acting ability exits stage left for the majority of the movie. He is in all honesty far better than this, there's nothing given to him to truly take it to anything other than a distinctly frustratingly mediocre level the writing sucks the bad guys suck the action if and when anything happens sucks and there's absolutely no weight given to any of it - it's just slice shoot and continue, the very couple we are intended to root for, they just kind of suck. Somehow they even did the impossible and made Danny Huston a terrible villain, fucking bravo.

In all honesty I couldn't bring myself to even finish watching this nonsense, swiftly reached out to the power down button as it entered its so-called "climax" and went straight to sleep. Nothing of value was lost. Made on a $50 million budget the film made just $24 million WW. 24. Holy shit, that's just enough to cover the catering service.

Let that be a stern warning for all that some things should just be left well alone.

2 Lame Crows out of 10

It Can't Be Shit All the Time.

[Lenny Solidus]

Also, I promise whatever my next review shall be is a positive one...I don't wish to be the guy who only posts mostly routinely negative reviews.

Just a lot of movies are terrible.

[Animalmother]

Sounds very similar to that fucking rancid Robocop remake from a few years ago. Utterly no understanding of what made the original so iconic.

[Stormbringer]

3:10 to Yuma

I watched this western in the cinema back in 2007 because the trailer on YouTube really excited me. Unfortunately, the real film annoyed me, firstly because of how dull it was...and secondly because I hated Russell Crowe's character so much. He's a murderer and thief, but they present him as this charming Long John Silver anti-hero type who is supposed to be interesting because he can draw, read, memorise Scripture, and smooth-talk women. Christian Bale's character, on the other hand, is boring as boring can get.

I thought, perhaps, a second viewing with the addition of 18 years of life experience would perhaps give me a new perspective. But no, it didn't. I felt exactly as I did before about it. Any film that stars Crowe and Bale together and manages to leave me feeling this flat cannot be good.

[Raid]

F1

I think the best thing I can say about this is that I'm a massive F1 fan and this feels like an authentic representation of the sport, and a reasonably decent film. I don't watch a lot of sports movies, but the access granted to this is what makes it. It's not a particularly interesting story, but it doesn't feel like it's overly-Hollywoodised given that all of the major events aren't a million miles away from recent events in Formula 1. It does make a few silly mistakes that could annoy fans of the sport; firstly it features the Mexican Grand Prix before Belgium for no reason I can think of, and it uses the McLaren Technology Centre, arguably one of only two recognisable F1 factories, as the base for the film's team, despite McLaren clearly also being present in the sport. Having a McLaren car as a backdrop in another team's owner's office feels completely out of place. I can't say I'm much of a fan of Hayes or Pierce, the film's protagonists, but the racing footage is exceptionally well done for the most part, and the participation of real F1 people feels just a little bit special. All of the race footage is commentated by Brundle and Crofty (and it's not just excerpts from real races, they've clearly recorded new lines and they sound completely authentic).

I don't know if this is going to win over new people and bring them into the sport, but it's a very good effort at representing it on the big screen. It's much better than Drive to Survive.

[Lenny Solidus]

The Fantastic Four (2025)

I am truly amazed this movie even exists in 2025, Phase 5 was and shall always be forever remembered as an unmitigated disaster, there, I said it. Sure you can oh what about Deadpool/Wolverine and what about Guardians 3 - and I'll reply with well I guess they were passable. That's all however, a decent enough distraction but nothing more. Fantastic Four in this new phase, I was always extremely hopeful for but once they dropped the trailer and The Thing sounded like he did, I felt somewhat disappointed. I much prefer the gruff more gravely type Thing delivery and just hearing him talk completely normal I was sure would be an issue - it wasn't.

The cast in general are all fine, it works. I would not say they are the strongest ensemble, far from it. The family dynamic does just enough to serve up what you wanted/expected. Pedro and Kirby are also just fine, there's some slight chemistry there at least. No true role aside from the one I shall be mentioning next are anything what you'd call a star role of note, they are all cohesive just enough to be a convincing family dynamic and that's all that was asked of them.

Now Julia Garner however as Shalla-Bal. Holy fuck, where do I even begin with how awesome this character portrayal was - she steals every second of every scene she's placed in and her acting and line delivery near every time is nothing short of instantly iconic, totally and completely the opposite of what I have to say can be some very unenthused acting from some of the other cast (we are talking first take style acting here, I could barely make out some lines spoken at times by both Ben and Johnny) which is a stark contrast to what Julia does every single time she's on camera. She is 100% the reason to watch and enjoy the fuck out of this movie, easily some of the best on-screen visuals I've ever seen Marvel produce are all involving her as the herald and they are thankfully not short either.

I was straight up stunned how long they lasted at times with how Marvel are always so damn intent on shifting the narrative 1,2,3 style I half expected them to pull away after the usual 20 seconds or so because if you fully get to notice budget cost on screen they never normally let it remain for long. Not here, they linger, they keep your attention fully for minutes at a time and allow you to completely absorb the majesty of it all visually as you just take it all in for lengthy unexpected periods, and it's bloody brilliant. More of this please Marvel. Spectacle is what I paid for and you delivered on this one, no question.

Galactus, oh yes. Superb. Ralph Ineson's wonderful voice acting with those visuals? Fuck yes, hell yes. Every single studied shot of him took me right back to panel pages from my youth - I saw Kirby inspired, Jim Lee, The Kubert brothers, Sal Buscema, Ron Lim, John Byrne. All the food groups. Amazing design too.


8 Out of 10 Invisible Women. Stand guard once more, ready for life.

Blue Beetle

I find it somewhat incredible yet not all that surprising given that both of the above while certainly bringing back some essential mojo back to both Marvel and DC ended up as either only just managing to break even with perhaps a slither of profit in the former whereas the latter outright bombed, and I'm somewhat sad it will end up completely forgotten. Iron Man remains my favourite Marvel movie of all time as pure lightning captured in a bottle, the entire vibe of that one movie never again to be replicated, while Aquaman is my favourite DC offering because James Wan just knew what the fuck he was doing and did it with panache.

The best thing this movie does is surprisingly simple - it took me right back to when I first watched Iron Man 2008, if this was purely intentional then great because essentially the movie is straight up Marvel mojo the original Iron Man with just a slither of Guyver thrown in for good measure. I loved the family too, the fact they were so involved in quite literally everything was such a refreshing take and just made for a genuinely wholesome fun experience.

Xolo Maridueña is nigh on perfectly cast here, his very reactionary take on just how exactly it would feel to be randomly chosen by some alien parasite is just honestly superb. Would you be hype, yes you would, would you be terrified - that too. If the main character has you rooting for him from the very get go, I'd say they did good. Overall, if you want a glimpse back into a time when the genre was much more niche fun and wildly entertaining to boot you could do so much worse than this, it really did impress me because it understood what initially captured us back then and just runs with it all the way.

8 out of 10 Scarabs Watch Your Back.

Thunderbolts*

The best way to immediately dive into the biggest issue with this movie goes as thus...for everything that this movie succeeds at in terms of character study/arcs tone and delivery it all does quite brilliantly better than any other Marvel output has in years - sadly the overwhelming issue that hangs like a dark cloud over it all is that it all ultimately feels like they chose the wrong movie and the wrong characters to execute it all with. And that is nothing short of a tragedy because this is without question Marvel pulling things back to a place where they demand you become invested in each and every character placed before you. But then you are reminded that you are intended to be watching the birthing of the New Avengers, yes this group, they are them and although they manage to win out in a very different manner - you are never under the impression that they are up to the job. Sure, they pulled it off that one time because of A B C, but having to go up against anything else...they'd be royally screwed. I'm sorry, that's honestly the long and short of it. They are just not it and given how well things are represented for all that investment you are only ever truly aware of their singular and combined severe limitations at the very same time.

Everything then in the end very much culminates in ultimately feeling almost pointless due to the very ensemble chose to carry all of this weight, I'm talking absurdly wasted potential here and with it making most probably no profit it all I don't know exactly how Marvel will react to that, and it's a real shame because as misguided as their characters of choice are they do them all a great service ONLY as anything BUT a new Avengers team - they are just not and never shall be Avengers material, for me at least.

All the way through all I was ever thinking was this would work so very well...in a different movie. X-Men perhaps, which is more than ironic seeing as though this is now the same director who shall be delivering exactly that very soon. In the end the sad truth of it all is this - the characters or at the very least the majority are simply not well known enough or substantiated well enough to warrant this kind of investment. I admire them trying however.

Thankfully, it has met a much better reception on vod and I'm still strongly adamant that John Walker deserves his very own offshoot movie. There's such a complicated intriguing dark yet striving for hope character study still there to fully be represented, easily my favourite character of the ensemble played perfectly by Wyatt Russell. My biggest gripe overall has to be Yelena Belova, sure I get it this is a very very different tonally compared to Black Widow but my god she's so overwhelmingly dour every second of every scene she really made it a bit of a chore to watch sometimes - again I get it, this is something else entirely, it's clear what they were going for so thankfully we have the wonderful Alexei to prop things up in the background and he easily had some of the best scenes.

Spoiler

Oh yes, the visual representation of "Bob" as he welcomed his inner void was striking.

6 out of 10 Bolts from the Blue Thunder Thunder Thunder THUNDERVENGERS HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Edit: Sorry if this is all a little pebble dashed reading, I started writing it at 7 am drinking my morning coffee and my coffee went cold.

[Stormbringer]

John Carter

I watched this way back in the day (2013, perhaps) and thought it was "fine" (though I remembered almost nothing from it, which doesn't say much in its favour). Then I read the books it was based on over the last few months, and watched it again right afterwards for comparison.

This time I found it to be total garbage.

It feels bland, rushed, shallow and stripped of any sense of weight or ultimate purpose. The books aren't the best literature in the world but they're got a charm about them, excellent prose and an amazing amount of prediction about future technology, many ideas of which have become reality in some way or another over the century that has elapsed since they were written, but this film lacks everything that made them special.

I think it was a bad investment on Disney's part. George Lucas already drained the John Carter books dry, taking all their best elements (and fusing them with other other ideas) to make Star Wars. Lucas already drank Edgar Rice Burroughs' milkshake, so to speak. This wasn't needed and it wasn't asked for. Very disappointing. Which is a shame, as there are some talented actors in it: Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, James Purefoy, Dominic West, to name a few, all of whose talents are sadly wasted on this slop.

[Alan]

Together
Daniel Jackson took some time out of his busy SG1 scedule to bring us this quite neat little body horror. Clearly they had an idea for the set pieces and built the rest round that. Storys trash, characters are not great but the core scenes are good with some nice prac effects for a bunch of it. It has a bit of Midsommar and a dashing of Substance without being anywhere near as good as those but its still alright.

Weapons
This was great! By the guy that made Barbarian and its very similar in tone. Dark but darkly comical.

The Naked Gun
Yeah they clearly watched the originals and made a stab at the comedy and on one or two occations they get it right but its not great. Maybe 3 laughs max. It feels like the Ghostbusters reboot which also didnt get the tone even down to the over the top action scene finale.

Breakfast At Tiffanys
I just cant..... I hate this. I lasted 30mins and put it off. This is the shite that Audrey is best known for? Jesus.....

Leave Her To Heaven
Man this is dark for a 1945s movie. Gene Tierney plays a beautiful psychopath just casually offing people that get in her way. Good film but surprisingly shocking for the era.

[Wrathbone]

Krull
Doesn't hold up. Tries to be too many things and fails at all of them, and it's desperately boring for the most part.

Red Sonja (2025 reboot)
I didn't know this existed until I stumbled upon it in HMV. It's as bad as you'd expect and it doesn't even have anyone wrestling a mechanical fish.

[Stormbringer]

The original one is hilarious. Actually enjoyable in a silly way.

[Wrathbone]

I do have a soft spot for the original.

[Stormbringer]

I just watched the trailer for the remake. Wow. That looks absolutely, utterly, irredeemably terrible.

Then again, the whole Red Sonja concept is an utter joke.

The original 'Red Sonya' (the character, not the 1985 film) is a Polish-Ukrainian heroine from a Robert E. Howard story called The Shadow of the Vulture, published in 1934 and set in the Siege of Vienna in 1529. You can read it here. It's an entertaining tale, and one of the few of Howard's where a woman gets a lead role. It could even make a decent film, I reckon, though Hollywood probably wouldn't touch it. It's a shame that Marvel came along, stole the character and then ruined her by turning her into a kind of female Conan.

[Stormbringer]

Gangs of New York

First time I've seen this since the cinema visit in 2002. Wow, what a long time ago. At the time, I didn't know anything about history and I barely understood what was going on at all. With the benefit of twenty-three years' life experience and learning, I had a better grasp of things, but still found much of it baffling.

I remember finding it rather bloated and 'all over the place' back then...turns out that hasn't really changed. There's so much going on to try and adequately capture a snapshot of a lost era of NYC's history. I found much of it irritating (honestly, I don't care all that much about squabbles between poor immigrants in filthy streets) but Daniel Day-Lewis' character, Bill the Butcher, is absolutely fantastic. I'd say DDL carries the weight of this film on his shoulders. His performance is stunning throughout, and I was really just watching it for him. He didn't disappoint.

Quoting this for the purpose of posting this:



This is the second-best thing about GoNY (DDL being first). I absolutely adore this soundtrack by Howard Shore. This was peak Shore, back in the same era as Lord of the Rings. This music absolutely stirs my heart and takes me back to a simpler time, when films were still amazing and smartphones didn't exist.