MrHlad

Joe Begos is obviously a very big fan of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 (which is a good thing, of course) and his crew of veterans is awesome. But he could have done with a bit more money, because the action, though intense and grindhouse-like, is also pretty slow. The VFW ultimately works better in those moments when Stephen Lang, Fred Williamson, William Sadler, Martin Kove and the rest are sitting in a pub reminiscing about the time they fought for a better world than when they have to slice up an army of drugged-up crazies who want to ransack their place. But as a throwback to the B-movies from the 80s, it's very cool.

I hate movies where the director sits there in awe and says that everyone on the screen is a moron and that's why we're going to laugh at them. This isn't smart satire, it's the movie version of a Facebook discussion with conservatives and liberals arguing; all the smart people have left and now someone comes along and feels they have to tell the rest they're morons. By the way, besides the final fight, it's pretty uninteresting.

A pleasantly harsh and weird film. A couple of people locked in a bar, two dead bodies in front of it and a lot of paranoia. And a lot of dark humor. Probably they could've squeezed more out of it, but the scene with one of the protagonists squeezing into the sewer alone will keep it in my memory for a while.

An action comedy that isn't and probably doesn't want to be action or funny. An hour and a half long borefest about girl friendship being the most important thing in the world featuring fights and shootouts on the level of Walker, Texas Ranger, hardly any humour and zero audiovisual ideas. Bad movie. And completely unnecessary.

Jean-François Richet sometimes rushes a bit too much, and at other times he needlessly stalemates in an attempt to squeeze in some of those "sort of artsy shots", but Vincent Cassel and his crew are fine badasses, Paris is wonderfully nasty, and it has a fine Dumasian adventure story feel. If Vidocq comes back with a sequel, I'll be happy.

A little Jules Verne, a little European comics, a lot of adventure and no songs or talking animals. Instead, some realistically touching and surprisingly gritty scenes. A very cool thing with a very cool heroine.

A very gritty and crazy romp in which Daniel Radcliffe fights against a bunch of crazy killers led by Samara Weaving. It's full of blood and black humour, but once it slows down a bit, it turns out that it actually has very little to offer in the non-action scenes.

Have you seen the trailer? You've seen everything. There's nothing extra in Bloodshot, and what little it does offer is pretty crappy. Vin Diesel tries his best, but he's playing the main character in a comic book movie with a woefully predictable story, uninteresting characters and unimaginative action scenes. It looks like a slightly overpriced pilot for some second-rate series that is pretty lacking in with, ideas, energy and basically anything that would make it worth watching. Diesel has stumbles again, but unlike, say, the similarly crappy The Last Witch Hunter, I don't even see anything with the potential to be interesting under a different director. A useless film.

It’s not “it”. Onward has the classic Pixar combination of humour, suspense, emotion and life truths delivered artfully and without pathos, but this time it's as if the studio didn't enjoy inventing the world. And yet, modern fantasy literally begged for someone to have a good go at it, like in Monsters Inc. We do get a few references to Dungeons and Dragons, but overall the new world is a lot less playful, witty and fun than what we're used to with Pixar. At the same time, it's just begging for the creators to have a go at it. If I'm going a little overboard, by the end of the film I had to make do with unicorns that act like rats. Everything else works as we're used to with Pixar, but that the studio would be lacking in audio-visual games and small jokes is something I didn't quite expect.

Leigh Whannell confirms in The Invisible Man that he is a director to be reckoned with as someone who knows the horror genre. But he's still a little short of the best. His new film should have been some twenty minutes shorter, but otherwise it's a not very original but excellently made thriller. Whannell spices up the tension, helped not a little by the excellent Elisabeth Moss, and in the more action-driven scenes he confirms the qualities already hinted at in Upgrade. He also plays fair with the viewer from the start and lays all his cards on the table surprisingly early, but that doesn't stop the rather uncomfortable atmosphere from working. Personally, The Invisible Man sat better with me in the moments where it took itself 100% seriously, because its reliance on atmosphere and a more mature approach to the material really makes it work in a way that most contemporary horror films dream of. But while the whole B-movie feel is perhaps a little too rushed and it reeks a bit of trying to spice things up at all costs, overall this is well above average stuff that shows horror fans that there are still talented directors out there who can tell even a hackneyed story in a way that doesn't bore you for two hours. Although, unfortunately, it probably won't be enough for a new genre classic.