The Commuter (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 31st, 2017*

For better or worse, The Commuter is exactly what you'd expect from a Liam Neeson action-thriller directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Their previous collaborations Unknown, Non-Stop and Run All Night have all been perfectly serviceable genre films that entertain and deliver exactly what they're meant to, which is not a bad thing. The Commuter is a blast.

Liam Neeson plays an ex-cop shoved in an extreme situation involving his daily commute on the train. After a woman offers him a large some of money to point out who on the train doesn't belong, he's pitted in a conspiracy with twists and turns that just don't stop till the end.

This is hardly high-art, it's essentially fast-food cinema, you enjoy it a hell of a lot, but you feel it dumbs you down. There are obvious comparisons to a previous film Neeson and this director did, this is pretty much Non-Stop, but on a train. Collet-Serra has definitely improved as a director with each film he's done with Neeson. While Run All Night is probably my favourite of their films, this is a close second.

It opens with a really cool and visually interesting montage of Neeson's daily routine done in a very impressive style. It's much more than I expected from a film like this. It sets everything all up very well, Neeson noticing the regular commuters before things kick-in, building his motivation to take the money and go along with the offer. It all works.

There are extreme lacks in logic, as one would expect and the film very literally goes off the rails in the final act, but I'd be lying if I couldn't overlook these things, as I was having so much fun with it. The twists are mostly obvious and telegraphed very early, that said, I was still very much into the mystery and got wrapped up in the whole thing. There is some some very awful dialogue here and there, to the point where I laughed out loud at the cheesiness of it all and Patrick Wilson's character is named 'Alex Murphy' for some reason and he doesn't even turn out to be Robocop.

Even at the age of 65, Neeson still kicks ass in a lot of great action scenes littered throughout. The action is pretty quick and brutal, edited nicely and packs a punch. A far cry from the incoherent mess of Taken 3's choppy action. I feel I need to mention Liam Neeson smashes a man's head with a guitar. What more could you want?


The Commuter is exactly what you'd want and expect from a Liam Neeson action film, which is no bad thing. Whether you're laughing with it or at it, there is so much fun to be had with this. I hope Collet-Serra and Neeson continue to work together for a long time.

7/10 Dans

The Commuter is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Downsizing (2017) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 31st, 2018*

What a waste of potential. Downsizing has a unique and original idea behind, but one that is squandered after a promising first act. Things quickly go downhill as the characters get more annoying and the situations become more aimless and boring.

I never would have thought a film about shrinking humans to try and save the planet could be see bland. The jokes are exactly what you'd expect and it's brutal. After Matt Damon gets shrunk he checks his penis to make sure it's in proportion to his body, it's that sort of thing. All the real jokes are in the trailer and the film is played straight for the most part, apart from bizarre and unfunny jokes about the word "Fucking" instead, most of the film is played relatively straight. 

Most of the time I was just annoyed about the quirkiness of it all and the film is nowhere near as smart as it believes it is. There's a few lines about the humans impact on the environment, immigration and if little people should have the same rights as fully grown human beings. Any potentially interesting story-line is wasted in place of a boring romance that descends into a grating final act. If I had the choice, I probably would have walked out. 

I need to get my biggest gripe out the way, Hong Chau's character, a Vietnamese woman with one leg who becomes Matt Damon's love interest for the remaining two acts of the film. She is brutal. What shocked me is that the actress was actually Vietnamese and she took this role, as she's written as this frankly tasteless and annoying character that comes off as just a huge bit racist. It feels like a Team America archetype brought to life. 

It's not all bad though, there are some things to like, Christoph Waltz is fun in his role as a party hard European and has a lot of likeable charm. Then there is a lot of creativity on display here, we've come a long way from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids in the ability to create convincing effects for shrinking people and in all honesty, it looks pretty good. That's it though, the rest of the film is garbage. Matt Damon is fine I will say, completely fine, nothing special, but he does okay.


Downsizing is a complete waste of potential, a fascinating sci-fi premise that starts well but ends up as one of the worst films I've seen so far this year. A huge misfire from Alexander Payne.

3/10 Dans

Downsizing is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Ratchet and Clank (2016) - Film review

Review:

*Originally written May 3rd, 2016*

I was fairly excited for Ratchet and Clank when it was first announced back at E3 a few years ago, I'm a huge fan of the video games, so I was praying to god that they could make a good film out of it. With the creative team behind the video games working on the film, I was hoping that this could be the adaptations that breaking video game movie curse. It sadly wasn't.

Based on the first game in the series, Ratchet and Clank tells the story of Ratchet, a mechanic and last of his species who dreams of bigger things and wants to join the Space Rangers, a universe defending team. He gets his chance at this when he meets Clank, a small robot with information about an insane villain who wants to destroy the universe or something.

This franchise was always Pixar brought to life in video game form, so it was pretty ripe for an animated film. So it is such a shame that this fails to capture that magic that Pixar usually conjure. The look of game is captured pretty well. The animation does look pretty and the characters and design all look excellent.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but this was just a pretty run of the mill kids film filled with lame humour and childish gags. I know this is a kids film, but in all honesty, the target audience is people my age (18-20) who grew up playing the games. I'm not saying that it needed to be full of swearing and violence. I just expected funnier jokes than the cheap slapstick we got here.

It tells the same story the first game and the new one (Which is much better than the film). The voice cast from the game all the return, which was nice, including some voice work from Sylvester Stallone and John Goodman. 

The characters are the only real thing that saves the film from utter garbage. Ratchet and Clank are likeable as ever and Captain Qwark is still hilarious and everything that comes out of his mouth is gold, he's basically Zapp Brannigan from Futurama. 

This whole thing just felt like a cheap and cynical ploy to promote the new game. There's no heart or soul to this film at all. It runs at 90 minutes, but still feels so much longer. I wanted it to end so many times throughout.

One of the things that makes Ratchet and Clank so great is the creativity of the weapons, but there is nothing here apart from some guns that make no more than a cameo. All the action itself is flat and uninventive with no emotional weight either. It was all just so bland.


Ratchet and Clank isn't the video game movie adaptation you were hoping for, which is just a shame. It's just a cheap and cynical cash-in to promote the new game. The director of this is also directing the Sly Cooper film, my faith in that has dwindled.

4/10 Dans

Ratchet and Clank is out now on DVD in the UK

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Edge of Tomorrow (2014) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written May 13th, 2015*

Edge of Tomorrow always surprises me with each watch. I doubt many people asked "What would Groundhog Day be like as a sci-fi action film?". But amazingly, the concept works far better than it should.

It's insanely entertaining and a brisk 2 hour watch with an excellent performance from Tom Cruise who plays against type here as a coward Major who is forced into a battle and obtains the ability to repeat the day every time he dies after an encounter with an "Alpha Mimic". I was surprised at just how funny this was too, Cruise manages to balance both comedy and bad-ass action hero both effortlessly.

Cruises character builds more as the film goes on, going from an incompetent soldier who doesn't even know how to turn the safety of his weapon to a bad-ass who doesn't even have to look when killing an alien. It's almost like a video game, it even feels like a video game at times. It'd probably go as far as saying this is the best video game movie ever made, except it's not based on a video game.

The design of the mech-suits and aliens are really creative and so much better than alien designs we've had from recent films (Battle: Los Angeles). The action is inventive and fun, the opening scene that was very reminiscent of D-Day, but with aliens and soldiers in mech-suits. The whole dying and coming back to life thing could have made for some very repetitive action and scenes, but they manage to keep it interesting all the way through from beginning to end.

Emily Blunt provides the highlight of the film as the 'Full Metal Bitch' a hardened soldier who helps Cruise as she went through what he did at some point. She manages to outshine Cruise at points, making for a compelling co-lead, delivering some great action too.


The only thing that lets Edge of Tomorrow down is its ending, which in all honesty doesn't make much sense. That aside, It is one of the best and most enjoyable blockbusters of recent years. A sequel has also been announced, but I'm not entirely sure what the point would be?

9/10 Dans

Edge of Tomorrow is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written May 15th, 2015*

Some background with me and the Mad Max films: I had never previously seen a Mad Max film before December last year, I picked up the Blu-ray box-set and cracked on the first one. I was vastly disappointed, it was an ugly, incoherent mess of a film. The car chases and action were excellent for its day, especially taking into account the shoe-string budget, but the story was muddled and disjointed to the point where we had to check Wikipedia to see what had happened.

Thankfully Road Warrior was a vast improvement, with a story that you could actually follow and action scenes that were some of the best for its time, It still had it's problems but it was very watchable. It kinda felt like Evil Dead, the first was messy, but the sequel allowed the director to create the vision he wanted with a bigger budget. Now the last entry, Beyond Thunderdome was another mess, but it had its moments, it starts of all well, but eventually went to this strange family-friendly place that felt like Spielberg meets Lord of the Flies, which created a weird film that was tonally disjointed from the previous two.

Now after 30 years, Mad Max is back with Tom Hardy in Mel Gibson's seat as the titular anti-hero and the results are the birth of one of the best action films made in the past decade or so.
While not a reboot or remake of the first, Fury Road is a hybrid of a sequel and reboot, the past events of the last 3 films are all canon, but it feels like a completely new story and you really don't need to watch the first 3 to understand.

Fury Road places a reluctant Mad Max helping Furiosa (Charlize Theron) get Immortan Joe's (Hugh Keays-Byrne) sex slaves away from him and to the safety of the 'Green Land'. This is essentially the whole story that's told over a 2-hour chase scene.

It works perfectly. The action scenes are some of the most perfect I've ever seen on film. Apart from some weather effects (Which does look incredible) there is an outstanding reliance on practical effects and a very minimum and restrained use of CGI. I was amazed at how they filmed a lot of this, there are cars and trucks being totaled and blown up with the actors clearly in a close proximity. This film is true film-making at its finest.

The action scenes are accompanied by an excellent score which was composed by 'XL Junkie' (Yep). The music works its way into the film through a guy playing a guitar that's part flamethrower on top of one of the vehicles. Fury Road is filled with demented genius like this, the character and set designs are all excellent. The idea of having Mad Max as a human blood-bag for Nicholas Hoult for the first 40 minutes or so of the film was a risky idea that payed off.

Surprisingly, for a film called 'Mad Max' the lead character does not say much and spends a third of the film tied to a car with a muzzle attached to him. Which works fine, as Charlize Theron's character was great to watch, an amputee with a robot hand steals the show more than Tom Hardy, that's an achievement right there.


Perfectly paced, easy to follow and featuring some of the best action ever put on screen, Mad Max: Fury Road is a strange masterpiece in creative film-making that is so unique and different from anything that is released these days, that it has to be seen. 

10/10 Dans

Mad Max: Fury Road is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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In Bruges (2008) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written January 26th, 2018*

It's been a while since I've seen In Bruges and when I last saw it, I was far too young to appreciate how truly great this hilarious, violent and horrific crime-comedy was. After seeing Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri recently, I knew the time was right to finally revisit this.

And it was worth it, this was far better, meaningful and more funny than ever remember it being. Yes, it's violent, foul-mouthed and mean-spirited at times, but it does have a beating heart at the centre of it with the two lead, morally confused hit-men played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. 

After two hit-men fail a job due to the accidental death of a bystander, they are ordered to lay low in the Belgium city of Bruges. Much of the film is just these two characters exploring the city while discussing their feelings of regret and guilt surrounding their work, and it works very well. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about Colin Farrell as an actor overall, but he nails it here as the conflicted hitman who caused the death of a child. Brendan Gleeson is also great here as the more focused and more member as the duo, which surprises me as Gleeson is an actor I usually associate with atrocious British crime films, so it was nice to see him pop up one one that was actually good.

By far the most memorable performance was Ralph Fiennes as the boss of the two hit-men, he plays it utterly psychotic and it is just a pure joy to watch every scene he's in. He reminded me a lot of Ben Kingsley's character in Sexy Beast. There's something about his performance that adds a lot to what could have been a one-note psychopath, but Fiennes really manages to bring complexity to the character.

The titular city of Bruges is actually a really gorgeous place too and made for some gorgeous cinematography. The city in surreal and fairy tale like. I always appreciate a film that takes place in a sleepy town that mixes chaotic, extreme violence and bizarre scenes that include a dwarf on ketamine. I'd forgot just how violent this film was too, there is some really extreme stuff here, especially in the last act, which it builds to perfectly.

Even with its dark subject matter, it's extremely funny too and filled with a ton of memorable lines and jokes. There are some fantastic pay-offs to throwaway scenes that are there if you pay enough attention to the dialogue, it almost reminded me of Edgar Wright. I'm sure I'll find even more to love on rewatches with In Bruges. 


Martin McDonagh's debut film is a triumph and so far, the strongest film in his career, a darkly funny, brutal and often touching story of two hit-men in Bruges. I can't wait to watch this again.

10/10 Dans

In Bruges is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Loving (2016) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written February 8th, 2017*

I wasn't massively excited for Loving, the trailers made it seem very Oscar baitey, but I did love Jeff Nichol's other film from 2016 'Midnight Special' so I went in with some expectations. And Loving was far more meaningful and heartfelt that I imagined it would be.

It tells the story of a shameful time in American history. An interracial couple are treated awfully, arrested even purely for the fact they of a different race. It is disgusting and blood boiling seeing and knowing people who love each other were treated like this for such nonsensical reasons.

One of my worries about this is how unsubtle I thought it would be. I imagined the audience would be beaten over the head with the theme of this, but it didn't. It all felt real and the opposite of flashy. It's engaging and meaningful, but quiet and poignant at the same time.

This is mostly due to Joel Edgerton's performance, who was great. He was really quiet, mumbled and subdued. There's no moments of over the top rage and anger, it's all restrained and made it far more believable. Ruth Negga was also fantastic as the wife, really earning her nomination with her sad and strong performance.

I really wish the film dedicated more time to developing the couples relationship. There are some really strong and genuinely moving moments, like a brief scene with them sat on the sofa together laughing at the TV that really got me invested in their love, but there's not a lot of this and most of the film focuses on the variety of different obstacles they have to go through in order to make their marriage legal with the help of a lawyer who takes their case for free.

What I really loved is how unsentimental and unmanipulative this felt. Films like this tend to bash you over the head with big emotional moments, but here it all felt earned and natural. The end is a real gut-punch that I didn't see coming and just a sad bit of reality added to what this couple had to endure. It just left me feeling dead inside.


Loving is a powerful and understated drama with fantastic lead performances and real emotional weight. A really pleasant surprise I didn't see coming.

8/10 Dans

Loving is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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