The Crazies (1973) - Arrow Blu-ray Review

Review:

*Originally written September 30th, 2018*

Damn. I'm pretty disappointed by this, I'm a big fan of George Romero's work, so I knew I had to check out his early stuff at some point. I'd seen the remake of The Crazies a few years ago (And it is surprisingly decent), but the original had always been a black mark on my record. Sadly, the wait and hype really wasn't worth it for this low-budget effort.

It starts off well enough, with a scene of a man after having just killed his wife, try and burn down his home with his young children still inside it. It was surprisingly unsettling and done in an effective matter that not a single moment of the rest of the film manages to live up to.

I'm at a loss when it comes to even remembering the characters and events that happened in The Crazies. I'd only watched it last night and cannot remember a single thing about these characters aside from the performances all being just awful. It's understandable that being such a micro-budget effort, that things aren't going to be perfect, but it felt like they'd taken a bunch of first time actors to try and be convincing, but it just does not work.

I still really like the premise of The Crazies, a small hick town starts to lose their minds as a virus slowly turns the inhabitants into not quite zombies, but violent psychopaths. It's just a shame that so much time is spent at the characters vs the government forces sent in to control the situation rather than the actual "Crazies" . The government scientists are pretty bland and one note, they all wear the same costumes and it gets tired very quickly. It's a continuous loop of the leads running from these people, killing a few and moving on until it sorta just... ends? 

I was shocked that Romero actually made this after Night of the Living Dead, which is a much tighter effort and actually bothered to build its characters, while this feels like a much more amateur hour effort. All the gore and blood effects looks weird and fake, with that overly bright blood coloured blood that looks closer to paint than actual blood. 

This is not a good looking film either, the cinematography is constantly ugly and the camera work during the action is muddled and poor, making it hard to tell what is actually happening. Even with a brief run-time of 90 minutes, it still drags and goes off into needlessly drawn out scenes that do nothing to further the plot or let us get to know the characters. In all honesty, it' just kind of boring.

I sound really harsh on this, I know I'm making it sound atrocious, but it's not, it's just painfully average for all it's faults and problems. There are a few sparks of creativity that pop out every now and then, but it just didn't shine bright enough to make a full film worth watching. The best I can say about it is that Arrow's 4K remaster does its best to make an ugly film look good, there's some strong detail in a lot of scenes, but moments here and there look very soft and hazy.


I don't know what else to say about The Crazies, I'd only recommend checking it out if you're interested in seeing George Romero's filmography, but in all honesty, I'd suggest watching the 2010 remake instead. Which is something I rarely say.

5/10 Dans

The Crazies is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Carrie (1976) - Arrow Blu-Ray Review

Review:

*Originally written September 30th, 2018*

Carrie is one of those horror films that grows on me a tiny bit more with every watch. It's easily one of the best of its genre from the '70s and while some of it is a little outdated it still holds up remarkably well and is by far the best adaptation of Carrie to date. Far surpassing the absolutely finely remake from 2013, the atrocious sequel to the original and the piss-poor made for TV remake from the early 2000's.

It's a story that still hits hard. A young girl is relentlessly bullied by her classmates, some of it is really nasty and it opens with one of the most mean-spirited and sickening acts of bullying I can remember from a film and it builds and builds before exploding into a spectacular finale.

Sissy Spacek's performance is absolutely wonderful, perfectly capturing a teenage girl going through changes and trying to live through the bullying in her life and her abusive home life from her utterly psychotic, fanatical Christian mother. It really helps that Spacek is not the most attractive of people, so it's believable she feels like an outcast and tormented by those around her. 

When things get nicer towards the end, it's oddly heartbreaking to see her one true moment of happiness when she feels accepted by those who have bullied her come crashing around her in truly horrible fashion. While this is a horror film with supernatural elements, it feels more like a pretty straightforward and real drama, before exploding into horror in its final act.

And when that final act starts, it really is a true horror experience. Arrow's gorgeous 4K restoration of Carrie really lets that prom scene speak. The colour and lighting of that scene absolutely sparkles and feels vibrant and beautiful, while the prom scene itself is still pure spectacle of carnage that still feels brutal and nasty by today's standards. This is a huge marked improvement on the MGM Blu-ray release and I really can't image how this would look any better, outside of a true 4K UHD release.

I always forget this was a Brian DePalma film too and it's easily one of his best. I'm still on the fence about some of the weird music and editing choices, but most of it still works pretty damn well. The striking imagery of Christ is unsettling and sets the tone for what's to come and has made me realise I need to finally read the Carrie book. I've yet to actually read a Stephen King novel (I own a few) as a lot of his films I adore and this being one of my favourite adaptations. I need to sort it out.

As much as Carrie does hold up, there are a few things that don't, which come and go in strange moments. The worst of which is surprisingly Piper Laurie as Carrie's mother Margaret, for a film that feels pretty restrained and real, her over the top performance sticks out. I just refuse to believe a mother like that would have been allowed to keep her child and the school seems to have done nothing about her abusive behaviour. 

The minor moments, like I said, are pretty fleeting. Like there's a scene where John Travolta (Yes, he's in this) is receiving a blowjob, but the girl is still talking while she's still clearly going down on him, it's an odd bit of direction that just sticks out. Then there's the scene where everyone is trying on their prom suits and dresses, and it makes use of this weird moment where the sound and image is sped up, giving everyone that weird, high pitched voice. It was so weird and felt so out of place. That aside though, It's all damn good.


Carrie still feels pretty timeless, it's a simple story that flies by like nothing and feels infinitely rewatchable. It's also the best performance of Sissy Spacek's career and by far one of the best Stephen King adaptations to date. The only one I think I like more is The Shining, which is not bad going. 

8/10 Dans

Carrie is out now on Blu-ray (Released by Arrow Video) and DVD in the UK
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Gotti (2018) - Blu-ray Review

Review:

*Originally written September 30th, 2018*

You Gotti see this film. Gotti has Gotti be seen to be believed. Honestly, it's The Room of 2018, a film that's an insane disaster on all levels. Structurally incoherent, awfully written, outrageously performed and misguided in the sense it makes out some disgusting criminal to be a hero of the people. 

I'm sure there's a fascinating film to be made about Gotti at some point, probably from a much safer pair of hands (Probably Scorsese), but not from Kevin Connolly (Yes, that one from Entourage). The fact this was meant to be John Travolta's shot at Oscar gold is just hilarious in itself.

Travolta's performance is a hard one to decipher. Part of me knows he's trying his hardest for some shot at awards recognition, but the other part of me just feels he was just here to take the piss. There are some minor moments where a convincing performance comes through, but 95% of the time he's giving such an insanely over the top and ridiculous performance of a New York Italian mob boss that it feels like parody. Travolta's turned up to 11 New York accent is remarkable, making way for some of the most unintentional comedy of the year. The film opens and closes with him overlooking New York at night while addressing the audience and saying "New Yawk, the greatest city in the world" and "There won't ever be another guy like me, even if you live to 5,000 years old", before smash cutting to credits. 

As a crime film it feels remarkably dull, going through the motions and things you've seen countless times in much better films. Made worse by the fact this feels like a jumbled mess of scenes to piece together this monster's life. We spend far too much time on things that aren't interesting and skim over the potentially intriguing stuff. 

For example the scene where Gotti's son dies after an accident involving a neighbour, it is brushed over and resolved so quickly. The character's grieve and get over it within 5 minutes and they do not go into the murder of the neighbour who accidentally killed his son at all. There's just a brief news report of what happened to him. I know it was never confirmed in real life that Gotti had him killed, but it's pretty obvious and it's weird the film didn't even have the balls to address the possibility. Honestly, the Wikipedia page about Gotti is far more interesting.

I feel this was just a scene of random and meaningless assassinations at one point. I swear to god, there is no less than three montages of people getting "whacked" through this entire experience. It's all done in such a poor and cheap manner, it's low-budget, sure, but it's no excuse for a film that got released theatrically to look like a made for TV biopic. It's clear everyone involved in the making of this was just very under experienced for had only worked in TV.

As well, it is appalling that the filmmakers have decided to go the route that John Gotti is a hero of the people and constantly just harassed by the government, despite, you know, him being a murderer and criminal. I'm actually unsure what his other crimes are aside from a bunch of assassinations? I don't think they ever mention once what any of his other criminal activities were? This is all also made so much worse by the use of real footage of random people putting up signs like "Long live Gotti". Fuck those morons. If I was walking down the street and I saw someone praising a murderer and criminal in the streets, I would spit on them. 

I nearly forgot that there's 3 songs from Mr Worldwide himself, Pitbull and there are absolutely horrendous. They feel like something from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping and not a serious gangster biopic aiming for Oscar recognition. 


When it's all said and done, Gotti is worth watching for just how hilariously bad it is and Travolta's completely gonzo performance that just falls flat at every turn. Imagine if Tommy Wiseau had directed Goodfellas, that's what we're dealing with here. It's fascinating and for that I'm calling it now, it's the best bad film of the year. Long live Gotti.

2/10 Dans

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Mile 22 (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written September 25th, 2018*

Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg have come together to make some of the most entertaining Hollywood films about real life disasters in recent years, so I was pretty interested in them teaming up for a fictional action film. Sadly, the results are for from great. In fact it's a completely disaster that wastes any potential it had.

Mile 22 is a complete mess on all fronts. A jumbled mess of poor editing decisions, horrific performances and laughably bad dialogue. I never saw this coming. At the very least I expected a throwaway action film in the vein of Olympus/London Has Fallen or American Assassin or another genuinely thrilling film from duo. I didn't even get anywhere close to that.

I was more reminded of David Ayer's Sabotage, which I kind of appreciated for its unhinged brutality and utter obnoxiousness of douchebaggery. Mile 22 suffers from that same problem of a completely unlikable cast, but at least Sabotage had a decent Arnie performance, well shot action and an engaging mystery at the centre of it. 

I could not get over how irritating Mark Wahlberg was in this. His character is a maniac. Talking like he's done 4 grams of coke in less than 5 minutes and does not shut the fuck up. Every moment of dialogue with another character feels like in a video game when you skip through the dialogue and only hear snippets of the conversation. It's barbarically annoying and failed to make me take in what anyone was saying. Then Wahlberg's character had a tick of snapping an elastic band round his arm (Which I do too) as a way of dealing with stress or anxiety. 

That's pretty much all we learn of Wahlberg's character through the entire run-time, which is only 90 minutes, so they blast us with his entire backstory during the opening credits, which was just such a cheap and lazy way of doing things that I'd pretty much checked out already.

The rest of Wahlberg's special ops team fare the very same. Completely underdeveloped with no personality of their own. Aside from Lauren Cohan's messy and unnecessary divorce subplot (Which I can only imagine was added to make this thing stretch out to a marketable run-time), I could not tell you a single thing about this team. Ronda Rousey is utterly atrocious, with strange and stilted delivery, making me nearly burst out laughing at every attempt of her "Acting". A problem with not bothering to get you attached to these characters, is that when they start dying and they get their "Hero" death moments, you really don't care and these explosive death moments are just met with a collective shrug.

The minor highlight is within The Raid's Iko Uwais, who seems to have a hard time working with English material, but always manages to exceed when it comes to all the martial arts stuff. He's one of the few bright spots of Mile 22 and I hope he continues to get roles in bigger stuff that deserves his practical skills.

It's a shame that Uwais's martial arts skills are utterly tarnished by some of the worst editing I've seen in a Hollywood film since Taken 3. There are flashes of excellence in the action and there is some really gnarly stuff here (It earns its rare 18 rating that we don't get enough of these days), but it's hard to enjoy when they decide to add 6 different cuts into a mere second of footage. It's so disorienting at makes things so hard to follow and some of later action scenes did such a poor job of spacial awareness that I had an awful time figuring out where everyone was in the area. 

I could argue that I had a good time with Mile 22 though. It is so gun-ho, batshit and insane with its poor script and dialogue that I was on the edge of my seat with what utter nonsense was going to happen next. And in that way I was pleasantly surprised, just when I thought the film couldn't get any worse, it just managed to top itself, again and again. Even making way for the second best twist of the year, right behind Den of Thieves. It even sets up a sequel in a similar way. The only difference is that Den of Thieves is actually going to get to tell the rest of its story, no chance in hell will Mill 22 get to.


God bless cinema. It's both alive and dead, while Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg are just dancing around in the dried out hollow corpse of cinema to make garbage like this. Good luck next time, guys. I know you have better in you.

3/10 Dans

Mile 22 is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) - 4K UHD Review

Review:

*Originally written September 21st*

It's pretty impressive we actually got a sequel to Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim. It was a genuinely exciting and original giant monsters vs giant robots movie that was dumb, but it fully embraced it to deliver one of the most visually interesting and gorgeous blockbusters in years. One I need to revisit soon on 4K.

This sequel is nothing but a colossal disappointment, while the first was a breath of fresh air, Uprising feels like the dumbed down, expensive backdoor pilot to a Sci-Fi Channel TV show that has more in common with Michael Bay's Transformers than Del Toro's original. I saw this in the theatres and utterly hated it, I then decided to give it a second chance on 4K as the steelbook was on sale at work. I instantly regret it.

Everything about Uprising is just appalling. The first didn't exactly shine in the character department. Charlie Hunham was a bit bland, but he was a fine enough lead, so it's so disappointing to see him not return. He's at least replaced by a John Boyega, who is trying his best, but his character is written to be such an annoying douchebag. Part of me does appreciate at least making Boyega the son of Idris Elba's character from the first, but he carries none of his charisma, and his attempt at a speech at the end is nothing less than pitiful compared to Elba's "Cancelling the apocalypse" speech from the first.

Since Del Toro decided not to return in order to focus on The Shape of Water (An incredibly wise decision), he is instead replaced by Steven S. DeKnight, a man who had yet to direct an actual film. He'd only previously worked on television and it shows. His direction is a jumbled mess. None of the action scenes are fun to watch or look at, all the Jaigers and monsters feel floaty and weightless. I know they had to dial the budget back a little, but there was no excuse for just how cheap this felt at times. It does at least look gorgeous on 4K, as I would expect from a huge-budgeted Hollywood film, but the cinematography just feels very televisual compared to the first.

A few characters from the first do return though, and they are pretty much universally awful. Burn Gorman is horrifically over the top, I don't remember him much from the first, but I highly doubt he was this scatty, erratic and over the top in it. Charlie Day is also an actor I love, but again, like Gorman, his role is ludicrously over the top and annoying, and riddled by awful and weird character decisions that feel remarkably dumb. 

There are also some new characters that just don't work either. Hollywood really needs to stop trying to make Scott Eastwood a thing, he does not carry any of the charisma or presence his father has, he feels like one of the forgotten Hemsworth brothers no one wants to see in anything. Please, stop. Since the first Pacific Rim made most of its money in China, there's that cynical feeling that Hollywood added a bunch of Chinese actors in order to pander to this audience and rake in more money. Think Independence Day: Resurgence. 

I'd say one of the biggest problems of Uprising is the writing. Nothing has any weight to it. It takes place about a decade after the first and civilisation has more or less moved on, with some places feeling like dystopian wastelands that Boyega lives in. They really fail to do anything interesting with that. There was potential to explore this post Pacific Rim world, but they just brush over it very quickly in order to get on with the insanely boring plot. Which is exactly what you'd expect and carries no surprises. I didn't even mention the painful MCU style comedy that just makes you cringe and roll your eyes rather than laugh. 


Fans spent years pining for a sequel to Pacific Rim, and this is what they got, an insulting, poorly directed, scripted and boring mess that made me wish they hadn't bothered. They end Uprising with sequel bait, but I just can't imagine that will ever come to fruition after this mess.

2/10 Dans

Pacific Rim: Uprising is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD now in the UK. With a 4K Steelbook available from HMV
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Sleepless (2017) - Blu-ray Review

Review:

*Originally written September 18th, 2017*

Sleepless is exactly the kind of middle of the road action film that'll get you through a bored evening. It's the exact type of fodder I'd expect to see play on Channel 5 late in the evening. You watch it, you mildly enjoy it, but you completely forget about it the next day. 

Jamie Foxx is completely serviceable as the lead, the film sets him up to be your typical corrupt cop who's put in an extreme situation when his son is kidnapped and he has to get him back over the course of a night. I have a soft spot for films about corrupt cops, but they make a few disappointing decisions to make Foxx a more typical good guy, which is a shame.

I also really like the idea of setting the film over the course of one night in a more or less single location. Most of Sleepless takes place entirely within a Las Vegas casino as Foxx has to do his thing while avoiding people trying to kill him and Internal Affairs cops after him. 

All the action is completely acceptable. It's never massively interesting, but it's brutal and violent enough to be a good time, without being overly nasty or mean-spirited. The only real standout action scene is the bath house fight, which is probably the closest Sleepless comes to being intense.

I saw this was remake of a much more acclaimed French film, which I am very interested in seeing, but it never got a Blu-ray release in the UK (Gross), but for now, this is perfectly acceptable.


I don't know what else you'd expect from Sleepless, a serviceable, completely forgettable but fun while you watch it, throwaway mid-budget action film. Definitely one of the least offensive of the genre.


5/10 Dans

Sleepless is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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The Predator (2018) - Film Review

Review:

*Originally written September 17th, 2018*

I'm really torn on this. Part of me really enjoyed the nonsense on display here, a completely insane, nonsensical throwback action film with sensibilities of '80s cinema, but it's hard to overlook what an incoherent, choppy mess this is.

Shane Black is one of the best writers and directors working today, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and The Nice Guys are two films I adore and Iron Man 3 is easily one of Marvel's best films (Despite what the virgins say), so it was pretty exciting to see him be put in charge of a franchise in desperate need of reinvention and fresh blood. Sadly, it's clear that Fox have completely butchered what could have been an excellent film, to instead deliver a remarkably dumb, but entertaining and breezy watch.

It tries to go back to the basics of the original, a rag-tag group of mentally unstable soldiers have to deal with a Predator invasion of Earth. It gets needlessly convoluted and has a huge amount of misguided story choices. The portrayal of mental health is absolutely bizarre and leads to a tasteless pro-suicide message for a character, I didn't think cinema was capable of this in 2018.

Then there's the autism portrayal. The lead character's son (Jacob Tremblay) is on the autistic spectrum and the film does that misguided thing where they portray autism as a superpower, rather than a real struggle. This is where things get really insane, without getting into real spoilers, autism is one of the reasons the Predator's are on Earth. It's a key plot point and while it's not mean-spirited or tasteless, it just feels off.

One of the big problems is just how much is crammed into this 107 minute film, there are huge gaps where it feels scenes have been cut. People appear out of nowhere or seem to gather information based on nothing. It seems like only a few hours have past, but a package manages to be sent from Mexico, to a PO box, then the lead character's home, all in the space of less than a day. It's just odd and really weird. Then in the final action scene a character gives someone a key item, but then another character has it with no explanation at all.

Where Predator does shine a little is with its characters. Shane Black is excellent with character, and while these characters could have done with a bit more work, they at least all feel unique and have just enough back story to hold them up. Boyd Holbrook is instantly likeable as the lead, he lacks the presence of Arnie, but he manages to hold his own and carry the film, while delivering a tiny bit of heart do to the relationship with his son.

I was really looking forward to seeing Keegan-Michael Key in this and he's probably the highlight of the side team. Thomas Jane was fine too, although his character suffering from tourettes syndrome was again, another punchline for mental illness, but I guess that's how a group of mentally unstable murderers for the government would act? Not entirely sure what Alfie Allen's purpose was here though, aside from a few mentions of magic tricks and his hokey Irish accent.

Being a Predator film, you would expect to see Predator's tear people up and they do. The violence is grizzly and as brutal as you'd expect, being are torn apart, destroyed and dismembered. Black's direction for the action is mostly great, but a few muddled moments in the third act made it hard to see what is going on. A big character died towards the end and I didn't even know until I was informed by my friend after. The Predator really shines when its being a big dumb action film and avoiding the awkward plot and attempts at storytelling. I was also a bit disappointed by the use of CGI over practical effects 90% of the time, and some of it is quite painful to watch, especially in those final action scenes.

It's painfully clear that most of the problems come from the third act, which was entirely re-shot, I have no idea what went wrong with the original ending, but I can't imagine it was much worse than this. Those last 20 or so minutes are when things become nearly unbearably dumb, like, I was in shock and amazement at just how stupid things got. They threw everything at the wall and saw what would stick and it's very little. I feel in the writers room they had a competition at who could come up with the dumbest stuff and see who would win, to the point where I feel they were just taking the piss. It's a shame too, because the more I think about it, the first couple of acts are pretty solid and actually build up an interesting story.

The inclusion of the Super Predator was one of the least interesting things they could come up with. There was nothing about this 11ft monster that was interesting, it was spoiled in the trailers and aside from his size, he really is no different from the smaller Predators. I did appreciate them expanding the Predator universe a bit more, explaining why they do what they do. Some might say it ruins the mystery of these creatures, but I'm feeling generous, so I'll give them this one. It's just unfortunate the thing they were after was *That*.

While part of me did enjoy this, I shouldn't, but I did. It's a complete mess and sets up the series to go in a direction I have no interest in. I'd honestly rather see another reboot to the series than see them continue the story they started here. We'll wait and see what happens, but I honestly can't see this doing very well. The reviews were poor an marketing was less than great, but we'll see. Part of me wants to see this succeed because it's a big-budget adult rated film that we don't get a huge amount of anymore, but part of me wants it to fail so it learns from the mistakes of this. 


Shane Black's The Predator is neither the great franchise redirection you wanted, nor the absolute disaster you've heard, it sits somewhere in the middle. It's big, it's extremely dumb and it runs with it, but when you look past a huge amount of flaws, it's a perfectly watchable and mind-numbing exercise in throwback '80s action with a decent cast.

6/10 Dans

The Predator is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Bad Boys 2 (2003) - 4K UHD Review

Review:

*Originally written September 14th, 2018*

Honestly torn about whether this vile film is a masterpiece or a disasterpiece. Thinking about the last 150 minutes (yes, it really is that long) of my life, I'm leaning towards the latter. As utterly horrible and mean-spirited as Bad Boys 2 is, I seem to keep coming back to it, over and over again for some reason and each time I watch it, I hate myself just that little bit more.

I don't remember watching the first Bad Boys frequently when I was young, but I watched this a lot as a kid, so I was interested to see what on earth a grown up Dan would think of this. Thankfully, he saw this vile piece of work for what it is: a disgusting, abhorrent pile of shit that never should have seen the light of day. It's a horrible, nasty film made by a man who clearly has very poor social interactions with other human beings.

I rarely feel uncomfortable watching a film, but there were moments in Bad Boys 2 where I just sat there thinking to myself "This is fucking horrible". Nearly every joke is aimed at either race or sexuality. It's Bay at his most unrestrained, it really tells a lot about him. I get the feeling he doesn't like gay people, respect women and might even have a little necrophilia fetish.

This film is just vile scene after vile scene. Everything just rubbed me the wrong way, but at the same time it was a fascinating look at Bay's psyche. From it's KKK opening moments, to rat fucking, to destroying Brazil. It's oddly compelling. Gotta mention it's not Bay's worst film either, which is a fucking testament to his filmography, and is far more interesting to watch than the last 3 Transformers films. Gotta give a shout out to the opening titles where "Directed by Michael Bay" appears as a KKK member is burning a cross. I wasn't sure how to take that.

To give credit where credits due. I due appreciate some of Bay's visual flourish and I do like seeing grizzly violence in a big-budget film, which we sadly don't get anymore. This was all pretty much practical too, which I really liked. So there was nothing wrong in the action department, it's just everything else. It's blazing with Bay's unique visuals that are sadly just wasted on his atrocious lack of coherent storytelling and his childishly offensive scripts he seems to dig out of edgy teenagers bins.

The two leads are inherently unlikable. Will Smith is a psychopath devoid of any decency, he enjoys the chaos, death and destruction that unfolds around him. Martin Lawrence is annoying. His character complains about all the destruction they cause, but that never once stops him from doing it. They're just so poorly written and one note. The characters do not go beyond the premise of one's a "family man" and the other a "playboy". Every watch, these two characters get worse and worse, they have some genuine chemistry, but are just awful, awful people that would be fired within days as real cops. Their behaviour and attitude towards what they do is completely sociopathic. And don't get me started on the "Those big dead titties" scene. Fucking gross.

After watching this again, I really would love to have a pint with Michael Bay, I think he could be one of the most bizarre people in existence. His writing has the sensibilities of a 13 year old who claimed to fuck your mum during a game of Call of Duty. What am I saying, this guy is the biggest douche in the world. Bad Boys 2 is the result of giving a blank check to an utter man-baby with no morals. Who the fuck let this be 2 and half hours long?!


Bad Boys 2 is devoid of anything that's even considered morally decent, but it is a fascinating train-wreck to watch with some well shot action and visual flair. Oddly enough, I kinda want to see a Bad Boys 3? The fuck has Bay done to me? Another knockout 4K UHD release from Sony too. Much like the first Bad Boys, it is just gorgeous to look at, it's just a shame a film like this was given such a high-quality transfer.

3/10 Dans

Bad Boys 2 is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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Heathers (1988) - Arrow Blu-ray Review

Review:

*Originally written September 14th, 2018*

Heathers is one of those films I really wish I watched as a kid, I had seen it before in my late teens and I liked it a lot, but I just know had I grown up with it, that I would love it so much more than I do now. It's a film that had always popped up and I'd seen around, but for some reason in the UK it was annoying hard to get hold of, and I really don't know why. For some reason I'm reminded of what a nightmare Leon was to get hold of too. 

Thankfully, Arrow Video have finally given Heathers a worthy Blu-ray release in the UK, mastered from a gorgeous 4K scan and it was probably the best way to experience this film again outside of a theatre. An actually 4K UHD release would have been nice, but we're probably a bit far out from catalogue releases like this seeing the light of day.

Heathers feels like John Hughes on crack. It's a funny, violent and utterly demented high school crime comedy. I'd forgot just how dark this film was, it's one of the darkest comedies I've seen in a while in fact. Teen murder and suicide is brushed off as such a trivial thing. Some of the strangely homophobic and outdated '80s jokes surprisingly worked. The mineral water gag is absolute gold.

The characters are fantastic, it's always easy to forget what a charming piece of charisma Christian Slater was back in the day, back in his later '80s/early '90s peak. This is by far his best role outside of True Romance. It was just so easy to see why Winona Ryder would fall in love with him and go along (Mostly) to his increasingly destructive plans, leading to a genuinely heartfelt confrontation that made me realise I actually loved these characters.


It hits into those '80s high school cliches, but turns them on their heads in its own sick fashion, outside of Thoroughbreds, I'm really drawing a blank at any film that comes close to the tone and unique style of Heathers. It's so easy to see why in today's climate that any attempt to reboot this film as a franchise has been a complete disaster. Heathers really is a product of its time and could in no way be replicated today. That being said, Heathers still feels ahead of its time, despite being 30 years old, a lot of themes are far more relevant today. I guess making it kinda timeless?


Heathers is still excellent, 30 years on and sits near the top of the high school '80s genre, but turns all the genres cliches into something far more horrific the hilariously dark results. God, I love '80s film-making. I cannot wait to watch this again. I can tell it's going to grow on me with every watch.

8/10 Dans

Heathers is out now on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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The Nun (2018) - Cinema Review

Review:

*Originally written September 14th, 2018*

I've never really understood the appeal of all these Conjuring films and their spin-offs. The main two Conjuring films are two perfectly decent and completely watchable haunted house horrors, then it was spun-off with Annabelle, which was utterly atrocious and then a sequel that was much better received, but left no impact on me. I watched it a few months ago and I genuinely have no memory of it. Now, a spin-off of a minor character from The Conjuring 2 is here and it is pathetic.

Everything about The Nun just feels like a cash grab. Filled to the brim with lame and annoying hump-scares, stupid characters that they try so desperately to make funny and likeable. Just nothing works about this, it's flatly shot and would have not felt out of place being a straight to video film, the only thing keeping it from that is the franchise name and a slightly higher budget.

In terms of storytelling, it's just a complete mess of asinine stupidity. I was in shock and disbelief at the utter nonsense on display in this. Then again, I admire the balls to compete to such bombastic stupidity. The writers room must have literally been a group of writers seeing who could take the piss and get away with it. Whoever came up with the final confrontation and the use of the blood of Christ was the runaway winner.

At the very least, The Nun does boast some excellent production design and the odd bit of decent cinematography. Some of the setting is eerie and unsettling. I can't even remember the score, so that tells you all you need to know about that, but I'm trying so desperately to find something positive to say, so I'll give it that.

The casting of Taissa Farminga is also some interesting casting seeing as she's the daughter of Vera Farminga and without spoilers, it goes out of its way to tie these things together in a very confusing and awkward way in the end credits. I'm really unsure what it was implying it was edited to seem like one thing, but I really just can't imagine it was what they were going for.

Where The Nun also fails miserably is in its lack of "less is more" approach. Horror films thrive when their villains are in the shadows, lurking and rarely seen, but The Nun herself has the odd creepy moments, but is against wasted by being used to much and just not seeming like that much of a challenge for the main characters. At barely 90 minutes, things are wrapped up very fast, but it is a complete slog to get there.

It's also a tonal nightmare, while it tries to be an atmospheric horror film, they litter in these moments of lame humour that feels more in place with the worst of Marvel than a horror film. The character "Frenchie" is just a one not quip machine who completely destroys any moment of tension, by the incessant need to spout out a completely cringe one liner every chance he gets. Also, as he's constantly referred to as "Frenchie", all I could hear in my head was the iconic moment of The Simpsons where Mayor Quimby's nephew harasses a French waiter in order to hear his pronunciation of "Chowder". "Say it, Frenchie! Say chowder!"


As long as there's a horde of brainless teens who will go and see this surprisingly cheap to make films thanks to their easy and gullible marketing campaigns, then the Conjuring franchise shows no signs of stopping. We're going to get a Nun 2, an Annabelle 3, Conjuring 3 and then a spin-off of whatever highlight character audiences seem to like in Conjuring 3. God help us all. The Nun is one of the worst horror films of the year, and I'm having Nun of it.

3/10 Dans

The Conjuring is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Yardie (2018) - Cinema Review

Review:

*Originally written September 12th, 2018*

This is a hard one to talk about, part of me was really interested to see how Idris Elba would hold up as a director and to my memory, I don't think I've ever seen a crime film based entirely within Jamaican culture. There is so much potential here that is sadly wasted with Elba's muddled direction and just plainly generic storytelling.

This is looking to be one of the most forgettable films of the year. The story is one just so generic and plain. A boy goes into the life of crime after seeing his brother assassinated and ends up in a decade long journey before avenging him. It borrows a lot from much better films, there's a slice of Goodfellas in there, a pinch of City of God and then the ugly feeling of a bunch of straight to DVD Danny Dyer crime thrillers.

Things start of fine, it's a little rushed, they try and pack a lot into the brisk 100 minutes run-time. D's (Aml Ameen) arc is very quick to get going. There really could have been a lot more build up and maybe exploring the relationship between him and his older brother before his death. It could have gone a long way to make us care more about his journey of revenge.

I really would like to rewatch this with subtitles too, there are a few moments where I just didn't understand what the hell the characters said. This is due to the strong Jamaican accents, which is not the film's fault at all, I just personally wished I watched it with subtitles, like I do with every film at home.

Elba just has a hard time making all these come coherently together. There's a tacked on romance that is extremely forced and moments of  tension that go absolutely nowhere. It's incredibly disappointing that an actor with this much charisma is such a plain director. Some of the visuals in Jamaica look gorgeous, but once things hit London, it feels like one of those cheap straight to video cockney crime thrillers. It is gross. I hope Elba continues to improve as a director, because this is not a good start at all.

The most interesting part of Yardie is the absolutely bat-shit insane performance from Stephen Graham, his performance is so over the top and silly, it feels so tonally out of place in this. He's tries to be a coked up Scarface like figure that swaps between a thick Jamaican accent or a British one. I just couldn't figure out if it was intentional or not. It was bizarre, but the most I was entertained by the film, so that's something.

Things come to a very muddled and quick conclusion, to the point I thought there was more, but it just ends? It all just felt very rushed and none of the emotional moments are earned. A character dies towards the end and the lead character is emotionally screaming and I was just thinking "Were we meant to give a shit about a character we'd only seen about twice?". 


Yardie clearly has good intentions from Elba behind the camera, but the end result is something that felt more likely to land with no fanfare on Netflix as an original rather than a cinema release. A messy time all round. A complete waste of a different side of culture we rarely see in cinema.

4/10 Dans

Yardie is out now in cinemas in the UK
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Bad Boys (1995) - 4K Review

Review:

*Originally written September 12th, 2018*

Michael Bay actually shows some promise with his first film, Bad Boys. While it has the "Bayhem" flair, it actually shows the talent of a first time director with potential. All the Bay problems here are kept to a minimum and only unleashed in his later and more abhorrent films.

Bad Boys is a fairly generic buddy-cop film about two detectives who are polar opposites of each other, working together to solve the case of a drug robbery and murder of a woman that involves a witness they must protect. 

Will Smith's Mike Lowrey is a playboy millionaire who is only a cop as a hobby, while Martin Lawrence's Marcus Burnett is an honest family man. I'd like to say these two have great chemistry and are a match made in heaven, sadly they are not. Will Smith plays it with his usual Will Smith charm that has only grown stale. Martin Lawrence is just annoying. All the side characters are horrible, especially Marcus's wife, who is a just a total uptight buzzkill and nothing more. Way to write women characters, Bay....

Bay's flourish for action works much better on a small scale here. All the set-pieces look nice and feel unique. The finale at the airport is the standout, while throughout there is a couple of smaller moments. This whole thing feels weird. It's a Michael Bay film with not a lot of action, which I appreciate. It's just a shame his characters are utterly horrible and the writing is appalling.

The plot is messy and makes no sense. Marcus and Mike have to pretend to be each other in some deeply unfunny scenes. As a comedy this falls completely flat. All the jokes are either cringe-worthy or uncomfortably racist. There's the two Spanish cops and one of the them is named "Mendez", because of course. 

I sound negative, but I do appreciate this film on a purely throwback level. It reeks of '90s and Bay clearly comes from a music directing background that shows. There is so much '90s cheese, especially in the music with some laughable guitar riffs. It really was a product of its time.

Even looking at the poster, Michael Bay clearly has a huge hard-on for the colour yellow. Bad Boys is non-stop yellow, from the opening to closing scene. The whole film is over saturated in a piss coloured yellow aesthetic. I hated the colour scheme. I actually much prefer his blue look he uses in his later films. Even with the overbearing yellow colour scheme, this is a gorgeous 4K release, brimming with detail and vibrant improvements on the colours. The previous "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray release was excellent too, but this more than tops that. Another class UHD release from Sony. Can't wait to see how Bad Boys 2 looks.

The bad guy is utterly forgettable too. I'm looking at the IMDB cast know and am having a hard time remembering what the bad guy was called and who played him. He pops up in a few scenes and leaves no kind of impact whatsoever. 

I don't feel I've talked enough about how awful these characters are. Will Smith is a complete douche-bag, we get hints of his womanising, his home is basically a shrine to himself, which would be fine, even pretty funny had the character been written better, but he's just an asshole. I don't get Martin Lawrence either, his character never goes beyond doing a high-pitched voice in a tense situation. So annoying. Oh, these people are awful cops too. I don't know how they weren't fired.


For better or worse, this is where Bayhem begins, and I say "Game on".


6/10 Dans

Bad Boys is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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The Dark Knight Rises (2012) - 4K Review

Review:

*Originally written September 12th, 2018*

I've tried, I've really tried. I want to love The Dark Knight Rises so much, I've given it so many chances, but it never improves, the flaws become more apparent and it seems to get worse with every watch. That said, this isn't the worst watch of it I've ever had, possible due to a 4K bump. As gorgeous as the 4K disc is, that means nothing for a film that is a complete write off on nearly every front.

I'm probably going to pick out a lot of things that have been brought up over the years with this. I'll get the good out the way first. It looks gorgeous, this is still a cinematic and beautiful film with one of Hans Zimmer's strongest scores. Nolan's flair for set-pieces and action is nearly unmatched. I nearly thought I was on board with this watch after the thrilling plane sequence, but it quickly falls apart.

Where DKR falls apart 90% of the time is in its screenplay. Nothing makes sense. Rather than feeling like a compelling and powerful ending to the Dark Knight Trilogy, what we have is an overlong mess of a film. I used to find this at the very least entertaining to watch, but in all honesty, it's just really boring and irritating. 

Nolan has had scripting issues in his films before, but they're usually during smaller or background scenes that don't really matter and can be overlooked. Here, it's front and display through the entire run-time. It is insane how this first draft feeling screenplay managed to get greenlit. Characters you've seen grow through two films are completely wasted and go against everything you'd seen from them so far. Alfred leaving Bruce because he feels Bane is unlike anything he's come up against is just so strange and makes no sense. 

The film makes a big deal about Tom Hardy's Bane being removed from The League of Shadows because his methods were "Too extreme", in this we're given no real indication of what that could be. Instead it's just a boring nuke the city and the good guys have to disarm it at the 11th hour. It's a very uninspired bad guy plan that could have least had some emotional weight to it, but just failed to make me care. They nearly manage to squeeze an emotional moment out from you, but due to extremely manipulative and lazy editing, that potentially meaningful moment is pulled from under us for a lame, eye rolling reveal at the end.

We're also introduced to a whole new series of characters that are all so under-baked and wasted. All the performances are fine, it's just the script that screws them over. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Blake is just the worst, a muddled character with a confusing arc. He finds out who Batman is due his smile when Bruce Wayne visited his orphanage as a kid, it made no sense. Then we have him shoot two criminals, in a blatant exercise of self-defence, throws his gun away in disgust (Obviously to mirror Batman's no guns policy), but then just picks up a gun anyway... It made no sense. And for some reason his superiors constantly refer to him as "Hot head" for no other reason than doing the basics of his job. 

Tom Hardy's Bane should have been a hulking force of nature, and he has his moments. The scene where he "Breaks the Bat" is genuinely brutal and exciting, displaying how powerful he is. It's a problem that has been mocked and made fun of for years, but it's true, His voice is a completely misguided idea. It really helps to watch DKR with subtitles, because a lot of the time, it's near impossible to understand what he says. It's also a shame where they go with his character by the end, reducing him to some lovesick henchman and giving him a completely unsatisfying and rushed death scene.

Since Bane is reduced to a henchman for Marion Cottilard's Talia al Ghul, things get even messier. Cottilard is a fine actress, so it's so strange and bizarre that she's completely wasted and given one of the most mocked and atrocious death scenes ever committed to film. Her role is so blatantly telegraphed through the film, making her villain reveal utterly meaningless and ineffective. 

Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is a also meant to be a sorta minor villain who changes her ways to be with Bruce at the end. While all the other performances range from fine to good, Hathaway sticks out like a sore thumb, trying so desperately hard to come off as sexy and snarky, that it just feels utterly cringe. She's just another character who's arc makes no sense at all. She's a career thief who only cares about herself, but changes her mind towards the end for no real reason. Oh, and there's a whole subplot about her after a device that wipes someones entire criminal record and every trace of them off the internet. 

I haven't even got to Bruce Wayne or Batman yet. 8 years after The Dark Knight, he's a reclusive cripple who hasn't been Batman since killing Harvey Dent and is still suffering from the injury he sustained from that. He's walks with a cane due to the fact he has no cartilage in his knee, then he gets some robot leg thing that completely fixes that. Oh, okay. He's called back into action due to Bane's exploits and constantly talks about how he hasn't given everything for Gotham yet. So it would have made sense for him to die. He goes through Hell in this film. His back is broken and he's taken to a prison in the middle of nowhere where his back is fixed after a couple of months and a punch in the back. Then he's able to be Batman again. No, really. That happens. It's such a muddled mess.


There was just so much potential here that's utterly wasted, it has the feel and scale of a Christopher Nolan film, but it just crushed and the immense weight of its truly awful screenplay. I continue to be confused at the people who 5 star this complete mess. Did they see a different film? Or am I just wrong? I've tried for years to like this film, and while I wish I could even enjoy this on a surface level, I can't even do that, I just feel disappointed and the insane potential that could have made a satisfying end to the trilogy. Still my biggest disappointment of all time.

4/10 Dans

The Dark Knight Rises is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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The Dark Knight (2008) - 4K Review

Review:

*Originally written September 9th, 2018*

Oh, boy. There is a lot to take in here. I've seen The Dark Knight at least a dozen times since its release a decade ago (A decade ago? What the fuck?), it's a film I'd always loved and was easily my favourite comic-book film up until Logan was released last year. That said, upon this rewatch, this just jumped back up to my numero uno superhero film and it still has a place in the my top 10 of all-time.

It's just such a huge improvement all around coming of Batman Begins. It opens to one of the best and most inventive bank heists in film. It truly is one hell of a way to open things off, yet they still manage to top things from there. Every set-piece is a feast for the eyes and insanely impressive on a technical and visual level. It never goes over the top and it all feels real, much like Fury Road or Mission Impossible: Fallout. I'm always consistently impressed when directors go for practical effects or CGI, it always shows and pays off.

Nolan's decision to use IMAX cameras for some scenes was a great choice and really shows off the impressive scale of what he outs on the screen. Also helped by just how much better visually those scenes look quality wise. The 4K disc is a 5 star ride all the way, but the IMAX scenes shine in particular.

This would all be for nothing though if the story wasn't good, but it is. The Dark Knight is still the defining Batman experience. We dig deeper into Bruce Wayne's psychology than we've ever seen before and Christian Bale seems far more comfortable in his role than he last time, fully embracing his role as Batman while his time as Bruce Wayne takes a backseat. I always forget how fast The Dark Knight moves about, it's 2 and a half hours, but goes by like it's nothing. It's one of those rare films that defies the law of diminishing returns.

I've obviously got to talk about the late Heath Ledger and yes, despite the "We live in a society" and Gang Weed memes nearly derailing the character into cringe, he still holds as one of the best film villains of all-time. I hadn't rewatched this since seeing Suicide Squad, and while I didn't mind Leto's Joker. Ledger's Joker just makes a complete embarrassment of him. Ledger completely embodies the role, giving The Joker an array of small ticks and moments that I'm still only noticing today. One of the smaller things I'd never noticed is that he never looks at someone in the face when he kills them, he's always looking off in a different direction or with his back turned to the person he's murdering.

He's the ultimate challenge for Batman and his plan, or lack of a real plan is what makes The Dark Knight's plot far more interesting than most. It's villain isn't motivated by money or power, he's simply interested in bringing out the worst in people and proving that deep down, everyone is just as crazy or bad as each other. It creates far more interesting tension and motivation for Batman compared to a nuclear bomb going off in the city (Oh, I'll get to Dark Knight Rises, don't you worry).

As incredible as this all is, there are just some things that Christopher Nolan just can't seem to get right and have only been made worse since they've been brought up by the internet. 90% of the dialogue from the police and extras are just awful. Everything a cop says is just a cliche line that is painful to here, made worse by some truly awful delivery. A character genuinely says "I didn't sign up for this"...

While everyone talks about Heath Ledger's Joker as the main talking point for The Dark Knight, it's disappointing how underappreciated Aaron Eckhart is as Harvey Dent. His arc is tragic and compelling. I always forget about him before every watch, but when I'm watching it I'm always pleasantly surprised at how good he is. His chemistry with Rachel (A much better Maggie Gyllenhaal) works and creates an interesting dynamic that goes to horrible places towards the end.

I always remember this getting a lot of people riled up for how dark and violent it was for a superhero film aimed at kids, but while this is a comic-book film, it is so different in tone to what we've seen before, it feels more like a Michael Mann crime-epic than a costumed fluff piece. It's brooding and really violent, it pushes that 12 rating as far as it can go, but isn't without the odd bit of editing that is a little confusing. especially in the scene where The Joker cuts Gumble's throat, but is done in such an awkward manner that it looks like he cut his cheeks open.


I just wish Christopher Nolan was able to keep up the quality of The Dark Knight, as it still holds up. It's not just the best comic-book film ever made, it's one of the best action or crime thrillers, full stop. on a technical level and performance level, everyone is on top form here. It's an unforgettable 150 minutes and one I'll continue watching till I die.

10/10 Dans

The Dark Knight is out now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD in the UK
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