2025 in Film Part 2: The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

It’s that time again as they say to reveal my full list of my favourite films and my turkeys of 2025,

And this year I’ve decided to do a full list instead of up to 5 in each list because there were a number of films I wanted to talk about in both categories and lets start with the Turkeys and get the bad out of the way and luckily most movies that ended up being a pile of poo I more or less avoided because they looked that way in the trailers for them,

And at number 7 on this list I have:

Five Night’s at Freddy’s 2,

Now I didn’t hate this movie all that much but I also don’t think its very good either,

And that comes down to when I was watching it and seeing a movie being projected in front of me that had lots of lore crammed into it and a lot of world building in it but it was also dull and lifeless at the same time,

And that comes down to Emma Tammi’s direction and Scott Cawthon’s screenplay as this material really desperately needed better hands at the helm in both fronts, Tammi’s direction feels flat and drab with easy setups and not a lot of moody atmosphere to generate any tension or scares or peril for the characters one of whom played by Josh Hutcherson (he of Peeta Mallark) had me making Hunger Games jokes again as he was once again needing to be rescued, some people you can’t take anywhere can you,

And as for Cawthon’s script well it really needed someone to come in and turn this into an actual screenplay because Cawthorn is not such a person, yes lots of lore and world building from the games is here but it doesn’t translate at all to the rules and structure of a MOVIE which is what you guys are making not video game cutscenes,

But given Cawthon is the creator of FNAF I can’t help but think that those in charge including at Blumhouse and Universal had it in them to say No to him or to give him any kind of meaningful studio notes or bring in an actual screenwriter to co-write this and I wish they had because the potential is here for a memorable family friendly horror film franchise but its been squandered and its time for this series to get nullified.

6. Jurassic World Rebirth,

See Dinosaurs Run,
Run Dinosaurs Run,
Run from Dinosaurs,
Dinosaurs Eat People,

Add dashes of Corporate Espionage, People doing Stupid Things because the script needs them to do so and a family in peril on a deserted island and KALBAMO you have basically every single Jurassic Park movie since 1993,

And boy oh boy has it gotten so tiresome to see this happen because the first Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg was lightning in a bottle especially for those of my generation as it along with Mrs Doubtfire the same year would become seminal movies for kids of the 1990’s,

But whereas Doubtfire had the good sense to leave things be after one movie Jurassic did not and the quality either sank like a ship or it just became medicore fan service designed to make older audience members react to the jangling keys on the movie screen,

And as for the cast well outside of Scarlett Johansson who is the sole reason this movie isn’t higher on this list it is a waste, Mahershala Ali (2 time Oscar winner by the way) is wasted in a role that frankly Captain Haddock from Tintin could’ve played just as well and it really feels like he did this to catch up on his bill payment after waiting for the Marvel Studios call that hasn’t come in 6 years and Jonathan Bailey hot off of Wicked is wasted in a nothing role that could’ve cast anyone, if your going to cast someone like him make sure its for the right role and not because you want another name to put on the smegging poster.

Billions of bilious blistering blue Barnacles writing about these movies is getting tiresome because Fallen Kingdom was a Turkey and Dominion was a missed opportunity as well as a Turkey, Universal needs to send a proverbial meteor the way of this franchise to let it rest for a long long time.

5. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning:

How sad this is,

Prior to these last two Reckoning films the Mission Impossible series had been on a great run from MI3 in 2006 to Fallout in 2018, 12 years giving us 4 movies that not only proved Tom Cruise as an action stunt man par excellence but also acted as the light hearted spy adventure counterpart to the darker and more realistic and emotional Daniel Craig era James Bond films,

But sadly the Final Reckoning is not the grand finale this series deserved as outside of 2 major action set pieces (one of which reminded me a lot of James Cameron’s The Abyss) the script for this movie is so chock full of exposition, ponderous dialogue about The Entity (which kept making me think of the early 80’s horror movie with Barbara Hershey) and having to tie up every single loss end imaginable that it reminded me in all the worst ways of Spectre the very worst James Bond movie ever made,

And at 169 minutes it just felt so very long and at one point I did feel my bottom going to sleep in my cinema seat,

And even the action direction feels lacklustre this time with none of the exhilarating editing Fallout had or the sense of danger and tension Rogue Nation had instead it just plays out in leisurely feeling edits while characters sit around waiting for a timer to go off and the ensemble cast feels sidelined here as more and more people get added and the plot deems them to be more important than the core ensemble we’ve followed for 3 movies straight and that is so so disappointing,

And this movie wasn’t written by someone who’s read a lot of Letterboxd reviews and thinks “I can write a screenplay” this was written by Christopher McQuarrie who won an Academy Award for writing one of the great thrillers of our time in the Usual Suspects but like his old sparring partner Bryan Singer from that movie he stuck around with this franchise for too long and his direction here feels tired and lacklustre even more than it did in Dead Reckoning in 2023,

And then there’s Tom Cruise himself and I love his commitment to practical stuntwork and wanting to do a lot of it himself but at 63 his age starts to wear watching him do this especially in the films climax and in most of the scenes he sounds like he’s out of breath on every second line reading and the sad thing is that the most memorable thing about these last 2 movies was Cruise yelling at his crew members for breaking COVID protocols during the production of Dead Reckoning (which as a producer on these movies he had every right to do so given the circumstances at that time.)

And lastly the villains here are a joke, The Entity (the AI villain of this movie) is not horrifying like the Barbara Hershey horror film or Skynet from the first 2 Terminator movies instead it feels like a hinderance constantly throwing out false leads to drag out the storytelling and Gabriel as the human villain is a complete blank with no personality or impact on the story at all and these movies NEED a strong villain like Phillip Seymour Hoffman in MI3 and Sean Harris in Rogue Nation and Fallout but no such luck here,

And to quote the man himself “I DON’T EVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN, EVER!!”

4. Wicked for Good:

If anyone this I take any pleasure out of having this movie on this list, I do not,

But that was the feeling I had when I walked out of the cinema after watching this movie, in fact my thought was “The first film was on my favourites list, this one is going on my worst list”

And that is because there is so little here that I liked about it, firstly the story wants to commit to a darker tone than Part One but it also is fearful of going there properly because they want to maintain that PG rating and because of that the darker moments especially with the Wicked Witch of the West feel unsatisfying and a waste of Cynthia Erivo’s enormous talent because it isn’t as dark as it think it is and it feels afraid to let Erivo actually be the Wicked Witch the people of Oz are told she is,

And speaking of the cast what a terrible waste, Erivo and Ariana Grande were magic together in the first film but here whenever their together on screen it feels like that spark is gone and their only on screen together because the story needs them together to do what it needs them to do instead of naturally bringing them together and having that anchor the storytelling, Jonathan Bailey is also wasted here and one of his key scenes is ruined by bad digital cinematography that made me think it was someone else on screen instead wearing digital makeup,

And as for the storytelling well it is a mess because not only does it have to be Part 2 of Wicked the musical but also tie into the events of the Wizard of Oz and those connections kept making me think of how Madame Web in 2024 had these tedious and predictable connections to the Spider-Man universe and that is precisely how it feels here, it doesn’t feel organic it feels like nostalgia tugging fan service and it felt totally unnecessary,

And lastly the musical numbers feel so forgettable, in the first film they worked well and felt organic to the storytelling as they should in a good musical but here it feels like the movie comes to a stop so the characters can sing and that is death in a musical.

Anywho continuing onto number 3:

The Wolf Man,

It’s January and that means a bad horror movie that ends up feeling like a hairball coughed up on the cinema screen,

And this movie was made by Leigh Whannell a talented writer/director who made a good horror movie with the Invisible Man in 2020 but here it feels like he was replaced by a Changeling as this movie just did not work at all,

Firstly it wasn’t scary, the Invisible Man was scary because it did a great job on playing on women’s very real fears of not only an abusive relationship and the after effects it can have on them but also being believed when their ex gets violent and they feel they have little choice but to take matters into their own hands to guarantee their safety but here none of that, the night time scenes look dull and murky and the storytelling stops and starts so often that it drains the tension out of the movie,

And also the wolf man effects look terrible, it looked cheap for a start with no more than a bunch of left over prop hair borrowed from the Universal lot and whenever it came on screen it took me out of the movie (then again the 2010 Wolf Man wasn’t much better and that Benicio Del Toro in the lead role)

2. Captain America Brave New World,

Oh dear oh dear,

Marvel Studios really stuffed things up with this movie which like Wicked for Good feels like its afraid of its own shadow at times, it wants to be a politically charged thriller like the Winter Soldier was in 2014 but those making this movie feel either afraid or got told to not go down that route because the studio might get yelled at on YouTube and/or Social Media for reasons well documented,

And that just robs this movie of anything meaningful and if that wasn’t bad enough it doesn’t even centre Sam Wilson as the lead of the film (you know THE CHARACTER WHO’S NAME IS IN THE TITLE) nor does it play to Sam’s strengths as a character instead he just flies around getting chased/shot at or beaten up and his only meaningful character moments are the ones the storytelling throws his away like a scrap of a food bone,

Instead what we get is a movie more concerned with wrapping up storylines from movies made in 2008, another storyline that fans like myself made fun of Marvel Studios ignoring for so long and making a reference that it had no right to make because of the real world circumstances that led to that reference being made in the movie and then there is the waste of the cast (a reoccurring theme in this list),

Giancarlo Esposito is a good actor but all of his scenes are either scenes where he’s by himself or with one other person at most, The Leader feels like an insert during post production, another cameo appearance literally looks like a Zoom call the production made during post production and this whole thing culminates with 83 year old Harrison Ford turning into a Red Hulk and it looked really silly,

And Ford’s character (Thunderbolt Ross which he took over after William Hurt passed away) should’ve been much more central to the storytelling, he should’ve been the Joe Biden esque leader elected to make things right again and bring back a sense of stability and normality only for the pressures of the job and his age cause him to explode in anger as a Hulk and only Sam can fight him off by talking him down like we saw with Natasha and Bruce in Age of Ultron but instead its another boring fight scene with video game CGI and its sad but what else is new.

And now the number 1 turkey of 2025 movie wise is:

M3gan 2.0,

You know it takes a special level of cock up by a creative team to make a shitty sequel, Highlander II did it, Joker Folly of Deux did it and M3gan 2.0 did it as well,

And more than once I sat there going “what the fuck” as this desperately tried to be like Terminator 2 but fundamentally misunderstood why T2 was such a hit as the pivot to sci-fi action instead of horror felt unearned and the lead character was turned into this sexy heroine when the first film had her as a child doll like Chucky in Child’s Play and that REALLY didn’t work at all, if your going to do that then age up the character not have her look the same as in the first film,

And the AI stuff like in Mission Impossible didn’t really work all that well either and in a time when fears about AI are very real you really need to be doing much better than this especially when it brings your own industry to a grinding halt like it did in 2023 and may very well do so again in 2026.

But that’s the Turkeys out of the way here is my list of my 10 favourite films of 2025:

10. September 5:

A movie I had honestly forgotten about as it felt like it came out in 2024 instead of February of 2025,

That said however this movie was a real treat for me as it covered the infamous hostage crisis of the 1972 Berlin Olympics where 11 Israeli athletes were taken prisoner and the American news team covering the games is trying to report on this situation in real time,

And the movie does a great job at highlighting at how a news team especially in that era of telecommunications tries to break a fluid and developing news situation that could change at any time, the cast do a great job as a group under pressure to make sure the story is covered well but not to endanger any of the lives of the hostages while doing so,

But alas this movie suffered from very bad timing due to the current events in the Middle East and the strong feelings that have developed over that conflict which this movie skillfully sidesteps in keeping its focus on the news crew and their coverage of the events of the time and it really won me over.

9. Superman:

I was very excited for this movie and James Gunn did not disappoint,

Firstly unlike Superman Returns and Man of Steel this movie has a proper upbeat and hopeful tone that those other movies shied away from and to their detriment, Superman was never a dark and serious character he was a beacon of hope, a light to show the way for humanity and to inspire in them their capacity for good, Jor-El of Kryptin knew that and so did Richard Donner and now James Gunn,

He also cast the film very well with David Corenswet like Henry Cavill before him proving himself worthy of the mantle of Superman that Christopher Reeve defined for so many of us, the Daily Planet group was well used also and the Justice Gang was a lot of fun as well and those characters allowed Gunn to insert his signature humour without it undermining the heart and hope that a Superman movie should have,

I really hope Netflix (if they succeed in acquiring WB) will let Gunn and Peter Safran fulfill their vision for DC because for the first time there is one in place ready to go and because of that DC can wins the normies/causal fans and middle of the road fans that Marvel has left behind.

8. F1:

This is a movie that is perfect in knowing what it is, what it wants to be and then executing that vision like a driver in a race,

And Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer deliver exactly that, pure popcorn entertainment with a serviceable story of the veteran racer recruited to save a failing team and guide a promising young rookie with lots of potential,

And I had a great time watching it, Kosinski’s direction while not as fast paced as in Top Gun Maverick is still great especially in the racing scenes and Brad Pitt is good as well as the veteran racer while Kerry fecking Condon is also good as his love interest and the teams technical director,

But my favourite performance was Javier Bardem and yes he plays a hype man again like he did in most of Dune Part Two but its still fun to watch and I enjoyed it.

7. Drop:

Chris Landon (a horror director I’m a big fan of) lost Scream 7 shamefully but bounced back well with Drop,

And Drop was great fun in a cinema as Landon makes good use of the skyline restaurant location as well as the house of Meghann Fahy’s character who is going on a dinner date with Brandon Sklenar’s photographer character and the two play off each other very well,

But Landon also knows to keep things tight and moving to generate suspense and he has fun here as he did with Happy Death Day and Freaky and I always enjoy having fun at a horror movie and after watching this I felt all the more disappointed that we didn’t get his Scream 7 as I was very happy when he was announced as its director only for it to be robbed of us because of studio politics, very disappointing.

6. The Phoenician Scheme:

This is simply Wes Anderson’s best movie since The Grand Budapest Hotel

That isn’t to say the movies between these he made were bad they either weren’t that great or I had little to no desire to watch them as Anderson’s work can more often than not feel like a series of vignettes stitched together to form a narrative instead of a cohesive story,

But here Anderson actually tells a proper story and his specificity directing style works all the better for it, everyone involved (well save for Mia Threapleton) knows how to adapt to Anderson’s direction and there are a lot of good performances to enjoy here,

Most notably Benicio Del Toro and Benedict Cumberbatch, Del Toro between this movie and his role in One Battle After Another is my actor of the year as he is excellent in both that film and this movie he knows how to time the laughs but also deliver the sincere moments while Cumberbatch with his Soviet-era beard makes for a great foil and the two have a memorable moment or two in the films climax.

5. Mickey 17:

This one didn’t get a lot of great reviews on release in early March but this movie just worked for me,

Firstly Bong-Joon Ho’s direction does that Paul Verhoeven esque satire of the world around him better than Edgar Wright did with the Running Man as it feels more consistent and insightful here and while this isn’t the Bong that made Parasite which was a more serious minded movie this was a big budget sci-fi satire that worked very well for me,

And Robert Pattinson anchored this movie well as a working class man desperate for a break only to sign up as literal cannon fodder only to be resurrected after he dies through cloning and like in the sci-fi tradition this goes wrong and there’s 2 RPatz’s on screen and both have their own distinct personality that works well, Naomi Ackie/Toni Collette and Stephen Yeun are also good here,

But the show stealer for me was Mark Ruffalo’s villain clearly inspired by Donald Trump and every time he was on screen I had a big smile on my face as well as having a nice reminder that when you have a good villain in a genre movie it makes tat movie better, take note all other directors.

4. Frankenstein:

Sometimes a movie comes along from a director that they simply meant to make and in the case of Guillermo Del Toro that is Frankenstein,

Based off of Mary Shelley’s novel Del Toro’s adaptation feels like a natural fit for him since so much of his work wrestles with the themes of gods and monsters and the role of man in each of those and how they shouldn’t really play god or be like monsters and while Del Toro’s work can sometimes leave me cold that wasn’t the case here as his direction and adaptation fit well with his style,

The film also looks great with the cinematography, costumes and production design all looking great on a cinema screen and like Del Toro’s other movies it all feels real and tangible with digital effects work only used when their most needed,

The cast are also good but I don’t know if this movie would work as well without Jacob Elordi as the title character, the way he uses his physicality to convey so much about the creature is simply amazing to watch and you rarely take your eyes off him whenever he’s on screen, I sincerely hope he is rewarded with an Oscar nomination for this work as he more than deserves it.

And now we get into the top 3 and this top 3 was a strong one for me this year and at number 3 I have:

Nuremberg:

Like with Mickey 17 sometimes you see a movie that hits every button for you and just works every way you want it to and Nuremberg was such a movie for me,

I really like movies about history (Oppenheimer did it brilliantly in 2023) and Nuremberg tells of the famous Nuremberg trails of the Nazis after the second world war notably Hermann Goring (Russell Crowe) and the history on show here not only worked but also felt very timely given recent events around the world,

Russell Crowe delivers some of his best work in many years while Michael Shannon and Richard E Grant are solid as the justices tasked with putting the Nazi’s on trial but also good is Rami Malek and the way his character’s arc plays out made me feel very maudlin when I left the cinema as I couldn’t help but think that if later generations perhaps not as linked to World War 2 as his generation was had heeded his warning then maybe the world wouldn’t have ended up in the mess its in right now.

2. Sinners:

To doubt Ryan Coogler at this point is folly and I will do no such thing especially after this movie,

Coogler should win best director at the Academy Awards next year for his work but he will almost certainly lose to Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another and it is a bit of a shame because Coogler brilliantly blends horror/blues music/spirituality/black magic and Jim Crow era American history in the south seamlessly and while there are some teething issues from one half to the next both halves are compelling viewing,

The sense of history on display in the first half is very vivid while the horror and black magic driven second half is fantastic especially the Rocky Road to Dublin musical number which makes me grin from ear to ear whenever I watch it,

Not to mention the costumes by Ruth E Carter, the score by Ludwig Gorrannson, the cinematography and the production design all feel very real and believable and some of the dresses Halle Steinfeld’s character wears are beautiful,

Speaking of Steinfeld she is great here as is Michael B Jordan in a dual role as the Smoke/Stack twins along with Jack O’Connell as an Irish vampire and Delroy Lindo as a local musician among others, Coogler knows how to get great performances out of his actors as well as create a believable world for them to exist in and this movie is no exception.

And that only leaves number 1 and it just had to be:

Avatar Fire and Ash:

Simply put there is nothing like this movie and no one like James Cameron making movies,

And I wish we had more like him because what Cameron excels at is creating a world that feels nothing like anything else you’ve seen before and the Avatar trilogy does this to perfection, Pandora is as real and believable as you’ve ever seen it and Cameron’s direction is as good as ever,

But this movie also feels like a proper globe trotting adventure on Pandora with skies, volcanic mountains, forests, sea beds and sky people built cities that are remarkable to watch especially in 3D on a big cinema screen it really feels like you are there on a VR tour of Pandora and I loved every minute of it,

This movie also has 2 of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen in any movie one involving the Mangkwan Raiders attacking a Wind Trader caravan and another with Neytiri attacking Bridgehead City on a nighttime raid, both of those are just amazing action set pieces,

And the cast here are also solid as well, Sam Worthington/Zoe Saldana/Jack Champion/Sigourney Weaver/Britian Dalton/Edie Falco and Stephen Lang among others all return and give good performances but Oona Chaplin’s Varang is simply mesmerizing in this movie with her body movements, her facial expressions and her crazy good chemistry with Lang this is a movie villain for the ages,

And if this becomes the last Avatar movie Cameron makes then I’m happy with that as this movie like Return of the Jedi does a good job wrapping up its main storylines and leaving little else to go forward if more movies are made and while the box office might still be showing that audiences still love Pandora Cameron is now 71 years old and his right hand man the late Jon Landau is no longer with us to help him make these movies which are tough to make if you want to make them right as Cameron does and with this trilogy of films he has created something very special that like Denis Villenueve’s Dune movies will inspire young ones to love movies and want to make some of their own when they grow up as movies like Avatar and Dune are moviemaking at its very best.

And so there we are another movie year gone and 2026 (my 40th birthday year) upon us, hopefully next year will give us more movies and a road back to stability for the industry which for too long now has been unstable since the loss of 20th Century Fox as an independent movie studio, the COVID pandemic, the prolonged 2023 writers and actors strikes and now the potential loss of Warner Brothers to Netflix, I live in hope but it may very well be a fools hope.

And I would love nothing more than to be wrong on that front.

2025 in Film Part 1: The State of the Studios

Another film year has come and gone already and like the last couple of years its time to start the retrospective with the State of the Studios and they definitely had an interesting year,

Though I will say up front that this year movie wise is where we felt the full impact of the 2023 prolonged writers and actors strikes as a lot of films came out that really could’ve used some more work on the script before production remounted but because movie productions take time to remount that work either couldn’t be done or wasn’t done and it showed when watching them, hopefully with Sean Astin (Sam from Lord of the Rings) as the new head of SAG-AFTRA the industry can now have someone they can sit down and deal with properly as Fran Fine-sorry-Drescher was not that person.

But now with that caveat out of the way lets start with the clear loser and that is:

5. Sony/Columbia:

The house that Spider-man has virtually built this century started to show signs of cobwebs holding that studio together more and more,

For while they had some decent hitters they also like the last non big Spider-man movie years didn’t really have a big hit to their name and they clearly could’ve had that with KPop Demon Hunters which was a Sony Animation production but then distributed by Netflix giving them a massive hit was a humongous mistake,

Because Sony/Columbia desperately needs to prove themselves to be more than just “The House that Spidey built” because while Spider-man is still a very popular character he can only swing to the rescue of Lady Columbia every couple of years and that web cartridge is running out with Tom Hardy’s Venom movies now finished and the Spider-Verse series only having one more movie left before that story ends as well,

And part of the problem may sadly lie with current studio chief Tom Rothman who used to be at 20th Century Fox, now Rothman is a fellow who keeps a watchful eye on the budgets of his productions which is much needed in todays bloated budget spending on big movies but I’m starting to get concerned about his leadership going forward and maybe if it might help Sony/Columbia if a team of new blood were to come in and bring a fresh pair of eyes.

4. Paramount:

Oh dear oh dear, the blizzard is hitting this mountain hard,

When Skydance was announced as a potential suitor to buy Paramount from Viacom I was all for it as it felt like at that time the least worst option as the other main contender was Sony and I don’t think anyone was really wanting that given that Paramount would become to them what 20th Century Fox has become to Disney: another division within a megastudio that only really serves the main company’s bidding.

But after a change of President and a lot of hoop jumping Skydance was finally able to get their hands on the studio and it has been a mess ever since from the appointments that have been made across the company to shelving late night shows and now dumping a animated film onto Paramount Plus and worst of all trying to wrangle Taylor Sheridan who’s hit shows like Yellowstone and Landman among others were not only brands specific to Paramount as a whole but also were keeping Paramount+ afloat which saw him drive his cattle to the Universal ranch,

And that last one came after new studio chief David Ellison was out in the press praising Sheridan and wanting him to be part of the studio under his leadership well that didn’t happen and his judgement has been found wanting ever since because being a producer on a movie is one thing but being the head of a studio requires an entirely different set of skills notably in how you deal with people and since taking the reins of Paramount Ellison I feel has struggled to transition from producing to studio chiefton,

And this is a struggle he is far from alone in dealing with, Kathleen Kennedy one of Hollywood’s most iconic producers has at times struggled with the chiefton role but at least Kennedy has been able to find good creative minds like Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni and Tony Gilroy to help shoulder the workload but Ellison at the moment has really yet to do this,

Then again as we’ve seen with Warner Brothers and Discovery it can take a couple of years for a new studio head to find their way in the job and properly set their mark with where they want to take the studio as a whole but at the very least David Zaslav’s decisions made some degree of sense and he found some very very good people like Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca and James Gunn and Peter Safran to run the various divisions of that studio,

By contrast Ellison has really only hired people who fit a certain skill set and given the way things are going in the US right now he runs the risk of being out of step with his audience very quickly if he isn’t careful and/or he doesn’t lift his game and have a better sense of judgement.

3. Walt Disney:

The House always wins they say well sometimes so does the Mouse,

But this is not to say Disney has had a good year they most certainly have not but like in the great game of Baseball anything can happen in a movie year and just because you stumble throughout most of the match/movie year all it takes is the right thing to come along and BAM! You take the win right at the end,

But the road to get there was an awful one with Captain America Brave New World and Snow White barely finding any audience at all, Thunderbolts* struggling in the box office despite good reviews, a Lilo and Stitch live action remake that I thought would be a 1-1.5 billion dollar hit only to barely get over the billion dollar mark while Fantastic Four was greeted with a shrug from audiences and Tron Ares got nullified,

And then there is the mess inside the studio with Pixar struggling, Lucasfilm not much better and a leader in Bob Iger who has been there for the better part of 20 years and has returned not as the white knight but as the architect of so many of Disney’s current problems,

And those problems stem from Iger inheriting a studio on its knees from Michael Eisner and deciding to essentially spend his way out of trouble and acquire short term sugar hit successes that only really end up disguising the lack of proper long term planning and strategies that actually build successful and durable franchises,

And Marvel Studios once an invincible juggernaut along with Lucasfilm and Pixar have borne the brunt of these problems as they didn’t really originate with Walt Disney Pictures itself, sure Pixar had a distribution deal with Disney in its early days but it wasn’t until Iger took the reins that it was formally brought into the fold then there was the decades long struggle with boys and Iger’s decision was to then acquire Marvel and Lucasfilm to solve that problem,

Only it really didn’t and again Disney’s struggle to appeal to boys is far from new its been there for many decades now that isn’t to say they made movies for boys they did with the likes of Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, later on Aladdin and Hercules to name a few but their primary bread and butter was animated fairy tales that while boys did like them they mainly appealed to young girls,

And that mindset ended up kicking back in with these acquired brands and now their not what they once were and personally I think Disney needs to get rid of them all unless things change drastically because I cannot see anything improving for them anytime soon because the question now has to be asked whether it was Bob Iger who masterminded the studios juggernaut years in the 2010’s or was it really Alan Horn who Iger hired after he retired from Warner Brothers and more and more I feel that it was Horn and not Iger who had his finger on the pulse.

2. Warner Brothers:

Oh what could have been,

On any metric the year that Warner Brothers has had after being down in the pitt for so long is remarkable,

7 movies opening at number one above 40 million dollars, a wide variety of movies covering a range of genres and a movie in One Battle After Another that is essentially the Best Picture Oscar’s to lose,

And on top of all that this felt like the year where the Discovery approach to running the studio after a rough 2-3 years of sorting out the mess they inherited from AT&T and WarnerMedia really paid off, the fruit was ripe for picking and it was plump, juicy and delicious,

All that David Zaslav and Co had to do next was set the course for the next 10-20 years, get Animation and Family Entertainment back up and running again and resist cutting and running for a short term pay cheque,

And yet that’s precisely what Zaslav more or less did, after all the crap he got thrown at him for some of his decisions, after all that work sorting out WB to make it a viable studio again, after making the hires he did that could execute his vision properly and after FINALLY setting out a proper course for DC on film he cut and ran like a coward and showed his true colours,

And those colours being no more than those of a financial administrator, the type that are budget men brought in when a company enters receivership and they sort out the books, tidy up the company and get it ready for another sale and I was someone who thought that Zaslav’s calls as the head of WB were more hit than miss,

After all he hired Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy to restore the allure of Warner Bros Pictures and then reupped their contracts after this historic year, he was the one to hire James Gunn and Peter Safran to administer the Panadol Solubles to alleviate WB of its DC migraine which had been there really since Richard Donner was fired from Superman II in 1979 and New Line Cinema became a home of horror once again,

Not to mention Warner Home Video was kicking goal after goal after goal with their physical disc releases especially their catalogue titles like Dirty Harry and Lethal Weapon,

But nope instead of sitting back, chomping on a cigar or two and thumbing his nose at his critics all he’s done instead is vindicate them and validate their concerns when he took the job and now all of this good long hard work risks being undone by Netflix coming in as the potential new owners of the studio who will be under no obligation if they so choose to keep any of the current people in the current roles at the studio let alone any potential scuttling of the Home Video division which would be equally fatal,

And the heads of Netflix can make all the promises they want about committing to theatrical releases and home video physical disc releases plus not wanting to change things too much but many film fans (myself included) will not believe them unless they back up those empty promises with concrete actions and deeds as those speak louder than any words they say right now.

And that leaves a surprising Number 1 which is:

Universal:

Even when your done, you can get back up again,

And Universal has not had the best of years with big movies like How to Train your Dragon, Jurassic World Rebirth, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 and Wicked for Good I’m certain they were hoping to be at or near a billion dollars worldwide at the box office and instead they all fell short of the mark,

And then there is Blumhouse which has put out a few stinkers of its own and Jordan Peele’s produced Him which has made me start to worry about Peele’s judgement in what projects to back,

But Focus Features looks to have a good year and 2026 is definitely going to be their year to take the top studio spot with Michael/Super Mario Galaxy/The Odyssey/Disclosure Day and Minions 3 all of which should be mammoth hits at the box office,

And that only happens when you have good studio leadership at the top and Universal has that in Donna Langley who to her credit has built a leadership team in that studio that celebrates the wins and learns from the losses,

Case in point the Dark Universe in 2017 which got burnt alive right out of the gate with the Mummy and then went no further, those in charge including Langley deserve huge kudos for seeing their mistake and going “That didn’t work but we have Jurassic Park, Despicable Me and the Fast and the Furious to keep us going” although now only Despicable Me remains viable,

But now thanks to shrewd judgement by Langley and Co, Universal now has Christopher Nolan and Taylor Sheridan to help carry the globe on their backs and Uni has already had the first taste of Nolan’s winning formula with Oppenheimer and should do so again with the Odyssey and Sheridan could well deliver them big hits for Peacock their streaming service and some mid-range movies that the big tentpoles could anchor well.

And this has funnily enough been the theme of this years State of the Studios, the leadership at the top that can set the direction, hire the right lieutenants to oversee studio branches and when that tree starts to wilt or gets chopped down in the pursuit of a short sighted dollar and before the dark times, before the pandemic the sense of good studio leadership wasn’t as important but now with theatrical attendance down and only springing up for select titles the importance of a good studio chief is more important than ever.

Film Review - Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025)

Avatar Fire and Ash is the third in the Avatar series and is again directed by James Cameron, the story takes place almost immediately after the events of 2022’s The Way of Water as Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and Lo’ak (Britian Dalton) are mourning the loss of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) at the end of the last movie but Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) is still on their trail and this time he has a powerful and dangerous new ally in Varang (Oona Chaplin) head of the Mangkwan clan.

I have been looking forward to this movie all year as I am a big Avatar fan, the first two movies I go back to fairly often especially the Way of Water and everything I’ve seen of this movie in the previews for it looked even better but could this burn bright be another pile of ash like so many third movies in a series.

Happily the Fire burns bright here as this is a fantastic cinematic experience, I barely felt the 197 minute runtime except maybe towards the end and I sat there having a great time on Pandora once more, Cameron’s direction is as confident and assured as ever and the action sequences he creates here are just amazing to behold, 2 in particular are some of the best action scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie and reminded me more than once of Return of the Jedi.

Speaking of Return of the Jedi, this movie is very much the Jedi of the Avatar series and I do not mean this as a knock against the movie I mean it in the sense that like Jedi it repeats a lot of beats from the first two films and it still delivered a great time at the movies with a fantastic new villain, terrific action sequences and a storyline that wraps up the main story beats well enough to make me happy.

Something that also made me happy was the quality of the villains, Lang is as good as ever while Chaplin is mesmerizing as Varang with the way she moves, the way she walks and the way she uses the eyes of the character to hypnotize you and her use of the fire is very memorable, Edie Falco gets more to do here and is also very good with every line out of her mouth sounding almost venomous at times while Brendan Cowell is good also as the whale hunting captain.

And lastly the 3D here is sensational, I’m normally not a big fan of 3D because of the glasses and wearing those glasses over my own which makes my eyes hurt but here it felt so immersive I may as well have been wearing a VR headset because the depth of the image was amazing and the dimensions felt properly 3rd dimensional and very very rarely did I want to take the glasses off, this is quite simply the best use of 3D in a movie I’ve ever seen.

And so that was Avatar Fire and Ash and while it does repeat a few beats this is a cinema experience unlike any you’ll ever see, nobody does it like James Cameron and I wish we had more like him making movies, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Five Nights at Freddys 2 (2025)

Five Nights at Freddys 2 is the sequel to the 2023 movie Five Nights at Freddys and like this movie was based on the video game series, this movie sees Mike (Josh Hutcherson) try to move on with his life after the events of the first film but his little sister Abby (Piper Rubio) misses her friends at the old Freddys Pizzeria and wants them fixed so she tries to do so unaware it will only bring up ghosts from the past.

Five Nights at Freddys 2 is fine but also very very forgettable and after watching this movie I did find myself wishing these movies were better because the elements are here for a solid horror franchise: A mystery/backstory/characters and a clear villain and all of them in both movies have been wasted somewhat, the mystery and backstory feel at times overly complicated and uninteresting to watch while the cast are kinda there.

Hutcherson is good as he was in the first film but part of me did think “Peeta’s in trouble once again, can’t take some people anywhere can ya” while Elizabeth Lail is okay but shines best when she has scenes with Hutcherson as the two have good chemistry together, Piper Rubio is a good little actress but ends up becoming the standard kid that gets ignored in a Horror movie while Mackenna Grace (a newcomer to this series) has too little screen time.

What is great across both of these movies are the animatronic effects, they are superbly done here and whenever they come on screen there is a real weight and texture to them that is rarely seen with digital characters which can often look like something out of a computer game but here the practical creatures look great and if they were in better movies could’ve become very memorable horror characters like Freddy Krueger.

And so that was Five Nights at Freddys 2 and honestly if you liked the first film you’ll probably like this one otherwise I wouldn’t bother, its dull to sit through and forgettable after you leave the cinema, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Nuremberg (2025)

Nuremberg is a new historical drama that stars Rami Malek as Dr Douglas Kelley, a shrink who is brought in by the US Army to assess the mental health of Herman Goring (Russell Crowe) after he is captured trying to flee Germany after WW2, this would later lead to the famous Nuremberg trials.

Nuremberg is a movie that really affected me and is one of my absolute favourite films of the year, firstly it is a riveting drama that does run a little long at 148 minutes I didn’t really care all that much, the events on screen had me hooked as it told a great historical drama that has a lot of resonance in the times we currently live in.

Secondly there is a lot of great performances, Rami Malek is very good as Dr Kelley even if he goes a little too over the top at times, John Slattery is solid as the head of the Nuremberg prison camp while Michael Shannon and Richard E Grant are very good as the main prosecutors in the Nuremberg trails.

As for Russell Crowe as Goring he is good but at times his German accent sounds a little cartoonish which bothered me a little.

And so that was Nuremberg and this is definitely going to be in my favourite films list of the year, a great drama with a historical truth, great performances and a timely message at its core, I hope this movie finds its way into School Curriculums someday, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Zootopia 2 (2025)

Zootopia 2 is the sequel to the 2016 Disney animated film Zootopia and sees Judy Hopps (Jennifer Goodwin) and Nick (Jason Bateman) on the pursuit of a wild snake in their city (Ke Huy Quan) as he seeks a secret book that might hold the key to helping his family but like in the first film the case Judy and Nick go on has more to it than meets the eye.

Zootopia 2 is terrific fun, easily as good as the first film and well worth the wait, Jared Bush’s script feels like its written by someone who actually understands how Disney Animation should work, there are plenty of great gags in here as well as a compelling story and a decent enough villain, the gags in particular I enjoyed spotting and made me laugh more than once while the overall mystery is lighter in tone than the case in the first film but its just as fun and enjoyable.

The world building here is also excellent, Zootropolis feels like a living breathing world that you could get lost in and its so much fun to just enjoy the city streets and the various animals going about their business and having various roles in that society I think is a testament to the designers both production and character in that they make it work so well.

The cast is also good fun, Goodwin and Bateman play off each other very well and their chemistry is good also, Idris Elba is a lot of fun as the police chief who like most movie police chiefs is constantly grumpy but its still fun to watch while Ke Huy Quan is okay as the Snake but he tends to do his usual panic merchant type role after a while which bothered me a little.

As for the villains well their okay but I really miss the good old days of great Disney villains like Scar or Frollo or Hades or Jafar, too many of the Disney villains are trying to copy Gaston from Beauty and the Beast in that their evil but there’s a reason why their evil and that’s gotten so boring now I want a return to the despicable rogues of old like the ones I mention above along with Captain Hook or Cruella De Vil bring them back please.

And so that was Zootopia 2 and it is great fun but I wish it had a better villain, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

Wake Up Dead Man is the third Knives Out movie and the second released under Netflix and once again sees Daniel Craig play Benoit Blanc as he investigates the murder of a Monsignor (Josh Brolin) in a church and there are a lot of suspects (Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Thomas Haden Church, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner among others)

Wake Up Dead Man is a better movie than Glass Onion (the second movie in the series) but it still falls short of the fun and freshness of the original film from 2019 but before I go more into that I want to mention the positives and first of those is Daniel Craig who is as good as ever in this role and as fun as ever, watching him here always puts a smile on my face and part of me prefers him in this role than as James Bond and he was a great 007.

Secondly the film is well crafted and deserves to be seen in a cinema, Steve Yedlin (director Rian Johnson’s regular cinematographer) does a great job here and I fear his DP work will be ruined when people watch this on Netflix heavily compressed and in fluctuating quality as there is a lot of dark shadows, moody lighting and interesting colour choices that are seen at their best when watching this movie on the big screen, the Production Design by Rick Heinrichs is also quite good with the gothic looking church and isolating forest areas around it.

And the mystery here (again written by Johnson) is better than it was in Glass Onion as well as it feels more interesting and less comedic than it did in the second film as well as less on the nose than it was last time.

But where this movie does fall down is in the broader ensemble cast as like in Glass Onion their not as fun to watch as it was in the first film, Renner/Close/Brolin/Haden Church are all fine but have been both better and worse elsewhere, Cailee Spaeny who is a great young talent feels the most wasted as her role is so minor it didn’t really need someone like her in that role while Josh O’Connor fares the best out of the group and feels like a co-lead at times but he holds his own very well but then again he rarely lets you down as an actor.

And lastly I really sincerely hope that this is the final Knives Out film made by Netflix as I don’t feel this partnership has done Johnson or the franchise any good I’m afraid, now don’t get me wrong I fully understand why Lionsgate made the decision they did to sell the sequels to them in 2021, it was the height of Covid and they just had Chaos Walking come out and lose a whole bunch of money and Netflix came along with a big enough cheque to give them some easy money.

But that cost in hindsight has proven to be a costly one as when the first film was made under Lionsgate it was a better movie primarily because Johnson was dealing with people in the studio system who knew how to do this stuff and do it properly whereas at Netflix they were most likely adopting the Dick Jones mindset of “It’s Just Content, who cares if it worked or not” and didn’t give Johnson the guidance he probably needed and probably got at Lionsgate so hopefully he goes back to a traditional studio for future movies.

And so that was Wake Up Dead Man and this Knives Out is better than Glass Onion but not as good as the first film but its still enjoyable nonetheless, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Wicked for Good (2025)

Wicked for Good is the follow on to 2024’s Wicked based off of the Broadway musical and again sees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo return as Glinda and Elphaba respectively, the story here sees Elphaba determined to prove to the people of Oz that the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is a fraud but Ozians have become afraid of the Wicked Witch and Glinda must decide whether to fight her friend or try and save her.

I was so keen for this movie for much of this year (only Avatar Fire and Ash I had anticipated more) because I was so thoroughly charmed by the first movie, it had good songs, it had a good visual feel and it had those wonderful wonderful performances by Grande and Erivo at its core and I had really hoped that Wicked For Good would be a Dune Part Two situation where part one was great but part two was something special.

Sadly however that did not happen this time as this movie is nowhere near as fun or as charming as the first film and first reason why is the musical numbers, more often than not they brought the film to a halt too many times for my liking, a good musical will let the songs help to drive the story and bring that part of it to a good climax but here it feels like the movie stops so the songs can start and one song in particular wants so much to be like the Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast but it has not one tenth of the Mob Songs punch or impact.

Secondly the storytelling here is a mess and a big reason for this is the attempts to tie this part of the story into the events of the Wizard of Oz movie and those tie ins and call backs and references felt so obvious and predictable that I was reminded of how Madame Web tied into the broader Spider-man universe with equally as obvious and predictable results.

Thirdly the look of Oz here feels so dull and lifeless, now that criticism was there for the first film but I didn’t really buy into it whereas here I did and again I think that is because of those tie ins to the Wizard of Oz which was so groundbreaking for its use of colour in film in 1939 and in contrast Oz has that standard digigrey murkiness that we see too often nowadays.

And lastly the cast feels wasted here, Grande and Erivo are as good as ever but they only really work in this movie when they share scenes together, Jeff Goldblum was an inspired choice to play the Wizard but here his singing is terrible while Michelle Yeoh was okay as Madame Morrible but her singing isn’t great either while Jonathan Bailey is wasted here as the Prince.

And so that was Wicked for Good and talk about a big downgrade from the first movie to the second, I recommended the first film without question last year but this time I cannot and I take no pleasure in saying that one little bit, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - The Running Man (2025)

The Running Man is based off of the Stephen King story and is also the new film by Edgar Wright, the story concerns Ben Richards (Glen Powell) who has been blacklisted from being hired for a job after an incident with his previous employment and needs money to care for his sick daughter so he auditions for a TV show called the Running Man which is produced by Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and hosted by Bobby T (Colman Domingo) and Richards has to hide for 30 days from the Network and the Public who win prizes for Dobbing him into the show before he can win the grand prize of a billion dollars and that will not be easy.

I love Edgar Wright as a filmmaker I really do but outside of the Cornetto series he made with Simon Pegg I haven’t loved the movies he’s made and going into Running Man that feeling kept coming back but could Edgar run from that problem or would be the one he can never really escape from.

Well it’s a bit of both as I did have a good time at this movie until its ending but before I go more into that I will go into what does work and first off Wright’s direction is as tight and solid as ever, he’s clearly going for a Paul Verhoeven esque feeling of the future that you saw in his Sci-fi films like Robocop and Starship Troopers and if anyone can replicate that style well enough it is Edgar and he does so pretty well, the editing by Paul Machliss is good as well keeping the pace nice and tight wherever possible while also knowing when to slow things down.

And the cast are pretty good too, Glen Powell makes for an effective leading man and you want to see him succeed in the Running Man game, Josh Brolin and Colman Domingo are a lot of fun as the producer and host behind the show while Katy O’Brian is fun in a small role and Michael Cera reunites with Edgar Wright after working with him on Scott Pilgrim and has a fun if brief role.

But where this film does fall down is its ending because it really feels like it comes right out of nowhere in the worst possible way and I sat there in my seat going “what the fuck” and after that point the film really lost me and I’m someone who will defend the ending of Last Night in Soho because at least I pegged early on in that film that that was kind of coming even if the film crash lands getting to that point but here no such luck as it just derailed the whole experience for me.

And so that was the Running Man and until the ending it’s a good solid time that is far from Edgar Wright’s best, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Frankenstein (2025)

Frankenstein is based on the Mary Shelley Book and is directed by Guillermo Del Toro and concerns Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) who wants to overcome the nature of death in life and seeks to create the perfect creature but those who play God should be careful what they wish for.

Frankenstein is quite enjoyable and this feels like a natural story for Guillermo Del Toro to make into a movie given that so many of his movies deal with monsters and gods and the role of humanity in those stories be it Pan’s Labyrinth or Pacific Rim or his Oscar winning The Shape of Water and here he does a great job with the writing and directing of the film and visually this movie is immaculate, the production design by Tamara Devell, the costume design by Kate Hawley, the music score by Alexandre Desplat and the cinematography by Dan Lausten are fantastic and I really feel for those who will not watch this in a dark cinema instead of at home on Netflix because it really looks great on the big screen.

Most of the cast also delivers as well, Jacob Elordi deserves an Oscar nomination for his work here as Frankenstein the creature, the way he moves/the way he walks/the way he gestures himself with his body language and his voice is really impressive and I don’t know if the movie would work as well if he wasn’t as good in the role, Mia Goth is also very good in a small role as well along with Charles Dance/David Bradley and Christoph Waltz in their roles.

But someone I didn’t like as much was Oscar Isaac as Dr Frankenstein himself, after a while his portrayal left me a little cold as it started to feel a little one note in terms of his obsessions and his desire for vengeance against his own creation and that didn’t work as well for me but these things happen.

And so that was Frankenstein and its quite good and if you can see it in a cinema please do so you will not be disappointed, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Black Phone 2 (2025)

The Black Phone 2 is the sequel to the 2022 horror film The Black Phone and again sees Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill return as director and writers respectively, Finn (Mason Thames) has been trying to live his life since being abducted by the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) but one day his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) has bad dreams about an old youth camp in the Colorado Mountains and her and Finn go to investigate.

The Black Phone 2 is not as good as the first one but this is also a watchable sequel and the first reason for that is the locale, the Colorado Mountains with its abundance of snow, a near empty youth camp and a frozen lake makes for a great location and the use of blizzard like winds really helps to add to the tension of the film.

What also makes this movie work is the cast, Thames is good here like he was in the first film and Hawke is also great as the Grabber but this is really Madeleine McGraw’s movie as Gwen is much more of a co-lead this time around and she more than steps up to the plate nicely.

But where this movie does sadly fall over somewhat is in its storytelling, the Grabber was a memorable horror foe in the first film whereas here he feels more like a riff on Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street and while the film does a good job distinguishing between Gwen’s dream world and the real world the dream sequences after a while kept making me think of “1, 2, Freddy’s Coming for You” and it didn’t work as well for me because of that.

And so that was the Black Phone 2 and while its not as good as the first film I still enjoyed this sequel enough to recommend it, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Travellers (2025)

The Travellers is the new movie by Bruce Beresford and stars Luke Bracey as Stephen an Opera set designer living in Europe who returns home to Western Australia to visit his dying mother and elderly father (Bryan Brown) as well as his sister Nikki (Susie Porter) but when family sometimes comes back together it can be an uneasy time.

I mainly saw the Travellers because of Bryan Brown being in the movie and it is a sweet little movie that I enjoyed watching, Brown is a loveable old grump here and he generates a lot of the films best comedic moments, Bracey is also good as the slightly ponce son who has gone overseas to find his way in the world and he also has a good easy going charm about him that I liked, Porter is also good as Nikki the concerned sister who wants to protect her father as much as possible.

The film also has some nice Western Australian scenery in it as well from the lovely city views of Perth to the rural areas where water glistens on the sun, the pub is central and the desert isn’t too far away and also I enjoyed Celia Hassingham as Jenny, a former flame of Stephen’s based in Perth and she had that great Perth look about her as well especially in one scene where she wears a nice blue dress.

And so that was the Travellers, not much to say here but it is an enjoyable little movie that is worth seeing, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - One Battle After Another (2025)

One Battle After Another is the new movie by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, once a member of the revolutionary group the French 75 who leaves to raise his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) but an old enemy of that group Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) resurfaces to find the remaining members and the chase is on to evade him and the authorities.

I had heard so much hype for this movie before I got the chance to see it which was 2 weeks or so after its national release date because of its release during the School Holidays period here in Australia and the hype began to build more and more but when I finally got to see it could it live up to that hype or fall under the weight of it.

Well sadly it is a case of the latter, now none of that is to say that I think it is a bad movie as it isn’t but it was also not as good as I had hoped nor was it as good as the hype I had read for it but before I delve more into that there is plenty to like here.

Firstly the film is well made, I’ve not really gotten into Paul Thomas Anderson as a director (I’ve only seen a small handful of his movies and the rest haven’t interested me enough to track them down to watch) but he clearly knows his stuff and he does a good job directing the film, the editing by Andy Jurgensen is exceptional and should win him an editing Oscar for his work here as while the film is long you rarely feel it and the pace of the film is tight and concise and you rarely feel the length as a result.

The music score by Jonny Greenwood is also very good here as well with one music cue in particular towards the end of the film reminding me a lot of Mad Max 2 in terms of how it sounded.

And also the film has a slew of good performances, Chase Infiniti is in her big screen debut here and she is excellent, more than holding her own against titans like DiCaprio and Penn with ease even though I’m sure she was extremely nervous to be in a big movie like this first time around, Regina Hall and Teana Taylor are also very good even though their roles are smaller and Taylor in particular has only a very small role at that in the film.

Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro deserve Oscar nominations for their work here, Del Toro is my actor of the year with his role here and in the Phoenician Scheme as he steals the scenes he’s in and shows a deft hand for comedy in both of those roles, Penn is an excellent villain and his drive to do his duty and bring justice to the French 75 make him a compelling villain and I loved watching that role unfold on screen.

But here is where my issues with the film will begin and first off I have to start with DiCaprio’s character, Leo himself is perfectly good in the role and balances his leading man persona with his eccentric goofball qualities well but the character of Bob Ferguson at times feels as much a reactive character than a proactive character and I wish he was more proactive as a leading character as his reactiveness bothered me a little after a while.

And also the French 75 as a resistance group came across as more amateurish than not in much of the film and for me that dragged down the overall storytelling as most resistance groups or revolutionary outfits throughout history or other works of fiction either feel like and/or come across as more professional and disciplined outfits with a tight circle formed around them and/or acting very much on a need to know basis so that in the event that someone from the resistance cell or broader unit is captured they don’t compromise the rest of the group.

Here all too often it feels like whenever they or friends of Willa’s come under even the slightest amount of questioning or interrogation they immediately crack and give up the information the officers want and that really began to grate with me because it made me think “you guys really suck at this” because any real friend of Willa’s wouldn’t dob her in unless under extreme duress and a proper resistance movement wouldn’t give out sensitive information so easily like you see in this movie.

And it makes me wish those interrogation scenes were darker scenes, one gets waterboarded for example or another is tortured, Lockjaw is a good villain but all too often those under him go easy on those they question and it really got my goat a little as it robs the film of a certain sense of danger or tension that you want to be there with a movie about characters on the run who risk getting caught at every turn they take and every corner they cross, Andrew Davis’s The Fugitive from 1993 does this brilliantly.

And lastly this movie has a side plot in it regarding Penn’s character that ultimately didn’t really add up to much in the broader storytelling and didn’t really need to be there as Lockjaw’s motivations were already perfectly clear by that point and didn’t need anything new added to them.

And so that was One Battle After Another and this was a big letdown for me and I wish I had gotten to see it either before or just as the hype for it had taken off because I probably would’ve liked it more than I ultimately do and again this is not to say it’s a bad movie it isn’t but it was one that was also not as good as I had hoped or not as good as the hype, 2 and a half out of 5.