Film Review - Conclave (2025)

Conclave is the new movie by Edward Berger who did All Quiet on the Western Front for Netflix a couple of years ago and concerns the death of the Pope in the Vatican from a heart attack, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) must now lead the precession to select a new Holy Father and this will bring many secrets to the light.

Conclave is a flat out winner that had me from the get go and didn’t let up, Berger’s direction for a start is terrific, he knows when to increase the tension and make the selection of a new pope have as much intrigue and surprises as possible (and you do not want to know much about this movie before seeing it) and throughout the whole film I felt like I was near or on the edge of my seat wanting to know each twist and turn and surprise around the corner.

The film also has some terrific performances across the board, Ralph Fiennes deserves an Academy Award for his work here as he has to manage this secluded tradition with the political games being played around him as well as trying to find out why the Holy Father did certain things he did before he died, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow are also great in their supporting roles while Sergio Castillitto and Carlos Diehz shine in their roles as well.

Also the design of this film is great and really makes you feel transported to inside the walls of the Holy City where the outside world is a distraction and must not influence the Cardinals as they make this most important choice.

And so that was Conclave and this along with A Complete Unknown kick off 2025 as a movie year with gusto and this is very highly recommended, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Nosferatu (2025)

Nosferatu is the new film by Robert Eggers who made the Northman and stars Lily Rose-Depp as Helen a young bride who years before swore eternal love to Count Orlock, now her husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult) has to go to his castle in Transylvania to give him the deeds to a new home in Germany but the counts shadow is a long and terrible one.

Nosferatu is well made by Eggers and looks great on a cinema screen with deep blacks, use of candlelight, snow and very nice production design, on a purely visual level it is stunning to look at.

The film also has a slew of good performances, Rose-Depp at times reminded me of Emma Watson with her British accent but she is very good especially during some heavily physical moments, Emma Corrin is good as well in a small role as is Willem Dafoe while Nicolas Hoult and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are very good as well.

But where this movie lets itself down a little bit is in its storytelling, don’t get me wrong it isn’t bad in any way at all but at times it feels cold and distant not unlike other filmmakers who try to replicate Christopher Nolan’s style of storytelling which can also feel cold and distant at times but also not unlike the Northman felt at times and more often than not I found myself missing the high camp emotion of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula film from 1992 which had great horror moments but also good emotion in its love story as well and that balance isn’t as good here I’m sorry to say.

And so that was Nosferatu and it is worth seeing and well made but I prefer the Coppola Dracula film instead, The Blood is the Life after all and the Blood runs a little too cold here, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Wolf Man (2025)

The Wolf Man is the new horror film by Leigh Whannell who made the Invisible Man in 2020 (one of the very last movies I saw in a cinema before the dark times, before the cinema closures) and stars Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner as a couple who’s marriage has hit a rough patch when he gets word that his father has died and he has to go to his Oregon farmhouse to clean it up but in the woods lies a mysterious creature of legend, one called Face of the Wolf.

2025’s movie year coughs up its first hairball with the Wolf Man as this was a near total bore to sit through:

- First the movie looks cheap, now I get that Blumhouse (the production company that made this movie) tends to do their movies on the leaner side but a werewolf story is not one of those stories you can do on the cheap, you need a decent sized budget to pull this off and here the werewolf effects look like a cheap makeup job where there’s some face paint and a few facial strands pasted onto the actors and it pulls you out of the film

- Secondly the sense of horror is absent, going back to the Invisible Man which was Whannell’s previous Universal monster horror film that film fed on very real horrors that women have regarding abusive partners and how they lie/convince them into believing something else entirely and when they try to get others to believe their situation they find it hard and it really gave that film a genuine sense of dread, here that is gone and it so wants to be like the Fly by David Cronenberg and it is NOTHING compared to that film

- And lastly the storytelling feels like a big missed opportunity, the idea of someone getting sick mysteriously and how their loved ones and the world around them reacts to it could have been dripping with dramatic and horror potential in this post Covid world but instead it just plays out like a bottle show of a TV series where it all takes place in one location and it just feels like such a letdown especially when you have a talent like Whannell who is capable of so much better

And so that was the Wolf Man and honestly if Universal wants to bring the classic horror monsters alive for a new generation, they should hand the keys to Robert Eggers instead as this is nowhere near as good as it should have been, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - A Complete Unknown (2025)

A Complete Unknown is directed by James Mangold who you may remember from such films as Ford V Ferrari and Walk the Line and this time he tackles the life and times of Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) and his rise to fame, meeting Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) as well as Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Sylvie (Elle Fanning.)

A Complete Unknown is a movie I very much enjoyed and first off it is due to the confident and assured direction of James Mangold, this is not the messy and heavy green screen direction of his Indiana Jones film the Dial of Destiny from 2023 but instead this is the precise and assured Mangold that made Ford V Ferrari in 2019, every moment in the 141 minute runtime feels like it is here for a reason and like in Ford V Ferrari the runtime barely drags.

And the second reason is the cast, Chalamet has really come into his own as an actor since doing Wonka and the Dune films and here he shows once again what a great talent he has become nailing not only Bob Dylan’s speaking voice but also the singing, one song in particular I was very happy to hear him do in the film, Boyd Holbrook is almost unrecognizable as Johnny Cash in fact I thought it was Timothy Olyphant when watching the film, Edward Norton is also very good as Pete Seeger while Elle Fanning and Monica Barbaro are good as well as Bob’s on again off again love interests.

If there is a failing with the film its that the storytelling hits a lot of the familiar notes of these kinds of films, young kid wants to get famous in music, he gets there and finds himself stuck in the bog of fame and wanting to create and how he wants to try other things and others just want him to do more of the same, nothing new here but Mangold does it well enough that it didn’t overly bother me much.

And so that was A Complete Unknown and it is a very good film and worth seeing when you get a chance, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2025)

Wallace and Gromit Vengeance Most Fowl is the new Aardman animation film and sees Wallace (Ben Whitehead replacing the late Peter Sallis) and Gromit struggling to pay their bills so Wallace invents a handy new Garden Gnome called Norbot (Reece Shearsmith) but little do they know that Feathers McGraw has gotten wind of Norbot after a news story and he begins to plan his vengeance.

I was never really into Wallace and Gromit growing up (I was more into Disney animation as a kid in the 90s) but I heard very good things about this movie and Feathers McGraw as a villain (those eyes are like the Terminators in the first two films) so I decided to give it a watch.

And my goodness I loved every minute of this movie and I really really pity the other animated films released this year because this one has set the bar and firstly I have to mention the stop motion animation as it is not only gorgeous but you can really tell that there is a human touch to it all especially in the eyes of the characters where the good guys have a real soul to them while the villains well it’s like staring into the Abyss especially with Feathers McGraw.

Speaking of Feathers McGraw what a great villain, cunning/unassuming and moves with stealth like precision plus is a master of disguise (you can’t fool me with that glove Feathers, I know your not a chicken) in fact during one of his disguises I laughed so hard I had to go back as I missed a line of dialogue and in a couple of occasions I was reminded of Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.

And lastly this movie is a riot, I laughed pretty much out loud the entire time I was watching it and I will not lie a part of me wishes this was in cinemas this summer holidays because it would’ve been a massive hit with families but alas we’ll have to settle for it being on Netflix instead (This is all Feather’s fault.)

So LISTEN AND UNDERSTAND, Feathers McGraw is out there, he can’t be bargained with, he can’t be reasoned with, he doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear and he absolutely will not stop.

EVER,

Until he has Vengeance and as for this movie well I loved every minute of it and I have no hesitation giving it a full 5 out of 5.

Film Review - Paddington in Peru (2025)

Paddington in Peru is the third film in the series but is not directed by Paul King though he is involved as an executive producer and story writer (he decided to go and make Wonka instead), this time Paddington (Ben Whishaw) receives word from the reverend mother of the home for retired bears (Olivia Coleman) that his beloved Aunt Lucy has gone missing in the Amazon jungle so Paddington and the Brown Family head to Darkest Peru to go and find her.

Paddington in Peru had an awful lot to live up to for me mainly because the first two films were such high watermarks for family films and what didn’t help matters was that not only was King not returning to direct but also here in Australia this movie is opening less than a week after Sonic the Hedgehog 3 which managed to buck the trend of the third film being the worst in the series so could Paddington also buck the trend or would it be left with a Marmalade Sandwich all over its face.

Well sort of while I don’t think this is a bad film per se it is also the weakest of the three but still I had a good time with it, it made me laugh, it made me smile and it still has a lot of that same heartfelt charm the first two films had, Ben Whishaw picks up right where he left off and plays this role so well its hard to imagine what Colin Firth would’ve done with it when he was originally cast in the role, Hugh Bonneville is as fun as ever as Mr Brown while Emily Mortimer does okay but struggles to fill the boots Sally Hawkins left behind as Mrs Brown (she too went to make Wonka with Paul King.)

The standout here is Olivia Coleman and her sense of humour and slightly manic energy fit so well in this world of films while Antonio Banderas is perfectly serviceable, but he is mainly helped by the writing of his character though at least he gets much more to do here unlike in Indiana Jones in 2023.

But all throughout this movie I couldn’t help but think that this movie while fun and entertaining it just doesn’t quite get as good as the first two films did and that has to come down to not having Paul King in the director and writers roles, don’t get me wrong Dougal Wilson does a perfectly fine job but he doesn’t have that same tight focus and firm vision King had with his films.

And in all honesty I don’t blame King for not wanting to direct this movie and choosing to make Wonka instead because I don’t feel that he really had another Paddington film in him, it isn’t like the Sonic film series where there’s decades of games to draw from for new films (though that series will soon fully mine the classic games for their films) and the pressure on him to deliver another classic would’ve been probably too much, that said I do wish this one was as good but its still perfectly fine enough.

And so that was Paddington in Peru and while this is still a fun and charming watch it also falls short of the heights of the first two films and it’s a bit of a shame especially given that not only were the first two films that good but Sonic 3 was able to buck that trend but as they say in the classic, you win some you lose some, 3 out of 5.