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.