Film Review - The Bride (2026)

The Bride is written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhall and based off of the Bride of Frankenstein and stars Jesse Buckley as Ida a young woman who falls to her death on a staircase and is reanimated back to life by Dr. Euphronious (Annette Bening) as a request for Frankenstein the Monster (Christian Bale) who desires a companion after a century of loneliness but their escapades catch the attention of 2 local detectives (Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz) as well as a popular movie star (Jake Gyllenhall)

The Bride is all over the place as a movie, so much so that there would be times while I was watching it where I would have a big smile on my face and then in the very next scene I would be sitting in my cinema seat going “What the Fuck is this” but before I delve more into that I want to talk about the positives as there are some.

Firstly the cinematography by Lawrence Sher, the production design by Karen Murphy and the costumes by Sandy Powell are all top notch, the sets feel real and lived in like a cross between Tim Burton (Bening’s character felt like a character from a Tim Burton movie) and Guillermo Del Toro (who coincidentally just made a Frankenstein movie for Netflix), the costumes feel very authentic to the 1930’s setting so much so that you can almost feel the wool of the uniforms and the fine silk of the suits and the cinematography lights these well including the night scenes.

The film also has a great performance by Jesse Buckley as well and she goes for it 115% ranging from vulnerability to dark humour to sadisticness with ease and if this movie didn’t have her in it it would be nigh on unwatchable.

Because the real problem here is the screenplay and the more I thought about this movie I kept thinking “So What”

Yes this movie has great cinematography,

Yes this movie has great production design,

Yes this movie has great costumes,

And it has a committed performance by an actress who knows what movie she’s making.

But so what without a script that has a firm sense of narrative direction, a consistent tone and a clear structure all of that means nothing and this movie lacks all of those, the narrative direction is absent as it feels like Gyllenhall just throws every idea she had for this movie into the script in the hope that something/anything might stick, the tone ranges from sadness to action to seriousness to black comedy with all the subtlety of a car driving at fast speed and there is no clear structure to the storytelling at all it goes from one plotline to the next without taking the time to develop any of them.

Well except the detective storyline where the woman does all the work like she’s Penny from Inspector Gadget and gets none of the credit and this is a real waste of a world class talent in Penelope Cruz.

As for Christian Bale as Frankenstein well his performance ranges from brooding silence to mumbling his lines and then YELLING HIS LINES LIKE THIS AS IF HE WAS BACK ON THE FUCKING SET OF TERMINATOR SALVATION!!!! and it just got annoying after a while, as for Jake Gyllenhall and Peter Sarsgaard their fine but not in the film enough to be all that memorable.

And so that was the Bride and it has some strong elements but So What without a good script to make it all matter none of it does and as great as Buckley is she can only do so much without a firm script to carry the film, there is a reason so many movie documentaries emphasize the importance of the script and this movie is proof of that in real time, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - How to Make a Killing (2026)

How to Make a Killing stars Glen Powell as Beckett Redfellow who was born into a wealthy family led by Whitelaw Redfellow (Ed Harris) but his mother is disowned by the family after she gives birth so years later he plots to kill the remaining members of his family to take his inheritance and hopefully the love of a childhood friend (Margaret Qualley)

How to Make a Killing is okay but nothing spectacular to watch, the cast does a lot of the heavy lifting here and Glen Powell as the lead is okay but I feel he is a lot like Ryan Gosling than Tom Cruise as many thought he would be after his role in Top Gun Maverick but instead Gosling feels like the more appropriate comparison as both can be great in the right roles but when they aren’t they feel out of step though Powell is better at managing this than Gosling is and here he’s fine and serviceable.

The rest of the cast are good as well mainly Ed Harris as the patriarch of the Redfellow family, Topher Grace as a tele-evangelist esque Pastor that Beckett has to get rid of and Jessica Henwick as Ruth a woman that Beckett falls for during his escapades, as for Margaret Qualley she is good here as well and channels that femme fatale quality pretty well and would be great in that kind of role also.

As for the storyline well that did bother me a little as it felt like a variation of the “Look at the twisted loveless billionaires” motif and that works in todays society but I wish it went further than it does and also some of Beckett’s decisions made me go “He’s going to get easily caught” which pulled me out of the film a little as it went on.

But still I liked this movie enough that I thought it was fine, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Crime 101 (2026)

Crime 101 is based off of the novel by Don Winslow and stars Chris Hemsworth as James, a criminal in LA who is meticulous with his criminal work but when he wants out it after a big heist job sets off a chain reaction that ensares a police detective (Mark Ruffalo) an insurance company worker (Halle Berry) and a rival hitman (Barry Keoghan)

Crime 101 is a solid thriller that I enjoyed watching in the cinema, Hemsworth does a good job in the lead role and he anchors the film reliably well, Nick Nolte is also good in his brief appearance and I also enjoyed Mark Ruffalo as the grizzled detective and Halle Berry as the insurance worker.

But where this film didn’t win me over was the side plot with Monica Barbaro’s character, I loved her in Top Gun Maverick and A Complete Unknown but every time the film cut back to her storyline I lost interest as I felt that it took away from the heist thriller that was unfolding around it and her scenes could’ve gone to Berry’s character without too much retooling of the script for that to happen.

And so that was Crime 101 and it’s a solid thriller with a good cast if a little too long with one sideplot too many, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Blue Moon (2026)

Blue Moon is the new film by Richard Linklater and stars Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart a famous Broadway songwriter in 1943 who goes to his favourite bar to wait for his girlfriend Elizabeth (Margaret Qualley) as well as avoid the opening night of the Broadway Musical Okalhoma!

Blue Moon was not for me I’m afraid mainly because so much of this movie is Ethan Hawke’s character (a good actor) droning on and on and on about himself and after a while it began to resemble a 1943 version of “Old Man Yells at Cloud” but instead of that its just “Old Man Confides in his Bartender” said Bartender is played very well by Bobby Cannavale.

There are some other good performances as well, Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers has a small role but makes it work well enough, Simon Delaney as Oscar Hammerstein is also good but his role is very small while Margaret Qualley is good as well in her role.

So yeah that was Blue Moon, it wasn’t for me I’m sorry to say, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Wuthering Heights (2026)

Wuthering Heights is based off of the novel and stars Margot Robbie as Cathy, a young woman who falls in love with Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) but as the 2 are poor their love cannot last so Cathy falls for a rich neighbour next door as Heathcliff leaves but when 2 people fall in love passionately those passions can’t be hidden forever.

Wuthering Heights is a mixed bag for me, first off the film is well made and well directed, Emerald Fennell has proven herself to be a good director with Promising Young Woman and Saltburn and while I hated the latter film it did have some good moments and her direction in this movie is nice and lush along with Linus Sandgren’s cinematography, Jacqueline Durran’s costume design and the production design by Suzie Davies which all look great on a big cinema screen and bring you into this world very well.

But where this version falls short is in its casting, Robbie more and more is becoming a better producer than actress as in the wrong hands she can be not that great on screen and here so very many of her scenes are just her staring off into the distance, tears streaking down from her eyes and looking forlorn that her beloved Heathcliff has left her behind and after a while it just got ridiculous to watch and part of me couldn’t help but wonder if Fennell might have been better to get her Promising Young Woman lead Carey Mulligan to play this part instead because I think she would’ve been able to sell the sadness and tragedy at the heart of that character much better.

And then there’s Elordi and his casting feels worse especially after he earned himself a well deserved Oscar nomination for his work in Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein as the title character itself but like Robbie Elordi struggles to sell the pathos and dark core of the character first off because of his accent which starts off bordering on Ocker (and so much so he could’ve done ads selling XXXX Beer) and then towards the end of the film his British accent he starts sounding like Dave Lister from Red Dwarf.

And also while watching him I couldn’t help but compare him to Timothy Dalton who played that character in a previous film adaptation and as good as Elordi is he simply doesn’t compare to Dalton who I’m certain would’ve brought the necessary brutishness and cold heartedness this character requires.

And so that was Wuthering Heights and my hopes for this were mixed and my feelings towards this movie are mixed, Fennell is a good director and does her job well and it looks great but Robbie and Elordi just fall short in their roles and because of that this movie lacks that heartfelt core it desperately needs, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Primate (2026)

Primate is a new Horror movie starring Troy Kotsur as an author who lets his young daughters and their friends (Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, Victoria Wyant and Gia Hunter) use his remote island house while he heads away to deal with a potential movie deal for his book series but also living there is Ben a Primate pet who ends up infected with Rabies and goes haywire on the young cast.

“No Ben No”

And that was pretty much my headspace watching this movie because this is a classic example of the January Horror Movie that comes out and it sucks the big one, last year it was the Wolf Man coughing up a hairball this year its Primate and it is really really bad.

And the main reason for this is that it is dull to sit through, most of the movie takes place at night and like most movies nowadays it has not a clue as to how to light nighttime scenes properly and it makes you sit there going “TURN THE LIGHT ON!!!” because all you can really see is this murky digital fog and some decent enough lighting but most of the time you can’t see a fucking thing.

The other big problem with this movie is that it simply isn’t scary at all, Ben the Monkey just leaps around, yells a bit and bashes people with its arms and you don’t feel any sense of fright or jeopardy or tension in those scenes and the horror kills that are there just have that same digital blood in them that looks more like red Cottees Cordial and it REALLY doesn’t help that Send Help another horror movie also came out in January and proved you could have a great time at a Horror movie and also have proper looking fake blood.

The young cast are perfectly fine and I hope I see some of them again in future movies but the near waste of Troy Kotsur an Academy Award winner and from Foundation an outstanding streaming series from Apple TV is my last major problem as he doesn’t have as big a role as I wish he did but hey he as an Oscar so he can do any role he wants, get paid and have his cast and crew learn sign language so he can be directed and act with his co-stars so easy come easy go.

And so that was Primate and it sucks, watch Send Help instead, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Send Help (2026)

Send Help is the new horror movie by Sam Raimi and stars Rachel McAdams as Linda from Strategy and Planning in her company which gets a new boss Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) who also plans to fire her after a business trip in Bangkok but en route their plane goes down and the two end up on a Desert Island and for Linda all that time watching Survivor starts to pay off as she finds a way to survive.

Send Help like 2009’s Drag Me to Hell feels like the kind of movie Sam Raimi would’ve made in the 90s but whereas Drag Me to Hell could’ve been made in between Darkman and Army of Darkness this movie feels like it could’ve been made after Army of Darkness but before Spider-man and I had so much fun watching this movie.

Firstly Raimi balances horror and comedy extremely well and the film gets great laughs from both its comedy moments and its horror moments which really worked for me, they felt fun and gooey but also tangible which unlike so many horror movies nowadays doesn’t use the red cordial looking digital blood which many horror films use nowadays and to recreate that earlier style of filmmaking is very hard but Raimi has done it twice and very very well.

Both McAdams and O’Brien also play off each other very well, McAdams is hard not to love as she can often be a bouncing ball of joy and energy and she brings those qualities to Linda as well along with a darker side that she brings to life well also, O’Brien is also very good as the smarmy young office bro promoted way above his station because Daddy built and ran the company and at times I thought Linda trusted him a little too much given how dismissive he was towards her at the beginning of the film but the film does a good job with how that plays out.

And so that was Send Help and this is vintage Sam Raimi like Drag Me to Hell and like that film this is terrific fun, 4 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Hamnet (2026)

Hamnet is the new film by Chloe Zhao and stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jesse Buckley as his wife Agnes who go through the tragic loss of their son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) which later inspires the Shakespeare play Hamlet.

Hamnet like Marty Supreme and One Battle After Another 2 other Best Picture nominees is a mixed bag for me, on the one hand it is very well directed by Chloe Zhao who adapts to more of a stage play style of directing but it works well, the film also has some great production design by Fiona Crombe and costume design by Malgosia Turzanska both of which feel very authentic to the time period.

The film also has a lot of good performances, Jesse Buckley is great as Agnes and will most likely win an Academy Award for her work here though I do prefer her in roles like Wicked Little Letters or the upcoming The Bride where she gets to play a more wicked and humourous kind of character, Emily Watson is very good as well as Mary while the 3 main kid actors one of them being Jacobi Jupe are good as well.

But this film is also so sad and grim and bleak that after a while I started to not enjoy sitting through it because there are so many scenes of people yelling at each other, yelling in agony, being sad, being angry at one another that it just felt too much but the ending that all of this builds too is very moving to watch and it solicited a number of tears in my cinema session.

And also I didn’t like Paul Mescal as Shakespeare all that much, a lot of the time he either feels distant from the movie around him or Mescal’s performance is so understated and so quiet that you wish someone else was playing the part and after a while that bothered me as well.

And so that was Hamnet and its well made, well performed and builds to a moving ending but the near endless bleak and sad tone bothered me after a while, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Shelter (2026)

Shelter is the new movie by Jason Statham and here the Stath plays Michael Mason a former Royal Marine living in exile on the Scottish Isles but one night he rescues a young girl from a storm and it ends up exposing him to members of the British Government (Naomi Ackie and Bill Nighy) and so he must do what the Stath does best: Kill a Bunch of People to Keep her Safe.

Shelter is purely for fans of the Stath (of which I am one) but I enjoyed myself nonetheless, it’s not as good as the Beekeeper was but I liked it more than I liked A Working Man from last year and the Stath is the Stath you go with it or you don’t and I went with it this time mainly because there was more of a story here that was interesting as compared to A Working Man which felt a bit thin in that regard.

The action here is perfectly serviceable but I do wish the Stath would lift his game in this regard because when I look back at Arnold Schwarzenegger to name as an example went and sort out great directors like James Cameron, Paul Verhoeven and John McTiernan to make his movies and those partnerships created some iconic action classics whereas with the Stath it feels more like Dwayne Johnson, happy to stay in a lane and do that one thing and I wish he would go and find a talented action director like he did with David Ayer on the Beekeeper again.

As for the films villains their okay though one of them came across as Temu Luke Evans while Naomi Ackie and Bill Nighy are serviceable but not spectacular.

And so that was Shelter and its purely for fans of the Stath and it worked well enough for me, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Mercy (2025)

Mercy stars Chris Pratt as a Los Angeles Detective in a future where LA has become overrun with Crime and so the LAPD brings in the Mercy Justice System where an AI judge oversees criminal cases in 90 minutes but he is later brought before this judge (Rebecca Ferguson) to prove his innocence over the murder of his wife.

Mercy was not a movie I had high hopes for and while it wasn’t terrible its also a movie that feels very farfetched and very predictable at the same time, Chris Pratt is fine as the Detective character but there is very little here that you haven’t seen him do before and better and it felt like a waste of his everyman qualities, Rebecca Ferguson is clearly here for both the pay check and easy access to a role as it felt like she did her role over Zoom from home and that is a real waste of her remarkable talents.

And one should not simply waste the Reverend Mother like that.

But the main issue here is the storytelling as for a movie about AI it feels like it was written by one that knew how every other AI story played out over the decades and went down the same path those did and so much of it feels so predictable in terms of who did what and where things will happen and how things will play out that you felt like you were ahead of the storytelling instead of being engaged with it and some of the uses of screens and social media accounts and phones just had me going “what the fuck” more than once as it felt like everyone just said Yes to all that stuff in the usual way people do with Terms and Conditions and it really felt like 10 steps too far for me.

And so that was Mercy and I will be Merciful here and say not to bother unless you have a free ticket voucher from Christmas to watch it, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - Marty Supreme (2025)

Marty Supreme is the new movie by Josh Safdie and stars Timothee Chalamet as Marty Mauser, a high wire hustler and table tennis player in 1952 New York who wants to be the very best like no one ever was but his ego and drive to succeed more often than not gets in his way not too mention his abrasive personality.

Timothee Chalamet has been on a role for me lately with the Dune films, Wonka and A Complete Unknown a strong run of films of high quality and Chalamet himself proving himself as one his generations best actors could this movie build on that or would it be defeat.

Sadly this is somewhere in the middle for while there are good elements to this movie I was ultimately let down by the movie, firstly Chalamet is very good here anchoring the film very well with a high wire and high energy performance that if it was anyone else probably wouldn’t work as well and Safdie’s direction with its energetic and fast pacing suits him well, Odessa A’zion is also good here as Marty’s love interest Rachel and so is Fran Drescher and Abel Ferrara (director of King of New York and Bad Lieutenant) in their small roles.

And the table tennis scenes are excellent, shot and edited with high energy that really got me hooked into them when they were playing out on screen plus the music score by Daniel Lopatin is very good as well.

But there are some big issues I also had with this movie:

- First of those is Marty as a character is very very annoying at times with the ways he gets in everyones faces, makes promises he surely cannot keep and in the sport of table tennis finds it hard to accept loss and learn the lesson that there is always someone stronger out there in that same sport and having a worthy rival around is good to keep you on your toes and on top of your game but it seems that this lesson goes ignored throughout the film and it’s a real shame

- Secondly a number of the films character scenes resort to people simply yelling at each other in high voices and it bothered me so much that I wanted to yell out “SILENCE!!” like in the Dune films I hated it that much

- Third is Gwyneth Paltrow’s performance, she has been good in roles in the past but here it just felt like she was resorting to sad face a lot of the time she was on screen and I couldn’t help but wonder what Cate Blanchett might have done with this role as I feel she would’ve sold the underlining tragedy of that character in a more resonant way.

- And lastly some of the song choices felt very out of place in the films 1952 setting and again I started to wonder if the story might have worked better if the setting was the 1980s or a post GFC world so the song choices on the soundtrack wouldn’t feel so jarring, some of them worked but others did not.

And so that was Marty Supreme and like One Battle After Another this is another Best Picture nominee that has good moments but didn’t work as well for me as I had hoped, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Choral (2025)

The Choral is a British drama that stars Ralph Fiennes as a Chorus Master living in Germany in 1916 at the height of World War One when he is asked to come to England and take over a local Choir after their own chorus master enlists for the front but his living in Germany doesn’t quite sit well with the British Choir in a time of War.

The Choral is a little long at times especially towards the end but it is a nice little British drama to be enjoyed with a Cup of Tea one day, something the film does well is the effect that World War One has on the British community depicted in the film from the postboy delivering messages of condolence to loved ones to people demanding why young boys aren’t fighting when families are losing sons all over the country to how the Chorus Master is affected by the anti-German mindset even if he doesn’t always show it.

As for Ralph Fiennes who will be the main draw for most who choose to see this movie he is his usual reliable self though there were times where I did wonder what Colin Firth might have done with this role as there are times where Fiennes talks a little too softly which he can do at times and Firth might have brought more of a resonance to that role but Fiennes is a great actor in his own right and he delivers the goods once again.

And so that was the Choral and it starts this new movie year off on a good note, 3 out of 5.