Film Review - The Roses (2025)

The Roses is based on the War of the Roses (previously made into a movie in 1989 with Danny Devito, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner) and stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman as a British couple who move to California to start new careers as an Architect and Chef respectively but when a building design goes wrong Theo (Cumberbatch) takes on the role of House Dad and begins to resent his wife’s success with her seafood restaurant business.

I was kind of looking forward to this movie mainly because of Cumberbatch and Coleman in the lead roles, both can be very funny and are very talented actors but another redo of War of the Roses I wasn’t as keen on.

And sadly this movie is something of a disappointment for me mainly because while I was watching it I wanted it to be more than it ultimately was, Cumberbatch and Coleman have great chemistry together and deliver some great laughs but their stuck in a script (written by Tony Macnamara) that has so much fluff in it that I just wanted it all ripped out to allow these 2 great talents to try and kill each other for 90-100 minutes.

And the fluff comes primarily from the supporting cast which features the likes of Andy Samberg, Kate McKinnon, Ncuti Gatwa and Sunita Mani primarily and their lines are so fucking annoying and full of platitudes that it just annoyed me to no end, McKinnon and Gatwa’s characters in particular talk a lot in phrases that just made me want to go SILENCE!!! Like Paul Atredies in Dune Part Two because it became so fucking insufferable to hear over and over again.

And I’m sure they are meant to be this sort of California type but it just felt like the actors standing and/or sitting around on the set riffing or adlibbing and Jay Roach (the director of the film) should’ve taken an editorial machete to it but instead leaves a lot of it in and is it any wonder theatrical comedies died a terrible terrible death in the 2010’s, they turned into this insufferable Judd Apatow style comedy club where the actors just stand out adlibbing and improvising and what should have been a brisk 90-100 minute comedy became a 2 to 2 and a half hour borefest that dragged on and on and on because those in charge couldn’t bear to edit out that one ad lib that made them laugh on set.

And also the edge of this movie is really just the characters swearing a whole lot, the 1989 War of the Roses had all kinds of devious schemes in it as Douglas and Turner tried to do away with each other and there’s a little bit of it here but instead its just Cumberbatch and/or Coleman swearing a lot and after a while that grated with me too.

And it isn’t helped that this movie is coming out only a couple of weeks after the Naked Gun remake with Liam Neeson where that film packed gag after gag after gag throughout the film, gags in the forefront of the frame, in the back of the scene, at the sides of the scenery or the actors knowing the kind of comedy their in, there was always something to laugh at in that film whereas here the laughs started well but dried up big time after a while.

And so that was the Roses and this one was a letdown for me as it looked like a funny time at the cinema and well I didn’t laugh a whole lot and found large parts of it annoying to watch, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Nobody 2 (2025)

Nobody 2 is the sequel to the 2021 action comedy Nobody and Bob Odenkirk returns as Hutch, the quiet family man who was an action man in a past life and this time he takes his family (Christopher Lloyd, Connie Nielsen, Gage Munroe and Paisley Cadorath) to an amusement park called Plummerville but there’s more going on here than just water slides and bumper cars.

Nobody 2 is a great sequel and I probably like this more than the first movie and first off Bob Odenkirk is great in this role and while watching him here I was reminded of Bruce Willis who might have played in this role in the past if his health had been better as like Willis, Odenkirk has that great everyman quality to him that hides his ability to kick ass and Hutch kicks a lot of bottom in this sequel and it is a lot of fun to watch.

The film also makes great use of the Plummerville tourist town especially in the third act where it becomes a centre for action and there are a lot of fun moments during these scenes.

But the MVP here has to be Sharon Stone as the villain, she goes full Cruella De Ville here and every scene she’s in is a blast to watch, she knows what movie she’s in and goes for it all the way and I loved watching every moment of it.

And so that was Nobody 2 and it is great fun with a good villain, exciting action and a relatable hero, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Weapons (2025)

Weapons is the new horror movie by Zach Cregger who made Barbarian in 2022 and concerns a class of School Children who’s teacher is Mrs Candy (Julia Garner) and at 2.17am one morning the kids all got up and ran out of the house never to return, Mrs Candy is suspected as being responsible for their disappearance but things in this case aren’t always what they seem to be.

Weapons is a bit of a disappointment for me I’m sorry to say, this isn’t to say it’s a bad movie because it isn’t but its also one I wish I liked more than I did.

Firstly Cregger’s direction is excellent and he makes great use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, during Mrs Candy’s segment of the film the camera has this unease to it as if at any corner, at any moment something could happen to her that she doesn’t see coming but we the audience can in the sides of the frame, he also does a great job with generating the tension of the film as the film goes on.

And the film also has a lot of good performances, Garner is very good as Mrs Candy but so is Josh Brolin as a local Construction Site chief who’s son is also one of the missing, Amy Madigan is very good as Gladys a mysterious woman who comes to visit the town and Aldren Ehrenreich and Benedict Wong are good in small supporting roles as well.

But where this film let me down was in its storytelling, the film has this fractured story device where the events are told from different character perspectives and after a while it began to work less well with me, one segment would start to get somewhere in terms of the mystery of the missing children and then it would cut to the next character storyline and the tension and suspense would dissipate again and after a couple of times of this happening I began to get less interested and wanted it to stick to one path and one path only.

And also the final payoff felt a little anti climatic for me as much like Barbarian, when all is said and done I thought to myself “Is that all” and wanted something a little more to it all not unlike another horror film Bring Her Back from earlier this year which again had a good setup and premise but lacked a strong enough payoff to win me over and it’s a real shame.

And so that was Weapons and this is sadly my big disappointment of 2025 movie wise, its well directed, has good performances and a good setup but its payoff felt lacking and I wanted that part to be more than it was, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Naked Gun (2025)

The Naked Gun is a continuation of the classic comedy series from the late 80s/mid 90s and this time Liam Neeson takes over as Frank Drebin Jr, son of the late great Frank Drebin played by Leslie Nielsen, the story here concerns a tech mogul Nathan Cane (Danny Huston) who has sinister plans for the world and Drebin will have to have his wits about him to stop it.

The Naked Gun is a hard property to bring back as comedies on film don’t really exist as the force they once were (primarily thanks to a lot of bad parody films and the Judd Apatow Comedy Club where watching these films turned into an agonising evening of ad lib that isn’t funny) and also Leslie Nielsen was Frank Drebin which makes him nigh on impossible to replace.

Luckily this movie does him and the series proud as this was the most fun I have had in a cinema all year and first off the film is very very funny, like the earlier movies there are a lot of gags in the film in all corners of the frame, in the background, in the foreground and littered throughout almost every scene and a lot of them generate great laughs.

The other reason this movie works as well as it does is the cast, Neeson makes for a great replacement of Nielsen by essentially parodying his action man image and combining with his great sense of comic timing and like Nielsen before him he plays it straight down the line and it works wonderfully, Pamela Anderson fills the shoes of Priscilla Presley very well and has great chemistry with Neeson while Paul Walter Hauser makes for a good replacement of George Kennedy.

Where this movie also works is with its villain, Cane is definitely inspired by certain tech personalities but Huston does very well with the role much like Ricardo Montalban and Robert Goulet did with the first 2 films in the series and while he doesn’t get as many laughs as Neeson does he plays the straight man well.

And so that is the Naked Gun and it is great fun, tightly paced, full of good comedy, a good villain and Neeson doing Nielsen proud as Frank Drebin, can’t ask for anymore than that, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the first Fantastic Four movie under the Marvel Studios banner after they got the rights to the characters back due to Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, this movie sees Mr Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm (Eden Moss-Bachrach) face off against the planet eater Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and his herald the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) while also raising their newborn child.

I have had guarded hopes for this movie primarily because this movie is one of they key reasons that we lost 20th Century Fox as an independent movie studio as many Marvel fans were more interested in the MCU getting the right to these characters (along with the X-Men) than whether tearing away at decades of tradition was the right thing to do (then again Fox themselves didn’t help as they utterly failed to learn from their success with X-Men when they had the Fantastic Four rights) but could this movie overcome that feeling or not.

Well it’s a little of both as this movie is a mixed bag for me, first off the cast are really good especially Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm a character that the Fox era didn’t really know what to do with apart from cast Jessica Alba as she was a hot young sex symbol at that time (and those movies tried to get her naked as much as they could) or cast Kate Mara who was all at sea in the role thanks to inconsistent direction, that isn’t the case here as Kirby really shines in both the maternal and heroic parts of the character and she has good chemistry with Pedro Pascal.

As for Pascal as Mr Fantastic, he is okay in the role and does a good job but I prefer Ioan Gruffud from the earlier movies as he felt more believable to me as the smartest man alive and his stretching effects looked a bit better than they do here, the same also goes for Quinn and Bachrach in their roles and like Pascal they do a good job but I preferred Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis from the earlier films and Bachrach in particular felt more like a copy of Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk after a while.

And here is where I will transition to what I didn’t like as much about the film and first off the setting of this retro 1960’s type Earth began to put me off after a while of looking at it, again to go back to the earlier movies (which weren’t the best I know) but those did a great job establishing these heroes in a modern day setting whereas here we have this retro future feel complete with a Rosie the Robot/R2-D2 type character in HERBIE and it feels like its only really being done here so the filmmakers can have the retro technology and costumes and buildings.

And this feels apt in how the film treats Johnny Storm, again Quinn is good in the role but I really wish that the character was more of a Sean Connery James Bond type especially given the 60s inspired setting and something that Evans did so well with his portrayal whereas here he feels more like a cog in a wheel that the film doesn’t really know what to do with at times because it fears embracing that playboy part of his persona from the books.

Secondly the use of Galactus and the Silver Surfer as villains weren’t as good as they could’ve been, Ineson and Garner are okay in those roles but they don’t really do much apart from provide some action scenes, some exposition and background to their characters and then a glorified punching bag for the third act climax and Galactus in particular is a villain that you need to have real genuine stakes with as fighting him should be like when the X-Men face off against Apocalypse, a grand larger than life villain who threatens all around him and all the heroes can do is scratch him while he gloats about how eternal and all powerful he is.

Here Galactus says a few lines but doesn’t carry that grandiose weight that these villains can and should do in these types of movies and it’s one of the key reasons I have grown so tired of these Marvel Studios movies.

And so that was Fantastic Four: First Steps and I can’t help but think that if 20th Century Fox had bothered to learn from their success with X-Men they would still exist as an independent movie studio and we would have great movies with these characters like we do with the X-Men but we are where we are and this one has a good cast but its retro future look bored me and the villain doesn’t feel like the threat he should, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Superman (2025)

Superman is written and directed by James Gunn and is the first big movie under his and Peter Safran’s DC Studios label and sees Superman (David Corenswet) having to stop Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) from manipulating global events in his favor and also having to contend with the Justice Gang (Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi and Isabela Merced) as well as hide his romance with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan)

Superman is one of my 3 most anticipated movies of 2025 (the other 2 being Wicked for Good and Avatar Fire and Ash) and while I was excited to see the movie and kept my faith in James Gunn to deliver the goods I was also very nervous as both Bryan Singer and Zack Snyder had tried to reboot the character with their movies and had failed miserably and could this buck that trend or be yet another example of the DC migraine striking Warner Brothers once again.

Happily (very happily) this movie bucks that trend and James Gunn with this one movie lays down a good foundation for his DC universe despite some issues but first I must mention David Corenswet as like Henry Cavill before him he proves himself to be worthy of the mantle of Superman which Christopher Reeve embodied not just on film but in his life in the years after his horse riding accident and Corenswet is earnest, kind, humble and driven to do the right thing by the world around him and I sincerely hope that he becomes the Superman of this generation just as Reeve is Superman to my generation.

Also great here are Brosnahan and Hoult, Brosnahan was always going to be a good Lois Lane but she is great here not just as a gutsy reporter always wanting to chase a story but also in her scenes with Corenswet and the two of them have great chemistry while Hoult is deliciously evil as Lex Luthor and thankfully does NOT try to imitate the late great Gene Hackman like Kevin Spacey and Jesse Eisenberg tried to do only to fail miserably, Hoult’s Lex is manipulative, petty and without a shred of decency in his bones and it is glorious to watch.

Also good fun is the Justice Gang and firstly I have to give Gunn huge credit for making other parts of the DC Universe feel like a natural and organic part of the storytelling instead of being shoved in to show the audience “We’re building a Cinematic Universe here people” like Batman v Superman did and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardiner the Green Lantern has single handedly redeemed that character after the dreadful Ryan Reynolds film in 2011, Gathegi is a lot of fun as Mr Terrific and gets a lot of the films more humorous moments while Isabela Merced was good as Hawkgirl but she doesn’t get as much action as the others sad to say.

And I have to mention Krypto the Dog who is a very good boy and deserves lots of treats for his work here.

However the film has some editing issues that bothered me while I was watching the film as this movie zips around from one scene to the next and what feels like one plot point to the next that it feels jarring in terms of how quick the edits are and the movie drops you right into the thick of things without much explanation either but thankfully this does not become a detraction from the overall film as Gunn makes this work very well, much more than I thought he might have.

And so that was Superman and it is terrific fun despite those editing issues and the future of DC on film is bright after this one go, if Gunn can keep the quality intact and sort out what to do with Batman plus make sure the audience doesn’t fragment between movies and shows then he and Safran will have given WB the Panadol Solubles DC has needed to cure that migraine, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

Jurassic World Rebirth is the newest in the Jurassic World series and Scarlett Johansson is the lead this time as Zora who agrees to go with an expedition led by Duncan (Mahershala Ali) to an island near the equator where Dinosaurs are still said to be roaming after dying off in other parts of the world to extract some of their blood for medical research but the journey will not be an easy one and joining them is Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey)

Jurassic World Rebirth is better than both Jurassic World Dominion and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom but that’s not really saying much I’m afraid as this movie is pretty meh and while that means it isn’t terrible it also means it isn’t that good either.

The main problem with the movie is that its dull to sit through, the characters go to an island with Dinosaurs, see Dinosaurs and marvel at them and then run away from said Dinosaurs hoping to get off the island and after seven movies of this its getting pretty tiresome and after this movie it is high time Universal Pictures put the Dinosaurs into hibernation for a good long rest.

The best thing about this movie is Scarlett Johansson who is clearly having a great time in this movie and is very good as the lead of the film, Mahershala Ali however isn’t as good and his role of the boat captain feels like a waste of his talents, Jonathan Bailey fresh from Wicked is okay here but he feels like a nicer version of the uh Jeff Goldblum character from uh the first Jurassic Park film.

There’s also a side plot with a family on a boat trip that also gets stuck on Dinosaur Island and every time the movie goes back to them I wanted them to piss off as it always felt like they got in the way of the main storyline which was all we needed.

And so that was Jurassic World Rebirth and look its fine but honestly stay home and watch the original Jurassic Park instead and don’t bother with this one, 2 out of 5.