Film Review - Venom: The Last Dance (2024)

Venom the Last Dance is directed by Kelly Marcel who co-wrote the first 2 films as well as this one and Tom Hardy returns once again as Venom/Eddie Brock who are now on the run due to the events of the last film Let There be Carnage when an alien overlord known as Knull (Andy Serkis) seeks a codex inside Eddie/Venom’s body and sends his monstrous soldiers to Earth to retrieve it putting Eddie and Venom’s lives and bond in danger.

Venom the Last Dance is not the best movie you will see but like the other 2 films it is a fun time nonetheless and Tom Hardy is once again on top form as Eddie/Venom and like in the last film every time their on screen talking to each other I find myself smiling and laughing a whole lot as their banter is so much fun to watch and very funny.

Outside of Hardy however the film does have some script problems and those mainly fall on the other characters not being all that memorable, Rhys Ifans stars as a quasi hippie dad looking for Area 51 and Aliens and his scenes are okay but they tended to drag on screen after a while, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple are government officers wanting the Venom symbiote to go with the other they’ve collected and those scenes are okay but again I just found myself going “Can we go back to Hardy now please.”

What also helps this movie is the third act which is a lot of fun to watch with big action across the board that actually looks like it was shot and edited properly, I don’t want to say too much more about it as there are some fun surprises in store but it definitely put a smile on my face and there is some surprisingly good emotional moments as well.

And when all is said and done while I feel superhero movies have had their day as being the dominant genre in cinemas I will miss Hardy’s Venom, it was a fun character to watch and he always made me laugh in this trilogy.

And so that was Venom the Last Dance and honestly I had a good time here, its fun, funny with good action and some surprisingly good emotional moments, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Smile 2 (2024)

Smile 2 is the sequel to the surprise 2022 film Smile and this time Naomi Scott stars as Skye Riley a pop star looking to mount a comeback tour after surviving a car accident which killed her boyfriend (Ray Nicholson) but after visiting a friend one night she begins to see people smiling back at her in a sinister way and those smiles aren’t exactly ones from grinning fans either.

Smile 2 was a movie that I was looking forward to as I really enjoyed the first film and this sequel does not disappoint at all, Parker Finn who wrote and directed the film gets to strut his stuff here having not only gone through the experience of making the first film but also now knowing he’s making a film for theatres instead of streaming (which is where it was meant to go before getting a theatrical release) and there a lot of exciting moments that definitely put a smile on my face.

Also Naomi Scott is excellent here as the pop star with troubles in her past which begin to come back to the surface due to having the Smile syndrome passed onto her, I’ve liked this lady in everything I’ve seen her in since 2017’s Power Rangers except when she was Princess Jasmine in the live action remake of Aladdin in 2019 and while part of me still doesn’t like the fact she was Princess Jasmine and played a boring version of the character she is very very good here.

The other cast members are good as well, Ray Nicholson definitely has his father’s Batman/Shining Smile and it shows in one scene, Rosemarie DeWitt is good as well as Skye’s mother/manager while Peter Jacobson is good as well as Morris a mysterious man ala Jacobs Ladder who might be able to help Skye get rid of the smiles that haunt her.

And so that was Smile 2 and it is a great time at the movies like the first one was and a welcome balm to my movie going after the debacle that was Joker 2, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Substance (2024)

The Substance is a new film by Coralie Fargeat and stars Demi Moore as Elisabeth Sparkle the host of a morning fitness TV show but who is fired by her boss (Dennis Quaid) as the network wants someone new and younger as the host instead, feeling down she orders a mysterious drug known as the Substance and she creates a new younger version of herself known as Sue (Margaret Qualley) but as with these drugs there are rules attached and those rules will soon be broken.

The Substance is a film with a lot of hype behind it and while I think it is very good I don’t think it lived to all of that hype, firstly I will give Fargeat her dues here she does a very good job directing the film and while this runs for 140 minutes I didn’t really feel the runtime all that much save for the ending, she keeps a tight grip on the reins and gets good performances out of all her actors as well as creates some very nice Verhoeven-esque Body Horror that in one instance reminded me of Total Recall.

As for the performances, the 3 leads here are excellent, Moore delivers some of her best work in a long time as Elisabeth who was once a bright star but is now fading due to the river of time and one suspects there is a lot of truth in that from Moore’s performance given her own stardom over the years, Qualley has become a good young actress since I first saw her in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and she is very good here as the young Sue while Dennis Quaid steals the show as the head of the TV network.

He combines that winning smile with this very slimy personality and he completely understands the role he is playing in this movie as that boss who always wants the next bright young thing and then will happily throw them away once they’ve reached their use by date, there is one in particular with a plate of shrimp that really helps to sell his character well.

Speaking of that shrimp scene this movie has some excellent sound design highlighting the disturbing nature of the Substance and the effect it has on those who use it and while the end of the film runs a little long and at times hammer’s the point regarding ageism and women I wasn’t hugely bothered by it all.

And so that was the Substance and while it isn’t one of my favourite films of the year it is a very good one indeed that will please horror fans, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Joker Folie a Deux (2024)

Joker Folie a Deux is the sequel to the 2019 Joker film which won Joaquin Phoenix an Academy Award for his portrayal of Arthur Fleck aka The Joker and he along with Director Todd Phillips return for this sequel which takes place 2 years after the events of the first film and Arthur has been in Arkham Asylum awaiting trial for his crimes from the end of the first film, during a music class one day he meets Lee (Lady Gaga) another inmate and the two fall in love.

Joker Folie a Deux is going to join some bad company, that being Highlander 2 and Wonder Woman 1984 in terms of being a direct sequel to a popular first film and the same creative team returns for a sequel and completely cocks it up in almost every way, with Highlander 2 it was leaning into Science Fiction with not only the Shield around the world but also changing the immortals origins to being from the now infamous Planet Zeist and with Wonder Woman 1984 it was coming up with a story that made no sense, leaned into bad archetypes and created a central hook in the wishing stone that failed to have any proper framework or rules around it unlike the Genie of the Lamp or the Seven Magic Dragon Balls.

In the case of Joker Folie a Deux it is trying to do 2 distinctly separate movies and failing miserably at both, it wants to be a dreary courtroom drama as well as a stylish romantic musical and neither is given the focus and clarity of storytelling they deserve, the courtroom and prison moments are dull to sit through and the musical moments just had me going “What the Fuck” in my cinema seat and I even saw 2 people walk out of my session during the film (and there was only 6 of us there.)

And what makes this split focus feel worse is that it turns Arthur into a bystander IN HIS OWN MOVIE, Phoenix is a great actor and rarely has he let you down but here he does so as all he does is sit around in a prison, sit around in a courtroom and then give a coutroom speech that feels anti climatic and again PHOENIX WON AN OSCAR PLAYING THIS ROLE, good grief.

As for Lady Gaga I love her, I think she is a wonderful talent and seems to have this big kind heart and soul inside her but she is wasted here, all she does for the most part is sit around in prison clothes and later clown makeup and do a few cabaret acts in the musical scenes and what makes THIS feel worse is that Harley Quinn/Dr Harlene Quinzel is a great character born out of Bruce Timm and his team when they ran the DC animation division and the storyline Mad Love which was later adapted into the Batman Animated Series is a fantastic story.

But once again like the 2016 Suicide Squad film this relationship which is at its core an abusive one is sanewashed and it is fucking irritating as that character goes to Arkham specifically because she is attracted to the glamour of Gotham’s super criminals even though she is warned to be wary of them as they will mess with her head which happens due to the Joker’s influence on her but there is very little of that in this movie in any meaningful fashion but then again Warner Brothers once again finds a way to fuck things up in regards to DC on film and this is far far far from the first time that’s happened too.

Speaking of Warner Brothers fucking things up in a way that pisses me off, the first film in 2019 was co-made with Village Roadshow Pictures and like Furiosa from earlier this year there is no mention at all of Village Roadshow’s involvement with this sequel even though (again like Furiosa) there are webpages listing them involved and that for me personally is deeply disappointing because the partnership between Warner Brothers and Roadshow here in Australia goes back decades and watching WB part ways with them to sign a new distribution deal here in Australia with Universal at the end of 2020 is one I’ve come to hate more and more and its why I don’t get as surprised that WB has thrown away completed movies like they recently have because if they can throw away a 50 year distribution partnership then anything can be tossed aside in their eyes.

Okay that little tangent aside there is the bones of a good movie here and it was one where Gaga did get to play Dr. Quinzel culminating with Arthur in the witness stand answering for himself and his crimes from the first film and really interrogating why that first film worked for many and didn’t for others but we didn’t get that here really at all.

And so that is Joker Folie a Deux and like Highlander II and Wonder Woman 1984 is a sign of a complete cock up by a creative team that got it right the first time around and got it all wrong the second time around, honestly don’t bother seeing this movie, watch some of the DC animation shows instead, if only WB had recruited Bruce Timm from the start of all this in 2013, things could’ve been very different, .5 out of 5.

Film Review - The Wild Robot (2024)

The Wild Robot is the new Dreamworks animation film and is written and directed by Chris Sanders based off of the children’s book who not only directed 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon but also worked as a story artist at Disney on such films as Beauty and the Beast and the Lion King, this story takes place on an island where a Robot named Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) has crash landed and has no idea where she is or any way to get home, after an accident she befriends a small goose who comes to think of it as his mother.

The Wild Robot brims with heart and charm and whimsy and throughout this movie I was having a good time with it, I don’t think it is as good as Transformers One but that’s a high bar for this School Holiday crop of releases, Sanders does a really good job directing the film and his imprint on it is felt in every frame and there is a lot of good animation on display here, having that blend of digital crispness and hand drawn artwork which is a tricky balance to get right but Sanders’s long experience in both fields of animation makes this possible.

The film also has a lot of fun voice performances, Nyong’o does good work as Roz and I also enjoyed Pedro Pascal as a wily fox who Roz comes to befriend, I also enjoyed seeing Mark Hamill show up in a small role as well as Ving Rhames as an Eagle who teaches Brightbill how to fly properly.

Where I felt the film wasn’t as good was in some of its storytelling, now don’t get me wrong this is in no way shape or form a bad movie but there were times where it got a little too familiar with some of its story beats such as the ugly duckling and learning to accept who you are, again this is not in any way to say that these beats weren’t done badly it was more of a reflection for me that they felt a little too familiar and dragged the film down to a certain extent.

And so that was the Wild Robot and it’s a cute, fun and charming family film that will do its job in the School Holidays though younger children might be advised to stay away from this one, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Transformers One (2024)

Transformers One is a new Transformers film and an animated one (the first since the infamous 1986 film) and Chris Hemsworth stars as Orion Pax, a miner in the mines of Cybertron which is under the protection of Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) who is the last of the Primes following a war with the Quintessons but Orion and his co-miners D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), Bee-127 (Keegan Michael-Key) and Alita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and there is more to Sentinel and the Quintessons than meets the eye.

Transformers One is a really good film and continues the upward trend the film series has been on since 2018’s Bumblebee and 2023’s Rise of the Beasts (which I enjoyed more than most) and this film firstly is very nicely animated with Cybertron rarely looking better on film save for the opening of Bumblebee, you can see the various metals and metallic colours on full display and Iacon which soon becomes the capital city of the Autobots looks very good here, I particularly liked the transforming highways when the robots are in their vehicle forms.

The film also has some good voice acting, Chris Hemsworth at times struggles to fill the enormous truck sized shoes left behind by Peter Cullen who IS Optimus Prime but he captures the character’s sense of honour and nobility very well, Scarlett Johansson is well Scarlett Johansson and she does a decent enough job while Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm do very well in their roles.

But my favourites are Brian Tyree Henry and Steve Buscemi who turns out to be an inspired casting choice for Starscream capturing the character’s snivelling and cowardice very well and Tyree Henry is excellent as Megatron as you see him go from being Orion’s friend to the tyrannical leader of the Decepticons in a very believable way, like Peter Cullen, Frank Welker (who also voiced Dr Claw on Inspector Gadget) made Megatron his own but Tyree Henry doesn’t struggle as much as Hemsworth does and his shining moments are so good to watch.

Where this film does fall down is Keegan Michael-Key as Bee-127 aka Bumblebee and he sounded more like a parrot that will not stop talking rather than an actor giving a performance and given what eventually happens to that character I didn’t really care if that event happened to him and the overall humour in the film at times intrudes on the overall storytelling, you’ll be sitting there enjoying the action and animation and voice acting and characters and then a joke will come out of nowhere and totally break the mood.

And that happened more than once for me during my watching of this movie and I’m pretty sick of it, I get these kinds of films need to have humour in them it comes with the territory but there are times where it gets in the way and this movie does that.

That said however Transformers One is a film I will probably see once more on the big screen as I had a great time with it and while family entertainment can be tricky to pull off this one does and families and fans will have a great time at it, 4 out of 5.

30 Years in High Heels: Priscilla Queen of the Desert

1994 was one of those movies years that as Darryl Kerrigan from the Castle would say “Goes straight to the Pool Room” with almost all of the major studios putting out absolute gems that would become timeless classics,

Muriel’s Wedding
Speed
The Lion King
True Lies
Forrest Gump
Pulp Fiction
Natural Born Killers
The Shawshank Redemption

To name a few but along with Muriel another gem of Australian cinema came out that year and that was the Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert written and directed by Stephan Elliot and starring Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce as 3 drag queens (Stamp’s character is also transgender) who head to Alice Springs to perform their cabaret act via an old bus which takes them through the centre of Australia and to places like Broken Hill and Coober Pedy.

And the film was an enormous success at the local box office and would become one of this country’s most iconic films (the centenary of Australian cinema just a year or two later would reference the film and Muriel a fair amount) and a week or so ago my main cinema recently picked it up for very limited showings and I decided to go and check it out.

And I am very glad I did as I had a lot of fun rewatching this on the big screen, the film has held up very well with Stamp/Weaving/Pearce and the late great Bill Hunter all giving brilliant performances and for pretty much the entire runtime of the film I had a big smile on my face and I was tapping along to the various songs on the soundtrack, my favourite being FINALLY by CeCe Peniston and when that song came on I was singing along as quietly and loudly as possible in my seat.

But it was also a fascinating experience to have as this is also in some ways a movie of its time and the first sign of that is the Sydney Petrol Price I got a glimpse of as the Bus departs for Alice Springs, it was 64.9 cents a litre and I thought to myself “You won’t see those prices again” as you pretty much now have to put a 1 in front of that and people nowadays think “That’s pretty good.”

Another area where the film dates itself is the glimpse I got of an Ansett Australia logo on a poster in the dressing room in Alice Springs, Ansett was at one point in time the major airline here in Australia along with Qantas but in 2001 they collapsed and later went out of business leaving only Qantas as our national airline and they haven’t covered themselves in any great glory in recent years either.

A third area where the 30 year time skip is marked is a brief scene where Guy Pearce’s character goes into a video shop in Coober Pedy and asks for the Texas Chainsaw Mascara and at one point you get a quick glimpse of some of the video titles on the shelves such as Keeper of the City, Under Siege and Strictly Ballroom as well as a small poster for Elliott’s previous film Frauds which starred Phil Collins and Hugo Weaving.

And now sadly Video Stores have gone extinct due to the meteorite of streaming services wiping them out as consumers could have similar access to movies and TV shows in the comfort of their own home instead of going to a specific place to rent or buy them and as a kid of the 90’s I miss the Video Shop and the communal experience it helped to add to the overall movie watching experience which is something you just don’t get when watching something on a streaming service and paying an eternal rental fee to access a specific film or TV show instead of buying a physical copy of either.

And that too has become greatly diminished in the last 30 years as the 1990’s was a genuine boom for video retail here in Australia, it started with CEL in the mid 80’s and their Entertainment Revolution but the 90’s was when it really hit its stride with the major players like Warner Brothers, Roadshow, Fox, Columbia/Tristar, CIC which had Universal and Paramount and Disney/Buena Vista selling many of their old and new titles for consumers and fans to own (the ABC would also do the same through a deal with Roadshow) and I still prefer having a physical copy of a movie or show that I love instead of just watching it on a streamer and then it not being there because said streamer has pulled it off their servers.

And lastly the film is a product of it’s time in regards to its attitude to the characters sexuality, there are numerous scenes in the film where people come up to them only see one of the men wearing a dress only to drive away as fast as possible and then in Coober Pedy Pearce’s character is beaten up by a group of men having a drink one night as he comes up to them with long hair and in a dress and heels.

And then there is the situation with Weaving’s character having a son in Alice Springs and being very nervous to build a bond with him due to his choice of lifestyle which thankfully he doesn’t have a problem with and neither does his ex-wife.

And here is where I think things have gotten better in the 30 years since this movie’s original release and that is there is now much more acceptance and tolerance of LGBT+ people and the struggles they face in their life, now this isn’t to say things are perfect because they are certainly not (and we have seen that in regards to trans people in particular) but the way people’s sexuality isn’t stigmatized or seen as a negative about that person for the most part has changed and become much more celebrated than it was when I was growing up.

And yes change is hard, it’s hard fought and requires a lot of persuading people and encouragement of them to come to accept who they really are instead of having to pretend to be something their not and they just bottle it up so much that it becomes suffocating but the fact that this movie did become such a huge hit at the box office, has endured all of this time and into the future (a 4K disc release with a new restoration and lots of extra features is due to come out towards the end of this year) is a sign to me at least that when we look past our differences and can understand where others come from in their life then things can change for the better and we can create a better world.