Film Review - Fantastic Beasts the Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)

 Fantastic Beasts the Secrets of Dumbledore is the third film in the Fantastic Beasts series and stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander once again and this time he is recruited by Dumbledore (Jude Law) to help defeat the evil wizard Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelsen replacing Johnny Depp from the first two films) from taking over the Wizarding world and inciting a war with the muggles but Dumbledore also has to contend with his own conflicted feelings for Grindelwald and the Blood Pact they made to never fight each other many years ago.

 

Fantastic Beasts 3 is not a good movie I’m sorry to say but before I delve into those elements I want to talk about what I did like and that is the look of this movie, the production design and visual effects are terrific some of the best I’ve seen in any big film in a long time, the 1930s art deco design is rich and detailed and the wizarding duels create some imaginative visual effects work that actually made this worth watching on a big cinema screen unlike most of the Marvel movies outside of the X-Men movies where many of the fight scenes look dull and boring and really just consist of people hitting each other.

 

As for the actors their okay and here is where the problems begin, Law and Mikkelsen are great actors but have little to no chemistry as a pair which isn’t helped by the fact that the script is constantly treading on egg shells regarding their romance like they want to say they love each other but the words just garble out of their mouth as if the nerves have taken over and they can’t bring themselves to say I love you or I loved you like a heterosexual couple might and I can’t help but think that this has been done so it can easily be edited out for release in certain markets and its not good enough either do this properly or don’t do it at all, don’t try to take a bet each way.

 

Speaking of bets each way this has been the fundamental problem with this Fantastic Beasts franchise and like the sequel trilogy for Star Wars recently there has clearly been no roadmap, no plan, no throughline for this series in terms of its overall story arc, its characters and how they all fit together and this has created a group of films that are a tonal mess.

 

For on the one hand you have this more light hearted and whimsical creature film with Newt and his friends that Chris Columbus who directed the first 2 Harry Potter films would’ve done a great job with but on the other hand we’re back in the dark fascist tone of the later Harry Potter films which David Yates directed and has directed these films and their not that interesting and it isn’t helped that the casting changes regarding the chief villain have made a mess of things again stick with one direction in this case Colin Farrell or don’t bother now outside events didn’t help matters here but its so fucking frustrating.

 

And so that was Fantastic Beasts the Secrets of Dumbledore and this series is done and deep down I think Warner Brothers knows it and now with Discovery taking over from top to bottom I won’t be surprised if they pull the plug on the Wizarding World for a few years and hopefully give the Australian distribution rights to their overall WB slate back to Roadshow instead of Universal, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Ambulance (2022)

 Ambulance is the new film by Michael Bay and stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Danny Sharp the son of a former criminal in Los Angeles and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as his adopted brother Will a former soldier who needs money for his wife’s surgery so Danny decides to recruit him to help rob a major bank in LA but when the robbery goes wrong and the police go chasing they hijack an Ambulance with a nurse (Eiza Gonzalez) on board to stop things from going from bad to worse.

 

Ambulance is surprisingly good fun from Bay who has had his ups and downs over his career and this is actually I think one of his better films, though he overdoes the swooping drone shots that I’m sure are designed to make you feel dizzy this doesn’t feel as loud or bombastic as his Transformers sequels did, if anything this feels more like Bay’s early work such as Bad Boys and the Rock and this would sit nicely on that same shelf with those films.

 

Both Gyllenhaal and Mateen II also play off each other very well and have good chemistry as adopted brothers and I also liked Eiza Gonzalez as the Ambulance nurse caught up in the chase and she holds her own very well against the 2 other actors.

 

But sadly this movie is far too long, if this film had been 100 to 110 minutes long it would be one of my favourite films of the year so far as for the most part it clips along, doesn’t have a lot of fat on it in terms of its storytelling and the chase scenes are exciting to watch but at 136 minutes it overstays its welcome and starts to feel more like 150 minutes in terms of its editing and near the end I was checking my watch a few times and wanted it to be over.

 

And so that was Ambulance and this is a good fun movie and one of Bay’s better efforts in the last few years but at 136 minutes it overstays its welcome I’m sorry to say, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Morbius (2022)

 Morbius is the new Columbia/Tristar/Marvel production and this time Jared Leto plays Dr Michael Morbius a great scientist who was born with a blood based disease that sees him needing crutches to walk everywhere and nearing death at every turn but on a trip to Costa Rica he thinks that Bats and Bat Blood may hold the key to finding a cure for his disease but this trip to find a cure may make such a cure worse than the disease.

 

Morbius is sadly not a good film and after a quarter of 2022 having mostly pretty good films for the most part this is the first genuine dud I feel like I’ve seen so far this year and for once Leto is not to blame here he delivers a fine enough performance but the problems here are much bigger.

 

Firstly this film is badly lit from a photography point of view, Oliver Wood is the DP here and he seems along with Daniel Espinosa the director seem to have gone to the Zack Snyder school of lighting where the light switch is an alien invention and so many of the films scenes are shot in this borderline darkness or lit by distant neon lights of the city streets and it looks terrible and at some points I kept thinking to myself “TURN THE LIGHT ON!!!” as I got sick of seeing the near constant darkness and low lighting, its not moody its awful.

 

Secondly the action scenes are terrible, so much of them are this misty, smoky CG that is hard to follow with your eye and shot so quickly and edited from one moment to the next in similar speed that you cannot tell who is who and what is happening and where everything is going on and again its terrible to watch and also for a character that is said to be a Vampire there is very little blood here and this leads me to a greater point.

 

Marvel (and I will include Marvel Studios in this) needs to realise as Warner Brothers and DC have done that some of their characters cannot be properly put on film within the confines of an M rating some of their characters are inherently MA15+ rated characters be it Morbius or Blade or Deadpool or Wolverine or Black Widow to name as examples and they need to tailor their films to this realisation when it comes and this has firstly got me thinking all the more about what a missed opportunity Black Widow was for Marvel to test those waters without taking much of a risk with a new character in doing so but alas we got what we got and here we are.

 

Also I have found myself appreciating Tom Hardy’s work as Venom/Eddie Brock so much more now after seeing this movie and hey the Venom films aren’t the best of Comic Book films but Hardy’s work as Venom/Eddie is still enormously fun and very funny and this comes from Hardy committing himself 115% to those characters and their symbiotic dynamic and Let There Be Carnage released last year was fine as a film but Hardy was still very funny in his role and I still look forward to more of him in his role unlike Leto and Morbius who I would be happy to never see in another film again after this one.

 

But there is one bright spot here and that is Matt Smith from Dr Who, he goes for a fun Hammer Horror type of performance and it is the one bright spot in this movie because at the very least someone here is having fun and enjoying themselves plus Smith is building on his new Posh Slimeball persona that he started last year in Last Night in Soho even though some of his makeup work looked like Frank Langella’s Skeletor from Masters of the Universe also Jared Harris in this movie but he feels wasted in his small role.

 

And so that was Morbius and look its not awful but its so dull to watch and fans of these films deserve better but at least for once Leto isn’t the problem here though he doesn’t help matters either, 1.5 out of 5.