Film Review - Disclosure Day (2026)

Disclosure Day is the new movie by Steven Spielberg and stars Josh O’Connor as Daniel Kellner a government cyber security contractor who goes on the run from the Wardex Corporation and its head Noah (Colin Firth) meanwhile Kansas City Weather Reporter Margaret (Emily Blunt) starts speaking a strange language while on air and soon enough she gets caught up in the mystery that Daniel is also caught up in.

Disclosure Day despite some wobbles with its ending is a movie that I really enjoyed and the first reason for that is Steven Spielberg’s direction, there are so few filmmakers that know how to move a camera like he does and by that I mean that it feels like a natural extension of his arm and that is on show here with many long tracking shots, energetic action moments and excellent camera blocking that makes you feel like your with these characters on this journey and feeling what they feel.

Januz Kaminski’s cinematography is quite good especially in the films night time scenes, there are so so so so many movies nowadays that make their night time scenes look like washed out pixelated messes where you can’t see a fucking thing but here you can see everything as your meant to in those moments and the streaks of light that sometimes come through windows or the flashes of police lights are used to great effect to add suspense and tension to the scenes.

The film is also littered with great performances, Josh O’Connor works very well here as a classic Spielberg everyman, someone who is good at what they do but have nothing special about them but we instantly feel that certain connection to them, Colin Firth is great as the chief villain and he has a very memorable scene with a table that is great to watch, Eve Hewson is also very good as Jane (Daniel’s girlfriend) and she has some great moments of her own while Colman Domingo is his usual charismatic self while also bringing a warm mentor feel to his character.
And then there is Emily Blunt who honestly deserves an Oscar nomination for her work here, she is much the lead of this movie as O’Connor is and she is simply superb here and she is asked to do a lot with this character and she more than steps up to the plate, sometimes the movies Blunt stars in can be hit or miss (hey it happens) but when she’s this good (and she has rarely let me down performance wise) I won’t complain.

But there is one more person that deserves some love and that is Courtney Grace as a news anchor who has one key scene in the climax but sells it really well and almost steals the entire film.

But if I do have a minor quibble it is in the storytelling, David Koepp isn’t the world’s best screenwriter but for so much of this movie I was intrigued by the mystery, invested in what was going on and wanted to know more about what the truth was Wardex were trying to hide and when that is all revealed I enjoyed it but then it cuts to black and that’s it the movie’s over and part of me can’t help feel that if that moment had been extended a beat or two then it would’ve landed better for me.

And so that was Disclosure Day and it is along with The Drama and Mortal Kombat II one of my favourite films of the year so far, I really enjoyed it, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - In the Grey (2026)

In the Grey is the new film by Guy Ritchie and stars Eiza Gonzalez as Sophia, a lawyer who is chasing after a financial debt for a large company that is in the hands of a criminal known as Salazar (Carlos Bardem) but given he has his own private island and plenty of police and private army people to protect him she’s going to need some help which is where John and Michael (Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal) come in.

In the Grey is typical of Guy Ritchie’s work in terms of something bad’s happening, someone good wants to fix it so they get the team of people together to help them fix said problem but I had a good time with this one nonetheless, Gonzalez/Cavill/Gylenhaal make for a good group of heroes and one detail I really liked in the film is how Sophia’s team plans out every detail in terms of their mission and how it could go wrong and if it does they need to get Sophia to safety and there is a fair bit of time devoted to the planning and preparation on their part that I did enjoy.

As for the broader storytelling it does tend to tie itself in knots at times in terms of who’s working for who, who’s doing what, how is all of this going to play out, where everyone is at any given time and again it does feel a bit knotty story wise but it didn’t pull me out of the film thinking “how is this making any sense” it works fine enough that I still had fun.

And so that was In the Grey and it’s a fun watch if nothing remarkable, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

The Mandalorian and Grogu is the movie based off of the Star Wars TV series and Pedro Pascal is back as the Mandalorian with Grogu at his side as they are hunting down Imperial warlords but they are then tasked to find Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) the wayward son of Jabba the Hutt.

The Mandalorian and Grogu is not a bad movie to watch but its also one that doesn’t really do all that much for you either, the opening action scene is fun with Mando hunting down a former Imperial officer and you see what feels like the kind of action scenes of Mando kicking bottom left right and centre that you would rarely see on the TV series and it gets you in the mood for the film.

But there are so many action scenes that after a while watching the movie feels exhausting and while watching it it felt like at one point that the movie was coming to an end and I felt pretty good but then whoopsie doodle there’s another hour of movie left on the homeworld of the Hutts and that section drags on and on and on with monster fights, Grogu doing cute things and an environment that looked very CGI heavy.

And speaking of CGI it is very obvious at times that your looking at digital environments because it never really registers as real to your eye (and the human eye is pretty good at knowing what is real and what is fake) and that second episode-sorry-second half of this movie just goes on for too long.

Which is another issue I have with this movie, at 132 minutes this movie is half an hour too long because the storytelling on the whole is so thin and stretched out that you could have gotten away with this if this was the 2 episode premiere of a fourth season on Disney Plus but cut together as a movie it just drags on and on and goes on for so long that I began to feel a little exhausted when it was all over.

As for the cast, Pedro is fine but it is clear that he was only really on set for a week or so to do the shots of him in the suit and an action scene in a pit and that was it he could then do all of his other lines in post production while someone else wears the suit to keep the production on schedule, Grogu is cute but it is high time this character started to grow up a little bit and get older and more assured of his Force abilities but we all know that won’t happen, Jeremy Allen White is okay as Rotta but nothing special while Martin Scorsese and Sigourney Weaver have small roles here because hey why not, pet the Grogu puppet and make a bit of money they do have bills to pay too you know.

And so that was the Mandalorian and Grogu and look its not terrible but that’s the nicest thing I can say about this movie because its long, exhausting action and thin storytelling lost me after a while, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - The Sheep Detectives (2026)

The Sheep Detectives stars Hugh Jackman as George Hardy a Sheep Herder in Denbrook England who reads Murder Mystery Novels to his flock of Sheep but one night he is found dead in his caravan and so his Sheep set out to find who murdered him using their knowledge of mystery novels.

The Sheep Detectives is a nice and cute romp that families will have a good time with as did I, Hugh Jackman isn’t in the film as much but I enjoyed his brief role here and the Sheep are a lot of fun especially Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Lily the main sheep and Sir Patrick Stewart as Sir Richfield.

The film also has a nice UK feel to it as well in terms of its Murder Mystery plot that reminded me of the many many shows that country made with the small town full of suspects and it deals with tough subjects with a nicely sensitive touch that older audiences will understand without frightening younger audiences as well.

And so that was The Sheep Detectives and it is a nice cute romp that many will enjoy, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Mortal Kombat II (2026)

Mortal Kombat II is the follow up to 2021’s Mortal Kombat film and Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) seeks to rule the Earthrealm through the Mortal Kombat tournament and now Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano) must rally his fighters to save Earthrealm from Shao Kahn’s tyranny.

Mortal Kombat II was easily one of my most anticipated films of the year (only the Odyssey, The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping and Dune Part Three I anticipated as much) even though I was fairly disappointed in the 2021 MK film which was only watchable when Josh Lawson’s Kano (a great Australian) was on screen but MKII the game was a big step up from the first game so could the movie do the same.

HELL YES!! I had a great time with this movie and in almost every way this movie is an improvement and first off you actually have lead characters you give a shit about, Cole Young from the first film felt like a relic of an older time in terms of being the “mainstream outsider” lead and wisely his screen time is much reduced and this time Adeline Rudolph’s Kitana and Karl Urban’s Johnny Cage are the co-leads with Ludi Lim’s Liu Kang and Jessica McNamee’s Sonya getting larger roles and it makes a huge difference as those characters work much better in bringing you into that world and Urban is terrific fun as Cage bringing a smug smartassery with the fighting skills to back it up to the role and working well and one joke he has made me laugh out loud in the cinema.

As for Rudolph as Kitana she is a great find handling both the emotional moments and the battle scenes very well and I hope I see more of her in the future also Ford is a memorable Shao Kahn who was always a pain in the ass to beat in Mortal Kombat II and 3 and thankfully he is a formidable foe here.

Next up the fight scenes and arena locations are so much better than the empty lifeless arena the first film had and many iconic locations from the games are nicely recreated especially the acid pit from Game 2 and the Portal Bridge from MK3 and also the fight scenes are really good here especially when Shao Kahn fights plus Baraka (a very cool practical effect) vs Johnny Cage and Liu Kang vs Kung Lao not to mention the climax of the film in the Netherworld which makes great use of the ensemble cast.

And lastly the storytelling here is much cleaner and it reminded me a lot of the recent Mortal Kombat games where you would have the brief cutscenes before getting to the fights and the story scenes in this movie reminded a lot of those and while it doesn’t always work I didn’t hate it all that much.

And so that was Mortal Kombat II and this is a sequel that knows what it wants to be and does it very very well, this 90s kid is a very happy man, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - The Devil Wears Prada II (2026)

The Devil Wears Prada II continues on from 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada and this time Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) returns to Runway magazine to become its features editor after being fired from her journalist job but returning to Runway also means dealing with Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep) and Nigel (Stanley Tucci)

The Devil Wears Prada II is an enjoyable sequel by and large but I preferred the first film mainly because that film knew what film it wanted to be whereas this sequel film doesn’t at times, Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs is easily my favourite part of this film and she plays the role like she never left it and she radiates this warmth and humour and ease of persona in a way that feels effortless and using her to commentate on the changes in Journalism in the 20 years between these 2 films was a very smart move.

And that storyline about the decline of print journalism (hell proper forensic journalism as a whole) in the last 20 years was my other favourite part of this sequel and watching those moments made me think of all my old journalist friends from Twitter and real life and on a couple of occasions I did find myself wishing that some of them were either sitting next to me or were still on my social media feeds so I could ask them about and/or talk to them about it afterwards.

Plus Stanley Tucci is a delight in this movie as he feels like that warm hearted father figure who hasn’t lost his fashion sense or his timing for a biting remark but then again it is Caesar Flickerman after all and I also quite liked Simone Ashley as Amari (Miranda’s suffering assistant) and I hope I get to see more of her in movies.

As for the rest of the film its okay but nothing you really got better from the first film, yes the fashions are good and the fashion shows are glamorous to watch but those were in the first film and I thought they worked better there plus this movie doesn’t really know what to do with Miranda Priestley that at times I did find myself wondering if it might have been better if she was written out entirely of this movie because on the one hand the movie wants Miranda to be her bitchy horrible boss self but on the other hand you can’t really do that Horrible Boss character much anymore.

But one character that really gets the short shrift and that is Emily Blunt who was so memorable in the first film that when I watched her in that film I thought to myself that not only was she going to go on to big things (which she has) but also she felt like she belonged on a great BBC Comedy series but this time she’s in so little of the film I find myself wondering why did they bother bringing her back as it feels like a waste of her great talents.

And so that was the Devil Wears Prada II which is a good sequel but the first film was better, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - You, Me and Tuscany (2026)

You, Me and Tuscany stars Halle Bailey as Anna a house sitter struggling to cope after the death of her mother who then decides to go to Italy after meeting an Italian man at a bar one night, while there she meets Michael (Rege-Jean Page) and sparks begin to fly.

You, Me and Tuscany is a perfectly fine and charming movie that works firstly because you can’t help but love the Italian countryside with its beautiful sunrises and sunsets, roaming hills, generous amounts of food and wine and lots of old towns and buildings to explore and like with Equalizer 3 a couple of years ago it will make you want to visit there on your next holiday.

This movie also works because of the chemistry between its leads, Bailey got a lot of muck and mud and sludge thrown at her for being Ariel in the live action Little Mermaid a couple of years ago and she didn’t deserve it (she was the only thing that interested me in seeing that pointless live action remake) and here she makes for a likeable romantic lead and Jean-Page is good as well and the two have nice chemistry together.

And so that was You, Me and Tuscany and its perfectly fine and charming for a rainy Sunday afternoon in a cold winter, 3 out of 5.