Film Review - Klara and the Sun (2026)

Klara and the Sun is the new film by Taika Waititi and is based off of the novel and stars Jenna Ortega as Klara an Artificial Friend who talks to the Sun and thinks of it as a God like being who is one day bought by a young girl named Josie (Mia Tharia) even though her mother (Amy Adams) doesn’t trust it at first but Josie and Klara quickly become friends.

I did not have a lot of high hopes for this movie mainly because of Taika Waititi who let me down badly with JoJo Rabbit and Thor Love and Thunder and while Next Goal Wins wasn’t bad it wasn’t good enough to overcome the poor quality of those 2 films,

Luckily this movie was good enough to do so and a lot of that is due to Jenna Ortega’s performance and she is so loveable and charming that if she wasn’t in the movie it wouldn’t work as well, her and Tharia also have good chemistry together in their scenes while Amy Adams is fine as the mother but boy does she a good role again,

The film also has a nice and whimsical feel to it that won me over for the most part,

And so that was Klara and the Sun and it’s a perfectly enjoyable watch that I liked more than I thought I would, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Clayface (2026)

Clayface is the new DC Studios movie and stars Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen an actor who gets on the wrong side of a Gotham City gangster and has his faced horribly scared as a result, struggling to deal with the loss of his looks and career he goes for an experimental surgery that uses nanotech to repair broken skin cells but the aftereffects can be devastating.

Clayface is fine but it’s also part of a trend that I’ve become so tired of with these comic book shared universe movies and that is where what are traditionally side characters such as villains like Clayface or Morbius or Kraven the Hunter get their own movie primarily because we have a universe to build and also it will prove to be a popular plug for the studios streaming service,

And that sort of thing might work in the world of comic books, but this is a movie and throughout most of this movie I kept thinking to myself “Where’s Batman?” because Batman and Bruce Wayne are as part of Gotham City as its villains are and one without the other as we saw with Columbia’s attempts with their Spider-man villains just does not work as well,

That said however this is nowhere near as bad as Morbius or Madame Web or Kraven the Hunter were and part of that is due to Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen, he does a good job selling both the rising star actor and the grief and trauma of losing his face and career to finally embracing the changes the procedure undergoes does to him, hopefully he gets to go up against either Robert Pattinson’s Batman or someone like Brandon Sklenar from 1923 as the DCU’s Dark Knight,

The film also has some good horror effects reminiscent of 2024’s The Substance although that film did have more of a willingness to embrace its body horror more effectively than this movie does and Naomi Ackie and Eddie Marsan are good as well in their roles plus the film does a good job showing what a rotten city Gotham can be and has been before Batman showed up,

And so that was Clayface and its fine but the days of the shared universe need to end, it doesn’t work anymore and the movies and shows can feel very same same after a while but when your studio becomes part of a new SkyMount Empire anything goes I guess, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Verity (2026)

Verity is based off of the novel by Colleen Hoover and stars Dakota Johnson as Lowen an up and coming novelist who is asked to finish the new novel by Verity Crawford (Anne Hathaway) after she is paralyzed in a car accident but when she goes to her house to start work on the book she meets Verity’s husband Jeremy (Josh Hartnett) and son Crew (Brady Wagner) and starts to suspect something is wrong.

Verity is not a terrible movie but its yet another movie this year that I wish was better than it is and the main problem is that it feels like the movie tips its hand as to who the bad guy is and because of that you sit there in the cinema watching the movie and waiting for it to catch up to you and that is death in a thriller,

What also doesn’t help is how silly this movie gets, movies can have twists and turns that surprise audiences (hell M Night Shymalan has built his career on such a thing) but this one throws some real doozy’s at you and I sat there thinking “what the fuck is this” and also Michael Showalter’s direction feels bland and it made me wish for someone like Paul Verhoeven or the late great Richard Marquand to direct this,

Because when you look back at Basic Instinct (which this movie clearly wants to be like) or Eye of the Needle or Jagged Edge those films were thrillers but had a sense of style to them, a sense of dread in them and in the case of Basic Instinct a genuine sexiness and kinkiness to it that this movie desperately needs but feels afraid to properly embrace the way Verhoeven did in that film,

And speaking of Verhoeven and Marquand, Dakota Johnson could’ve used either of them in the director’s chair as so many of her line readings here feel flat and are said in this soft voice that has little to no emotion in it and Johnson has been good elsewhere such as in the Materialists which Celine Song made but Song could get a good performance out of here but Showalter cannot and it further hurts this movie,

As for Hartnett and Hathaway, Hartnett is fine but is not as fun to watch as he was in Trap in 2024 but again M Night Shymalan directed that film and got a great villain performance out of him whereas here you look in his eyes and you can see that he’s the bad guy and it also hurts this movie but Anne Hathaway is easily the best thing about this movie as she clearly understands what movie this is and commits to it 115% and she’s so good here I wish she got to play a Catherine Tremell type character in a Basic Instinct esque film,

And so that was Verity and again it’s not terrible but I wish it was better than it is and in better hands it could’ve been, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Other Mommy (2026)

Other Mommy is the new horror movie that stars Jessica Chastain as Ursula, a working mom who lives with her husband (Jay Duplass) and daughter Bella (Arabella Olivia Clark) and Bella keeps seeing a strange creature she calls Other Mommy (also played by Chastain) who wants to go into her heart and protect her from bad things and horror ensues.

Other Mommy was a movie I was looking forward to seeing as we are in October and I’m in the mood for some horror films and I’ll happily watch Jessica Chastain do just about anything as she is one of those actresses who rarely puts a foot wrong,

Sadly, however this is the case but she herself does the best that she can with the dual roles she plays but the script is awful,

It seems more concerned in jumping frm one horror jump scare and set piece to the next without any real sense of storytelling connection, dread building or proper payoff, you’re in one jump scare set piece and then a few moments later your right into the next one and because of that the film feels very messy as if all involved just wanted to go from set piece to set piece to set piece,

I will say however that Arabella Olivia Clark is very good here and so much of this movie rests on her little shoulders and it’s a shame she and Chastain aren’t in a better movie because they both deserved so much better than this,

As for the horror moments their not really that scary or thrilling and like Primate from the beginning of the year a lot of them take place at night in dimly lit rooms where you can barely see what’s happening on screen and boy is that tiresome as well,

And lastly Karen Allen shows up for one segment of the film and the entire time I kept thinking “why doesn’t she get the Ark of the Covenant from her attic” along with other Indiana Jones jokes and that too feels like a waste of great talent,

And so that was Other Mommy and what a letdown then again that feels like 2026 in film for me at the moment, talented and capable people reduced to making forgettable “content” to make ends meet, how sad it all is, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - The Social Reckoning (2026)

The Social Reckoning is the new film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin and stars Mikey Madison in her first role since her Oscar win for Anora as Frances Haugen who works at Facebook but is uncomfortable with the changes to the platform the company is making and works with a Wall Street Journal reporter (Jeremy Allen White) to blow the whistle on the company’s wrong doings.

The Social Reckoning is not a bad movie, but it is also a flat, dull and boring film to sit through and the first issue I have with it is that it feels like this movie just doesn’t really understand what makes a good journalism story tick,

The key to a good journalism movie like All the President’s Men or The Post is the inherent ticking clock at their centre, much like reporters for real life there is a deadline to meet and that creates a sense of “we have to get this story done and quickly” and this movie doesn’t have that, it all feels too leisurely and slack to have any real bite to it,

And part of the problem is Sorkin himself, his direction just feels very by the book and uninspired for the most part and his writing also feels old fashioned and I couldn’t help but think that he himself is partially responsible for the mess he’s trying to depict in this movie,

As Sorkin’s biggest claim to fame was the TV show The West Wing which starred Martin Sheen as President Jeb Bartlett, and it feels like ever since that show’s idealistic portrait of Democratic party politics in terms of not really putting up much of a fight has helped to plant some sort of seed for how we got to where we are in 2026 and to now have Sorkin try and pin the blame elsewhere doesn’t really work as he himself also needs to reflect on his role in all of this,

As for the performances both Madison and White do what they can but the film just treats their characters with little to no urgency and in some scenes Madison is dressed as if she’s doing her Anora character again, Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckberg firstly cannot fill the huge hole Jesse Eisenberg’s absence has left and secondly he just felt like he was doing a riff on his character in Obsession (in fact more than once I thought of “I’M THE ELDEST BOY”),

Far better are Billy Magnussen (who gets a role that highlights his inherent smugness and up himself personality well), Betty Gilpin and Bill Burr as those 3 at least feel like real people as opposed to thinly written characters who talk like people from the 1990’s,

And so that was the Social Reckoning and it’s not awful but it’s not much of a movie either, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Resident Evil (2026)

Resident Evil is the new film by Zach Cregger and is based off of the Playstation Video Game series and stars Austin Abrams as Bryan a medical courier who is given a medical crate to transport to Raccoon City General Hospital but en route he comes across people acting strange and his car breaks down due to the snow and he must make his way there on foot and in freezing cold weather while also avoiding zombie like people running after him.

Resident Evil is a lot of fun and really shows Cregger’s growth as a director as the blood and gore on show here is done well and he keeps the pace tight and the tension on a tight leash ready to deploy it at any time plus the film looks great with the ice and snow all around that also is used really well to heighten the horrors that Bryan sees,

And Abrams is very effective as Bryan as well and on a couple of occasions he reminded me a little of Bruce Willis in Die Hard and by that I mean he has that every man quality to him that Bruce had and he handles both the horror and humour very well, Paul Walter Hauser also shows up in a small role and he does good work as well

But where this film does fall down a little is the ending, when it was over I thought “is that it” and it felt a little anti-climactic, no doubt this was done on purpose so Cregger and Co can rattle the penny tin and ask the audience for a sequel down the line and that pisses me off, if you all want a damn sequel how about making the first film work first, it’s not that fucking hard YEESH,

And so that was Resident Evil and it’s a lot of fun despite the ending, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Heart of the Beast (2026)

Heart of the Beast is the new movie by David Ayer and stars Brad Pitt as a retired army sergeant who is travelling around the countryside with his combat support dog Odie when he suffers a heart attack and his plane crashes in the wilderness leaving them both stranded to find a way home and avoid perils such as wolves and bears and logs.

Heart of the Beast is a perfectly fine and enjoyable survival action film that is well anchored by Brad Pitt who brings a calm steadiness to his role while also selling the pain and loss of his army years and the battles he and Odie saw in their time in uniform, JK Simmonds is also good here but his role is really only in 2 scenes at most,

The real star here is Uber the dog who plays Odie and he is a very good boy, every time he came on screen with those beautiful doggo eyes, I was like “Awww look at the doggy” and he and Pitt are great together on screen and this movie wouldn’t work without Uber being as good as he is,

And so that was Heart of the Beast, an enjoyable survival thriller that is well made and has a good boy doggo at its centre, 3 out of 5