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.

Film Review - Speak No Evil (2024)

Speak No Evil is an English language remake of a Danish film from 2022 and this time James McAvoy plays the lead role Paddy as he and his wife Ciara (Aisling Franciosi) meet an American family (Scott McNairy, Mackenzie Davis and Alix West Lefler) and invite them to visit their English countryside home for a weekend visit but these hosts are far from the friendliest you meet on your travels.

I haven’t seen the 2022 Danish film from which this is a remake of but I quite enjoyed this movie and the main reason for that is McAvoy who is really good here, he puts on this nice/polite/charming persona that hides this rage that bubbles further and further to the surface as the movie goes on and while your watching it your waiting to see him go full evil on his unsuspecting houseguests and it doesn’t disappoint when he does, Mackenzie Davis is also good as the American mother who has a few secrets of her own but springs into action if her child gets into danger.

The film also has a lot of good tension in it, and it builds nicely throughout the film and at a steady pace as well, there are times where it drags but it never drags to the point where the tension dissipates like steam out of a tea kettle but instead it bubbles along nicely like the water in the kettle until its ready to be unleashed.

What didn’t work as well for me is Scott McNairy as the American Dad and I think he isn’t outright terrible in this movie but for most of it I kept thinking to myself “He reminds me a little bit of Michael Fassbender” and part of me did wish he had played that role instead firstly because it would’ve been him and McAvoy together again after their work on the X-Men movies but also you would have a stronger counterpoint to McAvoy’s character and whether he believes what he’s being told is true or not which is key in a good psychological thriller as you want to take one side or the other and guess for yourself who is right and who is wrong and that gets lost a little bit here which is a shame.

And so that was Speak No Evil and it’s a very enjoyable horror/thriller with a great performance by McAvoy at the centre of it, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is the new movie by Tim Burton and a sequel to the 1988 original that got both Burton and Michael Keaton their first Batman movie a year later, Keaton also returns as Beetlejuice who is hiding from his ex-wife (Monica Bellucci) meanwhile the Deetz family (Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara and Jenna Ortega) are mourning the death of their father/grandfather and go back to the house from the first film and the ghost with the most comes back.

Every moment Michael Keaton is on screen in this movie is when the movie worked best for me as he feels like he played this role as if he had never left it, he brings a great manic energy and knows how to time the lines and the laughs and Burton as a director is smart enough to get out of his way and let him do his thing plus the film has some excellent visual effects and boy does it make a big difference when you have a director who knows what their doing in this field as too many nowadays don’t and it shows more often than you think, the effects here have that old school stop motion animation feel though one effect just kept me thinking of Dune when it came on screen.

But where Burton once again falls down is on the script level, this script is a real mess and lacks a strong focus to keep all of its story and character balls juggling in the air, there’s the storyline with Ryder’s character, the storyline with O’Hara’s character, the storyline with the ex-wife, the storyline with Ortega’s character and there’s a storyline with Willem Dafoe that feels superfluous and it honestly just felt like Dafoe going into Nic Cage territory where they don’t play a character but a meme of themselves.

As for the other storylines well they either don’t really go much of anywhere which is what happens with the Bellucci storyline and this was the storyline I was most interested in given that Burton has been divorced in real life or their not that interesting which is what happens with the Ryder and Ortega and O’Hara storylines, O’Hara seems to be DOING ALL OF HER LINES LIKE THIS AND YOU EXPECT TO SCREAM KEVIN!!!! and that gets pretty annoying after a while, Ryder seems bored at times and it only feels like she came back because Stranger Things went on a break while Ortega just is kinda there, she’s a good young talent but isn’t given much to do apart from be a pouty teenager.

And so that was Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and it’s a mixed bag on the whole, there is fun to be had but this script is all over the place with storylines anchored by actors who are either wasted or playing memes of themselves or their not given the focus you what them to have, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Blink Twice (2024)

Blink Twice is Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut from a script written by Her and E.T. Feigenbaum and stars Channing Tatum as Slater King, a young Tech Billionaire who meets a struggling waitress (Naomi Ackie) at a party one night and invites her to his island retreat for a getaway but island fun and games can sometimes not be what they seem.

Zoe Kravitz shows a lot of promise as a director with this movie, I particularly liked the way she used close up shots where it feels like when those moments come on screen the characters in the movie are looking directly at you without looking directly through the camera lens and breaking the fourth wall, she also does some interesting framing choices which make good use of the 2.35:1 aspect ratio which sometimes isn’t used as well as it could be.

But where this movie fell flat for me is in it’s screenplay and primarily it’s because it just hits the same beats so many movies have hit on in the last 5 to 10 years:

- How Society views Women (Check)
- The tech bro (Check)
- The isolated getaway where fun and games happen (Check)
- The commentary on how terrible the ultra-rich are (Check)
- Various twists and turns (Check)
- And finally the big reveal that shows everything in context (Check)

And all of it has for me gotten very tiresome, now this isn’t to say I don’t respond to any of these themes in other movies because I certainly have such as Knives Out 1, Promising Young Women and the Menu and all of those films did these points to various degrees so much better than this movie and in far more entertaining ways whether it be through clever storytelling, a deliciously dark tone or with a colourful villain and all of those I felt were missing here.

Performance wise the film is okay, Ackie is a good young actress (and one of the very few bright spots of the Rise of Skywalker) and she does perfectly well here, Hayley Joel Osment is fine as well in a small role as are Levon Hawke and Simon Rex, Kyle McLachlan, Geena Davis and Christian Slater are okay but didn’t really do all that much in the film while Alia Shawkat, Liz Caribel, Trew Mullen and Adria Arjona were good as well.

As for Tatum well I sometimes find him very bland to watch and here is no exception and what doesn’t help is that I saw this movie and performance after watching Josh Hartnett in Trap a couple of weeks back and he did a much better job at playing the friendly guy with evil bubbling under the surface much more memorably than Tatum does here as it felt like at times he struggles with this.

And so that was Blink Twice and it did very little for me, Kravitz will make a good director one day but hopefully she takes on someone else’s script instead of her own as here she just hits the same beats other movies did much better and I’m getting a little sick of it but that’s only me, 2 out of 5.