Film Review - Frankenstein (2025)

Frankenstein is based on the Mary Shelley Book and is directed by Guillermo Del Toro and concerns Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) who wants to overcome the nature of death in life and seeks to create the perfect creature but those who play God should be careful what they wish for.

Frankenstein is quite enjoyable and this feels like a natural story for Guillermo Del Toro to make into a movie given that so many of his movies deal with monsters and gods and the role of humanity in those stories be it Pan’s Labyrinth or Pacific Rim or his Oscar winning The Shape of Water and here he does a great job with the writing and directing of the film and visually this movie is immaculate, the production design by Tamara Devell, the costume design by Kate Hawley, the music score by Alexandre Desplat and the cinematography by Dan Lausten are fantastic and I really feel for those who will not watch this in a dark cinema instead of at home on Netflix because it really looks great on the big screen.

Most of the cast also delivers as well, Jacob Elordi deserves an Oscar nomination for his work here as Frankenstein the creature, the way he moves/the way he walks/the way he gestures himself with his body language and his voice is really impressive and I don’t know if the movie would work as well if he wasn’t as good in the role, Mia Goth is also very good in a small role as well along with Charles Dance/David Bradley and Christoph Waltz in their roles.

But someone I didn’t like as much was Oscar Isaac as Dr Frankenstein himself, after a while his portrayal left me a little cold as it started to feel a little one note in terms of his obsessions and his desire for vengeance against his own creation and that didn’t work as well for me but these things happen.

And so that was Frankenstein and its quite good and if you can see it in a cinema please do so you will not be disappointed, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Black Phone 2 (2025)

The Black Phone 2 is the sequel to the 2022 horror film The Black Phone and again sees Scott Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill return as director and writers respectively, Finn (Mason Thames) has been trying to live his life since being abducted by the Grabber (Ethan Hawke) but one day his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) has bad dreams about an old youth camp in the Colorado Mountains and her and Finn go to investigate.

The Black Phone 2 is not as good as the first one but this is also a watchable sequel and the first reason for that is the locale, the Colorado Mountains with its abundance of snow, a near empty youth camp and a frozen lake makes for a great location and the use of blizzard like winds really helps to add to the tension of the film.

What also makes this movie work is the cast, Thames is good here like he was in the first film and Hawke is also great as the Grabber but this is really Madeleine McGraw’s movie as Gwen is much more of a co-lead this time around and she more than steps up to the plate nicely.

But where this movie does sadly fall over somewhat is in its storytelling, the Grabber was a memorable horror foe in the first film whereas here he feels more like a riff on Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street and while the film does a good job distinguishing between Gwen’s dream world and the real world the dream sequences after a while kept making me think of “1, 2, Freddy’s Coming for You” and it didn’t work as well for me because of that.

And so that was the Black Phone 2 and while its not as good as the first film I still enjoyed this sequel enough to recommend it, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Travellers (2025)

The Travellers is the new movie by Bruce Beresford and stars Luke Bracey as Stephen an Opera set designer living in Europe who returns home to Western Australia to visit his dying mother and elderly father (Bryan Brown) as well as his sister Nikki (Susie Porter) but when family sometimes comes back together it can be an uneasy time.

I mainly saw the Travellers because of Bryan Brown being in the movie and it is a sweet little movie that I enjoyed watching, Brown is a loveable old grump here and he generates a lot of the films best comedic moments, Bracey is also good as the slightly ponce son who has gone overseas to find his way in the world and he also has a good easy going charm about him that I liked, Porter is also good as Nikki the concerned sister who wants to protect her father as much as possible.

The film also has some nice Western Australian scenery in it as well from the lovely city views of Perth to the rural areas where water glistens on the sun, the pub is central and the desert isn’t too far away and also I enjoyed Celia Hassingham as Jenny, a former flame of Stephen’s based in Perth and she had that great Perth look about her as well especially in one scene where she wears a nice blue dress.

And so that was the Travellers, not much to say here but it is an enjoyable little movie that is worth seeing, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - One Battle After Another (2025)

One Battle After Another is the new movie by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, once a member of the revolutionary group the French 75 who leaves to raise his daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) but an old enemy of that group Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) resurfaces to find the remaining members and the chase is on to evade him and the authorities.

I had heard so much hype for this movie before I got the chance to see it which was 2 weeks or so after its national release date because of its release during the School Holidays period here in Australia and the hype began to build more and more but when I finally got to see it could it live up to that hype or fall under the weight of it.

Well sadly it is a case of the latter, now none of that is to say that I think it is a bad movie as it isn’t but it was also not as good as I had hoped nor was it as good as the hype I had read for it but before I delve more into that there is plenty to like here.

Firstly the film is well made, I’ve not really gotten into Paul Thomas Anderson as a director (I’ve only seen a small handful of his movies and the rest haven’t interested me enough to track them down to watch) but he clearly knows his stuff and he does a good job directing the film, the editing by Andy Jurgensen is exceptional and should win him an editing Oscar for his work here as while the film is long you rarely feel it and the pace of the film is tight and concise and you rarely feel the length as a result.

The music score by Jonny Greenwood is also very good here as well with one music cue in particular towards the end of the film reminding me a lot of Mad Max 2 in terms of how it sounded.

And also the film has a slew of good performances, Chase Infiniti is in her big screen debut here and she is excellent, more than holding her own against titans like DiCaprio and Penn with ease even though I’m sure she was extremely nervous to be in a big movie like this first time around, Regina Hall and Teana Taylor are also very good even though their roles are smaller and Taylor in particular has only a very small role at that in the film.

Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro deserve Oscar nominations for their work here, Del Toro is my actor of the year with his role here and in the Phoenician Scheme as he steals the scenes he’s in and shows a deft hand for comedy in both of those roles, Penn is an excellent villain and his drive to do his duty and bring justice to the French 75 make him a compelling villain and I loved watching that role unfold on screen.

But here is where my issues with the film will begin and first off I have to start with DiCaprio’s character, Leo himself is perfectly good in the role and balances his leading man persona with his eccentric goofball qualities well but the character of Bob Ferguson at times feels as much a reactive character than a proactive character and I wish he was more proactive as a leading character as his reactiveness bothered me a little after a while.

And also the French 75 as a resistance group came across as more amateurish than not in much of the film and for me that dragged down the overall storytelling as most resistance groups or revolutionary outfits throughout history or other works of fiction either feel like and/or come across as more professional and disciplined outfits with a tight circle formed around them and/or acting very much on a need to know basis so that in the event that someone from the resistance cell or broader unit is captured they don’t compromise the rest of the group.

Here all too often it feels like whenever they or friends of Willa’s come under even the slightest amount of questioning or interrogation they immediately crack and give up the information the officers want and that really began to grate with me because it made me think “you guys really suck at this” because any real friend of Willa’s wouldn’t dob her in unless under extreme duress and a proper resistance movement wouldn’t give out sensitive information so easily like you see in this movie.

And it makes me wish those interrogation scenes were darker scenes, one gets waterboarded for example or another is tortured, Lockjaw is a good villain but all too often those under him go easy on those they question and it really got my goat a little as it robs the film of a certain sense of danger or tension that you want to be there with a movie about characters on the run who risk getting caught at every turn they take and every corner they cross, Andrew Davis’s The Fugitive from 1993 does this brilliantly.

And lastly this movie has a side plot in it regarding Penn’s character that ultimately didn’t really add up to much in the broader storytelling and didn’t really need to be there as Lockjaw’s motivations were already perfectly clear by that point and didn’t need anything new added to them.

And so that was One Battle After Another and this was a big letdown for me and I wish I had gotten to see it either before or just as the hype for it had taken off because I probably would’ve liked it more than I ultimately do and again this is not to say it’s a bad movie it isn’t but it was one that was also not as good as I had hoped or not as good as the hype, 2 and a half out of 5.