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.