Film Review - The Wizard of the Kremlin (2026)

The Wizard of the Kremlin stars Paul Dano as Vadim Baranov a Russian TV producer who is recruited in the 1990’s to help Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) rise to power in a post Cold War Russia.

The Wizard of the Kremlin is the kind of movie that feels like catnip for me, a historical drama about a real life figure and the history they create as well as the history we can learn from but this movie while it has some good archival footage simply does not tell that story very well.

Firstly this movie feels so episodic that title cards literally come up on the cinema screen and after a while I started to think that perhaps this should’ve been a streaming series for Netflix or Stan or Prime Video because there you could have taken the time to really dive into the history of post Cold War Russia, the drinking years of Boris Yeltsin (I still remember the news headlines about him as well as shows like the Simpsons making jokes about him) and how someone like Putin could rise to power and hold it with an iron grip because he is a fascinating figure for better or worse.

And Jude Law does a great job as Putin in this movie and I had my doubts about him in that role after seeing the trailer but happily I was wrong, he has the facial expressions down pat and shows off the ruthlessness and the drive of the man very well but sadly he is in so little of the film that he feels like an afterthought and we don’t really see any of the ruthlessness that he in real life is known for apart from a tiny bit towards the end of the film.

Instead we get many scenes of Paul Dano as Vadim talking in a slow voice and very softly and at 2 and a half hours it just feels like it goes on and on and on and I wanted more of Jude Law in the film, Jeffrey Wright and Alicia Vikander are good in their roles but they like Law come and go.

And in the end what should be a thrilling and compelling story with parallels of history running through its veins ends up a dull slog to sit through and there is a far far better movie here waiting to get out.

And so that was the Wizard of the Kremlin and this spell did not work for me, it should be one of my favourites of the year and instead its one of the worst especially with a fascinating person at the heart of this story that ends up feeling sidelined and to the movies detriment, 1 out of 5.

Film Review - The Invite (2026)

The Invite is the new film by Olivia Wilde and she and Seth Rogen play a married couple who are hosting their neighbours (Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz) for a dinner party one night but when people sit around having had too much to eat and drink some dinner parties can go badly wrong.

I was looking forward to this movie because I really like Olivia Wilde as a director, Booksmart in 2019 was a very enjoyable while 2022’s Don’t Worry Darling was well directed and had great visuals but was let down by a bad script that didn’t really commit to its ideas as well as I had hoped but could she get back on form or was Don’t Worry Darling a sign to Worry about her as a director.

Well sadly this movie was a disappointment for me but Wilde’s work once again did not, she is a woman of many talents and does a great job both in front of and behind the camera, the way she uses the camera to frame the characters, make the apartment setting feel lived in and like a character in and of itself is really good and Wilde does a great job with her staging and camerawork as well as playing Angela the hostess who is clearly not happy with how things have gone.

Plus Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz deliver good work as the upstairs neighbours invited to the dinner party and Cruz in particular is really good in her moments as well plua the film has a lot of good laughs in it throughout that made me laugh more than once.

But the big problem for me was that I hated these people, Angela and Joe (Rogen’s character) spend a lot of the movie arguing with each other which is never a good sign when you have guests coming over and all 4 of these people felt like the kind of guests you visit at their dinner party (perhaps Angela and Joe needed the Australian sketch comedy The Late Show’s guide to hosting a dinner party) but after a while (and a few drinks) the whole thing descends into a slanging match between the guests and you just want to leave and go home and that was how I began to felt as the film went on.

What also didn’t help is that Seth Rogen once again plays an insufferable bastard that you just get sick of watching after a while and I just don’t like him as an actor I’m sorry to say, it just feels like he plays the same loser type character who smokes joints over and over again and I just got sick of it as the film went on and when it was over I was happy to leave the cinema.

And so that was the Invite and like Backrooms this was a letdown for me, it has good laughs/good performances and good direction by Wilde but this is one dinner party I was happy to leave, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Spiderman Brand New Day (2026)

Spiderman Brand New Day is the fourth Marvel Studios/Columbia Pictures Spiderman film and the fourth solo movie with Tom Holland in the role, this story takes place after the events of No Way Home where Peter Parker has been living a lonely life now that the world has forgotten who he is while fighting crime as Spiderman but when a mysterious new enemy emerges just as his powers begin to malfunction he faces a difficult challenge ahead.

Spiderman Brand New Day is a mixed bag for me, don’t get me wrong this isn’t a terrible movie but it also has some big flaws, for me this movie works best when its just a Spiderman movie where Peter has to bear the burden of great power and great responsibility alone and cannot share that burden with others lest they be put in danger and Holland is as good as ever in this role and does the heroic and emotional sides of the character very well, Zendaya has felt wasted as MJ in these movies but this time she is given a proper character arc and some good emotional moments and it feels like a relief that her great talents are given good use here.

The film is also well directed by Destin Daniel Cretton who did Shang Chi in 2021 and was to direct Avengers the Kang Dynasty before that film fell apart and he got this movie instead and one thing I like about his camerawork here is the sense of height when Peter is atop a tall building in NYC as you really feel like your up there with him that high and it looks good on a big cinema screen though during those moments I did think of the recent Insomniac games (the first of which I played and enjoyed doing so.)

But where this movie falls over is in its ties to the broader Marvel universe and for me it took away from that core feeling you should have when watching a Spiderman movie which is that the burden of Peter Parker as a hero is one he can only bear on his own and when there are other heroes in that world for him to share with it takes away a little from that core idea and makes it feel less impactful.

And also some of those characters either get very little to do or I just downright resented them being here in this movie, Mark Ruffalo is great as Dr Banner/The Hulk but he’s in so little of the film it feels like a waste of his great talent and that role could easily have been Dr Curt Connors/The Lizard without changing the storytelling a great deal, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/The Punisher is okay but really only serves as a comic relief foil for Peter and that didn’t work well for me.

As for the other 2 characters one of them is in it so little I find myself wondering “why are you here” and the other just made me mad in the cinema primarily because of the road that led to that person being here to begin with.

And lastly I think I’m starting to tire of the shared universe concept for these characters as it makes so tiring to try and follow in terms of the storytelling and the characters, a slog to have to sit down and watch all of these movies and shows so you don’t sit there in a cinema seat feeling lost as to who’s who and where’s where and how did they get here and it also cheapens the stakes of the storytelling and lessens the emotional connection to the characters because nothing bad can really happen to them because they have to be alive for the next film or others can come in and help them share their burden in the case of Spiderman and it makes Peter’s struggle in that role feel weightless.

And so that was Spiderman Brand New Day and it is well directed and the 2 leads are great but if this had been a standalone Spiderman film with no ties to the MCU I would like it a lot more than I do, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Evil Dead Burn (2026)

Evil Dead Burn is the newest entry in the series and concerns Will (George Pullar) who is killed in a car accident and his family comes together at an old family home to pay their respects but unbeknownst to them evil lurks in this family and their old home so can they prevent being dead before dawn or wind up in a gooey end.

Evil Dead Burn like Evil Dead Rise is great fun in a cinema and gooey groovy fun that put a big smile on my face, during many of the films horror moments I sat there soaking up every blood soaked moment of it and I’m sure it was probably digital blood I was watching but I didn’t really think about that very much and thankfully the cast here are better than they were in Rise where it was meant to be a NYC apartment tower but everyone sounded either Australian or Kiwi.

And speaking of the cast they step up and do good work, Souheila Yacoub makes for an effective horror heroine in Alice who has some dark secrets of her own about Will and I also enjoyed Erroll Shand, Hunter Doohan, Tandy Wright and Luciane Buchanan as the other family members stuck inside the old secluded house.

And so that was Evil Dead Burn and I had a lot of fun with this one and I hope others do too though if your squeamish at the sight of blood maybe sit this one out, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - The Odyssey (2026)

The Odyssey is based off of the book by Homer and concerns the voyage of Odysseus (Matt Damon) as he tries to make it back home to Ithica and his beloved wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) who is now having to court various suitors including Antinous (Robert Pattinson) meanwhile his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) wants to know more about what happened to him and sets off on his own quest to find out.

The Odyssey was one of my most anticipated movies of the year firstly because of director Christopher Nolan who’s last 3 films (Oppenheimer, Tenet and Dunkirk) have been my favourites of his after his first 2 Batman films and that group of films in particular showed me what a great filmmaker he was after The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar got swallowed up by the ambition of those films getting away from him but 3 hits in a row can’t guarantee a 4th right.

Well not exactly but that said this is a really enjoyable film and a great time at the cinema for sure and first off this movie is very well crafted, Nolan’s direction is as assured and grand as ever and it’s a real treat to watch him craft a movie and see it unfold in front of you on a big cinema screen, Jennifer Lame’s editing is excellent and Nolan made a great choice hiring her in 2020 to edit Tenet as it really feels like she understands how his directing rhythms work and how to make it feel accessible and understandable to an audience which sometimes hasn’t been the case with Nolan’s films, the production design is top notch as is the costume design by Ellen Mirojnick (that Agamenon armour is superb and reminds me of something out of Batman.)

Oh and Ludwig Gorannson delivers yet another excellent score in this movie, another great hire Nolan brought in on Tenet that like Jennifer Lame in the editing room understands how to make Nolan’s work shine and don’t get me wrong both Lee Smith and Hans Zimmer did good work with Nolan in those roles but Lame and Gorannson have more than earnt their place at his side and I haven’t really missed their work with him since.

And then there is the cast who all deliver excellent work, Damon might be the centre of the film but he only feels like a central piece of a large ensemble and that works really well, Anne Hathaway and John Leguizamo deserve Oscar nominations for their work here as they are very good in their roles (and watching Hathaway in this movie really showed how much she has matured as an actress over the years), Tom Holland delivers great work as Telemachus while Jon Bernthal is a lot of fun as Menelaus and Elliot Page/Lupita Nyong’o/Corey Hawkins/Himesh Patel/Mia Goth/Samantha Morton/Benny Safdie and Charlize Theron make the most of the limited screen time and smaller roles (Page in particular looks like Pattinson’s relative as they both have similar facial structures and jawlines.)

Also this movie has some excellent set piece scenes as well, the Cyclops moment in the trailers looked okay but when you watch that scene in the cinema it turns into a terrifying moment that made me smile as did the scene with the giant metal knights that look like something from Denis Villenueve’s Dune trilogy and aren’t to be messed with lightly, there’s also a moment with food on an island that made me smile a lot and the final act climax is excellent and helps to bring the story to a satisfying end.

But if I do have one complaint about the film it’s that it tends to meander around at times as if the storytelling itself is lost at sea as much as Odysseus and his crew are and at nearly 3 hours in length you do feel it at times but when it all comes together at the end you feel more than satisfied.

And so that was the Odyssey and its not as good as those 5 other Nolan films I’ve mentioned above but this is still a great time in a cinema and a very enjoyable watch, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Obsession (2026)

Obsession is written and directed by Curry Barker and stars Michael Johnstone as Bear a nervous young man who has a crush on his co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarette) but cannot bring himself to tell her how he really feels about her so one night in a store he buys a One Wish Willow ornament that is said to grant any wish the person wants granted so Bear wishes for Nikki to love him but as the Genie said to Aladdin you can’t make people fall in love with you.

Obsession is a movie I have mixed feelings about, on the positive side the film is well made by Barker who uses the night very effectively to help create a mood of dread and tension throughout the film and the horror moments are very effective especially some of the bed scenes where its so early in the morning the characters should all be sound asleep but it also helps to put Bear and Co on edge the next day like they could snap from a lack of sleep.

And Inde Navarette is fantastic as Nikki, she is asked to a lot of strange stuff in this role especially after the wish is used on her and she excels at all of it from the way she’s dressed as an object of Bear’s desires rather than seeing her for who she really is to the way she talks like a devoted wife with the loving smile that looks creepy at times would and even down to the highly strung out emotional moments of screaming and crying and obsessive behaviour and all of it is simply fantastic to watch, this should be a star making performance.

I also enjoyed Megan Lawless as Sarah, Bear’s co-worker in the music shop who secretly has a crush on Bear but doesn’t tell him.

And that leads into one of the problems I have with this movie, nobody talks to each other about how they really feel about each other, right from the first scene you see Bear talk nervously to a girl in a diner and I sat there thinking “For goodness sake just tell her how you feel, it’s not that hard” and that feeling never really went away for me especially when Nikki is changed by Bear’s wish as she never really felt loved by Bear for who she was but who Bear wanted her to be, an object of sexual desire that he could have all to himself.

And that leads me to Bear as a character, I hated this obnoxious little dweeb that I just sat there thinking as Bear tries to figure out what’s going on that everything that’s happening is all his fault, he didn’t tell Nikki how he really felt about her and when he used his One Wish Willow to make her love him he doesn’t realize for much of the movie that she is doing precisely what he deep down wanted her to do, be his and his alone and his friend Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) isn’t much better either as he comes across as the douchebag friend that says all the wrong things to Bear and I hated watching both of these obnoxious little shitheads.

And lastly the other main problem I had was with Nikki herself, we barely get to know her as a character in the early scenes of the movie before the wish changes her to make the impact of that wish really land properly and the movie I kept thinking about while watching this one was last year’s Companion with Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher which also dealt with an insular young man wanting a woman to love him but that film showed how insular and horrible the male lead was and gave the female lead a lot more agency in the story and I wish this movie had more of that.

And so that was Obsession and it’s a mixed bag for me, it’s well made and effective but the storytelling was not as good, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Backrooms (2026)

Backrooms is based off of the YouTube Videos and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark who runs the Captain Clark’s Ottoman Empire Furniture Store and has been kicked out of his house in a separation so one night while putting his feet up in the shop he notices a strange power fluctuation and goes to investigate and finds a series of rooms all empty under his shop.

Backrooms for most of its runtime worked pretty well for me and firstly that is because the film has a great premise and setup: The finding of strange empty rooms underneath where you might work or live and the design of these rooms is fantastic as is the camerawork because when Clark and others go to explore it it has an inherent spookiness and danger to it that feels real especially when people take cameras into empty and abandoned buildings which has that very same feel to it.

The film also has some good performances primarily from Ejiofor as Clark and Renate Reinsve as Dr Kline Clark’s therapist who begins to suspect her patient is losing his mind and both do very well in their roles.

But where this film lost me was in its payoff as I sat there in the cinema really intrigued by the setup and premise but I also thought as it went on “This better have a good payoff” and sadly it does not as the climax of the film ties itself up in convoluted answers and story resolutions that make very little sense and aren’t really built up that well that when it was over I thought to myself “That was stupid”

And so that was Backrooms and it’s okay, but I’ve seen better horror films, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Minions and Monsters (2026)

Minions and Monsters is the 3rd Minions spinoff film and sees the Minions making their way to 1920’s Hollywood where they become stars of the silent film era but when the industry transitions to sound and their dialect sees their career end Minions James, Henry and Ed decide to make a monster movie instead and travel to find the perfect monster to use but they should be careful what they wish for also.

Minions and Monsters is a pure delight that made me laugh a lot in the cinema and put a smile on my face for so much of it, those little guys still make me laugh with their unique way of talking/their physical comedy and inspired chaos that we used to see in comedies like Hot Shows, The Naked Gun and Airplane and while Gru isn’t in this movie I didn’t miss him all that much like I did in the 2015 Minions film.

The film also has a lot of great movie references ranging from famous voices (one in particular was lovely to see) to the Great Gatsby and Babylon to silent cinema in general as well as life on a studio lot as well as 1950’s Sci-fi cinema in one instance, some of these don’t 100% work but a lot of them do.

And lastly the monsters in this movie are great fun especially the monster that shows up towards the end of the film which is very memorable and good fun to watch on a decent sized cinema screen and the small green monster known as Goomi voiced by Trey Parker is good fun as well and acts as the equivalent of Gru from the 2022 Rise of Gru film and by that I mean the English speaking co-lead that helps to anchor the film.

And so that was Minions and Monsters and what can I say, I was delighted with its humour/monsters and cinema references, I had a great time here, 4 out of 5.

Film Review - Supergirl (2026)

Supergirl is the newest entry in the DCU now under James Gunn and Peter Safran’s control and this movie is the spinoff for Kara (Milly Alcock) who was briefly introduced in last year’s Superman movie and this story sees Kara enjoying her birthday off world in systems with a red sun so she can get properly drunk but on one world she and Krypto the Dog come across Krem (Mathias Schoenarts) who poisons Krypto and Kara has 3 days to find a cure.

Supergirl is not a terrible movie per se but its also a movie that did very little for me but the one thing I did like about this movie is Milly Alcock as Kara, she does a great job with the material she’s given and sells the tragedy of that character, the fun of the character and the action moments very well plus she has some great moments with David Corenswet who shows up briefly as Superman and he continues to prove himself worthy of that mantle in the role.

But apart from those 2 actors this movie doesn’t really work:

- The first reason is the films storytelling and tone which wants to have a more serious storyline about women being traded for information and to be brides for the Briggins (the race Krem belongs to) but on the other hand it also wants to have the “lets get fun and get on the galactic beers and get drunk” fun while also having the James Gunn trademarks of jokes in every other line and funky pop songs on the soundtrack and the two just do not mesh at all.

Its one thing to want to have this serious storyline but its another thing to mesh that with a Guardians of the Galaxy style of fun and Gunn as a writer/director can pull that off as he showed with Guardians 3 in 2023 but here Ana Noguiera and Craig Gillespie the writer and director respectively cannot and it shows.

- The second reason is Gillespie as director, frankly he should not have directed this movie as all he really does is want to copy James Gunn’s style of filmmaking which only Gunn himself can make work properly because he trusts his writing and directing instincts and because of that he has done great work in both DC and Marvel movies but Gillespie (who came to prominence with I, Tonya and Cruella) feels like he’s imitating that style and doing it badly which often is the case.

And so often especially nowadays these movies if they don’t have a specific style can feel very bland and samey which I am starting to get a little over, these movies have worked best for me when it’s had a strong hand at the helm like the late great Richard Donner or Tim Burton or Bryan Singer who were filmmakers that understood that yes the comics are the source but don’t be afraid to change that in the adaptation process of making a movie out of it and all too often nowadays that firm vision is missing so that the studio in charge can manage any kind of risk with these films as their too important to the bottom line.

- And lastly a lot of the casting didn’t do it for me either, Jason Momoa finally gets to play Lobo an arrogant loudmouth bounty hunter but instead he just comes across as annoying and his makeup work is lit so dimly you don’t really get a proper look at it and when compared to Brad Garrett who voiced that role in the Superman animated series Momoa’s take is nowhere near as good as Garrett was loud and arrogant and brash but never annoying.

And then there’s Mathias as Krem who too often sounds like he’s impersonating Tim Roth while looking like a cross between Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies and Zao from Die Another Day and the Briggins as villains on the whole feel like a rip off of the space pirates from Guardians.

And lastly there’s Eve Ridley as Ruthye and boy does her dialogue outstay its welcome quickly as she sounds like a character from Game of Thrones with her portentous dialogue that sounds like a mouthful coming out of Ridley’s mouth and her whole story arc about wanting vengeance is okay but not all that memorable.

And so that was Supergirl and both Milly and David are great as the last survivors of Kryptin (unless somehow General Zod returns in which case you’d better start practicing how to kneel before him) but this movie suffers from an inconsistent tone, boring villains and lacklustre casting, its not terrible but its not much either, 2 out of 5.

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.

Film Review - Michael (2026)

Michael is the musical biopic about the late Michael Jackson and his own nephew Jafaar Jackson plays Michael in this movie which concerns his initial rise to fame as part of the Jackson Five all the way up to the release of the album Bad in 1988.

Michael was at the start of this year one of my most anticipated movies of the year primarily because of the strength of the first trailer and how much it had me thinking I was looking at remastered archival footage instead of dramatized recreations but as the year has gone on it began to fade from that list and I started anticipating Mortal Kombat II and Minions and Monsters a whole lot more plus musical biopics can be very hit and miss but would this be a thriller, thrilling time at the movies or would it be bad, be bad, be pretty pretty bad.

Well actually it was neither, its not a terrible movie to watch but its also a movie that dramatically and storytelling wise falls flat and when it all ends you sit there feeling “Is that It?” but before I delve more into that I want to mention the main positive I have and that is Jafaar Jackson who does a great job bringing his late uncle back to life with his vocals, his dance moves and his physical acting, Michael was a man who brought a sense of movement to his music and when you listened to it you wanted to move your body to it and Jafaar captures that very well.

I also loved the Billie Jean segment in this movie but there is where I want to start mentioning the negatives and sadly that has to start with the musical numbers, again they aren’t terrible but only during Billie Jean did I want to move my body and sing along in my cinema seat (respectfully of course) the Thriller recreation (one of the most iconic music videos of all time) fell flat due to its bad editing (and trying to hide who that clip’s now infamous director is) and the concert scenes after a while started to feel repetitive.

Not to mention that during 2 of the films songs I was wanting to sing the Weird Al Yankovic parodies of those songs instead which is not a good sign for a movie of this kind.

And then there’s the films overall storytelling which feels flat and emotionless, so much of the dramatic weight of this movie is centred on Michael’s relationship with this domineering father Joe played by Coleman Domingo and Domingo’s performance is so one note at times you can almost see the scenery being chewed in his mouth and it all felt like a waste of a great talent who rarely gives a bad performance and this is one of the rare times and that story of the son learning to defy his father so he can go his own way felt very predictable.

And when its all over you just sit there thinking “was that it?” because it all ends in a very anti-climatic way that doesn’t feel earned in any way and say what you want about Bohemian Rhapsody from 2018 (also produced by Graham King) at least that film earnt its Live Aid climax that had you leaving that film on a real high note and also this is now the second musical biopic he’s helped to produce that has resulted in a messy production and while I’m sure he’s a nice guy I can’t help but question his judgement given this has now happened twice.

First was not cracking the producers whip on Bryan Singer after the first time he allegedly went MIA during the filming of Bohemian Rhapsody to pull him into line (Singer was later fired from that production with only 2-2.5 weeks left on the schedule) and now it’s the well documented mess regarding the production of this movie where scenes were filmed but then had to be scrapped because of a situation involving MJ’s estate now that part isn’t entirely his fault but its also a situation that could’ve been avoided much earlier than it was.

And so that was Michael and it isn’t a bad movie but its also a flat one with hit and miss musical scenes, a anti-climatic ending and a predictable storyline that feels like a waste of a great talent, 1.5 out of 5.

Film Review - Fuze (2026)

Fuze stars Sam Worthington, Theo James and Aaron Taylor-Johnson and takes place in London where an unexploded bomb from WWII is found in a busy street and the Met Police and Army are called in to evacuate the area but while that is going on a group of thieves decide to take an advantage of the situation and rob a nearby bank but not all robberies go as smoothly as planned.

Fuze is a perfectly fine action heist thriller that will do the job competently enough for those who watch it, Worthington is okay but at times his accent ranges from Cockney to Aussie to Jake Sully (his character in the Avatar films) and his role isn’t as big as I thought it would be, James is okay despite his South African accent not being the best at times while Taylor-Johnson is good as the Army Major overseeing the bomb situation and the film has a good propulsion to it in terms of the tension and ticking clock of the bomb situation.

Where it does fall over a little bit is regarding the heist which goes through a few more twists and turns that I thought it would and some of those worked and some of those didn’t but overall that part of the film wasn’t as interesting to me as the bomb plotline was as that section felt tightly paced, had a good amount of tension and interested in how that type of technology works.

And so that was Fuze and its fine but only worth a watch once, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - The Drama (2026)

The Drama stars Robert Pattinson as Charlie and Zendaya as Emma a young couple who are engaged to be married and are planning their wedding when one night they are invited out with their friends Rachel (Alana Haim) and Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and are asked what’s the worst thing they’ve ever done during a round of drinks and the answers some give will lead to shocking consequences.

The Drama is an awkward watch but in the best possible way as I really enjoyed this movie, firstly the performances by Zendaya and Haim are terrific and both play their parts very well, Zendaya is turning into a great young talent outside of the Spider-man movies which have regrettably not given her a huge amount to work with (hopefully Brand New Day later this year changes that) and she brings a lot to Emma that makes her a compelling character to watch while Haim is a relative newcomer to movies but plays that bitchy jealous girlfriend very well and she has a few memorable moments of her own as well.

The film also has a good performance by Hailey Gates as Mischa one of Charlie’s museum co-workers and she makes the most of her small part while Athie is fine as Mike but doesn’t really stick out amongst the broader ensemble cast.

As for Pattinson’s Charlie he is okay but at times he becomes very insular and withdrawn and that is not really something Pattinson can do all that well as I prefer him in roles like Tenet where he can be charismatic and less insular and I get that his character goes through a lot throughout this movie in regards to what he thought about Emma and how much he felt he really knew about her but some of those scenes didn’t work as well for me and that is primarily because of the soft spoken way Pattinson talks.

As for those feelings well I won’t delve too much into what caused those to come to the surface but it is something bad enough that I felt that things between Emma and Charlie probably would’ve been okay if they had had a chance to properly sit down and talk it all out between each other before they were married or if Emma had told Charlie much much earlier in their relationship say when it was becoming clear to her that Charlie was going to be her husband she should’ve sat him down then and said “Sweetie can you come in here please” and he goes and sits down and asks why and she says “There’s something I have to tell you about me and you might not like it” and then told him what is revealed in the film because the manner in which Emma reveals that about herself so close to her wedding creates a tension that didn’t need to be there if she had come clean sooner as she should have.

That said however The Drama works quite well despite some of those shortcomings and I liked it quite a bit, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Super Mario Galaxy (2026)

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the follow up to 2023’s Super Mario Brothers movie and concerns Bowser Jr (Benny Safdie) kidnapping the cosmic princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) as he wants to use her to conquer the universe and free his father Bowser (Jack Black) from imprisonment in the Mushroom Kingdom but when Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Toad (Keegan Michael-Key) go missing in the cosmic universe Mario (Chris Pratt), Luigi (Charlie Day) and Yoshi (Donald Glover) go looking for them.

Super Mario Galaxy isn’t a terrible movie but its also not a movie that is going to appeal outside of kids and Nintendo superfans either but firstly it does have some positives and the first of those is the animation it is very bright and colourful and cosmic looking blending 3 dimensional worlds with 2 dimensional looking scenes which nod back to the classic NES games and the various planets the characters go to all have a unique visual style that is very appealing to look at on a big cinema screen.

The voice cast for the most part is also pretty good too, Pratt/Day and Glover play off each other very well and Glover in particular is a highlight as Yoshi even if I suspected that his vocal performance might have been edited that way in post-production much like Frank Welker’s vocals for Soundwave were in the original Transformers Cartoon, Taylor-Joy and Michael-Key are good as well in their roles while Safdie and Black are great as the Bowsers.

But for all of that the movies storytelling is all over the place, going from one planet to the next in one story arc to the next that at times it feels like your watching a speed run of a video game instead of a movie and there are so many fast moving set piece moments in the film that some kids could end up being over stimulated while watching it and because of that it feels like none of our heroes get any kind of proper attention applied to them to make us feel invested in the journey.

And the second problem is the use of Rosalina, Brie Larson is an Academy Award Winner and self-confessed Nintendo nerd playing a fan favourite character but after the opening scene she disappears for a huge part of the film and plays only a minor role in the climax of it that it ultimately felt like a waste of her great talents as an actress and that really annoyed me.

And lastly the more I’ve thought about this movie the more I want to compare it to the Sonic the Hedgehog series which has always been the great rival of the Super Mario Brothers over the years and those films are much better than these and really should have been the template for these Mario animated films as those movies:

-    Have a proper storyline with an emotional core at the centre
-    Know when to use the fan service and when not to
-    Took their time to develop their core heroes over the course of the franchise
-    And make proper use of fan favourite characters from the games and make them feel like the centre of the story

It’s not a hard formula to copy but here it feels ignored and that might please some and give Universal and Illumination and Nintendo that short term sugar hit but it only works for that one time but it doesn’t make me want to go back to them the way I have the Sonic movies.

And so that was Super Mario Galaxy and it has its moments but its really only for kids and Nintendo super fans who will get every reference as for the rest I think it will bore them dizzingly fairly quick, 2 out of 5.