Tag: 2025

Exterritorial

  By

★★★
“English? German? – ENGLISH? GERMAN??”

The term “Netflix Original” covers a range of productions, from pre-made movies they buy for distribution, through to movies commissioned from the ground up by the company. The results are equally variable. For every What Happened to Monday, there’s an Interceptor. This one came out of Germany: not exactly renowned for action, particularly action heroines. But it quickly and unexpectedly became the most-watched foreign language movie on the streaming service, worldwide. Does it deserve the success? We watched it and wrote up our thoughts independently, which have been edited and combined below. But, first: some introduction, and let’s find out what the movie is about.

Dieter: This movie was produced by long-established studio German Constantin Film, who in the 60s gave us the famous (or notorious, depending on your perspective) Karl May westerns, as well as German Edgar Wallace thrillers. It went bankrupt in the 70s but was saved and lead to new successes due to late producer Bernd Eichinger. He produced films such as The Never-ending Story, The Name of the Rose, House of Spirits, the first Fantastic Four movie (yes, that was German), the Resident Evil series and Downfall. After his death Constantin Film has mostly been hit and miss.

Interestingly, in the end credits you can see that Oliver Berben was involved in its production. Berben is a successful producer, now leading manager of Constantin Film, and son of well-known German actress Iris Berben, who played detective inspector Rosa Roth for a good 2 decades on TV. He has produced a number of movies with her in the leading role, as well other movies and countless TV productions. His most well-known movie might be Roman Polanski’s Carnage, with Jodie Foster. I’m not sure if this movie was produced by Constantin, then sold to Netflix, or if Netflix “ordered” Constantin Film to produce the movie. Looking at the results, I get the feeling this was from the get-go a collaboration between the two.

Jim: The heroine is Sara Wulf (Goursaud), a former Bundeswehr soldier, whose husband was killed in action, and who suffers from a touch of PTSD herself. She’s working to move to the US with her son, Josh, and has a visa appointment at the consulate in Frankfurt. But while she’s waiting to be seen, Josh vanishes. The consular chief of security, Erik Kynch (Scott) is sympathetic, until the surveillance footage shows Sara arriving alone. She’s locked up pending her being escorted off the premises. But, naturally, she escapes, and encounters a young woman (Abova), being held in an apartment in the complex. They agree to help each other – but it increasingly becomes clear that there’s a lot more going on than a missing child.

Dieter: Color me surprised when finding out the movie is… not bad at all. Actually, it is quite watchable. While the typical “diversity agenda” of Netflix is at play here, fortunately, there is no virtue-signaling, and I’m happy for it. I had some problems with Sara being a “special forces elite soldier” and “combat trained”. It’s true German soldiers were in Afghanistan but they were not involved in any combat missions but were mainly helping in re-building projects, or the training and aid of Afghani security forces. Since the end of World War II, Germany has had a strict rule of not getting involved in any military battles with the idea “that no war should ever come from Germany again”. So, a German soldier being involved in a direct military action, as scenes in this movie seem to indicate, is highly questionable.

Also, German “elite forces”? I don’t know. I won’t say it is impossible: there are probably certain groups for specific tasks that I am not aware of. But having done my – at that time obligatory – army service in the Bundeswehr 30 years ago, I have my doubts. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief here. The movie echoes popular action thriller plots of the past such as Jodie Foster’s Flight Plan and Panic Room, Angelina Jolie’s The Foreign Son, and of course Liam Neeson’s Taken. So, the plot won’t win any awards for originality. It’s also happy to re-use elements from other sources: Tom Cruise window climbing;  Mel Gibson shoulder dislocation; or a MacGyver-like improvised explosives.

Jim: Yeah – I may have yelled, “A few household chemicals in the proper proportions” at the screen there! I thought this was entertaining. It’s main strength is Goursaud, who manages to be both a bad-ass and a vulnerable mother, often simultaneously. She comes across as fairly credible in the fights, even when going up against bigger opponents. The script puts some effort into establishing her credentials, and she has a lithe toughness to her which works well.

Dieter: You must understand: we Germans are pretty lousy when it comes to action movies. The few there are, usually have actors attempting a weak, second-rate impression of the American attitude of “Look how big my balls are”. This always feels fake, because we Germans simply don’t see ourselves like that. We have no problems seeing us in roles of evil Nazis or “the good German”, e. g. Armin Mueller-Stahl, but hardly ever as action heroes. That definitely has to do with our history, the idea of “German heroism” being exploited and abused by the Nazis. So at first I was going to dismiss the movie as not interesting.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t commit the usual mistake of making its protagonist an unbeatable heroine. To “do it the German way”, you must put things into a more nuanced context. We wouldn’t expect it from an American movie, but definitely would in a German one. I know it’s unfair to home-grown productions, but we judge them on a different basis. Yes, there is the early scene where Sara gets pushed around and immediately gets into combat mode (because… you know… PTSD). But I think it’s the only scene I found unbelievably overdone. I feared the movie would continue that way – but luckily it didn’t!

Instead, it shows that – in contrast to someone like Angelina Jolie in Salt – though she is “trained for this” as she says, the reality sets in quickly. Even a single man with some combat training is always in a better position and will eventually overpower her. If she wins a fight, it is because she uses everything at her disposal in her environment. There seems to be an extra shot of adrenaline when push comes to shove and her trauma sets in. Nothing is won easily for the protagonist here and female power fantasies are left at the door! The fact that Goursaud actually has some muscles, is a further plus. 

Jim: There might be a bit less actual action than I expected, but what there is, is done well, with a couple of sequences edited together to look like a single take. The peak is likely a battle against two assassins in an apartment. It’s no Atomic Blonde, in length or quality. Then again, who is? I also appreciated the way she’s not infallible. Witness the way her first attempt to get around the consulate, ends in her bouncing off a balcony, and falling to the ground. 

Dieter: The acting is for once not a distraction, as so often in German movies. German-French actress Goursaud is in most scenes very believable, playing a stressed mother as well as in combat mode. Lera Abova who plays the role of Russian Kira doesn’t fare quite so well. Despite being Russian, I never got the feeling that she was, and sometimes had problems understanding what she was saying: she definitely had no Russian accent either.

The big surprise was Dougray Scott, who last time I saw him, had a role in Desperate Housewives. I could imagine that a consular officer would react exactly as he did in the situations here. What really stood out were his German language skills, speaking fluently with only a very slight accent. You have to understand how difficult it is to speak German like that. The movie refers to it in the beginning, when Sara demonstrates to her son how his father spoke German with a broad American accent. Contrast a scene in Tomorrow Never Dies where Pierce Brosnan spoke in German and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. The language skills Scott demonstrates in this movie here are excellent. And I say that as a German. I was mightily impressed.

Jim: I noticed in the end credits that there were two dialogue coaches for him: one to speak German and the other to help him sound American. Seems like both did their job! Chris found no reason to complain about the latter, and she has an ear for that, both in English and Spanish (you should hear her eviscerate any non-Cubans trying to sound Cuban!). While I’m here, I noticed that the credits listed an “intimacy co-ordinator”. Weird, since there was nothing at all on screen to suggest one would be needed. Maybe Zübert is going to pull a Zack Snyder and realize an unrated cut, with all the missing sex and violence?

Dieter: The most fascinating thing for me was the consulate itself. I’ve never been in one, so I don’t know, but I could imagine that it might look like this. You get the feeling this is not just a building but almost its own village with an auditorium, conference and office rooms, warehouse, cafeteria, locker rooms, swimming pool, nursery, hospital room, guest apartments, truck departure hall and safety room. Are consulates really that big? Or was that made up? The movie is supposed to take place in Frankfurt, Germany’s fifth-biggest city, and early shots of the city and its central station are genuine. So I was quite surprised to read in the end titles “filmed in and around Vienna”. Aha…???

Jim: I was less enthralled with the story. There are points where it seems like a parade of clichés, such as the PTSD, which never serves much purpose. Or the scene at the end, where the villain lays out his plan to the heroine in all its intricate detail. It’s also crafted to raise questions, such as what would have happened if Sara hadn’t unilaterally decided to leave Josh alone in the consulate play-room? It’s certainly quite easy to come up with simpler ways for the bad guy to achieve his goals.

Dieter: The whole plot has a typical thriller solution which is a bit far-fetched and over-complicated. But I liked the idea of the villain of the piece giving an explanation for his actions. The previous day, I had seen Steven Soderbergh’s spy thriller Black Bag, and the characters’ emotions and motivations seemed thin, and not quite understandable. Kudos to the writers here for creating believable motives and emotions.

Jim: Despite my qualms about the script, it’s not significantly worse in this area than your typical straight-to-video actioner. That might be the best way to approach this, as a throwback to a simpler era, where one man – or woman now – could go up against a parade of enemies, and emerge battered but unbowed. I’m certainly happier to see my Netflix subscription used towards this kind of thing than overblown nonsense like The Electric State. 

Dieter: A little tidbit: When I graduated, I briefly considered applying for jobs in German embassies overseas. One big drawback was being regularly required to move to other places in the world, making it difficult to settle anywhere and build a life. This is one reason the villain here gives for his acts and it absolutely made sense to me. But overall, this was a good action movie, and from Germany, no less. Even a believable, and perhaps the first real, girls with guns movie from here. It’s really astonishing to me. I expected this to fall flat on its face, especially when replicating American action formulas. But despite my utter disbelief something like this could be possible from my country, the film succeeds. Signs and wonders still do happen, as we used to say here!

Dir: Christian Zübert
Star: Jeanne Goursaud, Dougray Scott, Lera Abova, Kayode Akinyemi

In the Lost Lands

  By

★★★
“Bit of a lost opportunity.”

Well, this crashed and burned at the box-office in no uncertain fashion, taking in less than ten percent of its $55 million budget. While not surprising – dark fantasy doesn’t exactly have a good track record of late – it is a bit of a shame. I loved the look of the film, which is often spectacular, reminding me of things like The Chronicles of Riddick in a willingness to step back and overwhelm the viewer with scale. I am, of course, contractually obliged to watch anything with Milla Jovovich in it, and she’s her usual good value here. Bautista had a solid track record too, and he’s certainly appropriate for the role. But then, there’s the plot…

This all takes place in a harsh post-apocalyptic world, ruled over by Overlord, with his rule maintained by the church and its inquisitors, who tolerate no heresy. That would be the witch Gray Alys (Jovovich), who can compel anyone meeting her gaze to do her bidding. She is tacitly contacted by Overlord’s wife (Okereke), who wants Alys to give her the power to change her form. Doing so means Alys must journey into the Lost Lands outside civilization to find such a shapeshifter, and she hires Boyce (Bautista) as a guide on that quest. However, they are also pursued by church enforcer Ash (Joven), who is keen to bring the blasphemous Alys to heel for her reluctance to toe the line.

The stuff in the Lost Lands is great, and is where the film genuinely lives up to the “epic fantasy” tag. Frankly, that budget seems quite cheap for what you get, with some stunning landscapes and great set-pieces, including one on a cable-car which is likely to be among the best action sequences I’ll cover on the site this year. The problems arise when the film drifts away from the most basic of plot: Alys and Boyce hunting a shapeshifter, while Ash hunts them. That would, of course, be far too simple for a film based on a story written by George R.R. Martin. As you’d expect, the creator of Game of Thrones has a lot of other palace-based shenanigans involving the Overlord and his queen.

These are muddled, confusing and, frankly, not very interesting. This kind of heavy plotting is certainly not in director Anderson’s wheel-house either. If you look at his filmography, his output tends to be at its best when its most streamlined. The same applies, in microcosm, to this film. Give us Milla and Dave slicin’ and dicin’ their way through Ash’s minions, and we will be happy. The further it drifts from this elegant simplicity, the less firm is the ground on which it operates. To the point that, too often, it ends up sinking under the weight of what the script thinks is gravitas, yet in reality is nothing more than stuff we have no reason to care about. 

Dir: Paul W. S. Anderson
Star: Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista, Arly Jover, Amara Okereke

G20

  By

★★
“Making America Grate Again.”

Amazon Prime doesn’t have the best reputation for its original movies. Indeed, I’m hard pushed to think of one which I’d want to watch again. That record is unchanged after this, a fairly ludicrous Die Hard knock-off which even an Oscar winner like Viola Davis can’t do much to salvage. It’s another in the recent series of “president in peril” films. When your movie takes inspiration from the likes of Olympus Has Fallen, you’re setting the bar low from the get-go. Then cobble together a script involving the three boogeymen of current culture – AI, cryptocurrency and white men. Finally, pretend Kamala Harris won the election, and was a military-trained bad-ass. Given all this, two stars is probably an achievement. 

US President Danielle Sutton is in South Africa with her family to attend a conference and get agreement for her plan to… [checks notes] “empower struggling sub-Saharan farmers through access to digital currency.” Where’s DOGE when you need somebody to shut down this blatant waste of taxpayer money? The conference is taken over by Edward Rutledge (Starr), a formee Special Forces soldier whom I thought was South African, but turns out to Australian. I blame Starr’s ropey accent. He plans to use the gathered leaders to create deep fakes which will tank the economy and boost the value of his crypto holdings. Naturally, President Sutton is able to slide away with the help of Secret Service agent Manny Ruiz (Rodríguez), and… Oh, figure it out yourself. 

I’ll never be averse to a good Die Hard knockoff. Unfortunately, this isn’t much cop. While Davis does what she can, being decent dramatically, and just about credible on the action (if you squint hard enough), she can’t negate the stupidity and cliché-ridden nature of the script. For example, Sutton’s whiny and rebellious teenage daughter, who – what are the odds? – turns out to be a world-class hacker, so can counter Rutledge’s plans, when necessary to the plot. And even Davis looks unconvincing when going toe-to-toe with men significantly larger than her, then straight-up outmuscling them. There are ways to handle this kind of thing, e.g. Air Force One used stealth for its hero more than strength. Director Riggen doesn’t bother, damaging the movie’s credibility. 

It doesn’t help that it’s currently hard to make politicians of any colour seem sympathetic. I have a deep cynicism about them, and frankly, Rutledge makes some credible points in his inevitable anti-government rants. I also felt a rather unpleasant racist tone to the script, with enough of the fights being interracial to leave me going “Hmmm…” Go through this thinking “White people bad”, and you’ll probably be fairly accurate at predicting the script’s twists. If generally competent on a technical level, there are still mis-steps like some obvious CGI. All films in the Die Hard genre are wish fulfillment to a certain degree. This, however, takes it to a near-stupid degree, and doesn’t provide the escapism for which I was looking. 

Dir: Patricia Riggen
Star: Viola Davis, Antony Starr, Ramón Rodríguez, Anthony Anderson

Glow Street

  By

★★½
“Women of Glow, not Women of GLOW…”

This would be a creditable little film, if the makers could ever be bothered to finish it. Yeah, it ends in what is supposed, I presume, to be some kind of cliffhanger. But it botches the landing badly, first by leaping forward two weeks instead of showing us the climax to which things have been leading up. Then, it just… ends, without resolution in any of the major plot threads. It’s a shame, because to that point, if doing nothing particularly new, this is competent in its execution, and I’ve seen a lot worse. It gets the basics right, with a half-decent story and characters: in the urban genre, this is sadly less common than you would hope.

It takes place in Atlanta, where the fictional Glow Street is the centre of the drug trade, with various factions fighting for control, with their battles spilling over into the neighbourhood, where innocent bystanders sometimes bear the brunt. After a brief “Tsk-tsk” about this in a detective’s speech at the beginning, however, morality is hard to find here. Instead, we’re plunged into the activities of Jahdai (Lynn) and her colleagues, who initially act as enforcers for Troy. But after they disobey a direct order from him, in order to take care of some personal business, they are no longer employed. In need of cash to meet their own liabilities, they decide to rob a stash house. Naturally, this doesn’t go as planned.

The main thing this probably has going for it is Lynn. She has some spectacular skin art, so looks the part, and has the attitude to match. Jahdai is certainly not somebody I would want to cross, yet manages to become someone who is not one-dimensional (another common problem in this sub-genre). Indeed, there are a slew of subplots, including a mother with lung cancer, a father who just got out of jail, and so on. It probably takes about forty minutes for the main story – the stash-house robbery, and subsequent betrayal – to kick in. Then there’s Trav (Stagg), the brother of someone killed in an earlier incident, who is out for revenge on Jahdai, largely what leads to the non-ending discussed above.

Escobar does an acceptable job of keeping the various threads coherent, and there’s no shortage of enthusiastic carnage. On the downside, there’s far too much unconvincing CGI blood, while often leaves the film looking like a Grand Theft Auto side-mission. All told, however, I was kept reasonably entertained and engaged, and it definitely looks and sounds like a professional work, rather than shot on somebody’s phone. Until things fall apart at the end, I would have been interested in seeing subsequent tales from this hood. But the writers’ inability to finish the job, leave me wary that further entries might end up pulling a similar trick. Tell me a complete story, dammit – if it’s good enough, I don’t need tricks to drag me back for more. 

Dir: Vincent Escobar
Star: Destinee Lynn, Kierra Shiday, Caleb Stagg, Natasha Eli Pearson

Cleaner

  By

★★
“DEI Hard.”

Director Campbell recently appeared here with the entertaining Dirty Angels, and I was hoping for more of the same here. Sadly, I came away disappointed. There are a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, Daisy Ridley is not Eva Green. That’s OK. After all, only Eva Green is Eva Green. But it’s still an issue. A bigger problem though, is likely the unashamed way thus is a knockoff of a certain Bruce Willis movie, and Daisy Ridley is not Bruce Willis either. Here, she plays Joey Locke, a former soldier now working as a window-cleaner in a skyscraper owned by Evil Corporation Inc. They’re actually called something else, but I’ve already forgotten what, in the two hours since. 

She also has to care for an autistic brother, Michael (Tuck), who is alternately utterly useless and a wiz with computers, depending on what the script needs at that moment. She ends up having to take him to work, and – what are the odds? – it’s the very same evening a group of eco-terrorists under Marcus Blake (Owen) and his lunatic sidekick, Noah (Skylar). will storm the building. Their intention is to blow the lid off Evil, Inc’s dirty little secrets. In the nasty little corners of the Internet where Luigi Mangione is a hero, they’re probably the good guys. It’s all fashionably murky, but another demerit: Skylar isn’t anywhere close to Alan Rickman. Owen might have worked, but for reasons, he’s not the main bad guy.

The film is, at least, considerably shorter than its inspiration. Although it feels this was obtained by removing most of the stuff which made Die Hard such fun. Instead, Joey is left dangling outside the building for too long, exchanging vaguely sisterly dialogue with the police inspector on the ground. It’s painfully notable that the competent people in this film are, almost without exception, wonen. In the middle act especially, it feels very much like the script was not so much written (by three human beings, apparently), as constructed by a Democratic focus group, circa September 2024. Occupy Wall Street! Climate change! Disability representation! Vote Kamala! Sorry, dunno how that slipped in. By the time we get to Joey actually kicking terrorist butt, I was largely checked out. 

There are some positives. The relationship between Joey and Michael is sweet, and kudos to the film for casting a genuinely autistic actor. Campbell also has enough of a track record in action, he could do this sort of thing in his sleep. Though, except for the opening scene, a flashback to twenty years earlier, there is rarely a sense Joey is genuinely dangling hundreds of feet off the ground [contrast Fall]. Ridley does enough with her part to suggest she may have a decent future in the action genre. She’ll need to pick better scripts, however, and the same goes for Campbell. Dirty Angels had its flaws, to be sure. It was still several notches more entertaining than this. 

Dir: Martin Campbell
Star: Daisy Ridley, Taz Skylar, Matthew Tuck, Clive Owen

We Kill Them All

  By

★½
“Kill me too. Please”

It generally makes sense for a film to escalate over its duration. The problem here is, what escalated was my annoyance. It began as irritation, but by the end I was deeply peeved, because the stupidity is strong in this one. It begins with two different strands. In one, former desperado Lee Hughes is visited in his mountain resort by ex-colleague Jimmy Montague (Fafard) and his minions. They want to know the location of two million in proceeds from a previous crime Lee and Jimmy pulled. In the other, lesbian couple Lane (Newton) and Megan (McClay) are busy being lesbionic with each other, because they’re lesbians. Did I mention they are a same-sex couple?

These two threads link up because Megan is Lee’s daughter. When she and Lane head up to visit him, they discover only Jimmy and his henchmen, Tweedledum and Tweedledumber. They think Megan knows where the loot is. And this is where the idiocy becomes industrial strength. I’m not sure who is worse. The bad guys, for repeatedly allowing their captives to escape. Or Megan and Lane, for repeatedly allowing themselves to get recaptured. It doesn’t help the script ties itself in knots, trying to keep any firearms out of the wonens’ hands before the very end. Yes, the liberal agenda™ here seems to extend to gun control. Until it finally gives up and admits that they are, in fact, the best equalizer in a home invasion scenario. 

Lane, in particular, is entirely useless for the great bulk of proceedings. Until she is not, suddenly able to escape from being tied up with barbed wire – albeit the kind of barbed wire which leaves no marks in her flesh – and left entirely alone while Jimmy and Megan wander off. Again. Megan does, at least, have some guts. But, really: you are in a kitchen, and the best impromptu weapon you can find is… A chopping board? Meanwhile, the purpose of the whole lesbian thing is revealed. It’s cheap heat, so the bad guys can get all homophobic. Being bad is not, apparently enough. [The film really needs to take lessons from What Keeps You Alive in the department of lesbian relationships]

I honestly feel the whole endeavour would be improved by dubbing Three Stooges sound effects over the top of it. The first half is meandering and not very interesting. The second half does at least have things happening. It’s just that they range from the weakly plotted down to the flat out ludicrous. With little or no reason to care about the characters, who seem entirely defined by their bedroom habits, I was left with no interest in their fate. This, incidentally, ends up being exactly what I expected at the mid-way point. I want to stress, this isn’t a bad film because the heroines are lesbians. There are a lot of perfectly good, unbigoted reasons to find this well below average. 

Dir: Jeremy Drummond
Star: Chloe McClay, Emma Newton, Leo Fafard, Michasha Armstrong

Back in Action

  By

★★★
“Back to basics.”

The title could very well apply to star Diaz as well, since this is her first movie in over a decade. She retired in 2014 after Annie (which also starred Foxx), to focus on her family. But the actress, who will always be beloved here for her role in the best incarnation of Charlie’s Angels, was lured out for this genre mashup, which combines comedy, action, romance, family drama and thriller elements. She plays Emily, a former spy who retired fifteen years ago, and dropped out of sight. She’s now happily married to partner Matt (Foxx), with two teenage kids – the daughter being particularly obnoxious – and a house roughly the size of Vermont. Espionage must be a very lucrative business. 

This domestic bliss is, naturally, upended after the arrival of former handler Chuck (Chandler) with a warning, rapidly followed by assassins. Turns out, on their last mission, Matt lifted and subsequently hid, a device capable of controlling any electronic system. Everyone now wants to get their hands on this MacGuffin, which he stashed away on the estate of Emily’s estranged mother, Ginny (Close), back in England. Kids in tow, Matt and Emily have to drop off the grid, go there and secure the device before it falls into the hands of the bad guys, who intend to auction it off to the highest bidder. Needless to say, their children are surprised by this development. Not least the daughter, who was just grounded for using a fake ID.

Make no mistake, this is glossy, simple and unchallenging entertainment. But that’s perfectly fine. Not everything has to be significant or deep, and if this is unambitious, it doesn’t make it any less decent as something to throw on TV of a Sunday night. Diaz and Foxx both have charisma to spare, and together, their characters have a relationship which seems genuine. They love each other, while their children are stuck permanently in adolescent eye-roll mode, despising their parents taste in music, etc. It’s a salutory lesson, that in reality, Emily and Matt are far cooler, more interesting and highly skilled than their offspring would ever give them credit. The parent in me nods wisely at this family dynamic.

The action is decent, with some impressive bits of vehicular mayhem, and Diaz showing she can still move. But I particularly liked Ginny – I can only presume Helen Mirren was unavailable, as it’s a clone of her character from RED – and her charmingly ineffectual toy boy, Nigel (Jamie Demetriou). They deserve a franchise of their own. No less than nineteen writers were involved in the script. This has to be close to a record, and to be honest, you can tell, especially in the final act. There, things tend to become awfully convenient, as everybody whizzes around London in pursuit of the MacGuffin. With a bloated budget estimated at over $200 million, I’m just glad it wasn’t my money. I’ll happily take advantage of the results, however. 

Dir: Seth Gordon
Star:Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Kyle Chandler, Glenn Close

The Gorge

  By

★★★½
“Falling – in love again.”

This was more entertaining than I expected, and managed in a number of ways to overcome its limitations. From reviews, I was expecting it to be more a romance with occasional monsters. In reality though, it’s more a monster movie with occasional romance. The set-up revolves around a canyon in a remote area, of uncertain location and provenance. Since the end of World War II, the East and West have tacitly co-operated, in a project even their leaders don’t know about, to ensure that what’s in there, doesn’t get out. To this end, automated defense systems have been set up, monitored by one person from each side, on each side of the chasm, and replaced annually.

The latest pair are former US sniper Levi Kane (Teller) and Lithuanian counterpart, Drasa (Taylor-Joy). In what’s probably an accidentally damning indictment about the perils of putting women in front-line situations, Levi ends up zip-lining across the gorge, for a slice of her rabbit pie (if you know what I mean, and I think you do… but also for literal rabbit pie). Heading back, his line snaps, plummeting him into the danger zone below. Drasa immediately goes after him. They subsequently find out what’s in there, the truth about where it came from, and why they are guarding it. It’s not fun. The fate of the man Levi relieved (Dirisu) points towards that, and the presence of Sigourney Weaver as his boss is nicely ironic.

To be honest, the specifics are perhaps a little disappointing, being the kind of human malfeasance we’ve seen in SF/horror too often. After the ominous suggestion it’s a literal gate to hell, the actual answer left me a bit, “Is that it?” However, the makers have done a really nice job of creating the location, which is entirely convincing. The creatures crawling out of it are imaginative and icky too, although I would have like to see some more of the non-humanoid ones. There’s a point where I thought it was going to become that scene in Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which would have been nice. Still, there’s no shortage of mayhem once things kick off, and the 127 mins gallop past.

You could argue Teller is the lead, but I would say they are genuine co-stars: the film needs both of them in order to function. After her turn in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Taylor-Joy definitely seems to be positioning herself as an action heroine. She does well here, although her Lithuanianicity (is that a word?) is a little in question, and overall I still put Samara Weaving ahead of Taylor-Joy. It is a bit of a shame this went straight to streaming, since it has more big-screen presence than many theatrical releases. You’ll perhaps have questions about some aspects, but if you’re like me, you won’t think of these until after the final credits have rolled – a good sign that the film has kept you engaged.

Dir: Scott Derrickson
Star: Anya Taylor-Joy, Miles Teller, Sigourney Weaver, Sope Dirisu 

Star Trek: Section 31

  By

★★½
“Yeoh, thanks – but no thanks”

While I have seen all the movies, I’ve never particularly been a fan of the Star Trek universe. I leave that largely to Chris, who has been watching the show since the original series. That includes Star Trek: Discovery, the series from which this spun off, and I was… in the room when it was on. But I have been a fan of Michelle Yeoh since Yes, Madam – sorry, make that Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh, and did enjoy her evil turn as Philippa Georgiou, head of the Terran Empire in a parallel universe, who relocates to our universe. As this begins, she has taken refuge, out beyond the reach of the Federation, in a club apparently having a Fifth Element theme night.

Naturally, the Federation needs her help – in particular its shady operations department, Section 31. There’s a powerful artifact from her universe which could cause major problems in the wrong hands, and must be recovered before that happens. She teams up with a diverse group of misfit Section 31ers, including Quasi the Chameloid (Richardson) and Alok Zahar (Hardwick), to recover the device. If this all sounds rather like “Mission: Impossible meets Guardians of the Galaxy,” that is exactly how Yeoh described it. It’s about how Chris described it as well, after all was said and done. Originally intended as a series, the impact first of COVID then Yeoh’s rise to fame, led it to be compacted into a movie – the first in the Trek-verse not to be released theatrically.

Good thing too. For if I had seen it there, rather than at home, without specifically paying for it, I would have been more disappointed. It’s not bad, just painfully ordinary. The moral limitations of Trek may prevent it from truly being able to explore the darkness of Georgiou. Outside of an opening sequence, where we learn what she did to become Empress, and discovering she likes eyeballs in her martini like chewy olives, it feels more like Yeoh is cosplaying evil, rather than being it. Which is still fun to watch, although the shaky camerawork is clearly there to try and hide the fact that Yeoh is now in her sixties. Oh, she can still move. Just do not expect Crouching Tiger. 

Once you get pass her, the drop-off is steep. Contrast Guardians, which had a slew of memorable characters, all the way down to a walking tree with a three-word vocabulary. Section 31 has… a Vulcan with an Oirish accent. There is a reason for this, which does not make it any less irritating. I can’t really speak to how this all ranks as Trek, but going by what Chris said, she was not especially impressed. I can say that as an action, sci-fi, caper film, there’s not particularly much that I will remember a week from now. Not even the spectacularly stunt cameo at the end with an Everything Everywhere connection. The “straight to streaming” label is, sadly, entirely appropriate.

Dir: Olatunde Osunsanmi
Star: Michelle Yeoh, Omari Hardwick, Sam Richardson, Robert Kazinsky