Tag: USA

Dietroit 2 Chiraq

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★½
“Aspirations impossible to fulfill.”

I’m not averse to the concept here. The Tubi synopsis says, “Three women rampage from Detroit to Chicago seeking revenge on Davion Legrel I, the ruthless criminal who killed their best friend.” I’d watch that movie: if anyone ever gets around to making it, let me know. Because this certainly would require subdued lighting and a very specific angle, as well probably as some kind of eye condition, before it could be mistaken for the synopsis. I am even slightly interested in lead character Christina (Brazier), a former Army nurse who, bizarrely, alludes to having learned interrogation skills while on tour in the Middle East. This would not be a combination I’ve encountered before. 

Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends. I guess the synopsis is technically accurate, providing you are happy with a very loose definition of the words “rampage”, “revenge” and “ruthless.” For the main problem is simply resources unable to depict convincingly what’s in the script. The most woeful example is when Christina and pals Robin (Merrill) and Stephanie (Reynolds) arrive in Chicago, and go to a “club” in search of information about Davion (Spearmon). “This is a classy place,” says one attendee. No: it is not. It looks far more like an empty office suite, having folding tables as furniture, and two bits of paper on the wall, with the words “CLUB” and “HADES” printed on them. And don’t even get me started on the woeful rap artist, supposedly launching his EP. 

These poverty-row production values permeate the whole production. There’s a latter sequence supposed to be set in a top-end bordello, where our trio masquerade as hookers (explaining the cover), again for information gathering purposes. To be blunt, I’ve seen condemned crack houses with more erotic ambiance. The problem is, basically, ambitions far in excess of what the makers can deliver. They should have gone the other direction, rather than trying (and failing miserably) to appear high-end. Go low instead, and aim for gritty authenticity, telling a story fresh off the streets – a 40-ounce of MD 20/20, rather than Rémy Martin. Make that brothel an actual drug-den, ugly and grimy, and turn Christina’s journey into a descent to a lower circle of hell. 

The results often left me feeling second-hand cringe for actors likely better than the film deserves, and relentlessly obliged to play make-believe so hard, to try and sell what’s happening. Meanwhile, the rest of the film seems to be actively trying to sabotage them, courtesy of elements like unconvincing CGI muzzle flashes. Though I was amused by the unexpected recycling of one of Pulp Fiction‘s most notorious lines. Specifically, the one about being a holding location for deceased persons of African-American heritage: it probably works better here, than coming out of the mouth of Quentin Tarantino. But it’s a rare moment where this manages to be other than an embarrassment. Even by the standards of this genre, this is well short of adequate. 

Dir: Shawn Woodard
Star: Shavannahre Brazier, Richelle Merrill, Lakeisha Reynolds, Shawn D. Spearmon Sr.

Saint Clare

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★★½
“Burned at the stake.”

Bella Thorne’s struggle to appear in a film which reaches three stars on this site, continues unabated. While probably not helped by my tendency to confuse her with Kristen Stewart, that’s five attempts now. Although, for a minute here, I thought this might be the one where she finally cracked it, with a potentially interesting first half. But it could not sustain itself, and as the final credits rolled, and I saw Guinevere Turner’s name as the co-writer… Yeah, it all made sense. I mean, she wrote Bloodrayne. And I’m one of the few people who didn’t utterly hate that. She has… a certain type of script, shall we say, and leave it at that. 

Here, the heroine is Clare Bleecker (Thorne), a high school student – Thorne was 24 when this was filmed, so about that… – recently transferred in from the East coast after the death of her parents. She’s staying with her grandmother (De Mornay), and moonlights as a vigilante. We first see her allowing herself to get picked up by a sketchy driver, whom she strangles and stabs to death. The resulting police interrogation brings her to the attention of Detective Timmons (Phillippe). But Clare is undaunted, and proceeds to look into the string of girls who have gone missing in the town, crimes going back decades which have never been solved. When her friend Julianna (Rovaris) becomes the latest to vanish, Clare decides the time for passive investigation has gone. 

The early stages are, as noted, interesting enough to be intriguing. There’s a nice touch where her conscience is represented by regular visits from the ghost of one of her victims – albeit an accidental one. However, he all but vanishes after she discovers there’s a bigger problem in town than just random scum-bag men, and the film’s issues tend to multiply thereafter. It’s never adequately explained why Clare has gone all Death Wish in her teenage years, or the Joan of Arc inspiration. Perhaps the book on which the film is based, Clare At 16 (or, I guess, at 24), does a better job of that, but without a particular motivation beyond “Men are bad, m’kay?”, the flaws in plotting became increasingly apparent to me.

And others too, apparently: it took three years to get distribution. I do respect Thorne for trying, even if the results have been underwhelming, and would encourage her to keep trying. As I suspect I’ve said before: she isn’t particularly the problem here, so much as the material. There’s an entire thread about Clare trying to get a part in the school play which is spectacularly out of place. But Thorne’s post-Disney career has never exactly been one known for her making good choices: witness the whole OnlyFans debacle. I was more interest in watching Clare operate as a small-town version of Dexter, punishing the guilty while maintaining a facade of normality. The further this went, the more ludicrous this instead became.

Dir: Mitzi Peirone
Star: Bella Thorne, Ryan Phillippe, Joy Rovaris, Rebecca De Mornay

Supergirl (2026)

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★★★
“A girl and her dog.”

Watching reviews by some fans for the new Supergirl movie is like seeing someone being publicly tarred and feathered. But I do understand how this works. A review titled “Supergirl is an acceptable, though not great, summer superhero movie” wouldn’t get you many clicks, right? Almost any big studio movie seems to get the same treatment: heavily, negatively criticized; scrutinized as to its wokeness (which admittedly is a problem in today’s film landscape); and judged as garbage, long before the average Joe or Jane has a chance to see the movie and make up their own opinion about it. The numbers of views on YouTube have a clear message: social media thrives on vitriolic hatred, not a balanced attitude. I sometimes get the impression the reviewers have not even seen the movie themselves, arguably rendering their opinions worthless. How can anyone judge a movie that they have not watched?

This isn’t meant to say there aren’t problems today with the way movies are written, directed, produced or marketed. And the other side of the coin are ‘professional’ journalists, who appear to act as media mouthpieces for the industry. They consider every movie by established directors or big studios as great entertainment, glossing over its faults. There is something foul in Hollywood and I don’t want any of it. The big problem is, the average cinemagoer can’t rely on reviews or critics any more, and I think that’s a shame. Yes, any review will always reflect the author’s personal attitudes. But in the cases above, there is no balance, and the respective review is frequently very far from an objective dissection of the film. Let’s see if I can do better: though in any case, you should decide which movies you’ll support with your money – if at all.

Supergirl already got the YouTubers up in arms, when star Milly Alcock made some potentially ill-considered comments, including stating that Supergirl “probably goes both ways” sexually. That was perhaps not smart – unless the marketing department was targeting an audience which was never really interested in the character to start with. Supergirl, created in the late 1950s by Otto Binder, was originally intended as a tamer version for girls, of what Superman was for boys. Nevertheless, the majority of people who read Supergirl and kept the title alive over the decades were young men. She had a rich comic book history before the ill-fated Supergirl movie from 1984, with the lovely Helen Slater. And though DC decided to kill the character off sensationally in 1985’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, she made an indirect comeback in several forms, until officially returning as her true self in 2004.

Most of the buyers of her comics continue to be male. Not because “all men are creeps”. But because Supergirl was a cool character – and admittedly, also very pretty. But I have never heard about the supposed “queerness” a reporter asked Alcock about. From what alternate universe did this journalist come? Alcock continued, “What makes this film beautiful is that it’s not centered around a man, it’s not centered around love at all.” To be fair, the love story in the 1984 movie didn’t really work. But it’s a leap to conclude that a movie about a female action character is immediately better because it does not feature a love story. Look at Wonder Woman, where the love story between Diana and Steve was an integral part of the story, and see how well it worked. It’s really up to the screenwriter.

Comments like Alcock’s – though probably given without much thought – put her in the same category as Rachel Zegler, whose remarks contributed to the justified downfall of the live-action Snow White remake. That’s a shame. If a movie is bad, it’s one thing. But if the main star shoots her own film in the foot… The makers of this Supergirl mistakenly thought they had a movie targeting a female demographic of a certain age. The results of the first week indicate that 59% of those watching were male, the great bulk of those over 25. Contrast Wonder Woman, which drew a majority female audience. It’s a remarkable miscalculation. If you annoy the audience, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t show up for your movie. Who knew? Apparently not Alcock, and the financial flop turns out to be entirely studio-made.

Anyway, what’s the story? Supergirl continues from 2025’s Superman, which in its last scene introduced Supergirl. She is Kara Zor-El, Clark’s cousin, owner of Krypto the Superdog, and together with Clark, the only survivors of the planet Krypton. The Superman movie didn’t show the destruction of Krypton (we have seen that too often on screen in the past) but Craig Gillespie, director of Supergirl, gives us glimpses of it, or flashbacks to Argo City, the city that survived due to SF-technology on a chunk in space. Its inhabitants are nevertheless doomed, due to kryptonic poisoning. So, Kara’s father sends her to Earth, to her cousin who already lives here. The makers generally stay true to Supergirl’s origins, though there is no orphanage into which Superman puts her, nor surrogate parents like the Danvers as in the comics.

However, how it shapes Kara is very different from the original character: this Kara is jaded, cynical and stands in sharp contrast to Clark’s true blue heroism. Even when the movie was in production, she was compared to a “punk rock girl” – more or less the opposite of the original Kara. Obviously, this Supergirl has problems, and in 2026, The Powers That Be have opted out of the traditional image of Supergirl. Separate from any other concerns, it really depends on your acceptance of this new version, and if you are able to enjoy Milly Alcock in that role. Her interpretation has as little in common with the original character, as Daniel Craig’s had with the original James Bond. That this version of Kara would not follow the traditional values was already apparent on the official poster that replaced the famous Superman-Reeves statement “Truth, justice and the American way.” with “Truth. Justice. Whatever.” You either accept that or you won’t like the movie at all.

Supergirl is accompanied by her pet Krypto – still a super-annoying, not very realistic-looking CGI-dog. She celebrates her 23rd birthday in an intergalactic bar, then more or less accidentally gets involved with a 13-year old girl, Ruthye (Eve Ridley). Her parents were killed by the evil Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts). Ruthye wants revenge but Kara is not interested in helping her. That is, until Krem pops up and poisons Krypto with an arrow. As she has only 3 days left until Krypto will die, Kara follows Krem with Ruthye, whom she just can’t shake off. I have to be honest; this is not much of a story. I’ve heard the movie went through different test screenings with audiences, and suspect a lot of what was originally in it ended up on the cutting-room floor. Which I’m generally in favor of, because I don’t really enjoy seeing 160 minutes long superhero movies. But here it felt as if the movie was kind of an emergency patchwork.

Why the flashbacks to Argo City, given we didn’t need any of Krypton in Superman? Yes, it might help frame Kara as a trauma survivor, since she watched her people die, slowly and painfully. But did we need the inserts of Superman (David Corenswet), save for audiences caring more about him than the new Supergirl? Why does bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa) suddenly appear in the movie, only to quickly disappear from it again? Why is there an entire sequence with only Ruthye and Lobo in prison, while Kara is off, recovering from the effects of a green sun? I think Warner Bros. saw a potential flop in the making after test screenings, and tried to save what they could. Reducing the length (= more showings); bringing in Corenswet, whom audiences reacted quite positively to last year; and adding Lobo, a long-time DC comics fan-favourite.

The fact that the production had three different music composers over time, does not reflect well on it. That said, the music of Claudia Sarne, the composer the production finally settled with, is adequate: I liked it. But Gillespie obviously felt (or was forced?) to follow James Gunn’s way of using music: underlay an action scene with a cool rock song. Gunn has been doing this since his first Guardians of the Galaxy movie in 2014, and the result here is even less convincing than in his Superman last year. I yearn for the classic music of a John Williams (1978’s Superman – The Movie) or Jerry Goldsmith (1984’s Supergirl).

The big problem here – apart from the re-interpretation of Supergirl – is that there is little at stake. Kara wants to save her dog. Ruthye wants revenge, though the actress is never really able to deliver this convincingly, coming across as a little brat. Lobo just wants the bounty for someone’s head – and not even Krem’s. When I go to the movies to see a superhero movie, I expect that someone saves the world, prevents global annihilation, or at least brings order to the criminal underworld of Gotham. This movie feels very small because the ambitions of its protagonists are very small. I could at least understand why John Wick went berserk over his dog; I don’t feel an emotional connection here. The villain Krem is evil and… well, that’s it. He feels like lazy screenwriting. Villains should have an attitude, their own worldview, a philosophy, a big objective. Krem doesn’t have any of this. Yes, there is sex trafficking, which seems to be what Krem does. But we never get a good explanation for why or what purpose. Hitchcock once said, “The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.” The mediocrity of its villain reflects negatively on this movie. 

The end is also more than questionable: Supergirl repeatedly tells Ruthye she should not take revenge, because this is not the way, she won’t feel better after it, yadda, yadda, yadda. But then Kara takes revenge on Krem, making her appear a hypocrite. Also, I think heroism usually, albeit not necessarily, comes with a sacrifice. If Kara would have had to give up Krypto for some bigger purpose, e. g. saving all the girls captured by Krem, the story might have had a much bigger impact. Bonus: I would finally have gotten rid of this obnoxious CGI dog. Honestly, I despise him so much and don’t think he is cute at all. But be careful what you wish for; they might replace him with Streaky the Supercat!

There are editing and creative choices that baffled me. Instead of showing a bar brawl with Kara, the camera focuses on Ruthye in front of us, hiding from the fight. Mind you, in action scenes, the camera often gets so close we can barely tell who is fighting whom. In one flashback Clark tells Kara her powers will set in “right now” – and we cut away to another scene of Kara sitting in a room listening to music on her headphones. A couple who wants to trade Kara and Ruthye for their kidnapped daughter, poisons Kara – how did they know that their poison would work on her? In another scene in a prison, small, lightly-built Ruthye takes on a henchman around double her size, possibly four times as heavy, and easily beats him. There is no explanation given how she does that. While Kara isn’t physically big either, we know what kind of power Kryptonians have. But Ruthye?

Some people have pointed out that the colour palette of this movie is mainly brown, dark or garish and I agree with them. While I personally didn’t have a big problem with it, I do prefer more colour in my superhero movies. This film was based on Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (left), by Tom King. While I haven’t read this myself, most reports say the movie has little resemblance with the original comic and changed its ending. Although the comic itself was an “Elseworlds” story, so you could argue it’s not really representative of Supergirl. All quite negative, right? Why am I then not as harsh as the YouTube fan critics mentioned above?

First of all, I still found the movie entertaining, despite all its flaws. That doesn’t sound much, but believe me, there are many movies out there which are either plain boring or don’t even try to be fun. Case in point: the week before, I saw The Death of Robin Hood with Hugh Jackman. Supergirl is far from perfect but at least it tries. Milly Alcock is indeed fun and a good actress. I figured what direction “her” Supergirl would go, when she was cast. I had seen her as a relentless rebel girl in Australian series Upright, and a larger audience discovered her in the first season of House of the Dragon as Rhaenyra. She has and is a great talent: while this movie doesn’t do her justice, she could have a great career in the right roles.

Eve Ridley does her best as Ruthye, but the part doesn’t offer much and she was not really convincing in it. The idea here is obviously that Ruthye is a counterpoint to Supergirl, creating a conflict between different objectives. It kind of works, though, I would have preferred the movie without an annoying teenager who constantly repeats herself like an NPC, and is little help during the search for Krem. Jason Momoa has been the fan-choice for Lobo, as long as there have been plans for a Lobo movie. Though this version seems a tame, “free from 12 years on” version, he is very enjoyable. I really, really would like to see a single movie with him as the Czarnian bounty hunter. But the new DC film universe under the current Warner Bros. management is already imploding. Again.

There are moments I like. If you can accept the idea of Kara being a more complex, work in progress (the ending suggests she may finally settle on Earth and support Clark), then that may help you enjoy the movie more. This Kara has a quite cocky attitude which sometimes made me chuckle quite a bit. At the same time, Alcock can bring the gravitas to more serious scenes if she is given those. To repeat myself: it’s all in the writing. I have to say, I expected more from Craig Gillespie, who directed the great I, Tonya a couple of years ago. But directors are dependent on the scripts they are given. A lot of the creative decisions concerning the movie (such as Supergirl killing Krem), were apparently made by Gunn, not Gillespie who seems more the “yes”-man of the production.

I understand screenwriter Ana Nogueira had never written a real movie before which is astonishing considering that it is said to have a budget of $170 million. It also seems questionable that she has already been chosen by Gunn to write upcoming DC movies Teen Titans and Wonder Woman. It’s estimated that the movie needs to make $300 million to cover its costs. At the time of writing, it’s a lot less than half that, only $116 million worldwide, and is losing screens rapidly. That doesn’t bode well for the movie. Though, it has been said that Gunn has further plans for Supergirl, as she plays a part in the next Superman-themed movie Man of Tomorrow – this time hopefully at her cousin’s side. Let’s hope, it’s not once again centered around the insufferable Krypto!

Dir: Craig Gillespie
Star: Milly Alcock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, Jason Momoa

Carnage Park

  By

★★½
“Goes off the rails, and not in a good way.”

There’s a very strong start here, and this makes the way it implodes at the end all the more disappointing. The film certainly hits the ground running. It’s 1978 in rural California, and ‘Scorpion’ Joe Clay (Hébert) is fleeing from the scene of a botched bank robbery. His wounded partner in crime is bleeding out in the back seat, and there’s a hostage, bank customer Vivian Fontaine (Bell), in the trunk. But when he pulls off the road to sort things out, freeing Vivian so she can help, we discover there are much worse things in the desert than scorpions. For Joe quickly gets his head blown apart. 

This is the work of completely insane Vietnam vet, former sniper Wyatt Moss (Healy). He lures people off the road, torturing and killing them, because… Well, because he’s a completely insane Vietnam vet. I will not be taking any further questions on the topic at this point. He has the tacit collusion of his brother (Ruck), the local sheriff, though even he has just about had enough of covering up for Wyatt’s madness. Vivian does manage initially to get the jump on the predator. However, she commits the fatal mistake, a common one in horror movies, of not making sure the killer is really dead. And guess what? He is not, leading to an extended chase sequence through the mines on the remote property. 

Which is where the problems occur. Keating mistakenly thinks that having things unfold in near pitch-darkness, save for the occasional flash from a muzzle, somehow enhances proceedings. He is incorrect in this case. Not least because it goes to such an extreme, and for so long, the only evidence I had that my TV wasn’t broken, was the subtitles I had fortuitously left on from the previous movie. When it literally emerges, blinking, back into the light, you get a couple of captions in lieu of a climax, before the end credits roll. I am in no way exaggerating, when I say that it ranks among the worst endings I’ve endured, over the more than twenty years I have been running this site. 

Although the early going is certainly derivative, most obviously of Quentin Tarantino, there’s no shortage of energy and surprises as we move through proceedings. We discover, for example, that Vivian is already having a bad day, and this may be a factor in her eventually having had enough, and fighting back. She staggers through the hellish landscape, encountering other victims – both alive and dead – trying to find a way out or help. Yet she ends up self-sabotaging these hopes, in the most unfortunate of fashions, leaving her entirely on her own. Such a shame the film decides not to give its heroine the finale she deserves, instead burying both it and Vivian in the darkness of an underground mine, and offering no satisfactory resolution to speak of.

Dir: Mickey Keating
Star: Ashley Bell, Pat Healy, James Landry Hébert, Alan Ruck

Mary From the Prayer Ward

  By

★★½
“When you order Wynonna Earp on Temu.”

I mean: Stetson wearin’, six-gun shootin’ country gal, on a mission to slay demons, vampires and things that go bump in the West? Yeah, it’s like that. Mind you, there’s a rough start to this, with three minutes of what is likely a top contender for the worst acting of 2026. I guess it’s good to get it out of the way early, and it does make the rest of the cast look like Oscar candidates in comparison. To be fair, Jones is decent enough in the title role. Even when lumbered with some pretty clunky globs of exposition about a 17th-century Satanic cult, she is generally tolerable, and occasionally above that.

Things unfold in the rural Kansas town of Bentley, where a series of gruesome murders is baffling police chief Peaks (Neighill). He seems oddly unaware of the presence in Bentley of Mary, whose parents were fighters of the occult, killed in the line of duty. She now carries on the family tradition, with the help of her blind uncle Hughes (Polk). Naturally, these murders are the work of the unsubtly-named Velkir the Butcher (Smith), who is intent on completing a ceremony originally started in 1690’s Salem. For, y’see, the witch trials there were not hysteria, so much as a carefully-constructed cover-up of the truth, which involved a Satanic plot to raise Hecate. “What’s a Hecate?” asks Chief Peaks. Explanation follows.

It does feel like the structure of the film is a little weird. It’s not until well after the half-way point that Peaks and Mary formally team up, leading to a bit of a gallop towards the obvious confrontation with Mr. Butcher. This partnership requires a diversion, in which Mary takes him on a house call, helping a woman who is reporting strange happening in her home. He blames psychological issues, until she demonstrates otherwise, thereby convincing him of her genuine skill-set. It feels like this should have happened much earlier, to explain the casual way in which this nun is allowed to poke around crime scenes. Well, she’s got a clerical collar on, which seems to demonstrate a loose understanding of religious garb. 

My main issue, however, was the copious use of highly unconvincing CGI, from muzzle flashes and blood spatters, to showers of sparks as the supernatural entities are dispatched. It absolutely took me out of the situation every time I noticed them. Which was every time they appeared. Which was every time anything much happened. Neighill is certainly guilty of trying do much: between writing, directing, editing, co-starring, composing songs, etc. it feels like every other credit is his. But despite a cover pic (above) which makes it look more like Mary from the Special Ed Class, this isn’t worthless. As noted, Jones is an engaging heroine, and Smith’s scenery chewing antics are fun, taken in the right, B-movie way. It’s no replacement for Wynonna Earp. Yet as dollar store knock-offs go, I’ve seen worse.

Dir: Andrew Neighill
Star: Mandy Jones, Glenn Polk, Andrew Neighill, Christopher Thom Smith

Survive the Night

  By

★★★
“Never get between a lioness and her cubs.”

There’s a strong parallel between this TV movie and Judgment Night, a theatrical feature, also from 1993, starring Emilio Estevez and Cuba Gooding Jr. Both involve a group stranded in an urban war-zone who incur the enmity of a local gang, and consequently have to fight to eescape. The difference with this – and why it’s here – is the victims are three women: psychiatrist Victoria (Powers), her daughter Julie (Robertson) and sister Stacey (Helen Shaver). They are on their way home after a family Thanksgiving dinner, when a quest for fuel leaves them stranded in the South Bronx. That is just start of their problems, courtesy of Ice (Graham) and his vicious gang of thugs.

Before long, the trio of women are being chased through the streets, buildings and underground passages of the neighbourhood. They need to dig deep into their inner fortitude, with the help of renegade gang member, TJ (Shepherd), who quits them after seeing Ice stab another member dead. There are times where, yes, violence is the answer. This would be one of them, with the women using their wits to build traps for their hunters. As well as dropping an engine block on one. For a TVM from the nineties, this is surprisingly (read: impressively) violent and bloody. The cops are basically useless too: reluctant to get involved, and when they do, Ice disposes of them with almost ludicrous ease.

You can, however, tell how the script tip-toes around the obvious. Ice’s gang of thugs is remarkably multicultural, and this consequently comes across as more of a class conflict, with the obviously well-off Victoria and family, being threatened by the poors. The same racial blindness was the case in Judgment Night, where the gang leader was played by Dennis Leary. He was actually much more effective than Graham, who comes over as someone cosplaying as a gang leader, instead of being one. While it’s Stacey who initially proves the most adept at self-defense, Victoria in particular has a nice arc, realizing the only way to survive is to become as vicious as Ice. Again, it’s a surprising moral given the medium and the era of production. 

It’s a bit of a time-capsule, in this depicting how parts of New York were perceived in the nineties. And having visited the city during the decade, it’s not wrong. Indeed, the version you get here is likely tidier. Toronto stood in as a location for the actual Big Apple, and isn’t particularly convincing in this case. Director Corcoran has a lot of experience in the field, and it shows. Takes a while for things to get going – we need to be introduced to everyone, on all sides, even the irrelevant cops. But after about twenty minutes, when things kick off, the pace is maintained well. This is a solid enough movie by most standards, and  by TVM ones, that makes it a cut above. 

Dir: Bill Corcoran
Star: Stefanie Powers, Kathleen Robertson, Chaz Lamar Shepherd, Currie Graham

They Will Kill You

  By

★★★
“Ready or Not 3.”

There’s no denying that this is considerably weakened by coming in the wake of Ready or Not 2. There’s just too much similarity for it to be otherwise. A woman having to fight her way through a bunch of Satanists, in order to save her kid sister? Yeah, there’s a strong sense of deja vu, in its most literal meaning. Yet it would be unfair to write this off as some kind of mockbuster. While the “elevator pitch” may be similar, the details and the approach taken are different. This skews considerably more towards the horror elements. Many reviews cite Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino as influences, and that’s not wrong. To the point I might have used fewer homages, to be honest. 

The heroine is Asia Reaves (Beetz), who is jailed after trying to protect her sister, Maria (Myha’la) from their abusive father. Ten years later, she gets out of prison, and seeks to be reunited with Maria. The trail leads to The Virgil,  a massive apartment building. Asia gets a job there as a maid, using an assumed identity, under the oversight of building supervisor Lilith Woodhouse (Arquette). It turns out, the building is home to a cult of Satan worshippers, who trade human sacrifices for immortality. But after a decade in the penal system, Asia has the skills to defend herself, and won’t let anyone – or anything – get in the way of her mission to rescue her sister.

Save Kill Bill, I’m not a huge fan of Tarantino. It appears Sokolov is, going by the number of jarring needle-drops and, to be honest, shots of women’s feet. There are points where the style seems to be more important than the substance. However, there are some excellent sequences as well. The use by Asia of a fiery axe is top-tier carnage, and the near-unlimited ability of her opponents to take damage leads to some spectacular gore. They may be immortal: they still spray blood like enthusiastic geysers. When one has her head reduced to the consistency of porridge, one eyeball continues to operate on its own, independent basis.

I do think the immortality thing is a double-edged sword. It robs the fights of much impact, because decapitation is barely an inconvenience. Naturally, there is a solution, and I figured it out, more or less, as soon as it was mentioned. Beetz makes a fierce and unstoppable heroine, no mistake about it. You will also see things you have not witnessed before, especially during a thoroughly unhinged ending. It consequently makes Ready or Not 2 seem positively down to earth and realistic, so the stabs – word chosen advisedly – at social commentary consequently feel misplaced, even more than usual. I note Sokolov’s previous (non-GWG) film was called Why Don’t You Just Die! I’ve a feeling there may be a theme running through his work. Suspect I will still end up checking it out, hoping for the pure and undiluted carnage I didn’t quite get here.

Dir: Kirill Sokolov
Star: Zazie Beetz, Patricia Arquette, Myha’la, Tom Felton

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

  By

★★★★
“Let the games begi… uh, continue!”

Despite a slightly clunky title, I enjoyed this a little more than the original. It helps that there’s no need for build-up or explanations. We join things immediately after the end of part one, with Grace MacCaullay (Weaving) staggering outside the mansion where she battled and beat the Le Domas family. Understandably, she ends up in hospital and handcuffs, where her sister Faith (Newton) shows up. But it turns out the Le Domas family were just one part – albeit the head – of a larger, Satanic organization, the Council. The remaining families now need to determine a successor. Whoever kills Grace gets to take over, so the siblings are quickly abducted and taken to the Council’s country club complex.

Grace refuses to take part, but using Faith as leverage, they compel her participation. The siblings must battle for survival and, again, try to survive to dawn against a litany of more or less competent adversaries. This was one my main criticisms about part one: the Le Domas members were so inept as to be no threat. While, in some ways, this is true again here, the film does at least lean into the humourous possibilities. The peak is likely reached when Grace has to face off against Francesca, her late husband’s ex. There’s some rocket launcher incompetence, followed by some pepper sprayage, which leaves the two adversaries thrashing about like blind squid, while an 80’s classic tune plays. It’s awesome. 

There is a bit of a lull thereafter, because Faith is again used against her sister. This compels Grace, once more, to don bridal attire, as a means of avoiding further bloodshed. Well, “postponing” might be closer to the truth. The ceremony goes off about as well as a typical wedding held by a professional wrestling federation – though with considerably more blood than even the most hardcore fed. It’s all a lot of fun, with the Council families providing a slew of fun characters, in addition to its lawyer (Wood). It provides an interesting contrast in family dynamics between the MacCaullays and the Danforths, represented by Ursula (Sarah-Michelle Gellar – and, yes, there are some potential Buffy references) and her psycho brother, Titus (Hatosy).

I liked the fact that it kept any actual social commentary very much secondary. What makes the Council evil is not particularly race, class or money. It is that they are freakin’ Satanists. The film’s other main strength is Weaving, who cements her position as perhaps the best of the next generation for action heroines. She runs through the whole gamut of emotions here, and it is extremely easy to root for Grace. But let’s be honest, the actress would be forgiven if she had simply worn a “not this shit again” expression for one hundred and ten minutes. While the poor box-office here means it’s unlikely we’ll see a part three, long may Weaving’s shotgun continue to smoke. 

Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Star: Samara Weaving, Kathryn Newton, Shawn Hatosy, Elijah Wood

Asking For It (2021)

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★
“Just say no.”

Not to be confused with the other film of the same title, it’s likely significant it took me over three years to cover this, after mentioning it in the earlier review. I suspect I kept seeing the spectacularly bad reviews and finding more enjoyable things to do. That cat-litter box ain’t gonna clean itself, folks. Eventually, though, I bit the bullet, and… Well, by the end, a bullet would have been welcome. For debut director O’Rourke has made a rape-revenge film, without managing either to build on the tropes of the genre, or find anything new to say. It’s the kind of film which could only have come out of the brief period when #MeToo was considered relevant.

It has not aged well. In particular, casting Ezra Miller as a men’s rights activist, because they (to use preferred pronouns, albeit sarcastically) are now spectacularly cancelled. Instead of watching the movie, I recommend instead going down the Wikipedia rabbit-hole for amusement. My favourite sentence: “Miller believed people criticized their relationship with Iron Eyes because she is “an apocalyptic Native American spider goddess” who, along with Miller as Jesus Christ, will bring about an Indigenous revolution.” Alright then. Mind you, those reviews I mentioned suggest the film was poorly received at the time too. I suppose I should discuss it. I’d rather not. Can’t I just continue lobbing snark grenades from afar? [Monty Python voice: Get on with it!]

Joey (Clemons) gets date-raped. Through Regina (Shipp), a regular at the diner where she works, she is introduced to an all-female vigilante group, the Cherry Bombers. Their mission is to make any abusive men pay – naturally, they are the judge, jury and executioners of what constitutes “abuse”. The group’s Public Enemy #1 is Mark Vanderhill (Miller) who, conveniently, is about to stage a major rally for his Men’s First Movement. Oscar Wilde once described fox-hunting as “The unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.” That’s entirely appropriate for this film too. Vanderhill is a pantomime villain, and the Cherry Bombers are an all-you-can-eat buffet of alphabet soup and minority groups, smugly sure of their righteous mission. I’m not sure who I hated more. 

The whole thing feels entirely like a vehicle for O’Rourke to tout his creds as an “ally”. The end credits even include a lengthy statement about native land and its use, for additional right-on points. And yet, O’Rourke was arrested for punching a trans woman in 2022. Awkward. I am equally sure these beliefs in no way qualify him as a movie-maker, and there is precious little indication here of relevant skill. Not in O’Rourke, nor the thirty-six credited producers of various kinds. Bandwagon much? At one point, a movie marquee in the background has screenings listed for Thelma & Louise and Switchblade Sisters. Unless “There’s nothin’ I love more than watching grown men squeal” (an actual line here) is your idea of moral philosophy, those are films for which this is not fit to make a sandwich. 

Dir: Eamon O’Rourke
Star: Kiersey Clemons, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp, Ezra Miller

Razor Days

  By

★★
“Just not sharp enough, I’m afraid.”

This was certainly not what I expected. That, in itself, would not have been a problem – I’m quite used to, and indeed do not mind, films which confound my preconceptions. I respect what this is attempting to do as well, which is a different take on the revenge movie. The problem here is fumbled execution: more on the directorial, writing and technical fronts, though in some of the performances too. Even allowing for the obviously limited resources this had to play with, by the end, it was definitely a struggle to get through, with a lack of narrative thrust in particular, meaning it failed to hold my attention. That’s a bit of a shame. Only a bit, mind you.

There are three central characters here: Anita (Best), Jessamay (Rochon) and Rena (Monahan). Two of them have severe cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, resulting from their kidnapping and savage treatment at the hands of a rural family, the Logans, who may have cannibalistic tendencies. Jessamay, in particular, suffered brutally, losing an eye and being left with a badly-scarred face. Rena, meanwhile, has largely retired from society. But with the reluctant help of Anita, Jessamay tracks her down and convinces Rena to join them as they head to the Logan farm. As Jessamay puts it, “Time to tell God that he can’t fuck with us and not have any repercussions.” But this does not exactly have the healing consequences for which the trio were hoping. 

And that’s the point: revenge is not clean or cathartic. Indeed, part of the message here seems to be that it can end up turning you into the monster too. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” If someone optioned that line and made a movie of it, you’d probably end up with this. Which works for Rochon’s character, because she has the necessary acting chops to pull it off. Despite her reputation as a “scream queen”, she has always been a cut above that in her talent. The others though? Not nearly so much.

Not helping: bad audio, which will either have you leaping for the remote or, in my case, turning it almost all the way down and relying on the subtitles. There are interesting ideas for a revenge film, such as that we don’t see the victims’ ordeal until after the revenge – and even then, it’s through Jessamay’s dreams, an unreliable narrator if ever there were one. Unfortunately, the execution is sloppy and dilutes the points the movie is trying to make. It’s an interesting contrast to the recently reviewed Undercover, where the story was nothing new, but it did it brilliantly. Here, there’s no shortage of innovation, but Watt doesn’t know how to go about getting them off the page and onto the screen. 

Dir: Mike Watt
Star: Amy Lynn Best, Debbie Rochon, Bette Cassatt, Jeff Monahan