2023 A REVIEW: THE BEST AND WORST OF IT.

FILMS OF 2023

So, that was, or is, 2023, a year filled with an actors and writers strike, the return of a much loved character for his swansong, while two huge franchises, one bloated and bland, the other thrilling and gripping both launched their penultimate instalments, and two movies one about a girl's doll and the other about the creator of the atom bomb that danced their way, hand in hand, to the top of the box office. And also it was the first year where I got to be a judge at an actual film festival, judging the animation category, which was a great honour and my thanks to the Ealing Film Festival for that honour.

This year I managed to visit the cinema 70 times and watch 67 films, 13 of which were reissues of classic films and 54 that were new movies. 

SO, here we go for the list no one wants or even cares about. 

First up, we have my list for the top ten movies of 2023.

TOP TEN OF 2023

1. GODZILLA MINUS ONE 10/10
"A superb, dramatic and emotional film that actually managed to make me well up with emotion in the final battle. And I simply cannot fault this film."

2. ASTEROID CITY 10/10
"Although most definitely not for everyone, I still believe that this is this years most delightful and unique film without a doubt."

3. RYE LANE 9/10
"It's been a while since I've seen something so joyful, funny and just so British. This was a wonderful little film and I thoroughly loved it. More please from everyone involved."

4. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING PART 1. 9/10
"The first summer blockbuster that didn't disappoint and didn't elicit a 'that's better than I thought it would be.' I loved it, and can't wait to see it again."

5. BLACKBERRY 9/10
"Catch it if you can, it's a pacy, pithy, and phunny film!" 

6. SCALA!!! 9/10
"A great tribute to a great cinema and the pure nostalgic sense of euphoria it triggered was delightful. Plus it makes me want to go back and rewatch some of those films all over again!

7. BARBIE 8/10
"THIS is a funny, clever and thoroughly entertaining movie, that doesn't outstay its welcome, and most certainly doesn't need a male reviewer to mansplain it to any female readers."

8. THE GREAT ESCAPER 8/10
"It's not sentimental and it's not overly melodramatic, the script is moving and sincere, and very satisfying and I was still a tad overwhelmed by this several hours after watching it."

9. BABYLON 8/10
"A visual tour-de-force that left me dazed and breathless, but which also left the group of chums I saw this not only unmoved, and divided but openly hostile about it."

10. OPPENHEIMER 8/10
"Deeply satisfying yet somewhat disappointing." 

HONOURABLE MENTION

11. SALTBURN 8/10
"Darkly funny, sinister and refreshingly nasty."

ALL THE REST:
12. THE FLASH 8/10 (X2)

13. THE EQUALIZER 3 8/10

14. ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET 8/10

15. THE CREATOR 8/10

16. THE FABELMANS 8/10

17. KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON 8/10

18. RENFELD 8/10

19. SISU 8/10

20. FERRARI 7/10

21. NAPOLEON 7/10

22. SAW X 7/10

23. RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER: VENGEANCE 7/10

24. THEATRE CAMP 7/10

25. INDIANA JONES: DIAL OF DESTINY 7/10

26. M3GAN 7/10

27. CREED III 7/10

28. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 7/10

29. NUN II 7/10

30. A HAUNTING IN VENICE 7/10

31. JOY RIDE 7/10

32. ELEMENTAL 7/10

33. THE CANTERVILLE GHOST 6/10

34. WANKA 6/10

35. SOUND OF FREEDOM 6/10

36. NO HARD FEELINGS 6/10

37. THE HUNGER GAMES BOSAS 6/10

38. GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 3 6/10

39. THE POPE'S EXORCIST 6/10

40. COCAINE BEAR 6/10

41. EVIL DEAD RISE 6/10

TOP TEN RE-ISSUES:
1. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE 10/10

2. DIE HARD 10/10

3. ALIENS 10/10

4. SUPERMAN 10/10

5. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS 10/10

6. THE WICKER MAN 10/10

7. STOP MAKING SENSE 10/10

8. THE EXORCIST 10/10

9. ENTER THE DRAGON 8/10

10. TITANIC 3D 8/10

OTHER RE-ISSUES SEEN

11. CHRISTINE 8/10

12. FRIDAY 13TH 7/10

13. LOVE ACTUALLY 6/10

WORST FILMS OF 2023 (IN DESCENDING ORDER)
10. ANT-MAN QUANTEDIUM 6/10
"At least it's less than three hours in length."

9. STRAYS 5/10
"Not a totally dog's dinner but nevertheless it sure as shit ain't the dog's bollox."

8. WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? 5/10
"Smug, satisfying, simpering and sickeningly twee."

7. BLUE BEETLE 5/10
"Somehow This film delighted critics because, get this, it's not as shit as DCEU last few efforts, Blank Adam, Shazam: Furry Knob."

6. EXPEND4BLES 4/10
"The poster claims that 'they'll die when they're dead.' Sadly for the audience that doesn't come soon enough." 

5. HYPNOTIC 4/10
"Can't think of a single thing to recommend this. Quite literally the dullest film I've seen in an absolute age. And this from a director who once gave us the likes of El Mariachi, Sin City and Planet Terror."

4. THE MEG 2: THE TRENCH 3/10
"Shit, bland and almost completely without merit."

3. FAST AND FURIOUS X 3/10
"This is not a good film by any measure. in fact it's probably one of the worst films of the year."

2. TRANSFORMERS RISE OF THE BREASTS 2/10
"This isn't Fast X sort of shit which becomes funny cos it's so shit, this is just shit with a capital S.H.I.T."   

1. TRIANGLE OF SADNESS 1/10
"A total bag of piss, tied up with string and run over by a truck carrying liquid shit to a vomiting convention. Not worth even checking out for the Captain's Dinner scene. 

Wretched beyond belief."

NEW CATAGORY
TOP TEN MOST READ FILM REVIEWS

1. BARBIE 
2. THE FLASH
3. INDIANA JONES DIAL OF DESTINY 
4. OPPENHEIMER 
5. NAPOLEON 
6. TRANSFORMERS RISE OF THE BREASTS 
7. MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 
8. ANT-MAN 
9. THE FABELMANS 
10. ASTERIOD CITY 
11. BLUE BEETLE 

#67: FERRARI

Starring Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leon, Jack O'Connell and Patrick Dempsey. Written by Troy Kennedy Martin. Directed by Michael Mann. Budget $95 million. Running time 124 minutes.

Focusing on one year in the life of Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver), 1957, the film chronicles the near collapse of his Ferrari company, his crumbling marriage to Laura (Penelope Cruz) thanks to his affair with his mistress Lina (Shailene Woodley) and the infamous 1957 Mille Miglia road race.

With so much story to cram in, the film never leaves fourth gear, and as a result races through the events of that seminal year with barely a pitstop. It's a film that looks great, the Italian setting is a delight and as always Adam Driver gives a commanding performance, although in this race, it's Penelope Cruz who snatches the checkered flag with her emotional performance. However it's ultimately a rather dull experience as we're bounced from one business boardroom drama to a bedroom one in alternate scenes, with race-track action shoe-horned in to keep us invested. Adam Driver, as always, delivers a strong performance as the utterly driven Ferrari, obsessed with winning at any cost, regardless of the cost of money, or lives, or marriages.

We learn that the death of his son Dino had a devastating impact on his marriage to Laura and his subsequent fathering of an illegitimate son with his mistress, Lina hasn't done much to repair the emotional damage. When Ferrari is faced by the spectre of bankruptcy he's forced to put everything on the line by entering five of his cars in the legendary and deadly Mille Miglia road race, believing if he can finish in the top three, he'll save his company. 

What follows, a long time in the coming, is the infamous road race itself (the last time it was ever raced), which ends at a devastating cost. 

The film, reminded me of Ridley Scott's 2021 film House of Gucci, not only because both are obviously set in Italy and both star Adam Driver, but also in the directing style of both men. Lovely framed establishing shots, and tracking shots, beautiful views of the Italian countryside, immersive camera angles and great editing, this is a well mounted and beautiful looking film.

When the film focuses on the driving it's a gripping, white knuckle ride, made all the more dramatic by the obvious lack of safety features racing cars of the 50s offered their young drivers. Likewise the boardroom drama and clashes with Laura, who owned 50 % of the company, their collective grief over the death of their son powers the interactions greatly, however it's the repeated returns to domestic bliss with his mistress Lina which causes the film to miss-fire and stalls the film repeatedly, since there's no drama here at all just an idyll.

In the build up to the 1957 Mille race, we have several training sequences, one of which, featured in the trailer, ends in disaster, before the race itself gets going. Then the film lets rip, but by then I was left a little deflated. 

I was excited to learn it was written by one of my favourite screenwriters, Troy Kennedy Martin who wrote some of my favourite films including The Italian Job, Kelly Heroes, Sweeney II, and the utterly incredible Edge of Darkness. And he wrote this back in 2009. It was well directed and acted and looks great but sadly I was just left a flat by it all.

7/10

#66: IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

 

Starring James Stewart, Donnna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Ward Bond, Frank Faylen and Gloria Grahame. Written by Fracnes Goodrich, Albert Hackett, Frank Capra and Joe Swerling. Directed by Frank Capra. Budget $3.5 million. Running time 131 minutes.

A one word review - Wonderful!

Just wonderful. Beautifully written, great direction and a superb performance by James Stewart. I just love this film. It's one of my four favourite Christmas movies along with A Christmas Story, Scrooge (1951) and Bad Santa and Die Hard (yes I know that's five).

Produced and directed by Frank Capra, it always amazes me to realise that on its release this film flopped, and only became a Christmas stapple when first shown on American TVs in the 50s.

Seeing this restored version of IAWL on the big screen means you get to see things you probably missed if you've only watched it on a TV, count how many rooms the drawing of George lassoing the moon turns up for example, or better yet see if you can spot the newspaper headline declaring that 'Mr. Smith has won a nomination to go to Washington'.

Stewart is brilliant as George Bailey, the richest man in town. He portrays Bailey from the age of approximately 20 to late 40s and without the need for elaborate make up. He is the prototype Tom Hanks and it's on his performance that the whole film swings. That's to take nothing away from the supporting cast, lead by the Donna Reed, who all give this film its huge heart and character.

The story sees George Bailey, a man who sacrifices his own dreams and ambitions for the greater good of Bedford Falls, who when, through no fault of his own, faces financial ruin and imprisonment decides to kill himself. He is saved by a trainee angel who grants him his wish of never having been born and discovers just how much his life has touched the lives of so many others.

For a film that's nearly 75 years old to be this captivating, this engrossing and this magical is a pure triumph. As a callow art school youth I scoffed at this and Singing in the Rain, believing them to be old and fuddy-duddy, despite the fact I'd never actually watched them. And in both cases I stumbled across them whilst watching tv, I came in half-way through in both cases and was captivated by both and I love them to this day.

This film lifts my spirit and makes me feel deeply moved and I bloody love it without reserve.

The perfect Christmas movie and one of my actual Top Ten Movies of all times.

10/10

#65: DIE HARD

Starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia. Written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. Directed by John McTiernan. Budget $35 million. Running time 132 minutes.  

New York cop, John McClane (Bruce Willis) arrives in Los Angeles on the literal eve of Christmas to spend the holidays with his estranged wife, Holly (Bonne Bedelia) and young family. Chauffeured to the Nakatomi building, McClane arrives in the middle of a joint Christmas/business celebration only to become right man in the wrong place and time when an army of highly deadly and well equipped Euro-trash terrorists, lead by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) hi-jack the office Christmas Party as a cover for stealing 600 million dollars worth of bearer bonds, not realising that one of the guests is actually a NYPD cop...

What follows is a masterclass in action cinema, and quite frankly one of the best films ever filmed, it's certainly in my top ten all time favourite films.

It's the film that made Bruce Willis, introduced the world to Alan Rickman and cemented John McTiernan as one of the best action directors.

I've always loved this movie, and last saw it on the big screen back in 2021, oddly enough I saw it back then with It's a Wonderful Life, which is the next film I saw. Seeing 'it', Die Hard on the big screen again is always a delightful experience, films need to be seen on the big screen, where you lose yourself in the experience in a way you don't at home. You seen things you miss on a small screen. Willis cared back then and it shows, Rickman is simply superb in his breakout role as the leader of the gang of ex-terrorists, Hans Gruber and the movie gave Robert Davi a brief golden period in his career, leading to the role of the villain, Franz Sanchez, in the Bond film Licence to Kill.

This is a glorious action film that has no need for shaky cam or frenzied editing to convey drama, it's got an endlessly quotable script and it's well plotted and has no flabby centre, the way it sets up the scenario and introduces the villains is a masterclass in plotting. That coupled with good practical effects, some nifty compositing and a 15 cert for bloody violence, plus bare breasts makes it one of my top ten favourite films!

10/10

#64: GODZILLA MINUS ONE

 

Starring Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando and Kuranosuke Sasaki. Written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki. Visual special effects by Takashi Yamazaki and Kiyoko Shibuya. 

Budget $15 million dollars. Running time 125 minutes.

As the Second World War draws to an end, failed kamikaze pilot Shikishima (Ryunosuke) returns home in Tokyo suffering from severe survivor's guilt only to find his family home destroyed, his parents dead, and himself suffering from terrible flashbacks to when a juvenile Godzilla attacked his Pacific island airbase and slaughtered every one there, save him and the chief mechanic. But when another survivor of the Tokyo bombing, a woman called Noriko Oishi, whose parents also died in the bombing stumbles into his life, with a newborn orphaned baby, he takes  a job onboard a rickety old wooden ex-fishing boat hunting mines in Tokyo harbour to support them.

However, fate isn't done with him just yet or with Japan for that matter, and all hell is about to breakout, Godzilla style...

What follows is simply staggering, and one of the best films I've seen all year. Focusing on the ordinary man and woman in the street and more importantly an ordinary young family and the effects of Godzilla attack first hand, this is an astonishing film with real heart and emotion, much time is spent with the young unmarried couple and their baby as they start to rebuild their lives following the war, while all the time the ever-present ominous spectre of Godzilla looms ever closer. Ryunosuke's guilt ruins any chance he has at building a new life until Godzilla erupts out of the sea and he's given one last chance to fight for his future. 

Naturally when it comes to a Godzilla film you come for the action and Minus One does not disappoint, there are five set pieces, which will leave you breathless with tension, including a sea based chase that manages to out 'Jaws' Jaws, if you will as Godzilla chases down an anti-mining ship in the ocean. However it's when Godzilla makes land fall that the action truly unleashes leading to a genuinely extraordinary sequence that left the audience stunned into silence. And later on when silence is used to dramatic effect you could have heard a pin drop in the auditorium so invested was the audience. 

If your only connection with the Big G is through the Hollywood films of the past nine years and do yourself a favour and go and see this, I predict you've never seen anything like it. 

Making this a period piece movie was a stroke of genius, making the struggle against Godzilla all the more dramatic.

There have been 33 Toho studio Godzilla films since 1954 and 37 if you factor in the US efforts and this is simply one of the best, if not the best one yet! 

A superb, dramatic and emotional film that actually managed to make me well up with emotion in the final battle. And I simply cannot fault this film. A friend of mine once said, that when a man is tired of watching a man in a monster suit trash scale models of Tokyo he is tired of life and I agree, however in this instance, I came for the destruction and carnage and fell in love with the humanity and the human drama. 

Simply one of the best films I've seen all year and I urge you to see it! 10/10

63: WANKA

 

Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Tom Davis, Olivia Colman and Hugh Grant. 

Written by Simon Farnaby and Paul King. Directed by Paul King. Budget $125 million. Running time 116 minutes.

Just like the poster for the film (see above) this is a sickly sweet, over sugared confectionary of a movie that will leave you feeling nauseous from the visual overload and bombarded by a parade of instantly forgettable musical numbers, because make no mistake, this is a MUSICAL, in tooth and roar. Not even the severely under-used Hugh Grant, the films MVP, can save this from slowly melting into a overlong slog of generic panto-like story tropes and plot points, despite the extremely talented cast of British comedians in all the back-up roles giving it their damdest! 

Game Timothee Chalamet presents us with a doe-eyed, innocent, and illiterate Wanka still grieving the death of his mother many years earlier and setting out into the big wide world to open up his very own chocolate shop right in the middle of a fabulous shopping arcade directly opposite a cartel of three highly ruthless, greedy and murderous chocolate moguls played by Paterson Joseph as Arthur Slugworth, Matt Lucas as Prodnose and Mathew Baynton as Fickelgruber. Together with the corrupt police captain, Keegan-Michael Key they try to at first intimidate Wanka before just giving up and just trying to murder him. 

The plot see Wanka get off a ship, make his way into the big city, only to end up penniless and the victim of a scam that sees him imprisoned in a guest house run by Olivia Colman and Tom Davis. There Wanka meets up with the other members of this rapidly expanding cast and devises a plan to escape, free the other prisoners, capture the baddies and punish the guilty. Oh, and find out who the young orphan girl Noodle, Calah Lane, is. Added to Wanka's To-Do-List, is find out who's the short orange creature sneaking into his room at night and stealing all his chocolate might be. Oh, wait he also has to build his chocolate empire and fulfill a dream his mother gave him. So it's amazing to think he and everyone else has any time at all to launch into a string of instantly forgettable and generic new songs and a couple of classics from the original and vastly superior movie starring Gene Wilder that this film oh so desperately wants to be seen as a worthy successor to. But find the time they do, and you'll be wishing they hadn't by the end of this.

Paul King directed the infinitely better and vastly superior Paddington films and it was this fact alone that drew me all in. Those two films were a delight, a funny, delightful and utterly British affair that lifted one's spirits and left you with a spring in your step. This not so, it starts promisingly and the effervescent and charming Chalamet leaps and dances into the fray, but as the film builds up its massive backstory and plot structure to support the final showdown and the setting of wrongs it becomes bogged down, scenes build to big song and dance numbers and the three act structure which sees our hero defeated and lost at the end of the second act is strongly in place and happy to provide all the tried and tested tricks of Syd Field's classic structure. 

There's a glimmer of hope right at the very end of the film where Wanka and the Oompa Loompa begin to build the famous chocolate factory and you wish the film had started there, rather than an earlier.

For me, the main failing of the film is the introduction of magic into the proceedings, something missing from the original. Here everything that Wanka creates has an element of the magical as part of the ingredients, all clearly inspired by the Hairy Potter films, and this I would argue robs the film of the actual magic of the first. Magic, like Star Trek science is just a lazy device that enables the writer to reverse the polarity of the proton fandango whenever it suits the situation. 

In the original film, it's shown that Wonka is a true chocolate scientist constantly experimenting with unusual ingredients to create new taste sensations, here, Wanka just chucks in the wings of a flying beetle so the eater can fly. Also, as someone who eats chocolate, it's bizarre to see everyone in this film never savouring the chocolate but just crunching into it and munching it in one go, just like you would chomping down on a block of Dairy Milk, happy knowing you've still got a kilo to go. 

There's also a distinct lack of the malevolence of Roald Dahl in the writing, everything here is twee and far too nice, even the baddies are sweet and no one dies horribly. And once again we've been given the origin story of a character which gives us nothing new, and only diminishes the character in question by piling on un-needed emotional baggage.

It's not a terrible film, it's just far too sweetly sick, it's just like Easter Sunday morning where the sight of all your chocolate eggs piled high looks absolutely wonderful but the feeling after you've polished off five kilos of the chocolate goodness or this will leave you craving something more substantial and meaty.

6/10 

  

 

#62: LOVE ACTUALLY

 

Starring Hugh Grant, Liam Nesson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy and Rowan Atkinson. Written and directed by Richard Curtis. Budget $45 million. Running time 136 minutes.

Taking place in the three week run up to Christmas, Love Actually follows 11 separate stories of love as they barrel towards a violent, blood-soaked slaughter in an airport when a young boy is cut down by police men's machine guns as he races through security to illegally board an aircraft. 

Ranging from down right sweet stories of love, like the Prime Minister of England  (Hugh Grant) falling for a Downing Street tea girl (Martine McCutcheon) or the platonic love between aging rockstar Billy Max (Bill Nighy) and his manager Joe (Gregor Fisher) to the downright despicable like Alan Rickman cheating on his wife, Emma Thompson and the truly appalling story of a sex obsessed Englishman going to the States to shag any woman he can find. 

This film now 20 years old is starting to show its age, with some exceedingly uncomfortable bits of humour, like fat-shaming, some awkward attitudes towards sex and nudity, and the truly creepy stalking antics of photographer/artist Mark who rocks up to his best friend's house on Christmas Eve with hand written notes professing his obsessive lust for his friends new wife. 

Luckily, Hugh Grant's charm and Emma Thompson's acting chops save the day, just.

7/10   

#61: NAPOLEON

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby. Written by David Scarpa. Directed by Ridley Scott. Budge $130-200 million. Running time 157 minutes long.

Unlike the film this review will be blissfully short. 

The life-story of history's shortest historical figure, Napoleon, or Nappy as his mates called him, from the time he lead an assault to take a fort in the Seige of Toulon to the bit when he was exiled on a Caribbean island and died.

Gotta say I was well pissed off by this, expecting, as I was, a bio pic of Abba's breakthrough Euorvision song entry of 1974, Waterloo! Imagine my disappointment then that rather than watching the rise of the greatest Eurovision Song band of all time I had to watch the rise and fall a grumpy little megalomaniac in a funny hat.

Racing through 28 years of the diminutive one's life at breakneck speed you don't get time to breathe as key events are ticked off the unseen checklist of the director. Battles are staged, beautiful costumes are worn and bits of history are dispensed with the rapidity of candy pellets fired from a Pez head.

Ridley Scott directs with all the uninterested passion of a bloke just checking off one more item from his bucket list. He famously quipped that in the time it took Martin Scorsese to make Killers of a Harvest Moon he'd bashed out four films. Ridley, that's not something to be proud of, maybe you should consider slowing down and tightening up the scripts a bit more before filming. 

Anyway, it looks good, the acting is okay, although Vanessa Kirby is royally wasted in her role as the apple of Boney's eye, and Joquain Phoenix does what he always does, mope around and look very earnest. And the film becomes unintentionally hilarious at several points during this film, never more so than the sex scenes which are hysterical.

Ultimately all this does is make you wish that Stanley Kubrick had got to make his version of Boney's life rather than Ridley Scott who pays homage to Stan by trying to mimic the wonderful candle light cinematography of Barry Lydon, although all he manages to do is make a murky and gloomy looking film. Although the battle scenes are extremely well done and fantastically well mounted.

I think I'll stick to infinitely better 1970 movie Waterloo starring Rod Steiger and directed by Sergei Bondarchuk.

7/10

#60: SALTBURN

 

Starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver, Archie Madekwe and Carey Mulligan. Produced, written and directed by Emerald Fennell. Running time: 131 minutes.

Feeling like a 21st Century reworking of Evelyn Waugh's classic Brideshead Revisited, Saltburn finds 'fish-out-of-water' working-class scholarship boy Oliver Quick, Barry Keoghan, arriving in Oxford and slowly drawn into the posh set by the seductive charms of super-rich Felix Elspeth, Jacob Elordi. With the summer holidays looming and Oliver grieving over the sudden death of his father, Felix invites him to stay with him and his eccentric family lead by Sir James and Lady Elspeth, Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike at the family pile of Saltburn, a staggering opulent and sprawling stately home in Buckinghamshire.

What follows is a slow and unsettling decent into deception, seduction and ultimately murder most foul as truths are revealed and lies discovered.

Featuring a superb cast perfectly headed by Barry Keoghan who totally powns this film, but that's not to take anything away from the rest of the cast who are all superb in their respective roles.

Darkly funny, sinister and refreshingly nasty, this is a good looking film with some lovely flourishes including a very impressive naked dance.

Very satisfying. 8/10

#59: HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES

 

Starring Tom Blyth Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andres Rivera and Viola Davis. Written by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, directed by Francis Lawrence. Budget $100 mill. Running time 157 minutes.

The prequel to the Hunger Games movies starring Jenifer Lawrence is set at the time of the 10th Hunger Games, so 64 years earlier, and gives us the origin story of President Snow played by Donald Sutherland.

In this we watch the rise and partial fall, before rising of Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) from insanely handsome University kid studying, I think, The Hunger Games to rookie in the army before head game designer of the Hunger Games, before striding off into the sunset to one day become President. The film sees Snow and a bunch of other University students forced to become Mentors to this year's crop of Hunger Game tributes and he's given someone from District 12 who turns out to be Rachel Zegler's travelling bard, Lucy Gray Baird. Somehow he and her manage to survive while putting up with some serious heckling, bullying and sabotage from Professor Casca Highbottom, Peter Dinklage who used to be Snow's dad's best friend and seems to bear a serious grudge against the Snow family. Overseeing everything is the truly demented Dr. Volumnia Gaul, Viola Davis head game designer and all-out psychotic. And to bring some much need shits and giggles we have the fantastic Lucretius 'Lucky' Flicherman, Jason Schwatzman who's the TV host and the best thing in this film. 

It's long and rather tedious. Despite a good looking cast headed up by Tom Blyth, Peter Dinklage, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis, this can't save the film from being exceedingly one note and I'm sorry to say rather dull. 

For a bleak, dystopic, exceedingly nihilistic movie about a gladiatorial fight-to-the-death, I'm happy to report it's a totally blood free experience, despite the copious amounts of throat cuts, head smashes, stabbing, poisonings, public executions and machine gunning going on, so you'll be happy to bring your 12 year-old and under children in the knowledge that no one dies, they're just sleeping.

The actual 'Hunger Games' part of the film is the most thrilling and when it ends awkwardly two thirds of the way into the movie, we're then subjected to a protracted pre-prologue sequence as we watch our 'hero', Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) sent to District 12 to plot his rise to top again. 

Offset by a lot of bleakness this film strangely marries 1950 design aesthetic with grunge and violence and then throws in some frankly cringey good-ole America folk songs as sung by Rachel Zegler's Lucy Gray Baird, who's a bard about things like her ex boyfriend getting hung and you have the year's funniest non comedy since Fast and Furious X.

When the Hunger Games part ends you quickly realise you have no interest in the rest of the film and with well over half an hour left to run, you sort of resign yourself to watching it all, because, well you've made it this far. 

Looks good, Tom Blyth, Jason Schwartzman and Viola Davis make it just about worthwhile and at least it's not another superhero movie.

6/10

#58: KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone, Jessie Plemons and an impressive ensemble cast that includes John Lithgow and Brendan Fraiser. Written by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Budget $200 million. Running time 206 minutes.

Based on the Oklahoma murders that occurred in the Osage Nation during the 1920s when oil was discovered on tribal land and the Osage nation became incredibly wealthy which in turn drew an endless army of greedy white bastards, like a moths to flame, eager to exploit the first nation people even if it means murdering entire families to realise that ambition. DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart, a WWI veteran who returns to Oklahoma to work for his uncle William King Hale (Robert De Niro) as a taxi driver who seemingly falls in love with Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone). The film follows Ernest, for the most part, and a vast cast of unique-faced delinquents as they murder their way through scores of innocent Osage people all in the pursuit of wealth before the fledgling FBI arrive to investigate the murders and bring some of the killers and masterminds to justice.

Beautiful to look at, an amazing cast, brilliantly directed and acted, and art-directed to perfection. This is an impressively mounted film that is nevertheless emotionally flatter than a Findus Crispy Pancake. With no dramatic highs, or lows, no satisfying emotional core or even a gripping plot or structure like Casino or Goodfellas. It's a film that just methodically plods from plot A to plot B with nothing intriguing or exhilarating to spice things up. Banal crimes and murders are committed without drama or fanfare, like in previous Scorsese films, they just happen. Characters go through no dramatic arcs, unless being alive one minute and then dead the next can be seen as an arc.  

This film is planted firmly in the Gangs of New York territory in terms of being a fantastically researched and mounted film, but lacking anything resembling a satisfying dramatic arc. While both DiCaprio and DeNiro are superb, with the later bringing a power to his performance that's not been seen for a very long time, you find yourself stumbling out of the cinema, bleary eyed, three hours and 26 minutes later feeling subdued and a little deflated, wishing this had just been been a bit better and a lot shorter. 

The trailer for this presents the film in an entirely different way from the finished film, subtly implying that Leo's character is the hero of the film desperately trying to save his wife from the murderous intentions of his evil uncle by going full vengeful vigilante. That might have been a more interesting, or at least more exciting film that this, and sadly I can't imagine myself wanting to return to this in years to come. 

That said, considering that this film was written and directed by a man almost in his 82nd year is deeply impressive, Scorsese has lost none of his scope and ambition, just, perhaps, his bite.

8/10

#57: THE GREAT ESCAPER

Starring Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, with a supporting cast that includes John Standing, Danielle Vitalis, Brennan Reece, Judith Clune and Wolf Kahler. Written by William Ivory and directed by Oliver Parker. Running time 96 minutes.

Based on the true story of WWII veteran, 89-year old Bernard Jordan who escaped from his nursing home in 2014 to attend the 70th Anniversary D-Day commemorations in France. The film follows Michael Caine as Jordan as he leaves the love of his wife, Irene (Glenda Jackson) to make his own way to France. Along the way meeting up with fellow ex solider, John Standing's Arthur, meeting a group of veteran German soldiers and trying to lay some of his own ghosts to rest. The film flashes back to D-Day itself and also the meeting of Irene and Jordan and shows the duo stories of both Irene and Jordan across this deeply emotional weekend. 

This is a very heart-warming film that packs a fantastically powerful punch, it's entirely powered by two utterly extraordinary performances from Caine and Jackson, in her last role. They are both superb and bring such depth and truth to their roles it elevates the film to a whole new level. Last year I was deeply moved by the film, Living and this year it's this. 

Moving and touching it brought many tears to my eyes and I sat emotionally punched by and thoroughly overwhelmed by it. 

That said, it's not perfect, at several points it seems to be leading you down one route, teasing at something dramatic and mawkish about to happen, only to suddenly blindside you by NOT taking the bait and sticking to the basic story and not feeling the need to squeeze in any virtue posturing or statement making, and then seems to mock you for being duped in the first place into thinking this was a standard Hollywood movie. 

Somehow this film, directed by the man responsible for the wretched Dad's Army, doesn't ever become a button pusher of a movie, it's not sentimental and it's not overly melodramatic, the script is moving and sincere, and very satisfying and I was still a tad overwhelmed by this several hours after watching it.

I hope that both Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson not only get nominated for this film but also win some awards because they bloody deserve it and it makes you wish Glenda had made more movies in her later years, because she's utterly extraordinary.

8/10

#56: CHRISTINE

 

Starring Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky and Harry Dean Stanton. Written by Bill Phillips based on the novel by Stephen King. Directed by John Carpenter. Music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth. Budget $10 million. Running time 110 minutes. Originally released in 1983.

Cards on the table, this was the first time I've ever seen this movie, a film now 40 years old. I don't know what I was thinking back then, but obviously there was something about going to see a haunted car movie that just didn't resonate with me. 

Well, I've seen it now and I'm pleased to say it's not bad, that said it's not a note perfect 10/10 either. If you've read a Stephen King book you'll realise that much of the subtlety and narrative drive of the novel had to be dumped to fit into the 110 minute run time and what we're left with is a fairly straight-forward tale about a possessed car and a bullied teenager corrupted by his car. With a disappointingly low body count, and a by-the-numbers plot it's an okay film without any real shocks or horrors, but with some fantastic special effects, and a great sound track. All-in-all, it's an okay film, not perhaps the world's greatest but still, good enough and the addition of Harry Dean Stanton is a welcome addition and adds a nice cherry on the cake.

However, when it comes to John Carpenter films, I'd happily take the previous year's The Thing over this any day! But would, by the same measure also happily rewatch this then rather than nearly all the other films Carpenter would go on to produce from this point on in his career other than Starman.

7/10

#55: FRIDAY 13TH

 

Starring Betsy Palmer, Adrienne King, Harry Crosby, Laurie Bartram, Mark Nelson, Jeannine Taylor, Robbi Morgan and Kevin Bacon. Special effects by Tom Savini. Written by Victor Miller. Directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Budget $550,000. Running time 95 minutes. 

Originally released in 1980 and inspired by the success of the infinitely better 1978 movie Halloween by John Carpenter, which arguably launched the genre of the Slasher genre, and which in turn was inspired by the success of Bob Clark's 1974 film, Black Christmas.

ANYWAY, Friday 13th itself is an iconic and genre defining movie that spawned a 12 movie franchise and perhaps one of horror's most iconic masked killer, Jason Voorhees, which is odd cos as everyone knows he's not the killer in this horror classic. 

The film sees a bunch of young people preparing for the re-opening of the Crystal Lake summer camp, following the drowning of a young child many years earlier. Over the course of a single weekend and one night the young people are systematically killed one-by-one by an unseen killer until the final confrontation between killer and the last survivor.  

The makeup effects by special effects maestro Tom Savini are what makes this film so effective, the kills – with throat slashes, axe wounds, beheadings and the famous arrow through the throat are massively impressive and yet also fleeting, it's weird how time plays tricks with your memories and I was surprised at how brisk each of the kills are, bare seconds, before the camera cuts away.

What makes this film so delightful is the realness of some scenes, the secondary cast of what looks like actual locals and locations and feel and look of it. It's been 43 years since I last saw this at the cinema and it's strange that what was once an 'X' film or an 18 is now reduced to the level of a 15. It's most certainly a child of its time and while the direction by Sean S. Cunningham is oddly old fashioned, the music is most effective.

Lovely to see it back on the big screen but what once caused the audience I first saw it with when I was 17 to scream out loud now causes laughter and giggles.

7/10 

#54: SCALA!!!

Directed by Jane Giles, Ali Catterall, music by Barry Adamson. Featuring interviews with John Water, Adam Buxton, Stewart Lee, Barry Adamson, Jah Wobble, Kim Newman, and a slew of the people behind the scenes at the greatest independent cinema that ever was. 136 minutes. 

Back in the late 1980s I started going to the Scala cinema to watch all-night screenings of 1950s B movies, 3-D movies, science fiction classics, horror films and cult movies and saw films like Eraserhead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, Necroromancer, Miracle Mile, Inferno, and a dozen other incredible films and cult masterpieces. It was closed down after showing Clockwork Orange once too many times. I loved that cinema and this documentary charts the history of the Scala from its original home on Tottenham Court to its final home in Kings Cross.

The Scala!!! was premiered at the London Film Festival, at a sell-out cast and crew screening and it was deeply enhanced by the palatable sense of love the audience had for the cinema!

It's a loving taking heads documentary filled with photos, vintage movie footage and reportage clips that talks to the denizens of this glorious cathedral to Shlock including movie directors, critics, authors, comedians, assorted punks, radical feminists, and members of the fledgling LBGTQ+community of the day. Charting it's heyday in the days of punk and rise of the new romantics. With a glorious soundtrack by Barry Adamson and music from the movies and utilising the unique sound of the Scala itself – caused by the running of the underground deep beneath its feet. This movie was a delightful and wonderful trip down memory lane, and I loved every second. Of all the people interviewed, John Waters, Adam Buxton and Stewart Lee shine out with their memories and I found myself transported back there.

The film features a brilliant cartoon drawn by the great Viz artist Davey Jones showing the interior of the Scala and a typical cross-section of a typical audience, including Boy George, Iggy Pop, Laurel and Hardy and King Kong, to name-check a few. 

At one point during the film several of the pundits talk about the only way to survive the all-nighters was to take copious amounts of speed and drugs, and a great many of the audience went along more so for the 'alternative' lifestyle, and rampant gay sex in the bogs than the movies. Well I for one went for the films and stayed awake with copious amounts of black coffee and Polish Wiejska sausage. And the idea that anyone would go to the cinema other than watch the movies shown causes me total bafflement. I mean if it's a toss up between hard-core popper-fuelled anal sex or a Hamster-cheeked woman singing about heaven, I know which one I'm going for. 

A great tribute to a great cinema and the pure nostalgic sense of euphoria it triggered was delightful. Plus it makes me want to go back and rewatch some of those films all over again!

R.I.P SCALA you were the dog's bollocks and no mistake.

9/10

The actual film won't be released nationally until January 25th. 

 
Cartoon by the legendary Davey Jones, coloured by me.

#53: BLACKBERRY

 

Starring: Glenn Howerton, Jay Barcuchel, Matt Johnson, Rich Sommer, Michael Ironside, Cary Elwes. Written by Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller. Directed by Matt Johnson. Based on the book: Losing the Signal: The Untold ~Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of Blackberry by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. Budget $5 million. Running time 121 minutes.

Sadly not a great deal to write about this one. Featuring a great cast, an excellent and, at times, very funny script and detailing the incredible rise and demise of Blackberry the phone people bought before Apple. 

Can't fault it, can't make rye pithy comments and can only recommend. Featuring an utterly superb performance by Glenn Howerton, playing co-CEO of Blackberry Jim Balsillie, best known for his performance in the excellent Always Sunny in Philadelphia. He is ably supported by both Jay Barcuchel as tech genius, Mike Lazaridis and Matt Johnson as his best friend and co-founder, Douglas Fregin. Johnson also co-wrote and directed the film. The script is very funny and also very skilled and the technical gobbledygook is well handled as are the numerous boardroom shenanigans. Things kick up a gear when Micheal Ironside arrives to prove he's still the baddest badass in the badass kingdom. 

I find these films about the rise of some tech or financial wizard eminently watchable and this was no exception. Plus it has a brilliant soundtrack and any film that ends with Waterloo Sunset can't be bad. Set in the late 1990s I was shocked to discover that so much about back then was still tainted by the vileness of the 1980s, fashions in particular. The attention to period detail was fun and the cast brought real variety to the roles. I just thoroughly enjoyed this and knew I would almost from the get-go with two truly cringey business pitches that trigger the whole all-too believable story.

Catch it if you can, although it's already ended it 'wide' cinematic release, so most definitely check it out on whatever streaming service it ends up on, it's a pacy, pithy, and phunny film! 

9/10

#52: THE EXORCIST

 

Starring Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Max Von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb, Linda Blair, Kitty Winn and Jack MacGowran. Written by William Peter Blatty. Directed by William Friedkin. Budget $12 million. Running time 132 minutes.

Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) daughter of Hollywood actress, Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) starts to exhibit anti-social behaviour which the medical community can't explain. Meanwhile Father Karras (Jason Miller) the Catholic church's best psychologist is having a crisis of faith, while his elderly mother goes into care and Father Merrin, the church's best paleontologist and exorcist finds evidence of the demon Pazuzu. When the 88 doctors who've examined Regan can't find what's causing her to crawl spider-like up staircases, projectile vomit and scream obscenities Karras and Merrin get called in to help. The rest is cinematic history. 

A truly superb film. Beautifully photographed, directed, and acted. It's a film that takes its time slowly revealing the story as it goes and not spoonfeeding its audience. The tension it creates is staggering and the all-practical special make up effects by Dick Smith are still deeply unsettling. Much copied and deeply influential, after this came The Omen and a slew of possession films. It's a film that's lost none of its power and was an utter delight to see again on the big screen.

If you get a chance to see this large then you gotta take it!

10/10

#51: SAW X

 

Starring Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnove Macody Lund, Steven Brand, Renata Vaca and Michael Beach. Written by Peter Goldfinger and Josh Stolberg. Directed by Kevin Greutert. Budge $13 million. Running time 118 minutes.

Saw the first Saw film and then skipped the next eight to return for this one, number 10 in the series. 

Apparently it's a sequel to the first film. In it, Tobin Bell plays John Krammer, aka Jigsaw the serial killer who only kills those people who are unappreciative of their lives. He makes elaborate death traps and forces his victims to commit appalling acts upon themselves to survive. One of his victims Amanda Young goes on to become his apprentice to help him. In this outing, Krammer who is dying of an inoperable brain tumour is scammed by an elaborate surgery con team lead by Synnove Macody Lund and her team and so he kidnapps them all and exacts his horrific revenge. Much gore and nastiness ensues. 

So gory it becomes comedy this had me laughing out loud, that said I was the only one laughing. The gore is extreme and nasty, and the film is filled with horrible people getting their just deserves. Not at all big, nor clever but nevertheless a hoot. 

7/10

#50: STOP MAKING SENSE

 

Starring The Talking Heads. Directed by Jonathan Demme. Budget $1.2 million. Running time 88 minutes.

I love the Talking Heads. I saw them perform live in 1982, I saw David Byrne perform America Utopia in 2020. I've got all their albums, I've read books about them and I've seen all three of their movies. 

This extraordinary concert movie, directed by Jonathan Demme, opens with a bare empty stage. David Byrne enters carrying a large cassette player, presses play and performs single-handily my favourite Talking Heads song, Psycho Killer. Then with each successive song, he's joined, one-by-one, by the rest of the band, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison and Chris Franz joined on stage by Lynn Mabry, Ednah Holt, Bernie Worrell, Steve Scales, Alex Weir. From there on they play all their best songs as the rest of the stage is put together. Half way through the TomTom Club take over and Byrne returns in his massive suit. 

The energy of the performance is astonishing and the music sublime. I adore the Talking Heads and this was a truly joyous and wonderful experience. 

10/10

#49: THE CREATOR

 

Starring John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson and Allison Janney. Written by Gareth Edwards and Chris Weitz. Directed by Gareth Edwards. Music by Hans Zimmer. Budget $80 million. Running time 133 minutes.

A beautiful looking, impressively rendered future world with strong, earnest performances can't really save this from being a bit too much of a boys-own-adventure style story, with tons of daring do, last minute saves, heroic sacrifices, slightly incompetent villains when needed and oodles of rip-roaring action. Sadly the characters are two-dimensional and the story tropes a little too generic to elevate this to something extraordinary. 

That's not to say it's not enjoyable, it is, it's just a tad too obvious and on the nose. The story set in the near future when mankind wages a war against AI robots sees our hero Joshua Taylor(John David Washington), an undercover marine infiltrating an AI robotic research station in search of the legendary creator and falling in love, and marrying, his daughter, Maya Fey (Gemma Chan). However when a marine assault on the AI base results in the apparent death of his now pregnant wife, Taylor is grief stricken and sent Stateside to clean up the radioactive wasteland that is LA following a nuclear strike launched by the AI. 

Five years later, Taylor is recruited back into his old squad to hunt down the AI's new and ultimate weapon, one that could in one fell swoop end the war. However when he discovers that his dead wife might not be quite so dead and the ultimate weapon is actually a child he grabs the kid and goes on the run in search of answers with both the forces of mankind and AI hot on their trail. All the while the massive orbiting defence platform NOMAD orbits the globe launching missile attacks...

Heavily inspired by the likes of Blade Runner (which this could easily be a sequel too, especially if you replaced its AI robots and simulants with Replicants) and Akira, and using the Vietnam war as a major primer this is a solid sf war film directed well by Gareth Edwards. With great art direction, design, camera work, cinematography and featuring a soundtrack by Hans Zimmer that impresses because of how utterly unobtrusive it is.

There's lots to like, so it's a shame this doesn't pack more of a punch, it's somewhat disappointing, the story doesn't feel that fresh and characters are reduced to the level of NPCs. Ideas are quickly introduced and then dispensed with some times too early and there's no time to explore before the next shoot-out or explosion.  

Following the three act structure of Syd Field this chugs along to the obligatory final act which won't come to a surprise to anyone and then promptly ends. Nothing to hate, nothing to loathe, very well made if a little generic.

8/10

#48: A HAUNTING IN VENICE

Starring Kenny Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio and Michelle Yeoh. Written by Michael Green. Directed by Kenny Branagh. Budget $60 million. Running time 103 minutes.

It's round three for Hercule Poirot, and his moustache in this modern take on the diminutive Belgium detective created by the Agatha Christie and this time rather than remaking another classic (and far better) movie, Kenny and his writer Michael Green have decided to loosely adapt another Agatha novel starring Poirot called Hallowe'en Party. 

Last time round, Branagh and Green gave us an origin story for Poirot's moustache and this time they're trying something new by utterly rewriting Agatha's original story and playing up the supernatural aspects thus creating more of a horror film 'whodunnit', rather than a straight forward murder mystery. 

The plot sees a family and one servant gather in a Venice town house one night as the city is battered senseless by what can only be a described as a hurricane. They're all there for a séance held by the famous medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) held to contact the dead daughter of opera singer, Rowen Drake (Kelly Reilly). Poirot, now retired, is invited along by American crime author, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) who's determined to get Poirot back in the game and to prove the séance is a fraud. The rest of the soon-to-be-suspects include the shell-shocked family doctor (Jamie Dornan) and his precocious son and future Jacob Rees-Moog (Jude Hill), housekeeper (Camille Cottin), Reynolds's two assistants (Ali Khan & Emma Laird), Poirot's Italian bodyguard (Riccardo Scamarcio) and the dead daughter's ex-fiancé (Kyle Allen). Before you can say, 'the butler did it', the body count is mounting, the corridors are alive with the sounds of ghostly children and things are most certainly going bump in the night, and not just the bodies falling to their doom.

The mystery is intriguing but an overuse of far too many jump scares and supernatural red herrings gets tiresome, and none of it is helped by Kenny's over reliance on fish-eyed lenses, dutch angles, over the head shots, and far too many close ups of Kenny's gurning mug. It's jarring and keeps pulling you out of the experience, in fact I can't remember a film where the director's so called style has been so intrusive, it's almost as if Kenny had contacted the ghost of Michael Winner and was channeling him and ultimately the film becomes undone by Kenny's over-dramatic direction.

The film putts along from murder-to-murder and interview-to-interview before finally rolling to stop and the reveal when the killer or should that be killers, I'm not saying, is finally revealed, justice is served and the storm abates and everyone goes home for tea, although one guilty party escapes scott-free. 

Overall this was far better than the last film, Deaf On the Nile. The location and setting worked well as did the look of the film although the whole film, as seems to be in most modern films, was exceedingly gloomy, dark and murky.

When the solution is revealed there's very little chance you'll have worked it out  yourself and you'll be relieved that Poirot takes the time to explain the workings of the elaborate crime down to the last minute crumb.

7/10 

#47: EXPEND4BLES

Starring: Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran and Andy Garcia. 'Written' by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams from a story by Spenser Choen, Kurt Wimmer and Tad Daggerhart and based on characters created by David Callaham. Budget $100 million. Running time 104 minutes.

You know how it is, you wait ages for a really shit film to come along and then everyone involved with Expend4balls squats over you and slowly squeezes out a 104 minute long Boston Steamer right in the middle of your face and all your dreams are answered and you wonder why you constantly aim so low.

The plot, "there's a plot?" sees Barnaby (Stallone) and Christmas (Statham) and their chums butcher everyone in the world with a variety of guns, knives, axes, rockets and stuff. A mysterious baddy revealed to be Andy Garcia in the end, but who starts off as a good guy, hires another baddy played by Tony Jaa to steal some nuclear detonators so they can start WWWIII and only Barnaby and Christmas can stop them. Trouble is Barnaby is killed stone dead in the first 10 minutes and Christmas is blamed for the Expendables' mission failing and he's fired from the team and his girlfriend the truly awful Megan Fox takes over Barnaby's role of boss. Then the Expendables are sent by Andy Garcia to attack a ship which has the bomb. The ship is being disguised by the baddies to look like an American aircraft carrier so the Russians will retaliate and start WWWIII. Naturally it's a trap and the Expendables are captured. Luckily, Christmas has given his girlfriend a big knife with a tracking bug and he manages to track them down and leads a one-man rescue mission killing everybody until it's only him and Garcia left to fight to the death while the atom bomb only has 4 minutes to go before exploding. Just then Barnaby turns up in a helicopter chain-guns Garcia into bloody pieces, cuts the ship in half with missiles and rescues Christmas just before the ship sinks and explodes 'safely' underwater and everybody lives happily ever after. It turns out that Barnaby faked his death.

Oh shit! Sorry, I should have added a SPOILER ALERT to the above but forgot until now. I hope revealing that Garcia is the mysterious baddy and that Stallone isn't really dead and comes back at the end doesn't spoil the film for anyone.

Look, this is a ugly, crappy, stupid, shitty film. Most of it is filmed against digital backgrounds, Statham usually dependable is utterly expendable in this, in fact he appears as bored with the whole thing as his gun barrel (geddit it?). Megan Fox is required to do nothing more than swear, look sexy, and hit her mark when smiling and jogging from one place to the other. Which is a good thing because on the strength of this she has absolutely zero acting ability. And her make-up is so thick not a single wrinkle or crease marks its surface. It is utterly impossible to accept her 1D character as the leader of an elite squad of lethal mercenaries, and when you consider she's joined on screen by 50 Cent that's really saying something. 

If you wanted a one word review than I'd say, 'shit'.

Shit. Shit. Shit. It's one massive crap fest, not one single good guy dies in this film, not one. At one point in this awful film a character with cauliflower ears is stabbed through the side with the world's biggest knife and so has to sit out the final showdown and that's it for fatalities. Oh, oh, oh! I've just remembered walking plank of wood 50 Cent, a man with less than that in sense utters the immortal line "That's what I'm talking 'bout." 

Dolph Lundgren returns to literally sit this one out too, in so far that his character spends his entire screen time either sat on a crate or lying prone while he shoots his gun which has special prescription lens because he's now so old he needs glasses. I shit you not.

The baddies are dispatched with every weapon known to man and despite outnumbering our band of heroes at least a million to one don't manage to even graze one of them with a bullet. 

At one point in this incredible shit show of a film, The Stath causes the supertanker to do a 90 degree turn by dropping the anchor and turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction. 

Hang on, I've just remembered that our villain, the fore-mentioned Andy Garcia's character, is on the actual boat with the actual ticking atomic bomb, which is counting down to actually explode – you know an atomic bomb exploding, a bomb which traditionally has quite a large blast radius. So, with just seven minutes to go, before it explodes he's not only still standing on the boat ordering his men to kill Christmas and the others rather than, you know try and fly him and his 50 odd men off the boat before it explodes! But he also throws away the kill switch. What the actual 'what'!? 

The cgi is frankly some of the worst I've ever seen in a so-called big budget movie, in fact barring the odd exterior shot the whole film looks as if it's been shot on a sound stage so bad is the digital backdrops. The action sequences are so generic, bland and repetitive it makes Expendables 3 look like a masterpiece.

At the end of this crap fest, Christmas asks Barnaby how he faked his death and he explains and it's truly appalling. Earlier in the film, Barnaby forces Christmas to fight a biker gang so he can retrieve his favourite ring which he lost in a card game to a man called The Shrimp, who's very short. It turns out that when the plane that Barnaby is flying is shot down in the beginning of the film, he drags the unconscious Shrimp out of a closet sticks him in the pilot's seat, wedges his black cap on his head, sticks the same ring back on his hand then bails out leaving the terrified man, who's done literally nothing wrong to die in his place.   

The only good thing this film has is the fact its score is in its title. 

The poster claims that 'they'll die when they're dead.' Sadly for the audience that 

doesn't come soon enough. 

4/10 (for Megan Fox's pert nipples in the final scene)