31 Days of Halloween: Ready or Not 2: Here I Come

2026,  Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett (Abigail) -- Disney+

We were rather charmed by the first movie; Kent liked it as well and he also enjoyed this one. 

So, to roughly recap the first one, which I should have mentally done before clicking Start on this one, but waitress Grace MacCaullay (Samara Weaving, Azrael) married into the old money Le Domas family. On their wedding day the whole family gathers at the gothic mansion to observe an old family ritual -- pull a card from a puzzle box, which denotes a traditional game. Unfortunately Grace pulls "Hide & Seek" which says the rest of the family has to hunt her down; hide until dawn, or die. Grace gets quickly fed up and dispatches everyone who comes up against her, and survives until dawn, only to witness the remaining family explode to gorey goo, subjected to failing to abide by the curse. 

This movie picks up on the doorstep of the mansion, the morning after, Grace covered in blood, her wedding dress and yellow hightops soaked with blood and gore. She passes out and wakes up in a hospital; handcuffed to the bed. Its not like murdering a bunch of people (in defense, of course) and burning down their house would go unnoticed. She is to be questioned by the cops, but is interrupted by the arrival of her "emergency contact", her estranged sister Faith (Kathryn Newton, Freaky). The sisters do not like each other, Grace having walked out on her younger sister when she was 18, seeking to create a better life, before inviting Faith back into it.

Interesting. It was hard not to compare the similarities between "Ready Or Not" and the Zazie Beetz flick "They Will Kill You" but this sequel sets it up to even more similarities. 

Meanwhile a bunch of other Old Money Families are receiving phone calls from a lawyer mentioning that the Le Domases have died and a new seat has opened up at the table. Its like the John Wick world but with devil worship instead of assassination. While Grace and Faith argue it out over their family drama, one of the potentials, Bill Wilkinson (Kevin Durand, The Strain), shows up at the hospital with all his best knives, seeking to take out Grace before she can take the seat. But that's against the rules; just as he's about to kill Grace, he explodes into gooey bloody bits -- the Devil, or Mr. Le Bail (Belial? get it?) as the movies call him, has a standard gimmick. Immediately after, the Lawyer (Elijah Wood, The Monkey) appears wearing a gas mask, immobilizes Grace and Faith and takes them away.

Faith has been mixed up in Grace's (new) family drama even before she can get a read on what the fuck is going on. They awaken to Exposition Time, where the Lawyer explains that any of the families' chosen hunters who kills Grace, gets the ring, which provides ultimate power. The two girls run out into the golf course and the Game is Afoot. 

Each of the hunters has their own gimmick: the twins have a flintlock pistol and a weird fisted warhammer. Viraj Rajan (Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Brilliant Minds) wears a mask and swings an east Indian sword. El Caido (Nestor Carbonell, Bates Motel) uses a sniper rifle, badly. Wan Cheng Xing (Olivia Cheng, Warrior) has her own sword. And each of their attending family members hang out in the green room watching the show unfold. If there family member dies, they can either forfeit the chance, or sign up (in blood) to take the hunter's place. If any of them kill each other then they explode in gore, along with any surviving family members. 

Creative fights, violent deaths, betrayals and subterfuge, and quips galore, eventually leads to Grace making a bargain with Titus Danforth (Shawn Hatosy, Fear the Walking Dead), to marry him -- he gets the ring, no death required. Except Grace turns the table on that, essentially dooming every single fucking one of the cult, family members and supporting staff all, much to the amusement of The Lawyer. Grace and Faith get to walk out into the sunrise with the cult gone and ... well, the cops are still probably gonna hunt her down.

I still find it weird that we can consider Satanic Activity, murder, mayhem and exploding people as "fun" but there we are -- Horror Adjacent. There's not a lot deep going on here, but some light commentary on Good vs Evil being useless constructs when it comes to running the world. We also get some fun cameos (David Cronenburg as the Danforth patriarch, and that short gooey scene with Durand) and all the Canadian supporting actors you can shove into a movie; and Michelle Gellar as Ursula Danforth.

I think we need a proper horror movie up next.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Death of Robin Hood

2026, Michael Sarnoski (Pig) -- download

I've had a story in my head for a few years now. A few actually, tied together. One speaks of The Slayer or The Unkillable; he's had a few names. It tells of an unkillable (duh) sword wielding warrior, a man who has been killing men and monsters alike, a warrior who fears no one and nothing. Another iteration of the tale tells of him in his old age, long since "retired" from swinging his sword, and now only swings an axe. He is the mysterious woodcutter living deep in the woods, avoiding people, avoiding his reputation, hiding from his legacy of endless death, a tired man, a sorrow-filled man who only wants peace and hard labour.

This movie tells the tale of Robin Hood, but a long aged Robin (Hugh Jackman, Logan), and not the man of legend. The legend was created by him to mask the brutality and killing he wrought in his youth. He was never truly the hero of myth, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. He was just a brigand, a killer of people so he could take what they had. And his legacy is that he is endlessly pursued by the families of those he has slain, always on the run, no longer a young and unkillable warrior, just an aching, but still powerful man hiding when he can, killing when he has to. 

This movie begins as a grimdark, violent, bloody and gritty tale. They needed to set the story who the real man is. There are no flashbacks, no images of a dashing hero in a green hood, flashing a smile as he steals bags of coins from the moustache twirling Sheriff of Nottingham. There is just the mumbling Little John (Bill Skarsgård, Barbarian) who is fleeing after having been outed from his farm by vengeful foes, a farm that he acquired himself by killing the previous owner. Fuck, this is a dark world -- there is no irony in John's (now calling himself Edward, a name taken from the man he killed) description of what he has done -- he killed a man and set himself as the head of his new "family" and, well, they have accepted him. He comes across Robin on the road, and seeks his help in recovering what is his. Together they kill the vengefuls, but not before all but one of John's Edward's family are killed in front of him. 

One escapes (not really, as Robin puts an arrow through the back of the boy's head, and he stumbles, dying, home, bearing the mark of who did the deed) causing the return of the head of the family, armed and armoured, unlike the usual staff & pitch fork bearing farmers that Robin and John can easily dispatch. And the battle is so brutal, it leaves Robin on the edge of death. John all but carries him to a boat which takes him to an island where a Prioress, Sister Bridgit (Jodie Comer, 28 Years Later) is known to heal all who are brought to her. Edward hands "Roderick" over to her care, who is barely alive, cut and crushed and suffering great blood loss. Their lies are accepted, and Edward departs.

Act Two. Healing. The tonal shift in this act is palpable. Via music (the use of "Twa Corbies" is wonderful) and mood, we observe Roderick heal, but all the while wondering when the tables will turn. This is not an unfamiliar story telling technique, where we wonder whether a violent amoral character will stay true to that course, or will he be swayed by kindness and acceptance. The Prioress has her own past, but its only just touched upon, but other members of the priory tell of it being full of darkness and loss. Meanwhile, a quiet wise leper lives out his last days on the island, bringing Roderick into his confidence, offering his place as the protector of the apple and pear groves. You know the leper knows who Roderick might be, but there is no judgement, no coaxing, just an ask that Robin not bring his violence to the island. 

Roderick's healing is not quick, and the gentle touch does soften him, especially when Edward's daughter appears on the shores -- her "papa" was attacked and she fled to here. She has been abused and traumatized but when she sees Roderick, she grasps him silently. And also, with time and a gentle touch, she softens to him, finding a new father figure. It surprises him as much as the rest of the islanders. BUT we still see the darkness behind his eyes. We wonder if he will end up returning to his ways, kill her for revealing who he is.

I absolutely loved Jackman in this role. And not because he is the living image of the retired Slayer from my mind's eye, but for the reserved manner he approached the role. This was not big acting, but quiet and brooding.  Hell knows, I love a good brood. Comer is, as usual, magnificent. And Skarsgård just disappears into his small role, more than he did behind the makeup of Pennywise. This movie won't be for everyone, as it can be ponderous at times, and does very little to rise from its dark mood, but for me, already steeped deeply in such a mood (not a good time in my life right now), it was pitch perfect.

KWIF: a grab bag of film across decades

 KWIF=Kent's Week In Film. I suppose the big watch of this week is the long-awaited release of Kill Bill as a single feature, but, well, we'll get into it. The best watch this week was certainly The Outfit, but I think I may have been one of very few who were eager to get the new Arrow blu-ray in my grubby little hands.

This Week:

In the Blink of an Eye (2026, d. Andrew Stanton - disney+)
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2004, d. Quentin Tarantino - blu-ray)

Mars Attacks! (1996, d. Tim Burton - tubi)
Def-Con 4 (1985, d. Paul Donovan, Digby Cook - tubi)

The Outfit (1973, d. John Flynn - blu-ray)

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Director Andrew Stanton's In the Blink of an Eye went direct to streaming on Hulu/Disney+ earlier this with absolutely no fanfare, unlike his other film Toy Story 5 whose marketing campaign was inescapable and has made over a billion dollars at the international box office (it's not quite pulling Spider-Man: Brand New Day numbers, but hey, second place and a billion-plus dollars ain't too shabby). There's no real point in comparing Stanton's two 2026 releases, as they are vastly different films with vastly different styles and intentions.

This film takes place in three different time periods. The first is in 47,000 BC, which follows the life of neanderthal Thorn (Jorge Vargas), his pregnant mate Hera (Tanaya Beatty), and his children Lark (Skywalker Hughes, real name) and Ebb. The second tracks the life of anthropology grad student Claire Robertson (Rashida Jones) and her relationship with stats major Greg (Daveed Diggs) in modern times. The third takes place aboard a space ship in the 2400s with Coakley (Kate McKinnon) making a centuries-long trip to a new planet with the fate of humanity at stake, her only companion the onboard AI Rosco (also Rashida Jones...I think?).

There's not a specific storyline being told across these three eras, but more exploring all the elements of what it means to live, to be human. There family bonds, and romantic bonds, and friendship. There's fear and anxiety, there's pain, physical and emotional.  There's sex and pleasure and awkwarness. There's birth, and death, there's disease and healing, there's community and evolution, support and trade, and so much more.

The film presents this journey through these moments of existence without any specific linear narrative to them as a whole, thought there are arcs for the characters, each whose stories span decades. Stanton and screenwriter Colby Day present parallels across the three different eras such that what one character is going through in one era, another is dealing with something similar in a different era. The point obviously being that these human conditions are eternal and not unique to any specific time or reality.

These jumps across time aren't always the cleanest or clearest (for instance, I didn't pick up on the fact that Claire and Greg were supposed to be students, not professors or researchers or whatever, basically playing about 20 years younger when we first meet them), but even if some of the nuance is lost, it's not hard to track the emotional storytelling Stanton is working towards. 

It's all underpinned by a Thomas Newmann score which is ever present and would be just as suitable for a relaxing massage or a yoga session. It's truly a vibes based movie, there's no heighted drama nor any specific action to raise the blood pressure. It's rapid journey through time across eras is meant to be reflective, not impactful, and at times I was genuinely moved by what I was feeling. That said, I was also bored at times. Both can be true.

It's so specifically constructed that it seems that Stanton achieved exactly what he wanted with this, but it's no WALL-E or Finding Nemo.

In the Blink of an Eye has not been a warmly received movie critically and it's already been buried in the Disney+ streaming catalogue to the point that it seems the only way to find it is to search for it directly. I don't know that it deserves to be so quickly dismissed, but it's also such a specific mood piece that I find it hard to recommend.

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I've been waiting for The Whole Bloody Affair pretty much since Tarantino first mentioned it when Kill Bill Vol. 1 came out in 2004. I understood that the intention of splitting Kill Bill into two volumes was a Weinstein money move, but I always thought Kill Bill would be presented as the whole it was intended to be once it got to home video. I really didn't think it would take over two decades for that to happen. I've never owned Kill Bill on physical media solely because I was waiting, even though, at a certain point, I assumed it was just never going to happen.

And now, after a brief theatrical run (which I missed due to life's poor timing), The Whole Bloody Affair is here on 4k/Blu-ray and...it really doesn't feel that different than watching Kill Bill as two separate movies.

This home video release still breaks the film up across two discs, but instead of there being closing credits after the Bride's wintery duel with O-ren Ishii, it cuts to an intermission title card and song. Unlike back in the laserdisc days where a screen caption would instruct you to flip the disc or insert the next one, here, after the intermission ends the disc cuts back to the menu screen. Sub-optimal. Disc two then autoplays on its own jumping right into the longer portion of the film.

I've always enjoyed the first "volume" of Kill Bill more than the second. The first 110 minutes are so propulsive, energetic and dazzling, with incredible choreographed fight sequences and a flashy anime sequence exploring O-Ren's backstory (what became readily apparent in the recompiling of the two volumes is that this whole bloody affair winds up being a 4-hour-plus movie. None of the other characters get such a detailed back story as O-Ren, not even Beatrix Kiddo, so the whole anime backstory feels utterly extraneous when presented as a single unit).  

The next 140 minutes (credits are 20 minutes of that, including both end credit sequences from Volumes 1 & 2) are much, much slower paced, all leading the the final hour where The Bride finally finds Bill, spends time with the child she didn't know survived, and then, fulfills the title contract.  There are some excellent moments in this. The Bride's flashback to her 1-inch-punch training and her escape from her buried coffin, her fight with Elle Driver in that trailer home, and Thurman's excellent performance upon seeing her child for the first time. But when there's a four-hour run-time Budd's sorry life at the strip club or Bill's extended speechifying (especially his whole "Superman" speech) feels like unnecessary indulgence from the director.

I still really like Kill Bill generally, but somehow, for me, it worked better as two films than one. Two films feels like it has the appropriate room to breathe. As one, I start checking the clock and contemplating what seems unnecessary. 

I have covered Tarantino a fair amount on this blog, including a full rewatch and ranking back in 2019 (just after Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood premiered) where I ranked Vol 1&2 as a whole in second place of Tarantino's works. I'm not sure I would put it in that same position now (probably bumped down to 4th).  

I don't think I've watched a Tarantino movie since I wrote that rewatch and ranking post (though I read his books, and I did listen to his podcast until it went up behind a paywall). Part of it is I've been more focused on new experiences with my film watching this decade, and the other part is, I think, maybe my fandom has tempered in my middle age.  Perhaps Tarantino's shift from filmmaker to film critic/podcaster (aka the Kevin Smith track) lessens the allure. Perhaps his lack of new features lessens my interest to revisit the old ones. Perhaps I was sated with 25 years of fandom and I've moved on.  Perhaps I've seen roughly a thousand movies since I did that rewatch and ranking and I'm more versed in Tarantino's influences and I'm starting to see the seams. We'll see how I feel about the Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood pseudo-sequel Cliff Booth Tarantino wrote and David Fincher directed this fall.

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Celebrating its 30th anniversary (!), Mars Attacks! was seen as both a bomb and a blunder upon release, but has become a cult classic in the intervening years. 

There was only so much story to tell in adapting a series of trading cards into a movie, but Burton's enthusiasm for this production seems to rival his earliest efforts like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice.  

I only have a passing familiarity with the trading cards, but it seems evident by the film's lack of direct narrative coherence that Burton was using the imagery from the cards as his guide in constructing the project.

While it flirts with the idea of being a Dr. Strangelove-esque political/social satire, it doesn't commit that hard to the bit. It wants to have too much fun with the "Ack-ack"-ing aliens (watching with the subtitles on and reading along is great!) and their giddy bloodlust for the destruction of the human race, alongside their many institutions and totems.

The digital effects, still pretty new at rapidly evolving the time, have a clumsiness to them that, I'm sure in 1996 and 2006 and probably 2016 seemed kind of atrocious compared to the advances in the technology that would follow, but in 2026 the clumsiness of the digital effects is part of the charm. Just as the film itself was throwing back to the 1950's, now it feels like the effects are a part of the intentional throwback charm.

There's a rich celebrity roster here, with Jack Nicholson taking the forefront in two roles, one as the president of America, the other as a rich Texan looking to get into the casino game in Vegas. Glenn Close plays the wife of the former, while Annette Benning is the partner of the latter. Natalie Portman is the First Daughter, while Michael J Fox and Sarah Jessica Parker play a couple who are also competing news reporters. Lucas Haas is a sweet rural kid who loves his grandma with dementia, while his 'Murica-loving trailer-park parents played by Joe Don Baker and O-Lan Jones disapprove of his sweetness and wish he was more like his jarhead brother, played by very young Jack Black (Christina Applegate plays Jack Black's girlfriend in pretty much an unspeaking role). Legends Jim Brown and Pam Grier play an estranged couple, Rod Steiger is a pro-war military general, Pierce Brosnan is a peace-loving scientist, Danny DeVito, Tom Jones, Martin Short, Salma Hayak and more also appear.  It's just a ridiculously stacked cast playing characters who have no real ark, almost all serving the purpose as being laser-fire fodder for the aliens (voiced by Frank Welker).

The joy of Mars Attacks! is the unfettered glee of the ultra silly aliens joyously destroying humanity (they're proto-Minions in their comically violent antics), and then conversely the icky fun of seeing these nuisance creatures heads get squishe or splattered into a spray of green goo.

It's pure ridiculousness, right up until the notorious finale when it's discovered that Slim Whitman's warble is the alien's surprise weakness (it's a delightful play on War of the Worlds mundane fix for the invasion, and a far better turn than, say, Signs).  Don't think too hard about anything, in fact don't think at all.

This thing should be in the Criterion Collection and I should have it in the binders.

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Back in the days of video stores, many, many movies -  most of them in the sci-fi or horror genre - were sold completely by the cover art of the box on the shelf. So many incredible - usually painted - images that just struck the eye, got stuck in the mind and inspired the brain to go to wild, wild places that, inevitably, the film in the case never actually takes you to.

The box art for Def-Con 4 was a staple in every video store I can remember going to (were Canadian video shops mandated to have this as part of their Canadian Content?) That image of the downed satellite looming large in the background and a space suit with a skeleton inside in the foreground I'm sure was responsible for thousands of thousands of rentals. I never did get to it though. Perhaps the reputation that the movie didn't live up to the box art spread across playground and high school hallways?

Def-Con 4 was brought up recently in an interview with Blackberry/Nirvanna The Band The etc... director Matt Johnson and that image immediately flooded my mind. In my (unfortunately only) recent interest in Canadian film I put it on the to-watch list.

It's a garbage nonsense movie about the end of civilization as we know it. It starts in space as a crew aboard a defence satellite catch word that Libya has hijacked a US ship armed with nuke and are setting them off. Or something. They eventually respond unleashing their payload. Humanity is decaying rapidly under the fallout, or, at least, TV has gone off the air (same thing).

This opening sequence which simultaneously moves too quickly and drags on far too long, seems like its setting up the film's trio of astronaut protagonists, and trying to give us something akin to insight into their motivations for being on this mission in space and hints as to their life back home, but it's so awkwardly written, we're not ever sure what we're supposed to take from all this jumbled info. One of the crew, Commander Cecil Howe, wants to return back to his wife (even though she's been quarantined for some illness and the baby is dead and the radiation is going to kill everyone anyway). But after re-entry they crash land off-course and on a beach. One of them is taken immediately by cannibals, J.J. is left inside unconscious and concussed while Howe looks for help.

Howe is immediately captured by Vinny McKinnon (Maury Chaykin) who threatens to kill him, but he decides to make a trade for supplies on his capsule. Vinny has also kidnapped Alice (Donna King) , and now we have our trio of protagonists who... oh, nevermind. They get kidnapped by a military regime led by a petty, preppy high school student (Kevin King) who is mostly just upset his girlfiend (Alice) left him.  

This post-apocalyptic wasteland is so, so pathetic as to be far more banal than scary.  The rhythms of this are so familiar (it's somehow not all that different than, like, 28 Days Later) and yet it's so underbaked as to basically be raw elements with little to no investment in the characters. The only real drama is the tension between  teenagers Gideon Hayes and Alice and they're like the fourth and fifth leads of this film.

Its Canadianness shines through in, mostly, the worst ways possible, mostly in production value, but also scripting and performance and editing where it feels like multiple takes were just not possible within the budget so they had to deal with what one or two takes got them (I don't know this for sure, but that's sure what it seems like).

The only redeeming quality of this is one absolutely out of place scene where Howe catches some bad guys by surprise and tells them at gunpoint to get off the boat, and then the guys keep reaching for their guns and Howe keeps telling them to stop reaching for the guns. It's a silly farce that seems straight out of The Naked Gun, and I can only imagine how entertaining this would have been had they leaned into this type of humour throughout.  Alas.

That poster, though, remains incredible.

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One of my slow-burn projects on this blog of late has been to watch all the adaptations that have been made of the Parker novels.  The character, written under Donald E. Westlake's pen-name, was a relative unknown commodity to me until I read the incredible comic book adaptations by the late Darwyn Cooke. Reading those lit a Parker fire under me (though, not even close to being enough to actually read the novels.... Reading?  Bleh. Who even reads anymore. Given the stats on this blog, like, a dozen people?).

There are a few adaptations that are just out there, readily available, from the two versions of Payback,  the awful Jason Statham film, to the stone cold classic Lee Marvin joint Point Blank ,to the most recent attempt I can't bring myself to watch (yet). Then there's the ones you have to deep dive for, like Slayground, Made in the USA, Pillaged, The Split and this one, The Outfit.

Robert Duvall isn't exactly the mind's eye perfect Parker (or Parker analog). The character is described as a big, broad beast of a man, shaggy and expressionless. The only actor who has portrayed him that really fits the description is Lee Marvin, but even then, he's maybe not as dangerous looking as Westlake described him. I'm not exceptionally experienced with Duvall's filmography, but everything I have seen him in, he's been incredible. I don't think he could take a wrong step if he tried. He's a true character actor, disappearing into a role. There's no specific type for Duvall, as such, despite lacking height or width or the big block fists described on the page, Duvall's Eddie Macklin kind of makes for the most screen accurate Parker in every other context.

Macklin is so, so cold in this film, but for the briefest moments of fleeting humanity, where an errant emotion flashes on his face but then disappears.  We meet Macklin coming out of jail, being picked up by a former lover, Bett (Karen Black), who informs him that his brother's been murdered. She was responsible for giving him up after being tortured. The Outfit, it turns out, was not happy with the fact that Macklin, his brother and their accomplice Cody (Joe Don Baker) hit one of their crooked banks. They're sending a message to everyone.

But Macklin has his own sense of propriety and justice. After getting the jump on some outfit goons he sends a message back. Either they pay up 250K for murdering his brother, or else he keeps hitting them, and hitting them hard, doing what no right-minded thief would do. A joint is a joint, and they all can be hit up. All's fair as far as Macklin's concerned. The heat bears down on him, Cody and Bett, but if he feels it he doesn't let on, and while Bett wants to get out, Cody is ride-or-die. It's not that he's a tactical genius or that shrewd in his calculating. He's just determined to get what he wants, his drive and motivation trump anything else.

While not the most elegantly directed movie, nor the prettiest, Duvall leads a pretty exceptional cast on a an uncommon journey. Knowing that Macklin doesn't have a plan gives the story an anything-can-happen vibe and you're never quite sure what's next on the agenda, or at times, exactly how Macklin is going to get out of a situation.  Whatever the code is that he operates by has an internal logic in the film, and it creates ample surprises and unique moments.

I've been searching for The Outfit for some time, and the new Arrow Video release, full of special features diving into Westlake's history as well as the film's history makes for a very welcome release. It's maybe not a "classic" in the strictest sense but it's certainly a forgotten gem worthy of rediscovery.

KWIF: Supergirl (+2)

KWIF=Kent's Week in Film.

This Week:
Supergirl (2026, d. Craig Gillespie - in theatre)
They Will Kill You (2026, d. Kirill Sokolov - crave)
We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021, d. Jane Schoenbrun - blu-ray)

When it comes to a superhero movie my longtime habit has been to go in feeling totally optimistic, hopeful, and rooting for its success. I want to be entertained, I want to see the comics characters I know brought to life, and I want other's to feel inspired.  I love comics. I love movies. I want this marriage to work.

I even felt this way going into the dregs of the 1990s like the Shaquille O'Neal-starring Steel and batnippled Batman and Robin all the way to modern lumps like Vin Diesel's Bloodshot or the Rock's superhero vanity project, Black Adam, and virtually everything in-between (and outside of)...  I just want the movie to do justice in bringing these things I like (or love, or even have no emotional connection to) to the cinema. Even if a comic book movie is not financially successful, then I'm happy to take the moral victory if it's a valiant adaptation of the character or story.

This is all to say that I went into Supergirl absolutely ready to champion it, to stand behind it and prop it up, even as critical feedback at large called it middling and muddy. I'm rooting for the James Gunn-led DC universe to succeed, and absolutely loved his Superman last year, so I was ready for another surprise triumph (especially having read the source material Supergirl was being adapted from...more on that later). 

It was once true that a nerd's tolerance for nerd shit tends to be much higher than your average film critic, but these days so many film critics have their nerd bona fides to back their opinions up that it's harder to just outright dismiss their commentary. Even without external critical voices, I have my own internal critical voice now, one that I have a hard time shutting off.

Supergirl opens with a montage of a girl and her dog. Kara Zor-El (Millie Alcock) and her pup Krypto are planet-hopping and bar-hopping for Kara's 23rd birthday. Getting wasted, making messes, just whooping it up to numb the traumatic memories that haunt her. Cousin Clark calls, wishing her the best, but can't hide his concern. Meanwhile Ruthye (Eve Ridley) witnesses the senseless death of her family at the hands of ruthless (no pun intended) brigands. Ruthye picks herself up, dusts herself off, and goes looking for someone who will help her avenge the death of her family. Kara's plastered in a bar on Ruthye's red-sun-baked planet (meaning her powers are waning), dancing to Wet Leg's "Catch These Fists" (piped into the space jukebox via a vintage ipod) when Ruthye announces herself and her intentions, only to be bowled over by some unsavoury dudes, and Kara needing to step in. Ruthye starts following Kara, imploring her to help her, but it's only after Krypto is poisoned by the Brigands as they steal Kara's ship (where did she get a spaceship from anyway?) that Kara and Ruthye's objectives align and adventure awaits them.

The first act of Supergirl, for the most part, is pretty solid. There are a fair amount of needledrops, some superb alien make-up work and special effects, and a largely agreeable and unique sequence aboard a space coach bus. There's life and vitality to this first act that ebbs slowly away as the film progresses past it. It's not a James Gunn film, so it doesn't have his sensibilities, but it almost feels like Craig Gillespie wanted the first act to parrot the James Gunn thing. It's moderately successful, but it's absolutely clear from the first two fight sequences that Gillespie is not comfortable or confident with such sequences and they are neither clean nor easy to follow, and both are quite poorly lit (it's also quite possible that the theatre I was in was dimming their projector, the whole film seemed overly dark). The quality of the action sequences only diminish from there.

The story in Supergirl comes from Tom King and Bilquis Evely's comic-book mini-series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which was King's sci-fi/superhero take on True Grit, but in a episodic format. This film, then, is a copy of a copy, translated from one medium to another and back again, and the degradation in fidelity is palpable. Having watched the Coen Bros. take on True Grit recently, it's a virtual masterpiece that even a dimmed copy should still wind up being somewhat good, possibly even great. While Supergirl isn't outright bad, I struggle to call it good. It's fine. It's a movie.

What last year's Superman had was spirit and humour -- as does True Grit -- but Supergirl lacks these, abandoning much of its humour quickly into the film and never quite finding its spirit. True Grit's tale, especially in the Coens' hands, relies completely on how the characters engage one another. Kara is Rooster Cogburn here, while Ruthye is Mattie, and even though Alcock does the work to make Kara seem like she's been through the wringer and having a tough time coming out the other side, the bond between these two characters doesn't ever get satisfactorily forged, at least not on screen. In True Grit the Coens got a lot of mileage out of Hailee Steinfeld's Mattie, for her primness and eloquence and impression of maturity, that is highlighted against Rooster's inebriated brusqueness ... something that is attempted here with Ridley's Ruthie against Alcock's Kara, but, it's not the focus of the script, so many meaningful things get lost along the way. The lightness of the contrast is lost.

The third member of the True Grit team dynamic was the virtuous lawman La Bouef, and I get the in-name-only joke of substituting bounty hunter Lobo (Jason Momoa) in here, but those are two very different archetypes, and, frankly, Lobo feels kind of shoehorned in here. There's not really any meaningful engagement between Lobo and Kara, and the relationship between Lobo and Ruthye happens largely off screen. The need for set pieces (kind of ugly and muddy setpieces at that) takes the place of having these three characters sit and talk and drink and get to know each other around a (space) campfire. (Momoa's Lobo feels like Momoa doing a Beetlejuice impression... it's fine, but there's no character definition in the script).

The film also falls into repetitive patterns that become quite tiring by the third crest and fall. Kara tells Ruthye to stay behind and be safe only for her not to listen and for Kara (or someone) to have to help her as she gets in over her head.  Or Supergirl loses her powers (instantly) only to gain them back instantly, time and time again. I get it, the Supers are so over-powered that they need such mechanisms to make them vunlerable, but it's the abruptness and repetitiveness that both bother me. The powers should diminish slowly over time, a ticking clock mechanism, while a hail mary recharge may not bring them back full throttle it should always be enough. It's the writings of someone who hasn't spent enough time with the Super-family to understand this.

The main villain is head brigand Krem of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), and he's kind of what everyone's chasing, the maguffin of the comic book, but here they half-heartedly try to develop him into a vile killer who does so for pleasure, and Schoenaerts tries to inject life into the character, but this character, really, should be largely unseen. The less of him, the better. And then the script adds in the fact that the brigands are a men-only club, who kidnap young (it should be noted, human) women to bear them children. It's a play right out of Mad Max:Fury Road but without consulting someone like Eve Ensler to tell them whether they should or not.

As a result, the young girl slave trade casts a pretty bleak pall over an already strapped-for-joy movie. It wallows in the trauma of Kara having lost her family (conveyed in a series of flashbacks that grind the film to a dead halt -- flashbacks are in the comics but handled very differently) and Ruthye's same-but-not experience (in spite of them both having these traumas, the film still isn't able to bond them very well on screen...there's, like, one moment where Kara, silently, realizes this).  Had the film not sidelined Krypto, there would have a been a comic relief chaos agent to make this whole pill easier to swallow. I realize he's also sidelined in the comic and his sidelining is the impetus for Kara to go on this journey in the first place, but comic books have years of character history to draw on and an established universe to traverse, while this film needs to create it all from whole cloth. They could have found something else to trigger Kara and keep Krypto in the picture. 

I wanted to love Supergirl.  As is, I don't really even like it. I do really like this iteration of the character, the attitude that Alcock portrays very well, but the film doesn't serve her too well. I came out of Supergirl feeling like I barely understand this character after spending two hours with her. At the end of the film, Kara returns to Earth, to Metropolis, uncertain of her place in the universe, but ready to find out. Yeah, that's a starting point, not an ending.

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[Warning: spoilers within]

They Will Kill You starts with Asia Reaves (Zazie Beetz) and her little sister fleeing from an abusive stepfather. He catches up to them quickly, and Asia shoots him. The cops arrive, Asia runs, leaving her sister behind. Conceptually it's a pretty heavy, if quite brief, opening sequence that doesn't make the audience wait long to get to the point.

Asia got caught and served 10 years in prison for the attempted murder of her father, but has felt nothing but guilt over leaving her sister behind. Asia's hired a private investigator to track her sister down, he points her to the Virgil, a New York 9-storey high rise for the wealthy, where her sister was hired as a cleaner, but it has a reputation as being a place where people disappear. There is definitely insinuations of class and race disparities, and the rich being raised up on the the backs of the poor, which all sounds rather heady as subject matter.

And yet, this is just the place setting. This film really doesn't waste its time. It's only about 15 minutes before the first fight sequence happens, and it doesn't let up from there. Whatever inference of social commentary the opening few minutes might have suggested, for the most part they are pushed aside so that we can have a rollicking good time as Asia navigates the Victor's many hallways, passageways, tunnels and shafts, fending off it's blood-hungry elites.

Asia take a job with a fake ID to get into the Virgil, and instantly meets some of the fake-smile bearing residents, the head of services Mrs. Woodhouse (Patricia Arquette), and getting a very short tour of the servants quarters on the first floor. She senses she's being watched, so she secures her door. A masked behemoth finds his way into her room regardless and attempts to attack her... only Asia is prepare to fight back. Four more assailants find their way in and Asia defends herself, armed with a sawed off shotgun and a sword. 

When Asia lops off Tom Felton's head, the arterial spray is like a lawn sprinkler, just all directions everywhere. The fight with the remaining assailants is heated and brutal and bloody and very creative. Asia's taking her lumps, but she's surprisingly a warrior, and ready to take everyone on.

There are definite shades of Kill Bill here, not just in the fighting, but in the style, the edits, the pastiche, the title cards and flashbacks. And yet, it's not Tarantino-esque, because this plays as an even greater ode to Sam Raimi. 

The elite of the Victor are immortal devil worshippers who can't truly be killed. They will resurrect and reform if even a flake of skin remains. In one of the film's many incredible sequences, Asia is crawling through a between-floor tunnel system and encounters Sharon (Heather Graham) whose head she lopped off earlier in the film. After a scuffle, Asia blows Sharon's head off, and, moments later the headless body starts charging towards her (just grasping, but unable to see, hear or properly sense Asia's whereabouts). Eventually Asia finds her way to an upward shaft, but doesn't notice Sharon's eyeball, using the optic nerve like a flagella to propel itself through the tunnels to track her. Somehow Sharon's headless body is still receiving the intel, and attempts to charades the information back to the other elites. It's absolutely ridiculous and obscenely delightful. Just as the whole film is.

Much like a Bruce Campbell in an Evil Dead, Zazie Beetz keeps taking her lumps, but also keeps fighting back. She fights for herself, and she fights for her sister, but mostly, she's fighting for our entertainment. The film culminates with Asia fighting Mrs. Woodhouse with a devil-possessed giant boar's head Voltron-ed her own. Just insane, but delirously entertaining.

There's not a tremendous amount of story or character development here, there's no need for it. This is just a wicked fight movie that's having a good time going to comedic extremes, and I'm here for it.

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It would be easy to mistake We're All Going to the World's Fair, which was released in 2021, as a COVID-era production. It's a small film that follows its protagonist, 16-year-old Casey, as she lives her life online, participating in "the World's Fair Challenge".  It's a social media trend that, according to other (in-world, off-brand youtube) streamers, changes you in unexpected ways. Casey films herself strolling around her town, talking to the camera about the changes she's feeling, the disconnecting from herself, the violent and or self-harmful impulses she's feeling. We see Casey dancing alone, or playing baseball by herself. We see her exploring the barn late at night, looking at her father's gun (we're talking an assault weapon here, not a hunting rifle or handgun), and eventually settling on the barn couch, watching not-youtube on the big screen, when a video autoplays a message that is directly for her. It features a still of Casey's face, distorted and melty, alternating with a hastily scribble warning that she is in trouble, and she needs to reach out. 

Jane Shoenbrun's I Saw The TV Glow was my favourite film of 2024, an exploration of how media can impact one's sense of identity, and an powerful closeted trans-allegory disguised as a horror film. This, their first feature shows they definitely have a grasp, and maybe even a penchant for media-identity related storytelling (their third film, this year's Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma looks to be yet another, different and provocative take on this dynamic).  We see Casey not just through her videos, but also as she's making her videos, and when she's not making her videos she's engaging with other "World's Fair" content.

Schenbrun has fun building out the online world of "the World's Fair Challenge", some disturbing content from creators describing (or showing) how the Challenge has changed them. It's almost like an infection, but the symptoms differ from person to person.

The aforementioned warning comes from "JLB", and Casey decides to Skype with this stranger. JLB expresses that they're concerned about them, and asks Casey to just keep making more videos. The film's greatest move comes following this call that ends the first act, switching us over to JLB's perspective for a period of time. He is a thin, bald middle-aged man with a very hang-dog expression, and we just don't know what his deal is. He lives in a very big house, so he's obviously successful at whatever he does, or did, but he primarily hangs out and sleeps in what looks like a teenager's bedroom. There are pictures in the house but we never clearly see them. We don't know if JLB lost a kid to this "Challenge" or if he's just an online creeper, or if he's just a lonely guy looking to platonically connect with someone who also appears lonely, or if he's a psycho who has murdered the family in this home and is now operating out of it. He does spend a lot of time disseminating Casey's content though.

Beyond Casey's video in which we see her wander through a crowd at a New Year's celebration, we never see her with people. Her father, we're only aware of him because he yelled at her once (for listening to something loudly at 3am), but there's a half insinuation that she's scared of him...or avoiding him...or both. But there's so much Schoenbrun doesn't show us here that everything is up for interpretation, right through to the finale where the rug isn't so much as pulled out from under us but the fog is lifted.  

The events of the movie are recontextualized, but the question is...does it make a difference? However we view Casey, isn't the end result that she's lonely, sad, and perhaps depressed? 

"The World's Fair Challenge" is Schoenbrun interpreting the Creepypasta realm of online horror storytelling through collaboration, the realm that bore such fruits as Backrooms and The Slender Man and Channel Zero, but through a very grounded, human, individualistic lens. It very much feels like Schoenbrun is asking "is this how I would be if this type of communal storytelling was available to me when I was a sad, awkward, lonely teenager", and I feel very much the same way, that the whole Creepypasta thing would have been totally for me had I grown up in a different time.

It's eerie how much ...World's Fair is in sync with what pandemic living felt like (according to Schonebrun, it finished filming March 1, 2020) but it's not an intentional pandemic allegory. It's message is not bound by time, as a result, it is a story of loneliness, and the horror here (if you can call it that...it's more just a slow, simmering dread), is equally grounded in sadness and the truly unknowable strangers of the internet.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Normal

2025,  Ben Wheatley (Kill List) -- download

Once again, I am struck that I should get around to watching Kill List. In fact, I didn't even know I was watching a Wheately movie until the credits rolled.

I did not have Bob Odenkirk as Action Hero on my movie bingo card. He comes along once again with Derek Kostad to write & produce an ultra-violent action flick starring an aging, unlikely protagonist. This time he's Ulysses Richardson (Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul), a sheriff-for-hire, come to Normal, Wisconsin Minnesota (once again, Winnipeg) to temporarily fill the role until the elections happen -- the previous sheriff froze to death. That aspect of Old West Meets Modern American Policing still weirds me out -- they do not have to be trained police officers, just win an election. Anywayz, Normal is ... well, normal. Mostly; some small town weird. Ulysses comes to this job with his own shaky past, seeking to escape something. But he's a likeable, nice guy, happy to do this job and then move on.

Then he's nice to the wrong person, a likeable bank robber who, along with her boyfriend, must be in desperate straits to resort to such drastic measures. Things don't go well and an alarm is sounded, one the sheriff's office has hidden behind some junk because, well, that alarm would never dare go off. Ulysses goes into the bank to talk the couple down when... his own deputies begin opening fire with automatic weapons, and the new sheriff is just as much a target as the rest of the people in the bank. There is something in there that nobody should see, let alone an interim sheriff.

You see, the movie opened with the punishment of two Yakuza thugs, and if we paid attention, we will see that they are standing guard in the bank. It doesn't take much to get that likely the Yakuza has some holdings in the bank, enough that if its revealed, everyone must die. This is where the movie bleeds quickly into the lunatic fringe, more a farce of comedic-action than any reality we could accept. But that's OK, as it kind of works. Ulysses ends up working with the bank robbers against ... the whole town. Pretty much everyone in town made a deal with a Yakuza oyabun to stand guard over a vast fortune in gold, cash and weapons hidden away in a small Minnesota bank vault. Its weird, unrealistic but in the context of the movie, it kind of works.

So, outside, a snow storm rages (a terribly depicted spray-on snow storm) which has knocked out communication lines (in)conveniently leaving Ulysses and the couple, Lori (Reena Jolly, Meet Me Under the Mistletoe) and Keith (Brendan Fletcher, Violent Night), having to fight it out with the well-armed townsfolk all night. Meanwhile, the robbery alarm has gone all the way to Japan so the oyabun and his crew are one their way. What was expected to end in a massive bloodbath actually gets interrupted by a ... stalemate and awkward agreement between Ulysses and the townsfolk he hasn't killed yet, to stand up against the Yakuza. If the oyabun and his visiting crew all die, then no one can report the town's failure and they can resume standing guard over the fortune. 

Yah, its all a bit weird thin stretch but somehow Wheatley sells it. It doesn't hurt that Odenkirk comes across as likeable and capable, and since he has killed the mayor pretty much immediately, the surviving townsfolk are sort of lacking leadership. Except he doesn't stay and the movie doesn't sell the idea he would accept the killing in defense of so many many townsfolk. I know, I know, in these movies, the Protagonist slaughters dozens of NPCs in a matter-of-fact manner, but since the establishment of Ulysses character (his shaky past) involved him killing someone that needed killing, that a mass slaughter (in self-defense, of course) would get him past that is ... a weird spin. And that they actually let him leave with the knowledge of what is going on in Normal. So, not normal.

But, I do like my quirky violent romps.

I should mention. There is a side-character side-plot, wherein Alex (Jess McLeod, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma), the adult child of the late-sheriff is trans / non-binary. Its a toss away acknowledgement, where Ulysses apologizes for misgendering them and then immediately finds an ally in his bloodbath, given they had been advising their father against the agreement the town had, and that is what got the late sheriff killed. I really liked that they made gender a part of the character, but moved quickly past it. Yes, it does feel like an insertion, but its the acknowledgement of normality in an otherwise abnormal Normal. And they use a tender scene of acknowledgement and acceptance as the exposition dump, Alex filling in Ulysses on what the what is in Normal.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Wrecking Crew

2026, Angel Manuel Soto (Blue Beetle) -- Amazon

I did not enjoy Blue Beetle and all its screaming, and yet I enjoyed this comedy-action movie, even with its screaming & swearing; well, at least for the first two acts. We took a break after the first two acts, because it was my bed time, and came back to a movie that felt it was directed by the man who made Blue Beetle even though I didn't know it was his, until the credits were rolling.

But, what I liked. 

Soto exchanges the Latinx experience for a Hawaiian one, except, of the primary cast, only Jason Momoa has any real Hawaiian heritage, instead having people of New Zealand, Somoa and Fillipino culture, along with some stunt casting of actual Hawaiians as supporting cast. OK, I guess I didn't really like that, but Hollywood wants faces, so at least they took Pacific cultures. Sigh. Anywayz, its a light hearted, action-comedy by way of a murder-mystery with family challenges, and almost followed the format of the grimy detective story, but using suspended cop Jonny Hale (Jason Momoa, Aquaman) and Navy SEAL James (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy) investigating the murder of their father Walter, who was a private dick, and a man they both actually loathed.

Jonny and James do not like each other. They are half-brothers and Jonny still resents James for not helping him investigate the murder of his mother when they were teens. Jonny is only back for the funeral, and to annoy James, but he cannot help himself but to start digging into the death, even when warned off by local thugs, and the cops. As Jonny pokes around they add Pika (Jason Batalon, Reginald the Vampire) to the mix, who plays the role of the fat nerdy tech kid. Eventually James is onboard with the investigating, and they even go so far as dressing up as wait staff to infiltrate the local corrupt land developer's party. It does not play well.

Its at this point I realize we are watching an 80s buddy investigator show, like Magnum PI or Simon & Simon except a wee bit more twisted. The half-brothers are constantly arguing, and Jonny's barbs are hilarious, as is his constant Japanese pop-culture references. There are enough one-liners between the two that had me charmed by the characters, especially the supporting cast of the brothers' cousins.

And then it had to go and ruin it with over the top violence. I mean, I know its an action flick, but it starts with the Yakuza attacking the brothers downtown, leading to a number of bystanders dying as the bullets fly. To be fair, the brothers do their best to get people to safety and take out the Bad Guys but... I still hate collateral damage, which is why I hated, utterly HATED the inevitable car chase scene. Its set on a highway, and it grabs the helicopter-vs-car trope and probably ends the lives of at least 50 innocent bystanders in fiery explosions and crashes, adding insult to injury in that the brothers are never held to account for it. We don't even see it make the news! If Yakuza and other corrupt gangsters were slaughtering people in the streets, most movies would at least mention the mobilization of a task force or local anti-terrorist squad. But no, this is just played for bloody, bone crunching, blood spewing, cars-exploding "fun" so the characters could come out of it bloodied & battered. At least we got to see Jonny's ex-GF Valentina (Morena Baccarin, Elevation) do some kick-ass driving.

I have decided to head-canon this movie into a setup for a new Hawaiian-based TV series from Amazon. We've got our Magnum PI reboot and they already had it cross-over with the Hawaii 5-0 reboot, but this new show could come at it from the indigenous experience. We could enjoy the 80s-style re-casting of the main characters but also do some more stunt-casting by having at least one supporting cast member stay in the new show. Maybe Pika.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Fight or Flight

2024, James Madigan (a couple of TV episodes) -- download

What an odd, exuberant, violent little movie. With a conscience?

In our continued series of violent movies for violent minds is what I thought was going to be a rote actioner in the vein of Bullet Train but instead of a train full of killers, we get a plane, and in some ways it is that, but I wasn't expecting a painfully indie/low-budget elevator pitch, but... with heart?

I am struggling to understand what I saw. No, not the plot. That is typical, but I guess this is the world we live in now, where films can get green lit, from the black list, with minimal Purple Suit intervention, which is both for the better, and for the worse? There is a mashup of terrible budget related issues, like lighting (even when the cabin lights are dimmed, everything is brightly, flatly lit) and ADR (Hartnett at times sounds terribly high pitched, like no one understood sound levels) and the "twist" the plot is a bug-eyed, "what if we ...." silly (and yet, somehow still appropriate) idea. But the fight choreography is top notch and creative, and Hartnett & cast really truly play their little hearts out. And its not z-grade Scott Adkins level actioner, to be relegated to the bottom row of "if you liked X, watch Y" list on Amazon -- but no doubts, it will end up on Amazon. But it is most definitely not an A or B level Hollywood flick, which is frankly what I was expecting.

Yeah we see the struggle.

So, it opens with some sort of espionage agency op gone wrong. To chase down escaped criminal "The Ghost", agency head Brunt (Katee Sackhoff, Longmire) activates her ex-BF Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett, Trap) in a bar in Bangkok. He will follow said Ghost to a flight out of the country. If he does this one job for her, despite their history, she will wipe his slate clean. He reluctantly agrees.

The Ghost, some sort of terrorist hacker super villain that nobody knows what they look like, has boarded a plane bound for San Francisco, but someone has leaked a bounty on The Ghost, which has filled the plane up with assassins. You know where this is leading.

But almost from the get-go, things go... weird. The strange, colourful Spanish pop singer in First Class (what do we call that these days?) turns out to be one of the "plane full of hitmen" and also happens to have Reyes information. After Reyes dispatches the guy, he unsuccessfully hides the body from the cabin crew, and then has to engage them in what is going on. Huh, was not expecting that. Instead of turning the plane around, Reyes allies with the cabin crew to capture The Ghost. But yeah, expectedly, shit hits fans pretty quickly with killers coming out of the wood work pretty quickly, and ... well, the movie's first "twist" happens -- one of the cabin crew is The Ghost (Charithra Chandran, Bridgerton). Yes, international flight attendant and hacker/terrorist. Somehow she makes that work.

Things get silly almost immediately, but that is the vibe of the movie. And bloody and very very violent. The indie nature of the movie (i.e. not everything is well thought through) has scenes flipping from "their are passengers who are collateral damage!" to "so, the cabin is empty but for Reyes and Bad Guys?" but we forgive it.

Oh, and the conscience I mentioned is because Reyes is on the outs with the Secret Service because he assaulted the diplomat he was supposed to protect, someone who liked to beat on underage prostitutes. And The Ghost is a Good Guy, not a terrorist at all. Sure, she blows shit up, but to do Noble Things like free enslaved children from greedy corporate sweat shops. While Reyes does want his life back, he also feels beholden to her agenda.

And the end of movie twist? The ridiculous thing that ... maybe kind of sorta works? The shadowy "espionage agency" led by Brunt turns out to be Facebook. Not literally but the idea of a big blue-coloured corporation that has more power than it should.

Its a fun movie, if a little unintentionally sloppy and truly the only thing annoying about it was how it wore its influence on its sleeve (insert reference to John Wick) instead of leaning all the way into the wacky nature. Sure, we get a chainsaw scene (who has a chainsaw on a plane ?!?!?) and Reyes is played like a sort of drunken master, but I would have upped the mayhem into almost farce levels.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Havoc

2025, Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption) -- Netflix

I am doing something I don't consider very often, if ever -- started the stub post before I am even half way through the movie. I barely ever watch movies straight through these days, but this one jumped out at me almost immediately that screamed, "Do some research, find out why you are seeing what you are seeing on the screen." So, I paused and here I am.

Literally from the get go, which starts the movie with a chase scene -- cops after a semi-truck driven by thieves in LED masks, you can see that .... well, none of it is real. There are little to no practical effects  happening here, almost the entirety of the scene is CGI & greenscreen and, well this is why I had to go and Google it, maybe some AI. From the chase scene we go to the dirty, grimy unnamed American city which is so CGI enhanced I could easily think I was watching a movie set in the same Batman world of Penguin. It was all very very surreal to look at. And yet, somehow alluring and... successful?

I could not shake the feeling I was playing a computer game.

Later; having watched what remained. Said research told me this was an Evans movie, but that became apparent soon after I passed the above preamble.

And for maybe for that reason, it really appealed to me?

At its core, this is a Gareth Evans movie, i.e. an Asian ultra-violent action movie. How exactly does a label stick to a guy after such a short career? He so very much veered away with The Apostle which traded in his Indonesian martial arts and gunplay for ... his own roots? It was a familiar UK rural horror mystery. Evans is Welsh. This movie returns to his earlier successes but given I didn't know that going in (it was a Tom Hardy violent cop movie on Netflix; perfect for my current mindset), I was kind of surprised once it became apparent.

OK. Walker (Tom Hardy, Taboo) is a corrupt cop in a nameless American city that mashes up Chicago, NYC and Gotham, but a man with some regrets. The opening violent CGI rendered chase scene ends at a Triad club where a couple of the heist kids are paying off some debt to a gangster named Tsui, when a trio of hockey-masked gunmen come in and shoot up the place. When Walker shows up, rookie "not-partner" Ellie (Jesse Mei Li, Shadow and Bone) in tow, it becomes apparent the kids were not the shooters, like all the cops on scene want to assume, but escaped after being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, one of the kids is Charlie (Justin Cornwell, Bel-Air), the son on a wealthy & powerful, but corrupt, city official (Forest Whitaker, Andor) whom Walker is also under the thumb of. This is all well trod dirty cop movie territory.

At this point, the Peanut Gallery, wandered in during one of my sessions, and asked, "Is that supposed to be snow? It looks more like ash...." Yes, the CGI continues throughout the movie making the Xmas setting look more post-apocalyptic when the AI prompt was likely "make the snow look dirty".

The above establishing act is followed by two acts where Walker learns what is going on, and tries to get the kids to safety while being chased by the Triad who assumes the kids killed Tsui. There are a lot of Triad members -- like an endless stream of video game spawned NPCs. The three hockey-masked gunmen (including Timothy Olyphant The Mandalorian), who turn out to be Walker's fellow corrupt cops, have not taken well to his emerging regrets about being dirty, and also want the kids dead, as witnesses / survivors. Everything is tied together, to Walker, to each other, to the corruption at the heart of the movie.

The second act takes place in a club, their John Wick moment, but replacing the precise gunplay of that movie with frenetic blade & gun & kicks. This fight scene is crunchy. Part of me chuckled as I was reminded of the Burly Brawl, doors constantly opening, spilling forth even more Triad gang members, giving us a triangle of violence. With some sacrifices, Walker and the kids escape.

The convoluted, not very clearly mapped plot ends up leading everyone to Walker's hideout, a shack of oddly connected, barely standing rooms that struck me more as the setting for a gun-toting escape room than a movie set. Again, NPCs galore, all shooting and stabbing and kicking each other, ending in a reveal of who-killed-who-why. Its all rather ridiculous, with the fake blood spraying in gouts worthy of a slasher movie, and a pretty-much-everyone-dies moment but that's what we wanted here, right?

Critics seem to hesitantly love the movie, maybe because Evans so unabashedly loves the genre he choses to embrace. The mashup of Asian action "kung fu friday" cinema with dirty cop & neo-noir setting work well for the film minded, but the audience.... not so much. I can see why. On its dirty-snow surface, its almost a farce. But I enjoyed myself.

KWIF: Pee-Pee Peeping

 KWIF= Kent's Week in Film. Three "films" that start with "P" completely on accident.

This Week:
Predator: Killer of Killers (2025, d. Dan Trachtenberg - Disney+)
Pee-Wee As Himself (2025, d. Matt Wolf - HBO)
Presence (2025, d. Steven Soderbergh - AmazonPrime)

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The classic Arnold Schwartzenegger-starring Predator from 1987 was quite a successful film, as a group of mercenaries square off against a high-tech alien Predator in the jungle. It's Danny Glover-starring 1990 sequel, taking place in a sweaty, crime-addled futuristic L.A. was less successful but even more popular among the sci-fi nerds for teasing the culture of the Predators. But it was the various Dark Horse Comics mini-series in the 1990s that showed what could really be done with the Predator....

Put him at a disadvantage in a cold-weather climate. Have the Predator hunting during the first World War.  Let the Predators square off against Aliens. Or Batman. Or Tarzan. Or another Predator!

The core idea behind the Predator (their species is the Yautja...first used in the novel Aliens vs. Predator: Prey from 1994) is that they hunt those most deserving of being hunted; other hunters. Earth is so rife with skilled hunters and killers that it's a favourite hunting ground of the Yautja, but not their only one (as witnessed in 2010's Predators). The key to a good Predator story is to not focus on the Yautja much at all, and offer little to no explanation. Shane Black's 2018 travesty The Predator and the awful Aliens vs. Predator movies explained too much, tried to probe the creatures too much. So Dan Trachtenberg's back-to-basics Predator film Prey (pitting a Yautja against a Comanche warrior) came out in 2022, it paved the laneway for what future Predator stories should be... the Predator in other cultures, in other times.

The most obvious go-to would be Predator vs. Vikings, Predator vs. Samurai, Predator vs Kung Fu warrior, Predator vs Zulu warrior, etc.  So it came as a slight disappointment when the trailer Predator:Badlands dropped and it most definitely wasn't the back-to-basics follow-up to Prey I was anticipating from Trachtenberg.  What I didn't know was that the true follow-up to Prey would be Predator:Killer of Killers, stealth dropped on Hulu (in the US, Disney+ globally) last week.

At first blush, it appears to be an animated anthology film consisting of three stories: Predator vs. Vikings, Predator vs a ninja, Predator vs. WWII aerial ace, you know, the type of stories I was actually hoping would each get the full-feature, live-action treatment, not burned off in an animated tie-in. It's a movie that simultaneously offers a little more than what the typical anthology film does, but at the same time offers each conceit less than what it could have.

Set in 841 AD, "The Shield" finds a viking warrior, Ursa, leading her clan - and her son - on an assault against a foe she has been hunting for a long time.  The enemy was responsible for the death of her father a lifetime ago, but it seems revenge has been fuelling her the whole time. As she confronts the man she has hated her whole life, her son makes the killing blow, and makes him the target of the Yautja that has been observing them in action. The Predator here is a hulking beast, literally Hulk-sized, with a unique pulse emanating weapon on his right arm where his hand should be. Ursa, the Viking queen, meanwhile, fights using two shields with razor-sharp edges.  There is some wild violence and some impressive action beats in all this that allowed me to get over my disappointment of there not being more to it than there is. I feel like the emotional resonance that the story wants wasn't allowed enough time to build, both for the big confrontation the Ursa wants, and for the people she loses along the way.  I like that, like Prey, the Predator is still a more technologically advanced creature, but that technology is more primitive, clunkier than what we would see in the 20th century.

"The Sword" is set in Japan in 1609, but starts further back with two brothers, thick as thieves, who learn and train and grow up together, are forced to face each other by their disciplinarian father to see who is strongest and fiercest enough to be his heir. Kenji refuses to fight his brother, while Kiyoshi is reluctant but the disappointment of his father is too much to bear. He attacks Kenji and Kenji flees. Year later, Kiyoshi holds his father's title, and Kenji, now a ninja, sneaks into his city to get his revenge...except Kenji, for as stealthy as he is, cannot elude the Yautja observing him from behind his invisible cloak. This story, largely wordless, was everything I was wanting, except for not being live-action and feature length. It actually manages to hit the emotional resonance that "The Shield" could not, with the silence putting more emphasis of the visuals and direction, and the music providing so much of the emotional cues. As a short, it's absolutely lovely and poetic, but I still can't help want more out of it.

The end of each of "The Shield" and "The Sword" find our protagonists victorious against their alien opponent, and there's the briefest of glimpses of them in the same confined space that looks like the hold of a spacecraft. The film is teasing that there's more to Ursa and Kenji's stories than what we just saw. And then we're introduced to John Torres.

"The Bullet" is set in 1942, and finds Torres as a second-stringer aboard an aircraft carrier during World War II. Torres wants to fly, but hasn't been given the chance. When his squadron leaves to engage the enemy, Torres and his mechanic buddy discover something incredibly foreign, alien even, that's an even greater threat in the skies. He takes off in a junker plane to alert his crew to return to ship, only to have the Pred Baron start picking them off. Clearly we know Torres is successful in defeating this alien ace, but of the three stories, it's the most implausible. Torres is not, like Ursa or Kenji, so skilled, and his equipment is so outclassed it should barely be flying. Voiced by Rick Gonzalez (Arrow) Torres is a motormouth to the point of being too much, especially coming off of the quiet of "The Sword". Torres winds up verbalizing his inner monologue, which makes it feel much more cartoony than the previous for-adult-audiences entries felt.

It all culminates with a fourth act in a Yautja gladiatorial Colosseum, which I was not expecting at all. If anything I was anticipating that our three victors would wind up in the hunting forest planet from Predators. I very much enjoyed that it was something new, and there was no explaining it. We know what a gladiator arena looks like, and we know how they work, just not Predator-style, so it was full of discovery as new elements are introduced. 

All the fighting throughout the film is brutal and bloody and quite impressively choreographed. It's clean and clear what is happening in the action, although sometimes it's moving so quickly (Tractenberg using a lot of follow-from-behind or follow-in-front of the action oners) that taking in all the violent mayhem is sometimes a bit too much to process. I like how the Predator designs were all quite well thought through and how even though our protagonists were technologically outmatched, they still were smart enough to figure out how to use the Predators' technologies against themselves.

I had an absolute blast with this movie. In the end, the three opening acts come together with purpose for a rousing fourth act that, despite some pretty hand-waivy improbabilities, makes it all comes together, not just within but also outside of this film. The victories Dutch, Harrigan, and Naru all had...well, those probably weren't the end of their stories either.  Also, it should be said that at no point did Killer of Killers ever feel like it existed solely as an introduction to the forthcoming Badlands. It will be interesting to see if they do connect in any way, but even still, this feels as stand-alone as every other Predator story, which is amazing.

[Series Minded: Predator edition]

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When I was a young lad, I thought Pee-Wee Herman was real. Like, maybe he didn't always look like that, in that suit, with the hair slicked back, but to me I had no awareness there was anyone underneath. Pee-Wee was a character actor like, say Ernest or Hulk Hogan or Mr. T, who only seemed to star as himself in movies and TV shows about himself as the character.  I didn't know Paul Ruebens from a hole in the ground until he was arrested at a porn theatre in 1991, and suddenly the magic was dispelled.  I mean, I was 15 at the time, and I knew Santa wasn't real, but this was the first true realization that Pee-Wee was a character played by someone not named Pee-Wee Herman.

We lost Paul Ruebens to cancer in the summer of 2023. He was 70 years old. In the year prior to his death, he agreed to participate in a documentary about himself, shedding off the layers upon layers of privacy he'd long, long held and opening himself up to examination and scrutiny in a way that seemed to frighten him previously.

We learn about Ruebens' early days, his family, his dalliances with theatre and art school in his teens, and we learn about his coming out story, which led to his re-closeting story once he started achieving success. He had a true love-at-first-sight relationship post-College, and he had formed a true bond with this man, as they shacked up and got a cat, Ruebens found himself content.  But that contentedness presented a crossroads: either live the life of love, or live the life of ambition. He chose the latter, broke his lover's heart and his own, and set out for L.A. where he joined up with the Groundlings comedy troupe. From there characters, including Pee-Wee were built, but there was something about Pee-Wee that demanded more attention, both from Ruebens and the audience.

Ruebens was committed as a performer. He invested himself in whatever it was he was doing. He knew how to steal scenes with looks and physicality more than words (but as we see in the documentary, he does have a razor-sharp comedy mind to accompany the sly-little-devil twinkle in his eye). As Pee-Wee became a bigger and bigger thing from stage to screen to Saturday morning subversive idol to children and college kids, Ruebens sheltered himself to the point that he barely existed outside of the character he played. His ambitions got the better of him, relationships with friends and colleagues fractured, and then the arrest.

A children's show host being arrested for something indecent coming out of America's puritanical 80's (where sex was evil, but violence and greed were good for all) was the death knell for Pee-Wee and Ruebens spiralled. 

The first half of this two-part documentary (each part 100 minutes long) follows Rueben's life through all these elements, with friends and ex-colleagues all talking about how amazing it was to be part of it all but also speaking truth to who Ruebens was at the time, as Ruebens himself struggles on camera to fully lay it out and cede control of his narrative to his director.

The second half is all about the fall of Pee-Wee Herman, and then his revival, and his third act, and all the messiness in between. The first half is a real rise-to-fame story, but without revealing in the triumph, since there were sacrifices along the way that have manifested as, if not regrets, then at least remorse. The second half is very much a rollercoaster, as Ruebens tries to find his footing as Paul Ruebens and it's full of ebbs and flows that must have been really tumultuous and stressful to live through, particularly the very public reaction and hurtful things said about him. Rueben's relationship with his sexuality is an integral part to the story, and probably a lot of what Ruebens wanted to get off his chest about in the documentary. 

There's a lot of great things about this documentary, first and foremost is Ruebens himself. Even at 68/69 years old, secretly dealing with cancer, he looked fantastic and vital with a precociousness about him that was so alluring to watch. His combative nature with director Matt Wolf is the B-story to the documentary, where clearly Wolf was constantly having to fend off Rueben's stabs at taking control of the project.  Rueben's jabs at the director start out quite playful and take on a bit more menace the closer they get to the more troublesome years. 

The talking heads are all fascinating, most coming from such a place of love, but a few coming from a point of pain, of regret or remorse around their falling out with Reubens (and there were a few). The sheer volume of personal films and tapes that Ruebens had around his life makes this documentary sing with not just the narrative but visual proof of that narrative, and transporting the audience into the past.  

There have been a slew of documentaries about celebrities of the 70's, 80's and 90's of late, most of them produced by the celebrities (or their family/estate) leading to pretty whitewashed looks at their lives, celebrating more their glories than their humanity. This is very much the opposite, really getting in touch with the person who hid behind a character for so long that he had a hard time finding his way out again. It should be a compelling watch if you ever had any affinity for Ruebens at all. 

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I wrote a bit about Steven Soderbergh's prolific output in my Black Bag review (Toasty just published his, we agree!), so I won't rehash it here, except to say that the man put out two films in the first quarter of this year. That's insane. Even more insane is that Black Bag was a critical hit but fared poorly at the box office while Presence was pretty much ignored by everyone, but its low budget meant that it would up being a modest success.

Where Black Bag was a real adult sexy thriller starring big stars, Presence is an experiment in filmmaking with a story.  While the story's unfolding nature of discovery does lead the audience through the proceedings rather well, it's unable to escape the techniques Soderbergh employs that are simultaneously distracting and effective.

The whole film takes place inside a gorgeously refurbished 19th century home which had Lady Kent and I both salivating. It's a dream home, to be sure. The film opens with the Payne family looking at the property, and then moving in. Rebekah (Lucy Liu) is the driving force of the family, clearly successful, but there are hints that her success hasn't always been above board. She is obsessed with the wellbeing of her superstar swimmer son,  Tyler (Eddie Maday) while all but ignoring the well-being of her daughter, Chloe (Callina Lang), much to husband Chris's (Chris Sullivan) constant displeasure. Chloe has recently lost two friends two overdoses, and she's spinning out. Chris does what he can to engage, but it seems like Rebekah and Tyler just ride her and push her too hard. Tyler introduces her to his new friend Ryan, and soon Ryan and Chloe are hooking up. He seems like a good guy, and lets Chloe take the lead in their relationship, but there's also an air of menace about him. He's up to something, and it's not what you think, but the film wants you to think it.

The entire production is told from a sort of floating first-person perspective, which, it's slowly revealed, is the "Presence" of the title. Yes, it is a ghost story. It's not a horror movie, but just a drama in which a ghost is our eyes into the play. At times the spirit, who Chloe believes is her dead friend, seems to be  trying to interfere in what's happening, mostly unsuccessfully, but events that elicit a particularly strong emotion from the spirit allow it to interact with its environment.

It's a bit of a trifle of a film. It exists solely for Soderbergh to play with this first-person perspective storytelling, which doesn't have a lot of true success stories in the film world outside of Nickel Boys which earned an Oscar nomination at this year's Academy Award.  But presence is more in the "just trying something here" vein of Hardcore Henry or Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void and is about as successful as either of them. When the whole story is in service of a stylistic experiment, there's a layer that gets in the way of the audience engaging with the story fully.  

As well, the third act climax felt...very Hollywood. This took a family drama with a hint of supernatural intensity and turned it into a studio movie with a legit villain. I didn't really expect too much from Presence and it doesn't ask much either. It's fine for what it is.