Video Nasty Rewatch part 43 - Contamination

Deadly egg yolk. That's the big bad of Luigi Cozzi's Contamination, the 4th film of the unprosecuted 33 films on the DPP video nasty list. Egg yolk that turns lethal when it gets hot. Yup. 

One of the joys of revisiting the nasties is realising some of the films you wrote off as crap as a younger viewer have aged quite well. Cannibal Man for example, watching it with hindsight and some knowledge of the Franco regime era that Spanish film was created in it becomes a deeper, richer experience. Same with the likes of Expose and The Werewolf And The Yeti. Sadly Contamination goes the other way. I'd remembered it as a fun bit of gory sci-fi with a smattering of action thrown in. It's sci-fi and it's mildly gory but jesus christ there's nothing fun about it. It's an intensely dull experience with a middle section that would test the resolve of a saint. Oh and it's special effects suck. Just look.

Ian McCulloch, star of the arguably the best nasty of them all, Zombie Flesh Eaters plays the woman clattering hero (yup, seriously, the fucking 80's) Commander Hubbard, an ex astronaut who's experiences on Mars scarred him psychologically and left him with a bottle of whiskey a day habit. He's been called back into action when a ship full of alien eggs is found in New York Harbour. These aren't chocolate or used for omelettes though, when they get hot they burst and release toxins that cause anyone in the vicinity to violently explode, spraying their innards all around. Enter army Colonel Stella Holmes, the scientist who's linked the eggs to Hubbards mission to Mars and now they're both heading to Colombia to follow a clue before someone uses these eggs for nefarious purposes.

Don't watch this one if you want a story that makes sense or you want a bit of excitement because you'll find neither here. The film's one gore effect is funny the first time it happens but after the 7th or 8th go around you'd rather your own stomach graphically popped rather than watch anymore of this. It's painful, an amazing example of how long 90 minutes can be made feel when you don't try at all and director Luigi Cozzi is definitely on autopilot here with a cheap and not cheerful rip off of Ridley Scott's Alien.....well not a rip off but more of an influenced by........well no, he stole the egg idea and the popping guts stuff anyway but left that film's character development and tension on the ground behind him. That middle section where our lead characters head to Colombia is the very definition of filler and doesn't hide the fact.

The only reason anyone remembers this film is it's nasty status. It got it's first release in 1982 minus 2 minutes and 40 seconds of blood and guts. Like the eggs did to their victims the BBFC eviscerated the film, removing everything objectionable from it. The below details are shamelessly stolen from Melonfarmers.

• 13 seconds cut from opening sequence showing a dead man's mutilated and decomposing body in a cupboard.
• 73 seconds cut from opening sequence showing several men graphically exploding after tampering with alien pods. Footage includes facial explosions and several scientists exploding at the gut in lingering slow-motion.
• 19 seconds cut from warehouse sequence showing criminals exploding at the gut after unwisely standing amongst alien pods.
• 2 seconds cut from warehouse sequence in which remains of freshly-exploded men are shown.
• 9 seconds cut from climax, in which man's head is devoured by queen alien.
• 11 seconds cut from climax showing a scientist exploding at the gut after being shot by Ian McCulloch.
• 33 seconds cut from climax showing chief villain's chest exploding in slow-motion viscera-launch spectacle.

This tame, family friendly version happily existed on VHS until the video nasty scare of 1983 kicked off and somehow it got swallowed up in the whole ordeal, no doubt because it came from a director with an Italian name and as Ruggero Deodato, Dario Argento, Umberto Lenzi. Lucio Fulci, Antonio Margheriti and Joe D'Amato knew, the BBFC looked harshly on Italian horror. It stayed on the list until 1985 when an unsuccessful prosecution saw it removed. How could a film containing no violence be found obscene ffs!? The damage was done though. The film was now infamous. In 2004 it got a fully uncut release on DVD and horror fans could finally be disappointed by it legally. It's 15 certificate said it all, no horror and shite effects. 

Did it deserve it's nasty status? Ha!

Is it worth a watch? HA!

What's next? Dead And Buried is next. A really good horror film. Well I remember it being really good. But I also remembered Contamination being fun. Hmmmm.

Previous Nasties

Cannibal Terror

The Boogeyman

The Beyond

Video Nasties part 2 

Zombie Flesh Eaters

Werewolf And The Yeti, The

Tenebrae

SS Experiment Camp

Snuff

Night Of The Demon

Night Of The Bloody Apes

Nightmares In A Damaged Brain

Mardi Gras Massacre

Madhouse

Love Camp 7

Last House On The Left

Island Of Death

I Spit On Your Grave

House On The Edge Of The Park, The

House By The Cemetary,The

Gestapo's Last Orgy

Forest Of Fear

Flesh For Frankenstein

Fight For Your Life

Faces Of Death

Expose

Evilspeak

Driller Killer

Don't Go In The Woods

Devil Hunter

Cannibal Man

Cannibal Holocaust

Cannibal Ferox

Cannibal Apocalypse

Burning, The

Bloody Moon

Blood Rites

Blood Feast

Beast In Heat, The

Bay Of Blood

Axe & Anthropophagus

Absurd

Video Nasties - Time For A Rewatch

Moonfall

Moonfall is dreadful muck, awful even by Roland Emmerich standards. But, it will make you laugh. A lot. And that's what we need. Go see it, so in the future you'll be able to point at the TV screen when it's on while you cry laughing and say you were there, you got to see this disaster of a disaster film on the big screen.

"Fuck the moon", that's the graffiti scrawled onto the side of the only working space shuttle still on American soil. It's being brought out of commission to head into space as the final chance to save the planet Earth from destruction. The moon has been knocked off orbit by a mysterious force and now it's on a collision course with us and only three people can stop it all. Jo Fowler (Halle Berry) and Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson), two astronauts who fell out after an earlier mission was wrecked by a mysterious space accident and who must now work together again, and K.C. Houseman (John Bradley playing Samwell Tarley with a podcast), the conspiracy theorist who brought what was happening to the attention of the world via social media. As they head skyward the proximity of the moon is creating chaos on earth and their families try to stay alive on terra firma but thieves, meteors and a general lack of oxygen are the big issues of the day.

This is the worst blockbuster you'll see in 2022. Probably 23 and 24 as well. It's appalling. It's beyond stupid. Your jaw will drop late in the story when you finally find out what's happening. It bigs up the likes of Space X and conspiracy theorists instead of burying and shaming them. It fails on every movie level. Characterisation is non existent, the plot makes no sense, there's no urgency, you don't care about anyone, it's so choppy you'll think it's stupidity has made you black out and miss important information. It feels like a 3 hour film cut down to 2 and as a result is missing whole chunks of plot and exposition. There's no transition between hearing about something and it happening. We never find out how exactly K.C. used social media to let the world know what's up. We're told disaster is due in 3 weeks time and then skip nearly all that time. There's no build up to the moon's effects on the tides or earthquakes, they just underwhelmingly occur. We're expected to understand stuff we've never been told about. Great actors like Donald Sutherland turn up for 60 seconds and vanish totally.  We're asked to cry for people we've spent no time with. No one feels connected. Nothing matters.

But, and this is an important but, it somehow manages to hit that sweet spot of being so bad that all you can do is give in and laugh at it all. Charlie Plummer's (as Brian's son Sonny) OH WELL expression when an entire mountain explodes in front of him is a big treat. The SAD MOMENT that means nothing to anyone it seems. The beyond idiotic car chase. The BIG HERO scene that conspiracy theorists will dine out on for years. Halle Berry's character Jo just happening to be married to the man with the firing codes for all of the United states nukes. At times it really feels like a parody of Emmerich's previous disaster movie work but it's not a patch on any of it, even absolute tosh like 2012 feels like a masterwork after you've seen Moonfall.

Patrick Wilson, thankfully, seems to have realised how terrible it all is and has fun as a result. Poor Halle Berry plays it straight and comes out of it very poorly. John Bradley's K.C. gets treated way with way too much reverence. He's the joke of a conspiracy theorist that gets proved right and it feels like an regrettable choice especially in this day and age of tin foil loonies. Films should be mocking them and not lauding them. That might sound mean but it needs to happen. Everyone else just feels cut to the bone, popping up every now and then to deliver a line and then vanish again. It's not a film anyone involved will be highlighting on their CV.

Moonfall is out now in the cinema. Go if you want something to laugh at. Other than that avoid at all costs.

Spider-Man : No Way Home

Not every aspect of Spider-Man : No Way Home is successful but the stuff that works, works marvellously. Remember the cheers we all heard in the cinema when (spoiler alert) Captain America finally got his hands on Mjolnir in Avengers : Endgame? Well get ready to hear those again during a scene around a kitchen table. Hell I even clapped and whooped. 

The stuff that doesn't work marvellously is the stuff that marred earlier Spider-Man films too. Less is always better, a maxim to live your life by. One that Sam Raimi and Marc Webb ignored in their Spider-Man sequels when there were too many bad guys, when there was too much going on and not enough time spent quietly chilling with characters we've come to enjoy. At least this time around there's a reason for packing the film with famous faces. It's the downside of fucking with the multiverse as Peter Parker (Tom Holland) finds out to his peril when he asks Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cast a spell to make everyone forget that Daily Bugle podcaster J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) has unveiled him to the world as Spider-Man. Peter's meddling makes the spell go wrong and cracks open reality and soon bad guys from other universes start leaking through into this one. Enemies from earlier films aka other universes like Dr Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jaime Foxx) and The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) arrive in our MCU timeline. Now Poor PP has to take care of business more than ever before while protecting his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) and his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya). It's fierce hard being the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

It really is. The previous films Spidey appeared in took it relatively easy on him. Not this time around. Nope, this time around he suffers and we do too because how could you not like Tom Holland in the part. He's just so likable, friendly and funny. Without the Avengers around (where are they by the way??) it's up to him to carry the film and he does so with ease. In Holland's previous films he always had the support of other Avengers to fall back on but here all his does is annoy Dr Strange and in doing so shunts him offscreen for a large portion of the film's running time. With him gone the stakes feel more down to earth, even when they are literally out of this world and the parts of the film where it's just him and Ned and MJ feel so light and frothy you'd happily watch 'em go on forever. Pete and MJ, what a couple, her humour and his heart. C'mon Marvel, give us a little 30 minute one off of just the two of them on a date, with nothing flying at their heads. They've earned it. Do it before Zendaya rockets off into the stratosphere.

About 30 minutes in the familiar faces start appearing, some like Doc Ock and the Green Goblin will make you grin like its 2002 (& 2004) again, Jaime Foxx's Electro is way more enjoyable than his previous onscreen incarnation in The Amazing Spiderman 2 but other baddies who'll remain unnamed still suck. Their appearances though are a brilliantly meta way to tie the earlier Spider-Man films to the latest one but god it makes it fierce messy at times, especially during the two big action setpieces where there is just too much going on onscreen, CGI bonzanas guaranteed to give the people old enough to have seen the previous films in the cinema a headache. The people who've seen all the films since 2002 have the advantage here though because this Spider-Man installment definitely ain't for the casual viewer. A lot of it's knowing humour depends on how much you remember of the older films and one genuinely well earned bit of emotion fuelled action only works because of an otherwise crappy earlier film.

Spider-Man : No Way Home suffers when there's too much happening but IMO it's the best of the Marvel Spider-Man films so far. The title character has always been strong enough for his own MCU film and he's finally got one he can really call his own. Director Jon Watts (who also directed Spider-Man : Homecoming) does a fine job of tying together the madness while also managing to clear up a couple of loose ends from earlier films too, one of which will make your heart absolutely soar.  

The latest Marvel extravaganza is in cinemas now. Everywhere. In every universe. Constantly. Go see it knowing as little as possible.

Ghostbusters : Afterlife

Ghostbusters : Afterlife owes it's existence to the whining babymen of the internet. The 2016 reboot had them screaming at the idea of women invading a film franchise they thought they owned and before it was even released it was dead in the water, downvoted to oblivion by people months before they got a chance to see it. On it's release it was clear to all that it wasn't the best and it's place in the Ghostbusters canon was made sloppy by some thoughtless cameos but it was fun and Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig made for an appealing pair of leads. It tanked at the box office of course when huge swathes of it's expected audience stayed away from it and it was then you just knew we'd be returning to the universe of the original two films someday. 

The dirt farmer. That's what they called him, the residents of the small town Egon Spengler called home. People he had no time for because he was planning for the apocalypse. Planning that alienated him from everyone he knew, including his daughter Callie (Carrie Coon) and his grandchildren Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). When he died he left her his land and everything on it and they upped sticks and moved to Summerville, Oklahoma to try and make something of her inheritance. They got a lot more than they bargained for. A town where cinemas show Canadian Cannibal films, VHS is still god, earthquakes are a daily occurrence and strange things lurk in the mines below.

It's no spoiler to say a film called Ghostbusters is full to the brim with ghosts and ghoulies and all manner of demons. It's a mild spoiler to say you'll plenty recognise quite a few of them from a film made 37 years before this when director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan, taking over the mantle after years of resistance) was but a wee 6 year old. It's a bit of a crap surprise to find out that the humour that made the original Ghostbusters so memorable is kinda nowhere to be seen here. There's jokes but the vast majority of them fall flat on their face leaving the scary elements of the story and one very entertaining chase scene to do the heavy lifting. It's a direct follow up to 1989's Ghostbuster II but seems like it belongs to a different genre altogether. A different approach isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does feel rather jarring in places. Importantly though, lack of humour aside, it does feel like a Ghostbusters film. Spooky geographical anomalies, supernatural beings with bizarre appetites, family friendly nods to the occult, skeptical authority figures, all the ingredients to make you grin even before.......I'll say no more.

When was the last time you watched the original? If it was a long time ago you've probably forgotten how gritty it feels, laced with (PG) profanity, a surprising amount of raunchy humour and fags in everyone's gobs. All those edges are sanded off here, it's as sanitised and studio friendly as you'd imagine. So if it isn't funny and the grit is gone why watch it? Cos the leads rock their parts, they've got wicked chemistry going on, they commit to the silliness, especially the younger ones. Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd as Phoebe's teacher Gary have fun as the adults but the kids get all the good stuff especially McKenna Grace. She'll be the one this film's younger audience will remember, will want to emulate, get the action figure etc. The geek who stands tall. A cliche no doubt but one done very well here.

As for the stuff left unsaid? Avoid the trailers, go in cold, don't go to IMDB to see who turns up. Let it happen and let the nostalgia fly. It's far from a perfect film but I guarantee you'll leave the cinema smiling. And maybe even wiping a tear or two away.

Ghostbusters : Afterlife is showing everywhere now.

Finch

"Set in a post apocalyptic world"

Words that strike fear in the hearts of many a hardened film goer. Quite possibly the most overused story setting in modern cinema. These tales of existence after the majority of the population has been wiped out hit differently in Covid times though as they don't seem quite so silly anymore. Finch has the feel of a film made during lockdown too but surprisingly it was filmed in 2019, before the madness started. It was supposed to hit cinemas last year but... well... you know, so it was delayed and now it's getting a belated and very low key release on Apple TV. It deserves a bigger audience than it's going to get because it's really good.

A decade ago a solar flare made life on Earth almost impossible. Day time temperatures of 150 degrees fahrenheit killed every animal and every plant and drove the few surviving humans underground. Finch (Tom Hanks) was one of the unlucky few survivors and now he spends his days scavenging the city above him for food and bits of electronics he can use in his experiments in his below ground laboratory. His time above is a dangerous combination of avoiding both extreme weather events and life threatening UV radiation and his time below is spent with his one companion, a dog called Goodyear. Finch is sick though, the UV radiation is killing him and he's worried about Goodyear so decides to build a robot to look after him in case the worst happens. His creation is Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones), a machine with a thirst for learning.

This was a fine film. A funny, imaginative, heartwarming drama that will kick you right in the chest. Tom Hanks, the most likable actor on the planet is playing a scientist. So how can you relate to him? Well he has a friendly dog. How can that go wrong? Oh he is very sick and the poor dog is sad about it. Good jesus how mawkish does it sound now? How do they fix that? ROBOTS! Well one robot and one glorified basket on wheels. The robot's soul purpose is to look after Goodyear but of course Goodyear is jealous of this new being interrupting the status quo. How to solve that? ROADTRIP!! A roadtrip in a film is always a fun undertaking and now we get to see this bizarre trio heading off on one where one mistake will see them baking to death fast.

So many films like this live or die on the actor carrying the film but we're in the hands of a pro here, Hanks can create audience empathy for his characters with his eyes closed and *slight spoiler here* the story doesn't wimp out and give him another human to bounce off. He's the only flesh and bone person we see over the course of the film and it makes his performance even more effective. Caleb Landry Jone's Jeff, a robot unplugged and sent moving before he can upload all his needed information is an interesting creation too. Speaking in clipped robotic tones at first but as he learns and interacts his voice becomes more and more human and we get to see a metallic version of Pinocchio coming to life before our eyes. Goodyear of course, well his belief in his future master remains to be seen but the three of them together will have you grinning...for a while anyway.

The world that director Miguel Sapochnik has created for our heroes to travel through is a dull but dangerous place. It's like every post-apocalyptic landscape you've ever seen in film. It's Mad Max without the Road Warriors. It's The Bronx Warriors without the extreme unpleasantness. The Book Of Eli without all that stabbing. It's a family friendly take on a horrible future but it might be too much for the more easily upset amongst us. There's a lot of humour to leaven the hardship Finch is going through but watching him suffer is quite the gut punch. It's Tom Hanks for god sake. No one else would have the same impact in the lead role.

Finch is streaming online now. It's upsetting but it's worth your time.

Eternals

On the 6th of October 2013 a teenager from Dublin called Wayne gunned down a cat with an MP5 and Irish twitter went into meltdown. The fact the the killing was both fake and on a TV show called Love/Hate was of no consequence. People were roaring for RTE's downfall. They wanted the ISPCA to denounce the broadcaster. The actor who did the deed, they wanted his head on a stick. Oh it was a hell of a controversial way for young Barry Keoghan to burst onto the scene. Eight years later he's making a name for himself again in the MCU's latest installment, Eternals. There's no cats to be seen this time around, only Babylonians, Aztecs and hungry aliens.

The Eternals were a group of powerful beings sent to Earth 7000 years ago to protect the planet and it's inhabitants from alien invaders called Deviants. With the job finally complete they go their separate ways and they've been instructed by a Celestial higher power that they can use their skills to help the advancement of civilisation and to fight invaders from other worlds but that man made conflicts are to be ignored. In the present day an Eternal called Sersi (Gemma Chan) is living a fulfilling life in London when a threat from the past threatens her life and that of those she loves. Ikarus (Richard Madden), a fellow Eternal arrives and they eliminate the threat together but both realise this is only the start of something bigger so set out to get the gang back together one more time to protect the planet they've called home for several millennia.

The reason The Avengers film worked so well back in 2012 was four previous films had led the groundwork for it. We got to know our heroes on their own before they all got lumped together. Not taking the time to build up to a get together was one of the many reasons The Justice League crashed and burned in 2017. By dint of a great cast and some lovely chemistry generated between them Eternals is far better than the latter while falling short of the former. It's a fun watch but by jesus you have to earn it. If you go into it cold you might struggle because there's a lot going on, a lot of people to meet and get to know and an awful lot of exposition to get through. The film is almost at the halfway point before everyone is back together again and honestly, there's so many characters onscreen that some of them are going to get short shrift.

Deep breath.

We've got Ikarus who might as well be Superman, Sersi who has power over matter, Druig (Barry Keoghan) who can control minds, Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) with his energy beam firing hands, Sprite (Lia Mchugh), a child Eternal with the power to create optical illusions, Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), a creator and inventor who over 7000 years has helped civilisation with all it's major inventions, Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) who's blessed with super speed and Gilgamesh (Don Lee) who's super strong, Thena (Angelina Jolie) the elite and fearless warrior and finally Ajak (Salma Hayek), the leader of the Eternals, blessed with warmth and a Ghia like love for all the world around her. Some of them take centre stage, some are shunted off screen for well over an hour, Ikarus of course gets a tonne of screentime despite being the most boring of the bunch. Gotta get the handsome white dude closeups for the trailers dontchaknow.

A big deal was made of Makkari as being Marvel's first superhero with a physical disability but she barely makes an impact at all. Phastos is the first gay superhero in the MCU and thankfully he gets rather more screentime as we get to meet his husband and son and see a bit of his backstory too when we realise the toll ignoring human conflict can have on even a superhuman pysche. Imagine watching an atomic bomb going off over Hiroshima and knowing you had the power to stop it and couldn't. It's this internal conflict that gives Eternals an unexpected bit of heft. Barry Keoghan's Druig has the power to control the mind of every person on Earth but isn't allowed to use it. The moment he can't take his orders anymore is a memorable one, a little bit of Irish accented rebellion in the middle of a blazing Tenochtitlan.

The main story is as silly and nonsensical as always and the big CGI set pieces are Marvel 101, nothing you haven't seen before but it's the character interactions and smaller moments that really work. Dinners served with spit beer, Bollywood dancing, basically anything that comes out of Harish Patel's (Kingo's manager) mouth. This is the stuff you'll remember next week when all the laser blasts and alien beasties have faded from memory. It's here that director Chloé Zhao makes her mark. 

Eternals is out now everywhere. In every screen. In every cinema in the world. 

Dune

I liked it. It looked great and it was easy to follow.

But I was pissed when I watched it so can't really say more than that.

Venom : Let There Be Carnage

Venom : Let There Be Carnage is more entertaining than it's dull predecessor but that's the definition of damning something with weak praise. It's a fitfully funny watch driven by an entertainingly gonzo Tom Hardy performance but it's best actor (Michelle Williams) is once again painfully underused, it's bombastic ending is something you'll forget 30 minutes after you leave the cinema and worst of all it's PG-13 rating (a very very baffling 15 cert here) means it's title is an absolute lie. Carnage? Pah. Let There Be Mild Violence And One Use Of Strong Language more like.

Eddie Brock (Hardy), a San Francisco reporter, and Venom (Andy Serkis), the symbiotic alien living inside him are an odd couple. Eddie wants to lead a normal life but it's proving hard to do when you've a brain craving visitor from outer space sharing your body. Things are getting tense in this shared sack of meat and they get worse when a visit to a serial killer called Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), who's crimes are being investigated by Eddie, goes wrong and Cletus gets infected by a drop of Venom's blood. Now he's got his own symbiote called Carnage and both have some scores to settle.

The first Venom had some memorable moments (lobsters) but it's final act was mess, reeking of recutting and studio interference. That ain't the case here, with a nice low stakes story designed to fit into a 90 minute running time. Yup, 90 minutes, a comic book movie that for once won't give you a literal pain in the hoop. In those 90 minutes we get two love stories, one platonic (?) between Eddie and Venom and the other romantic, between Cletus and his life long amour Frances (Naomie Harris) who he breaks out of prison to reunite with. Surprisingly both relationships give to the film instead of taking from it, one adding domestic chaos, bonkers humour and some priceless internal monologuing, while the other manages to create an odd feeling of pathos for two psychopaths courtesy of a eerily animated slice of backstory.

All love stories need a bit of tension and this sequel gets it when Eddie and Venom part ways during after a particularly crazy scuffle and it's here we get the opportunity to spend a bit of time with the symbiote off doing his own thing, jumping from host to host, gatecrashing a party, becoming a hit on the underground scene. He's a fun creation to spend time with and yet another CGI character given life by wonderful voice work from Andy Serkis. This poor hulking alien carnivore, he's just misunderstood god help him.  Unlike Carnage. Carnage sucks. His motivations are never explained. He's fierce dull for an alien beastie who can shred a prison in seconds. He's yet another CGI bad guy in a field riddled with them. At least when he's Cletus you can laugh at his hair.

There's a lot to like about this film. Chickens called Sonny and Cher who started as a potential food source but became loved. Eddie and Venom's deal with local shopkeeper Mrs Chen (Peggy Lu) to keep them supplied with a vital resource. Hardy's face every time Venom goes off on a rant only he can hear is the kind of thing that would never not be funny. But so much of it is squandered too. That bleugh climax. The aforementioned Michelle Williams gets maybe 5 minutes of screentime as Eddie's ex Anne and only 30 seconds of those are worthwhile. Naomie Harris is almost equally underused. Venom himself, while fun, deserves a film where the character can really cut loose, his signature move is biting off bad guys heads after all. He needs a film away from the restraints of a family friendly rating. Deadpool got that freedom, so did Logan. Look at the box office megabucks they raked in. Why not Venom? Could it be about to tie into something even more family friendly..... stay in your seat to find out.

Venom : Let There Be Carnage is out in cinemas everywhere from today. 

Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

Grief can be a killer if it consumes you. Early in this latest Marvel film a character is told to move on from a loved one's death and a response tells us that moving on from a huge loss is a Western concept. People die in their thousands in comic book films but this one reminds you that just one death can cause all the pain in the world. For the big bad of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings it's the power that fuels him and it's what gives us what may be the strongest Marvel bad guy yet. Move over Thanos, Wenwu is in town and one of the coolest actors on Earth is playing the part.

Shaun (Simu Liu, a very likable hero) isn't living his best life. He's a parking valet in San Francisico with his best friend Katy (Awkwafina) and he's capable of so much more. As a teen he ran away from his father Wenwu (the mighty Tony Leung Chiu-wai), one of the world's biggest crime lords for over a millenium (yes that's 1000 years) using the power of his ten mystical rings that have turned him into an invincible lord of destruction. Shaun, then called Shang-Chi, trained under him to become a great fighter but skipped town when he realised the life of crime wasn't for him. Now after 10 years his father has found him and his Macau based sister Xialing (Meng’er Zhang) and wants to use them to enter a mystical realm in the hope of righting a tragedy from their shared past.

For a film consumed in grief and loss Shang-Chi is surprisingly entertaining. Like Black Panther and Captain Marvel it gets to do it's own thing away from the MCU (aside from a cameo or two) and the results are very pleasing. That beautiful early fight scene between Wenwu and a warrior woman called Jiang Li (Fala Chen) is a genuine highlight of the entire Marvel franchise and will bring you back twenty years to a time when Asian action/arthouse cinema like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero and The House of Flying Daggers were all the rage. It's a gorgeously drawn and choreographed moment, so much so that not even CGI augmentation can't take away from it. Director Destin Daniel Cretton's skill with fight scenes continues into the grittier, more bruising encounters too with a crunching bus scrap and a scaffold fight between Shang-Chi and Wenwu's henchman Death Dealer being the standouts. Fans of Asian action will recognise all manner of influences here, with fight co-ordinator Andy Cheng drawing on early Jackie Chan slapstick all the way to Donnie Yen's more refined and technical action. A Kung Fu Hustle poster on Shang-Chi's wall nods towards what you can expect too and speaking of that keep an eye out for Yuen Wah in a small role as well, a famous face in Asian cinema for almost 5 decades now, a man who's been decimated by Jackie, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao and brilliantly in his film debut by Bruce Lee. Nods like this will always make the movie nerds in the audience smile.

Plenty of humour will keep everyone else smiling too. Most of it courtesy of Awkwafina playing Katy, the civilian dragged into the whole mess. She's a joy, and her platonic chemistry with her best friend Shang-Chi delivers some wicked laughs. But the film's biggest giggle comes courtesy of a face from an earlier MCU film, a scouse accent, some wild hair and the world's oddest looking pet. This review won't spoil who it is but it's a crowdpleaser. And speaking of crowdpleasers the film's strongest performance comes from Tony Leung Chiu-wai, that Hong Kong acting legend who's barely aged a day since John Woo's Bullet In The Head introduced him to Western audiences 29 years ago. Always effortlessly cool onscreen, here he creates a bad guy with a real grievance, one most people can recognise but he actually has the power to do something about it. His plan is a selfish one that will rip apart what's left of his family and it gives the film a real personal edge. But it also leads to the inevitable BIG CGI CLIMAX ™.

When you watch a Marvel film it's always at the back of your mind that it's coming. That moment when special effects overwhelm everything else and it's at the 100 minute mark when it really kicks off. The setting this time isn't a crumbling city or a disintegrating bad guy lair in the sky but a small lakeside village. Within minutes the screen is covered with zappy beams and all manner of winged nastiness but at least this time it's visually interesting, set during the day which is always a plus and liberally laced with famous symbols of Chinese mythology. It's certainly not a film that can be accused of forgetting it's roots. 

As an introduction to the latest members of the Marvel family Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is a real success. It's lovely to be excited about Superhero movies again after the bland overkill of the last few years.

In cinemas now everywhere.

Free Guy

Before you go any further there's one question for you. Do you play computer games? Or more accurately, have you played a computer game in the last 20 years? If the answer is yes, then proceed with caution. If the answer is no, stop reading now and go about your day.

Free City's an unusual place. Tanks roam the streets, people burning from head to toe run around screaming and financial institutions are robbed with alarming regularity but the citizens of the city never even bat an eyelid. It's because they are NPC's (Non playable characters), created to fill the streets of the most popular video game on earth. One of these NPC's is Guy (Ryan Reynolds), a bankteller who does the exact same thing every single day of his life, until one day he sees the woman of his dreams and he steps off his beaten path into a whole new world of wonder. The woman is the avatar of Millie (Jodie Comer), a programmer who's coding was stolen from her and used to create Free City. Her mission is to search this computer generated metropolis until she finds the information she needs. But she might require assistance and who better to help her than one of it's digital denizens.

As soulless blockbuster films go Free Guy is one of the better looking ones but there's nothing else here. It's fast food cinema. An hour after it's over you'll be hard pressed to remember much about it. It's story of a man realising his entire existence is a lie was done a thousand times better 23 years ago in The Truman Show. That was a story with heart and substance. Here we get smug one liners, glib encounters and so much CGI your eyes will start twitching 30 minutes in. Add in Ryan Reynolds in full Ryan Reynolds mode and it's a recipe for a big ol' headache. The odd blockbuster is worth a pain in the brain but this film doesn't do a tap to earn it. It's most crowdpleasing moment is a cheap one, stolen directly from Hollywood's two biggest franchises. If you've kids with you they may cheer but your eyes will roll at yet another reminder that Disney now owns everything. It's not quite as cringy as Ready Player One but it's close.

Jodie Comer plays two parts in this, Millie and her computer game counterpart. CGC Millie is the one punching, kicking and killing her way across Free City but real Millie is one of the few good things about this film with Comer's expressive acting giving us one character that feels some bit real. Sadly the real life part of the film also gives us Taika Waititi turning into a horribly thin, one note performance as her code thief boss Antwan that shows he's at his best behind the camera. Every time he opens his yap the little bit of life left in the film dissipates and by the axe wielding, city dissolving climax that he's slap in the middle of you'll be well beyond the point of caring.

Free Guy is in cinemas everywhere now. If you've a gamer in your life you might get something from it. If not don't bother.

The Suicide Squad

In the first 30 minutes of The Suicide Squad we get to see two massacres, both played for belly laughs. Famous faces are blown off their skulls, naked men are brutally gunned down, terrible actors that Hollywood has been trying to foist on us for years are impaled gruesomely and a half human/half shark voiced by one of cinemas most beloved action hero's messily devours an innocent victim. If you have a weak and wimpy constitution avoid this film like the plague but if you want to see a sequel that joyfully pisses all over the smoking corpse of the film that came before it then the Suicide Squad is yer only man.

The Island republic of Corto Maltese has been taken over by a military coup and the nazi era laboratory at it's heart is brewing up something seriously nasty. Only the hardiest of the hard, the bravest of the brave and the maddest of the mad are capable of fighting their way into it and destroying the evil within, hence The Suicide Squad, a team of criminals who've been promised time off their sentences if they do the US government's bidding. Their handler is Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), their leader is Bloodsport (Idris Elba at his grumpiest) a killer with a wicked aim, their muscle is Peacemaker (John Cena perfectly cast as an asshole version of Captain America) and King Shark (Sylvester Stallone, brilliant), blunting the machismo of the pack is Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, a delight) and their special weapons are Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) and Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior).  The plan is - get in, plant a few bombs and get out. But that's always easier said than done isn't it.

Oh man, this was so enjoyable. This is what superhero films should all be like. It's hilarious, appallingly so in places, with a total dedication to showing exactly what out of this world powers can do to a normal human body. Don't give us moping or introspection, do give us friendly waving rats, instead of doom and gloom we want Harley Quinn's version of the end of Commando but with added flowers and javelins and for god sake when it comes to the obligatory city crunching climax ™ (nice bit of alliteration there) at least make it fun and nothing says fun like Kaiju sized sea life with killer armpits. Don't worry, that last sentence will make sense as soon as you see the film. Yeah, yeah we're all suffering from superhero overkill but this one feels like a breath of fresh air because it leans into the inherent stupidity and absurdity of superhero movies and has some real laughs with it. Iron Man? Pah, here's The Weasel and The Detachable Kid instead. Despite existing in the same universe as Superman, he's written off with a one line excuse. No, here we're getting the dregs of the super world and they're always more interesting. 

It leans into it's R rating too (16 certificate in Ireland and fully deserving it). There's no quick cutaways to hide the blood and guts and the tame take on the same story from 2016 will be forgotten before the opening credits even roll. Some of the faces from the first one are wiped out rapidly and it all shows that director James Gunn is successfully laying his claim to the franchise. DC learned a lesson with it's adult oriented Harley Quinn film from last year and it's nice to see those lessons liberally splashed all over the island of Corto Maltese and just like that film it's Margot Robbie that's once again the MVP. She's having a ball here and it translates wonderfully to the screen. Gunn knows she's the most interesting character so gives her the best lines, a shootout for the ages and a piece of surreal imagery during the climax that's one of the most nutso things you'll ever see in a superhero film.

Of course it also suffers from the same problems all comic book movies do these days. It's far too long, with a saggy midsection that could easily lose more than a few minutes. It's ties to the first film leave Viola Davis (Amanda Waller, the brains behind the Suicide Squad) wasted in cutaways that only serve to dull the film's energy and as always there's the big city crunching climax ™ but at least this time you'll be laughing and gawping in disbelief instead of yawning at yet another explosion. It's zaniness is a nice capper on the knowingness sprinkled throughout the rest of the film. Plus it's the only time you'll ever get to hear both Stringer Bell and John Rambo say "nom nom's". How could you not love that?

The Suicide Squad is out in cinemas now. If you've seen it's predecessor be happy in the knowledge that this one is a massive improvement. If you haven't seen it, then don't even acknowledge it's existence and just have a whale (or a shark) of a time with this instead.

Black Widow

One of the biggest problems facing an action movie prequel starring a well known character is the fact that you know they just cannot die. No matter what peril they face the worst that might happen is a deep scrape or maybe a fractured finger. Predictability is a great way to sap the tension from a story but what if.......what if you lace the rest of the film with characters so likable that it would feel like a slap if anything happened to them? Black Widow does just that and does it very well indeed.

It's 2016 and in the aftermath of the Sokovia disaster and it's fallout the free Avengers have split up and gone their separate ways. Natasha Romanoff (Scarlet Johansson) is hiding out in Norway and living a quiet life, learning crappy Roger Moore Bond films off by heart, until she's attacked and nearly killed by an unknown warrior. A clue found in the aftermath of battle leads her to a safe house in Budapest where she's reunited with Yelena Boleva (Florence Pugh), a woman who was her sister until their deep undercover family was called back to Mother Russia from America 21 years previously. Now they are going to work together to destroy a face from their past but they can't do it alone. They'll need help from the people who completed their family of four, Dad, a super soldier called Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Mam, a spy by the name of Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) who knows all too well the hell Natasha & Yelena have both lived through.

Complaining about a CGI heavy climax in a Marvel film is like moaning that air is too airy. So let's not do it. It happens, it's big and loud and silly and it's very much the lesser part of the movie. After a 90's set prologue that feels like an action version of TV's The Americans and a godawful cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit the film sets out its stall, letting us know fast this one is going to be a standalone film, that the Avengers are nowhere to be seen. Natasha is capable of looking after herself as we've learned, she doesn't need help from gods or men with metal defences. She's not the only capable one, her sister is a hardy buck too and the second we meet her it's not hard to see how Florence Pugh is going to fit into the MCU's ongoing plans, with her open, expressive face (used so well in Midsommar) and her believable ability to snap and stab. When they meet it's business as usual with a tired ol' smackdown but it's the scenes that come after when they start to get to know each other again that give this film it's real thrills. 

The best parts of the MCU have always been the quieter, chattier moments. Sam and Cap getting to know each other in the Winter Soldier, the after party Mjölnir fun in Age Of Ultron, Thor and his new friends in Ragnarok, basically every time Peter Parker opens his mouth in the Spiderman films. Here they come in the form of two chats around tables, one between sisters and one as a family, complete with embarrassment and cringe courtesy of Dad and his inability to keep schtum. It's dad who's Black Widow's secret weapon. David Harbour's Alexei is a joy to behold. Pure untamed id, like the Hulk but in human form. The fact that his American super soldier counterpart has become famous and he hasn't is rotting him, left him insecure, he's out of shape, he looks like a wild man, he acts before he thinks and everything that comes out of his mouth is gold. He's a great addition to the party. Just wait for the earpiece joke. It's proper belly laugh stuff. Oh btw, he readies for battle in Russian wrestling style, like Zangieff from Streetfighter II, a pose that will make people of a certain age grin like fools.

His macho, unreconstructed ways give us an insight into the horrible backgrounds of Natasha and Yelena, when the latter gives him her entire gynecological history to shut him up during a helicopter ride. What starts as a joke ends in horror and hints at a grittier directional change from the usual family friendly franchise fun. The violence here feels that little bit more brutal, people are made to atone for the collateral damage created by years of heroics, their ledgers are written in blood, the film starts walking down the darker paths seen in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and then.........that old Marvel formula kicks in and it all ends in the usual CRASH BANG WALLOP we said we wouldn't mention earlier. It's a shame. All that goodness dulled by a big dose of bland. 

Black Widow is out everywhere from tomorrow. It's a film that should have been made years ago. Natasha Romanoff deserved it. As it is it's a fine goodbye to Johansson and an entertaining hello to Pugh and Harbour. 

A Quiet Place Part II

 

A Quiet Place Part II is as lean as films get. Just over 90 minutes long and it manages to introduce a fully realised new character to an existing story and widen the world in a believable fashion while still letting us stay terrified for the people we got to know in the first film. Studio's take note please. Not every sequel has to be 2.5 hours long. I'm looking at you F9 and No Time To Die. No Time To Die? At 163 minutes there's plenty of fuckin' time to die.

Jim Halpert. The beanpole with the shaggy haircut who lived to torture Dwight Schrute and love Pam Beasley. Who knew the man who played him (John Krazinski) had it in him to become a director capable of creating set pieces that almost knock you out because you forget to breathe. There's at least 3 absolute nail biters in A Quiet Place II that will leave you on edge and amazingly it's the first one that works best despite the fact that the characters in peril cannot die. It's a flashback to a year before the events of the first film. Lee Abbott (Krazinski) is driving through a deserted town to pick up half time oranges for his kid's baseball game. The store keeper is glued to the tv news. Something bad is hinted at. Things start to feel ominous and they double down as a meterorite tears through the sky above the game. All hell breaks loose. Otherworldly beings rip and shred their way through the town as Lee, his wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) and their kids try to escape. We know they'll be ok but jesus it's terrifying.

Cut to the present day. Lee is gone and Evelyn and her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) have just killed one of the creatures. Their farm is ruined and they need to move and hopefully find other survivors by tracking a mysterious song that's been playing over the airwaves. Along the way they bump into Emmett (Cillian Murphy), an old family friend in full survivalist mode who's traumatised by the loss of his family. But he's not the one playing the song and Regan isn't going to rest until she finds out who's behind it.

As is the way with sequels you'd go into this expecting more of the same and you get plenty of it but writer/director Krazinski is smart enough to change things up somewhat and the injection of Cillian Murphy's Emmett into the narrative is a great idea. Without saying much at all he gives us a sense of the wider world that was missing from the intimate focus of the first film. Civilisation has crumbled and as always humans have really let themselves down and his tales of people hunting in feral packs are almost as threatening as the aliens they all hide from. His and Regan's encounter with one such pack is nerve-wracking but the way it's flows organically into a huge solution is really well done and it shows us how simple, efficient solutions are always better than exposition packed speeches and deus ex machina discoveries. One of the many much appreciated ways to keep a film under 100 minutes.

His appearance also splits the cast and lets the younger members shine especially Millicent Simmonds's Regan. She gets way more to do this time around as Emily Blunt steps back and her actions propel the story forward. She really goes for it during a trainset encounter that will leave you sick with fear. You gotta love seeing the kids stepping up and taking care of business. I wish more films would give em a chance. Her character is deaf (as is she in real life) and the story once again uses this to unnerve and disorient, cutting between her soundless POV and the terrifying grinding, smashing and screaming world of the beasties. As you can imagine, the pin drop silences of part 1 are mostly gone and it's not a bad thing because it just wouldn't suit this more chaotic and kinetic sequel.

A Quiet Place Part II is in cinemas now. If you loved the first you'll get a kick out of this one too. Oh and this time around you can loudly rustle your popcorn without pissing off everyone else. Win-Win.

Fried Barry

Don't know quite how to talk about Fried Barry, a new scifi/comedy/horror from South Africa that's now available on Shudder. It's the kind of film where you'd need to give yourself a good scrub after you watch it. Preferably with Ajax and a brillo pad. I saw it 3 days ago and aspects of it are still bothering me. That can only be a good thing......right?

Imagine Bad Boy Bubby crossed with Adam & Paul but only if Adam wasn't there and Paul had been kidnapped by aliens, had his erection probed (yeah, we see it all) and been taken over by something with otherworldly powers. Afterwards he's let loose on the streets of Cape Town where despite his unnerving appearance he's a magnet for everyone. Everybody he meets wants to get to know him, to shag him, everyone else wants to lash drugs into him. There's an alien presence inhabiting his body and it gets to experience every aspect of humanity, the good parts, the bad parts and the truly ugly parts.

Jesus. This was something. Built off a short movie writer/director Ryan Kruger made a few years back this one is as unique as films come. It's destined to be a cult classic but it's one that will appall and offend a lot of people. Everything is in the mix here, graphic drug abuse, nasty violence, hardcore pornography, race, class, culture, none of it commented on in anyway other than with blunt force. It feels aimless as vignette follows vignette, each one odder than the last, some full of nightmare fuel imagery and streaked with a type of body horror that makes David Cronenberg films feel tame and others about the sneaky methods people use to fuck shops over. You'll feel baffled and agitated and then slowly, it starts to coalesce, a story takes form, the leading character who came off as a rotten piece of shit in the first 5 minutes of the film starts to turn into something.....well you'll have to watch it yourself to find out.

Chainsaws though. Damn.

Gary Greene as Barry turns in a hell of a performance playing a man you'd cross not only a street but a whole town to avoid. Even before his extra terrestrial run-in Barry isn't exactly human, more a presence fuelled by heroin and hate. Greene's unusual look sells it beautifully, allowing his actions to speak much louder than the maybe a dozen words he utters through the film. It's a gifted physical performance too, reminiscent of Vincent D'Onofrio's turn in Men In Black. Awkward, juddering, like watching something getting used to a new way of moving, discovering dancing and lovin' (the second sex scene and it's aftermath will be the divisive moment for a lot of viewers). Through fresh eyes what many would consider normality looks absolutely terrifying.

Fresh eyes. Director Ryan Kruger's certainly got a pair of them. No doubt his vision will be spotted by the big boys, the studios looking for something new and exciting. We can only hope they don't dull his edges too much. I'm still not sure if I liked this film but christ I'll remember it for a while yet.

Fried Barry is streaming on Shudder now.