ExpendableMan Reviews

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire (2023)

"The very idea of love, of... family was beaten out of me"

[3/10 · 5 February 2024]

I've read that 'Rebel Moon' was intended to be a more adult-oriented alternative to 'Star Wars,' but there are a couple of problems with that. First, there's nothing to establish this as a "mature" movie beyond the presence of more violence, bad language and the suggestion of sexual assault. 'Rebel Moon' might be harder-edged than 'Star Wars,' but it's not a nuanced depiction of state and rebellion. The baddies are all despicable villains with no subtleties and the heroes are all well-meaning, aw-shucks underdogs who just want to live in peace. There's no questionable morality or blurring of the lines between heroes and villains; this is a very simplistic good vs evil universe. 'Rebel Moon' might have a high body count and some genuine nastiness in it, but there's never any question of who is doing the right thing. That's not mature writing, that's just adding blood to a children's story.

Secondly, we've already had an adult-orientated alternative to 'Star Wars,' and it was set in the actual 'Star Wars' universe. The 'Andor' TV series was a masterpiece; a multi-layered, intelligently written sci-fi series that rightfully, won critical plaudits and fan praise. It is an absolute must-see and one of the best depictions of fascism ever committed to film. In its wake, 'Rebel Moon' seems one-dimensional and old-fashioned. 'Andor' was "Star Wars for adults," but 'Rebel Moon' is "Star Wars for edgy teens."

Which is a bit of a shame because there are a few things to admire here. Visually, it's stunning. This is a universe of beautiful landscapes, vast spacecraft, creepy human/spider hybrids and all manner of eye-popping delights. 'Rebel Moon' doesn't engage the brain, but it does stimulate the optic nerve and it looks terrific. Plus, let's not ignore the fact it's an original intellectual property and that has to be celebrated. We're drowning in franchises right now, so to see a new one trying to poke through is worth championing. However, it also feels artificial. A lot of franchises spun out of movies that were written as one-offs, but found a huge audience and grew organically. This was written for the sake of being an extended multi-media project of films, novels, videogames and comics before it even earned a single fan.

In other words, not great. 'Rebel Moon' isn't boring, but it also isn't exciting or engaging to make a fuss over. It's just sort of, there. The fact it doesn't really have an ending is irritating as well. The entire two-hour runtime consists of them gathering up all the characters for the big adventure they'll have in the next film. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Zach Snyder typed "science fiction, I'm assembling a team, two hours," into an AI script generator and then filmed the results.

Society of the Snow (2023)

"God tells me what I'm supposed to do at home. But He doesn't tell me what to do on the mountain"

[8/10 · 15 January 2024]

'Society Of The Snow' can't help but invite comparisons with 'Alive,' Frank Marshall's incredibly similar film about a horrific plane crash in the early seventies. The two movies both tell the story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which crashed in the Andes mountains and left a small group of survivors stranded in inhospitable conditions for months. If you've already seen 'Alive,' you've technically seen this one too. It's not strictly a remake as much as two separate films recalling the same events, but the stories unfold in ways that are inherently similar.

However, even when compared to Marshall's great film, 'Society Of The Snow' is the better one. I can't put my finger on why, but it has a greater emotional weight and its portrayal of ordinary young people in terrible circumstances is dignified and respectful. This is a film where people end up eating the corpses of their dead friends, but it doesn't feel exploitative. The acting is consistently good and as the characters are all speaking Spanish, there's a degree of legitimacy that in hindsight, was missing from 'Alive.'

Plus, there's a few crucial extra scenes that increase the scope of the film. Marshall started 'Alive' by putting us right inside the plane minutes before it crashed, whereas JA Bayona begins with a rugby game. You see some of the team's dynamics at work and get a few scenes of them prepping for their trip and it does wonders. They're excited and laughing and talking about girls they're hoping to meet. It's only short, but it gives them greater depth. Similarly, Bayona adds a brief epilogue showing the survivors recovering in hospital and reuniting with their families which is beautifully done. If the scene where a public figure reads the list of survivors and finishes with the name of his own son doesn't make you well up, you're made of sterner stuff than me.

Curiously, the one area where I thought 'Alive' had more impact was the pivotal crash sequence. It was a brutal and shocking moment in the 1993 film, whereas the contrasting scene here felt less intense. It's not pleasant by any means, but it was over quicker and has a tinge of the artificial. Looking through a few reviews here, 'Society' clearly had that affect on a few viewers, but I didn't get the same empty pit of horror in my stomach as I did with 'Alive.'

Otherwise, 'Society Of The Snow' is excellent. Two and a half hours of young men starving to death in the Andes might sound daunting, but it feels like half that length. I couldn't look away and by the end I was in pieces. And Enzo Vogrincic, Matias Recalt, Agustin Pardella and Diego Vegezzi should be on every casting agent's radar from now on. Great film, even if you have already seen its famous forerunner.

Mad God (2021)

"Your land shall become a desolation and your cities a ruin"

[7/10 · 5 January 2024]

'Mad God' is less than ninety minutes long, but getting through it still feels like an ordeal. The film is the passion project of special effects expert Phil Tippett and was (sort of) in development for over thirty years, the director abandoning and returning to it several times before completion. Apparently, he suffered a nervous breakdown while filming, 'Mad God' is a film that has been stubbornly forced onto the screen.

It's almost entirely stop-motion and essentially, it's a vision of hell. There's not much of a narrative, but it starts with a gas-masked soldier descending from the skies through anti-aircraft fire into a desolate, nightmarish landscape. His craft goes down and down and then down some more, finally touching the ground in the centre of a crossroads. With only a crumbling map and a briefcase, the silent protagonist walks out into the wasteland, encountering all manner of horrors on his way, and then things start to get really weird.

To call 'Mad God' bleak is an understatement. The story is so threadbare that the film essentially turns into a mood piece. With no plot to hold onto, the viewer becomes a sightseer into an unforgiving world where grotesqueries wait around every corner. The denizens of this world seem to exist only to suffer or inflict suffering, and they vomit, defecate, and bleed on one another constantly. Grue splatters against walls and bodies and blood spills in rivers. There is no sunlight, writhing monsters wail like bubbies, and witch doctors in plague masks float ethereally from one horror to the next.

It's part David Lynch, part HR Giger, and part Hieronymous Bosch and frankly, it's as disgusting as it is unhinged. The stop motion only adds to the creepiness and thanks to the excellent sound/music production, it's weirdly enthralling. 'Mad God' is an appropriate title, this movie feels like it was made by people who have stared into the abyss for too long.

This does mean that it's not going to be for everyone. It's easy to see how it could be interpreted as a stop-motion effects showreel rather than a "proper film." The unrelenting darkness and cruelty hides a serious intellect, but it could be easily dismissed as being edgy for the sake of it.

Sit back and allow the darkness to envelop you though and 'Mad God' is impressive. It's going to have its detractors and it is a shame that the whole thing isn't animated, there's a few live-action sequences that jar with the rest of the film, but if you're willing to embrace a wordless, experimental horror, you'll find a lot to admire. If there really is a hell, it probably looks like this.

Also, keep an eye out for Robbie The Robot and an ED-209.

The Dark Side of the Moon (1990)

"You don't believe in God, do you Giles? Strange, you believe in me."

[6/10 · 13 December 2023]

'The Dark Side Of The Moon' is easy to dismiss as a low-budget rip-off of 'Alien.' There is some truth to that, but in fairness it does try to forge its own identity and isn't a straightforward knockoff. Direct-To-Video movies often find themselves having to innovate and stretch every penny and while this isn't an overlooked classic, it is an inventive genre flick and worth a revisit.

Set in the distant future of...uh...2022...the film sees a satellite maintenance crew crossing paths with a malevolent force after their ship suffers a mysterious power outage. They encounter an old NASA shuttle drifting ominously near the moon and soon discover that something deeply unpleasant is onboard.

So far, so very familiar but rather than rely on extraterrestrial nasties, 'Dark Side' goes down a more supernatural route. With no money to spend on creature effects or splatter, it also relies more on crafting a bleak, oppressive atmosphere and it actually does a pretty decent job. The shots of giant ships moving slowly in space and the old shuttle silently emerging from the black do wonders for the vibe, while the crew's escalating paranoia and mistrust is effective too. By the time it enters its final act, you can fully understand why they're jumping at shadows.

It doesn't all work however and there are a few clangers in the script. The reliance on the widely debunked Bermuda Triangle as a plot device has aged badly, and there are more than a few hackneyed twists in here. If you can switch the cynicism off though, 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' is creepily effective sci-fi horror that functions like a less gory and cheaper precursor to 'Event Horizon.' I wouldn't rush to watch it but there is enough creativity in here to justify spending an hour and a half wandering through corridors that could really do with another lightbulb or two. Oh, and the closing shot is pretty cool.

Halloween Kills (2021)

"Evil dies tonight! Evil dies tonight!"

[4/10 · 27 October 2023]

I wasn't as big a fan of the previous Halloween movie as some people were and thought it was closer to the high-body count sequels than the original. As it's spooky season though, it seemed appropriate to visit Haddonfield once again and spend an hour and forty with the Michael Myers who isn't responsible for Wayne's World.

And if like me, you thought the previous film focused too much on blood-spattered set pieces and not enough on tension, you ain't seen nothing yet. More people die in the first ten minutes of Halloween Kills than in the original 1978 movie and its immediate sequel combined. By the time the credits roll, more people have bitten the dust than in the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan. There's no gradual, unsettling atmosphere or escalating discomfort, just a constant stream of fire axes hitting heads and knives slicing throats. Halloween is no longer a horror film, this is an action movie.

Which is a shame because there's a few good ideas bubbling just below the surface. For one thing, unlike the slashers of the eighties, you're not cheering for the villain. All of the victims are likeable and you don't want any of them to die. There's not one, but two married couples who are enormously charming in the few minutes they're onscreen before Michael carves them up and not a single person who dies is even remotely arrogant or unpleasant.

Plus, David Gordon Green can handle a fight. Michael's rampage through a squad of firefighters is an early highlight and there's a commendable preference for practical effects over CGI. Some of these kills are really, really unpleasant to behold.

There's even a tantalising glimpse of how mob rule can warp people, but it's not fully explored. Halloween Kills most interesting moment is when a crowd of frightened people give in to their base instincts with tragic results, but it's only a surface-level look. It hints at the possibility that a Halloween movie where Michael doesn't even appear, but people think he does, could be a very intriguing film if in the hands of a capable director.

For the most part though, Halloween Kills is too interested in slamming heads into banisters to look into social commentary. It's a fine action movie, but it's a terrible horror film. Seventeen people died in the 2018 film, but compared to this it's a quiet, unassuming movie. The ending is frustrating too; a subtle suggestion that evil doesn't die and instead changes and adapts is jettisoned in favour of MORE GORE!

The Marine (2006)

"Black men don't drive minivans!"

[2/10 · 9 August 2023]

No-one really dies in The Marine. The film starts in an active warzone, features corpses being eaten by alligators and villains being gunned down, but the super-fast cuts never manage to capture bullets hitting heads or knives slicing into henchmen. Even when people don't die, there's remarkably little blood in the fistfights. This is a movie where headbutting someone in the nose doesn't draw blood, and smashing a glass bottle over a man's head leaves no visible impact at all. The Marine is an action movie, but it's a squeamish one.

It's mainly notable nowadays for being the film debut of John Cena, the multi-time WWE champion turned movie star. And while his likeable charisma is there, this is not a great start. The Marine is fast-moving and action-packed, but it's riddled with plot holes, cliches and it's so desperate to get a 12A rating, that it never feels like there's any danger. Cena absolutely pummels the living daylights out of people, but it never looks like it hurts.

Plus, we can't escape the elephant in the room; the WWE. The logo for 'WWE Films' takes centre stage before the credits roll and in many ways, this movie feels like they translated 2006 WWE onto the screen. Having moved away from the sex and violence of the Attitude Era, the company became more family-friendly and that censor-proofing reluctance to upset anyone is exactly what we get here. This is an eighties-style action throwback but with all the grit removed, the Indiana Jones movies have more blood than this.

The explosions look amazing though, I'll give them that. The production team make a detonating petrol station look fantastic. Robert Patrick has an absolute whale of a time and the joke about The Terminator is fun. The rest of it feels like a movie that Vince McMahon would laugh and cheer along with, while the rest of the cinema sits in awkward silence, thinking about leaving but deciding not to because Kane is stood by the exit.

Mom and Dad (2017)

"You'll be lucky if you see nine."

[7/10 · 7 August 2023]

You know that Youtube video that compiles short clips of Nicolas Cage freaking out and mashes them together into four minutes of unhinged, mental breakdowns? If 'Mom And Dad' was made a decade or so earlier, you can bet a few choice cuts would have made it.

It's a low-budget horror-comedy that is only too aware that it's an exploitation film. Cage and the ever-reliable Selma Blair play a married couple who one day, find themselves beset by the irresistible urge to murder both of their children. Teenage daughter Carly soon finds herself wishing she hadn't talked back so much while struggling to stay alive and protect her eight year old brother, all while their parents swing household items at them.

It takes a little longer to get going than you might expect, and it doesn't go quite as unhinged as expected (where was the blender death they telegraphed?), but it's a fun, blood-soaked romp. It's at its best when Cage goes full madman and the last ten minutes is utterly insane.

And yes, if you're a parent, some of it is relatable. The realisation that you're not young and hot anymore, that a lot of your teenage dreams have gone unrealised and you're now "just mom and dad," can be difficult to come to terms with and this movie is only too happy to exploit that. It takes that grain of truth and escalates it to a demented extreme.

The abrupt ending is a bit frustrating and some might be annoyed that the plot threads weren't tied off by the finale. However, that's not the point. The destination isn't the enjoyable part, the journey is. And this journey has Nicolas Cage trying to murder people with a handheld electric saw.

Hidden Strike (2023)

"You keep a gun under your passenger seat?"

[6/10 · 29 July 2023]

Watching this reminded me of being a teenager in the mid-nineties, hunting down Jackie Chan movies on the shelves of Virgin Megastores. This is very much a throwback to JC's heyday; a ninety minute action flick with a cartoon villain, several big setpieces and bloopers playing over the end credits. It's not one of Chan's best, but it's not one of his worst either. It doesn't reach the highs of classics like Project A, Police Story or Drunken Master, but it doesn't plumb the depths of Rumble In Hong Kong either.

Set in a war-torn Middle East filled with mercenaries and burned out helicopters, Chan stars as a Chinese Special Forces operative. He and his squad are sent to rescue the civilian workers of an oil refinery who keep getting attacked by a militia group. They have to travel down the 'Highway of Death' to escape to safety, but needless to say, things go wrong.

So far, so very functional, but Hidden Strike has an ace up its sleeve. Roughly forty minutes into the film, Chan crosses paths with John Cena's retired mercenary and their destinies become intertwined. And if you had 'John Cena And Jackie Chan Having Impeccable Onscreen Chemistry' on your bingo card, prepare to cash in. The two stars gel instantly. Their bickering bromance turns an average action movie into an entertaining, light-hearted romp through the desert. Never in a million years would I have put these two together, but they're great as a duo.

There's a few other moments worth mentioning; the explosive finale is pretty impressive and Game Of Thrones' Pilou Asbaek is delightfully slimy as the villain, but this is the Chan/Cena show and everything else is just background noise. The CGI landscapes are off-putting (a literal uncanny valley) and Chan isn't as convincingly fleet-footed as he once was, but otherwise this is a fun, throwaway ninety minutes. It's also his best onscreen camaraderie since Rush Hour.

Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken (2023)

"It's time to go big!"

[7/10 · 15 July 2023]

Okay, first things first: I saw this with my eight-year-old daughter. She beamed all the way through, and when I asked her what she thought of it, she made her hands into the shape of a heart and said it was "amazing." She is the target audience, so her opinion holds more water than mine.

Anyway, 'Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken' is a fun little animated flick that doesn't measure up to its potential. On the one hand, it's a sympathetic look at the difficulties of being a teenage girl and there's a lot of emphasis on the mother/daughte relationship. In that sense, it's a bit like a wetter version of 'Turning Red.' On the other hand, it's an inverted telling of the Kraken myth that reimagines the tentacled giants as saviours rather than monsters and essentially inverts the story of 'The Little Mermaid.' In that respect, it's reminiscent of the fairy-tale dismantling of 'Shrek.'

Sadly, 'Ruby Gillman' isn't as good as 'Shrek' or 'Turning Red.' It doesn't skewer its target as brutally as the beloved green Ogre did in his first two films, nor does it reach the depths or poignancy of Mei and her mother.

What it does manage though is to be a perfectly light-hearted and entertaining way to spend a weekend afternoon. Lana Condor's lead performance makes Ruby into an effortlessly likeable lead, and it does raise a couple of decent laughs. There's a running joke about how none of the townspeople realise that Ruby and her family, all of whom are blue-skinned and have fins instead of ears, aren't human and simply accept the excuse that "they're Canadian." Plus, the climactic setpiece where a prom night boat party is interrupted by a Kaiju battle is pretty decent. It's also a feast for the eyes and is a colourful, lively film where there's something to engage your optic nerves on every shot.

It does feel a bit like 'Ruby Gillman' is Dreamworks playing it safe and making a run of the mill kids flick. This is especially noticeable in that one character, who is clearly modelled after a certain red-headed Disney Princess, isn't as bitchy, shallow or malevolent as you might hope. Taken on its own terms though, it's a fun and lively ninety minutes that's full of eye candy. And the eight-year-old film critic sat next to me loved every second.

Medieval (2022)

"Kings may be chosen by God, but they still make the mistakes of men."

[5/10 · 7 July 2023]

'Frustrating' is probably the first word that comes to mind when thinking of 'Medieval.' It's an ambitious attempt to tell a (largely fictional) origin story for Czech national hero Jan Zizka, one of history's most renowned military commanders and you can see flashes of greatness in it, but it's also deeply flawed. On the one hand, there's an excellent cast, some grimy battle scenes and it convincingly recreates the brutality of medieval life. On the other, it's poorly edited and the storyline is needlessly confusing. There's enough duplicitous scheming to fill an entire season of 'Game Of Thrones,' but it's squeezed into a two-hour movie that also features near-constant violence. Keeping track of who's betrayed who and who's allied with who gets increasingly difficult as the film progresses. Especially as one of the most important characters - King Wenceslas - barely gets any screen time.

The meandering plot keeps it from being a potential 'Gladiator' for the streaming generation, but there is still a lot to commend. For starters, the acting is very good. The ever-reliable Ben Foster does a grand job in the lead role; his Zizka is a no great general, he's the leader of a small mercenary band who just wants to get paid, only to get swept up in events beyond his control. He's a violent man who speaks few words, but can convey a wealth of emotion just by tilting his head in the right way. He doesn't grandstand like Russell Crowe's Maximus, but you can still see why peasants flock to support him as the carnage unfolds. Elsewhere, Matthew Goode is excellent as the Machiavellian King of Hungary, while Sophie Lowe puts in a convincingly layered performance as the kidnapped wife of a Bohemian noble.

The battle scenes aren't perfect and can get confusing, but they're also satisfyingly bone-breaking. They're mostly small-scale affairs taking place in regions that helpfully disguise how few people are actually involved - inside a cave, on a narrow road, or on a smoke-shrouded pass - but when maces hit faces, it looks like it really, really hurts. Limbs are severed, arrows are shot into open mouths and people die horribly, all. The. Time. 'Medieval' presents itself as a heavyweight drama, but it also comes with a ridiculously high body count and it's positively drenched in gore. And that's before the Lion turns up and clamps its jaws around a man's head.

Lastly, the depiction of everyday life in medieval Europe is strikingly bleak. Lives are cheap and people have hard, back-breaking existences clawing out their survival in a harsh world. Peasants are oppressed by nobility and sadistic mercenaries. There's murder, hangings, raids, rape, torture and just about all manner of unpleasantness. Granted, some of it does come dangerously close to resembling 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail' without the jokes, but for the most part, it's a convincingly grim world. There's no heroic chevaliers and gallant men of honour, just blood, slaughter and death.

Which inevitably means it's almost a relief when the credits finally roll. 'Medieval' isn't a pleasant film and its more lofty ambitions are held back by a need to deliver crowd-pleasing fountains of crimson alongside heavyweight, Shakespearean tragedy. However, the cast are terrific, the battles will make you wince and it's so tactile you can almost feel the mud drying beneath your fingernails. 'Medieval' isn't amazing but it also isn't terrible. If you're interested in this period of history or just want to see Ben Foster kill half of Europe with a sword, it's worth checking out.

The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023)

"Wyrd bið ful aræd"

[7/10 · 28 May 2023]

Film spin-offs of TV series always walk a proverbial tightrope. On the one hand, they've got to satisfy the expectations of an established fanbase and not compromise the source material. On the other, they've also got to successfully introduce a new audience to an entire cast of characters and explain various events in a fraction of the running time. 'The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die' just about gets away with it.

The film is the conclusion to a TV series that focuses on the conflict between Danes and Saxons in pre-Norman England. Uhtred (Alexander Dreymon - excellent) is a Saxon who was raised by the Danes and straddles both worlds. He fights alongside the English, but worships the Viking Gods and has no time for Christianity. When the film starts, he's loyal to the young King Aethelstan, newly crowned King of Wessex and son of Alfred The Great. Aethelstan however falls under a malign influence and starts to show signs of tyranny, putting him at odds with Uhtred. Meanwhile, a battle-hardened and ambitious Viking warlord conspires to unite the various Kingdoms of Britain under his own rule, using Aethelstan's ruthlessness to drive disaffected Kings to his banner.

And despite having multiple characters to juggle, a complex web of allegiances and a whole lot of backstory, Seven Kings Must Die manages to hold its own as a standalone project. There's a lot of plot crammed into it and keeping track of who is conspiring against who is initially quite tricky, but gradually it falls into place. The story is told very well and even if it threatens to get confusing, it is possible to follow even if you're a newcomer.

Plus it climaxes in a ruddy great fight. The climactic Battle Of Brunanburh is an absolute bloodbath and for once, a dark ages battle is depicted relatively accurately. The two opposing armies actually form a shield wall, instead of just charging at one another a la 'Braveheart.' The press of men is claustrophobic, there's a veritable forest of swords and men wet themselves with sheer terror. It's a blood-drenched, mud blasted depiction of slaughter and you can almost feel the weight of blades thudding into shields.

Granted, it does benefit from seeing the TV show first (or being familiar with the novel series). Uhtred's history with his home fortress and relationship with Aethalstan's dad go all but unmentioned, robbing him of some complexities. Quite why he remains so devoted to Aethalstan also seems odd, especially when the young King has his army butcher an enemy force that's already surrendered. As a whole though, it's an entertaining and gruesome depiction of Ye Olde Britaine, and a fitting conclusion to The Last Kingdom saga.

Blood & Gold (2023)

"We've got some Nazi pigs to hunt down"

[7/10 · 27 May 2023]

In the dying days of the Second World War, Heinrich, a Landser in the German army is sentenced to death by a sadistic SS leader. His crime? Desertion, wanting to escape an unwinnable war and find his way home to the daughter he barely knows. The rope is placed around his neck and his tormentors drive off laughing. But just before they leave the unfortunate soldier to his fate, the Sergeant cruelly twists the noose so that his death will be more drawn out and painful. Mistake.

From this starting point, Blood & Gold rapidly turns into a solidly entertaining war flick that emulates the exploitation movies of the seventies. Come And See this is not, it's one hundred minutes of Nazis getting brutally slaughtered with axes, machine guns and pitchforks.

It seems to have turned up at the right time too. The hype machine for the similarly-themed Sisu is in overdrive at the minute, so Blood & Gold is perfect for anyone that wants to see a Nazi bloodbath but can't make it to the cinema. It's not a complicated film, but if you like your Nazi leaders scarred, fanatically unhinged and destined to meet a gruesome end, this'll be right up your street. It's a grimy, unpleasant movie and the kind of thing Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious could have been inspired by. Some of it is remarkably cruel and it doesn't shy away from killing likeable supporting characters, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't entertained. How can you not grin when a Nazi rapist gets scolding hot coffee thrown into his crotch?

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

"Germany will soon be empty"

[8/10 · 20 April 2023]

I really liked All Quiet On The Western Front, but it does have one massive, glaring problem: the title. The film is a grandiose, anti-war epic about the horrors of life in the trenches and it's terrific, but it's also got a lot of literary weight on its shoulders and doesn't adequately channel the spirit of the source material. It would be less problematic if it wasn't trying to pass itself off as an adaptation of a landmark novel, especially when you consider the ending. It's a great movie, but it's not a great All Quiet On The Western Front movie. The two previous adaptations (from 1930 and 1979) are more faithful interpretations.

The film focuses on a group of impressionable German teenagers and begins in 1917. Seduced by propagandistic stories of adventure and heroism, they sign up for the German army and are sent to fight the French. Their boyhood idealism is shattered almost immediately as they come face to face with the true horror of war. They spend their first night in the trenches huddled in a dugout, shaking with fear as artillery smashes the landscape and deafens them. By the time the sun rises, they've been changed forever.

The film then flashes forward to the closing days of the war. Our teenage heroes are now battle-scarred veterans, whose dreams of heroism have been dashed for the sake of just surviving one more day. At the same time, a leading German official meets with the French for peace talks. The protagonists don't realise it, but the guns might soon fall silent and they could even go home. Providing they live through the next few days.

If you're familiar with Erich Maria Remarque's book, you'll notice this synopsis is slightly different from the original. Like the novel, the film focuses on the erosion of humanity and the horrifying mundanity of everyday life in the trenches, but it tells it differently. The sudden jump in the narrative that misses out on the vast chunk of their frontline experience is jarring and multiple characters are noticeably absent. The brutal combat training is gone, and so is the mind-numbing repetition of identical boring days in muddy trenches and the dehumanisation of the military-industrial complex. Instead, the film is a simple story of base survival against the odds.

For the most part, this isn't a problem as the themes are relatively similar. This a louder, more battle-heavy interpretation but you certainly won't come away thinking that war is anything but a tragedy. What happens to these lads is indescribably awful and in that respect, it matches the book's original idea.

However, the decision to fundamentally alter the climax was a huge mistake. The film ends with a spectacular, all-action finale. A pompous General sends his men into the teeth of the guns for one last ditch attempt at glory and it ends horrifically. But it also misses the point. The original ending is far less melodramatic and significantly more effective, demonstrating the inherent disregard for individual lives that comes with war. The movie doesn't get this. There's nothing quiet about this western front.

Which is a shame because if the characters had different names and the film was called something else, it would be undeniably great. The battle scenes are enthralling and the acting is terrific from start to finish. Seeing the fate of a young soldier who the lead character inherits his uniform from is a genius idea, and you get a genuine sense of the sheer absurdity of the first world war.

It's brutally harrowing and well worth spending over two hours with, but don't go in expecting a faithful adaptation of All Quiet On The Western Front. The ending is hugely misguided though and deviates so drastically from the spirit of the novel that it's hard to get past. It's a great film, but it would have been better if it just ended quietly rather than in a bombastic display of blood and pyrotechnics.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

"He's got issues. Serious psychological issues."

[8/10 · 23 March 2023]

This is a great film, and I absolutely hate it. It's one of the most unsettling movies I've seen in years. From the opening scenes it creeps beneath your skin and itches like a tick. I sat there feeling uncomfortable and got increasingly weirded out until the credits rolled. It is precision engineered to make the audience feel sick to the core and left me squirming and nauseated. It's brilliant, but I never want to see it again.

It stars Colin Farrell as Steven Murphy, a heart surgeon who forms an unlikely relationship with a teenager, after a botched operation leaves him orphaned. On the surface, Martin (Barry Keoghan) is a nice and polite, if rather awkward, young man and the two get along. Murphy gifts him a watch and mentors him, then invites Martin to his home for dinner. But there's something off about their relationship. There's an iciness in every word they exchange, and while it's difficult to put your finger on why, there's something very 'off' about Martin. Then one morning, Murphy's young son is struck down by a mysterious illness and things get worse.

From there, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer turns into a two-hour nightmare. It's a classical Greek tragedy transplanted into the modern world, but while it's recognisable, it's also...wrong? The characters speak with a detached, emotionless delivery, as if they're watching their own lives through a glass window. They casually discuss bodily functions in monotonous, matter-of-fact ways and all seem to possess a chilling lack of empathy. Nobody in this squeaky-clean environment seems to know how to interact with one another. They're all selfish, corrupt and robotic.

And at the centre of it is Keoghan, in a frankly brilliant performance. Martin is a mixture of teenage awkwardness and what can only be described as "innocent malevolence." He's a manipulative, repulsive little scumbag who can make eating a plate of cold spaghetti utterly chilling. He's an unlikeable, malignant presence with a frightening disregard for the lives of everyone around him, including himself. Keoghan is terrific in the role, and while it now feels like an extended audition for his future casting as the Joker, Martin is just as psychotic as the clown prince of crime. And arguably more terrifying because you never quite know how he's doing it.

But lord almighty, I'm glad I never have to see this film again. It's masterfully constructed and everyone involved deserves all the credit in the world, but it's akin to staring into a bleak void for two straight hours. There's no light-hearted moments to break the mood, just an escalating sense of helplessness and inevitability. I've never wanted to bury a film at the bottom of a mine shaft before, but The Killing Of A Sacred Deer is the one.

Nope (2022)

"Right here, you are going to witness an absolute spectacle"

[8/10 · 8 March 2023]

Like his previous movies, Jordan Peele's 'Nope' is a film where the less you know before watching, the better. It also cements him as a leading voice in modern horror who deserves to be mentioned alongside directors like Sam Raimi and John Carpenter. 'Nope' is a movie that has a lot going on, and there are multiple layers to digest, but you can also enjoy it on a purely superficial level. Film students can dig deep into the themes of animal exploitation, the erasure of black contributions to cinema and even nods to how plastic is ruining the ocean, but you can also just appreciate it as a people versus UFOs movie.

It revolves around Otis and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer), a brother/sister duo who run a ranch that provides horses for movie and television productions. After some electrical disturbances and unusual behaviour from their horses, Otis becomes convinced he sees a UFO in the night sky. He persuades his sister to help him install cameras and hopefully record evidence of alien activity, partly motivated by the need to "get the Oprah shot," and party because he suspects the visitors have something to do with his father's unusual death six months earlier.

And honestly, even that brief synopsis is giving too much away. But rest assured, 'Nope' starts out like an alien abduction movie, but it messes with the genre tropes in much the same way that 'Us' so masterfully played with a 'C. H. U. D' template. It's also a great example of how to pace a film. The first thirty minutes seem a bit drawn out, but 'Nope' builds and builds into an unbearably tense, white-knuckle finale. It also has at least one pivotal scene that is brutally horrific and instantly sears itself into your brain as nightmare fuel. The subplot involving a mid-nineties sitcom that goes wrong isn't a cakewalk either.

In other words, this movie rules. If you're even remotely interested in horror (and to a lesser extent, westerns), check this out as soon as you possibly can. Peele is now three for three.

Die Hard 2 (1990)

"Just once, I'd like a regular, normal Christmas."

[7/10 · 21 January 2023]

Die Hard 2 is darker and crueller than the first film, but it's also a lot sillier. It doesn't manage to live up to the impossibly-high standards set by its classic predecessor, but it has a damn good go and is still an enjoyable sequel.

Set a year after his heroics at Nakatomi Plaza, the film sees luckless Cop John McClane caught up in a terrorist plot at Dulles International Airport. A renegade military unit led by William Sadler's ice-blooded Colonel Stewart hijacks the airport landing systems and threatens to start crashing passenger planes unless he's allowed to rescue a dictatorial South American General whose flight is due any minute. This leaves several passenger planes circling in the skies overheard, unable to communicate with the tower. Their fuel is running low and to add to the pressure, John's wife Holly is on board one.

From this premise, Die Hard 2 manages to wring a series of explosive action set-pieces. Despite obvious similarities with the original, it's also just different enough to have its own distinct identity. The airport is a much bigger playground for John McClane to shoot to bits, and it's also refreshing that our hero is running around trying to find the bad guys, rather than the other way round.

However, it's also riddled with plot holes. The planes are left circling the airport for ninety minutes and despite a brief mention of other airports being closed, it seems a bit daft they can't, you know, fly somewhere else and land. Planes can travel a long way in 90 minutes and there are a lot of airports in the United States. It also seems bizarre that none of these planes seems to have an altimeter on board.

That being said, providing you can suspend your disbelief, Die Hard 2 is a reliably entertaining popcorn flick. There's a nice variety in the action scenes, including a shoot-out in an unfinished terminal, a snowmobile chase and a punch-up on the wing of plane. It's violent too, almost comically so. Blood fountains and bullets punch holes in people, and John gets to deliver an inventive kill with an icicle that could have been stolen from a Freddy Kreuger flick.

It must be said though, despite being pure stone-hearted evil, William Sadler does not have the same villainous gravitas as Alan Rickman did. However, he outdoes Hans Gruber for sheer malevolence; the scene where he intentionally crashes a plane full of innocent bystanders is genuinely horrifying. It's easily the nastiest scene in the entire franchise and gives Die Hard 2 a wicked, unpleasant edge.

While it's no Die Hard 1, Die Hard 2 is a lot better than its reputation would have you believe. Unlike most of the following films, it also feels 'more Die Hard.' McClane hasn't evolved into the indestructible super cop of later entries yet, and some of the punches he takes look hideously painful. By the time the film reaches a hugely satisfying and explosive finale, he's covered in blood, completely exhausted and looks like he's not going to be 100% until the next Christmas. In that respect, Die Hard 2 is a lot like Jaws 2; they're both sequels that fail to live up to groundbreaking originals, but do feel like they belong in the same universe and deserve another look.

The Empty Man (2020)

"If you touch me, you'll die."

[6/10 · 16 October 2022]

The Empty Man is a curious movie with many great ideas, but unfortunately, it winds up being a disappointment that can't shoulder the weight of its own ambitions. James Badge Dale stars as a grieving ex-Cop who goes looking for his neighbour's missing daughter, only to find himself investigating a mysterious cult. It's creepy and unsettling, but it's also dangerously overlong and can't seem to decide what type of movie it is. The ambition is commendable, but this is a case of trying something new and not quite getting it right.

Part of the problem is that the first twenty minutes is exceptional. Set two decades before the main body of the film, it tells the story of four hikers in the Himalayas who get into serious trouble when one of them falls into a catatonic state. It's an atmospheric introduction, with the high altitude setting and ghostly snowy landscape doing wonders for the vibe. It functions almost like it's own short film and it's utterly enthralling, the appearance of a weirdly extra-human skeleton adding a Lovecraftian touch.

But once the film begins properly, it can't measure up to its own high standards. The tone remains consistently bleak and downbeat, but the frequent genre shifts don't do it any favours. The Empty Man starts as a ghost story, turns into a hardboiled noir detective film, then wanders into Wicker Man territory before fumbling the ending.

It takes a long time to reach the ending too. The story unfolds gradually, and at first it works, but after ninety minutes the goodwill of the introduction is wearing thin, and there's still three-quarters of an hour to go. Badge Dale is excellent as the lead, but his story is less enthralling and you start wishing you were back in the mountains with those luckless backpackers. The ambition is commendable and The Empty Man is certainly a cut above the childish creepypasta it's been unfairly painted as, but this is a noble failure rather than an overlooked gem.

Man of Tai Chi (2013)

"You owe me a life."

[8/10 · 1 August 2022]

To date this is Keanu Reeves' only directorial outing and if ever there was any doubt that Neo is a massive nerd, 'Man Of Tai Chi' puts it to rest.

Shot largely in Cantonese and Mandarin but with a smattering of English dialogue as well, it tells the story of Tiger Chen (played by, uh...Tiger Chen), a Tai Chi expert who becomes embroiled in an underground fight club. Promised rich rewards if he fights and doesn't ask questions by Evil Businessman In A Black Suit Donaka (Reeves), Chen starts kicking heads in until things unravel and his life starts to crumble.

It's not a groundbreaking film and it's very much a genre piece, but this 105 minutes of martial arts bliss. Chen cracks limbs and dishes out the pain in a string of excellent fight sequences. There's no rapid cuts to hide the wirework, this is clear and precise fighting. And it looks like it really hurts.

Chen makes for a likeable lead too and the film's biggest strength, is arguably how it tells the story of his mental downfall. There's very little exposition in the dialogue, but as the fights get more intense, our hero is noticeably less serene and more agitated. At the start, he's a veritable ocean of calm and measured breathing, but after an hour he's an agitated, angry-eyed psychopath. Chen conveys this through body language and it's impressive to see.

But the main focus is the fighting and here, 'Man Of Tai Chi' delivers. The bouts are brutal, limb snapping affairs and there's a seemingly limitless number of them. It's not big, it's not clever, but this is genre cinema done magnificently. And when Iko Uwais makes a cameo, you'll be punching the air with glee.

Interceptor (2022)

"The only way to save our nation and the promise it once held is to erase it"

[6/10 · 11 June 2022]

I've seen a few sniffy reviews of Interceptor and half the people on Twitter seem to utterly hate it, but I thought it was pretty decent. It was a solidly made low budget action movie and while the CGI wasn't convincing, the close-quarters punch-ups were. It reminds me a lot of the direct-to-video action movies you'd find in Blockbuster chains. They're definitely working with a tight budget, but it's surprisingly moving too.

The film stars Elsa Pataky as an army Captain assigned to a missile-interception base in the middle of the ocean. No sooner has she turned up than terrorists seize control of the rig, leaving pretty much everyone dead except our rock hard heroine. Sealed in the rig's command centre, she begins a tense back-and-forth battle of wits to save America from nuclear armageddon.

And while it does look as though they've stretched every penny as far as it can possibly go, Interceptor has a surprising depth. The lead's backstory revolves around a promising career ruined by a sexual harassment case, while the themes of rich men failing upward and MAGA talking points uncomfortably on-point.

The key attraction though is the fighting and Interceptor delivers. The gunfights aren't much to shout about, but when Pataky is dodging knives and driving her elbows into bad guy's faces, it's reliably entertaining. There's a couple of gruesome deaths here (although a telegraphed acid kill never arrives) and the film doesn't shy away from decapitations in order to win a lower rating.

At its heart, Interceptor is a meat and potatoes action film. It's got a few things to say about modern American societal attitudes towards things like workplace harassment and that will inevitably rile up the online trolls, but it is a fun ninety minutes of bone breaking. The Chris Hemsworth cameo is overdone though.

Metal Lords (2022)

"You are metal beyond reproach"

[4/10 · 7 May 2022]

I wish I loved Metal Lords, I really do. For the past twenty years I've been a diehard metal fan and it's obvious that the people behind this movie are. A raucous comedy about teenagers discovering a love of metal that includes cameos from famous faces and references to underground bands like Tomb Mold should be right up my street, but unfortunately Metal Lords just isn't very good.

This is down to several reasons. First, it isn't funny. While the corners of your mouth might curl up slightly once in a while, there isn't a single belly laugh to be had. The complete absence of humour becomes glaring after a while and there's no witty or insightful dialogue to make up for it.

Second, these teenagers don't behave like teenagers. They're more like how fifty-year-old screenwriters think teenagers behave. There's a lot of angst, banter and directionless anger, but it feels stilted and unnatural. These are teenagers written by adults who don't know any teenagers themselves, but have seen Superbad and that'll do.

Lastly, the most outwardly metal character and one of the three central protagonists, is an irredeemable jerk for almost the entire movie. Obnoxious characters are fine, but Hunter isn't just unpleasant to his teachers, bullies and parents. He speaks to his friends in the exact same way he speaks to people he doesn't like. He treats his supposed best friend Kevin like dirt, is openly hostile towards Emily, Kevin's girlfriend, and it's difficult to see why they even hang around with one another.

On the plus side, the last fifteen minutes of the film is great. A race against time to compete in a Battle of the Bands competition climaxes in a big redemption moment that is genuinely uplifting. It's a bit contrived that an entire school turn into raging metal fans in the space of a single song, but it's still a terrific ending. And let's not overlook the fact that the original song they play, is really really good. It's a massive thrash metal banger with nasty riffs and an adrenaline pumping chorus and it ends the film on a headbanging high.

Shame then that the preceding hour and twenty minutes is so joyless. I hate to say this because I wanted so much to love Metal Lords, but the killer soundtrack can't compensate for the lack of jokes.

The Big Gundown (1967)

"You couldn't catch a limping snail!"

[7/10 · 30 March 2022]

Supposedly one of Quentin Tarantino's favourite westerns, Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown is an entertaining old school flick. It focuses on a prolonged pursuit between Lee Van Cleaf's Texas lawman and Toma Milian's accused child-murderer, as he attempts to escape to Mexico. It's a classic Hero and Villain chase set-up, only for things to unravel as it gradually becomes clear that Milian isn't as guilty as we've been led to believe.

This being a spaghetti western, there's a lot of fun to be had. Cleaf is noble but ruthless, while Milian's roguish escapades have an almost Looney Tunes-esque zaniness about them. As the chase unfolds, there's a string of setpieces to enjoy; the blazing gunfight at a widow's ranch is an early highlight, but there's also a wild brawl at a Mexican brothel and a tense desert showdown as well.

Plus there's the monocle-wearing German villain, crooked rail prospectors and a whole host of people being slapped around the face. The bodycount reaches double figures and it never slows down enough to become boring, zipping quickly from one action scene to the next.

True, it does take too long to reveal Milian's innocence which makes it difficult to root for him in the early going. And make no mistake, this is a fun genre pick, not a forgotten rival to classics like The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

However, it is a fast-paced, blood soaked romp through the west. Lee Van Cleaf is a classic manly man doing manly things and Milian is a charming antihero. It's definitely one for genre fans but as a whole, The Big Gundown is one of those "don't make 'em like this anymore" flicks for dads everywhere.

Nemesis (1992)

"It pays to be more than human."

[5/10 · 17 January 2022]

Action movie fans went a bit crazy over Nemesis on Twitter this week. I'd seen it once before but that was over a decade ago and I could barely remember it, so with the hype train in full effect decided to check it out again.

And much as I admire the action-community over on the Twitterverse, I think they may have over-reacted. Nemesis isn't bad, but it's also no lost classic and there's a reason the majority of moviegoers have barely heard of it.

The good news is the action scenes kick ass. Years before The Matrix was even a glint in the Wachowski's eyes, Nemesis brought Hong Kong style gunplay to Hollywood. Cybernetically enhanced killers tear cheap hotels apart, punch one another through walls and absolutely rinse their surroundings with bullet holes. Whenever the guns open up or the fists start flying, Nemesis rules.

It's the bits around the fighting that are the problem. There's barely any attempt at world-building so the opening sequence, while fun, is very confusing. Who is this cop with robot legs and why did he just blow that cyborg woman's head in half? Who are the people chasing him? Are they all cyborgs?

Once the initial adrenaline burst is out the way, Nemesis becomes a convoluted and bewildering mess. The hero is a renegade cop, but he was also in prison for some reason and he's recruited by a Government agency to hunt down some terrorists who are all anti-cyborg even though some of them are cyborgs and this involves travelling to a Pacific island and climbing a volcano and the Government agency might actually be the villains, and there's a clone and it might secretly be one character from an earlier scene who barely said anything...and what? What the hell is happening? It's a movie you have to pause halfway through, just to read the Wikipedia page and get some clarity on who the villains are.

Lead actor Olivier Gruner isn't great either. He handles all the fisticuffs and bullet dodging like the best, but when it comes to acting, he's not terrific. He reads his lines monotonously, is painfully wooden and makes even Seagal look like a classically trained thespian. He looks amazing when pirouetting in mid-air and firing grenade launchers at people, but is otherwise difficult to watch.

Nemesis is definitely overrated, but to its eternal credit, it was ahead of its time. There are some weighty themes on the blurring lines between man and machine and with its philosophical take on violence, was something of a bridge between action eras. Films with bigger budgets would copy these setpieces for decades (Underworld, I'm looking in your direction) and it's best viewed as a precursor to the likes of Blade, Equilibrium and The Matrix. Nemesis isn't great, but it does have a lot to commend it and it's definitely worth watching, if only to see where Hollywood pinched loads of ideas from.

The Last Duel (2021)

"The penalty for bearing false witness is that you are to be burned alive"

[7/10 · 11 January 2022]

The Last Duel famously didn't make much money at the box office. Curiously, Ridley Scott blamed that on cellphone addiction, but it's more likely that a two-and-a-half-hour medieval epic focusing on rape and violence probably didn't appeal to audiences who were getting over a global pandemic.

The Last Duel is a very dark film, but it's also very good. It tells the story of two feuding Knights in medieval France and the events leading to their bloody public showdown. It does so from the perspective of three different characters, Rashomon-style, and is a long, engrossing tale. Of the two Knights, Matt Damon's battle-scarred Jean De Carrouges initially seems the nobler, but once the film switches to his wife's version of events, it becomes clear that neither of these haughty old men is particularly likable. In fact, you may find yourself hoping they end up decapitating one another.

Fans of Scott's earlier sword-waving epics might be annoyed to find there's very little in the way of onscreen carnage. There are fleeting glimpses of pitched battles, but the focus is mainly on an intimate and grounded story. And it's grim too; Medieval France seems to be in the grip of perpetual winter and despite spanning several years, it looks cold, wet and miserable all the time.

This does have the unfortunate effect of making The Last Duel feel like a very serious film taking place on the set of Monty Python And The Holy Grail. There are medieval stereotypes aplenty - toothless peasants, loads of mud, chickens fluttering through markets - but the compelling story carries it through. And it must be said, Jodie Comer steals the movie. She manages to outact both the heavyweight thespians she shares the screen with and makes Marguerrite De Carrouges into a sympathetic, emotionally layered heroine. The movie takes pains to highlight that her version of events is the most accurate.

The lengthy runtime and dark subject matter do make this a tough sell and it's not surprising that post-Covid audiences didn't flock to it. However, it's on Disney Plus now and hopefully, more people will take the time to invest in it.

Also credit to Ben Affleck for playing against type as a debauched aristocrat, philandering his way through Normany and coming within a whisker of being a Blackadder character. He's having a whale of a time even if no-one else is.

The Fable (2019)

"It's hot!"

[7/10 · 9 December 2021]

The Fable is a film that shouldn't work. An action-comedy based on a successful Manga series, it revolves around Akira Sato (Jun'ichi Okada), a hitman who finds himself on an unexpected holiday after his latest job. Ordered to lie low, his boss gives him strict instructions not to kill anyone for a year and try his best to live a normal life. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done with two rival assassins looking to take him out, not to mention an ambitious young gangster attempting to start a gang war. It's also not helped by the fact Sato had an...unconventional upbringing at best and isn't really sure how to behave around regular people.

The end result is a film that's very silly, delighting in scenes of a stone-faced killer struggling to socialise with his new co-workers and avoid blowing his cover. Okada's deadpan performance is great, watching him work out how to eat fish in public and delighting in the antics of a childish comedian raises a few laughs and the film is consistently entertaining.

The comedy however is noticeably at odds with the violence. The opening gun battle is a blood-splattered introduction and there's a fast-paced brawl in a factory towards the end which is wildly impressive. The psychotic villains and references to sex trafficking also mean The Fable is only a whisker away from being a very dark film indeed. Sato's social awkwardness is endearing, but when he's blowing holes in torsos and gunning down gangsters en masse, he's borderline inhuman.

The two styles shouldn't mesh but strangely, they do. The Fable winds up being surprisingly enjoyable. It isn't as funny as it wants to be and it definitely handles the action better than the comedy, but for a good seventy percent of the run time, it's a blast.

Ad Astra (2019)

"I am looking forward to the day my solitude ends"

[7/10 · 4 December 2021]

Okay, let's get right to the point: Ad Astra is better than Interstellar. As far as big, profound sci-fi movies about sad astronauts go, this one is the clear winner. It's not got anything as good as Matthew McConaughey breaking down as he watches a lifetime's worth of his daughter's videos, but it also doesn't have anything as crushingly stupid as a man hiding in a bookcase and leaving messages in the dust. Ad Astra is equally self-important but also remarkably restrained. It doesn't reach for the heights Interstellar did, but in doing so it doesn't miss them either.

Set roughly a hundred years in the future, Brad Pitt stars as Major Roy McBride, an astronaut so methodical he's able to handle free-falling from Earth's orbit without his blood pressure rising. They really want to drive home how cool-headed he is, the film even takes pains to point out how rarely his heart rate increases. When a mysterious interplanetary surge threatens all life in the solar system, he's sent on a voyage to Mars. It turns out that his dad - played by a suitably weary-eyed Tommy Lee Jones - was the leader of a mission to Neptune to explore the possibility of alien life, only to vanish without a trace. And now he's returned and the technology used to power his aging ship has the power to wipe out all life as we know it.

Faster than you can say "Event Horizon," Pitt is travelling through space to confront a father he's believed to be dead for most of his life and his icy facade starts to crack. And if there's one thing Ad Astra does well, it's convey how the sheer scale of the universe. The distance between the Earth and the Moon seems vast, cold and empty. The distance to Mars and Neptune is almost beyond comprehension. Beyond that, it's terrifying. Space is silent, dark and even the largest spaceship is but a tiny speck, as insignificant as an individual piece of dust in a ray of sunlight. It's awe-inspiring and scary, death is only a fabric tear away. And McBride's journey grows increasingly troublesome the further he gets from Earth.

The obvious comparison is Apocalypse Now, the vastness of space replacing the river and Jones' lost spaceman replacing Brando's insane soldier. Ad Astra doesn't stray from crowd-pleasing setpieces either; Apocalypse Now had that incredible helicopter attack sequence, whereas Ad Astra has a moon buggy chase scene which is remarkably entertaining. It's a rare moment of popcorn-munching fun but weirdly, it doesn't feel out of place. The angry space baboons however are certainly pushing it.

However, for all its good points, Ad Astra does play it remarkably safe. There is room here for fascinating philosophical ruminations on man's place in the universe, but it instead concentrates on a straightforward hero's journey. It doesn't embrace the more wide-reaching themes and instead plays too close to its inspirations. If you've seen Apocalypse Now, you know how this is going to end. And there's never any danger of it straying from the path.

But, while it has faults, Ad Astra is definitely worth a watch. It is full of cool visuals, from vast blue planets hanging in the inky blackness, to the surrealism of astronauts swimming through murky underground rivers. Pitt is fully committed too, his performance is top-notch and just as well; this is very much a one-man show. Donald Sutherland, Liv Tyler and even Tommy Lee Jones are really no more than glorified cameos. Ad Astra is very good, but it's not excellent. It's not as clever as it thinks it is but visually it's stunning, Pitt is excellent and he does not wind up in a bookcase. That fact alone earns it an extra point from me.