Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Film Review

Eddie Brock and Venom must make a devastating decision as they’re pursued by a mysterious military man and alien monsters from Venom’s home world.

Venom: The Last Dance is directed by Kelly Marcel which is her directorial debut, this film serves as the final film in the Venom trilogy and is the fifth film in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.

Going into this one I was hoping it would be somewhat fun. I liked the last film Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) decently enough but did not like Venom (2018). Unfortunately The Last Dance is a very nothing movie, it really does seem like everyone involved had no clue how to wrap up the trilogy so they threw as many ideas as the wall as they possibly could.

Tom Hardy is still quite fun here, the interactions between him and Venom are still great and have some decently funny moments. They aren’t on the scale as they were in the past but considering how empty the rest of this movie is that should be considered a compliment. I also do like some of the action scenes, the special effects are quite bad in some areas but the action is just silly enough to be considered entertaining.

Unfortunately the rest of the movie is a mess, we are introduced to a lot of new characters who quite frankly should have been in the previous movies. Because tell me why this is the last movie of the trilogy and we are only now getting introduced to bare bone characters? Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple in particular have very little to work with, the movie also wastes so much potential with Knull (played by Andy Serkis) as the villain. Knull suffers from not being in the movie that much and really fails to show how interesting the character can be. Instead the movie wastes so much time on plot points that should have been explored far earlier in more depth.

Perhaps the most jarring thing about this movie is the final moments, it ends with Maroon 5’s Memories in just such a so bad it’s hilarious type of way that is so baffling. It’s by far the most memorable part of the movie in all the wrong ways, it makes you wish that the rest of the movie at least attempted to try and be that silly. But that’s not the case here, unfortunately you are stuck with dull characters that you couldn’t care less about with some mediocre action and a very bland wrap up to a trilogy.

The ending also really makes you question what was even the point of the trilogy to begin with, it’s obviously trying to go for this emotional “let’s look at the old times” sort of deal but it doesn’t work narratively and that it’s just so laughably bad.

Overall Venom: The Last Dance is a very nothing movie and adds nothing to the trilogy, it’s a shame because as I said earlier the stuff with Knull had potential. There was just absolutely no focus whatsoever at all in this movie.

Venom: The Last Dance is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

Quick Review: Watchmen: Chapter II (2024)

Former heroes face threats. The Comedian is dead, Dr. Manhattan exiled to Mars, Ozymandias survived an attack and Rorschach is arrested.

Watchmen: Chapter II is directed by Brandon Vietti director of Superman: Doomsday (2007), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Scooby-Doo! Wrestlemania Mystery (2014), Batman: Death in the Family (2020) and Watchmen: Chapter I (2024)

Much of what I said in my review for Chapter I can be applied here for Chapter II. It’s a very serviceable retelling of the Watchmen comics and much like the previous movie is decently fun and somewhat interesting.

Also much like the previous movie the animation is what sticks out the most, there’s definitely some hiccups at times but for the most part the animation is consistent from the first part and does have some really great moments. The voice acting is fine enough here, Phil LaMarr is probably the standout as his narration gets your attention quite easily. Outside of LaMarr there really isn’t anything particularly special about the voice acting, it’s fine enough and gets the job done.

This movie wraps things up from the previous movie and it’s done and told in an a competent way, the two parts together paint a very competently told way to tell the story of Watchmen it’s not a bad place to start for newcomers. There are parts where admittedly the movie does sort of feel rushed particularly towards the end which is an odd decision given how the pacing of the rest of the movie was balanced decently well.

Overall not bad, but I don’t think I will ever come back to this movie nor its predecessor.

Watchmen: Chapter II is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+

Elevation (2024) Film Review!

Post-apocalyptic survivors find refuge in the Rocky Mountains to hide from giant, insect-like creatures that can’t live above 8,000 feet. However, when one needs life-saving supplies, they risk it all to venture into the danger zone.

Elevation is directed by George Nolfi director of The Adjustment Bureau (2011), Birth Of The Dragon (2016) and The Banker (2020).

Didn’t have a lot of expectations going into Elevation and well it’s exactly how you think it is if you simply watched the trailer. It’s a bare bones copy of A Quiet Place (2018) just with a little less horror and more action, so there really is not a whole lot to be said here.

Anthony Mackie, Morena Baccarin and Maddie Hasson do a fine enough job here but due to the lacking script that’s filled with cliche character types, there’s no depth here to make their characters interesting or to bring the viewer in. It’s a huge problem that becomes incredibly noticeable by the middle section of the movie, where despite being only 90 minutes long you feel like you have learned absolutely nothing about these characters.

The Rocky Mountains backdrop is beautiful at the very least and there was some potential to really mix it in with the story in such exciting ways, it’s just such a shame that the movie executes the story in such lackluster ways that are way too similar to a lot of post apocalyptic films. There’s never any risks or any sort of moment that could surprise the viewer, it’s all just cliches that you can see coming from a mile away.

Despite that however I don’t think Elevation is a horrendous movie, the acting is fine enough, the camerawork has beautiful moments and the locations are often great. The movie just suffers from introducing an interesting premise and really not doing much else with it.

Elevation is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

The Shadow Strays (2024) Film Review!

Skilled in the art of killing, a young assassin defies her mentor to save a boy from a ruthless crime syndicate.

The Shadow Strays is directed by Timo Tjahjanto director of May The Devil Take You (2018), The Night Comes For Us (2018), May The Devil Take You Too (2020) and a few others. He’s also co-directed a few films such as Killers (2014), Headshot (2016) Macabre (2009) and a few others!

Timo Tjahjanto is a director I always look forward to when I hear a new film of his is coming out. Tjahjanto is arguably one of the best modern action film directors, he very clearly has a passion for them and really goes all out with each of his films. The exact same can be said for his most recent film The Shadow Strays.

The performances are fantastic but the main standout by far is Aurora Ribero who prior to this film did drama and comedy films, so it’s really impressive to see how much she really goes all out here. You would think she had to have done at least a few action films before this considering how incredible she really is here. Ribero pours everything she’s got into this performance both emotionally and physically which leads it to be such a thrilling and exciting performance. Her character 13 or Nomi is very well developed and really brings so much emotion towards the end of the film which leads to one of the best choreographed one on one fights I’ve seen in a while.

The action scenes are Tjahjanto’s specialty so it’s no surprise that they are once again top notch, they are just as violent and well choreographed as they have always been. Seeing Ribero crushing anyone in her path is just truly satisfying and really gets the viewer pumped and brought into the film. She’s on this journey and we are along for the ride, sure the action might be a bit more of the same thing from Tjahjanto’s previous work but if it isn’t broken don’t fix it.

There really isn’t much more to say, if you love Tjahjanto’s work you already know what you are getting into with this one!

The Shadow Strays is available on Netflix.

9/10 A

Transformers One (2024) Film Review!

Optimus Prime and Megatron, as former friends, bonded like brothers. Their relationship ultimately changes Cybertron’s fate forever.

Transformers One is directed by Josh Cooley who previously directed Toy Story 4 (2019).

By this point there’s been a ton of Transformers films after so many live action ones a new animated one takes the stage. Do not let the trailers fool you this is actually a really great Transformers film.

Transformers One sort of serves as an origin story and focuses on the friendship of Optimus Prime and Megatron and how they drifted apart, the way the film executes this is surprisingly quite great. This could have easily went completely wrong and even come across as silly or nonsensical, but the script and the direction the film takes has a lot of passion behind it and these characters are well developed to make the whole idea work.

The voice cast all around are quite great Chris Hemsworth as Optimus Prime and Brian Tyree Henry as Megatron are the standouts by far, seeing the two’s back and forth is truly investing and their voices gives these characters so much power and depth. The two have great chemistry and really make a lot of crucial scenes shine, Keegan-Michael Key as Bumblebee is a fun performance, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime makes for a great villain and Steve Buscemi as Starscream is just excellent casting. Even if he doesn’t get a lot of screen time he absolutely embodies Starscream and is a dead ringer to Chris Latta’s version of the character.

The animation is actually quite great, it takes a bit to get use to how the characters look but as the film goes on it becomes more clear that this art direction was the best move and incredibly fitting. The film has some gorgeous moments that really do make it shine and capture the world of Transformers. Plus the visuals do a very good job of building the world of the film, combine that with the dialogue that does not over explain itself and you have yourself a simple yet beautiful world.

The film exploring the friendship between Optimus Prime and Megatron plus leading into the downfall of it is the film’s main strength. It’s very reminiscent of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (2005) and I mean that in a good way, you get the excellent action scenes, some really powerful dialogue that reflects the two’s bond and how much it’s slowly being broken. There’s a lot of loud and quiet moments between the two and it’s enough to get the viewer invested in these characters, although we know what’s going to happen it’s still incredibly powerful and well written.

There’s of course minor flaws such as Sentinel Prime being a very obvious villain from the start and some of the jokes don’t quite land. But those are nowhere near enough to take away how much fun and overall well written Transformers One really is.

Transformers One is available on all VOD platforms.

9/10 A

Azrael (2024) Film Review

Years after the apocalypse, a devout cult of mute zealots hunts down Azrael, a young woman who escaped her own imprisonment.

Azrael is directed by E.L. Katz director of Cheap Thrills (2013), A is for Amateur from ABC’s of Death 2 (2014) and Small Crimes (2017).

Azrael is an interesting one filmmaking wise, outside of a few moments (and I mean very few) there is absolutely no dialogue. It’s an incredibly bold move and I really have to say they really nail it down.

The performances are all great but nobody comes close to Samara Weaving who really goes all out here and shows how great her facial acting and body language when trying to communicate is. She hits it out of the park and captures the dark and post-apocalyptic atmosphere the film has all over it, her interactions with the other characters without speaking a word are incredibly investing. They lead to suspenseful moments that truly capture the darkness of the film’s world where anything can happen at any given moment.

The atmosphere as I said is incredibly suspenseful and it remains that way throughout the film, the writers depicting their version of hell adds so much to the film especially with the creatures running around. It’s a world where anything can come right out of nowhere and chase after you, the no dialogue just adds to the terror of the film. The religious horror elements that are added later on in the film mesh well with the final moments of the journey and give you a pretty good idea of its meaning.

The gore is really great as expected, Samara Weaving is once again covered in blood (like in many of her previous films) so you know that means a ton of gore is going to be included and you would be correct. The gore combined with the creature designs is truly fun and ups the more action like moments, a balance of fun and suspenseful is all the film really needs to bring the viewer into these moments. Especially when you have some nice camerawork from Mart Taniel who does a really nice job of showcasing the world of the film.

Azrael does suffer from some genre cliches during the middle of the film (some moments being a bit too convenient) and paper thin written characters outside of Azrael (played by Samara Weaving) which is kind of the negative of choosing to have no dialogue at all. However seeing as how the film is more interested in building its world and moving along at a solid pace, the lack of character stuff doesn’t really hurt the film all that much.

Overall Azrael is both fun and suspenseful, not exactly anything brand new going on here but between the world building, the performance from Samara Weaving and the gore this is one worth watching!

Azrael is available on Shudder

7/10 B

Canary Black (2024) Film Review

Avery Graves, a CIA operative, is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband. Cut off from her team, she turns to her underworld contacts to survive.

Canary Black is directed by Pierre Morel director of Taken (2008), The Gunman (2015), Peppermint (2018), The Ambush (2021), Freelance (2023) and a few others.

Oh Pierre Morel you made Taken (2008) a really good action film and never had that home run when it comes to action movies again. Canary Black is arguably his worst movie to date, think of the most cliched and terrible action thriller spy movie and the end result is Canary Black.

Kate Beckinsale is by far the best part about this movie, she actually gives a surprisingly decent performance that really makes you wish the movie itself was a lot better. The late Ray Stevenson is also pretty decent. There’s a few action scenes that are fine enough especially given this was a movie that was immediately sent to streaming.

Having that said the rest of the movie is so painfully bare bones that it hurts, as I said before it’s about as cliched as you can get. Running through a ton of bad guys without the elements that make a good action thriller spy movie, sure there are some decent action scenes every once in a while . But that’s all you really get, the writing is terrible and about as predictable you would expect, the characters are bare bones and have no real personalities outside of what’s given to them and the pacing is so incredibly slow that this movie feels far longer than 101 minutes.

I’m not sure what else I can really say? This is the very definition of release date fodder, a movie that the studio put out there because they needed something to fill in the gap.

Canary Black is available on Amazon Prime Video

3/10 D-

Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) Film Review!

Hellboy and a rookie B.P.R.D. agent in the 1950s are sent to the Appalachians, where they discover a remote community dominated by witches and led by the sinister local demon, the Crooked Man.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is directed by Brian Taylor director of Crank (2006), Crank: High Voltage (2009), Gamer (2009) and Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance (2011). This film is the second reboot of the Hellboy film series and is the fourth live action movie.

Hellboy has had a weird history in film, the ones that are well regarded are Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) both of which are directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Both films were incredible especially visually for their time and still hold up quite well to this day, plus Del Toro put his own spin on them that was incredibly charming and captured the character. There were plans for a third movie but it never happened, instead we got Hellboy (2019) which was basically a copy and paste version of Deadpool it’s a movie that came and went. Now we have this movie, which admittedly is better than expect and actually surpasses the 2019 movie…that doesn’t mean this is good.

I will say that I do like that the movie was trying to do, the horror folklore elements combined with the locations was pretty interesting. There were some genuine atmospheric moments that actually surprised me, Jack Kesy who plays Hellboy is actually not bad here. He’s no Ron Perlman but he gets the job done and actually does have some lines here that are pretty neat. It’s not a performance that’s going to break any new ground for the character but it helps that one of the main concerns going into this movie was taken off the table.

Having that said the rest of the movie isn’t so great, I completely understand this movie was done on a low budget a $20 million dollar budget to be exact. Which when you compare that to the budgets of the previous movies that’s a very noticeable difference, the team absolutely did their best with the budget but unfortunately this is one of those movies where you can really tell the budget was holding them back.

Some of the visuals are very messy, there’s a lot of scenes that really scream “fan film” and the dialogue especially towards the end is quite terrible. The main villain The Crooked Man is a lot like the Leprechaun from The Leprechaun film series, from the actions to even the voice it’s almost identical which really makes it hard to take him seriously as a villain (somehow he comes off less threatening than the Leprechaun.)

As far as story goes it’s a bit of a mess, the plot revolves around these other characters who are pretty much your stock horror movie characters, Hellboy himself sometimes just wanders around in the background which admittedly does make for some unintentional hilarious moments.

Overall there really isn’t that much to Hellboy: The Crooked Man as you would expect, it goes by pretty quickly and is just mostly a blur. I will admit that going into this movie I thought this was going to be a whole lot worse and while I can absolutely respect the move to try and do a Hellboy movie with a $20 million dollar budget, as I said before the budget restraints are felt and ultimately hurts the movie.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

The Killer’s Game (2024) Film Review!

When a hitman is diagnosed with a terminal illness, he decides to take a hit out on himself. But when the very hitmen he hired also target his ex-girlfriend, he must fend off an army of assassin colleagues.

The Killer’s Game is directed by J.J. Perry director of Day Shift (2022).

The Killer’s Game is a bit more interesting than a lot of other terrible action comedies, however it still runs into some of the exact same problems.

Dave Bautista is at the very least pretty fun here, Ben Kingsley is always good, Terry Crews actually has some decent character work and charisma here that works. There’s some stylized action scenes that are admittedly a lot of fun, they might not do a whole lot for the movie narratively but they are entertaining enough to make the movie move smoothly.

Having that said, when you real boil down to it this is just another action comedy movie. The comedic elements are very weak in this case and quite honestly could have went without using, the movie clearly wants you to feel towards Joe Flood (played by Dave Bautista) who is diagnosed with a fatal disease. At some points it works and there’s some genuine moments, only to get slammed with some unfunny writing bits that try to be jokes.

The CGI blood does not help at all, it ruins what otherwise are some really neat kills. The mix of stylized action scenes and the CGI is incredibly distracting and noticeable, it attempts to go for this campy feel but never reaches the mark. Especially when the movie at certain points wants you to take it seriously.

Overall The Killer’s Game is ultimately forgettable, you can absolutely do far worse when it comes to action comedies. But it’s still a bit unfortunate this one did not deliver.

The Killer’s Game is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

The Crow (2024) Film Review!

Soulmates Eric Draven and Shelly Webster are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Draven returns to seek bloody revenge against the killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.

The Crow is directed by Rupert Sanders director of Snow White and The Huntsman (2012) and Ghost In The Shell (2017). The Crow is a reboot/reimagining/remake of the 1994 film of the same name and is the fifth film in the franchise.

The Crow (1994) is a film Hollywood studios have wanted to remake for years now, it’s become a classic over the years and there was even a time when three sequels of it were made none of which managed to capture what was so incredible about the first film. All those sequels were varying levels of terrible. Apparently this movie has been in development since 2008, many directors, actors and even writers were attached at various points in time until it landed on Rupert Sanders in 2022 and well this is about as unimaginative and terrible as you would expect.

The cast tries to give it their all but none of them can land at least a decent moment here. Bill Skarsgård an actor who usually delivers really strong performances even when the material he’s working with is on the weak side completely falls flat here. His portrayal of The Crow is a Jared Leto Suicide Squad (2016) Joker clone especially with the tattoos, it completely takes away from any of the mystery or darkness from the character and instead gives this edgy kid vibe that’s just not what The Crow is about at all.

FKA Twigs could have been decent here if the chemistry between her and Skarsgård was interesting, unfortunately that’s not the case here. We get a very long and drawn out story of how the two met which I get the movie was trying to build emotion for the eventual death of Shelly (played by FKA Twigs), having that said the buildup needs to at least be investing and not incredibly dull. Heck the movie tries to explore Eric before becoming The Crow but that is even uninteresting and never leads into anything of note, it takes 60-70 minutes just for him to become The Crow…this movie is 111 minutes long.

As far as writing goes, as I said before the movie attempts to explore the backstory of Eric before Shelly’s death and before he became The Crow. Between the performances and acting it’s absolutely rough and a slog to get through and doesn’t give this character any depth at all, it’s the very definition of a terrible revenge story that takes so much away of what made the original film so great. There’s no mystery, intrigue or atmosphere instead there’s characters standing around with terrible acting, a majority of the gothic horror elements that made the original film so recognizable are gone and replaced with such a weak atmosphere that doesn’t even come close to what the original was going for.

The only positives I can give this movie is the gore and the opera house scene towards the end of the movie, it’s a really satisfying scene that actually does have some neat camera movements and is admittedly shot quite well. The gore is also quite great combined with this scene, it shows the brutality of it and actually does measure how much Eric wants revenge, it might still not really match the gothic horror tone of the original but it’s a well done scene that I must give credit where credit is due. It’s a huge shame the rest of the movie couldn’t use what made this scene so great and share it with the rest of the movie.

Overall The Crow is terrible, it’s a complete and total misfire and fails to understand what made the original so great. Outside of one admittedly neat scene and some great gore this is very forgettable.

The Crow is available on all VOD platforms.

1/10 F