REVIEW: The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard

Four years and an extra possessive noun later, an unexpected hit of 2017, The Hitman’s Bodyguard, returns for an even more unexpected sequel, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard’s.

Eponymous bodyguard Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds; still snarky, just more tired) is still on the outs following the events of the first film.…

PODCAST: Spider-Man: Far From Home & Midsommar [Electric Shadows]

Episode 66 of The Electric Shadows Podcast tackles two different films indeed.

First up we have Spider-Man: Far From Home. Can the latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe swing as high as Spider-Man: Homecoming or Avengers: Endgame? Or Into the Spider-Verse for that matter?…

REVIEW: Glass

After nearly two decades, M. Night Shyamalan has finally made a return to the superhero movie – and with an ambitious crossover event no less.

His first foray into the genre, Unbreakable, long before the birth of the comic-book franchise, was a subtle deconstruction that made a character study of comic-book archetypes.…

REVIEW: Incredibles 2

Do you remember 2004? For me, aged 28, it’s literally half a lifetime ago.

The biggest film releases were Shrek 2Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Spider-Man 2and a little movie called The Incredibles, Disney’s first foray into the then relatively uncontested arena of superhero movies.…

REVIEW GRAB-BAG: The Dark Tower, Logan Lucky, & The Hitman’s Bodyguard

The Dark Tower

Or How to Make Soup out of Stephen King’s Keystone Series.

In brief: Take an epic eight-book series inspired by both Lord of the Rings and Spaghetti Westerns, strip away the character and the uniqueness, boil down the mythology and the plot, and reduce to 95 minutes.…

Kong: Skull Island: monkey see, monkey well done

SPOILERS

 

A U.S. flyboy plummets out of the sun; hooked to a parachute.

His fighter plane death-spiraling into a flaming wreck on the white sand of Pacific beach. His panicked grappling with a Japanese pilot, his nemesis; a battle to the death on a clifftop drenched in searing light.…

CINEMATIC GRAB-BAG: T2: Trainspotting, Split, & xXx3

Trainspotting
It’s no fun growing hold. Hair migrates, weight accrues, and you find yourself stuck in bad habits.

Unlike its predecessor, T2: Trainspotting is less concerned with one particular bad habit – heroin – and more with the myriad other ways in which an older, supposedly more mature human being can self-destruct.…

The Hateful Eight: where does it stand in the QT lineup?

 

Say what you want about his handling of race1 or his cribbing from other filmmakers2, but one thing’s certain about Quentin Tarantino: love him or hate him3, he’s one hell of a showman.

That’s perhaps never been clearer than with the recent hubbub surrounding the screening of The Hateful Eight.…

Kingsman: The Secret Service goes to top of the (working) class

 

Remember when spy movies were silly and fun?

Long before Daniel Craig’s brooding, psychologically complex 007, Sean Connery “yellowed up” to take on a scar-faced megalomaniacal villain in his hidden volcano base, George Lazenby went undercover at an alpine base filled with a bevy of (non-allergenic) beauties, Roger Moore headed into space to battle a metal-mouthed giant (alongside the unlikely named Holly Goodhead), and Timothy Dalton, well, he mostly brooded too.…

Spike Lee’s Oldboy is a criminally bland remake

 

There are many films that have no reason to exist besides turning an ill-conceived buck.

Transformers 4, for instance – now with 100% more Mark Wahlberg – or the upcoming Terminator reboot – as if the series’ timeline wasn’t convoluted enough already.…