The Suicide Squad (2021) - Actually pretty good

First of all let me say that I'm actually one of those rare people who actually quite liked the original 'Suicide Squad.' No, it wasn't a masterpiece or anything, but the images presented to my eyes were not unappealing and I didn't think I'd wasted the couple of hours of my life I spent watching it.  So, I was quite intrigued to hear how the second one (which is everything from a remake to a soft reboot) was so much better than the first.

It is.

No matter how good the first one was (my opinion, only) this one trumps it all round.  The plot is basically the same, i.e. a load of (deliberately) B-list 'super-villains' are temporary released from incarceration in order to carry out a mission 'for the greater good.' It gets underway a lot quicker with us introduced to our new set of heroes (or 'anti-heroes' to be precise).  Instead of Will Smith we have Idris Elba, but he's joined by fan-favourite Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn.  Of course those to stalwarts are the general stars of the show, but the rest of the cast are on top of their game as they're sent on a mission to some fictional South American country to stop a giant monster from being unleashed on the world.

The action and plot is nothing that you haven't seen before, but it's James Gunn's writing that makes this one worth a watch.  We live in a world that's completely oversaturated with superhero films and the general Box Office performance is showing how apathetic the general public is to the previously tried and tested formula which the superhero genre offers.  Most new superhero movies may be new in terms of the titular character/s, yet they offer little that hasn't been done before.  I'm not saying that 'The Suicide Squad' is so different that you'll be amazed at what you're witnessing, but it's certainly worth a watch if you like your humour dark and you're prepared to suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours.

In fact, the 'couple of hours' part is about the film's major drawback.  Like many modern films it could probably do with being a little more trimmed here and there.  It isn't the worst offender when it comes to outstaying its welcome, but I reckon if it lost ten to fifteen minutes here and there it would certainly be a tighter little number.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one

Cat People (1982) - Insert 'cat pun' here

I really wanted to use the cat pun 'purrfect' in the title of this review.  The problem was that the film wasn't perfect.  It wasn't bad, but still a long way from perfection.  It's about a brother and sister (Malcolm McDowell and Nastassja Kinskis) who have recently been reunited in New Orleans, but, when the finally get to know each other, they discover there's more to their heritage than they first thought.

I guess 'Cat People' is a horror film, but I've seen it referred to as an 'erotic thriller.' Erotic, maybe - due to a lot of - ahem - 'adult' scenes, but definitely more a horror in nature than a thriller (there are even some pretty decent practical 'transformation' effects that still hold up to this day).

I normally would say I won't go into too many more details for fear of spoiling the film, but seeing as it's literally called 'Cat People' most people should kind of know what they're getting themselves in for when we talk of horror movies about cat people with transformation effects.

These two aren't just your normally tabby, content with a bowl of milk and a ball of yarn to play with.  They prefer to hunt 'bigger prey.'

It's a nice concept that works well in terms of horror, plus it's helped along by a very strong cast (although Malcolm McDowell wasn't in it quite as much as I thought he was going to be - and as suggested by his billing).

I guess the only thing I found 'wrong' with it was that it went on a bit too long.  I thought it was coming to the end at a reasonably respectable hour and a half mark, when it started going again and there was a whole new act to get through.

Some scenes go on way too long in some cases.  I know the film's fans will say this adds to the tension and I get that to a degree, but I was far too tempted to his the fast forward button on my remote in certain long, drawn out parts.

I didn't think I wasted my time watching the film and the David Bowie remix that plays the movie out is almost worth sitting through the whole story for.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

The Ninth Configuration - Monty Python without as many laughs

I had no idea what I was sitting down to watch when I saw 'The Ninth Configuration' - it said 'horror' so, as I'm a fan of the genre, I thought I'd give it a go.  I guess I got some form of horror, but 'elevated horror' may be a more modern term for this vintage film.

A former marine is sent to a castle which is being used as a psychiatric home for other soldiers with mental health conditions.  There he's meant to help them.  How?  Good question.  That's sort of half of why you have to watch it.

And you'll be watching for quite some time.  It's about two hours long and it starts to feel it after a while.  Not that I'm saying everything is bad, just not very horrific - just weird.  It feels like a Monty Python film with random sketches that don't really relate to each other and then someone from a previous 'sketch' interrupts the current sketch at an inappropriate time.  Plus characters have 'conversations' with each other where they don't really answer each other.  They say their lines, then the person they're with says their lines, only the second person's dialogue doesn't actually relate to what the first had said.

There are various 'plot twists' along the way, but I figured them out pretty easily (and I'm not normally good at guessing plot twists!) so they must have been pretty obvious!

It's not a bad film, just random.  It tries to have messages in it about the nature of good/evil and right/wrong, but they kind of get lost among the deliberately nutty characters who water the script down with laughs.

Then, when there are no more real 'twists' for the film to try and sell as 'shocking' the film's ending/point is dragged out and you kind of know what's going to happen.  Then it ends on a weird freezeframe.  It's certainly memorable, but I'm not sure for all the right reasons.  Apparently, it actually won awards, so I guess maybe I just didn't get it and should keep my love of horror for men in masks killing campers.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights

The Batman (2022) - Very popular (just not with me)

I suppose all us modern cinema-goers have 'our own' Batmans in the way everyone has 'their own James Bonds.  I was twelve when Michael Keaton donned the cape and hood and, seeing as I'd only seen Adam West as Batman on the small screen doing the 'Bat-dance,' suddenly seeing him dark and moody fighting a scary and sinister Joker was the coolest thing ever.

Therefore (besides 'Batman Returns') I found no Batman movie could ever live up to Tim Burton's 1989 gothic fairytail.  I know many loved the critically-acclaimed 'Nolan Trilogy,' but - again - they all kind of left me cold when compared to the first two Burton movies.  Therefore, I was hopeful when the internet collectively started to praise 2021's 'The Batman' starring Robert Pattinson as the titular character.  I must confess to not really seeing him as Bruce Wayne, due to my only real prior knowledge of his performance being as Edward Cullen in the 'Twilight' franchise.

However, I was pleasantly surprised with Pattinson's performance and the rumours that he hadn't really 'bulked up' enough to play a tank-like superhero proved incorrect.  The film was well directed and there were some lovely shots of Gotham city which added to the overall landscape.

It was too long though.

Holy handbags did this film drag on waaay past its sell-by date (in my opinion).  I'd heard a few brave souls online mention that the film sort of ended, only to start up again and you found that there was a whole new final act to get through.  This is true, but I had long since checked out with the amount of talking and various gangsters double-crossing other gangsters to really care.

Colin Farrell is good as the Penguin (even if you have to Google his casting to check it really is him under all those prosthetics!).  I'd never really seen the actress who played Catwoman in anything else and she was okay in one scene, but otherwise didn't really have the presence to carry off the character (but then - again - my generation was spoiled with Michelle Pfeiffer's performance).  The major let-down was the Riddler who, when finally unmasked, just came across as totally unscary and more like 'Milton' from the classic comedy 'Office Space.'

But, I guess if you're considering seeing 'The Batman' then you have to side with the majority.  All the movie critics I trust and watch on YouTube agreed that this was an amazing and nearly flawless film.  So, it must just not have been for me. 

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back

The Birds (1963) - Hard to sum up what I just watched, but I liked it

I watched the classic Alfred Hitchcock horror film 'The Birds' a few years ago and I only remember that I enjoyed it (and the final shot in the movie).  The rest of it I had completely forgotten.  Now I've seen it again I can sort of see why.  It's a difficult film to do justice when trying to - properly - sum it up.

It would be easy to say that it's a horror film where birds start to attack humans.  Yes, that's an adequate summary, but the film is so much more than that just saying it like that.  The first half is primarily build-up, where a well-to-do socialite decides to follow a man she only just met to his secluded home town in order to play a practical joke on him.

Maybe I'm just looking at it through '2023 eyes,' but it all just seems rather odd.  I would call these actions 'stalking a stranger the woman had only just met' yet it's all presented as rather harmless and even romantic.  But then again perhaps that's the point?  This is a horror film after all and this could well all be part of creating a particularly unsettling atmosphere where things all feel a little bit too unreal to be true.

It's not until about the halfway mark where all the family parties take a backseat when Woody Woodpecker and his hordes of mates start trying to take a piece of flesh or two out of our human protagonists.  The effects do feel a little dated compared to today's standards and they haven't held up that well, but, if you believe what you read on the internet, it wasn't just overlaying footage of flying birds over the humans, but the producers actually trained birds to peck at the actors.

It's hard to say whether I should recommend this film or not.  I certainly enjoyed it both times I watched it.  Hopefully it will stick in my head a little longer after this viewing.  There's certainly elements of conventional horror in there, but it's the weird sub-plots that seem to give it whatever 'charm' as made it the classic it is.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one

The Barbarians - So, so, bad, yet so much fun

While checking the 'trivia' section online after watching 1987's 'The Barbarians' I found that it frequently appears in various YouTube 'so-bad-it's-good' lists.  Yeah, there's not much more that really needs to be said.  This film is utterly terrible and yet I sat through it with a smile so goofy it rivalled the main stars' permanent expression.

It's a pretty shameless 'Conan' rip-off, set in those magical days of 'sword and sorcery' that the 80s seemed to be so obsessed with.  A group of baddies, led by - you guessed it - a bad guy (that's about all the character development he gets) kills a load of innocent people and takes two young brothers as slaves.  They spend their lives being whipped and tortured in a prison labour camp which somehow turns them into bodybuilders some twenty years later with amazing fighting abilities (I haven't seen this method of 'keep fit' anywhere before, but I guess it must work!).

So, now our two heroes are 'supercharged' it's time for them to seek revenge on that generic bad bloke and rescue their adopted mother who he's fallen in love with (a woman who doesn't really age much in the twenty year time gap - probably magic.  Most plot holes in this film can most likely be explained by magic).

If you've seen any type of Conan rip-off you'll know they have to go on various quests before they reach their goal, plus fight a few giant rubbery monsters (a scene towards the end which has to be seen to be believed!) and where armour that looks cheaper than most cosplayers at a Comic-con.

As I say, this film is terrible.  But I loved it it.  If you actually sit down to watch this movie with expectations of an epic, deep 'Lord of the Rings' saga then you're going to be sorely disappointed.  You have to loved your 'trash' films to get the most out of this escapade.  I'm now off to watch 'Beastmaster' which could and should be some sort of 'companion piece' to 'The Barbarians.'

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that

Inseminoid - Be kind

Yes, it's another one of those horror films where the studio saw 'Alien' and what it did with not that much of a budget and thought 'Hey, we can squeeze a few dollars out of that idea, too!' Does it work?  Short answer: yes.  Longer answer: only if you know what you're in for and are very forgiving when it comes to low budget, badly-acted, cheesy, eighties horror rip-offs.

There's a space crew.  They're on a planet (which may or may not have been names - I forget and it doesn't matter anyway!).  One of them gets mysteriously impregnated by an alien who was most likely kicked off the set of 'Dr Who' at the time) and she goes nuts killing the rest of them.

Firstly... the good.  The lighting.  Um, that's about it.  I read online that it was filmed inside real caves and the production team have done real wonders with the lighting effect, giving the movie a greater sense of 'realism' than most modern blockbusters with their perfectly-rendered CGI set pieces.

Then the bad.  You have the acting, the script, the (not that special) special effects and the general lack of logic and realistic thinking displayed by the characters (seriously, the crew of the 'Red Dwarf' make more sensible decisions and would have a greater chance of survival than this lot).

However, despite all this film's (many!) flaws, I couldn't bring myself to totally hate it.  I found it entertaining and, although it may not be the first film I'd choose to watch again in a hurry, I didn't feel like I'd wasted an hour and a half of my life when all was said and done.  As I mentioned, if you're forgiving of such B-movies then there's fun to be had here.

6/10 Should probably keep you awake if Freddy Krueger was haunting your nights