Review: Weapons

More than a lot of other genres, horror movies don't want you to look back. The point is to scare you in the moment; if that means that later on you realise the scare didn't really make sense, well, here's a new scare, don't think about this one too much either.

Weapons is a story told via a number of characters whose paths overlap. Over the course of their stories, the pace slowly but steadily ramps up: the first couple of chapters (it's broken into a series of roughly 20-minute segments, each open opening with the name of the character we'll be following) take place over days, then hours, with the final one pretty much running in real time.

So as the bigger picture becomes clear, there's less time to take it all in. Which on one level makes this a lot of fun to watch; the stakes get higher, the tension builds, characters are rushing towards situations they don't understand - and we barely know more than they do, just that they're heading into worse trouble than they realise - and the whole thing reaches a crescendo that's both extremely satisfying and pretty ghastly if you think about it.

As for what it's actually about, beyond the basic set up - in small town USA, at 2.17am, seventeen primary schoolkids from the same class got up, ran out of their homes, and vanished - the less you know the better. 

The community is outraged, with much of their ire falling on the children's teacher (Julia Garner), who has a few personal flaws of her own. Distraught father Archer (Josh Brolin) is conducting his own investigation, while inept cop Paul (Aiden Ehrenreich), local junkie James (Austin Abrams), and the only child from the class who didn't vanish (Cary Christopher) and his great-aunt (Amy Madigan) also come into focus.

There's a lot of possible touchstones here. Small town, young children gives a Stranger Things vibe; throw in the big cast and the overlapping chapters and there's echos of Stephen King. Likewise, early on this is happy to feint in a lot of directions as far as possible meanings; mob violence, a metaphor for school shootings, American citizens desperate to latch onto any explanation for the horrors around them. Take your pick.

Even the distinctive arms out run of the missing children has multiple possible meanings, from historical images to kids pretending to be aeroplanes, but writer/ director Zach Cregger is much more interested in making gestures than building anything solid out of them. It's a film of surfaces, gesturing towards deeper meanings then discarding them.

What really matters here isn't so much the explanation (though there is one) as the journey. There's plenty of scares and a growing sense of unease; there's also a surprising amount of comedy, both to relieve the tension and because some of what's going on really is legitimately funny. 

Weapons is a twisty, satisfyingly startling ride that relentlessly pushes you onward - and if later on you're left thinking "hang on a second", you'll probably be too worried about what's behind you in the back seat of your car to look back.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: The Fantastic Four: First Steps

A consistently entertaining, back-to-basics superhero tale shouldn't be quite so surprising in 2025. But after almost two decades of ever-increasing bloat, cutting things back to the core - likable characters with interesting abilities using them to battle a clear villain - feels like a radical move. All of which is to say, The Fantastic Four: First Steps basically re-invents the wheel, which is handy because Marvel's been dragging their heels for a while now.

Over in Earth 828 - a nice salute to Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby that we probably wouldn't have if Stan Lee was still alive - the 60s are going strong, thanks in part to the super-powered occupants of New York's Baxter Building. A few years back Reed Richards / Mr Fantastic (Pedro Pascal) Sue Storm / The Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm / The Human Torch (Joseph Quinn) and Ben Grimm / The Thing (Ebon Moss-Backrach) went up into space, got pelted by cosmic rays, and came home celebrities with a side hustle in fighting monsters and averting disasters.

All that backstory is covered in a TV special; the new news here is that Sue is pregnant. A concerned Reed (after all, who knows what cosmic ray exposure might lead to?) is using his big brain to come up with devices to constantly monitor her pregnancy, while the ever-cooking Thing (who refuses to say his catchphrase, claiming it was made up for a cartoon) and the always-cocky Johnny work on being the best uncles ever. Oh, and an alien herald (Julia Garner) on a flying surfboard turns up and tells the people of Earth they're all about to die.

The Fantastic Four swing into action, tracking her back to a planet in deep space. Maybe not the best place for a pregnant woman to head off to - but they're a team, they're pledged to protect Earth, and after a journey that sells space travel as a bit more complicated and exciting than these movies usually manage, they reach their destination... just in time to see it eaten by the planet-devouring being known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson).

There's a tonal shift in director Matt Shakman's film from this point - what had previously been something of a light romp gets a bit more serious - but that's to be expected when the fate of Earth is at stake. The lack of other superheroes means we get a lot more of a look at the FF's schemes to save everybody (in a traditional Marvel movie, this part would be replaced by 40 minutes of recruiting other heroes), alongside some reminders that having near-certain death hanging over the planet would be a bit of a downer for a lot of people.

Another beneficiary of the straightforward story are our four leads, all of whom get enough room to exist as actual characters beyond their roles in the plot. The connection between the grounded Sue and the super-smart but a little distant Reed feels real, while the gruff but good-hearted Ben and the (slightly) hot-headed but always focused Johnny are a solid double act while each getting their own moments to be endearingly human.

This isn't flawless - some of the CGI could have used a few more weeks polish - and while the story's simplicity has its charms it's also lacking a bit of the grit that made the best Marvel films work. It's a reminder that there's a good reason why the four previous attempts at a Fantastic Four movie faltered: more than many superheroes, these are good-hearted characters aimed at children, and they need a lot of sincerity (provided here by the idealised '60s backdrop) if they're going to click.

How they'll fare in the wider MCU remains to be seen - though it'll be seen soon enough, with the FF locked into the upcoming Avengers movie. With their biggest nemesis confirmed as the bad guy there, they'll have their work cut out for them: the good news is, First Steps has them off to a great start.

- Anthony Morris 

 

Review: I Know What You Did Last Summer

Twenty five years ago, the sleepy fishing town of Southport was rocked by a series of brutal murders triggered by a bunch of teens trying to bury their involvement in a fatal car wreck. The killings were promptly covered up by the local real estate mogul, who realised that a resort town with a hook-handed body count might be a tough sell. And where did it get them? A quarter century later and it's happening all over again.

Okay, there are a few minor differences. This time the cover-up crew are in their early 20s; they're also much less directly responsible for the car crash, which does take away a lot of the "hey, maybe they deserve it" energy the first film had. 

And this is a direct follow on from the first film, with the characters from the original played by Jennifer Love Hewitt (now a college professor) and Freddie Prinze Jr (now a local bar owner) both increasingly involved with events. And yet even now, with their former glories far behind them, they still have way more screen presence than the younger cast - apart from maybe angsty Ava (Chase Sui Wonders), who is clearly being set up to be the final girl. Rich comedy relief Danica (Madelyn Cline), not so much.

But for the most part we've been here before. Which isn't automatically a bad thing, and for much of the run time this ticks along nicely as a not-too-serious slasher film. As such, the kills aren't great, and the film isn't always sure just how serious we should take them - some are a bit grim, most are like "well, that would suck" - but at least the nautical theme from the first film is maintained for absolutely no reason (okay, there are still a few fishing boats in the harbor).

As a whodunnit it works a little better, thanks in part to an orderly kill list: first to go are people with no real connection to the car crash death, then as the killings get closer to the core group you start to notice that hey, we never see this character or that character around during the deaths and then whoops, they're dead too. 

Of course, it all stops making any real sense long before the drawn out conclusion - which also features a development that goes against all logic and common sense once yet another shock twist reveal happens in the very next scene. But if you wanted a movie that made sense you wouldn't be here in the first place. 

Utterly inessential viewing for anyone who's not a massive fan of the original and yet still a passably enjoyable time-waster taken on its merits,  I Know What You Did Last Summer is a reminder that sometimes last summer - or summer 25 years ago - is better left in the past. Even if it does involve a bisexual hook-up in an airport bathroom with a true-crime podcaster.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Superman

Superman has always stood a little apart from the flood of big-screen costumed superheroes - or metahumans, as this film likes to call them. Batman is just a guy in a costume, who can trace his ancestry back to earlier pulp characters like Zorro or The Shadow; Spider-Man and most of the Marvel heroes that followed were built as much around a flaw as a power. Superman got there first, and that gave him more gravity, even if you did believe a man could fly.

But now, as they say, all that's changed. The Superman (David Corenswet) we meet mid-battle in Superman is one more costumed hero in a world full of them - and unlike the Snyderverse's Justice League, the other superheroes here are comic book deep cuts, not household names. Superman still soars, but the gloss has come off a little: he's a regular guy, trying to do the best he can in a world where he doesn't stand out quite as much as you might expect.

The story here bounces around a fair bit while the main thrust remains constant: Lex Luthor (Nicolas Hoult) really does not like Superman. Stopping a recent small-scale war without getting government approval has Superman on shaky ground PR wise, while Luthor and his super-powered henchman The Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria) and Ultraman (some guy in a mask) are off looting Superman's Fortress of Solitude and trashing his robot helpers in the process. Which is mostly just finishing the job Krypto started, because that dog (who comes in handy more than once) does not have good manners.

A Superman movie comes with a lot of expectations, and this does a decent job of ticking the familiar boxes. Despite being set three years after Superman announced himself to the world, his origin - as seen in the last two Superman movies - still manages to get a fair amount of air time thanks to a twist in the message his Kryptonian parents sent along with him to Earth, along with a late-stage recovery session at the Kent's family farm. 

Likewise, the romance between Clark and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), now in its third month and with some bumps still to be ironed out, gets a few scenes without ever really feeling like the heart of the film despite Brosnahan's strong performance. And yes, all the Daily Planet crew do make an appearance, though it's ladies man Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) who gets a surprisingly large role in proceedings.

It's all stuff we want to see and writer / director James Gunn does a good job of fitting it all in (even though it doesn't always feel central to the plot) by making this a film that's as much about showcasing Superman as it is about telling a story. The gamble here is that Superman himself is interesting enough to carry a film whatever he's up to, and for the most part it comes off.

This focus on character over plot does give Superman a slightly sprawling feel, as pretty much everyone gets their moment in the (yellow) sun - including the members of the "Justice Gang" (operating out of the cartoon Super-Friends Hall of Justice, though they haven't fully moved in yet). Blunt force Green Lantern Guy Gardener (Nathan Fillion), the equally bludgeoning Hawkgirl (Isabella Merced), and scene-stealing brains of the outfit Mr Terrific (Edi Gathegi) pull focus in the back half as Superman is brought low - so he can come back in the final act, of course.

Superman is usually a solo act when it comes to super-action - we haven't even mentioned Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), who can change his body into any element and that should probably set alarm bells ringing - so having him share screen time with a bunch of second stringers does dilute his impact a little. Again, Gunn steers into that, giving us a Superman who's a bit dorky and a little square (his taste in music is not great), the kind of hero who sees asking for help when it's needed as a strength rather than a flaw.

(also, it seems his Clark Kent disguise now involves "hypno glasses" to throw everyone off) 

Balancing that, Luthor gets plenty of screentime to evil up the place, freely admitting to being envious of Superman for distracting humanity from his (human) greatness while swinging between moments of extreme supervilliany and all-too-grounded brutality. Plus his evil scheme is, on one minor level, something of a callback to the first Superman film: seems Lex just can't resist a real estate deal.

This doesn't take itself anywhere near as seriously as the recent Snyderverse films, which isn't surprising: there are films about death camps that don't take themselves as seriously as Man of Steel. It's a charming, highly entertaining film that isn't afraid to keep things light (and light-hearted); the mood here is pure comic book, throwing out concepts and characters at a rapid pace with a breezy vibe underlying it all. 

Well, a breezy vibe and an anti-proton river from a pocket universe that flows to a black hole that might destroy the Earth, but that's all in a day's work for your friendly neighbourhood Superman.

- Anthony Morris 

 

Review: Jurassic World Rebirth

What if, after the massive success of Jaws, the only shark movies ever made were sequels to Jaws? Every single movie about a shark was about a shark threatening a small coastal town, no exceptions? Good thing that never happened - sharks are such great movie monsters, it'd be a real shame if they were endlessly corralled into the same handful of scenarios over and over and over again.

On an unrelated topic, Jurassic World: Rebirth is the seventh in the Jurassic Park / World series, and after the last film brought pretty much everyone back for a farewell that was... better than some of the other films in the series... this one strikes out for all new territory. Only joking, it's basically the same movie as at least two of the other ones.

After being a world-spanning threat in previous films, revived dinosaurs have suddenly realised that they're not built for Earth's modern climate and have died off everywhere but a narrow band around the equator - one uninhabited island that was formerly used as a research lab in particular. Just because everyone who goes there dies doesn't mean it's not worth a visit, especially when "worth" is measured in billions because once again dinosaurs hold the key to a world-changing medical breakthrough.

So shady rich dude Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) has hired one mercenary (Scarlett Johansson) and one dinosaur expert (Jonathan Bailey) to in turn hire some disposable sidekicks to help them take blood samples from three different kinds of very big dinosaurs - a flying one, a swimming one, and one just walking around.

Meanwhile, cool dad Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is taking his family on a yacht trip across the Atlantic, just in time for them to get crashed into by an ocean-going dinosaur. Older daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise), her stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono), and younger daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda) cling onto the wreck with a new-found dislike of dinosaurs, only to be rescued by the one boat where the crew think going to Dino Death Island is a good idea.

As you might have predicted if you've ever seen any of the previous movies in the series, things do not go to plan and not everyone survives to be wrecked on the island. Those that do are split into two groups - the family, and the professionals - who alternate mildly scary encounters with the wildlife while trying to make it to the abandoned research base where they can either be rescued or eaten by a demonic genetic freak dinosaur we first saw in the opening scene.

To be fair, just because the overall story is a blatant retread of what has gone before doesn't automatically make this a bad film. Director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla, The Creator) serves up a number of thrilling sequences and even a few moments of genuine awe, while the script (from David Koepp, back after scripting Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park: The Lost World) does at least drop Isabella into numerous psychologically scarring situations - so much so that her only path back to sanity turns out to be adopting a cute (and confirmed plant-eating) dinosaur.

Friend, playing the superficially charming but eventually amoral business executive that's been a staple of these kind of films since Aliens, does a good job of portraying his character's arc from "maybe he's not so bad" to "hurry up and fall into a dinosaur's gaping maw", while Johansson and Bailey's charisma helps distract from the fact they're basically playing action figures in a child's backyard game. Everyone else is fair game for the dinos, though fewer people end up eaten than you might have expected. 

Being aimed at a slightly younger audience than your average blockbuster usually puts the Jurassic films at a disadvantage, but by sticking to the basics and over-delivering on them this one manages to be both serviceably entertaining and largely forgettable. And if your child is the kind of dinosaur expert who'll complain that the movie versions aren't realistic (where are the feathers?), don't worry - we're told early on that the dinos on and around the island are "genetically modified", so all bets are off.

If nothing else, this does feature an amazing Final Destination-style opening sequence where a dropped Snickers wrapper single-handedly destroys a billion-dollar lab and leads directly to at least one person being eaten alive. Just like life, death finds a way.

-Anthony Morris 

Review: M3GAN 2.0

The first M3GAN got by on attitude.  Killer dolls, killer AIs - it was the killer attitude that separated it from the pack. M3GAN 2.0 continues to exploit the rich, deep seam of previous movies about killbots run amok, and if it lacks some of the original's edge... well, can't a girl grow a little?

It's been two years since the first M3GAN killed a bunch of people and danced around a lot, and the world of AI has kept on moving. M3GAN's creator Gemma (Allison Williams) is now an anti-AI activist appearing alongside Christian (Aristotle Athari) to call for more government safeguards, while also working with first film survivors Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) and Tess (Jen Van Epps) to create robotic exoskeletons because they have to make a living somehow.

Or do they? Gemma's house is massive and the rent is super-cheap, which you'd think would be raising alarm bells but she's too distracted by her niece Cady (Violent McGraw), who is getting pretty good with the martial arts and doesn't quite get why AI is so bad.

Someone else who doesn't get it is local tech billionaire Alton Appleton (Jemaine Clement), who wants Gemma's tech for his own possibly nefarious, possibly just sleazy schemes. Oh, and the US military has their own killbot called AMELIA, which has just gone rogue and killed her creators for reasons as yet unclear.  Gee, it'd be real handy if Gemma and Cady had their own lethal robot that could protect them right about now...

Leaving the evil doll-slash-bad babysitter tropes behind, this embraces the wider yet equally well-worn field of the robot run amok, with a hefty side of sinister AI mixed in. Everything from The Terminator to Eve of Destruction to Upgrade gets sampled here - which is hardly a bad thing, as who doesn't love a killer robot? 

The various bodies M3GAN (voiced again by Jenna Davis) gets decanted into provides plenty of scope for comedy as well as action; there's an impromptu musical number at one point that's one of the funniest needle-drops this year. And yes, old-school M3GAN (Amie Donald) gets to do the robot, in a scene which is both fan service and has a decent punchline in its own right.

This is much more of an action film than the first, with the horror largely confined to a lot of nasty deaths. The comedy is bumped up a notch from the first film as well, and it's often broader too - though not so much that this slides into parody.  

None of these elements are world-beating, and the actions tropes are especially well-worn (though a Steven Seagal shout-out is much appreciated), but it's the way this skips from one genre to the next any time things start to feel stale that gets it over the line.

With M3GAN being the only character with any real spark (though the human cast do get some decent lines) this film's anti-AI stance ends up being more like #notallkillbots. This isn't as sharp as the original, but at least the comedy is a bit more pointed - and as this repeatedly makes clear, in a world full of humans rushing to embrace AI, the joke is definitely on us.

- Anthony Morris

 

Review: F1

Formula One racing is, amongst other things, an endurance test. Which is why most movies about it - including F1 - tend to take the long view; each race is a stage in a campaign, each individual moment is merely part of a greater whole. It's a tricky story structure for modern Hollywood, which tends to like things simple and focused. F1 doesn't always make the turn.

After flaming out early as a F1 racer, Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) has become something of a racetrack ronin, taking any gig so long as its behind the wheel and excelling at it while stumbling at pretty much everything off the track. Ruben (Javier Bardem) is a former compatriot turned chief of a race team that can't get off the starting block, and he's got an offer Sonny can't refuse - though he tries for a minute or two.

The driver Ruben already has is not impressed by his new partner. Joshau Pearce (Damson Idris) is a young hotshot with a manager constantly whispering in his ear, giving him advice - don't trust Sonny, focus on social media - that even Pearce knows is wrong, but there wouldn't be a movie without it. 

Will Sonny mentor the rising star? Will Pearce take his rightful place on the podium to signal the generational torch has been passed? Does anyone remember how writer-director Joseph Kosinski's previous film Tom Gun: Maverick ended?

There are a lot of moving parts here and most of them work. The race footage, much of which was shot inside and from actual race cars, is thrilling; the races themselves are largely focused on tactics (tires are extremely important!), and they're explained well. This doesn't oversell the danger, but whenever something does go wrong it's gut-wrenching - if sometimes only for a few seconds.

Idris balances cocky and insecure in a winning combination, while Kerry Condon - who plays the team's top car designer - injects plenty of spark into a role that is only slightly more than a love interest for Sonny. Who doesn't really need one as his real connection is with Ruben, played with charm and endlessly likable energy by Bardem.

Pitt himself is once again the well-worn expert at his job, someone who's seen it all and taken it in his stride... most of the time at least. It's a generic leading-man role - Pitt is starting to give Harrison Ford vibes in some ways - but Pitt remains magnetic on screen. Good news, adults: he's a laid-back natural leader who's great at his job and winning with the ladies, AKA a fantasy figure aimed at people older than 12. 

If there's a flaw in this two and half hour film it's that Kosinski can't seem to find a compelling story in all these parts. It feels at times like an off-brand Michael Mann film, but Mann builds his stories about men who are driven, not drivers. Pearce has the motivation, but he's in the second seat and he's not fully formed; Pitt, playing a character seemingly tailor-made for him, rarely makes us feel the stakes.

Sonny is helping out an old friend, and also getting one last chance to prove himself, and also being a mentor to the next generation. Which is one too many motivations, especially when at least two of them are in opposition and none of them run counter to him being just a good old boy who likes to go fast. When you're at the pointy end of a multi-million dollar organisation based around hurtling around racetracks across the globe at terrifying speeds, there's such a thing as being too nice. 

- Anthony Morris