Ink of Blood

So. Once again, I have to be honest – as much as I love going to see horror movies, I was actually quite disappointed in this film.

From the trailers, this movie had a lot of potential. It looked like it might be more of a psychological horror, where the main threat isn’t actually seen, and that’s something I don’t see very often…and would love to see more of in horror, where what you don’t see is infinitely more scary than what you do see.

Sadly, that was not the case here.

Okay, so a positive in this movie was the relationship between the two sisters: Sadie and Sawyer. It very much felt like Sadie had stepped up to parent Sawyer after their mother’s death. Will was clearly making an effort with his youngest daughter, but he did ignore Sadie’s needs…even when she tried to talk to him about how she was feeling after her mother’s death. I mean, I know that he was grieving his wife’s death, but come on!

Unfortunately, the majority of the characters in this movie (apart from Sadie and Sawyer) were either really unlikable, or just felt like they were there as filler. I thought perhaps there’d be something of a relationship shown between Sadie and Bethany, but instead, the movie seemed more focused on the conflicts between Sadie and Natalie. And to be quite honest, her entire ‘friend’ group (minus Bethany, but she really wasn’t a very good friend) just seemed to hate her. And to be honest – as the viewer, it definitely seemed to me that the group slammed the door shut on Sadie when she was showing them where Lester hung himself. She was clearly traumatised and grieving and none of them saw a problem with Natalie telling her she shouldn’t be wearing her mother’s dress, that clearly had a lot of meaning to her? Yeah, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Unfortunately, the rest of the secondary characters in this movie were just as disappointing. The whole movie seemed to be about tormenting Sawyer. She was the one the boogeyman was mainly after (although it did target Sadie as well)…and the police officer, instead of showing some small measure of compassion, decided to question Sadie about a man’s supposed suicide while Sadie is holding her frightened sister. And Will just stands there and lets it happen? I take back what I said about him making an effort with his youngest daughter. Just because her mother died, that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly okay to talk about whether or not a man really did kill himself in front of her. Oh…and don’t get me started on the psychiatrist, who exposed Sawyer to her fear so much, the girl actually wet herself!

On the whole, the only good thing about this movie was Sadie and Sawyer’s relationship. The horror was just cheap jump scares and as soon as the monster was shown, it removed the fear.

Come on, filmmakers! Give me something really good, with characters I’ll actually root for and a monster that’s actually scary!

I can’t recommend watching this movie. Even if you like horror you can just switch off for…this movie isn’t that good.

So. I have to be honest. I was a little hesitant about going to see this movie at the cinema. Not because of any particular dislike of Disney (I grew up watching Disney movies, including the animated Little Mermaid), or of the actors, but because I was worried I’d just be watching a shot for shot remake like when I went to see The Lion King. Still. I did end up going to see it, because the trailer made me think it would be visually appealing, at the very least. Again, just like The Lion King – which was beautifully made and shot, but added nothing to the actual story.

I wasn’t wrong. At least, not about the visual beauty. The film was absolutely stunning, especially the under the sea parts. Yes, it was obviously CGI; but it was still all very pretty to look at.

I was wrong about the movie basically being the same as the original animated classic. Yes, the core storyline was the same. It’s still a Disney movie, after all. But it was different enough that I didn’t feel bored while watching it.

One of the things I really liked about this movie was the fact that Eric’s character was really well developed. It was really good to see him as more than just the Disney prince who Ariel happens to fall in love with. I also really loved Halle Bailey as Ariel. When she sang Part of Your World, I got goosebumps.

I also particularly liked Scuttle in this movie, although a lot of that is probably because I truly love Awkwafina in whatever role I see her in, whether it’s live action or voice acting. I did find it a little bit weird that Scuttle could apparently breathe (and talk!) under the water to Ariel, but although I was wondering how that was possible, it didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the movie.

I also really loved being able to see more of the island that was Eric’s home. And considering that Ariel sings she wants to see people dancing in Part of Your World, it was great to see her getting to do that…as well as the culture shock that was to be expected, since Scuttle wasn’t nearly the expert on humans she believed she was.

All in all, I really did enjoy this movie. It was visually beautiful and I loved the songs, especially Part of Your World and Kiss The Girl. I would definitely recommend going to see this movie, particularly if you’re a Disney fan, and especially if you’re a fan of The Little Mermaid.

So, this movie was the fourth of the two weeks of Unlimited showings at Cineworld. And I’d had a bit of a mentally draining day, so I did hesitate over going ahead and seeing this. But in the end, I’m glad that I did watch themovie.

The idea of a comedian who’s famous because he tears his shirt off and yells, “I’m the Machine!” is one that just seems absolutely ridiculous on paper. Of course, the whole movie makes it clear that the whole thing became a viral sensation – which did make a certain kind of sense.

One of the good things about this movie was seeing the impact of Bert’s (aka the Machine) actions on the rest of his family. Even though he was going to therapy and trying to a certain extent, it seemed clear – at least to me – that he hadn’t taken full responsibility for his actions. While there were some hints about exactly what had gone on, it wasn’t until much later in the movie that it was revealed exactly what had happened with his oldest daughter and that he finally took responsibility for what his own actions had caused.

There were quite a lot of moments of humour in this movie and it definitely didn’t take itself too seriously. One of my favourite parts of the movie was the use of the flashbacks, and the gradual reveal of what had really happened in Bert’s past. I thought it was particularly interesting to see how the glamour and excitement of going to a new country changed to something much darker and more sinister. By the end of the movie, I felt like I had a much better understanding of Bert’s character and motivations.

I also really liked Irina, even though I really didn’t expect to when she first appeared. I enjoyed the bonding experiences she shared with Bert…and although it was a bit disappointing to see her bonding with Albert glossed over (while Bert was unconscious), I still thought she was a really great character, with motives that gave her more depth…unlike her brothers, both of whom just seemed like carbon copies of each other.

All told, I really did enjoy this movie. It was a lot of fun and didn’t require a lot of thought to watch. I don’t think it’s a movie I’d get anything out of watching a second time, but it was definitely entertaining and worth watching a first time, in my opinion.

The Fast and Furious franchise is definitely one that doesn’t need to be thought too hard about while watching…and Fast X definitely fits that bill.

Some of the events that occurred had been spoiled in the trailer. For instance, Cipher’s reappearance – but then again, she was always going to come back, being one of the few villains who was shown to still be alive at the end of the movie she appeared in.

There were some nice nods to the characters in the previous movies. For instance, it was good to see Elena’s younger sister…how she was affected by her older sister’s death and her interactions with Dom.

Dom is quite an intriguing character, since he started off as one of the bad guys in the first Fast and Furious…only to have an almost complete turnaround, from antihero to full hero. One of the other characters mentioned that he’s forever running back into the burning building to save others, heedless of the danger of the building collapsing onto him…and if that doesn’t describe Dom so completely, I don’t know what does.

So. Jason Momoa plays a psychopath so incredibly well in this movie. And he was even described as such by my nine-year-old nephew, Freddie, who saw the movie literally a day after I did. It is a little predictable to have yet another enemy crawl out of the woodwork to come after Dom and his family…but Dante is an unhinged enemy and the danger does feel pretty real; at least to innocent bystanders, given that the main family seem to be protected by plot armour, something that’s even mentioned by one of the characters in the ninth movie!

There was obviously going to be a confrontation between Han and Shaw in this movie. I didn’t realise that the extra scene in Hobbs and Shaw was actually from Fast X, but as the conflict wouldn’t have felt resolved if the interaction had happened offscreen, it was good to see them…even if Shaw’s immediate reaction of violence wasn’t perhaps the best decision. Still, it was good to see him make an appearance again; and given that he’s been shown to be a more nuanced character, I would have liked to see a bit more of him working with Dom’s team.

All told, I did enjoy this movie. It didn’t require too much thought, and it was nice to see more of the other characters, like Little Brian and Jakob. Unfortunately, the movie did end on a bit of a cliffhanger…and while it seemed very much like Dom and the rest of the family were in dire straits, it was a bit hard to assume that any of them had been fatally taken out, given the franchise’s penchant for bringing the dead back to life.

This was the movie I watched the evening after Beau Is Afraid. It wasn’t purely by choice; in two weeks, there are four unlimited showings at Cineworld. If you go to all four, you get entered into a prize draw. Hypnotic was first; then Beau Is Afraid; and now Sisu.

After the movie I watched the previous night that I didn’t enjoy, this movie was very much a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t an overly complicated, deeply meaningful film. At its heart, it was simply an action movie: a one man kill squad taking out Nazis.

In the initial opening scene, the main character, Jorma, really doesn’t come across as much of a threat. He’s panning for gold with his dog and his horse, and is obviously really happy when he finds some. As is revealed later on in the movie, he really has nothing left to live for, as his whole family is dead. As Aino puts it, ‘He’s not immortal. He simply refuses to die.’

An interesting thing about Jorma’s character was that he was clearly prepared to ignore the Nazis as long as they left him alone. In some ways, that attitude was understandable…and it wasn’t clear that he was immediately aware of the women who’d been taken captive; although they were used to navigate the minefield later, and I’m pretty sure he was aware that they were prisoners.

The Nazis definitely weren’t sympathetic in this movie, but there was one scene where they think they’ve killed Jorma and one of them removes his cap in what seems to be a way of respecting the dead. I thought that was an interesting touch to the movie.

I was really glad to see that the women who were captives were developed and shown to be pretty strong. The only one who really had any speaking parts was Aino, but I had a lot of respect for them by the time they were given the tools to fight back against their captors. There’s a really good scene of them just walking along, which feels very powerful.

I mentioned that Jorma is a one man kill squad and doesn’t seem to die, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to injury. There were a lot of scenes where I cringed at the wounds he received and, to be honest, I did question just how he was able to carry on walking, let alone fighting, after some of what he went through…cauterising the wounds or not.

Despite the difficulty in suspension of disbelief I noted above, this movie was an easy watch. I probably won’t watch it again, but it was entertaining to watch the first time.

To be honest…I did not enjoy this movie. At all. I watched the trailer and it made very little sense; and then I watched the film itself and the confusion I felt after watching the trailer was only heightened. It was disappointing, because of the previous two movies directed by the same person, I’d enjoyed Midsommar…and while I didn’t really enjoy Hereditary to the same extent, it still wasn’t like this movie.

There were some interesting parts of this movie. For instance, there was a tiny hint of mystery in the dreams that Beau kept having, where he was watching his mother and another boy arguing. The boy looked identical to Beau at that age, but Beau was watching the two of them from where he was sitting in the bath…at least, that’s what it seemed like from the camera angles. And that element of mystery could have been explored much further…but at the end of the movie, I was left wondering what in the world had happened; and was that dream actually a memory, or was it just included to raise confusion even more?

Another thing I found quite interesting, although I did feel the scene went on far too long, was when Beau is watching a play in the forest and fantasises that he’s the main character in the play. He obviously feels an affinity to the person in the play who cuts off his own chains, but although that could have been a truly symbolic moment, any possibility of that is lost with the over-long scene of the man separated from his family and trying to find his way back to them. And that could probably have had a better effect of drawing both Beau and me as a viewer in if there wasn’t the narrator constantly saying, ‘You will….’

The movie was, on the whole, very confusing. I definitely felt that it could have been condensed down a lot – it really didn’t need to be three hours long and I was fairly bored watching it; enough that I kept getting my phone out to check what the time was. I wasn’t even really sure what genre the movie was supposed to be; and even though Beau was meant to be the main character, I didn’t really care about him…or indeed any of the characters in this movie.

I really can’t recommend watching this movie. It wasn’t engaging enough to keep my attention throughout and it was far too long when it could have been so much shorter…and potentially better, without all of the extra filler.

This isn’t a movie I have any interest in watching again.

I was very intrigued by the plot of this movie, although the idea of people with the ability to hypnotise others with just their words isn’t a truly original one.

The movie definitely had Inception vibes to it. I found the overarching storyline to be really good, but I did feel that Ben Affleck’s acting was kind of wooden. That did make a lot of sense with what was revealed later on, but I spent a lot of the movie confused about why a good actor was suddenly not as good.

There was an awful lot that was going on in this movie, even though things seemed fairly straightforward at first. I mentioned above that this movie had a feel very similar to Inception. There’s even one scene where the whole world seems to turn upside down, although it seems to indicate that Danny’s perception of reality was changed, rather than reality itself.

I did find Diana’s explanation of how someone acting under hypnosis to be really interesting. She comments that those who use hypnosis make their victims see whatever reality will make them act in the way the person hypnotising them wants them to…and that seems to hold true throughout the whole movie, even when everything changes so drastically.

The movie was mainly focused on Danny and the journey he was taking throughout. The secondary characters weren’t really developed in the same way, especially because there was a real sense of not knowing what, or even who, was truly real and what existed only in Danny’s head.

The strongest relationship in the movie, apart from the one between Danny and Diana, was the one between Danny and his partner, Nicks. I would have liked some more background and detail about Nicks. Even with what was revealed later on, I felt there was more of a relationship between Danny and Nicks and it would have been good to see more of an exploration…especially because so many of the secondary characters just weren’t developed enough to care about.

All in all, this movie was one that I really liked watching. It wasn’t what I was expecting when I first stepped into the cinema and when the movie originally started, but I don’t think that was necessarily a bad thing. There were some clever moments of foreshadowing in this movie and a couple of things happened that I didn’t expect. Yes, there were some things that could have been done better…but on the whole, the movie was a really intriguing watch. It held my attention throughout and I’d be interested in watching a sequel to this movie, perhaps one where the wider world is explored.