Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we run through the biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week: restaurant murderbots, dead lovers, and a whole lot of killing Bill…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
Based on the videogame franchise, the first Five Nights at Freddy’s film, in which a security guard has a run-in with a group of possessed animatronics, had a mixed reception. Critics were not blown away, with the film currently sitting at 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. But it did well enough with audiences – the games have a big cult following, leading to an 86% audience rating on RT and a profit of around $161 million. It was evidently successful enough to spawn a sequel.
In Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, returning security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and police officer Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) have started to recover from the events of the first movie, although Mike’s sister Abby (Piper Rubio) is still missing the spirits of the five dead children she befriended as they haunted the novelty animatronics of abandoned restaurant Freddy Fazbear’s. When Abby is summoned back to Freddy’s, the animatronics escape and are set loose on the world, leading to new revelations about Freddy’s dark past.
I haven’t yet seen any reviews for this, which is probably not a great sign – it usually means the studios don’t have much faith in a film and want to minimise any pre-release negative publicity. With the first film having revealed that the animatronics are murdered children, it might be difficult to believe them as evil monsters this time around. But fans of the franchise will no doubt find something to enjoy, whether it’s the expansion of the lore or in-joke nods to the games. Newcomers to the franchise might be better off watching the Itchy & Scratchy Land episode of the Simpsons…
- Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 on IMDB
- Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 on Rotten Tomatoes
Eternity
After a long and happy life together, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller) pass away within a week of each other. They find themselves at the Junction – a limbo where souls have a short time to decide which afterlife they want to spend the rest of eternity in. But Joan’s decision is harder than usual, because waiting for her at the Junction is her first love Luke (Callum Turner), who died decades earlier and has been waiting for her to arrive so that they can be together again. Who will she spend the rest of eternity with?
This looks like a fun romantic comedy which clearly owes a lot of its genes to The Good Place (which is a compliment). Someone had a lot of fun with the job-fair-style display stands for different afterlife options, and the Afterlife Coordinators (Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early) lend a kooky vibe to proceedings. Elizabeth Olsen is a very naturally likeable actress who will have no problem selling the emotional and moral dilemma she finds herself in, and it should be fun watching Teller and Turner compete for her affections.
Eternity is getting some good reviews with a respectable 78% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you’re looking for a nice sweet rom-com with an original premise, this is definitely the film for you this week.
- Eternity on IMDB
- Eternity on Rotten Tomatoes
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
For the maybe two or three people who haven’t already seen it (and can’t guess from the title), Kill Bill is a classic revenge story from director Quentin Tarantino. It follows Uma Thurman’s The Bride, a former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, as she fights her way through the other four members to get to their leader, Bill (David Carradine), and punish him for murdering her husband on their wedding day. It was originally filmed with the intention of being released as one long film, but was split in two (at the suggestion of Harvey Weinstein) so that Tarantino wouldn’t have to cut any scenes, with volume 1 being released in 2003 and volume 2 six months later in 2004. But with audiences increasingly accustomed to longer run-times thanks to movies like The Brutalist, the story is finally getting released as a single four-and-a-half hour narrative just as Tarantino wanted from the start.
Although this will be re-framed as one long film, it doesn’t appear that the footage has been substantially re-edited to link the two halves together more cohesively. Instead, like The Brutalist, the film will feature an intermission, presumably at the end of volume one, to give audiences the chance to pop to the loo and top up their snacks. There will however be an extended version of the anime sequence that sets out the backstory for Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii, as well as reportedly an accompanying animated short film titled The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge which was produced for the film’s Fortnite tie-in.
Even if you’ve seen the original cuts of the films a hundred times before, this will be a great excuse to catch them again in the cinema in one big sitting. The standout Crazy 88 sequence will look particularly spectacular on the big screen, and the fantastic soundtrack (woo-hoo, woo hoo hoo) and splattery sound effects will sound great belting out of the surround-sound speakers.
- Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair on IMDB
- Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Unsheath your Hattori Hanzo sword, zip up your yellow jump suit, and settle down for Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Zootropolis 2 – Visually impressive, a great cast, a heartfelt story, and more corny animal puns than you can shake a stick at, Zootropolis 2 is a worthy successor to the original that kids and adults alike will enjoy. Ke Huy Quan’s Gary De’Snake is a very lovable addition, but all the new characters are just as entertaining (my personal favourite is Patrick Warburton’s action hero horse Mayor Winddancer). Stay to the end of the credits for a hint at what’s to come in Zootropolis 3.
- Pillion
- Wicked: For Good
Trailer of the Week
The first Ready Or Not film was a surprise hit, arriving in cinemas without any franchise credentials to draw in audiences, and quickly became a cult favourite with its lighthearted tone, ridiculous premise (a girl marries into a rich family and is forced to play a deadly game of Hide and Seek to satisfy their grim tradition) and over-the-top violence. It didn’t need a sequel, but we’re getting one anyway and if the first trailer is anything to go by then that’s something to be grateful for. Samara Weaving’s Grace wakes up in hospital after the events of the first film, only to find that four new families want to replay the game, with the winner (ie whoever successfully finds and kills her) taking the losers’ global business empires. Among the new cast of seekers are Elijah Wood, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Durand, and The Actual David Cronenberg, while Kathryn Newton also joins the fun as Grace’s sister. With a name that rivals Mamma Mia: Here I Go Again in the field of brilliantly obvious sequel titles, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come arrives in cinemas on 10 April.
Leave a Reply