Hello, and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Every Thursday we look at the upcoming cinema releases and talk about why you should get excited for them. This week: Will, a western, The Watched, and Winnie…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these films. All of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die
In the latest instalment of the Bad Boys franchise, Will Smith’s Mike Lowry and Martin Lawrence’s Marcus Burnett have to become fugitives to clear the name of their former captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano).
The Bad Boys films (and American buddy cop films in general) have never particularly appealed to me, but I know a lot of people with heaps of fondness for the originals. The series was revived to mixed reviews with 2020’s Bad Boys For Life, which clearly did well enough to show that these films can still turn a profit. There are some fun moments in the trailer – an early scene, in which Lawrence’s attempt to sneakily buy himself a few extra calories at a convenience store pitstop is interrupted by an armed robbery, is a particular highlight – and Smith and Lawrence clearly have a good chemistry. Will Smith is always an enjoyable watch and can elevate most material through his charisma alone. And there is a big supporting cast here, including Vanessa Hudgens (Spring Breakers), Alexander Ludwig (Vikings), Eric Dane (Euphoria), Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four), Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) and, for some reason, DJ Khaled.
If you’re a fan of the earlier films then I am sure this will be high on your list and you’ll have a great time with it. If you’re not a fan of the earlier films then I don’t get the impression there’ll be much new material here to win you over.
- Bad Boys: Ride or Die on IMDB
- Bad Boys: Ride or Die on Rotten Tomatoes
The Dead Don’t Hurt
Written, directed by and starring Viggo ‘Aragorn’ Mortensen, The Dead Don’t Hurt (not to be confused with zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die) tells the story of Holger Olsen (Mortensen) and his lover Vivienne (Vicky Krieps) – two immigrant pioneers trying to make a home in 1860s California. When Holger decides to enlist to fight in the American Civil War, Vivienne is left to fend for herself in the wild west.
Actors taking a turn behind the camera can be a mixed bag, but judging by the trailer the result here looks pretty beautiful. Like all great westerns, there are plenty of sumptuous landscapes and gorgeous sunsets, pistol-wielding ruffians and a lingering sense of danger and adventure. But at its heart there’s a touching love story too, and potentially a bit of an underlying moral about the treatment of immigrants in America.
Aragorn will always hold a special place in my heart so I can’t fault Mortensen as an actor – he often plays characters who are tough but warm-hearted, with a subtlety that makes the combination feel natural instead of a contradiction. I’m less familiar with Krieps’s work, but she looks great here in what appears to be a strong female role. The cast also includes Danny Huston as the town’s mayor and Garrett Dillahunt as an influential local rancher.
This looks like an exciting and affecting film and should be well worth a watch.
- The Dead Don’t Hurt on IMDB
- The Dead Don’t Hurt on Rotten Tomatoes
The Watched
In The Watched, a young girl (Dakota Fanning) is stranded in the middle of a forest in Ireland. Finding shelter in a mysterious cabin with a group of strangers, she learns that they are trapped there at the whim of some mysterious creatures who watch them at night. This horror-mystery was produced by M Night Shyamalan and written and directed by his daughter Ishana Shyamalan, so expect some folklorey undertones and a twisting plot.
Although there are lots of elements here that feel like they’ve been seen before – unseen malevolent creatures like those in Bird Box, Irish faerie dwellings like in Unwelcome (and almost every other fantasy film set in Ireland…), a cabin in the woods with some supernatural secrets like… Cabin In The Woods. But the combination of those elements nevertheless feels like it could be an original and interesting film. The trailer hints at Fanning’s character having some secrets of her own, and she clearly has more drive to escape her situation than her fellow cabin-dwellers.
I am also intrigued to see to what extent Ishana Shyamalan, who is making her feature film directorial debut, has inherited her father’s style. M Night is so famous for his final act plot twists that it’s actually harmed how the public view his films – it’s difficult to make a twist (or, by extension, a movie) effective and surprising when your audience is expecting it and probably spent most of the first two acts trying to guess what it might be. Which is a shame, because he is very good at building a mysterious and suspenseful atmosphere that doesn’t particularly need a surprise at the end to overshadow the rest of the film. It would be quite refreshing if his daughter can recreate that style without feeling the need to crowbar in a last-minute rug-pull.
Dakota Fanning is a talented actress, even if she still feels like she’s trying to shrug off the go-to child actor image. If Ishana can pull it off then this should be a good, creepy, mysterious diversion.
- The Watched on IMDB
- The Watched on Rotten Tomatoes
Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2
Last and almost certainly least, we have Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2. The first Blood and Honey film was deeply unpopular with both critics and audiences, but it was made on a miniscule budget and got enough word of mouth publicity (mostly people saying WTF is this?) to warrant more. The film was made because Winnie the Pooh went into the public domain, meaning that anyone could use the character for anything, so someone decided to make a cheap horror film with Pooh and Piglet as serial killers. It was criticised not just for the tasteless exploitation of a beloved character, but because it was a rubbish film. There was minimal effort to connect it to the original IP in any way other than the use of the names – Pooh and Piglet were just big guys wearing a bear and boar mask and a fondness for stabbing people. A concept like this needs to understand, respect and play with the source material in a tongue-in-cheek way, but instead it felt more like a student film with some famous names cynically tacked on at the last minute for brand recognition.
Does Blood and Honey 2 learn from the criticisms of the first movie? It looks like the stakes (and the production values) are higher – Pooh and Piglet were confined to the Hundred Acre Wood in the first film but have upgraded to terrorising a small town here. Other than that, it looks like it follows in much the same vein. Tigger and Owl are joining Pooh and Piglet, which again feels more exploitative than an actual attempt to enliven the concept (Tigger has only been in the public domain since the start of the year – fortunately the Disney version is still subject to copyright). But it is scoring better than the first one did on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes – at the time of writing its 4.9 star rating on IMDB is two stars more than the first, and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (79%) is actually higher than that of Bad Boys: Ride or Die (70%).
If you loved Winnie the Pooh as a kid but always felt it needed more flaming chainsaws then by all means fill your boots. But if you just want to watch something to occupy yourself for a couple of hours, there are better options for that this week.
- Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 on IMDB
- Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
…watch The Watched.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- The Beast
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
- IF
Trailer of the week
Looking to bring the franchise back to its claustrophobic space horror roots after the divisive Prometheus and Covenant, Alien: Romulus has just released its first full trailer. All the xenomorphic boxes are ticked – we have facehuggers, chest-bursters, at least one fully-fledged adult, and a whole lot of screaming. This looks brilliant.
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