What would James Gunn’s take on superman be? Well, some action, sure, but not the spectacle I expected/feared.
Superman suffers from a social media slandering campaign. His alien nature is used against him and fake news is used to discredit him. Of course there is a bad guy with bad plans for the world that needs to be overcome.
Drama, spectacle, American patriotism, everything you expect from a Hollywood action film is here. The result is ….well… perhaps not boring, but not great either. Especially the over use of CGI is quite annoying.
Udo Kier passed away on 23 November 2025. He turned 81 a month before. Kier played in many films, but I mostly remind him for his double role in Lars von Trier’s “Riget” series.
When a great actor passes away, I try to find a movie featuring that actor, preferably one that I did not yet know. I found “Swan Song” in which Kier played the main role, while he is usually more in the background.
Based on a real story, Kier plays Pat Pitsenbarger a flamboyant hair dresser in a rural town in the USA. We find him old and weak in a retirement home. When a former client of him passes away, the will specified Pitsenbarger for the hair dressing. Pitsenbarger initially refuses, but later decides to take the walk to the funerary hall.
Apparently Petsenbarger lived in the same town his entire life, also towards the end. Walking back into town, he relives memories. His deceased partner, the gay bar where he used to perform, the place where his house used to be, etc. Quite like in “Lucky” we see an actor at the end of his days, playing a character going towards his end with drama, memories and humour.
Kier proves to be an exellent actor whose face can show any emotion. “Swan Song” was beautiful yet heavy.
Apparently the third “Venom” film. The second one is not on Netflix, so I just picked this one.
Like the other “Venom” that I reviewed, “The Last Dance” is alright. Tom Hardy is Eddie Brock, this time and his is already possessed by Venom. Venom is chased by other aliens and so a ‘bromance’ action comedy unfolds with a bit of kids humour.
I guess the name of the director rose my expectations a bit too much. “Frankenstein” is good, but not great.
Del Toro made quite a dramatic version of the famous story. He added a few thriller elements because Victor Frankenstein is hunted by his “creature”. In flashbacks he tells the story of the creation of the “creature”.
The viewer gets the usual elaborate fantasyful world of Del Toro, but too often it is too obviously made on a computer. The story is known, there is a somewhat interesting element of forbidden love. Overal Del Toro presented just an alright drama.
“Lord Doyle” (Collin Farrell) has exchanged England for Macau, China. In different ways he is looking for money and he had to flee. In China his attempts are trying to win in casinos, but his luck is not what he hoped.
Convinced that he will be able to solve his problems, he works himself into more and more problems. Not unpredictably, he is chased by people who lent him money. Slowly, but surely, “Lord Doyle” sinks away in a swamp. There is a tiny flicker of light when he grows closer to a woman who works in one of his casinos.
“Ballad of a Small Player” is an alright drama with an amusing Tilda Swinton.
In some future Mickey decides that he is better off away from earth. He volunteers for quite an odd function. He will be a tester in some space colony and after every test he will be dead and reprinted.
The idea itself is already not too interesting and it also is not worked out too way. Of course it can be used to make jokes and add some drama, but the story develops in quite a predictable way. The result is unconvincing.
Anya Taylor-Joy is gorgeous as Emma Woodhouse, the 21 year old daughter of a a rich man. Emma leads the careless life that she pictures for herself, manipulating her surroundings and being the rich girl in general.
Emma brings people together or rather the opposite. From a nearby school for girls, she befriends Harriet (Mia Goth) who she tries to educate in her own way.
A plan of Emma concerning Harriet turns out differently from what she had in mind and Emma learns that she cannot control everything.
“Emma.” is a very amusing costume drama with nice, British humour.
I actually planned on watching something else, but it became the latest revamp of the “Naked Gun” films. I actually saw the first three fairly recently. Then I heard that there would be a new version. Coincidence? I was curious whether they would still be funny. There are jokes that still work, but it is not like I fall off the couch laughing.
The same I can say about this 2025 version. The creators added typical “Naked Gun” jokes, old and new, which sometimes work, sometimes less so.
Liam Neeson is fairly funny as Frank Drebin jr. His ‘Bond girl’ is none less than Pamela Anderson.
You get the usual clumsy Drebin and bad jokes. Apparently Schaffer also wanted to include jokes of earlier films that are now somewhat questionable, but I like the no-compromise attitude.
Anyway, amusing, a few good jokes, overall not hilarious.
Only when i was reviewing the latest “Tron” did I learn that there was another film, series too, computer games, animation. This 2010 version is not of the least director either.
“Tron: Legacy” is the least of the three (1982, 2025 and 2010), but still an enjoyable movie. This time the son of the creator of “the grid” accidentally ends up in that grid himself. What starts as a common action film, then becomes a more interesting computer game science-fiction film with 1980’ies music, like its counterparts. Also recognisable elements such as the motorcycles, the rings on the backs, etc.
The latest “Tron” film has a few elements that make more sense when you saw this 2010 film first, so I would advice to watch them in the order they came out.
I remember liking the original, but apparently I do not remember much of it. I had to get into “Tron: Ares”, but I highly enjoyed it once I did.
We watch the battle between two computer game giants, one of which built a “grid” that is protected by the application Ares. I mostly had to get used to the applications being portrayed as people.
The son of the family behind one of the companies, has the power he wields rise to his head. A sort of 3D printing technique was created to put things in the software and the other way around, pieces from the software in the real world.
Ares starts to rebel against his creator and while given the order to find a woman from the other camp who found some super-code, he concocts his own plan.
The result is quite the scifi spectacle, but most interesting are the (1980’ies) computer like environments and the music giving a vibe of the same era. And indeed, when you know the original, you will see many references. Perhaps I will watch the old one again some time. That one I rated four starts in 2011. This time I come to the same rating.
