The Fantastic Four: First Steps

 

This was my first time taking the kids to a 12A at the cinema. Beforehand I consulted some Christian websites and adjudged that the swearing was minimal, the love scenes mild enough, and the level of peril highly acceptable. And it looked better than the new Spiderman.

I am generally averse to superhero films and find the high-speed action scenes boring. But this film didn't have too much of that. It was mostly about the relationship between the four of them, which was well done. There was a background of SciFi and disasters and space and superpowers too so it didn't get too talking and melodramatic. Overall, a good balance.

  

Freakier Friday

 

We took our kids to see this (aged 7 and 9), and someone else's kids too. While I think the children all enjoyed the cinema experience (snacks, reclining seats) I feel that most of the jokes were lost on them, as most of the jokes were about older people being slow and out of touch with youngsters. Boomers.

The film does have a few funny gags, and the body-swap plot is an instant recipe for comedy gold. This time there are two body swaps, so even more opportunities for silliness. This film is obviously not as good as the first movie, and nothing on The Parent Trap (which Zoe did really like), but still fun.

 

28 Years Later

Before this movie started I saw lots of trailers with crawling babies and floating people and limbs bending impossibly, and I wondered if it might be almost Halloween. But it's because 28 Years Later is classified a horror film. But this series of films is much more interesting than just gore, and in fact the bits where they are running away form the zombies are not the best part at all.

In the first film from 2002, 28 Days Later, the virus that causes Rage and zombie-like behaviour is accidentally released, and there were few survivors. As ever, it's the other humans that are the real danger. 28 Weeks Later I haven't seen yet. The third installment is directed by Danny Boyle again, and we are in Northern Scotland on a little village separated from the mainland by a causeway. This is ideal conditions for survival, no access for Zombies and lots of hardy people who like farming and weaving.

After all these years they have a good defensive system and are teaching the children archery. A twelve-year old boy is taken with his Daddy across to the mainland, and there the adventure begins.

It's clear that a lot has happened in the years since the virus was first released, and there are strange things going on. What makes the film really good is the visual suggestions without explanations. And also Ralph Fiennes as a demented doctor who somehow still survives in the wild.

I really enjoyed it. The relationship between the boy and his mother is excellent, and there was a weird but interesting conclusion.   

 

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

When I got into the cinema there was an awful trailer on about a supercomputer called "The Entity" that had lots of shiny blue lights and was taking over the world. Then I realised I'd arrive late and this was the Mission Impossible film that had already started. AI baddies are rubbish, and I hope they don't appear in any other films. It was good in The Terminator though.

Once Ethan Hunt appears on screen he gets a message from the president. She spends a long time recapping his exploits from previous films, which make you wish you were watching one of those films instead. Then she takes time to mention that he never follows the rules but has never let her down yet. Finally she tells him that the fate of humanity is in his hands. This theme is mentioned very often, that Ethan is gambling with the fate of the human race. There's also a lot of chat about decompression.

There are no fewer than four magic items to collect: a key made of two parts, a box in a submarine, a pen-drive that fits in the box that Luther made, and another pen-drive that Luther also made. The plot is not a good one. The motivation for the AI villain is not clear, nor why there is a giant clock counting down in US Headquarters. The bad guy from a previous jaunt, Gabriel, wants to take over The Identity, which initially requires him to keep Cruise alive. But then he seems to forget about that and tries to kill Cruise. 

Ethan's team consists of previous agents, the best of which surprisingly is Simon Pegg. Some of the actions scenes that run in parallel are quite good, and my favourite scenes were in the Arctic.

Cruise is a bit cheeky sometimes but fairly lifeless. He runs a lot (too much?) and spends a lot of the film in his pants. For me, that doesn't save this from being a very poor addition to the series.

Alien: Romulus

The first film, Alien, ends with Ripley ejecting the alien out the airlock and putting herself into Cryosleep for the 57-year journey home. It's during that time that this inter-sequel is set. The Weyland company have found the remains of Ripley's ship with an extra-terrestrial presence, and are looking to exploit it for evil gains. This confused me, as in the second canonical film, Aliens, the company don't seem to know they've found an alien and start terraforming the planet (which was unbelievable even in that film).

In Romulus, a bunch of space-miners with nothing to lose, sneak on board an abandoned company ship for what ought to be a straight-forward mission to steal a few cryo-pods of their own. Obviously, lots goes wrong.

There are a few familiar tropes from the Alien franchise. There is a deep mistrust of androids, though sometimes they can surprise you and are helpful. I've also learned that as soon as someone gets infected by an alien, or even spends a short while near aliens, you should be extremely suspicious when they have cold-like systems. Waste no time investigating, but shoot and flamethrow them and boot them out the airlock.

Inside Out 2

This was always going to be a tough sequel to make. The appeal of the first one was the originality of setting the story inside a brain, and the fun of meeting each emotion. The novelty of the sequel is the introduction of some new emotions, which is a difficulty as in the first film we saw adults with just the usual five (Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, Anger).

As Riley turns 13 and goes to Secondary School she is taken over by Anxiety, along with Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui. These teenage emotions remove her from her happy self-confident self and make her desperate to make friends, at the expense of being nice. You can guess how it ends.

There are some good moments. Ennui is never bothered by anything, except when she loses her phone. I liked it when she introduced sarcasm too. But there's rather too much ice hockey and the extra bits about the brain don't add much.

Alex rated it as two fingers pointing at each other (middle-middle) and I'd agree.

    

Dune 2

I've been looking forward to this film since the first part was released in 2021. That had more House Atreides indoors; this one is nearly all out in the desert.

It's a similarly slow pace, as Paul and the viewers get to know the secret world of the Fremen. The gentle introduction is mixed with apocalyptic visions and very loud bits of music.

There's a lot of guerrilla warfare, viewed from the side of the insurgents. It's hard not to see the desert resistance as similar to Iraqis or Afghani's trying to force out the Americans extracting oil. There's also a shadowy group behind all major world events, but I think despite this the film isn't meant as a social commentary, just an exciting story.

Paul goes deeper into his own mind and emerges. The conclusion is inconclusive. I could certainly watch more. After two hours I checked my watch and was disappointed to see there was only one hour left.