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.
 

2023 Review

 All the films I've watches this year: in bold are my favourites, italics at the cinema 

January

• See How They Run - convoluted crime caper bit too clever and fleeting
• Prey - like the original Predator but feminist not macho
• Whisky Galore (2020) - surprisingly entertaining very light comedy
• Shadowlands - good repressed Hopkins not as good as Remains of the Day though
• Legend - Classic East End gangsters you've got to have a crazy unpredictable one to make you tense
• Banshees of Inisherin - low-key and a bit disturbing thing there's a lot to it
• Crazy Heart - like A Star is Born but a bit rougher apart from ending
• My Summer of Love - enjoyably slow low-key film like the Goob
• A Cure for Wellness - spooky big institution like Shutter Island
• A Bigger Splash - unusual sprawling atmospheric ramble playing on charism of Ralph Fiennes
• Trance - too much noise smashing in my face but a nice idea
• Nomadland - felt like a documentary
• He Got Game - better than ever
• Remember the Titans - too bombastic do they really take school sports this seriously in America
• Miracle - sports story I didn't know and found moderately interesting, like that they taught hockey players to act not other way round

February

• Amsterdam - fast talking detective thriller unconvincing Taylor Swift
• Aftermath - good idea for a film slow burner
• King of Thieves - classic caper into character study, Jim Broadbent a baddy
• The Menu - fun, like See how they run, with food, bit of a leap at some parts
• The last Duel - Ridley scott history turns into MeToo movement
• The Black Sheild of Falworth - Tony Curtis Knights romp
•   Enchanted
• White Men Can't Jump - Classic Wesley and Woody at their best
• The Man Who Knew Infinity - quite enjoyable predictable story

March

• Courage Under Fire - classic same story from different angles
• Vice - depressing anti-Republican semi-doc
• Match Point - enjoyable high life
• Get Back 1 - amazing footage I didn't realise existed
• Entebbe - good story simply told, except the chair dance
• The Beach - classic Danny Boyle
• Two faces of January - interesting rambling disintegration of Viggo in Greece
• Wedding Planner - Not as bad as I remembered. Actually it was quite bad.
• The Fountain - immersive epic with three moving strands
•   Coco - quite fun Disney
• Mr Jones - they all chuckle when Mr Jones talks about danger of Hitler, but of course he was right! Seems very relevant now talking about how evil Stalin was
• Kingdom of Heaven - thought I'd seen this, hadn't, solid epic minus Bloom. Nasty French Guy is good
• Pretty Woman - never seen this either, not missing much

April

•   Long Pond sessions - nice songs but they talk a lot of rubbish about lockdown
•   San Andreas - absurd and exciting
• Tigerland - good as ever, lots of training
•   The Binge - like the Purge but even worse though has Vince Vaughn
•   High Fidelity - enjoyable sort of rom-com

May

• Narrow Margin - classic 70s train drama with Gene Hackman
• The China Syndrome - good tense informative drama
• The Martian - excellent practical and fun
• Ladybird - great Mum and she isn't too annoying
• Easy A - a bit too self-knowing but still very enjoyable
• The Thing from Another World - low budget and low quality but a great plot
• Moonlight - quite enjoyable slice of life
• Frequently asked questions abouit time travel - fun premise characters not quite believable
• The Sound of Music - good songs, sickly sweet but I enjoyed it
•   Monsters Inc
• Mercy - classic boat yarn with Colin Firth

June

• Colette - rollicking Parisian story
• Monuments Men - pretty light warfare
•   Supernova - Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth as aging gay men pretty good
• The Heart of the Ocean - not as good as The Bounty but similar ideas
• Miseducation of Cameron Post - good story always heading one way but I liked that way
• Olympians at Heart - TV movie about happy teenage gymnasts, utterly predictable

July

• Baby Done - Gentle NZ comedy nice gender role reversal with male husband straight guy
• Hell and High Water - predictable but fun Western great quiet stand off in the ending
• The Last Right - Irish funeral comedy
• Mary Queen of Scots - gritty historical drama seems like Mary was hard done by
• Count of Monte Cristo - what a story would have loved to read it 150 years ago. Good film too
• Heartbreak Kid - weird 70s film about chancer falling in love with someone else on honeymoon
• Elemental - disappointing Pixar
• Nighthawks - poor but fun stallone cop film from the 80s
• Oppenheimer - intense character study but misses out on being good

August

• Wild Men -craacking comedy with surprising tone throughout
•   Eight Bells Toll - vintage Hopkins as unconvincing spy
• Love + Hate - moody Northern tale
• The Others - good tense horror film
• The Good Liar - interesting old pereson flashback fest with some duping

September

• The Mule - classic Clint being grumpy not sure he's even acting
• Radioactive - biopic of Marie Curie with more in the story than I thought
• Relic - unusual horror film without much gore but lots of tension
• Not Going Quietly - old person crime caper not much to recommend
• Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert -
• The Lady Vanishes - early Hitchcock very safe still some good moments
• Tulip Fever - atmospheric Tudor piece got quite into it
• Past Lives - boring but good I suppose Korean drama

October

• The Half of It - excellent nerdy teen drama
•   Space Jam 2 - action is OK but comedy terrible
• Enough - J'Lo running away not very good
• The Holiday - surprisingly engrossing but obvious RomCom
• Fair Play - tense and engrossing thriller tough viewing but compelling
• The Creator - epic SciFi with some surprises
• The Infinite - good idea but not very good film, like that Charlize Theron film but worse
• Licorice Pizza - I really thought this waas from the 70s
• The King - grim historical epic played straight. Best is mocking Dauphin played by R Patz
• The Mother - older JLo verson of Enough, she is better at acting tough and never lets up
• Adam Project - very light scifi Reynolds sets the tone

November

• Prisoners - excellent tense drama Gyllenhal looks so tired
• Gravity - nice floating scenes but not very realistic
• White Tiger - entertaining insight into India and poverty
• Americana Taylor Swift
• Don't Look Now
• The Unforgivable - not as gritty as I feared and with a well-paced plot
• The Nest - starts off being the most boring film ever but gains pace with a breakdown
• The Whole Nine Yards - Matt Perry quite funny but plot a right mess
• The Equalizer - excellent Denzel I can't wait to watch the secon one
• Everything everywhere all at once - good family drama but SciFi disappointing
• Extraction 2 - impressive action scenes
• The Green Knight - consistently dark tone
• Reputation Taylor Swift - "It's time to get real"
•   My Neighbour Totoro
• Kicking and Screaming - The best Will Ferrel sports comedy
• The Whale - good character but his choices upset me

December

• Dune - better than ever
• Bend it like Beckham - not aged well but still fun
• The Nice Guys - fun
•   All the Presidents Men - good fast paced drama about what is actually quite a boring story
•   The Grinch - OK Christmas fare
• The Hunt - you can see the bad things coming
• Life - interesting sci-fi idea
• Deep Water - great mood of darkness enjoyed it
• Massive weight of unbearable talent - silly Cage vehicle
• Leave the world behind - slick but slightly irritating
• Flying Like Birds - basketball drama not my favourite
• Pain Hustlers - good story rags to riches etc.
• The Wonder - Irish child stops eating mystery
• Maestro - over the top documentary but good characters
• Baahubali 1 & 2 great epics

The Creator

In the future it's American humans against the AI simulants of New Asia. The film looks like it might be a parable about the dangers of AI, but in fact the robots are all very nice and just want a quiet life. The actual parable is about the paranoid Americans bombing all the picturesque poor countries.

The special effect humanoid robots look pretty good, though it's annoying that every now and then you are given a very obvious reminder that they are robots by some un-necessary comedy robot whirring sounds. 

It's a grand film with some big ambitions, and I liked a lot of it. But I wasn't really captivated. The good and bad guys are rather obvious, and the ending wasn't either coherent or ridiculous enough for me.   

Past Lives

 

Two Korean best-friends reunite as adults but by then she's married to someone else. This is a slow-paced, mature, careful and thoughtful film, so is rather boring. I could have watched Fast X tonight and wish I had.  

Oppenheimer

 

Saw this with Jamie at a cinema in Lowestoft. It was good enough to keep me interested for the full three hours.

The film features Oppenheimer a few overlapping worlds; there's the nerdy physicists, the big American war machine, and his home life fringed with Communism. It's fun seeing the army come begging to the scientists, and I could have done with a bit more science, as I think the story of the bomb is a good one. What you get is an awful lot of people being introduced and it takes a while to settle down. Luckily there's a lot of famous cameos to make it easier to remember who's who.

About two-thirds of the way through they succeed in a test-trial of the bomb, which is an exciting moment tinged with a bit of melancholy, as this isn't like landing on the moon, they've made a killing machine. I could have done with more of the politics of dropping the bomb - they mention that Japan was nearly defeated but also that they wouldn't surrender so it's left open whether it was necessary to drop the bombs.

After that the film culminates with two rather boring committee hearings. One in a small grey room is about whether Oppenheimer gets his security clearance renewed. By now its about 1950 and it doesn't seem that important. The other hearing is whether a politician who doesn't like Oppenheimer, gets appointed to the cabinet. Again, very limited interest. These are used as devices to frame parts of Oppenheimer's life, which they do, but to me it's rather clear that Oppenheimer is the good guy here and the politician the bad guy.

There is a bit of ambiguity about whether Oppenheimer really regretted dropping the bomb, or was just saying he did, but he seemed like a decent guy.

The film was OK but not gripping, and it did not make me want to look up the person on Wikipedia afterwards, which is surely the proper test of a Biopic.