An amnesiac woman (Mélanie Laurent) wakes up in a sci-fi cryo pod and has to figure out why she is there and how to escape using her logic and an only intermittently helpful AI (Mathieu Amalric). There have been lots of claustrophobic thrillers over the years, usually the only notable thing that changes is the shape of the box. Like most of these things maintaining almost unbearable tension is only worth it if the eventual payoff is good, and the final stretch in OXYGEN doesn’t disappoint. It’s perhaps a little less bold in how it tries to tie everything up a bit too neatly, but the film is still full of ideas, director Alexandre Aja is a sure pair of hands in his tight control of the situation and the enticing information reveals and Laurent’s exposed performance is completely and utterly compelling throughout. SSP
Review in Brief: Oxygen (2021)
Review in Brief: Army of the Dead (2021)
Zack Snyder is clearly relieved to be done with superheroes for now and has returned to the genre that broke him through: the zombie movie. Unfortunately ARMY OF THE DEAD is an over-stuffed and largely ponderous affair. The promising premise of a heist in an undead-infested Vegas takes about an hour of a ludicrous 150 minute runtime to actually get going and it’s oddly lacking in tension for all the gory thrills. The ensemble cast playing all the usual archetypes are a mixed bag with only Matthias Schweighöfer and the late-in-the-day recast Tig Notaro making any real impact as they’re given all the best lines. Worth watching for the dazzling opening titles montage that’s like what ZOMBIELAND did but with triple the budget and a very Snyder-y needle drop. Whether you’ll want to stay for the rest of this only intermittently entertaining slog is another matter. SSP
Review in Brief: Willy’s Wonderland (2021)
WILLY’S WONDERLAND is proof positive that nobody needs to make a FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S movie now. Nicolas Cage is a silent janitor with borderline superhuman capabilities seemingly imbued by energy drinks fighting animatronic mascots possessed by a cannibal cult. The innate entertainment value of that schlocky premise is boosted by slick execution of the gnarly action scenes and the impressive realisation of the twisted animatronic characters, but is dragged down somewhat whenever the film has to focus on anyone who isn’t Cage. Inevitably a group of teenagers join Cage in the nightmare, seemingly just to act like typical dumb characters in a horror movie and to up the body count. This is a fun little tongue-in-cheek horror that may not do a whole lot that’s new but what it does do it does well and long before it outstays its welcome. SSP
Review in Brief: The Reckoning (2020)
It’s hard to put your finger exactly on what went wrong with THE RECKONING. It’s director Neil Marshall firmly back in his comfort zone, hybridising horror with another well-trod genre (in this case a historical witchfinder film) and he still makes the most of practical effects and prosthetic creature design (here with the realisation of Lucifer). But whatever the original intention, this ends up a woodenly performed and clumsily executed exploitation film that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Marshall perhaps imagined this was feminist, but seeing Grace (Charlotte Kirk) go through this much punishment just so she can get her own back in the end has been done with more impact elsewhere. The film’s inconsistency is its most annoying aspect: sometimes characters talk in archaic dialect, sometimes they don’t; sometimes people look dirty and uncomfortable in authentic smocks and tunics, sometimes they look like they’ve just got back from LARPing. Cool final shot, though. SSP
Where to Start with Bong Joon-ho
Review in Brief: Black Bear (2020/21)
There have been plenty of meta, reality-bending films about writing a screenplay, many from this century made by Charlie Kaufman. BLACK BEAR boasts a wonderful performance from Aubrey Plaza as an actor turned-writer-director looking for inspiration, but asks you to spend a storyline twice over with awful and not especially interesting characters. It doesn’t seem to have a lot new to say about the writing process beyond your perception of what is real getting blurred, hence why Allison is writing a screenplay in the first half of the film and starring in the resulting film being directed by someone else (played by one of the actors from the first in a different role) in the second. The film also features Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon, two of the most interesting young character actors working today, but performances aside Lawrence Michael Levine’s film just isn’t all that compelling and tries your patience long before it starts to intrigue. SSP
Review in Brief: Mortal Kombat (2021)
Maybe rather than trying to stumble upon the secret formula for a successful game-to-film adaptation, it should be agreed that the answer remains “don’t”. MORTAL KOMBAT looks visually impressive for the most part, and fans of the games will doubtless spot plenty of pleasing references to characters and mythology. The infamously gory fatality finishing moves have survived transfer to the screen intact (unlike the targets of these splattery killing blows) and the film at least has a rather wonderful opening action sequence. Unfortunately every character is just there, waiting their turn to do or say what MK every fan expects them to do or say, and the much built-up dimension-straddling fighting tournament that is supposedly the reason for all the plot gubbins happening never actually takes place in this movie. Save something for the sequel, sure, but maybe don’t hold out on the combat of Mortal Kombat, especially when this is far from a sure franchise-starter. SSP
