Dead Of Winter: Movie Review

Cast: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden, Gaia Wise
Director: Brian Kirk

It's very easy to categorise Dead Of Winter as a Fargo-esque wannabe rip-off.

With its snowy vistas, occasionally incompetent villains and distinctive accents, it's a comparison and label that's too hard to ignore.

But what that does is provide a massive disservice to one of Dame Emma Thompson's incredible performance and to an exhilarating film which surprises as much as it enthrals.

Thompson is Barb, who we first meet heading out in North Minnesota in the middle of a snow blizzard, her truck iced over and her destination and reasons for doing so seemingly unknown. But as she sets up in the middle of a frozen lake, she hears a gunshot and a woman scrambling desperately for safety.

Following from a safe distance, Barb soon finds a woman trapped and tied up in a basement. Determined to help her, she promises not to leave her alone and soon finds herself caught up in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

Dead Of Winter works brilliantly to provide an icy thriller that grips as hard as frostbite does.

It's a career best from Thompson and a regretful sign she's never taken - or been offered - more roles like Barb. While the backstory sees her played by her own daughter, Thompson fleshes out the character to maximum effect with a story that's as narratively bleak as the snowy vistas surrounding her.

The reason she works so brilliantly in this is due to the film's touches of reality.

Barb is no superhero, she's a grief-stricken woman bound up in a big snow-pants bodysuit. When she runs from danger, she's ungainly and constantly in danger of being outwitted by the film's antagonist, the vicious Judy Greer (another excellent performance in a film that's blessed with many). She has the relatable factor throughout, and it's extremely engaing to behold.

At its heart, Dead Of Winter is about grief and the lengths you'd go to for love- but in surprising ways too spoilery to discuss here. Director Brian Kirk has concocted a taut tale that's well-executed and beautifully shot - you can practically feel the cold biting into you from the screen.

But Dead Of Winter is Thompson's film through and through.

If there's any justice, she'll receive accolades for it - and hopefully, more roles of its ilk will come her way before it's too late.

Primate: Movie Review

Primate: Movie Review

Cast: Johnny Seqouyah, Troy Kotsur, Jessica Alexnader, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Miguel Torres Umba
Director: Johannes Roberts

Primate sets out its stall in its opening moments.

As a vet walks into a chimp enclosure,he's guided to a darkened part of it where an unknown  force awaits...

Johannes Roberts' creature horror mixes elements of horror and odd moments of comedy, but in truth, it's a lack of development in the human side of things which proves to be a minor flaw in a largely enjoyable but forgettable ride that leaves it feeling lesser than it could.

As Lucy (Johnny Seqouyah) returns to her Hawaii home after the death of her animal linguistics mother, family tensions are strained. Her deaf father (Troy Kotsur) is obsessed with his book career rather than his family; her sister is distant, and the family ape Ben (yes, really) is about to have a really bad day after a mongoose bite.

Coupled with the fact a group of friends are at their home for the holidays, things go south quickly when it's clear Ben (Umba) has rabies and turns on them all, trapping them and leaving them fighting for their lives...

As the carnage picks up, the director makes great fist of the fact that Ben can't communicate (outside of a device which at one point, he uses to taunt them with the word 'dead' being repeatedly said) and becomes a killing machine that's mute in the vein of the shape from Halloween. (In fact the soundtrack seems to channel that iconic score in parts.)

WIN TICKETS TO SEE PRIMATE AT THE MOVIES HERE

But as with some horror films, you're not here for the character development and while there are a few moments of the cast doing stupid things, the kills are particularly brutal and viciously executed - even though a lack of depth prevents you directly caring.

However, there's a commitment to the atmosphere and an impressive continuation of a killer that can't be reasoned with or stopped which makes Primate effective in the moment in cinema.

Embracing the horror genre tropes and a terrific scene from a deaf point of view that is chilling in its execution, Primate proves it's not just here to ape around with horror conventions - it's here to deliver some killer blows too.

Primate plays in the Terror-Fi Film Festival in Cheistchurch, before a New Zealand-wide release on January 8, 2026.

The Naked Gun: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, CCH Pounder
Director: Akiva Schaffer

The 2025 take on the Leslie Nielsen classic franchise is clearly a lesson in reverent love.

Persuaded by Seth MacFarlane and his production company Fuzzy Door, Neeson takes on the role of Frank Drebin Jr and into the inane silliness of the Police Squad. When Drebin goes too far in a bank robbery acting above the law, he's confined to traffic duty.

His first job sees him investigating an apparent suicide of a car going off a cliff - but he soon suspects there's more to do the case than meets the eye. And when he meets a dame (Anderson) and a tech bro (Huston), he decides to disobey protocol to carry out his investigation.

The 2025 version of The Naked Gun has its moments.

It's clearly taken on the silly wordplay of the originals and the Airplane! series which loved to roll out bad jokes, terrible one-liners and the kind of humour you'd cringe at from your father. And while there's no denying there are moments and one-liners that absolutely reek of silliness and old style corniness, there's occasionally a feeling that it's somewhat forced.

Neeson is effectively game, and the film scores major points for only running for 85 minutes, stretching the joke as far as it can go. But about midway through, it feels like it's run out of steam, a joke that's trying too hard and with a hero that delivers deadpan, yet occasionally feels like he's not quite put his full heart into it.

Perhaps more a success via its marketing than a riotous cinematic success that will endure through the ages, The Naked Gun shows the film's worked in the past because of Leslie Nielsen's rubbery gameness to indulge the plot's fripperies.

More a pale imitation of what went before, The Naked Gun brings the fun, and very limited funnies - but nothing else.

Win a double pass to see Primate

To celebrate the release of Primate in cinemas January 8, thanks to Paramount Pictures New Zealand, you can win a double pass!

About Primate

A group of friends’ tropical vacation turns into a terrifying, primal tale of horror and survival.

Starring Johnny Sequoyah, Jessica Alexander, and Troy Kotsur, Victoria Wyant, Gia Hunter, Benjamin Cheng, Charlie Mann, Tienne Simon

In cinemas January 8.

Primate Rated R16 - Graphic violence & horror

Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films: Movie Review

A two-part documentary series that, at times, feels like an extended DVD extra (remember those?) Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films opens and closes with a heartfelt plea and an impassioned call from both director James Cameron and actress Kate Winslet that AI is not the future and it's the humanity of those who make the films that shines through.

It's a fascinating conundrum that in truth feels a bit like the hurt ramblings of a wronged creative, who worries his franchise has been dismissed as cartoon blue aliens on another planet.

JAMES CAMERON ANNOUNCES NEW ZEALAND PREMIERE DETAILS FOR AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH

While the Avatar film series are visual spectacles, nobody could really argue that their pools of creative endeavour are particularly deep, with their simplistic plots and basic characterisation.

But what Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films actually does is leave you feeling something entirely different: it makes you remember what the magic of filmmaking can do and what human touches and problem-solving can bring to the world of films like this. And as such, the calls that James Cameron is a visionary are rightly placed.

There are moments in the first part of the doco (which runs at 48 minutes) that make you genuinely marvel at what was achieved. From problem solving issues such as what to do when filming underwater when the water reflects to mastering how to use a water-based jet pack pioneered in New Zealand, the creative spirit flows deeply here and you can easily end up buying into Cameron's visions for the film - and the esteem he holds his crew in and those he trusts to make it happen.

With insights from the likes of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana (who reveals her hatred of the water) and the likes of the much-missed Jon Landau, as well the dive teams and footage of various tanks being made, the first part is essential viewing for anyone interested in how a film like this is made.

Although the second one concentrates more on the actors' reactions to their characters in the second Avatar film, The Way Of Water, the 33-minute doco shows once again that this world is here to stay and that the technology really doesn't work without the human touch.

But there's much to be said about the scale of the production, the depth of knowledge and the infectious passion that the occasionally monotone Cameron passes on and inspires - it's a heady, compelling mix that shows filmmaking as an art-form will never be surpassed by the likes of AI.

Perhaps, at the end of the day, that's really what Cameron and Winslet wanted to achieve with this - it's a testament to human ingenuity, problem solving and really does make you reconsider any opinion you may have of the shallowness of the technically marvellous world of Pandora and its inhabitants.

Fire and Water: Making the Avatar Films premieres on November 7 on Disney+

James Cameron to attend New Zealand premiere of Avatar: Fire and Ash

20th Century Studios and Lightstorm Entertainment are pleased to announce that Oscar®-winning filmmaker James Cameron, as well as special guests and filmmakers from “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” will attend the New Zealand Premiere at the Embassy Theatre in Wellington on Saturday 13 December 2025.

With “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” James Cameron takes audiences back to Pandora in an immersive new adventure with Marine turned Na’vi leader Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Na’vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), and the Sully family.

The film, which has a screenplay by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver, and a story by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver & Josh Friedman & Shane Salerno, also stars Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, David Thewlis, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Ribisi, Britain Dalton, Jamie Flatters, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Jack Champion, Brendan Cowell, Bailey Bass, Filip Geljo, Duane Evans, Jr., and Kate Winslet.

Audiences will next return to Pandora with “Avatar: Fire and Ash”, opening exclusively in New Zealand cinemas on December 18, 2025, featuring stunning visuals, new clans, environments, and creatures.

Nuremberg: Movie Review

Cast: Rami Malek, Russell Crowe, Leo Woodall, Michael Shannon, John Slattery, Colin Hanks, Lydia Peckham

Director: James Vanderbilt

With its message of how Nazi propaganda can spread through charismatic mouth pieces, there couldn't be a more timely film than James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg.

Set at the end of the Second World War, the film begins with Russell Crowe's narcissistic Hermann Göring being arrested as he tries to escape. Assigned a psychiatrist, Douglas M Kelley (played with style and a wide-eyed smirk by Rami Malek throughout), the pressure begins to build a case against the surviving members of the regime.

But it's not just the pressure on Kelly - with a cross-international group looking to prosecute the war criminals, there's a lot hanging on this. A successful win will crush Germany and its legacy once and for all; however failure will leave the allies unable to ever take the high moral ground and prevent any further prosecution of other war criminals...

Nuremberg is a prestige piece of cinema that works solidly as a piece of fictionalised drama and one which is backed up by the impressive work of the cast within. Crowe underplays the role and creates a genuine feeling of a monster whose haughty beliefs delude him into thinking he's above everyone. There are chilling moments and Crowe does well to not overemphasise some of the elements. Equally, Malek is strong as Kelley, and Shannon makes the most of his screentime as the lawyer given the unenviable job of prosecution.

A kind of Silence of the Lambs relationship builds between Kelly and Göring, but it's a softer one that sees both actors channelling some of their best work in their shared scenes.

Yet, there's a somewhat glib atmosphere hanging over the dramatisation of the build-up to the Nuremberg trials that makes the initial part of the film feel like it's playing fast and loose with the devastating legacy of the Nazis and what they wreaked on the world.

Add to that the fact that the one surviving leader of the atrocities, the commander in chief of the Luftwaffe and the Nazis' second-in-command, Hermann Göring is humanised as a man separated from his wife and family, and suffering from a heart condition, plus the fact there are some obvious scripting gags early on, it begins to feel like Nuremberg is a little too knockabout for the weight of its subject matter.

If anything, most of the film spends a lot of time showing that Hermann Göring's family is human, papering over some of the more horrifying truths as Kelly goes back and forth to them delivering letters, drinking tea and listening to piano lessons from his daughter.

With Trumpian allusions and a courtroom scene that echoes Jack Nicholson's cross-examination in A Few Good Men, Nuremberg feels more like a broad film aimed at wanting to echo the warnings of the past to the widest audience possible. (A sentiment that is admittedly noble by any consideration.)

It's not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination and its 150-minute runtime hurtles past at speed. Plus its end is shocking to those who don't know the outcome - a devastating reminder that evil seems to triumph long-term, no matter what.

But it is extremely telling that in among all the acting that's going on, the one moment that speaks the most is genuine footage from survivors of the concentration camps that's played as evidence during the trial. With emaciated bodies, hollowed out eyes and piles of corpses being shifted by diggers, it's absolutely horrifying compelling imagery that still (rightfully) hurts decades on.