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.

Predator: Badlands: Movie Review

Cast: Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi
Director: Dan Trachtenberg

The director of Prey, the Predator movie that revamped the franchise, returns with a new twist on the alien hunter series.

In this latest, shot in New Zealand, the film switches the traditional point of view from the victims of the hunter to the hunter himself (NZ actor Dimitrius Schuster-Kolomatangi.)

The latest Predator starts brutally as the runt of the litter Dek (Schuster-Koloamatangi) is taught to fight by his brother Kwei. Knowing Dek's fate is to be cast out and executed by their father due to his weakness, there's a frisson of genuine heft in the film to start off with as we're forced to side with the killer creature that's terrorised others in the past.

But the shift to a softer predator only belies the general feeling of this film that's essentially an Odd Couple buddy riff with some sci-fi, a large dose of the wider mythology and a cute cuddly Grogu CGI buddy.

When Dek is sent to the deadly planet Genna on his own self-imposed mission to kill a creature, claim a trophy and head home for revenge, the stage is set for a hunt in the vein of prior Predator films.

However, what Trachtenberg does is to subvert expectations, by pitting the planet with all its deadly flora and fauna against him. Dek's mission to self-empowerment is further complicated by the discovery of half-synthetic Thia (a pixie humour-filled Fanning, who gets to showcase two sides of the same character thanks to the story) who promises to help him, in return for reuniting her with her missing torso.

To say more about Predator: Badlands is to diminish the slight narrative and to rob the audience of what unfurls. Needless to say, this B-movie creature feature lends itself more to the comedic than the bloody, but never scrimps on the action sequences (which in truth, become more garbled and amorphous the more CGI is involved).

Yet what emerges from Predator: Badlands is an intriguing expansion of the world that's spawned plenty of films since the first in 1987 - and Trachtenberg is clearly at home as he builds a world that he's clearly intent on populating with critters, threats and camaraderie.

The mix doesn't always quite work and the over-reliance on the CGI-led antics lets Predator: Badlands down in parts. But along the way, the journey is a genuinely enjoyable one that leans into exactly what you'd want from a film like this - and one which has seen its violence dialled down and confined to alien shenanigans to secure an R13 rating.

More than just a perverse coming-of-age film that's set in the Predator universe, and blessed by performances from a truly impressive Fanning and a solidly physical Schuster-Koloamatangi, Predator Badlands shows there's real potential again in this universe - and while it remains to be seen where Trachtenberg will take it next, there's some level of security knowing this is a talent who always surprises within the genre (witness Prey) and yet keeps it in the confines of what's expected.

M3gan 2.0: Blu Ray Review

Cast: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jemaine Clement, Jenna Davis, Ivanna Sakhno, Bryan Jordan Alvarez, Jennifer Epps, Aristotle Athari
Director: Gerard Johnstone

Upping the sci-fi elements and dialling down the horror this time around, the sequel to Gerard Johnstone's M3Gan provides plenty of sass and thrills - even if it does become bogged down with technobabble in parts.

When AI robot Amelia goes rogue under their control, the US government comes to the one person who survived another killer AI to help. But with Gemma (Williams) unable to commit to resurrecting M3Gan amid fears she'll try to kill them all again, it looks as if all is lost.

However, with the fears she'll be blamed for the tech being stolen and with Cady (McGraw) under threat, Gemma has no choice - and soon, the bitch is back with a new mission.

M3Gan 2.0 mixes elements of Raid-style heist action, Mission: Impossible shenanigans with large portions of Terminator 2 (once killer robot, now a colleague) and Metropolis references with veritable aplomb, with Johnstone upping the action ante while not always forgetting the comedy that made this (and Housebound) such crowd-pleasing favourites.

That said, while it's a heady mix, it’s also one that doesn't entirely always convince, despite the best intentions of everyone involved. There may be an evolution here and the requisite amount of sass between Gemma and M3Gan (much at the expense of the relationship with Cady that was so central to the first), but some of the freshness of the initial outing is lost amid the expanded and overly convoluted story.

Chiefly, Johnstone draws parallels with the march of AI in the real world, a bow that really doesn't need drawing and one which chooses to set aside the reason the first one worked - its campy, schlock-heavy vibe. And while Jemaine Clement provides the cheesy camp edge as a sleazy tech bro early on, the sequel soon shifts into more action-heavy sequences, giving expanded roles to Gemma’s tech team and moving away from the central family unit which worked so well first time.

There’s also a lot of talk about the dangers of AI among the wordy dialogue, a message that’s over-simplified and was already used first time around – and the tech bros as villains isn’t exactly new. Yet in parts, given the 1980 and 1990s edges and references that soak this kung-fu infused sequel, it’s perhaps in keeping with the vibe Johnstone’s gone for.

Some of the fight sequences impress though, with swirling cameras and tightly-focussed elements delivering a powerful punch when they need to and showing that lower-budget adept film-making will always triumph.

M3Gan 2.0 isn’t a disaster by any means, but it is a reminder that going bigger, bolder and brighter in this tech world doesn’t necessarily mean gifting the film with the upgrade that it clearly wants.