Reunion: Film Review

Cast: Julia Ormond, Emma Draper, Cohen Holloway, John Bach

Director: Jake Mahaffy

More a psychological chiller than an outright terror, Jake Mahaffy's Reunion is a tale of duality combined in a tale of the guilt of mothers and that relationship.

Emma Draper is Ellie, an abused mother-to-be, who returns to the family home and a strained relationship with her mother Ivy (an icy Ormond). As her mother readies the house for sale, Ellie's already fragile mental state takes a dive as she begins to see her dead sister...

Terrifically atmospheric and making great fist of its single location (an old, Gothically outfitted house), Reunion subverts the expectations of a horror film, and prefers instead to deal with the fact the greatest horrors are usually of the human variety, and more than often, part of the family dynamic.

Mahaffy, who wrote the film as well, goes for subtlety over overt use of tropes (until the last act where the visuals go into overload) to build the sense of creepiness and also dread. With a minimal soundtrack and some quick cuts overlayed, this chamber piece is more about the ideas within than what lies on the screen.

Early sequences make great use of the location, and imagery plays a lot into displaying two of everything (hinting at the dynamics ahead), giving an unsettling feel that builds to an upsetting crescendo as the tale of guilt unfolds.

The fractious two-hander between Ellie and Ivy is genuinely disturbing to watch, and flashbacks add another layer of claustrophobia that's hard to shake.

Essentially a tale of moving on (Ellie's struggling to let go of the past, accept the changes of her new life; Ivy refuses to move on from their relationship dynamic, despite trying to get rid of everything in the house) Reunion is a mature and excellently-executed entrant into the world of Kiwi horror. It does it differently, and for that, whole-heartedly deserves commendation.

Watch Dogs: Legion: PS4 Review

Developed by

Published by Ubisoft

Platform: PS4

Mixing Grand Theft Auto's sandbox world and gameplay with the physics and sensibilities of a Saints Row game, Watch Dogs Legion is as much of a game of input as it is output.

Surrender to its world, and the yield is more than satisfactory; resist, and the shallowness of the play and similarity of the game becomes evident.

Set in dystopian London, where drones fly the skies and the disaffected are everywhere, Watch Dogs: Legion centres once again around hacktivist group DedSec.

When DedSec is framed for a series of bombings in London, the revolution goes to the people as civilians rise up to take the place of the group in the aftermath of a power grab by a private security firm.

Centred on taking down Zero Day, the game isn’t slow in allowing you into the action and letting you run with it, pitting you front and centre of a race against time to prevent London being obliterated. 

But that's also its strength - and its weakness.

Watch Dogs: Legion is quite keen to keep things moving, and does so with little depth for character. The fact you can play anyone once they've been recruited to the Dedsec cause via a short side mission makes the game as open as it needs to be, but as an in-depth experience for the amount of hours that are thrown in, it's lacking.

Some of the truly laughable mockney dialogue gives the game a feel of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: the game experience, and while it does represent in part some of the English capital's vernacular, it does sound odd from characters you've barely seen for very long. (Several phrases are repeated, a kind of limitation of the everyone can be a playable character, one guesses).

Missions are fairly straightforward; go here, do something, hack your way in, use the tech against those who would use it against you - there's not much new here that Watch Dogs hasn't done before. 

That said, it's actually immeasurably fun, if you want to dive into the world for a brief dalliance.

Matching NPCs to their skills and using them against their enemies is amusing - there's much to be said for flying through the air atop a construction drone after you've unlocked that worker and recruited them to your cause. (Paired with more depth, this could make Watch Dogs: Legion a real groundbreaker).

The continually chatty and somewhat sarcastic AI Bagley (played with brilliance by Pascal Langdale) hams up his script, but makes a great companion as you're careering round London. And talking of London, the streets are very well realised, and give the capital the life it needs. From the back streets to the main landmarks, it feels real and lived in.

All in all, Watch Dogs: Legion is a fun title to spend time; it doesn't reinvent the wheel of what's gone prior, nor does it fully move it on. But it proves to be more than a good bedfellow to wile away the gaming hours.

Freaky: Film Review

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Alan Ruck

Director: Christopher Landon

Happy Death Day's Christopher Landon is less interested in providing the frights in the comedy horror Freaky, and more interested in pursuing the humour and occasional scares.

In this Freaky Friday the 13th version of The Change Up, Newton stars as Millie Kessler, a bullied and withdrawn high schooler who's trying to get past the death of her father. Looking to escape her mother and go to college, Millie's life is changed when she's attacked by the Blissfield Butcher (Vaughn, initially in Michael Myers mode before switching to usual comedic edges).

The pair swap places (due to reasons way too vague and unexplained in the film's fumbles) after his attempts to murder her go awry - and Millie discovers she has just 24 hours to swap back before the change is made permanent.

Freaky does offer a clever - and relatively enjoyable - twist on the horror genre.

Opening with an extended stalk and kill sequence, the film's clearly got designs on the horror ouevre, but is less interested in pursuing that and more interested in a gender switch take on proceedings.

Newton shifts easily from awkward and shy to steely determination, channeling the unswerving gait of a killer stalking their victims. She's largely made redundant once the swap happens, confined to the background and given little else to do in favour of Vaughn.

Vaughn meanwhile, shifts focus from the early behaviour of a killer described as a "never underestimate a single white man's propensity for violence" to a teen girl trapped in a male body; an idea made famous by Rob Schneider's Hot Chick, and used to reasonable and surprising effect here.

Freaky doesn't outstay its welcome and does mess a little with the genre but never fully explores the depth it could have achieved. That's not to say the Freaky Friday body swap doesn't hold back from some of the more inventive kills - merely that it services the genre rather than overly shaping it and diving deeply into the meta world of horror films.

Ultimately, Freaky is a popcorn blockbuster of a horror movie - it's more interested in giving you jolts and scares, along with laughs and a good time in your seat, rather than sending you to the edge of it in pure fear.

Emma: Neon NZ Review

Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Miranda Hart, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth
Director: Autumn de Wilde

The latest take on Jane Austen's Emma is an admittedly starched and almost military execution of the overly familiar tale.

The VVitch star Anya Taylor-Joy delivers an initially icy take on Emma Woodhouse, the meddling socialite who dabbles in others' lives before realising she's hopelessly out of her own depth.

Guiding Mia Goth's Harriet Smith, Emma tries her best to matchmake for a local vicar. But she fails to notice the attentions of a neighbour (Flynn) until it's too late.

The overly-mannered Emma, delivered by Kiwi Eleanor Catton, is a prissy and primped affair, that teeters dangerously close to boredom levels early on.

Despite some truly sumptuous costuming and some vividly executed moments  such as red-caped women recalling The Handmaid's Tale (it's clear director de Wilde comes from a promo background), the film's warmth is severely lacking early on, despite the comedy of Woodhouse Sr (the ever-wonderful Bill Nighy).

It unfortunately leads to a detachment early in proceedings, which nearly proves fatal when the moments of heart are due to overtake matters, and Catton's writing really does make it difficult to sympathise for the precocious Emma when she realises she's gone too far. (The interaction with Miranda Hart proving to be the only breath-taking moment and deeply upsetting one of the entire film.)

While it skirts around social mores and hints at class divides, there's an aloofness to this Emma that robs it of its charm (Alicia Silverstone's Clueless still remains a market leader in terms of spiky adaptations) and deprives it of an enduring appeal.

Sure, this version of Emma has some stunning visuals, and despite Taylor-Joy coming to life toward the end of the film, it's a hard journey to go on - and one that sadly offers limited rewards when considered among the pantheon of other adaptations of Austen's work.

Spongebob Squarepants: Sponge On the Run: Film Review 

Cast: Spongebob, Patrick, Squidward, Plankton, Mr Krabs, Keanu Reeves, Matt Berry, Danny Trejo, Snoop Dogg
Director: Tim Hill

That the latest Spongebob Squarepants movie is a Covid-casualty and has ended up on streaming site Netflix is a crying shame.

Especially given how colourful, vibrant and joyous the whole experience is.

Tom Kenny returns as the voice of Spongebob Squarepants, resident of Bikini Bottom. This time around, Spongebob has to head out to rescue his pet snail Gary, when he's kidnapped by king Poseidon (Matt Berry) and taken to the lost city of Atlantic City.

Packed with anarchy, zany edges and a colourful sheen that's highly eye-catching and visually satisfying, Spongebob Squarepants: Sponge On the Run won't win any awards for reinventing the animated wheel.

But it does provide a truly entertaining 90 minutes of pure escapism, as Spongebob and his pals push on through a road trip movie - as ever, Spongebob and Patrick prove good bedfellows, and the journey's amiable enough as the CGI-led insanity spools itself out.

Keanu Reeves is the standout here, a Sage offering in the madness that ensues, and proving more than game as the voice of a ball of sage helping Patrick and Spongebob out. Essentially a head within a ball of sticks and twine, Reeves is clearly having a ball.

There's a fun for all the family vibe here, and while the film starts to run out of steam as it enters its final third, for the most part, Spongebob Squarepants: Sponge On the Run is a zany road trip worth checking in for, and for simply enjoying the ride.

Spongebob Squarepants: Sponge On the Run is streaming now on Netflix in some global territories.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?: DVD Review

With a haughty Cate Blanchett and a meandering script, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? feels like an opportunity weirdly squandered.

Blanchett is former superstar architect Bernadette Fox, who disappeared after having potential to turn the designing world upside down. Settled in with her husband Elgin, (Crudup, amiable and occasionally over-looked) and their daughter Bee (Nelson in a standout performance for a newcomer), Bernadette is overwhelmed when her daughter requests a trip to Antarctica as a reward.

Already brittle and disinterested in any connection with neighbours or friends, Bernadette is disaffected by the "banality of life". With a work-obsessed husband and a fussing daughter, things reach a crescendo and she disappears when the FBI shows up after she inadvertently floods a neighbour's house with mud....

Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a film that would be nothing without Blanchett's penchant for haughtiness. She's the best thing in the somewhat muddled narrative that veers through indifference to everyone's condition to a screwball farce that clearly aims to bring down some of the more WASPish neighbours and concerns.

There are moments of humour as Blanchett's growing weariness with everyone becomes acerbic and fraught, but Linklater's meandering approach to the story means the audience becomes as disaffected as Bernadette herself.

Equally, a series of cameos from a YouTube video should have been left on the cutting room floor, or beefed up to be more amusing and ludicrous as Bernadette rediscovers her passion.

Unable to decide upon a tone, and stuck with an indifference in the plot, Where'd Do You Go, Bernadette? really only thrives on Blanchett and her alone - other characters have little to no resolution in their arcs as the plot goes toward lunacy and relatively unearned heartwarming sentiment.

Wendy: DVD Review

Released by Madman Home Entertainment

Wendy has pedigree in its director, the creator of the wondrous Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Blessed with a prodigious lead in Devin France as Wendy, Benh Zeitlin's take on the Peter Pan story is a film that's more in love with the land and its leads than in its actual storytelling.

When Wendy tires of her life in a railwayside diner, she is startled to see another kid atop a train. Jumping on the train with two friends, she finds herself transported to Neverland and into the life of Peter Pan.

JM Barrie's tale is gifted an environmental feel in among Zeitlin's eye for the wild. 

Through the deltas and over the lands of the heartland of America to the lost island, Zeitlin's freewheeling camera makes a great fist of the landscape, and recalls many of the shots of Beasts of the Southern Wild.

While not every child actor hits the necessary straps, and while the older section of the actors feel too ragtaggle to be complete, the exuberance and wide-eyed nature of France makes for a great companion on this journey.

"The more you grow up, the less you get to do the things you want" may be a fair adage espoused at one point, but thanks to a haunting score, talent when it's needed and a sense of adventure, this is a Peter Pan story like you've never seen before.