Knives Out: Neon NZ Review 

Director Rian Johnson is no newcomer to the mystery genre.

His earliest Brick dabbled in similar territory, but for this latest, a slickly produced and polished piece of Poirot-esque fare, he heads to subvert some of the conventions while following others of the murder mystery.

When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Plummer) is found dead the day after his 85th birthday, there's a house full of family suspects. Enter southern fried detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) who was given an anonymous envelope stuffed with cash to solve the case, and who always gets his man.

Knives Out comes out the door firing on all cylinders, like most murder mysteries do.

Flash editing, quick cuts, a series of suspects given a moment in the glare of the spotlight and a whodunnit to relish all pull you in to the whimsical world Johnson's set up.

Yet within moments Johnson plays a trump card, swiftly pulling the rug from under your cinematic feet, giving the film its heart and its emotional in, and signalling his intentions to subvert everything. To say more is to derail the film, but suffice to say the commitment to the story while playing with the genre tropes, and plying it with laugh-out-loud one liners makes a big difference. (An early Murder She Wrote moment is guffawable).

Slickly edited, exquisitely shot and reminiscent of Agatha Christie, Jonathan Creek and most other crime series, Johnson knows a quirky detective is the glue to hold the story together. On this charge, Daniel Craig makes for a watchable lead, a dogged investigator with a drawl.

Sure, there's the usual let's-get-everyone-together-in-one-room-to-reveal-it moment, and the multi-talented cast are too many and too sidelined in the back half of the movie, but for the large part Knives Out is a good time at the movies, a film that's not as clever as it initially thinks it is, but which commits to its premise and carries you along on a rollicking good ride.

Just Mercy: Neon NZ Review

That Just Mercy follows a conventional, cliched path for its tale of wronged black man seeking redemption is not a bad thing, but it lends the film a feeling of a lack of subtlety.

That it does it with Michael B Jordan leading the way, lends the film the agency it desperately wants from its beginning sequences to its obvious end, complete with its these are the people from the true story photos.

And yet in this quietly dignified story of Jordan's innocent lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, who, despite the exhortations of his mother who fears for his life, heads to Alabama to try and save Jamie Foxx's Walter McMillian from death row, every cliche and every dramatic beat lies in wait and is deployed when thematically necessary.

This may sound like a damnation of the film, but in truth, Just Mercy's strength derives from knowing the journey it's on, and being determined to tell it well, wrapping the whole thing up in an unshowy bow that gives it the kind of prestige sheen that won't attract awards praise, but will render its audience distraught with parts of its power.

Nuance is the order of the day with Just Mercy, and while Foxx is reduced to a side player thanks to his character's incarceration, Jordan's evident star power shines through. Sure, his lawyer doesn't resort to showmanship or tricks and ticks to get his result, but the story gifts Jordan with enough to ensure the overriding feeling is one of dignity in the face of overwhelming odds.

You've seen films like Just Mercy before - depressingly, these stories have been around from the John Grisham days to the Netflix contemporary series, and they've been told to varying degrees of success through the years. And sure, there are montages which show researching and lawyering at work, but Just Mercy does more than enough to justify its cliches, and exposes the horror of the Alabama state to the depressing maximum.

However, Just Mercy packs a powerful punch when it's needed.

An execution sequence is utterly heart-in-mouth horrifically burned into the screen, one of the few truly memorable moments from Just Mercy's overly bloated 2 hour run time that resolutely stands out and is deeply affecting. And Blake Nelson's performance as a witness in the original case gives the film a boost as it threatens to sag in its second hour.

Ultimately, Just Mercy and its depressingly familiar material is another of those has to be told tales that Hollywood occasionally does so well. What makes this one stand out though is a nuanced lead, a determination to showcase the grit under extreme pressure and the desire to lead with its earnestness.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon: Neon NZ Review

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon: Neon NZ Review

Director: Will Becher, Richard Phelan

It's hard to explain why A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon works so well.

From its sci-fi easter eggs to its general desire to encapsulate timeless British silliness with throwaway gags (a bull in a china shop being the best), there's something about Aardman's work that just feels iconically English, yet universally funny.

While this latest may lack the heart of the first Shaun The Sheep movie, it's lost none of the madcap charm as we return to Mossingham. With a UFO sighting in the village, the farmer decides to cash in to try and make some money to upgrade his harvester.

However, Shaun's already met the alien, and in true buddy movie mentality, sets out to get the little critter home before the shady government agencies capture him first....

From slapstick silliness to pratfalls, scifi gags that include ET, Doctor Who, a wonderful Hitchhiker's nod and a truly brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey pastiche, A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon is family fare for everyone to enjoy.

Once again, Aardman's homed in what makes British humour so amusing, and shows once again this animation studio's spent more time than any other weaving in gags into every single frame.

Sure, under closer analysis, it does lacks the emotional edge of the 2015 debut, but it over-delivers the silliness and packs in more jokes than you can take in. A finale doesn't quite match up all the pieces, but all in all, Aardman's still delightful and determined to leave you grinning.

There's also an opening reminder of how Wallace and Gromit led the way with their Grand Day Out (even down to the robot's roots in Farmageddon), but while they may be benched due to the sad death of Peter Sallis, Shaun The Sheep has certainly got years to go - here's hoping we don't have to wait another 5 years for the next outing.

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.