SilentLuminary Reviews

  Genre: Family/ Adventure Time: 1h 32mins Director:  Walt Dohrn Quick Summary:  Poppy discovers that Branch was once part of the boy band 'BroZone' with his brothers, Floyd, John Dory, Spruce and Clay. When Floyd is kidnapped, Branch and Poppy embark on a journey to reunite his two other brothers and rescue Floyd. This was hyped up way too much. Honestly, they have just gone so far from what Trolls was like the first time and I am sad about it. Everything has just been watered down from film to film so we get the basic aspects of what there was. It's no longer fun, just feels cheesy and annoying as they cram in so many boy band and music jokes. I also found it a little odd the sheer amount of drug jokes that were in this film made for kids.  Everything is so disjointed and struggle to connect as we're thrown through a whirlwind of meeting new trolls, doing something to convince them to join and then moving on to the next. This is pretty much most of the film until th

Genre: Family/ Adventure Time: 1h 35mins Director:  Walt Dohrn Quick Summary:  When the Queen of the Hard Rock Trolls tries to take over all the Troll kingdoms, Queen Poppy and her friends try different ways to save all the Trolls. They left out everything that was funny from the first one. Admittedly I am disappointed by this as I had enjoyed the first one so much and assumed they would be able to improve on it. I was wrong. They kidified it in the worst way. Everyone and everything was so annoying and I wanted to bash my head in all the way through instead of only at the songs. Additionally, they gave James Corden much more screen time than he deserved, so instantly this loses a point. Sadly everyone had been reduced to archetypes of their personalities and refused to go out of those. They even somehow did it with music genres and the people who listen to them. It no longer felt cult and fun, just a generic kids' film that assumes they can't think about things aside from th

  Genre: Family/ Adventure Time: 1h  32mins Director:  Mike Mitchell Quick Summary:  After the Bergens invade Troll Village, Poppy, the happiest Troll ever born, and the curmudgeonly Branch set off on a journey to rescue her friends. Live a little. This is pretty fun. I went into this expecting I was going to absolutely hate it like the teenage version of me did. I came out pretty pleased. Honestly, this is so enjoyable and not just annoying kids' humour and trashy music.  Yes, I am aware this is more for kids, but it's silly and the humour doesn't focus on fart jokes or other brain-rot-styled jokes. I can see kids wanting to watch this over and over again, and luckily for adults you probably won't want to scream and cry at the thought of it because even for an adult this is watchable and funny. Something I didn't expect but I found this to be relatable too since all these cute and colourful characters are so full of personalities that are clearly thought about in-

  Genre: Action/ Sci-Fi Time: 2h 25mins Director:  Wes Ball Quick Summary:  Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike *monkey screaming* That's most of the film After watching through all 9 other Planet Of The Apes films, I was looking forward to finally seeing one in the cinema. Maybe I had hyped myself up too much for it, or maybe I knew it would be difficult to follow the story after Ceaser's death. But this could have been better.  Really this should have been split into two films as it feels really messy and wanted to run through as much as they possibly could. There was no time to process something as we'd already moved on to the next scene. It was all set up. Though I don't mind set-up films, it left me disappointed in the middle as the kingdom and proximous were really rushed through. I wan

  Genre: Horror/ Mystery Time: 1hour 11mins Director:  Devon Jovi Johnson Quick Summary:  Students Laura and Kelly travel to New York, where their seemingly ordinary rental home becomes the epicentre of mysterious events. Well. That was terrible. I don't even know where to start with how horrible this film was. Nobody could act. I mean nobody. Think of the most monotone, neutral-sounding androids, and this is the acting you get. There were no tone shifts at all. This is with the absolutely dreadful script that is more than likely AI-generated too, or just poorly written. How do I describe a film that is so predictable, that it was painful? Every "Subtle" thing was so heavy-handed it was screaming the twists within the first 10 minutes.  Don't even get me started on the horrible camera that would just violently shake, or move about in the most nauseating ways.  I am convinced this is some college or university student's project work collaborating with some of the

  Genre: Comedy/ Action Time: 1h 41mins Director: Thomas Vincent Quick Summary:  A young married couple's life turns upside down after secrets are revealed about each other's past. My boyfriend predicted this before we even pressed play. That describes how predictable this was. I feel so sorry for the actors who were handed these roles. Maybe they needed the money. I do wonder if they had gotten AI to generate the script for this as every line of dialogue seems so off almost as if it doesn't have human touches and quirks to them. It's short and direct, but not in a good way either. Nothing flows together. It's one line onto the next, even without a pause sometimes. I have no idea what they did to poor Kaley Cuoco but they made her look so old and offputting. Her eyes looked incredibly baggy, and it really was not flattering for her. It's not something I usually comment about, but this was so distracting.  As for the story, you could see everything from a mile a

  Genre: Action/ Fantasy Time: 2h 31mins Director:  Patty Jenkins Quick Summary:  Diana must contend with a colleague, and with a businessman whose desire for extreme wealth sends the world down a path of destruction after an ancient artifact that grants wishes goes missing. Those slow-motion scenes were disgusting. I feel disappointed by this as this wasn't horrible (I actually stayed awake the whole way through which is a first for a DC film). Genuinely I was interested in what was going on and followed everything easily. How this falls flat is because the villains are just plain dull, and come across as a little comical more than anything. I mean, a woman who basically turns into a humanoid cat because she wants power? Sure.  Really, this could have been an old storyline for the original TV series. When you really looked at it, it was very simple and jumped from one thing to the next, all while somehow managing to stretch itself to be a runtime of two hours and thirty minutes.

  Genre: Horror/ Comedy Time: 1h 25mins Director:  Josh Forbes Quick Summary:  Struggling prog-rock musician William Brown finds himself in a living nightmare when he accidentally kills Vlad, the neighbour from hell. Silly and odd, but fun. Maybe this was a little bit too wacky and over the top for my taste, but I wouldn't call this bad. It's not bad at all, just a bit much, like it's trying too hard to be actually funny. I'd find I'd laugh at some things, cringe at some, and question why the same joke is being repeated. More than twice. There was this one running joke throughout that the people he kept "killing" were accidents and were actually fans of his favourite genre of music. This was funny and clever in the first person, but then when it got to the third, what a surprise. But regardless, there are funny moments during this that did get laughs out of me and helped improve the experience of this strange film.  I actually have no idea how to describ

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Horror Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Juan Carlos Fresnadillo Quick Summary:  Six months after the rage virus was inflicted on the population of Great Britain, the US Army helps to secure a small area of London for the survivors to repopulate and start again. But not everything goes according to plan. Please for the love of god, someone deck these kids. I find the music much more iconic for this one as I had heard it through general pop culture moments throughout my life, while the previous one had it slightly, this was a more well-known version and man is it good. That also goes for this opening. It's so gripping instantly and sets the foundation for a devastating story full of selfishness greed, and hopelessness. It's such a shame this the rest of this film is terrible.  Everyone makes horrible decisions, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone. Not one person has a brain during the length of this. I'll be honest it was extremely frustrating watching this

  Genre : Sci-Fi/ Horror Time: 2 hours Director:  Danny Boyle Quick Summary:  Four weeks after a mysterious, incurable virus spreads throughout the UK, a handful of survivors try to find sanctuary As someone who personally isn't a fan of Zombie films, I was delighted with this I say, zombie, this really isn't a zombie film. It's something else entirely. Instead of focusing on gore and blood and action, it shows you the emptiness of a world like this. How selfish and entitled people can be for just helping you out. Honestly, I really liked that instead of an action-packed opening, we get a deserted London and a lone guy wandering the streets. It's such a heavy atmosphere that is so hard to get right and this nailed it straight on the head. This stands high and clearly superior in an era filled to the brink of zombie films that are all fundamentally the same.  Even though I wouldn't call this scary, it did have its especially gorey moments as the infected throw up jet

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Thriller Time : 1h 41mins Director:  Spencer Brown Quick Summary:  Prosthetics engineer Abi moves to the countryside to work on Integrate Robotic's latest product - a humanoid artificial intelligence called T.I.M. - Technologically. Integrated. Manservant. I probably enjoyed this more than I should have. While this isn't amazing and super predictable, there was something about it being this way that made me enjoy it. It was so simple, and such an easy watch. I wasn't bored at all, though I did feel like it was 15 minutes maybe too long at the end. Eamon Farren was pretty good I'll admit as an android, he gave the right amount of unsettling behaviour that an android would probably give in this situation. Definitely fell into the uncanny valley. The other actors did their best. I'm not sure if they didn't do so well because of this strange thing this film decided to do where it looked like their voices were dubbed over most of the time as it woul

  Genre: Adventure/ Comedy Time: 2h 9mins Director:  The Bullitts Quick Summary:  Struggling to find a better life, Clarence is captivated by the power of the rising Messiah and soon risks everything to carve a path to a divine existence. While I did find this funny, I don't think it was my type of film. This was really all over the place and I struggled to get into it. Some jokes and one-liners landed really well and got a good chuckle out of me, but then the rest made me cringe a little because they felt like they were trying to be funny. It gave me life of Brian vibes, but it just wasn't as amusing. I think the problem is that they tried to modernise it while making it feel a little disjointed to the story it was actually trying to tell. Aside from the tongue-in-cheek jabs towards Jesus and religion, I don't remember much from this film. It's all a bit clunky and things don't fit together really well. The longer it went on the more it spiralled downwards and the

  Genre: Action/ Thriller Time: 1h 45mins Director: David Ayer Quick Summary:  One man's brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after he is revealed to be a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as "Beekeepers." It's at the point when you see that Jason Statham is in a film, and you know exactly how the film will play out. This is no expectation. I'm starting to think they just design these films especially for him to be cast in the main role.  If you know Jason Statham films, then you know what type of action this film has. Over the top, brutal, with lots of frantic camera movements, with Jason singlehandedly fist-fighting through a bunch of men. While this sounds like a complaint, it's actually not since it was the only thing really keeping my interest. Some of them were a bit odd. This one woman randomly pulls out a machine gun that is on the back of her truck and begins shooting everything in a gas station.  I

  Genre: Musical/ Comedy Time: 1h 52mins Directors:   Samantha Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr. Quick Summary:  Cady Heron is a hit with the Plastics, an A-list girl clique at her new school. But everything changes when she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George. I lost it when the 0.5 selfie angle came on screen. Please, stop making films that are directed towards Gen Z but are made by boomers. It feels a little offensive I'm not going to lie to watch these kids that strangely look like adults, prance around saying "slay" and "rizz" every 5 minutes.  A lot of the comedy was lost in this version. I just don't know if maybe I don't find Gen Z humour funny, or this isn't funny. All the sexual jokes, bitch fests and cunty nature of the original just aren't here. I don't think I heard one slur, which is strange to complain about, but that's what made it so funny originally to hear these things s

  Genre: Comedy/ Drama Time: 1h 37mins Director:  Melanie Mayron Quick Summary:  The Plastics are back in the long-awaited follow-up to the smash hit Mean Girls - and now the clique is more fashionable, funny, and ferocious (🤮) than ever. Ew. Who let Disney remake Mean Girls? This is like Disney made this film but they decided to be a bit more risky by saying the word fuck and virgin. Ooooh, look. This film is so cool it said virgin. (Said maybe one 12-year-old girl thinking she was cool for watching this) It feels gross. The outfits are horrendous and honestly an eye-sore. The acting is awful too, and not even the funny kind. It's even got the line "I'm not like other girls" seriously said by the stereotypical tomboy girl who dyes her hair and likes cars. That is how bad this is. Don't watch this. Please. I wasted time out of my life for this terrible, icky sequel.  1/10

  Genre: Comedy/ Drama Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Mark Waters Quick Summary:  Cady Heron is a hit with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school until she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George. Banger. Classic. Masterpiece. Timeless. 💅 Nothing beats the early 2000's cunty high school films. It's a genre I will never get tired of because they're so funny and in their own league. This is so easy to enjoy and it's absolutely timeless, even now, 20 years later it's still funny, even if a lot of them are based on far-fetched stereotypes.  The teenagers actually look like teenagers, not like 30-year-olds playing teenagers. And what holds the film together are the great performances from the actors. They're all perfect. Lindsay Lohan is perfect as Cady, the clueless girl who gets a taste of popularity and has to have more. I've always found to enjoy her in film, she has this sort of quirky ch

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action Time: 2h 20mins Director:  Matt Reeves Quick Summary:  After the apes suffer unimaginable losses, Caesar wrestles with his darker instincts and begins his own mythic quest to avenge his kind. *Sobbing* First the obvious, the CGI is amazing and is truly a technological marvel to cinema. I thought these apes looked good last time so I was absolutely blown away with how good they looked this time around. Andy Serkis once again plays the ape ruler Caesar and is easily the best movie character in recent years, in each film he has gotten progressively better and in this one it is definitely the best performance. I may have cried a little bit and some of the more emotional and harder-to-watch scenes. This poor guy has gone through it and continues to go through it during the events of this. The story is great and is well-acted throughout. This movie is also an amazing drama. You know I'm glad they focused more on the drama and emotional side of things as the last

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Action Time: 2h 11mins Director:  Matt Reeves Quick Summary:  The fragile peace between apes and humans is threatened as mistrust and betrayal threaten to plunge both tribes into a war for dominance over the Earth. I liked the funky tribal paint they used to decorate themselves. I liked the previous film. I really liked this one as this one takes everything from the last one and just improves on it. However, I will say the first hour was a little bit slow so it lost my attention a couple of times. Granted, this needed to be slow to build up the main conflict. The CGI is so much more impressive this time. The ape's fur looks so realistic in some of the scenes and yet again I had fully forgotten these were fake apes. They feel so real and I think that's what makes this one work so much more. To add to this you can actually tell each ape apart from various little changes to their appearances or how they move which is honestly so cool to me. Though it is a little

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action Time: 1h 45mins Director:  Rupert Wyatt Quick Summary:  A substance designed to help the brain repair itself gives advanced intelligence to a chimpanzee who leads an ape uprising. Finally the justice these films deserved with a good film. There is so much that is good about this film that the small things can be overlooked. Some moments are truly gratifying, and the main ape really steals the show with his evolution throughout the movie. The journey this ape takes really connects and you feel his plight. Honestly, it's so emotional the whole way through and there were moments I gasped or cheered especially during the big “no” moment. Hands down one of my favourite film moments. Even though you know the chimps are CGI, their eyes look amazing, with depth and personality, and along with their body language and facial animations, you really do forget they are CGI. This ape has the most terrifying but impressive look I have ever seen. It just screams a strong l

  Genre: Sci-Fi/ Action Time: 2hours Director: Tim Burton Quick Summary:  In 2029, an Air Force astronaut crash-lands on a mysterious planet where evolved, talking apes dominate a race of primitive humans. For such a shit film why did they give us such a juicy ending Okay, I'll give this credit. This looked really good and stylistic. I really liked how the apes were designed, leaning more towards humans with monkey characteristics in which we get fully clothed, waddling, swinging, odd-looking apes with various different hairstyles. The makeup for their faces was done well too, but they looked solid and difficult to move which made some of the talking scenes look a bit funny. As for the world, it seems really primitive but styled almost towards Asian culture. The issue is, it's too damn dark and it was difficult to see anything. As I am someone who has seen and loves the original, it was surprising to see in this remake that the humans could talk. The fact that humans couldn&#

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Action Time: 1h 35mins Director:  J. Lee Thompson Quick Summary:  Ten years after a worldwide series of ape revolutions and a brutal nuclear war among humans, Caesar must protect survivors of both species from an insidious human cult and a militant ape faction alike. I suffered through this for a very sweet ending. Now we are finally at this era's end of these films, the budget has been lowered even more and it is so obvious they were scraping every penny. I don't think thr monkeys' mouths moved much, and also don't even get me started on the very obvious gorilla masks folding inwards at times. Whilst the last one was a clear indicator that it wanted to be a slow-burning uprising, this one isn't so sure what it wants to be. There are moments where it feels like it wants to burst out in a huge battle, and then it seems it wants to be more calm and diplomatic about things. This made it really hard to get into personally as it was all over the place. 

  Genre: Sci-fi/ Action Time: 1h 35mins Director:   J. Lee Thompson Quick Summary:  In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, Caesar, the son of the late simians Cornelius and Zira, surfaces after almost twenty years of hiding out from the authorities, and prepares for a slave revolt against humanity. This is not perfect, but this is darker and stranger than the others. It's much more violent. Action scenes are absolutely brutal in this (and I watched the rated one). Its carnage is sometimes full of bullet hells and explosions. Something I do love is that it strives to make a social statement and does a decent job. Parallels are drawn between the apes’ struggle against slavery to humans and the struggle for the civil rights of black people. There's this one monologue which is so captivating and terrifying at the same time, fire is burning everywhere and an ape uprising is about to let loose. All the ethical and philosophical parts of this film are really what makes