SilentLuminary Reviews

  Genre : Comedy/ Sci-Fi Time: 1h 38mins Director:  Jay Roach Quick Summary:  Upon learning that his father has been kidnapped, Austin Powers must travel to 1975 and defeat the aptly named villain Goldmember, who is working with Dr. Evil. I'm still sad we never got to see a full-blown evil Scott. I am equally as shocked to see that Beyoncé acted in this. Never in a million years would I have guessed she did something like this and she kills it. She isn't really that funny but as a serious actor, it worked, balancing the silly things Austin would get up to. Admittedly this one feels like kicking a dying horse, it's just not as good as the others. The jokes didn't feel quite right, while they were funny they just weren't as outrageous or over the top. It feels like they tried to play it more safe with what they joked about which is why I think this one has the most slapstick out of the three. That isn't a complaint either because we get quite a few scenes where M

  Genre: Comedy/ Adventure Time: 1h 35mins Director : Jay Roach Quick Summary:  Dr. Evil is back and has invented a new time machine that allows him to go back to the 1960s and steal Austin Powers' mojo, inadvertently leaving him "shagless". They did the impossible and improved on gold. I'm not lying when I say they made it funnier and I didn't actually realise until I watched this that I quote about 80% of this. The script is brilliantly refined to be a banger of a joke after a joke.  The humour is pretty much recycled from the first one but it works, though I did notice that the sexual humour had been toned down surprisingly. But don't let that stir you away because it is still over-the-top, outrageous, witty, gross (looking at you Nutty coffee joke), and absolutely more hilarious. But the best addition we were given from this was Mini-Me, now one of the equally most iconic characters to exist. An absolute feral gremlin who I loved simply watching him being

  Genre: Comedy/Action Time: 1h 35mins Director:  Jay Roach Quick Summary: A world-class playboy and part-time secret agent from the 1960s emerges after thirty years in a cryogenic state to battle with his nemesis Dr. Evil. This has always been destined to be a classic and I'm so glad it's still iconic to this day.  Whilst still being a spoof of the James Bond films, this stands on its own feet by actually having a well-put-together story too, even if it is a silly one. I don't think I stopped laughing at this for one second. Joke after joke after joke that all landed really well.  It's a genuine mixed bag with the humour of what you'll get, there's really dirty jokes that aren't so obvious hidden behind puns, innuendoes or just plainly really cleverly written; dirty jokes that are obvious like penis-shaped items or sexual remarks; puns; slapstick; word-play; racism; satire; and just straight up silly shenanigans. Sadly, for being a comedy film set in the

  Genre: Comedy/ Romance Time : 1h 57mins Director : Mike Newell Quick Summary : Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love. The fact these people were getting engaged let alone married months after meeting each other is insane to me. Hugh Grant fiddling with his thick glasses while stammering is probably the reason I kept watching this.  While I really enjoyed the comedy side of this, the romance part of it really didn't work for me. It was honestly a little weird. Was this normal for the 90's? I mean people were meeting each other and getting married within months, does anyone else not find that insane? Along with this, nobody really had any chemistry between them and all felt a bit bland. As for the main romance, well, I have never seen a more dull romance in my life. Hugh Grant was wonderful as always, a charming and awkward gentleman. I have absolutely no faults with him. Andie MacDowell however

  Genre: Comedy Time: 1h 39mins Director : Katie Burrell Quick Summary:  Three party-loving best friends set out to win a ski-movie competition. An uproarious comedy that takes on the male-dominated ski industry. Girl, your friends suck Actually, I think everyone sucked in this. I don't think I found one character that was likeable while watching. Geuniley nobody really had a single likeable trait, they were all unreliable, drunks, selfish people who barely cared about anything. Which really I think made this hard to watch as I gave no sympathy for the things that were happening to them or the things that they messed up on. The two main friends didn't even do anything and still rocked up at the end to try and support. The main character I even found myself cringing a lot at. It tries so hard to be funny too. It works every so often because of the humour of the situation or how Cleo reacts to things with humour based on the situation or comments with funny remarks about things.

  Genre: Thriller/ Action Time: 2 hours Director:  Kinji Fukasaku Quick Summary:  In the future, the Japanese government captures a class of ninth-grade students and forces them to kill one another under the revolutionary "Battle Royale" act. Wow that was nice of them giving the students unlimited ammo. Even though I've literally just watched this film (roughly an hour ago) it feels like a blurr. I couldn't really tell you what happened when as a bunch of different storylines were happening at once. All of this is honestly pretty clunky, even the beginning doesn't seem to start off on strong feet. There was this one painful moment where I thought they were going to introduce every student from the group of 40 something to show off who they are their personalities, as they did the first 10 or so which took forever. Having 40 different students that needed to die, meant there was certainly a lot of deaths. Sadly, instead of being gruesome and brutal, they came acro

  Genre: Horror/ Action Time: 1h 31mins Director:  James Watkins Quick Summary:  When a couple goes to a remote lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize them, and a weekend outing becomes a battle for survival. For my own mental well-being, I don't think I can ever watch this again Many emotions were felt throughout this film and all for separate moments. Mainly I felt frustrated due to the couple's actions throughout the first half of the film as so many of the things that happen could have been avoided if they just moved and not interacted with the kids. Especially one moment where the guy chooses to try and speak to one of the kid's parents; nobody is in the house so he just walks in! Yeah, sure walk into a stranger's house I'm sure nothing will happen. The rest events in this film are horrific, and it leaves you feeling horrible and disgusted at the end.

  Genre: Action/ Superhero Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Josh Trank Quick Summary:  Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. It bothers me more than it should that Rock Ben doesn't have pants. They gave him asscheeks too. Anyway, this film sucked. Straight up it was awful. Everything was so bland and dull, and boring. I almost fell asleep a couple of times. This lost everything brilliant about the previous ones. No more is the comic book feel. What we get is this very dark and plain colour pallet and outfits (minus Ben).  For about one hour and 20 minutes, this is completely set up. I'm not kidding. Nothing actually really happens to do with their powers until almost the hour mark. They make what powers they were going to get extremely obvious too. Ben gets trapped in his pod with rocks

  Genre: Action/ Superhero Time: 1h 32mins Director:  Tim Story Quick Summary:  The Fantastic Four learn that they aren't the only super-powered beings in the universe when they square off against the powerful Silver Surfer and the planet-eating Galactus. We've still got all the cheesy elements from the first one but they've actually improved on it to my surprise. Everyone gets their own little development, but Johnny is the focus this time and honestly, it's pretty fun. After an altercation with Silver Surfer, nobody in his team can touch him or they will swap powers and this makes for some pretty fun but also bad-timing situations where the team have to quickly think on their feet. Again though we only get surface-level developments, like Johnny starting to want the idea of settling down and his ego becoming slightly softer, but that is mostly played for laughs sadly. We do get the return of "in this together" and "family" tropes, as some of the

  Genre: Action/ Superhero Time: 1h 46mins Director:  Tim Story Quick Summary:  A group of astronauts gain superpowers after being exposed to cosmic radiation and must use them to oppose the plans of their enemy, Doctor Victor Von Doom. I went into this expecting to hate it only to discover how enjoyable it is. Obviously very campy and a ball of fun the whole way through. I do think this is a more "Family Friendly" superhero film but honestly, I don't care because not everything needs to be serious or dramatic. It does get corny and the lines are absolutely hilarious at times. I mean there is a point where one guy is proposing to Sue and I couldn't tell if they were together as partners or co-workers for 2 years because how they interacted with each other gave no connection between them at all. That said, I loved most of Johnny's lines mostly because he was such a dickbag, but he was a funny dickbag constantly through jabs and one-liners at the team. This does fol

  Genre: Action/ Horror Time : 2h Director:  David S. Goyer Quick Summary:  Blade, now a wanted man by the FBI, must join forces with the Nightstalkers to face his most challenging enemy yet: Dracula. I need copies of Abby's Playlists ASAP  Also, I'm sorry but I am a sucker for cunty 2000s action films. There is just something about them that I thoroughly enjoy. This is full of all the classic edgy action film things, quick pan and shaky zoom-ins, slow motion scenes especially with shoot-outs, pop-punk or hip-hop music with a splash of techno for nostalgia, and this strange blue overlay over everything. I love it. It screams the 2000's.  Blade isn't the centre of this film; honestly, I missed him. He was in it, but not having him as the main role was pretty criminal. This time around he didn't feel quite right, he was no longer broody with a splash of humour, it was more moody and straight-faced more than anything. So the jokes Blade made felt really sharp and kind

  Genre: Action/ Thriller Time: 2h 11mins Director:  Chad Stahelski Quick Summary:  John Wick is on the run after killing a member of the international assassins' guild, and with a $14 million price tag on his head, he is the target of hit men and women everywhere. The first 20 minutes of this are really good and I enjoyed it a ton. I actually thought I was finally going to watch a not boring John Wick film. This time John needs to escape from the never-ending wave after wave of assassins in a city that I assume is just entirely assassins because nobody even flinches at the fact there is absolute chaos going on around them. The stunts from start to finish were really impressive, some of them really unique and brutal and admittedly I really enjoyed watching John get slammed into 20 different glass cabinets over and over again.  The sheer unfiltered violence and constant fight for survival is super intense. Very fluid and follows the action incredibly well, especially in one scene

  Genre: Action/ Thriller Time: 2 Hours Director:  Chad Stahelski Quick Summary:  After returning to the criminal underworld to repay a debt, John Wick discovers that a large bounty has been put on his life. Yawn. One thing I want to get out of the way is apparently everyone is an Assassin, yet cannot shoot to save their lives. Only John Wick can shoot people. You'd think they'd do a better job since literally everyone is one. At least I think so because there would be all these fights happening in public and even in broad daylight and nobody would bat an eye. Especially one scene where John is trying to run away from someone and they're shooting at each other, whilst walking in a public walkway tunnel. Surely, someone would have heard the gunshots or even seen them. This one feels like they just took all the bad parts of the first one and action films in general and put them into this. Keanu's acting is no better. There are even more fights with just no music. For so

  Genre: Action/ Thriller Time: 1h 41mins Director:  Chad Stahelski Quick Summary:  An ex-hitman comes out of retirement to track down the gangsters who killed his dog and stole his car. Not me crying when he got another dog. As far as action films go, this was okay, I actually enjoyed it for once. It has its flaws don't get me wrong and it's a simple revenge storyline, but it works. Really there isn't much to this aside from fights, some background-setting conversations, and more fights. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a one-off film because it only briefly mentions things from John's past or doesn't explain much of things when they happen, like the various services he can use we just have to understand he's a well known and liked guy within this "community". I'll be honest, I don't like Keanu Reeve's acting much. He doesn't act very well and he moves his whole body when he speaks, especially his head and it's really i

  Genre: Comedy Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Leah McKendrick Quick Summary:  A thirty-something eternal bridesmaid goes on an empowering, and often hilarious, journey of self-discovery. I can't express how overly joyous that they chose to not have her find her perfect guy or gave her the perfect guy right at the last second/end. Women struggle and we go to the ends of the earth for anything and to have this watered down to "wow luckily she met the right guy at the right time 🫠"would have been my last straw. I would have been sick I think. Honestly though its so refreshing to watch a film tackle such a big issue in a lighthearted way. It's a difficult thing for women to freeze their eggs, but also deal with the constant pressure to have kids, grow up, get married, and for some people that pressure can happen all of a sudden. It becomes overwhelming and i'm so glad this humanises it.  This is chaotic at times, especially when she is getting back in contact with som

  Genre: Family/ Comedy Time: 1h 33mins Director:  Sean Charmatz Quick Summary:  A boy with an active imagination faces his fears on an unforgettable journey through the night with his new friend: a giant, smiling creature named Dark. I am tired now Since this was DreamWorks I was actually really looking forward to this. Unfortunately, I was very bored and almost fell asleep once or twice trying to watch this. I didn't actually finish this either as by the hour mark I had lost all interest with whatever was happening; I barely remember this.  First of all I will get my few praises out of the way. DreamWorks has always been fantastic at animation, this being another good one. Sort of storybook looking and very nice on the eyes, honestly it really suits the story considering it's being told by an adult. I can never fault them for animation and design which is another I did really like about this. The various designs of “nighttime entities”, like insomnia being a buzzing green mo

  Genre: Comedy/ Drama Time: 2h 45mins Director:  Yorgos Lanthimos Quick Summary:  A man seeks to break free from his predetermined path, a cop questions his wife's demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning, and a woman searches for an extraordinary individual prophesied to become a renowned spiritual guide Where is the context for anything? I'll be straight up honest. I think I was too stupid to understand this film. My poor monkey brain was working hard  trying to follow everything. There is a lot that goes on, as it's three stories after each other. They don't relate either. At least I don't think they do. As a whole, it's extremely disjointed and really bizarre. It's like the director had ideas for three short stories, chose not to flesh them out, and chucked them into an almost three hour film. We watch credits for one of the stories for maybe thirty seconds before we immediately cut to the next story which usually just thew us in randomly wi

  Genre: Horror/ Comedy Time: 1h 40mins Director:  Peter Jackson Quick Summary:  A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors. This is definitely going to give me nightmares but it was worth it to see a zombie baby get absolutely kicked the shit out of it I never expected the director of Lord of The Rings to make such an amazing horror film. I actually adore this. It's brilliant. Demented a lot of the time but so much fun. This makes the trope of "going over the top" a baby, as this goes to the overly extreme by jumping off cliffs screaming and goes nuts. The acting constantly flicks between awful and so bad it's good, which works so well for this film because everything is so extremely over the top. So why shouldn't the characters be? The sheer amount of blood, guts, and gore is insane. It's disgusting at times but from a pra

  Genre: Horror/ Sci-fi Time: 1h 25mins Director:  Adam Simon Quick Summary:  In a showdown of man versus machine, Martin plunges into a chaotic nightmare trying to save his mind from the megalomaniacal corporation. Watched this by mistake but it's a pretty funky film Even though I watched this film fully, I can't really describe it. It's a mess and all over the place, if you don't pay attention to every little second you will get lost and confused. A lot of the story tries to fake you out on what is happening, and even now i'm not sure what was actually true and what was made up. Think of shutter island but not as good. You can never really tell what is going on, and I sort of liked that, I just wish there was better explanation for it.There's this creepy guy covered in blood who follows our main character around and while there is a possible explanation, it's thrown out of the window because "it might not be true." I was interested to figure out

  Genre : Sci-Fi/ Adventure Time: 2h 31mins Director:  Ridley Scott Quick Summary:  An astronaut becomes stranded on Mars after his team assume him dead, and must rely on his ingenuity to find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive and can survive until a potential rescue. I wonder if it became a habit for him to talk to himself after returning back to earth First things first, this was way too long. This could have been a one hour forty minutes, or even two hours and be brilliant but I think because this is too long it lost me in the last quarter. I can sit through films longer than this perfectly fine since they usually need to be, this didn't. It felt like they were given a runtime and needed to pad out things to get to it, so things kept conventently going wrong.  Mostly, I wasn't bored and did actually find this entertaining. Watching his journey of survival was pretty good, I do wish we got to see more of the survival aspect of this, like if the hub was damaged more a

  Genre: Family/ Fantasy  Time: 1h 10mins Directors:  David Hand, Clyde Geronimi, James Algar Quick Summary:  The story of a young deer growing up in the forest. This was mostly a sensory video because of the music and animation for me and I loved every second of it Admittedly I don't have much to say about Bambi, since there isn't really much to it. It's a cute film, sweet as anything and is just joyful (mostly). It has it's very dark moments, which honestly I would have preferred one of them being a bit longer. I only say this since it's towards the end and is really the only interesting part of the film. Other than that, this is basically a cute story about a little deer as he runs around the forest throughout the seasons. Obviously it is targeted towards very young kids as the dialogue is really simple and sort of babyish at times, and there are a lot of moments where they would just be laughing at a word or a flower. Which Is cute, but gets a bit tiring after