Change Your Image
ableriley-850-303541
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Jackpot! (2024)
Worth a watch
It's not the greatest comedy action flick by a long shot but it filled in a Saturday night at home and provided me with entertainment for an hour and 46 minutes. There isn't much to the plot but with this style of R rated entertainment I wasn't expecting it.
Everyone seem to fit their role with John Cena and Awkafina surprisingly working well together. The slapstick comedy in the fight scenes worked out all right for the style of the movie. The fight scenes are nowhere near the level of John Wick but that is clearly not what they were aiming for. The slapstick comedy reminded me a lot of the style of the Three Stooges.
I wouldn't recommend this one for the kiddies to watch as the humour is for adults and if you enjoyed the likes of Shoot 'Em Up, Hardcore Henry and Guns Akimbo then you will probably find this one okay.
I gave it a 6 out of 10.
Silent Night (2021)
Black humoured Christmas movie
If there is one thing that the Brits do well it is black humour. My take on this one is that someone from Black Mirror did a revamp of the movie Love Actually. In fact I had to do a double check to see if the writer/director, Camille Griffin, had been involved in any way with the likes of the TV series Black Mirror (not that I could see).
I won't go into the plot or synopsis of this one as it is best approached with an open mind that has no knowledge of the plot twists. And I didn't find this too political in any real way.
There are slight digs towards environmental doomsayers and overt reactions of government but not really in your face stuff.
As others have warned this is no feel good family Christmas movie but more of an adult movie to watch once the little ones have gone to bed and who knows, it may or may not make you think.
7 out of 10 from me.
Willy's Wonderland (2021)
Don't go in with high expectations and you'll enjoy it
With so many low budget flicks coming out to fill the massive hole left by the so called big brands during this pandemic I initially brushed this one aside thinking it to be just another C grade filler that Nicholas Cage took on to get some cash.
I actually found this movie to be very entertaining and it was a perfect watch for Halloween. I found the mix of thriller, horror and comedy to be just right with the animation characters reminding me of Peter Jackson's "Meet The Feebles".
I'll be honest and found the fact that Nicholas Cage didn't utter one single line to be refreshing and made him more entertaining to watch.
But it wasn't all Cage through the movie with the rest of the cast doing a fine job and production was snappy with good camera views and sound levels. I must say the jingles that were done for this show are very catchy (as they should be) as I still have "Six little chickens" running around in my mind.
Both the writer and director get my vote for what I consider good work but that is just my view.
Cheers.
Nobody (2021)
Are you not entertained?
From the same director of Hardcore Henry is another 92 minute ride of gratuitous violence, which while it does start off in subtle manner for the first 15 minutes as we are introduced to very mild mannered character that just seems to plod through each day until the night his house is robbed.
While it seems that he is pathetic he succumbs to a dark past after it is found that his daughter's kitty cat bracelet was stolen in the robbery.
Without giving too much away the movie quickly takes you on a wild ride with the violence starting off as realistic before becoming more and more cartoonist towards the end.
If you want to be purely entertained then this is the movie is for you. The soundtrack matched the scenes well and the 92 minutes was over before I knew it. I see others are complaining of plot holes etc but this is simply a movie that is deemed to entertain a blood thirsty audience, much like the old gladiator games in Roman times.
Timescape (1991)
Worth a watch
This movie came out in 1991 and while the age of it does show with regard to the special effects the acting and the story make up for it providing you with an enjoyable watch where you are entertained throughout the 99 minutes. What is surprising is that it has not been remade today.
Wolf (2019)
I should have read the reviews
Okay, for a start what caught my eye was the rating 7.4 with 1200 votes. Sounds like I could not go wrong watching it. Gawd I was so wrong. If you are one of the high rating voters and are about to read this then please go find a nice safe room because what I am about to say may trigger your poor overly sensitive soul.
First up if you are going to have a movie set in a period of history then for crying out loud do the story as it was then back then in history. If you cannot do this then set your movie in the future to avoid the GO WOKE GO BROKE fiasco. If you want an excellent example look no further than Aliens (1996).
Now if you are going to have an opening scene then please do avoid using a plantation as a backdrop. The pruned trunks stood out a god damn mile away! No, you poor non history educated masses, there were NO plantation forests back then. There was actually plenty of natural forests that dominated the scene back in those early days. Seriously it really ruined the scene, never mind what looked like almost authentic armour on the soldiers.
And this was a massive bugbear for me THERE WERE NO WOMEN SOLDIERS IN THE ROMAN ARMY!
But there was the wives, concubines, families and hangers on that would follow the legion when it moved around the Roman world. Dear writers/producers you could have gone with the concept of one of the followers that had gladiator training as one of the strong powerful woman in order to keep with history and I would have loved it but no you had to spit in the eyes of history. And before anyone decides to dox me YES there were black male soldiers in the Roman Army. The Romans would always replenish their army from areas conquered hence I expected to see black men but NOT black women amongst the ranks.
This could have been a believable story using the historic concept of a cohort of the Roman army with the hangers on engaging in a story of survival against (were)wolves but no we had to go full woke on it like the BBC has done with Doctor Who.
I gave it 4 stars rather than 1 star and the 4 stars were for showing how the Roman Army worked as a unit. Just not sure about the rest. Pity, could have been a good story worthy of the 7.5 rating.
The Invisible Man (2020)
More of a thriller than a horror
So the better half and I went to the movies to see this movie, which sounded promising.
Elisabeth Moss portrays a woman who escapes her abusive partner who later commits suicide and just when she thinks she can start all over again incidents start happening.
The tension build up certainly gave my better half a couple of frights but I would not call this a horror. Yes there is blood being spilled but the build up of suspense I found more akin to a decent thriller. One of the plot twist I could see coming from a mile away but there were other twists that did catch me unaware.
I found the acting of everyone to be good and it was a surprise to find out the cost of this movie was only $8 million with the CGI being well done considering that budget.
Well done to everyone involved and I didn't regret seeing it.
Sorry We Missed You (2019)
An excellent example of why my ancestors left the UK
First up, if you are feeling just a little bit down and hard done by then this movie will could make you swing two ways. You'll either feel that your life isn't that bad after all and feel slightly better about yourself or, on the other hand, you'll be thinking very seriously about finding either a knife, some rope or a bottle of pills because this is a DEPRESSING movie to watch. (And if you are feeling this way then do get some help)
Now I know the director and writer etc want to show case a family trying to survive in lovely England but you will find yourself yelling at the screen as each bad decision after a terrible decision gets played out in front of you in an almost Shakespearean sort of way.
Plot is simple, you'll follow a family of four where the father blunders his way into a delivery franchise that is more akin to servitude. The mother acts like a Florence Nightingale who can't say no while a wayward son acts out the bad boy cliches while the youngest daughter appears to be the only beacon of light.
The acting is up and down with some good scenes but then there are other scenes that come across as wooden.
Clearly when I looked at other reviews I feel there is some political bias but it was an election year in the UK. What I do recommend about this film is that you watch it simply on the grounds of what NOT to do when trying to work your way out of debt.
A Ghost Story (2017)
Artsy film - beware
Had high expectations of this one, especially with such a reasonable score on IMDb, so the Wife and I decided to watch it. Ten minutes into it and we start looking at each other with both wondering if this was a good decision to watch. But thank heavens for being able to fast forward as there are some very painfully long scenes. We would use the skip feature to jump 30 seconds at a time and there was very little change at all. Seriously this movie could have easily been cut to just a 30 minute episode and it would have been much better. This movie is only suitable for the artsy fartsy people who gush at protracted camera views and consider themselves cultured while watching this overlong 90 minutes. If you have to watch it then I recommend the fast forwarding button.