Street Fighter (2026)

SPOILERS BELOW

I found this movie quite frustrating.

A big part of that, which I don't think was the fault of the movie itself, was that it was really dark the whole way through. Like, Game Of Thrones final battle dark. I don't know if it was because of Cineworld cheaping out on their bulbs or getting some HDR setting wrong, or if the movie is supposed to look like that. I'd be very surprised if it were the latter because it was massively distracting and worked directly against the movie's two big strengths, the bright colourful design and the fight scenes. Maybe it's something to do with movies now designing the cinematography to work best on streaming or fit with Netflix's demands or something, I dunno. But watching the wonderful (except for the usual eyeroll-worthy nomenclat) Sneak Peek Teaser trailer on my telly I don't have the same issue.

It was exacerbated by the movie's fluid, close-up camera moves, which I do sometimes find annoying in action movies but I think would have worked well here if not for the lighting, though it's hard to say for sure.

The other part of it, though, is all the movie's fault - the story is overloaded and it goes surprisingly far into the dour territory of the new Mortal Kombat movies, with demon powers and temptation and tragic backstories and all that. This really needed to be an exploitation throwback with a very simple story and lots of fun characters. It sometimes hits that and it's great, but there's just too much going on. The most egregious moment was at the end where the goodies are all packed in a car listening to Alanis Morrisette on their way to confront Bison and then the movie just ENDS. All the story energy wasted on some demon dude whom I (as an admittedly casual fan) have never heard of and who wasn't very interesting. He was also the cause of most of the clutter, clashing with Bison's Psycho Power scheme and junking up Ryu and Ken's backstories. If they'd stripped that guy out of the script I think it would have instantly made this movie a couple of points out of ten better. Turning the brightness up, another two points. So, this could have been a 9/10 but it came out as a 5/10.

Rating: should have been a Desperado or a Scott Pilgrim but it came out as a Mortal Kombat 2021. A real shame.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025)

It felt energetic and tightly constructed at first, but it quickly descended into a loose collection of unoriginal bits and pieces. Very shallow in a 'wacky for the sake of being wacky' way.

Rating: messy and shallow

Coyote vs. Acme (2026)

It's not funny, the cel-shaded 3D toons look ugly as sin throughout and as much as I tried it's impossible to squint past, the director has no idea how to stage Looney Tunes style comedy or even Naked Gun style comedy, and it doesn't work from a character or story perspective either. A John Grisham-style legal thriller with toons has a lot of potential (Roger Rabbit did a fantastic job with 'Chinatown with toons', after all), but this movie doesn't have the smarts to pull it off. There are a few genuinely good or funny ideas in there, but I can count them on one (human) hand.

Rating: rubbish

Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026)

It's probably the Marvel movie that has felt most like a single comic book issue to me. Quite often they feel like movies that have had their structure compromised by series arc stuff, but here it didn't really feel like they were bothered about having a movie structure at all. Much longer than it needed to be, moving from action scenes to long slow character bits just when you expect it to be ramping up. They also spend a bunch of time dealing with weird previous plot developments (and yes also setting up future stuff).
This might all sound like outright criticism, but it was perfectly enjoyable, lots of cool action and fun moments, and actually I kind of preferred it to something like Iron Man 2 where it's mostly a movie but it keeps on falling over. That said, I didn't prefer it to the ones where they actually get a movie right like Iron Man 1 or Thor Ragnarok, and I doubt I'll ever bother watching it again. But then, I suppose a lot of people don't go back and re-read all their individual comic book issues either!

Rating: solid middle chapter

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

I've lost track of where all the themes originally came from, but it's lovely to have some of the old music playing again. Also nice to have a little nod to the blue on black opening titles of the original movies.

Lovely to come from 4:3 720p-at-best tv Trek to these big expensive widescreen shots of the Enterprise! Especially when they seem to have taken notes from the shows (Voyager's titles in particular) to make space a little more colourful. Also just nice to get the extra detail in the interior shots, all the extra detail in Picard's face and so on. Somehow emphasises the two years of aging in the cast since the TNG finale, though!

Frakes' direction is energetic, and I like the textbook horror scene opening with the dream fake-out! Also, straight into the plot with 'the Borg are attacking'. Makes it all feel more vital and propulsive than, say, Generations, even though nothing has actually happened yet.

Tracee Lee Cocco is back as well! Hooray!

Nice to understand what the Defiant is now!

Also, wow, under 15 minutes and they've already got Worf back and travelled through time.

Nice to see there's still time for some good old fashioned fireballs and stunt people falling off buildings! Meat and potatoes film-making!

Frakes and his DoP really like strong lighting! Lots of light through grids and colour gels!

I was just getting excited to see Alyssa and then EMH showed up! Such a smart little moment to tie Voyager in after DS9 got a nod with the Defiant.

I like the continued horror sensibilities of keeping the Borg offscreen as well. All POV shots and shadows.

Smart use of the holodeck (and I like the weird little detail that Nicky The Nose has a seemingly anachronistic prostheses, like some weird little mistranslation by the computer) and also a cameo from the Neelix actor! I really like how this keeps on giving us little bits of fan service without feeling tacky. Also, Picard blowing away some Borg with a tommy gun is such a great image.

Ha, posted that just in time for Barclay to get his first, wordless appearance!

Oh, I guess I should talk about the Borg Queen. Honestly, I don't mind the Borg getting returned to boogeymen, they only got a couple of goes at it before all the Hugh stuff that neutered them and never really went anywhere. Plus the concept of the Queen doesn't bug me - it's a way for the Borg to manage and direct such a huge collective mind and they keep it ambiguous enough that it doesn't break the general concept. I guess an alternative might have been to have a known character (Alyssa?) get assimilated and speak on behalf of the Borg in much the way that Locutus or any of the random Borg voices we hear do, or just to keep them essentially unknowable zombies, which is harder to build an ensemble movie around.
I can see the arguments against the Borg Queen, but I do think it's a potentially interesting idea. I think I would rather they'd have developed the Borg this way in the show rather than going straight for the Hugh rebellion thing - making the Borg structure deeper and weirder than just 'a collective' while also never explaining it fully. I like the idea that they at least temporarily create 'counterparts' like Locutus or the Queen to aid in assimilating a new species and that this can cause weaknesses or unusual behaviour. Granted, though, they don't really get close to any of that here, she's really just a sexy evil robot.

I like seeing Picard pushed to his absolute limit here, then being brought back by literary allusions and visual metaphors.

Finished! Overall a very strong movie, basically just a really good TNG action story with everything ramped up and kept tight. Well, for the most part anyway - I think the only weak spot really is that the Earthbound crew basically have nothing to do except for deal with a brief wobble of Cochrane's. It's all still lots of fun but it doesn't quite mesh with the Enterprise stuff and it maybe even prevents the end confrontation with the Borg from being properly epic. Still very cool to see that moment of first contact though.

Rating: Very good

Old School (2003)

I thought this would be a mediocre 00s comedy, something fun to pass the time; it was surprisingly awful. The actors are all on auto-pilot, the comedy almost wholly comprises 'what if naked people', and the story is a complete mess. They only get to the central concept 30 minutes into an 86 minute story, a bunch of plotlines get resolved arbitrarily or completely forgotten about and the whole thing is hugely derivative.

Rating: dreadful

Supergirl (2026)

A really shallow, poorly-constructed movie. The action sequences are badly directed Gunn-lite, the narrative is a mess, the two adult leads and the villain all have the same 'drunkenly swaggering through all this like I don't care' energy which is really redundant and just makes everything feel even less meaningful. The child actor gives a very ropey performance (possibly scuppered by the terrible dialogue) and her character is the worst kind of 'whining all the time, constantly messing things up' irritating. The villain is boring. Lobo barely exists and Momoa's make-up/costume makes him looks ill-defined and bloated. There are lots of little logic bumps and they never handle the 'over-powered' issue well, it's just 'something affects her for a while so she loses her powers but then she gets them back and beats everyone up' over and over. Kara's moral stance on revenge and violence is confused and lacks any backstory justification. The needle drops are all perfunctory and bland.

The only bits I enjoyed or felt invested in were the origin flashback sequences that were dotted throughout. They should have led with those, building in a reason for Kara to be anti-vengeance, then made the rest of the movie her and Lobo escorting this girl on a revenge mission so they can act as the angel and devil on her shoulder trying to talk her in or out of it. Or made Lobo the villain (and also interesting).

Rating: bland, bad