Army Of The Dead (2021)

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Has some interesting ideas and wastes them all, instead ending up as an overlong, dull cliché-fest. The entire 'smart zombies' thing pretty much made zero difference to the story - you could pretty easily replace them with lots of regular zombies and everything would work the same. The characters had potential but in two and a half hours there's barely any character development. Some of the alpha zombies having blue shiny stuff (I thought I saw some actual metallic endoskeleton stuff but that may have been a trick of the light [EDIT: turns out there are robot zombies , and they were put in there to set up prequel expanded lore stuff - ugggh]) - pointless. The guy getting out at the end - pointless. The heist itself is underwhelming. The action is solid but bland.

The title sequence is at least pretty good, though as with Watchmen the song choice is painfully on the nose (at least this one is narratively clearer); Bautista gives a solid performance, the first of his I've seen that hasn't been (purposefully and successfully) over- or under-played; there's a strong sequence where one character has to fight their way through a bunch of classic zombies at close quarters; otherwise this fails at every point.

Rating: Bad.

The Mitchells Vs the Machines (2021)

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I abandoned it 45 mins in. It feels like those adverts that steal internet memes ten years after everyone got sick of them, and I'm not finding it funny at all. Also lots of little gripes like pointless 'two days earlier' beginning, the kid brother with a voice actor who sounds 50, the dad isn't just a bit out of touch or whatever, he's a dick, 'dinosaurs' isn't a weird interest for a kid to be into, kids would love her home-made movies not ostracise her for them, it was unclear for a while whether Pal turned in that moment when she was rejected at the presentation or she'd been planning this for a while, and also they stole calling a robot companion PAL from hit game Time Gentlemen, Please!. I do like the shaders or whatever, though, it's a nice blend of 3D and 2D, like everything's a pastel painting or something. (Not as fond of the character design style, but at least it's slightly different from the Pixar standard.

Basically, not as good as A Goofy Movie.

Rating: Bad.

The Witches (2020)

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I have only vague memories of the novel (I started reading it as a child and had to give up as it was too scary) and the Roeg film, but I do remember that the book had a creepy, documentative feel and Roeg's adaptation captured this effectively for the most part. Zemeckis' does not. It is, in fact, a loud, overcooked eyesore.

The Chris Rock narration is unnecessary and jarring. The witches not only have the Dahl-prescribed bald heads, claws and square feet, they also have giant CG mouths, silly voices, and CG pets (the head witch throws even more on the pile, with a comedy accent, super-strength and stretchy arms). The lead child actor is fine, but the one playing Bruno is dreadful. The third child-turned-mouse is played by Kristen Chenowith, which is jarring for most of the film until you find out that children-turned-mice only live for about ten years and age into adults within that time and so maybe her sounding in her 50s this soon makes sense. Regardless, the physical acting of the three CG mice is, somehow, dreadful and their voices all irritating. The CG throughout is unconvincing and cartoonish. Silvestri's score is overbearing. They follow the story of the book pretty closely, but the structure feels off-balance: once the witches finally show up, the film rushes to the finish line.

Instead of a creepy scientific introduction to witches, there's Chris Rock's voice blaring like a foghorn over some crappy illustrations. Instead of the chilling segment about the girl trapped in a painting, there's a segment about a girl getting turned into a buffoonish CG chicken. Instead of the downbeat ending there's three CG mice dancing to Sister Sledge and riding a toy rollercoaster like something out of Stuart Little. Pretty much every single element of this film is misjudged.

Rating: Awful.

The Walk (2015)

Has that 'trying to stay historically accurate and therefore using every trick in the book to wring drama out of the actual events' feel. Charming, and certainly got my palms sweating at the right moments, but it feels a little lightweight. 

I watched this in 2D at home. Might have been more effective in 3D at the cinema...

Also, those blue eyes on JGL are weird.

Rating: Fine.