Johnathon Wickman the Fourth

This has indeed been a series, and this is Chapter Four!

The story continues as John has to deal with the consequences of the previous movies... which makes it just like the previous movies! This is very much the continuation, but the producers have to do a some more things to take it to the next level...

Which, on many levels, makes this a slog. This has never been the cheeriest of movies, but this just felt like "we are going to throw men after men into every scene" without any real sense of them needing to be there other than we need people to fill out the kill quota of fights. In one scene I was thinking "what is the point of this room (other than as a different place to have a fight)?" In another "whelp, this is a fight sequence we are having now."

Ultimately, I would like to watch all these in a series (although not in a theatre 'cos my bladder), as I didn't watch the others before this so only have vague memories, but... I can wait for that.

Oh, and this movie was decided the Lance Reddick. Yep. He will be missed.

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Rose De Gwire

Guy Ritchie has made several good movies. And then he also made this.

Let's not mess about, this movie is just Guy Ritchie and friend fuck about. He wants to have a holiday in Turkey and Qatar, fair play to him to get his mates in and do it under the guise of making a movie, but don't pretend there's an actual plot. It's just get some big names, then filming enough footage to call it a movie.

There's a pretense of a story where we start with something being stolen. Literally we have no idea what it is to begin with, but when we find out what it is... it does not matter a little, and may as well be a wheel of cheese it has that much to do with the story, a pure MacGuffin. The scenes we get are:

• Jason Statham doing stunts around fighting people.
• Aubrey Plaza sitting looking cool, or standing looking cool
• Hugh Grant chewing not only his scenery but everyone else's as well.

This will likely make it's money back, and yes, could be a franchise, but frankly it isn't trying that hard to be a proper movie so I'm not going to try that hard to care about it.

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Shaz 'Am Again!

In their move to clear their slate, DC still put out it's previous made movie that is a sequel to a widely popular movie, so let's go!

Billy/Shazam is expressing doubt about how well he is keeping is found family together, and then we see that they are barely keeping together at all. Fortunately, there's an external threat to turn to gather them together, only the movie has decided that only two characters, Billy and Freddie, are actually worthy of a full plot line, and the rest of the family are mainly there for padding and exposition.

Like, there's a lot of exposition. And padding. I'm sure a lot of scene transitions could be trimmed down and maybe my bladder wouldn't be so full at the end...

But the big threats are supposedly gods, which are basically beings with lots of power, and I'm not really sure what makes them gods in any sense of no-one worships them and they just have lots of power? These characters are invented by the movie, ie not from the comics, so there's a lot of backstory they have to put in to make them have sense, but then they just slap the "god" label on and expect that to cover a lot.

Anyway, there's a big fight sequence and the characters that are supposed to be important to the message aren't there for the final climatic thematic moment, and we get a rather irrelevant character thrown in because they were available in the plot to be there.

Does this sound like I dislike this movie? A bit, but mostly this is just a big meh. DC doesn't seem to have put a lot of effort into advertising this, and indeed I've already seen that this release has caught people by surprise that it is happening now.

It very easily sits in the camp of "this is another movie".

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TerrorTome!

As well as starring in a supernatural hospital drama, Garth Marenghi is also an author, and produced Garth Marenghi's TerrorTome!

This is basically three different stories, with a connected through line. The first is a pastiche of Hellraiser, then we get a classic bad 70s science fiction horror, and finally a very subtle dig at Stephen King.

Now, while this is comedy, it's comedy from a very pedantic view of very carefully and precisely stating exactly what is going on, and treating it with extreme gravity, especially when it is ludicrous. While is fine to start with... but by the third story it was really wearing quite thin.

I got the audiobook, and Gareth Marenghi himself is narrating it. It's great to hear that cadence and while I'm not saying the book reading peoples will be missing out on anything, there is a distinct way he says things that would be missing for those who can't get that voice quite right in the head.

It's amusing, but overstays it's welcome. At least with the book you can more easily take breaks between the sections as opposed to pausing the audiobook and doing something else.

Fun, but choose wisely.

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Luther The Fallen 'Ardcase

Can't remember if I mentioned it here, but I watched Luther, the BBC detective series starring Idris Elba, in which he did what he had to do, regardless of the cost. Just recently they came out with a TV movie that was in theatres for a bit, then released onto Netflix.

Luther is in prison but is taunted by a serial killer, and so he has to get out and go after him. I can't recall if the series ended up with him in prison, or if this was a quick set up of the movie to set some piece of plot going, but given of what I recall from the tv series, it doesn't surprise me he is in there.

Andy Serkis is the villain of the piece, and boy is he having fun, as he often does, but his character is a real piece of work and this movie goes hard and dark with him. And whoever did the costuming made a decision with that hair piece.

This is not a pleasant movie. And while that is in keeping with the series, either I didn't remember the series fully, or the writer went extra for this movie, 'cos this is very hardcore.

Definitely one to watch if you like the show, but don't expect the warm fuzzies.

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Knock at the Knabin

Okay, MNS, I will watch your movies eventually, and this is the eventually for this movie.

Actually, I'm not sure I ever saw the trailer for this, certainly I had no idea of anything before I went into this movie, so I'm not sure what I can talk about even with my bad recapping of the plot. There is certainly a cabin, and there is indeed a knock, so we can check the title as accurate. Beyond that, it's one big idea that plays out over the movie, so do I give it away? Am I giving anything away? Does everyone who saw the trailer know what's up? Okay, sure, I could watch the trailer, but where's the fun in that?

One thing this does remind me of is Signs, in that MNS is back on his "belief is important" bullshit. Belief is the only thing that matters, so belief must triumph over everything else. Maybe that gives this away, but this movie gives up on any sense of subtlety and ambiguity by the end, so I'm not going to read deep into it.

There are great performances in this from all the cast. Even the child actor isn't annoying! Everything in the cabin is well done, although the effects on the tv are obvious effects on the tv. But everything else is real and on screen, and well delivered all around.

Catch this if you have easy access, but I wouldn't suggest putting in a lot of effort to do so.

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