Rating Frames

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a Wholly Satisfying Sci-Fi Adventure

July 23, 2025Darcy Read

It can be daunting being the first. The first people in space. The first superheroes in the world, uncertain of the responsibility their power demands. The first child. Crossing that uneasy bridge from the familiar into the depths of the unknown. This was once a core aspect of superhero storytelling, but after thirty-seven entries in the compounding Marvel enterprise, it feels impossible to return to. Even the recent release of James Gunn’s Superman (2025) — a new frontier on the DC side of larger storytelling building blocks, while successful in its storytelling — had notes of this and still couldn’t help itself surround their central figure with larger but unnecessary chatter.

But this is where The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) succeeds and earns its colonised titling and a real throwback to why the MCU has built a legacy on quality films. Set in an alternate Earth from the familiar stomping ground of the MCU, and heavily focused on its famous foursome and not its larger worldbuilding, director Matt Shackman has crafted a brisk and entertaining sci-fi-focused ride that will leave you wholly satisfied; a feeling Marvel films used to give us.

the Fantastic Four, led by Reed Richards and Sue Storm, brought to life better than ever by Pedro Pascal and Venessa Kirby, and flanked by Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), arrive on screens in an Jetsons-themed alternate reality giving them the freedom of not needing less compelling super friends to give passing screen time too. Portrayed with enthusiasm and sincerity that reflects outwards into the whole film while still avoiding a saccharine mawkishness, making this Fantastic Four entry feel like a delightful throwback.

Four years into their journey, that is just settling in until the unexpected arrives both in-house and extra-terrestrially; the surprising pregnancy of Sue and the arrival of the Herald of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), The Silver Surfer (played with a pride and melancholy by the great Julia Garner), spelling doom for the Earth.

Joseph Quinn and Pedro Pascal in *The Fantastic Four: First Steps*

Building a competent film around these four characters has proved difficult in the past (this is the fourth go around for the crew in cinema, maybe they needed the luck?), but writers Eric Pearson, Josh Friedman, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer have found success by properly centering the four actors, allowing plot and CGI battles to whizz past their family sci-fi soap opera. Told with sincerity and a deep love of the characters strengths and weaknesses, Shackman is allowed to stretch out and tell a full story, showing the potential from his directorial work on WandaVision (2021), perhaps the only successful Marvel TV show post Daredevil, even if it relied on a lazy final battle to conclude its story.

By centring two terrific performers who have shown the ability to operate in an old Hollywood mode, Pedro Pascal (in full Clark Gable mode) and Venessa Kirby jump off the screen with a chemistry and guile built from the characters out. Even as the world around them monumentally shifts with the arrival of a new child and a new Earth-destroying threat, we constantly see them lock eyes and respond to each other with a depth of understanding and empathy that wouldn’t be amiss in an awards season marriage drama. Pascal is at his best as a supportive scene partner, an invisible hand that allows others to shine instead of absorbing the audience’s attention.

Rounding out the team is Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn who have an easy banter built on warmth and care that adds to scenes. Quinn in particular is given a full story that is surprising and compelling, improving on the reductive framing we often see of the Human Torch.

A refreshing turn in the superhero genre that is potentially in its death throes, The Fantastic Four: First Steps focuses on an older sci-fi genre package with longer dialogue scenes, fewer action moments with a passing amount of care and attention to story, and a visual language that mostly grounds itself in its own reality (several scenes still feel deeply 2020s which the film seemed intent on avoiding in its first hour).

Pedro Pascal in *The Fantastic Four: First Steps*

With special effects that actually looked like the VFX team was given time to fully render and actualise ideas from scratch, The Fantastic Four: First Steps withheld the action at the centre of the story in place for a simple but emotive narrative built on a new, emerging family. Even Galactus, once portrayed as a large cloud in a film too embarrassed by its own sci-fi story, is given a tactile nature and a quality performance by Ineson, perhaps the best voice in the industry. In few words, Ineson displays a menace to his words but a clarity in character motivation one wouldn’t expect from an enormous villain desperate to consume planets. It’s not just that Shackman found space for the key six characters to show dimension and character through considered relationship work within a sci-fi framework; it’s that we could achieve this while wrapping up the film in under two hours.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a fast-moving train that has a real destination in mind, an aspect of American genre storytelling we took for granted and allowed to bloat and stagnate, too satisfied with its own navel-gazing to realise they were left as the only people looking. With a recent run of superhero films, Thunderbolts* (2025), Superman, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, we are potentially rounding the corner into the enjoyment and craft that built this genre into the cinematic tentpole that it strives to hold onto.

By giving these characters a fully rounded narrative that satisfies more than stringing you along with the promise of a larger experience in the future, Shackman and co have achieved what was supposed to be the goal of cinematic genre storytelling; something familiar and something new, contained in an entertaining and sometimes emotional time at the movies. Where James Gunn’s Superman stretched far and wide to populate his emerging franchise venture, making for a fun but frustrating experience, The Fantastic Four: First Steps focuses on a small collection of characters where the biggest spectacle is the arrival of a new family member, the largest event in most audience members’ lives as well.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is in theatres now.

Superman: James Gunn Marvel-ises Superman, for Better and Worse

July 9, 2025July 10, 2025Arnel Duracak

Superman preview screening provided by Universal Pictures

When Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) hit screens some eleven years ago, there was a shift in the superhero movie paradigm that up until then was often focused on darker stories and more mature themes, most of which went hard on action but stepped away from the jovial playfulness that animated shows often captured so well. That shift is owed in large part to James Gunn who managed to find a nice middle ground between getting you your dose of power ups and battle scenes with the humanity and flaws behind these heroes. He also (unintentionally) set off a chain of events for superhero films that would see them sway too much towards silliness and cheesy one-liners that they eventually became devoid of any uniqueness or balance.

In the time since his original Guardians film, Gunn has gone onto deliver two more for Marvel before being headed up as Co-chairman and Co-CEO of DC Studios in a bid to try and turn the tide DC’s way — after all, their catalogue of heroes is much stronger than that of Marvels. While The Suicide Squad (2021) represented his first real foray into the DC universe, it’s his long awaited reinvention of Superman (2025) that has felt like the true starting point that is supposed to set the tone for what is to come.

To do so, Gunn has opted to throw the whole ‘origin story’ approach out the window and instead, throw viewers right into the thick of things. Superman (a perfectly cast David Corenswet) is three years into his Superman reveal, with all of the crash landing and coming-to-terms-with-his-powers backstory, left implied. It’s a bold choice from Gunn but it makes sense as it gives him the room to cram more into the plot rather than tread old ground.

Whether the cramming tickles your fancy or not, is another question. There’s a lot going on in Gunn’s film, much to the detriment of building out a cohesive plot. Gunn is at once interested in diving into the humanity behind the God figure and hitting him with countless obstacles and side quests, with the result being glimmers of deeper interrogation —one occurring early on as Superman in his Clark Kent guise, chats with his fellow reporter girlfriend Lois Lane (an equally fitting Rachel Brosnahanin) in an impromptu interview— but an overall surface level exercise.

(L to r) NICHOLAS HOULT as Lex Luthor and DAVID CORENSWET as Superman in Warner Bros. Pictures’ “SUPERMAN”

And that’s before we start talking about the wider plot which includes Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) trying to get dirt on Superman so he has justification to kill him, a trio of ‘Justice Gang’ sub-heroes who pop in every now and then to aid Superman and (really) fill-in during his absence, a weird middle-eastern conflict that threatens to boil over but that Superman is embroiled in, and a wonky love-story between Luthor’s side-piece and a a journo helping to get dirt on Luthor. In other words, it’s a stuffy room with little air left to breathe, which at best gets you a little laugh and at worst, an eye roll.

But while Gunn might not be focusing on Superman’s origin story, he’s definitely focusing on his own, taking his learning’s from his time at Marvel and Marvel-ising them here. No one can accuse Gunn of making something that’s boring, after all, the ethos of Superman has always been built around a level of silliness and charm that starts right from his vibrant, cartoonish costume. Gunn understands that in order to make this version of Superman any different from past iterations, he would have to cut the preamble and focus on the wonder that comes from seeing frost breathe, laser eyes and flying while keeping it as lighthearted as possible — keep the message simple and ensure the goofiness is there, even if the stakes never feel like they match up.

I have to admit, while I’m not a Zack Snyder shill, I appreciate the darker tones and comic-book wham’s and pow’s he brought to Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and his version of the Justice League (2021). Gunn’s version has gone a completely different direction and I can respect the decision to do so since the other approach wasn’t putting bums in cinema seats. Whether or not this film sets the tone for this new DC universe though, is hard to tell, especially with Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022) feeling more akin to what would have existed in the old universe (I’m sure we’ll see Cornswet’s Superman and Robert Pattinson’s Batman cross paths in some way — though I smell tonal whiplash from a mile away). Regardless, Superman is imbued with the same level of goofiness as Gunn’s other films, and while it probably would have felt fresher had it been released eleven years ago, it still packs an entertaining punch.

Superman opens nationally from July 10.

F1: Brad Pitt Plays a Past-His-Prime Prodigy in Joseph Kosinski’s Adrenaline Filled Follow-Up to Top Gun: Maverick

June 25, 2025June 25, 2025Arnel Duracak

F1 preview screening provided by Universal Pictures

Swapping the skies for the circuit, Joseph Kosinski’s F1 (2025) is a speedy, four wheeled follow up to his box office smash, Top Gun: Maverick (2022). While I’m not an F1 fanatic, there’s no doubt that the exhilaration of a race with cars that push past 300km/h is an adrenaline rush for those that love that sport, and especially for the drivers behind the wheel. But what happens when you peel back the veneer that is the glitz and glamour of podium finishes, and begin to look at the gruelling process that pit crews and drivers alike go through in the lead up to a race? Well, Kosiniski understood the assignment and has created a punchy drama that both tackles that question, and is rife with everything from technical language about racing, to the fall and rise of a prodigy.

In many ways, F1 feels like a spiritual successor to Maverick in that it traces the life of someone who was young and reckless, but is now more of a “has been” who is giving it one last crack against the new stars. On paper, Kosiniski’s film feels like it was very much geared towards casting Tom Cruise and continuing to put him in the cockpit of these lightning fast death machines, but with the Mission Impossible films taking up the majority of his focus, another aging yet still youthful star had to step in.

Cue Brad Pitt. Once you’ve seen this film, it’s easy to say that it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing this role other than Pitt, but Pitt makes the character of Sonny Hayes wholly his own that it’s really, truly impossible to imagine even Cruise in his position. There’s a boyish cockiness that Pitt translates so well to the screen, and it’s no different here as he carries himself with the same reckless edge he’s delivered time and time again. And it serves the premise perfectly: a former racing prodigy who is living in his van and sporadically competing in races is given the keys to the kingdom that is F1 by his former racing competitor-friend-turned-F1-owner, as a hail mary to pull them out of the rut they’re in.

You might be thinking: this sounds like every movie that has an ageing star who continues to try and compete at the highest level. While you might be right to a degree, on paper F1 isn’t remarkable as a fresh character study, but where it falters in storytelling it makes up for with fast paced action and a desire to authentically capture the F1 scene. Kosinski and frequent cinematographer Claudio Miranda’s work on getting the claustrophobic, tight spacing of fighter jets right in Maverick has helped them capture the same feeling of being in an F1 car; combine that with Hans Zimmer’s pulsating, punchy score, and the film has a video game simulator feel — keeping you at once on the edge of your seat and as though you’re there with Sonny.

Key to trying to give the film a little more egde beyond the generic script by Ehren Kruger is the addition of a young rookie, Josh Pearce (Damson Idris), who naturally takes the lead for the team, with Sonny serving more to amplify his movements on the track. Their dynamic helps shift the gears and keep the film from just being like every other racing film you may have seen. For one, Sonny doesn’t settle for second best and pushes Josh to be his competitor on the track so as to not have him be complacent and expecting everything will be handed to him. This push and pull between the two is like a passing of a baton but only if that baton was on a rope and it had to be caught first.

That’s all to say that F1, while a stellar showcase of zippy cinematography and snappy editing, derives its most heartfelt moments (even if the rest of the story is rather cookie-cutter) through Sonny’s redemption arc as he takes his track knowledge and turns it into a method for madness. What’s even more impressive is just how close to the real thing Kosinski has kept proceedings, with real-life racers like Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton cropping up (the latter being a producer as well who was involved with the project before Brad Pitt!). There’s a level of verisimilitude that the film is striving to capture, sometimes to the detriment of the wider drama that’s captured so well by films like Ferrari (2023) and Ford v Ferrari (2019), but often it nails this approach mainly because of how close each aspect of production is to the real thing, and with this approach Kosinski has clearly found himself a formula for success.

F1 opens nationally from the June 26.

How to Train Your Dragon: A New Look but the Same Heart in this Live-Action Remake

June 9, 2025June 25, 2025Arnel Duracak

How to Train Your Dragon preview screening provided by Universal Pictures

Whenever news breaks out that a studio is developing a live-action version of a beloved animated feature, a collective sigh followed by a “but why?” tends to ring out. After all, we’ve seen Disney try and (often) fail to bring their iconic animations back, with bigger budgets and fancier visual effects, only to see them turn out feeling devoid of the heart and soul that made those animations so great (see Aladdin, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, Dumbo etc.) Occasionally though, there is an anomaly, and fortunately it’s How to Train Your Dragon (2025).

That Dean DeBlois has been trusted to continue directing the How to Train Your Dragon series with this live action, is a testament to the success (both critical and commercial) he has found with the series as a whole. After all, how hard is it to make animated dragons look like real dragons while keeping the warmth that an animation lends? Well, it’s definitely no easy feat (I’m looking at you, expressionless lions in 2019’s The Lion King). But that’s ultimately what this film boils down to: can DeBlois and his team retain the charm of the 2010 classic? The short answer is, definitely. Mason Thames, while not sounding like Jay Baruchel, looks like Hiccup, and Night Fury looks like Night Fury. It’s clear that a lot of care was taken to be faithful to the look and feel of the 2010 film while delivering a version that felt larger-than-life and a world that looks lived-in.

(from left) Night Fury dragon, Toothless, and Hiccup (Mason Thames) in Universal Pictures’ live-action How to Train Your Dragon, written and directed by Dean DeBlois.

If you haven’t seen the animated original (I mean, you’ve only had 15 years), then, first and foremost, go and see that film, but also, you may not be too fazed as to whether this version is faithfully done or not. For what it’s worth, it’s about as close to the first as you can come, right down to the dragon designs and casting choices like Gerard Butler reprising his role as Stoick the Vast and delivering just as profound a performance. It also helps that the humour has translated across as well, something that’s probably helped by there being no musical numbers that come across as cheesy and eye rolling.

Beyond simply comparing the animated film to the live action, it’s hard to note anything else given this feels incredibly one-to-one in script, tone and look. If the dragons had looked lifeless or devoid of expression, then it’d be easy to call that out, but I guess my only grievance can be that instead of a fourth animated film, we’re getting live action cash grabs. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that (if it attracts an audience, that’s a win), but there has long been a reluctance to experiment with big budget films and try something different for fear of having it bomb — so much so that a sequel was green-lit before this film was even released, which is both bold, but also speaks to the faith that the studio has in a return on investment for an already successful intellectual property.

Perhaps more than any other animation in recent years, I’ve loved the How to Train Your Dragon series the most so I still had a ball with this live action and there’s no doubt that others will too. In my particular screening in Melbourne, visual effects artists who worked on the dragons were in attendance (with most of the work done here in Melbourne), and it’s great to see local creative studios continue to represent Australia and lead the way in digital effects for some of the biggest blockbusters in the world.

How to Train Your Dragon opens nationally from June 12.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: After 29 Years it’s Mission Complete for Tom Cruise’s Iconic Franchise

May 17, 2025May 18, 2025Arnel Duracak

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning preview screening provided by Paramount Pictures.

Whether it’s hanging suspended inside a secret vault, rock climbing on cliff faces, climbing the Burj Khalifa, HALO jumping, flying helicopters between cliffs, dangling off the side of airplanes or diving to deep depths, for the past 29 years the Mission: Impossible franchise has pushed the boundaries of what the cinematic experience can offer. The latest and last addition to this exercise, The Final Reckoning (2025), manages to impress one last time, leaving no stone unturned and no jaw undropped.

It feels as though Director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise’s bond since first collaborating on Jack Reacher (2012) has only strengthened the work they’ve done on this franchise, with The Final Reckoning representing the sixth time they’ve worked together. The duo are clearly in sync with one another, and their relationship has seen McQuarrie produce a number of other titles Cruise has starred in — their collab might just be the Robert de Niro/Martin Scorsese of modern action films.

While all of the Mission films are interlinked, they always tend to have a new threat for Ethan Hunt (Cruise) to take on. Of course, these final two are more connected than the others (title aside). Kicking off almost immediately after Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), The Final Reckoning finds Hunt once again in hiding as his narrow escape from the previous film’s derailed-train-finale has left him with the key to the vault of the lost Sevastopol submarine. The dangerous AI known as the ‘Entity’ continues to pose a risk to the survival of the world, and it’s up to Hunt to track down the sub, contain the entity, and prevent the world from becoming an ash wasteland. Just another day for cinema’s most rouge operative, right?

Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt in *Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning* from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

The Final Reckoning takes Hunt to new heights as well as depths, with Cruise once again putting his body on the line for the sake of realism. It takes some time to get to the almost playful-like vibe that previous installments have been so good at capturing, though. You feel more of the dialogue this time around, with the first act in particular having a greater weightiness to it. When I think about my favourite film in the franchise, Fallout (2018), no line ever feels wasted and always drives the plot forward, but it’s as though the punchy, in-your-face-ness of dialogue this time around is a bit more… measured (I guess being the final film, there’s some understandable caution of trying to make every moment count).

Once the flood gates open, however, it’s a hold-onto-your-horses kind of ride. The elation of watching a Mission film is in the knowing that what you’re seeing isn’t a gimmick, and to add an extra layer to it, that the film’s star is the one doing it. A tank was purpose built (the largest ever for this kind of production) to have Cruise dive into, and the tension of seeing him clamber under water while the sound design holds him (and by extension, the audience) to ransom, is spine tingling, on-the-edge-of-your-seat stuff. At a later point, Cruise is literally dangling from the thin bars of a biplane in what is perhaps the most death defying stunt ever performed by the star of a movie for the big-screen. The high of seeing Cruise scramble as the plane barrel rolls and twists and turns, is just as exhilarating as you’d imagine, and it’s one of the clearest examples of the symbiotic relationship between Hunt and Cruise, a point where these two personas meet as they both battle to get into the cockpit — a feeling best exacerbated by the G-force struggle on Cruise’s face.

Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, Pom Klementieff plays Paris, Greg Tarzan Davis plays Degas, Simon Pegg plays Benji Dunn and Hayley Atwell plays Grace in *Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning* from Paramount Pictures and Skydance.

Ethan’s moral compass has always been the core of what makes this franchise standout. He’s a character of conviction, one who chooses right over right and pays the consequences time and time again. Fallout really brought the fire that burns within him —for those he cares about— out to the max. These final two films have felt more mellow when it comes to character development (we know what makes him tick), but the idea that he’s not facing any one person this time around, but an AI, really brings the focus back on him and his ability to make decisions on the fly, something that really homes in on the idea that his biggest enemy is himself.

At this point, the “Tom Cruise is secretly trying to kill himself” memes are comical, but for every broken bone the actor has endured (and there have been a few), hundreds of thousands of jaws have dropped. If the Mission: Impossible films have taught us anything it’s that Cruise, like Ethan Hunt, has continued to choose the mission and risk his life for the benefit of those he will never truly meet, and cinema is all the better for it.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning opens nationally from today.

Thunderbolts* is the Best Post-Endgame Marvel Film

May 3, 2025May 4, 2025Darcy Read

Marketed with a keen focus on its crew’s previous work with the production company de jour A24, Marvel’s attempted rebound back into the public consciousness has arrived in the Florence Pugh led Thunderbolts* (2025). The film is emotional and built from the inside out with a commitment to its characters, a collection of misfit Marvel characters played by an incredible cast of emerging talents that shows when the call is made, they will deliver.

Much like an aggressive chiropractic session, the Marvel project desperately needed realignment, no matter the clunkiness to achieve it. By bringing in emerging creatives to develop a more personal character story — what used to be the MCU’s calling card in the early years — Thunderbolts* arrives fashionably late to a series in need of rescue. While modest in its pursuits (for a blockbuster feature), Thunderbolts* is built off the back of two terrific performances in Pugh as Helena and Lewis Pullman as Bob. Their chemistry stems from the characters’ visible mental health struggles that long for meaning and connection in a world devoid of both, a difficult idea to place front and centre in a film with multiple car flips.

After a haphazard and almost impressively uninspired handover film Captain America: A Brave New World (2025), Marvel’s loaded release schedule picks back up with a darker, sharper, and wittier ensemble film that stands on its own feet before the navel-gazing returns with a new Fantastic Four and Avengers films in the next 12 months.

Beef’s (2024) Jake Schreier, alongside many of his collaborators on the acclaimed series, puts character above all in a seemingly obvious pivot away from the plug-and-play style of most post-Endgame MCU films that has put the company on the brink.

Never undercutting its emotional weight with a cheap joke in the same sentence, screenwriters Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo keep their characters, in particular Yelena (a tremendous Florence Pugh), on clearly defined and recognisable tracks. Even as one of the world’s best assassin’s, Yelena’s mental health struggles and ennui is expressed with a profound clarity that underscores the entire film.

By taking their story of literalising mental health struggles to a fulfilling breaking point, Thunderbolts* shows what can be achieved in the best comic book stories by reflecting these superpowered people’s humanity out into the world. Thunderbolts* elicits an unusual feeling: nostalgia for the early entrants in the Marvel cinematic project. Slimmed down to bare essentials with an antagonist that reflects the interior conflicts of our soon-to-be heroes, the film knows the power it holds with its outstanding cast and when to cede ground to their talents.

From the outset, the score out of electronic trio Son Lux stands apart from the swathe of superhero cinema. In many critical scenes, their emotional intelligence shines through, giving the story of depression and reconciliation a clarity of vision that easily could’ve fallen through our hands like sand. The acoustic and electronic work sustains an unexpected grace that should be applauded.

With an eventual villain in The Sentry that embodies the call of the void itself, Thunderbolts* excels in grounding every element of its story within its characters. Much like Tony Stark being forced to reckon with his role in war profiteering to survive, Yelena must contend with her depression and learn to live alongside it.

The film excels in its modesty, even if it sets a pivotal confrontation in the old Avengers tower (baby steps!). Thunderbolts* uses a potent mix of humour and contemporary emotional turmoil to place itself a tier above the durge of action cinema that doesn’t even arrive at the boilerplate. While striving to be remembered as more than a footnote on the way to back-to-back billion-dollar cheques, Schreier’s film places potent themes of loneliness and emptiness at the forefront of a superhero story that separates itself from the studio’s recent shortfalls.

Thunderbolts* is in theatres now.

Drop: First Date Nerves come into Full Force in this Cheeky Thriller

April 12, 2025April 11, 2025Arnel Duracak

Drop preview screening provided by Universal Pictures.

Have you ever been on a date where you’re getting random AirDrops from someone in your vicinity, threatening your family unless you kill your date? Me neither, and that’s another reason I’m sticking with Android. But mobile ecosystems aside, that’s exactly what Christopher Landon’s (2017’s Happy Death Day and 2020’s Freaky) textbook thriller, Drop, anchors its focus around for its tight 90 minute runtime. As far as thrillers go, Drop is neither groundbreaking nor is it something you’ll be eager to revisit, but it’s kooky and self assured in an M Night Shyamalan-esque way with a neat twist at the end.

That approach will fly with audiences who like cheesy dialogue that regular people probably wouldn’t say, and movies that take a simple activity like a date and give it some sinister flavour. Landon’s film captures the angst of putting oneself back into the dating sphere by taking single mum Violet (Meghann Fahy) and having her meet up with Henry (Brandon Sklenar) in a highrise restaurant for the first time after 3 months of texting.

Similar to other Screenlife movies that focus on the dangers of screen culture like Searching (2018) or Missing (2023), Landon’s film builds its tension by capturing the modern dread of being watched, of having multiple eyes on you through surveillance or simply using your own surveillance against you. The latter is true for Violet who, after settling in with her date at the dinner table, is told to check her security cameras by her anonymous AirDropper where she sees a masked man in her house with a gun, with the choice being: do as I say or we kill your sister and son (if her first date jitters around what to wear weren’t scary enough, that really complicates things).

(from left) Violet (Meghann Fahy) and Henry (Brandon Sklenar) in Drop, directed by Christopher Landon.

This is where Landon’s film kicks into gear as it wastes no time in building out all of the directions that Violet will have to follow while focusing on keeping her date going as smoothly as possible. Fahy and Sklenar’s dynamic is what the film really banks on to sell the premise, with little actual room to cut to anything beyond the restaurant. There’s also the added element of shifty side-characters, all of whom could be the AirDropper making her life difficult; whether it’s the boisterous first-time waiter, the distant bartender or the Jamie Dornan-looking businessman who can’t seem to stop running into Violet (literally) — Drop is to Knives Out (2019) what mini-golf is to golf… a smaller playing field but just as satisfying.

The title, a play on words, might also describe the shift in pace in the final third, where there is almost a literal drop as the heat intensifies and as plot threads start to come together. For one, Violet literally hangs out of the highrise by a tablecloth. While this final third does feel like it’s been crammed into an otherwise tight screenplay, it gives the film some added momentum, even if the result feels like it gets away from the better part of the build up to it. That said, Drop is clean and will get a chin scratch or two as you try to piece together its puzzle, and proves that you may never know where your next date might take (or drop) you.

Drop opens nationally from the 17th of April.

The Amateur is a Spy Thriller Uncomfortable in its Own Shoes

April 10, 2025Darcy Read

Helmed by British Television veteran James Hawes, The Amateur is a spy thriller unable to capture its own personality or separate itself from the recently booming subgenre. Focusing on a CIA data analyst-slash-hacker (Rami Malek, in his wheelhouse) who forces himself into the field by any means necessary after the death of his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) during a terrorist hostage crisis in London, the film’s fractured cadence and lack of narrative momentum despite this inciting incident means you don’t know where you’ll be taken next, but also uncertain about whether you’ll care.

Based on Robert Litell’s 1981 spy novel of the same name and adapted by Black Hawk Down (2001) screenwriter Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli, The Amateur plays both sides of the Atlantic with its approach to the spy thriller. This, unfortunately, means the film never finds a singular drive or point of view but is made with a great cast and a refined crew that keeps the train on the tracks.

A surprisingly small-scale espionage thriller even as Malek makes his way through many cities, The Amateur shuffles along from moment to moment, with many cast members rarely appearing in multiple locations, restricting the narrative momentum of every sequence. Even the pivot hostage scene with Brosnahan plays out in short news clipping bursts, forcing Malek to shoulder the weight of every emotional and narrative beat, something very few actors can manage.

Rami Malek combined his experiences in the TV series Mr Robot (2015-2019) and No Time to Die (2021) to lead his own spy thriller in the vein of Jason Bourne if his amnesia expanded to include the trainee manual. With a tremendous cast of faces alongside Malek with Laurence Fishburne, Brosnahan, Jon Bernthal, Michael Stuhlbarg, Caitríona Balfe, Holt McCallany, and Julianne Nicholson, elevate rote scenes with barely a hint of drama or characterisation.

Rami Malek in *The Amateur*. Screening provided by 20th Century Studios.

Malek’s compelling anti-chemistry as a leading man works in fits and starts, primarily when he is acting alongside some of the best working actors in Bernthal, Stuhlbarg, and Fishbourne. Mr Robot thrived in its ability to work to Malek’s strength as a performer by constantly giving him unique counterweights to act against. In a surprisingly thin script, Malek and the other actors are repeatedly left out to dry, forced to fend for themselves while the ship chugs along to a near nonstop score.

The film is not assisted by Oscar-winning composer Volker Bertelmann’s austere score that opts to flatten much of the proceedings. The constant score certainly elevates the uncompelling exposition scenes but never highlights the entertaining and thrilling set pieces that are the film’s shining light.

However, almost in spite of itself, the film comes together in a worthwhile and satisfying way, even as it frays around the edges of time and drama. This is largely due to its creative action set pieces where each element, especially Malek’s performance, clicks into place into pure enjoyment. While the revenge narrative is established with a reckless abandon, it is thrilling to see where Hawes places these pivotal scenes, including a highrise pool and a final confrontation in the Russian-Finnish ocean border.

Due to this narrative style, The Amateur is not dissimilar to Tenet (2020) in how it moves quickly between setting up and executing inventive action set pieces instead of exploring the characters within its espionage world. This is surprising given The Amateur’s stellar cast, even if they are rarely given any meat on the bone.

Ultimately, there were high hopes for The Amateur due to its cast and veteran crew in a subgenre currently in a mini-boom. Still, without a unique style or handle on tone, the film moves shakily between sequences, never arriving sure of foot. Thankfully, the film’s trump card for a final sequence, a charming and compelling Michael Stuhlbarg performance, pretty successfully ties up a desperately fraying narrative yearning for a satisfying end note.

The Amateur is in theatres now.

The Alto Knights: Robert De Niro Delivers a Dual Performance in a Modern 80s Crime Film

March 20, 2025Arnel Duracak

The Alto Knights preview screening provided by Universal Pictures.

While the odd gangster film does pop up every now and then, the genre has felt like it’s been on life support for the better part of ten years. With misses like The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Capone (2020) and Gotti (2018) coming to mind, it’s no surprise why that feeling is in the air. The Alto Knights isn’t a terrible film for the genre, but it doesn’t exactly have the legs to stretch beyond being simply another story about honouring a code and betrayal between close friends.

Knowing that Barry Levinson’s film has been in development since 1970 gives a world of perspective in understanding how this subject matter and story would have been eaten up in the heyday of the genre. The fact that this has been released in 2025 to audiences that have either seen the genre be done to death or are seeking out alternative stories, hasn’t worked in its favour. That’s not to say that these stories can’t work for modern audiences, with The Irishman (2019) providing a unique look at ageing crime figures mixed with wider political commentary, while Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) is masked as a crime-thriller but uses themes from the genre and orients them around Native American plights in history (the difference being, you guessed it, Martin Scorsese).

The Alto Knights, by contrast, is slow, it’s weighty, and it doesn’t reinvent itself or its framing of events in a new and crisp way for the genre. It’s a by-the-books gangster drama that cuts to one of Robert de Niro’s two characters, Frank Costello, looking down the barrel of the camera and narrating various parts of the film. It’s a shortcoming of the film that speaks to the rest of the exposition and general hand-holding that’s overdone in its roughly two-hour runtime (modest, for this sort of film). But The Alto Knights isn’t inherently bad, rather, it’s just a bit too textbook for my taste in that it doesn’t really offer much we haven’t seen from some of those aforementioned similar films.

Caption: Robert De Niro as “Vito Genovese” in Warner Bros. Pictures “THE ALTO KNIGHTS,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.

Taking place across different time periods, but mainly in the mid to late 50s, Levinson’s film focuses on the friendship and betrayal between Frank Costello and Vito Genovese (both played by Robert De Niro). After Costello survives an assassination attempt from one of Genovese’s henchmen, Levinson takes us back in time from the incident to show us how the duo got to that point of division. It sees familiar tropes like courtroom scenes and political unrest take place as power dynamics switch from one boss to another, in this case from Genovese to Costello.

De Niro plays both characters with a classy, but sharp edge that’s like child’s play for him at this point. The supporting cast aren’t nearly as interesting as his dual performances though, with many of the actors bordering the line of “too much wise talking” while lacking the screen presence to match De Niro (even Cosmo Jarvis is relegated to a mumbling mafioso, a ways away from his breakout performance in hit series Shogun).

The script sometimes feels contrived, in part because there’s clearly a lot going on to the point where we need De Niro speaking all of the exposition, and the jumps in time don’t exactly help, with part of me wondering whether a version exists that doesn’t become bogged down in the final third where the pace begins to falter after we’ve finally caught up to all of the backstory.

The Alto Knights is a been-there-done-it kind of crime film, one that feels like it’s come a bit too late to have its subject matter and story land, but it hits the beats we’ve come to expect from similar films. For what it’s worth, seeing De Niro saddle up for any mobster film is a blessing, no matter how many times he does them, but where The Irishman felt like a capstone of sorts to the genre and the actors who brought it to life, The Alto Knights doesn’t quite find the same level of ingenuity.

The Alto Knights opens nationally from today.

Hard Truths is a Difficult but Rewarding Watch

March 6, 2025Darcy Read

A caustic character study of depression, expressed in a near limitless capacity of anger and frustration, the legend Mike Leigh and Marianne Jean-Baptiste reunite for a potent and captivating film like no other. At times an excruciating viewing experience, Hard Truths (2024) is as rewarding a film as you’ll find this year, sneaking up on you with seasoned patience so few filmmakers deploy.

John Waters lovingly called Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy “the most unpleasant sourpuss in the history of cinema”, and it’s hard to argue with him. An open wound that reacts to every possible moment like a critically endangered animal hoping to survive another day, even if they’re unsure why they cling to life so hard.

An ornery and occasionally cruel working-class mother of an adult-at-home son, Pansy doesn’t drift across days as much as she bulldozes through every waking moment. We learn everything you need to know about Pansy by the way she wakes up. In multiple instances across Hard Truths, we grow desperately empathetic to the peacefulness she exudes while sleeping, but is constantly jolted awake, activating an instantaneous fight mode.

While Jean-Baptiste is prone to blot out the sun with her performance, Leigh leaves room for some truly remarkable supporting performances. David Webber and Tuwaine Barrett, as Pansy’s husband Curtley and reclusive and introverted son Moses, manage to withstand the ocean storm that is Pansy through a deep connection to characters given little room to breathe but require a wide berth.

Leigh is a cinematic master through his ability to create a cumulative character experience that bursts at the seams of its final ensemble sequence. Like a well-crafted play, Hard Truths walks you towards a profound moment of empathy and attachment in a naturally unexpected cadence. With little plot outside of a Mother’s Day date for Pansy and her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), Leigh gives his ensemble enormous space to fill the frame with nuanced character portraits that will feel like mirrors into the soul of the modern-day middle-class, seen with honesty and respect.

While Pansy is increasingly vocal about an uncertain ailment that is fuelling a violent discomfort with life, she harbours a real hesitation in improving her situation. From a doctor’s appointment to a trip to the dentist (with Leigh using a real dentist!), these scenes carry a weight that sustains the film’s second half, as the audience grows increasingly desperate for the reason in all this internal suffering perpetually boiling over. She is nothing but a raw nerve, longing for a connection without the capability to find it.

A desperate need to be understood and heard hidden within a desperate need to be left alone, Jean-Baptiste, with Leigh by her side, reflects a moment of modern life not seen in the old cinematic masters. While Leigh’s best films are where he forces his fractured characters into unfamiliar places (Topsy Turvy, Naked), Hard Truths can be placed among a select few films that express the early 2020s with an honest reflection you’d more likely see in a period piece made decades after. We cannot take his movies for granted.

Hard Truths is in select theatres now.