The Dog Stars preview screening provided by Disney.
From first glance, The Dog Stars (2026) has the makings of a Ridley Scott film with its post-apocalytic setting giving the veteran director an opportunity to build suspense in the unknown, but it feels like anything but a Ridley Scott film.
Having been adapted for the screen by Mark L. Smith from Peter Heller’s 2012 novel of the same name, the film calls to mind the recent hit show The Last of Us (2023 – ), opting for the same sort of lived-in yet barren wasteland as the backdrop to events. Mankind has experienced a plague of some kind that has taken the lives of the majority and left others scraping by, defending the little they can gather while scavengers work to steal it. Jacob Elordi plays a mechanic who lives out on a big block of land with a rugged Josh Brolin and a dog, Jasper.
The film almost carries a tranquil quality with sweeping vistas, shots of a plane flying over said vistas and just a serenity that makes you wonder how it’ll be disrupted. There’s a whole lofty backstory built around Elordi’s character that informs his attachment to his dog, with flashbacks cutting from the past to the present showing these interactions with his wife. At some point though, the plot needs to move forward and what better way to get it moving than by having a scuffle with those aforementioned scavengers which sees his dog be killed. (John Wick vibes, anyone?). This leads to Hig (Elordi’s character) making the decision to head out with his plane to the “Grand Junction” in search of a mystery voice he’s been picking up while surveying the land from the sky.
Jacob Elordi as Hig and Jasper in 20th Century Studios’ THE DOG STARS.
There’s a sloppiness to the writing to get the plot to this point, and just a randomness to proceedings which doesn’t stop here. Hig ventures out where he crash lands and meets the duo of “pop” (a Guy Pearce who the audience I was with said looked like Brolin) and a young former medical student Cima (Margaret Qualley). Here, the film splits into two: you have Brolin’s character facing a wrath of skinhead-like scavengers who look like they’ve been pulled from Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), and Elordi and co getting acquainted.
The latter side sees a wonky, unconvincing love subplot be thrown in between Elordi and Qualley’s characters that is incredibly underwritten and isn’t helped by the actors having zero chemistry with each other. Elordi’s performance also feels incredibly stale —no doubt due to the terrible writing— and probably wasn’t helped by him being cast on account of Paul Mescal dropping out of the film (there’ll be no Oscar nomination this time like when Elordi was recast in the Frankenstein’s monster role).
It’s as though there was a desire to have a more contemplative approach to a novel with writing that no doubt reads that way, but the need to add action and energy was playing on people’s minds so some of it was thrown in for good measure. Beyond that, there just isn’t the punchiness of a Ridley film; the stakes feel watered down, the set pieces are quite blasé and this just plays like a very ‘autopilot’ project from a director we know can do so much more.
The Dog Stars opens nationally from 27 August 2026.
Treacly and warm as any movie this into honey and bees should be, The Rivals of Amziah King (2025) is an entertaining and shapeshifting tale of revenge, interpersonal legacy, and community built on music. A true film out of time, one that dynamically shifts its focus constantly, and, while it has stumbles, arrives at a place of unexpected poignancy.
The film opens with an earnestness that fuels our journey. Amziah (Matthew McConaughey) is the last to arrive for a stitched together bluegrass performance at a local outdoor diner with his bandmates that immediately calls to mind the 80s and 90s hangout movies that defined McConaughey’s early career. After an uptempo jig and title sequence, we tail Amziah as he is whisked away by the police, not for any wrongdoing, but due to Amziah being the local beekeeper who can assist them in uncovering whose honey had been stolen from the back of a truck in town.
The following extended sequence is frenetic, matching Amziah’s energy and ability to weave himself into the lives of the community. Filmmaker Andrew Patterson knows what he has in this McConaughey performance, and builds the style and narrative around his charm and magnetism, allowing the film to evolve and develop through and eventually expand past him.
(From left) Angelina LookingGlass and Matthew McConaughey in The Rivals of Amziah King.
The shared connection of music is the foundation of The Rivals of Amziah King, with every moment bursting with the frenetic energy of a brash bluegrass group working a tune out together. The story takes a turn when Kateri (Angelina LookingGlass), a foster child Amziah and his late wife raised and cared for, returns to town and is swept up into his exuberant storm. To the uninitiated, as Kateri is, Amziah’s brash inclusivity is overwhelming, but comes from a palpable desire to uplift those around him. The world is unforgiving and cruel, why not spend one’s time surrounded by music and friends. McConaughey and LookingGlass have an easy connection that feels rooted in the characters’ shared history. Her nervousness and modern sensibilities clash with his old-school bravado without ever causing friction, a charming dynamic that allows the film to stay balanced as it shifts gears in its second half.
There are several sequences here that are exhilarating with a crowd and worth taking the chance on. One, a charming, farcical escapade in a school cursed with an aggressive hive. The other, an extended bee hive heist set against the backdrop of the swampy backwaters of Oklahoma that calls to mind some great Kelly Reichardt films.
But the film isn’t all sweetness and treacle. Tastes will greatly vary for the effectiveness of the film’s second half depending on how one feels about the groundwork laid in its opening chapters. The Rivals of Amaziah King moves with a clouded confusion in its back half, shifting gears with abandon, relying on the location and its relentless stomp clap score to stay on the rails.
While a film built on top of people playing music constantly, this is not a traditional music film about folks trying to make it big. Amziah and his troupe of friends play at the local hall not to leave their small lives and be the next big stomp folk act, they play to entertain and connect with their community in the same way the potluck served alongside the event does. There is a sweet beauty in these moments that pierce through the overwhelming earnestness and makes a true impact.
After the emergence of The Vast of Night (2020), a film that struggled to break out and was greatly heralded by critics to get more eyes on it, there were fears Patterson would quickly follow it up inside a bigger tent, or god forbid pivot to television. The double-edged sword of Patterson’s follow-up being an intimate look at his local Oklahoma community is that it comes to screens a painful seven years after his debut. Thankfully, with a towering and human return to screen by McConaughey, we are rewarded with Patterson’s return with a unique comfort film that blends the old and the new, with a sweet aftertaste.
From Cannes favourites to local newcomers making their mark, the Melbourne International Film Festival is a fixture in the Australian cinema calendar, with the 2026 entry in the loaded program having something for everyone. Whether you just want to get the jump on Oscar prediction morning or need to spend the last weeks of a brittle Melbourne winter in packed cinemas, the festival will provide. Below is part one of our resident festival obsessive Darcy’s notebook on what he’s seen and loved this year.
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning (2026) – Clio Barnard
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
One of the finds of the festival, a gorgeous and riveting tableau from Clio Barnard based on the novel from writer and poet Keiran Goddard, cramming what felt like a season of a revered BBC miniseries into 109-minutes with the best editing of the year by Maya Maffioli.
I’m a total sucker for Northern UK street poeticism, with its blue collar groundedness with a powerful north star of where to point the millennial finger of ennui and uncertainty at. The film with the title of the year (sharing the name with the novel) follows a tight group of young Gen Z friends growing together and apart, set amongst a constantly shifting Birmingham. With an honesty and clarity into youthful modernity and the crippling weight of housing pressure on individuals and a community. A must see.
Maddie’s Secret (2025) – John Early
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
There is something magical about watching a film with an extreme amount of conviction that brings a totally game audience to the edge of a cliff but still begs for more. John Early had already made a name for himself as an impressive comedian and actor, but in Maddie’s Secret (2025), we see the emergence of Early as one of the most impressive comedic filmmakers to come out of a decade struggling for cinematic laughs.
The Far From Heaven (2002) for the Bon Appétit content mill sounds like a difficult pitch to audiences, but the power and potency of the satire Early is operating from, performance to lighting elevates this to astonishing levels. Dealing with the underdiscussed world of bulimia and eating disorders with the maturity and understanding that allows it to remain as silly and extreme as it is with the knowledge the audience will never jump ship. In a just world Early and Kate Berlant will be in awards conversations.
Wicker (2026) – Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
An incredibly well cast 19th Century small town fable about a fishmonger (Olivia Colman) who asks the local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband, just to get her nosy neighbours off her back. The Weaver obliges, crafting her a perfect wicker husband — played wonderfully by Alexander Skarsgård, wrapped in an astonishing wooden body made by the Wētā Workshop — asking only for coin in return. The film is a riot. With a unique take on gender struggles with its bashful comedy and storytelling echoing the Brothers Grimm, Wicker comes by its fantasy matter-of-factly, with a lyricism that keeps you on the hook for where Wilson and Fischer want to take us.
Rose (2026) – Markus Schlesinger
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
All gender is performance, and can give you desires you didn’t think you possess if you live in the performance for long enough. Markus Schlesinger and Sandra Hüller are on a very targeted wavelength in Rose, a period film about the not uncommon situation of a woman assuming the role of a man to garner a level of respect and equity they see for themselves, particularly around wartime and, notably here, postwar time.
With a considered palette from Schlesinger and cinematographer Gerald Kerkletz, Rose at once feels both in command of her situation and burdened by its crushing weight. The film gains some real drama and tension akin to The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) in its final act, with Hüller’s rugged demeanour giving out to an unkind world when the truth begins to leak out.
We Are All Strangers (2026) – Anthony Chen
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
A wide tapestry of a film on family, Anthony Chen’s compelling yet frustrating new work is a tale of almosts. A rare film set and filmed in Singapore and the first Singaporean film to screen in competition in the Berlinale’s 70-plus-year history, We Are All Strangers weaves in its setting well across its 157-minute runtime, even as it feels in a rush to arrive at its destination rather than ruminate and observe its surroundings. Centring a father and son trying to make it in the rapidly changing city flooding in with new money, characters come and go through their lives (in fascinating and infuriating ways) that propels you from scene to scene.
The Fox (2026) – Dario Russo
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Dario Russo’s Adelaide set film The Fox is the hottest ticket of the festival. A charming and well cast comedy that would make a fascinating double feature with Obsession (2026), with its ideas on relationships, control, and gendered violence inside a gnarly and knowing bit of magical realism. With brilliant voice performances by Olivia Colman and the late great Sam Neill as a fox and magpie, respectively, in a quiet town, Russo’s ear for Australian idiosyncrasies make for a wall shaking cinema experience of locals, as the film raises its brow up at our culture of quiet contempt subdued by our heavy drinking tendencies. While not groundbreaking in any form, it is refreshing to have a proud Australian comedy making waves at the festival.
Lost Land (2025) – Akio Fujimoto
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
There is an overwhelming nature to docufiction that makes it a uniquely cinematic genre of storytelling, and Akio Fujimoto’s Lost Land (2025) is as good an entry point for audiences as you’ll find. The film approaches the stories of Rohingya asylum seekers through a pair of real siblings, Shomira Rias Uddin and Muhammad Shofik Rias Uddin playing nine-year old Somira and four-year old Shafi, as they have to journey from a Bangladeshi refugee camp to Malaysia to hopefully get confirmed asylum status, a necessity for a stateless people.
There are questions to be had about filmmaking ethics here akin to Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal (2022), but the power of docufiction comes from the blurred line of ethical artistry when a subject of such weight centres the work. Left with more ideas and questions than anything I’ve seen at the festival this year.
Mad Rush (2026) – Madellin McKenna
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
There’s nothing like seeing a hometown success story at the festival. At the premier of Madellin McKenna’s debut, the Capitol was buzzing with locals eager to wrap its arms around a film so invested in the city. A madcap rush of blood to the head pierces through Melbourne streets after Madisha (Senuri Chandrani), a struggling young person fresh out of work and potentially forced to return home, is targeted by an ATO phone scam trying to bleed her for everything she’s got.
Mad Rush attempts to walk a difficult thematic and narrative tightrope, as McKenna tries to blend a high-octane movement based thriller with a contemplative and lyrical exploration of modern life as a 20-something. Albeit in rare bursts, when the performances, editing, and narrative settles into a groove that has both tracks building together, the audience is quick to be swept up into Madisha’s world.
Rose of Nevada (2025) – Mark Jenkin
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
No one is doing it like Mark Jenkin. A truly singular artistic expression of the British community, wielding vintage Bolex cameras that capture no audio, giving the film a detached and mythic distortion, Rose of Nevada is a bitter, acquired taste. It touches on truly weighty subjects like the destruction of personhood for the benefit of those you may never meet through its jagged edges and abrasive storytelling, leaving the door slightly ajar to lose yourself in.
Indie film’s lynchpin weirdo, George Mackay plays wonderfully alongside the more laissez-faire partner in Callum Turner, giving the film a beating heart surrounded by the rust and the chains. The story is best left unsaid, as it is best to uncover the strangeness of Rose of Nevada alongside its characters, entering its brittle trance at the same pace.
The Odyssey Melbourne premiere screening provided by Universal Pictures
As one of the seminal works in literature, The Odyssey brought the mythical down to Earth, pitted gods against man and set the tone for the sort of storytelling we have seen ever since across various mediums. There have been numerous adaptations in film and TV, some focusing on key moments like Troy (2004) and The Return (2024) while others were more loose in their approach like O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000), but Christopher Nolan’s rendition stands on its own as a triumphant exercise in scale and possibility, breathing new life into a classic.
While scholars largely agree that The Odyssey was communicated orally before ever being written down anywhere, the question of whether Homer was ever actually one person or one part of a whole has always been a point of contention. What is unmistakable is that Nolan writes his version for the screen entirely in IMAX, a trailblazing feat for a director who has constantly worked to push the medium forward. His effort has seen a widespread ‘pilgrimage’ from devoted fans to locations that are showcasing the film in all its 70mm glory (one of which is here in Melbourne), and it’s worth every effort to see in that way.
Nolan’s film finds a balance between the more contemplative moments of the novel and the sudden shifts in momentum as tension brews. Godly interactions are replaced with allusions to greater powers like the crash of thunder, flashbacks are used seamlessly to connect one moment to the next, and the film is underscored by layers of greed and regret that compliment rather than detract from the unfurling of events. After all, Nolan has always been interested in men who have self-destructive tendencies and carry grief, greed and regret within them which makes Odysseus (played expertly by Matt Damon) the perfect vessel from which to delve further into that thematic exploration.
L to R: Anne Hathaway is Penelope and Tom Holland is Telemachus in The Odyssey, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
Odysseus, like Oppenheimer, carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and people will live and die based on his actions; however, for Oppenheimer that weight threatened to destroy the world while for Odysseus, it threatens to destroy him. It’s why his journey from Ithaca to the beaches of Troy tickles Nolan’s fancy, a journey that is met by moments where the sacrifice of the few is in service of the collective whole. It leads to some of Nolan’s most haunting images of said greed, where the trials and tribulations from the novel bring into question what is morally right (like burying dead warriors) versus what is necessary (escaping and surviving).
It does take a good 30 or so minutes to actually get the ball rolling, as establishing an epic of this scale with so many potential directions to springboard from is no easy ask. This is especially the case as Nolan works to figure out how to get Telemachus (Tom Holland) out of Ithaca and away from the suitors like Antinous (Robert Pattinson) courting his mother Penelope (Anne Hathaway) while bringing Odysseus into the picture as soon as possible.
The Odyssey isn’t a complex story, but finding a way to navigate the presence of gods which so crucially inform every cause and effect chain in the story, is a challenge, especially since Nolan’s approach usually involves crashing non-chronological moments into each other like oars against rocks. His approach here is a bit more considered and surprisingly seamless though, as flashbacks do a lot of heavy lifting, cutting from the past to the present; from Calypso’s (Charlize Theron) gradual unlocking of Odysseus’ memory to Telemachus hearing the stories of his father’s journey from those who battled with him like Menelaus (Jon Bernthal). The key moment the flashbacks come back to, and the part of The Odyssey that even those who haven’t read it will be most familiar with, is the Trojan horse infiltrating Troy. This is the nucleus that bridges the rest of the film together, showing the path that Odysseus and his men took that ultimately led him to his predicament.
The Odyssey, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
This path leads them from encounters with creatures like a cyclops that was physically built to tower over the actors, to a forest of giants in armour that equally tower like the Mountain from Game of Thrones, and an encounter with the dead men in ‘hell’ where ice and fire meet. A particular highlight occurs with Circe (Samantha Morton), a witch who conjures dark magic to usurp her victims. Without spoilng too much, her presence (along with that of the aforementioned creatures) almost evokes an element of horror that is reminiscent of Sam Raimi’s little horror moments throughout his Spider-Man films, and makes a strong case for a Nolan horror film at some point. The visual effects of these encounters are used sparingly, giving the film its mythical edge without overwhelming the meditative, ponderous tone that Nolan is going for.
These encounters leave Odysseus a wreck just like his ship was for the greed his men showed when they went against the wisdom that he granted them, falling victim to their own desires and demise, and Odysseus, to his self-reckoning. Matt Damon’s performance is enchanting and really crucial in buying into Odysseus’ emotional plight; he commands the screen and, especially in the film’s closing stages, brings an awe to the character that I can best compare to the first time you see Luke Skywalker take his hood off at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). The supporting cast are just as crucial, with Robert Pattinson playing the part of a nuisance you can’t wait to see killed, with a grace that has characterised his career, and John Leguizamo grounding the scenes back at Ithaca as the watchful Eumaeus.
The Odyssey is ultimately about one man’s journey home, charting his rise and fall from different vantage points all the while giving an otherworldly and godly feel to his presence without ever having to spell out and showcase the actual gods and their moments of intervention. Propelled forward by a rapturous score from Ludwig Göransson, one that holds tension as it pounds in synths and drumbeats that have the aura of battle about them and is supported by a hefty, transportative soundscape, as well as strong performances across the deck, Nolan’s film has the wonder of Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and the transcendent look of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films. It is unequivocally Nolan’s film though, with the result being a measured, meditative look at the cost of triumph, the bodies it leaves in its wake, and the weight of decisions that stick with us long after we have made them.
Supergirl fan screening provided by Universal Pictures
When James Gunn and Peter Safran were tasked with reinvigorating the DC Universe, it was clear that a shakeup involving culling star faces like Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot and Jason Momoa (to name a few) heralded a no nonsense approach to this task. Of course, actors out-age the characters they play, and Gunn’s first film in this new phase of the DC Universe, Superman (2025), replaced one of the staple names of that universe in Cavill.
The second DC film to be released in this new phase, Supergirl (2026) never had to face that Cavill-ier sized backlash given this was the first mainline Supergirl movie. While Gunn isn’t at the helm this time around, his fingerprints are all over Craig Gillespe’s film, a director known for more measured character studies rather than big budget blockbusters. It’s easy to see why Gillespe was viewed as the right man for this job though: films like I, Tonya (2017) and Cruella (2021) follow the origin story of strong female characters and see them manifest into something larger than life that they never saw in themselves to begin with. Naturally, that makes Supergirl a super candidate for a director like Gillespe.
While that is the case to an extent this time around, Gunn’s said fingerprints have left smudges on Kara Zor-El / Supergirl (Milly Alcock), keeping her feeling like she’s being held back by kryptonite —poor writing, drab subplots and a one dimensional villain — rather than allowed to charge up and shine in a similar way to David Corenswet’s Superman.
Opening with a scene involving a family being slaughtered by chief movie villain Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), lone survivor Ruthye (Eve Ridley) is left wanting revenge for their murder. She soon finds Kara drinking away in one of her pub crawls, with the duo eventually teaming up after Kara’s dog Krypto, is poisoned by Krem as he steals her ship and flys off. If this sounds like a sort of pseudo-revenge John Wick dog movie, you’re bang on the money. But revenge isn’t what Ruthye should be seeking, or so Kara tries to hammer into her. There’s more to life than revenge, Kara goes on, so let me handle this…oh wait you didn’t listen to me and now we’re on a buddy up adventure involving Marvel like one-liners and less than flashy CGI.
Jason Momoa as Lobo in Supergirl
It’s telling that in reinvigorating DC, Gunn has done a control c, control v approach to these first two films. While I can’t blame him for utlising a tried and true formula that (really) he put in motion with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) —for better and worse— it reduces the film to a predictable, beat-by-beat exercise where Supergirl could be replaced by Wonder Woman and you wouldn’t bat an eyelid.
Milly Alcock does as much as she can with a script that washes over any stakes with a shrug of the shoulder and cheeky wink. Krem is about as one-dimensional a superhero villain as they come, right up there with Christian Bale’s Gorr. His motives are unclear, as he steals swords and young women who he wants to wed off in some sense like he’s Immortan Joe from Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
The plot is as much tied to Ruthye’s character as it is to Kara, and it leaves a lot to be desired in the way of character development and a reason to care about what is happening to these people. There’s flashbacks to Kara’s home planet, giving us a different perspective to the fall of Krypton that we’ve always gotten in a Superman film. It’s welcome and makes sense for a character we haven’t seen much of on the big screen, but it leaves the moments in the present feeling short lived. Jason Momoa jets around as Lobo on a motorcycle, having as much fun as he can while scoffing down bears and revving the engine (not far from what he does in real life), and some of the action is serviceable, but beyond that this feels like a set up to an inevitable Superman and Supergirl movie at some point.
Ultimately, Gillespe’s film chooses to look forward and remind audiences that Supergirl will be a part of a wider Justice League at some point rather than giving her an origin story worth its weight.
As the title suggests, The Death of Robin Hood (2026) begins with Robin Hood seemingly at the end of his journey. Somewhat of an extended coda, he has no desire to continue; Robin Hood (an aged and grizzled Hugh Jackman) spends his days pushing through the days, weighed towards the centre of the Earth by the gravity of his past. Long gone are his famous troupe who scampered across England as outlaws, robbing the rich and giving to the poor.
Instead, the famed outlaw is alone in the English hearth, making do with simple hunting to survive with no home or companionship. It is not until his old friend Little John (Bill Skarsgård) asks Robin for help rescuing his wife and daughter from bandits that the outlaw is pushed to purpose. This scene is quickly riddled with conflict, as in the same breath we learn of how Little John came about this family; having acquired them after he killed their husband and father years prior.
Filmmaker Michael Sarnoski made a name for himself with his 2021 breakout, Pig, starring Nicolas Cage, a mature and reflective look at an older man with a lifetime of regrets forced back into society through violence — all themes that also drive The Death of Robin Hood. It is fascinating that Sarnoski, the now 31-year-old American, has a deep pull to these stories and is deftly able to probe humanist questions on regret at the beginning of his artistic career.
The metatextual element of casting Hugh Jackman as the waking ghost of Robin Hood is effective, layering on his legacy as an old-fashioned showman to this storied character worthy of reinvestigation. Similar in many respects to Logan (2017), Jackman’s greatest performance as the weathered Wolverine, Robin Hood is a man with a code that can easily morph into self-mythologisation through nothing but the immovable passage of time. The stories we tell ourselves to survive, especially ones that shield us from the stories others tell about us, drive Robin, even in his withered state. Throughout the film, Robin is both correcting the record of his folklore and forgetting the names of those he has slain, a fascinating bit of oscillation that creates an engine of revisionism that powers Sarnoski’s gritty screenplay.
From Left: Hugh Jackman and Bill Skarsgård in The Death of Robin Hood.
Whether Sarnoski is deeply connected to the Robin Hood folk tale or just enjoyed one of many depictions across cinema, his iteration on the character is a mere shorthand to investigate the life of an outlaw defined by mythmaking and storytelling that justifies one’s violence until violence is all that remains. This is a film with a relentless drive to revise notions of history at scale through an intimate lens.
The Death of Robin Hood is an adult film that wields its violence with a sharp knife. It cares for its impact both in the moment and in how it ripples through generations. Beginning with a stark moment of brutal violence – Robin killing a teenager who has come for revenge in the night is straight out of Robert Eggers’ grimy historical epic The Northman (2022), a lynchpin inspiration here – Sarnoski is signalling to the audience the film to come. This moment is one of a long line of sons and daughters seeking revenge on Robin’s trail of blood. Even through several wistful and lyrical sequences that weave in and out of the film, it is this graphic violence that chains the story to the damp soil.
After the rescue attempt goes as expected for a film this cold and bleak, Robin is beaten and left within inches of a death he so clearly craves, and shipped out to an island priory to heal. Surprisingly, in a shrewd piece of filmmaking, this island is where we are left for the remainder of the film. The film is split in two, with Robin Hood made to support the small community led by the prioress, sister Bridgid (Jodie Comer), as his wounds heal. A bifurcated film is difficult to pull off, but Sarnoski’s lush visual lyricism creates a flowing river of moments that land.
Jodie Comer in The Death of Robin Hood.
Plucked from the Sheffield folk scene, musician Jim Ghedi’s score and soundtrack both shroud and dampen the opening section of the film as much as they light the scenes in the priory. Coupled with an aspect ratio shift after the first act, cinematographer Pat Scola focuses on the warmth of sunlight seemingly hitting Robin’s cheek for the first time in decades. Sarnoski is driven to guide the famed outlaw and us towards the light.
But the past cannot be willfully ignored even at an island retreat. With new visitors steadily coming to the priory for care, Robin’s desire to fade into obscurity becomes harder and harder. Coupled with this is the punishing repetition of Robin Hood not remembering those he has killed along his journey. This is the sturdy rock Sarnoski’s film is built on. The why does not matter, as the why never matters when it comes to those that carry on the legacy of those that have been lost. There is only the loss.
For a film with a loud fight scene set in front of a burning building, it surprisingly has its most gripping moment in an infirmary, involving several intimate bloodletting scenes between Comer and Jackson, with Sarnoski carefully building up the tension of his grisly film to this point. Comer elevates these moments and the back half of the film even as her character is kept to the side, with Sarnoski clearly driven by singular character portraits and how people enter and exit a person’s life.
Whether it arrives at its emotional climax in its dying moments with legitimacy is in the eye of the beholder, but Sarnoski is serious enough about his adult drama to conclude his film with an aching sentimentality that is all too rare. With a sturdy ensemble that occasionally elevates above Sarnoski’s considered lens, The Death of Robin Hood is the dramatic adult period piece probing at the heart of heroism and violence that is rarely seen on a big screen anymore. Now all we need is Sarnoski to make his Ned Kelly film.
A feeling of unease went through Pixar’s fanbase not so long ago when the animation studio’s Chief Creative Officer, Pete Docter expressed his plans to move away from the auteur-driven, autobiographical narratives of recent years and focus more on universal stories that “appeal to everybody”. Those words proved worrisome, for they implied that Emeryville would forgo the creative risk-taking which helped establish its box-office dominance and regress to producing safe, marketable fluff. Strange words they were too, coming from the very same man who directed tales about creatures who lurk in bedroom cupboards, an elderly widower flying his house to South America, personified emotions who inhabit our consciousness, and a jazz musician coming to terms with his mortality – and, produced this creative endeavour.
Mabel Tanaka (voice of Piper Curda) is a university student and passionate environmentalist whose love of the natural world often places her at odds with her city’s vain and development-willed leader, Mayor Jerry Generazzo (Jon Hamm) who wishes to build a freeway over her favourite forest. In fact, so strong is Mabel’s passion for the locale that she’s willing to hijack her college’s “Hopping” device – experimental technology that allows humans to transfer their psyche into a robot – and disguise herself as a lifelike, mechanical beaver just to find evidence to tarnish the Mayor’s reputation. But her actions give her far greater powers than she realises, not least the ability to understand and converse with other fauna in the forest, which is used to its full advantage. And then some!
Hoppers (2026) emanates from a returnee to the Pixar fold, Daniel Chong, a name most would associate as the creator of Cartoon Network’s We Bare Bears. Having risen through the studio’s ranks as a storyboard artist in his earlier years, one might reasonably expect this picture to mirror the sensibilities of other productions in its catalogue from stalwarts like Docter or Andrew Stanton; yet in truth, it’s closer in manner and style to Domee Shi’s Turning Red(2022) which, alongside Enrico Casarosa’s Luca(2021) and Peter Sohn’s Elemental (2023) has been labelled as one of those autobiographical films that supposedly didn’t resonate with a wider audience. That fact shouldn’t be viewed as a slight, for the idiosyncratic Turning Red is the company’s best release of the past decade on account of its unique premise, energy, and will to stray from an established formula.
More than a few attributes are shared between Chong’s feature and Shi’s – most overtly, both have as their lead protagonist a female adolescent of Asian descent who possesses the ability to transform into an animal, either through machinery or a supernatural inheritance. The parallels extend to the comedy, with no lack of silliness in either title; and the visuals, evidence of which includes the ultra-expressive faces of their characters, and the way their pupils dilate and irises contract rapidly to convey their sudden realisations, fear or excitement. Yet Hoppers is far from a measly duplicate of what Shi produced, on account of its better third-act, a distinctive art-style unlike any seen in a Pixar concoction before, and connections with a certain other property.
Mabel Tanaka (as a beaver) with King George (an actual beaver) in Pixar’s Hoppers
Those familiar with the aforementioned Bears will find several of the animated programme’s traits also present in this film, including a family-friendly tone, quirky sense of humour, eccentric talking mammals, ponderings on the juxtaposition of nature and modernity, and two of the series’ principal cast members: Demetri “Ice Bear” Martin, here voicing a flock of talkative birds in a cameo, and Bobby “Panda” Moynihan as George, a beaver and the Mammal King of the besieged forest Mabel seeks to protect. Moynihan’s voice is instantly recognisable, though not the manner in which he speaks; where before he played a neurotic, whiny and easily-lovestruck character, now he’s an outgoing, independent and upbeat leader who provides the ideal personality for Mabel to interact with and Hoppers with its wholesome soul.
Further setting this movie apart from these other two titles, and its Pixar companions is the gags, which find a perfect balance in appealing to both younger and older viewers. The undoubted highlight in this regard is a silly, yet joyous sequence where George leads his fellow beavers in building a dam to the tune of Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend”, which had this reviewer wearing the dopiest grin, while another somewhat macabre scene involving the death of a character resulted in him falling into a fit of hysterical laughter. The comedy is also refreshingly self-aware, openly acknowledging the similarities its premise shares with James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) and letting the dialogue note the absurdity of what’s happening on-screen.
If audiences are to take Mr Docter at his word and soon pay witness a new era at Pixar Animation Studios, at least this latest epoch has ended on a high with the outfit’s funniest and most bonkers feature-length production yet. Hoppers may not be as original nor as revelatory as its stablemates, but it is nevertheless a charmer with plenty of heart that showcases what’s possible when you place trust in the creative forces behind a project. Daniel Chong is one such force, a director whose hitherto untapped talents are likely to be called on frequently in the years ahead.
Hoppers is streaming in Australia on Disney+ from Wednesday, June 17th.
Disclosure Day preview screening provided by Universal Pictures
“Standby in 10” someone signals, the state of anticipation already at its most heightened. This Kansas City news station is about to cut to Margaret (Emily Blunt) as she prepares to tell the world the truth, and World War 3 can take a back seat. It’s in these moments that Steven Spielberg has you in the palm of his hands; you know what’s coming, but like the other 8 billion people of this fictional world, it doesn’t quite feel real yet. Until it is.
Aliens have been done to death throughout cinema history, yet Spielberg understands them better than anyone. If E T.the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) gave a little boy a friend in a dark world, and War of the Worlds (2005) darkened the world even more and threw friends into large meat grinders, then Disclosure Day (2026) gives you the impression that aliens both unite us and divide us and that they’re closer to home than ever, waiting for the right vessel to bring them out.
Spielberg’s film asks the question: how would the pillars of a society built on divinity, a higher power, react if humanity’s entire worldview of those pillars was brought into question. If an even higher power existed. Is humanity really ready —or ever ready— to face the prospect that a belief system exists purely to keep our collective minds clear and in order in a world that is increasingly unclear and out of order.
They’re existential, larger than life questions and he uses meteorologist and weather reporter, Margaret, and runaway cyber security professional with secret government files, Daniel (Josh O’Connor), to start to ask them. The duo are united through a shared connection to the extraterrestrial, something that Margaret first becomes aware of after a cardinal flys into her home and she starts randomly speaking Russian. For Daniel, his realisation comes after he’s shown a clip that later surfaces of Margaret speaking an alien language live on air that only he understands. Through this shared bond, they work to connect with the help of Hugo (Colman Domingo) while government agent Noah (Colin Firth) hunts them down.
Emily Blunt in Disclosure Day directed by Steven Spielberg.
On the surface, this has all the hallmarks of a conspiracy theory fantasy flick: aliens and secret government files. But it’s anything but, especially when compared to something like Bugonia (2025). At a basic, fundamental level, this is a film about understanding that we’re more interconnected than we believe, that not everything has to be experienced in a silo, and that there’s at least one person out there who is going through the exact same thing as you. Spielberg gets this point across in spite of this being a blockbuster that throws some aliens in there to get you your popcorny fix. Spielberg has always been interested in communicating that which we struggle to wrap our heads around; he’s a problem solver at heart, if The Fabelmans (2023) was any indication — that scene where he figures out how to create explosions as a child still pops up every now and then in my mind.
In fact, this might be the most level-headed film about aliens since Arrival (2016), the only difference being it’s also the most Indiana Jones-esque an alien film has ever been. From last minute evasions on train lines to cars smashing through buildings and flying off of cliffs right through to Chekhov’s gun being employed, Spielberg embellishes the film with his signature action, reaching a flow state that seamlessly transitions from moment to moment, act to act. No word of dialogue feels misplaced, the editing is crisp, and John Williams’ score is transportative with its 80s feel. You feel like you’re in safe hands right from the outset, with the first sequence opening in media res, a classic Spielberg touch.
What would the world look like if everything we thought we knew was flipped on its head? What would the world be without Steven Spielberg there to make us ask that question in the first place. While the first question is up in the air, what is known is that Spielberg can’t escape aliens; it’s almost as if he’s the vessel through which they communicate with us, and the world is a better place because of it.
Scary Movie preview screening provided by Paramount Pictures
It’s taken 25 years but the original ‘OG’ cast of the Scary Movie franchise is back in this latest outing, promising audiences new and old a “non woke” Scary Movie that unashamedly pokes fun at anything and everything. While they deliver on that promise, it’s more of a tempered return for a franchise that hasn’t had a new entry in 13 years after the dreadful Scary Movie 5 (2013).
With the Wayan’s back and playing a bigger role following the creative fallout they had with producers after the first two films, the level of self awareness is palpable, both in terms of criticism of the drama they had and the whole “this is a movie, we know it’s a movie, we’re doing movie tropes” aspect. This starts right from the reintroduction of Ghostface who is back to deal with some unfinished slicing and dicing. His motives quickly become clear in classic Scary Movie spewed exposition style: use the new “kids of the OG stars” cast as a means to get to the OG stars and kill them for good.
From there a game of cat and mouse takes place, with Ghostface targeting characters one by one, but with the added element of multiple spin-offs on modern horrors peppered throughout. It’s the most a Scary Movie film has satirised other horror titles, with everything from Get Out (2017) to Weapons (2025) in the mix and it delivers the comedic bite sized ‘bits’ that these films have perfected over the years. While the humour feels a bit less zany and original than in the first few films —especially with the added element of a YouTube star and Gen Z humour that, while topical, feels misplaced and done to death— there are some unique bits that I won’t say much on (one involves the Get Out tea cup scene).
Marlon Wayans plays Shorty in Scary Movie
Most of the humour is derived from the original cast picking up where they left off with their antics. Legendary final girl Cindy (Anna Faris) brings her classic astonished facial expressions back, Shorty (Marlon Wayans) has his cracker jack stoner down pat, Ray (Shawn Wayans) continues being the most uncloseted closeted gay man in cinema, and Brenda Meeks (Regina Hall) slots back into her unapologetic role as Cindy’s friend. There are other side characters from the first two films mixed in as well, but take that game of guess who with you to the screening.
There’s a triumphant sendoff in the closing act, with a reclaiming of what was once taken from the Wayans’. It’s a subversive closing sequence that spins the idea of passing the torch on to the next generation on its head, and it feels like a big F U to the lack of creativity in Hollywood.
While much has changed in the 26 years since Scary Movie (2000) there’s a bitter-sweetness with seeing this cast reunited on-screen again, especially knowing that these sorts of films were such a staple of early 2000s teen cinema. Other titles that really should never have had a sequel like Happy Gilmore 2 (2025) have pandered to audiences and were unable to capture the glee of their unhinged, uncompromising humour when they were released. At least with the Scary Movie franchise, poking fun has always been the name of the game, and you can always count on a new Scream movie to give you a reason to riff on Ghostface one more time.
Masters of the Universe preview screening provided by Sony Pictures
The last time I felt this head-scratchy about how a big budget fantasy adventure film got such a… well… big budget, my expectations were surprisingly surpassed. That film was Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023), and while it was based on a board game that’s revered by millions around the world, I couldn’t help but wonder whether an 80s animated show like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe could resonate with audiences in the same way. While a more formulaic adaptation compared to Honour Among Thieves, Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe (2026) is serviceable, sticking close to its source material and offering audiences both familiar and new, an alternative hero action brawler.
This isn’t the first time He-Man and friends have come to the big screen in live action form either, with a 1987 film of the same name starring Dolph Lundgren being the first foray, and there are callbacks to the original including a little cameo from Lundgren himself. But this version of He-Man (played by Nicholas Galitzine) carries less of that 80s machismo that characterised the 1987 film and many other classic titles like Running Man (1987), First Blood (1982), Conan the Barbarian (1982) and more. Unsurprisingly, all of those titles have gotten (or are getting) modern adaptations that have toned that machoistic vibe down while still retaining the stoic qualities of their ‘hero’ characters.
Knight’s Masters of the Universe builds a down-on-his-luck HR worker backstory to this version of Prince Adam of Eternia (He-Man) after he is sent crashing to Earth along with the Sword of Power following a takeover by Skeletor (Jared Leto). Having lost the sword while being teleported to Earth, Adam’s next 15 years on Earth are spent trying to locate it so that he can wield it and say some magic words that will help bring him back home. This involves him going out to dates that he makes weird by talking about how he’s from another planet and he goes to his soul sucking HR job where he spends time posting ads on internet forums to locate the sword. While he does eventually locate it and return home with the help of childhood friend Teela (Camila Mendes), his home isn’t how he remembered it, with crumbling ruins and enslaved people under the rule of Skeletor.
Jared Leto stars as ‘Skeletor’ in Masters of the Universe.
Everything happens rather quickly once Adam is back on Eternia including just how quickly he becomes a brute thanks to the power of the sword. I’m sure Masters of the Universe fans don’t see this as out of the ordinary as it’s clear the sword gives him god like power and strength, but the speed at which Adam comes out of his shell and morphs from his scrawny physique —which doesn’t make sense as he looks huge under his pink shirt— into a Steve Rogers type beefcake, is jarring. I can appreciate Knight wanting to just get audiences into the thick of the fun and games, but it’s almost like a Rey Star Wars moment where she harnesses the force willy-nilly. The action that follows, however, is solid, even if the CGI that supports it can look quite washed out like when Adam rides his trusty green lion into battle or when he’s flying a little ship through a green forest — large set pieces just don’t blend well with the actors.
Most of the plot revolves around this Sword of Power, something that Skeletor uses Adam’s enslaved parents as leverage to obtain. It brings much of the action together including a big battle sequence in Skeletor’s lair above a sea of lava, and ties the closing act at Castle Grayskull together. The stakes ultimately don’t feel like they ever threaten to overwhelm Adam though, even after he is captured along with his friends. But that 80s charm does still shine through in moments, especially with the signature theme song serving to amplify each punch and tussle, with these nostalgia aspects being what Knight’s film rides on to be as faithful to people’s memories of the show while carving out its own place as a modern blockbuster.
Masters of the Universe opens nationally from 4 June.
Rating Frames 