EvilPhoEniX

David Ayer sometimes makes me happy sometimes not, here it's about halfway through. This mix of fantasy in our world is certainly interesting, but not exploited enough. Story-wise it's very flat, Ayer doesn't know how to work with suspense much, at least he has Will Smith and an unrecognizable Joel Edgerton. The action is very decent, the elven trio perform some nice acrobatic stunts and it's pretty brutal too, but I couldn't enjoy the film to the full, there was something here that distracted me and I can't figure out which one it was. Anyway, decent work for Netflix. 65%.

Paco Plaza, the director of REC, took a break from zombies and threw himself into exorcism, which is perhaps an even more hackneyed subject than zombies, and came up with absolutely nothing new. Technically, the film is on a decent level, but that can't be taken too much as a upside considering the director, it was was par for the course, otherwise it follows the classic template. For me, this kind of horror movie is very uninteresting, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and since there are no scares and no gore, I found nothing to take away from it. The look of the demon is okay and the ending is quite action packed, so it's not an outright ordeal. A tolerable and watchable affair for fans of the genre, more of a waste of time for me. 55%

The end of the year is approaching and soon I'll be sharing my top picks, which will definitely include the oddity called The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The film is definitely not for everyone and is similarly controversial to the recent Mother!, but Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos definitely has talent (his previous films Dogtooth and The Lobster are also weird). The film is very disturbing from the start and we get the sense that something is not right. The dialogue and the actors' strangely theatrical speech is already odd but effective, and from the main twist onwards the film takes a decent turn and at times is not pleasant to watch. If you have kids you'll sympathise with the main character even more. Anxiety, unease, chills, breathtaking moments, impressive performances, bold dialogue and decent technical aspects make The Killing of a Sacred Deer a unique affair that despite its artsy form surprisingly suited and entertained me a lot. For me, a great recommendation, but I can understand the negative reviews. Naked Nicole Kidman is still gorgeous. 80%.

Chinese sci-fi weirdness that tries to be cool but is unnecessarily overwrought and overstuffed. I liked the brutality and the villain, but once the main character appeared on the scene three times, I was getting pretty lost in the cloning and time travel. A strange hodgepodge that could have looked much better with a more capable director. A cheaper B-movie affair. 40%

I'm not familiar with the source material, Japanese Manga have never been my cup of tea and I'm not very pleased here either. It's typically over the top and weird in a Japanese way. There's not much action and I didn't like it, there are weird weapons, weird characters, not much CGI, at least the blood is nice, but it's mostly rather boring with an uninteresting story. Horror-wise it's also weak. Nothing for me. 45%.

Quite possibly my last visit to the cinema this year (there have been 37) and definitely a hit. Excellent nostalgic entertainment after 22 years. The concept of the play is slightly off from the original, which is perhaps the biggest criticism, but otherwise the film certainly works in every respect. The humour is once again handled by the excellent Kevin Hart and comes through for Jack Black, The Rock is traditionally entertaining and Karen Gillan's vixen has charm. Humour is plentiful and mostly successful, there's also plenty of animals (hippopotamus, rhinoceros, crocodiles, jaguars, black mamba, elephant) and there are contact fights, making the action a nice all-round treat to keep the whole family entertained. It's a bit far-fetched at times and a few scenes are ridiculous, but as long as you accept that it's actually a video game, there's no reason to get upset about the logic. 80%

Towards the end of the year, a disturbing item from Norway. Thelma, a strong believer so far unbowed by anything, gradually begins to taste the sins of high school life and falls in love with a girl, but strange and inexplicable things start happening around her. It sounds like a short story by Stephen King, something like Carrie, but the film hits more on psychology than pure horror, though a couple of scenes are definitely worth it (the ones with the baby and the spontaneous combustion on the boat). I was a bit disappointed by the open ending, which I'm not a big fan of, but otherwise undoubtedly a quality affair with a social subtext. Well made with intelligent dialogue, atmospheric, gloomy and with a lesbian touch. I enjoyed it. 80%.

A decent action flick for Japan, nicely stylized and shot mostly in one take. The film is more or less about a war between five gangs, where they all fight for the city and cut each other up in the streets with no rules,using baseball bats, knives, bottles and of course fists and kicks. There are a lot of interesting characters, they all have interesting hairstyles, good designer clothes and almost everyone knows at least three martial arts, so it's hard to choose a main character at all, which bothered me quite a bit. I was a bit surprised that the first action scene doesn't come until the 40th minute, which significantly takes away from the pace, but when it does come, it's really something to watch. The final 3 vs 1 duel would put the creators of The Raid to shame. I'm sorry there wasn't a little more action otherwise it would be a clear five stars. A must for martial arts fans. Good stuff. 80%

The third part of the successful Hong Kong series Kill Zone is behind me and this time I'm not so impressed. The second part remains unsurpassed as the line-up of Jacky Wu, Tony Jaa and Max Zhang is just somewhere else, and story-wise I found it more interesting and entertaining. Tony Jaa has little space, stealing actually only one action scene, which is a shame. The rest is left to Louis Koo, who surprised that he can handle anything, as he hasn't shown much so far, but I was more impressed by Yue Wu as a police officer who handles kung fu superbly. The villain is also great, and while he's terrible in acting, he's a decent asshole in a fight. There are only three action scenes, two of which are great, one in the middle with Tony which is awesome, and the final 20 minute finale was also perfect, but probably won't go down in history. Visually it’s fine, but the story is unnecessarily drawn out, the action is great, dynamic, gritty and clear, but unfortunately there’s not that much of it. I liked Headshot and Wolf Warrior 2 more this year, but this one is still a decent martial arts brawler that's way ahead of the Americans. 80%.

The decent director Park Hoon-Jeong didn't make me too happy this time and it hurts when my favourite Jang Dong-Gun from the blockbuster No Tears for the Dead is available. However, it's worth noting the new discovery, Lee Jong-Suk, who portrays a pretty sleazy metro-sexual serial killer, but his spree ends a quarter of the way through the film and then it's just South Korea, North Korea and the American Interpol arguing about who gets to take over, which I didn't much enjoy. At the beginning the film looked very dirty and brutal, with scenes of a murdered family in a house and one decent murder by strangling a naked girl with nylons, but that's the end of it. No other action is shown, apart from the final shootout in a building, which was fine. The story is not engaging enough, the suspense is also lacking and there is no twist, there is not much to praise. I was expecting much more, at least it was nice to see Peter Stormare in a brief role. Disappointing. 60%