Film Review Club

True Blood follows Sookie Stackhouse, a waitress from Louisiana who has the strange ability to read peoples minds. Set in a world where vampires have revealed their existence to the human population, Sookies life changes drastically when she meets vampire Bill Compton. CAST & THE ACTING  There are actually a lot of huge stars in True Blood, Academy Award winner Anna Paquin leads as Sookie Stackhouse and throughout the 7 seasons I found her performances were slightly hit and miss. She would deliver fantastic emotional monologues one minute but in other scenes it could come across as very cringeworthy. Arguably the biggest name on the cast, Alexander Skarsgård played the role of Eric Northman, the 1000 year old vampire. I think you could summarise his performances in a similar way to Paquin’s in that he had his peaks and dips in quality. My personal favourite performance has to be from the late Nelsan Ellis, he played Lafayette and he had it down to absolute perfection. He created su

Sicario is a crime thriller directed by Dennis Villeneuve and follows Kate Macer, an FBI agent who is recruited for a dangerous mission to stop a drug cartel operating between the US and Mexico. Her morals are put to the test as she soon realises some harsh realities with the war on drugs.  CAST & THE ACTING  Sicario has a brilliant cast with Emily Blunt leading as FBI agent Kate Macer and it’s fair to say that she delivered the stand out performance. She portrays the emotional rollercoaster Macer experiences really well, a person so determined to maintain her sense of morality whilst wanting to achieve real change with the war on drugs. The supporting cast includes Daniel Kaluuya as Reggie, Josh Brolin as Matt Graver, Benicio Del Toro as Alejandro and even John Berthnal makes a brief appearance too. They all performed pretty well but unfortunately there wasn’t enough time dedicated to their characters to be able to showcase their ability. The focus was very much on Emily Blunt. I

Death on The Nile is the latest project directed by Kenneth Branagh and it is based on the novel of the same name. The story is a typical ‘who done it’ murder mystery as a newly wed couples extravagant honeymoon is cut short by tragedy upon the river Nile in the Egypt. CAST & THE ACTING  It’s fair to say that Death on The Nile certainly isn’t lacking in talent, with a huge array of Hollywood stars making up the cast ensemble. Kenneth Branagh plays the notorious detective Hercule Poirot and he is definitely one of the stand out performances! He captures the essence of mystery yet his mannerisms and physical movement tell the audience a whole story about his character, it was executed very well. The newlywed couple Simon Doyle and Linnet Ridgeway were played by Armie Hammer and Gal Gadot and I just found their performances so cringeworthy, that could be down to the writing and the dialogue rather than the acting itself but they were an extremely irritating pair. Emma Mackey played th

Fury is a War/Action film directed by David Ayer and follows Tank commander Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier, along with his 4 crew members as they embark on a mission which puts all of their lives in danger. With the odds stacked against them they still set a plan of attack against the Nazi forces. CAST & THE ACTING  Fury has an absolutely outstanding cast, Brad Pitt leads as Wardaddy but his supporting cast are just as impressive. Made up of Shia LaBeouf, Jon Berthnal, Michael Peña and Logan Lerman, each and every one of them deliver fantastic performances. What really shines through though, is the chemistry between the 5 actors, they create an authentic brotherhood that the audience can really buy into. That chemistry was vital for the storyline of the film, something that I will go into further in the next category. The one who surprised me the most was Michael Peña because the others I knew would be impressive in a dramatic role but Peña I had only really watched in comedies before this

Reacher is the latest project to take on Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character and this time it’s in the form of a TV series. A veteran military police investigator arrives in a small town called Margrave but is quickly pulled into a murder investigation where he’s the main suspect. CAST & THE ACTING  Alan Ritchson plays the iconic Jack Reacher and he delivers a strong performance, granted it’s a completely different direction to Tom Cruise’s portrayal but it worked really nicely. He delivers exciting combat choreography but his comedy also lands pretty much every time too, which helps to bring a nice balance to the series as a whole. I haven’t read the books so just how accurate this portrayal is to the source material, I don’t know but from a neutral perspective, I enjoyed the performance and I’m a big fan of Ritchson anyway so he gets my seal of approval. Malcom Goodwin plays detective Finlay and Willa Fitzgerald portrays Roscoe, both deliver strong performances that help create an

Uncharted is the latest video game adaptation to hit cinemas and it is directed by Ruben Fleischer. Nathan Drake teams up with Victor ‘Scully’ Sullivan to find the largest treasure never found. Sully is in it for the gold but Drake hopes to find his long lost older brother. CAST & THE ACTING  The best part of the film for me is definitely the chemistry between Tom Holland, who plays Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg, who plays Scully. They are constantly bouncing off each other throughout the entire film and portray a strong brother like bond which injects a lot of humour into the storyline. I must also credit Holland’s acrobatic skill, just like Spider-Man, his versatility makes the action sequences very exciting to watch. However beyond the humour and impressive action sequences, the acting itself is pretty average. There are a few scenes where Holland has to show emotion but for the most part it’s just your typical action film performances. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, you w

The Book of Boba Fett is the latest Disney+ original series following the iconic Star Wars character Bobs Fett as he attempts to lead on Tatooine. The series also provides key flashbacks showing how he survived the events of Return of the Jedi.  CAST & THE ACTING  Temuera Morrison returns as Boba Fett and continues the legacy of the character, performing well, particularly in those flashback scenes with the Tuscans. Ming-Na Wen returns as Fennec Shand and her best performances came during the action sequences. Other cast members from The Mandalorian reprise their roles such as Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin and Timothy Olyphant as Cobb Vanth. Although there were certainly no bad performances, I can’t say there were particularly great ones either. The storyline doesn’t really provide the opportunity for acting masterpieces. Performances across the series just didn’t generate an emotional response from me, with the exception of Pascal and Grogu of course but that’s just a continuation fr

Moonfall is the latest disaster movie to hit cinemas, the world is on the brink of annihilation when something knocks the moon off it’s orbital course. The only hope for humanities survival lies with two astronauts and a conspiracy theorist who thinks he’s cracked the mystery of the moon. The film is directed by Roland Emmerich. CAST & THE ACTING  The cast consists of three leads, Halle Berry as NASA director Jocinda, Patrick Wilson as Brian Harper and then John Bradley as K.C Houseman. I think they all delivered average performances at best, they failed to express any real emotion which meant I became quite detached from their characters. There were moments where you connected with John Bradley and you felt happy for him finally being recognised by NASA but other than that the performances were rather one dimensional. The rest of the cast didn’t do any better really, I think they were all let down by the writing for their characters. So not much to discuss here really, rather disa

Jackass Forever is the latest and perhaps the final Jackass film from the original cast as they reunite to pull off the craziest and funniest stunts. From snake bites to taking on live bears, they are certainly upping the stakes! THE CAST Almost all of the original cast returned for Jackass Forever, with the most notable exclusion being Bam Margera. They certainly haven’t lost their bravery and their humour because, despite their age, they all committed to some of the biggest stunts yet. They also introduced a few new members to the cast, introducing the first female member in Rachel Wolfson, Zack Holmes, Sean ‘Poopies’ McInerney and Jasper Dolphin. They were all great and hit the ground running, they seemed unfazed by any of the stunts! It looks like they were setting up the next generation of Jackass, so I would imagine the next project would be the new cast with perhaps a couple of appearances from the OG’s. THE STUNTS Given the nature of the film I thought best to change the storyl

Promising drummer Andrew joins a music conservatory to pursue his dream. However he is mentored by Terence Fletcher who has an unconventional approach that pushes his students to their breaking points. This award winning drama is directed by Damien Chazelle. CAST & THE ACTING  Miles Teller leads the cast as Andrew and he is supported by JK Simmons, both deliver fantastic performances and display some of the best chemistry I’ve seen from a pair of actors. Tellers performances on the drums is quite unbelievable, I’ve read that he’s played the drums since the age of 15 but took lessons 4 hours a day, 3 days a week to prepare for the role. That dedication perfectly translates on screen because those drum solos are fantastic. JK Simmons won an academy award for best supporting actor and it is absolutely deserved. The way he executed the role of of Terence Fletcher was perfect, from his dialogue delivery to his physical acting in both his facial expressions and composer movements, I am v

When the police take too long to search for two missing young girls, Keller Dover takes on a search of his own which leads him closer to the truth but it also puts himself in danger in the process. This crime thriller is directed by Dennis Villeneuve.  CAST & THE ACTING  The cast is simply brilliant, Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal are the two leads. Jackman plays Keller Dover the father to one of the missing girls and Gyllenhaal plays the detective assigned to finding them. Both deliver fantastic performances, showing how the incident is effecting two people from completely different perspectives. Gyllenhaal impressed me the most, there were subtle characterisations that told the audience so much about Detective Loki. For example little facial ticks such as a heavy blink every so often, some might miss it but it actually told me that he was so dedicated to his work and it was more frequent the further the case got ahold of him and the more stressed he became. Paul Dano played Ale