Tags: blog, film, action, sci-fi, 2025
Author: KickingK
Date: Friday August 22nd, 2025
Lessons Learned from Predator I to Predator III
Lesson One. Tell the story through the action. Don’t have your characters sit around explaining the plot and backstory to each other, that’s just wasting time that would be better spent with something blowing up, which is what we came for. P:KoK1 absolutely rattles along. The total amount of time it spends where someone isn’t being punched, stabbed, shot, blown up or at least threatened with one of those probably amounts to less than five minutes across the entire film. It does not hang about. And yet it still manages to pack in four stories that each have a beginning, a middle and an end. Because the action is the story, not the thing that breaks it up.
Lesson Two. Have the characters do stuff because of who they are. Don’t have your characters do stuff just because that’s the only way for the next big set piece to happen. It just makes them look stupid and we’ll stop believing in them. P:KoK sets its characters up by telling us who they are and what’s important to them. And then everything that they do is because of those two things. They have to suffer the consequences of their decisions, both for good and for bad. There’s nothing complicated here, but it all works.
Lesson Three. Don’t explain everything, we don’t care. Big Alien Wants Big Fight, that’s it. Everything else is background detail and should remain there, in the background. If us scifi nerds want to delve deeper into this stuff2 then we’ll do it anyway. For god sake don’t slow the pace down by explaining stuff. Best case scenario: you ruin the mystery. Worst case scenario: you ruin the film. P:KoK has loads of interesting design stuff that it resolutely, point-blank refuses to slow down for. Blink and oh-no you’ve already missed it, too late there’s another explosion, guess you’re going to have to re-watch the film with your finger over the frame-skip button. There’s more interesting stuff happening in the background here than there is in the combined John Wick films and they last about five weeks.
In summary, this steps over the staggeringly low bar set by modern action films with ease. It’s not as great as Prey but it’s a lot of fun and keeps the anticipation up for Predator: Badlands.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
1. Yes, that’s what I’m calling it. ↩
2. And yes, yes we really do ↩
Tags: blog, film, action, 2025
Author: KickingK
Date: Sunday August 24th, 2025
Under supervised
There’s a much discussed scene near the start of this movie where Lois Lane stages an impromptu interview with Superman. She asks him difficult questions about his recent actions stopping a war, questions that unsettle and fluster him because he can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t take his actions at face value; that he’s saving lives. It’s an interesting scene as it reveals so much about his character, about how he sees the world through a simple premise, that as long as he’s motivated by virtue, his actions will be (and will be perceived as) virtuous.
The problem with this scene is that, bluntly, Lois Lane is an arsehole. She rattles Superman because she takes on the classic centrist, view-from-nowhere voice that ‘respectable’ newspaper writers habitually use. The one where “some people might say…” is used to speak utter bullshit but not be held responsible for saying it. Where the whims of an aggressive, multi-billion dollar, military-industrial state and a people’s right to exist are points of view that carry equal weight. Where facts and opinion are the same thing.
Superman even tries to call her on out on her bullshit, referring to her quoting warmongers in good faith as silly and dishonest, but lacks the ability to articulate just how offensive this shit is. She even admits that she’s trading on her ignorance to make her point but seems to consider that to be a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Later, Lois does some actual journalism and finds there is staggeringly obvious corruption involved in the war that makes her questioning of Superman seem embarrassingly naive. Maybe if she had taken the time to learn the first fucking thing regarding the subject she was ‘just asking questions’ about, her and the Daily Globe could have the exposed the corruption and lies and, if not stopped the invasion, helped Superman with the public relations battle.
It may seem a minor point but it really rankled me. It sets the tone for the rest of the film, which wants to acknowledge the precarious political situation we find ourselves in, but has none of the intelligence, articulation, curiosity or courage to have anything to say about it.
On the positive side, Krypto lights up the screen in every scene he’s in. Hawkgirl’s screech is a delight, Green Lantern’s haircut is a violation of my human rights. Crucially, we get a really good depiction of Superman. His sincerity and good faith shine constantly and is completely believable throughout the entire film.
Sadly, it’s the only believable thing in the film. Unlikeable, paper thin characters stumble their way through a series of black-hole sized plot-holes, all while weightless special effects whirl around with no relationship to physical reality or basic story telling.
A boring waste.
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, action, 2025
Author: KickingK
Date: Sunday August 10th, 2025
I put more effort into this review than was put into the making of this film
Terrible.
1 Star simply because it passes the Bechdel test like it's not even a thing.
Tags: blog, film, action, 2024
Author: KickingK
Date: Friday May 03rd, 2024
And Godzoooooky
This movie has literally everything I think of when I think of a Godzilla movie.
- Hammy acting
- Ensemble cast
- Main character with a tragic past looking for redemption
- Spectacular special effects
- Themes and metaphors
- Terrible special effects
It’s the themes part of that list that really stand out in Godzilla-1. PTSD, grief, survivors guilt, feeling betrayed by your own country, finding hope and family in the rubble of defeat. All of these, and probably a few more that I missed, are woven into the plot with great effect.
Admittedly, none of it is subtle and the script spells everything out for you like it’s teaching each concept to a small child. But that never stops it from being effective and frequently quite moving.
The Oscar winning special effects are superb. They manage to be both an homage to the original movies as well as being a modern special effects extravaganza. The scenes of Godzilla stomping around Ginza have this weird quality where the fidelity of the cgi, combined with the old-school monster design, make it look like a giant man in a rubber suit is actually flattening a city. It’s genius and goofy at the same time and I loved it.
The direction has an old-school feel to it as well. Shots are held for far longer than we’re used to in American movies, especially in action scenes. This results in a gradual building of tension and a feeling of reverence towards Godzilla. You feel like the film makers really want to do justice to the big-G and wanted the camera to linger on him long enough to appreciate just how great he is. Admittedly, it doesn’t generate the sense of thunder-struck awe that Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla managed but it comes surprisingly close.
Literally everything you could want in a monster movie.
Tags: blog, film, action, 2024, recommended
Author: KickingK
Date: Friday April 12th, 2024
Monkey Nuts
I don’t think I’ve read a single preview or review to this film that hasn’t mentioned The Raid. So let’s say this right from the start: this isn’t The Raid. It’s not as exciting and the fight scenes aren’t in the same league.
Having got that out the way, this is really impressive, imaginative stuff from Dev Patel.
It’s rare that action movies are overtly, consciously political. But Monkey Man is that rare beast. The story starts as a simple revenge story, but as Dev’s protagonist gradually and literally works his way up the Indian class/caste system he’s contextualised as a warrior for an entire underclass. This could end up being glib or trite, but the film commits to its politics as whole heartedly as it does to the violence. With its whole chest.
The use of music is absolutely superb, the soundtrack is practically a character in the movie. Its inventive, involving and, in one absolutely extraordinary fight scene, completely overwhelming.
So it’s not The Raid, it’s something very different and very much its own thing. More of this please.