MrHlad

A mediocre horror film about a monster that terrorizes a young girl invisibly. The only thing that sets It Lives Inside apart from the competition is its setting among immigrants from India and its use of their traditions and mythology. Otherwise, it is a routine horror film that surprises neither in plot nor in execution.

The Osage nation has found oil in their territory and became rich. But where there is money, there are people who want to get their hands on it, and they will be going over dead bodies. Martin Scorsese delivers a dense drama about human envy, anger and cruelty that is not entirely audience-friendly and forces you to spend three and a half hours in the company of repulsive people. Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro give brilliant performances here, but the slow pace and a narrative that doesn't rush anywhere demand more attention and patience from the audience than usual. Scorsese is uncompromising, so be ready to do your fair share of time with his newest film. And he's certainly not going to make it easy.

A reboot that probably no one in the world wanted. But Netflix smells money, so it gave Robert Rodriguez a chance to revive his series of family-friendly spy flicks that had long since squandered their potential, this time with even uglier visuals and even much (MUCH) worse child actors. Don't watch it. And if you have kids at home, do everything you can to hide the existence of this crap from them.

And the bubble has definitely burst, so if anyone thought that Gareth Edwards was a directorial genius who was forced out of Rogue One by the evil Disney, and Tony Gilroy only “finished his job for him”, they're in for a nasty clash with reality. The Creator is a beautiful looking film. Physical, full of cool gizmos, gadgets, robots, tanks, rockets, and generally beautiful to look at. It looks very decent in motion too, Edwards is quite adept at war action, and at some points his latest film is reminiscent of Terminator or Avatar; and also of the film we've been looking forward to since the trailers. But then there's a lot of things he can't do. Edwards is a brilliant designer, a decent executor and a lousy storyteller. The longer I watched The Creator, the more I actually felt sorry for him, because behind that veneer of great production design is a woefully banal story, told in an unimaginative and uninteresting way. All the clichés you can think of are there, even the ones that you'll think would be a bit embarrassing if someone used them. Besides, The Creator tries desperately to pretend to be something more and offer some philosophizing in addition to the simple story, but Edwards is woefully unable to work with it. And the more he tries to look clever and multi-layered, the more it becomes apparent how superficial and boring this film is as the running time progresses. Nice, but... shitty, I guess not, but just not very good, either.

A Haunting in Venice is very different from Kenneth Branagh's previous Poirot films. The less star-studded cast and smaller budget are not problem, the effort to use enclosed spaces for clever and spectacular camera games is nice, and it manages to be pleasantly creepy. An interesting and pleasant change. If Branagh plays with atmosphere and genre like this in future adaptations, I'll be happy to be there.

Banker Matt Turner finds out he has a bomb in his car and if he doesn't do what an unknown voice on the phone asks, he'll go up in smoke. And maybe he should do it to avoid making the audience suffer. Death Ride is a silly B-movie that is artificially stretched out and that shouldn't be longer than ninety minutes. It lacks suspense and ideas, and is predictable from beginning to end, and even annoying in how uninteresting it is. Liam Neeson has probably never made a worse action thriller.

A popular 15-year-old influencer had disappeared and young Nina found her photo on her father's mobile phone. To find out where she got it and what happened to the girl, she decides to track her down. But she may not be ready for the truth. #annaismissing is a well-written and directed whodunit with a great cast, and while the pacing gets a little shaky in the middle, it easily manages to compete with the rest of the world with its timeliness and craftsmanship. A confident film from confident filmmakers. And a damn good one.

Jaime Reyes didn't want to be a superhero, but an alien artifact chose him, so he has no choice. Now he must protect his family from an army of villains who would like to acquire his powers. Blue Beetle is an unexpectedly fine old-school comic book movie that has solid action, functional characters, and doesn't try to bludgeon the viewer with a bunch of overblown effects. It relies more on a likeable hero and shows that with superheroes, you really don't always have to make everything bigger and louder. Don't expect anything new or groundbreaking, but it's fine. And after flicks like The Flash and Ant-Man 3, that's actually enough.

Regie the dog has just been abandoned by his owner and he finds himself alone in the big city. Fortunately, he stumbles upon other stray dogs and sets out with them on a journey of revenge. Strays is a very simple comedy that stands and falls on harsh jokes, creative use of profanity and slapstick. Simple bollocks, but if you don't mind rougher humor, you'll have a good time for that hour and a half.

Jason Statham takes on the ruler of the primordial oceans for the second time. And although Meg 2 is more B-ish and less serious than the first, it's unfortunately not much better. The main problem lies in trying to cram in as many themes, ideas, digressions and horseshit that go nowhere, resulting in a film that is cluttered and at times almost tiresome. And the decent finale is spoiled by childish humour. Even in the context of summer crap, the second Meg is mediocre at best.