JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

You know I think it’s a little misleading to call the John Wick films action movies, they’re more like action-porn, but you know, high class action-porn with like a storyline and everything. Of course like any good action-porn, it starts with the action foreplay and teases us and teases us with all the potential gun-play and then we get hit the full-blown gun-porn going all over the walls, along with your back, neck and chest to the point where you’ll probably be spent before the end of the film. 

So Keanu Reeves is back as John Wick, a hired gun who kills like he’s Neo in The Matrix - however after killing eighty-four people in the last film over a dog and a stolen car, he is simply looking to retire once more; but when an old debt is called-in, John Wick must lock and load one more time for a gun-porn-extravaganza. Now this film could have easily run the risk of being another Taken 2 or Hangover 2 but instead, director Chad Stahelski delves further into the shady and clandestine assassin society and brings an assortment of new and returning actors with Deadwood’s Ian McShane returning and a Matrix reunion with Lawrence Fishburne. We also have Common as a hard-hitting assassin and Ruby Rose as, well, just a mute version of Ruby Rose, so you know, if that’s your thing… 

Much like the original, the film is incredibly creative with all it’s kills. Influenced from the Korean action movies, we have unflinching death-battles that involve Glock 17’s, Glock 26’s, AR-15’s, Benelli M4’s, fists, vehicles, pencils, knives and rope just to name a few. Once again, it’s more of a ballet of action sequences than the Jason Bourne-style shaky-cam of the last decade and it’s just as refreshing as it was in the first film mostly because they build so much on all the things you loved in the first one. There is an array of assassins, some cool, some funny, but all brutal killers; we have an expanded understanding of the secret societies John Wick is associated with and the film still plays with the extreme hard-hitting violence being broken up with a samurai-like respect for holy ground and moments of peace.

Of course don’t let the quiet moments fool you into thinking the film has pacing issues, the movie does some really clever editing to propel the narrative forward and for the most part you’re just white-knuckling it for the majority of the film. We delve deeper into the world both inside and outside of The Continental and before the credits roll and you’re clearly spent the filmmakers are good enough to confidently let us know that there’s another John Wick film coming and all I can say about that is: where can I buy my ticket for that film? 

John Wick Chapter 2 gets Four out of Five spent shell casings all over the walls, along with your back, neck and chest.

ALIEN: COVENANT: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

Space, where they only send the smartest dumb people to die, or is it the dumbest smart people, either way, space, the place people go to die. 

Remember when the Alien films were just straight-forward monster movies set in space where unsuspecting crews always wound up faced with one or more fearsome Xenomorphs? You know, we had two good ones, two not so good ones, those Alien Vs Predator movies that really shouldn’t count and then we had Ridley Scott come back to the series and decided that we needed a shit-ton of backstory, mythology and theological questions about the origins of human existence and the whole Alien-aspect of the movies can just kind of take a backseat. After Prometheus disappointed most fans and has been the subject of so many video essays on how just painfully dumb it was, does Alien Covenant fair any better? 

Set ten years after Prometheus we find ourselves on the spaceship Covenant, a deep space mission where vicious solar-winds cause the ship to lose it’s captain and in the process they intercept a distress signal that means the team diverts from their current mission to find another spaceship which ultimately leads to their doom (wait, wait, I know that that sounds like the synopsis to the movie Sunshine, but that is exactly how this film starts). So anyway, with over two thousand souls on board the Covenant, it is up to the fourteen brave crew who clearly skipped out on the three day training course that involved contamination and contagion control, to scout a new planet and avoid alien-creatures that don’t believe in personal boundaries. 

Look, I really wanted to like this film and it is a step up from Prometheus, but it still suffers from a lot of the same problems: a lot of pontificating about the meaning of life, a lot of people making very stupid decisions and a lot of characters you just don’t care about; Danny McBride is a stand-out plus the only good thing from Prometheus, Michael Fassbender, is back, and this time they double-down on him - which is both good and bad. There are some good points though, the film, much like Prometheus, looks great and this is all down to Ridley Scott, regardless of the varying quality of his work, he is a brilliant visual stylist. We get more Alien looking Aliens this time and the film seems to be heading in the right direction when it comes to connecting with the original films, all be it very slowly. 

There are pacing issues in the film, with yet again, too many ideas trying to be explored in a two hour runtime. Scott even went as far as producing a series of short films to help fill in some of the gaps which is great if you knew they were out there to watch, otherwise audiences unaware of these short films would just be wondering why big name actors only had thirty seconds of screen time in the actual film. Honestly, a lot of the elements in the short films could have been put into the actual film and they could have cut out some of the duller and unnecessary moments from the overall runtime. 

Overall, the film is still a disappointment, it is better than Prometheus, but not by much. When you bring back the director that started it all, you kind of hope that they remember what made the series so great in the first place: the original films thrived on regular people being out of their depths in an isolated location dealing with really horrific creatures. These last two films seem focused on characters with Icarus-Syndrome which ultimately makes them less empathetic to the audience. 

Alien Covenant gets Two out of Five Stars (or Two out of Five really overly ambitious ideas which make me yearn for the Neil Blomkamp Alien film that will never come…)

GET OUT: SPOILER-FREE REVIEW:

If the new intense Horror-Satire Get Out teaches us only one thing, it is do not go to meet the parents (as in do not go to meet the parents the event as opposed to do not go to Meet The Parents the movie - actually you know what, do not watch Meet The Parents the movie, it’s a horror, but in a completely different way.) Having just hit Australian shores, having dominated the American box office, Get Out is a must-see in theaters so that you don’t feel left out of everyone else’s conversation. 

So the story is about a young talented African-American photographer who goes to meet his caucasian girlfriends parents all the way out at their secluded family-estate, and once they arrive, something just doesn’t seem right. Now I’d love to tell you more but the less you know about the film the better. Honestly, going in as cold as possible is probably the best way to experience this well-crafted social-horror movie that explores so many aspects about racism in America, if not the wider world. 

Written and directed by comedian Jordan Peele, this film really explores the social awkwardness, the in-built racism and prejudice people can have, the out-and-out racism, along with the back-handed racism in a way that is tense, unnerving, uncomfortable, horrifying, but also incredibly funny. You'll be surprised how much you laugh in the film in between all the moments where you are covering your eyes. Not because the film is violent or gory , but because each scene, each moment is just shaped in a way where you are thinking and rethinking the words or actions of characters, you hold your breath as someone says something or your heart-rate picks up as two characters look at each other and you are wondering if this is going to be the lynchpin that sets off the horror you know is going to come. 

Now a lot of this is down to the way Jordan Peele drip-feeds information to you throughout the film. Things happen, people say things that can be taken multiple ways, and still you know very little about what is actually going on; You spend your time trying to piece story threads together, figure out people’s motivations and intentions, you start guessing and re-guessing what’s really happening with all these weird white people and even when things come to a head, you’re still questioning what’s really happening and if there are still more twists to come. 

Much like 2014’s It Follows, this film is effective in its horror with an understated approach. And where It Follows explored STDs, Get Out has something to say about how African-Americans are generalized and how even a perceived compliment can be an example of brutal back-handed racism. The film will have you talking afterwards, obviously after you’ve seen the doctor about what to do when you’ve bitten all your fingernails off, so don’t be left out of the conversation and get yourself to the cinemas to see what many are already calling not just the best Horror of the year, but the best film of the year. 

Get Out gets Four and Three-Quarter Stars out of Five (or Four and Three-Quarter fingernails bitten right down to your friggin’ knuckles)