David Ayer directs Odin, Brad Pitt and J.K. Simmons in this adventure movie where a disabled German Shepherd and its retired military handler have to survive the Alaskan wilderness after a plane crash.
Gritty Dad weepie with an excellent lead dog performance from Odin and Brad Pitt doing his Steve McQueen schtick. Did I like it? Of course. Is it basic as fuck? Yes, please.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Leave No Trace (2018)
Zach Cregger directs Austin Abrams, Zach Cherry and Paul Walter Hauser in this reboot of the survival horror video game series where a hapless courier is tasked with delivering a package to Raccoon City.
A splatterhouse rollercoaster. Cregger and Abrams replicate wonderfully the feeling of completing a game on easy mode and still only getting through each terrifying set piece by the skin of your teeth. Luck, slapstick, wild shooting, bad choices, body horror, extreme gore. The first 30 minutes has the finest colour use and framing in a horror movie since Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. It is a feast of bold visual choices. The fear factor is ramped up constantly. OK… so the finale is a bit too consistently goofy. But as 90 minute multiplex thrill rides go, there has never been a video game adaptation that is this much larks.
8
Perfect Double Bill: Wyrmwood: Road Of The Dead (2014)
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin
Frank Marshall directs Laura Linney, Tim Curry and Ernie Hudson in this Michael Crichton adventure novel adaptation when, after an expedition to the African Congo ends in disaster, a new team is assembled to find out what went wrong.
Congo was a mid-tier blockbuster that came in for a ton of flack for not being Jurassic Park. Not undeservedly but… what is? Yet it is one of my wife’s guilty pleasures and it grows on me. The male lead is a blank but this allows Curry, Hudson and animatronic ape heroine Amy to gloriously steal focus. All three ham it up shamelessly and you kinda wish the nerds were cannon foddered off by the start of the second act. There are a couple of wild set pieces but it is hard to care about the main plot. It is a flimsy excuse to hang the good, the variable FX and the bad off of. This will probably move up to a cheeky 7 next watch.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Medicine Man (1992)
George A. Romero directs Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan and Michael Rooker in this Stephen King adaptation.
King’s novel about a pen name pseudonym come to life to kill everyone in an author’s life involved in his “cancellation”. A solid adaptation of the book that resurrects the plot but little of the nasty, seedy atmosphere. Only a giallo tinged New York sequence matches the lurid highlights of the book. Hutton is too boring for the dual role. This one has young Nic Cage written all over it. Needs that wild, unpredictable intensity. Or Jean-Claude Van Damme… solely as he likes sharing the screen with himself. Timothy Hutton: The Dull Half… Am I Right!?
5
Perfect Double Bill: Stephen King’s Thinner (1996)
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Brett Ratner directs Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson in this heist caper where a couple of master thieves retire to an idyllic tropical island paradise only to be dragged into a final job by the disgraced FBI agent they bamboozled.
I seriously think this script started life as a TV pilot spec script. The first hour is zippy, enjoyable, close to undemanding brilliance. A glorious vehicle for an enviable starry ensemble. Then it utterly, completely goes off the boil. Like the final half and hour is just a holding pattern with no impact. Woody was firing on all cylinders while Pierce and Salma looks like a billion mega bucks. How can something so effortlessly throwaway just buckle at completion? Reshoots? Studio interference? Marvellous to meh in one scene change.
6
Perfect Double Bill: The Tailor of Panama (2001)
Dan Scanlon directs Tom Holland, Chris Pratt and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in this Pixar adventure cartoon where teenage elf brothers Ian and Barley embark on a magical quest to spend one more day with their late father.
Good solid comedy quest with that expected light satirical edge. This one was a real orphan of lockdown with multiplexes shutting up shop as Covid became a reality just after its opening weekend. I doubt it would have been a record breaker in a normal release schedule but actually it plays less heavy handed and more pleasurable than most recent Pixars.
6
Perfect Double Bill: Soul (2020)
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin
Gareth Johnson directs Mackenzie Shirilla, Dominic Russo, and Davion Flanagan in this true crime documentary about a wannabe influencer teen who killed her older boyfriend and school mate in a head on collision with a brick wall.
Seems like a nice girl. Top parents too.
6
Perfect Double Bill: The Perfect Neighbour (2026)
Alfonso Cuarón directs Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and Ed Harris in this sci-fi thriller where an astronaut is adrift in space after her station is destroyed.
Ticking clock claustrophobia in a spacesuit. Painstakingly made and mapped out. But also pretentious as fuck and very artificial looking. Sandy is way out of her wheelhouse… a rarity. I like her so much as a movie star but this needed someone a jolt grittier. She comes across as annoying. Like someone put a soccer mom on a space mission. This is actually the perfect role for a Kidman, a Chastain or a Streep. The protagonist should match the icy, bleak void they are marooned in. Probably the last time I’ll give this overrated blockbuster a chance.
5
Perfect Double Bill: Stowaway (2021)
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Jeremy Saulnier directs Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson and AnnaSophia Robb in this thriller where a former Marine grapples his way through a web of small-town corruption when an attempt to post bail for his cousin escalates into a violent standoff with the local police chief.
A little bit Jack Reacher, a little bit Rambo. Slow burn, deliberate. Saulnier is the king of whispered bubbling stove pot action. Johnson is delicious as the villain.
8
Perfect Double Bill: Blue Ruin (2013)
Mark Waters directs Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, and Emma Stone in this romcom where the spirits of jilted lovers take a cad photographer on an odyssey through his many failed relationships.
Early Emma Stone is the standout here. She sparkles, clearly hungry to make her mark on Hollywood. The script is light on actual jokes and charm and romance. McConaughey sleepwalks through it. You can definitely tell it is the work of the Mean Girls director. It has that vibe but not the momentum or quality. Passable brain rot.
4
Perfect Double Bill: Failure To Launch (2006)
I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin
