Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary

Jared Bush and Byron Howard direct Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman and Ke Huy Quan in this buddy cop animated sequel from Disney where brave rabbit cop Judy Hopps and her morally dubious friend, the fox Nick Wilde, team up again to crack a new case.

It feels begrudging to dismiss this as more of the same. But does a hit sequel need to be anything else? To both films credit, they play with visual scale in a way lost since the heyday of Looney Tunes and Max Fleischer.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Hoppers (2026)

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Jaume Collet-Serra directs Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman and Sofia Carson in this thriller where an airport security agent is blackmailed into allowing a deadly suitcase to pass through his scanner.

I think Taron Egerton is grand. Really likeable everyman, physically convincing in action. This could be his audition for a Die Hard reboot or M:I torch passing. Not that I want either of those things to happen. (I also realise now I forgot to write a diary entry for his Tetris movie… Doh!) The thriller itself is slick but only the middle act has that true special sauce. It lets him off the hook to run around and be the he-man hero way too early into the dilemma. And Bateman, bless his smarmy sitcom socks, ain’t a particularly memorable villain. Merry Christmas!

7

Perfect Double Bill: Non-Stop (2014)

André Øvredal directs Corey Hawkins, Aisling Franciosi and Liam Cunningham in this adaptation of the chapter in Bram Stoker’s Dracula which most films skip.

Solid period horror which probably would struggle to find its audience any decade of my lifetime. All the ingredients are there for a The Thing inspired paranoid classic but we know too much of what is going on from the off.

6

Perfect Double Bill: Dracula: A Love Story (2025)

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

Mike Hodges directs Rosanna Arquette, Jason Robards and Tom Hulce in this eerie erotic thriller where a religious medium has a vision of a hit-man killing his target.

Truly wanted to like this one a whole bunch more but it is spaced out and ponderous. Every frame has an emptiness to it making scenes awkwardly lifeless. It is almost like Hodges treats every set and every set piece like a liminal space we are ambling through by accident. There is definite intent behind this choice of mood but it doesn’t make for a very sticky thriller. Robards is always top value. Love him. And Arquette in various states of hotel horny undress is a silver lining. She brings her own energy to a rare top billed lead protagonist role.

4

Perfect Double Bill: The Linguini Incident (1991)

Corey Yuen directs Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock and John Sham in this Hong Kong martial arts movie where two female cops team up to catch a gang of incompetent petty thieves who are in too deep with the big villains.

An absolute blast when it is focusing on Yeoh and / or Rothrock. Our Michelle gets a vibrant cold open where a flasher sting operation mutates into thrilling Dirty Harry inspired shotgun carnage in the streets. Rothrock has us at hello by performing a kick up over the back of her own shoulders that bends the laws of physics. The comedy subplot involving the bumbling crims is the curse of this genre. These longueurs are too broad and diverts us away from the buddy cop powerhouse we bought the Blu Ray for.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Royal Warriors (1986)

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Oliver Stone directs Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas and Daryl Hannah in this drama set around the world of stock prices, hostile takeovers, insider trading and Faustian pacts.

Expose as advert. I wanna say this is Stone’s slickest, most mainstream film. It sells a lifestyle it hates, it moves like a thriller with no peril. It works as Sheen is every inch the movie star incarnate yet he lacks the vulnerability, like-ability and humanity of a Cruise / Hanks / Emilio. If Charlie Sheen started his career today… you’d think he was AI. Douglas on the other hand was born to play this tailored devil. A bastard man, corporate evil on two legs, who you can’t help but love. How dare these corrupted, venal souls betray Gordon Gekko!?

9

Perfect Double Bill: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

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

François Ozon directs Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder and Pierre Lottin in this adaptation of Camus’ existential classic where in 1930s Algeria, the daily life of an indifferent Frenchman is shaken by the death of his mother and a fateful encounter on a beach.

I have read The Stranger a couple of times and this is a very straight adaptation. And I say that recognising the queer coding in a few interactions plus the attempts to at least acknowledge that the Arab killed is a human being with a name and a life. Let’s not dust down the parade floats just yet. This is still very much focussed on Meursault’s ennui and nihilism. It isn’t like the murder victim is given any sort of depth or external life. Just a name on a tombstone. That aside, the first half is lush and horny. Ozon casts this with a lot of the beautiful young talent he has brought up over the last ten years. Marder and especially Lottin are incandescent. The second half is a bit more of a slog. We don’t gain any deeper insight into Meursault’s rejection of life and the justice system scenes become repetitive. Where did all those gorgeous monochrome sex scenes go?

7

Perfect Double Bill: Summer Of 85 (2020)

Kristoffer Borgli directs Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Alana Haim in this dark comedy where the perfect romance between two soon new to be weds is ruined when one reveals a disturbing confession from their youth.

Kristoffer Borgli directs high concept movies set in the zeitgeist like nobody else. Two of the biggest stars in Hollywood go for broke in something that is simultaneously awkward as fuck but also incredibly accessible. Moony, abrasive and glib often in a single moment. It is a sticky enough dilemma and compulsive enough execution that you want to revisit it straightaway. Shout out to co-editor Joshua Raymond Lee as the opening 15 of this is spellbinding fast work storytelling. And Alana Haim has cornered the market for rage filled Jewish hotties. Is she Gen Z’s Susie Essman?

8

Perfect Double Bill: Licorice Pizza (2021)

Roger Spottiswoode directs Mel Gibson, Robert Downey Jnr and Nancy Travis in this action comedy based around the CIA’s illegal air network of death wish pilots who flew cargo around Asia in the Sixties.

Has all the ingredients of a Saturday Night sizzler. The end product proves a better VHS rental trailer than a fully fledged movie. It doesn’t congeal. It needed to stew up to work. There just isn’t enough wisecracking buddy comedy explosion peril. Not as much you would desire, or were promised. Riggs and Iron Man are at the peaks of their respective addictions but let’s assume the energy they bring is from pure A-List star power. What if Good Morning Vietnam had some kick ass flying stunts? A one-watcher with some memorable pyrotechnics, extraneous subplots and a wimpy goody two shoes wrap-up.

6

Perfect Double Bill: American Made (2017)

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Phil Joanou directs Sean Penn, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman in this gangster thriller where an undercover cop tries to infiltrate the New York Irish mob he grew up around.

Stellar cast. This one has always been on my bucket list. We watched it on St Patrick‘s Day. Which shows you how far I am behind with the movie diary at the mo. A dog’s dinner of cliches that wriggles about in tone unconvincingly. The action is operatic but the plot is looser than the ocean. Are any of these actors of actual Irish descent? Oldman is in scenery chewing mode playing a heterosexual version of Eric Roberts in the superior The Pope Of Greenwich Village. Robin Wright puts in the best shift and makes more out of a part that only needs her to look sexy, worried or sexily worried. Ed Harris replaced Bill Pullman after the first week of shooting. He phones it in but Pullman would have been horrifically miscast. The action is filmed like an art gallery installation which makes the big operatic tragedy largesse play very, very daft.

5

Perfect Double Bill: The Departed (2006)