The Boy and the Beast (2015)

The Boy and the Beast (2015)

 

6/10

Starring the voices of

Eric Vale

John Swasey

Bryn Apprill

 

Directed by Mamoru Hosoda

 

The anime The Boy and the Beast is predictable, and it is still an easy-going anime anyone can sit down and enjoy. I liked the voice casting, and I enjoyed the dub more than the sub, and the animation is not setting any groundbreaking thing.

It follows a runaway young boy named Ren who gets pulled into a world of beasts and lands as the reluctant student of Kumatetsu, a lonely, undisciplined warrior nobody else wants to follow.

In the Beast Kingdom, the grandmaster has decided he will retire in order to reincarnate as a deity and names two potential successors, Lōzen who is popular with many disciples and Kumatetsu, who is lonely, brash and has nobody wanting to study under him. The Grandmaster suggests that Kumatetsu find a disciple, believing that this will bring out a side of Kumatetsu that will make it easy for him to succeed.

So one day, while wandering the streets of Tokyo with his friend he meets Ren and suggests that the boy becomes his disciple.

Kumatetsu asked for his name, but head strong Ren refused to share his name and so he called him Kyuta. Now, neither of them can teach or be taught and that's the whole film.

A master who can't explain what he does and a kid who won't listen, and as you would expect in films like this, they both find a way to make it work. The training, the fights, the two of them screaming at each other in the street. It all followed a familiar beat but that ending, it was like a stab in the back for all that was building towards it.

Ichirohiko is the film's real tragedy, a human raised his whole life believing he's a beast, then there is this darkness in humans which then takes over him.

But where was this darkness brewing from?

Well the movie gave glimpse, but none of the glimpse made his character transformation sink in.

His character needed more screen time instead of being pushed to the side. Now we know the focus is Kyuta and Kumatetsu, but then why resolve their arc in Ichirohiko's.

And then there's Moby Dick reference, as in it just did not fit.

You see, Kyuta reads the book on screen, and when Ichirohiko turns we see a whale like darkness.

The film hands you the metaphor of something, does not explain it, then it just leaves it there. A giant whale explodes out of the pavement in the final act, and it looks incredible, and I still don't know why it mattered.

And it is not because the film trusted me to work it out. Because it never finished the thought it started.
Look, it is an ok watch, but it is no must see.

Resident Evil (2026)

Resident Evil (2026)

 

7/10

 

Starring

Austin Abrams

 

Directed by Zach Cregger

 

Resident Evil is one of the most memorable times I've had at the cinema this year, and I loved it. Zach Cregger built his name on Barbarian and Weapons, pure horror, no jokes getting in the way. Then he takes on Resident Evil and brings the comedy back in, and arguably this could can be the best video game movie ever made.

The acting by Austin Abrams is just next level, he was able to capture the feel of what a POV Raccon City will be. Everybody else around him pales in comparison to the way he carried this movie that there were times it looked like I was watching a gameplay. That credit also goes to Zach Cregger for being able to create that mood.

The story is about a medical courier Bryan agrees to take a last-minute package to Raccoon General Hospital in Raccoon City, in the snowy mountains. Well if you have played the Resident Evil games you know that is one journey nobody should ever make, he got to Raccoon city in the middle of the outbreak and he had to survive.

Now Bryan was not spectacular, he was selfish and a bit greedy because he only got himself in this position because of the money.

Now, I missed horror like this, gore mild, jump scare not scattered everywhere and comedy from a POV average joe in Raccon City. The movie tone touched a lot of genre. We see Bryan, cursing about a ladder he threw away, furious that an acid monster melted his Jordans. That's not a tonal mistake, that's the whole point. A normal person thrown into a zombie outbreak does not suddenly become an action hero with one liners.

He panics, he complains, he makes bad jokes because that's what fear sounds like when it isn't scripted for cool.

This movie made its whole Ninety-three minutes’ worth it. Cregger doesn't waste time setting up jump scares you can see coming a mile away, he made a movie that worked, kept you on your toes and had a release valve.

Horror without any relief is exhausting and comedy without dread is empty.

Cregger clearly understood that a film this short, this violent, needed pressure valves or the whole thing collapses into noise.

Now this movie was not perfect, the ending was a bit of a nose dive to the wonderful setup, I just stood there wondering what is keeping these scientists from stabbing this guy with the cure.

Anyways, the movie is still live at the cinema’s, so everyone needs to go see this it is worth the time.

 

Supergirl (2026)

 Supergirl (2026)

6/10

Starring

Milly Alcock

Matthias Schoenaerts

Eve Ridley

David Krumholtz

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Alright, I was waiting to see this.

Curious to see how James Gunn would adapt Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, where Kara went on this journey with Ruthye to save her soul from getting corrupted by vengeance.

Now that I have seen it and witnessed all of the changes from the comic, I will say sometimes creative liberty can ruin a good story.

Let me get this out of the way, I enjoyed the movie, I felt it was not bad.

But this is a step down from Superman. Look, Milly Alcock was wonderful as Kara, and so was Eve Ridley as Ruthye.

The Supergirl and Ruthye dynamic worked for me, as it was good acting from the start, but where it messes up is when Ruthye's character went from daring to silly. More than once she walked up to Krem to try and fight him and get revenge.

Anyways, Kara's character was also written in a way that oversold the "I do not care about anything anymore" phase.

Like, she's at the bar taking on everyone, then on the ship taking on everyone, and all that taking on everyone felt more like chaos than anything actually moving the story forward. It reached a point where I was thinking, what happened to subtlety, to actually getting things done quietly?

Then we have Jason Momoa as Lobo. Look, pick any scene with him and you'll see his presence didn't matter. In the bar, he did nothing. When chaos broke out outside, he was more of a thorn. Even when he was captured alongside Ruthye and until he left, he was just there to move the plot along, with no real impact.

My best scene, hands down, was Kara getting knocked off the ship, flying straight to the sun to recharge, then getting hit by a beam from the ship and pushing it right back with her own eye beam.

Fun effects were on display there, and they made that scene shine.

Like I said, this is based on a comic, and I finished the movie wondering, why not follow the comic logic?

You see, the whole Krypto needs an antidote setup felt like a flimsy excuse to get Kara involved. In the comic, the reason Kara got involved was to keep Ruthye from becoming someone who's actually killed a person.

So this movie is more, set this girl loose on the world and watch her beat everyone in her path to get what she wants.

Look, I will be lying if I say this is not worth seeing, I enjoyed it. So if you want to go see it, prepare for chaos.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

 Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

7/10

Starring

Pedro Pascal

Jeremy Allen White

Brendan Wayne

Lateef Crowder

Directed by Jon Favreau

Call me a softy, but I feel The Mandalorian and Grogu is a good movie.

I have been in love with the series from the start, and The Mandalorian series is the best series in the Star Wars franchise to me, just as Rogue One is the best movie from the franchise to me. Now this movie, is like a very long The Mandalorian episode.

The class of this movie itself is not to try and win new people over to love the characters, it is to give us, the old guys, something we want, another taste of the adopted family. This is because the movie just continues from where the third season ended.

And if Disney was hoping this would win new people over, then they are teasing themselves.

So if you are new to the series and are curious about it, the best way to put this is, if you liked Cowboy Bebop or the TV series Firefly, then this movie is for you.

Now, I will say what this has is a very nice story that is focused on many things, and rounds everything up a little too neatly.

One of my main criticisms of the movie, other than the fact that the way it is written will not win new people over, is the level of luck that plays on the Mandalorian's side. It is a bit too much, to the point that it removes a lot of the consequences.

So there was no real high moment, just me knowing that he will always find a way out of any situation he is in.

The series always played on the dynamic of the two, and this movie has that dynamic already formed, so we just watch them do jobs together.

So they are meant to go capture Rotta the Hutt for the Twin Hutts, who have now taken over since Jabba the Hutt's death.

Rotta is the son of Jabba and the twins' nephew. The twins told the New Republic that if they help get their nephew back, they will give them information on someone who is working with the Galactic Empire, a person unknown to them.

Ward, a colonel of the New Republic, wants this person's name, so the Mandalorian was hired to go get Rotta the Hutt for the twins.

Now that entire journey, from finding Rotta, breaking him out, discovering who the person working for the Empire was, the Mandalorian almost dying, and Grogu saving him, was the whole height of the movie.

Everything before then was a long setup, which only The Mandalorian fans will be able to tolerate, and new people may find very boring.

I will be honest, I did not expect less from the cast in this movie, and they delivered. I was surprised to see that Ward was played by Sigourney Weaver, who delivered masterclass acting as expected. The movie boasts of some great effects, which is still in the level of the Star Wars franchise and allowed the story to breathe.

I will be honest, I never saw a clip of the trailers before going to see this because I knew it was The Mandalorian and Grogu, so the chances of me not loving it were almost zero.

So, I highly recommend it for Star Wars fans and fans of the series, but anyone new will need to do some reading or watch the three seasons to know what is going on and understand the connection between the Mandalorian and Grogu.

Toy Story 5 (2026)

 Toy Story 5 (2026)

6/10

Starring the voices of

Tom Hanks

Tim Allen

Joan Cusack

Conan O'Brien

Scarlett Spears

Directed by Andrew Stanton

The main challenge many of us have is, will Toy Story 5 be any good?

The answer is, it is still good.

Toy Story 5 is not bad. I'll recommend it, but it's not magical the way the first four were.

Disney has built an IP they can milk for as long as we keep going back to see the tale of the toys we all met with Andy back in 1995, when I was 10.

Fair warning, the first half feels like a rehash of Toy Story 1, this time it's Bonnie drifting from her toys to Lilypad, her tablet. You know how kids are these days with their phones and tablets, many don't know how to make real friends without one in between.

The whole movie is really Jessie having an existential crisis over losing Bonnie's attention to a screen. She loses herself wondering if she's a bad toy because of it, and calls Woody for reassurance. He takes the call the wrong way, thinks she needs rescuing, and that misread is what gets the whole crew back together again, though honestly, the reunion wasn't anywhere near as grand as I expected.

Running through all of it, right to the ending, Buzz is trying to propose to Jessie. That thread alone kept me more entertained than most of the main plot.

The whole focus here is on Jessie, she's the lead now, responsible for Bonnie's happiness.

Jessie ends up lost on the road after Bonnie leaves her in the car during a sleepover. An old couple finds her, and since she still has her old owner Emily's address on her heel, they bring her there, thinking she still belongs to her.

Emily's gone, but a girl named Blaze lives there now, going through the same screen and lack of real friends phase as Bonnie, and Jessie ends up dealing with Blaze's own gadgets along the way.

So the whole movie is Jessie discovering someone she believes would be the best kind of friend for Bonnie, and now she needs to find a way to get them to meet.

When it comes to the voice casting, I have to say the nostalgia of the old ones is something that warmed my heart, and the new ones were just so good that they fit in easily.

The one thing in this whole movie that really had me going what, and didn't sit well with me, is Lilypad hacking devices in Bonnie's home and sending fake text messages to manipulate and steer outcomes.

My real takeaway, this is worth it for Jessie's arc alone. The depth they gave her, her past, how she ends up teaching two kids that being different matters more than fitting in, that's this movie in a nutshell.

Still, I'd call this above average for the Toy Story standard.

Spawn (1997)

 Spawn (1997)

7/10

Starring

Michael Jai White

John Leguizamo

Martin Sheen

Theresa Randle

Directed by Mark A.Z. Dippé

I can't, I just can't. You have no idea how cool movies were in the 90s, the one-punch kills, the silly effects, those times when talking a certain way with silly one-liners was the thing.

Every time I sit to watch an old 90s movie, like I did watching Spawn, I am taken to a new world. My attention locks in, sucked into the nostalgia, when a frown and a one-liner were all you needed to tell everyone you're the cool protagonist. Spawn is just all that.

This movie got laid into for the liberty it took drifting away from the comics, but I liked it back then, and seeing it now, I still like it. The acting was cool, the characters had intent, and Michael Jai White as Spawn was given to us with so much pain, his portrayal was cool. I felt this movie should have had two more parts to complete the whole feel of the war between heaven and hell.

If you haven't seen Spawn by now, don't, unless you love 90s action films, then you'll love this.

The plot follows Al Simmons, a government assassin who was murdered and sent to hell for his sins. He's sent back as a Hell Spawn, with a handler, The Violator, played by John Leguizamo, and if you know him, you'll love him here. His acting in the fat suit was amazing. Spawn is sent back to lead Hell's warriors and bring forth Armageddon.

The thing with Spawn is, he came back with his memories and just wanted the life he had back, his life with his wife Wanda, who by the time he came back from hell had moved on, with no one other than his best friend.

So what you are watching is a man meant to be on the side of hell, fighting to be on the side of just being left alone to grieve the loss of his life.

The fighting in this movie is with guns, less with hands, and the thing that always stays with me is the cape, the cape effect in this movie is something to see. Don't judge it with the eyes of 2026 and all that Marvel polish, judge it with the eyes of a kid watching this in 1997.

All that said, the story does feel rushed as there is a thin understanding between the fight of Heaven and Hell. Then when it comes to the side characters, they are thinly written, this movie feels like it needed two more parts to breath and deliver.

Now, if you have not seen the animated series that followed this movie, then please do.

It is dark, mature viewing, 18 episodes across three seasons that do better justice to the comics than the movie did. But that said, this is a classic 90s movie that gave me nostalgia overload.

And I recommend it any day for anyone who loves the 90s.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)

3/10

Starring the voices of

Chris Pratt

Anya Taylor-Joy

Charlie Day

Jack Black

Keegan-Michael Key

 

Directed by: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

 

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is soulless and boring, even though it is well animated. For a movie which already had a good layup from the massive take in of the first movie, this to me was a big letdown. This movie was done by Illumination Studios and based on all the work they have been doing, I am starting to think all these sequels are beginning to burn out their creativity, because this movie is all about nostalgic references with an all-star voice cast, which I have to say were epic.

Now remember how the first movie had the Peaches moment, where Bowser was singing that wonderful song with the beautiful Jack Black showing off his vocal range? Well, this movie does not have anything like that, there is no magic moment, no key thing that made me go, “Hey! This happened.”

All I have is a wonderful voice cast, which represented each character in a way I would think they would sound in my head, and animation filled with stuffed references like the producers had a checkmark on all the game references they needed to get done.

So, as you know, the movie is an adaptation of the Super Mario game, specifically Super Mario Galaxy, and it features two princesses, Peach and Rosalina, alongside Mario, Luigi, Toad, Yoshi, Bowser and Bowser Jr.

Here is what the movie is actually about. We get a glimpse of the past in this story of Rosalina and Peach as sisters, when Rosalina sent Peach to the Mushroom Kingdom to keep her safe.

Now the movie itself starts with Bowser Jr. kidnapping Rosalina, and one of the Lumas she cares for escapes and reaches Peach to tell her what happened. Peach leaves to rescue her sister and puts Mario and Luigi in charge of the Kingdom. Bowser Jr. then attacks the Mushroom Kingdom trying to free his father Bowser, who at this point is a miniaturised prisoner in Peach's castle and genuinely trying to reform himself.

Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Bowser end up on their own trail across space trying to find Peach. Bowser was so reformed that even when he got his size and power back, he stayed with Mario. When Bowser Jr. eventually rescues his father, he is able to pull Bowser back to the dark side by reminding him of who he is.

The story that ties them all together is thin and jumps from what is supposed to be a redemption father and son arc for Bowser, to a save the princess, save the universe arc for Peach. Then there is the connection between Princess Peach and Princess Rosalina as sisters and, let me not forget, a small taste of romance brewing between Mario and Peach.

There are too many things happening in this movie and nothing sticks, it all plays around a reference stuffed animation that, if not for the coffee, I would have dozed off.

So yes, the animation is good, colourful and memorable, the voice casting is amazing and I specifically enjoyed hearing Jack Black again, and worth noting, Brie Larson as Rosalina and Donald Glover as Yoshi were both excellent, but that is about it for this movie as it was just lacking anything that could have made it matter.

So I think you have a better chance of enjoying yourself playing the game again than going to see this movie.