Barbie and Renfield

Movies with affirmations.

Barbie

When stereotypical barbie (Margot Robbie) starts having dark thoughts, she embarks on a quest from her idyllic Barbieland to find the troubled girl passing these feelings onto her. Expect a high volume of pink and some excellent set designs (in Barbieland) coupled with strange effects and a messy, empowering plot. It has some funny moments and some nice speeches that then compete with some musical numbers (props to Ryan Gosling) and oddly crazier goons in the real world. While it was interesting learning about the toy line I can't help but feel a bit disappointed based on how "good" it was meant to be. It's not bad, it's just ok and maybe that's "K"enough?

Renfield

Dracula (Nicolas Cage) is a tough and evil task master and for centuries his familiar Renfield (Nicholas Hault) has been doing his dark bidding, but now finding himself in a self-help group for people in codependent relationships (he was looking for victims to feed his master) he finds himself wanting to change. This dark flick has some pretty funny segments as well as surprisingly good and gory/bloody action sequences that really tick the boxes for me. Bonus points that Nic Cage's Dracula is excellent for something that doesn't take itself too seriously. Recommended as I enjoyed this, certainly more than the Barbie movie. It's shorter too!

Birds of Prey and the Rise of the Black Swan

Two action movies that go in completely different directions.

Birds of Prey

"and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn" is a really long winded way to get the Harley Quinn name into this title which actually takes place in between Suicide Squad and The Suicide Squad. Told from Harley's point of view this takes place right after she gets dumped by the Joker which removes her "protection" from all the many people she has wronged. Margot Robbie does a great job again as Harley, but the intentional disjointed story telling at the start as well as her narrating the tale really does make it suffer a bit, along with the usual blind luck and idiot bad guys that seem to permeate superhero shows. There's also an obvious boys vs girls theme going on which should be expected.

That said it still is quite entertaining to watch if you can stick with it, and there are some really good fight scenes thrown in - especially one which lets Harley display her proficiency with a bat. If she wasn't crazy I'd say she should always be carrying one! Definitely one for Margot Robbie or Harley Quinn fans and one that should at least be on the radar for action fans. For kicks my wife also tried recreate the breakfast sandwich featured here and it was pretty good, so there's that too! Not the best superhero flick but not a terrible one either. I give it three diamonds out of five, and I'd only watch the bat fight scene again.

SAS: Rise of the Black Swan

Hunting season is open!

A band of train hijackers have a wrench thrown into their plans as SAS operative Tom Buckingham (Sam Heughan) happens to be onboard for a vacation. An excellent script, exciting action sequences and good acting all around make this a very enthralling movie with very few slow parts. Also, now I know about the Channel Train tunnel between England and France which is probably common knowledge to most people but that was a new one for me.

Yes the baddies do goof a bit, especially at the end, but that just makes for a more exiting tale. Highly recommended for action fans, Outlander fans, or simply fans of good movies as this "Die Hard on a train" will satisfy most viewers. I'd definitely watch it again and give it four train loos out of five.

F9 (Fast and Furious 9) and The Suicide Squad

A contrast of what to do with large casts.

F9 (Fast & Furious 9)

Plot armor front and center.

Dominic Torreto's (Vin Diesel) quiet life is interrupted when his crew come to him for help on an urgent mission which involves a lot of vehicles, explosions, and a few decent fight scenes. Plot wise though... the writers must have looked at the previous movies and said "how can we make this even more ludicrous?" They succeeded.

Gangsta's in space yo

Almost nothing makes sense in this film so if you watch it, it is purely for the spectacle of the action scenes and to see them use the "oh this character isn't actually dead" again trope which they've already previously done. Much like bloat of superhero shows these days if the writers are braver in pruning characters (especially favorites) I think it would make for a stronger series. As it stands I don't think I'd give it a second viewing and score this two space cars of five.

The Suicide Squad

A high death count makes for a great movie.

They're a fun bunch!

Much better than the previous Suicide Squad, this movie again throws criminals with special abilities into an important yet dangerous mission in a foreign country. It is funny, gory, violent and very entertaining. The main crew are quite likeable this time around, and surprisingly it is Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) who seems to be the odd-girl out with an unnecessary side plot but she is fantastic as usual so I'll let that slide. Not much else to say other than I highly recommend it and would definitely watch it again! Four starfish out of five!

Suicide Squad

Too many characters, not enough development.

When the government decides to leverage "gifted" criminals into working as a team against an equally overpowered foe, one has to ask what could go wrong?. "Plenty," is the correct answer. The plot features a fair bit of action with good effects that go eclectic at times but not much else as it is mired in clumsy story telling.

Part of the problem is having too many characters who don't actually need to be there (similar to my Thor: Ragnarok review). Captain Boomerang, Killer Croc and Katana could easily be dropped. Acting wise everyone (except the overly "dancey" main bad guy) is ok, with Margot Robbie (Harley) being fantastic. I had reservations with Will Smith being Deadshot but he pulls it off well enough when he isn't wearing a pimp hat.

Could have halfed the team and made a better story.

I also liked Jared Leto's Joker, but again his use in most of the non-flashback segments feels forced. I should mention the antagonists of the film make little sense too, but with everything else going sideways they just get a shrug. I give this 2.5 floating rings of trash out of 5, and can't really recommend it to anyone.