Jujutsu Kaisen 0 – Film Review

Posted on March 29, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Sunghoo Park

Writer: Hiroshi Seko

Starring: Megumi Ogata, Kana Hanazawa, Mikako Komatsu, Koki Uchiyama, Tomokazu Seki, Yuichi Nakamura, Takahiro Sakurai

Rating: ★★★★

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is a prequel film to the anime show Jujutsu Kaisen, and is also based on the prequel manga of the same name. It works as both a standalone film for newcomers to the series as well as for fans of both the anime and original manga.

Everything changes for Yuta, when his curse murders four children who had been bullying him at school. His life is spared, and he is taken by Satoru Gojo to be trained at Jujutsu High. While in the school Yuta learns about curses and teams up with his classmates to save people and destroy curses. The power that Yuta holds in his own curse is immense, granting him special rank straight away, but at the same time draws attention from unwanted enemies who want the power for themselves.

The story follows the manga pretty closely, padding it out a little in places to make the feature length running time, but still a beat-by-beat adaptation. It’s completely accessible to people who’ve never even heard of the series before, with everything explained to Yuta as he enters the school. It’s also an essential part of the story for fans of the anime, and deepens the lore of the world of Jujutsu Kaisen.

The animation is sleek and great to watch, especially during the fight sequences. It’s exciting and tense, with crisp animation and you’re always completely sure what’s happening. The fights are big, but they never seem too chaotic or messy. Adding to that is the simply amazing hard rock soundtrack that accompanies the action. It’s intense and completely grabs your attention.

While there is a lot of fighting and action, with the last half hour being one long fight, there’s also a lot of room for characters. Yuta is an interesting character, you feel the guilt he feels over the bullies deaths at the beginning. His curse is the manifestation of Rika, his childhood friend who died in a car accident. After her death she becomes a curse and joins Yuta to keep him safe. The other characters in the school also have their own interesting back stories and are all really well written. Inumaki has the power to kill with his voice, and only speaks in onigiri ingredients. There’s a panda, who is fun and scary. There’s also Maki, who Yuta teams up with early on. She’s hesitant at first, but grows to like Yuta during the journey.

Overall, the film is fast paced and completely captivating. Whether you’re familiar to the world or completely new to it, this is a must-see film. There’s so many great characters, the action is simply flawless, and the music is intense.

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The Bad Guys – Film Review

Posted on March 28, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Pierre Perifel

Writers: Etan Cohen and Hilary Winston

Starring: Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Anthony Ramos, Craig Robinson, Awkwafina, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh, and Alex Borstein

Rating: ★★★★

The Bad Guys is an animated film based on the series of children books written by Etan Cohen, who also co-wrote the film. It’s one of those children’s films that works for people of all ages, being funny, beautifully animated, and pure fun for everyone.

Mr Wolf (Sam Rockwell) leads a gang of thieves, known as The Bad Guys. Joining him is Snake (Marc Maron), Phirana (Anthony Ramos) a tarantula named Webs (Awkwafina), and a shark (Craig Robinson) who is the master of disguise. When a heist goes wrong, they are forced to turn good in order to avoid prison. At first this is just the long con to escape, but Wolf starts to see the benefits of being good and that causes friction between him and his friends.

There’s a great zany energy to the film that just clicks from the word go. The film starts, seemingly innocent, with Wolf and Snake talking while eating in a diner, only for it to be revealed that everyone else is scared and hiding against the walls as to them the pair are animals/monsters. A great joke to set the tone of the film. It also almost instantly breaks the fourth wall, as Wolf tells you to get closer, as he’s introducing the other characters. It’s punchy and quirky, quickly settling you in for a good time.

The characters are excellent, with everyone having a moment to shine. Mr Shark, who was able to steal the Mona Lisa while disguised as the Mona Lisa, is a highlight with his absurd disguises throughout the story. Wolf has some great moments when he first realises that doing good things, feels good, and his tail starts wagging. The cast are all brilliant, bringing life to the strange set of characters. The animation is absolutely brilliant, with visual flairs that pop off the screen. The designs and world just look amazing, feeling completely unique and perfectly fitting the story that is being told on screen.

With a great cast, lots of laugh out loud moments, and a fast-paced plot, there’s a lot to love about The Bad Guys. It’s an all-round great film and hopefully we will get sequels. There’s fifteenish books at the moment, so plenty more story to tell.

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The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild – Film Review

Posted on March 27, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: John C. Donkin

Writers: Jim Hecht, William Schifrin, and Ray DeLaurentis

Starring: Simon Pegg, Vincent Tong, Aaron Harris, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Justina Machado

Rating: ★½

It’s been twenty years since the original Ice Age was first released, an absolute classic in its own right, with a legacy that has been tarnished by a string of poor to awful sequels. Now with the franchise owned by Disney, there’s a new film available on Disney Plus, focusing on one of the better characters from the lacklustre sequels, Buck Wild (voiced by Simon Pegg). Sadly, this new instalment only further proves that this franchise should have been left well alone after the first film.

Even though this film is named after Buck Wild, with Simon Pegg being the only returning voice actor, he’s not in the film as much as you’d expect. It starts with a recap of what’s happened to the main characters in the series so far, focusing on Sid, Manny, Diego, and Ellie. As well as Crash and Eddie, who want to gain some independence from the herd and end up back in the Lost World and part of Buck Wild’s adventure. The extended opening seems on there to pad out the run time, which is barely one hour and twenty minutes – less without the end credits. It’s more the adventures of Crash and Eddie featuring Buck Wild.

It’s the opening sequence, with all the main characters, that makes this film really feel like one of those straight-to-video Disney sequels that were released in the 90s and early 2000s. The ones that I’d watch as a child because of my favourite characters, and kind-of knew were rubbish. This is what this feels like, which is made even worse by the recasting of almost everyone, the new voice actors don’t capture the characters in the same way and just come off as bad imitations. Maybe that won’t be noticed by children, but for people who’ve grown up with this series it’s hard to listen to.

Maybe you can look past the voice actors. After the opening it’s mainly just Buck Wild, Crash and Eddie. What really makes this awful is purely down to just how unfunny it is. There are tons of jokes, and absolutely none of them are funny. There’s enough in here for children to enjoy, but it doesn’t work as a family film, like the original did. The story is mildly entertaining as it is, and the animation is passable, but there’s nothing here that will leave an impression.

The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild works on paper, but any hope that a spin-off will breathe new life into the franchise are quickly frozen. The new voice actors aren’t as good as the originals, there’s no funny bits at all, and it just feels like a soulless cash-in left over from Fox, that’s only been allowed to survive to pad out Disney Plus’s library. There are plenty of other things on the platform that are worth your time.   

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Ambulance – Film Review

Posted on March 26, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Michael Bay

Writer: Chris Fedak

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza González

Rating: ★★★★

Michael Bay has outdone himself with Ambulance, one of the dumbest films to ever grace the big screen. Somehow, even with the stupid ramped up to the eleven, it’s still incredibly entertaining, laugh out loud funny, and also has you on the edge of your seat with tension. It’s a pure thrill-ride of a film.

Veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) needs to raise money for his wife’s surgery and reaches out to his brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), for a loan. Instead Danny offers Will a job, a big bank robbery where nothing can go wrong. Being out of options, Will reluctantly accepts and inevitably things go wrong in the worst way possible. Will and Danny find themselves using an ambulance as a getaway car, with a cop they shot in the back, who is the only reason they are still alive.

Ambulance is the kind of film that never settles for just one level of madness, you think you have it figured out, that nothing can get even more ridiculous, and then there’s an FBI agent who’s in charge of bank robbery investigations, but he’s also school friends with Will, so he’s the only one who can negotiate with him. Then the cop in the back of the ambulance is bleeding out and an EMT, Cam (Eiza González) is performing surgery on him, with help from Will, the man who shot him. It just keeps ramping up and ramping up, and getting sillier and sillier, and you just can’t stop watching. It’s very funny and very engrossing.

Jake Gyllenhaal is absolutely great as the borderline psychotic bank robber. He’s intense, charismatic and funny. An incredible performance, that’s probably too good for a film where his brother must donate blood while driving an ambulance in a highspeed police chase. It’s because Gyllenhaal is so great that the film works. He’s giving it his all and it really gets you hooked. Likewise, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is excellent as the more level-headed brother. The emotional centre of the film as a veteran who can’t get the help, he needs from insurance so is forced to turn to extreme measures. There is a lot of chemistry between them, and they bounce off each other really well.

It’s never played like a straight up comedy, but there are more great jokes than a lot of comedies. There’s even a reference to Bay’s own Bad Boys. The action is also incredibly well shot, keeping you on the edge of your seat and with some incredibly flashy camerawork, you feel like you’re in the middle of it. It’s a visual treat, and you’ll be left wondering how they managed to shoot certain moments. The camera bounces around all over the place at points. It’s been a long time since there’s been such an incredible car chase in a film, and this one takes up the majority of the running time.

There’s only really one downfall and that’s the length. It feels about twenty minutes too long, and by the time the end comes around you do really feel it. At one point it feels like everything is wrapping up and then it continues for a bit longer, before dragging out the ending for as long as humanly possible. Maybe it wouldn’t be so noticeable if you cared more about the characters, but this isn’t that type of film. It’s a loud and proud action thriller that runs on pure adrenaline.

Ambulance is the perfect film to switch your mind off and just enjoy. It’s really dumb, constantly outdoing itself with just how ridiculous it gets, and for the most part keeps you hooked, thanks to two great performances from the leads. It’s well worth seeking out and not the worst way to spend an evening.

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Blacklight – Film Review

Posted on March 25, 2022 by ashleymanningwriter

Director: Mark Williams

Writers: Nick May and Mark Williams

Starring: Liam Neeson, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Taylor John Smith, and Aidan Quinn

Rating: ★★½

The latest action thriller starring Liam Neeson, BlackLight, features a government conspiracy, rogue agents and one man trying to be a better grandpa. It’s very low on tension, but still manages to provide some mindless entertainment, even if you’ve seen most, if not all, of this somewhere before, some of it even with Neeson in the starring role.  

Travis Brock (Liam Neeson) is a fixer for the FBI, who goes in and cleans up other agents mistakes and gets them out of dangerous situations. When agent Dusty Crane (Taylor John Smith) is arrested for fighting police in the streets, Travis takes it upon himself to try and get Dusty back on the right track, but by doing so he starts to uncover a conspiracy that goes right to the top.

Liam Neeson has found a second career with action films, and for the most part he’s good in them. In Blacklight it feels very much like he’s re-treading old ground. He’s torn between his family life and the secret agent job. To mix things up a bit he has OCD, but only slightly and it doesn’t really play into the plot or his character at all beyond a few minor moments.

The action is lacklustre, the plot is incredibly simple and trying too hard to be more, and some of the dialogue feels the furthest thing from natural. Despite that it still manages to be entertaining. It’s a tried and tested formula, and it works. It’s nothing spectacular by any stretches, but it’s far from the worst braindead thriller you can watch. The first half with the set up is done well, especially the shocking car crash in the opening sequence, it’s the later half when it becomes a predictable thriller.

Blacklight is pretty much everything you think it’s going to be, based purely on the fact that Liam Neeson is starring in it. There’s nothing that new or great about it, but it’s still entertaining to watch.

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