Review Category: Movie

A love letter to film preservation, Nate Neal’s Treasure of the Lost Reel is Indiana Jones for cinephiles.

Heck (Sean Shannon) is a teacher by day and a hunter of lost film in his spare time. His latest acquisition is a rare Boffo cartoon. He’s approached by Bellamy (Kevin R. Free), who makes a convincing argument that his grandfather created a character, Biffo, which the company Pinnacle (who are definitely not Disney, no, sir… not at all) used to ‘inspire’ Boffo. With the original cartoon seemingly lost, Bellamy has no claim for copyright infringement. Heck takes on the task of finding the missing film, as does his ex, Laurel (Katie Hannigan), who runs a film-based show and wants to screen the cartoon. Pinnacle, however, wants to find the movie for more sinister reasons, since it would void the trademark on their Boffo character. They put their Mr Fix-it (William Russ) on the case, and he’ll go to extreme lengths to ensure Biffo never comes to light.

Populated with likeable characters, Nate Neal’s film is a passionate yet whimsical tale that feels as if it came from a different age itself. The love of physical film formats and classic animation is clear; the extracts from the shorts are pitch-perfect, evoking the classic Max Fleischer Betty Boop style. It also provides a quick guide to copyright law and an exaggerated look at how far some companies (ahem) will go to keep their characters from entering the public domain.  At its heart is the timeless story of the little guy fighting a big corporation, with some memorable exchanges between Heck and Pinnacle’s Mr Fix-it; the park chase being a highlight. Shot on the streets of New York, there’s a low-key charm to the film that’s difficult to resist.

TREASURE OF THE LOST REEL had its world premiere at New York Big Apple Film Festival and screens at Manhattan Film Festival on Thursday, June 18th.  

Five decades on from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and visionary director Steven Spielberg returns with his latest sci-fi adventure. Unfortunately, if his Disclosure Day is anything to go by, then it seems as though the well has run well and truly dry. The man who once made us believe that dinosaurs could walk the Earth struggles to do the same for a garden-variety fox. Let alone aliens.

The little green grey men are real, and Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has evidence. He’s ready to share it with the world, but first he needs to get away from scary government stooge Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), who’s set on silencing the rogue nerd before he can blow the whistle. With Daniel on the run with girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), matters become further complicated when local weather-lady Margaret (Emily Blunt) begins babbling in guttural clicks like a parseltongue version of that one scene from Bruce Almighty.

The comparison is even more apt than that. Scanlon, you see, fears that the confirmation of alien life will send the world as we know it into an existential panic, upending all the major religions. Not that the world is doing particularly well in the first place. On the brink of World War III, Kellner and Margaret’s big day comes with all the major nations teetering on the precipice. Will their news bring the world together, or simply push it over the edge?

Spielberg, ever the sentimental, has his ideas, but there’s nearly two hours of rote chase film to get through first. Part Paul and part Watchmen, the story barrels from one low-effort set piece to the next, from dingy farmhouses to even dingier motel bathrooms. The urgency it does muster is undermined by the visuals, particularly during a climactic chase, which can’t even spare the pixels for a convincingly real-looking car. Rather that than the wildlife, which seems to have been dredged up from the same uncanny valley his alien lifeforms hail from.

O’Connor, Blunt and Hewson do their best with what they’ve been dealt, but David Koepp’s screenplay does nobody any favours. At least Firth has the good grace to ham it up – everyone else (including a wildly underused Colman Domingo) simply powers through with a faintly embarrassed expression upon their miscast faces. There’s no subtlety to be found here, and the script seems to have been written to best cater to those not even paying attention, largely relying on an exposition-barfing phone call from Blunt or Domingo whenever the characters get stuck. It’s little wonder poor Wyatt Russell looks so baffled the whole time.

Disclosure Day is a calamity, made all the more disappointing for the calibre of talent involved. Spielberg’s message is well-intentioned and necessary but the delivery is so far off the mark it’s practically on another planet.

DISCLOSURE DAY is out in cinemas now.

It’s been almost 40 years since He-Man’s rippling abs last graced the big screen, and this reboot of the beloved Mattel toyline, which is equally as inspired by the likewise cherished ‘80s animated series and the now-cult 1987 feature film adaptation, has been a long time coming. Undergoing a lot of changes over its years in development, it is by the power of Grayskull that this new film has found its way to summer blockbuster season.

Masters of the Universe sees young Prince Adam thrust to Earth, as he has to flee his planet of Eternia due to the invading forces of Skeletor. Losing his sword of power and in turn his way back, he grows up on Earth, never forgetting his home and never giving up on a way to return. And when he finds the sword, he must assemble a team of old allies to reclaim Eternia from the clutches of evil and become the hero he was born to be.

This is the perfect He-Man film, and one we all could have never imagined getting; in fact, it’s a film some have waited a lifetime for, ever since playing with those toys as tikes. Director Travis Knight has warmly embraced the source material’s joys and delivered the kind of movie that Hollywood has slowly stopped making. A pure cinematic thrill, and this generation’s answer to Flash Gordon, only on an even grander scale, this is the most fun film you’ll see this summer.

The craft on display dazzles, with Eternia bouncing off the screen with explosive colour and imagination, and great special effects sitting comfortably alongside some wowing practical sets and costumes. All while Daniel Pemberton’s score (of the year) rocks the house with rousing guitar work, and some by the legendary Brian May, and even a sequence backed by Queen’s banger “Princes of the Universe”. What’s not to love?

It never takes itself too seriously, and yet it knows when to be serious, resulting in an ‘80s-style fantasy adventure romp, all-embracing of its own ridiculousness but never to the point of mockery. This affectionate film feels made by fans and for fans but also with an accessibility for a wider crowd not in the know, much like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

It’s popcorn summer blockbuster entertainment with cult–classic–in–the–making sensibilities. From Battle Cat MGM logo roar to one particular stellar cameo, the nostalgia is powerful, cheeky and fun, but not all that drives the movie forward. Particularly effective is the film’s honest heart, and genuinely strong message of true strength and acceptance of self, one particularly perfect for young lads of today.

Nicholas Galitzine cuts a mighty charismatic figure as He-Man/Adam, with great supporting turns by Idris Elba as Man-At-Arms and Camila Mendes as Teela, among a subtly impressive cast of familiar faces and voices. However, while he is very much cinema marmite to many, the film is stolen by a nigh-on unrecognisable Bane-meets-Ian McKellen Shakespearean vocal tour-de-force by Jared Leto as Skeletor, in one of his greatest ever performances. His Skeletor has a strong claim to being the villain of 2026 on the big screen. Moustache-twirlingly evil, hilarious, scary and theatrically grand, he is an utter joy whenever on screen and reminiscent of a bygone age of show-stealing golden age villainy.

Go and see Masters of the Universe, folks! It kicks ass. No, seriously. This is the kind of gleeful summer fantasy that barely exists at all anymore. Action-packed, hilarious, poignant and with true heroic flair and villainous deliciousness. Not to mention a third act that resists being the atypical crash, bang, wallop fare in favour of something rather more interesting, thematically breaking down the idea of muscle-bound heroism in the climactic face-off. Oh, and stay for all the credits too!

Masters of the Universe is a colourful, hopeful blast from start to finish. This seriously has the power!

Masters of the Universe is out now in UK cinemas.

What began as a viral YouTube series makes its feature debut in Kane Parsons’ horror film of the same name. Most YouTube filmmakers could only dream of doing so for A24 though – let alone scoring actual Chiwetel Ejiofor as their star. In that respect, Backrooms is of a classier vintage than most.

Sure, Backrooms loyalists may baulk at the big-name actor (or actors, depending on where you place Mark Duplass) and move toward traditional filmmaking. At their heart, the original shorts were a smattering of found footage films which bore more in common with a V/H/S segment than your average A24 film. Not so this feature-length adaptation, which largely eschews the found footage approach in favour of a tale about one man’s desperate need for validation, and the woman responsible for talking him down. Boiling it down more than that? It’s The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror IV meets Severance.

Ejiofor plays furniture salesman Clark, who discovers an entrance to the titular Backrooms in the basement of his strip mall showroom. Immediately hypnotised by this labyrinth of beige carpets and magnolia walls, what he soon comes to realise is that he’s not alone. There’s more lurking in the back (rooms) than wonky-looking furniture and headache-inducing ceiling lights. Enter the man’s therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve) becoming involved when Clark leaves a chilling message on her answering machine. Full of worry for her patient, she enters the Backrooms herself. Will she, like so many dead seagulls and lost souls before her, find only her demise there? Or does something even messier await in the flickering shadows?

That’s more depth than some would have liked from a series founded on creepy visuals and shaky camerawork. With it, a sneaking suspicion that something has been lost in translation. Could Parsons have spent two hours just vibing it with a handheld camera? Sure. Should he have? That’s up for debate. Regardless, the story’s structure should ultimately help Backrooms cater to an audience wider than those who’ve discovered the word ‘liminal space’ within the last five years and made it their whole online personality.

Ejiofor is delightfully messy as the whiskey-chugging, showroom-sleeping Clark, and a fine vessel to traverse the Backrooms with. It’s hard not to draw a parallel from his plight to that of the modern AI user, especially as he falls further down the rabbit wonky chair hole. And then there’s Reinsve’s Mary, who finds something entirely different in this pocket dimension – a man who would rather surround himself with Broken Mirror imitations of reality than take accountability for his actions. And the more literal monsters, of course.

However one feels about the approach, Backrooms still manages to do justice to its setting. The visuals look tremendous, having lost nothing in the transition from YouTube to the big screen. It’s still gratifyingly real, throbbing with a disquieting wrongness which pervades every frame. The 1990s setting helps get across that essential feeling of nostalgia, while Parsons and co-writer Will Soodik extend the scope in a manner which feels natural yet true to the location. Those worried that the film might over-explain its unknowable locale can rest assured – it’s denouement is every bit as baffling and obtuse as the YouTube series which preceded it.

Its approach may divide opinion, but Backrooms emerges as one of the year’s most striking horror films. It’s Backrooms for the masses, but has lost none of the core weirdness which made it so enthralling in the first place.

BACKROOMS is out in UK cinemas now.

As the opening credits roll on Star Wars’ first feature outing since 2019, Reba McEntire’s lyrics pierce the darkness: “A single dad who works two jobs, who loves his kid and never stops, with gentle hands and a heart of a fighter,” hailing the return of a helmeted Pedro Pascal and baby Yoda – those two jobs being, of course, relentless bounty hunter by trade and emotionally tortured lone wolf by compulsion, a man so committed to stoic isolation that he somehow ended up the most devoted father in the galaxy.

At least, that was our original pitch for The Mandalorian & Grogu. In reality, Din Djarin and his green son’s return is accompanied by Ludwig Göransson’s excellent score, but we stand by our desired introduction.

The actual story finds our reluctant hero conscripted by the fledgling New Republic, who have decided that what their fragile galactic democracy needs is a beskar-clad gun-for-hire and his Force-gifted toddler to go and rescue Rotta the Hutt in exchange for information on an important target. On the way, they’ll face space gangsters, a gladiator ring, war criminals, and a giant water snake.

The storyline and pacing make it clear that this feature is just three episodes of The Mandalorian’s previously planned fourth season, stitched together for a cinema release. Despite that, we’re also happy to confirm that if you’ve never seen a single episode of the Disney+ series, you will be fine to follow along. Jon Favreau has been generous enough to treat the whole enterprise as something of a soft reset, accessible to newcomers but still loaded with Easter eggs for the devoted faithful.

Visually, The Mandalorian and Grogu is doing a lot. Perhaps too much. Favreau wears his influences proudly — the ice-swept opening sequence carries a satisfying echo of The Empire Strikes Back, and across its runtime the film nods appreciatively to Top Gun, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, and, delightfully, Gremlins, with additional flavours of the western, kaiju movies, and samurai cinema seasoning the whole thing. It’s a great mood board, except that none of it coalesces into anything genuinely beautiful. Favreau geeks out (visibly, enthusiastically, and at considerable length), but the film never quite achieves the visual poetry of the works it’s so clearly in love with.

Where the film does succeed technically is in its creature work. Grogu and the Anzellans carry that old-school animatronic warmth that CGI will never fully replicate, a tactile physicality that grounds the film and endears the audience. It’s one of the most deliberately nostalgic choices in a film chock-full of them, and it works well.

The cast is more variable. Sigourney Weaver appears to be operating under duress – an actress of her calibre deserves better than whatever she’s been handed here, and her scenes have the vaguely glazed energy of someone waiting out their contract. Elsewhere, Jabba’s nephew Rotta the Hutt is, against all odds, surprisingly lovable, though it’s worth noting that Jeremy Allen White’s voice has been so heavily processed that the casting barely registers. A brief cameo from Martin Scorsese as a Chef-inspired food truck-owning alien is, frankly, exactly as wonderful as it sounds.

The fight choreography is genuinely solid, the score is robust and inventive, and there are set pieces (particularly that aforementioned opening sequence) that remind you of the genuine craft at the project’s core. The wolf-and-cub structure gives the film a clear emotional throughline even when the actual plot refuses to provide one: the story, as we’ve said, is episodic and lacks the discernible beats that make a feature – which makes it all the more baffling when the film fumbles the one moment it should have been able to land in its sleep.

We’re talking here about the handling of Mando’s de-helmeting, which is given away like a free supermarket sample in the trailer. It’s a moment the series has always treated with near-religious gravity, and is here afforded roughly the same tonal weight as a scene transition. It lands with a jarring thud, the emotional architecture around it conspicuously absent.

For all its shortcomings, The Mandalorian and Grogu is nonetheless hard to resent. Made by people who love these references deeply, who want to share that love, and who haven’t quite figured out how to synthesise it all into something coherent, it’s simply too earnest a film to dislike wholly. As love letters go, it’s illegible in places. But the affection is real, and that counts for something.