The Naked Gun (2025)

Sacrilege! Were my first thoughts upon hearing about this reboot. We all know Hollywood has a bad record when it comes to reboots, especially when it comes to reboots of classics, especially comedies. Their recent track record for reboots, remakes, and late-in-the-day sequels or prequels isn't the best either. But did we REALLY need a reboot/sequel to this classic spoof franchise? How on Titan could you even go about replacing Leslie Nielsen??

Well, in short, no, we did not need this new entry in the 'Naked Gun' franchise. Yes, it's a reboot and a sequel at the same time. This movie follows on from the last entry as we now follow the son of Frank Drebin, now played by Liam Neeson. Was this a good choice? Well, who on earth else could you cast? I'm struggling to think of ANYONE that could fill Nielsen's shoes. I guess flipping Neeson's recent spate of action man roles into all-out comedy does kinda work. Nielsen went from serious roles into spoof comedy so...Thing is, will I be able to look at another serious action flick with Neeson seriously again?

Straight off the bat this movie makes some huge errors. Where is the classic theme tune? How could you not include that?? Where is the classic police car siren POV gag intro sequence?? Seriously! How could you leave THAT out?? But then they go and tack it on the end credits? And all they do is simply replay all the segments from the original movies? Why not make your own? Plenty of things they could have done, come on now! Ugh!!!

But again I find myself asking questions. Just who is this movie for exactly? People who grew up with Nielsen and this franchise (middle-aged folk like myself), will probably be intrigued, morbid curiosity, but I'm unsure if they will like it (I'm not sure myself). Many younger folk probably haven't even heard of this franchise, or Nielsen! Yes the original trilogy was big back in the day, but they have been somewhat criminally forgotten over time, especially with most of the main cast long gone.

Anyways, the plot is right in line with previous entries. Drebin has to solve a mysterious crime concocted by local wealthy businessman Richard Cane. He wants to revert all Humanity back to its primal state so everyone kills each other off leaving him and his wealthy elite to start the Human Race over; meh. What follows is a somewhat satisfactory attempt at trying to recreate the golden age of spoof that Zucker and Nielsen rattled off so easily. All in all, it feels more scattershot in nature as lots of gags are thrown at us and only a few manage to stick (for me at least).

As Drebin and Beth (Pamela Anderson, yes that one) are enjoying an evening in, with the dog, one of Cane's henchmen watches from afar with a heat vision scope. What he sees is admittedly one of the best moments in this movie. Typically vulgar, crass, juvenile, and surprisingly X-rated in my humble little opinion...hilarious! Another little moment of genius comes and goes quickly but had me giggling for some time, as Drebin mispronounces the word 'manslaughter'. The mini thriller plot involving a snowman was pretty neat. And the sequence with Drebin illegally getting a confession out of Cane's henchman, only to be caught in an internal sting operation, which in turn is then caught in another sting operation and so forth...was quite brilliant.

So aside from the odd moment of comedic originality, everything else we see is a parade of mostly sight gags that fall flat, or are simply the same gags they used in the original movies. Continuity appreciated, I guess, but it also felt lazy. This is the impression I got throughout really. This isn't a bad comedy, not at all. For this modern era of garbage, this is actually pretty solid, and a far better late-in-the-day reboot sequel than most (Dumb and Dumber 2, Coming to America 2, Bill & Ted 3 etc...). The main cast is actually pretty good and fit the bill perfectly. The criminally underused Danny Huston (who still hasn't been cast as The Joker yet) was a better villain than Robert Goulet, in my opinion. And Pammy Anderson? What can I say? The perfect mature, sexy seductress type for Drebin to monologue over in his mind. Wasn't so sure about the guy playing Captain Ed Hocken's son. He came across like a poor man's Danny McBride.

So apart from making me feel really quite old (oh Pammy! What happened?!), did this do it for me? Well yes and no. Like I said, this is definitely one of the better modern reboots I've seen in a long time. It's also one of the better modern movies (and comedies) I've seen amongst the dross. But overall, it still feels like a whimpering attempt to try and hit the lofty heights of the original classics. On its own as a stand-alone flick, yeah it works better, but let's be frank (pun intended I guess), this didn't need to be made. This movie only made me miss Leslie's genius even more.

5/10

Predator: Badlands (2025)

I'm old enough to remember a time when there were only two 'Predator' flicks and fanboys like myself were yearning for sequels, big time! Literally anything, although back in those days prequels and animated spin-off flicks weren't really a thing. But now, now we have a whole host of Yautja flicks hitting the screens, but is that good?

So here comes the latest entry in the franchise. Where does it sit within said franchise? How does it fit? It's complicated, but I believe this takes place after 'Alien3', and before 'Alien Resurrection'. Whether or not this is confirmed I don't know. Frankly, this franchise should be straightforward, but with the introduction of the Xenomorph in two failed 'AvP' flicks. Ridley Scott's 'Alien' prequels that disregard the 'AvP' flicks. A third Predator flick that went nowhere ('Predators'). Another Predator sequel that also failed ('The Predator'). And now an 'Alien' TV series (that also appears to have failed), these two franchises have become an entangled mess of epic proportions.

The plot is pretty simple enough, but told from the perspective of a Yautja, in their own language, with subs. So that's kinda cool, but being on the side of a Yautja is awkward in that it does wreck the mystery surrounding them. Double-edged sword situation really, neat idea, but it does wreck the Predator image going forward. Remember, the original movie was supposed to be an adult horror sci-fi, remember that? Yeah.

A weak Yautja (Dek) is to be executed (by his brother) for being useless on the orders of his extreme warrior father. The brother disobeys his father and helps Dek escape, but not before being executed himself by the father. Dek lands on another planet where he is to hunt the ultimate trophy in order to try and prove to his father he's a worthy Yautja. It just so happens that on this planet, there are also Weyland-Yutani synthetics that are also after the same trophy. Start the hunt!

Let's take this in steps. The Yautja home planet in this offering looks pretty good. It is well rendered, looks authentic, and it also looks similar to what we saw in 'AvP 2'. This could be another part of the planet for sure. Unfortunately the introduction we get to both Dek and his brother is entirely Marvel-esque in tone and very much like a videogame sequence. This did not fill me with much hope because right away you could tell this was not going to be a typical 'Predator' movie. I also didn't really like the alien species on offer. They couldn't come up with anything better than space elephants, space rhinos, and space monkeys? Really?

As for the main big bad trophy (a 'Kalisk'), well, that's a big space lion dragon hybrid, I guess. Oh, and it is virtually indestructible because it can regenerate its limbs, including its head! Yeah, take that as you will. I mentioned space monkeys, by that I refer to a specific cutesy little Snarf-like alien that gets called 'Bud'. This thing looks like it stepped off the set of a Lucas Star Wars prequel flick. Awful, truly awful. The plot twist with this thing is also obvious and doesn't make up for the turd design.

The Yautja, how do they look? Well, as you might expect, everything in this flick is CGI, so everything has that nasty plastic, glossy fake look to it. No matter how good CGI gets, the vast majority of it always has this same problem and is obvious to the Human eye, well mine at least. Dek is a mixed bag, much like the other Predators we see. His skin and features look okay, but obviously CGI. They got the deep, dark, gaunt yellow eyes correct, but the mouth/mandibles still don't look right. His dreads also look wrong, far too smooth and straight, almost snake-like. Dek's father suffers the same issues. Obvious CGI skin textures and facial growth, the mouth is off, and his dreads are too silky looking. Bottom line, the 1987 original movie (and 'Predator 2') STILL look better than this 2025 offering. That's kinda ridiculous frankly, kudos Stan Winston.

I should also point out that another problem with Dek were his body movements. One reason why Kevin Peter Hall was so damn fecking good as the Yautja in the original (superior) movies, was because he altered his body movements. He tried to move uniquely, trying to give the Yautja its own personality, so it didn't just look like a man in a rubber suit. The guy they motion captured for Dek just moves like a regular guy, like a Human. He clearly swaggers like a regular guy trying to look tough, it's obvious, and it looks lame.

As for the Weyland-Yutani side of things, meh, twas all very boring looking, no spark at all. The actors playing the synthetics offered nothing in terms of interest or engagement. I couldn't have cared less about these characters. The main synth Thia spent most of the movie only being a torso; which later gave us some cringe action sequences involving her apparent sentient legs. Everything involving this side of the plot was bland, boring, and sterile (although I get that is somewhat the point). When Dek fought the male synths it looked like he was fighting naff looking Terminators. And where was all the white synth blood and guts? Look what happened to Bishop in 'Aliens', none of that. I'm also not too sure why Thia, could speak Yautja and none of the others could. I did notice the newer Power Loaders, nope, didn't like them either. They went overboard as usual.

Naturally the finale gives us Yautja vs. Power Loader, because of course it does. A big orrible, weightless, CGI power loader stomping around like a manic Robocop 2 knock-off in yellow, sigh! Of course Dek gets smashed around all over the gaff, but suffers no injuries or broken bones or anything, because he's a flippin' superhero! Spoiler alert! The movie ends with Dek going back home to face his father, with the wrong trophy? Thinking everything will be cool? Huh? I dunno why he would bother, seeing as his dad killed his brother and wanted to kill him. But wait, Dek is a super Yautja now, he's beefed up and a top fighter hunter...apparently.

Okay so let's be brutally honest with the truth here. This isn't a bad movie. This is actually a reasonable sci-fi action adventure. BUT! This is not a 'Predator' movie. This felt like a rejected script from 'The Mandalorian'. This felt like a Star Wars project, potentially movie or TV series. This felt like a 'Guardians of the Galaxy' sequel, complete with goofy animal/alien sidekicks. This felt like it could easily be anything else if you removed the Yautja. Another heavily watered-down version of a 'Predator' movie with average CGI. Looking ahead, there is now a Yautja and a female synth Avengers team, complete with a huge tamed pet alien sidekick, running around in this franchise. Yep, this franchise has officially been Marvel-ified.

6/10

Red Sonja (2025)

 

So this came outta nowhere, literally. I have heard rumours here and there about this movie for years. Talk about directors and actresses for the main role, but nothing ever seemed to happen. It felt like the whole barbarian genre had gone down the toilet, especially after the failed Jason Momoa feature. Then up pops this! Unfortunately, there's a reason why you probably haven't heard much about this.

So the plot, yeah, the plot, oh geez! Sonja's homeland of Hyrkania is invaded by bad guys, and they kill everyone, like bad guys do. This forces a young Sonja to flee into the woods where she grows up alone worshiping the forest Goddess Ashera. Decades later, Sonja is captured by said bad guys and ends up fighting for her life in the bad guy capital cities arena...of death!!! Oh yeah, see there's this ancient mystical book that enables the main villain to energise the city with 'arcane power'. Problem is he only has half of it, luckily Sonja knows where the other half is. I think you can guess the rest.

Right so I'm not really sure what this arcane power was supposed to be. I'm not really up on my Red Sonja lore so I have no idea if this is something from the original comics or whatever. It seems to be some kind of magically electricity of sorts that...powers stuff? I think it allowed Emperor Dragan (the main villain) to control monsters and beasts with these mind control-type devices/implants. Anyway, Sonja destroys this power source midway through, so that put an end to that subplot. But not before we got a semi-action sequence involving a large CGI cyclops. Luckily, like all current invincible female action stars, Sonja merely leapt up onto its back and tore the implant off, hence saving the day.

I did for a minute think that this huge cyclops would maybe rampage through the city and maybe Sonja and co would have to stop it, save the innocent city folk, nope. Or perhaps the cyclops would join forces with Sonja after she saved it from being a brainwashed zombie slave to the Emperor, nope. Said cyclops literally vanishes from the movie in a heartbeat, one minute its there, the next its gone. I mean, really?

Speaking of action sequences, there are a reasonable amount here, but they are all mostly poor. It's quite clear fight choreography was limited, time-constrained, or just not that good. Most battles look really lame, really flat and uninspiring. The actors clearly don't know how to fight properly. The editing is up close and snappy leaving much to the imagination, and the blood we do see was more of an afterthought splashed on after the actual fighting. There are hints at brutal fatalities and more adult content, but clearly they chose the tamer route.

The world we see feels really quite small to be honest. There are some reasonable CGI city and landscapes dotted throughout but that's it, you never feel like you actually see anything. The vast city we see is not explored at all, interior wise. All we get is the battle arena, which in itself was unimpressive. There is no deeper exploration into this fantasy city, its population, culture etc...nothing. All we get are some interior castle sets, camps in the forest, a wooden fortress in the forest, a nice but obvious water shrine set...again in the forest. They clearly wanted to avoid anything involving mass amounts of extras or really big expensive sets.

Essentially, after Sonja escapes being a slave in the arena ('Gladiator' this most certainly is not) and destroys Dragans power source in his castle, the entire rest of the movie is spent in the wilderness with Sonja and her bunch of ragtag merry men fighting Dragan's evil forces of utterly useless knights. Yes all the knights in this movie are merely sword fodder for Sonja to cut down like butter, whilst looking menacing yet amusingly skinny and weak. Of course Dragan has some stronger allies. His second in command is, of course, a deadly ice-blonde bitch femme fatale...of sorts. I mean, that was the gist of it I'm guessing but she does practically nothing throughout. Then there are these Mandril-faced Humanoids? Is this species from the original source material or just made up for the movie? Not very original, and why Mandril faces? They seemed to be the only half-beast Humanoids, although we didn't see much of the population of this world so...

The big finale isn't much to write home about, much like all the other combat sequences, it's crap basically. All the good guys seem to be pretty invincible whilst all the bad guys just get cut down instantly. The armour is not much good in this realm. Emperor Dragan's ending is also weak and somewhat pathetic, much like the route they chose to take with this guy. The character was clearly based around a sort of spoilt wealthy Roman elite type, more of a politician than a fighter. An interesting take but ultimately it comes across as more annoying. They should have had a more imposing character.

End of the day, it's highly evident that this production lacked any sort of proper budget that an IP like this deserves. Everything looks and feels cheap and painfully small in scale. Again it feels like I've gone back to a time when low-budget guff like this was much more common with high-end franchises. Yes the character of Sonja does look better, and more accurate than the 1985 version, but this version looks much worse, very tacky in comparison (the difference a proper cinematographer makes). Bottom line, this looks and feels like a TV series production, maybe they should have gone that route instead.

4/10

Thunderbolts* (2025)

 

So this was the new Avengers team huh, this is how Marvel has progressed since their blockbuster days? Wow! Talk about a downgrade. Honesty, I haven't been so bored in a movie since the last Marvel movie I saw, which was the equally boring Captain America 4, aka Red Hulk movie. 

The generic plot is as generic as generic can be. The neo team have all been lured to a facility somewhere to execute each other on the orders of CIA director Valetina de Fontaine. It is here that they also discover Bob. They all work out what's happening and escape, only for Bob to get captured by de Fontaine, and Bucky Barnes to round the rest up later on. Bob turns out to be some God-like super being that de Fontaine is wanting to become the new face of Earth's defence. Problem is, Bob has inner issues that manifest into a dark version of himself called 'Void'. Bucky realises the threat and teams up with the ragtag bunch of bickering misfit antiheroes to stop Bob. Void pulls a Thanos move on NYC but the new Avengers manage to defeat him and restore Bob back to normal. All in a day's work for this scrappy A team.

So yeah, the plot is cookie-cutter guff. It's literally the plot of any action superhero movie you could think of, but insert a different set of superheroes. In this case the main roster is quite frankly awful. Personally I have no interest whatsoever in any of the Black Widow assassin characters or the somewhat chubby Yelena Belova. Bucky Barnes looks like a poor man's Ethan Hunt (MI:2). John Walker/Captain America? No idea who this was, didn't like the portrayal. Taskmaster is simply a previous main villain character (gender swapped) from an older movie. I like the continuity but using a character that was a main villain in a previous movie, to merely make them part of an alternate team in a later movie, weakens the character (and the previous movie) in my opinion. And finally Red Guardian is a wholly annoying character that isn't funny at all. 

The start of the movie, with the team stuck in this facility, seems to go forever! Jesus it dragged so bad. Once we got away from that, it continues to drag with a whole load of exposition set within dull looking locations with a drab colour palette (this movie looks DRAB!). I dunno, this thing just seems to move from one gunmetal grey facility location to another. There is nothing to look at here, and it's all greenscreen and CGI of course. Totally synthetic and sterile.

Another issue is, despite what the director said, and what Disney said, I can't help but feel I need to have seen the various Marvel TV shows to fully know what's going on here. This movie doesn't feel like it stands on its own; you have the Marvel homework problem. But even if you have seen those shows I doubt that would have made this any better. The final product here just feels totally flat, like behind the scenes they have totally run out of ideas moving forward. There is nothing special here at all, no visual excitement, no exciting characters, a villain that is literally just a moving silhouette, no colour! The movie tries to be its usual funny Marvel self and fails with David Harbour coming across as infuriatingly annoying (for me). The fake crappy Russian accents REALLY grate in time. And was Valentina de Fontaine supposed to look like Republican Tulsi Gabbard? 

Marvel has hit a wall, a creative wall. It seems the ride is over, nothing lasts forever, no matter how many times you dive back into the multiverse well. Captain America 4 felt like the franchise was running low on gas, a generic, somewhat political fluff piece that felt more like an obligation due to the Cap now being represented by a Black character. This continues the trend with a feature that feels like a desperate attempt to reenergise the franchise with a new Avengers team. Unfortunately, I don't think the majority really care anymore with many believing this entire saga ran its course long ago and this merely felt like a halfhearted reboot. The team are uninspiring, the action is lacklustre, the thrills are gone, the spectacle has become pedestrian.

3/10