#Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morenapanda · 5 months

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Looking Through Your Window

Billy had decided to follow you home.

It wouldn’t be the first time he had done so but it was the first time in which he was this angry while following you. Normally he would be content with following you and watching you from your bedroom window. He had to hide himself well because your apartment was small and your family seemed to be everywhere. Even your room held no privacy since you had to share it with your brother.

It didn’t matter though as long as he could see you.

There were days when he was lucky and he would hide outside while the house was almost entirely empty with you being the exception. On those days he got to see sides of you no one else would ever see.

Some days it was you singing songs off-key while cleaning, others it was you dancing along to songs you played on your phone. His favorite days however were the days in which he had to actively hold himself back from barging into your room. The days where you closed your curtains and he had to get as close to the window as he could so he could sneak a peek.

The days where he caught you touching yourself.

He can’t exactly pinpoint when his infatuation with you started. He just remembers taking notice of you after some chance encounters. The time you offered to help him with a math problem. Another time the two of you had run into each at the school library. Then there was time he caught you staring at him.

These moments may not mean much but they meant a lot to him now.

The moment that truly led to his infatuation was when he was once again beat up by the typical bullies in his life. They had been bothering Freddy again, never seeming to get the hint that if they messed with Freddy then they messed with him. He did what he typically did, which was insult them and draw their attention to him only to make a mad dash to create some distance from them.

Sure he could fight them and win but he was trying to take his secret identity seriously which meant sometimes taking some hits he wished he could just fight against.

On that particular day though, he spotted you outside of class. Possibly taking a breather, you had suddenly turned towards him. He took notice of your eyes widening and a look of concern cross your face. As you began to walk towards him he wondered how bad he must look.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He wasn’t sure what to do, people didn’t normally notice him when he happened to be injured.

You cleared your throat. “Well I noticed that you seem to be hurt. You wouldn’t mind if I patched you up would you?” You asked while scratching your neck. You pulled bandages and a first aid kid out of seemingly nowhere with your other hand.

Billy decided there was no point in saying no. “Alright, sure.”

You quickly sat down next to him and got to work. As you tended to his injuries Billy took the time to study you. You didn’t really stand out, there were moments here and there where he saw you with who he assumed were your friends but you didn’t seem to be popular. Your looks were pretty average too. You weren’t one of the prettiest girls in school but you weren’t ugly either. You seemed to hold the perfect balance in being an average student.

“Well there you go. I hope these injuries heal up soon. I’ll see you around.” With that you quickly stood up and headed back into the school.

Billy realized that had been the first time anyone has ever looked after him like that. Of course he has his family and they help him fight crime, and they always make sure to check up on how he's doing but this is the first time someone has patched him up like this, the first time someone who isn’t his family looked out for him. Sue him if he was a little intrigued.

His intrigue quickly turned into obsession the more he learned about you. He remembered hearing about how easy it can be to either hate or love a person once you get to know them. Clearly he was heading in the love direction. The small things that he learned about you just made him like you more. The way you seemed to easily get distracted. The way you seemed to make faces at people without even realizing it. The way you seemed to get lost in reading. The way your hair curled.

There was always something new to learn and figuring out how to do so without you noticing was half the fun.

So here he was, following you home as it had become routine for him at this point. Although today would be the first time he ever followed you home with you actually leading him here intentionally.

You had shown up to school in an outfit he would never have expected you to wear. Not because you couldn’t pull it off (because you definitely could) but because you normally didn’t wear anything like it. You normally just wore the typical casual wear that just about everyone wore to school. A normal t-shirt and jeans, that was your go to. He even remembered you mentioning how you would like to wear nicer outfits to school but that there was no point. “School isn’t a place to wear a good outfit, it would be too much work for a place that drains me of all my energy. Besides, I'm too lazy to really make myself look good for school.” That was your explanation.

Clearly you had changed your mind considering you were wearing one of the prettiest outfits he had ever seen you in. It was a baby blue, strapless dress that reached above your knees. It hugged your curves just right and made you appear even softer than before. This was the first time he had ever seen your legs so bare in public. To top it off you had styled your hair differently today. It was free and out of its usual bun, the curls perfectly framing your face.

You left him breathless.

As he got closer to the school he noticed other guys eyeing you up. Of course it wasn’t like in the movies when the girl had a supposedly huge transformation and everyone stopped and stared at her in awe. There were still plenty of people minding their business and heading off to their classes or towards their friends. Not every guy was distracted by your new look either. However , the guys that did stop to ogle at you made Billy see red.

He had learned enough about you to know that none of the guys at school had ever given you a passing glance. You were pretty much invisible to them and from what he saw you seemed to be alright with that. To think that all you had to do was wear a dress and suddenly you became someone worth noticing to them.

Well he wasn’t going to give them the chance.

“Hey Y/N!”

You turned to look at him, confusion clear on your face.

“Can I talk to you real quick?” You were talking to your friends but he saw some guys standing close to your group, clearly trying to find an opening to talk to you.

“Sure.” A smile flashed across your face, you seemed to recognize him. You quickly turned to your friends. “Hey guys I’m going to talk to Billy for a bit. I’ll come back if I get the chance but if the bell rings then I’ll see you at lunch.” After getting some nods from your friends you stepped towards Billy.

A triumphant smile took over his face as the guys near your group showed faces of disappointment. He quickly led you to a more secluded area of the school.

“So what’s up Billy?”

His mind drew a blank, he hadn’t really thought of what he was going to say to you once he got you away from the group of spectators. He was going to have to wing it.

“Uh I was just wondering how you were doing?” He winced. Seriously? This was the best he could come up with?

“Oh I’m doing pretty good, thanks for asking. How about you, how are you doing Billy?” You looked up at him and Billy immediately lost the ability to speak. He shook his head and tried to gather his thoughts before he made a fool of himself.

“I’m good too. I actually wanted to tell you that I really like your dress, it's really pretty.” Although not as pretty as you.

“Thanks Billy.” You beamed up at him, a twinkle in your eye. “Something tells me you had something else you wanted to tell me though so what is it?”

He hadn’t realized how obvious he was being but it probably would be for the best to just be upfront with you. “I uh, just wanted to know why you decided to wear that dress today? Usually you just wear your normal clothes.” He immediately realized how that may have sounded. “Not that you shouldn’t wear a dress or that your usual clothes aren’t nice too! I was just curious and my curiosity got the best of me.” Dang it! That came out wrong!

Instead of getting annoyed with him like he expected you gave him a small smile. “I just wanted to look pretty for once, and if I happen to get attention from a special someone that’s just a bonus.”

Attention from a special someone? Who could you possibly be trying to get the attention of? He thought the only guy you interacted with was him. He suddenly felt a surge of anger pass through him, he should be the only one you paid attention to.

“Oh? Do I know this special someone by any chance?” He tried to sound casual but if she gave away the guy’s name who knows what he’ll do to him.

“Maybe.” You replied coyly, playing with a heart shaped locket you were wearing around your neck. “Why?”

“Oh no reason, just curious.” He said, leaning against the wall. He studied your face as if the truth would be revealed if he looked at you long enough.

“Hmmm, well maybe if you happen to know this guy with brown hair and hazel eyes.” You smirked up at him while he tried to remember any guys he’d seen with that description. A couple of guys did come to mind.

“Is it Carlos from physics?”

“Nope.”

“Noah from English?”

“No.”

“How about Kevin from History?”

“Mmm no, give up yet?”

He could see you enjoying his struggle as you moved closer to him. He was tempted to pull you even closer and hold you in his arms but he knew that you may not be receptive to that.

“Can’t you give me another hint?” He moved closer to you and looked into your eyes, silently begging you to listen.

“Alright, let me think. He’s really cute and loves to wear red shirts to school.”

The first part of that hint angered him but he tried to focus on the second part to figure who he had to deal with. Red shirts. Hmmm…who wore red shirts a lot? He thought back to all the guys he’d seen around school. Many of them have worn red before but not enough for this hint to really help him.

“What letter does his name start with?”

You reached over and placed your hand on his chest. “B.” You whispered, you then leaned up towards his face and pressed your lips against his.

For a moment he was frozen in shock. He quickly snapped back to reality and kissed you back, placing his hands on your hips and pulling you closer.

You eventually pulled back and studied his face. He had a couple of freckles across his nose and you could see the bags under his eyes. His eyes were unfocused and his lips were still slightly puckered from kissing. He was perfect.

You took a moment to gather your thoughts. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist, was that okay?”

He just stared back at you, his body seeming to be frozen.

“Uh Billy?” You waved one hand in front of his face.

He flinched. “Huh?”

“Did you hear what I said?” A look of concern on your face.

He placed a hand on the nape of his neck. “Ah, sorry I didn’t. Could you repeat it?”

You had a hard time focusing as you remembered the warmth of Billy’s hands on your hips. “I asked if you were okay with me kissing you, I’m sorry I got a little ahead of myself there.”

A shy smile crossed his face. “Of course it’s okay! You can kiss me whenever you like! Wait, does this mean you were trying to get my attention?”

He could feel the hope blossom in his chest. A kiss didn’t necessarily mean you wanted to date him or even that you liked him romantically, but you didn’t seem the type to kiss someone unless you liked them.

You beamed up at him. “Yes Billy, I like you and I was trying to get your attention. From the looks of things I did a good job.”

“I mean you did, but you already had my attention way before this.” He revealed.

You looked back at him incredulously. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Yup.”

“No way, why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure you would like me back.”

“Well clearly I do.”

That brought his attention back to your dress and how one of his hands was on your hip. He squeezed it knowing you wouldn’t mind since you apparently liked him too.

You grabbed his other hand and brought it back to the other hip. Now that you knew he liked you, you didn’t mind being bold.

“I want you to hold me.”

A blush spread across his cheeks at your words. He didn’t expect you to be so upfront. He couldn’t wait to see more of this side from you.

“Y/N, will you be my girlfriend?” He squeezed your hips, hoping he would never have to let go of you again.

“I would love to be your girlfriend.” You quickly pecked his cheek. Your cheeks grew tired from smiling but you couldn’t bring yourself to stop. Billy Batson was your boyfriend, he liked you back!

“Hey look, I don’t want to tell you what to do but please don’t wear that dress to school ever again. I don’t like all those guys looking at you.”

Your lips stretched into a sly grin. “Billy, are you jealous?”

Billy pouted, “I think it’s fair for me to be jealous, you are my girlfriend after all.”

He’s so cute! I want to tease him so bad.

“I don’t know-“

“Don’t play with me.” He pulled you even closer, his hold on your hips tightening. “Your mine.”

You felt a sudden rush of arousal. Your cunt grew wet and you hoped that it wouldn’t show through the dress since you had decided not to wear any panties today. Welp, I can see a new kink has been unlocked, right next to manhandling.

You rubbed his arms, “I’m yours”, you agreed. You had to admit that seeing him act like this was doing something to you. “I’m not gonna lie Billy, seeing you be possessive is really attractive.” The possessive look he wore quickly morphed to that of shyness as his ears grew red and a blush covered his face. “Really?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you about this.” You replied.

He beamed at you, “Well then I’m glad.”

As the two of you basked in the warmth of holding each other close a group of other students passed, unaware of the two of you being nearby. “Dude I’m telling you she wasn’t wearing anything underneath! No panties or anything. Prettiest pussy I ever saw.”

“No way. She wouldn’t just show up to school suddenly wearing a dress with no panties underneath, she’s pretty shy. I feel like she would have to work her way up to doing that,” his friend argued. “Yeah I can understand wearing something different like the dress but I don’t think she’d go as far as not wearing any underwear. I mean we’re at school, wouldn’t she worry about being caught?”

“Bro I swear I’m not lying. See for yourself if you want. I saw it when we were walking to History since it’s on the second floor. You have science with her don’t you? On the second floor of the science building? Just look then.”

“Alright I will.”

As they continued past you two, you couldn’t help but shiver as you felt Billy tighten his hold on you. You peeked up at him, taking note of his furrowed brows and possessive look returning.

“Billy I-”

“You’re not wearing any panties ?”

You felt a sudden heat take over your face. “Well you see, I wasn’t sure if you liked me so I was sort of hoping that maybe this would get some people talking about me and I’d get lucky and you’d-”

“That’s not a good reason for leaving your bare cunt out in the open like that!” He growled, moving his face closer to yours.

“That pretty little pussy is mine and no one else is allowed to see it.” He looked around and grabbed you by the arm. “Come on.”

He led you over to the classrooms nearby, he studied them before deciding on the one at the very end. This class was known to be typically empty at this hour since the teacher taught only four classes and left soon after they finished teaching. He quickly strode over to the classroom and pulled you in.

“Uh Billy? What are we doing here?” You looked around the room, all things considered it looked pretty clean. The lights were still on and while there were some papers left here and there, everything was overall pretty organized. You turned back to Billy, he stared back at you, clenching and unclenching his hands.

“I don’t like other guys seeing you in ways that only I should see you in. I don’t think it’s fair that they got to see your slutty cunt before I did. You did this, knowing they would talk about it. I think it’s time I punished you. Now walk over to that table and bend over .”

You couldn’t help the shiver that ran through your body, you hadn’t expected Billy to be this possessive but you couldn’t say that you weren’t into it. You walked over to the table and bent over, placing the palms of your hands on top of the table to hold your body up. As you started wondering if you were doing things right or looking as inexperienced as you felt, you sensed a sudden warmth behind you. You let out a small gasp as Billy came and wrapped himself around you, trapping you between his body and the table.

“Since you wanted my attention so badly I’m going to do whatever I want to your body and you’re going to bear with it, alright?” Although a question, what he said was more of a demand as he started to touch you anywhere he could reach.

“Look at these pretty tits, so perky, I can’t wait to hold them.” He rolled your shirt up to your armpits, then unclasped your bra, freeing your breasts and exposing them to the cool air of the classroom. You could feel your nipples hardening, not sure of whether it was from your growing arousal or the chilliness of the room.

Billy immediately began playing with your breasts, gently squeezing them, occasionally pulling your nipples.

“Ahh,” you couldn’t help but pant, not expecting to feel so good from having your breasts played with. Maybe your inexperience was making you extra sensitive? You suddenly jolted as you felt something hard press against your ass. It took you a moment to realize that it was Billy’s length. You couldn’t help but moan at the realization.

Not even a minute after, Billy began rutting against you. You couldn’t help but let out a whimper at the fast pace he set. Billy seemed to grow desperate for more as he unbuckled his pants, dropping them to the floor. He lowered his boxers in record time and lifted your dress up so that your wet cunt was exposed.

“You’re so wet for me already, you're such a slut.” He slipped his cock between your thighs. “I bet you had been hoping for this all along haven’t you?”

You couldn’t help but nod. “Oohh Billy, I’ve wanted you for so long. I wanted you so bad. Needed you to take me and make me yours.” You couldn’t help but spill every dirty secret you have to him. Getting off on him seeing your desperation.

“Really? How bad did you want me?” He asked. He wanted to hear every little thought you had. Have you been dreaming of him? Of the two of you doing this together? Did you like him as much as he liked you?

“So bad Billy. I dreamt of you all the time. In class, at home, in the car. I couldn’t escape you. I dreamt of you noticing me and taking me in front of the class so everyone could see I’m yours.”

Hearing your confession drove Billy mad as he began rubbing against your wet heat even faster, letting out groans of pleasure. Your cunt was so soft and warm against his cock and he couldn’t wait to sink into you when he got the chance, for now though he’ll stick with the pussyjob.

He held you firmly against him, arms wrapped tight around your waist to make it easier to rut against you.

He was curious about what else you dreamt about with him. “What else did you dream about?”

“Oh Billy you have no idea,” you groaned out, “I dreamt of you fucking me so many times, in so many positions. Of you taking my virginity. Making me your slut and personal cocksleeve.”

Billy’s brain short-circuited at your words. You were a virgin and this depraved? The words coming out of your mouth were so filthy, he didn’t expect you to be this nasty.

It really turned him on.

“I guess we’re going to have to make those into reality now aren’t we?” He whispered into your ear. You shivered at the thought of him fucking you dumb.

“Yes please!” You begged as he continued rubbing himself against your cunt. You were glad that he held you against him otherwise you would have fallen to the ground already.

“Those guys aren’t allowed to look at you like this. They shouldn’t be able to see your pretty little cunt. I can feel it absolutely dripping and we haven’t even done anything. You must be desperate for my cock.” He was so angry, you were his and it was about time that he showed you what that meant.

“Billy please, I want you. Please don’t stop.” The pleasure of your clit rubbing against his cock left your head completely empty. The only thought crossing your mind was Billy, and how good he made you feel.

“That’s right baby, let out as much noise as you want. After all, anyone who hears it will be able to know how good I make you feel.”

“What if someone catches us though?” You whimper.

“Well that’ll be the perfect way for them to know that you're mine now won’t it?”

“Billy no, I don’t want anyone to see me like this.” You didn’t want to be caught naked at school but you couldn’t help the sudden arousal you felt at the idea of people seeing Billy draped over you. Of them seeing the absolute pussy whipped look on his face. The look of pure lust that he had from just rubbing himself against your pussy.

“Don’t lie to me you little whore, I can feel the sudden gush of your juice dripping all over my cock.” He growled out. “I’m going to teach you what happens when you let others see what’s mine.”

He started sucking on the skin below your ear while he thrusted his length directly against your clit. You could feel your own body trembling from the pleasure of it all.

“Oh God, I think I’m gonna cum.” You were a bit embarrassed to be finishing so quickly but you chalked it up to still being fairly new to this.

Watching Billy go crazy from touching you made your arousal only grow. His arms were strong, the muscles obvious from the way he held you. The veins of his arms popping out. You tightly held onto his arms as you felt a rush of warmth run through your body as he drew an orgasm out of you.

He drew another moan out of you as he started thrusting even faster, chasing his own pleasure. The wetness of your cunt allowing him to move as fast as he needed until he finally reached orgasm. He groaned as he managed a few small thrusts, his balls twitching as he finally spurted out his cum. Some of it landed against your pussy while the rest dripped onto the floor.

Billy couldn’t believe what had just happened. How could he have known that when he went to school today that he would end up in this position with you. He couldn’t wait to do all the things he had always wanted to do with you and for the two of you to fulfill all the fantasies you apparently had about him.

#Billy Batson #billy batson x reader #stalker Billy Batson #possessive Billy Batson #dc #shazam #Shazam Fury of the Gods (2023)

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grigori77 · 4 months

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2023 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30. SICK – the year’s first real horror cinema surprise was also one of its VERY FIRST standouts period, a brilliant little streaming sleeper from Peacock which snuck in under the radar but EFFORTLESSLY captured my attention AND the darker parts of my imagination. Best of all, though, it was SO COOL to see legendary revisionist horror screenwriter Kevin Williamson return to the “big screen” again after spending so long plying his trade on TV – I was VERY MUCH the target audience for Scream when it came out, I just ATE UP his delicious post-modern deconstruction of the slasher genre and its subsequent follow-ups (although Robert Rodriguez’ The Faculty, his fantastic take on alien invasion movie tropes, remains my very favourite of Willaimson’s creations to date), even if it did lead to a fresh sub-genre which, paradoxically, became increasingly tired and toothless as the years progressed. In the end, I think it’s probably A GOOD THING he took a step back – he just needed a chance to rethink things and find a fresh angle to come at the genre … and BY THE GODS has he ever found one with THIS. Interestingly, for Williamson at least, the Pandemic couldn’t have come along at a better time, giving him fertile ground indeed in which to grow a particularly potent darkly comic slasher which EASILY lives up to his masterworks. Taking place in the early days of the original outbreak, when the first Lockdown was just starting, infection alerts and self-isolation were only just becoming a major thing and everybody was PANICKING over how much they really DIDN’T yet know about what was REALLY going on, the setting was already ripe for some pretty intense, chaotic storytelling … so adding a brutal serial killer with a penchant for killing off the idiots who flagrantly flaunted the COVID safety restrictions and purposefully went out of their way to pretend things were the same as normal was a slick move. The main bulk of the narrative revolves around three college kids in some nondescript part of the US – Parker (Blockers and The Society’s Gideon Adlon), a well-off party girl who’s looking to make some major changes in her life, and her best friend Miri (up-and coming R&B artist Beth Million), who go to Parker’s family’s expansive country home to quarantine in comfort, and Parker’s newly-EX boyfriend DJ (Man of Steel and Teen Wolf’s Dylan Sprayberry), who turns up ostensibly to try and patch things up between them but may simply have come for an opportunistic hook-up – who are targeted by a killer who subsequently hunts them during a night of fraught tension, smartly staged stalk-and-slash set-pieces and a hefty dose of Williamson’s characteristic jet black-but-enjoyably geeky sense of humour, which is this time pitched to a particularly sharp edge of biting finger-on-the-pulse satire given the rich socio-political real-life material he’s able to mine here. The small but extremely potent cast are all BRILLIANT, although the film really is DOMINATED by Adlon, who once again shows that she’s destined for GREAT THINGS INDEED in the future with a brilliant turn that runs an impressive gamut from irresponsibly entitled brat to vitally determined survivor once circumstances have fully driven her to take proper responsibility for her childish behaviour, making for a compellingly sympathetic young heroine we find easy enough to root for. It probably helps the man behind the camera is John Hyams (All Square, Alone), son of legendary genre-hopping director Peter Hyams, who shows he’s definitely inherited his dad’s impressive skill by crafting a lean, tight and precise slice of thrilling cinema which takes full advantage of a tight budget and (mostly) a single location, which results in a brilliant little comedy horror gem that I’d heartily recommend folk hunt down on streaming, or at the very least keep in mind for Halloween …

29. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE – it’s always nice when a sharp little indie banger sneaks in under the radar to place on one of my lists for the year, and this impressive critically acclaimed underdog thriller definitely shaped up as one of the year’s most memorable examples. It’s a very low-fi, gritty down-and-dirty procedural slice-of-life thriller about a motley collection of eco-terrorists banding together to sabotage an oil pipeline in West Texas, focusing almost entirely on this core group of disillusioned youths played by eight uniformly EXCEPTIONAL actors each handing in genuine (ahem) dynamite performances. Ariele Barer (Marvel’s Runaways), The Revenant’s Forrest Goodluck, American Honey’s Sasha Lane and Marcus Scribner (probably best known as the voice of She-Ra & the Princesses of Power’s Bow) are the undeniable stand-outs here, but all of these kids are ON FIRE throughout, showing they’ve got truly BRIGHT futures ahead of them indeed, while Irene Bedard (Smoke Signals) also impresses in a supporting turn as Joanna, an FBI agent who may be onto their plans … the film bounces between the varying points of view amongst the characters, gradually unveiling their motivations to commit a morally complex terrorist act through a series of scattered flashbacks punctuating the planning, execution and aftermath of the bombing itself, with writer-director Daniel Goldhaber (Cam, here co-adapting Andreas Maim’s incendiary non-fiction novel with Ariele Barer herself and Cam’s co-writer Jordan Sjol) weaving a suitably taut and atmospheric slowburn path throughout the flawlessly executed narrative, the film brilliantly building its wire-taut tension to a rewardingly cathartic climax which is as provocative as the challenging subject matter. This is a film that asks some VERY BIG QUESTIONS and delivers some suitably complicated and rightfully TROUBLING answers, a razor sharp piece of indie cinema which definitely deserves the critical acclaim and cult hit status it’s earned …

28. COCAINE BEAR – gods, if EVER there was a true story that seemed TAILOR MADE for cinema, it’s the bizarre tale of Cokey the Bear, AKA Pablo Eskobear, an American black bear that died after ingesting 34 keys of cocaine that were dumped out of a smuggler’s cargo plane over the Tennessee wilderness in 1985. That being said, it’s not a huge surprise it’s taken Hollywood SO LONG to actually get it made, perhaps it’s just TOO CRAZY a concept for it to have been made before now. Ultimately, the film takes A LOT of liberties with the truth to instead craft an entertaining story, but in the end that’s definitely the smart move, simply using the concept as a springboard to craft a gloriously batshit horror comedy with a JET BLACK sense of humour populated by an offbeat collection of quirky characters. Keri Russell stars as Sari, a nurse and single mother who has to brave the woods in order to find her young daughter Dee Dee (The Florida Project’s Brooklyn Prince), who’s playing hooky in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest with her best friend Henry (Sweet Tooth’s Christian Convery) right when Cokey goes on her drug-fuelled homicidal rampage; meanwhile, recently bereaved widower Eddie (Solo’s Alden Ehrenreich) and his best friend Daveed (Straight Outta Compton’s O’Shea Jackson Jr.) are two drug cartel enforcers reluctantly scouring the area in search of their lost product at the behest of Eddie’s overbearing St Louis drug kingpin father Syd White (the late, great Ray Liotta, to whom the film is dedicated); and then there’s hapless but dogged Knoxville detective Bob (the venerable Isaiah Whitlock Jr.), who knows he can bust White if he can just get his hands on the evidence. All three parties converge in the park while the bear wreaks merry havoc in Elizabeth Banks’ third film as a director (after Pitch Perfect 2 and the CRIMINALLY mistreated and overlooked Charlie’s Angels reboot), which looks like it might FINALLY get people to start taking her serious BEHIND the camera as well as IN FRONT of it – this is a proper laugh-riot of a film which is also delightfully non-PC, and it’s liberally peppered with impressively blood-soaked effects to thrill the gore-hounds as well as an impressively well-realised digital animal character in the eponymous drug-addled beastie. The cast are brilliant too, Russell and Ehrenreich both particularly impressing in their respective nominal lead roles while the kids are EXCEPTIONAL (particularly Convery, getting to gleefully overact as one of the most hyperactive-yet-not-irritating kids I’ve ever seen on screen), and it’s both enriching and a little heartbreaking to watch Liotta once again act his socks off in one of his very last film roles; that being said, several of the scenes are thoroughly STOLEN by the irrepressible Margo Martindale, who’s clearly having the time of her life in one of her most gloriously OTT roles as foul-mouthed, much put-upon park Ranger Liz. Ultimately this is a horror comedy where the balance is definitely tipped very much in favour of the laughs over the scares, but that’s fine, because with a concept this batshit bonkers we were always gonna find it too funny to ever be remotely scary, so the end result is one of THE FUNNIEST MOVIES I ran across in the cinema all year, rightfully revelling in its own inherent irreverence. It’s just about the most fun you could ever expect it to be, which is just what you want from a movie about a cocaine bear, really …

27. THE FLASH – oh boy … yeah, this one is gonna be a COMPLICATED talk. This was one TROUBLED project from day one, from the major shake-ups surrounding the Joss Whedon-compromised Justice League film and the subsequent mess THAT unleashed, through the whole conflicting debate over Zack Snyder’s original vision for the DCEU, and then the eventual collapse of the Cinematic Universe itself, this film, originally entitled Flashpoint (which personally I like A WHOLE LOT more, actually, since it really does pay DIRECT reference to the actually storyline they went with) went through a whole collection of incarnations and reiterations and, for a while, it was starting to look like we might NEVER see it hit our cinema screens at all … and that’s without even mentioning star Ezra Miller’s ongoing legal troubles and essential CANCELLING after their continued outrageous, unacceptable off-set behaviour, which looked set to torpedo the film all on its own. Honestly, I have to admit I was MYSELF a little wary going in, not because of these particular problems but more just the prospect of what I would actually do if, in spite of all this, I actually still LIKED IT … unfortunately for me, that was VERY MUCH the case, which is why we’re here in the first place.

But I must forge on, and so I’m gonna just take this film on ITS OWN face value and ignore the external problems … at least until THE END of the review … because The Flash is, actually, pretty fucking GREAT. Barry Allen (Miller) is finally coming into his own as a fully-fledged member of the Justic League, even if this does frequently mean he’s essentially cleaning up the extreme messes left behind when Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) gets involved in particularly BIG potential world-shattering events, as brilliantly illustrated in the film’s suitably SPECTACULAR opening set-piece, which does a BEAUTIFUL job of not only letting us know EXACTLY what this incarnation of the Flash is actually capable of, but also revealing Barry’s own distinctly unique, offbeat and, frankly, really rather ADORABLE personal style of superheroism. Then the plot itself kicks off when Barry’s father Henry (Ron Livingstone), serving life in prison for the wrongfully-convicted murder of Barry’s mother Nora (Pan’s Labyrinth’s wonderful Maribel Verdu), sees his latest (and, it looks like, FINAL) appeal fall flat due to a crucial new piece of evidence turning out to be useless, and Barry decides he's had enough of ignoring a particularly potent aspect of his superpowers –

the ability to run SO FAST that he can actually GO BACK IN TIME!!! So he races back to the day of his mother’s death and tweaks circumstances so that she survives, only for Barry to then get punted off track before he can return to the present by an unknown entity within “the Speedforce” which then lands him in 2013, just days before Earth’s invasion by the hostile Kryptonian forces of General Zod (Michael Shannon), as seen in Man of Steel. Still with us so far? Yeah, well it gets EVEN MORE complicated, cuz it turns out that, while his mum is now STILL ALIVE, Barry hasn’t got his powers in this universe, which means that he has to reform the Justice League himself in THIS timeline in order to defeat Zod. Except that there are FAR MORE consequences to messing with time than Barry ever took into account set to make things all but insurmountably complicated for him to succeed … beyond this we’re getting into DANGEROUS spoiler territory, beyond the fact that these new developments give rise to whole fresh and very complicated ideas of alternative universes somewhat akin to what the MCU’s already started experimenting with (which is also, actually, something that the DC comics universe does ALL THE BLOODY TIME), which gives rise to whole new incarnations of beloved characters from the established DCEU, some of which HAVE already been revealed in the trailers and beyond, but others not so much, so … yeah, anyway, it’s a glorious MESS of a narrative, but somehow this film does a REALLY IMPRESSIVE job of navigating this jumble in an impressively coherent and breezy way that ultimately makes this a whole lot of fun to watch, actually. Of course, the lion’s share of the praise for this HAS TO go to screenwriter Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey & the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) for wrangling the UNHOLY MESS of development done for the previous incarnations into an actual WORKING script, which was then brought to life with suitably brave and adventurous SKILL by director Andy Muschietti (Mama and It Chapter One and Two), but the uniformly EXCEPTIONAL cast shoulder a good deal of that responsibility too –

Miller may be problematic in real life, but there can be no denying that he is FUCKING BRILLIANT in his signature role, crafting a hyperactive, ultra-awkward social misfit of a superhero that us various underdog kids just can’t help rooting for, while it is a MASSIVE pleasure to get to see MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE Batman return as this AU’s altered version of Bruce Wayne, the legendary Michael Keaton himself again proving why he really is THE VERY BEST VERSION of the character out there (and I will accept NO ARGUMENT AT ALL about that, I swear you can all FIGHT ME on this particular hill upon which I am determined to DIE if I must), and Livingstone and Verdu bring an IMMENSE amount of pathos to their characters throughout which makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR why Barry tries SO HARD to save them both, and it’s also great fun getting to see Michael Shannon back as the Big Bad here again, I always really liked this spectacular scenery-chewing version of Zod. For me, though, the biggest win here has to be The Young & the Restless’ Sasha Calle, making her big screen debut as the most impressive and DCEU-consistent incarnation of Kara Zor-El, aka SUPERGIRL, that we could ever have hoped for, she’s a truly AWESOME creation, EASILY as badass as Henry Cavill’s Supes but also a good deal more complex as a character too. Ultimately it’s a shame that circumstances mean that we likely won’t get to see more of her in future projects, much like Keaton’s returning Batman, as they’re definitely the unexpected heart and soul of the film, easily delivering in the most impressively iconic set-pieces and memorable character beats. Indeed, this is SO BLOODY BRILLIANT all round as a film – from its spectacular action sequences, through its frequent gleefully anarchic screwball humour, to a variety of impressive jaw-dropping game-changer twists in the narrative – that the fact that the DCEU itself is officially over and all of this means PRECISELY ZERO in the face of where it’s all going in James Gunn’s incoming Cinematic Universe reboot makes this feel all the more ultimately pointless, which lends any viewing a bittersweet aftertaste no matter HOW enjoyable it all is. I mean granted, it’s NOT perfect (there is, famously, some pretty clunky CGI that ALMOST takes you out of the experience, especially in the climactic sequence when we see the timelines start to collide), but then very few of the DCEU movies HAVE BEEN anyway, and this one still works just fine for what it is. So it may not have any actual VALUE for the series moving forward, but it’s still a really great movie that MORE THAN deserves to be seen for its own merits, and I highly recommend you give it a chance anyway. At least Gunn and co have seen the sense to keep Muschietti onboard for their reboot (namely helming the new DCU’s Batman reboot The Brave & the Bold), and if they’ve any more sense they’ll bring Christina Hodson back for more too …

26. THE EQUALIZER 3 – Director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington have had a long and extremely fruitful working relationship, from their earliest collaboration on his best-known film, Training Day (which finally landed Washington his long-overdue best actor Oscar, although many of us agree that it SHOULD have gone to him a few years prior for The Hurricane), through the EXTREMELY impressive remake of the classic western The Magnificent Seven, to their most lucrative and long-running collab to date, a series of feature adaptations of a cult classic TV thriller show from the 80s which has now reached its THIRD instalment and STILL seems to be running at full steam with no sign of flagging. Indeed, this just might be THE BEST ONE YET … Washington once again effortlessly delivers a coolly sophisticated, often understated but still typically deeply nuanced turn as Robert McCall, the former special-forces soldier turned SOCOM operative who reemerged from self-imposed faked-death-retirement in the first film in order to deliver bloody retribution for the brutal assault of a young girl, only to subsequently find a new calling as a freelance guardian angel for the weak and powerless who have nowhere else to turn with a dangerous problem. This time round his antiheroic adventures has brought him to Italy, where the ill-fated end of his latest operation sees him near death from a bullet in his back, being nursed back to health in the remote coastal town of Altamonte. It’s here that he finally finds that true peace that’s so long eluded him as he recovers from his injuries, but he finds himself ultimately dragged back into the fray when a

Camorra crime outfit from Naples, looking to expand their operation to new territories, starts trying to exploit the townsfolk that Robert has grown so close to beyond their breaking point … ultimately this is a more slowburn, understated affair than the previous two films, but that actually proves to be this instalment’s greatest strength, allowing us to get closer to our Equalizer than ever before, as well as the people he’s driven to help, which makes this BY FAR the most emotionally investing film in the trilogy, and makes us root for Robert like never before as we wait for him to FINALLY bring the pain to these Mafioso thugs. That dam-break, when they finally come, is as viscerally intense as we’ve come to expect from the series, but thanks to the additional groundwork this time round the kills and cathartic payback delivered feel more satisfyingly substantial, while the film’s greatest pleasures ultimately lie more in the anticipation as Fuqua cranks the tension tighter and we edge further forward in our seats. Once again, the supporting cast all shine through, with Andrea Scarduzio (Colour On the Cross) giving great bad guy as subtly reptilian Mob boss Vincent Quaranta, ably backed up by Andrea Dodero (Thou Shalt Not Hate) as Vincent’s vicious, jumped up thug of a little brother Marco, while Gaia Scodellaro (CentroVetrine) and Eugenio Mastrandeo (From Scratch) deftly show us what’s so worth fighting for in this town as effervescently friendly local café owner Aminah and Altamonte’s principled but pragmatically fair sole Carabinieri Gio Bonucci; the biggest standout, however, is Dakota Fanning as Emma Collins, the smart and dogged FBI agent who ends up tracking Robert down following his involvement in the opening showdown and uncovers a whole nest of previous overlooked criminal chaos. At the end of the day though, this is ONCE AGAIN every inch Washington’s film, the erstwhile star clearly enjoying himself immensely in one of the best and most iconic

roles of his career, although this third instalment looks like it might be the last Equalizer with him in the lead since it becomes abundantly clear that it’s looking to wind things up for Robet’s final adventure in a suitably satisfying way. That being said, there’s definitely room, interest and clear demand for more from both the fanbase AND the creatives here, with the pervading theory being that we may be going back to the early days of McCall’s time with the CIA, in which case the obvious choice moving forward would be to let John David Washington step into his dad’s shoes as young Robert. In truth it’s the only smart choice …

25. ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA – coming off the back of 2022’s decidedly hit-and-miss big screen slate for Disney and Marvel’s current flagship property, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, THIS past year’s first MCU release had A LOT of eyes on it. Gods know, I definitely had TWO OF ‘EM … and it probably wasn’t the best title to be laying all this weight on, either – the Ant-Man movies in particular have always been a bit of a marmite property within the larger universe, with as many detractors as fans, which definitely didn’t help things here. If this turned out to be third time unlucky for Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and the rest, it could spell much larger disaster for the MCU overall, or at the very least signify that the cracks are definitely growing beyond the studios’ capacity to patch ‘em up on the run. So I’ll admit, I went into this one with a whole lot of trepidation … was it unwarranted? Well, being completely honest … not ENTIRELY. Tried-and-tested comedy director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man films have always been a pretty mad collection anyway, as much a full-blown comedy sub-franchise as the Guardians of the Galaxy movies or Thor under Taika Waititi, but even so they still managed to keep ONE FOOT on the ground even while the rest was set EXTENSIVELY in the Quantum Realm, but this one has somewhat jumped the shark. Granted, part of this film’s particular OTT outlandishness and unabashed WACKINESS is down to narrative necessity – giving too much away plot-wise unfortunately runs the risk of dropping some MASSIVE spoilers, but it’s at least safe to say that the lion’s share of the story takes place ENTIRELY in the Quantum Realm this time, and it’s a place which is A WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT from anything we might have imagined from our very brief visits in Ant-Man & the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame. For a start, it’s A WHOLE LOT BIGGER than we thought it was, and MUCH more heavily populated by some truly WEIRD SHIT … the film also has some major heavy-lifting to do with regards to setting up the Big Bad for Phase 5 and 6 both – Kang the Conqueror (The Last Black Man In San Francisco and Creed III’s Jonathan Majors), a Multiverse-based Thanos level threat we first encountered (sort of) in 2021’s runaway hit first season of Loki. This at least is one of the areas in which the movie definitely SUCCEEDED – ultimately problematic as he may have become since the film’s release, Majors at least did a commendable job of establishing one of the franchise’s most interesting and effective supervillains, a near God Tier Bad Guy who’s clearly gonna give the whole Avengers roster a run for their money when they finally come face to face with him (in whatever recast form he ultimately takes). The plot, such as it is, is pure scrambled bananas, a heavyweight mindfuck it’s best to just DISENGAGE the brain to go with in order to get proper enjoyment

out of – this is definitely a cinematic GUILTY PLEASURE, and trying to take it even remotely seriously immediately draws the eye to a thousand gaping plot-holes and glaring narrative stumbles. At least the patented stunning, primary coloured visuals, winning sense of humour and cavalcade of delightfully wacky set-pieces (the clone-spawning “probability explosion” sequence is a particularly overblown, super-trippy highlight with an unexpected tear-jerk factor built in) are all fully functional and behaving correctly, and the thoroughly endearing cast all deliver admirably with nary an off-note hint of miscasting – Rudd and Evangeline Lilly (returning as Hope van Dyne AKA the titular Wasp) are both still pitch perfect, while it’s nice to see Michael Douglas and PARTICULARLY Michelle Pfeiffer getting to do a whole lot more this time round as Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, and the glaring Michael Pena-shaped hole is ALMOST filled by a few other quality comedic turns from the likes of deadpan laugh-MASTER Bill Murray and David Dastmalchian (here returning in a VERY interesting but also very DIFFERENT role to what we’ve seen from him here before), as well as a surprise returning face (ahem) from this trilogy’s past. Meanwhile, alongside Majors there are other similarly noteworthy series newcomers who make BIG IMPRESSIONS, from Z Nation and The Mandalorian’s Katy O’Brien (who’s been a growing favourite of mine for a little while now), who’s a completely EPIC badass I wanna see A LOT more of in the future as hard-nosed Quantum freedom fighter Jentorra, to Kathryn Newton (Supernatural, Freaky), making the role of Scott’s now (pretty much) full-grown daughter Cassie ENTIRELY her own, and she’s clearly got a MAJOR future ahead of her in the MCU herself now she’s started carving out her own super-powered secret identity (roll on Young Avengers, I say!). The movie may be another flawed, somewhat unwieldy and occasionally downright CLUNKY beast, but the franchise is still managing to stand up where it counts, and compared to the likes of Thor: Love & Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever it definitely holds up a good deal better in its own right. Most of all, though, it’s A WHOLE LOT of pure, unadulterated FUN, which is ultimately exactly what you want from a big primary-coloured superhero blockbuster. In the end, it still remains to be seen if the MCU can be clawed back from the brink it’s still teetering perilously on the edge of, but despite all that’s still wrong with it, this is at least a VERY SMALL step back in the right direction …

24. THE PALE BLUE EYE – largely sneaking in under the radar on Netflix to start the New Year off, the latest offering from highly acclaimed indie writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass, Antlers) is, much as we’d likely expect from such a consistently varied, genre-hopping filmmaker, a strange, unique and deeply intriguing beast of a film. Adapted from Louis Bayard’s well-received speculative fiction novel about a young Edgar Allan Poe aiding the investigation of a bafflingly macabre murder in the US Military Academy at West Point in the early 1830s. Christian Bale returns with typical stoic, intense and magnificently brooding megawatt presence for his THIRD leading man tour of duty for Cooper (after Out of the Furnace and Hostiles) as Augustus Landor, a former West Point graduate-turned misanthropic former detective brought in to lead the investigation into the brutal hanging and evisceration (with additional heart-removal) of a young cadet that’s baffling the faculty and local police, which is soon compounded when additional bodies start piling up. He’s aided in his endeavours by another cadet, the young Poe himself (played to PERFECTION by Harry Potter’s own Harry Melling, continuing his meteoric and deeply impressive rise to prominence with another TOUR-DE-FORCE performance here), while the clues lead to a variety of deeply troubling twists and revelations as well as an intriguing collection of suitably odd and often highly charismatic characters played by the sterling likes of Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney and a fascinatingly unusual turn from Robert Duvall, although the real standout here is a truly MAGNIFICENT career-best performance from Gillian Anderson. Cooper piles on the story’s doom-laden gothic atmosphere to great effect throughout while cranking up the slowburn and deeply uncomfortable suspenseful tension throughout, while the plot is nothing short of MACHIAVELLIAN in its levels of ingenious labyrinthine intelligence, dropping an ultimate denouement that you really have to be paying SERIOUS ATTENTION to see coming, and the production design, costumes, period detail and, most of all, the thoroughly MOODY bleak-midwinter cinematography make for a freezing cold but thoroughly rewarding feast for the eyes for the most discerning film-fanatic. Altogether Cooper’s delivered another winner, and I hope he continues to make films this good well into the future.

23. DOOR MOUSE – Avan Jogia may be best known as an actor in fare like Caprica, Zombieland: Double Tap and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, but his debut feature as a writer-director definitely shows he’s got a lot of potential as a genuine filmmaking talent moving forward. This is an edgy, offbeat and enjoyably quirky little indie oddity that CLEARLY doesn’t care to play by anyone’s conventional rules, telling its unapologetically DARK and dirty little story the way IT WANTS TO without ever trying to spell its message out for the viewer. Riverdale’s Hayley Law is, as ever, simply MESMERISING as Mouse, a tough, hard-bitten burlesque dancer looking to make a better life for herself as a comic book creator, only for fate to throw a wrench in the works for her when girls at her club start disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Her resulting investigation leads to the shocking realisation that they’re being kidnapped into a life of sexual slavery, and it looks like she’s going to have to make a bold and very dangerous choice in order to effect a rescue … as always, Law simply OWNS the screen, powering the story along with equal parts guarded bravado and well-hidden wounded vulnerability, and she’s ably supported by the likes of Keith Powers (Straight Outta Compton) as Mouse’s best friend Ugly, the club’s unassuming but VERY capable bouncer, the great Famke Janssen as Mama, the club’s owner and Mouse’s laconic mother figure, and Jogia himself as her ex-boyfriend, local drug-dealing hood Mooney. The plot twists and turns with suitably pulpy skill while Mouse’s comic book bleeds into the narrative through striking imagery and quirky little animated episodes, while the film tackles big, dark themes with an unflinching eye and refuses to deliver easy answers, particularly in the cathartic but suitably JET BLACK ending. This is a hell of a debut for a promising new filmmaking talent, then, and I’d LOVE to spend some more time with Mouse herself if Jogia and Law are willing …

22. SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS – it’s interesting that, at least on here, the DC Cinematic Universe (AKA the DCEU) has managed to stand up so well this past year, especially given the recent MAJOR upheavals that have rocked the franchise as a whole. Not least because said Universe is essentially about to get hit with a Hard Reset under the guidance of new DC Studios CEO James Gunn, so none of this even MATTERS any more going forward … certainly this fact has NOT been lost on cinemagoers, who were already starting to pull away when Black Adam came out in late 2022 and subsequently seemed content to STAY away IN DROVES for this one, likely waiting to give it a go in the privacy and safety of their own homes once it hit streaming. In a way this sounded a pre-emptive death knell for the DCEU which I was genuinely sceptical about it recovering from … which is a shame, because 2019’s Shazam! was one of the franchise’s BEST FEATURES, a gleefully anarchic post-modern deconstruction of the overblown superhero antics the franchise largely glorified before while never taking itself particularly seriously but simply playing itself with just the right amount of knowing wink-and-nod. Even more of a shame, then, that this follow-up has proven to be SUCH a performance TURKEY, because it’s JUST AS GOOD as the first one, taking all the lessons learned from the first movie to heart and delivering more of everything that really WORKED once again while trying something new and fresh to expand on this little corner of the Universe with impressive aplomb and consummate skill.

Returning director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out) once again delivers in HIGH STYLE and customary spooky flair as he and returning screenwriter Henry Gayden (Earth To Echo, There’s Someone In Your House), along with Fast & Furious franchise lynchpin scribe Chris Morgan, expand on the adventures of coming-of-age young hero Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) and his (still unnamed) superpowered alter ego (Zachary Levi), alongside his now similarly gifted teenaged foster siblings, as the Daughters of Atlas – Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu) and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), a trio of immensely powerful but (somewhat) morally dubious classical Greek goddesses – come to claim their powers for their own in order to rejuvenate the Tree of Life and punish Mankind for its wickedness. The usual existential high stakes, then. Angel and Levi are, once again, ON FIRE here, the former star of Chuck in particular once again proving what an undisputable comedic MASTER he is while they both deliver MAGNIFICENTLY in the dramatic moments too, while their returning co-stars and sterling veteran support are once again just as great as before, It’s Jack Dylan Grazer particularly getting to really SHINE this time round in a particularly WEIGHTY role that nonetheless once again manages to utilise his own impressive comedic talents to full effect too, while it’s also GREAT to see This Is Us’ Faith Herman get a much more expanded role this time round as the irrepressible Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, also gets a lot more to do as he returns as the enjoyably crabby and pompous Wizard Shazam, who’s none too happy with Billy for breaking the staff last time round and setting this all off in the first place. The Daughters, meanwhile, are FANTASTIC antagonists, Liu and Mirren clearly enjoying the opportunity to be flamboyant, majestic and over-the-top in proper Shakespearean

style, while Zegler invests “Anne” with a good deal more moral fibre and complexity as the most sympathetic (and ultimately conflicted) of the trio. Sandberg and co again deliver IN SPADES on the action, atmospherics, gorgeously exotic design and sheer creativity which made the first movie such an unexpected treat, while also delivering more of that winning, sometimes downright SCREWBALL BONKERS humour to keep it entertaining and let you know that, just like its predecessor, this film knows FULL WELL how ridiculous it is and is fully prepared to just OWN IT. The end result is, ultimately, one of the best of the closing slate of DCEU films, which just makes it even sadder to think that they probably won’t continue the story once the franchise reboots.

21. GODZILLA MINUS ONE – as much as I LOVE the new efforts of Warner Bros’ impressively robust Monsterverse Expanded Universe to bring the greatest big screen kaiju of them all to life, I am not even REMOTELY surprised that it took a Japanese writer-director to truly get right down to the heart of the character with what feels like the truest, most respectful and, quite simply, VERY BEST big screen reworking of the classic original to date. Mostly I just count myself lucky I was able to find a showing at my local cinema that I could actually get to – this is definitely one of those features that really does DESERVE to be seen on the BIG screen. Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki certainly has an impressive track record, having helmed the likes of Space Battleship Yamato, The Great War of Archimedes and Lupin III: The First, but even so, this came somewhat out of the blue to not only become a MASSIVE, runaway hit in Japan but also in foreign markets, particularly blowing away western audiences who are universally praising it as one of THE greatest movies of this decade so far. All right … from a purely critical point of view, I may not quite think THAT about this, but this IS an EXTREMELY GOOD FILM, Yamazaki guiding an impressively game cast and clearly deeply committed crew to create a work of rare emotional power and uplifting intensity that tells a breathless tale of the unbreakable power of the human spirit even in the face of HORRIFIC cataclysmic events … a theme which has, of course, remained close to the hearts of the Japanese ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which famously directly informed Ishiro Honda’s beloved original. This time round, Godzilla is a pure, monstrous and thoroughly TERRIFYING force of nature throughout the film, a devastating and unstoppable mutated aberration created by the fallout of America’s H-bombs, which is unleashing unfathomable chaos across post-World War II Japan, leading a band of desperate civilians to take matters into their own hands and attempt a desperate stand to stop the horror before all is lost. Ryunosuke Kamiki (probably best known for his years of work as one of Studio Ghibli’s key voice actors) proves a compellingly fallible hero as deeply traumatised failed kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima, who finds himself battling internal demons even worse than the monster he’s up against in the real world, ably supported by Minami Hanabe (The Great War of Archimedes) as Noriko, the spirited young adoptive mother that Koichi takes in after returning from the war and forms a tight bond with, Hidetaka Yoshiaki (Always: Sunset On Third Street) as Professor Kenji Noda, the former Naval weapons engineer who becomes Koichi’s mentor, and Munetaka Aoki (Rurouni Kenshin) as Sosaku Tachibana, a former Naval fighter mechanic suffering from his own deep-seated traumas after the War. This is an interesting departure from the classic Kaiju cinema recipe, because while the Big G is definitely a powerful and potent threat that casts a very BIG shadow over events here, Minus One is ultimately less of a monster movie than a movie with a monster IN IT, Yamazaki preferring to focus on the human story and concentrate our attention on the horrors these people have to endure at the unfathomably massive claws of this terrible creature, certainly physical but predominantly mental and emotional. That’s not to say it ain’t suitably potent in the action stakes, EASILY delivering some suitably THRILLING set-pieces while the creature himself and the chaos he unleashes is portrayed with impressively executed visual effects flair … it’s just that, ultimately, this is a film which is much more of a triumph of GREAT WRITING, peerless direction and awards-worthy performances from an astonishing cast. In other words, it’s just a really GREAT FILM, period. Which makes this something TRULY SPECIAL after all, I guess …

#2023 in movies #sick #sick movie #how to blow up a pipeline #cocaine bear #the flash #the equalizer 3 #ant man and the wasp quantumania #the pale blue eye #door mouse #door mouse movie #shazam fury of the gods #godzilla minus one

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