Tag: fall guy

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Animation Features Live Action Movies

The SpongeBob Movie
Search for SquarePants

Director – Derek Drymon – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 96m

*****

SpongeBob is duped by a ghostly pirate into undertaking a quest in the underworld which will have disastrous consequences for him – anarchic and inventive animation is out in UK cinemas on Friday, December 26th

The big day has arrived. SpongeBob SquarePants (voice: Tom Kenny) has finally reached the height of 36 clamshells. This means he can fulfil his dream – going on the fairground rollercoaster ride. As he bottles out, an opportunity presents itself: the chance to become a certified swashbuckler like the employer he so admires, Mr. Krabs (voice: Clancy Brown).

Thus SpongeBob joins ghostly pirate the Flying Dutchman (voice: Mark Hamill), the curse of the seven seas, on a quest into the underworld resembling the numbered stages of a computer game. However, our hero has been duped; the Flying Dutchman can only rid himself of the curse which traps him in the state of a ghost by transferring it to someone else – and SpongeBob is the fall guy. Can our hero’s friends Patrick (voice: Bill Fagerbakke), accompanying him on his quest, and Mr. Krabs and Squidward (voice: Roger Bumpass), who set out in hot pursuit, save him?… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

The Dead Don’t Hurt

Director – Viggo Mortensen – 2023 – US – Cert. 15 – 129m

***1/2

An independently-minded woman whose partner is away fighting a war struggles to survive in the Old West – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, June 7th

While there is much to admire in this Western, it suffers from unclear flashbacks and parallel editing. Both the trailer (below) and the UK press handouts circumvent this problem by describing a straightforward, chronological narrative (and a fascinating narrative at that). For anyone who doesn’t try to follow plot, this may not be a problem. For those who do, it most definitely is.

Two things happen at the start. One is a shoot out in which Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), a nasty bit of work with scant disregard for either decency or law and order, rides away into the evening after shooting various people inside and outside the town’s saloon, including the deputy sheriff. The town is apparently called Elk Flats, Nevada – something I gleaned not from the film (where, if that information is there, it’s easy to miss, and I missed it) but from the production notes.

This is indicative of a problem with the film overall: there are certain key bits of information it needs to tell the audience, which it fails to deliver in a clear, comprehensible way.… Read the rest

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Muscle

Director – Gerard Johnson – 2019 – UK – Cert. 18 – 110m

****

Pump it up! A man dissatisfied with his life comes under the influence of a manipulative bodybuilding trainer – on Sky and NOW from Tuesday, June 1st

Newcastle, UK. Simon (Cavan Clerkin) is at a dead end working days in a dodgy telesales job he hates and coming home at night to his partner Sarah (Polly Maberly) who no longer loves him. Whatever attracted her to him has gone. Looking for a way to move forward, Simon sees a man walk confidently out of a doorway and on realising it’s a local gym, decides to join. It’s not long before he’s under the influence of fellow member Terry (Craig Fairbrass), an ex-forces type who takes him under his wing as a personal trainer to help him transform his body. Under Terry’s influence, Simon changes his diet, reduces his drinking with colleagues to virtually nil and is suddenly achieving top sales at work. None of that is enough to stop Sarah leaving him.

Terry is however not what he initially seems. He suggests first he then his friend Crystal (Lorraine Burroughs) move into Simon’s house to help pay the bills then instigates increasingly orgiastic parties with his friends as if the place was his own.… Read the rest