Created by Robert Kirkman, written by Ryan Ridley and directed by Chris Mckay is this horror inspired action comedy. Nicholas Hoult plays Renfield a former property developer, until he met Count Dracula (Nicholas Cage) and becomes his “Familiar”, the Counts servant, responsible for finding him his victims, as well as keeping the house clean! Due to a previous incident, the Count and Renfield are now in an abandoned hospital in New Orleans as The Count recuperates. But Renfield is now having second thoughts about the health of his relationship with The Count. He starts attending a co-dependency support group, which he uses to both help him in his relationship as well as to find fresh food for The Count. After one meeting and a particularly messy bit of food hunting he meets a police officer, Rebecca Quincy (Awkafina) and finds himself dragged into a world with local crime family the Lobo’s and their son  Teddy (Ben Schwartz). Which puts Renfield In a battle to escape The Count and help Rebecca rescue her sister.

With the director of the Lego movies behind this it should be no surprise that Renfield is an irreverent take on the  Dracula and vampire film genre and has real fun in this part horror, part action, part comedy romp.

While it has received some mixed reviews I really enjoyed this. It knows what it is trying to do and had plenty of fun doing it. The cast are well judged, Hoult is perfect in the Renfield role getting the balance right between the under the thumb servant and the bug eating “fighting machine”. It will come as no surprise that Cage is clearly having a great time chewing any scenery, and necks, that he can find. Awkafina brings her Awkafina shtick to the role, but not only that she also makes a good fist of being an action hero.

Renfield is a lot of enjoyable fun. Its cast is well judged with Hoult and Cage having a blast with their roles. It moves at a pace, with plenty of humour, action and a long supply of entertainingly gory endings for numerous “henchman”. It’s as fun a 90 minutes as you can spend with the “Dark Lord”.

Ben Affleck with his writer Alex Convery bring to the screen the story of Nike’s battle to sign a young Michael Jordan to their brand. Matt Damon is Sonny Vaccaro Nike’s basketball talent scout, tasked with bringing the best talent to the brand in an attempt to drive sales in its failing basketball division. Frustrated by Nike’s previous attempts Vaccaro suggests to marketing head Richard Strasser (Jason Bateman) and CEO Phil Knight (Affleck) that they change strategy and rather than spread their small budget they go “all in” on one future star, Michael Jordan. Up against the giants of Converse and Adidas, Vaccaro uses his belief, desire and contacts to win over Jordan’s mother Delores (Viola Davis) to get a chance with Jordan himself and setup what would be a new type of deal that would change sports licensing.

What seems like a dry idea, under Affleck’s direction and Convery’s script, is an enjoyable telling of a fascinating story that would change sports sponsorship. It stays accessible by avoiding focussing on the technicalities of the contract or Jordan’s prowess as an athlete, in fact Jordan (played by Damian Delano Young) only appears in profile, rather it focusses on the individuals and the fight to change attitudes and take risks to win against the odds.

It is helped by a smart script that not only does a great job at developing its main characters, in its surprisingly short runtime of 112 minutes, but does so with a well judged sense of humour. It also looks great recapturing 1984 with its colour pallete and evocation of 80’s nostalgia including its excellent soundtrack.

The supporting performances are excellent with the main players well supported by the likes of Matthew Mayer, Chris Tucker, Marlon Waynas and Chris Messina.

Air, under Affleck’s direction and Convery’s storytelling, is an engaging telling of a fascinating story. With a high quality cast that deliver what you’d expect. It looks and sounds great with a script that zips along. Who knew one of the best films I would have seen this year would be about contract negotiations for a pair of shoes!

Written by Matthew Fogel, directed by Aaron Horvath and Micheal Jelenic is this latest attempt to bring the world’s best selling video game series to the big screen. This time it is an animated adventure, Chris Pratt is Mario with Charlie Day as Luigi, who we find in Brooklyn just about to launch their new plumbing business. But when their first job does not go to plan Mario sees a chance to redeem them when there is a major leak in the middle of Brooklyn. However rather then fixing the leak they find themselves jettisoned into a strange world, but separated, Luigi in the Dark Lands. Mario in the Mushroom Kingdom where he meets Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) who has her own problems with the inevitable invasion of Bowser (Jack Black) and his forces. The Princess teams up with Mario to tackle
Bowser and rescue Luigi all before Bowser takes over all of the lands.

This film has had some mixed reviews but personally, I had plenty of fun with this. It’s a bright, fun, non-stop animated action. There’s plenty of humour and while I’m no great player of Mario games, there are plenty of nods to the Mario universe that even I recognised. All squeezed into a 91 minute run-time.

The voice cast is entertaining with leads finding lots of good support with Seth Rogan (Donkey Kong), Keegan-Michael Key(Toad) and Frank Armisen(Cranky Long) amongst them.

The animation captures the feel of many of the games from the earliest to the latest. There is also a fun play on previous Mario “suspect” Italian accents when Mario and Luigi make an ad for their plumbing business.

There’s also a great soundtrack that helps keep the action bombing along at a fair pace.

Mario Bros. Is unlikely to go down as an animation classic. But it is an entertaining 91 minute bundle of fun and energy. It’s lively and colourful, catching the essence of the games. The voice cast are fun and deliver an enjoyable romp through the world of Super Mario.

John Francis Dailey and Jonathan Goldstein bring to the screen this latest adaptation of Dungeons and Dragons. Edgin (Chris Pine) is in prison with his friend Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) after an attempted robbery alongside conman Forge (Hugh Grant) goes wrong. Edgin not only has lost his freedom but also his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman). After two years in prison they engineer their escape so they can reunite with Kira and reclaim what is theirs from the their former friend Forge. But Forge has a strong allie with a red wizard Sofina (Daisy Head), which means they will need help, so they bring together a team Simon (Justice Smith), Doric (Sophia Lillis) and occasional help from Xenk (Rege-Jean Page). The band comes together and go on a quest full of magic, monsters and adventure.

I’ve not ever been a Dungeons and Dragons player, although I do remember the animated series. I also concede that this film has reviewed well with both critics and viewers alike. However, it just didn’t work for me.

While it had its moments it felt more dull and drudgery at times. It had some real pacing problems in its first half particularly, seemingly taking an age to get to what would always be an inevitable story line. Visually it looked okay although some of the CGI did look clunky and unconvincing.

The script is more than understandable for someone like me who is not invested in the D&D world, but it also slow and lacks humour. This impacts the main characters who, while likeable, never feel there is any real camaraderie between them. It is probably at its best when Page’s Xenk is onscreen, bringing some some fun, especially in his interactions with Pine.

Lots of people seem to be enjoying Dungeons and Dragons, but for me it didn’t really work. The pacing is terribly slow in the first half and the script lacks humour and zip. It’s all a bit predictable. I’d hoped to have more fun than I did, but I may be in the minority.

Available on Apple TV+

John S. Baird and writer Noah Pink, bring us this movie adaptation of the true story of the battle to own the rights of one of the most successful games of all time, Tetris. Taron Egerton is Henk Rogers who finds Tetris at a Las Vegas technology show. Initially he believes he has bought the rights to distribute the game in Japan. But when he finds that Robert Stein’s (Toby Jones) software company alongside Robert and Kevin Maxwell’s (Roger Allam & Anthony Boyle) Mirrorsoft all claim to own rights he finds himself heading to Moscow and gambling everything to try and secure rights. Here he finds a country unraveling and a race to secure the rights so his gamble pays off.

It’s a bit of an odd film in reality, the story itself seems crazy but is set at a time of great upheaval as the Soviet Union heads towards collapse. But the film struggles to fully capture the anarchy and energy of the time.

But it is fun, occasionally tense and often intriguing. It looks great, recreating 80’s Moscow and is accompanied by a soundtrack packed with 80’s classics. There is a good mix of heroes to cheer along and some slimey bad guys who get their comeuppance.

Taron Egerton is as watchable as ever. It is the stories of the Soviets, expecially that of the games writer Alexy Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) and his boss Nikolai Belikov (Oleg Shtefanko), that steal the film. Taking incredible risks for Rogers after been won over by his risk taking and desire.

The story is hugely uneven and is never quite sure whether it wants to be a dramatic retelling of a complex story or an action adventure set in late 80’s Moscow and it’s never quite either.

Tetris is by no means a classic but it’s a fun telling of the incredible story of one of the most successful games of all time. It has fun with its 80’s look and soundtrack, but it’s also very uneven and unsure of what it’s trying to do. Not as entertaining or memorable as the game but fun enough.

Chad Stahelski and Shay Hatten return with the fourth installment of the John Wick franchise. Wick (Keanu Reeves) is still looking for a way out of his life and his debt to “The Table”. But they are not done with him as a new powerful Marquis (Bill Skarsgard) has risen to prominence on a promise to kill Wick. Not only do they come for Wick but also those close to him. Including Winston (Ian McShane), Charon (Lance Reddick), Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his daughter Akira (Rina Sawayama). The Marquis is not Wick’s only problem as he finds he is a “name” for old friend Caine (Donnie Yen) and a bounty hunter (Shamier Anderson). But if Wick can avoid them and the endless line of hunters wanting to cash in on the ever increasing price on his head, then there is finally a way for him to get what he wants.

The thing about the John Wick is it knows exactly what it is about. They are unashamed action films and If John Wick 4 is to be the last, then it has gone out all guns blazing. It’s a 149 minute full throttle adventure from start to finish, that rarely pauses to take a breath and doesn’t drag, even if a couple of fight scenes felt repetitive. Although even at its unrelenting pace it still has time to build in humour and nods to the Wick cannon.

The visual splendour and incredible physicality of the, often long, fight scenes is turned up to 11, highlighed in one fabulous battle that is shot from overhead. It looks fantastic with the mix of neon and traditional gardens in Japan, the decadence of the Berlin night scene to the sweeping use of Paris, ticking off famous sights as it goes.

Performances are what you want and amongst all the action Reeves and Yen bring a world weariness to characters living lives they don’t want. Which balances well against the action.

John Wick: Chapter 4, if it is to be the last installment, has gone out in style. It’s a visual treat that uses to great effect its inspirations from samurai to Westerns. It’s long but doesn’t drag and its action is relentless. For fans of the series, this should be a satisfying conclusion.

David F. Sandberg is back in the Directors seat with writer Henry Gayden joined by Chris Morgan to deliver a second installment of Shazam. Zachary Levi returns in the main role as the teenager given superhero powers. His teenage self Billie (Asher Angel) and his foster brothers and sisters are working hard to balance their double lives as teenagers and super heroes. All is going well, mainly, until a series of events changes things. First the mysterious theft of an ancient staff by the “daughters of Zeus” (Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu). Then foster brother Freddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) bumps into the new girl at school,Anthea (Rachel Zegler), and they quickly hit it off. However these things are not unrelated and the daughters of Zeus have returned to take revenge on Earth and retake the powers that the wizard (Djimon Honour) had bestowed on Bille and his family.

The first Shazam! Was quite a refreshing change, with a light touch often missing from DCs normally overly earnest storytelling. While some of that light touch remains in this second installment, ultimately much of the freshness has gone and while not terrible, it is pretty standard super hero fair.

It’s bangy and crashy, with a silly and predictable storyline. There are things to enjoy, Zachary Levi continues to get the teenager in a superhero body schtick just right. Grazer’s Freddie is perhaps the heart of the film, spending most of the time without his alter ego, as he navigates the events around him and a new relationship with Zegler’s Antheas. Helen Mirren brings some gravitas and humour and Lucy Liu camps it up as a power crazed God.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods, is not a terrible film, but it is predictably average and that is a genre problem more than a Shazam specific one. How superhero films do something interesting in future is a question. It’s not one Shazam solves, it’s fun enough, but nothing you’ve not seen before.

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods is this nuts and bolts sci-fi action adventure. Set 65 million years ago, Mills (Adam Driver) is a pilot who flies long distance space missions. His latest mission is a two year flight into deep space. During the mission his ship flies into an asteroid field forcing him to make a crash landing on an unmapped planet. As he comes around he believes all of his passengers are dead and finds himself alone on, as we’ve discovered, Earth. An Earth on which dinosaurs still rule. His situation his hopeless, until he finds one of his passengers has survived in the shape of a young girl, Koa (Ariana Greenblatt). She gives him the inspiration to treck across dangerous terrain to reach the remainder of their craft and a rescue ship, which can get them off the planet and home, before time for them and the planet runs out.

Before heading off to see 65 my wife asked “what’s it about?” My answer was “Adam Driver, Dinosaurs and a gun” and that’s all you need to know about this nuts and bolts 90 minute action adventure.

It is very predictable, Mills and Koa, start at point A and must successfully navigate their way across a hostile environment full of creatures who want to kill them to point B. If is as formulaic as that, with no real surprises. Even the catastrophic event they find themselves having to outrun is telegraphed very early on.

All that said, I got exactly what I’d expected. Disposable, dumb nonsense and has no intention of providing anything else. There is a bit of tragedy in Mills’s background and in Koa’s present, but that’s the only attempt to add some depth.

It’s a long way from been a classic but I had an enjoyable enough time. Adam Driver is always good value as is his young co-star Ariana Greenblatt. Both giving committed and enjoyable performances.

65 will not be troubling any awards judges and to be honest you’ll forget it pretty quickly. But it is what it sets out to be, a pretty basic action adventure. It’s not great, but I enjoyed it anyway and at 91 minutes it knows it limits!

Now showing on Sky Cinema and available on a range of streaming services.

Jim Archer directs as David Earl and Chris Hayward bring their comic creations to a feature length film. Brian (Earl) is a quiet and isolated man living in a farmhouse in the Welsh hills. He’s alone and while having a happy outward appearance, he’s clearly lonely and does not easily get close to people. He fills his day inventing, quirky and relatively useless things from random pieces of scrap. Until he builds himself a robot, Charles (Hayward). Charles opens up a new world of friendships and relationships especially with village local Hazel (Louise Brealey) , but it also catches the eye of less pleasant members of the community, namely Eddie (Jamie Michie) and his less than friendly family. Can Brian keep Charles safe and allow them both to flourish into a new world.

If you looked up the definition of quirky comedy, I’d be pretty sure you’d find a picture of Brian and Charles. This is quirky,l in the best if ways. It is also funny throughout and importantly touching and good hearted.

It is a lovely study of loneliness, and about making friends when it’s hard to do and taking yourself out of your comfort zone for those you care for.

Performances are strong with Earl portraying the loner who finds life difficult, but never strays into the pathetic. He is always someone you feel for not feel sorry for. His relationships with Louise Brealey’s Hazel, always feels believable and while sweet, never overly so.

Hayward’s large lumebring robot is at the centre of the comedy. Especially as we see him develop into “sulky” teenager with his “unfair” life and how he hates everyone. We’ve all been that character! But seeing it portrayed by a talking walking washing machine is an extra treat.

Brian and Charles is the definition of quirky. But it’s a quirkiness that works. It’s sweet, tender and kind hearted, but most importantly it’s funny. You’ve never realised how much you’ve wanted a 7ft talking washing machine until now. We could all use some Charles Petrescu in our lives.

Micheal B. Jordan makes his directorial debut In the latest installment from the Rocky/Creed franchise. Now retired, Adonis Creed (Micheal B. Jordan) is managing his gym and other boxers including his star, current undisputed world champion Felix Chavez (Jose Benavidez). Creeds life is good, but then an important part of his past returns when his closest childhood friend Damian Anderson (Jonathan Majors) returns to the neighbourhood after serving 18 years in prison. As a young man he was a great boxing hope, something that was taken away by prison. Now he’s back and he wants a shot and needs Creed to help. But in helping him Adonis reopens a part of his life that he’d never dealt with and now it’s there it needs to be resolved.

If you’ve seen the trailer for Creed, then you’ll know what this latest installment is going to deliver. It is exactly the film you expect it to be, hitting every beat whem it should. But if you didn’t know what to expect don’t worry every turn of the film is signposted from start to finish.

This isn’t really a negative as this is the ninth Rocky/Creed film. So if you’re heading into one, you’re going to get the thing you signed up for.

The story arc digs into Creed and Damian’s background and covers some dark moments, but ultimately these lead up to the training montage and wonderfully choreographed showdown. Which to Jordan’s credit he does bring some creative ways to show the intensity and focus demanded in the ring.

The film is blessed with impressive leads. But It is Majors who brings the real interest with an excellent performance. His dark brooding and physical presence is balanced by a want to redeem himself and claim what he feels was denied him, making him a more complex and interesting opponent.

Creed III is exactly the film you expect. But that’s okay as there is plenty to enjoy, especially with Majors who brings one of the most interesting opponents of the franchise. It’s maybe not the most memorable of the Rocky/Creed films but still solid and enjoyable.