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This week, there are FIVE new films out for you to choose from, led by 6 Underground. Here are the titles, with more info below:6 Underground
QT8: The First Eight (aka 21 Years: Quentin Tarantino)
Black Christmas
Aquarela
Jumanji: The Next Level
6 Underground is a new action movie with a new kind of action hero… Six untraceable agents, totally off the grid. They’ve buried their pasts so they can change the future.
So, basically, they’re all ‘dead’ for the purposes of how they go about their job.
It’s surprising that a Michael Bay movie is going straight onto Netflix, especially since he revels in big screen action, but then again, it saves seeing all those empty cinemas…
Okay, I jest. I absolutely loved the IMAX 3D in Transformers: The Last Knight, even though the film made zero sense, but then I saw it on the second weekend of release and the place was almost completely deserted, so people don’t know quality 3D when it flies past their own face.
And I wonder if they’ve gone with the title of 6 Underground purely to feature the 1996 song from Sneaker Pimps? That was a top track, but we never heard a peep out of them after that.
Director: Michael Bay
Writers: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Hardy, Mélanie Laurent, Adria Arjona, Dave Franco, Corey Hawkins
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
QT8: The First Eight (aka 21 Years: Quentin Tarantino)
QT8: The First Eight (aka 21 Years: Quentin Tarantino) takes a look at the first eight films directed by Quentin Tarantino, a man who started off with a perfect trilogy of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.
In this film, There’s chat from so many cast and crew collaborators in this two hours as they go through every one of the films (so, naturally, expect spoilers), including the late, great Robert Forster, and it’s good that Taraninto tries to avoid using CGI as much as possible, although as we see from footage of a Kill Bill driving stunt with Uma Thurman, she sustained permanent neck and knee injuries when her car crashed into a tea.
Read our review here!
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Read our review!
Black Christmas
Hawthorne College is quieting down for the holidays. One by one, sorority girls on campus are being killed by an unknown stalker. But the killer is about to discover that this generation’s young women aren’t willing to become hapless victims as they mount a fight to the finish.
Lots of women getting killed one after another. It could either work or not, as it’s Blumhouse.
Either way, they should’ve released this about a month ago so it had a long lead up to Xmas. Releasing it now means it’ll die a death quite soon after Xmas.
Director: Sophia Takal
Writers: Sophia Takal, April Wolfe
Stars: Imogen Poots, Aleyse Shannon, Lily Donoghue
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Aquarela
Water is the main protagonist, seen in all its great and terrible beauty. Mountains of ice move and break apart as if they had a life of their own. Kossakovsky’s film travels the world, from the precarious frozen waters of Russia’s Lake Baikal and Miami in the throes of Hurricane Irma, to Venezuela’s mighty Angel Falls in order to paint a portrait of this fluid life force in all its glorious forms. Fragile humans experience life and death, joy and despair in the face of its power.
It has some interesting shots of weather, but I hope it doesn’t end up going down the “man-made global warming” bollocks route. Only the plus side, it’s been shot in High Frame Rate (HFR) but I don’t know what frame rate, so it’ll be interesting to see in that respect at least.
Director: Victor Kossakovsky
Writers: Viktor Kossakovsky, Aimara Reques
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Jumanji: The Next Level sees four friends return to Jumanji to rescue one of their own, but they discover that nothing is as they expect. The players need to brave parts unknown, from arid deserts to snowy mountains, in order to escape the world’s most dangerous game.
Basically, this is precisely more of the dame dullness as Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle, but this time, only Karen Gillan‘s real-life character is the same. The others – Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black – are all different, including Danny DeVito and Danny Glover, but the end result is just as bland.
However, a third film (including the 1995 original Jumanji – which was actually a great film) was a certainty. The original cost $65m back in the day, and grossed $262m worldwide. 2017’s movie had a $90m budget, but despite being out around the same time as moneymaker Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, it still grossed a mammoth $962m at the cinema alone. So, they’ll keep making them until people stop going.
Director: Jake Kasdan
Writers: Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg
Also stars: Madison Iseman, Awkwafina, Colin Hanks, Alex Wolff, Nick Jonas, Dania Ramirez, Rhys Darby
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.