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Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

Two months after acquiring both halves of the cruciform key, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is ready to put an end to the Entity, once and for all. However, in that time the rogue A.I. has increased its stranglehold on cyber space and the planet. Spreading lies and misinformation, the people of the world are divided more than ever, and governments are on high alert. All of which should make it rather difficult, maybe even impossible for Ethan and his team to find a sunken Russian submarine and, use whatever they find there to kill the artificial intelligence that's slowly taking control of the world's nuclear arsenals. It is entirely possible that Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning  could be the most anxiety inducing instalment of the franchise - the second half, anyway. Once again, Tom Cruise puts himself through the absolutely ludicrous in the name of entertainment... and a possible adrenaline addiction. Every scenario in which Ethan and the gang find themselves seems to be d...
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Enter the Room | Average Guy Movie Review

When Brian (Peter Mastne) agrees to let his brother Jeremy (Rich Holton) stay with him whilst in town for work, they quickly discover it was a bad idea. Two people stuck in a small studio apartment, one very uptight and the other totally laid back, it's not long before they begin to grate on each other, and tempers flare. But is there something else behind their animosity towards each other? The first thing that springs to mind when watching Enter the Room  is the Covid lockdown. Writer/director Harry Waldman and his team have managed to recreate that sense of both isolation and being trapped that many were faced with when the world was brought to a standstill. In fact, they have made that tiny studio apartment feel very small indeed. And by clever use of colours, editing and score they dial up the intensity of the atmosphere within it, as brothers Brian and Jeremy come to blows.  From the very start everything is on a knife edge, and despite only being 15 minutes long,  ...

Perhaps Better That Way | Average Guy Movie Review

Jule (Marlene Fahnster), an aspiring photographer who has seemingly lost her taste for the art, is given a task by her sister. She is to go out into the city and find something to photograph, something she wouldn't want to forget. After warning us about the potentially dangerous rise of Artificial Intelligence with Turing Test , writer/director Jaschar Marktanner is now exploring the human experience through a unique lens - pardon the pun. Jule is a person who was searching for something - striving, even - but for some reason she has stopped. She has almost walled herself off from the world. What is it that she was searching for? And why has her love of photography waned? These are questions that this curious short never really answers, because it doesn't need to. The point here is the journey, and that we all need a push from time to time. Someone to help us get back up. Which is why Jule's task proves so compelling, even without those answers. Marlene Fahnster delivers a ...

One Battle After Another | Average Guy Movie Review

A former revolutionary, who has spent the last 16 years vegetating in hiding, is forced to get off his couch in order to find his missing daughter, while also avoiding the government forces that are hunting them both. Following his very separate desires to adapt Thomas Pynchon's Vineland , and to make an action movie, Paul Thomas Anderson has somehow combined the two, and in the process created something quite brilliant. One Battle After Another  is, for the most part, exactly what the title suggests; with many of the movie's main characters battling their way through a series of obstacles and challenges. And yet it is so much more. The movie has a lot to say about immigration policy in present day USA, and battling oppression. But at its heart it is the story of two peoples' fight for survival, and a father's desperate attempts - no matter how comical - to find his daughter. The whole thing is set in this crazy alternate world, but one not too different from our own. I...

TRON: Ares | Average Guy Movie Review

Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the grandson of the man who once stole the work of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), has found a way to bring that which he creates on the Grid into the real world. This includes his Main Control security program; Ares (Jared Leto). The only problem is, he can only keep them here for 29 minutes. Legend has it that Flynn once discovered the key to "permanence", and now it's a race between Dillinger and Eve Kim (Greta Lee), new CEO of Encom, to find it. In many ways TRON: Ares  is exactly what you'd expect of a sequel to the 1982 cult classic. A story about big tech, light cycles, and life within the computer world of 'The Grid', that loosely links to what has come before. This seems to be the tradition that all must adhere to when carrying on the story of Flynn. There are, of course, many call-backs and references to both TRON and TRON: Legacy . But TRON: Ares  is not a direct sequel to either, although some of those not so subtle cal...

The Hack | Average Guy TV Review

Nick Davies (David Tennant), a freelance journalist for The Guardian , investigates the use of phone hacking by the News of the World and The Sun  newspapers. While Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook (Robert Carlyle) re-investigates the 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan, one of the Metropolitan Police Service's more troublesome unsolved cases, and one with links to the hacking scandal. The hacking scandal is one of those stories that gripped all of the UK, with equal parts fascination and outrage. Not only were the practices outrageous, so were the lengths that a certain few went to in order to cover them up. That is what Nick Davies found himself up against when he received a tip from an anonymous source as to the scale of the illicit operation being run by the News of the World . He was the first to report on the story, and The Hack  captures what an uphill struggle it was for him to force it into the light. All of which makes him the perfect person - through David Tennant...

Thunderbolts* | Average Guy Movie Review

A bunch of mercenaries - and one civilian - find themselves working together after they are all betrayed by the same person. It’s a journey that forces them to examine their own misdeeds as much as those of the people they’re going after. They just have to stay alive long enough to expose this major conspiracy, and convince the powers that be that, on this occasion, they’re not the bad guys. On the face of it, Thunderbolts*  is a typical Marvel  team-up movie. A bunch of super people, who don't get along, are forced to team up in order to save the world, or at least New York. Only this time the super people aren't exactly the cream of the crop. They're not even the B team. In fact, they're probably the last people you'd want to call, unless you're planning something illegal, that is. And even then you wouldn't want them working together. These lone wolves certainly don't play well with others. Which makes it all the more hilarious to watch them try. Yes,...