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Showing posts from 2023

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny | Average Guy Movie Review

It's 1969, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is about to retire, when out of the blue his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) shows up with questions about an ancient artifact known as the Antikythera. But she's not the only person looking for it. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) - a Nazi scientist - is also on the trail, and he intends to use the Antikythera to correct what he sees as the mistakes of the past. Making it a race against time for Indy and his new found friend to make sure the past stays the way it is. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny  - awful title, I know -  explodes on to screen with a de-aged Indy and his friend Baz (Toby Jones) causing the retreating German army trouble in 1944. It's the perfect way to kick off what is meant to be Ford's final movie with the fedora and whip - with a lunatic escapade to recover a piece of history, reminiscent of the crusading archaeologist's classic adventures. The technology used to de-age Hollywood's gru

FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA | Moustache Trailer Reaction

After proving to be a popular part of Mad Max: Fury Road , Furiosa finally has her own movie. One in which we will learn how she became Imperator for Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Check out the trailer for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga  below. Now you could argue that Furiosa already has her own movie because despite being a Mad Max  movie,  Fury Road  was really about her struggle to get home, while Max (Tom Hardy) was very much a bystander. But that is often the case with these movies. With the exception of the first movie, Max always seems to be stumbling into other peoples' troubles in his unending search for supplies and solitude. He even turned down the chance of a new home when he fled the Citadel just as Furiosa was anointed as it's new leader. Now, with Anya Taylor-Joy taking on the role, we get to see how she became the woman played so perfectly by Charlize Theron. Taylor-Joy seems like an excellent choice to play a young Furiosa. She brings a tough exterior to the chara

Oppenheimer | Average Guy Movie Review

Christopher Nolan's epic biopic proves to be a beautifully chaotic examination of a brilliant but complicated man. Warts and all, so to speak. Based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer , the story telling jumps back and forth through several periods in history in ways that feel random to show us how Oppenheimer became the "father of the Atomic Bomb", as well as the effect his work at Los Alamos had on him and his eventual fall from grace. And yet somehow it all pieces together perfectly. The movie should feel jumbled, but it unravels the man's story smoothly. It simply flows in a way that makes it as gripping as it is fascinating. But it would be nothing - well, nearly nothing - without the incredible cast that brings this story to life. So much so that t he passions of all those involved at Los Alamos - however misguided - are almost palpable. It  is a mammoth cast, filled with famous names and great talent, it's any

Sound of Addiction | Average Guy Movie Review

A mercenary team - known as the 'Vipers' - is tasked with extracting a young girl named Maria (Tetta Sanders) from a secluded country home, and the cult that resides there. The only problem; the cult have taken their experimentation with recreational drugs a bit far, and the resultant effects have a certain undead quality.  Sound of Addiction   (SOA)  - which you can watch below - was inspired by the rise of Fentanyl in the USA and the zombie-like effect it has on its users. It's a horror short with an action twist. From the moment the boys (Jamie Clark, John Mortimore, Aaron Mackenzie, Sam Seeley, Will Bowden) leave the van to begin their approach to the target building there is a sense of eerie foreboding that descends over the film, leaving our heroes feeling oddly exposed. The tension rises slowly. All of which the tight, up close and personal filming style only compliments, with the directors putting the viewer right alongside them. On top of its creepy, horror vibes, 

The Last Rifleman | Average Guy Movie Review

Artie Crawford (Pierce Brosnan) is a 91 year old veteran who served in Normandy as part of Operation Overlord. When his wife of many years passes away, he escapes from his retirement home in Ireland in an attempt to make it back to France for the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day landings, in order to lay the past to rest. On occasion Hollywood seems to take it upon itself to deliver a movie battle of epic proportions, in which two incredibly similar movies are released in the same year, and we the people must decide which one is better. 1997 it was Dante's Peak  vs. Volcano . 1998 saw Deep Impact vs. Armageddon and Antz vs. A Bug's Life . 2013 we had Olympus Has Fallen  vs. White House Down . And in 2023 we've had Guy Ritchie's The Covenant  vs. Kandahar  and - continuing on the military theme - The Great Escaper  vs. The Last Rifleman . That last one includes two movies that are based on the tale of Bernard Jordan, the man who at 89 years of age famously disappeared fr

REACHER Season 2 | Moustache Trailer Reaction

Once again Lee Child's literary character leaps from the page to the screen in the trailer for Reacher season 2. Check it out below. After introducing a new take on Jack Reacher - one much closer to Lee Child's vision - with a clever adaptation of the first novel Killing Floor , Alan Ritchson is back as the drifter/ex-military cop. It's a role he handles very well - both in performance and stature - and if the trailer is anything to go by Reacher's more unstoppable than ever! Watching him take care of a car jacker with extreme efficiency is not only incredibly enjoyable, it perfectly captures what fans love about this character. The second season is based on one of my favourite of the Reacher novels; Bad Luck and Trouble . Once again they've chosen a book in which Reacher has a personal stake in the situation, something that goes way beyond his everyday hatred of bad people - like the aforementioned car jacker. When members of his old team start showing up dead, Rea

GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE | Moustache Teaser Reaction

If I didn't know any better I'd say Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan have been working on a sequel to The Day After Tomorrow . Thankfully however, it's a follow up to their 2021 hit Ghostbusters: Afterlife . One that sees the OG Ghostbusters back in New York, along with the Spengler family and the rest of the new team, where they are once again called upon to save the world. If you haven't seen it or you simply want to watch it again, check out the teaser for Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire  below. Naturally this little glimpse is only supposed to whet our collective appetite, but Frozen Empire  already looks fantastic!  Once again Reitman and Kenan appear to have nailed that perfect blend of creepy and fun that Ivan Reitman and co. coined with the first two movies.  It's good to see that all of the Ghostbusters will be facing - what appears to be - an  entirely new threat. I'm pretty certain that Ray, Pete, Winston and Egon never faced off against anything quite so tall

Dave's DVD Dungeon | Part 4

After the Conquest comes the battle... apparently. Battle for the Planet of the Apes  is exactly what you expect to happen when a movie franchise isn't allowed to come to an end with dignity, grace, and at the right time. The proverbial horse has been flogged, left to rot, picked at by vultures, lost to the sands of time, and now archaeologists have uncovered what's left of its fossilised remains. Not only is it a terrible movie, it's a horrible way for such a ground-breaking franchise to end. Granted there has been a gradual decline since the first movie, but it really feels like we fell off a cliff with this one. Although the opposite has to be said about the make-up effects, which were brilliant to begin with and have only gotten better with each subsequent movie. Unsurprisingly, Roddy McDowall continues to be the shining light of the franchise - more so than ever in this rather sub-par entry. His performance as Caesar is excellent. Seeing the son of Zira and Cornelius s

Dave's DVD Dungeon | Part 3

So we escaped from the Planet of the Apes, and now all the dogs and cats are dead. Anyone remember that scene in Back to the Future Part 2  where Doc Brown talks about the timeline skewing into a tangent? Yeah, that sprung to mind a lot while watching Conquest of the Planet of the Apes . This is definitely the start of an alternate timeline, and the point where the franchise begins to take a swan dive. Believe me, those two things are not mutually exclusive. But 1991 looks very different in this timeline. I mean, some highly evolved chimpanzees show up in  a spacecraft NASA launched a while back and all of a sudden you've got "a galaxy far, far away" on Earth. Maybe the dogs and cats have distracted us so much over the centuries they've hindered our advancement. Without them we could enjoy a life that includes energy shield doors, fancy interrogation methods, extreme yet uniformed tailoring, and ape servants. Of course we'd also have to live in a Nazi-like police

Dave's DVD Dungeon | Part 2

We've returned to the Planet of the Apes, only to escape it. After the rather disappointing Beneath the Planet of the Apes  things take a considerable step up with Escape from the Planet of the Apes ! Which is odd given that from here on out the franchise takes on a more 'made for TV movie' aesthetic. The fact that by this point the filmmakers were operating on a much lower budget is apparent, and yet, Escape  is the best of the sequels, by far. Not only is it very entertaining, it's also thought-provoking. We are presented with an entirely new scenario. One that allows for a much deeper examination of humanity's flaws, as well as its strengths. Escape  is very much a movie of two halves. After the opening scene the first half can be quite light-hearted. Even silly, at times. Everything from the zoo to the hotel, the shopping trip and the prize fight. Not to mention the Top Secret CIA base that's not disguised in any way and is clearly a government installation.