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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 08 July 2025

The way things weave their way into popular culture – it’s as much luck as it is skill.  The Smurfs were the creation of artist Pierre Culliford and first appeared in a Belgian comic book in 1958.  It wasn’t until the late 1970s that they randomly attracted the attention of several influential American TV folk and in 1981, an English-language cartoon series premiered on NBC as part of its Saturday morning kids programming.  There would be over 250 episodes in total, and the show can still be watched today in syndication.

Two live-action, Sony-produced Smurf movies were released in 2011 and 2013 but after the later underperformed at the box-office, relative to the original, the franchise was rebooted with a fully animated feature in 2017.  The rights were then transferred to Paramount Pictures in 2022 who are now having their first crack at the material.  It’s simply titled Smurfs and while it’s described as an “animated musical”, the number of keynote songs is low.  Story is given more prominence over the music.

Don’t get too excited though as the plot isn’t much.  The central character, voiced by Tony Award winner James Corden, is referred to as No Name Smurf.  While all other Smurfs have a designation based on their respective skillset, or lack thereof, No Name can’t work out his place within the community.  The obvious titles are taken (Brainy, Grouchy, Lazy) and even the obscure ones (Sound Effects Smurf) have been ticked off the list.  Guess it was bound to happen given the growing population as there’s only so many adjectives in the English language and jobs to be performed.  It’s an odd crux to build a film around.

No Name’s services will be called upon however when Papa Smurf (Goodman) is kidnapped by the villainous Razamel (Karliak), brother of the well-known Gargamel, and taken to another dimension.  He wants Papa Smurf to spill the beans about the location of a magic book which provides the holder with unlimited power.  We can’t have that… and so the Smurfs must team up to rescue their beloved patriarch before it’s too late.

I enjoyed the television cartoon series growing up but haven’t connected with any of the film adaptations.  You can therefore take my opinions with a grain of salt.  Perhaps it’s because I’m too old or perhaps it’s because the storylines are so uninteresting.  It’s a weird, chaotic narrative with a sci-fi, magic focus that struggles to generate humour and emotion.  We barely get to know the characters.  You can cast all the celebrities you want, such as Rihanna as Smurfette, but unless you’ve giving them something interesting to do, the movie won’t work.

Take the kids but don’t expect much.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 26 June 2025

Another week, another horror film.  We’ve reached the midpoint of 2025 and by my count, a dozen have been released in Australian cinemas.  They’ve included the wildly unconventional (Sinners, Bring Her Back) through to cliché-laden trash (Final Destination: Bloodlines, Heart Eyes).  I’m not sure we’ve needed that many but the fact they’ve outnumbered comedy and romance movies is a sign of the times.  They appeal to younger crowds and they’re a demographic more likely to visit cinemas than older audiences.

The original M3GAN was released in January 2023.  A computing engineer, Gemma (Williams), created an android doll for her 8-year-old niece, Cady (McGraw), but things went haywire when the overprotective doll started killing people.  It was predictable but director Gerard Johnstone added a few creative flourishes, such as the song choices, to make it worthwhile.  The public clearly agreed as it took in $182 million USD at the global box-office against a budget of just $12 million.  That’s a recipe for a sequel in anyone’s book.

If you’ve seen any of the promotional material for the cutely titled M3GAN 2.0, you’ll realise they’ve spun the robot’s character around and transformed her into a helpful hero.  The villains this time are a group of dodgy government military folk who have covertly used M3GAN’s programming to create their own doll, called AMELIA, who is being used as an assassin on a secret Middle Eastern mission.  AMELIA develops a mind of her own and goes feral (surprise, surprise) and so it’s up to the robot-turned-good to take down the robot-gone-bad.  As returning characters, Gemma and Cady will also have a role to play is saving the world.

It’s not a total write-off but M3GAN 2.0 is subpar.  The first movie felt like a credible “this could actually happen” tale with its exploration of robots utilised as a substitute for friendship and parenting.  This feels clumsier by trying to bring in shady government departments, with endless funds at their disposal, and goofy agents.  The drama doesn’t feel as “dramatic”.  The same can be said of the comedic elements with much of the humour falling flat.  The tones change far too often.  It’s hard to care about a character’s fate when they seemingly have no care themselves.

A new model isn’t always better than the old one and sadly, that’s the case with M3GAN 2.0.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 02 July 2025

We’re up to the 7^th film in the successful Jurassic Park franchise and, as expected, the filmmakers are low on ideas.  Ironically, the opening act of Jurassic World Rebirth tries to convince us that public interest in dinosaurs is waning.  The theme parks no longer exist (guess there were a few too many fatalities) and patronage of dinosaur exhibits in museums is at record lows.  It’s an odd plot point given reality is the exact opposite.

The characters in this instalment are all new but the storyline is not.  Once again, we have a loathsome pharmaceutical guy, Martin (Friend), who wants to make big bucks by using dinosaur DNA to cure human diseases.  He must travel to a remote island guarded by government agencies, take blood samples from the three largest categories of dinosaurs, put them in a silver briefcase, and escape without being killed.  It sounds like the premise of a video game where you collect points along the way.

Martin can’t do it alone and so he recruits a team headlined by three savvy individuals.  Henry (Bailey) is a struggling palaeontologist who can identify the dinosaurs they seek.  Zora (Johansson) is a jack-of-all-trades mercenary who orchestrates the dangerous mission in return for a $10 million pay cheque.  Duncan (Ali) is an experienced boat captain who can get them to the island undetected.  Also in the mix are a father (Garcia-Rulfo) and three youngsters who have weirdly decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a small sailboat despite limited skills.

You’ll know where Jurassic World Rebirth is heading after the first 30 minutes.  It’s a simplistic action piece with one-dimensional heroes and villains making head-scratching decisions.  David Koepp, who co-wrote the original Jurassic Park screenplay, makes it clear who we need to cheer for and who is dispensable.  Further, character arcs lack credibility.  The Zora we’re introduced to is a money hungry felon but considering she’s played by the likeable Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), the film quickly transforms her into a “quality person” who cares deeply about the boat family and the world’s free access to medical research.  Go figure?

English director Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla) can’t make the film stand out from its predecessors.  It lacks genuine performances like we’ve seen in the past from a scene-stealing Jeff Goldblum or a crafty Sam Neill.  Alexandre Desplat (The Grand Budapest Hotel) is an accomplished composer, but he leans too heavily on riffs of John Williams’ iconic theme as opposed to creating something new.  There’s a splash of suspense in a several action pieces but not enough to hold one’s attention for a lengthy 133 minutes.

How many more Jurassic Park movies are we going to see using this predictable template?  The title refers to a “rebirth”, but this is best described as an underwhelming “rehash”.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 June 2025

F1 is the Happy Gilmore of motor racing movies.  You can enjoy it as simple entertainment, but it bears no resemblance to the sport itself.  This is a cliched, Hollywood-ised action piece, and you don’t need to be a Formula One aficionado to recognise that fact.  As is so often the case with sporting films, there’s no substitute for the real thing.  If looking for a “crash” course on Formula One, I’d suggest watching a live race on television or connecting through the popular British documentary series Drive to Survive.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), F1 is centred on the fictitious Sonny Hayes, a washed-up, 50-something-year-old who had a fleeting career in the 1990s which amounted to nothing.  He’s played by Brad Pitt in a very Brad Pitt-type role.  He’s a jokey, playful, carefree character who goes “against the grain” like we saw in Moneyball, The Big Short, Bullet Train, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  Pitt also serves as producer with the film co-funded by his own Plan B Entertainment company.

Sonny is lured back into the sport when approached by a former driver, Ruben Cervantes (Bardem), desperate for help.  Ruben now runs the APXGP team but, having burned through $350 million over three years and not earned a single place on the podium, he’s reached the bottom of the barrel in search of answers.  He wants Sonny to serve as #2 driver for the team while also mentoring the young Noah Pearce (Idris) who has natural talent but lacks maturity and experience.  They’ve got 9 races to prove themselves or else it’s “curtains” for their respective careers.

The production values are top-notch.  Kosinski and his team had permission to shoot scenes on actual Formula One race weekends over two years and it’s why the sets, costumes and extras look so genuine.  They don’t have much in the way of speaking lines, but the film finds a way of incorporating a bunch of real-life commentators and drivers, including Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri, into the drama.  The race sequences will get the blood pumping and composer Hans Zimmer (Interstellar) adds further energy with a pulsating music score, nicely showcased during the opening titles.  I’ll be adding it to my soundtrack collection!

It’s a shame the script doesn’t offer more.  It’s as if they filmed all the racetrack stuff first and tried to cobble together a narrative in the editing room.  I realise that’s not the case but it’s how the film comes across.  From Sonny Hayes rediscovering his skills with next-to-no training, to a group of ignorant investors with minimal knowledge, to a pioneering female engineer (Condon) who becomes a token love interest, to a pit crew member lacking confidence when changing tires… yeah, it’s hard to swallow.

While it has its fair share of positive attributes, F1 suffers by being a movie which “features” Formula One but is not “about” Formula One.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 30 June 2025

If you’ve seen Naked Lunch, Crash, eXistenZ and Videodrome, you’ll known Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg is someone who gets audiences’ eyebrows raising.  A quick artificial intelligence search on the internet comes back with the following adjectives to describe his works – visceral, unsettling, disturbing, erotic, and psychological.  They’re all accurate and appropriate.

The Shrouds is his latest film and it’s based on a messed-up premise.  A savvy entrepreneur, Karsh (Cassel), has developed a unique business – a cemetery where cameras are placed inside buried coffins.  Loved ones can tap into the surveillance on their phones and watch the bodies decompose over time.  It’s a warped way to “stay in touch” with a deceased family member and Karsh crafted the idea when his wife passed away four years ago.  He’s now looking to roll out the niche idea out across the globe.

As you might expect, not everyone is a fan, and his cemetery is desecrated by vandals one evening who smash tombstones and uproot technology.  To make matters worse, they’ve hacked the cameras and locked clients out.  Are they after ransom money?  Is it intended to be a protest?  Do they perversely want to look at the dead bodies themselves?  Karsh doesn’t want to engage the local police and so he enlists his tech-savvy brother-in-law, Maury (Pearce), to obtain answers.  As this transpires, Karsh experiences a series of hallucinations involving his late wife which results in even more questions.  Weird and perverse enough for you?

I like the concept more than the narrative.  This idea of voyeuristic, 21^st Century cemeteries is thought-provoking and will generate a range of views depending on your personal perspectives and ideologies.  Could something like this be constructed today?  The film’s whodunit elements are less compelling.  Cronenberg throws in red herrings (that’s a plus) but when it’s all wrapped up and the closing credits roll, I wasn’t fully satisfied by Karsh’s character arc and the mystery’s resolution.

It has taken over a year for The Shrouds to reach Australian cinemas after it premiered in competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.  It’s interesting but not fully satisfying.