DanJohn84

DanJohn84

Favorite films

  • Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Avengers: Endgame
  • Batman
  • Django Unchained

Recent activity

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  • The Electric State

    ★★

  • Moana 2

    ★★★★

  • The Monkey

    ★★★

  • Paddington in Peru

    ★★★★

Recent reviews

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  • The Electric State

    The Electric State

    ★★

    Netflix has a chequered history with big budget blockbuster filmmaking. The belief amongst critics has been that films such as ‘Red Notice’, ‘The Grey Man’ and ‘Heart of Stone’ have been over indulgent misfires, best viewed whilst distracted by scrolling. Viewers meanwhile have been more forgiving. I sit somewhere in the middle. Netflix tentpole movies are fast food filmmaking, kinda fun in the moment but soon forgotten minutes after. ‘The Electric State’ carries on this trend.

    Based on the book…

  • Moana 2

    Moana 2

    ★★★★

    ‘Moana’ was a huge success for the House of Mouse spawning merch, theme park attractions and hit songs / ear worms. Any sequel to a hugely successful original has a huge task ahead of it but recent Disney efforts have seemingly bucked the historical trend with the Toy Story, Inside Out and Frozen sequels maintaining the same high standards of their forbears. Good news then that ‘Moana 2’ is a worthy successor. It’s funny, often spectacular and endearing without capsizing…

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  • Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

    Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

    ★★★

    A film that sags under the weight of its unwieldy cast of characters. Frozen Empire looks great but has far too much going on for anything to truly land. Several storyline strands could work in isolation but little time is given for any to emotionally develop. Legacy characters are perfunctory, new characters forgettable and reboot characters sidelined. A few jokes raise a smile, some ghosts are suitably spooky and nods to the original 80’s double are fine. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire continues a recent trend of squeezing the remaining good will from classic movies to form a forgettable follow up.

  • The Monkey

    The Monkey

    ★★★

    Full disclosure - Stephen King is my all time favourite author. His over 50 year career (and 65 books!) has produced not only several literary classics but cinematic ones as well. On first glance, the short story ‘The Monkey’ (from the Skeleton Crew collection) is not the most obvious for a silver screen interpretation but with both King and murderous childhood toys back in vogue (recently M3gan, Annabelle and Imaginary) director Osgood Perkins has given the adaptation his best shot.…