Apex (2026)

As if Dangerous Animals weren't abominable enough, Netflix essentially repeats the exercise here: a big Hollywood name - in this case, Charlize Theron - gets thrown in amongst the Aussies in a horror thriller that squanders its most interesting idea, namely that a strong independent woman is pitted against  toxic masculinity in a remote Aussie environment, and instead serves up unedifying nonsense about an impossibly bizarre killer - Taron Egerton's psycho would sit more comfortably in Pan's Labyrinth - and, suggesting how little anyone cares about this throwaway exercise, the film has been given a name that is destined to bury it amongst Google search results for a computer game and an old Bruce Willis bomb.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Carry-on (2024)

It's set in an airport at Christmas time and features a pre-male pattern baldness blue-uniformed everyman (Taron Egerton) who in the course of his usual work as an airport luggage checker suddenly finds himself the sole hope in a battle against terrorists, so Die Hard comparisons have to be made and this one, in comparison, is a stinker, really - perfectly watchable but absurd, with the convoluted terrorist plot undone from the outset and everything else that follows just a ludicrous, well, carry-on.

★★☆☆☆

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Rocketman (2019)

Fans will relish the chance to rediscover Elton John's music in this new form with clips of his songs strung together Mamma Mia-style into a kind of motion picture photo album, while others will hopefully find something to be interested in over the  course of the singer's very familiar trajectory to worldwide celebrity, although like Elton John himself, they will find it hard to find anything in the singer's adopted persona to emotionally connect with - an abandoned childhood identity, for instance.

★★★☆☆

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Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

The first looong hour reestablishes the 'anything goes' fantasy world of the original Kingsman (a world which I think is supposed to appeal to the now slightly older Harry Potter fan - this Harry Potter swears, smokes bongs, and has sex) and then the second hour demands that the viewer care (less) about a sprawling, charmless white bogan teenage boy's idea of a sophisticated spy world (more Spice World than James Bond with its hammy, unamusing cameos), care (less) about seen-it-before-in-Charlie's-Angels fight scenes, and care (less) about a plot tailor-made for the adolescent.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

This La Femme Nikita story centres around a wayward British youth recruited to become a gentleman spy, and is a cartoony action flick that presents only a white teenage boys' fantasy of sophistication including, for instance, female prisoners willing to be coerced into anal sex in exchange for freedom. 

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS