Movie Review: Fighting with My Family
Director: Stephen Merchant
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Lena Headey, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost
Sentimental biopic about WWE wrestler Paige. Directed and produced by Stephen Merchant, he managed to get Lena Headey, Vince Vaughn and Dwayne Johnson involved. Sadly, he also cast Nick Frost as the Dad and if you are doing a film set on WWE dreams you simply cannot have even a hint of condescension and casting a comic in the pivotal role of the father just was not the right move. Boasting a respectable 7.5 on IMDB that is probably wrestling fans grateful for the recognition. Nonetheless the film does have something at its core that might be worth a look when it comes to your streaming service.

Movie Review: Shazam!
Director: David F. Sandberg
Stars: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel
Probably my least favourite DC flick to date, this has a certain goofy charm and several very good scenes. Unfortunately, it’s up and down like a yo-yo.
If you are into trivia you can wade through the storied history of the original Captain Marvel elsewhere but fortunately they have dispensed with most of that and just gone with the latest comic iteration - Shazam being the superhero’s name and not just the magic word to transform teenage Billy Batson into said superhero, whose powers are based in mystical, mythical wizardry. As well we get the extended foster family designed to promote diversity, but, as often happens, seemingly rich in stereotypes.
This is strongest in its pure comedy scenes, and though at least one of the pathos scenes is well done mostly they are, well, pathetic. Its action scenes are mixed and the climactic fight both far too long and repetitive.
Among the cast, teenager Jack Dylan Grazer, playing Billy’s foster brother, is the standout. Given the general strength of the cast, it is difficult for me not to wonder whether director David F. Sandberg was not given this film too early in his feature career.
You do not need to be hooked into DC lore to catch this, but if you are not, then I cannot offer you a compelling reason to bother, unless the concept of a rather immature teenage kid experimenting with a set of random super powers and an adult body is really your kind of thing.

Movie Review: Hellboy
Director: Neil Marshall
Stars: David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane
Hellboy is compellingly attractive to filmmakers and with good reason - the source material is great and the character a brilliant combination of tropes. So, you can forgive them attempting this reboot 15 years after del Toro’s 2004 original, and only 10 years after the sequel. There was a mooted del Toro Hellboy III in 2017, but when it was aborted this reboot came about instead.
Sadly, this just does not gel well. The elements seem in place and yet something is not quite right, well beyond the far too many special effects fails. It is not nearly as bad as the 2015 Fantastic Four reboot, but the sequel building at the end seems wildly optimistic and begs the question why they tried to squeeze in so very much lore if they were planning sequels.
Fans will see it because they cannot resist, but those that do will probably go back and give del Toro’s films another look and wonder why Hellboy III fell over.

Avengers: Endgame
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo
As you know I do not do plot spoilers but my attitude to this might spoil it for you, so if you feel excited for this and have not seen it then stop reading now!
Sadly, too many unmet expectations here to ignore. I thought very highly of Avengers: Infinity War but many of the things done well there have not been replicated here even though they were effectively co-produced.
I saw this in 3D, which is often a mistake, and I would suggest that there is no reason to see this in 3D unless you particularly enjoy the effect. 
The first hour is underwhelming at best and tedious at worst. For some reason they chose to bring everything to a grinding halt, as everyone is utterly overwhelmed by the events of A:IW. Aside from history suggesting other responses, even if this was believable it is bloody boring and should have been avoided. This is the opposite of A: IW which managed to pick directly up from the carnage of Thor: Ragnarok and hit the ground running hard and fast.
Where A:IW managed to include an extraordinary range of characters without anyone seeming to be an almost pointless cameo, here they seem to abound. I will give props to Karen Gillan’s Nebula and Ruffalo but hanging so much of this on Evans and Rudd was not wise. Even Downey is a bit of a mix here despite a few good scenes.
There is some redemption after the first act, but it is not enough. Of course there are some good MCU scenes here, including some good combat scenes, but after A:IW and Captain Marvel this was disappointing.
There is no justification for this to be three hours, and a good half hour, at least, should have gone from the first 75 minutes especially the scene where Cap is in some sort of group therapy. The sheer pointlessness of forcing you to revisit, in some extended tedious way, emotions that you already felt and comprehended instantly at the end of A: IW seems to have been lost on the directors. Perhaps in building this story they were thinking of how people would watch the two together, LOTR like, in years to come and yet are somehow unaware of most people fast forwarding through the endless scenes of Sam and Frodo looking wistfully into each other’s eyes.
Currently rating 9.2 on IMDB I am astonished, a slightly less credulous 78 on Metacritic is more like it.

Bio: Juddy keeps busy consuming cultural media while posing as a student at a major Sydney university, thus shirking real work. He hosts pub trivia, and tutors at said university, for beer and book money.