Welcome to the first Review Roundup of 2026, admittedly a bit late now that we're a whole two months into the year. A mixture of being terribly ill for a short while, a brief bit of travelling, and not much on at cinemas enticing me all contributed to a rather slow month of film watching and thus review writing in January, and it only continued into February as starting a new job and watching the Winter Olympics occupied much of my time. Because of this, it only made sense to wait until both months had come and gone before putting together the next roundup, and now that they are indeed over and spring has arrived, we've got quite a few solid pieces to cover, so let's waste no more time in getting to them!
THROWBACK: Duel (Steven Spielberg, 1971) - reviewed 10/01/2026
"The open road is the new frontier. It only makes sense, in the first feature outing from a New Hollywood icon like Steven Spielberg, the aesthetics of the classical Western are updated to fit the essential Americana of the late twentieth century. Gone are the horses and stagecoaches of back in the day, now we have cars and trucks populating the scene. The west remains an expansive space for action and excitement with heightened heroes and villains, but with a different kind of mis-en-scene to carry the torch. Love the bold visuals Spielberg constructs here, the two central vehicles coming across as well defined pieces of an endless cat-and-mouse chase, the innocent little red car and the enormous intimidating truck pursuing it, and the vast space for their duel to unfold is well laid out. The sound design is so effective too, the roar of the engines and the screeching of the tires make it all so engaging. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling, so many clever camera movements help advance the narrative through nothing more than what the image can provide, as should be the case with any narrative feature. Cinema simultaneously reduced to its essence and built upon in highly inventive ways, really enjoyed this." 8/10
THROWBACK: Anaconda (Luis Llosa, 1997) - reviewed 27/01/2026
"Man, I miss the days when even so-called ‘bad’ movies had this much flavour, practicality, and inventiveness about them even when much may not have worked elsewhere. I’m not going to act like Anaconda is a masterpiece, but when you pay attention to all it has going for it, it’s honestly a pretty solid and wildly entertaining time despite its weaknesses. Derivative it certainly is, overtly and closely drawing upon the creature feature nature of Jaws within a framework aesthetically reminiscent of John Huston’s The African Queen, yet in the process it delightfully injects that infectious 90s blockbuster flair that is so dearly lacking in today’s cinematic world, even if what I make of such may not align with the intent. For a start, it’s always a pleasure to be reminded of how films used to effortlessly construct well-defined spaces, here courtesy of clear on-location shooting and subsequently a good amount of depth within most of the composition. The sweeping shots of the river and the protagonists’ boat are effective for establishment, but the highlights would be the many instances of branches and other foliage framed in front of subjects as well as occasions where the camera is partially submerged in water while focusing on subjects above the surface, all adding a careful and subtle extra layer of immersion and grit. If you compare this to a recent film like 2021’s Jungle Cruise, which, despite being rather enjoyable, is considerably weighed down by an over-reliance on greenscreen effects and all the usual digital fluff, it’s a night and day difference. This extends to how the film constructs the titular creature throughout, with a mixture of tangible puppetry and animatronics alongside exaggerated CG models, enabling a sense of heft in how visibly it is able to interact with the actors on-screen, which in turn justifies a freedom about what heightened behaviours can be depicted in the set pieces. The latter elements definitely appear at odds with the gritty, on-the-ground quality the film possesses at large, but on closer inspection, there is equally a playful quality that can be observed in much of the formalism too, namely the countless dynamic POV shots and a fun dolly zoom, both once again initially recalling Jaws of course yet still featuring enough of a distinct identity so to not seem perfunctory in their uses. Moreover, as is the case with many similar films of this era, Anaconda thrives off of increasingly escalating matters as its narrative progresses; with much efficiency in how things rattle along, the foundation is aptly laid out for all the insanity to be extracted from the suitably simple, high concept premise. We go from the Spielbergian suggestion of a giant snake at first, to the sight of people being crushed by enormous coils before the striking head and jaws are revealed, to that of people being swallowed and visibly passing through the body from the exterior, to the same but from the perspective of down the snake’s throat followed by a body being regurgitated in a semi-conscious state, all the way to a building exploding as the snake flies out and continues its rampage while covered in flames in a Ghost Rider-like manner. Of course, it’s ridiculous and perhaps overly indulgent in how twisted and outlandish it can be, but isn’t that the whole appeal of films like this? I suppose it may be disappointing if one is expecting a more traditional horror-centric approach like Jaws, but it becomes evident rather swiftly that such isn’t what the film has to offer. This gave me the same vibe as something like Twister, doing the absolute most with a simple concept and refusing to back down until the most over-the-top on-screen mayhem has been achieved. The obvious thing preventing Anaconda from being on the level of that film would certainly be in the comparatively lacklustre characterisation, not having nearly as memorable or enjoyable an ensemble and minimising the time spent fleshing out their threads and quirks to a fault, even though not much was necessary in that regard for it to be engaging. That said, there’s some fun to be had with Jon Voight’s peculiar villainous performance, which for a moment seemed like a tongue-in-cheek Werner Herzog impression, something that, if intentional, could’ve been fitting given that the film also connotes Aguirre: The Wrath of God in its mis-en-scene. However, this leads onto what I think most crucially lets Anaconda down, that being how it is remarkably straight-faced on the whole despite everything operating within. I have yet to see the 2025 pseudo-remake starring Paul Rudd and Jack Black, and while that as a modern studio comedy appears like it’ll generally play things very safe, the seemingly more ironic / self-reflexive tone definitely comes across as something that would be an improvement over the execution here. While certain stars like Voight and Jonathan Hyde do at times lean into the silliness of it all, the film at large is underscored by a sense of sincerity that suggests a wider goal to make something genuinely frightening and compelling here, which I admire on one level but can’t fully subscribe to considering, well, just about everything I’ve described up to now! I mentioned how the film doesn’t offer anything as rich as the terror or thrills of Jaws, but I do get the impression that it may have nonetheless been aiming to replicate such for itself, misguidedly so if you ask me. In that sense, it’s more comparable to The Meg with Jason Statham, another relentlessly goofy creature feature that takes itself way too seriously for its own good, the only difference being that here the craft on display is actually interesting. It all seems especially bizarre when you also consider how the film revolves around filmmakers and a diegetic film production, one would like to think there would be a degree of knowingness at hand, but that angle is ultimately just narrative means to an end rather than anything thematically incisive. Nevertheless, I had a great time with Anaconda all things considered. While not completely successful in getting a cohesive thesis across, it does well in most areas it ought to if one is to take it for what it is rather than what it may have been aspiring towards, and it leaves me continuing to long for a bygone era of big-budget filmmaking that seems all too distant now. Again, I’m sure watching the 2025 version will merely confirm just how far we’ve fallen." 7/10
THROWBACK: The Valley of Gwangi (Jim O'Connolly, 1969) - reviewed 01/02/2026
"Myths within myths, spectacles within spectacles, there really is nothing like a self-reflexive, self-defeating Western, and it only gets more interesting when you throw dinosaurs into the mix. The idea of the past being reduced to a matter of spectacle is nothing new, even on the topic of dinosaurs, a film like Jurassic Park addresses the issues surrounding the ways in which those in the present may exploit history for their own gain, typically due to its larger-than-life, spectacular potential. However, what makes The Valley of Gwangi especially curious in this regard is the context of the American frontier in which it unfolds, a space that is itself an object of the past largely renowned for its heightened mythology, not least on film. It reaffirms how it is never the present to which we look for awe and wonder, transporting us back to the early twentieth century and introducing us to a circus environment that boasts traditional scenes of the ‘Wild West’ to a largely vacant auditorium, most likely because such scenes are rather commonplace for the time and the spectacular coat of paint they are given in the theatrical environment rings completely false. But then, as pieces of the past are unearthed, here in the form of prehistoric, thought-to-be extinct creatures, the possibilities for show business are the first thing to cross the minds of our characters. Their pursuit of these creatures demonstrates the danger about them and their unpredictable behaviours, and capturing them even comes at a human cost, but, as long as the show can go on, that is all that really matters to them. Indeed, the promise of the previously unseen past being on display for those in the present to see proves to draw a large crowd, but the dismissive attitudes of those constructing the spectacle at hand swiftly becomes grounds for all that is established as real and dangerous about what they have acquired to take effect, much to their horror and that of those around them. It all culminates in a sequence of Gwangi, a poor creature thoughtlessly taken out of its time, engulfed in flames at the site of a great building under construction. It is not a moment of good triumphing over evil, for we are made to watch the innocent creature suffer and are then shown the horrified faces of those that brought this event about, the suggestion perhaps being that an ignorance towards the past and its truth in favour of short-lived spectacle is ultimately a threat to progress. Maybe this is all to be understood as a commentary on how Hollywood treated the West on film, relying on exciting myths of a temporally distant space that provided all the frivolous entertainment audiences at the time may have sought, but in the long term had such effects as perpetuating damaging attitudes towards Native Americans instead of rigorously involving themselves with some kind of truth surrounding such. This is not to say that The Valley of Gwangi strives to come across as some kind of realistic take on either the frontier or prehistory, as it greatly indulges in artifice via the delightful Harryhausen stop motion effects and is thus a spectacle of its own, but that is precisely what makes it so fascinating, the almost Inception-like quality about its approach to these themes. Arriving in 1969, a time in which the classical Western was most certainly on its way out and the new wave of revisionism would soon set in, it seems almost too perfect that a film of the genre at this point would question its own essence on the most fundamental level, that being in relation to creatures from quite literally the dawn of time." 7/10
NEW: No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook, 2025) - reviewed 03/02/2026
"Expectedly terrific new outing from Park Chan-wook. Very neatly an extension of the overt engagement with contemporary sensibilities in approaching certain topics as brought to the table in Decision to Leave, with more slick digital imagery and endless sights of screens within screens, alongside an overarching decidedly modern angle about its satirical critique of capitalism. The final nail in the coffin of it all in particular seals the deal better than I ever could’ve hoped. Some may argue this sort of thing can make a text easily dated, but I find it makes for rich objects that embody aspects of the era they belong to and are thus useful to understanding such both in the moment and in retrospect. Loved the emphasis on more absurd elements too, and the occasional dash of surrealist imagery was an intriguing touch. At times I was almost reminded of Satoshi Kon in how elegantly Park drifted between scenes and characters belonging to varying times and spaces, whether in going from one shot to another or within the same frames. All the offbeat humour and shock value you’d expect is here and better than ever, overall just about everything I could’ve wanted." 8/10
NEW: Send Help (Sam Raimi, 2026) - reviewed 20/02/2026
"Can always count on Raimi to deliver a fun time at the movies. There are some dull sections here where the premise feels especially stretched thin and nothing particularly inventive is going on formally, definitely a clear overarching disjunct between the conventional modern studio filmmaking at large and Raimi’s more playful and practical sensibilities sprinkled throughout (albeit less egregious here than in the last Doctor Strange film), but when it locks in it’s all great and engaging stuff. Sufficiently refreshing as a spin on the survival genre, with expected echoes of Cast Away but an added degree of silliness that mostly gets the chance to shine, and the commentary on gender and workplace dynamics is suitably feisty. [Rachel] McAdams is a delight and shows a lot more range here than I’ve seen from her previously, and Dylan O’Brien continues to make me wonder why he only pops up every now and then in new releases. Not Raimi’s best but a pleasure to see him back in the realm of goofy, irreverent side quests rather than being stuck in the slop side of the mainstream machine." 7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment