old king clancy

Review- Alien: Covenant (2017)

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It’s been five years since Prometheus and in that time the film has received a very mixed reaction. There were a lot of unanswered questions that have been waiting for a sequel to go into more detail about where these prequels fit into the Alien mythos and Covenant might be the film that puts things back on track. Anyone looking for concrete answers to Prometheus will be disappointed, but as it’s own beast that adds more layers to the universe and it’s as close to the original film as we’ve gotten in nearly 40 years.

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Review – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2.

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by Old King Clancy

When the first Guardians of Galaxy was released in 2014 it felt like a very odd choice for Marvel to make following the success of The Avengers; a sci-fi series featuring a talking tree, a psychotic raccoon, the tubby guy from Parks & Rec., and directed by a guy from Troma? Never should’ve worked. And yet, $770 Million and worldwide praise later, the film did work and serves as one of the highlights of Marvel’s cinematic universe, so no pressure on the sequel.

To get it out of the way quickly, Vol. 2 doesn’t live up to the first, only because the first film had no expectations of it, it came from nowhere, and blew everyone away. While the sequel had the unfortunate luck to come second, it’s still a burst of color and fun, while one of the best standalone MCU films to date.

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Review – Raw (2016)

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by Old King Clancy

I’ve mentioned before – several times in fact – that I love modern French horror, ‘Martyrs’ is an all-time favorite of mine and ‘Inside’ had messed me up more times than I care to think of. So when news of ‘Raw’ came out with people fainting in the theater, I knew I had to see it. Those fainting rumors turned out to be exaggerated, but I still had high hopes for this to deliver and it more than did so. This is easily the best French cannibal sex movie I’ve seen all year and a near definite for my ‘Top 10’ of 2017.

The film opens with protagonist Justine (Garance Marillier) starting her first year at Veterinary school, the same school her sister Alexia  (Ella Rumpf) is currently studying. Justine is a quiet, shy bookworm, and firm vegetarian who struggles with the school heavy use of hard music and harder partying. During the intense hazing rituals Justine is forced to eat raw rabbit kidney and almost immediately has a violent allergic reaction to it with a bad rash breaking out onto her body. However, something changes inside Justine and she soon finds herself with a hunger for meat.

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Review – Free Fire (2016)

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by Old King Clancy

I’ve been a fan of Ben Wheatley ever since ‘A Field In England’ blew my mind to such a degree that I still can’t properly define the experience. To that end I think it’s safe to say that Free Fire is his most commercial film to date. Actually that sounds way too pretentious, basically this is the first Wheatley film I’ve seen that doesn’t feel like a Wheatley film, but that doesn’t make it a bad film. Free Fire takes the Reservoir Dogs formula of greedy idiots with guns stuck in a warehouse and rolls with it, ending up with a fun and energetic little piece that brings out a great ensemble piece.

Set in 1970s Boston, the film finds two IRA members, Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley), teaming up with Frank’s junkie brother-in-law Steve-O (Sam Riley)and his friend Bernie (Enzo Cilenti)to help buy guns from South African arms dealer Vernon (Shalto Copley) and his partners; ex-black panther Martin (Babou Ceesay)and dope-smoking middle-man Ord (Armie Hammer) with third-party Justine (Brie Larson) acting as intermediary. To Frank’s anger, Steve-O got into a fight earlier that day and has been left with a black eye.

The deal goes down but not without its problems, Frank is openly hostile to Ord, Vernon’s ego gets in the way and Chris claims that the guns being sold to him aren’t what he ordered. Despite the hostilities a deal is made and money switches hands, that is until Steve-O realises that Vernon’s driver Harry (Jack Reynor) is the man who beat him up earlier that day for bottling Harry’s cousin after she wouldn’t put out. The already on-edge deal gets put under even more pressure when Steve-O brags to Harry about what he did, forcing Harry to fire the first bullet.

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Review – Kong: Skull Island

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by Old King Clancy

2014’s Godzilla reboot was a film that proved America can make a great Godzilla movie by giving us probably the most bad-ass Godzilla of the modern age… it was just a shame that they had to surround him by bland characters and missed Bryan Cranston sized opportunities. With the release of Kong: Skull Island the new shared Monsterverse – because of course everything is copying Marvel now – is underway and while it does suffer from some of the same problems as Godzilla, it also kicks ass in much the same way. If this is the direction the franchise is taking then I’m happy to see where they go.

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Review – T2 Trainspotting

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trainspotting

by Old King Clancy

Being Scottish I subscribe to the unwritten rule that my favourite film either has to be Trainspotting or Braveheart, personally I chose Trainspotting. Now, 20 years after the original, the long talked about sequel has come around, I had high hopes for it and while it was never going to live up to the freshness of the original, it never set out to. Instead we got a solid follow-up that took us back into this world and showed us what happened when you choose life, but life doesn’t want anything to do with you.

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Review – Logan (2017)

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logan-poster-sunset-2

by Old King Clancy

In the summer of 2000, a comic-book movie based on Marvel’s X-Men series was released featuring a then unknown actor called Hugh Jackman who had been brought in last minute to play the role of Wolverine. 17 years, 9 cinematic outings and a lifetime of being regarded as one of the most perfectly casted comic-book characters ever put to film, and Jackman takes his iconic role to its final swan song with Logan. Whether this is Jackman’s last turn as the character or not remains to be seen, but if it is, then finally being able to see a no-holds-barred, R-Rated Wolverine movie would’ve been enough but this last ride gives enough poignancy to stand out from the brutality, giving us one of, if not the absolute finest chapter in the X-Film History.

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