Every week, we take a look at what’s hitting cinemas and streaming and separate the wheat from the chaff.
Bob Odenkirk is back to crack more skulls for our entertainment this week, under the direction of one of the most exciting action directors to come along in a good long while. Other than that, streaming is obviously all about Alien: Earth this week, and I’m not gonna get all iconoclastic and try to pick another release for the spotlight. Every once in a while, the majority is right.
In Cinemas
Nobody 2
The sequel to the hugely fun, hugely dumb 2021 action comedy Nobody sees former Saul Goodman Bob Odenkirk return to the role of former assassin/current suburban dad Hutch Mansell. Having decided to split the difference and be both an amiable suburbanite and an unstoppable killing machine in his downtime, Hutch takes his family off on a road trip vacation, only to cross paths with Sharon Stone’s gun runner. Bizarrely not screened for critics in my neck of the woods, but I hope to have a review up for you on Monday. But here’s the thing: it’s the English language debut of Timo Tjahjanto, who simply does not miss – check out The Night Comes For Us on Netflix for ample proof.
The Life Of Chuck
A somewhat lighter offering from Doctor Sleep and The Haunting Of Hill House‘s Mike Flanagan and Stephen King (you know who he is), whose book forms the basis for this odd, humanistic film. Tom Hiddleston is the titular Chuck, and this is his life – sort of. Divided into three parts, The Life Of Chuck is a hard film to summarise. Think of it as a kind of magical realist meditation on the interconnected nature of existence and how we all live inside everyone we’ve ever met and go from there. I really dug it, but King and Flanagan’s homespun feelgood mysticism may read schmaltzy to some.
War 2
Sequel to 2019’s War and part of the sprawling YRF Spy Universe. Hrithik Roshan is the rogue secret agent who’s declared war on the Indian government, N. T. Rama Rao Jr. is the special forces bad ass dispatched to stop him, and it’s on like Donkey Kong. You don’t need to know more than that – you get a lot of bang for your buck with Indian action films, and this is nearly three hours worth of fights, explosions, chases, escapes, and clandestine derring-do. If you miss the golden age when we used to get big, bombastic Simpson/Bruckheimer joints on the reg, keep an eye on countries like India, China, and South Korea, where they’re still cranking out blockbusters every year.
Streaming
Alien: Earth
Your number one viewing option this weekend, assuming you haven’t already necked the two episodes currently streaming on Disney+ already. Noah Hawley takes us two years before the events of Alien and into a crisis when a deep space exploration ship with a cargo hold full of alien monsters crashes on Earth. Wendy (Sydney Chandler), a young girl whose mind has been uploaded into a synthetic body, inserts herself into the clean up mission to protect her brother (Alex Lawther), a rescue worker. From there, you get one of the smartest, most ambitious, and bloodiest sci-fi works of the year. Unmissable.
FIXED
This one comes to us from Genndy Tartakovsky, the animation genius behind Samurai Jack, Primal, and, weirdly enough, the Hotel Transylvania series. Adam DeVine is Bull, a staffy he learns he’s getting thee snip in the morning and heads out for one last night of absolute canine debauchery with his mates Rocco (Idris Elba), a boxer; Lucky (Bobby Moynihan) a Jack Russell Terrier; and Fetch (Fred Armisen), a dachshund. The precis alone should tell you what kind of raunchy adult animation to expect. On Netflix.
Den Of Thieves 2: Pantera
This hugely entertaining, ultra-macho action flick has found its way to Amazon Prime Video. I bring this to your attention largely because when it was theatrically released in Australia it had 14 minutes inexplicably chopped out of it. Don’t take my word for it – the Classification Board passed a 130 minute cut in December 2024. The full cut is 144 minutes. It’s got me baffled. It can’t have been a ratings dodge – I cannot see a jump from M to MA15+ shaving much off the film’s core audience of bearded dads and bachelor uncles. Query emails went unanswered, and that’s about where my journalistic talents tap out.
Anyway, this is the full version, in which Gerard Butler‘s corrupt cop pursues O’Shea Jackson‘s wily thief to Europe, only to discover it really does feel good to be a gangster and join in on a diamond heist. Meathead perfection.
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