Megan 2.0 (4 Stars)

I loved the film "Megan", stylised as "M3GAN". It was a simple but brilliant horror film with a great idea at its centre. Megan was created to protect a young girl, but her interpretation of that job became increasingly murderous. It was funny, creepy and, most importantly, it didn't need to complicate things. "Megan 2.0" takes a different approach.

The sequel is turned into something closer to a science-fiction action film, with a new AI threat, military technology, conspiracies and one plot twist after another. There are some entertaining moments and Megan herself is still the best thing about the film, but the story has become unnecessarily complicated. It's still a good film, but it's disappointing in comparison with the original. The first film knew exactly what it wanted to be; the sequel seems to have forgotten.

Success Rate:  + 0.6

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Heavier Trip: Road to Wacken (4 Stars)

Not as good as the first film.

Too much comedy.

Not enough music.

But Babymetal is cute.

Lust for a Witch (4 Stars)

The first time I watched this film I was a bit confused. It looked like a Medina film, but not quite. It features four of the regular actors from the early Medina films, Evan Stone, Alexandre Boisvert, Nicole Sheridan and Rebecca Love. I was particularly curious about the director, Michael Windsor, who's never made any other films. I wrote to Fred Olen Ray and received this reply:

"That movie has a long history. It was made by a British adult video company called Unionjaxx/RudeBrit. We used to rent them an office and some warehouse space when we had a large presence on Winnetka. Adult stuff had just become legal in the UK and they were trying to distribute their product in the US but it was awful. They wanted to make something here and came over with one of their starlets Poppi Morgan. They hired Evan Stone to put it together for them. We agreed to do their music tracking, special effects and titles in exchange for a softcore cable friendly version, but it was not up to our level of acceptability and we sat on it as being unusable for maybe what seems like a decade. I finally cut it down as far as it could go and still be a feature when I needed something to release one month and it maybe sold 1000 units. I don't remember. Windsor was one of the Brits. His wife was also one of their UK starlets known for having the biggest tits in England. Her names escapes me".

Today I did some research and found the answer. Michael Windsor was a pseudonym. His real name was Michael John. His wife was the actress Tanya Hyde, who was promoted as having the largest breasts in England.

Fast & Furious 10 (4 Stars)

Dante Reyes is completely insane.

That's not meant as an insult to Jason Momoa's performance; it's probably the best thing about the film. Dante is the son of Hernan Reyes, the drug lord Dom and his crew brought down in Rio in "Fast Five". Dante witnessed his father's downfall and has spent twelve years planning his revenge. He doesn't simply want to kill Dom. That would be far too easy. He wants Dom to suffer, and he wants to destroy everything Dom loves along the way.

Dante's plan is so elaborate that Dom and his family are constantly several steps behind him. He manipulates the authorities, frames Dom's crew for a disaster in Rome, steals the surveillance technology known as God's Eye and eventually focuses his attention on Dom's young son, Little B. But Dante isn't interested in simply kidnapping the boy. Everything he does is part of a carefully constructed game in which Dom is forced to watch his family being destroyed one piece at a time.

And Dante enjoys every second of it.

The film eventually brings the two men back to Brazil, where Dante recreates the circumstances of his father's death. Dom manages to save Isabel, Elena's sister, but Dante escapes with God's Eye and uses it to track Little B. The chase eventually moves to Portugal, where Jakob attempts to protect his nephew. Jakob sacrifices himself, destroying a group of Dante's men and giving Dom the opportunity to rescue his son.

You'd think that would be the end of Dante's plan. It isn't even close.

Dom and Little B head towards an airfield, believing that Aimes, the head of the Agency, is going to help them escape. Instead, Dante reveals that Aimes has been working for him all along. Aimes shoots down the plane carrying Roman, Tej, Han and Ramsey, apparently killing them all. Dante then traps Dom and his son on a dam with two enormous tanker trucks racing towards them from opposite directions.

Dom does what Dom does. He drives his car off the side of the dam, races down the concrete slope and escapes the explosion. For a few seconds, it looks as though he's actually beaten Dante.

But, of course, Dante has thought of that too.

The entire dam has been rigged with explosives. Dom and Little B are now stranded at the bottom with no car and nowhere to go. Dante detonates the explosives and the film cuts to black.

That's the end of the film.

And then we wait.....

I'm perfectly happy to accept that "Fast & Furious 10" isn't meant to be a complete story. It was intended to launch the final chapters of the saga, and a cliff-hanger was always going to be part of the plan.

But there's a difference between ending a film on a cliff hanger and simply stopping halfway through the story.

When I saw "Fast & Furious 10" in the cinema, I gave it five stars. I assumed that the next film would follow fairly soon and that I'd get the answers to all those questions before too long. Three years later, I'm still waiting.

So now the ending doesn't have quite the same effect. Dom and Little B are apparently about to be blown to pieces. Roman, Tej, Han and Ramsey have apparently just been killed in a plane crash. Jakob has sacrificed himself. Dante has won. And we're expected to sit here for years wondering how everybody is going to survive.

Because we all know they're going to survive.

This is Fast & Furious. People come back from the dead in this franchise. Gisele, who was supposedly killed in "Fast & Furious 6", turns up alive in a submarine at the end of this very film.

So the cliff-hanger isn't even particularly suspenseful. It's just irritating.

I like "Fast & Furious 10". I like it a lot. Dante is a wonderfully deranged villain, the action is spectacular and the film is enormous fun. But that ending has now cost it something.

If "Fast & Furious 11" had arrived in 2024, I'd probably still be giving "Fast & Furious 10" five stars. But three years of waiting for the story to continue is a different matter.

A cliff-hanger is supposed to make you desperate to see the next film.

It isn't supposed to make you think the filmmakers have forgotten to finish the film.

Success Rate:  - 0.1

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Five Nights at Freddy's (4 Stars)

• Mike Schmidt struggles to keep custody of his younger sister Abby.
• Mike is haunted by the kidnapping of his younger brother Garrett.
• Mike takes a night security job at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.
• The restaurant's animatronics come alive and attack intruders.
• Abby befriends the supposedly murderous animatronics.
• The animatronics are possessed by murdered children.
• Mike dreams about Garrett and the murdered children.
• Mike discovers that the murdered children were killed at Freddy's.
• The policewoman Vanessa knows the truth about Freddy's and its history.
• The children were murdered by the serial killer William Afton.
• Afton is Vanessa's father and Garrett's kidnapper.
• Afton murdered the children while wearing the Spring Bonnie suit.
• Abby helps the murdered children realise that Afton betrayed them.
• The children turn against Afton and drag him away.
• Afton is trapped inside the Spring Bonnie suit.
• Vanessa is seriously injured and falls into a coma.
• Mike and Abby survive and remain together.

Success Rate:  + 12.9

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Pearl (5 Stars)

Müde bin ich, geh zur Ruh,

Schließe beide Äuglein zu.

Vater, lass die Augen dein

Über meinem Bette sein.

Hab ich Unrecht heut getan,

Sieh es, lieber Gott, nicht an.

Deine Gnad und Christi Blut

Machen alle Schaden gut.

Kranken Herzen sende Ruh ,

Nasse Augen schließe zu.

Lass den Mond am Himmel stehn

Und die stille Welt besehn.

---

I am tired, I go to rest,

And close both my eyes.

Father, let your eyes

Be upon my bed.

If I have done wrong today,

Do not look upon it, dear God.

Your grace and Christ's blood

Make all harm right.

Send peace to sick hearts,

Close wet eyes.

Let the Moon stand in the sky

And watch over the silent world.

Success Rate:  + 8.1

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Stoner (4 Stars)

"Stoner" has one of those stories behind it that's almost as interesting as the film itself. It was originally planned as Bruce Lee's next film after "Game of Death", with Lee and George Lazenby as the two leading stars. Lazenby was going to play the villain, while Bruce Lee would have played the character eventually played by Angela Mao. You read that correctly: Bruce Lee was supposed to play Angela Mao's part.

In July 1973, Bruce Lee died and the whole project had to be reworked. Lazenby's character was changed from villain to hero and Mao was brought in as his co-star. Lazenby was fresh from playing James Bond in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", and "Stoner" was clearly designed to cash in on that. The trailer mentions James Bond at least half a dozen times, so there's no danger of missing the connection. Lazenby gets the smart suits, the women and the international action, although "Stoner" eventually becomes a very different sort of film.

Lazenby plays Australian police officer John Stoner, who becomes involved in an investigation into a new drug that is spreading through Hong Kong. Angela Mao plays another police officer from Taiwan investigating the same organisation, and the two eventually join forces against the criminals behind it. It's a fairly straightforward police thriller, although the story becomes increasingly bizarre as drugs, sexual exploitation and a mysterious cult enter the picture.

Lazenby is perfectly adequate in the lead, although he looks more like James Bond than Stoner for much of the film. It doesn't help that he's sporting an absolutely dreadful moustache for the first half of the film. Thankfully, he shaves it off and looks considerably better. Sammo Hung also makes an appearance, although I found it hard to concentrate on anything he was doing because of the enormous mole on his nose, complete with a single hair growing out of it. Once you've noticed it, you can't stop looking at it.

For most of the film I was hovering between three and three and a half stars, but Stoner saves its best for last. Angela Mao's final fight with Hwang In-shik is terrific. It's easily the highlight of the film, with Mao and In-shik throwing themselves into a spectacular martial-arts battle that finally delivers the sort of action I was hoping for. Angela Mao is excellent throughout, but this is where she gets to show what she can really do.

That final fight pushed Stoner up to four stars.