Choose Or Die (2022 film)

Category: Supernatural horror with sci-fi leanings.

Directed by: Toby Meakins

Feels like: Jumanji meets The Ring meets Pixels

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I honestly didn't know what to expect when I saw this come up as an option on my streaming service, except that it was only 84 minutes. A sense of relief came over me that it wasn't no 3.5 hour epic like The Brutalist. There's nothing wrong with Hollywood epics - some of them are my favourite movies - but there's just something about the 90-minute format that is comforting. Like being under a thick blanket on a cold night while you tuck into a bag of snacks.

And horror movies - you should know by now I loves me a good horror movie.

So is Choose Or Die, a 2022 effort directed by Toby Meakins, a good horror movie? Find out after the plot recap!

The plot:

The opening scene sees Laura (Kate Fleetwood) berating her son Gabe (Pete McHale) about an unspecified, but serious incident as there are mentions of police involvement. The two eventually bemoan how the dad of the family, Hal (Eddie Marsan) is uninvolved in family affairs due to his electronic gadget obsession in his "man cave". We then see Hal shut the door and start up a text-based computer game called CURS>R on an old green phosphour CRT screen.

M3GAN 2.0 (2025 film)

Category: sci-fi action-comedy

Directed by: Gerard Johnstone

Similar to: M3GAN

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The first M3GAN movie inspired memes and trends and had a top-notch marketing campaign behind it. The sequel, M3GAN 2.0? I didn’t even know it actually existed, let alone had a theatrical run and was now on streaming - though that could just be because I am busy living my life while reviewing other movies. As luck would have it, I just happened to find this available on my streaming service, so being a glutton for punishment, I hit play and grabbed my coffee.

Looking at the box office figures, the first M3GAN movie raked in $180M from a $12M budget - a clear financial success, even though it wasn't exactly Citizen Kane - whereas the interwebs tells me that the sequel has grossed only $40M or so from a $25M budget. Yikes! 

Will M3GAN 2.0 be up there with Citizen Kane instead, despite the box office loss? Let's find out after a plot recap!

Plot:

The movie begins near the Turkiye/Iran border where a woman has been captured attempting to sneak into a clandestine facility. She is executed at gunpoint and her body brought inside. We suddenly cut to a group of men in a military briefing room being given a presentation of a live view from inside said clandestine facility when the defence secretary comes in, angry that a military operation is being conducted without her knowledge. The presenter placates her by stating they're not conducting an operation - they're merely lending experimental US military equipment for someone else's operation (totally legit, right!). Suddenly, the person that had been executed previously reanimates in classic M3GAN style and it becomes apparent we are seeing a lifelike android carry out a command to rescue a particular scientist being held captive. However, the android starts ignoring orders, executes the scientist and extricates canisters of toxic nerve gas.

Apocalypse Now (1979 film)

Category: War drama/book-to-movie adaptation

Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola

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In keeping with the military theme around ANZAC Day, given my last review was for The Water Diviner, I'll now review another military-themed movie, but this time a little more dark and serious...

I watched Apocalypse Now for the first time back when I was in high school and was tasked to write a report about it. There wasn't much compunction about letting the older kids/young adults studying a quite mature film since it was final year, and it was either this, or To Kill A Mockingbird. And goddammit, I wanted some action! Little did I know all those years ago that I was actually writing a book report by-proxy, the book in question being Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad about a man who travels up a river on behalf of an ivory trading company in Belgian-controlled Congo and witnesses large-scale depravity. Change a few details, modernise it to be a reflection on a highly unpopular war and voila, an old story is new again.

I appreciated this movie as being fairly decent when I first saw it all those years ago and noticed it has made numerous "must watch before you die" lists, so I wanted to re-watch this with mature eyes - to see if it stood the test of time.

From the initial 1979 release, two subsequent versions were created - Redux and Director's Cut. However here, I'll only be reviewing the standard theatrical cut. Redux adds scenes to the standard cut, and then Francis Ford Coppola went and added yet more scenes to create the Director's Cut which removed some scenes from Redux. Can't wait for the Mega-Ultra-Redux-Director's Cut-5-Hour-Marathon edition…

The plot:

The movie follows Capt. Ben Willard (Martin Sheen) who we see alone on a bed in a Saigon hotel room dealing with the mental demons from his previous Vietnam deployments and his inability to adjust to life back home. He is suddenly visited by military escorts and summoned to appear before higher-ups who have a mission for him. The mission (should he choose to accept it) is to "terminate, with extreme prejudice" the command of Colonel Walter Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a brilliant soldier who has decided to separate from the US forces and now has his own private militia in Cambodia that worship him as a god.