John Cena

Coyote vs. Acme

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Wile E Coyote scans the horizon with Acme binoculars

Shelved for tax purposes then hauled back to improbable life – like its cartoon star Wile E Coyote – Coyote vs Acme made it through when Batgirl and Scoob!: Holiday Haunt fell by the accountancy wayside. But is it more than a “from the grave” resurrection sticking it to the bean counters? I laughed about ten times in the first 15 minutes, so it easily passes “the six-laugh test” – something I only heard about two days ago but understood without explanation. Test passed, in other words. But, caveat alert, the film is funniest when it sticks closest to the tried and true. When an anvil is dropping out of the sky, kind … Read more

Fast and Furious 9

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Vin Diesel and John Cena face off

Call it what you like, Fast & Furious 9 – or F9, or F9: The Fast Saga – is no good, a terrible disappointment in a franchise that in a 20-year run has managed to be one of the most reliable suppliers of screen fun, banter and action. However, F&F has proved to be totally bombproof thus far, having survived the permanent loss of franchise mainstays (Paul Walker), temporary absences (Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster), a reverse takeover by Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham (who have now been shunted off to their own spinoff, the Hobbs & Shaw franchise). It even survived the loss of director Justin Lin, who picked up the … Read more

The Suicide Squad

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Harley Quinn screams

The Suicide Squad, not to be confused with Suicide Squad from five years ago, fixes the mistake made by the 2016 movie, which got bogged down in plot. The Suicide Squad does that by not really having one. Or if it does it treats it as something to be vaguely referred to now and again, like a map by a driver who knows his way. The driver here is James Gunn, who does just about everything right in this super-sequel follow-up to the Dirty Dozen of comicbook movies. The first film was quite simply terrible, though bursting with great things, a kind of satire on Marvel movies, if you wanted to see it … Read more