Crime – Page 5 – Movie Meister Reviews

January 24, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

The Boys S02E03 Review – Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 24th, 2020

The Boys S02E03 – “Over the Hill with the Swords of a Thousand Men“ Synopsis

Starlight’s quest to get the truth about Compound V to the public proves successful as a new bulletin exposes Vought for drugging children to create superheroes, including The Seven. As part of their attempt to do some emergency PR, The Seven goes off to find the super terrorist who is currently being held captive on a boat by The Boys. The Boys are still trying to get the super terrorist to a CIA safehouse but on the way they’re intercepted by The Deep who manages to get The Seven close enough to finally catch the super terrorist… and then go way beyond just capturing him.

Continue reading →

January 23, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

The Boys S02E02 Review – Proper Preparation and Planning

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 22nd, 2020

PREVIOUSLY ON THE BOYS

The Boys S02E02 – “Proper Preparation and Planning” Synopsis

With the Super Terrorist still on the loose, Billy Butcher and the deputy director of the CIA make a deal. If Billy and The Boys can capture the Super Terrorist then the CIA will help Billy find his wife AND clear their criminal records. While this is going on, Starlight is part of a press tour with Stormfront and Meave to celebrate three women being part of The Seven but things go a little sour when A-Train wakes up from his coma (the one he fell in at the end of last season). Finally, The Deep is spending a little more time with his new friends and goes on an existential trip which naturally leads to a one on one discussion with his gills.

Continue reading →

January 22, 2022January 23, 2022 leebutler Review

The Boys S02E01 Review – The Big Ride

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on September 21st, 2020

The Boys S02E01 – “The Big Ride” Synopsis

After the murder of Madelyn Stillwell, which has been successfully pinned on Billy Butcher, the Boys have gone into hiding. Living underground in a bunker, they’re slowly planning their next move. Currently, the best plan of action involves getting some Compound V and exposing Vaught. In charge of getting the Compound V is Starlight, who has officially gone full double agent and is helping Hughie while maintaining appearances with The Seven. Unfortunately, there also happens to be a Super Terrorist that’s just turned up with telepathic abilities which are already causing a few problems for the main gang. Now The Boys need to track down this telepathic supe without the help of their former leader Billy, who is just offscreen somewhere.

Continue reading →

January 20, 2022July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Project Power (2020) – A Fun Pill To Swallow

NOTE: Here is my review from Soda & Telepaths that was posted back on August 23, 2020

For the last decade or so, the Superhero genre has dominated the cinemas. It felt like every couple of months there was some new Marvel or DC property coming out that would be the only thing worth talking about in the world of cinema. This year was meant to be no exception, with movies like Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984 and The New Mutants scheduled to drop roughly three months into the ongoing apocalypse we’ve decided to have instead.

Continue reading →

January 5, 2022 leebutler Review

Bad Boys For Life (2020)

NOTE: So for the last 2 years I’ve been producing reviews for Soda & Telepaths who sadly closed their doors at the end of 2021. Thus, I now have a large amount of assorted reviews from the last 2 years that need somewhere to go and so they will be put here… slowly, on days I don’t have a new review to put up so I won’t flood anyone’s page/emails with a dozen reviews.

These are as close to how they were over on S&T, though that site had a different layout and style I had to work within so it might not be exactly 1 for 1. Also, in some cases, old reviews might have been deleted from the site before I got to them (like this one) and I have to rely on old notes I took.

With all that in mind, here is my first review for S&T that was posted back on January 16th, 2020.

Continue reading →

January 4, 2022 leebutler Review

House Of Gucci (2022) – Camp Couture

Released: 1st January
Seen: 2nd January

Camp is not an easy thing to properly explain. I could assign you the legendary Notes On Camp essay by Susan Sontag and that might get it across, or we could go with the description that John Waters gives in his episode of The Simpsons “The tragically ludicrous, the ludicrously tragic”. It’s not easy to call out what is and isn’t camp, though there is no real midground on camp. Either something is camp or it’s not (there is no such thing as subtle camp, if someone tells you otherwise then beat them with a tent pole) and it’s sometimes it’s hard to call… not in this case though, House of Gucci is so fucking camp that it’s accepting kids for a summer program right now.

Continue reading →

November 29, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

The Guilty (2021) – All Too OK

Released: 1st October
Seen: 27th November

While some films have large elaborate casts, there are those that are designed specifically to focus on a single performance. When these are done right, they can lead to some genuinely fascinating films with incredible central performances, we had one earlier this year with Oxygen, which bore a lot of similarities to Buried. The trick is to somehow maintain an audience’s intrigue for an hour and a half with only one performer and one location. Joining that group of films is The Guilty, a film that gives Jake Gyllenhaal a chance to show off just what he can do… interesting choice to release it around the time we’re apparently meant to hate him because a song said so, but hey that’s how things happen sometimes.

Continue reading →

November 14, 2021 leebutler Uncategorized

Red Notice (2021) – S’fine

Released: 12th November
Seen: 12th November

Usually a film begins with a script or an idea, going through a lot of pre-production before they even think about casting but sometimes there are films that are made entirely around a single cast member. Those films that are either designed to really show off what an actor can do or just to play to their strengths… Red Notice is that latter film and it’s so ridiculously simple that it’s almost impossible to truly hate, but probably won’t be up there on the “best of the year” lists either.

Continue reading →

November 9, 2021July 22, 2022 leebutler Review

Wrath Of Man (2021) – That’s Some Good Wrath

Released: 29th April
Seen: 5th November

Guy Ritchie is one of those directors who can be a lot of fun when he really wants to be, presenting an over the top world of blokey blokes doing obscene amounts of violence to each other while yelling as many assorted curse words as they can imagine in thick English accents. When he’s at his best, he creates great things like The Gentlemen, a rip roaring grand old time that I still regularly think about to this day (especially Fletcher, one of the best characters Guy Ritchie has ever created and one of the best performances Hugh Grant will ever give in his life). When he’s at his worst, he phones in absolute garbage like Aladdin, which is still a pale, painful imitation of a classic film that didn’t need a remake. So, what does just an average Guy Ritchie film look like? Probably something like Wrath Of Man… which, hilariously, is itself a remake.

Continue reading →

November 2, 2021November 29, 2021 leebutler Review

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021) – Luke Warm

Released: 13th May
Seen: 1st November

There were a lot of films I missed this year thanks to the several months of lockdown we had. If a film had a cinematic release between June and October then chances are good that I couldn’t see it because my home state wasn’t completely stupid and shut down a bunch of places to try and stop Covid from getting out of hand (which… OK didn’t work, but there was an effort made). So now that a lot of those films are slowly turning up on streaming services the time has come for me to get to work on catching up and I have to admit I was kind of interested by Those Who Wish Me Dead when I saw the trailer for it, and it basically delivered on what I expected.

Continue reading →