Movie Reviews
Blitz movie review: the unraveling of propaganda – FlickFilosopher.com
Blitz opens amidst a terrifying conflagration on a nighttime city street. This is the blitzkrieg, the German bombing of London in 1940 in the early days of World War II. But as writer-director Steve McQueen casts it, it’s not about an entire street or even a single building on fire. It’s about a loose fire hose whipping about wildly and the heavy industrial nozzle whacking an anonymous fireman in the head as he struggles to bring it under control.
It’s a moment of feral intensity, and of ferocious intimacy. It reminded me of nothing so much as snippets from early in the TV series Chernobyl, about the 1986 nuclear-plant disaster. Just an ordinary schmoe firefighter not even thinking twice about doing a dangerous job, because it has to be done.
Blitz is not about that firefighter. But the brutal randomness of that opening sequence sets the stage for what is to come. This is not a sentimental story about British stiff upper lips and keeping calm and carrying on. There were scenes in this movie when I gasped out loud and actually clapped a hand to my mouth in shock — I can’t recall if I’d ever done that before. McQueen (Widows, Shame) seems to be deliberately pushing back against how the British and especially the London experience of the war has been ex post facto propagandized into cheery, chipper camaraderie and complacency. Indeed, the whole “keep calm and carry on” thing was a propaganda slogan developed during the war but barely used then, and was almost entirely forgotten until it was rediscovered in 2000 and subsequently weaponized for whitewashed and commercialized nostalgia.
McQueen plays with those expectations but smashes them at every opportunity with this tale of nine-year-old George, who’s furious that his single mom, Rita, has relented and agreed to evacuate her son to the countryside, finally, after so many other London children had already left. Blitz is the picaresque misadventures of George as he decides to take himself home, Nazi bombs be damned, and to the inadvertent horror of his mother, once she is informed that the authorities who were supposed to be in charge of George’s safety have lost him.
(George is played by wonderful newcomer Elliott Heffernan, a real find on McQueen’s part. Rita is portrayed by Saoirse Ronan [Foe, Little Women], as ever a standout, and the best thing even in an all-around terrific movie, as this is.)
McQueen is pushing back against another sort of whitewashing, too, of the more literal kind: the bizarre notion that, somehow, “diversity” is a 21st-century invention and that people of color haven’t always been a part of, in particular, majority-white colonial nations like Great Britain. (This is hugely applicable to the US as well.) The filmmaker had said he was inspired in this story by an old photograph of a mixed-race Blitz evacuee, a small boy standing on a WWII-era railway platform, and wondered what his life was like. And so McQueen — who is Black British — builds a sketch of vibrant, multicultural life in century-ago London. Partly through flashbacks, of the lively jazz-club scene where Rita partied, pre-war, with George’s father, Marcus (CJ Beckford), an immigrant from Grenada who is no longer in the picture. But McQueen’s portrait of a London that some would like to pretend never existed blossoms, enormously affectingly, via the air-raid warden George encounters on his journeys: Ife (Benjamin Clémentine: Dune), a Nigerian immigrant to London. Sharply but gently — so gently: Ife is one of the loveliest characters I’ve met onscreen in a long while — McQueen’s exuberant, diverse London subtly suggests that this, very much this, is what was worth fighting the Nazis to protect.
(Relevance to today? Sky-high, no pun intended. It was WWII horrors like the Blitz, as well as the Allied firebombing of Dresden, in Germany, and the American atomic attacks on Japan that have helped shaped our ideas about what constitutes warcrimes today. Bonus points to anyone who can pinpoint multiple indiscriminate military attacks on civilians happening right now around the planet.)
Yet nothing here is romanticized, either. Racism is a real and pervasive presence — the sequence in which George has his eyes opened to just how ingrained the denigration of Black people has been by the British Empire is heartbreaking — as is the opportunism of those who would take advantage of the chaos of the Blitz: Stephen Graham (Boiling Point, Greyhound) and Kathy Burke (Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Pan) as scavenger-thieves who descend after the bombs fall, and who rope George into their schemes, are terrifying, akin to the Thenardiers of Les Misérables but devoid of their bleak comedy.
Blitz is McQueen’s most accessible, most mainstream film yet; his previous works include 2010’s IRA hunger-strike movie Hunger, 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, and last year’s Occupied City, a four-and-a-half-hour documentary about Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely brutal. This is a movie about childhood adventure that is a lark, until it isn’t. It’s about community care and small moments of kindness from strangers in passing, and also about stomping on your neighbors in moments of panic and terror. It’s wildly human, artistically masterful, and completely magnificent.
more films like this:
• Empire of the Sun [Prime US | Prime UK | Apple TV]
• 12 Years a Slave [Prime US | Prime UK | Apple TV | Netflix UK (till Nov 15) | BFI Player UK]
Movie Reviews
Mortal Kombat 2 Movie Review: Simon McQuoid’s Latest Is A Breezy, Bloody, Sometimes Baffling Time
Warner Bros. has a new movie to put in the ring. Mortal Kombat II, the sequel to the action-filled 2021 video game adaptation that at the very least got the gore right, is here. It’s a breezy, bloody entry that leans heavily on video game characters and logic, a move that should satisfy franchise fans, even if the actual narrative is too weak to win over new converts.
We’re in an era of regular, variably solid video game adaptations. Series like The Last of Us and Fallout, and films such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Werewolves Within, are exemplary, with stories that capture much of what works about the games. On the other hand, adaptations like Borderlands show that it’s still possible to get one wrong. The stakes remain high.
When director Simon McQuoid’s Mortal Kombat graced the screens and HBO Max, it was received with a sizable difference between fans (currently 85% on Rotten Tomatoes with over 5,000 verified ratings) and critics (55% with 299 factored in). It was refreshing to have fights that didn’t skimp on the game series’ violence, but some muddled plotting, a failure to fully capture the game’s feel, and centering the film on an original character (rather than a fan-favorite from the games) were ill-received.
Mortal Kombat II is a bigger and more faithful adaptation in many ways. The tournament actually feels deadly, and many of the fight sequences are sufficiently bloody to accurately reflect the games. The actual narrative falls apart somewhat when you think too hard about it, but it largely works, and certain characters (Kano, Johnny Cage) steal every scene they’re in. If you like your movies bloody with a side of silly, you’re in luck.
Mortal Kombat 2 Has Stellar New Additions
Mortal Kombat II doesn’t waste time in setting the stakes, with an opening fight between Eternia’s King Jerrod and Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford). The helmeted tyrant Kahn’s violent victory allows him to raise Jerrod’s daughter, Kitana, as he comes to rule Eternia thanks to his tournament victories. That backstory sets up the complex journey of adult Kitana (Adeline Rudolph), who fights for Kahn alongside longtime friend Jade (Tati Gabrielle), but has understandable reservations.
Another major element of this iteration is the addition of washed-up action star Johnny Cage (Karl Urban), who is recruited to fight for Earthrealm despite lacking powers. Cage has to fight under the tutelage of Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), alongside mainstays including Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Cole Young (Lewis Tan), and Liu Kang (Ludi Lin). Our heroes have to defeat Shao Khan’s warriors to save Earth, all the while preventing him from acquiring an amulet that would render him immortal.
Urban is a stellar addition to the series, with a huge and charismatic personality that fits Johnny Cage and is fun to watch onscreen. Josh Lawson’s dirtbag mercenary Kano gets some fantastic scenes here, and the two add a lot of charm that some other characters may lack. Adeline Rudolph is empathetic and believably tactical as Kitana. Gabrielle’s Jade isn’t given enough key scenes to shine, but there’s clear potential for the character in future iterations.
Baraka (CJ Bloomfield) isn’t the deepest character, but Bloomfield makes him memorable, and his relationship with Johnny Cage is always a fun watch. While Tan’s Cole Young has something to do in Mortal Kombat II, he’s much less of a focus here, as are returning favorites like Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim’s Bi-Han.
There are new characters, many moving parts, and a narrative that’s more a string of battles than a traditional Hollywood tale, leaving some favorites underutilized. Because of the need to introduce new characters, most of the existing ones are relatively one-note. Kitana and Johnny Cage get ample screen time, even character arcs, and Kano, Baraka, and some others do get standout moments. Most characters, however, remain one-note figures.
Mortal Kombat II Doesn’t Fully Make Sense, but It Mostly Hits Hard
While Mortal Kombat 2 doesn’t have the biggest fights you’ll see this year (that would be The Furious), it does have quite a few memorable ones with great finishers. The final fight with Shao Kahn has a solid ending, and many get standout moments as the movie proceeds. Kitana, Baraka, Liu Kang, Hanzo Hasashi/Scorpion, and Kung Lao all get particularly unforgettable moments.
A more faithful structure also makes this round’s fights feel a bit more like one is playing an actual Mortal Kombat game, which is welcome. Most are well-paced, though a few could use tighter editing. Unfortunately, the story is more than a little muddled. Shao Kahn wants a Maguffin to be unkillable, sure, but if the tournament rules allow an invasion of Earthrealm if and only if Earth’s champions defeat Outworld’s five times, isn’t an immortality-granting amulet the equivalent of steroid use? Where are the referees?
Some characters (like Jade) change allegiances almost at random, with no consistency. There are several moments when characters make choices that don’t make sense, or at least we don’t have enough information to understand them.
Altogether, Mortal Kombat II learned from quite a few of the issues the first film had. It swapped out protagonists for one with a flashier personality, better replicated the game’s elements and structure, and had kills to boot. That’s largely enough to succeed for the kind of film it is, but it still has issues.
There are too many characters to develop in any interesting way, the tournament rules and character plans don’t make total sense, and the pacing is quick in some moments and slow in others. Nonetheless, it’s a delightful outing and feels just like a big ol’ violent video game (complimentary).
Final Rating: 7/10
Mortal Kombat 2 is playing in theaters.
Movie Reviews
1986 Movie Reviews – Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit | The Nerdy
Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s May 9, 1986, and we’re off to see Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit.
Dangerously Close
I would love to tell you what the point of this film was, but I’m not sure it knew.
An elite school has turned into a magnet school, attracting some “undesirables,” so a group of students known as The Sentinels take up policing their school, but will they go too far?
The basic plot of the film is simple enough, but there is an oddball “twist” toward the end tht served no real purpose and somehow turns the whole thing into a murder-mystery. Mysteries only work when you know you’re supposed to be solving them, and not when you’re alerted to one existing with 15 minutes left.
Decent 80s music, some stylistic shots, absolutely no substance.
Fire with Fire
Oh wait… I may want to go back and watch Dangerously Close again over this one.
Joe Fisk (Craig Sheffer) is being held at a juvenile delinquent facility close a high-end all-girls Catholic school. One day while running through the forest as part of an exercise he spots Catholic schoolgirl Lisa Taylor (Virginia Madsen) and the two fall immediately in love because… reasons.
This film is just so incredibly lazy. The ‘love story’ really can just be chalked up to ‘hormones.’
Last Resort
Once again I am baffled how Charles Grodin kept getting work so much through out the 1980s.
George Lollar (Grodin) is a salesman in Chicago in need of a vacation. He loads up the family and takes them to Club Sand, which turns out to be a swingers resort as well as surrounded by barbed wire to keep rebels out.
There are a lot of talented people in this movie such as Phil Hartman and Megan Mullally, but the film lets them down at every turn with half-baked ideas of jokes. Supposedly, Grodin rewrote nearly the entire script and I think that explains a lot about how this film feels like unfinished ideas. It’s a Frankenstein monster of a script with half-complete ideas that feel like they are from completely different movies.
Short Circuit
Lets just get this out of the way: What in the world was Fisher Stevens doing?
NOVA Laboratory has come up with a new series of military robots called S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport). Following a successful demonstration for the military, Five is struck by an electrical surge and finds itself needing ‘input.’ After inadvertently escaping the lab, it wands into the life of Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy), who cares for animals and takes Five in. Dr. Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) is trying to get five back, while the security team wants to destroy it.
Overall, the film is thin, but harmless. The 80s did seem to love a ‘technology being used for the wrong reasons’ theme, and this falls into that camp. What is mind-blowing, however, is Stevens as Ben Jabituya, Crosby’s assistant. Not only is he wearing brown face, but he’s doing a horrible Indian accent and later reveals he was born and raised in the U.S.
His whole character is mystifying.
Honestly, a couple of decades ago I may have recommended this movie, but it’s a definite pass now just for being offensive.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on May 16, 2026, with Sweet Liberty and Top Gun.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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