Position the mouse over the spoiler boxes to read. If you haven't seen these movies then my comments probably won't make any sense.

Justice League (Zack Snyder cut)

Much better than the original cut - I can actually understand the story!

The problem of this movie is that the Justice League doesn't really work: Superman is dead for the first three quarters*, Aquaman doesn't want to be in the team for the first two thirds, Batman as a character works much better when he is this weird loner with an antagonistic relationship with Alfred, Cyborg came across as a bit of angry teenager, The Flash didn't have very much back story in the movie-verse so although he added some contrast and levity he was very lightweight, and Wonder Woman is sort of like magic because she is a demi god.

* Superman's mum speaks more than Superman.

You're going to need a good internet connection to stream this because there are so many CG and effects shots.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

I can't think of what to say to describe this movie, I'm still absorbing it. Must watch.

Vesper

Really liked this; engaging story, very well acted, slightly weird SF.

Were the Pilgrims escaped Jugs?

The Contractor

I found this quite engaging, it kept me wanting to know what was going to happen next.

It's sort of like Jason Bourne except he isn't a super spy and it's more down to earth. It always bothered me that Jason lost his memory after being shot in the back but could always remember exactly enough whenever he needed to.

Chris Pine barely says two words. I think his character could have spoken a bit more.

Top Gun Maverick

A lot of similarities with the original story but enough things were different to make it enjoyable.

At the start the Darkstar is rolled out of the hangar but then taxis out of the hangar when taking off.

When testing an experimental aircraft there don't appear to be any scientists or engineers to run the test, make sure the correct data is collected. No representative from the manufacturer or an Advanced Weapon agency is present. The whole show is run by technicians and a test pilot.

A US Navy Aviator Captain makes enough money to privately own a classic aircraft and rent a large hangar space to keep it?

A bar owner earns enough to own a Porsche, house and sailing yacht? Business must be good.

Missed opportunity for plot twist: Penny's dad ordered Maverick to be sent to Top Gun to be the instructor for the mission. Could have worked.

No Time to Die

I think this is one of the best Bond movies in ages. The stunts in Italy were fantastic, Bond was human, the Paloma character was awesome.

When 007 went to Jamaica and met Bond for the first time; why was she there? MI6 believed Bond was dead; M was shocked when he spoke to Bond on Noma's phone. So why was Noma there? Because she had been following Felix Leiter and decided to warn Bond off from doing the CIA mission to Cuba? - if so then why didn't she know anything about Ash after the mission?

So now we have to ask how come M was able to pick up the phone and speak to Bond immediately while he is in a totally different time zone. Very convenient.

How the fake eye bad guy still had an obvious fake eye 5 years later but Blofeld has a fake eye while in prison and no one even notices.

The Batman

Very good! Too long though. Liked the Batmobile.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

At a stretch it's sort of like Ghostbusters meets Kung Fu Panda.

It's from a comic; which doesn't always mean it's a bad thing but on the other hand doing more Christian Bale Batman than Adam West Batman would have been considerably better. A lot of the humour falls flat for me. It's a shame because I thought a lot of the acting was pretty good.

Ad Astra

Comes across as kind of Solaris (George Clooney version).

Intriguing characters: not just Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones but a lot of other supporting characters seem to have depth even if the story doesn't dwell on them.

Dune Part 1

As a Dune fan this movie would have to be particularly bad for me to not like it. This version clearly follows the footsteps of the David Lynch version.

Duncan Idaho completely stole the show, if Jason Mamoa doesn't come back for sequel movies then he would be crazy.

The ornithopters were awesome, better than any seen before in any previous movie; they actually looked convincing for once. The force fields, crysknife and Salusa Secondus also looked cool.

Leto's character was really well acted, especially his anger at the assassination attempt on Paul.

A bit disappointed with the use of the cast. It seemed like Gurney had 2 scenes, Kynes 2 scenes, Chani 1½ scenes, Duke Leto 4 scenes, Jessica 10 scenes, Duncan 10 scenes and Paul 30 scenes. It's not as if they were rushed for time.

The problem with this movie is that it doesn't really stand on its own. It sets everything up for the second part, as it should, but it has no real transition point, it justs stops.

Update: I've watched this at least three times now. Mesmerising. Will watch it again and again.

The Tomorrow War

Science fiction, time travel, action. Could be interesting...

This movie was a bit meh; the story was not strong, the dialogue was not strong, the characters were not strong. The main protagonist seemed to be like "OK, yeah" to anything. Parts of the story didn't make sense. I think there were some decent actors and it's a shame they were wasted.

00h25m Why are they spending so much time on irrelevant exposition, when are we going to get to the main storyline?
01h45m Oh. So it was just obvious set up material.

(Huge spoiler alert) How can the whitespikes have the volcanic dust in their claws if they were held in stasis on the alien craft until it thawed in 2048?

Wonder Woman 1984

It's always worrying when I stream a movie and the first few minutes are unwatchable because there is so much fast CG that the compression cannot cope with it (compression for movies is usually biased towards natural video so you know there's too much computer generated imagery when you get massive amounts of artefacts).

What were they thinking? I thought this was going to be a slightly Lynda Carter-ish version of the same broody, dark and mysterious Gal Gadot Wonder Woman we're familiar with in her other outings but instead there was some dull story with a confused 1970s cheesy backdrop and cardboard cut out characters.

I gave up watching after 40 minutes because it was so tedious and I didn't want to waste my evening.

Tenet

Awesome and compelling storyline; even though I guessed some of the direction of the story it was interesting to see how it played out.

The future could have sent back inverted soldiers with a complete inverted bomb instead of trying to recruit someone to build one with several pieces sent separately. Or they could have sent people back to influence the past and avoided the problems that plagued the future.

Mortal Engines

The visuals looked really good and made a believable world; the acting was very good too.

It just didn't make sense: Pandora Shaw didn't trust Thaddeus Valentine so had a baby with him (maybe?), feared him, showed him a piece of a super weapon and in her dying breath gave the kill switch to her daughter so she could stop him. I'm sure it was all explained in the book, but the movie has to stand by itself.

Angel Has Fallen

I enjoyed the previous movies in the series even though they're not exactly cerebral.

It seemed like the movie was about Gerard Butler wheezing his way through a heart attack.

Apart from the use of drones and the cars, this movie is straight out of 1985.

The Rise of Skywalker

This movie got panned but I found it surprisingly OK. To be honest I wasn't expecting too much.

Forgetting the Emperor-clone thing; I found the whole secret map to the Sith homeworld story a bit nonsensical when they manufacture and crew a secret fleet there. Even if the ships were manufactured elsewhere the resources to supply all those ships must have been very un-secret.

It was a real crying shame that this movie couldn't be the one focused on the Leia character.

Captain Marvel

It's a movie based on a comicbook superhero so you can't be too picky about the story making sense.

But they could have done a lot to modify the story and make it sensible. For example, the Kree can travel through wormholes effectively faster than the speed of light, so what use would a FTL drive be?

In a massive explosion, a dog tag got blown in half and a human absorbed a spaceship engine? Really?

Widows

Interesting to see how a team of women would plan and execute a heist. Or at least from a woman's point of view as the story is by Lynda La Plante.

I don't get Harry's plan: he stole $5m from Jamal Manning, who knew it was him. But then he needed to steal more money from his wife? Remember his wife only had a share of what was left after paying back the debt.

Resident Evil 6

The first 5 films were fun, but the first 3 were better than 4 and 5. This movie is certainly no worse than 3, 4 or 5 and you should definitely see it if you enjoyed 1 or 2.

Some inconsistencies in the series story line. It's a shame they couldn't get Michelle Rodriguez or Li Bingbing to come back. I didn't realise they dubbed Li Bingbing's voice; it's not surprising she didn't want to return.

The Mummy (2017)

At the end, Nick effectively becomes a god and decides the thing he wants to do is resurrect his friend and go ride horses in the desert?

Jenny's only role after finding Ahmanet seems to be to shout "Nick!"

When Ahmanet was awakened, what was her motivation for helping Set? Egypt has totally changed and doesn't offer the power that it once had.

The first Mummy movie was much more fun.

Ghost in the Shell

As a fan of the original anime, I was surprised that they didn't botch this. They did a good job of rewriting the story while retaining most of the original scenes albeit in a different order.

The protagonist shouldn't have been called "Major" as if that was her name and she should have worn a veil to cover her head when using the thermoptic camoflage.

I wonder if Scarlett Johansson had any thoughts on the idea that her body was as good as one designed to be perfect.

Power Rangers (2016)

I really liked the "Zordon wall" effect and the back story of Zordon and Rita being former Power Rangers.

It took way too long for the rangers to get their armour. It was like they stretched out a single episode to make a full length movie but didn't add any extra detail.

Jupiter Ascending

Amazing visuals.

Evil characters are not so scary when you can't hear what they are mumbling. Plodding and obvious story. Disappointing.

The Great Wall

So Matt Damon's character was the bestest fighter in all of asia. far superior to any fighter living there. They shouldn't even try.

Rogue One

The only way the Empire can get good engineers these days is to kidnap them, kill their families, force them to work on designing mega weapons, then promote them to a high rank. The Dilbert principle is alive in a galaxy far, far away.

The Force Awakens

A million times better than any of the prequels.

Although everyone who is gifted in the force takes several years of training, Rey can best an experienced and trained force user (who has followed the dark side and thus learnt quicker) even though she barely even knows anything about the force and had to be told by Han "the stories were true". She had no reason to try to use the force to persuade the guard to let her go after she was captured.

How did R2D2 work out where the fragment of map fitted into the map of the universe when he was shutdown? How is it that only R2D2 could work out where it fitted, hadn't they been using other computers to try to find it?

Jack Reacher (1 and 2)

Engaging story and Jack Reacher is a good character.

Tom Cruise is too short and isn't tough or gritty enough to be Jack Reacher.

Fortunately, he manages a performance that overcomes most of this problem.

The Martian

A scientifically accurate movie that is entertaining. Finally!

Hated the cheesy music. It seemed like a lazy excuse to skip having to make a soundtrack. I don't know if it was in the original book, but I could have done without it.

The Hobbit

I know there was a lot of criticism about The Hobbit, but I enjoyed it, it really brought the world of middle earth to life.

I think there was more than enough story in the original book to not need Peter Jackson to add his own additional material that was never there. However, I can understand how some parts of the story had A to C where B seems to be missing and he felt a need to show that.

Tron: Legacy

I liked how they moved on from the original story; the new grid looked fantastic.

It's such a shame that the action was so slow paced, there were 3 main action sequences: breaking in and base jumping at the start, the light cycle battle and the dog fight at the end but none of them were exciting. Cillian Murphy and Bruce Boxleitner were wasted.

Arrival

Kind of like a cross between Eon (Greg Bear) and Babel-17 (Samuel Delany).

It seems a bit grim for the protagonist to start a relationship with the foreknowledge that she will have a child and it will die.

Lucy

Fun movie if you ignore the (lack of) science.

Horribly fake Hollywood version of academia. Why don't script writers ever visit a real university as part of their research?

How is it that Lucy was living in Taiwan without a job ? Her ultimate evolved state was a USB thumb drive?