Suicide Squad is a movie that I have been waiting for every since the first trailer appeared and it looked like we were going to get an action packed movie about the multi talented group of anti heroes. As the trailer and teasers followed it was looking like they could have a cracking movie on their hands but then the rumours began about a dramatic volume of re-shoots and that things were getting messy. Still, I kept my hopes high but unfortunately my expectations were not met.

Let’s start with some positives, there were some good tie ins with the DC universe which has been set up so far. Batman (and another justice league character) appear briefly, it makes sense and it works. Will Smith was excellent as Deadshot, whether he was supposed to or not, his screen presence took over when on screen and was only matched by the films other big plus in Margot Robbies take as Harley Quinn. It felt like she was crazy and the moments where her interaction with the Joker came on screen felt like I expected them to. Jared Leto also looked great as the Joker and particular loved his laugh which was absolutely maniacal but this leads into the first problem. He’s barely in the movie and his appearances felt like they were really only there to build up the Harley Quinn character so the trailers as a little misleading.

Some of the backstory elements were very good El Diablo, Katana, Deadshot and in particular the Harley Quinn/Joker relationship all looked like they had the potential for a stand alone or spin off movie but Katana has very little interaction, plus I don’t understand why she was even part of the plot and El Diablo has a little more involvement but only for brief moments. Jai Courtney was good as Captain Boomerang but along with Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) he had little to do. The participation of Slipknot (Adam Beach) was pointless and despite opening well the story line for The Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) just didn’t work for me.

Outside of that Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) who is supposed to be the commander of the group, seemed to play second fiddle to Deadshot and never really feels like he is in control of the group. This fact seemed to be covered by placing him in a plot thread giving him some purpose to see the mission through, but which once again didn’t work for me and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) who puts the squad together, while playing the role very well, would have been a far better villain that the actual protagonist. Lastly, and probably worst of all, there was some great music used in the movie but it never felt right or part of the film and it took over the scenes rather than enhancing them which was very off putting.

The movie starts strongly but once the mission actually begins it slows down somewhat and the missions ending was awful. I can’t say it’s a bad film and I certainly didn’t think it’s as terrible as the general consensus seem to be. I still enjoyed it, it’s a decent action movie but it was a bit of a mess and felt disjointed so while all of the elements were there for what could have been a great film, they got it very wrong and in the end DC have once again failed to deliver on early movie promise. Director David Ayer has written movies such as Training Day and Fury and I cannot believe that he would put together a plot this messy and lazy so there must have been some studio input in fear of further backlash after the Batman Vs Superman debacle.

Despite all this early figures would seem to suggest that this will have a big box office take so in terms of profit margin it may be a hit but they will need to try much harder with the upcoming Wonder Woman and Justice League movies as their characters are being wasted by mediocrity at present.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 out of 10

When her son Oliver (Logan Creran) is killed in a car accident while she is behind the wheel, Maria (Sarah Wayne Callies) is unable to cope with the loss as the guilt eats away at her and after a failed suicide attempt her housekeeper Piki (Suchitra Pillai-Malik) explains that there may be a way for her to speak with her son one final time using an old Indian ritual at a local temple where her sons ashes can be used to call a tribe of shamans called the Aghori that will use the ashes to link this world to the other side for a small period of time. The one stipulation is that while talking to her son, under no circumstances can she open the door she is speaking through. That night after completing the ritual Maria is speaking to Oliver but during their conversation he begins to request her help as people are trying to take him away, Maria opens the door to rescue him but there is nobody there and the link is lost.

It is not long until some strange occurrences begin in their home and Maria begins to see strange figures appear. The situation begins to escalate and when Piki realises what has happened she tells Maria that by opening the door she has allowed the Aghori access to this world while condemning Oliver’s soul and will need to cleanse herself of all his possessions in order to free him but that the Aghori will want to keep the soul and will fight her every step of the way. As Maria becomes more and more frantic her husband Michael (Jeremy Sisto) begins to question her mental judgement and Maria alone must try and save her sons soul before it is too late.

While the concept was decent there is a case of been there, done that with the movie as the predictable jump scares, religious rituals, a characters slow descent towards seeming madness, mysterious shadowy figures and ghostly spirits are a tick box of standard horror movies so while director Johannes Roberts & cinematographer Maxime Alexandre have thrown in some stunning scenery and some beautiful perspective shots, I felt for the actors as they were given a very basic script to work with. While Callies does her best to evoke some levels of sympathy towards her, the ridiculous actions of the character negated anything I felt as, even taking into account the loss of her some, her actions were very questionable at best. Even as a horror fan I struggled to get anything positive from this one.

Set one year after the events of the Finding Nemo movie Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is now an every day part of Nemo’s life but is beginning to get flashbacks to previous events one of which reveals some early moments in her life during which she remembers her family and her home at the Jewel of Morrow Bay and she decides that she needs to try and track them days but as always she is hampered by her short term memory loss so Nemo (Hayden Rolence) and his father Marlin (Albert Brooks) feel obliged to help her in her adventure. During their trip Dory is captured and brought to a Marine Life institute, Marlin and Nemo need to try and arrange a rescue, but Dory is not alone and joins forces with an octopus named Hank (Ed O’Neill) who has an escape planned.

I had questioned whether Dory had enough of a story to front a whole movie but Pixar have produced a very clever twist of making a prequel/sequel in one film where the film jumps back in time as Dory’s memories are unlocked by various events and we learn more about her history and why she ended up where she is while still progressing the movie in the present, adding new characters and developing the ones we already know. It’s yet another master stroke and they have opened up another set of characters for many potential future films. As with the original movie, and all Pixar films, the animation is top quality and all aspects of the underwater world look fabulous. Ellen DeGeneres does a great job as the title character and both Brooks and Rolence pick up on where the story left off. The addition of Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton as Charlie and Jenny, Dory’s parents, gives a great depth to that character but for me the movie was stolen by Ed O’Neill as Hank who’s was perfect as the desperate loner who, despite his initial misgivings about her, finds both an unlikely ally and friend in Dory by the end of the movie.

Is it as good as the first film? I didn’t think so but then again it’s a little unfair to call it a sequel. It’s more of a new movie in the Finding Nemo universe. There was a little less of the subtle adult humour which Finding Nemo had so despite there being some funny moments and good dialogue once the tale moved out of the underwater depths and into the institute the plot was very stretched and went from an adventure to cartoonish quite quickly so it is really targeted at a younger audience. With the voice over talent on show and Pixar at the helm you know it’s going to be entertaining and the kids will love it however it lacks a bit of the magic of the first film and felt a bit, been there, done that, seen it before at times.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 Out Of 10

Following the unexpected success of the first movie Ride Along 2 was always on the cards and without the need to spend time building the lead characters this time around it jumps straight into things as we see Antonio Pope (Benjamin Bratt) speaking with a port official about stolen money which doesn’t end well for the thief, so there’s no mystery about who the bad guy is this time around. Popes hacker A.J (Ken Jeong) is getting cold feet and wants out so he steal files from Pope and goes on the run hoping to blackmail his way to freedom.

In the meantime James Payton (Ice Cube) is attempting to infiltrate a drug gang run by Troy (Glen Powell) with his partner Mayfield (Tyrese Gibson) while Ben Barber (Kevin Hart) is now out of the academy but is still clinging to James in his continued attempts to prove that he’s a good officer so when James and his partner get into bother he decides to help out but ends up causing a shoot out where Mayfield is injured. After a subsequent car chase where James manages to catch his man and finds a flash drive necklace he is assigned by his boss Lieutenant Brooks (Bruce McGill) to head for Miami so he can chase the lead on who Troy was working for. Ben tries to convince James to allow him to tag along and assist, which James unsurprisingly refuses but when Angela (Tika Sumpter) pleads with James to allow Ben to travel in order to keep him out of her hair while she is planning their wedding he thinks that it may be an opportunity to prove to Ben once and for all that he cannot make it as a cop and get him out of his face so the two men, along with some assistance from local Miami office Maya Cruz (Olivia Munn) go after their man.

In what is essentially the same movie as the first with a bigger budget, a shift in location and the addition of some further stars the only real plot shift of significance is that Hart has gone from a wannabe cop to a new recruit and instead of dating Ice Cubes sister, she is now planning a wedding.

Jeong has seemingly been added to the mix for Hart to work his comedy alongside, this is particularly evident in their Star Wars argument. Munn has some moments but never seems to be anything more than a filler to give Ice Cube some potential romantic interest and Bratt is barely used which was a shame. So while the larger budget has allowed for the destruction of more cars it doesn’t seem to have allowed the script writers come up with anything radically different, although given the financial success of the first movie I’m sure they will throw back the ‘if it’s not broken then why fix it’ line.

The problem for me is, the first movie wasn’t that good despite what the box office success may suggest so watching what was essentially the same movie again done nothing for me. Unfortunately, given the budgetary success this movie also achieved I wouldn’t be surprised to see a third movie appearing. All i can say is that we’ve had numerous Rush Hour, Lethal Weapon and Bad Boy movies so do we really need the same premise again?

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 Out Of 10

Daniel Radcliffe is Arthur Kipps a widowed father and lawyer who is struggling to make ends meet. He is instructed by his employer to head to the village of Crythin Gifford in order to take control of the sale of Eel Marsh house and any other deeds left behind by the deceased owner Alice Drablow (Alisa Khazanova), so he decides to make the most of the situation and asks his nanny (Jessica Rane) to follow him to Eel Marsh in a few days with his son Joseph (Misha Handley) in order to allow them to spend a weekend from their normal routine. But when he arrives he finds the local population less than friendly towards him and the only person who seems to show him any courtesy is a local wealthy landowner Samuel Daily (Ciaran Hinds)

Unfortunately for Arthur the house and estate have a unhappy history and once he enters the house to survey the situation he begins to hear strange noises, notices a spectral figure and other visions of previous events. When he reports this to the local police office he is dismissed and some locals warn him off speaking about what he thought he seen. When a local child ingests lye and dies Arthur is blamed for speaking about the woman he seen but Arthur is not accepting of this so he begins to investigate the house and it’s contents but soon find that there is more to the situation than it seems so he must try and uncover the truth before the Woman In Black takes her revenge on any more children in the village or his own son.

In what was his first role after he completed the Harry Potter movies it is a little hard to buy Radcliffe as a widowed parent (he was twenty two at the time) which takes away from his character and while he does an alright job he seemed to lack the on screen presence to play the role of a man fighting against the struggles of being a single parent who is financially troubled and is battling a village of people who do not want him around. Where this movie does benefit is from director James Watkins excellent use of settings, the movie is constantly dark, raining, foggy. The ominousness of the situation even away from the house is palpable. But the house itself is the real star, it’s like mixing the house from The Amityville Horror with Frankenstein’s Castle, full of shadows constantly shifting, sometimes naturally, most times unnaturally, locked doors which are then suddenly open, noises from behind the walls all brought together by The Woman In Black who patrols the corridors, waiting for her opportunity to be released.

While there are enough jump scares to warrant the horror movie genre placement it felt more like a period piece ghost story and, while it’s a decent movie, there’s not a lot to set it apart from the rest of the pack.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 Out Of 10