Stanislaus

Janeen Damian must have made a resolution to revive the career of fallen star Lindsay Lohan with some sort of American variation of stories in the style of Rosamunde Pilcher, Inga Lindström etc. After Falling for Christmas, we move to the other end of the rainbow, to the wonderland of Ireland. The film's gorgeous exteriors unfortunately suffer under the weight of a heavily predictable plot that doesn't try for any surprises, and just moves on predictably, only for us to discover in the end (unexpectedly!) that every inner wish has its pitfalls. Irish Wish is a very unpretentious movie for an evening for which you have no better plan than to turn off your brain for ninety minutes in front of Netflix.

It's interesting to see what direction American films about Godzilla, Kong and the other kaiju monsters involved have taken over the decade: While Gareth Edwards' Godzilla tried (and at times quite successfully) to add some artistic value, the current film about the giant lizard and an equally giant ape is essentially one big, mindless, ultra-action carnage where the main goal is to entertain the moviegoer - ideally one that filters out the human dialogue and focuses purely on the action. And thankfully, there's plenty of that action in New Empire, and while the logic often gets lost underneath the colourful visuals, the film can be forgiven for that, as it doesn't even pretend to be a deep reflection on the titans' relationship with humans and with themselves. The film's lower budget is quite noticeable in places, which is a shame – I felt this most acutely with Scar King. I also could have done without the characters of the "amateur grand-dentist" and Mr. Conspirator, whom I found somewhat redundant. But if you accept the rules of a film in which anything can happen (literally, really) – the "anti-gravity sequence" speaks for itself – you will certainly not be bored in the cinema.

To be honest, given the lukewarm reviews here (but also on Imdb), I thought Damsel would be a generic film, but after watching it, I have to say that it was a pleasant surprise for me personally. Damsel has a nice visual design and its atmosphere (but also partly the story) reminded me more than once to Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (Robin Wright looks like Michelle Pfeiffer) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug . The terrifying looks of the dragoness were very good, and so was the voice acting, and the backstory she added to the gloomy atmosphere of this seemingly fairy-tale film, which was more of a fantastic survival drama, with more than one person being burned alive. As a result, I would have given the film three and a half stars, but since enjoyed it, I'll give it a weaker four.