SPIDER-MAN : BRAND NEW DAY - Tuesday 4th August 2026.

I saw the M Rated 'SPIDER-MAN : BRAND NEW DAY' this week, and this American Superhero film is based on the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man and is the 38th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It is the fourth instalment in the MCU 'Spider-Man' series following 'Spider-Man : Homecoming' in 2017, 'Spider-Man : Far From Home' in 2019 and 'Spider-Man : No Way Home' in 2021. These first three films, all starring Tom Holland as the web-slinging hero, grossed a total US$3.94B at the global Box Office off the back of combined production budgets of US$535M. This instalment is Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton who made his feature film debut with 'I Am Not a Hipster' in 2012, and which he would follow up with the likes of 'Short Term 12' in 2013, 'The Glass Castle' in 2017, 'Just Mercy' in 2019, and 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' in 2021 - also an MCU offering. This film is part of the MCU's 'Phase Six' which began with 'The Fantastic Four : First Steps' released in mid-2025. 'Spider-Man : Brand New Day' had its Premiere in Los Angeles on 27th July and was released in the US, here in Australia and all major territories last week. The film has garnered generally positive reviews from critics and has grossed US$1.18B at the global Box Office off the back of a US$225M production budget becoming the second-highest opening weekend gross of all time worldwide, the highest opening weekend gross of all time in the USA and Canada, and the highest grossing film of 2026 to date. 

Following Dr. Stephen Strange's spell at the end of the last instalment - 'Spider-Man : No Way Home', the world has forgotten that Peter Parker (Tom Holland) exists. Four years later, Parker anonymously protects New York City but has deliberately distanced himself from those he used to know and love. This self imposed seclusion also extends to his former girlfriend Michelle 'MJ' Jones-Watson (Zendaya) and his best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon). Later, while speaking on his mobile phone to NYPD Detective Jean DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas), Parker intercepts a message about a tank running amok through the city streets heading for the Department of Damage Control (DODC) building. The driver had been telepathically possessed, and the telepath is able to body hop from person to person to help Mac Gargan (aka Scorpion [Michael Mando]), an enhanced criminal Parker previously captured, to escape. Parker enquires with Yelena Belova (aka Black Widow [Florence Pugh]) at a city bathhouse she uses as her office, who tells him someone has repeatedly attacked the DODC in search of 'V-Max'. Parker questions DODC director Bill Metzger (Tramell Tillman) at his office, who claims to have no knowledge of this V-Max.

Parker meets with Ned and MJ, who have moved back to New York after graduating from MIT at a house warming party in MJ's apartment, but fail to recognise him. Parker returns home distressed, and wakes up the next morning with heightened senses and organic webs coming out of his wrists. He tracks down Gargan, now possessed by the telepath, who tries to break back into the DODC. The telepath mocks him, and Parker reacts with uncharacteristic violence, brutally beating Gargan and inadvertently injuring a responding Police Officer. 

Hoping to control his new mutations, Parker visits Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) to enquire about the inhibitor device that uses siRNA to control his alter ego, the Hulk. On Banner's suggestion, Parker makes his own inhibitor to limit his powers, while also working on a second 'universal inhibitor' to suppress the telepath's abilities. Before Parker can finish, the telepath finds him and, after learning about MJ, possesses her and tricks Parker into revealing his true identity. 

After the telepath leaves MJ, Parker takes her to Frank Castle's (aka Punisher [Jon Bernthal]) hideout to keep her safe. With Castle's equipment and MJ's insight, Parker completes both inhibitors, and discovers that the telepath is named Jean Grey (Sadie Sink). When Jean attacks the DODC again, this time in person and using a possessed Hulk, Parker subdues her using his universal inhibitor, and turns her over to the DODC. Before losing consciousness, Jean mentions someone named Sara. 

Metzger claims that Sara is a recently deceased colleague Jean learned about while possessing his mind. When Parker returns to Castle's hideout, MJ confronts him with the letter she found but which he never delivered, that Parker had written for her and Ned to explain the spell that erased their memories. He explains himself and declares his love for MJ, but she responds that she does not know him and therefore does not love him. Despite this, she invites him to her apartment, where they and Ned spend time bonding.

After hearing MJ recount how she is unable to remember anything while being telepathically possessed, Parker realises that Metzger lied to him. He contacts Yelena, who learns from redacted DODC files that Sara (Olivia Booth-Ford) is Jean's sister, another telepath who was kidnapped by the DODC. Metzger meanwhile has begun experimenting on Jean's mind, as she realises 'V-Max' is the fading text on the label on the air conditioning vent above the holding cell, the last thing Sara saw before she died. Enraged, Jean psionically locks the area around her for a radius of about a mile from where she sits. 

Parker, who is still resistant to her abilities, enters the DODC to stop her. Jean rebuffs him and possesses a large group of the Hand ninjas, who have been working for the DODC. Initially overwhelmed, he removes his inhibitor and embraces his mutations, using his new abilities to defeat the Hand. Parker allows Jean to enter his mind, where she finds a memory of his aunt May (Marisa Tomei), who accepted his abilities and loved him for himself. Parker offers Jean understanding over her loss and shields her from Castle, who tries to shoot her from outside using a long range rifle, sustaining a near-fatal wound.

Parker wakes up in the hospital with Castle, who explains that Jean kept him alive while in critical condition. From his hospital bed he sees that the walls are adorned with get well soon wishes from his legion of fans, many of which have also gathered outside the hospital to catch a glimpse of their superhero. In the aftermath, a guilt-ridden Jean quietly leaves the city, Metzger disappears, and the DODC comes under investigation. Parker, placing fresh flowers beside his Aunt May's gravestone, vows he does not need to be alone to be Spider-Man. Seeing Ned again, he introduces himself using their old handshake, a gesture which Ned reciprocates and acknowledges his old friend simply saying 'Peter?' 

With 'Spider-Man : Brand New Day' Director Destin Daniel Cretton has delivered us a MCU instalment that doesn't feel as convoluted, over paced, chock full of otherworldly CGI or has many of us suffering from Superhero fatigue. Instead what we have here is a story of loneliness, isolation, emotion, charm, wit, energy, drive and the obligatory well executed action sequences that all add up to an enjoyable night at the movies. Tom Holland has matured and settled into the role in this his fourth outing as your friendly neighbourhood webslinger, who inhabits his character with conviction and who wears his heart well and truly on his sleeve. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon as returning MJ and Ned respectively all add an emotional depth to this film perhaps not seen in previous outings, Jon Bernthal as the Punisher adds a brutal and at times comedic interlude to the proceedings and Sadie Sink as Jean Grey the antagonist turned protagonist lands a grounded performance and I'm sure we'll see her again in future MCU offerings. Overall, its not surprising to see the Box Office receipts for this film or the largely positive critical press, and maybe, just maybe, this film will revitalise the recently flagging MCU.

'Spider-Man : Brand New Day' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

CRIME 101 : Wednesday 18th February 2026.

I saw the M Rated 'CRIME 101' this week, and this UK and US Co-Produced crime thriller film is Written for the screen and Directed by Bart Layton whose previous film credits take in the 2012 documentary 'The Imposter' and 2018's 'American Animals'. This film is based on the 2020 novella of the same name written by Don Winslow. The film premiered in London at the back end of last month, was released here in Australia and the US last week, has so far grossed US$30M from a production budget of US$90M and has generated largely positive critical reviews.

Set in Los Angeles, Mike Davis (Chris Hensworth) is an elusive and meticulously disciplined jewel thief who carefully plans his robberies to avoid violence, and leaving any signs of his DNA evidence while escaping via US Route 101 (a major north–south highway that traverses the states of California, Oregon, and Washington on the West Coast of the USA). Intercepting a diamond delivery carrying decoy gems, he steals US$3M in genuine diamonds, but is shaken after being grazed by an unexpected bullet fired by one of the men he is stealing from. As a result of being somewhat rattled, he calls off a planned robbery on a high end jewellery store in Santa Barbara, but his fence, Money (Nick Nolte), enlists volatile young biker Ormon (Barry Keoghan) in his place.

Meanwhile, LAPD Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo) links the diamond theft to Mike's string of unsolved robberies and suggests a lone suspect is responsible, but his theory is dismissed by his partner Tillman (Corey Hawkins) and his superiors. Preparing another heist, Mike pays Devon (Devon Bostick), a hacker, for information on Sharon Colvin (Halle Berry), a high-end insurance broker to the super wealthy. Long undervalued by her firm with whom she has worked for eleven years and has been promised a promotion to Partner, which never seems to eventuate, Sharon is further frustrated when a new colleague closes a lucrative deal with the wealthy Steven Monroe (Tate Donovan). After Ormon violently carries out the Santa Barbara job on his own, Mike cuts ties with Money, who instructs Ormon to intercept Mike's next heist.

The lonely Mike strikes up a relationship with an attractive stranger, Maya (Monica Barbaro), after she rear-ends his car, while he had stopped at a red light. He realises he is being tracked by Ormon, who threatens Devon into revealing that Sharon is connected to Mike's plan. Sharon rejects Mike's attempt to recruit her as an accomplice, and Mike spots Ormon, confronting him in a 24/7 convenience store after a high-speed chase; realising he had been sent by Money, Mike warns Ormon to stay away. Separating from his unfaithful wife Angie (Jennifer Jason Leigh), Lou finds himself joining Sharon's yoga class in an attempt to get fit, and just to try something new, and rents a new apartment by the beach. He discovers the car Mike used in the diamond robbery, and a microscopic trace of blood inside which is a match to Mike's juvenile record with his birth name, James.

Denied a promotion once more, Sharon reluctantly agrees to help Mike. Demanding a US$3M share, she provides inside information on an illicit diamond purchase Monroe has arranged to make with US$11M in cash, for his upcoming wedding at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Lou is suspended for refusing to help cover up the Police shooting of another jewel thief, but continues with his investigation and tracks down Mike's foster mother. Ormon breaks into Sharon's apartment and viciously interrogates her, who turns to Lou for help and admits everything, and quits her job after openly criticising her boss in front of the new female broker. Wary of Mike's secretive nature, Maya ends their relationship after he reveals he will be leaving town for an undisclosed period of time on business, as a 'software developer'.

The briefcase of diamonds arrives with a courier and Mike takes the place of Monroe's private security guard, completely unaware that Lou is posing as the courier himself. Driving to the hotel, the pair strike up a conversation about cars. Mike admits that he prefers the older American cars of the '60's and '70's, cars with character stating that his favourite films is Steve McQueen's 'Bullitt' and his Ford Mustang. Lou confides that his favourite McQueen movie is 'The Thomas Crown Affair', to which Mike replies that he missed that one. Arriving at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel the two of them deliver the briefcase to Monroe and his fiancee in the wedding suite. Mike seizes the cash at gunpoint, but Lou retrieves a concealed gun in the briefcase and reveals himself as a Police Officer. Their standoff is interrupted by Ormon, disguised as a hotel Butler delivering room service. Demanding the case, he shoots and wounds Monroe, but Mike kills Ormon before he can shoot Lou. Lou allows Mike to escape albeit empty-handed, and tells him to get out of town and to not come back, and then forces Monroe and his fiancee to support his story as he frames Ormon for Mike's string of robberies. 

Later after the dust has seemingly settled, Lou meets up with Sharon at their yoga class. Having stolen the decoy gems taken into evidence from Mike's earlier heist, Lou swapped them with real diamonds from the briefcase, which he gives to Sharon to start a new life. Mike had sent a text message to Sharon with a photo and an address for 'The Cop'. Showing Lou the photo he comments that he doesn't know where that is. Lou arrives at the apartment block and takes the elevator down to the parking garage, and discovers that Mike has left him his vintage Chevy Camaro. Easily finding the keys behind the sun visor, he turns on the engine and gingerly drives it out of the garage and onto the street where he opens it up, with a big grin on his face. Mike sends Maya a childhood photo which she receives at her desk at her place of work, asking her for a second chance. Realising that Mike must be in the building she rushes for the door.

'Crime 101' doesn't reinvent the west coast USA crime thriller noir playbook, but it does pay homage to the some of the classics from yesteryear including 'Heat', 'Thief' and 'To Live and Die in LA'. The characterisation and their respective back stories are well realised; the performances by Hemsworth, Ruffalo, Keoghan, Berry and Barbaro are all on point; the action set pieces are well choreographed; the story is well conceived and entertaining enough, and the Direction and Cinematography are stylish and assured. At 140 minutes, however, I felt that this elongated runtime could have been shortened by fifteen minutes or so, particularly as the film seemed to drag it heels somewhat in the mid-section, but that's my only gripe. 'Crime 101' is certainly worth the price of your cinema entry, and if a modern take on classic crime noir is your thing, then you won't be disappointed.

'Crime 101' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

MICKEY 17 : Tuesday 11th March 2025.

I saw the M Rated 'MICKEY 17' earlier this week and this Sci-Fi black comedy film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Bong Joon-ho, whose prior feature film credits take in his debut with 'Barking Dogs Never Bite' in 2000 and then the likes of 'The Host' in 2006, 'Mother' in 2009, 'Snowpiercer' in 2013 his English language debut, 'Okja' in 2017 and the critically lauded and multi-award winning 'Parasite' in  2019. This film is based on the 2022 novel 'Mickey7' by Edward Ashton, and saw its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in mid-February, before being theatrically released in South Korea on 28th February and later Stateside and here in Australia last week. It has garnered generally favourable critical reviews, and has so far grossed US$59M from a production budget of US$118M. 

It is 2054, and Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his best friend Timo (Steven Yeun) are financially well and truly broke after a failed business venture that saw them borrowing money to open up a chain of macaron stores. Unable to repay a murderous loan shark, the pair decide to flee Earth by signing up as crew for a spaceship that leaves our little blue planet to colonise the planet Niflheim, a journey that will take them four-and-a half years. Timo signs up as a shuttle pilot and Mickey as the spaceship's only 'Expendable'. Using Earth-banned technology to clone Mickey and restore his memories, Mickey is treated as disposable, given lethal assignments that mere mortals would never dare contemplate, and then reprinted after death - time after time after time. 

During the voyage, a romance develops between Mickey and security agent Nasha (Naomi Ackie). Some four years pass and the spaceship eventually arrives at snow bound and wintery Niflheim. Using Mickeys 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 the spaceship's scientists finally develop a vaccine against Niflheim's air borne pathogens. Mickey 17, the seventeenth version of Mickey, is given the task of capturing one of the planets giant woodlice-like alien creatures (termed 'creepers') for scientific analysis. In doing so, he falls into a deep fissure in the ice, beyond the reach of Timo, who leaves and reports Mickey 17's death. However, the creepers arrive en masse and collectively push Mickey 17 out of the fissure, for him to return almost unscathed to the spaceship.

Mickey 17 returns to the spaceship, cleans himself up and flops on to his bed only to be greeted by the very recently printed Mickey 18 (Robert Pattinson), who is much more confident and aggressive. As the expedition's leader, twice failed politician Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), has vowed to kill any 'Multiples' (simultaneously living clones), Mickey 18 tries to kill Mickey 17, who resists and is then interrupted by Timo. Mickey 18 then tries to kill Timo, but is interrupted and leaves with Nasha, who believes she is leaving with Mickey 17. Mickey 17 in the meantime is brought to dinner with Marshall, his wife Ylfa (Toni Colette), and security guard Kai Katz (Anamaria Vartolomei). Mickey 17 suffers severe pain after being served experimental meat and being treated with experimental painkillers. Kai intervenes to stop Marshall from putting a bullet in his head. Kai later woos Mickey 17, who flees.

Nasha learns of the Mickeys and accepts them both. When Mickey 17 tells Mickey 18 what happened over dinner with the Marshall's, an enraged Mickey 18 decides to kill Marshall at a public ceremony commemorating a huge chunk of Niflheim rock. Chaos ensues when two baby creepers emerge from the rock that had just moments before been lasered in half. Mickey 17 arrives and captures creeper Zoco, but creeper Luko jumps onto Marshall and is shot to pieces by Kai and other security agents. Nasha stops Mickey 18 from killing Marshall, who discovers the Multiples. Mickey 17, Mickey 18 and Nasha are arrested, and locked up. Thousands of creepers arrive outside the ship, calling out to Zoco.

Locked up in their respective cells Mickey 17's description of the creepers helping him escape from the fissure makes Nasha realise they are not hostile. Timo tries to kill Mickey 17 to satisfy the loan shark who has seemingly caught up with him even on Niflheim, but Nasha and Mickey 18 overpower him. The Mickeys and Nasha are brought to Marshall, who wants to exterminate all the creepers. Marshall destroys Mickey's stored memories, while Nasha saves Zoco from being executed by Ylfa. Marshall's assistant Preston (Daniel Henshall) persuades Marshall to task the Mickeys to compete in collecting creeper tails, which Ylfa wants one hundred of for making edible sauce, with the winner being allowed to live. The Mickeys are forced to wear remote-detonated bomb vests to ensure they comply with the instructions.

When the Mickeys are sent out into the frozen snow-bound wasteland surrounding the ship, they peacefully seek out the creepers' leader, which prompts Marshall to go outside himself with a security team and Preston ready to film the unfolding events for a live broadcast, and with the intention of personally killing all the creepers. Using a translation device manufactured by sympathetic scientist Dorothy (Patsy Ferran), Mickey 17 communicates with the creepers' leader, informing on Marshall's plan. The creepers' leader threatens to kill all humans, unless Zoco is returned alive and one human is killed to compensate for Luko's death.

Mickey 17 tells Nasha via camera to free Zoco. Nasha takes Ylfa hostage to ensure Zoco's release. Nasha releases Ylfa, who tries to kill Zoco, but Nasha again saves him. The security agents arrest Ylfa. Nasha returns Zoco to the creepers' leader, while Mickey 18 fights Marshall and detonates the bomb planted on his vest, killing himself and Marshall to fulfil the demand by the creepers' leader. Afterwards Ylfa commits suicide in a psychiatric ward, while Preston and other Marshall collaborators are imprisoned. An associate of the loan shark tries to kill Timo, but Timo manages to kill him. Nasha is later elected as a colony political leader. She presides over a groundbreaking ceremony on Niflheim where it is now spring time, where Mickey 17 (now to be known as 'Mickey Barnes') detonates the cloning device to symbolically end the Expendable programme, but not before he had a vision of a reprinted Ylfa and Marshall.

Director, Producer and Writer Bong Joon-ho has here delivered us a darkly comedic Sci-Fi satire set in the near future on some distant planet far far away that is a times absurdist, thought provoking, a social commentary, and an environmental essay while exploring the class divide and providing us with a bit of a creature feature too along the way. Robert Pattinson gives possibly a career best performance as the various Mickey's, ably supported by a scene chewing Mark Ruffalo channeling a certain POTUS and an equally on point Toni Collette serving up his unhinged yet domineering sauce loving wife. Visually the film looks the part too, but the plot meanders along and it overstays its welcome just a tad at a 137 minute run time, and I came out of the movie theatre feeling a little 'meh'!

'Mickey 17' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

POOR THINGS : Tuesday 26th December 2023.

I saw the MA15+ Rated 'POOR THINGS' at my local independent movie theatre this week, and this black comedy fantasy film is Co-Produced and Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos whose prior feature film offerings take in his debut in 2001 with 'My Best Friend' and which he would follow up with 'Dogtooth' in 2009, and then his first English language film 'The Lobster' in 2015, 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer' in 2017 and 'The Favourite' in 2018. This film is based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Alasdair Gray. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing at the Venice International Film Festival in early September this year where it won the Golden Lion. It was released Stateside earlier this month and is scheduled to be released in the UK on 12th January, having so far grossed US$6M against a production budget of US$35M and garnering universal critical acclaim.

The film opens up in London, Victorian era England where scientist and surgeon Dr. Godwin 'God' Baxter (Willem Dafoe) is performing surgery on a cadaver to an audience of students, who under their breath deride his monstrous appearance. One such student, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef) is singled out to become his assistant on the strength of a paper he wrote which grabbed the attention of Baxter. McCandles is welcomed to the grand home of Baxter where he meets with the Doctor's maid Mrs. Prim (Vicki Pepperdine). McCandles is tasked with recording the progress made by Baxter's ward - a childlike young woman named Bella (Emma Stone, who also Co-Produces here), whose intelligence is rapidly developing almost by the day. 

In time, Baxter tells McCandles that the woman who was heavily pregnant at the time, had committed suicide by throwing herself off a bridge into the River Thames, and that she had died only moments before he retrieved the body and that rigour mortis had not yet set in. He resurrected her lifeless corpse by replacing her brain with the brain of her still-living baby, resulting in her now having the mind of an infant child. 

With Baxter's blessing, McCandles asks for Bella's hand in marriage, on the condition that that the pair never leave the house, because of the bad influences, dangers and violence that exists in the world outside the security of their own home. Bella accepts but, desiring freedom to explore the world and experience adventures in her own right as her mind matures, runs off with foppish lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) who was brought in by Baxter to execute a marriage contract, and who became infatuated with Bella upon their first meeting. Reluctantly Baxter agrees to let Bella go. Godwin starts a new experiment with a young woman named Felicity (Margaret Qualley), whose intelligence is developing at a much slower pace than Bella's did.

So Bella and Wedderburn embark on a grand adventure, starting in Lisbon, Portugal where the two have frequent sex. Bella becomes difficult for Duncan to control as she is not yet mature enough to engage in polite social etiquette and just speaks her mind on a whim. So he smuggles her onto a cruise ship for a change of scenery. Once on board, she becomes friendly with passengers Martha (Hannah Schygulla) and Harry (Jerrod Carmichael) who open her mind to philosophy. Wedderburn becomes increasingly exasperated and begins drinking more heavily and gambling. 

During a stop at Alexandria, Egypt, where Harry and Bella are enjoying a lavish lunch, Harry shows Bella the miserable plight of the locals, the abject poverty in which they live and the resultant death of numerous young children and babies, at which Bella becomes distraught and sobs uncontrollably. Returning to her cabin she finds Wedderburn passed out on their bed in a drunken stupor covered in cash from his gambling winnings. Wracked with guilt over the poverty she witnessed she collects up all the cash and donates away the winnings, which are in turn stolen by a couple of opportunistic crew members whom Bella believed she could trust to do the right thing and pass on the cash to the people who desperately needed it the most.

Unable to afford the remaining trip, the pair are kicked off the ship at Marseille, France after which they make their way to Paris. Having run out of money, Bella begins working at a brothel clearing twenty French francs per client, which only serves to further enrage Wedderburn resulting in his mental breakdown, and which finally leads her to abandon him. At the brothel, she comes under the tutelage of Madame Swiney (Kathryn Hunter), has no shortage of clients and befriends fellow prostitute Toinette, (Suzy Bemba) who introduces her to socialism.

Meanwhile, back in London, Baxter is terminally ill. He asks McCandles to locate Bella and to return her to him. McCandles does so after tracking down Wedderburn, who has been confined to an institution following his breakdown. Upon her return to London, Bella reconciles with Baxter and renews her vows with McCandles. The two are interrupted by Wedderburn and General Alfie Blessington (Christopher Abbott) at the alter on their wedding day, at which Baxter is giving away Bella. 

Blessington, who calls Bella by her former name of Victoria, reveals that they were married before her disappearance and that he has come to reclaim her after Wedderburn posted an ad with a picture of Bella in the newspaper. Bella abandons Max at the alter before exchanging their vows to learn of her past life. She quickly comes to the realisation that her former husband has a violent and sadistic streak and that she had in fact committed suicide to escape their unhappy marriage and to save her unborn child from a life of misery. He basically imprisons Bella to the confines of his mansion and threatens her at gunpoint to submit to genital mutilation after which he will plant his seed inside her, and demands she drink a chloroform-laced cocktail to sedate her for the procedure. She tosses the cocktail in his face, causing him to shoot himself in the foot before succumbing to the chloroform. 

Baxter dies peacefully with Bella and McCandles at his side, with his final words being that his surgery is now hers and that his life has been interesting. Bella decides to carry on Baxters work with the help of McCandles, Toinette and Mrs. Prim. Blessington is seen on the operating table where his brain is swapped with that of a goat, while Felicity's intelligence is finally improving. Bella is seen in the garden of her London home with a cocktail in one hand and studying from a book for her final medical exams. 

For me 'Poor Things' failed to land in the same way that it does with the majority of other critics who have given the film its almost universal blessing. That said, you can't help but admire Director Yorgos Lanthimos and his creation of a steampunk bizarro world of OTT characters, locales and emotions writ large mostly by a never been better and a career defining performance by Emma Stone, an equally far removed from his usual roles Mark Ruffalo, and the always dependable Willem Dafoe channeling Doctor Frankenstein. The production values and costume designs are all top notch and look as though Lanthimos squeezed out very cent from his US$35M production budget to bring us a film that looks greater than the sum of its parts. However, this film is hard to pigeon hole, and at a run time of 141 minutes and a film that feels more like an absurdist sex comedy than an intellectual coming of age fantasy drama I couldn't help but feel just a little meh! after all the explicit sex scenes and the vividly rendered set pieces.

'Poor Things' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-