Film Fight 2023: June

#FF23 Alice, Darling looks at abusive relationships in a more complex way than most.

Kendrick is excellent as the lead, but the whole cast shines. The script drips out what's been happening, while showing how decent people can get trapped by abusers.

Excellent but difficult.

— Gary Fleming (@garyfleming) June 25, 2023

#FF23 Extraction 2 is an excellent follow-up to the original.

It once again focusses on one massive action set-piece shot to look like a oner. It's ridiculous, but fun. The back-end of the film drags, but there's enough silly action to get through it.

Good fun.

— Gary Fleming (@garyfleming) June 25, 2023

#FF23 Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a disappointment.

It's visually interesting but not much else works. It's far too long, with shoe-horned character arcs, and a bunch of fan service. As it's the first of two parts, it doesn't have a conclusion.

Fairly boring.

— Gary Fleming (@garyfleming) June 25, 2023

#FF23 No Hard Feelings will hardly make you feel.

It has some amusing moments throughout, but is mostly a little flat. The premise doesn't work well enough to setup the various incidents, and the emotional moments simply don't work.

It's not awful, but it's not great.

— Gary Fleming (@garyfleming) June 25, 2023

#FF23 Asteroid City is the usual mixture of things you expect from Wes Anderson.

Precise framing, pastel colours, dry but funny dialogue, a weird story with some interesting narrative choices, fun contrivances, and a self-seriousness undercut by low stakes.

His best in a while.

— Gary Fleming (@garyfleming) July 1, 2023