Jay Paget

Though the premise of the film is an intriguing one, it degenerates into a poorly executed satire of modern "issues" by the end. Nic Cage is a professor who feels life has been unfair to him; his friend from college is getting a paper published based on research he claims is his (though he hasn't written anything down and is unable to prove his claim,) his wife is possibly having an affair with another man (though he has no proof, it is hinted at a few times,) and his daughter's see him as ineffectual and useless. He suddenly starts appearing in the dreams of other people, starting with his youngest daughter, an ex girlfriend then his students, before it spreads round the country. In the dreams he is inactive and watches as horrible things happen to people and this frustrates him. However this brings him a level of fame that he clearly revels in, to the detriment of his real life and relationships. Michael Cera runs a tech/advertising company that contact Nic to try and monetise his dream appearances, and it is here that Cage encounters a young woman who has had dreams of him in which he actively participates in sex with her. After a frankly horrendous attempt to recreate her dream, he suddenly becomes more active in the dreams of others, in a negative way. This is where the film goes wrong for me, as rather than examine the phenomena and how his emotional state has altered the dreams of others, or the subtle and darkly humourous take on sudden unwarranted fame and it's effects on a person's life, the film becomes an examination of modern "cancel culture" and the attitudes of his young students to his sudden appearance in their nightmares. It flounders about, trying to make the point that cancelling people is bad because this one guy didn't actively do anything to get cancelled for, ignoring the many times people got "cancelled" for actively being horrible. He makes a self indulgent "apology" video and his family leave him. It's a good, well shot film for the majority, but the heavy handed messages about cancel culture and big tech are too clunky and come too late in an otherwise interesting story to be anything other than a let down

Jason Statham, as ever, puts in a good performance doing exactly what you expect Jason Statham to be doing. The plotting, the dialogue, and the majority of the rest of the cast is where the movie falls down. Hard. The Stath is a beekeeper, well an apiarist, see? But also he's a retired agent from a top top secret agency known as... The Beekeepers. The beekeepers are a super deadly organisation that nobody knows about except the president herself (and those at the very top,) so naturally the bad guy has to be related to the president in some way. Makes sense. Shadowy figures talk in hushed tones about the skill and efficiency of said Beekeepers while Statham does some big action things. The film ignores the fact that the only other Beekeeper we see is bested by the Stath quicker than many of the nameless agents and henchmen he dispatched, and none of them seem to be as fixated on the actual beekeeping part as much as he is. The non Stath cast probably did their best but they largely had little to do but recite clichéd "one man did all this?!" lines, get beaten up and make Bee puns ("you kicked the hive") It's like the plot of one of those mid 90s action movies where an 80s action star would play an ex "wildcard" cop, assassin or soldier but with a more post-2000 style and self-seriousness. The Retirement Plan with Nic Cage is a similar plot, but more fun

Nic Cage plays a retired government agent/assassin who was forced into retirement for being too much of a wildcard despite being good at his job. His estranged daughter gets into trouble with a mob boss and sends his granddaughter to him. When the mob follows, Nic Cage kicks their backsides with assistance from Ernie Hudson and the government agency he once worked for. Once you realise that this is trying to be more a 1990s action comedy than a modern action movie, there's a bit of fun to be found here. The characters are all "comedy cliche" "action cliche" or "not developed in any way" (Ron Perlman as the bewildered, pedantic henchman is pretty amusing and his interactions with his colleague are reminiscent of Hale and Pace in the Young Ones. Ashley Greene's character "Ashley" seemingly forgets everything she knows every time she leaves the screen.) A surprising amount of the jokes landed for me, though they are quite out of place... Not in a Marvel way, where someone will come out with a quip during a rare moment of solemnity, but in a similar way to Youth In Revolt where something almost simpsons-esque happens immediately after a serious event. It took me a while to get on board with the tone of the movie, but once I realised that like that Cage classic "Con Air" it was supposed to be over the top and ridiculous (Jackie Earle Haley channels his finest Ben Kingsley "Sexy Beast" impression) I started really enjoying it. Cage gets to do some big Nic Cage acting, using inflections and mannerisms that no reasonable actor would attempt, as he does. The story is dumb and predictable, but it's better and funnier than "The Beekeeper" with a near identical premise

Took a 7 and an 11 year old and they loved it, despite having no real knowledge or interest in it as a franchise. As someone who was 8 when I went to see the first TMNT movie, I really enjoyed it. The turtles actually being teenagers and behaving as such was a good choice, and April being school age made their relationship work in a way that the "April is a grown woman watching kids fight crime" dynamic wouldn't. There were some running jokes that ran out of steam, but a few actual laugh out loud moments and some mild chuckling. Well worth going to see for the animation alone, it's really nicely animated to look like a handrawn comic, and there are some really nice touches in the detail.... Almost spider-verse-esque but nicer. Kids loved it, it made me laugh, five stars. It wasn't "canon accurate" as some reviews here are stating, but almost every iteration of TMNT seems to change the origin story so let it slide, people

This game is exactly what it looks like, and exactly what I want. Like Hitman but with a goose who is commited to slapstick and general abuse of humans. I've been a gamer for 33 years and I love it, my wife who never played more than Pokémon shuffle also loves it. My 3 year old loves it too. If you love goose abuse, spend the small amount you need to get it, and have a great time (it's discounted on switch this week)