garynorton

The fifth film of the franchise follows the tried and tested formula with another slice 'n dice whodunnit horror satire. Maintaining the self referential legacy, another group of high school friends find themselves amidst another series of "Ghostface"knife attacks. Old characters return to add to the mix. The staple red herrings, jump scares, introspective characters observations of slasher horror lore are all present. It's a solid effort which benefits from the 10yr hiatus in the series. If you are a fan, you shouldn't be disappointed, if you seek something different and higher level, then follow the advice given by one of the Scream characters and check out Hereditary, The Witch, or The Babadook!

The initial credits reflected a muted retro 40's vibe & had me hoping for a homage to yesteryear in some way. Sadly, that was dispensed with and a rather mundane and muddled story unravels. The animation varies from okay right through to terrible. It's very uneven, sometimes backdrops and establishing shots show some visual detail but quickly cut to very simple lifeless animation. On a number of occasions the facial work is pure Archer; a style that works well for that adult spy comedy series, but was very distracting here.

Okay for kids I guess, anyone else should avoid.

Set in a future where the government are going to go live with a "signal" to prevent people committing crime in a seriously crime-ridden future, a trio of career criminals seek to carry out the ultimate heist under the shadow of the "last days of American crime".

The original comic Source material had a gritty visual style which has been lost along with its crime noir style to a tonally inconsistent and generically sterile product. Another issue are the three main leads: ; none of whom resemble any of their original incarnations. Putting aside those of us who might know what it's based on, Edgar Ramirez just looks glazed in boredom; Michael Pitt chews up scenery as an OTT spoilt son-of-crimelord-with-daddy-issues & Anna Brewster's femme fatale is sadly lacking any real sexual charisma which is needed for the part. Oliver Megatons direction is also far from enticing, which given some of his mediocre previous Efforts like Taken 2 & 3 and Transporter is hardly surprising. To add to the various issues, Sharlto Copley pops up every now and again as a dumb cop who would appear to have some intrinsic part to play in all this, but even his involvement left me thinking why did they have him in it at all? The big heist finale is also botched with little build up in tension or excitement - a crime which seems fairly easy to carry out and unbelievably executed. I quite like some of Netflix movie production output, but they have more than their fair share of crap product and sadly this is one of the latter.