carrandas

The roses kicks off with a couple in therapy, which pretty much sets the tone as you know things are going to crack sooner or later. At first, they seem deeply in love, but once he loses his job and gets stuck at home with the kids while her career takes off, the balance shifts. What starts as bickering snowballs into an all-out war. The title nods to War of the Roses, and sure enough, it ends in open combat.

The highlights: Benedict and Olivia are a blast to watch. Their timing is sharp, the witty comments fly, and the dialogue is often genuinely funny. The movie is at its best when it leans into that energy.

The downsides: their friends are caricatures, and the escalating fights goed from funny practical jokes to overkill where I was thinking"really?".

Overall, it's a fun comedy with some great laughs and performances, but it tries a little too hard to top itself.

Alpha starts off really strong but loses the plot halfway through.

Alpha is about a teenage girl in the 80s who gets a tattoo, and her mom freaks out because she could have gotten "the virus." It clearly alluded to HIV , but the movie exaggerates it into a terrifying, almost horror-like disease.

The first half works great - we see how quickly she's treated like an outcast. Her boyfriend panics after kissing her, nobody wants to touch her, and the film links her to groups who were stigmatized at the time due to HIV (gay men, junkies, etc.). It's heavy stuff but handled well.

Then the second half happens. The focus shifts away from her and onto her junkie uncle, which just isn't as interesting. By the time the movie dives into its "dream within a dream" idea, it completely goes off the rails. I usually like weird, Lynch-style storytelling, but here it just felt messy and overcomplicated.

Alpha starts out as an emotional story about fear and stigmatization, but by the end the director is too clever and the plot just gets frustrating.

If you loved Bloodsport, you'll enjoy this movie. And you know what to expect: the best fighters in the world gather together and battle it out until one fighter reigns supreme. Yeah, it's a bit like Mortal Kombat!

The fights are where's it at and they're well choreographed. Too bad that only fills about 30 minutes of the movie.

The rest of the movie? Sure, a kung fu movies needs a few scenes where our hero slashes some trees. But ugh, not half an hour of them.

And the acting is, how do I say this politely... Well euh, it reminded me of the Room at times. Which isn't a bad thing, I laughed out loud a few times as some of the actors were just terrible (especially the daughter of the main character and the police guy).

So, did I enjoy my time with this movie? Great fights and some "so-bad-its-good" acting made sure I did.