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'Sisu: Road to Revenge' is the somewhat-unexpected sequel to 2022's 'Sisu', the Finnish one-man war film, following Aatami (Tommila). This time, it's post-WWII, and he goes into the former-Finland part of the USSR to take the beams back to rebuild in Finland. The bad KGB guy (Brake) sends Dragunov (Lang) to kill Aatami - even though that didn't go well last time. That's pretty much the plot - and after a semi-peaceful first 10min, it's all action!

The only other character who has more than 2min screentime would be one of the pilots (Velberg), everyone else is pretty much there to make up the body count. Must've got to at least at least 100! It's a solid mix of 'Saving Private Ryan', 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and 'John Wick'. If you want inventive deaths and violence, with a bit of wry humour, this is for you.

Still amazing Aatami gets away without speaking at all. Lang is great as a bad guy (arguably worse than his 'Avatar' character). It has a nice foreboding score, and a rapid pace - all over in 90min - with the "chapters" to keep it moving. While not filmed in Russia or Finland, Estonia is a pretty solid double. Ridiculous ending, but what more can you expect?

'Now You See Me: Now You Don't' is the third entry in the "lets-make-magic-cool" series, coming 9 years after the 2nd film, and reuniting Daniel (Eisenberg), Merritt (Harrelson), Henley (Fisher) & Jack (Franco) - "the Horsemen", as well as a nice cameo from Thaddeus (Freeman). Pretty good to get so many of an ensemble back together after 12 years! The intro/set-up to get them together also introduces the next-gen of Bosco (Sessa), June (Greenblatt) & Charlie (Smith) and is done well.

The plot this time is the original Horsemen and the new 3 being tasked with taking down the corrupt South African diamond company, led by Veronika Vanderberg (Pike), who has a lot of fun with the role and plays it with the right amount of deranged, including the accent. There's a few good heists, fights, escapes and car chases, as well as some Bond-like country-hopping - France, Belgium, UAE. The scenes with Freeman at the historical magician chateau are pretty fun.

Feels like a lower-stakes 'Mission: Impossible'. It definitely helped that I watched the first 2 movies a day before seeing this, so it was pretty fresh. Although, I'm sure it still works if you only have vague recollections of the original. It's pretty quick (110min), not too serious, semi-predictable, with a minor-twist-ending.

'The Running Man' is a remake of the Arnie film from 1987. Is it needed? Probably not. Is it better than that film? Yes. The premise is the same - and still silly - with a 'Purge'-like survival reality show where the runner can win money while being hunted by everyone. This time, it's Ben Richards (Powell) trying to win the prize money for his wife Shiela (Lawson) and sick daughter Cathy (Benn). He's up against 'The Network' and the producer of the show, Killian (Brolin) - subtle name - and Bobby T (Domingo), as well as the hunters, led by McCone (Pace). Ben gets his 12 hour head start, then has to try to survive for 4 weeks.

Powell is cementing himself as the new Brad Pitt/Tom Cruise of the 2020s, and is quite likeable here. He gets help from Molie (H Macy), Elton (Cera) & Bradley (Ezra), showing there's still some humanity in this '1984' type future. The score and soundtrack are just OK, and there's some funny moments, but no real laughs - both a bit odd, since this is directed by Wright. Brolin, Domingo & Pace seem to relish their bad guy/dick characters.

It's another Stephen King adaption from this year (after 'The Life of Chuck' and 'The Long Walk'), and while not spooky, definitely has dark and dystopian undertones. But in general, it's a pretty straight-forward action film, with plenty of explosions and violence, but nothing too graphic. There's some down time between all the escaping, and the ending is OK, if not perfect. Probably 20min too long, at 2 hours 10min.