[EXPRESSO] Deep Water (2026) | Shark Ditching

Renny Harlin, better known as the director of the original Deep Blue Sea, Cliffhanger and Cutthroat Island, having finished early this year the new awful Strangers trilogy nobody asked for, he’s back doing what he’s best known for: sharks.

Actually, that’s kinda unfair, as Deep Water is mostly a survival film about an international flight that crashlands somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, with the surviving passenger and crew members forced to find a way to survive and escape the deadly debris of the torn plane, while also avoid being picked off by a group of shark cycling around them.

Mind you, i’m glad there are sharks in the film, frankly i would have been surprised if they weren’t, because this is such a deliberate throwback to late 90s disaster-survival films and horror b-movies of this ilk, with just a veneer of realism to avoid it killing any tension.

Do not let the fact some of the characters we’re presented before or on the plane include esports squads, grandmas saying “you’re a 5 out of 10” impropted to people, ipad kids, the attitude and cliches are done in such a retro fashion, from the characters being either rude assholes or saints, with an expecially assholish one that you know has a “shark food soon enough” label, and which you indeed look forward to see its inevitable fate come to pass, the kid character being clever yet tempting death at least twice, the heroic sacrifice by the consumate character actor that is arguably on autopilot, etc.

Deep Water is essentially a 90s styled disaster-survival-shark film, and its retro nature it’s both charming but also obviously dated…. yet in this case i think it comes off as a decent genre thrill ride of yore, and better because it’s confident in what it is.

Pikmin 4 NSWITCH [REVIEW] | Enter The Dogbus

10 years after the last mainline game, the beloved Nintendo series about floral strategy and cutesy war PTSD is back with Pikmin 4 for Nintendo Switch, and i was even more eager to get my mittens on it after replaying for review & funsies Pikmin 3 in its Deluxe edition-port on Switch.

Who am i kidding, after devouring the demo, i was ravenous to get into the full game ASAP.

Story is fairly typical Pikmin, as in, you know the deal by now: people keep crashlanding on this damn planet. And by people i mean poor Olimar, that crashlanded on the planet, sent out a SOS call, but then the rescue team itself had troubles with the ship, so its up to you, as the new recruit of the Rescue Corps (an intergalactic rescue organization) and one of its few “non-scattered around” remaining members to get the whole crew back together, then find and save Olimar, whom also sent them various pages of its journal.

Someone seem confused in terms of when it happens, even confusing it for a reboot/remake of the first game’s story (i guess since Olimar here too used Pikmins to get back the scattered pieces of its rundown but beloved ship, the Dolphin)… dunno why, but yep, since Olimar and Louie are involved too, and we get the new group of cute potato aliens also discuss of Koppai, the planet from where the expedition group of Pikmin 3 came from to avoid famine, heck, even an inhabitant from that planet later becomes an important plot point.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] The Plane (2023) | Militia Landing

There’s something to be said about a movie title that’s so incredibly generic and yet so apt it basically comes around to be perfect, as a plane it’s indeed the central focus, even when this big budget disaster b-movie about a pilot (played by Gerard Butler) trying to maintain order and make the passengers live through a ill-advised flight route (made worse as they’re forced to also take a convinct on board) over the South Chinese Sea…. well, it turns into another action movie about fighting off separatist militia thugs, because they happen to land into an island in the Philippines where there’s no real police or regular army presence, but local terrorists militia group/cartels control the place, forcing Gerard Butler to trust the convinct in getting the passengers back…

If you saw the trailer it’s exactly what you’d think it would be, that kind of unapologetic, moderately over the top (but not THAT over the top) action flick where Gerard Butler is here to save the day from generic action movie danger, the cliches overflow like blood from a goth fountain, but you could guess all of that by…. just the fact it’s a movie with Gerard Butler in it, let’s be frank.

You don’t go to see a movie like this to get out of your comfort zone, quite the opposite, as you want something that’s easy on the ol’ cerebellum, you want to snuggle with the expected stuff like the pilots keeping printed photos of their family with them and whipping them out to tempt fate, etc.

You want something predictable yet fun to kill some time, and i can’t deny The Plane it’s quite entertaining action movie junk food (but in a “good” way) all the way through, surprisingly a bit better than expected.

Decent timewaster.