Alice and Jack Chambers are a young, happy couple in the 1950s, living in the seemingly perfect company town of Victory, California, which has been created and paid for by the mysterious company for which Jack works. Curiosity about the nature of her husband’s work on the secret “Victory Project” begins to consume Alice. Cracks then begin to form in their utopian life as her investigation into the project raises tensions within the community.

With her 2019 teen comedy Booksmart, actress turned director Olivia Wilde took an established genre and found an entirely new sense of narrative and character within it, and it struck a chord with audiences. Now she returns behind the camera with her hypnotic and tension-filled dramatic thriller Don’t Worry Darling and it’s a 180-degree turn for Wilde as a director. And it works. Without wanting to divulge spoilers as this is a film that is best consumed in a single sitting, her film’s narrative is one that toys with its audience and delivers them a tense intellectual workout. Diving into themes of reality, obsession, choice, and free will, Don’t Worry Darling is a film with multiple sides to its narrative and audiences will not be expecting the twists and turns that this picture takes.

Don’t Worry Darling is a classic puzzle box thriller complete with multiple layers and Wilde unravels them with a deliberate intensity that builds in its exhilaration. Contrasting the veneer of perfection with dark and serious secrets, audiences will be caught off guard by her misdirections as a filmmaker and it all leads to one hell of a punch in the end. Wilde also asks a lot of questions of her audience, and I found myself thinking about this film’s characters and their motivations throughout the picture. Don’t Worry Darling has a terrific intellectual subtext to it and there are plenty of interesting ideas that are posed to the audience as this narrative unfurls before them.

As a visual spectacle, Don’t Worry Darling is gorgeous to look upon thanks to the combination of cinematography, production design and costuming. Debonair and glamourous in its presentation, the company town of Victory is a perfect picture of 1950s suburbia, which with its modernist architecture and richly coloured pastel hues is the ideal setting for this narrative to unfold in. Captured in crisp detail by noted cinematographer Matthew Libatique, the setting of Don’t Worry Darling could best be described as ‘manicured’ and this lavish Palm Springs environment bears much influence on the story.

Then there’s the costuming of the picture, courtesy of talented designer Arianne Phillips who styles the picture with a rich combination of colour, fabric and texture and paints the perfect picture of 1950s Hollywood glamour. With their flowing circle skirts and elegant evening wear, the women of Don’t Worry Darling are dressed with a perfect feminine pin-up elegance, while the men are decked out in groovy tennis shirts, chinos and tightly tailored suits that evoke a sense of daring masculine energy. Phillps’ work in costuming is not only gorgeous to look upon, but helps add to the tone and mood of the story and Don’t Worry Darling is without a doubt one of the most stylish films of the entire year.

Standing front and centre in the middle of Don’t Worry Darling is rising star Florence Pugh who fully steps into the role of a Hollywood leading lady with her turn as the film’s protagonist Alice Chambers. And this film belongs to her. Starting off as the perfect housewife, Pugh’s Alice is blissfully in love with her handsome young husband Jack (Harry Styles) and seems to have it all. But when things start to go astray, an unsettling feeling arises in Alice, and soon she’s in a literal waking nightmare. Pugh taps into the role of the classic Hitchcockian blonde in Don’t Worry Darling, and she’s adept at playing this character who is taken to the edge of madness. She completely disappears into this character, her intensity and focus in the part make a big impression on audiences, and this performance solidifies her as an A-list talent to keep an eye on.

Wrapping his arms around Pugh, both in the figurative and metaphorical sense is Harry Styles as her doting and handsome husband Jack, and Don’t Worry Darling is a full-on u-turn for the pop star turned thespian. With his classic good looks, Styles cuts a very dashing figure as Alice’s perfect husband who’s almost too good to be true. And oh does Jack have his secrets. Delivering a performance that can best be described as two-faced, Styles changes things up as Jack and audiences won’t expect the revelations and actions that his character delivers or the fierceness that they’re presented with.

Finally bringing Don’t Worry Darling full circle is Chris Pine as the charming and capable Frank, Jack’s charismatic boss and mentor who is not all who he seems to be and who engages in a dangerous battle of wills with Pugh’s Alice. Pine approaches the role of Frank with a kind of ‘cat who ate the canary’ quality, and there’s a certain cat-like grace to his performance. Possessed of both perfect polish and action-man swagger, Frank is a man who commands tremendous power and adulation in the seemingly perfect town of Victory and Pine’s performance as Frank makes for a worthy antagonist for Pugh’s Alice to contend with.

Don’t Worry Darling sizzles with kinetic energy, and its mix of puzzle box narrative and vintage glamour is a wonderful treat for audiences. Wilde’s film also contains a ravenous passion for its storytelling, and there’s a hot and sweaty sexuality that adds to the edginess of the narrative, and your heart will start to race when things get steamy. But Wilde’s focus is never gratuitous, and every action of this film feeds into its narrative exploration of ideas of control, reality, and free will, with Don’t Worry Darling asking many curious questions of its audience.

With its classic Hitchcockian thrills, glamourous style, and intense lead performances, Don’t Worry Darling is a film that will take audiences by surprise, and it offers up a very cerebral and frantic cinematic experience.

Image: Warner Brothers Pictures

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Watch the all-new trailer below:

Here’s the official synopsis:

Alice (Florence Pugh) and Jack Chambers (Harry Styles) are a young, happy couple living in the seemingly perfect company town of Victory during the 1950s, which is created and paid for by the mysterious company Jack is working for. Curiosity about the nature of her husband’s work on the secret Victory Project begins to consume Alice which leads to cracks in their utopian life as Alice raises tensions within the community during her investigation of the project.

Packed together with breathtaking style and production values, the visual flair of Don’t Worry Darling is the first thing that hits you as soon as you lay eyes on this new trailer, and it’s a film experience unlike anything else out there. But as Wilde draws back the layers that lie behind the glamour, a darker, more dangerous revelation presents itself, and Don’t Worry Darling presents itself as a thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat the whole way through.

Florence Pugh again commands the attention of her audience with a gripping performance as the film’s lead Alice Chambers, a young housewife who is living the 1950s dream in the company of Victory, where everything is seemingly perfect. Until it isn’t. Soon suffering feelings of paranoia, Alice falls into a dangerous, twisted spiral as she begins to challenge the authority of Victory’s leader, Frank (Chris Pine) and his perfect doting wife Shelley (Gemma Chan). It’s then that a new nightmare for Alice begins, and this trailer turns up the heat on our central protagonist as her will to survive takes over and she has to do everything in her power to set herself free.

This second trailer for Don’t Worry Darling is a completely different experience from the initial first trailer and heightens the suspense and intensity that Don’t Worry Darling will deliver to audiences. It’s a frenzied watch, and promises a completely original film that audiences will be spellbound by.

Don’t Worry Darling will arrive in cinemas on October 6.

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Involuntarily discharged from the Army, decorated Special Forces veteran James Harper (Chris Pine) lands a contract with a private underground military force. When his very first assignment goes awry, the elite soldier finds himself hunted and on the run, caught in a dangerous conspiracy and fighting to stay alive long enough to get home and uncover the true motives of those who betrayed him.

Director Tarik Saleh amps up the action with The Contractor and his focus on this high stakes action thriller is keeping the action real and the audience on edge. Looking to the influence of Black Hawk Down and The Bourne Identity, Saleh focuses on real-world action scenarios that test the resolve, intelligence and instinct of Chris Pine’s Special Forces veteran James Harper. A veteran Green Beret who has served at the tip of the spear but who finds himself drummed up out of the Army and thrown into the murky black ops world of private contractors, Saleh keeps the action moving and The Contractor is a true representation of ‘narrative as action’.

Putting in a solid stoic performance and again proving that he’s capable of different characters and situations is Hollywood superstar Chris Pine and The Contractor and the role of James Harper is a very different character for him to play. While he’s known for his wise-cracking heroes, Harper is a stoic man of quite reserve and quick-thinking action who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and who’ll do what needs to be done to win. Along with jumping directly into the action, Pine also showcases a portrait of a complex veteran character who is carrying his own inner demons and traumas and it’s interesting to see how these have shaped him as a man, soldier, husband and father. Pine gives Harper a high level of honor and commitment and while he does some questionable things, he certainly has to atone for his sins and make the bad guys pay.

With The Contractor, you don’t get any of the usual flashy Hollywood action that has come to be a standard of the action genre. The action in The Contractor is tactical, surgical and based in real-world situations. A well-placed bullet puts an enemy down, knives slice and stab, and CQB is done with an unleashed ferocity that leads to plenty of blood on the floor. There’s an energy to the action and special operations manoeuvring of Pine’s Harper and he’s been well trained for the role and looks the part down to the bone. The action of The Contractor hits you out of nowhere and there’s plenty of brass left on the ground with this feature film.

If you’re seeking some hard-charging special forces thrills and a gripping performance from an actor at the top of his game, The Contractor is one film you’re going to have to add to your list ASAP.

Image: Prime Video

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In 1984, during the Cold War, Diana (Gal Gadot) comes into conflict with two formidable foes — media businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) and friend-turned-enemy Barbara Minerva/Cheetah (Kristen Wiig), while reuniting with her love interest Steve Trevor (Steve Trevor).

Returning hot on the heels of her ground-breaking work with 2017’s Wonder Woman, Patty Jenkins now helms its much watch sequel in Wonder Woman 1984. And she really takes the character of Wonder Woman up a notch. Free from the necessity of establishing the character’s origins and abilities, Jenkins lets Diana of Themyscira truly fly in this one, and Wonder Woman 1984 is a superhero film that completely comes together on every single level. Narrative, character, casting, production, cinematography, hair and make-up, all of it comes together under Jenkins direction and the result is a perfect blockbuster for a cinema landscape that’s really been needing one. Wonder Woman 1984 is the complete package on Jenkins behalf and is a very fun watch.

In watching Wonder Woman 1984 it’s clear to the audience that Jenkins had a blast making this movie as she got to explore Diana’s character in a whole new era . The 1980s were a time of excess and extravagance, and Jenkins really pulls her audience into them with a film that supercharges the era with more flash, more color and plenty of funk. From T-Birds roaring down Washington, DC to jazzercise classes to massive shoulder pads and loud hair, Jenkins fully brings her audience into the decade. Playing with ideas of rampant capitalism and the Cold War also raises the stakes higher for Diana this time around and gives the picture a sense of urgency to its narrative.

The experience of watching Wonder Woman 1984 is one of pure joy for the audience, and Jenkins and her team go all out with the visuals on screen. It’s awash with bright and radiant colour in a hyper-real portrait of 1984, and audiences will feel like they will have gone back in time to another decade. Jenkins pulls from a range of references in bringing her story to life including Wall Street, Dynasty, and Dallas, with all of the glamour of the area captured in one of the film’s larger set pieces in its lavish Smithsonian Gala sequence. She also captures the energy of the original Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman 1984 with Diana as an active modern-day superheroine. The experience of watching this film is similar in my mind to James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day, where the first film is good, but the sequel is even better, as it builds out its world and characters further.

Returning to handle the lasso of truth and save the world one more time is Gal Gadot as Diana/Wonder Woman and this narrative brings a considerable change to our heroine this time around. Having now lived in the real world for more than 60 years, Diana has secretly been living a double life and doing her best to help others in need. However the loss of Steve Trevor has affected her deeply and she begins our story as a far more closed off, and lonely individual, who in some ways has given up on the possibilities of the modern world. But soon the world is threatened and she must once again rise to save it. In Wonder Woman 1984 Diana has to undergo a very strong sense of character growth and there’s plenty of tests and challenges for her to overcome.

In terms of her performance, Gadot has to handle a range of broad emotions with this one, and she once again proves why she was the perfect choice for the role. While in the first film she was an almost ingenue type of character, in its sequel she has much more perspective, and a truer understanding of justice and her mission. And in Wonder Woman 1984 Diana faces some tough choices that take Gadot’s performance to a new level. Like Jenkins, she has an absolute blast returning to the character, and the film’s 1980s setting benefits Gadot’s performance even further thanks to its music, fashion and hair and make-up that help her shine even more as the world’s favourite superheroine.

There’s plenty of mystery in Wonder Woman 1984 and one of the biggest is the reincarnation of Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor. While I won’t go into anything that could run the risk of spoilers its very fun to see his return to the big screen and audiences will love seeing Pine and Gadot back together. Pine gets to indulge in his ultimate Top Gun fantasy in Wonder Woman 1984 and the jet-setting age of the 1980s absolutely appeals to his character. There are also some great comedic moments on behalf of Pine thanks to his ‘fish out of water’ presence, and it’s fun to see a reversal from the first film where Steve is now introduced to a brand new world. The chemistry and love are very present between Pine and Gadot in their romance and their time shared on screen is sure to cause your heart to flutter.

Bringing plenty of surprise and energy to Wonder Woman 1984 is Kristen Wiig in the role of Barbara Ann Minerva/Cheetah and she has plenty of scene-stealing moments in this one. Starting off as an overlooked nerd girl, Barbara soon transforms into a glamourous and sexy alpha female, becoming the best possible version of herself, but not before she unleashes her inner bad girl and soon it’s on between Diana and Barbara in the big screens ultimate girl fight. While we’ve become accustomed to seeing Wiig as a comedian and comic relief, it’s exceptionally cool to see her as a full-on villainess in Wonder Woman 1984 and she has a lot of fun as this very bad girl!

Like Gadot, Wiig has a lot of heavy drama to handle throughout the film and her portrayal of Barbara Ann Minerva makes for an exceptionally well-rounded character. What’s interesting is seeing how she embraces her bad girl style and soon she steps into this sexed-up Madonna that showcases bold confidence and some predatory animal instincts that set her up for a fight with Gadot’s Diana. Wiig was inspired casting on behalf of Jenkins and her dark mirror image reflection of Gadot’s Diana makes Wonder Woman 1984 more exciting and interesting as a viewer as these two characters have to battle one another on-screen.

Finally, bringing some much-needed menace to Wonder Woman 1984 is Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord, a bold ‘master of the universe’ who is intent on world domination no matter the cost. Brazenly arrogant and embodying the 1980s excessive wealth and success, Pascal’s Maxwell Lord is a character who wears many different faces throughout the film. And as his plan for world domination comes into the forefront things get all the more dangerous for Diana’s mission to stop him. Like his co-stars, Pascal revels in the fun he gets to have as this all-out villain, and he really takes on the status of an all money, oil man thanks to a rotating wardrobe of double-breasted power suits that help cement his character’s representation of the era’s greed and excess. Pascal has a lot of fun on screen, and he’s the final part of the cast that brings the whole film together.

If you’re seeking blockbuster action, well, you’ll get it in Wonder Woman 1984. And being that it’s been some time since we’ve had the fun and energy of some blockbuster thrills up on the big screen, it’s very fun to witness the energy and action of Wonder Woman 1984. Jenkins throws all of her cast into the action of her film, and she doubles the scope and intensity of the set pieces from the first film that will have your adrenaline pumping. From an intense car chase on the freeways of Cairo to a super-powered brawl through the White House between Diana and Barbara, Wonder Woman 1984 grips you with its intensity and action junkies will have a blast with this one. The film’s climactic showdown between Diana and Barbara is my favourite action set piece of the film, and long time fans of both characters will love this long-expected showdown!

But alongside its blockbuster thrills and bold visuals, Wonder Woman 1984 also explores some very big themes related to notions of time, wish fulfilment and desire and this makes for a much more affecting and deeper narrative film. While I won’t go into specifics of the film’s themes, given the film’s secretive narrative, Jenkins uses the sequel to explore new possibilities with the character of Diana, and it’s extremely emotional and poignant seeing Diana’s character growth on a thematic level. Wonder Woman 1984 is a film that opens itself up to new possibilities and the key to this is the growth of its central character.

2020 has been an exceptionally long year for cinema fans and Wonder Woman 1984 is the film we’ve needed. It’s energy, action and fun is sure to lift up audiences across the world and you can’t help but feel joyful, energized and hopeful when watching it. Its layered narrative, flamboyant characters and intense action makes it an extraordinary blockbuster for extraordinary times, and it’s films like these which call out to the strength of the cinema and why we need them.

Image: Roadshow

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Following in the path of 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, director and lifelong Trek fan Justin Lin (Fast & Furious 6) has stepped up to take the Enterprise and its crew in a bold new direction. Where previously Abrams set the majority of his story within the shiny chrome interior of the Enterprise, Lin literally does away with the grand vessel and throws his characters into the unknown of a strange new alien world. It’s a plot device that he picks up directly from the original series, and which gives this film a new sense of direction and energy. This ‘escape and evasion’ storytelling has a real nostalgic feel to it, and is a grand way to keep audiences guessing as the action picks up speed.

Lin also pulls back the focus of the movie from the usual trinity of Kirk (Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhora (Zoe Saldana), and showcases more action from the perspective of its supporting cast including Simon Pegg’s Montgomery Scott and Karl Urban’s Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy. This greater character canvas results in a deeper and more involved story for audiences, as well as some unexpected character moments, especially from Urban who steals the movie with his pithy one-liners. Newcomer Sofia Boutella is a great new addition to the franchise and conveys an alien rock chick charisma as Jaylah, a mysterious alien with a connection to Krall, and whose ‘bad girl’ antics make her a much-needed ally to the crew of the Enterprise in this their most desperate hour.

A movie is nothing without its bad guy though and Star Trek Beyond gets a worthy one with Idris Elba’s alien warlord Krall. This blue-skinned, reptilian beast is the walking embodiment of hate and vengeance, and he certainly gives Kirk a run for his money. Idris really disappears into this vindictive character through the use of some amazing prosthetics which add to the character’s menace. It’s a different side of Elba than we’ve seen before, and after this I’m thoroughly keen to see him embrace his villainous side in further roles.

Audiences familiar with Star Trek will also be aware that the Trek family suffered some absolutely heartbreaking tragedies recently with the passing of Trek legend Leonard Nimoy and the shocking sudden death of young star Anton Yelchin. While both of these losses were heavy blows for the cast and crew they do their utmost to honour them in the most sincere and loving way. Yelchin is absolutely animated on screen as plucky young comms officer Chekov, and from all accounts you’re certain that he had a ball with this role, which like the other supporting characters, gave him a wealth of screen time, and some genuinely cool moments. To both of these amazing performers, Star Trek Beyond is a fitting tribute and a wonderful representation of their characters.

If you’re looking for a blockbuster rush Star Trek Beyond has it all. So pull up a seat, grab your popcorn and prepare for warp speed.

Image source: Paramount Pictures

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After reaching Starbase Earhart on the edge of Federation space, the crew of the USS Enterprise is suddenly ambushed in a vicious attack, and left for dead. Stranded on an unknown alien planet and split up from one another, they find themselves combating a power hungry new villain who knows everything about them, and who will stop at nothing to destroy the Federation.

The trailer sure stirs plenty of emotions, especially in relation to James T. Kirk’s (Chris Pine) symbolic destiny to his father George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth), and their positions as Starfleet captains. It also introduces us to Idris Elba’s hulking new villain Krall, who has little regard for the concept of mercy, and is ready to take the Enterprise down. Director Justin Lin appears to have a handle on the frenzied action of Beyond, while also devoting significant time to character development as the crew of the Enterprise face this brand new threat.

Trek fans will be lining up for this epic third chapter when Star Trek Beyond makes its way into theatres in Australia and NZ on July 21 and in the US and UK on July 22.

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