Dave Bautista

News, Reviews & Features
  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray, Matt Looker, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson, Luke Whiston | 28th March 2019

    It's the regular feature you assumed had been quietly abandoned - but we've got nothing else going on right now! We're back with another scintillating edition of Marvel's Cine-CHATIC Universe: this week/month/quarter, we're talking about James Gunn's Guardians Of The Galaxy, but also, very much other things too.

  • Analysing the cast signatures on that Guardians Of The Galaxy support letter

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 31st July 2018

    Touching scenes online this week, as the cast members of Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy series banded together in a show of support for fired director James Gunn, by co-signing a letter that almost but not quite called for his reinstatement. Gunn, a former Troma filmmaker and purveyor of questionable humour, was fired by Disney after a bunch of right-wing lunatics, led by lisping dong Mike Cernovich, dredged up a bunch of offensive ten year-old tweets and weaponised their fake outrage in order to punish the director for his outspoken liberal views. It’s all very 2018, but let’s focus on the real issue here: MOVIE STAR SIGNATURES!

  • Blade Runner 2049

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 4th October 2017

    With all memories of the Ghost In The Shell remake already lost like tears in rain, it's time to leave behind the replicants and look forward to a replican. Blade Runner 2049 is that rarest of sequels: a belated, big-budget blockbuster follow-up that feels like the real deal, not a synthetic knock-off. Not only has Denis Villeneuve managed to capture the essence of what made Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi classic so captivating, he's expanded the Blade Runner universe, growing the original not just visually and geographically but thematically too. Where the first film felt impossibly claustrophobic and hemmed in, possibly due to it being a good few decades ahead of the curve in terms of budget and effects, here the enormity of Scott's aspirations are unleashed in spectacular fashion.

  • Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 1st May 2017

    While fans continue to squabble over the correct, surely-soon-to-be-official 'Ultimate Ranking of MCU films' (nearly there, guys! Seriously, you're doing great work), it's easy to overlook the fact that, at this stage, the Marvel movie-making model looks unlikely to ever produce a truly bad film. Sure, there have been Dark Elvish messes and Mickey Rourke-sized hiccups, but Marvel really has its mathematically-safe, formulaic shit together now and, as a result, always delivers an agreeable level of fun and action albeit without taking any real risks. That is, except for Guardians Of The Galaxy, the only property in the Universe that still feels like a gamble, sitting apart from the homogenised Avenger adventures to follow its own completely different set of rules. Which is why it's a shame that this sequel follows them too.

  • Shock: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 made by same people as Vol. 1

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 17th February 2016

    Is all this really necessary? Next you'll be telling me Star Wars: Episode VIII features some of the characters from Star Wars: Episode VII. Some but not all. Too soon? Too soon.

  • Spectre

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 21st October 2015

    If Daniel Craig's incarnation of 007 had any agenda over the course of his previous three films, it was to get Bond back to basics, away from the spoofable superspy tropes of volcano lairs and invisible cars. Acting as a prequel series to the franchise sold this idea rather well, presenting us with a simple, bold and brutal spy at the start of his game. The problem is, each Craig film so far has ended with Bond primed and positioned to become the man we see at the start of Dr No, and they have created hidden steps along that journey. As such it has felt like a cheat, like counting down "three, two, one, er... a half, a quarter, an eighth" and so on. But now Spectre really feels like we have finally reached the end of that countdown, and it does so in part by tying all the previous films together into one conclusion. But it also does it by embracing all the embarrassingly awful 007 traditions that this modern Bond had previously shied away from.

  • Guardians Of The Galaxy

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 29th July 2014

    Just for a second there it looked like Marvel might have let their foothold slip. Edgar Wright's departure had irreparably sullied Ant-Man; Captain America 3's release date clash with DC's Batman V Superman in 2016 seemed like a suicide mission; the suspicion lingered that Thor: The Dark World wasn't actually all that great in retrospect. Momentary blips, all, because Guardians Of The Galaxy is the most confident, daring and balls-out fun Marvel movie of the lot. The last two Marvel releases have been samey sequels, adhering largely to a tried and tested formula, but Guardians Of The Galaxy is one of Marvel's best films simply because it doesn't really feel like it's part of the Marvel universe at all.

  • There's someone missing in the first Guardians Of The Galaxy image

    Movie News | Ali Gray | 1st January 2014

    Disney have released the first official image from their forthcoming Marvel intergalactic adventure, Guardians Of The Galaxy. We can't help but feel there's someone quite important missing, especially given the obvious Usual Suspects homage. Thankfully it was my New Year's Resolution to do more rubbish Photoshopping, so I made amends. Send the cheque to the usual address, Disney.

  • Riddick

    Movie Review | Ali | 1st September 2013

    I love Vin Diesel. I love his voice, I love his face, I love the shape of his big baldy head and - to a lesser extent, admittedly - I love his films. He seems like a genuinely nice guy, so when he announced he re-mortgaged his house in order to get Riddick funded, I believed him. If any other Hollywood big shot claimed they'd put their house on the line to resurrect one of their fallen franchises it'd seem like a desperate career move, but Diesel has a Fast & Furious fallback; he didn't need Riddick to happen, he just felt the character still had life left in him. And he was right.