Just like last week, it’s a star-studded streaming lineup once again, led by the VOD debut of Final Destination: Bloodline, Marvel’s new Ironheart series, the return of The Bear, and much more!
SERIES
Lioness S2
20 June 2025 – Showmax
I will admit that I have not watched a single second of Lioness, despite the fact that it was created by prolific showrunner Taylor Sheridan and stars Zoe Saldaña (who won the 2024 Critics Choice Super Award for Best Actress: Action for her performance) alongside the likes of Oscar winners Morgan Freeman and Nicole Kidman, and four-time Emmy nominee Michael Kelly. And then there’s the compelling pitch for the action drama: Saldaña plays Joe McNamara, the leader of an undercover all-women US special ops team dedicated to befriending the wives, girlfriends or daughters of high-value terrorist targets and working to turn them for the CIA. Well, I guess need to fix this oversight and catch up as season two of Lioness hits Showmax today.
Tokyo Vice S2
23 June 2025
Hmmm. It appears the theme of today is Star Studded TV Series That Kervyn Hasn’t Watched Despite Them Being Right Up His Alley. The second entry on that list is Tokyo Vice, which returns for its second season this week. Starring Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe, this show is an adaptation of Jake Adelstein’s 2009 memoir Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, which followed his years living in Tokyo as the first non-Japanese reporter working for one of Japan’s largest newspapers in the late 1990s. Elgort plays Adelstein who rapidly finds himself in some criminal crosshairs as he’s taken under the wing of a veteran detective in the organized crime squad of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and starts investigating the Yakuza and their deadly activities despite the city’s widely publicized claim that “murder does not happen in Tokyo”. Just like its debut offering, the second and final season of Tokyo Vice has drawn rave reviews.
Ironheart S1
25 June 2025 – Disney+
You would be forgiven for forgetting that Marvel’s new series, Ironheart, is out next week as seemingly Marvel even forgot about it until recently. Despite the fact that the show is a spinoff from Ryan Coogler’s smash hit Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with Coogler himself producing, there was a surprising promotional silence for the Dominique Thorn-starring show up until just a few weeks ago. Just why this weird marketing approach was taken is a complete mystery and will probably result in the series flying under several people’s radars. Which is a shame as Ironheart is looking pretty good. Thorne reprises her role as teen genius Riri Williams as, following the events of Wakanda Forever, she returns home to Chicago and “becomes entangled with enigmatic Parker Robbins / The Hood, discovering secrets that pit technology against magic and setting her on a path of danger and adventure.”
Countdown S1
25 June 2024 – Prime Video
Derek Haas has one seriously eclectic resume. On the big screen, he’s been the screenwriter for the likes of 2 Fast 2 Furious, Wanted, and 3:10 to Yuma. On the small screen, he’s the creator and showrunner of NBC’s wildly popular Chicago Fire/P.D./Med/Justice drama franchise as well as CBS’s drama FBI: International. That last one is important as for Haas’s next effort, he’s staying in the espionage procedural drama wheelhouse with Countdown. The new Prime Video drama series stars fan favourites Jensen Ackles and Eric Dane, and follows LAPD detective Mark Meachum (Ackles) who, following the brazen killing of a Department of Homeland Security officer in plain sight of witnesses, is brought onto a covert task force with undercover agents from various law enforcement agencies to track down the murderer. However, the search reveals a much darker conspiracy than anyone expected, sparking a frantic race to protect a city of millions.
The Bear S4
26 June 2024 – Disney+
It’s been almost exactly a year since season 3 of The Bear hit us with another bout anxiety-inducing restaurant drama. This wait was especially frustrating though as anybody who watched the last season could clearly tell it wasn’t actually a season. According to creator Christopher Storer, while shooting season 3, they had ideas for additional story and thus the episode count got expanded quite a bit, causing them to basically chop the season in half. The end result was, in my opinion, the weakest offering from the award-winning show as there was no real culmination. But now, season 4 aka season 3.5 is here to finally give us that resolution we so badly needed as Carmen, Syd, Richie and the rest of the gang find their back up against the wall as their wildly ambitious new restaurant brings new problems on top of all the personal issues they’re going through.
MOVIES
Magpie
23 June 2025 – Showmax
Despite being the face of one of the biggest franchises in Hollywood (or maybe because of it), Daisy Ridley’s career outside of Star Wars has been fairly low-key. That unfortunately also means that movies like Magpie didn’t really draw much of an audience when it apparently should have. Written by Ridley’s husband Tom Bateman, the neo-noir thriller debuted to much critical acclaim last year, with much praise for its clever and twisty script and Ridley’s performance. The film follows married couple Anette (Ridley) and Ben (Shazad Latif), whose lives begin to fracture when their daughter is cast alongside a glamorous movie star, Alicia (Matilda Lutz). As Anette’s suspicions about Ben’s infatuation with Alicia intensify, their secrets and lies threaten to destroy them all.
Goodrich
23 June 2025 – Showmax
Another critically acclaimed offering that seemingly just skirted by without much fanfare last year, Goodrich is a dramedy from writer-director Hallie Meyers-Shyer (daughter of acclaimed filmmakers Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers). Michael Keaton stars as 60-year-old LA art dealer Andy Goodrich, whose life is upended when his second, younger wife checks herself into a 90-day rehab program, leaving him to care for their nine-year-old twins. Thrust into the world of modern parenthood, Goodrich leans on his daughter from his first marriage, Grace (Mila Kunis), as he learns to become the father she never had.
VOD RENTALS/PURCHASES
The following movies have recently become available for digital purchase/rental:
Final Destination: Bloodlines
Purchase: Apple TV – R200 / Google Play – R212
Rental: Apple TV – R170 / Google Play – R170
It’s very rare to get movie sequels that not only live up to the original but even surpass it. It’s downright almost statistically impossible when that sequel happens to be the sixth entry in the franchise and comes a whole 14 years after the last entry, but somehow that’s exactly what happened with Final Destination: Bloodlines. Boasting a very clever and original shakeup on the franchise’s prime idea of somebody getting a premonition of their grisly demise and cheating death, only for death to try get back what it missed, Bloodlines is legitimately one of the most fun times I’ve had in a cinema this year. As Noelle mentioned in her 8/10 review, “this is achieved through an excellent balance of tension, gore, and humour, while still also finding space for a sliver of heart.” And now you can get to watch – and scream at – all the gory fun in the comfort of your own home!
Fight or Flight
Purchase: Apple TV – R160
Rental: Apple TV – R45
Though he never really stopped working, Josh Hartnett has been seeing a bit of a career revival as of late as he started getting roles in much more prominent films again. And while Fight or Flight is most definitely not on the same level as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, critics were surprisingly positive about this action-comedy, mostly because of Hartnett’s performance. Directed by James Madigan, a veteran VFX artist who worked on some major Hollywood productions before making this transition to the director’s chair, Fight or Flight follows disgraced former secret service agent Lucas Reyes (Hartnett) who finds himself in desperate times in Bangkok. With no options, he takes on the job of tracking down an elusive hacker on a plane but must protect her when they’re surrounded by people trying to kill both of them.
In the Lost Lands
Purchase: Apple TV – R160 / Google Play – R161
Rental: Apple TV – R45 / Google Play – R50
If you were a fan of the Resident Evil movies, then In the Lost Lands is probably something you would want to check out. Based on the short story of the same name from George R.R. Martin (author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels aka Game of Thrones), this sci-fi fantasy film sees the husband-and-wife duo of director Paul W.S. Anderson and star Mila Jovovich team-up once more for some slow-mo action, with the ever-popular Dave Bautista co-starring. Set in a far-off future where Earth has become an uncivilized, dystopian wasteland and order is forcibly maintained by the Church, a witch and a hunter have to join forces to journey to the dangerous Lost Lands to retrieve a magical artifact for their Queen.