> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://regionfree.net/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # TIFF 2026: Day four – The Surgeon, The Last Photograph, Babies, Alpha Gang - URL: https://regionfree.net/tiff-2026-day-four-the-surgeon-the-last-photograph-babies-alpha-gang/ - Published: 2026-09-14T18:21:33.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-14T18:46:16.000Z - Description: Reviews from the fourth day at the Toronto International Film Festival - Author: Joonatan Itkonen Day four, and we're approaching the halfway point of the festival. What better time than now to unleash the latest Zack Snyder film on an unsuspecting audience, right? That went about as well as you'd expect, but luckily, there were some delights in an otherwise uneven day. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0c/47/0c4798b4-e19d-4d8f-8475-ae0910a66a04/content/images/2026/09/The-Surgeon-Michelle-Yeoh.webp) Image credit: Courtesy of TIFF ## The Surgeon Written and directed by former surgeon Roshan Sethi, The Surgeon is possibly the wildest and most audacious film at TIFF this year. It stars screen icon Michelle Yeoh, who, in the last couple of years, leapt even harder into genre films with great success. On screen, Sethi and Yeoh are the perfect pairing, as Yeoh's measured and subtle performance complements the devilish and pitch-black humor. Yeoh plays an accomplished surgeon who has dedicated their entire life to the craft. She has no friends, no family, and seemingly no hobbies save for the quilt she puts together every night. As retirement arrives, it looks like she's left with nothing to show for a remarkable career. Then, one day, she's kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to perform a tumor removal on an unknown patient. Her captors are masked, and she's trapped in an abandoned hospital with no way out. Except she's nowhere near as helpless as it initially seems, and the good surgeon just might have an interest or three in all the ways humans can come apart. This is a wild and unexpected thrill from start to finish. Yeoh is cool as ice, the action is inventive and shocking, and I could never guess where the film would go next. That's not an easy thing to pull off in this day and age, especially in a well-worn genre like this. Yet Sethi, who relishes the opportunity to flex his medical muscles, toys with audience expectations at every turn like a cat with a ball of yarn. Even the pacing becomes part of the game, and there are numerous moments where The Surgeon lets you think we're finished, only to pull the rug out from under our feet. Press screenings are usually subdued events, where the only thing you'll hear is the scribbling of notepads and the occasional titter. During The Surgeon, the entire theater roared, screamed, and gasped in unison. I've never seen anything like it, and I loved it to bits. 5/5 stars. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0c/47/0c4798b4-e19d-4d8f-8475-ae0910a66a04/content/images/2026/09/Babies_Still_01.webp) Image credit: Courtesy of TIFF ## Babies Babies, the latest from Lauren Miller Rogen, is a film about ultra-wealthy Hollywood elites who think they've got it tough because they've reproduced. It's a film where, unironically, people spend most of their time drinking wine on luxury patios and pools overlooking the Los Angeles skyline, complaining about how hard it is to have freedom now that they have kids. Movies aren't just what they're about; they're also *how* they're about something. Babies is about the increasing number of people in the West who don't want kids. It's a reasonably frank, sometimes even funny look at early 40-somethings who've decided the traditional family unit isn't for them. That's fine. That's an interesting angle, and something that hits close to home as a neurodivergent queer who doesn't want kids, but is perfectly happy taking care of the offspring of friends whom I consider family. I also enjoy Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick as actors. Even the script, as tone deaf as it is, includes the occasional pearl worth hearing. But here's the thing: Babies is also a movie about incredibly rich and privileged people who are so thoroughly out of touch with reality that it might as well be about aliens from a faraway galaxy. When Anna Kendrick sips on her twentieth glass of wine that costs more than a month of my mortgage, whinging about how it's unfair the angel investor didn't put money into her art gallery, as yet another recession this decade is at the door, well, I want to break out and sing La Internationale. The problems and insecurities in the film are universal; their presentation is not. By casting a collective group of elite friends and filming in exclusively wealthy neighborhoods where Harry Potter Halloween costumes are still a thing, Babies effectively makes it clear that it isn't a film about anyone else. It's impossible to connect with someone who has all the opportunities in this world when most people can't start a family even if they want to, simply because their financial situation will never allow it. It doesn't matter if everything else is competently written, shot, and performed when the content itself is out of touch and devoid of humanity. 2/5 stars. ## The Last Photograph Zack Snyder's latest is almost entirely self-financed and without any distribution because everyone who has seen it has passed on the project. It had a single screening at TIFF as a special presentation last night, and I just had to see what the hubbub was all about. I wish I hadn't. The Last Photograph is an ugly vanity project full of racism, misogyny, and baffling directorial choices that are not just in bad taste, but entirely lacking in any coherent vision or basic storytelling ability. It's your average revenge thriller, told through the lens of someone who is inherently incurious about the world and cultures around them. Our heroes are blank slates, though Snyder apparently thinks they're haunting and tragic. They travel through a series of inhumane encounters, mostly directed at women and children, as they hunt for kidnapped family members across a wasteland of caricatures. This is a film where every woman is undressed before, during, and after acts of horrific violence. Men are merely shot. Women are beaten, pummeled, kicked, hanged, and their teeth are hammered out in graphic detail. Almost every time, Snyder is sure to include a shot of their breasts as this happens. At one point, he frames a dead woman with her head blasted into pieces right in the foreground. In her arms is a dead infant. This scene is not about her; it's about how seeing her made the man feel. That sickening pattern repeats in every aspect of the film. The world is for the white men to experience. Everyone else is here for fodder or titillating meat. Our protagonist struts about looking like a constipated Wolverine cosplayer without a single memorable line or insight into why we have to sit through this mess. The traditional action sequences, of which there are plenty, are shot with the grace and clarity of someone who has never seen a camera before. I have seen worse films in my life. I just can't think of any right now. At the start of the screening, Snyder joked that he doesn't know what will happen to the film next. Perhaps it will be burned. I hope someone brought matches. 1/5 stars. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/0c/47/0c4798b4-e19d-4d8f-8475-ae0910a66a04/content/images/2026/09/Alpha_Gang_Still_Hero.webp) Image credit: Courtesy of TIFF ## Alpha Gang This absurdist comedy about how people treat each other and how we suffocate the very feelings that make us empathetic creatures is fun, but way too long, and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. It tries hard to evoke the same wacky energy of Danger 5 or the French surrealist comedy Smoking Causes Coughing, but can't match the unexpected joys of either. That doesn't mean it's bad, and there is still plenty to enjoy here, but at almost two hours in length, it overstays its welcome by a good thirty minutes. Set in a bizarro timeline with no particular geography to speak of, Alpha Gang finds a group of aliens arriving on the planet with plans to exterminate all resistance and rule with an iron fist. They blend in by wearing 50s biker gear and listening to era-appropriate tunes, while shooting anyone and everyone they meet. They consistently bicker, though they claim to avoid The Emotion Sickness, and await orders from home. As their latest Alpha Gang member arrives in the shape of Chris Pine (complete with a Jailhouse Rock-style outfit), the gang learns that they've been infiltrated by someone from Beta Gang, their rivals. That's really all there is to the plot, and it's mostly an excuse for numerous wacky scenes, dance-offs, and for the game cast to play up their silliest personas. Dave Bautista is delightful in his very Tom of Finland-styled outfit, deadpanning his way into our hearts. Léa Seydoux is funny as ever as the long-suffering de facto leader, while Pine delivers a masterclass in understated stupidity. It's cute, it's mostly charming, and if you're on the same wavelength for this brand of absurdity, you'll have fun. I just wish it were shorter and punchier, and we'd be talking about a modern cult classic. For now, it's just good enough. 3/5 stars.