Film Reviews
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum review - mayhem in ManhattanFriday, 17 May 2019
Keanu Reeves’s hitman franchise is blossoming into a delirious little earner. Read more... |
Beats review - Scottish boys seek raveThursday, 16 May 2019
Achingly nostalgic for rave culture, Beats will likely appeal to anyone whose formative experience of ardent friendships and communal joy peaked in a transcendent musical setting with or without the help of Ecstasy. Read more... |
Diamantino review - loopy satire slaps BrexitSaturday, 11 May 2019
Imagine Cristiano Ronaldo, virtuosity intact, as buffed, blinged, and coiffed as ever, but with the sophistication and sexual maturity of an average seven-year-old, and you have a fair idea of Diamantino’s protagonist. Read more... |
The Hustle review - rotten scoundrelsSaturday, 11 May 2019
This third version of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels’ yarn of rival, class-warring con artists on the French Riviera is just something for Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson to do till a better gig comes along.... Read more... |
Destination Wedding review - a misanthropic modern-day romanceSaturday, 11 May 2019
Recently, Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder have found themselves in a career renaissance. Reeves has made a remarkable comeback as the dog-loving action-hero John Wick, while Ryder won audiences over as the grief-stricken mother, Joyce Byers, in Netflix’s 80s nostalgia-fest Stranger Things. Read more... |
Pokémon Detective Pikachu review - a cute commercialFriday, 10 May 2019
This is the Who Framed Roger Rabbit? of the Pokémon franchise, bringing the video game’s cute critters into a live-action, ... Read more... |
Madeline's Madeline review – American indie heralds an astonishing new starThursday, 09 May 2019
“You are not the cat. Read more... |
High Life review - Claire Denis boldly goes where she hasn't gone beforeThursday, 09 May 2019
Read more... |
Arctic review - The Martian on iceWednesday, 08 May 2019
This is the first feature film by Brazil-born director Joe Penna (previously best known for his hit YouTube channel MysteryGuitarMan), but you’d never have guessed. Clocking in at a crisp and chilly 98 minutes, Arctic is an immaculately controlled exploration of the theme of man versus the elements, assisted immeasurably by having Mads Mikkelsen as its protagonist, Overgård. Read more... |
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile review - pedestrian Ted Bundy biopicSaturday, 04 May 2019
Why make a feature film about Ted Bundy, the notorious 1970s serial killer when you’ve already made Conversations with a Killer, a four-part factual series for Netflix about him? Read more... |
Vox Lux review – music biz drama with big ideasSaturday, 04 May 2019
Common to the recent spate of films about aspiring singers, the theme of fame’s corrupting influence is hardly new. Read more... |
Woman at War review – timely comedy-drama about an eco-warrior with a differenceSaturday, 04 May 2019
What is it about Nordic women and the environment? Read more... |
Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, Design Museum review - immersive detailFriday, 03 May 2019
Who would have known that the word “Kubrickian” only entered the Oxford English Dictionary last year? You’d have thought that one of the great film directors of the 20th century would have earned his own epithet long ago. Read more... |
Tolkien review - biopic charms but never wowsThursday, 02 May 2019
Finnish director Dome Karukoski’s Tolkien follows the same formula of many literary biopics, with a tick-box plot of loves, friendships and hardships that forged the writing career of one the 20th Century’s greatest fantasy writers. Read more... |
Long Shot review - semi-hilarious odd couple romcomThursday, 02 May 2019
This is a romcom of two radically different halves, vaulting so dizzyingly from insultingly unbearable to daringly hilarious that walking in half-way through becomes a viable option. Read more... |
Donbass review - war stories from the Ukrainian frontSaturday, 27 April 2019
The latest from the prolific Sergei Loznitsa, Donbass is a bad-dream journey into the conflict that’s been waging in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, barely noticed beyond its immediate region. Read more... |
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