REVIEW: Early Man

Aardman Animations’ latest sends comedy back to the Stone Age… but not in the way you might hope.

We open, according to a subtitle, on Neo-Pleistocene Earth, tracking away from a furiously erupting volcano. Dinosaurs tussle up on a ridge; a tribe of primeval persons are exuberantly beating the tar out of one another; all of which are expertly made of plasticine.…

REVIEW: Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour gives us the British bulldog as belligerent underdog in this un-illuminating portrayal of legendary Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his first few weeks in office.

It’s 1940 and Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup; dignified and resigned in a role originally intended for John Hurt) has been driven out of office.…

REVIEW: Good Time & The Post

Good Time

This seedy, ‘70s-inspired crime thriller from the Safdie Brothers might equally be called “Bad Decisions”.

It’s certainly a bad decision for hustler Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) to yank his developmentally-disabled brother Nick (Ben Safdie) out of therapy and bring him along on a bank robbery.…

REVIEW: Paddington 2

 

That adventurous, well-mannered British bear has returned to the big screen… and not a moment too soon!

The first Paddington was, for me, an unexpected delight, delivering one of the biggest laughs of any film in 2014. This sequel is, if possible, even more charming, and all the more comforting in these turbulent times.…

REVIEW: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express is undoubtedly a grand production, but lacks the elegant simplicity to be a truly first-class entertainment.

Unlike Sydney Lumet’s 1974 adaptation, this is less a starry, lavishly-upholstered murder mystery than a modern-day blockbuster that just seems to be based on an Agatha Christie novel.…

REVIEW: Geostorm

To say that Geostorm is as dumb as a bag of rocks is an insult to hardworking geological processes.

It’s not that time and energy, and roughly $120 million, didn’t go into the production – it’s that they did and, despite extensive reshoots, this is what we ended up with; a film, which if not quite putting the “disaster” into “disaster movie”, is certainly, on its own terms, a mess.…

REVIEW: Thor: Ragnarok

It’s hardly the end of the world as we know it.

Let me preface this review by saying, first and foremost, that Thor: Ragnarok is a lot of fun.

That’s the thing most critics seem to have taken away from this latest instalment in the Marvel canon: that it’s fun, funny, loads of fun; just, like, the funnest.…

London Film Festival 2017 – A Rundown (Part 2)

So, here goes it: Part 2 of my three-part rundown of my 2017 London Film Festival experience. Part 1 is available here.

 

Call Me By Your Name

A story of sex, sculpture, and self-discovery, Call Me By Your Name is the latest in a recent trend of achingly sensitive LGBT romantic dramas that seem to hold such an allure for me.…

REVIEW: The Florida Project & The Killing of a Sacred Deer

The Florida Project

In his follow-up to 2015’s Tangerine, Sean Baker gives us a confectionary, pastel-coloured ode to the “hidden homeless” in America’s Sunshine State.

The gaudy Magical Castle Motel may be located on Seven Dwarves Lane, virtually in the shadow of Disneyland, but life there is no fairy-tale for six-year-old Moonee (Brooklyn Prince, in an astonishingly shrewd performance) and her tatted-up single mum Hallee (Bria Vinaite).…