Category: Reviews
Finding Dory is a whale of a time – at least two of them, in fact (sorry)
The second box-office smash out this past week starring an amnesiac, Pixar’s Finding Dory shows how to find new and affecting resonances in an old story. Fish gets separated from family, fish goes in search of family, fish makes friends along the way.
…Jason Bourne AKA The Bourne Variations AKA Bourne… Again?
After almost a decade off the grid, Jason Bourne has returned in a film titled, somewhat unimaginatively, Jason Bourne.
No identities, supremacies, ultimatums, or legacies; just the man himself, played once again by Matt Damon. With Paul Greengrass back directing, too, it’s almost like he never went away.…
Pete’s Dragon is a golden, timeless folktale
What is it with Disney and orphans?
It’s an age-old adage in storytelling that if you want to create a sense of danger you stick a kid somewhere dark and scary, possibly a forest, and take away all parental supervision.…
Nerve: a flashy but risk-averse techno-thriller for the Pokemon Go crowd
With most of the world dividing its time between Pokemon Go and sharing viral videos on Facebook, there’s never been a better time for a film like Nerve.
Based on a book by Jeanne Ryan, adapted by Jessica Sharzer of American Horror Story, and directed by Catfish’s Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, the film quickly establishes its technological mojo.…
Steve Spielberg’s The BFG is a mid-sized disappointment
When perhaps the greatest living filmmaker takes on the favorite story of one of the most belovec children’s authors of the 20th Century, you hope for a truly magic adventure. Instead Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The BFG is charming but slight.
…High-Rise is the cinema of concrete and chaos
There’s something about the technology-driven dystopias of JG Ballard that appeal to a certain breed of director.
Steven Spielberg’s mainstream adaptation of Empire of the Sun is ironically something of an oddity of an oeuvre encapsulated by the steely paraphilia of David Cronenberg’s Crash.…
Star Trek Beyond gets ahead by going back to basics
Space is no longer the final frontier in cinema. In fact it’s a bit passé.
Where’s Kubrick’s star-child once evoked the wonder of journeying into the unknown, science fiction has since placed its emphasis more on the inherent risks of interstellar travel.…
The novelty’s vanished, but Now You See Me 2 doesn’t cheat
How many stage magic heist films do we need?
When Now You See Me was released back in 2013, the conceit at least seemed original: a quartet of Robin Hood magicians, known as the Four Horsemen, stage (literally) a series of audacious robberies targeted at the rich and unethical.…
Ghostbusters: don’t fear the reboot
Has any film provoked as big a backlash before its release as the new Ghostbusters?
Sure, Batman V Superman wasn’t exactly eagerly awaited — not least on this very site (and associated podcast) — but it seemed no sooner had this film been announced than the Internet rose up and declared, “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts” (actual quote).…