The Theory of Everything forgets about the numbers so ends up playing by them

 

James Marsh’s new film, a biopic of legendary astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and his first wife Jane Wilde, is firstly a very traditionally British film; which is to say, a very reserved one.

In the face of tragedy – the gradual debilitation of a vibrant person – there’s nary a tear shed.…

Unbroken is too polished for its own good

 

 

 

War stories tend to have two major themes: man’s inhumanity to man and/or the triumph of the human spirit.

While plenty of films in recent years have focused on the later, most recently Fury, it’s been a while since we’ve had an account of unvarnished heroism.…

What We Do in the Shadows is silly, macabre fun

 

For all the variations of the zombie movie out there – standard horror, Nazisploitation, the zomcom – it’s a bit of a surprise there aren’t more takes on the vampire.

Their slightly more refined brethren, for all that velvet, lace, and eyeliner, have been played surprisingly “straight”.…

The Salvation isn’t looking to redeem anyone

 

As the oldest film genre – the first ever feature, The Story of the Kelly Gang, arguably qualifies as one – the Western weaves a well-worn path through the cinematic landscape.

There are certain elements we’ve come to expect from tales of those rangy, ranging men, like the redemptive arc of our hard-bitten protagonist, and those we haven’t, like an abundance of CGI.…

Black Sea wrings some suspense out of a tired tub of a genre

 

Take a dangerous group of men and trap them in a lethal environment with the promise of seemingly infinite riches at their fingertips.

It’s a tried and tested premise that’s been been striking sparks since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre almost seventy years ago.…

Lost River winnows away into nothingness

 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a lost river as “a surface stream that flows into an underground passageway.”

Appropriately, Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut of the same name is all about the lurid surfaces and obscure depths, and cuts a wide and muddy channel across the cinematic landscape.…

John Wick burns cool and bright

 

Like Nicholas Cage or Christopher Walken, Keanu Reeves is a very particular type of actor, a specialised tool best used in a particular context.

Put him a role that requires emotional heft and he’s wooden; give him an accent to master or reams of dialogue, like in Dracula or Much Ado About Nothing, and he flounders.…

Furious 7 provides thrills, spills, and a surprisingly moving farewell (RIP, Paul Walker)

 

Fast cars and beautiful women. Gunfights in exotic locales. You could be talking of any one of half a dozen franchises: Mission: Impossible, James Bond. They all offer similar thrills and spills, albeit in hugely different styles. In recent years, however, the Fast & Furious franchise has overtaken them all.

Chappie: more bats**t conceptual sci-fi from Neil Blomkamp

 

Forget about Paul Verhoeven. Step aside, the Wachowskis. There’s a new master in town when it comes to bats**t conceptual sci-fi.

South African director Neil Blomkamp is well known for his allegorical social commentary – apartheid in District 9, health care and the 1% in Elysium – but the underpinnings of Chappie are mainly philosophical.…

It Follows is a brilliant, terrifying paean to the Carpenter tradition

 

Is there any genre that has defined a decade as much as horror defined the ‘80s – and visa versa, of course

From The Thing to Day of the Dead, they brought psychological insight to a form otherwise defined by B-movie schlock.…