REVIEW: The Tomorrow War [Prime Video]

The Tomorrow War is a big, dumb sci-fi actioner with an actual semi-functioning emotional component.

Dan Forester (Chris Pratt) is an ex Green Beret now working as a high-school chemistry teacher. His life with wife Emmy (Betty Gilpin, underutilised) and young daughter Muri (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is idyllic, though Dan is struggling to break into the field of research science.…

Arrival is a Möbius strip movie that home-schools Interstellar

Oh for the days of Close Encounters when we dreamed that first contact would be as elegant as five simple notes.

Arrival, the latest film from Sicario director Denis Villeneuve1, looks at the complexities of communicating with an alien race.1 When twelve mysterious craft appear at sites around the globe, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is drafted in to help start a dialogue with their occupants before China and Russia set off an inter-species war.2 Where do you begin, though, when you know nothing about their language or customs?…

Edge of Tomorrow makes respawning fun

 

If at first you don’t succeed, get covered in boiling alien blood and try, try again.

What the forgettably titled Edge of Tomorrow most reminds us, however, is that Tom Cruise is at his best when not playing an outright hero.…

The World’s End is business as usual for the Cornetto bunch

 

My, haven’t we grown?

It’s been six years since Hot Fuzz blasted onto our screen, John Woo-style, both guns blazing, and a further three since Shaun of the Dead introduced us to arguably the foremost British comedy duo in cinema today (sorry Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan).…

Pacific Rim stands on the edge of being a halfway decent film

 

We’re roughly half way through the summer season with Man of Steel and World War Z recently past and Elysium and The Wolverine shortly approaching (among others).

As such, a little $190 blockbuster about giant robots vs. giant aliens could well pass under the radar: less superfluous than Disney’s The Lone Ranger but by no means a guaranteed money-maker, it makes sense that fantasy horror legend Guillermo Del Toro would be asked to bring some much-needed credibility to the project.…