REVIEW: Hypnotic

Some movies seem purposefully designed for critics to have fun with, if not necessarily cinema audiences. Robert Rodriguez’s Hypnotic is just such a movie.

From its hopelessly dated, sub 00s-Nolan sci-fi thriller premise to its almost comically one-note lead performance – Affleck’s expressions range from a frown to a grimace to a scowl – to the oh-so generic title, it’s an inducement to snarky headlines, like “Hypnotic put me to sleep.”…

REVIEW: The Last Duel

In The Last Duel, Ridley Scott returns to his cinematic first love.

The idea of two rivals in a duel to the death is an innately romantic one, but where Scott’s directorial debut was devoted to it, in his latest it’s both beginning and ending.…

PODCAST: Zack Snyder’s Justice League (AKA The Snyder Cut) [Movie RobCast]

In episode 112, Robs Daniel & Wallis are joined by frequent Robcast contributor Ian Bird to talk all things Zack Snyder’s Justice League AKA The Snyder Cut.

Mr. Bird is rather positive of this 4-hour version of the little-loved 2017 film, Rob D was not a fan, and Rob W is somewhere in the middle, looking for unity.…

PODCAST: Justice League [Electric Shadows]

In episode 33 of The Electric Shadows Podcast, myself and Rob Daniel take a look at Justice League. And, you know what? We find stuff to like in there!

Sure, it’s a mess and clearly the work of two different people.…

Live By Night sits comfortably, if undistinguishedly, between polish and pulp

 

Live By Night is a “lavish gangster epic” of the sort in which Hollywood used to specialize.

A throwback in more ways than one, it’s also an old-fashioned star vehicle for its director Ben Affleck.

Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (as was Affleck’s directorial debut), Live By Night sees the Boston native back on home turf — albeit a century out of time— as Joe Coughlin, a smooth stick-up artist who returns to America after the Great War.…

Batman V Superman is a flaming bag of shit left on the doorstep of cinema

SPOILERS!

Say what you want about Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justiceand I have — it’s a film that demands critical analysis.1

A reported passion project of so-called visionary director Zack Snyder,2 the film he helped birth from development hell is in dire need of an exorcism.…

Argo is Alan J. Pakula without the bite

 

The newest film by Chasing Amy* star Ben Affleck is notable for many reasons, not least in that it has broken the director’s run of continuous 94%s on Rotten Tomatoes.

Whether it is an objectively better film that either Gone Baby Gone or The Town is open to debate.…