REVIEW: Foe [London Film Festival 2023]

There is perhaps no genre as primed for grand explorations of the human condition as science fiction.

Not constrained by the limits of the world as it is, it’s free to pose questions and imagine scenarios by which we might better understand ourselves.…

REVIEW: Saltburn [London Film Festival 2023]

Having thoroughly skewered the male-female power dynamic in Promising Young Woman, in Saltburn Emerald Fennell turns her withering eye on another social structure: the British class system.

Newly arrived at Oxford University, scholarship student Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), bright, studious, and dressed like Harry Potter newly arrived at Hogwarts – all house scarf and specs – struggles to fit in amid the bright young things.…

REVIEW: Samaritan [Prime Video]

In Samaritan, a scrappy kid (Javon Walton) discovers that a refuse collector who lives across the street (Sylvester Stallone) may in fact be his idol, long-presumed-dead superhero Samaritan.

As with any popular genre before it, the superhero movie is now starting to reckon with its long-lived popularity.…

PODCAST: Censor & Shadow in the Cloud [Movie RobCast]

Episode 123 of The Movie Robcast is a packed affair.

Rob D makes a Jungle Cruise related confession to kick off.

At 4.00 Rob D then gives a quick overview of this year’s Arrow Video FrightFest film festival, back in the Cineworld Leicester Square for the first time since 2019.…

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.…

REVIEW: The Ice Road

A loose remake of The Wages of Fear, The Ice Road reconceptualizes George Clouzot’s seminal 1953 thriller as a Liam Neeson vehicle and transports the action to the icy wastes way, way north of the equator.

When a methane explosion at a diamond mine leaves miners, including the dependable Holt McCallany, trapped and rapidly running out of air.…