Author Archive
Film
Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan‘s gripping, gruelling war epic is his finest film yet. An exhausting, often overwhelming experience, it’s essentially a single, ever-intensifying set-piece that plunges you into the nightmarish cha...
Film
Ghost in the Shell
This big-budget, live-action remake of the classic Japanese animation does just about enough. It’s a solidly watchable sci-fi thriller with striking visual style, but at no point does it even come close to capturing the h...
Film
Elle
Paul Verhoeven – he of Total Recall, Basic Instinct and, of course, Showgirls – is back with Elle, an audacious, genre-bending bang, conjuring forth a blackly comic masterpiece that contains enough material to make ...
Film
20th Century Women
Save for a single, ill-judged and really rather jarring shot (you’ll know it when you see it) pretty much everything about 20th Century Women is spot on. It’s warm, wonderfully written, frequently very funny and, mo...
Film
Bleed For This
A remarkable true-life tale that limps unconvincingly onto the screen, Bleed For This just doesn’t do justice to the never-say-die spirit of boxing comeback king Vinny ‘Paz Man’ Pazienza. The story of a three-...
Film
The Magnificent Seven
This lifeless remake of the classic 1960 western plays dangerously fast and loose with the meaning of the word ‘magnificent’. Forgettable is more like it. It’s a nothing film, director Antoine Fuqua (Southpaw)...
Film
Ben-Hur
A beloved, multiple Oscar-winning epic remade by the director of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – what could possibly go wrong? The obvious and correct answer is quite a bit. Timur Bekmambetov turns out a film that’...
Film
Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates
Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates. Nope, Mike and Dave need some new writers. This desperately tired slacker/sex comedy takes four talented performers (Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam DeVine, Aubrey Plaza) and gives them absolu...
Film
Suicide Squad
Oh dear – if this is their franchise-saving trump card then DC might be done. Yes David Ayer‘s film delivers more fun and more spark than the insufferable Batman v Superman, but that really isn’t saying much. ...
Film
Jason Bourne
After nine years in the shadows Jason Bourne is back. The name alone will see box office sales soar, but do director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon still have a story to tell? For the longest time they both maintained the ...
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