Film Reviews
Trap review - how not to find a serial killer in a haystackMonday, 12 August 2024
Don’t think too hard about the narrative absurdity of Trap, the new movie wriitten and directed by M Night Shyamalan. There’s a serial killer called The Butcher on the loose in Philadelphia and though the FBI doesn’t know their quarry’s name or what he looks like, they muster what looks like hundreds of agents, SWAT teams, and private security to bring him in. Read more... |
The Instigators, Apple TV+ review - Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are back on the Beantown beatSaturday, 10 August 2024
This heist-orientated black comedy could appeal to fans of the likes of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven or the same director’s Out of Sight, without ever quite matching their zip and sparkle. But there are enough loud bangs and big bucks to provide an entertaining night in (presupposing there are suitable lubricants to hand), though you wouldn’t think so from some of the ferociously negative reviews it’s been receiving. Read more... |
Borderlands review - the end of a universe?Saturday, 10 August 2024
So, it falls to me to review perhaps the least-anticipated film of the year. Borderlands is based on an admired video game, and there may be nothing more hostile than pissed-off video-gamers. Read more... |
Sky Peals review - a parable of alienation in a motorway service stationThursday, 08 August 2024
“I think my dad might have been an alien,” Adam (Faraz Ayub; Line of Duty; Screw) tells a self-help group he wanders into. What does that make him? He doesn’t feel at home anywhere – not with his family or, perhaps not surprisingly, at his job in a burger bar at Sky Peals motorway services. Read more... |
I Saw the TV Glow - electrifying allegory of gender dysphoriaSaturday, 27 July 2024
There comes a point in I Saw the TV Glow when the repressed high-schooler Owen (Justice Smith) smashes his television’s screen by trying to dive into the box itself, to cross the great divide between his numbed reality and the feminine supernatural fantasy-land of his favourite series. Read more... |
Twisters review - satisfyingly cataclysmic storm-chaser sagaFriday, 26 July 2024
“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” urged King Lear, accompanied by the Fool, on the blasted heath. But that’s not quite snappy enough for the storm-chasers of Twisters as they drive their souped-up four-by-fours across the tornado-blitzed flatlands of Oklahoma. Their motto is “if you feel it, chase it!” which is pretty much all they do for the movie’s two-hour duration. Read more... |
The Echo review - a beautiful but confusing look at life in a Mexican villageFriday, 26 July 2024
El Eco (The Echo) is a small village in Mexico’s central highlands, about two hours drive from Mexico City. But it might as well be thousands of miles away since it feels cut off from the outside world, especially for the women and children eking out a living there. Read more... |
About Dry Grasses review - warts and all portrait of an unhappy manThursday, 25 July 2024
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest is a test of stamina: a 3hr 15min study of a man paralysed by negative thinking. It also contains striking freeze-framed portraits of people and places that you want to pause and look at even longer than the editing allows, so beautiful are they. Read more... |
In a Violent Nature review - inverted slasher is fascinatingSunday, 21 July 2024
A group of young people rent a cabin in the woods. A masked killer lingers nearby. Surely you know how the rest unfolds. The slasher and its well-worn tropes have been parodied, satirised and subverted for as long as it has existed. In fact, we seem to prefer watching these deconstructions compared to the actual, pulpy thing. Scream is after all the most successful horror franchise in history. Read more... |
Crossing review - a richly human journey of discoverySaturday, 20 July 2024
Crossing is a remarkable step forward for Swedish-Georgian director Levan Akin. There are elements that build on his acclaimed 2019 Tbilisi drama And Then We Danced, but his new film is rich with a new complexity, as well as a redolent melancholy, a loose road-movie that speaks with considerable profundity of the overlapping worlds in which it is set. Read more... |
Janet Planet review - teasing dissection of a mother-daughter relationshipSaturday, 20 July 2024
Fans of American playwright Annie Baker’s work know what they are likely to get in her film debut as a writer-director: slow-paced interactions between characters thrown together in a confined space – a workplace, a B&B, a clinic – where long bouts of silence are not uncommon and little happens but everything important somehow gets said. Read more... |
Chuck Chuck Baby review - love among the feathersFriday, 19 July 2024
As Janis Pugh’s semi-autobiographical Chuck Chuck Baby draws to a close, the camera fondly plays around the smiling faces of some of its voiceless female characters – careworn middle-aged workers in a Welsh chicken processing factory. They're cheered by finally seeing something good happen to one of their number. Read more... |
More Than One Story review - nine helpings of provocative political theatreMonday, 15 July 2024
A stark end-title at the end of this collection of short films sums up the dire situation the UK is in: one in five people,14 million Britons, are now living in poverty. Read more... |
Longlegs review - like its titular killer, this summer's most hyped horror film leaves no traceSaturday, 13 July 2024
Apparently when actress Maika Monroe first saw Nicolas Cage in his full Longlegs get-up, her heart-rate skyrocketed to 170 bpm (her resting heart rate is 76). Or at least so a promotional video tells us. Read more... |
Sleep review - things that go bump in the nightFriday, 12 July 2024
The question Korean director Jason Yu is asking in this eerie little spine-tingler (his debut feature) is “how well do you know your partner?” He may also be inquiring whether or not you believe in life after death, while planting nagging seeds of doubt about the competence of the medical profession. Read more... |
Fly Me to the Moon review - NASA gets a Madison Avenue makeoverThursday, 11 July 2024
It’s over 50 years since men last landed on our orbiting space-neighbour, but director Greg Berlanti's Fly Me to the Moon transports us back to the feverish days in 1969 when Apollo 11 was about to tackle the feat for the first time. The film’s promo material rather misleadingly bills it as “a sparkling rom-com”, but it has a few other strings to its bow. Read more... |
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