Movie Reviews
Boulevard Review – Whilst Williams’s performance is deeply moving the lack of drama leaves you feeling cold.
With Boulevard, its main pulling attraction will be the fact it is being billed as Robin Williams last ever on-screen performance. Whilst his performance is very touching we can’t help feeling that the passion had already died with this flat script. Williams has certainly proved his worth in the drama arena in the past, delving deep into his dark and...
The Big Short Review – Exhaustingly Wordy but Outstanding Performances Bring Home the Bacon
Hollywood has done it again, taken, what at the time, was a devastating period of financial crisis and adapted it for the big screen and tied in a number of A-List actors in order to draw the crowds but does this make it any the more watchable? The Big Short is based on a true story and is an adaptation...
Les Miserables Review
Ladj Ly's feature directorial debut clings to the provocative nature of La Haine with empathy and ferocity. It may have the same title as Victor Hugo’s infamous story, but this French drama, apart from being set in the same area of Paris as a section of his novel, is in no way yet another adaptation. Doused in timely themes of...
Daddy’s Home 2 Review
Christmas is looming, for Hollywood there’s no better time to churn out the inane sequel with a virtually unoriginal transparent plot repeating itself, lacking in intelligent humour just to get a few bums on seats and at the same time wasting any talent their big named cast may have. What we have here is yet another lazy attempt at...
Assassin’s Creed Review
Director Justin Kurzel, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard on paper, have been seen as a dream team ever since their collaboration on 2015’s Macbeth. With the three teaming up again for the game adaptation of Assassin’s Creed excitement beyond belief murmured for something insanely amazing. We should never have held our breath for a beautiful delight as Assassin's Creed is...
Being the Ricardos Review
Writer/Director Aaron Sorkin’s love for a real-life story with his liberal twist gets the Hollywood treatment in his latest focusing on the American comedic 1950’s comic Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman). A behind the scenes look at one week in the starlet’s life, when tales of her philandering husband, Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) and her links to communism threaten her...
Studio 54 Review
In the late seventies, amongst the Manhattan elite comprising of mostly celebrities, the number one nightclub to be associated with was Studio 54. At its height, the hedonistic disco inferno was the place to be. Even to this day, those that were lucky enough to be let through the front doors of a former CBS TV Studio, dreamily cloud over in the excess of their memories of...
Vice Review
Filled to the brim with eye-opening power plays delivered with excellence. It’s a Vice that just kept on giving with frequently witty scenarios and liberal intelligence. In his latest, director Adam McKay takes a leaf out of his own structural efforts from The Big Short and planted them seamlessly into his latest ‘biographical’ move. He delves into the world of...
The Girl in the Spider’s Web Review
Claire Foy has swapped her Crown as Netflix’s Queen Elizabeth II to become one of the many faces of Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander. She’s a rampaging femme fatale whose latest mission becomes a whole lot more personal when she is forced to face her bleak and painful childhood in this stripped back, revenge fest.After seven years without Salander, the...
Phantom Thread Review
It’s almost criminal that Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread is Daniel Day-Lewis’s swansong. The award winning actor has taken method to levels of extremity and immersed himself into character after character with a passionate realism that embroils audiences to his pictures. In his final bow, Lewis brings to life Reynolds Woodcock’s 1950’s style and grace with an artist’s flair of confidence and disdain; giving a master class in believability in...
IT Chapter Two Review
A perfect casting can't defeat the curse of a repetitive narrative and an overzealous need for detail. Director Andy Muschietti is back to unfurl the second half of Stephen King’s classic novel, 27 years after the Loser’s club first encounter with the freakishly frightening clown of Derry, Pennywise. Even in adult form and problems of their own in their grown-up...
Black Mass DVD Review
James ‘Whitey’ Bulger was once one of the most wanted men on the FBI’s list, Black Mass, directed by Scott Cooper tells only a small part of this man’s life and his ‘Special’ relationship with the FBI and how it all started to go wrong for this once notorious Irish gangster. Johnny Depp takes on an amazing transformation in Black...
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Review
The a-holes are back with a big bang of colour and euphoric family bickering that falters with a little whimper, riding the tails of the first in order to make Vol. 2 an eggtastic success with the scene-stealing baby Groot and an emotionally touching shocker that tugs lightly at the heart strings as well as taking you by surprise.If...
Teen Titans Go! To the Movies Review
With the school holidays forced upon stressed-out parents, there truly is no better movie to bond over with your little darlings. Teen Titans Go! To The Movies – a feature-length movie spawned from the animated Cartoon Network series – is naturally silliness personified which instantly connects with both adults and the kids it’s aimed at. An active part of the cinematic DC universe, this is one route that finally works its fun magic.Whilst the rest of the DC superhero...
Journey’s End Review
RC’ Sheriff’s poignant war story has been adapted for the stage and film on numerous occasions over the years. In Saul Dibbs latest adaptation for the big screen, we are engulfed in a deeply affecting era of hope and despair on a personal and emotionally charged level. Stripping back to just the essentials and delving deep into the souls of those forced onto the front...
Free Guy Review
If you are familiar with Jim Carrey’s The Truman Show, then you already know the vibe Night at the Museum franchise director Shawn Levy is trying to portray with Free Guy. A film that stars the lovable Ryan Reynolds as an NPC (non-playable character to those not familiar with the gaming world) with all the humour you would expect...
Sing Street Review – Charmingly Irish, Funny Musical Coming of Age Story.
Sing Street takes us on a musical journey of 80’s Dublin, almost like a biographical story of writer and director John Carney’s own youth, taking his inspiration from his own teenage years growing up in Dublin. Struggling with his own identity, it’s a heart-warming coming of age story. In Sing Street, Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) comes from a fairly well-off family...
Finding Dory Review
13 years after the huge box office success back in 2003 of Finding Nemo comes it’s adorable and message driven sequel in the form of the that lovable forgetful fish Dory, in Finding Dory. Filled with delightful cuteness and lashings of laughter Pixar, have yet again, hit the animation jackpot. Even though the base storyline doesn’t venture further than Finding...
Tully Review
Post-natal depression is no laughing matter. Even in 2018 we hardly hear the cries of those mothers finding it a struggle to cope with day to day life after the birth of their bundle of joy. It’s a struggle many men dismiss as poppy-cock (as experienced from a fellow male critic at this particular screening); as they turn a blind eye to carry on with their conventional lives without the upheaval to their...
Playing With Fire Review
The physical comedy could be just the remedy to wash down all those Christmas leftovers, but let's face it, it’s not going to burn the house down. Pair a big tough ex-wrestler with a few mischievous kids together in a slapstick comedy and anyone would think you are on to a winner but there is no smoke without fire. John Cena’s...
The BFG Review
Nostalgia reigns in Stephen Spielberg’s film adaptation of the much loved writings of Roald Dahl. The BFG will connect not only with its younger audience but mostly with the parents who grew up with Dahl’s 1982 offering. Staying true to The BFG’s origin’s, Spielberg has created a film with magical wonder and tender grace which becomes a visual spectacle for...
Green Room Review – Gruesomely Gripping and Brutal.
For only his second outing, Director Jeremy Saulnier has cranked up the heat in Green Room not only has he shown a flare for gruesome brutality but has landed the likes of legendary veteran actor Patrick Stewart along with Imogen Poots and Anton Yelchin to deliver a skinhead vs rockers horror that will shake you to your very core. The...
Thor: Ragnarok Review
It’s been four years since the burly Norse god and friends last graced our screens, with a complete change in direction in a choice of a director with Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s Taika Waititi taking the helm, an air of anticipation arose how the third in the saga would pan out. Fear not, Waititi and his slapstick sense of...
Mechanic: Resurrection DVD Review
Jason Statham films are practically a genre of their own, with the same formula and conventions seeming to reoccur every time he takes the starring role. Mechanic Resurrection, a sequel to 2011’s The Mechanic, is Jason Statham’s 40th film since 1998. Statham is renowned for his no-nonsense, straight-talking, fist-to-face action hero and he reoccurs yet again in this sequel as...
Five Feet Apart Review
Commendably highlights the issues of Cystic Fibrosis sufferers, you’ll learn a thing or two about this illness as well as be sappily charmed. If there is one guarantee you could take from any teen romance where terminal illness is the villain of the piece, it’s the emotional rollercoaster any filmmaker is going to embed in its very foundations, take Josh Boone’s...
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood Review
Tarantino's love letter to Hollywood is rife with heady brilliance and controversy that will suck you in and spit you out. Ever since the announcement of Tarantino’s ninth and penultimate film, assumptions this would be focused on the infamous Manson Murders of the late 60’s early 70s’, where rife. It’s worth remembering this is a Tarantino fairytale, a love letter...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of The Shadows Review
One thing is for certain when it comes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows; it’s not about making a movie full of entertainment and gusto than making a movie as it’s a sure fire way of making a large amount of cash from the disillusioned kids of today. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows is...
Deepwater Horizon Review
There's always the conversation when Hollywood turns a real-life event into an epic blockbuster or Oscar-worthy drama: how much is true to life and how much has it been embellished or even completely rewritten for the entertainment of the masses? Then there's the issue of what the film industry decides to adapt, a lot of the events being sensitive subjects,...
Miss You Already DVD Review
Miss You Already, Surprisingly, is a tale of two lifelong friends who have never left each other sides which isn’t as humdrum and mundane as you would expect! With Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore taking the helm as mentioned best friends, this will tug at the heartstrings as well as make you laugh and smile. Miss You Already tells the...
Johnny English Strikes Again Review
There comes a time when filmmakers and studio’s alike need to make that decision, enough is enough. The latest comes from Rowan Atkinson’s haphazard calamity spy, Johnny English in the third film in the franchise. What we have here – yet again – is Mr Bean dressed up in an abundance of confidence, a flash suit with as much...