The recent Hollywood Godzilla and King Kong films have been enormous, lumbering, jokey, CGI onslaughts that have offered some impressive spectacle and monster porn but (smatterings of techno jargon aside) seem to have mostly been aimed at 12-year-olds. Despite a distinct lack of cinematic nutrition, they’ve been successful enough to spawn multiple sequels and now we have the latest effort,
Read moreClever, inventive, visually breathtaking and studded with gritty action sequences, the dystopian adventure, The Creator is one of the stronger cinematic sci fi offerings of recent times. Still, a few too many conspicuous film references, structural issues and superficial examination of key issues like artificial intelligence and American imperialism lessen its impact. In scenes reminiscent of the start of District
Read moreAfter a mere 13 years comes the first of apparently many sequels to James Cameron’s Avatar, the highest grossing film of all time. I had mixed feelings about the 2009 original which depicted the giant blue alien Na’vi people’s battle to preserve their home world of Pandora from greedy, destructive earth forces. While its central science fiction concept of people’s
Read moreThe first salvo in the Christmas movie wars for 2022, Violent Night unusually combines raunch comedy, hostage drama, violent (sometimes gory) action and the old redemption through the magic of Christmas fantasy. It’s a strange combo that recalls Die hard, Home Alone, Bad Santa and weirdly enough the skull-crunching Viking film The Norseman. David Harbour stars as a genuine Santa
Read moreThe moderately exciting, occasionally funny but mostly ridiculous Uncharted is based on a popular video game but this dubious mix of archaeological adventure and caper comedy owes just as much to a film like National Treasure. Uncharted is essentially a treasure hunt as bar tender and petty thief Nate Drake (Tom Holland) – a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, no
Read moreVenom, the latest addition to the Marvel Comics cinematic universe probably won’t be well known to non-comic fans although the main creature briefly appeared in Spider-Man 3. Venom is in fact an alien parasite that hitches a ride to earth aboard a spacecraft and arrives with nefarious intentions for us puny humans. Essentially a slimy goo monster, the creature can
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