While it’s filled with vivid, inventive images and while it touches on important themes such as family conflict, same sex relationships and environmental preservation, the Disney animated fantasy, Strange World isn’t as engaging as it might have been. It seems as if the filmmakers weren’t sure if they wanted to create an old school sci fi adventure like Journey To
Read moreGonzo sci fi comedy/drama Something in the Dirt sits at the low-budget, DIY end of the movie making spectrum. This is both a blessing and a curse as the film has a raw, freewheeling energy but also feels unfocused and leaves us with the gnawing sense that the opportunity for a much more interesting film has been missed. This is,
Read moreWriter/director Jordan Peele’s intriguingly off-kilter, socially conscious, genre-splicing horror films, Get Out and Us have been some of Hollywood’s more interesting offerings of recent years. They weren’t for everyone, though, as the plots of those films, especially Us, were a little murky and at times made us feel we were watching a jumble of ideas rather than a coherent story.
Read moreWith a guaranteed worldwide audience but also an amazingly finicky, near-fundamentalist fan base, helming a Star Wars film must be a very tantalising and yet daunting prospect for any director. After directing the mostly loved The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams takes back the reins from Rian Johnson who gave us the intriguingly off-beat but ultimately silly, The Last Jedi. With
Read moreFrom its plot to its dialogue to its action sequences and its overwrought clanging metallic soundtrack, Terminator: Dark Fate has been engineered to mimic the beloved early films, particularly Terminator 2: Judgement Day. While tightly-constructed, occasionally exciting and moderately inventive, this latest instalment in the 35-year-old franchise is just too familiar to really thrill. It starts encouragingly with a refreshing
Read moreAfter 11 years and a seemingly endless procession of ear drum and eyeball pummelling films, the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes to a close with the three-hour behemoth Avengers: Endgame. This collision of superhero action flick, high-tech sci-fi film, Tolkienesque fantasy epic and pompous Wagnerian myth has so far received reviews verging on the orgasmic with some
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