Film Reviews

★★☆☆☆ It’s been a tumultuous decade for the X-men franchise, following the refreshing 2011 reboot, First Class, which saw the series revived after the dire X3, The Last Stand. The new cast led by James McAvoy & Micheal Fassbender followed this up with the even more acclaimed Days of Future Past. The cracks started to appear in 2016’s Apocalypse, but with the inevitable Disney Fox merger on the horizon, could the franchise sign off with one final stand (pun intended),...

★★★★☆ This third documentary feature from Asif Kapadia in some ways combines themes from his first two; the sporting adulation of Ayrton Senna, and the drug fuelled descents of Amy Winehouse. Diego Maradona opens with a car chase, combining with a electro beat to ground the audience in the high octane eighties. After a difficult spell at Barcelona, Argentinian superstar Diego Maradona has arrived at luckless Napoli, a team in Italy’s poorest city and without a single league title to...

If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind the closed gates of big corporate farming companies, you might find the truth even more shocking than you could have imagined. In a new documentary feature titled Eating Animals which is set to open this weekend, director Christopher Quinn attempts to lift the lid on the barbaric and secretive ongoings behind some of the biggest factory farming companies in the States and around the world. Adapted from American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer's...

See You Yesterday ★★★★☆ In the last year or so we have seen several films that suggest the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on cinema. See You Yesterday is something of a departure in that rather than sticking to a realistic setting it folds its message into a genre film. CJ (Eden Duncan-Smith) and her friend Sebastian (Dante Crichlow) are very, very smart. For their upcoming science fair, the pair have been working on - and have just...

★★★☆☆ Jade (Vicky Knight) is released from hospital, bearing the disfigurement caused by an acid attack perpetrated by her former partner and father to her child. As might be expected by the logline, this film is a tough watch that forces the viewer every moment to face up to the awfulness of this crime, as the protagonist must do for the rest of her life. Knight is able to give a raw and authentic performance as Jade, a character raised...

★★★★☆ Bill Nighy is left piecing together the mysteries of his son’s disappearance in British Scrabble comedy Sometimes Always Never. Board games are rarely a source of huge excitement but first time director Carl Hunter finds humour and emotional pain in this offbeat and surprising comic drama. Nighy’s characteristic deadpan delivery is brilliantly utilised in the role of Alan, a retired tailor who has spent decades searching for his lost son who left home abruptly during a game of Scrabble. His...

★★★☆☆ I entered the screening of Rocketman ignorant to Elton John’s life and work, and a little sceptical of the film’s accuracy (as I am with most biopics). Without the burden of knowledge of his past, I was free to enjoy the film unencumbered. From the trippy fantasy sequences to the emotional turmoil, it was a rollercoaster set to a score of Elton’s greatest hits. The entire score being music from a single artist is very restrictive when it comes to matching...

★★★★★ When news was announced of an iconic animation and personal childhood favourite being re-done  as a live-action film, there was scepticism over what value it could have and Disney's motivations. With Aladdin, these fears may be forgotten for what is an amazing piece of cinema.                The 1992 Aladdin has been a childhood staple for those born in the 80s and 90s. From its colourful  and dreamy city of Agrabah, it’s catching tunes such as  “Friend like me”,” Prince Ali” and the  Academy Award...

★★★★☆ With the festival over for another year, and the winner of the Palme D'or Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, I'm bringing some focus to a film I feel was one of the many hidden gems to be found at this year's festival (with quick shoutouts to My Brother's Love and the excellent Papicha). While the aforementioned films played in the Un Certain Regard competition, delightfully weird black comedy Deerskin (Le daim) came from the Director's fortnight and had an audience in...