Film Reviews

★★★★☆ Gaspar Noé surprised us all, when the Cannes Film Festival announced the world premiere of a new work from the controversial auteur of Irreversible (2002), Enter the Void (2009) and last year’s acclaimed horror movie, Climax. A medium-length film clocking in at 50 minutes, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beatrice Dalle, Lux Aeterna is classic Noé in its confrontational aesthetic prowess and equally a marked departure. Was Climax more than a just a movie title? Was it the end of...

★★☆☆☆ Albert Serra’s Liberté (2019) is set in the years leading up to the French Revolution. Banished from the court of King Louis XVI, a band of errant aristocrats flee to Germany, hoping they will find there a haven to safely practice their libertine philosophies. Across the border, the group makes the acquaintance of Duc de Walchen, who they believe might appreciate their outré tastes and understand the rebellious inclinations which drives them to outsider status among their social set....

★★☆☆☆ What makes Shaun of the Dead such an accomplished film is its combination of parody, comedy, and some genuinely well drawn characters. The Dead Don’t Die falls flat on all three fronts. This zombie comedy by Jim Jarmusch opened the Cannes Film Festival, but likely for its all star cast including Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton and Selena Gomez to walk the red carpet. Focused on small town Centreville, USA, polar fracking has caused the earth to jolt...

★☆☆☆☆ Pokemon is a genuine cultural phenomenon. It’s a franchise over 20 years old spanning across card and console games, TV shows, animated movies and other merchandise, grossing north of $90bn. I have never played or watched any of it before. I am certain that for fans who have followed the games, who devoured the TV show and the many movies, that Detective Pikachu - the franchise’s first official move into live action - connects with the things they have...

★★★★☆ The 1994 Criminal Justice Act gave police officers the power to shut down events at which music “wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats” was being played, a clearly personal attack at rave culture. This fact opens Beats, and is referred to throughout the Glasgow-set 90s drama. Placing those who pursue illegal raves against the government, the film grounds itself as a pean to a youth that as ever has every right to...

★☆☆☆☆ From Overboard (Rob Greenberg, 2018) to What Men Want (Adam Shankman, 2019) and everything else in between, it’s safe to say that gender switch comedy remakes have so far failed to come up with the goods in the laughter department. The latest gender flip comedy, if you can call a film with zero funny gags a comedy, is a riff on the deeply unfunny 1988 film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and stars Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson as two rival...

★★★☆☆ Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) is the youngest US Secretary of State in history and is preparing for a Presidential run, while her numbers are positive, she needs to up her humour score and so she’s looking for a joke writer to pump up her speeches. Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) has just quit his job after his left-wing online news site allow themselves to be bought out by a media conglomerate owned by Parker Wembley (an unrecognisable Andy Serkis). The...

★★★★☆ Nobody can deny that sometimes the simplest of high concept film ideas can be the most ingenious ones. In the case of Danny Boyle’s Yesterday, that idea is so obvious that you can’t help but wonder, why has nobody thought of it until now? Written by the indisputable king of British romantic comedy Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually), Yesterday stars BBC Eastenders’ actor Himesh Patel as a failed musician who wakes up in...

★★★★☆ High Life is a confronting, visceral and totally obscure deep space adventure, that’s likely to appeal to viewers who prefer their science fiction movies in a minimalist, slow-burn style. This film, directed by Claire Denis, has arthouse written all over it. There are no galaxy shoot outs or alien invasions here – just cryptic scenes of a criminal named Monte (Robert Pattinson), trying to survive on a prison ship while raising an infant girl, and the story focuses on...