Film Reviews

★★★☆☆ We left the Avengers in a cloud of dust that used to be their friends and fellow heroes, snapped out of existence along with half the living creatures in the universe. We meet them again a few weeks later, attempting to pick up the pieces, to try once more to retrieve the infinity stones from Thanos and reverse his seemingly final victory. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has produced a few very good films, some very bad ones and a...

Greta ★★★☆☆ Dir: Neil Jordan When Frances McCullen (Chloe Grace Moretz) returns a handbag she found on the subway, she becomes friends with a lonely older woman named Greta (Isabelle Huppert). When she discovers some disturbing things about Greta and tries to cut off contact, Frances finds that her new friend isn’t so easy to shake. Neil Jordan’s first film since the underseen Byzantium is a bit of a throwback. 90s nostalgia is in at the moment, and this film...

★★☆☆☆ Italian director Paolo Sorrentino charts the dealings and plotting of Italian businessman and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in his latest film Loro. The film begins not with the notorious politician but with the young and self-assured Sergio Morra (Riccardo Scamarcio), who traffics escorts and bribes politicians in the small coastal city of Taranto. Sergio has grand plans and in an attempt to get the attention of the country’s most powerful person he hires a villa next to Berlusconi’s and...

★★★★☆ From Superbad to The Wolf of Wall Street, Jonah Hill has long proven to be a comedic maestro, but with his debut feature Mid90s, he’s reinvented himself as a serious voice in cinema. This film takes viewers on a nostalgic trip back to 90s L.A., where 13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) befriends a group of rowdy skateboarders. Over one summer, he gets his first taste of freedom and learns a handful of life lessons along the way. Mid90s is not...

★☆☆☆☆ It’s probably best to establish, right up front, my engagement with Mike Mignola’s character, Hellboy. I never read the comics, so my only knowledge of the character comes from the two films made by Guillermo Del Toro in 2004 and 2008. I understand that Mignola was happy with them, but I have no idea whether those films or this one cleave closer to his work. Nor do I especially care. A film adaptation is a work distinct from a...

★★☆☆☆ In Little, director Tina Gordon presents a deeply contrived, narratively flawed and criminally mirthless high concept comedy about a female tech boss who is transformed into her younger self when the pressures of being an adult become too much to handle. Starring Regina Hall, Issa Rae and Marsai Martin (the child actor from the TV show Black-ish), Little first made the headlines when it was revealed that Martin, who came up with the idea for the film after watching...

Glaswegian Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) has just got out of prison after a 12 month sentence. Returning home, she’s greeted by her mother Marion (Julie Walters), who has been looking after her two young kids. She takes a job as a cleaner, but all Rose-Lynn really wants is to go to Nashville to be a country singer. When her employer Susannah (Sophie Okonedo) offers to help, it seems that opportunities might be opening up, but also that life might get...

Braid ★★★★★ Dir: Mitzi Peirone Petula and Tilda (Imogen Waterhouse and Sarah Hay), on the run from the law and saddled with a debt to their dealer, decide to rob an old friend, Daphne (Madeline Brewer). To do so they must fall back into the roles they played in childhood games, returning to a fantasy world in which Daphne still lives. It’s a slightly bizarre plot, but that summary only hints at the gleeful level of crazy that pervades Mitzi...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpautDk-uMM Alenya Wood and Abu Ali of the Silver Screen Show discuss Tim Burton's live action remake of Disney classic Dumbo, in cinemas across the UK now.