Film Reviews

Filmmakers have a strange habit of allowing the most horrific events to take place in the most beautiful of surroundings. This is most certainly the case with Sicilian Ghost Story, which is set in the woodlands and lakes that border one of the titular island’s small towns. The film centres around Giuseppe (Gaetano Fernandez), a 13 year old boy, and Luna (Julia Jedlikowska), a spirited girl in his class who has taken a liking to him. Giuseppe is sensitive and...

Dominic Savage delivers a noble if somewhat tepid character study of a desperate housewife in The Escape. Tara (Gemma Arterton) is a married mother of two.  She lives in the quiet, dull rabbit hutches of suburban London.  It is a lonely existence, and despite her family, she is isolated.  Her husband, Mark (Dominic Cooper), is the self-absorbed breadwinner, a man blind to his partner’s immeasurable unhappiness.  For Tara, life is a cycle of monotonous routine, the school run, the weekly...

I have no rhythm and I can’t carry a note, let alone a tune, but still, I love music. As much as I love music in and of itself, as something to listen to while I’m writing a review for instance, it’s at gigs that I find myself most transported and engaged by an artist. A great gig is unifying; for the three minutes of THAT song that you and the rest of the crowd have waited for, everyone is...

They say that size doesn’t matter, but that’s unlikely to be of much consolation to the makers of Ant-Man and The Wasp. For having been requisitioned to follow on from the gargantuan critical and commercial success of both Black Panther & Avengers: Infinity War, there’s no denying that, true to the heroes of its title, this 20th instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels a little, well… diminutive. The story follows on from the events of Captain America: Civil War,...

In the list of things no sane person has ever wanted, the third instalment of the Hotel Transylvania franchise is right up there with Trump’s recent visit to the UK. It’s expensive, pointless and fails to bring anything of value to anyone’s life. However whether we like it or not, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is here and this time, the awfulness is dialled up to 200% with the addition of a truly detestable soundtrack packed full of loud and obnoxious...

Despite passing them on the street almost every day, I’ve rarely given Jehovah’s Witnesses much thought. It is easy to look past them and continue with your daily routine. In many respects, Apostasy, the debut feature from former Witness Daniel Kokoajilo, was the first time I had ever really thought about the religion. The film is set within a Jehovah’s Witness community in Oldham. Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) and her two daughters Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) and Alex (Molly Wright) are active member...

Felix Randau delivers with his satisfying, Chalcolithic revenge thriller Iceman. For those who have been waiting on a wing and a prayer for part two of The Revenant, Iñàrritu’s two and half hour DiCaprio driven epic about a fur trading frontiersmanslogging his way through the wilds of North American after being mauled by a bear to seek revenge on the man who killed his son, the wait may well be over.  Felix Randau’s Iceman is leaner, if not quite meaner,...

For decades, the Soviet Union was the staple movie boogeyman. Spy films, sci-fi, action movies and more often had an accented bad guy from mother Russia (or an alien analogue for one), the spectre of the all encompassing evil of communism. Then Rocky punched communism and over the next few years it began to crumble, first the Berlin wall, then the USSR itself. Culture moved on, we found new boogeymen. Now though, Russia is back in the news, espionage is...

Name three action film heroes? You probably went for… Bond, Bourne and McClane. Or maybe The Rock? Perhaps however it is time to re-consider Ethan Hunt. Tom Cruise has played Ethan Hunt since 1996. 22 years and six films later we arrive at Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Surely this once rebooted character from a short lived 1960/70s US TV show cannot still be around? Cannot still be relevant? Or even be interesting? Well yes, actually, because Mission: Impossible - Fallout is...