Film Reviews

In the same week that Sergio Leone’s classic western A Fistful of Dollars is rereleased, Indonesian director Mouly Surya brings us a subversive reworking the genre and its masculinised tropes. Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts opens on the island of Sumba where Marlina (Marsha Timothy) is mourning the death of her husband. A group of seven men, led by the grey haired Markus (Egy Fedly), arrive at her home intent on raping her and taking her livestock. Before the...

Loosely based on the video game series of the same name and staring the force of nature that is the mighty Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Rampage had all the makings of yet another meat-headed, big, brash and silly disaster movie, so it was a genuine surprise to find out just how much fun this movie has turned out to be. With the recent release of the hugely disappointing sequel to Guillermo de Toro’s Pacific Rim which left more than a...

While LGBTQ stories have found their rightful place within the safety of indie cinema for a while now — the success of Call Me By Your Name this year, and Moonlight in 2017 can attest to this — the same cannot be said about the visibility of non-stereotypical gay characters in mainstream productions, especially in those aimed at younger audiences. However, with the arrival of Love, Simon, Greg Berlanti's heartwarming tale about a teenage gay romance, things seem to be...

120 BPM (Beats Per Minute) is a French drama film by Robin Campillo, focusing on the actions of ACT UP Paris, a direct-action movement looking to effect change in the fight against the Aids epidemic of the 1990s. The film is moving, combining triumph, failure and bliss to create a sensitive portrait of the young, fearless and fear-filled ensemble. Campillo, who scripted Laurent Cantet’s 2008 Palme-winning The Class, here writes & directs, and he does so with a certain amount...

Playing out as a nostalgic fable and set predominately in 1977, Wonderstruck follows Ben (Oakes Fegley), a ten year old boy who loses his hearing after being struck by lightning. Following the death of his mother (Michelle Williams), he decides to travel to New York and track down the father he has never known. Meanwhile in 1922, a young girl called Rose (Millicent Simmonds) - who is deaf - runs away from her father’s New Jersey home and goes in...

There is a tremendous tradition of British ghost stories that goes as far back as writers such as Charles Dickens, M. R. James, and Jerome K. Jerome. It is a practice that has been kept alive and built upon over the years, and Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dyson’s adaptation of their successful stage play, Ghost Stories, adds to this custom. Andy Nyman plays Professor Philip Goodman, a lecturer and celebrity debunker of paranormal activity – imagine Darren Brown with less...

In A Quiet Place, actor turned director John Krasinski (The Office, Detroit) transports us into a hellish post-apocalyptic world in which silence has become humanity’s only chance of survival. Written by Krasinski, who also stars alongside Emily Blunt (who is married to Krasinski in real life), the film is a high concept “creature feature” which pits a family of four against deadly monsters that hunt by sound, and is perhaps one of the scariest and most engaging films of its...

Pre-teen Barbara (Madison Wolfe) defends her sleepy new-jersey town from the perils of menacing giants whilst struggling with her own personal trauma in Anders Walter’s fantasy-drama debut feature, I Kill Giants. Directed by Anders Walter and coming from comic book writer and penciller Joe Kelly’s (whose previous work includes involvement in Marvel comic heavyweights Deadpool and X-men) graphic novel of the same name, I Kill Giants, like a cool drink of water on a hot day, is a refreshing piece...

The classics of his heyday – the Terminators and the Predators – are always going to be the titles that people reflect upon of when they think of the name Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it is arguably in the years since returning to the big screen after his extended political absence that we’ve seen some of the Austrian Oak’s more interesting works. By contrast, this intensely soporific screwball comedy from SNL alum Taran Killam (who writes & directs here) is unlikely...