Skip to main content

Movie Reviews: 2010-2019

2019

Ad Astra
Aladdin
Alita: Battle Angel
Always Be My Maybe
Anna
Avengers: Endgame
Bait
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood
Bombshell
Booksmart
Captain Marvel
Cats
Color Out of Space
The Dead Don't Die
Doctor Sleep
Dolemite Is My Name
Domino
Dumbo
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
Frozen II
Gemini Man
Glass
Godzilla: King of Monsters
The Good Liar
Greed
Happy Death Day 2U
High Flying Bird
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Hustlers
I Am Mother
I Lost My Body (J'ai perdu mon corps)
In the Shadow of the Moon
Io: Last on Earth
The Irishman
It Chapter Two
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Jumanji: The Next Level
The Kid Who Would Be King
Klaus
Knives Out
The Laundromat
The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
Le Mans '66 aka Ford v Ferrari
The Lighthouse
The Lion King
Little Women
Long Shot
Marriage Story
Men in Black: International
Midsommar
Missing Link
Motherless Brooklyn
1917
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Parasite
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Pokemon Detective Pikachu
The Report
Richard Jewell
Rocketman
The Secret Life of Pets 2
Serenity
Shazam!
6 Underground
The Souvenir
Spider-Man: Far From Home
Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker
Terminator: Dark Fate
Toy Story 4
Triple Frontier
The Two Popes
Uncut Gems
Us
Velvet Buzzsaw
The Wandering Earth
X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Yesterday

2018 

Alpha
Annihilation
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Apostle
Aquaman
Avengers: Infinity War
Bad Times at the El Royale
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
Bird Box
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
Bumblebee
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Cold War
Deadpool 2
Early Man
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
If Beale Street Could Talk
Mute
Black Panther
The Christmas Chronicles
The Cloverfield Paradox
The Commuter
Crazy Rich Asians
Creed II
Death Wish
Den of Thieves
Destroyer
Dragged Across Concrete
The Equalizer 2
The Favourite
First Man
Game Night
The Girl in the Spider's Web
Green Book
The Grinch
Gringo
Halloween
Hereditary
Hold the Dark
Hotel Artemis
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Leave No Trace
Mandy
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Mary Poppins Returns
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
The Meg
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Mortal Engines
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle
The Mule
Ocean's 8
The Other Side of the Wind
They Shall Not Grow Old
Outlaw/King
The Predator
A Quiet Place
Ready Player One
Red Sparrow
Robin Hood
Roma
Sicario 2: Soldado
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Sorry to Bother You
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
The Spy Who Dumped Me
Stan & Ollie
A Star is Born
Suspiria
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead
Tomb Raider
Tully
Under the Silver Lake
Upgrade
Venom
Vice
Welcome to Marwen
White Boy Rick
Widows
Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2017

Aftermath
Alien: Covenant
All the Money in the World
American Made
Atomic Blonde
Baby Driver
Beast
Beauty and the Beast
The Big Sick
Blade Runner 2049
The Book of Henry
Brawl in Cell Block 99
Bright
Call Me by Your Name
Coco
The Current War
Darkest Hour
The Death of Stalin
Despicable Me 3
Detroit
The Discovery
Dunkirk
Fast & Furious 8
Fifty Shades Darker
First Reformed
The Florida Project
The Foreigner
The Founder
Get Out
Ghost in the Shell
Good Time
The Greatest Showman
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Happy Death Day
The Hitman's Bodyguard
I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
It
I, Tonya
Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond
John Wick: Chapter 2
Journey's End
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Justice League
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Kong: Skull Island
Lady Bird
The LEGO Batman Movie
Life
Logan
Logan Lucky
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Molly Brown
mother!
Mudbound
The Mummy
Murder on the Orient Express
Okja
Only the Brave
Paddington 2
Phantom Thread
Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge
The Post
Roman J. Israel, Esq.
The Shape of Water
The Snowman
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Suburbicon
Thor: Ragnarok
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
Transformers: The Last Knight
T2 Trainspotting
The Upside
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
War Machine
War of the Planet of the Apes
Wind River
Wonder Woman
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage
You Were Never Really Here

2016

The Accountant
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Allied
American Pastoral
The Angry Birds Movie
Arrival
Assassin's Creed
The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Bad Santa 2
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years
Ben-Hur
The BFG
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
Blood Father
Captain America: Civil War
Captain Fantastic
Central Intelligence
Collateral Beauty
Colossal
The Conjuring 2
Criminal
A Cure for Wellness
The Dark Tower
Deadpool
The Divergent Series: Allegiant
Doctor Strange
Don't Breathe
Eddie the Eagle
The Edge of Seventeen
Elle
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Fences
The 5th Wave
Finding Dory
Florence Foster Jenkins
Free Fire
Ghostbusters
Gimme Danger
The Girl on the Train
The Girl with All the Gifts
Gods of Egypt
The Great Wall
Hacksaw Ridge
Hail, Caesar!
The Handmaiden
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
The Huntsman: Winter's War
Ice Age: Collision Course
Independence Day: Resurgence
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Jane Got a Gun
Jason Bourne
The Jungle Book
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Kubo and the Two Strings
Kung Fu Panda 3
Hell or High Water
A Hologram for the King
Lady Macbeth
La La Land
The Legend of Tarzan
The Light Between Oceans
Lion
London Has Fallen
The Lost City of Z
Love & Friendship
The Magnificent Seven
Manchester by the Sea
Me Before You
Midnight Special
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Miss Sloane
Moana
Money Monster
Moonlight
The Neon Demon
The Nice Guys
Nine Lives
Nocturnal Animals
Now You See Me 2
O.J.: Made in America
One More Time with Feeling
Our Kind of Traitor
Passengers
Paterson
Pete's Dragon
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Rules Don't Apply
The Secret Life of Pets
Silence
Sing
Snowden
Spectral
Split
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad
Supersonic
Swiss Army Man
10 Cloverfield Lane
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi
13th
Toni Erdmann
Train to Busan
Triple 9
Trolls
Warcraft: The Beginning
War Dogs
War on Everyone
X-Men: Apocalypse
Zoolander 2
Zootropolis

2015

The Age of Adeline
American Ultra
Amy
Anomalisa
Ant-Man
Avengers: Age of Ultron
A Bigger Splash
The Big Short
Blackhat
Black Mass
Bone Tomahawk
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
By the Sea
Carol
Chappie
Child 44
Christmas with the Coopers
Cinderella
Concussion
Creed
Crimson Peak
De Palma
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
The Dressmaker
Ex Machina
Eye in the Sky
Fantastic Four
Far from the Madding Crowd
Fifty Shades of Grey
Focus
Forsaken
45 Years
Furious 7
The Gift
The Good Dinosaur
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Goosebumps
Green Room
The Gunman
The Divergent Series: Insurgent
The Hateful Eight
High-Rise
Home
Hotel Transylvania 2
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
Inside Out
Insidious: Chapter 3
In the Heart of the Sea
The Invitation
It Follows
Joy
Jupiter Ascending
Jurassic World
Knight of Cups
Krampus
The Last Witch Hunter
Legend
Life
The Lobster
Macbeth
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
The Martian
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
Minions
Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
Mordecai
Mr. Holmes
The Night Before
No Escape
Our Brand is Crisis
Pan
The Peanuts Movie
Point Break
Poltergeist
The Revenant
Ricki and the Flash
Rock the Kasbah
Room
Sicario
Slow West
Solace
Son of Saul
Southpaw
Spectre
Spooks: The Greater Good
Spotlight
Spy
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Straight Outta Compton
Steve Jobs
Suffragette
Sully
Survivor
Tale of Tales
Terminator Genisys
Tomorrowland: A World Beyond
Truth
Victor Frankenstein
The Walk
The Witch
Youth
Z for Zachariah

2014

The Amazing Spider-Man 2
American Sniper
Automata
The Babadook
Bad Neighbours (aka Neighbors)
Before I Go to Sleep
Big Eyes
Big Hero 6
Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Black Sea
The Boxtrolls
Boyhood
Burying the Ex
Calvary
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Chef
Citizenfour
Cold in July
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Deliver Us from Evil
Divergent
Dracula Untold
Draft Day
The Drop
The Duke of Burgundy
Earth to Echo
Edge of Tomorrow
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
The Equalizer
Exodus: Gods and Kings
The Expendables 3
The Fault in Our Stars
Force Majeure
Foxcatcher 
Frank
Fury
The Gambler
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
The Giver
Godzilla
Gone Girl
Good Kill
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Guardians of the Galaxy
The Guest
Heaven is for Real
Hercules
The Hobbit - Extended Editions
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
The Homesman
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
The Imitation Game
Inherent Vice
Interstellar
Into the Woods
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Jersey Boys
John Wick
The Judge
Kill the Messenger
Kingsman: The Secret Service
The Lego Movie
Leviathan
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau
Love is Strange
Lost River
Lucy
Magic in the Moonlight
Maleficent
Maps to the Stars
The Maze Runner
Million Dollar Arm
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Mr. Turner
Monsters: Dark Continent
The Monuments Men
A Most Violent Year
A Most Wanted Man
Muppets Most Wanted
Need for Speed
A New York Winter's Tale
Nightcrawler
Noah
Non-Stop
One by One
Paddington
Penguins of Madagascar
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch, Reflecting on Existence
Pompeii 
Predestination
The Raid 2
The Rewrite
Ride Along
Rio 2
Robocop
The Rover
Sabotage
Selma
'71
Sex Tape
Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
The Skeleton Twins
Space Station 76
Still Alice
Stretch
St. Vincent
Taken 3
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Theory of Everything
3 Days to Kill
300: Rise of an Empire
Transcendence
22 Jump Street
Two Days, One Night
The Two Faces of January
Unbroken
Vampire Academy
The Voices
Whiplash
Wild
X-Men: Days of Future Past
A Walk Among the Tombstones
What We Do in the Shadows
While We're Young

2013

2012

2011

Young Adult


2010


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lieutenant, you run this station like chicken night in Turkey.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) (SPOILERS) You can’t read a review of Assault on Precinct 13 with stumbling over references to its indebtedness – mostly to Howard Hawks – and that was a preface for me when I first caught it on Season Three of BBC2’s Moviedrome (I later picked up the 4Front VHS). In Precinct 13 ’s case, it can feel almost like an attempt to undercut it, to suggest it isn’t quite that original, actually, because: look. On the other hand, John Carpenter was entirely upfront about his influences (not least Hawks), and that he originally envisaged it as an outright siege western (rather than an, you know, urban one). There are times when influences can truly bog a movie down, if it doesn’t have enough going for it in its own right. That’s never the case with Assault on Precinct 13 . Halloween may have sparked Carpenter’s fame and maximised his opportunities, but it’s this picture that really evidences his style, his potential and his masterful facility with music.
Post a Comment
Read more

The wolves are running. Perhaps you would do something to stop their bite?

The Box of Delights (1984) If you were at a formative age when it was first broadcast, a festive viewing of The Box of Delights  may well have become an annual ritual. The BBC adaptation of John Masefield’s 1935 novel is perhaps the ultimate cosy yuletide treat. On a TV screen, at any rate. To an extent, this is exactly the kind of unashamedly middle class-orientated bread-and-butter period production the corporation now thinks twice about; ever so posh kids having jolly adventures in a nostalgic netherworld of Interwar Britannia. Fortunately, there’s more to it than that. There is something genuinely evocative about Box ’s mythic landscape, a place where dream and reality and time and place are unfixed and where Christmas is guaranteed a blanket of thick snow. Key to this is the atmosphere instilled by director Renny Rye. Most BBC fantasy fare doe not age well but The Box of Delights is blessed with a sinister-yet-familiar charm, such that even the creakier production decisi
Post a Comment
Read more

White nights getting to you?

Insomnia (2002) (SPOILERS) I’ve never been mad keen on Insomnia . It’s well made, well-acted, the screenplay is solid and it fits in neatly with Christopher Nolan’s abiding thematic interests, but it’s… There’s something entirely adequateabout it. It isn’t pushing any kind of envelope. It’s happy to be the genre-bound crime study it is and nothing more, something emphasised by Pacino’s umpteenth turn as an under-pressure cop.
Post a Comment
Read more

We got two honkies out there dressed like Hassidic diamond merchants.

The Blues Brothers (1980) (SPOILERS) I had limited awareness of John Belushi’s immense mythos before  The Blues Brothers arrived on retail video in the UK (so 1991?) My familiarity with SNL performers really began with Ghostbusters ’ release, which meant picking up the trail of Jake and Elwood was very much a retrospective deal. I knew Animal House , knew Belushi’s impact there, knew 1941 (the Jaws parody was the best bit), knew Wired was a biopic better avoided. But the minor renaissance he, and they, underwent in the UK in the early ’90s seemed to have been initiated by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, of all things; Everybody Needs Somebody was part of their That Sounds Good to Me medley, the first of their hits not to make No.1, and Everybody ’s subsequent single release then just missed the Top Ten. Perhaps it was this that hastened CIC/Universal to putting the comedy out on video. Had the movie done the rounds on UK TV in the 80s? If so, it managed to pass me by. Even bef
Post a Comment
Read more

I dreamed about a guy in a dirty red and green sweater.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (SPOILERS) I first saw A Nightmare on Elm Street a little under a decade after its release, and I was distinctly underwhelmed five or so sequels and all the hype. Not that it didn’t have its moments, but there was an “It’ll do” quality that reflects most of the Wes Craven movies I’ve seen. Aside from the postmodern tease of A New Nightmare – like Last Action Hero , unfairly maligned – I’d never bothered with the rest of the series, in part because I’m just not that big a horror buff, but also because the rule that the first is usually the best in any series, irrespective of genre, tends to hold out more often than not. So now I’m finally getting round to them, and it seemed only fair to start by giving Freddy’s first another shot. My initial reaction holds true.
Post a Comment
Read more

Maybe he had one too many peanut butter and fried banana sandwiches.

3000 Miles to Graceland (2001) (SPOILERS) The kind of movie that makes your average Tarantino knockoff look classy, 3000 Miles to Graceland is both aggressively unpleasant and acutely absent any virtues, either as a script or a stylistic exercise. The most baffling thing about it is how it attracted Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell, particularly since both ought to have been extra choosy at this point, having toplined expensive bombs in the previous half decade that made them significantly less bankable names. And if you’re wondering how this managed to cost the $62m reported on Wiki, it didn’t; Franchise Pictures, one of the backers, was in the business of fraudulently inflating budgets .
Post a Comment
Read more

He must have eaten a whole rhino horn!

Fierce Creatures (1997) (SPOILERS) “ I wouldn’t have married Alyce Faye Eicheberger and I wouldn’t have made Fierce Creatures.” So said John Cleese , when industrial-sized, now-ex gourmand Michael Winner, of Winner’s Dinners , Death Wish II and You Must Be Joking! fame (one of those is a legitimate treasure, but only one) asked him what he would do differently if he could live his life again. One of the regrets identified in the response being Cleese’s one-time wife (one-time of two other one-time wives, with the present one mercifully, for John’s sake, ongoing) and the other being the much-anticipated Death Fish II , the sequel to monster hit A Fish Called Wanda. Wanda was a movie that proved all Cleese’s meticulous, focus-group-tested honing and analysis of comedy was justified. Fierce Creatures proved the reverse.
Post a Comment
Read more

How do you melt somebody’s lug wrench?

Starman (1984) (SPOILERS) John Carpenter’s unlikely SF romance. Unlikely, because the director has done nothing before or since suggesting an affinity for the romantic fairy tale, and yet he proves surprisingly attuned to Starman ’s general vibes. As do his stars and Jack Nitzsche, furnishing the score in a rare non-showing from the director-composer. Indeed, if there’s a bum note here, it’s the fairly ho-hum screenplay; the lustre of Starman isn’t exactly that of making a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but it’s very nearly stitching together something special from resolutely average source material.
Post a Comment
Read more

You absolute horror of a human being.

As Good as it Gets (1997) (SPOILERS) James L Brooks’ third Best Picture Oscar nomination goes to reconfirm every jaundiced notion you had of the writer-director-producer’s capacity for the facile and highly consumable, low-cal, fast-food melodramatic fix with added romcom lustre. Of course, As Good as it Gets was a monster hit, parading as it does Jack in a crackerjack, attention-grabbing part. But it’s a mechanical, suffocatingly artificial affair, ponderously paced (a frankly absurd 139 minutes) and infused with glib affirmations and affections. Naturally, the Academy lapped that shit up, because it reflects their own lack of depth and perception (no further comment is needed than Titanic winning the big prize for that year).
Post a Comment
Read more

Remember. Decision. Consequence.

Day Break (2006) (SPOILERS) Day Break is the rare series that was lucky to get cancelled. And not in a mercy-killing way. It got to tell its story. Sure, apparently there were other stories. Other days to break. But would it have justified going there? Or would it have proved tantalising/reticent about the elusive reason its protagonist has to keep stirring and repeating? You bet it would. Offering occasional crumbs, and then, when it finally comes time to wrap things up, giving an explanation that satisfies no one/is a cop out/offers a hint at some nebulous existential mission better left to the viewer to conjure up on their own. Best that it didn’t even try to go there.
Post a Comment
Read more