Film Reviews

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...

While talking dogs have long been a cinematic gimmick, they have never been as affectionately rendered as in Wes Anderson’s latest animation Isle of Dogs. The film is set 20 years in the future and takes place within a dystopian Japan. Following an executive decree from Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura), all dogs suffering from canine flu are exiled to a remote island where decades of rubbish have been dumped. When the Mayor’s adopted nephew Atari (Koyu Rankin) sees his loyal...

J. K. Simmons stars in this heartfelt indie-drama focusing on loss and grief. Simmons plays Bill Palet, an ageing Maths teacher and recent widower after 30 years of marriage. Bill’s adolescent and sensitive son Wes (Josh Wiggins) is also struggling to come to terms with his mother’s sudden and early death. They uproot their lives in San Francisco and travel to Los Angeles where Bill has taken a job at a private school run by his old college friend Paul...

2045 AD. The deceased James Halliday (Mark Rylance) has left his massive fortune inside his defining creation: OASIS, the massive virtual universe people use to escape from the crumbling real world. Halliday left clues on how to inherit his worth that are related to his own insular upbringing, so only the most obsessed with 80's video games and films will find the needed 'Easter egg'. It is up to the ordinary 'gunters' to find it before the monopolistic IOI, who...

Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe’s documentary, MAMIL: Middle Aged Men in Lycra, about middle-aged male cycling enthusiasts is no tour de force. Coming from directing duo Nickolas Bird and Eleanor Sharpe, MAMIL, which divides its time between the many physical iterations of its acronym (Middle Aged Men In Lycra) dotted across the globe, is one of those rare films that keeps you glued to the screen in sick fascination, and not because it stars a cast of middle aged men...