Andrew Kendall

Tomatometer-approved critic

Biography:

Andrew Kendall is a university lecturer in literature and film who writes a weekly film column for leading local newspaper Stabroek News.

Publications: Stabroek News

Movie Reviews Only

Movies

T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
90%	Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)	Like the sound cue that opens it Far frmom Home meets every chance for sincere examination of emotion with a dismissive shrug or an irreverent joke, becoming a bland, exhausting product moonlighting as a movie. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 13, 2019
82%	Midsommar (2019)	How can an audience feel anything close to the catharsis of tragedy when Aster observes the characters within his story with such thinly veiled contempt? - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 6, 2019
64%	Annabelle Comes Home (2019)	It works best when it accepts that it is most interesting when it turns this occasional horror film into a story about Judy Warren's coming-of-age. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 6, 2019
55%	Ma (2019)	It's hard to root for the psychotic Ma but it's even harder to root for the teens she terrorises. So, you might find yourself rooting against them all - cast, director and production team. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 6, 2019
96%	Birds of Passage (Pájaros de verano) (2019)	Birds of Passage feels as essential and vital as the best of cultural critiques as it delivers a searing rumination on indigenous lives and the postcolonial malaise of the region. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 6, 2019
90%	John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)	The series is less effective when examining myths and stories so each glimpse into the machinations of the fearsome high table in Parbaellum/i> feels more leaden and tedious than exciting or provocative. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 15, 2019
90%	Rocketman (2019)	Rocketman should thrill with its blast off, searing itself in our memory for hours or days after. But when the credits roll it's too much like another song from Sir Elton: "It's easier to walk away." - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 15, 2019
23%	Dark Phoenix (2019)	Dark Phoenix may have smaller ambitions than its contemporaries, but it feels thoughtful and meditative in a way that left me moved when the credits rolled. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 15, 2019
41%	Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)	The real titan here Vera Farmiga, who harnesses her acting prowess to superheroic heights in the role of Dr Russell trying to force some sort of emotional resonance and sense from this thing. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 15, 2019
67%	Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)	Justice Smith as young Tim manages to deliver a charming and winning performance that exudes a realistic warmth amidst a film that seems divorced from the real world. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 25, 2019
95%	See You Yesterday (2019)	The film's rumination on grief does not always pair seamlessly with its spitfire teen comedy half but Bristol's debut film is all the more gnarly and compelling for this lack of seamlessness. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 25, 2019
81%	Molly's Game (2018)	Sorkin's lucky that Chastain is so in tune with this opaque character, telegraphing intelligence, anger, loathing and sadness through her eyes. The film is good. Chastain is great. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
76%	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)	Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle does not want to make a lasting impression, it just wants to divert your attention for a couple of hours. And at that, it is successful. Marginally. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
83%	Patti Cake$ (2017)	Patti Cake$ argues for the importance of the things that are familiar, lived in and regular. The actors get it, the writing gets it, and the original rap songs penned for the film get it. I believed every word. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
97%	Mudbound (2017)	Like the mud, it makes you feel dirty and you cannot wash it off. It's not a comfortable feeling, and it's not meant to be. Instead, Mudbound challenges you to identify with these broken people. And we do. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
97%	Oslo, August 31st (2012)	What resonates watching Oslo, August 31st in 2017 is the way private jubilation and despairs are completely removed from public ones. Regardless of our personal feelings, the world goes on without us... - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
90%	A Ghost Story (2017)	The point of this film is the isolation, the visceral mental strain of being alone and feeling alone. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
85%	Beach Rats (2017)	Beach Rats offers a searing glimpse of a life lived in desolation. Rarely fun to watch, but compelling. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
92%	A Quiet Passion (2017)	"A Quiet Passion" is not working to make us understand Emily, for Emily cannot understand herself. This Emily is no heroine, then, but simultaneously a banshee, recluse, jester, charmer and martyr. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
93%	Le passé (The Past) (2013)	We cannot really say that any of the characters is unjustified in their conceits. nstead he film's ability to empathise with its characters foibles - on all sides - becomes its profundity. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
87%	Blade Runner 2049 (2017)	Blade Runner 2049 works without the original film. It cultivates mood and atmosphere well. But the original Blade Runner remains in the margins, explicit and implicit, drawing focus. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
84%	Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)	Phantasm succeeds as a gloomy but not claustrophobic assessment of the superhero world that does not lose any of its panache for its seriousness. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
98%	The Big Sick (2017)	The film's end leaves us with the promise of that culture clash, which seems more exciting than its altogether too sanguine resolution. The Big Sick is not that film. But the congenial one we do get will do. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
85%	It (2017)	The film feels complete rather than like a "Part 1", and its climax feels earned. At the end, we believe it when these children seemed changed. They pass through the crucible of fear and come out the better for it. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
90%	The Harder They Come (1973)	The Harder They Come for all its populist appeal, though, forces the audience to confront our idea of respectability politics and the value of art in a Caribbean society. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
93%	War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)	The focussed nature of its vision is impressive but as the film marches, the slightness of its story moves from deliberate precision to repetitiveness. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
91%	Girls Trip (2017)	The film, in both explicit and implicit ways, is a necessary celebration of women as partners and not competitors. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
78%	Atomic Blonde (2017)	It is relentless in the way it makes its theme seep through to the audience. Its gritty depravity is overt and well distilled. It gets its point across. And that point will haunt you with its dissoluteness. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
92%	Dunkirk (2017)	It leans into the things Nolan likes: frenetic editing, proficient technical aspects, and a storyline that reads like a puzzle. The result is a film that affects but never charms, a solid but brittle film. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
79%	The Beguiled (2017)	The beauteous homes, the gorgeous gowns, the murmuring voices are only on the surface. The rot is on the inside. And it's the charmng surface that Coppola uses to subvert our expectations That's why we are beguiled. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
93%	Baby Driver (2017)	The film's conclusion, when it comes, suggests the reality that one cannot ever really ride off into the sunset. That ride off will forever be tinged by the carnage which came before, despite the glossy sheen. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
92%	Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)	Somewhere inside Homecoming, there is a better movie. A tighter, more effective one. The film we do have is fine, though, occasonally sluggish with an excellent performance from Tom Holland. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
93%	Wonder Woman (2017)	For the film to reach its conclusion Diana must be confronted by the limits and power of humankind. She must understand the wonder of humanity. And for the film to work, we must be in wonder of her. And we are. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
45%	Everything, Everything (2017)	Both a facile observation on teen love and a bland observaton on the dangers of protective parenting. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
66%	Alien: Covenant (2017)	The most beautiful sequences in the film are those which allow Scott to observe the world around him in its grandeur, focused more on thoughtful exploration than exposition. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
86%	The Lost City of Z (2017)	The Lost City of Z does not quite reach the apex of grace but its attempts to do so linger in the consciousness. Even when it fails to reach the excellence it aims for, it is moving. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
47%	Going in Style (2017)	It flirts with the dangers of the real world and is happy to nod to and momentarily invoke the zeitgeist but it ultimately decides to err on the side of safety. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
97%	The Ten Commandments (1956)	What makes this film work - something that religious films recently have completely lost the thread of - is that it's not a sermon. It appeals by being compelling regardless of your religious allegiances. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
43%	Ghost in the Shell (2017)	Ghost in the Shell might flirt with something profound but it's not really interested in digging beneath the surface. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
50%	Saban's Power Rangers (2017)	The story comes across as dutiful and buckles with a cast that though winsome never seems particularly united. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
75%	Kong: Skull Island (2017)	Try to remember the name of any character a day after, and you probably won't. You're not supposed to. The film does not care for any of them. Neither do we. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
71%	Beauty and the Beast (2017)	By the first song, it's clear we are witnessing a film that takes great pains to hew close to the original film in sycophantic deference. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
79%	All the Money in the World (2017)	Williams' performance is the film's key. At face value, it seems too florid for effectiveness; it beguiles you with its delivery and like a heavy mist it completely envelopes you. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
No Score Yet	Green Days by the River (2019)	Sudai Tafari carries the bulk of the film's weight on his shoulders achieving pathos sometimes wth just a glance and ensuring that the protagonist is always the most compelling figure on screen. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
56%	The Greatest Showman (2017)	What annoys me The Greatest Showman is that it is very much the idea of musicals that persons who don't watch musicals have. It is light and bubbly, inoffensive, and without much depth. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
84%	Darkest Hour (2017)	Despite the familiarity of its basic conceit, Wright has imbued the basic parts of the film with a verve that belies its focus and with winning technical proficiency. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
89%	You Were Never Really Here (2018)	The film is most effective in moments which negate logic and reality, avoiding the cerebral for a heady sensuality that's both beguiling and discomfiting. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
35%	I Feel Pretty (2018)	Even as it desperately clings to the most generic of beats, if features a performance from Michelle Williams on the edges of the screen providing some of the most effective belly-laughs of 2018. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
88%	The Post (2018)	This is smart, adult filmmaking that is wise and knowledgeable enough about its topic to make its drama into something that runs smoothly and efficiently. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019
90%	Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)	If Three Billboards suffers in its dramaturgical finesse, it's in its unwillingness to really take its characters to task. That the nastiness of the first act builds to such a meek ending feels disappointing. - Stabroek News EDIT Read More \| Posted May 21, 2019