Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2/5 | 0% | Overdrive (2017) |
Overdrive provides just enough crash-and-burn stunt action to satisfy undemanding thrill-seekers, but not much else.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Aug 11, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 84% | Godzilla Resurgence (Shin Godzilla) (2016) |
With the titular beast onscreen for just a fraction of the two-hour runtime, those outside Japan may feel that this latest incarnation of Godzilla is a lot less fun than it should be.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Aug 7, 2017
|
| 4/5 | 92% | Williams (2017) |
Motor-racing may still be a man's world, but this account of a strong woman's triumph reveals a very personal and affecting hidden story.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jul 31, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 30% | American Hero (2015) |
The metaphor of superpowers equalling sober potential is good, but the careless development would barely fill a ten-minute short, making American Hero something of a slog.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jul 3, 2017
|
| 4/5 | No Score Yet | Teenage Superstars (2017) |
Recent interviews with most of the protagonists weave a complex narrative of fame, failure and fatigue, narrated in a very un-Scottish drawl by Kim Deal from The Breeders / Pixies.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2017
|
| 2/5 | No Score Yet | Modern Life Is Rubbish (2017) |
Gill's debut offers nothing but incessant needle-drops instead of drama; modern life may be rubbish, but there's no need for modern romances to be so utterly naff.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2017
|
| 4/5 | No Score Yet | The Last Photograph (2017) |
Huston has conjured up a tough but rewarding story of real-life pain and hard-won healing.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 26, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 68% | Cars 3 (2017) |
It's basically one long training montage, from about ten minutes in until ten minutes from the end.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 26, 2017
|
| 4/5 | 90% | A Man Called Ove (En man som heter Ove) (2016) |
Morals about moving on from the past and embracing new friends might have seemed pat if Holm's film were not so deft in the pithy observations it makes about life's random, too-often cruel nature.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 26, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 45% | Rock Dog (2017) |
A weird and not particularly wonderful animation for children.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 12, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 21% | The Shack (2017) |
Although director Stuart Hazeldine's drama preaches to the converted, it retains the simple strengths which made the book so widely read.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 6, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 46% | Wilson (2017) |
It's to Harrelson's credit that Wilson's occasional charm just about outweighs the unpleasant aspects of his character for most of the 94-minute runtime, as he staggers through one excruciatingly painful situation after another.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2017
|
| 5/5 | 94% | The Red Turtle (La tortue rouge) (2017) |
A breathtaking debut feature, simply drawn, rich in texture, and warm of heart.‐ The List
Read More | Posted May 22, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 30% | A Dog's Purpose (2017) |
The veteran director gives a professional gloss to A Dog's Purpose, but all the skill in the world can't make this dog's dinner palatable.‐ The List
Read More | Posted May 1, 2017
|
| 4/5 | 97% | Burden (2017) |
What makes this work as cinema is that Burden's creations have such visual power. The artist may be gone but, on the screen, he lives forever.‐ The List
Read More | Posted May 1, 2017
|
| 4/5 | No Score Yet | Po zakonu (By the Law) (Dura Lex) (Troye) (1926) |
By the Law is essentially a three hander, played in the familiar silent style of wide-eyes and grand gestures; by stripping Edith's backstory out of London's story, Kuleshov's characters seem to have been fashioned to carry an obvious political message.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 51% | The Boss Baby (2017) |
As a movie, The Boss Baby just doesn't have the kind of lovable concept that makes for a great family animation, although Baldwin's vocal performance raises a few indulgent smiles.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Mar 28, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 28% | Don't Knock Twice (2017) |
Professionally mounted, but too familiar to provide anything other than routine jump-scares.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Mar 27, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 100% | The Age of Shadows (2016) |
The Age of Shadows has a steely verve and baroque style that recalls the classic Warners gangster movies of the 1930s, even if the microscopic detail often threatens to derail the narrative.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Mar 20, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 53% | Mad to Be Normal (2017) |
Mullan's partial fabrication of Laing's well-documented story robs Mad to Be Normal of authority at every turn.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 27, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 27% | Fist Fight (2017) |
Pits a white and black colleague against each other in a film light on social commentary and heavy on crude humour.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 27, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 82% | George Best: All by Himself (2017) |
The turbulent story presented here inevitably becomes a cautionary rather than celebratory tale.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 4% | Arsenal (2017) |
It's smattered with gore and overacting, and ultimately good for nothing.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 20, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 83% | Handsome Devil (2017) |
A deliberate rebuke to the short shrift that LGBT issues were given in the classic 1980s Brat Pack movies, offering just enough heart to overcome what it lacks in depth.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 16, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 10% | Fifty Shades Darker (2017) |
While Dornan merely pouts and smoulders, Johnson is again the major selling point, making something likable and human out of the cipher that is Anastasia.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 45% | Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) |
It's a genuinely experimental film, intermittently successful despite a punishing lack of depth in the characterisations.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 6, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 7% | Rings (2017) |
F Javier Gutiérrez's 'threequel' arrives a decade late to the party with little new to offer.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Feb 3, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 83% | Denial (2016) |
There's not much visually for Jackson to focus on other than the wigs and talking heads - the best of which belong to Wilkinson and Scott, managing to imbue proceedings with energy and character.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jan 23, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 60% | iBoy (2017) |
iBoy has an original-enough concept, taken from a book by Kevin Brooks, but any freshness is muffled by the dated gangster movie clichés peppered throughout the script.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jan 23, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 92% | The Eagle Huntress (2016) |
It would take a cold heart not to feel some uplift from Aisholpan's game-changing triumph against the odds.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Dec 12, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 95% | The Edge of Seventeen (2016) |
The Edge of Seventeen may not revolutionise the sub-genre, but it's more articulate than most and harks back visually and thematically to the seriousness of John Hughes's The Breakfast Club, still the mother lode of disturbed teen movies.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Nov 28, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 90% | Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words (2016) |
Zappa and his music may rarely have been fashionable, but this documentary provides a valuable and permanent record of the man himself; his musical canon can be enjoyed elsewhere.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Nov 28, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 85% | Sully (2016) |
Sullenberger's heroics made for a great news story, now, in the capable hands of director and star, they are the foundations for a riveting, cinematic drama.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Nov 28, 2016
|
| 5/5 | 98% | Your Name. (Kimi No Na Wa.) (2017) |
Your Name offers audiences intellect, wonder and tears in equal measure.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Nov 14, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 82% | Indignation (2016) |
The refinement of Schamus's storytelling is up to the task of evoking the novel's honest, yet complex notions, making this the best Roth adaptation in decades.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Nov 14, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 94% | Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World (2016) |
'Do you think the internet can dream of itself?' is the kind of gnarly enquiry Herzog puts to his experts, and their detailed answers are recorded with friendly gravitas.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Oct 24, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 87% | Phantom Boy (2016) |
While not for everyone, this old-fashioned adventure with a fresh twist may gain a cult following of those interested in how two French directors challenge the cookie-cutter narrative of most animations.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Oct 17, 2016
|
| 2/5 | 64% | Storks (2016) |
Small children might just find the film's energy enough to please, but the plot-holes stop Storks from taking flight.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Oct 10, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 87% | My Scientology Movie (2017) |
Theroux has created an amusing documentary, but one which rarely lands a meaningful punch on its easily demonised subject.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Oct 3, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 47% | Free State of Jones (2016) |
Ross manages the similarly rustic set-pieces with considerable visceral style, helped by McConaughey's haunted, intense presence.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Sep 26, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 82% | Sausage Party (2016) |
Sausage Party is rude, funny and unexpectedly profound in places, with the juvenile humour leavened by some thoughtful commentary on modern life.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Aug 30, 2016
|
| 2/5 | 78% | Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) |
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping fails to generate any genuine laughs.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 58% | Bad Moms (2016) |
Bad Moms is actually pretty good when it comes to raising a smile to two.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2016
|
| 1/5 | 12% | Nine Lives (2016) |
Nine Lives is a real cat-astrophe for all concerned.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Aug 15, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 15% | Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) |
Never attempting to scale the more ambitious heights of a Pixar, Collision Course is a brisk, innocuous entry in a series that places silliness and colour before narrative drive, character or originality.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jul 11, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 77% | Keanu (2016) |
If some of the jokes drag a little (the jibes at Clarence's George Michael fixation go on way too long), it's hard to complain when there are so many funny flights of fancy.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jul 11, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 97% | Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) |
Neill and Dennison's chemistry ensures this unusual survival story is so knee-deep in charm that even moments of gloopy pathos feel thoroughly earned.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 27, 2016
|
| 4/5 | 40% | Whisky Galore (2017) |
As with Bill Forsyth's best work, the film's bonhomie might just have universal appeal; such gentle humour may be lost on some, but Whisky Galore! offers a true taste of Scotland that's well worth acquiring.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 27, 2016
|
| 3/5 | 76% | Elvis & Nixon (2016) |
As an extended sketch about the meeting of two remarkable figures, Elvis & Nixon manages to capture why the public retain such curiosity for these influential, eccentric men.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 20, 2016
|
| 2/5 | 63% | Tommy's Honour (2017) |
Changing golfing traditions may be an unexpectedly hot topic in 2016, but Tommy's Honour offers misty-eyed melodrama rather than any real insight into sporting history.‐ The List
Read More | Posted Jun 16, 2016
|