John Lui
John Lui's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
The Straits Times (Singapore)
| Publications: | The Straits Times (Singapore) |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2.5/5 | 34% | The Predator (2018) |
Chaotic, loud and filled with too many coincidences to count. The best thing that can be said about The Predator is that the dialogue is engaging, and some gags are funny. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Sep 14, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 85% | The Wife (2018) |
The strong performances help make up for the film's lack of style, but not enough to elevate it from being just okay.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Sep 8, 2018
|
| 2.5/5 | 52% | Papillon (2018) |
Malek makes a fine, low-key effort as the buddy who turns Papillon into a better man, but Hoffman is an impossible act to follow.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Sep 5, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 93% | Crazy Rich Asians (2018) |
This slice of escapist entertainment is all about Rich People Problems, but looking in from the outside is just so much fun.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2018
|
| 1.5/5 | 50% | Down a Dark Hall (2018) |
This murky, muddled attempt at Gothic horror set in a school is pretty to look at, but gets an F in the subject of scares.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 86% | Madeline's Madeline (2018) |
Beautifully acted and featuring a head-spinning variety of dream-like images.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | No Score Yet | 23:59: The Haunting Hour (2018) |
Feels like a slap-in-the-face anti-climax.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 9, 2018
|
| 3.5/5 | 80% | Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) |
Still, bringing in Cher...is par for the course for this frothy, slightly slapdash production unafraid of putting all its eccentricities on display.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 8, 2018
|
| 2.5/5 | 17% | The Darkest Minds (2018) |
This lack of effort creates the impression that this is a generic work, a high-school drama with science-fiction touches screened on Sunday evenings on cable television.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2018
|
| 3/5 | No Score Yet | Man on the Dragon (2018) |
Chan has the good sense to couch the message of uplift in action, not speeches, making this effort a notch above the mass of films about downcast blokes who find their joy in sports.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Aug 1, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 100% | Traffic Stop (2017) |
Infuriating and heartbreaking.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 25, 2018
|
| 3.5/5 | 95% | Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018) |
What emerges is a portrait of a star who never became a terrible dad or entitled monster, but who remained who he was until his final days: a sweet, gentle soul for whom the art of expressing himself was everything.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 18, 2018
|
| 3.5/5 | 63% | Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) |
The fit is not perfect and feels too convenient, but to director Sollima's credit, their psychological shifts are believable, if not completely understandable.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 18, 2018
|
| 1/5 | 12% | Siberia (2018) |
What can only be described as the Siberian version of the white saviour complex.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 18, 2018
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| 2/5 | 46% | Skyscraper (2018) |
There is little to laugh at here - and that is the problem. This is a loud, silly film that takes itself seriously.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 11, 2018
|
| 4.5/5 | 100% | Shoplifters (Manbiki kazoku) (2018) |
The film derives it gut-wrenching emotional power from just how spare it is.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 11, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 88% | Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) |
There is cuteness and chuckle-worthy visual and verbal jokes, but the film-maker weaves in that element that eludes others: heartfelt emotion.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 5, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 85% | Disobedience (2018) |
By favouring the general over the specific, and gentleness over sharper criticism of the mores that hold women in loveless relationships, the story is weakened.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jul 3, 2018
|
| 2.5/5 | 58% | Hotel Artemis (2018) |
It is a bold mix, but marred by a lacklustre visual-storytelling style; everybody labours over exposition in dialogue.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 29, 2018
|
| 1/5 | 0% | Gotti (2018) |
From its first moments until the end credits appear, this movie thrashes about for a unifying idea. In between, there is miserably bad acting and confusing editing.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 29, 2018
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| 3/5 | 89% | Hereditary (2018) |
Collette's performance is hairraisingly good.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 21, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | No Score Yet | The Big Day (2018) |
The trouble is that as characters, the couple are as sanitised and blandly likeable as tap water and all the wackiness coming from the supporting players cannot make up for the absence of texture.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 21, 2018
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| 4.5/5 | 53% | Book Club (2018) |
While the movie is a romantic fantasy on one level, it makes an honest attempt to deal with the problems that older women face, both physical and mental.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 21, 2018
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| 4/5 | 89% | American Animals (2018) |
The bleak comedy of the film's first half gives way to a more sombre mood in the second. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 14, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 68% | Ocean's 8 (2018) |
Cast women, by all means. Just make sure that they get a script worthy of their time and talent. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 14, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 93% | Revenge (2018) |
Fargeat avoids modern cliches, such as altered timelines or found footage, to deliver a suspenseful nail-biter of a thriller, one that updates an old format with an interesting take on gender politic‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 49% | Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) |
The real hybrid here, however, is the movie itself. While more coherent than its 2015 predecessor, it stills feels lumpily composed of bits from other science-fiction and disaster films.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 7, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 72% | Adrift (2018) |
As survival stories go, the story of Tami (Woodley) and Richard (Claflin) has great bones - they are young, pretty and in love, and the settings are marinas and beaches of islands in the Pacific.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 1, 2018
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| 4.5/5 | 95% | Custody (Jusqu'à la garde) (2018) |
Writer-director Xavier Legrand knows how to do family court.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Jun 1, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 34% | Fahrenheit 451 (2018) |
Bahrani's fondness for drama with a social justice angle is revealed in the backstory...and does not go much farther than general finger-wagging at screen-addiction and the herd mentality found on network echo chambers.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 30, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 40% | Mary Shelley (2018) |
Well-mannered, largely accurate to the facts and pretty to look at, it fails to convey what it must have been like to be an artist so out of step with her time.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 30, 2018
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| 3/5 | 71% | Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) |
By the end of this safe, bland origin story, one will walk away feeling entertained, but without having learnt anything surprising-or even interesting-about one of the franchise's most important characters.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
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| 1/5 | 17% | Show Dogs (2018) |
This film might be aimed at the under-six crowd, but that is no excuse for scenes that will bore older viewers into a coma.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 47% | How to Talk to Girls at Parties (2018) |
The pairing of Gaiman's provocative whimsy and Mitchell's edge should have resulted in something a lot better than this tepid teen romance.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 82% | Deadpool 2 (2018) |
[Julian] Dennison as the volatile Russell is the heart of the picture, providing an emotional anchor in a production that might otherwise be too snarky for its own good.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 17, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 20% | Terminal (2018) |
About three-quarters style exercise and one-quarter story, this occasionally intriguing but mostly frustrating film is one example of a work that would have benefited greatly from better control of tone and more careful casting.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 17, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 90% | Isle of Dogs (2018) |
What it does not have in great quantity is a story or characters worth remembering. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 15, 2018
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| 3/5 | 79% | I Kill Giants (2018) |
Despite Wolfe's excellent portrayal of a girl who is mature and defiant one moment, then terrified the next, audiences will find it exhausting to stay with a child with so bleak an outlook that even her wildest dreams are terrifying.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 15, 2018
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| 2/5 | No Score Yet | The Trough (Di ya cao) (2018) |
As writer-director, [Nick] Cheung suffers from a classic case of creator narcissism, blocked from thinking about the story as he makes the protagonist - himself - the focus of the film.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 8, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 53% | Bad Samaritan (2018) |
[David] Tennant plays Erendreich with bemused and chilling intensity and, like all good villains, he makes the audience sit up and pay attention to what he is going to do or say next.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 8, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | No Score Yet | Dukun (2018) |
Exploring one's inner Neil Gaiman is fine, but an exploitation flick about a serial-killing shaman is not quite the place to do it.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 8, 2018
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| 3.5/5 | 81% | The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018) |
This film adaptation of a popular novel begins as a feather-light piece of escapism, but gains unexpected pathos mid-way.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 8, 2018
|
| 3.5/5 | 84% | Avengers: Infinity War (2018) |
Everything that has been said about this film, perhaps this year's most anticipated movie, is true. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 8, 2018
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| 4/5 | 80% | Unsane (2018) |
[Steven Soderbergh] has a knack for making tired genres feel fresh and he brings that magic here. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted May 8, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 33% | I Feel Pretty (2018) |
If only this project examined that eagerness to laugh at female unattractiveness in the viewer, instead of giving them a pat on the back for getting on Renee's side.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2018
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| 4/5 | 82% | Journeyman (2017) |
In [Jodi] Whittaker's hands, [Emma] is a reminder of everything the damaged boxer has lost and needs to find again.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Apr 18, 2018
|
| 16% | The Titan (2018) |
But [Lennart] Ruff refuses to go there, into the gross-out, squishy, pulpy, B-movie zone that would give this venture a semblance of a purpose.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Apr 11, 2018
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| 2.5/5 | 80% | Ramen Shop (Ramen teh) (2018) |
The movie feels afraid to go all in, to embrace the sensuality of its subject matter. ‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2018
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| 4/5 | 84% | Pyewacket (2018) |
It is a set-up as old as time, but this chilling, frequently terrifying work of horror manages to find fresh nightmare fuel in dark woods and incantations muttered in the moonlight.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Mar 29, 2018
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| 3/5 | 43% | Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) |
In fact, the kaiju themselves, in their bizarre characteristics and highly imaginative use of bio-weapons, are more interesting as characters than the jaeger pilots.‐ The Straits Times (Singapore)
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2018
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