Kevin Harley

Kevin Harley's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Total Film Screen International The List

Publications: Total Film, Screen International, The List

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
3/5	87%	Sometimes Always Never (Triple Word Score) (2018)	Hunter's poised compositions brim with playful invention, though both the script and images sometimes seem to strain to draw attention to their quirks. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 10, 2019
2/5	23%	Dark Phoenix (2019)	Despite mostly sparky cast-work, the Phoenix never quite rises as hoped in Kinberg's affectionate but often perfunctory X-Men send-off. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 5, 2019
3/5	41%	Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)	If the chemistry between Farmiga and Brown goes underused, opportunities for monster mayhem do not. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted May 28, 2019
4/5	90%	John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)	If you thought Wick 2's turbo-powered takedowns could not be out-powered, think on: intermittent stumbles aside, Parabellum swiftly asserts itself as 2019's actioner to beat. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted May 10, 2019
4/5	94%	Avengers: Endgame (2019)	Although it verges on fan-service and self-service, the film's central hour earns both because the balance of comedy, drama and action to playful invention and careful characterisation holds so sure. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Apr 24, 2019
4/5	94%	Us (2019)	Peele doubles down on his genre love with a flawed but full-bore frightener, ripe for debate. Nyong'o is incendiary. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 29, 2019
4/5	62%	Vox Lux (2018)	Delivers a potent pop-arthouse provocation in millennial drag. And Portman? She's electric. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 29, 2019
3/5	86%	Hannah (2018)	Though too scrupulously enigmatic and reserved for its own good, it unfolds as a magnetic showcase for Rampling, whose powers of fine-tuned restraint and release sing out of every frame. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 25, 2019
4/5	78%	Green Book (2018)	Awards-bait or not, Green Book plays as a deftly disarming film about friendship and unity in divisive times: calculated, perhaps, but calculated from a kind, sincere place. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 28, 2019
3/5	38%	Glass (2019)	If you're looking for a nifty summation of Shyamalan's strengths and weaknesses, this cracked looking glass of a film has it all. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 16, 2019
4/5	88%	The Raft (2019)	A film rippling with insights into identity politics and humanity under pressure. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 14, 2019
2/5	27%	Mortal Engines (2018)	An imposing but unwieldy hodgepodge of fragments from other films, it lurches between gargantuan sets and set-pieces with little sense of grace or pace, let alone space for emotional engagement. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 10, 2018
4/5	93%	Bumblebee (2018)	Knight and Hodson have salvaged something agreeable from an otherwise badly dented series. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 9, 2018
4/5	88%	Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)	What starts as a splatter-gun celebration of cyberspace spectacle becomes a savvy, sweet fable of friendship and online distraction, its in-jokes and emotional stakes interwoven with surprising subtlety. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 26, 2018
2/5	32%	The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)	A random hodgepodge of underpowered set-pieces, all dressed up with nowhere to go but back to the well of unwitting saviour figures visiting gaudy fantasy worlds. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 1, 2018
4/5	91%	Mirai (2018)	Even if the influence of Ghibli captain Hayao Miyazaki is unmistakable, Hosoda's playful mix of intimate truths and expansive wonders shows a generosity of spirit and sweep that's all his own. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 29, 2018
3/5	51%	An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (2018)	Plaza occupies Hosking's deadpan surreal world like she's born to it, though Clement banks the biggest laughs with his pathetic bids to impress: his monologue about childhood bowel movements and candy is a hapless delight. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 22, 2018
2/5	29%	Venom (2018)	Fleischer fails to get a grip here. Wobbling haphazardly between The Mask-style mischief and a more monstrous pitch, he winds up muzzling the film's potential as either an oddball curio or action movie. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 3, 2018
4/5	97%	The Rider (2018)	Even if Zhao overstates one or two metaphors, she captures Brady's inner struggle with mesmerising authenticity. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 10, 2018
2/5	26%	The Nun (2018)	The Nun lacks the confidence to let the location and mood speak, let alone whisper for themselves. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Sep 6, 2018
2/5	72%	Christopher Robin (2018)	Tender, tactile intimacy soon slumps into a set-up more well-visited than Pooh's honey jar. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 13, 2018
3/5	46%	Generation Wealth (2018)	Despite Greenfield's gripping ambition, rich detail and careful structuring, a struggle for focus leads to awkward judgements and ill-placed autobiographical details, neither enough to pull her multiple story strands tight. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 16, 2018
2/5	56%	Tag (2018)	Renner's affectless front and Batman-lite skill-set hint at Tag's core problem: aiming to be grounded and ludicrous simultaneously is a losing strategy. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 25, 2018
4/5	83%	Deadpool 2 (2018)	As with the original, Deadpool 2 thrives on tone over narrative. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted May 15, 2018
4/5	83%	Deadpool 2 (2018)	Filthy, ferocious and funny to a near-indecent degree, Deadpool 2 bests its predecessor by doubling down on the gleefully self-aware source comics' idea that anything worth doing is worth overdoing: excess and escalation are, essentially, in its DNA. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted May 14, 2018
4/5	67%	The Cured (2018)	Over-ambitious perhaps, but Freyne's intensely executed 'infected' fable packs tension, resonance, and clout. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted May 7, 2018
	No Score Yet	51 Degrees North (2014)	You learn a bit about asteroids from Grigorij Richters inventive DIY genre-spinner, but like bigger disaster-blasters its human drama lands with a thud. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted May 2, 2018
4/5	88%	All American High Revisited (2014)	As they look back in wistfulness, a tale of change, American excess and pre-internet teenage innocence becomes almost exotic: to them and to us. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted May 2, 2018
3/5	42%	A Wrinkle in Time (2018)	DuVernay tackles a difficult adaptation with heart. But her gaudier distractions could have used a bypass or two. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 25, 2018
3/5	52%	Tomb Raider (2018)	It's good enough to leave you contemplating something rare: the prospect of a video-game movie sequel you wouldn't mind seeing. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Mar 19, 2018
2/5	10%	Monster Family (2018)	Good-looking but erratically plotted and unfunny, director Holger Tappe's adaptation of David Safier's book Happy Family lands with a thud more deadening than the footsteps of Frankenstein's Monster. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 27, 2018
4/5	90%	The Nile Hilton Incident (2017)	Haggard cops, hotel homicides, endless ciggies... Helmer Tarik Saleh makes 2011 Cairo noir-ish in a stylishly pungent, politically loaded procedural. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 27, 2018
5/5	93%	A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (2018)	Defiant, determined, Vega delivers a star-making performance in a drama of embattled grief, directed with heart. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 26, 2018
5/5	92%	The Shape of Water (2017)	Del Toro's Valentine to boundary-crossing love pours from the screen in ravishing torrents of feeling and style. And Hawkins is sublime. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 12, 2018
2/5	14%	Winchester (2018)	Themes of guns, guilt and grief mount, setting equally perfect conditions for a resonant mystery. Somehow, though, the Spierigs run low on ideas. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Feb 2, 2018
5/5	91%	Phantom Thread (2018)	Anderson crafts another classic of obsession and strange love, played by dynamite leads: Day-Lewis retires in style, Krieps is revelatory. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 30, 2018
4/5	81%	Early Man (2018)	Viewed alongside animation's CGI-slickened evolution, it's the human touches applied to plasticine and pummelled actors that make Early Man so winning. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 22, 2018
3/5	69%	Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars (2017)	The 'Layla' era is over-indulged while the stodgier later work rushed over, resulting in a portrait that's several bars short of the full riff. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 9, 2018
4/5	80%	Brad's Status (2017)	Tender and truthful in equal measure, this is a heartfelt cringe comedy with a bittersweet ache at its core, which might even merit a tear or two at the climax. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 3, 2018
3/5	50%	Jupiter's Moon (Jupiter holdja) (2017)	Is it a superhero riff, a religious allegory, a political parable? - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 2, 2018
4/5	79%	All the Money in the World (2017)	His actor issues resolved remarkably, Scott steers his ideas-rich, character-based thriller with brisk authority. Plummer and Williams bring their all. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Jan 2, 2018
3/5	72%	Ferdinand (2017)	While only McDonald's junkies could fail to warm to Ferdinand himself, the story around him could have used more finesse. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 11, 2017
3/5	76%	Lu Over the Wall (Yoake tsugeru Rû no uta) (2018)	The end-stretch is overlong, but the Flash animation style pops with colour, the music is fun, and off-the-scale creature cuteness abounds. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 6, 2017
4/5	88%	Better Watch Out (2017)	A Christmas cult classic is born: and it's going straight to Santa's naughty list. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Dec 4, 2017
5/5	100%	The Big Heat (1953)	Extremes of light/shade are tight-focused in ace turns from a malignant Lee Marvin and vivacious Gloria Grahame, while Lang's direction kicks hard: just like a shot of hot, black coffee. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 24, 2017
4/5	90%	Marjorie Prime (2017)	Couching universal themes in achingly human specifics, Almereyda's adaptation of Jordan Harrison's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play locks in on four veteran leads to pinpoint every nuance. - The List EDIT Read More \| Posted Nov 6, 2017
4/5	92%	Thelma (2017)	A meditation on repressed desire with deep secrets, Thelma throbs with hypnotic intensity: it burns slow, but its magnetism holds right up to the teasing climax. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 30, 2017
4/5	88%	78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene (2017)	Does for Norman's place what Room 237 did for the Overlook: reopens old haunts for welcome re-investigation. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 30, 2017
2/5	No Score Yet	Property of the State (2016)	Director Kit Ryan plods through Brendan's story of abuse, but the narrative flails. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 24, 2017
3/5	87%	Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2018)	Shot over several years, the entertaining but meandering off-stage material seems too dazzled by Jones' mega-watt persona. The real action happens on stage, where Jones is a one-woman riot. - Total Film EDIT Read More \| Posted Oct 24, 2017