Kevin Maher

Kevin Maher's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s): Sunday Times (UK) Sight and Sound Times (UK) Little White Lies

Publications: Sunday Times (UK), Sight and Sound, Times (UK), Times Square, Little White Lies

Movie Reviews Only

Movies
TV

	T-Meter	Title \| Year	Review
4/5	47%	Mrs Lowry & Son (2019)	Within three or four short exchanges she establishes Mrs Lowry as one of the great maternal monsters of cinema, up there with Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest or Piper Laurie in Carrie. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 31, 2019
3/5	86%	Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019)	[O]nce the film finishes discussing said scene, it stops dead and dashes for the credits, as if Alien were a movie of one half only. Still, this is an appealing jaunt nonetheless - and a must for Alien enthusiasts. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 31, 2019
4/5	100%	Bait (2019)	In one of the most extraordinary movie experiences of the year, this Cornish-set drama unfolds in scratchy monochrome and jumpy, jarring shots, mostly featuring weather-beaten fishermen, and lobster pots, and nets and boats. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 31, 2019
4/5	100%	Judy (2019)	The secret weapon in this case, however, and what lifts this film far above the competition, is its lead actress, Renée Zellweger. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 31, 2019
1/5	No Score Yet	Killers Anonymous (2019)	A truly execrable dirge that fails to satisfy a single element of coherent contemporary film-making, except, perhaps, for the initial one-line pitch. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 30, 2019
4/5	91%	The Souvenir (2019)	As rousing and exhilarating as anything you'll see in a Hollywood blockbuster or high-level horror. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 29, 2019
5/5	100%	The Truth (La vérité) (2019)	One of Deneuve's greatest performances, with Kore-eda transforming the magisterial persona she frequently supplies to other directors into something more complex, tragic and yet defiant. She deserves awards for it. And so does the film. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 28, 2019
4/5	38%	Angel Has Fallen (2019)	It's not Bond. But all the better for it. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 21, 2019
4/5	94%	Transit (2019)	It doesn't always click (a scene involving a suicidal dog minder is a bit arch), but the dauntless ambition is never in doubt. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 16, 2019
2/5	54%	J.T. LeRoy (2019)	The lifeless narrative rhythm, which quickly succumbs to a deadly causal trap (and then, and then, and then), doesn't help either. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 16, 2019
4/5	77%	Leto (2019)	Don't let the premise intimidate you. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 16, 2019
2/5	88%	Blinded by the Light (2019)	Worst of all, it's the kind of film that arrives already puffed up in a phoney coat of feelgood gloss and specious sentiment. - Sunday Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 9, 2019
5/5	85%	Once Upon a Time In Hollywood (2019)	The plot is a tapestry template that drops in characters like shining beads and watches the story weave slowly around them. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 8, 2019
3/5	25%	Charming (2018)	It's mostly moronic and lazy, but some of the pop ditties are nice. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 2, 2019
2/5	81%	Animals (2019)	Grainger, typically, yet again, is heroic and delivers everything she can, including myriad expressive looks, some nice physical comedy and a pitch-perfect Dublin accent in an admirable attempt, ultimately fruitless, to breathe life into a corpse. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 2, 2019
4/5	79%	Photograph (2019)	It's an artful look at two misfit loners who find each other. But only just. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 2, 2019
1/5	67%	Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)	Don't let the trailer fool you. It's pants (insert crotch joke here). - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Aug 2, 2019
3/5	87%	The Great Hack (2019)	This high-profile... documentary about the Cambridge Analytica scandal is... frequently gripping, gorgeous to watch, occasionally thought-provoking, always entertaining and yet, ultimately, a tiny bit vapid. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2019
4/5	79%	Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019)	Oh, this is just lovely. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2019
1/5	33%	The Current War (2019)	The film's release was duly paused and in the two years since there have been reshoots, five new scenes added and ten minutes cut from the original Toronto version. It's still a dirge. It's flat and repetitive. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 26, 2019
3/5	83%	Of Fish and Foe (2019)	It progresses, however, into something darker and sadder, and is a bitter testament to the power of commercial interests to weaponise the law for financial gain. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 22, 2019
2/5	47%	Tell It to the Bees (2019)	Yikes. That wasn't pretty. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 22, 2019
4/5	87%	Sixteen Candles (1984)	Watch with compassion. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 22, 2019
4/5	97%	Varda by Agnès (2019)	It gets a little less sexy towards the end as she ruminates on her love affair with still photography and the essence of truth in the captured image, but overall this is an essential and heart-warming portrait of a sorely missed talent. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 22, 2019
2/5	54%	The Dead Don't Die (2019)	The Dead Don't Die, instead, stomps in like your drunken uncle at a wedding disco and announces that it's here, and that everything's fine because it's going to have a lot of fun at the zombie movie's expense. If only. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 13, 2019
4/5	53%	The Lion King (2019)	The Lion King is dead. Long live The Lion King. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 11, 2019
2/5	78%	Never Look Away (2019)	Another misstep, this time considerably less forgivable. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 8, 2019
5/5	97%	Don't Look Now (1973)	Genius. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 8, 2019
4/5	83%	Midsommar (2019)	The cracks and inconsistencies are mostly erased by Pugh, a performer of alarming power, who possesses a face, indecently expressive, for which cinema was made. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jul 4, 2019
5/5	100%	M (1931)	Be afraid. Be properly afraid. The greatest creation of Fritz Lang's career remains one of the most disturbing movies of his, or any, film-making era. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 30, 2019
2/5	63%	Yesterday (2019)	The structure is a mess. The characters are plastic. And the lines are Seventies sitcom bad. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 30, 2019
4/5	91%	Support the Girls (2018)	Hall is a revelation (dominant in nearly every scene), and the rooftop climax is fittingly cathartic. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 30, 2019
5/5	99%	Apollo 11 (2019)	Go. Rush out. Find this film now. Find it on the biggest possible screen, accompanied by the best, loudest sound. And sit back and marvel. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 30, 2019
2/5	47%	Robert the Bruce (2019)	Frankly, it's not great. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 30, 2019
4/5	90%	Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)	Here [Watts] has taken the vacation movie and slammed it up against a self-satirising anti-blockbuster. And if it doesn't always feel like an effortless match, he should certainly receive an A for effort. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 30, 2019
2/5	57%	Brightburn (2019)	Because the film that this broadside of brass describes is ultimately, seriously, "Duuuumb!" - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 21, 2019
3/5	68%	Stockholm (2019)	Age becomes Ethan Hawke. The more raspy and wrinkled he gets, the better he is on screen... And here he holds together a film that is shaky in many respects and shouldn't work. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 21, 2019
1/5	70%	Mari (2018)	It's rip-your-ears-off bad. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 21, 2019
2/5	76%	Blue My Mind (2017)	The tension dissipates. And the final pay-off, which is effectively Wedler trussed up in the world's worst mermaid costume, is a borderline insult. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 21, 2019
4/5	58%	The Hummingbird Project (2019)	It's typical of a movie, written and directed by the Canadian film-maker Kim Nguyen, that hits all the right genre beats while consistently reaching for something more. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 14, 2019
4/5	87%	Sometimes Always Never (Triple Word Score) (2019)	The sweet emotional payoff is an unexpected reward. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 14, 2019
5/5	97%	Toy Story 4 (2019)	Sweet Lord, this is good. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 13, 2019
1/5	22%	Men in Black International (2019)	Trust me. It's not for you. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 12, 2019
2/5	93%	Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese (2019)	If, however, you're a devoted Dylan completist, this middling concert movie and profoundly inadequate documentary might just be the greatest cinematic experience of your life. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 11, 2019
3/5	91%	Eating Animals (2018)	It's arresting material, delivered with passion. But, as a documentary, it's sometimes scattershot and random, and ultimately preaching, one suspects, to the choir. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 7, 2019
4/5	90%	I Am Mother (2019)	It's great fun. And it looks nice too. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 7, 2019
4/5	97%	Dirty God (2019)	The struggles of a severely scarred acid-attack victim in a looks-obsessed world are taken to unexpected places by the director Sacha Polak. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 7, 2019
4/5	80%	Late Night (2019)	It's warm-hearted, smartly made, guilty-pleasure cinema. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 6, 2019
2/5	23%	Dark Phoenix (2019)	It's B-movie bad. Innately hilarious. If only someone had told the film-makers. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 5, 2019
2/5	84%	The Brink (2019)	This is, at best, morally slippery film-making. - Times (UK) EDIT Read More \| Posted Jun 3, 2019