Philip De Semlyen
Philip De Semlyen's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Empire Magazine,
Time Out
| Publications: | Empire Magazine, Time Out |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3/5 | 72% | Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) |
As with 'The Cabin in the Woods', Drew Goddard has a blast toying with genre expectations, although here the payoff is a lot less satisfying. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Oct 10, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 84% | The Captain (Der Hauptmann) (2018) |
You've heard of 'Stalag 17', now meet Stalag 666.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Sep 20, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 80% | 22 July (2018) |
'22 July' offers few surprises, and even fewer opportunities for Paul Greengrass to flex his filmmaking muscles. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Sep 5, 2018
|
| 2/5 | 53% | Sunset (Napszállta) (2018) |
The bustle and vibrancy of pre-Great War Budapest remain frustratingly out of focus throughout. After 140 minutes, your eyeballs will know the feeling.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Sep 4, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 85% | The Sisters Brothers (2018) |
You don't need a deep love of westerns to get a kick out of Jacques Audiard's wry, surprising, and often plain hilarious frontier story.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Sep 2, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 67% | Peterloo (2018) |
The authenticity is immersive, even if the historical exposition occasionally feels like prep for an exam no one's warned you about.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Sep 1, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 92% | The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) |
Richly entertaining and blackly funny but told with sincerity and heart, the half-dozen Western tales packed into The Ballad of Buster Scruggs show the Coen brothers loading up their six-shooter and firing barely a blank.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Aug 31, 2018
|
| 5/5 | 91% | Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018) |
One of the most colourful things you'll ever see in black and white. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Aug 28, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 93% | Searching (2018) |
Strip away the tech trappings and you'll find the same propulsive joys that powered '90s thrillers like 'Presumed Innocent' and 'The Fugitive'.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Aug 22, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 95% | BlacKkKlansman (2018) |
Veering from a blaxploitation spoof to an undercover thriller and ending with a no-punches-pulled real-life coda, BlacKkKlansman is riotously fun one minute, savagely biting the next.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Aug 10, 2018
|
| 2/5 | 46% | Marrowbone (2018) |
Sergio G. Sánchez struggles to locate the frights, with underwritten characters draining his shocks of their emotional payoff.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jul 18, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 88% | Whitney (2018) |
You don't have to be a fan of Whitney Houston's music to love director Kevin Macdonald's sharp-edged, revelatory and seriously emotional documentary about her life.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jul 2, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 94% | The Endless (2018) |
This impressive low-budget indie weaves a genre-defying tapestry of weirdness, atmospherics and cultish horrors across a dusty US setting. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 100% | Leave No Trace (2018) |
Unlike Sean Penn's 'Into the Wild', which also explores the quiet radicalism of disappearing off the grid, there's no big emotional swells here. 'Leave No Trace' is a more hushed, contemplative movie. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jun 28, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 48% | Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) |
This fun, pacy addition to the dino disaster franchise doesn't do much that's particularly new -- though what it does, it does with a fair whack of panache.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jun 5, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 100% | A Cambodian Spring (2018) |
For all its sombre revelations, 'A Cambodian Spring' exudes a powerful sense of possibility. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
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| 5/5 | 95% | The Breadwinner (2017) |
This is a day-to-day survival story that stirs the heart and fires the imagination. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
|
| 2/5 | 58% | The House That Jack Built (2018) |
An empty provocation, The House That Jack Built aims for profundity but achieves only mild queasiness.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 76% | Dogman (2018) |
The overall feel is of the kind of Aesop's fable Scorsese would tell his kids.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 70% | Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) |
Solo is at its best when it's uncoupled from all that heavy lifting, just crammed in a cockpit with its likeable cast and shooting for the stars.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 25, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 94% | Beast (2018) |
Immaculately composed yet skittish, edgy and surprising, this impressive debut by writer-director Michael Pearce emanates a chill that will have you hugging your sides.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 17, 2018
|
| 3/5 | 68% | On Chesil Beach (2018) |
It's not a bad movie by any stretch, but it strains to turn a serious and introspective story into something cinematic.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 17, 2018
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| 2/5 | 82% | Deadpool 2 (2018) |
It's a long movie and when its star isn't on screen and cracking wise, the boundary-pushing shocks and endless self-references wear thin.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted May 15, 2018
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| 4/5 | 95% | Custody (Jusqu'à la garde) (2018) |
A father-son drama for anyone who finds There Will Be Blood too cosy in its depiction of paternal love.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Apr 10, 2018
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| 4/5 | 82% | Ghost Stories (2018) |
This triptych of horror tales is presided over with assurance and some seriously mordant wit by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Apr 6, 2018
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| 4/5 | 79% | Journeyman (2017) |
Journeyman is a gentler human drama than Considine's terrific but tough directorial debut 'Tyrannosaur' but equally emotional.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Mar 26, 2018
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| 3/5 | 72% | Ready Player One (2018) |
You're left with the overriding sensation of a master playing someone else's greatest hits.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Mar 22, 2018
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| 2/5 | 39% | Mary Magdalene (2018) |
It ripples with interesting ideas, but the overall effect is glassy and inert, with Rooney Mara's Mary an oddly elusive presence in the film that carries her name.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Mar 8, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 95% | Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017) |
A Google animator puts the mystery of Hedy Lamarr best: 'She's a perfect underdog, crime-fighter-by-night story.' Here she is, unmasked at last. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Mar 5, 2018
|
| 4/5 | 94% | A Fantastic Woman (Una mujer fantástica) (2018) |
A cry for compassion that marries the fierce conviction of Boys Don't Cry with the defiant self-expression of a Pedro Almodóvar drama.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jan 30, 2018
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| 3/5 | 82% | Early Man (2018) |
It seems a strange thing to say about a film featuring a giant man-eating mallard, but a bit more eccentricity wouldn't have gone amiss.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2018
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| 4/5 | 85% | The Final Year (2018) |
It's a blur of airport runways, limos and government buildings that feels like the midway point between 'The West Wing' and 'Fast & Furious'.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jan 15, 2018
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| 3/5 | 80% | Walk With Me (2017) |
If it came in pill form, you could take two to recover from a Michael Bay movie.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Jan 3, 2018
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| 3/5 | 56% | The Greatest Showman (2017) |
An old-fashioned musical with a none-more-zeitgeisty songsheet, it may not be a flawless piece of storytelling, but it's a pretty decent show.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
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| 3/5 | 65% | Shot Caller (2017) |
If you imagine Andy Dufresne embarking on a hyper-violent gangland crime spree, you've got the premise of this thriller about the corrosive power of prison.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Dec 13, 2017
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| 4/5 | 85% | Blade of the Immortal (Mugen no jûnin) (2017) |
One of the few directors who can play a multi-sword evisceration for laughs, Miike has served up another frenetic joy. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Dec 5, 2017
|
| 2/5 | 79% | Love, Cecil (2018) |
This glossy doc about Cecil Beaton plumbs the shallows of the famous stylist, royal photographer and self-professed Edwardian dandy.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Nov 29, 2017
|
| 4/5 | 97% | Coco (2017) |
Effortlessly gliding between kid-friendly spectacle and heart-tugging emotion by way of surrealist touches and a hilariously specific recurring joke about Frida Kahlo's unibrow, Coco is a goofy joy from start to finish.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2017
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| 3/5 | 87% | Brakes (2016) |
Full of wry observations on the way Londoners connect (and disconnect), 'Brakes' could be the perfect final date movie.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Nov 20, 2017
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| 4/5 | 80% | Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017) |
Brittle and insecure, yet also steely and magnetic, Bening's performance is full of nuance.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Nov 17, 2017
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| 2/5 | 20% | Daddy's Home 2 (2017) |
Saving the day is Ferrell, who gamely flings himself into all kinds of slapstick.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Nov 9, 2017
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| 4/5 | 92% | Thor: Ragnarok (2017) |
In a world of portentous blockbusters getting ever darker, it's a joy to see one throwing on the disco lights.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 2/5 | 8% | The Snowman (2017) |
The tension dissipates in a tangle of muddled subplots, sluggish pacing and some strange decisions from Tomas Alfredson. The result isn't a Bone Collector, never mind a Se7en. ‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Oct 18, 2017
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| 5/5 | 96% | The Death of Stalin (2018) |
A riotous farce of doublespeak and plotting laced with moments of bitumen-black horror.‐ Time Out
Read More | Posted Oct 18, 2017
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| 4/5 | 81% | The Party (2018) |
Patricia Clarkson steals the show, but everyone in Potter's gifted cast gets their moment to shine in a sharp-edged, claustrophobic parlour piece that puts the boot into middle-class mores.‐ Empire Magazine
Read More | Posted Oct 12, 2017
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| 4/5 | 93% | The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017) |
Baumbach's drama of grown-up kids seeking emotional restitution sees Sandler and Stiller at their best. If it feels like familiar turf for the writer-director, the emotions here are rawer than ever.‐ Empire Magazine
Read More | Posted Oct 9, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 87% | In Syria (Insyriated) (2017) |
Ignore the awful title, this is a taut drama that puts a human face on Syria's humanitarian crisis. No cheap thrills or easy answers here, but plenty of gut-churning drama.‐ Empire Magazine
Read More | Posted Sep 11, 2017
|
| 3/5 | 91% | A Ghost Story (2017) |
It demands patience and an open mind, but Lowery's return to his indie roots after Pete's Dragon is a highly unusual and, at times, emotionally shattering fable.‐ Empire Magazine
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2017
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| 4/5 | 91% | The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017) |
Maverick as ever but fully engaged with the modern world, Kaurismäki dials back his trademark absurdism with a wry allegory of human struggle, empathy and connection.‐ Empire Magazine
Read More | Posted May 25, 2017
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| 2/5 | 37% | Snatched (2017) |
A winning double act never quite gels in a fish-out-of-water road-trip caper - think 'National Lampoon's Gringo Vacation' - that leans hard on its stars' charms and very lightly on coherent plotting.‐ Empire Magazine
Read More | Posted May 18, 2017
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