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John Nugent
John Nugent's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Empire Magazine
Sky Cinema
The Skinny
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Dumb Money (2023) |
With a brisk, biting comic tone and a nice line in righteous anger, Dumb Money skilfully picks up The Big Short’s baton for cinematic-economic takedowns. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Sep 19, 2023
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El Conde (2023) |
A visually arresting new entry in the Dracula canon; if only the satire was as biting as its unlikely vampire star. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Sep 11, 2023
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You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah (2023) |
The rare teen movie that recognises crushes are never as important or powerful as BFFs — and one that marks an intriguing new direction for Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison productions. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Aug 31, 2023
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Strays (2023) |
An exuberantly bad-taste ode to our poochy pals. Dumb & Dumber, but for dogs. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Aug 17, 2023
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Kandahar (2023) |
Gerard Butler proves he has more in the tank than just thoughtless action with this Middle East-set thriller, which is unexpectedly interested in the people and politics behind the usual explosions. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Aug 10, 2023
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Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story (2023) |
Despite some warm performances, it’s very hard to ignore the feeling that this is largely just two hours of product placement. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Aug 08, 2023
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) |
Inventively animated, giddily funny, and a surprisingly authentic take on the outsider experience: it is virtually impossible not to be charmed by these reptilian bros. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jul 27, 2023
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Talk to Me (2023) |
Be sure to hold someone’s hand while watching. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jul 25, 2023
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The Beanie Bubble (2023) |
Sometimes the storytelling can feel like a stretch, but this is mostly a lively, well-told account of a bizarre toy craze gone wrong, and the big personalities behind it. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jul 24, 2023
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Smoking Causes Coughing (2022) |
Dupieux always opts for the funniest or most absurd option over any kind of narrative sense; if you surrender to his silliness, you’re in for a très drôle time. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jul 07, 2023
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Flamin' Hot (2023) |
It is a testament, then, to Eva Longoria’s directorial debut that the film largely overcomes not only a corn-chip-thin premise, but one that apparently isn’t even entirely true. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jun 12, 2023
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Medusa Deluxe (2022) |
Medusa Deluxe is a unique take on the whodunnit mould, and a hell of a debut from British filmmaker Thomas Hardiman. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jun 08, 2023
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Asteroid City (2023) |
It is occasionally a bit unfocused, and always a bit indulgent. If you don’t like The Wes Anderson Film, you won’t like this. But we others must hope he keeps making it. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted May 23, 2023
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The Other Fellow (2022) |
No Martinis in sight, but this is still an extremely watchable look at a unique naming phenomenon — with surprisingly profound results. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted May 19, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) |
If you join him for the ride, it feels like a fitting goodbye to cinema’s favourite grave-robber. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted May 18, 2023
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Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (2023) |
By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, this is a fascinating and funny twin portrait of a Hollywood rise-and-fall, and the realities of living with Parkinson’s. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted May 11, 2023
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Return to Seoul (2022) |
A film that recognises there is no single answer to questions like ‘who are you?’ or ‘where do you come from’. Stirring, constantly surprising stuff — with an arresting debut turn from Ji-Min Park. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted May 09, 2023
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Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World (2023) |
An all-too conventional look at an unconventional man, Big George Foreman is, alas, a swing and a miss. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Apr 28, 2023
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Missing (2023) |
A gripping, well-told, incredibly watchable thriller for a new generation of TikTok sleuths — and a compelling argument to up your average screen-time. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Apr 17, 2023
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Assassin Club (2023) |
Incompetent and mostly just quite boring, Assassin Club doesn’t even have the good grace to be so-bad-it’s-good. Rough, rough stuff. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Apr 17, 2023
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Beau Is Afraid (2023) |
What began as a comically exaggerated paranoid farce ends as an audacious slice of surreal, Charlie Kaufman-esque purgatorial art, likely to draw admirers as much as a sense of alienation. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Apr 11, 2023
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) |
Beautifully animated, and about as faithful and affectionate as a corporate cash-in is possible to get — but it still doesn’t come close to the experience of actually playing the games. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Apr 05, 2023
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Murder Mystery 2 (2023) |
... This is just another vehicle for Sandler to do his well-oiled schtick with his pals, directed with a near-obstinate lack of imagination. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Mar 31, 2023
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80 for Brady (2023) |
A children’s film for pensioners, 80 For Brady is an absurd, silly mess. But in spite of itself — and thanks to the warm, genuine chemistry of its legendary leading ladies — it is sweet, and difficult to truly begrudge. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Mar 24, 2023
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Rye Lane (2023) |
Ridiculously charming, immensely funny, and shot with an unusual zestiness, Rye Lane is purely joyful company — and a shot in the arm for future romantic comedies. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Mar 16, 2023
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65 (2023) |
... A short, sharp, largely original major studio movie, unbound to any franchise or intellectual property — at a time when such a concept is being threatened with extinction. Also, it has a T-Rex in it. Sometimes, that’s enough. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Mar 13, 2023
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Meet Me in the Bathroom (2022) |
Meet Me In The Bathroom is best in the unspoken moments, where it conjures an electric sense of New York’s fertile indie music valley. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Mar 09, 2023
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We Have a Ghost (2023) |
Christopher Landon dials down the blood and dials up the feels for a fun, heartfelt horror-comedy enlivened by David Harbour’s accomplished apparition-acting. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Feb 24, 2023
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Joyland (2022) |
A storming debut from writer-director Saim Sadiq: emotional, tender, and quietly radical. With any luck, it will herald a new era for Pakistani cinema. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Feb 23, 2023
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Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021) |
Funny, profound, weird, sad, and gorgeously constructed — Marcel is a true original, liable to melt even the most cynical heart. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Feb 14, 2023
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Your Place or Mine (2023) |
An instantly forgettable, paint-by-numbers romcom, despite the obvious charm of Witherspoon and Kutcher — worthy of watching neither at your place nor mine. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Feb 13, 2023
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Sharper (2023) |
There’s enough to hold your attention and it’s not un-fun watching this lot — but there’s something missing. It’s all plot, and not nearly enough humanity... - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Feb 08, 2023
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Blue Jean (2022) |
It isn’t always subtle, but Blue Jean is a gorgeously presented, stirringly performed slice of British queer history... - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Feb 06, 2023
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Unwelcome (2022) |
It’s tonally a bit all over the shop, and could have been funnier or scarier — but when the supremely-constructed goblins show up, causing all manner of mischief, Unwelcome is a goofy horror treat. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jan 26, 2023
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You People (2023) |
If the chemistry between Hill and London is not always totally convincing — Amira is not quite as well written as the male characters — they are both at least a very likeable company. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jan 24, 2023
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Plane (2023) |
What starts in a comfortable disaster-movie mould quickly handbrake-turns into a generic, by-the-numbers action thriller, serving up a stale platter of fist fights, gun battles and hostage-taking. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jan 23, 2023
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Enys Men (2022) |
In the proud traditions of English folk horror, Enys Men can be a challenging experience; leaving you with a sense of something ancient, yet also, in Jenkin’s ambitious telling, entirely fresh. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jan 12, 2023
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Empire of Light (2022) |
At its best, it is genuinely evocative, and while the script is patchy, it also wisely leaves the camera — plus Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ delicate, pensive score — to do a lot of the talking. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Jan 06, 2023
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All That Breathes (2022) |
A thoughtful, meditative thesis on humanity’s relationship with nature, filmed with the kind of cinematographic beauty most fiction filmmakers can only aspire towards. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Dec 14, 2022
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Charlotte (2021) |
Though somewhat flawed and less artistically daring than it could be, Charlotte still makes for an emotional, humane viewing experience. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Dec 14, 2022
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Last Flight Home (2022) |
Moving, humane, and cathartic. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Dec 09, 2022
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"Sr." (2022) |
A sweetly pitched — and appropriately unorthodox — tribute from a movie megastar son to his filmmaking legend father. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Dec 02, 2022
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Emancipation (2022) |
Emancipation can’t avoid the well-trodden hallmarks of slavery stories, nor offer a particularly fresh perspective on them. It’s best when it leans into other modes — and when it centres on Will Smith’s outstanding, understated performance. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Dec 01, 2022
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White Noise (2022) |
A strange brew. While the family dynamics and capitalist satire work a little better than the outlandish spectacle, White Noise at least appears to herald an ambitious new phase in Noah Baumbach’s career. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Nov 30, 2022
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Bones and All (2022) |
Part arthouse-Twilight, part John Hughes-ian coming-of-age romance, part Bonnie And Clyde cannibal remix, part dreamy Wim Wenders-esque road trip. This is gorgeous, gruesome work from Luca Guadagnino. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Nov 22, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
A fizzy, gaudy, joyfully entertaining couple of hours. If there’s any right in the world, Rian Johnson and Daniel Craig will continue making films in the Benoit Blanc Cinematic Universe forever. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Nov 22, 2022
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Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) |
Bardo sees director Alejandro González Iñárritu looking at the man in the (hall of) mirrors; the result is visually sensational but sometimes lethally patience-testing. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Nov 16, 2022
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My Father's Dragon (2022) |
Another smash from Cartoon Saloon, at once heartily funny and heartfelt. With this and The Breadwinner, director Nora Twomey is now two-for-two. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Nov 13, 2022
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Living (2022) |
Really quite something: a rare remake that only augments and enriches the original. For Bill Nighy, meanwhile, it feels in every sense like the role of a lifetime. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Nov 03, 2022
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) |
Like any good “Weird Al” song parody, Weird takes the music-biopic template and transforms it into something utterly absurd. - Empire Magazine
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| Posted Oct 31, 2022
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