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Laurence Phelan

Laurence Phelan's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
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Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Alan Partridge (2013) 87% EDIT “Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa...does play to the character's strengths, giving him reams of carefully honed comic writing disguised as casual malapropisms and off-the-cuff banter.” – Independent (UK) Oct 24, 2018 Full Review The Face of an Angel (2014) 38% 3/5 EDIT “Winterbottom gives a righteous and enjoyable savaging to the media-workers for whom the murder of a young woman means firstly a meal ticket, and then good fodder for dinner-party chatter.” – Independent (UK) Mar 27, 2015 Full Review Catch Me Daddy (2014) 93% 4/5 EDIT “So lyrical and so unsparing that it becomes something more than just a genre film; something more like a poetic-realist fugue and a despairing howl at the state of contemporary Britain.” – Independent (UK) Feb 27, 2015 Full Review Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) 29% 2/5 EDIT “It's a story that has been told and retold for thousands of years, but this po-faced, dutifully spectacular retelling barely lingers in the memory beyond the end credits.” – Independent (UK) Jan 9, 2015 Full Review Le Week-End (2013) 89% 4/5 EDIT “A loosely structured but acutely observed relationships movie with a wide streak of painful comedy.” – Independent (UK) Jan 6, 2015 Full Review Paddington (2014) 96% 4/5 EDIT “Through it all runs the touching story of an outsider making a new home for himself, and discovering that in the end, whatever our differences, "anyone in London can fit in."” – Independent (UK) Dec 4, 2014 Full Review Palo Alto (2013) 70% 4/5 EDIT “The drama is scaled to just the right size: kids get into trouble or inadvisable situations, but there are no major melodramatics. We see them in their natural habitat.” – Independent (UK) Oct 24, 2014 Full Review Batched (2014) 66% 3/5 EDIT “The ensemble of handsome young British actors donning the requisite tailcoats and arrogant airs are all too seductively believable, and it is the film's few representatives of the lumpen bourgeoisie who can make the film seem just a touch unsubtle.” – Independent (UK) Sep 26, 2014 Full Review Pride (2014) 93% 4/5 EDIT “It rightly and joyously gets to celebrate things that are rarely found in films set in modern-day Britain, such as political idealism and activism, community spirit, political bookshops, and sympathetic trade-unionists.” – Independent (UK) Sep 19, 2014 Full Review Before I Go to Sleep (2014) 36% 2/5 EDIT “A lack of consequence and an absence of character development are to be expected in a film about a woman whose life is reset every night, but these are challenges that Steven Knight's screenplay sets itself and then never rises to meet.” – Independent (UK) Sep 5, 2014 Full Review Night Moves (2013) 86% 4/5 EDIT “There certainly isn't any extraneous action in Night Moves. But it is precisely its leanness and the tight focus of its storytelling that make it such a tense thriller.” – Independent (UK) Aug 29, 2014 Full Review The Congress (2013) 71% 3/5 EDIT “The animated dreamworld of the second half is a wonderfully colourful and bizarre place, but so confusing that it is hardly credible that consumers of the future are going to want to pay money to spend time there.” – Independent (UK) Aug 22, 2014 Full Review Joe (2013) 87% 4/5 EDIT “Joe is a gripping drama with a powerful moral core, that has sympathy for those trying to make their way alone through the world, but doesn't give them much of a chance.” – Independent (UK) Jul 24, 2014 Full Review Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) 91% 3/5 EDIT “What is, perhaps, surprising, is the way the film aligns our sympathies with the apes.” – Independent (UK) Jul 18, 2014 Full Review Boyhood (2014) 97% 5/5 EDIT “Boyhood is a coming-of-age film not quite like any other.” – Independent (UK) Jul 18, 2014 Full Review Chef (2014) 87% 4/5 EDIT “The result is a small, unashamedly feel-good film that makes up for what it lacks in dramatic jeopardy with gentle comedy, heartwarming family scenes, ladles of food porn, and time spent among characters you like.” – Independent (UK) Jul 7, 2014 Full Review Camille Claudel, 1915 (2013) 80% 4/5 EDIT “This is a stark film, about the human condition at its most base and degraded.” – Independent (UK) Jun 20, 2014 Full Review Belle (2013) 84% 3/5 EDIT “A spirited, good-natured and crowd-pleasing costume drama.” – Independent (UK) Jun 12, 2014 Full Review The Dirties (2013) 83% 4/5 EDIT “The Dirties is a very funny meta comedy; manna for film geeks, but full of a high-spirited and punkish energy that anyone from fans of Jackass and Ali G to fans of Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine can appreciate.” – Independent (UK) Jun 5, 2014 Full Review Edge of Tomorrow (2014) 91% 4/5 EDIT “What do you get if you cross a big-budget humanity-vs-aliens action movie with Groundhog Day? Well, a wittier, more inventive and, paradoxically, a far less repetitive film than any number of others.” – Independent (UK) Jun 2, 2014 Full Review Jimmy's Hall (2014) 78% 4/5 EDIT “While its depiction of 1930s rural Irish life seems a mite more picturesque than it does lived in, the scenes in which characters air their grievances and debate their communal response, as ever in Loach's films, are full of urgency and hope and life.” – Independent (UK) May 29, 2014 Full Review X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) 90% 4/5 EDIT “A pleasingly coherent, plot-driven action movie, positively streamlined by the standards of today's superhero blockbusters.” – Independent (UK) May 23, 2014 Full Review Godzilla (2014) 76% 2/5 EDIT “The monsters, it must be said, are awesome. But they have tiny pre-mammalian brains and only the most basic, instinctive motivations. So when they are your film's most interesting characters, even the most spectacle-hungry viewer is going to get bored.” – Independent (UK) May 16, 2014 Full Review Calvary (2014) 89% 4/5 EDIT “McDonagh's script is a fabulous bit of writing with the tidy structure and mythical resonance of a passion play, but idiosyncratic and funny in all of its detail.” – Independent (UK) Apr 11, 2014 Full Review Noah (2014) 75% 3/5 EDIT “The domestic melodrama and psychological realism which Aronofsky gives Noah to wrestle with are interesting enough, and Russell Crowe is the ideal actor to show Noah brooding upon his lot.” – Independent (UK) Apr 4, 2014 Full Review
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