Matthew Norman
Matthew Norman's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
London Evening Standard
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) |
This mischievous film never tires of teasing the conventions and traditions of the genre. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jul 05, 2019
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Yesterday (2019) |
Fuelled by the engaging chemistry of its leads and the unflagging wonderment of the music, it zips along. But it can never quite reach escape velocity from the weight of its silliness. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jul 01, 2019
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Toy Story 4 (2019) |
Toy Story 4 is so good it's criminal. The legislation it flouts is the law of diminishing returns which governs movies with numbers after their names. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 23, 2019
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Men in Black: International (2019) |
Tessa Thompson carries it to the best of her mighty abilities but it's a pulverising load to bear. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 16, 2019
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Dark Phoenix (2019) |
A stupendously dull series-ender without a shred of wit, narrative thrust or genuine emotional force. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 10, 2019
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Rocketman (2019) |
There may be a showbiz biopic to come that matches Rocketman for wit, energy, charm, candour and shameless exuberance. But I think it's gonna be a long, long time. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted May 24, 2019
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The Hustle (2019) |
Wilson's energy level never falters. You would sympathise with such a natural, engaging talent for the narrow typecasting if she hadn't done it to herself. Rebel, Rebel, your film is a mess. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted May 12, 2019
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Tolkien (2019) |
It uses its imagination to build a thoughtful and charming portrait. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted May 05, 2019
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Avengers: Endgame (2019) |
The only complaint about Avengers: Endgame is that it raises the bar so high that there may well never be a superhero movie to match it. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Apr 28, 2019
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Greta (2018) |
The pace seldom lags, the cinematography is luscious, and a dream sequence has a clever twist. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Apr 21, 2019
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Hellboy (2019) |
If it was my call, I'd write nothing about the movie and leave this space blank for readers' notes. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Apr 15, 2019
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Shazam! (2019) |
After lazy reliance on phoney gravitas and blundering with its first serious stab at levity with Aquaman, DC has found a comic torch-bearer of pure heart to illuminate the path of righteousness ahead. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Apr 07, 2019
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Us (2019) |
This film, unlike its predecessor, isn't perfect. But it is a richly intriguing riot of imagery and ideas that demands to be rewatched again and again. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Mar 24, 2019
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What Men Want (2019) |
What begins as a standard gross-out affair (with a prosthetic #MeToo limb clumsily grafted to the body) ends in a treacly, glib, made-for-TV wasteland. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Mar 17, 2019
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Captain Marvel (2019) |
For Marvel there's a new boss in town. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Mar 10, 2019
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The Aftermath (2019) |
A post-wartime love triangle drama that champions The Bleeding Obvious with every frame. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Mar 03, 2019
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Cold Pursuit (2019) |
After a zingy, tight first hour, the concision gives way to flab. The executions become a touch mechanical, the gags start to feel forced, and the avalanche of lavishly nicknamed baddies loses distinction. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Feb 28, 2019
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A Private War (2018) |
At a time when pressured media budgets are conspiring, with the general preference for escapism over reality, to threaten war reporting's very existence, A Private War unflinchingly reminds us of its value. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Feb 17, 2019
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If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) |
Jenkins doesn't scratch the surface of the black American experience. He takes you deep into its bones and suggests that far less has changed than the naive may believe. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Feb 10, 2019
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Green Book (2018) |
[A] flawed but oddly joyful movie elevated far above its limitations by two sublime performances. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Feb 04, 2019
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Vice (2018) |
When a movie's premise is that its subject single-handedly moulded recent history, you want more depth and grandeur than this one provides. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jan 27, 2019
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Mary Queen of Scots (2018) |
Beau Willimon's stiflingly expository screenplay... moonlights as the undergraduate lecture David Starkey would give after a partial lobotomy. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jan 20, 2019
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Stan & Ollie (2018) |
A film that plasters a soppy rictus across one's face from first frame to last belongs to its leads. Their beguilingly natural performances betray no hint of the monumental effort required for these perfect recreations. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jan 13, 2019
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Mary Poppins Returns (2018) |
From the introductory shot, gliding through the clouds on that parrot-handled brolly, Blunt takes staggeringly self-assured charge. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Dec 26, 2018
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Creed II (2018) |
Creed II is almost a match for its predecessor in most respects, and in one its superior. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Dec 02, 2018
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The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018) |
A fast-paced, high-octane espionage action flick with superhero flourishes. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Nov 25, 2018
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Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) |
Never for a frame less than gorgeous to the eye, its beauty saves these beasts. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Nov 19, 2018
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Wildlife (2018) |
[Dano's] restraint and acute grasp of nuance are mirrored by three outstanding central performances. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Nov 09, 2018
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Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) |
Oh! my great aunt Ada, what an anodyne cop-out to reduce a man of infinite flamboyance and indulgence to the almost mundane. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Oct 29, 2018
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Halloween (2018) |
As Myers makes his serene way through the pumpkin-lamp-lined avenues, he is as unnerving a blank slate as when Nick Castle last played him in 1978. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Oct 20, 2018
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First Man (2018) |
A long, draining, almost painful film that commands admiration more than love. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Oct 15, 2018
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A Star Is Born (2018) |
At its huge, pulsating heart this is a story about lovers desperately trying to save one another - from the loss of integrity in an industry that disdains it and from self-destructive impulses with roots too old and deep to be touched. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Oct 10, 2018
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The Wife (2017) |
If ever a film belonged to an actor... this one belongs to Close. Mesmeric is an adjective often misused as a synonym for superlatives because it sounds cool. Here it is the right word. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Sep 28, 2018
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A Simple Favor (2018) |
It seeks only to entertain, and in its haphazard way it does. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Sep 25, 2018
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King of Thieves (2018) |
Marsh had his hands on some very fancy jewels. What he didn't have, sadly, was the script to make them gleam. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Sep 14, 2018
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The Nun (2018) |
With no effort whatever to build a sinister atmosphere by layering the tension and creating characters about whom their parents could possibly care, every stab at a fright is a bog-standard jump scare... - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Sep 07, 2018
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Yardie (2018) |
If [Elba's] first film often looks good and always sounds great, beneath its skin it is short of heart and soul. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Sep 05, 2018
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BlacKkKlansman (2018) |
Until the closing shots of BlacKkKlansman, director and co-writer Spike Lee does more than control the rage. He refines it with riotous wit into a stiletto, and is all the more lethal for that. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Aug 26, 2018
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The Meg (2018) |
The one genuine shock is that it takes Statham as long as 44 minutes to remove his shirt and flash his pecs. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Aug 20, 2018
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Christopher Robin (2018) |
A gently sweet film which, without realising its early melancholic promise, aims a little higher than the bear necessities required of a Disney merchandising cash cow. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Aug 20, 2018
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Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018) |
Its intent is limited to amusing and diverting for a couple of hours of high-summer fun. That it does. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Aug 09, 2018
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Sicilian Ghost Story (2017) |
A tender, vividly fantastical thriller based on the Sicilian mafia's real-life kidnapping of a 13-year-old boy in 1993. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Aug 09, 2018
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Incredibles 2 (2018) |
Brad Bird not only directs with the same assured inventiveness he brought to The Incredibles (and Ratatouille, and The Iron Giant), but has written a script every bit as smart, witty and touching as the first. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jul 23, 2018
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Tag (2018) |
This one's first half stores enough in its hump to see it through the arid second. But like any man-child terminally sidetracked by interests better left in the playground, it never fulfils its potential. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 29, 2018
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Ocean's 8 (2018) |
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds. But that is a miserably low hurdle to ask such a starry cast to clear... - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 22, 2018
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Hereditary (2018) |
The results are horrific, emotionally and aesthetically, and launch a corkscrew spin towards hell. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 15, 2018
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) |
The sense is of a once dominant futuristic franchise becoming ever more irretrievably ossified in the monster B-movie amber of the ancient cinematic past. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Jun 09, 2018
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7 Days in Entebbe (2018) |
The most discernible terror comes not from the hostages huddled in the terminal, who are little more than extras, but from the sense of a director too paralysed by the fear of causing offence to take a perspective. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted May 11, 2018
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I Feel Pretty (2018) |
Did Amy Schumer read the script before signing up? - London Evening Standard
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| Posted May 04, 2018
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Avengers: Infinity War (2018) |
For those less schooled in all the backstories, Infinity War scatterguns enough laughs, thrilling digital effects and exhilarating chaos to compensate for any confusion. - London Evening Standard
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| Posted Apr 26, 2018
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