Radheyan Simonpillai
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) |
A giddy, comical and inviting brand expansion that gives its fans – who often suppress their inner wizards in public – good reason to wear their nerdy affections with pride. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Mar 27, 2023
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Champions (2023) |
A paternalistic and patronizing movie... - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Mar 08, 2023
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Chris Rock: Selective Outrage (2023) |
“Nobody is picking on this b****,” Rock said, as he continued to bully [Jada Pinkett-Smith] instead of [Will] Smith. He, too, is all about the selective outrage. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Mar 05, 2023
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I Like Movies (2022) |
Imagine if Superbad were directed by a woman who didn’t allow the toxic masculinity and misogyny to go unchecked, while also l giving her genuinely funny and moving characters the room for growth and empathy. I Like Movies does that. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Mar 04, 2023
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Queens of the Qing Dynasty (2022) |
Imagine if Euphoria was serious, uplifting and hopeful rather than traumatic and sensational. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Mar 04, 2023
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Creed III (2023) |
Michael B. Jordan makes a confident and selfless debut as an actor-director, sharing space in his ring with a heavyweight like Majors. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Mar 04, 2023
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Cocaine Bear (2023) |
The movie, about a doped-up black bear, is a much more lethargic affair, as if the apex predator’s supply was swapped out for some Ativan. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Feb 23, 2023
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Of an Age (2022) |
Stolevski holds our attention with small moments he makes feel huge. This is just confirmation that the You Won't Be Alone filmmaker is a major talent to keep an eye on. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) |
Jonathan Majors is giving an emotionally acrobatic performance that this franchise does not deserve. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Feb 17, 2023
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Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) |
There are interesting ideas about transactional relationships and narrative evolution dancing around in here, with nods to Pretty Woman, Step Up and Victorian literature. But the gets lost in its own head and forgets to have fun with them. - CBC Radio
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| Posted Feb 10, 2023
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Knock at the Cabin (2023) |
Shyamalan knows how to hold a close-up, move the camera and cut a scene in ways that really milk the tension and suspense. I cling to that in an era where the Marvel-ization of movies obliterated the demand for cinematic aesthetics. - CBC Radio
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| Posted Feb 03, 2023
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You People (2023) |
In a movie where Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris process white privilege and affection for Black culture, the Black characters are treated with less generosity. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Jan 27, 2023
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Skinamarink (2022) |
Taps into a primal fear of a child waking up in the night finding the things they take comfort (home, toys, cartoons) twisted into something nightmarish in the dark. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Missing (2023) |
Missing recreates the "Vertigo shot" on a screen space filled with FaceTime and Google Tabs. It gets five stars just for that! - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Jan 20, 2023
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Ever Deadly (2022) |
The doc is a lot like the outfit Tagaq is wearing at the live concert it repeatedly returns to. It’s a dress covered in glass scales, catching in its reflections the world surrounding Tagaq. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Jan 18, 2023
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Babylon (2022) |
La La Land on coke. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) |
You feel Cameron's passion for this natural world - I say natural fully aware that this is an artificial creation that feels like it has more blood and metal than what we usually get from studio franchise fare. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Dec 16, 2022
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Violent Night (2022) |
A witless movie that is too easily satisfied with its own premise and often feels like it’s elbowing you in the ribs trying to get you to laugh along with it. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Nov 30, 2022
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Halftime (2022) |
There is an irony here that Ms. “Jenny from the Block” is trying to win sympathy by saying “Despite all my riches, I don’t have an Oscar. Life is so unfair.” - CBC Radio
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| Posted Nov 26, 2022
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The Fabelmans (2022) |
Beautiful filmmaking that reminds you why you worship at the altar of Spielberg. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 25, 2022
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Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) |
Looser, flabbier but fun. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 25, 2022
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Devotion (2022) |
“Do you know how tired I am of people trying to help me while looking down on me?” Brown asks in one devastating scene. He’s speaking to Hudner, but the line lands a direct hit against every white-saviour movie that came before it. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Nov 23, 2022
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) |
Almost like being at a funeral while trying to shush the kids who are playing with their Iron Man toys. ... It's more fascinating than your average comic book movie, even though it doesn't work as a comic book movie. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 11, 2022
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Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) |
The movie bites off way too much. It lumbers inelegantly between confrontations with grief and fascism. - Globe and Mail
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| Posted Nov 10, 2022
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The Wonder (2022) |
Finds a very human way into a conversation about how we measure and value truth. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Decision to Leave (2022) |
Possibly the sexiest movie of the year and certainly one of the best. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) |
Goofy. Silly. Redundant. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Armageddon Time (2022) |
The movie still uses its young Black character as a prop to process white guilt. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Nov 04, 2022
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Till (2022) |
You have to witness Danielle Deadwyler's performance. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Ticket to Paradise (2022) |
A rom-com that's short on comedy, long on sentiment. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Black Adam (2022) |
A fascinating mess. - CBC Radio
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| Posted Oct 21, 2022
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Tár (2022) |
I’m stunned by the craft but suspicious of the movie’s perspective. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Oct 14, 2022
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Don't Worry Darling (2022) |
Don't Worry Darkling is too afraid to have the complicated conversation that its premise invokes. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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Blonde (2022) |
Blonde aestheticizes the dehumanization of Marilyn Monroe. - CTV's Your Morning
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| Posted Sep 23, 2022
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Wendell & Wild (2022) |
The more characters Selick has to work with, the more room there is for his deliciously strange and comic visual craft. That’s what we’re here for, ain’t it? - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 12, 2022
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Emily (2022) |
The film empowers Brontë’s sometimes turbulent emotions, setting environments according to the author’s moods in ways that can be riveting. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 10, 2022
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End of the Road (2022) |
This is a movie that has very few authentic moments, and plenty of absurd ones. - Guardian
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| Posted Sep 09, 2022
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Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) |
Imagine the teens from Euphoria hacking each other to bits. That’s what Bodies Bodies Bodies goes for but in a way that’s somehow less gross and traumatic, and more fun. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Aug 13, 2022
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Day Shift (2022) |
Would have gone down easier had there been some chemistry between the two leads. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Fall (2022) |
Mann crafts this ride like a horror movie, with enough jump scares, gory sights and twists that make you howl while hanging on to its every vertigo-inducing frame. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Aug 12, 2022
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Easter Sunday (2022) |
The movie, sloppily directed by Super Trooper’s Chandrashekar, recycles gags from Koy’s excellent stand-up that revolve around his overbearing mother (Lydia Gaston) and eccentric extended family. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Prey (2022) |
Midthunder giving a muscular performance but can’t wrestle Prey away from the franchise, which makes the Comanche people feel like ornamental props in a better-than-average Predator movie rather than fully formed characters who own their narrative. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Bullet Train (2022) |
The movie deserves extra props for making Aaron Taylor-Johnson – who has always felt like dead weight in movies like Kick-Ass and Godzilla – an appealing on-screen presence who actually holds our interest up until the Bullet Train goes off the CGI rails. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Aug 05, 2022
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Vengeance (2022) |
Vengeance has philosophical ambitions – trying to deconstruct modern storytelling and what it says about us as a society – that are greater than its grasp. Though I did enjoy watching the movie chase its own tail with that pursuit. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Thirteen Lives (2022) |
Howard also resists the urge to emphasize the true story’s white saviour element. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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DC League of Super-Pets (2022) |
More fun than Justice League. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 29, 2022
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Fire of Love (2022) |
The images of walls of fire crashing down with the force of Niagara Falls or exploding into rocks underwater is reason enough to witness Fire Of Love. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 22, 2022
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Nope (2022) |
As usual with Peele, there’s a lot unpack, what with the symbols and allegories that gesture toward the business of spectacle: wrangling the incredible and the tragic for our entertainment or curiosity. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 22, 2022
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Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022) |
[Lesley Manville is] basically giving Paddington in a Phantom Thread setting. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 15, 2022
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Persuasion (2022) |
Dakota Johnson plays Elliot as the kind of woman who has 87K Twitter followers eating up the laid-back 280-character barbs that guard her wounded heart. - NOW Toronto
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| Posted Jul 15, 2022
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