★★★★☆ The first of a two-parter, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is bigger, bolder and grander than its predecessor, and with little serious competition from Marvel or DC’s live-action factories, looks set to be the best superhero film of the year.
★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
★★☆☆☆ Bereavement, mental health, the threadbare US social welfare system and homelessness are the heavy topics that British-born director Deborah Richards tackles in her debut feature. Unfortunately, their worthy but superficial and somewhat incoherent presentation means that Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.
★★★★☆ Cited by numerous contemporary fantasy filmmakers – Mexican maestro Guillermo del Toro included – as a major influence on their own consequent bodies of work, French movie magician Jean Cocteau is commemorated by the BFI once again with the...
★★★★☆ Cambodia’s official submission to the 2014 Academy Awards, Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture (2013) fuses archive footage, stop-motion animation and voiceover in an attempt to recreate the atrocities committed between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge. Born in...
★★☆☆☆ Director Justin Chadwick presents his protracted and ultimately disappointing biopic portraying the life of South Africa’s first democratically elected leader with Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) – and what a trudge it is. Charting the rise of the...
★☆☆☆☆ A quartet of venerable Hollywood greats come together to play supposed lifelong friends staging one last hurrah in Jon Turteltaub’s much delayed comedy Last Vegas (2013). Surely a modicum of enjoyment is there to be derived from this admittedly...
★★★★☆ Amalgamating the best aspects of previous films The Fighter (2010) and Silver Linings Playbook (2012) whilst dispensing with a lot of the emotional baggage that dragged both down after engaging first halves, David O. Russell now hits top form...
★★☆☆☆ One of the more eyebrow-raising nominees for last year’s Cannes Palme d’Or, French director Arnaud des Pallières’ Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas (2013) sees European cinema darling Mads Mikkelsen star as the vengeful equine breeder in...