Film Reviews & More
★★★★☆ With Luca Guadagnino’s terrific Challengers, the acclaimed director of Call Me By Your Name brings us the sub-genre we never knew we needed: the erotic tennis thriller.
★★☆☆☆ Directors Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s “Abigail” mashes up crime caper and monster movie, but fails to deliver fear or humor. Spoilery trailers and unoriginal characters overshadow promising elements, resulting in a dull, lifeless experience lacking creativity and wit.
★★★★☆ In Alex Garland’s Civil War, a group of journalists embark on a road trip to interview the US President amidst a second American Civil War, while exploring media’s dehumanizing relationship with violence.
★★☆☆☆ Four years on from the last attempt at a reboot courtesy of Shane Black, 10 Cloverfield Lane director Dan Trachtenberg arrives to do what no other director has managed and rejuvenate the Predator franchise. Sadly, though the attempt is admirable, the direct-to-Disney+ Prey is an oddly blunted affair.
★★★★☆ Based on Isaka Kōtarō’s 2010 novel MariaBeetle, Bullet Train comes thundering out of the station, a runaway delight of forward momentum, style and excess. Directed by the man behind John Wick, Atomic Blonde and Deadpool 2, David Leitch once again proves himself one of the most adept action directors in Hollywood.
★★★★☆ Celebrating its 50th anniversary, Perry Henzell’s classic 1972 crime thriller makes its way once again to British screens. With a sensational soundtrack, a terrific central performance from reggae master Jimmy Cliff, and violence as unvarnished as Mean Streets, The Harder They Come has lost none of its excitement.
★★☆☆☆ At a retreat in upstate New York, law student Lark (Ayumi Patterson) gradually uncovers a web of mystery and deceit that has ensnared her friends. American director Jaclycn Bethany’s second feature, The Falling World contains moments of intrigue but a limp script and a cast of unengaging characters make this effort fall flat.
★★★★☆ On 3 June 1991, famed French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft made their final, fateful expedition to an erupting volcano. The eruption at Mount Unzen, near Nagasaki, killed the pair in a devastating pyroclastic flow. Documentarian Sara Dosa crafts an impassioned picture of the world’s most celebrated married volcanologists.
★★★★★ Combining hallucinatory and often abstract visuals, history, and conventional fly-on-the-wall filmmaking, All Light, Everywhere is a fascinating experiment in documentary form. Theo Anthony’s premise, that vision in all its forms constructs the world as much as it captures it, is not especially new.
★★★★☆ Continuing the series that he began with Mediterranea and A Ciambra, Italian-American director Jonas Carpignano’s third feature gives further dimension to the world and lives of the ‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate of Calabria. A Chiara is arguably Carpignano’s most accomplished work to date.
★★☆☆☆ Taika Waititi returns to direct his second instalment of the Thor saga. Leaning even further into the comedy that made Ragnarok such a riot, upping the visual ante and raising the emotional stakes, Waititi’s follow-up has all the makings of the God of Thunder’s best adventure yet. Sadly, Love and Thunder proves that it is possible to have too much of a good Thor.
