comedy
Book Club: The Next Chapter Review
The four 70-something women of BOOK CLUB (2018) return in BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER. Vivian (Jane Fonda), Diane (Diane Keaton) Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) are still in the book club they established 45 years ago. The movie begins with the challenge of Covid-19 forcing the quartet to shelter in place and go through the uncertainty of that process. The book club goes on Zo...
Polite Society Review
Part coming of age teen drama and part action thriller, Polite Society, the debut film from writer-director Nida Manzoor, is a must-see this year. Rich in allusions to cult classics like Kill Bill, Get Out, The Matrix and Scott Pilgrim vs the World, it’s packed full of relatable family drama, witty one-liners, dynamic cinematography and well-oiled fight scenes. With such a packed dance card of gen...
The Super Mario Bros. Movie Review
The Super Mario Bros. Movie warped into cinemas this week, hoping to surpass the video game movie adaptations that have come before it. The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the latest family animated feature by Illumination Entertainment (Despicable Me franchise) and Universal Studios. With the current nostalgia craze, and the Super Nintendo World Universal theme parks rapidly opening up around the glob...
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Review
Paramount Pictures rolls the dice with its new fantasy adventure film – Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Directing/writing duo John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein (Game Night) are hoping to capitalise on the massive success of the role playing game, and although this isn’t the first attempt at adapting the tabletop game onto the silver screen, Paramount is hoping it will ...
Shazam! Fury of the Gods Review
Warner Bros. Pictures’ latest epic DC superhero flick is out – Shazam! Fury of the Gods – the sequel to the criminally underrated Shazam! (2019). After an unfortunate run of box office failures over the past few years, Warner Bros. is hoping to recapture the magic of the first Shazam! film to give themselves a much needed win. This time around Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his s...
Cocaine Bear Review
Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2) returns to the directing chair, four years after her less than stellar Charlie’s Angels reboot. This time, it’s to tell the (I can’t believe I’m typing this) true story of Cocaine Bear – a black bear who ingests pounds of cocaine in a national forest in Georgia, sending it on a hilariously drug-fueled, murderous rampage. I thought Cocaine Bear would ju...
Spoiler Alert Review
Spoiler Alert: stories of good men dying young will always make you cry, but sometimes they can leave audiences looking for more. It feels oddly harsh to critique Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert as it is based on a true story of the same name, written by Michael Ausiello. It tells the story of how he lost his husband to cancer, and follows their relationship from its inception, through their gro...
What’s Love Got to Do With It? Review
I’m not too sure about you, but it has been a very long time since I thoroughly enjoyed a modern rom-com, but What’s Love Got to Do with It? certainly broke that streak. What’s Love’s director Shekar Kapur takes a clichéd rom-com formula and many over-done tropes, that have historically centred on white characters, and attempts to reframe them for a modern multicultural audience. While at times au...
Babylon Review
Like the elephant in the opening scene that relaxes its sphincter and covers one of its handlers in liquid filth, Damien Chazelle puckers up and explodes all over his audience for three hours in Babylon, a love/hate letter to debaucherous early Hollywood that’s as ambitious as it is unbalanced. This polarising epic is drawing 5-star reviews from some and 1-star from others, seemingly depending on ...
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre Review
Guy Ritchie (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) writes, produces and directs Miramax’s latest action blockbuster – Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. The film stars Jason Statham as Orson Fortune; a top-level spy tasked with locating and preventing the distribution of a new highly dangerous weapons system, being sold by the wealthy arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant). Despite his reluct...
A Man Called Otto Review
You don’t need to have read the book (A Man Called Ove) or seen the original film adaptation in Swedish to be, frankly, underwhelmed by A Man Called Otto. This new adaptation had the same emotive storyline that tugs on the heartstrings, but the americanisation makes it a tad more… bland. It is based on the heartwarming story of an elderly widowed curmudgeon Ove (renamed ‘Otto’ and played by Tom Ha...
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Review
It has been eleven years and Antonio Banderas (Desperado, Shrek 2) returns as the titular outlaw along with Selma Hayek (Hitman’s Bodyguard, House of Gucci) as Kitty Paws and Harvey Guillen (Archer, Harley Quinn) as newcomer Perrito, a want to be therapy dog masquerading as a cat. If that last bit sounds amusing, then director Joel Crawford (The Croods: New Age) has a treat in store! Before we rea...