Reviews 1094 results

Renfield Movie Review

Things begin as we join Renfield (Hoult) in a self-help group for people in co-dependent relationships. At first, he is just there looking for victims but soon realises that he has had enough of procuring the human blood bags that the count needs to survive and now needs the tools to form an exit strategy.   //   The subservient nature of Renfield’s occupation is played mostly for laughs. Even our darkest ideas of enduring the world’s worst boss seem a cakewalk ...

The Little Mermaid Movie Review

Visually there are a large number of arresting moments where the spectacle lives up to the modern standard of sensory overload. The human (and fish) element however struggles slightly to keep pace. It was always going to be a big ask to add anything new to a story so well-known.   //   The musical numbers do help at times to lift things and it’s great to have movie songs with real live memorable choruses and not just verse after verse after verse. This is aided by the ...

John Farnham: Finding the Voice Movie Review

Long known as one of our country’s finest singers, there is ample proof in the songs on display. Any who doubts the power of those pipes, there is a mid-film rendition of Amazing Grace that will have you mesmerized. A life lead in the public eye also helps and there is ample footage to help tell the story.   //   The filmmakers are generous with archival footage of many other musical acts that help set the musical climate of the times. This gives the film a wider ...

Fast X Movie Review

The series has always had a strong connection to the sense of the importance of family and that underlines what is in essence a very simple plot line. But then who drops into their local bijou for a deep and meaningful with this testosterone-charged franchise.   //   As far as action is concerned Fast X outdoes almost all that has come before and the set pieces are so over the top that they defy both physics and description. It delivers a level of bombast that will keep ...

Love Again Movie Review

Love Again takes that simplicity to the extreme. Two pretty people, the hunk from Outlander (Sam Heughan) as music writer Rob Burns and Indian star (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) as Children’s book creator Mira Ray inhabit a world so far removed from reality, it could almost be a ride in the mouse house. //   That they end up together is never in doubt. The storyline as it is revolves around Mira losing her much-loved partner to a drunk driver and keeping his memory alive by sending ...

German Film Festival 2023: A Thousand Lines Movie Review

In December 2018 the world added the term Spiegelgate to the international lexicon when German journalist Claas Relotius was outed as a fraud on a grand scale. He falsified facts in at least 14 stories of his in Der Spiegel, a German weekly news magazine with a huge circulation at that time.   //   Director Michael Herbig deconstructs the actual details of that misuse of position and power and builds in its place a very entertaining romp through spectacular levels of ...

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Movie Review

Volume 3 of Guardians of the Galaxy shares the franchise’s penchant for fantastic visuals highlighting imaginative new worlds with recognisable rock songs to help create momentum. It also features characters that are written well within the lines. This gives things a comforting familiarity but one open for a slight expansion of backstory. This time the highlights are the details about Rocket's (Bradley Cooper) origin story.   //   As with all the MCU’s big-budget ...

German Film Festival 2023: Sisi & I Movie Review

The movie revolves around her relationship with Countess Irma Sztáray (Sandra Hüller) who started as her lady-in-waiting but became much more. The film begins after the period when Sisi gave birth to the royal children and focuses on the time she spent away from her husband on Corfu, an island off the coast of Greece.   //   During this separation, she was able to indulge her every whim and led a hedonist lifestyle where all those around her had to indulge her outside ...

Living With Chucky Movie Review

This documentary starts with an assembly of talking heads describing the temper of the times. An era where anti-heroes were fuelling a new wave of horror films that had likeable villains. This started with Freddy Krueger from Wes Carven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street and gathered momentum when writer Don Mancini created the Chucky character for the film Child’s Play in 1988.   //   The maniacal doll proved so popular that they eventually spun off a series of films under ...

Evil Dead Rise Movie Review

This latest chapter is light on the humour and heavy on the red stuff. Set in an almost film noir run-down Los Angeles apartment building, this poor family has no idea of what’s about to come. When an earthquake happens, this is Southern Californian after all, it unearths that sacred tome and all hell breaks loose.   //   Now just about every family has a horror story about the parental units, My personal shocker involves a mother-in-law but the transformation of ma ...