Retro Movie Review – Deepwater Horizon
Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell are the heroes of the piece as their salt of the earth characters rise to the occasion and help to prevent a more serious loss of life through selfless heroism. The action is suitably claustrophobic as the isolation of the out-to-sea oil platform plays into the disaster.
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Berg’s decision to focus on the accident on the oil rig and reduce the ecological disaster that was cased by the oil leak to a small footnote at the end of the ...
The King Of Staten Island Movie Review
Throwing down behavioural anomalies thick and fast does little to make you warm to Scott’s plight in life. His charms are not self-evident, but staying the course does pay dividends. Losing his fireman father at a young age and having an overprotective mother played with sass and a bad haircut by the excellent Marisa Tomei has given him a non-reality world to get lost in. And lost he is.
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Davidson, who lost his real-life fireman father in the 9/11 attacks, ...
Retro Movie Review – Atomic Blonde
The story revolves around actions set in Berlin during the last dying days of the communist separation of that city. An end that came to fruition in 1989. As is evident in all good period pieces, the fashions and social values of the day are also the stars. The film pulsates with a great eighties soundtrack that adds even more to the feel of the decade the film is set in.
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Theron as said super spy is impossibly skilled at her job and she plays it as badass as any ...
Retro Movie Review Logan Lucky
It’s also a work of two parts and while the first half struggles a bit to find its footing, in the second half, things pick up nicely. As in all good caper yarns, things are not always as they seem and the work’s internal logic by film’s end is most satisfying. Soderbergh as is his way, loads the film with a heavy duty cast and it’s great to see Daniel Craig play against his usual screen persona as Joe Bang, a bleach blonde career criminal with a way with science.
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A White, White Day Movie Review
Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurdsson) is a police officer who is trying his best to deal with the loss of his life partner and wife. The cracks start to appear early but the film’s unconventional manner takes its time to establish just how unusual life can be in the cold and barren tundra of Iceland.
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It also presents a form of child rearing that puts the overly cautious way of the west in stark contrast. These young ones are not handled with kid gloves on. The film uses very ...
Waves Movie Review
As the story evolves, you witness the impending disintegration of teenager Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). You can see the end result in the distance but can do nothing to change the ultimate outcome. This situation tears his family apart and each member ends up dealing with the sorrow and loss in their own way.
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With the audience nerves still raw, the film enters its second half. The tone becomes less frantic and more introspective. This mood is helped in large ...
Retro Movie Review – Steve Jobs
Screenplay writer Aaron Sorkin’s influence can be felt in more than just the words in the film as the Sorkinisms just keep piling up. The famous walk and talk shot is used throughout, as is the uber intelligent and quick witted conversational style. The brain pool on display is never short of exceptional as are the acting chops.
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Michael Fassbender as Jobs is fantastic as is Kate Winslet as Job’s right hand woman Joanna Hoffman. Winslet’s take on Hoffman with ...
Retro Movie Review – Dunkirk
In this context, he build tension in a masterful way. The film features very little dialogue and Hans Zimmer’s score is a major player in the film’s tone and emotional impact. The tension is fierce and relentless and never loosens its grip throughout the 106 minute running time.
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The horror of war is never far from view but it isn’t presented in an overly graphic or bloody way. This approach adds even more to the film’s impact because it doesn’t distance ...
Retro Movie Review – 21 Jump Street
How this happened is no real mystery. First it must be said that out of the ten or so people I spoke to before the screening, none had actually seen even a single episode of the eighties era television show, so the slate seems to be clean for a new interpretation with no baggage of having to adhere to fans that know every nuance of the original. The film also steers firmly into the direction of parody and as such takes as many swipes at eighties era society as it does the television of the ...
Retro Movie Review – Everest
The film is incredible tense and from the first frame you feel the rising level of impending doom. Even for those that have little knowledge of the actual events of the disaster, the film fills you with that dark sense of foreboding. It frames the climbers (accurately or not) as a group of driven people with little regard for their own safety or the tons of rubbish that modern day mountain climbing leaves behind.
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The film is big in almost every way, a big cast, a ...
