Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life
On the surface of it, Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life looks like a stock tweenager movie in the mould of Diary Of A Wimpy Kid. But there are layers to this film that you don't expect. Aside from the obvious Wimpy Kid influence, it also draws ideas and themes from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Shark Boy And Lava Girl, Pump Up The Volume, Dead Poet's Society and another film I shan't mention as to do so would spoil a major twist.
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Equally, the performances in ...
The Mummy – Behind the Scenes Featurette
Tom Cruise headlines a spectacular, all-new cinematic version of the legend that has fascinated cultures all over the world since the dawn of civilization: The Mummy.
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Thought safely entombed in a tomb deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient princess (Sofia Boutella of Kingsman: The Secret Service and Star Trek Beyond) whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human ...
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Movie Review
Unafraid to unsettle his young target audience (if only just a bit), Burton keeps the creepiness quotient on a low boil while interspersing the proceedings with enough lightness to keep things on the sweet dreams side of nightmares. My 9 year-old was fine with it and, indeed, loved it. Think Coraline-level macabre but perhaps a touch more grisly.
It pays to keep your wits about you in order to follow the film's mild time-bending eccentricities but, if you keep up, it's not hard to ...
Kubo an the Two Strings Movie Review
The film uses stop motion animation (with one of the techniques cleverly shown in the end credits), CGI and what one might possibly imagine is hand drawn imagery and looks fantastic. Voiced by an A-list of vocal talent that includes Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes and Matthew (put down those bongos) McConaughey, they are given rich text to work with.
The story is an out right fantasy voyage and while this is a genre whose charms often elude, this is so inventively accomplished, it draws ...
Sausage Party Movie Review
It is so surprisingly crude, crass, creative, outrageous and funny, it is literally like nothing you have ever experienced before. It will also provide a great test to see how easily you are offended. It pushes things so far, it becomes a new paradigm. Its R rated status is complete vindicated and I would have loved to have ease dropped on the conversation of explanation between the father and his very young son that I saw attending the preview screening.
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The story is set in a ...
Ghostbusters Movie Review
So, naturally, my expectations for this reboot(?) were not high. I was hoping for something fun but not necessarily mind blowing and this is pretty much what Ghostbusters 2016 is.
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The strength of the new Ghostbusters is in its principal female cast - Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. The women have great chemistry; they form a funny and sassy team and this experiment to flip the gender of the principals is largely successful. It's certainly a better idea ...
The BFG Movie Review
My only experience of a ‘BFG’ was the BFG9000, a weapon found in the Doom and Quake video games using an acronym that implied words that ought not be uttered by a child. Given Roald Dahl's twisted mind, I would be unsurprised to learn that he was well aware of this possible interpretation when he released his book about a ‘Big Friendly Giant’ in 1982.
An animated TV version of The BFG was released in the late 80's but this time around Steven Spielberg has turned his acumen to a ...
Warcraft Movie Review
With the late attachment of Duncan Jones as director, things looked good. Jones’ previous film, Moon, showed a sure hand at the helm and spoke well of the potential for a story with depth. The open book nature of the fantasy genre also informed a world of vast possibilities. In final results, this did not quite pan out.
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Self admitting to absolutely no knowledge of the video game, the movie’s lack of ability to establish a believably mythology was a real stumbling block for me. ...
X-Men: Apocalypse Movie Review
X-Men: Apocalypse will apparently bring to a close the early and formative story of the X-Men and it’s been a bit of an uneven ride. It started with the youth oriented X-Men: First Class (which followed in the steps of the first adult X-Men film by doing a good job of establishing the characters) then built more momentum with the hybrid X-Men: Days of Future Past (which had a more involving storyline) and then squanders most of that momentum with this latest film.
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Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice
With Batman versus Superman, however, it's not quite so easy to see the conflict as they are both clearly on the ‘hero’ side of the equation. But director, Zack Snyder, does a reasonable job of pulling this together by tapping into a problem that many viewers had with his prior film, Man of Steel.
Batman, like many of us, heavily resents the heavy public toll resulting from Superman's urban clash with General Zod. This is understandable but when Batman determines to kill Superman in ...
