Review: Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio”
Guillermo del Toro's inventive take on "Pinocchio" is a cinematic artifact of unparalleled craftsmanship. Every frame possesses life just as it re-orients the overly familiar tale of a puppet magically brought to life with elements of actual historical events...
Review: “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”
"Glass Onion" is an entertaining and twisty whodunnit that shows writer/director Rian Johnson flexing not only an unparalleled understanding of the genre but a genuine love. At the same time, it manages to surpass its predecessor "Knives Out" in...
Review: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is like interrupting that unmistakably joyous and sorrowful feeling at a wake with a live infomercial. When the genuinely exciting talent of director/co-writer Ryan Coogler ("Creed") and his players are allowed to process their grief...
Review: “Avatar” (Reprinted)
With the re-release of "Avatar" in cinemas this weekend, I'm reprinting my original review of the film from back in 2009. Much like the film itself, the review still holds up with the passage of time.
A technical groundbreaker,...
Review: “Deep Water”
After two decades, Adrian Lyne returns with his latest erotic thriller "Deep Water" starring Ben Affleck and Ana De Armas in what is a work of trash art.
Adapted from the Patricia Highsmith novel by Zach Helm and Sam Levinson...
Review: “The Adam Project
"The Adam Project" is mainly entertaining, often moving and most importantly, brief. This is a formative movie throwback from director Shawn Levy, star Ryan Reynolds (their second collaboration after "Free Guy") and his bevy of writing collaborators. That's right;...
Blake’s Review: “The Batman”
"The Batman" is a needless collage of not only better movies, but more egregiously of better Batman movies as director/co-writer Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig create an utterly inferior and infuriating vision of the Dark Knight.
"The Batman"...
Review: “Blacklight”
To say that "Blacklight" is one of the shonkiest and dopiest movies that I've ever endured would imply that this utterly bizarre excuse for a feature even deserves to see daylight from the straight to DVD bargain bin where...
Review: “Jackass Forever”
"Jackass Forever" is an unrelenting and essential cinematic experience that transports an audience through a time machine to the primal ferociousness of citizens seated at the Roman colosseum.
Seeing these ageing, bogus gladiators back being shot out of cannons, in...
Review: “Scream”
Ghostface is back in "Scream" ("Scream 5" from here on out), and this time it's not just the fresh-faced crop of Woodsboro teens under the knife, but film discourse and especially film Twitter which is ripe for a skewering.
The...
Review: “Licorice Pizza”
Paul Thomas Anderson's "Licorice Pizza" embraces the romance of being disconnected, of finding out who you are by pretending who you think you should be, and getting in trouble. It's a film that tries to capture the sun-drenched, locomotive...
Review: “West Side Story”
Rapturously entertaining, moving, exhibiting an intoxicating flow, and a sense of staging that defies the near-impossible task of recreating the immediacy of this hallowed stage text; Steven Spielberg's first musical "West Side Story" exhibits effortlessness.
So one may be...
Review: “King Richard”
"King Richard" is a strange and conflicting beast. It's a film that finds a language to render powerful compositions of courts as colosseums of unfathomable expectations. It's also an incredibly patronising, mischaracterised portrait of its subject and...
Review: “Drive My Car”
To do justice to talking about this undeniable masterpiece, there are some minor spoilers of events depicted in the early stages of the film contained within this review.
From a glacial perch of an expansive windowed Tokyo condo, a couple...
Review: “The Harder They Fall”
Regina King, Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba and Jonathan Majors are dripping with swag and swagger in the same western? Sign me up for "The Harder They Fall" - a stylish, hip hop infused, revisionist yet classical collision course...
Review: “Finch”
"Finch" is a tale of survival in a hostile post-apocalyptic vision of Earth, lashed by the searing by a solar flare that has irrevocably altered the climate and decimated modern technology. It's here that director Miguel Sapochnik and writers...
Review: “Eternals”
Academy Award Winner Chloe Zhao's "Eternals" is not good, but unlike the slew of increasingly tiring and formulaic Marvel fare there are some bright spots.
The film follows immortal characters entrusted with guarding humanity against 'Deviants' for seven millenia, and...
Review: “Red Notice”
In the opening credits of "Red Notice," we see a 3D printed fabrication of an artefact foreshadowing that the latest collaboration between filmmaker Rawson Marshall Thurber and Dwayne Johnson is nothing but the most egregious attempted forgery.
Master thief...
Review: “Army of Thieves”
"Army of Thieves" is a heist movie fantasy that both asks and answers the question of what if a one-note character from the zombie movie you enjoyed got a two-hour origin story that features no armies and a crew...
Review: “Space Jam: A New Legacy”
"Space Jam: A New Legacy" is a deplorable act of IP coercion and grave robbery that is as boring as it is vindictive.
The convoluted plot sees NBA superstar LeBron James lured into a terrible pitch meeting at Warner...
Review: “No Sudden Move”
Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon's "No Sudden Move" is heist-movie chess, a game in which the pieces on the board are compelled to break the rules.
Three men are recruited for a simple job. They are to babysit...
Review: “Pig”
Quiet yet stirring, seething and yet steady - "Pig" is the unlikely fusion of incongruous ingredients. It's equal parts the nihilism of "First Reformed," the clear-eyed justice-seeking of "John Wick," and the buffet of grief and cuisine of Jonathan...
Review: “Army of the Dead”
Zack Snyder's "Army of Dead" begins with almost unparalleled ferocity and style. A military convoy is driving through the Nevada desert. Breathtakingly picturesque against the magic hour sunset, a sudden and explosive fellatio-related head-on collision results in a...
Review: “The Mitchells Vs. The Machines”
"The Mitchells Vs. The Machines" is a glorious and heartfelt story of the unlikely family pitted against a phone update turned Skynet-style AI. Writer/directors Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe ("Gravity Falls") have answered one of the greatest hypotheticals:...
Review: “Wrath of Man”
Guy Ritchie's "Wrath of Man" is the movie "Den of Thieves" wishes it was.
An armoured car is incapacitated, invaded, and the drivers and an innocent bystander are killed. Some months later, the mysterious Patrick Hill or "H" (Jason...
Review: “Without Remorse”
"Tom Clancy's Without Remorse" is a brutal, espionage actioner that side-steps the world-policing impulses of the source material with the help of phenomenal casting and some taut and dynamic action direction from Stefano Sollima.
Navy SEAL John Kelly (Michael...
Review: “Judas and the Black Messiah”
Director and co-writer Shaka King's "Judas and the Black Messiah" is an explosive, rightly revisionist account of Bill O'Neal's (LaKeith Stanfield) FBI backed infiltration into Black Panther Party and his role in the devastating demise of Chairman Fred Hampton...
Review: “Boss Level”
"Boss Level" bears no resemblance to that absolute mother of a final stage that inspired its name. It's "The Grey" and "Narc" director Joe Carnahan's most recent effort and the latest in a long line of time-loop movies. "Boss...
Review: “Raya and the Last Dragon”
Disney Animation's latest feature, "Raya and the Last Dragon," is so affecting and candid about failure, selfishness, and the faith required for second chances that you could be forgiven for forgetting that it's an animated movie for kids about...
Review: “One Night In Miami”
"One Night in Miami" is a poetic, hypothetical reimagining of an evening with four of the most influential Black men in America at a specific time - Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali (Eli Goree), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie...