Hidden Figures manages a fine line between worthy award-bait grandstanding and feeling like something truly substantial. Set in the early 1960's space race it tells the story of three pioneering African American women working for NASA. The trailer worried me some what, appearing to be a saccharine sickly affair full of speeches from Kevin Costner … Continue reading Hidden Figures
Will Arnett was so ludicrously funny as Batman in The LEGO Movie that he gets his very own spinoff. And whilst the creative leaders of that film have left to make the Han Solo Star Wars spin-off film, those brought in to replace them have an equally good grasp of what made the LEGO movie … Continue reading The LEGO Batman Movie
21 years since the seminal original film, Danny Boyle reunites his cast to provide us with a sequel that is different, but just as worthy of praise. Renton (Ewan McGregor) returns to Edinburgh for the first time since he double crossed the group and stole their money. Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) runs a number … Continue reading T2 Trainspotting
Moonlight is a stunning film whose power creeps up on you throughout the course of its three act structure. The story of a gay black man growing up in Miami is littered with exceptional small roles and is told with zero bombast or violence. We follow Chiron at three different ages in his life as … Continue reading Moonlight
The 3rd xXx film arrives 15 years after the original and 12 years after the Ice Cube led sequel and features Vin Diesel returning to another franchise he once dropped. The extreme sports aficionado Cage returns to save the world, making bad puns and looking "dope" whilst he's at it. When a film is knowingly … Continue reading xXx: Return of Xander Cage
James McAvoy is excellent in M. Night Shyamalan's first return to form in just over a decade. McAvoy plays Kevin, a person with split personality disorder and throughout the course of the film shows us eight of twenty-three people held within one body. He is at turns creepy, menacing and funny. Kevin kidnaps three young … Continue reading Split
Based on the true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) this is a World War 2 film that is well acted with some particularly effective battle scenes that ultimately left me cold. Doss was a heroic conscientious objector who went to war as an army medic refusing to carry a gun into battle. It is a … Continue reading Hacksaw Ridge
Jackie Kennedy is arguably the most famous and iconic First Lady in American history. This biopic attempts to show us the woman she was not by charting her life, but by showing us how she attempted to preserve her husbands legacy in the days following his assassination. The film starts with a journalist (Billy Crudup) … Continue reading Jackie
Danny Boyle's masterpiece re-released a week prior to the sequel's appearance on the big screen is still as immediate and visceral now as it was 21 years ago on release. Renton (Ewan McGregor) is a heroin addict and he implores us to choose life whilst telling us the story of his attempts to get clean. … Continue reading Trainspotting
An emotionally powerful story of an Indian boy called Saroo, separated from his family and home, adopted to Australian parents and 25 years later searching for home. This film has many great things in its favour and is really worth a watch. The cinematography and score are fantastic, both beautiful and heart wrenching. The lead … Continue reading Lion
