The Review at the End of the Universe
A deactivated cyborg is revived and rebuilt with no memory of her past so goes on a quest to learn the truth about herself in Robert Rodriguez’ Alita: Battle Angel. Adaptations of Japanese Anime and Manga have been fairly poorly received over the years. The most recent example was Ghost in the Shell; a film…
Change threatens the harmony between Humans and Dragon in Dean DeBlois’ How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. The How to Train Your Dragon franchise numbers among the strongest animated franchises with two previous entries that are roughly equal in quality and polish as well as a collection of series on Netflix that definitely have an…
James Wan’s Aquaman follows on from Jason Momoa’s full introduction of the character in 2017’s Justice League to flesh him out with his own adventure. Nobody knows if there’s such a thing as a DC Extended Universe any more but that isn’t stopping Warner Brothers making films featuring those characters. Aquaman was already well into production by the…
The magical nanny returns to assist the Banks family in Rob Marshall’s long delayed sequel Mary Poppins Returns. Before beginning the review properly I feel it’s worth pointing out that I have no real memory for the original Mary Poppins. It’s a film I saw when I was really young and haven’t seen since so I wasn’t…
The Transformers franchise receives the prequel/reboot treatment in Travis Knight’s Bumblebee. Transformers is a franchise that has become popular to hate over the years with many of the negative opinions being attributed to decisions that director Michael Bay made. Many say that they are racially insensitive, sexist, juvenile and overflowing with incomprehensible action that audiences…
Spider-Man enters the world of cinematic animation in Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman’s reality hopping Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Audiences have seen a number of versions of Spider-Man since the 2002 Sam Raimi film set the world on fire and elevated interest in the character to a whole new level. We’re on our…
The Harry Potter franchise continues to expand its scope in David Yates’ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them wasn’t a bad film by any stretch. It was a little sloppy and unfocused but overall it had a great deal of potential. The Harry Potter franchise has infinite scope…
The growth of rock & roll supergroup Queen and the life of Freddie Mercury are brought to the big screen in Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Biopics are a tricky thing when it comes to storytelling as it’s difficult to find out what the film will actually be about. To my mind the best examples pick…
The grandfather of slasher movies is rebooted for the modern age in David Gordon Green’s Halloween. John Carpenter’s Halloween deserves the label of “classic” as far as I’m concerned. It’s a wonderfully tense and expertly crafted mood piece that shows just how talented John Carpenter is. It’s no surprise that it spawned a number of…
An alien life form bonds with a disgraced reporter and they find a way to work together in Ruben Fleischer’s Venom. Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock; a reporter who prides himself on bringing down the corrupt and exposing the truth even if that’s harmful to his reputation. Eddie Brock being a crusader for justice by…
