The Review at the End of the Universe
Joe Wright’s Pan gives audiences a prequel to the famous literary and cinematic character Peter Pan that offers a renewed take on his origins. This story takes Peter right back to the beginning with a scene depicting his mother (Amanda Seyfried) leaving him at an orphanage for reasons that aren’t immediately clear. The first half…
Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth is the latest adaptation of the famous Shakespeare play starring Michael Fassbender in the title role. I feel like summarising the plot of Macbeth would be pretty redundant since it’s something that pretty much everyone will have come across in one way or another. Even people who don’t know much about the…
Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk is a fictionalised telling of the amazing feat performed by French high-wire artist Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) when he illegally put a wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York and walked across it. This particular story was the subject of the critically acclaimed documentary Man…
Ridley Scott’s The Martian adapts the 2011 Andy Weir novel of the same name where a botanist is forced to find a way to survive on the desolate planet after he is left for dead. With the recent announcement of the high possibility of flowing water on Mars, what better time to review this film? I…
Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario takes a look at the constantly escalating war against drug cartels at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico. Sicario grips the audience right from the opening with a tense and memorable musical score that gives the audience an indication of what to expect from the experience. When this is coupled…
Wes Ball’s Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials continues the Post Apocalyptic Young Adult adaptation picking up from the escape from the maze in the first film. Now the characters face the outside world and the challenges that brings. I reviewed the first film back in 2014 and actually quite liked it, that is to say…
Brian Helgeland’s Legend tells the story of identical twin gangsters Reggie and Ronnie Kray (Tom Hardy) and their criminal empire in 1960s London. This film tells the story from the perspective of Reggie’s wife Frances (Emily Browning) who arguably suffered more than anyone through the events depicted in the film. My biggest issue with this…
Baltasar Kormakur’s disaster biopic Everest tells the real life story of a doomed expedition up the world’s tallest mountain by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) in 1996. Films that exist to capitalise on something that really happened are always dodgy territory as there’s always the risk of doing a disservice to the memories of those involved…
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl explores the concept of living with a terminal illness and what effect that has on the people around you from the teenage perspective. Greg (Thomas Mann) is a self confessed social outcast but not in the negative sense. The film goes to great lengths to establish that he…
Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. offers audiences a slick reinvention of the 60s spy series for the big screen. I’ll start by saying that I have no familiarity with The Man from U.N.C.L.E. TV series so I can only really look at this as a spy movie. I’m aware that the show existed but…
