In the Heart of the Sea movie review: here be monsters (and whales)
Solid, old-school man-versus-nature adventure melodrama, with a simmering green awareness; rollicking, smart, breathtaking, and sobering.
action
Victor Frankenstein movie review: monster mush
A riff on the Hollywood conventions of a story we know very well already, with little new to say. James McAvoy’s mad scientist is fun to watch, though.
Spooks: The Greater Good (aka MI-5) movie review: game of moles
A ridiculous, rote action thriller, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining, crammed with all sorts of macho emoting and spy nonsense as it is.
The Good Dinosaur movie review: bad dinosaur, bad
Shamefully banal; such a confused mess that I cannot even figure out what the title is supposed to mean. A slap in the face to Pixar fans after Inside Out.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 movie review: breaking the blockbuster
One of the smartest and most enthralling SF film series ever breaks more new ground as it ends on notes as emotional and provocative as they are explosive.
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse movie review: be prepared… to throw it in the campfire
One of the most sexist movies I’ve ever seen. Male juvenile fantasy at its most tired, its most obvious, its most banal, and its most infuriating.
The Keeping Room movie review: a place that women know
Call this a revisionist feminist postapocalyptic historical western home-invasion horror drama. But even that doesn’t quite do it justice.
Spectre movie review: Bond goes backward
After a truly spectacular and fresh opening sequence, everyone might as well be enacting a Bond puppet show, which is sometimes unpleasantly retro-icky.
The Last Witch Hunter movie review: burn it at the stake
If this were Law & Order: Black Magic, which it almost seems like it wants to be, it’d be a helluva lot more interesting than it is.
Goosebumps movie review: stick with the books (LFF 2015)
More theme-park attraction than movie, and paradoxically distastefully self-congratulatory about the Goosebumps phenomenon and insulting toward its author.
