Dawn of the Planet of the Apes movie review: people get ready
A magnificent science fiction drama, and a beautiful one. Wonderfully radical for the simple fact that it is ruled by principled ideas.
reviews
Rage (aka Tokarev) movie review: Nicolas Cage’s public mid-career crisis takes a pathetic turn
Sporadically hilariously awful, but mostly cheap, amateurish and so distasteful it borders on the vile. Poor Nicolas Cage and his foundering career.
The Crucible (starring Richard Armitage) stage review (The Old Vic)
A very earthy and spookily atmospheric production suffers from some dated attitudes: not those of the 1690s but the 1950s.
Boyhood movie review: time in a cinematic bottle
An audacious coming-of-age tale unique in the history of cinema; deeply moving and beautifully authentic.
Snowpiercer movie review: hunger train
Hauntingly grim, full of appalling ironies and awful truths. This is most definitely not the feel-good movie of the summer.
The State Within TV review: unknown knowns
A riveting BBC political thriller offering one of the most trenchant explorations yet of the sick symbiosis between big government and big business.
The Raid 2 movie rating: red light
Arthouse martial-arts action that’s incredibly dull even when it’s being pornographic about its extreme bloody violence.
Palo Alto movie review (Edinburgh International Film Festival)
A meditative contemplation of the boredom of overprivileged, under-aspiring, shallow, spoiled kids. As you’ve been dying to see.
Life Itself documentary review: he found it at the movies
A touching biography, and an accidental look at the tremendous upheaval that journalism has weathered in the past half century.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared movie review: yes, that’s what he does
An absurdist mock epic that is hilarious, outrageous, and completely insane. It’s like a bonkers Swedish Forrest Gump.
