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FlickFilosopher.com

handcrafted film criticism by maryann johanson | since 1997

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MI6

Blackbird movie review: Michael “Riverdance” Flatley flatfoots his way into filmmaking

Wed, Sep 07, 2022
7 comments

Long rumored — long threatened? — writer-director-producer-star Flatley’s self-financed pabulum opus is baffling and hilariously awful. It exists only because an incredibly rich man has money to burn.

| 7 Comments

No Time to Die movie review: no, Mr Bond, I expect you to retire

Thu, Oct 07, 2021
51 comments

In the era of COVID and Brexit, much of this overstuffed adventure feels redundant, farcical, inconsequential, and desperate. But Ana de Armas and Lashana Lynch show us the way to a future for 007.

| 51 Comments

The Rhythm Section movie review: out of tune

Wed, Jan 29, 2020
no comments yet

Poor Blake Lively does her de-glammed best in this poor Xerox of much better Turn The Urchin Into A Spy thrillers. But there isn’t a single human interaction in this hamfisted movie that rings true.

| Leave a comment

Atomic Blonde movie review: bland ambition

Fri, Aug 11, 2017
33 comments

The living, breathing, bleeding life of the breathtaking fight scenes cannot overcome confusingly twisty spy intrigue and multiple male gazes on the story.

| 33 Comments

Inferno movie review: let’s run through the museum!

Mon, Oct 17, 2016
no comments yet

Completely absurd, ultimately pointless, but also gloriously goofy: a Nancy Drew mystery with Scooby-Doo overtones and a thin veneer of bookishness.

| Leave a comment

Our Kind of Traitor movie review: ordinary everyday spies

Thu, Jun 30, 2016
no comments yet

Smartly elegant; the fantastic cast makes it worth your time. But it does feel as if it belongs on the small screen spread across six or eight hours.

| Leave a comment

Grimsby (aka The Brothers Grimsby) movie review: grim indeed

Fri, Mar 04, 2016
9 comments

A soul-crushing experience: lazy, cheap, lurid, and stupid. Painfully unfunny and pointless. Sacha Baron Cohen now panders to those he once rightly mocked.

| 9 Comments

London Has Fallen movie review: agitprop security theater

Wed, Mar 02, 2016
35 comments

A Nuremberg rally for 21st-century America. Pure terror porn: racist, jingoistic, thoroughly obnoxious. Donald Trump voters will love it. *sob*

| 35 Comments

Rosewater movie review (London Film Festival)

Fri, Nov 14, 2014
1 comment

Jon Stewart’s first film is passionate and principled, as I expected, but also hopeful, almost serene, and even gently amusing, which I did not.

| 1 Comment

Closed Circuit review: cheating in the War on Terror

Fri, Oct 25, 2013
3 comments

Eric Bana and Rebecca Hall are as engaging as ever, and the film raises intriguing issues concerning the “War on Terror”; pity the plot descends into the ridiculous.

| 3 Comments
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