In Ishiro Honda’s science fiction film Atragon (1963) the Earth faces the threat of a hidden underwater empire, but all things considered it is a somewhat middling threat – and a fairly mediocre movie. Honda absolutely holds the pedigree to pull … Continue reading REVIEW: Atragon (1963)
There is surely no horror franchise that typifies the 2000s so much as Saw. The series ran on an uninterrupted annual schedule from 2004 to 2010. A one-off revival, Jigsaw, failed to relaunch the films in 2017. Now actor/producer Chris … Continue reading REVIEW: Spiral: From the Book of Saw (2021)
Let us cut right to the chase: if you are a fan of speculative fiction – science fiction, fantasy, and horror – and you do not watch the films of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, then you are essentially failing … Continue reading REVIEW: Synchronic (2019)
Iain Softley’s 2005 thriller The Skeleton Key has a queasily uncertain relationship with race, and I honestly cannot decide if it has stumbled into being unexpectedly clever about it or if it is simply so fearful of setting a foot out of … Continue reading REVIEW: The Skeleton Key (2005)
While horror sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) was poorly received, it was financially successful. No surprise, then, that Sony subsiduary Screen Gems distributed a third Resident Evil in 2007. Written once again by Paul W.S. Anderson and boasting a fresh director in the shape of … Continue reading REVIEW: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
By 1967 the lucrative James Bond movie franchise was hitting its fifth instalment in the space of six years. The preceding film, Thunderball (1965), had been a record-breaking success, and expectations were high for Bond’s next adventure to top it all over … Continue reading REVIEW: You Only Live Twice (1967)
In John Boorman’s Hell in the Pacific (1968), Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune play rival fighter pilots that crash-land on an isolated island and must overcome their animosity to survive and escape to safety. In Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine (1985), Dennis Quaid … Continue reading REVIEW: Monster Hunter (2020)
Properly-made family entertainment is just about the hardest thing to get right in filmmaking, and yet for all of the effort placed into the best examples it is exceedingly rare for such a film to be a hit. Children are … Continue reading REVIEW: The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
Zombie movies have always been an excellent outlet for social comment. George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) famously used the shambling masses to interrogate consumerism. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later (2002) traded on public fears over a viral outbreak – a … Continue reading REVIEW: Get the Hell Out (2020)
Timeline, a Richard Donner film adapted from the Michael Crichton novel, was a critical and commercial failure upon release. I have never been entirely certain as to why. Certainly the film is no masterpiece but it tells a reasonably smart … Continue reading REVIEW: Timeline (2003)
