John Hillcoat’s Triple 9 (2016) mixes good ideas and bad. It is well-cast and slickly directed, but it is also messily written. In many ways it is a solid pastiche: part-James Ellroy, part-Training Day, and part-Grand Theft Auto V. It also subverts … Continue reading REVIEW: Triple 9 (2016)
It seems that, by the release of Furious Six in 2013, the Fast and the Furious saga had slipped into a rather comfortable routine: a new film every two years, pushing forward the increasingly soap opera-like narrative each time and also pushing the franchise … Continue reading REVIEW: Furious Six (2013)
I was late to the relaunched Fast & Furious franchise, which seemed to die with 2006’s Tokyo Drift before unexpectedly coming back to life with the much-improved Fast & Furious three years later. Fast Five was released in 2011; with the benefit of hindsight it probably … Continue reading REVIEW: Fast Five (2011)
The Fast and the Furious was a weak action film that broadly plagiarised Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break by simply replacing surfboards with cars and Patrick Swayze with Vin Diesel. It was a moderate hit back in 2001, and its success led to an … Continue reading REVIEW: Fast & Furious (2009)
I can only think of one instance where this has happened before. In 2003 Morgan Creek Productions signed up Paul Schrader to write and direct a prequel to William Friedkin’s classic horror film The Exorcist. Schrader completed his film, but while … Continue reading REVIEW: Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
This week Zack Snyder’s four-hour director’s cut of Justice League comes out, and is already being anticipated in both positive and negative fashions. It ostensibly replaces the theatrical version that was supervised by writer/director Joss Whedon after a family tragedy … Continue reading REVIEW: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
Coming in at the end of 2020, Patty Jenkins’ widely anticipated sequel Wonder Woman 1984 has been framed as the last great hope for this year’s Hollywood box office. While almost all other blockbusters have been rescheduled for 2021 or beyond, Warner … Continue reading REVIEW: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
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