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)
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)
Nothing dates a film comedy like its representations of mental health. The Dream Team, a 1989 comedy directed by Howard Zieff, offers the 21st century viewer a choice: you can criticise it for its crass use of mental illness to generate … Continue reading REVIEW: The Dream Team (1989)
Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil (2002) was clearly produced with sequels in mind, given its deliberately open ending, and the first of those sequels emerged two years later in 2004. With Anderson busy working on Alien vs Predator, directing duties fell to … Continue reading REVIEW: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Film adaptations of videogames always seem to endure a rough ride to the screen, whether Super Mario Bros, World of Warcraft, Street Fighter, Prince of Persia, or Mortal Kombat. It seems there are plenty of producers and directors who recognise the potential in drawing … Continue reading REVIEW: Resident Evil (2002)
To my mind, Tropic Thunder (2008) is the boldest, strongest, and flat-out funniest comedy that Ben Stiller has directed. While it satirises an easy target – Hollywood excess – it does so in such a savage and unrelenting fashion that on some … Continue reading REVIEW: Tropic Thunder (2008)
Sean Connery returns to play British super-spy James Bond for the fourth time in 1965’s Thunderball; a global smash hit in which the Bond franchise formula arguably solidified for the first time. It may not be the best of Connery’s Bond … Continue reading REVIEW: Thunderball (1965)
Released in early 1977, John Frankenheimer’s thriller Black Sunday blends crime drama, espionage thriller, action flick, and disaster movie – all while maintaining an unexpected realism. It adapts the debut novel of author Thomas Harris, and indeed foreshadows the double narrative technique … Continue reading REVIEW: Black Sunday (1977)
