As many folk/fairytale-inspired films veer towards either a horror or more child-friendly tilt, Wicker feels a fairly fresh outlier. Based on a short story, this is a true modern fable set in its own small world with its own rules, traditions, quirks and fantasy elements. It’s a simple story with plenty of room for interpretation. This small town (seemingly out of place and time but most similar to medieval England) contains characters named after their profession (Tailor, Fi

Quick as a flash (pun intended) DC have flipped back on the flop and produced an excellent superhero film in Clayface. This nascent DCU is a lot of things. Questionable, interesting, odd, confusing and, perhaps most egregiously, not quite at this stage linked up or really showing any signs of linking up. How Clayface could possibly coexist with Peacemaker is not the focus here though. Let’s instead just revel in what a delight and oddity this film is. To introduce Gotham (Lan

When is a joke simply outdated and when is a comedy ripe for revisiting? It’s a particularly tenuous topic as tastes change and the tightrope of what is appropriate gets thinner. If the upcoming Inbetweeners sequel is one to be tentatively nervous about ruining an immaculate legacy, what about Ali G? An icon of a bygone era, but one that very much feels particularly ‘of’ that era, Sacha Baron Cohen has nonetheless brought him back for Ali G: Who Iz I? His viral stunts teasing

The Uprising is not your usual historical drama. Paul Greengrass’ typically handheld, constantly moving camera style creates an urgency, propulsion and queasiness to this take on the 1381 Peasant Revolt that thrusts you into the action. It really is all go across its two-hour runtime with all of the difficult-to-understand accents, itchy looking clothing, mud, gore and general murkiness you’d expect of England in this time. As Andrew Garfield’s fictional Ploughman (or, maybe,

And as quickly as it arrived, it looks like the dawn of the successful and critically acclaimed videogame movie is already at its end. It was a fun ride whilst it lasted and proved that there was potential in the form but the latest take on Street Fighter, sadly and unexpectedly, could be seen as the end point. It’s such a shame as there is a good film somewhere in here but it’s buried under the usual editing issues, gonzo exposition and nonsense plotting and that all too fam

I guess there’s a degree of irony in posting a positive review of The Social Reckoning onto social media and praising its pointed messaging. The ‘investigative journalism thriller’ is always a winner of a genre and this is no exception. A semi-sequel to the imperious The Social Network (legendary writer Aaron Sorkin is on script duty again and takes the directing baton from David Fincher) we fast forward into modern times (the years either side of the pandemic) and explore Fa

Alejandro González Iñárritu is certainly not afraid of a big swing. Whilst it’s fair to say that Digger doesn’t get close to the heights of Birdman or The Revenant, its critical panning feels unusual, unjust and strange. A timely swing into a meta, sci-fi, Wes Anderson-adjacent climate change satire/farce (the nature of satire and farce being hilariously discussed within the film itself) this sure is strange but also eminently watchable, thought-provoking and enjoyable. Tom C

You won’t have seen a film with as many contrasts as Na Hong-jin’s Hope. At once impeccably crafted and beautiful, but also batshit crazy and prone to toilet humour interludes. At times you can feel what is supposedly the biggest budget in Korean cinema history with some jaw-dropping scenery, sets and mise-en-scene but the CGI creaks like a PlayStation 1 videogame. It’s a monster film, a sci-fi film, a (kind of) apocalyptic thriller, an action movie, a quasi-real time horror,

If it were possible to nominate an animal for an acting Oscar then look no further than the German Shepherd at the heart of Heart of the Beast. A man and his dog survival mission, this film depicts one hell of a brutal journey as a retired special forces soldier suffers a heart attack whilst flying back from a camping trip in the Alaskan wilderness. 56 miles of arduous terrain, wolves, bears, white water rapids and variable weather then separates the pair from civilisation. I

The improvement in the videogame adaptation has been well documented in recent times and most have performed well at the box office or on TV streaming. Zach Cregger’s reboot of Resident Evil isn’t a straight adaptation of any of the games but as a ‘videogame film’ might just hew the closest to the tradition. We’ve had the lot recently. Want an authentic retelling of the game’s story? Watch The Last of Us. A new tale that feels authentic to the world and the lore? Go with Fall

Watching a group of people be competent at their job is often the satisfying draw of the ‘office-based thriller/drama’ film. So many films require someone to blunder or things to go wrong that it can be pleasing to watch things work out every once in a while. Pressure is certainly high on the competency factor as we are shown the quite fascinating story of the Allied meteorologists during World War 2, tasked with predicting the conditions for D-Day. Sure, it may be a niche to

There’s always a clamour for the ‘next’ something. So the fact that it’s taken this long for the ‘next’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, i.e. the ultimate cartoon/live-action hybrid, is surprising. The fact that Coyote vs. ACME has gone through plenty of hurdles to even be released, and then has largely been stuck with daytime ‘kids’ screenings, mean it might have to earn its way to cult status like its predecessor. Fortunately, considering just how good that eighties Bob Hoskins cl