A Marvel MCU review effectively writes itself these days. After 25 films you can basically expect 5-star epics like the Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame double feature or brilliantly solid and effective 4-star/8 or 9 out of 10 superhero blockbusters that will give you an amazing night at the cinema or at home on the sofa. The fact that a franchise can stay so essential this far in is unprecedented and an achievement which is pretty much unparalleled in cinema history. Phase 4 i

Free Guy is the inevitable consequence of the success of Deadpool. Take a winning formula, maximise the budget and make it a little more family-friendly (with an emphasis on appealing to the littler ones.) This is not necessarily a bad thing and the fact that Free Guy is an original IP blockbuster that seems to be performing well at the box office is to its credit, but this is a film where you will get out of it exactly what you expect. The review effectively writes itself: I

I remember writing a review of the Tomb Raider remake a few years ago where I loudly sounded the death knell for the adventure film as a genre. Ultimatums such as this normally come back to haunt you and so it is as, against all the odds, Disney’s Jungle Cruise has just given a shot in the arm to the family adventure blockbuster. This looked for all the world like a film to sit with The Legend of Tarzan in the bargain buckets and it seems, by and large, that the critical cons

Despite the continued commercial and critical success of the genre, I just get an inkling that a crossroads is approaching for the superhero movie. With the depth and level of commitment for the viewer ever-increasing, and a gradual switch in characters with the bigger names being usurped by those more niche, it feels like a race to not be the film to get diminishing returns. Who knows, maybe that day will never come? With the enormous success and quality of the MCU Disney+ s

It’s important to acknowledge nostalgia as a key factor when discussing favourite movies. Like any art form, the situation surrounding your first experience of a film can have a huge effect. So it is that, to many children of the 90’s, the frankly ridiculous original Space Jam incites rose-tinted thrills and ticks massive nostalgia boxes. Michael Jordan having to play a game of basketball with the Looney Tunes for some reason? Brilliant! It doesn’t quite take the all-time car

I know the might of the Disney+ shows has well and truly thrust us Marvelites into Phase 4 but, in filmic terms, it’s nice to take a little step back and have a film focusing on one of our original heroes: the long (long) awaited Black Widow. Sure, she sadly won’t be with us across the rest of this next Phase (or so we think) but the character was always crying out for a solo endeavour and the chance to explore a little of that 'red in her ledger.' Sadly, this prequel isn’t q

There’s a brilliant sketch in That Mitchell & Webb Look where the Illuminati explain, whilst inducting a new member, that they run the world behind the scenes by keeping themselves, at all times, ‘as tipsy as you get after a glass and a half of wine.’ They decree that this is the optimum performance level of humans and anything above this leads to ruin. It’s definitely not the basis for the brilliant Another Round (or Druk to give it its Danish title) but the premise is much

I think the musical may be the genre with the most ‘hall of fame classics’ thoroughly in the past, with nary a modern entry in sight. Ok, we’ve had La La Land, the A Star is Born remake and, I guess, Frozen and Coco on the animated side (and some will count Baby Driver) but they don’t quite fit the bill of what we’d class as the ‘classic watch it with the family on a rainy Sunday musical' (I’d also argue that Les Misérables and Sweeney Todd, whilst excellent, are a little on

I think it was whilst espousing the virtues of The Purge series that the theory arose that a solid ‘idea’ for a horror concept is generally enough. ‘All crime is legal for one night’ - great idea. ‘Horror rooted in silence because of monsters who can hear but not see’ - great idea. And so it is that A Quiet Place Part II triumphs despite so obviously being the ‘middle chapter’ of a trilogy (or more.) A concept like this one just works as a cinematic experience. After a bravur

Isn’t it great when you see a film that delivers on the expectation when going in you know it could have gone either way? Mad Max: Fury Road delivered in spades as did Blade Runner 2049, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Joker. Following on from that latter masterpiece, and perhaps more surprising than the rest, is Disney’s Cruella. What could have been an easy cash-grab, back-to-the-cinema-or-watch-on-Disney+-for-a-small-fortune extension of their recent villain revival and l

As I mentioned yesterday in my end of year film round up, it can be tempting to write the year 2020 off as the absolute clusterf*ck it's...

As I present The Brighton Film Club’s Best Films of the Year list it’s all too tempting to slip into an inexorable rant about the state...