Revolution. Evolution. Changing the formula. Preconceived expectations. When is the right time to ‘update’ an existing franchise? In most cases you’d be rebuffed by fan revulsion. In the case of Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, it might just be a masterstroke. Bringing the animated ‘Pocket Monsters’ into the real world works surprisingly well. The realism suits most of the animal-esque Pokémon (yes, they’ve made Pikachu even more cute) but does jar slightly with those with less re

A biopic has the unenviable duty of people pleasing. How best to convey a real person’s life that presents them as they are, prints the facts not the legend (well, sometimes) and caters to the uninitiated without generating groans from the fans? Choosing a historical figure is a sure-fire way to at least avoid the latter and some of the best recent examples fall under this umbrella (Steve Jobs and First Man to name just two.) It’s fairly surprising that J.R.R. Tolkien is only

Much as with last year's Avengers: Infinity War, you don't need any encouragement, good or ill, to go and see Avengers: Endgame in the cinema (IMAX is worth the price of admission.) As such, I have once again composed a Haiku in honour of Mr Thanos and our beloved Avengers: So, we meet again, and the second meeting is greater than the first. A staggering achievement that rewrites what is possible in this genre. The Infinity War/Endgame double-bill will take its place in histo

It’s easy to romanticise the past and slip into cringey ‘it was better in my day’ rhetoric but Eighth Grade really does articulate and present the difficulties faced by the youth of today. Bo Burnham’s directorial debut may surprise any fans of his stand up and recorded work but those who know his journey through the early days of YouTube will be aware that he’s keenly aware, conscious and, go on then, ‘woke.’ His first film follows the travails of a thirteen-year-old girl as

As a superhero fan, it would be downright wrong to say that there’s too many superhero films. You can never have too much of a good thing right?! All any of us ask though, especially now when we’re trekking to the cinema five or six times a year to see the latest caped-crusader, is a smidge of originality, a fresh spin on a now well-worn and over-saturated genre. Gun to head, I’ve always preferred DC's characters mainly down to a certain Dark Knight but the fact that the MCU

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, vintage hip hop (Wu-Tang Clan, Tupac et al) and Goodfellas are just three examples of things from the 90’s we should be thankful for and all show up in Jonah Hill’s directorial debut: mid90s. This is a long-in-the-works passion project for Hill, clearly long thought over and thoroughly and unashamedly independent. Don’t expect any comedy cameos here or pandering to fans of his other work. This is the dramatic, coming-of-age tale of 13-year-old St

Marvel have long been at the stage where they can do anything they damn well please. That much has been apparent for a while as each film in Phase Three has casually subverted expectations, flipped the script of what a superhero film ‘should’ be, brought auteur styling into a multi-film, populist franchise and still topped box offices worldwide. Captain Marvel places itself at the very beginning of the MCU timeline as a prequel. It requires knowledge of the entire universe to

Picking an Oscar Best Picture winner from this year's nominees can't have been an easy task (aside from ensuring Bohemian Rhapsody got nowhere near the trophy, of course.) Green Book took many by surprise as the winner but, for those who've seen it, there isn't another film more deserving. As I mentioned in my previous review, the drama genre is certainly going through a boom but a lot of the recent successes are very serious, mature, slow-burning beasts. Green Book arrives a

The drama genre has had a bit of a renaissance in recent times with slow-building, realistic cinema hoovering up the big awards. Think Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Manchester by the Sea, Lion and Best Picture winner Moonlight. The latter was many folk’s introduction to Barry Jenkins, a director still very much in his infancy but already carving out a distinctive style and top-table reputation. He follows that startlingly moving film with an adaptation of If Beal

We were told five years ago now, in a thinly veiled bit of irony, that ‘Everything is Awesome’, that we should stick together and be open to change. Five years later and the message has been changed to ‘Everything’s Not Awesome’ but the fact that we can acknowledge and accept this is a good thing as we can look to a brighter future. This message is delivered by two dots and a smile in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part and, once again, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (alongside dir

With all the imagination of storytellers, script-writers and authors the greatest villains are often facsimiles of real life figures. And sometimes real life figures are the worst villains of all. Vice tells the story of Dick Cheney, one such figure of villainy. The silent, calculated force behind the Bush administration and a man with a lot of blood on his many pie-dipped fingers. Of course, this is a left-leaning film keen to vilify this heretofore lesser known individual b

Ducks (racing ducks, no less), copious rabbits and, yes, lobsters (nice reference) all feature heavily in Yorgos Lanthimos’ period drama The Favourite. If that doesn’t indicate to you that this film is anything but traditional then perhaps the sight of Nicholas Hoult in OTT period dress will, or the contrapuntal string stabs of the score or Lanthimos’ brilliant use of the fish-eye lens as he pans across long corridors. For The Favourite is not traditional, as we should know t