Unprovoked rant time and, I must say, that people who applaud the screen after a film concludes in the cinema should be banned from watching films forevermore. This tends to happen at big-budget remakes of musicals (here’s looking at you Mamma Mia and Les Misérables) and leads me nicely into a review of the next film on Disney's relentless march of remakes: everyone's favourite 18th century tale of Stockholm Syndrome: Beauty and the Beast. A contentious choice for many consid

So, whilst we are all, I'm sure, forever grateful of Marvel for gifting us the MCU we must deal with the subsequent consequences. Like other forms of media, once an idea has success it shall be copied and imitated in the hope of matching it but, inevitably, the original's heights shall never be scaled. So it is with Kong: Skull Island which is, bafflingly, a 'shared universe' flick with 2014's Godzilla. A shared universe film with, it must be said upfront, hardly any throwbac

So, after 8 films and 17(!) years, it's time for Hugh Jackman to hang up his adamantium and move on from Wolverine and the X-Men. Totally miscast (or so we thought) initially, as he's taller and rather less Canadian than the comic book legend, it's hard now to imagine anyone else's mutton chops in the role. That's not to say that the films he's appeared in have been sparkling or stuck to canon (damn you, Marvel) and so Jackman, and returning Director James Mangold (blame him

An animated musical which looks a little like The X Factor, from a Director out of the game for 10 years and released by the commercially popular, but not exactly critic's choice, Illumination Studios sounds like a recipe for disaster but I'm happy to say that Sing is an absolute delight and an early frontrunner for the best kid's movie of the year. Director Garth Jennings clearly was given free rein to let his imagination run wild and came good with a delightful tale about a

The Lego Batman Movie should be applauded for daring to return a comedic touch to a now, supposedly, 'dark and serious' character. It's all too easy to forget that, whilst the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan movies, coupled with the Frank Miller (amongst others) graphic novels and the incredible Animated Series are justly the 'definitive' versions of the Dark Knight, there's a host of portrayals of the character rooted in silliness and comedy. Lego, of course, are exactly th

Another film, another Oscar-nominee and another career-peak performance from a leading star. Lion is quite remarkable for a first feature from Director Garth Davis. It tells the story of 5 year old Saroo, an Indian boy living in an extremely poor area of the country, who gets lost when out with his brother and ends up thousands of miles away in Calcutta after boarding a train. A couple of years later, with no one claiming him as their own, he is adopted by a family in Austral

The Oscar's committee have a tough task this year with Best Picture. We've already seen some stiff competition and Moonlight is the latest to stake its claim for the prize. Already spoken of in hushed terms as the frontrunner due to its content, I'm very happy to say that Moonlight is so much more than a reaction to the '#OscarsSoWhite' controversy of last year and stands as a contender in its own right. Moonlight is the story of Chiron, a homosexual, African-American from Mi

There are certain 'immortals' in pop culture. Significant movies, albums, songs, art etc. Properties that shouldn't be touched, remixed, pastiched, reworked or reimagined. Trainspotting, for a long while, was one of these icons and, despite clamouring to release a sequel after the original was released in 1996, Danny Boyle resisted. Even with Irvine Welsh's subsequent follow up texts: prequel Skagboys and sequel Porno, there was no news on a film follow-up. It became the film

I've spoken glowingly in almost all of my reviews thus far in 2017 about the awards-worthy performances and career-best turns by this year’s actors and we’re treated to another virtuoso casting in Jackie. Taking a different angle on the well-trodden story of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Jackie presents itself as a semi-biopic (it only spans a week in the life) of the former President’s wife in the days after, and before, the shooting and how she came to terms with this de

It's great to see the cinema-going public both in the UK and Stateside flock to see Split and prove to any doubters and naysaying critics that M. Night Shyamalan is a great Director. Sure, he may not have quite topped his early triptych of movies but time does wonders to a Director's oeuvre and it is often their early features which are most heralded (my personal favourite auteur Quentin Tarantino still can't escape this particular fate in many people's opinion as well.) What

2017 is being all too kind to us movie-wise with January and February flooded with massive new releases and, almost without exception thus far, films delivering on the hype and being critically praised. Most of these have already been on screens Stateside last year and hoovering up awards and Manchester by the Sea is no exception. All you need to know going in is that Lee (Casey Affleck), a janitor in Boston with a potentially haunted past, moves back to Manchester (the titul

After squabbles, in-fighting and more shuffling than a Vegas casino I present the best films of 2016: 20. The Jungle Book 19. Captain...