Everything Express
review
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)
This prequel/sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman smacks of cynical profiteering; visually stunning design it’s poorly served by a script that is Snow White’s not-so-Greatest hits with leftover bits of Narnia and assorted Hobbitses. Clichéd, formulaic and derivative, this bargain-bin script is left without a Snow White and can only afford four fairly redundant … Continue reading
Review: Person of Interest Season 4
Jonathn Nolan and J.J Abrams’ Post-911, high-concept, high-tech, high violence, vigilante, conspiracy-Western, cop-show powers on thanks to the charm of its cast and the lightness of tone, which levens otherwise dark material. The Machine now has its artificial intelligence nemesis in The Samaritan; the PoI gang of Reece, Finch, Fusco, Shaw, Root (and Bear the … Continue reading
Review: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation
Another Mission Improbable rolls around with the Tom Cruise’s po-faced IMF taking on a shadowy organisation, The Consortium, no, The Confederacy, no, The Co-op; hang on, The Syndicate. Blah. There is no rogue nation, just Spectre-lite in a John Woo style. A buffed but elderly-looking, asexual Cruise leaps energetically from one set-piece to another, while … Continue reading
Review: Momentum (2015)
“Let’s do a heist-chase-spy thriller like Salt – that made money. We need a strong female lead to carry it like Angelina – Kurylenko’s a babe, she can do it. Get Morgan Freeman to do his corrupt elder-stateman thing. And we need a British villain – Purefoy, he’s available, and cheap. Couple of car chases, … Continue reading
Review: Kill Me Three Times (2015)
If you want to skip on, you just need to know this is the Aussie version of the Cohens’ Blood Simple. With sunshine. Alice wants to leave town with mechanic boyfriend Dylan, but bar-owner husband Jack hires hitman Mr Wolf to kill her. Jack’s sister Lucy needs a substitute body to pull off an insurance … Continue reading
Review: Slow West (2015)
A Scotsman and an Irishman go to the Wild Frontier – it’s not the start of a joke, it’s Slow West, a low-budget meander through the bleak Wild West. Fassbender’s lone gun-slinger Silas befriends Kodi Smit-McPhee’s lovelorn Scottish laird, Jay. But the girl he’s pursuing has a price on her head and there’s a gang … Continue reading
Review: Dad’s Army
This won’t mean much to the rest of the world, but to Brits bought up on the 70’s sit-com of the Home Guard defending Britain against the Nazis, this is a surprising gold reboot; mischevous, whimisical and true to its source, Jones, Nighy and Gambon pull off an unlikely comedy hit. So who do you … Continue reading
Review: Beowulf Return to the Shieldlands (ITV Studios)
Aiming for the early Sunday night audience again, ITV re-boots the epic poem as a Game of Thrones slash Hobbit generic fantasy in a bleak Cumbrian landscape; it’s dark earnest, but completely lacking any spark of energy or originality. Persuaded to pitch his Beowulf as a generic dour Northerner somewhere between Kit Harrington and Sean … Continue reading
Review: Jekyll and Hyde Season 1 (ITV)
This should be more properly titled “Son of Jekyll and Hyde”, as Tom Bateman is Robert Jekyll, son of Henry, picking up in the 1930’s where R L Stevenson’s literary classic left off. Returning from colonial India, Jekyll Jnr. is soon scouring London for the family secrets, including how it is that he loses his … Continue reading
Review: Tomorrowland (2015)
When child inventor Frank Walker is recruited at the Worlds Fair, he is transported to a glittering futuristic city in another dimension. Forty years on, teen genius Casey Newton is similarly recruited to join the adult Frank to prevent the end of the world. In the spirit of a live-action version of The Incredibles (also … Continue reading
Review: Mr Holmes (2015)
Southern England, 1947: returning from a mystery trip to Japan in search of herbal remedies, a long retired Sherlock Holmes faces up to mortality, but can’t quite shake the last case that led to his retirement. A man out of his time, Holmes must come to terms with the post-world war nuclear age and the … Continue reading
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