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Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson
Directed By: Christopher McQuarrie
Running Time: 147 Minutes
UK Release Date: July 25th 2018
BBFC Certificate: 12A

Our Score

It really doesn’t seem that long since I saw the last Mission: Impossible film (Rogue Nation, 2015), and I praised it for its ability to utilise the tried and tested formula of its predecessors, whilst being a fresh and exhilarating entry to the franchise. That’s something this series continues to do effortlessly with Fallout, which is without doubt one of the best entries. You can’t say that for many other franchises six movies in. [Read more…]

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Tomb Raider (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Alicia Vikander, Daniel Vu, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Kristin Scott Thomas
Directed By: Roar Uthaug
Running Time: 118 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: July 16th 2018

Our Score

Many people were surprised when it was announced there was going to be a Tomb Raider movie reboot, especially considering the Angelina Jolie movies of the early 2000s aren’t exactly well remembered. However, as with so many other videogames, there’s no intrinsic reason it couldn’t be turned into a good movie. Although for some reason, Hollywood has great difficulty turning games into serviceable film.

This time around Jolie has been replaced by Alicia Vikander, who like her predecessor stepped into Lara Croft’s shoes shortly after winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (Jolie for Girl Interrupted and Vikander for The Danish Girl). Her Lara is a young woman who’s fiercely intelligent and smart, but whose life shifted sideways when her adventurer father went missing, presumed dead, when she was a child. [Read more…]

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The Bridge 4 (DVD Review)

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Starring: Sofia Helin, Thure Lindhardt
Certificate: 15
Running time: 480 minutes
Release date: July 2nd 2018
Language: Danish/Swedish (English subtitles)
DVD/Blu-Ray also available with Seasons 1-3 as box set

Our Score

Arguably the biggest shift in TV drama over the last years has been the rise of the Scandi noir. We Brits always love a murder mystery, but then The Killing came along it changed the TV landscape. We fell in love with the Scandi gloom, the atmosphere, the excellent acting and brilliant script. After The Killing came a flood of dramas, including Wallander, The Legacy, an Anglo-French version of The Bridge called The Tunnel, and of course, The Bridge. [Read more…]

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My Friend Dahmer (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff, Anne Heche
Directed By: Marc Meyers
Running Time: 107 Minutes
UK Release Date: June 1st 2018
BBFC Certificate: 15

Our Score

Often I like to watch films that I know nothing about besides the title so that it doesn’t taint my viewing experience, but having seen this movie I feel that having prior knowledge of the protagonist’s horrific crimes would have enabled me to have gotten more out of this film.

Having grown up in England and not having an interest in serial killers, I had never really heard of Jeffrey Dahmer and the 17 men and boys he murdered between 1978 and 1991. I read his Wikipedia page after seeing this movie and it shed a lot of light upon things that were hinted at, both subtly and explicitly, throughout the film. [Read more…]

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (DVD Review)

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Starring: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Hedges
Directed By: Martin McDonagh
Running Time: 110 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: Out Now

Our Score

For many Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri seemed to be the smart bet to win the Best Picture Oscar. While The Shape Of Water had made the early running, Three Billboards gained momentum through the Award season and seemed like it might cruise to a victory. In the end it didn’t get the big gong, although it did win for the exceptionally strong performance of Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell. Many were also surprised it lost for writer/director Martin McDonagh’s screenplay, although it is a couple of issues with that screenplay that may be the reason it didn’t win the biggest award.

McDormand plays the hard-bitten Mildred, a woman filled with anger at the local police’s inability to catch whoever was responsible for the rape and murder of her daughter. To try and force the authorities into action she hires three billboards on a rural road, putting up massive posters asking why there have been no arrests and specifically calling out police chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). [Read more…]

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The Post (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Running Time: 111 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12
UK Release Date: May 21st 2018

Our Score

He may be in his 70s but Steven Spielberg shows no signs of slowing down. He managed to slot in The Post while simultaneously making Ready Player One, something most directors half his age wouldn’t even contemplate let alone succeed at.

The Post is a bit of an old school flick, set in the 1970s and telling the story of the Pentagon Papers, a leaked set of documents that revealed that while in public the military and government was still positive about the war in Vietnam, privately many felt that it was unwinnable and that official finding bore this out. The authorities from President Richard Nixon downwards unsurprisingly did’t want this made public, while the press felt it was imperative to publish it. [Read more…]

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