Dark Skies
By . Published 03 April 2013
If Dark Skies’ opening credits didn’t tell you it was produced by the people who brought you the Paranormal Activity franchise and Insidious you’d have guessed, such is its similarity to those...
Film > Reviews
The Odd Life of Timothy Green
By . Published 02 April 2013Aimed squarely at Middle America but with no audience in mind, The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a modern Pinocchio story so boring it makes We Bought a Zoo...
Spring Breakers
By . Published 01 April 2013This candy-coloured delirium opens with a wet and wild montage of well endowed young women gyrating in slow motion as Neanderthal jocks cascade cheap lager over their naked breasts. Knowing...
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
By . Published 27 March 2013Jon M. Chu (Step Up 2: The Streets) has managed to produce something even more stupid than Stephen Sommers’ trashy first cinematic outing for Hasbro’s '80s action figures, but with...
Identity Thief
By . Published 22 March 2013Enjoyment of Identity Thief largely rests on how much goodwill you feel towards its stars’ respective shticks, with both Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy cast to type and coasting on...
Trance
By . Published 22 March 2013Danny Boyle's best films possess an exhilarating sense of forward momentum, and Trance is a perfect fit for the director's talents as it moves swiftly through a twist-laden story that might...
In the House
By . Published 22 March 2013After his limp 70s-set comedy Potiche, the latest offering from François Ozon finds the director back on top form. With its exploration of voyeurism and manipulation, In the House covers...
Ten Years
By . Published 21 March 2013Middle age bites early in middle America if this Big Chill-esque film is to be believed. A group of friends attend their ten year high school reunion and, over a...
Living Apart Together
By . Published 21 March 2013On tour to promote his breakthrough hit single, Richie is a singer-songwriter on the cusp of fame when he has to return to his home town of Glasgow for an...
Compliance
By . Published 20 March 2013Compliance opens with the words ‘Inspired by True Events’ in giant lettering and later reveals that incidents similar to those it depicts have occurred over 70 times in various US...
The Croods
By . Published 19 March 2013Ever wondered what Neanderthal man’s Earth really looked like? Well, according to The Croods, it was remarkably similar to that tropical tie-dye domain Jim Cameron built for Avatar. But with...
Jack the Giant Slayer
By . Published 18 March 2013The latest in a long, mostly unsuccessful line of revisionary fairy tale adaptations, Jack the Giant Slayer is a half-hearted affair, filled with lacklustre performances and an over-dependence on CGI....
Neighbouring Sounds
By . Published 18 March 2013Kleber Mendonça Filho’s mesmerising and mysterious debut centres on a modern apartment complex in Recife, Brazil, and concerns several residents’ small, everyday dramas. A bored housewife adds spice to her...
Boxing Day
By . Published 18 March 2013Time and technology have moved on since Bernard Rose made Ivansxtc, the first of his loose, contemporary adaptations of Tolstoy stories starring Danny Huston. In 2000, that film's barebones production values and digital...
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
By . Published 14 March 2013Steve Carell is Burt Wonderstone, a David Copperfield-esque Vegas illusionist whose career and “magical friendship” with partner Anton (Steve Buschemi) is threatened by the arrival of a new street magician, played...
My Brother the Devil
By . Published 11 March 2013Sally El Hosaini's debut feature is a remarkably slick and confident coming-of-age tale about two immigrant brothers embroiled in Hackney's violent gang culture. When the elder brother (James Floyd) decides...
Elena
By . Published 11 March 2013The third feature from Andrey Zvyagintsev is an icy anti-thriller thick with tension and brimming with allegorical undertones. Nadezhda Markina is superb in the title role: a retired nurse from...
The Bay
By . Published 11 March 2013Barry Levinson's original plan was to make a documentary detailing the terrible environmental degradation of his beloved Chesapeake Bay on America's east coast, but he decided that his message would...
Alps
By . Published 11 March 2013"I'll do anything you want." It is a mark of the topsy-turvy world that Yorgos Lanthimos has created in his new film, Alps, that, when a female character offers herself with...
Red Dawn
By . Published 11 March 2013In 1984, the year Orwell prophesied doom, writer-director John Milius took the Cold War to its barely logical conclusion for Red Dawn, imagining a Third World War where parachuting Soviets...
