Rah-rah! American heroes save the world from destruction in Hunter Killer. A hunter-killer is a vessel, especially a submarine, equipped to locate and destroy enemy vessels, including other submarines. Deep beneath the icy surface of the Arctic Circle, the Cold War never really ended. Here, at extreme depths invisible to the rest of the world,…
John Krasinski – that all-round good guy from The Office (US) – never struck me as an action hero. But somehow he makes it work in Amazon Prime’s spy drama Jack Ryan (or to give it its full title: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan). Remember, this is a character that’s been played by Alec Baldwin (in…
Tasmanian-born Errol Flynn was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood in the 1930s and 40s, and the swashbuckling star of action films like Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood dominated the box office. The charismatic and handsome movie icon also had a reputation as a hard-drinking cavalier womaniser and a hell-raiser off-screen….
How not to plan and execute a heist. Four totally clueless amateurs get involved in something they should never have attempted in American Animals. Frighteningly, it’s based on relatively recent reality. The story centres around unpredictable wild child Warren (Evan Peters) and aspiring artist Spencer (Barry Keoghan), two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Lexington,…
Yet another superhero movie featuring a second-tier character from the Marvel stable. Or should that be a super-anti-hero, because Venom isn’t your usual superhero? We first met Venom in the Sam Raimi-helmed Spider-Man 3, when he was played by Topher Grace. And despite its origins with Spider-Man, Venom sits outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The…
It’s been 15 years since comedian Rowan Atkinson grabbed his licence to kill as bumbling secret agent Johnny English. The character is a cross between James Bond, Maxwell Smart, Inspector Clouseau and Inspector Gadget. Now Atkinson reprises the role in this third film in the series. Johnny English Strikes Again is also the strongest film…
From the outer reaches of space to the backwoods of Georgia, the hunt goes on in Shane Black’s reboot of the Predator series. Black, who directed Lethal Weapon and wrote Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, played the role of Hawkins in 1987’s original Predator. Here, he directs from a script he penned with Fred Dekker (RoboCop…
Far-fetched but engaging, Kin is a tense “actioner” with a strong science fiction component. Fourteen-year-old Eli (Myles Truitt) lives in Detroit with his adoptive father Hal (Dennis Quaid), who keeps him on a tight leash. While exploring an abandoned building looking for scrap, Eli happens on the aftermath of an otherworldly shoot-out. In the debris,…
The action-thriller Mile 22 follows an elite paramilitary team led by the methodical Jimmy Silva (Mark Wahlberg). Silva is direct all-business, incapable of separating himself from his work. His lieutenant is Lauren Cohan (Alice Kerr), and she’s almost as capable. But, unlike Silva, she must contend with distractions from the outside world. Foremost among them…
In 2016 we had the graphic animated comedy Sausage Party. Some absolutely hated it, while others regarded it a work of raunchy comic genius. Well, here we go again; as puppetry interplays with live action in The Happytime Murders. The film is many things: a murder mystery, a buddy cop story, a tale of diversity…
