From the folk tales of One Thousand and One Nights, to highest grossing film of 1992, Aladdin, the story of the genie in a lamp is familiar. Now director George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road) provides a new take on the tale with Three Thousand Years of Longing. Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is a…
The straightforward plot of Baltasar Kormakur’s Beast sees big game poachers wipe out a pride of lions, only for one to get away and go rogue. To elaborate, Dr Nate Samuels (Idris Elba) has taken his two daughters from New York to visit his old friend Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley) in South Africa. Tension is…
I hope comic book fans find more to appreciate about James Gunn’s (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) take on The Suicide Squad than I did. I found it a garbled, at times incoherent, mess. The US government is secretly engaging the services of hardened criminals with “special skills” (read: killing). They go on perilous…
By the end I was bawling like a baby. CATS, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical as a Tom Hooper-directed and co-written (with Lee Hall) film, is a triumph of theatrics – costuming, make-up, choreography, colour and emotion. In the original 1980s stage musical, CATS takes place on the night of the annual Jellicle Ball, when…
Action, corny humour and a thin script mark Hobbs & Shaw; the 9th feature from The Fast & Furious franchise. This one is a spin-off though, not a sequel. At stake is … surprise, surprise … just the future of the world due to a virus the likes of which we haven’t seen before. Hobbs…
A whip smart script, pacey dialogue and a couple of stellar performances distinguish this pulsating drama. Molly’s Game is based on the true story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), an Olympic-level skier who was forced to abandon her sport after a devastating injury. With law school on hold, Molly takes a job that introduces her…
Boise, Idaho. Storm clouds have rolled in, causing all flights to be cancelled. Ben (Idris Elba) is a neurosurgeon trying to get a flight to Denver. He needs to catch a connecting flight to New York, where he’s scheduled to perform life-saving surgery on a ten-year old boy. Alex (Kate Winslet) is a photojournalist who…
Based on an epic book series by Stephen King, The Dark Tower lacks the gravitas I would have expected. The last gunslinger, Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O’Dim, also known as the man in black (Matthew McConaughey). Deschain is determined to prevent O’Dim from toppling the Dark…
Given recent terrorist attacks in Paris, this action-thriller cuts close to the bone. Paris is a powder keg of political and racial tension in the lead up to the titular national holiday. Michael Mason (played by Richard Madden, from TV’s Game Of Thrones) is a talented pickpocket eking out a living on the streets of…
