Spider-Man: No Way Home surprises, shocks and delights. It takes a trip down memory lane but remains a love story between Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and MJ (Zendaya). Spider-Man’s mentor Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) also plays a central role. And the film introduces the idea of the Marvel multiverse – a collection of alternative universes,…
The zombie apocalypse is alive and well in director Johannes Roberts’ horror-schlocker Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City. The film starts with a young orphan girl, Claire Redfield, plagued by visions of a presence. Her slightly older brother, Chris looks after her as best he can. Both live in the Raccoon City Orphanage. They were…
Writer-director Adam McKay’s new film, Don’t Look Up, spoofs the materialistic, pop-culture world we live in. Earth is about to be destroyed by a comet, but do people care? Apparently not and the lack of interest is led by no less than the US president. PhD student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers the comet. At…
Stephen Chbosky’s Dear Evan Hansen is a film adaptation of the Tony and Grammy Award winning musical of the same name. And it features the original Broadway lead actor in the pivotal role. Teenager Evan Hansen (Ben Platt) struggles with anxiety and depression, and is seeing a therapist. He is being brought up by his…
Are you into French culture? How about classic American writing of the 1950s and ’60s? Haute cuisine? Student politics? Post-modern art? Balloon-assisted crime? Chess? If you said yes to any of those, chances are you’ll love Wes Anderson’s new film, The French Dispatch. Anderson is, let’s face it, a divisive filmmaker. In my experience, few…
Is it real or a fake? That was the $64,000 question … or, in the case of The Lost Leonardo, a lot more. The film examines the tale of Salvator Mundi, a painting that could be (but probably isn’t) the work of Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. Depending on the source, as few as 15…
Disney enlists Lin-Manuel Miranda for Encanto, an animated family adventure that comes off a bit like In the Heights transplanted to rural Colombia. While this is a film filled with colour and energy, its rather muddled plot and lashings of treacle diminished its impact for me. Jared Bush, Byron Howard and Charise Castro Smith share…
With a haunting look in his eyes, Oscar Isaac (Dune) excels in Paul Schrader’s (First Reformed) intense crime drama The Card Counter. Isaac is William Tell, a cheerless loner who likes to go under the radar. As an elite card player, he travels extensively between casinos, but doesn’t like to draw attention to himself. To…
At 91 years of age Clint Eastwood climbs back into the saddle for this elegiac and reflective contemporary western. He plays Mike Milo, a washed-up former rodeo rider with a broken back who has fallen on hard times. He is asked by his former boss Howard (country singer and occasional actor Dwight Yoakam) to travel…
As cultural touchstones go, few are as storied – or problematic – as Dune. Frank Herbert’s dense 1965 novel was (and is still) regarded as a breakthrough in the sci-fi genre, spawning a sometimes-fanatical following. The book was often considered unfilmable – something reinforced by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt at it in the 1970s. Then…
