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Sputnik – movie review

Director Egor Abramenko delivers a creepy creature-feature with Sputnik. It starts with two cosmonauts planning to return to Earth, but quickly morphs into something else entirely. It’s 1983. After a Soviet space mission returns into barren Kazakhstan, the support team find one of the intrepid travellers hasn’t make it and the other – the commander…

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Vivarium (Umbrella) – movie review

Vivarium is a descent into madness. It did my head in. Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots) are a happy couple. They’re considering buying a house together. One day they wander into a shop displaying cardboard models of the same perfectly manicured home. A strange real estate salesman – Martin (Jonathan Aris) – implores…

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The Invisible Man – movie review

Produced under the auspices of Blumhouse, which specialises in horror, The Invisible Man is a taut psychological thriller that effectively combines elements of sci-fi and horror. Written and directed by Melbourne filmmaker Leigh Whannell (a co-creator of the Saw and Insidious franchises), this serves up a refreshingly different take on the mad scientist character originally…

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Terminator: Dark Fate – movie review

I lost track of the Terminator franchise long ago. I think it was after Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). And since that film logically tied off the loose ends, I was comfortable with it finishing there. But then we had the weak and divergent Terminator Salvation (2009) and Terminator Genisys (2015). I’d stopped…

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Gemini Man – movie review

Acclaimed director Ang Lee employs cutting edge technology in the big-budget actioner, Gemini Man. But it seems his shiny new toys might have distracted the director from some more prosaic concerns – like a credible story. The tech is pretty impressive. Lee uses what’s known as HFR 3D. The process combines 3D techniques with a…

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Ad Astra – movie review

Heart of Darkness in space anyone? Director James Gray (The Lost City of Z) and star Brad Pitt go boldly where Kubrick, Coppola and Tarkovsky have been before in Ad Astra. This quietly powerful contemplation on fathers, sons and the final frontier won’t appeal to everyone, but it gets top marks for asking the big…

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