Resident Evil 7 review: A gruesome return to form for the horror series January 25, 2017 Were it physically possible for a human skeleton to crawl out of a body through the mouth so that all the flesh peeled down to form a bloody skirt made of guts, and for that skeleton to run around the room getting tangled up in bunting and pulling bookshelves down on itself, then Resident Evil [...]
Jackie review: Natalie Portman leads an outstanding production about the creation of a political myth January 20, 2017 In Jackie, blood clings to the First Lady like it does to Lady Macbeth. It stains her powder-pink skirt-suit, congeals in her hair, splashes onto her face like tears. It horrifies and fascinates her; she wears it like war-paint, with something approaching pride. But no matter how many times she tries to scrub it off, [...]
Promises, Promises at Southwark Playhouse review: a badly dated comedy that’s a gilded celebration of lechery January 20, 2017 I can’t think of a more appropriate start to the Trump era than revisiting Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s 1968 Broadway hit – a breezy chronicle of workplace sexism in which Boys Will Be Boys, whatever the cost, and women are either brutalised angels awaiting Mr Right or mouthy broads lounging in the clutches of [...]
Lion review: Nicole Kidman’s tender performance lifts this true story about a missing boy Googling his way home January 19, 2017 By Hollywood standards, the story of Lion sounds relatively prosaic: a child gets lost, is adopted, and years later uses Google Earth to find his family. But the telling of it touches on so many heart-tugging topics that it’ll have anyone who’s ever lost a kid, found a kid, or even met a kid blubbing [...]
Split review: M Night Shyamalan twists again like it’s 1998 with this return to reform split personality movie January 19, 2017 Come on let’s twist again, like we did in the early 2000s. It’s been a long time since a new M Night Shyamalan film was greeted with excitement. With a miserable streak of flops including The Happening, The Last Airbender and Will Smith misfire After Earth, many had given up on the twist-loving film maker [...]
Wish List at the Royal Court peers inside the warehouse of online retailers like Amazon January 17, 2017 A barely concealed swipe at the working practices of big online retailers, Wish List tells the story of a young woman caring for her OCD-afflicted brother while struggling to make ends meet at her warehouse packaging job. Tamsin’s (Erin Doherty) jittery existence involves trying (and failing) to meet her impossible packaging quota, as a relentless [...]
FiSahara takes place under the baking heat of the African sun. Alex Dudok de Wit finds an event unlike any other January 16, 2017 There’s a territory sandwiched between Morocco and Mauritania, divided from the former in atlases by a dotted line, that carries the opaque name of Western Sahara. You might occasionally spot footage of it on the news, grainy shots of a sand wall lined with landmines and Moroccan soldiers, although most will struggle to place it [...]
The Kite Runner at Wyndham’s Theatre is competent and compelling but never really takes off January 12, 2017 If you weren’t content with only a book and a film, now The Kite Runner has been turned into a West End play. Fresh from a tour of the UK, this remarkably stripped back production could have done with a little beefing up now it’s found a stable home for a few months. The vast, [...]
La La Land review: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star in this giddy, joyous tale of young love in the big city January 12, 2017 The unanimous backslap that greeted La La Land at the Golden Globes last week has only reinforced the idea that Hollywood is head-over-heels, all-weekend-in-bed, marriage-and-babies in love with itself. And why not when it can churn out hits like this. La La Land is entirely deserving of its praise, and so much more than a [...]
Live By Night film review: Ben Affleck’s gangster epic can’t match its lofty aspirations January 12, 2017 For his fourth outing behind the camera, Ben Affleck sets his sights on the gangster epic, a genre that for many is the yardstick against which directorial greatness is measured. Returning once again to Boston (three of his four movies as director have been shot in the state where he grew up), Affleck also screen-writes, [...]