John Wick 3 review: Keanu Reeves shines in the action franchise’s brilliant third installment May 24, 2019 The John Wick films are so far ahead of other Hollywood action movies that this third installment is the best the genre has produced in recent years, without even being the best film in the franchise. We pick up immediately after the end of Chapter 2, with Wick having been declared ‘excommunicado’ from the High [...]
Aladdin review: Disney fails to justify remaking the classic animation May 24, 2019 The first thing you notice about this $180m live-action reboot of Disney’s beloved 1992 animation is the unexpected poverty of its visuals. The set design has an end-of-year school play vibe, all gaudy colours and plywood walls stuck together with adhesive. It feels more Disneyland than Disney. The widespread scepticism that greeted Guy Ritchie’s installment [...]
Our Town review: Thornton Wilder’s classic play about everyday life comes to Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre May 24, 2019 Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play Our Town is a kind of time capsule, a snapshot of everyday life in a New Hampshire town during the first years of the 20th century. The fourth-wall breaking narrator says as much, promising to bury the play’s text in a box alongside the US constitution, a bible and a copy [...]
Arsene Wenger on his future, being a tech investor, science taking over football and his dream of an Arsenal university May 24, 2019 When Arsene Wenger said his goodbyes to Arsenal, bringing down the curtain on a 22-year tenure which transformed the club and left an indelible mark on English football, he was adamant about one thing: he was not hanging up that manager’s coat with the pesky zip for good. But weeks turned into months and now, [...]
Ollie Phillips: Don’t expect a shock – Saracens and Exeter are streets ahead of their Premiership play-off rivals May 23, 2019 The Premiership semi-finals are upon us this weekend and it is very much a case of challengers taking on heavy favourites. Saracens and Exeter have been dominant over the past few seasons and it will take a mammoth effort from Gloucester or Northampton to reach the final. Saracens have won three of the last four [...]
Rocketman is an explosively imaginative biopic charting the life of the iconic piano man May 23, 2019 Take the John Lewis Christmas ad that made your sherry-drunk Aunt Pauline cry into her sprouts and stretch it out over a hundred or so minutes and you’ve got yourself Rocketman, the Taron Egerton fronted musical biopic charting the life and travails of bespectacled piano man Elton John. The setting is a booze ‘n’ drugs [...]
Anna at the National Theatre review: A brilliant play about the Stasi that makes you wear headphones May 23, 2019 It’s Stasi-era East Germany and a young woman prepares for a dinner party while a hidden group of shadowy men and women wearing headphones listen in to her every move. The twist? You’re one of them. Anna casts the audience as collaborators in this tale of a young woman caught up in a surveillance operation [...]
One-Day Cup final: Somerset’s young gun Tom Banton won’t be fazed by Lord’s occasion, says Marcus Trescothick May 22, 2019 Marcus Trescothick has seen enough batsmen in his 26 years of first-class cricket to know a good one when he sees him. Tom Banton may be just 20 and only have a similar number of matches behind him, but he’s already done enough to excite Somerset’s senior player. The Somerset academy graduate has taken the [...]
Chris Tremlett: Well-rounded England justify their position as World Cup favourites May 22, 2019 Three weeks ago England’s World Cup campaign could have been derailed. Alex Hales was withdrawn from the squad after failing a drugs test and the storm that followed could have thrown their preparations off. But to their credit England dealt with the incident quickly and bypassed any distractions. Now, with the tournament just a week [...]
Football’s most lucrative match stagnates in value amid Premier League rights growth slowdown May 22, 2019 The Championship play-off final, which takes place on Monday at Wembley and pits Aston Villa against Derby County for the last remaining spot in next season’s Premier League, is well established as the most lucrative one-off match in the world of club football. Worth an estimated minimum of £170m to the victors – 10 times [...]