Category Archives: Film

The Happytime Murders. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks, Maya Rudulph, Leslie David Baker, Joel McHale, Cynthy Wu, Michael McDonald, Mitch Silpa, Hemky Madera, Bill Barratta, Dorien Davies, Kevin Clash, Victor Yerrid, Drew Massey, Ted Michaels, Brian Henson, Allan Trautman.

The Muppet Show it isn’t, there is no cosy sense of mischief, of childhood playfulness felt, and yet the Henson name is driven through The Happytime Murders like a nail being hammered through a sock and because of this sense of stuffed innuendo and rebellion to go and deliver an adult-orientated puppet/human story, the makers have stitched together a film which is beautifully insubordinate, outrageously defiant and completely, and utterly, sublime.

The Happytime Murders. Film Review. full post

(545 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Alpha. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Natassia Malthe, Johannes Hauker Johannesson, Leoner Varela, Mercedes de la Zerda, Jens Hulten, Spencer Bogaert, Priya Rajaratnam, Patrick Flanagan, Marcin Kowalczyk, Michael Kruse-Dahl, Kyle Glenn Sutherland, Louis Lay, Tran Kootenhayoo, Nestor de las Xerda, Blake Point, Nashon Douglas, Morgan Freeman.

Alpha. Film Review. full post

(440 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

The Meg. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Olafur Darri Olafsson, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka, Raymond Vinton, Hongmei Mai, Wei Yi, Vithaya Pansringarm, Rob Kipa-Williams, Tawanda Manyimo, Mark Trotter, James Gaylyn.

The Meg. Film Review. full post

(485 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

The Equalizer 2. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Denzil Washington, Pedro Pascal, Ashton Sanders, Orson Bean, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Jonathan Scarfe, Sakina Jaffrey, Kazy Tauginas, Garrett Golden, Adam Karst, Tamara Hickey, Jim Loutzenhiser, Rory Benjamin Smith, Ted Arcidi, Karen York.

The Equalizer 2. Film Review. full post

(568 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

The Spy Who Dumped Me. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Mila Kunis, Kate McKinnon, Justin Theroux, Sam Heughan, Hasan Minhaj, Gillian Anderson, Dustin Demri-Burns, Mirjam Novak, Jane Curtin, Paul Reiser, Ivanna Sakhno, Fred Melamed, James Fleet, Carolyn Pickles, Justin Wachsberger, Kevin Ezekiel Ogunleye, Tom Stourton, Roderick Hill, Olafur Darri Olafsson.

When a film doesn’t know what it wants to be, perhaps the best thing that an audience can do is allow it to flow naturally and under its own progression. Putting a film into a genre specific box sometimes doesn’t fit, too many square edges, a piece of corner missing, and allusion to subtext which has no space to breathe; and yet flow it does, it somehow squeezes past defiance and nestles in the hole it has walked with confidence into and refuses to budge.

The Spy Who Dumped Me. Film Review. full post

(528 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Christopher Robin. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Hayley Atwell, Bronte Carmichael, Mark Gatiss, Oliver Ford Davies, Ronke Adekoluejo, Adrian Scarborough, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ken Nwosu, John Dagleish, Amanda Lawrence, Katy Carmichael, Orton O’ Brien, Tristan Sturrock, Jasmine-Simone Charles, Paul Chahidi, Simon Farnaby, Mackenzie Crook, Jim Cummings, Brad Garrett, Nick Mohammed, Peter Capaldi, Sophie Okonedo, Sara Sheen, Toby Jones.

It is, with hindsight, easy to suggest that humanity in the 20th Century lost its way, that we as a collected species lost our wonder and our innocence to a new way of thinking, a rational that arguably had its genesis in the self-imposed, stiff upper lipped facade philosophy created by the Victorians and to which even now has eaten away at our ability to forget the dreams we had as children and the wondrous stories we could weave.

Christopher Robin. Film Review. full post

(556 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

Ant-Man And The Wasp. Film Review

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Walton Coggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, T.I., David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Forston, Randall Park, Divian Ladwa, Goran Kostic, Rob Archer, Sean Kleier, Benjamin Byron Davis, Michael Cerveris, Riann Steele, Hayley Lovitt, Langston Fishburne, RaeLynn Bratten, Madeleine McGraw, Tim Heidecker, Suehyla El-Attar, Stan Lee.

 

Ant-Man And The Wasp. Film Review full post

(611 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Mission Impossible: Fallout. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Angela Bassett, Vanessa Kirby, Michell Monaghan, Alec Baldwin, Wes Bentley, Frederick Schmidt, Liang Yang, Kristopher Joner, Wolf Blitzer.

The more the series goes, the bolder, more intricate, daring, it arguably gets, if played out right, the ideas keep coming, the bond between the actors grows stronger and like a team that has ascended the same mountain range every year, the more sure-footed they become, the more trust there is between the cast.  In Mission Impossible: Fallout that trust not only shows, it is indomitable, even with the new addition of the excellent Henry Cavill coming into the series as the C.I.A. hitman and enforcer August Walker.

Mission Impossible: Fallout. Film Review. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Hotel Artemis. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Zachery Quinto, Charlie Day, Dave Bautista, Kenneth Choi.

It is almost impossible to hold antipathy towards Jodie Foster, there is no rhyme or reason to look at her contribution to the art of cinema as nothing less than favourable and with some incredible memories along the way, from Taxi Driver through films such as Bugsy Malone, The Accused, the unforgettable performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, and even in 1993’s Sommersby, Jodie Foster has sealed her reputation as an actor of outstanding quality, she has been one of the industry’s most forthright and passionate of spokeswomen.

Hotel Artemis. Film Review. full post

(481 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

The First Purge. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Y’Lan Noel, Lex Scott Davis, Joivan Wade, Mugga, Patrick Darragh, Marisa Tomei, Luna Lauren Velez, Kristen Solis, Rotimi Paul, Mo McRae, Jermel Howard, Siva, Christian Robinson, Steve Harris, Derek Basco, D.K. Bowser, Mitchell Edwards, Maria Rivera, Chyna Layne, Ian Blackman, Melonie Diaz, Naszir Nance.

If you hold a mirror up to society you can see the image, the sheer ugliness of the truth reflected back; if 2018 will be remembered in cinematic terms for two things, then the age of the superhero truly caught the public’s imagination in the excellent Black Panther, and the absolute truth played out in The First Purge.

The First Purge. Film Review. full post

(549 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)