Sunday Times (UK)

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
2/5 Greta (2018) Katy Hayes The movie trades heavily on the two lead performances and hopes the audience will forgive the narrative wobbles. In the end, however, the story outcome is simply unbelievable. EDIT
Posted Apr 22, 2019
2/5 Red Joan (2018) Olly Richards This is a starchy, dreary slog that never injects any real danger into a mission that could destroy the world. EDIT
Posted Apr 22, 2019
3/5 Greta (2018) Olly Richards It's trash, reliant on coincidence and character stupidity, but it's really good trash. EDIT
Posted Apr 22, 2019
3/5 Dragged Across Concrete (2018) Olly Richards Zahler takes his time with long scenes, letting you steep uncomfortably in the nihilism and anger of these two men. His dialogue has a harsh zing to it and the precision of his film making is impossible to fault. EDIT
Posted Apr 22, 2019
3/5 Loro (2018) Tom Shone As a character portrait, this film works: Servillo judges the amount of charm, bluster and oiliness just right. His Silvio slithers and fascinates, like a snake. EDIT
Posted Apr 22, 2019
2/5 A Dark Place (2018) Tom Shone The film needed more complication, more plot, and more of a sense of why this character in particular finds himself at the centre of it. As it is, you wish him out of harm's way more than you hope he will solve the case. EDIT
Posted Apr 22, 2019
1/5 Little (2019) Edward Porter Tina Gordon's film could have been tailored to children. Instead it aims for a vaguely imagined teen-to-adult audience, partly through jokes about the altered heroine, Jordan, retaining mature lusts. EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
3/5 Yuli (2018) Edward Porter As a portrait, the film isn't hugely enlightening, but its mixed-media form gives it vitality. EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
4/5 A Deal With the Universe (2018) Edward Porter As a picture of love and determination, though, it's a poignant, valuable film. EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
3/5 Wild Rose (2018) Tom Shone Jessie Buckley puts on the kind of show in Wild Rose that makes everyone want a piece of her EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
3/5 Mid90s (2018) Tom Shone Jonah Hill's directorial debut, Mid90s, is a scrappy little thing, but it gets to you -- much like its hero, Stevie. EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
3/5 Don't Go (2018) Katy Hayes The otherworldly elements have enough intrigue to give Don't Go an original edge. It lacks character development but compensates with engaging twists and turns. EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
3/5 Out of Innocence (2016) Katy Hayes As a piece of documentary dramatic recreation, Out of Innocence is meticulous and mesmerising, but as artful storytelling, it is less successful. EDIT
Posted Apr 15, 2019
() Camilla Long The Brexit Storm: Laura Kuenssberg's Inside Story was an excellent attempt to unravel the events of the past nine months. I didn't watch because I wanted to find out yet more about Brexit...but because I wanted to find out more about Kuenssberg. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
3/5 Happy as Lazzaro (2018) Tom Shone True magic realism: the magic lifts the realism and the realism makes the magic sing. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
3/5 The Sisters Brothers (2018) Tom Shone The film's picaresque jumble of tones...could have done with a little tightening around its middle. But we do at least finally know How The West Was Won. With indoor plumbing. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
3/5 () Edward Porter The movie as a whole is a vigorous, involving account of dramatic events. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
3/5 Pet Sematary (2019) Edward Porter Its directors, Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, time the scares well enough, and they appreciate the comic potential of a weird, bad-tempered cat. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
4/5 Missing Link (2019) Edward Porter The sasquatch is a sweetheart, the scenery is picture-book beautiful and the action scenes are fantastically well sustained. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
4/5 Shazam! (2019) Edward Porter Even the standard crash-bang action scenes -- although not especially inspired -- are enlivened by the film's vital freedom: it's not trying to be cool. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
2/5 () Katy Hayes When a thriller loses credibility, it's missing the most important ingredient. EDIT
Posted Apr 8, 2019
3/5 At Eternity's Gate (2018) Tom Shone There have been many films about Van Gogh... but none has come as close as Schnabel's to capturing a working portrait of the artist. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
Marie Antoinette (2006) Edward Porter Authentic it ain't, but this biopic looks good enough to eat. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
3/5 Dumbo (2019) Tom Shone [Eva] Green, who is always the best reason to see a Burton film...She brings the delirious spirit of a young Anouk Aimée or Anna Karina to bear on a movie that barely deserves it. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
4/5 () Katy Hayes Dave Perry's landscape photography, some of it airborne, is a joy, and the two old borderlands bachelors simply doing their thing will induce a broad smile in even the most cynical of viewers. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
2/5 American Dreamz (2006) Cosmo Landesman The overriding problem here is that Weitz doesn't have much to say about his subject, other than that television, politics and terrorism are all part of show business. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
In the Cut (2003) Cosmo Landesman What we end up with is a triumph of style over confused content. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019) Camilla Long As documentaries go, Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is mostly pabulum, material that has appeared in books and podcasts since Holmes's ludicrous medical start-up, Theranos, imploded three years ago. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
2/5 Out of Blue (2018) Edward Porter It's sufficiently varied and colourful to keep you watching, yet -- despite all that deep science -- the plot has no profound mysteries, just veiled contrivances. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
3/5 The Vanishing (2018) Edward Porter It briefly hints at something supernatural, but then proceeds as a fierce thriller in a disappointing misstep. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
4/5 Se rokh (2018) Edward Porter The journey rambles, but deft images crop up and it's interesting to have Panahi's thoughts on the status of women in Iranian movie making. EDIT
Posted Apr 1, 2019
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) Cosmo Landesman Anderson never manages the difficult art of switching from put-on to pathos. And even the straight-faced performances of Wilson and Blanchett don't help. EDIT
Posted Mar 31, 2019
Step Brothers (2008) Cosmo Landesman This is a 15-minute sketch - based on crude humour -- stretched out to the length of a feature film. For Ferrell fans only. EDIT
Posted Mar 29, 2019
MacGruber (2010) Edward Porter The canon of cheesy action movies offers such a vast reserve of mockable nonsense that no parody can fail to come up with one or two funny jokes of its own, and there are some chucklesome bits in this one. EDIT
Posted Mar 29, 2019
Clash of the Titans (2010) Cosmo Landesman Stuffed with special effects and numerous battle sequences, it's a film that has no magic and no personality of its own. Not even 3D can save it. EDIT
Posted Mar 28, 2019
3/5 Cradle of Champions (2018) Edward Porter There are no exceptionally powerful scenes, but the usual business of getting to know the contenders and their families is made all the more engaging by the New York spirit of everyone involved. EDIT
Posted Mar 25, 2019
2/5 Un Viaje a la Luna (2018) Edward Porter Ultimately this lunar mission got me thinking like a sceptic from the later days of Nasa's programme: its results don't justify its laborious efforts. EDIT
Posted Mar 25, 2019
3/5 Sorry Angel (2018) Edward Porter The movie is at its best when evoking the vital succour gay men found in networks of friends during the HIV crisis. EDIT
Posted Mar 25, 2019
3/5 The White Crow (2018) Edward Porter It's the generic zest of the ballet world and Parisian nightclubs that keeps the film watchable until Fiennes can resort to the big moment he's saved for last. EDIT
Posted Mar 25, 2019
4/5 Minding the Gap (2018) Jonathan Dean Of everyone in this unique film, like Boyhood for a wedge of society with no hope, you root for [Keire] the most. EDIT
Posted Mar 25, 2019
4/5 Us (2019) Jonathan Dean Taken as a whole, though, Us is anything but indifferent. It is a rare film that is both tabloid and broadsheet in its mix of celebrity...and existentialism. EDIT
Posted Mar 25, 2019
3/5 Triple Frontier (2019) Tom Shone Triple Frontier is not a waste of your time exactly -- it's a good film to curl up with on Netflix -- but Chandor surely has better movies ahead of him. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
3/5 Ben Is Back (2018) Tom Shone Ben is a much more slippery character than you think...but Roberts is at her best in the movie's first hour, when everything is still up in the air, as her megawatt smile flickers with uncertainty and little prickles of dread over what Ben might do next. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
1/5 What Men Want (2019) Edward Porter Adam Shankman's movie isn't as defiantly feminist as it might have been...This might disappoint some observers, but I'd have settled for the film being passably funny, which it sure isn't. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
1/5 Under the Silver Lake (2018) Edward Porter It gives you little reason to hope for much from its plot's secrets -- and, when they are finally exposed, they don't exceed expectations. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
3/5 Benjamin (2018) Edward Porter Even if you don't think the dithering, anxious Benjamin should just get a grip, you might wish Amstell had asserted himself more as a dramatist. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
4/5 The Fight (2018) Edward Porter It's a memorably honest, heartfelt and surprising piece of work. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
2/5 Fisherman's Friends (2019) Edward Porter Chris Foggin's movie has a storyline faintly similar to that of Local Hero in 1983. So why couldn't it have taken cues from that film's wit and romanticism? EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
3/5 Girl (2018) Edward Porter The movie's fundamental sympathy for Lara is clear. It's channelled through a subtle performance from Victor Polster...and it shapes several tender and credible scenes. EDIT
Posted Mar 18, 2019
3/5 The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) Francesca Angelini Gyllenhaal is superb at capturing the teacher's conflicting motivations, but the contrasting of mediocrity and genius is a little extreme. EDIT
Posted Mar 11, 2019