Outside the Wire (2021)

Netflix’ military-sci-fi-action-thriller mashes Bourne with the Terminator, a dash of District 13 and I, Robot‘s moral maze. The battle of wits between naive Damson Idris’ drone pilot versus Antony Mackie’s charismatic super-cyborg gets pushed aside by the toys, the action and the explosions.

Archive (2020)

This Twilight Zone-format, sci-fi thriller has PTSD-afflicted George Almore (Theo James, Divergent) trying to recreate his dead wife Jules (Stacy Martin) as an artificial intelligence inside the Archive. It’s a taut, claustrophobic, high-concept piece from writer/director Gavin Rothery.

The Midnight Sky

George Clooney produces, directs and stars in a romantic space-drama heavily inflected by his previous Solaris and Gravity pictures. Quite why Netflix chose to release this maudlin mankind-stumbles-across-the-stars space opera during a global pandemic remains a mystery.

Possessor (2020)

Imagine if David Cronenberg had mashed his Naked Lunch with Existenz to make an unsettling, bloody, low-tech assassination thriller. You don’t have to, because his son, Brandon Cronenberg, has done just that with Possessor.

There’s a direct line from father to son in this twisty, high-concept, body-swap sci-fi, including alienated, unsympathetic characters in a trippy, lo-fi, VHS-horror style.

Roald Dahl’s The Witches (2020)

Robert Zemekis’ reimagining of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story is a catalogue of hits and misses. “Un film de Robert Zemekis: never knowingly undercooked.”

Extraction (2020)

Mike Leigh’s gentle biopic of pioneering dentist Arthur Lemming meanders thoughtfully through… Just kidding. Everyone’s favourite Aussie Thunder God steps into John Wick territory in a Netflix’ kidnap-and rescue actioner with a body count to match.

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Well, 2020 turned into a stinker of a year, but Gadot, Jenkins and Pine reunite to cheer us up with Wonder Woman‘s second solo outing. Gadot is outstanding and Diana Prince/Wonder Woman is magnificent. With Big Themes and women centre stage, it’s a shame the plot is a shambles and it’s far, far too long.

The Old Guard (2020)

Netflix’ latest mashes up The A-Team meets Highlander in Charlize Theron‘s latest kick-ass chick, immortal, action heroine vehicle. With a bit of obligatory John Wick beat-em up, shoot ’em up. And some proper actors. Maybe Chewetel Ejiorfor and Matthias Schoenarts took a wrong turn out of the rehearsal rooms of a Lyn Ramsay drama? All this is adapted from a graphic novel.

Tenet (2020)

What can Christopher Nolan possibly do to top this impossibly twisty, timey-wimey, too-clever-by-half, labyrinthine, high-concept, sci-fi-espionage-heist-action thriller? A movie so dense, one of the characters has to give us instructions at the start: ‘don’t think it, feel it.’ I’m feeling they should have called it Inversion. But that’s not a palindrome.

Midsommar (2019)

After long consideration, the verdict on Midsommar is… meh.

Ari Aster’s quietly bonkers, absurd and absurdist daylight horror is a culture-clash of Swedish detachment versus self-absorbed Americans at the sort of festival that only exists in Monty Python‘s most twisted sketches. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise – this is the Swedish Wicker Man.