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Outside the Wire (2021)

Posted by Robin Catling on January 20, 2021
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Action, Culture, film, movie, review, Sci-fi, Thriller. Leave a comment
Outside the Wire movie poster

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.

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Archive (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on January 12, 2021
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Drama, film, movie, review, Sci-fi. Leave a comment
Archive movie poster

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.

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The Midnight Sky

Posted by Robin Catling on January 10, 2021
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Drama, movie, review, Sci-fi. Leave a comment
the Midnight Sky movie poster

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.

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Possessor (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on January 8, 2021
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Horror, movie, review, Sci-fi, Thriller. Leave a comment
Possessor movie poster

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.

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Roald Dahl’s The Witches (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on January 3, 2021
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Adventure, Childrens, Comedy, Horror, movie, review. Leave a comment
The Witches movie poster

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.”

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Extraction (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on December 30, 2020
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Action, movie, review. Leave a comment
Extraction movie poster

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.

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Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on December 28, 2020
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Comic-book, Fantasy, film, movie, review. Leave a comment
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.

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The Old Guard (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on September 13, 2020
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Action, Adventure, movie, review, Sci-fi. Leave a comment
The Old Guard movie poster

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.

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Tenet (2020)

Posted by Robin Catling on September 12, 2020
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Action, Adventure, movie, review, Sci-fi, Thriller. Leave a comment
Tenet movie poster

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.

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Midsommar (2019)

Posted by Robin Catling on June 23, 2020
Posted in: Culture, Film. Tagged: Horror, movie, review. 2 Comments

Midsommar movie posterAfter 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. Continue Reading

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