Film Reviews by JH

Considering the calibre of the actors present on screen, I was astonished at how bad this film was. Worse than bad, it was boring! A wholly unconvincing and silly storyline about a young shy fashion design student wandering around a tourist trap Soho, with a bit of Francis Bacon thrown in. Wait, that makes it sound better than it was....

Agatha & the Midnight Murders was quite startlingly terrible. The budget looked so thin you could practically see the actors handing money to the set designers to cheer things up. Both the plot & the script were ridiculous. I felt sorry for the poor actors who were reduced to hamming up foreign accents to frankly offensive levels. I was reminded of Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques sketches, TV comedy 'Allo Allo', but none of it in a good way. If you fancy spending the best part of two hours, repeatedly asking yourself the question, "Surely this cannot get any worse", then this is the film for you!

If your idea of an interesting movie is to watch a sad young girl photocopy in an office over a single long working day, then this is the movie for you! Otherwise I would suggest that you find something else to do during the screening of this movie, read a good book perhaps or some DIY?

This was not the movie I expected. This deeply affecting movie was about an abused, dysfunctional, ill dressed, rather shabby man pushed over the brink by miserable modern day life, into acts of great violence. At times, as his fall into ever deeper madness is chronicled, it is almost to unbearable to watch. The Joker was as much the victim as his victims, more so. This is also a movie about crass, uncaring capitalism, and the destruction that it can bring. Thank god there was no caped crusader to fly in to the rescue, and ruin the movie with the usual comic book to movie schmaltz. The actual performance of the Joker by Joaquin Phoenix is breathtaking, particularly the dance moves at the end. Hurrah for a marvelous, pitch black, sustained experience.

The only good thing about this movie is Pennywise the evil clown, and you don't see enough of him. The rest of the movie is just tedious, endless drivel. I never made it to the end of the film, but after two dreary hours, I was backing the evil clown to win. It just went on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on........

As shallow as a birdbath but quite fun - particularly Maggie Smith's character! It is all a bit forelock tugging, and 'yes sir I know my place', but at least there is a gay sub-plot, which adds a drop of depth. Perhaps this is just the sort of tosh a new Britain deserves?

Nearly three hours of pompous, ice thin, self referential bombast. Like a huge goodbye advert for the Marvel franchise, but with no real end in sight. I regret every single moment I spent watching this boring twaddle. Do yourself a big favour, spend three hours reading a book instead, I wish I had!