Film Reviews by PV

OK so I preferred the first series to the 2nd, and the reason is that it's all become very tricksy, lots of mind games happening, which I know is trendy in Hollywood movies but which can grate. I think more just needs to happen. There is a lot of padding here.

Having said that, I still enjoyed it and so give in 4 stars (just squeaked that instead of 3 stars, partly for great acting, partly for brilliant music selections, many of them British and from the 80s or even late 70s - lots of synth bands and new wave stuff).

4 stars

The first series of Mr Robot was great, 5 stars esp the first half; the 2nd seemed forced and too tricksy postmodern, but I gave it 4 stars - just; in this 3rd series, however, the endless non-plot about multiple personalities and mind games gets, in a word, boring. More than once I found myself reading my book and watching this at the same time. Time to put this series out of its long, slow misery.

The acting is great and the music choices superb. I got very tired of the blonde Angela though, who is so wet and annoying I just cannot believe she could do anything competently, esp for any security service or dark army or the Teletubbies too.

The focus on Chinese empire-builders is spot on and I hope to see more exposing of the amoral greedy Chinese empire in future movies and TV series, but here it becomes silly, cartoonish and so unbelievable.

Credibility is strained at every turn of this series now. I am glad Remi Malek has moved on to better, less post modern dross things.

3 stars

This film has got great reviews here and elsewhere. It does not deserve them. I can only assume the reason why so may critics praise it is the yawnsome cliche of a 'strong independent woman' #MeToo hero - that and the fact JJ Abrams produced it. That does not stop this being a boring B-Movie. One of the worst movies I have seen in the last few years.

They should have called this movie Milking It or Cashing In - because that is why it exists.

The third act is absurd. In fact, this movie has NOTHING to do with the original Cloverfield - which was a silly monster movie, but entertaining, at least. This is not. It is not even particularly tense for a thriller - it is predictable in every plot point and development.

Want a tense thriller? Watch Silence of the Lambs, Misery, The Secret in Their Eyes (original) or even Brit low budgent Cabin 28. Not this drivel.

John Goodman is good in his role and believable - unlike the cartoon character superhero main female character and the secondary male character- but he looks so ill. Maybe that was the effect of reading the script - but no doubt, he thought of the money and points he was getting and carried on...

1 star.

There is something in Italians - and the Spanish - which seems to make them rather blood-thirsty in their art. Look at the paintings of Goya. The French call it 'Grand Guignol' - and there's a lot of that here, lots of ketchup-coloured fake blood and, no doubt, what critics would now call exploitation of young pretty women who get 'done in'.

The first time I tried watching this, I turned off after around 10 minutes as it was too bloody and I wasn't in the right mood. Later I watched it all the way through - and it's a very 'of its time' 1970s Horror flick which the Italians churned out in that decade. Not half as clever as it thinks it is though. It is, at the end of the day, trashy horror with an absurd plot and often cartoony characters. Like Hammer Horror but pushing the boundaries of what the censor allowed in the 1970s but giving it 'Sam Pekinpah' levels of gory blood-soaked scenes. It is what it is.

One note on the music - a very radical, for the time, synthy soundtrack which o doubt sounded hyper-modern and cool at the time, but which now sounds very dated: nothing ages so fast as a vision of the future. I still enjoyed it though.

Perfect for the 1970s theme party/film night.

3 stars

I enjoyed this film. Yes, it's nuts, and a bit disjointed with lots of flashbacks.

But it does what it says on the tin and is very timely in these virus-fearing days.

I enjoyed this film. Provided you can suspend your disbelief, then the hokem story about people turned into flesh-eating zombies by a fungal virus is very timely and relevant.

Stronger at the start than later on but still good fun with a few laugh-out-loud lines.

4 stars

I enjoyed this film. It follows separate stories of characters which may later overlap, and shows how the internet - the bad side of it - affects them all, in often devastating ways. There's money, there's sex, there are broken relationships.

The dark underbelly of the internet and so-called social media needs to be called out, and I am glad movies like this do.

The first 2 acts are particularly strong and all, sadly, utterly believable.

The internet with all its fraud, bullying, trolling, perversion, abuse is the new normal - or abnormal - so it is good to see films like this being made. Why can;'t the UK make believable contemporary films like this?

It could be a TV drama, it's that good - and I mean a decent US TV drama (like Breaking Bad) not the usual soapy preachy BBC dross.

4 stars.

This film starts OK - then gets gradually more up itself as time goes on. I suspect lots of the over-rated reviews are from fans of the 2 famous lead actors, and the blurry of real/unreal lines here is just plain weird.

If you like spiritual stuff, this may be your bag - I hate that sort of thing, so it annoys and bores me. If the Brits had made this the same people praising this film to the skies would be slating the film. Lazy, pretentious film-making. And boy the plot is silly, incredible and the third act made me want to chuck stuff at the screen - common sense, for example, and enlightenment values.

And I just did not believe the plot, not even from a French writer/director - and oh how they love their ponderous non-plots in French films where sod all ever happens. Some reviews call that 'whimsical'; others would call it SLOW or maybe 'boring'.

Best of all in this film, I enjoyed the scenery - lots here set in the scary desert of Death Valley, USA - so I took that in when the cod-spiritual nonsense got too much.

2 stars max.

This movie reminds me of other huge, vast-ranging, pretentious movies which seemed to arrive in the 1990s and end around the time this was made. I am thinking of The Fifth Element, and the truly awful Tree of Life.

A great cast, yes, and some interesting scenes. But all too tricksy and self-consciously post-modern. Why not just TELL A STORY instead of all the endless faffing with alternative universes etc and all the pretentious cod-scientific guff.

I see it was written by the director who is French/Belgian - and also that this self-indulgent mess of a movie was partly paid for by our taxes via the EU, it seems. HOORAH! The whole thing must've cost tens of millions - all to pay for one director's derivative vision. Sigh...

An interesting watch, and enjoyable in parts - but boy, did it test my patience. And young people made up to look old just don't, somehow.

Probably one for the sci-fi fans and those who like tricksy Matrix-type games.

For me, 1.5 stars rounded up.

This is a weak pc metoo version of a classic 80s comedy movie. Hollywood keeps doing this now - remaking old movies with all women casts. The results are usually awful and they all flop.

To be fair, this starts relatively well - I enjoyed the first act.

After that, it went rapidly downhill, with silly CGI overload scenes, loads of girly silliness, loads of stereotyped moron and/or baddie men. I almost turned off but decided to yawn it out.

It is true women were stereotyped in the past in films - yes, and so were men. They still are - the only difference is the stereotypes have changed. Now almost every Hollywood movie has to have the obligatory stereotyped sassy black woman (and these 2-d performances even win Oscars). Next time I see a sassy black mama in a Hollywood movie I am turning off.

I just hope Hollywood stops pandering to angry MeToo feminists and remaking all old movies as preachy feminist statements with all-female casts. What next - an all-female Lawrence of Arabia? A man-free Saving Private Ryan with silly Hollywood identikit actresses in pink uniforms defeating the nasty-wasty men AKA nazis? STOP IT. Just STOP IT. End the diversity-worshipping, the box-ticking casting and the preachy polemic and lectures. And the BBC should stop it too (looking at you Dr Who are almost every other UK TV drama).

1.5 stars rounded up.

Yes, this is very dated - based on 1950s Kingsley Amis novel THAT CERTAIN FEELING which, like his earlier LUCKY JIM, is set in Swansea, South Wales (and filmed there), and portrays that generation that fought in the war in the 1950s when they are the first in their families to go to university and enter the professions.

This was made in 1961 and released in 1962, but feels more 1950s than anything else.

It is fascinating to see how people put up with basic living conditions and incomes at that time - which would be called dire poverty now. It is also refreshing to see much more ordinary and normal male/female relations than the rather misandrist and hysterical MeToo puritanism of now, which is very weird, actually. Nice to see a couple making a go at marriage too - how unlike these days. Not so good is everybody smoking all the time, and no seat belts worn in cars of course.

Anyway, I enjoyed it - and the rather corrupt Welsh culture it portrays still exists today, with its petty nationalists, its local authors (there are rare unsigned copies of their state-subsidised books still available somewhere), very amateur dramatics etc (the novel apparently is far less forgiving of the pretentious Welsh actors and writers). Richard Attenborough does aturn as pretentious Welshish Welsh author. The Welsh language brigade is sent up on their corrupt little committee.

So I found it all fun, and know that making such a film today would be impossible. Peter Sellers is always wonderful in any film, even his weakest roles. His strongest roles such as Dr Strangelove and I'm Alright Jack are sublime.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Britannia is bonkers. About as close to real historical events as Star Trek, and full of absurd Americanised dialogue and right-on pc characters, it really is more of a curiosity than anything else. Not in the same league as VIKINGS (which also casts rather too many pretty women as warriors and monarchs).

All suffused with a dark mystical spiritual flavour but one so unbelievable it is hard to suspend disbelief, I whizzed through these episodes in a couple of days. The Romans are great - the Ancient Britons seemingly made up by fantasy producers. Ancient Celts and Britons were really not the pantomime characters as portrayed here.

And, as in the first series, I just could not believe the young girl main character and her importance - she is just too stage school for my tastes and, like many here, should be more scarred, deformed and pock-marked to add to the realism (there is not much here though!). The Druids were all male and trained boys only, as recounted in Roman histories. But...

SO LONG AS you do not take it at all seriously, it passes the time - but that is all. 3 stars. Meh.

This film is based on the 1975 JG Ballard novel - and it shows. Those late 60s and early 70s sci-fi dystopian novels and films are now horribly dated - as is Clockwork Orange which this references a lot, consciously or otherwise.

I lasted an hour then gave up. It#s a weird mix this - it aims to show a sci-fi 1970s which we all know now did not exist.

The main character is called Laing which is no doubt a reference to the hippy psychiatrist and this film is infused with the drug culture and psychotherapy of that hippy time, much of it exposed and debunked now.

Maybe sci-fans will like me. Me, I found it really very boring indeed, and silly. Even more so than modern Dr Who episodes, and that's saying something. Some good actors in here and design, so that gets 1.5 stars rounded up.

JG Ballard's other novels include Cocaine and The Drowned World, but he is most famous for his autobiography (about his childhood) Empire of the Sun, a brilliant Spielberg movie. If you want dystopia, then try 28 Days Later, not this.

I do not usually watch documentaries but got this out as it looked fascinating and it is.

All about identity and who we pretend to be, the roles we play, what we choose to believe and what is or may be true or false, and who may or may not be telling the truth, or sociopaths or even psychopaths.

Also all about a massively messed up American family which, as the 'imposter' says himself, is not the USA of tall buildings and busy cities he was expecting to see and what is always shown in Hollywood movies. That flyover state America of malls and debt and wooden houses and wasteland is the real America for many.

This whole story may pan out more in future decades if more evidence is uncovered - which may or may nor happen. No spoilers but I know what I think happened...

I would have liked a little more information about what 'the imposter' is doing now at the end BUT the documentary got a scoop anyway by interviewing him so much.

I just do not understand another reviewer;'s 1 star score and the claim it is in a 'documentary style' - did they really think it was a feature film mockumentary? This is a DOCUMENTARY about real events with real people.

4 stars. A decent watch and a fascinating almost incredible story. But true.

Sorry but I hated this and turned off halfway through. It is a sickly sweet, saccharine sentimental schmaltzy Christmas-y kids' movie, full of magic and sentimentality and other 'cute' overload. Reminds me of the awful BILLIONS and those awful NATIVITY TV movies.

Try renting DUMBO or BAMBI instead or THE LION KING - they have the same message but do it better.

Avoid if you dislike schmaltzy nonsense.