Film Reviews by BG

Theresa Rebeck and Simon Kinberg's script for 'The 355' manages to substantially exceed expectations in a film that was somewhat lazily marketed as 'the all-female spy movie'. The skillful writing does give us some broad-strokes cliches at first; Mace (Jessica Chastain) is a hard-pushing and overly serious go-getter with no personal life, Marie (Diane Kruger) is the attitude-filled rebel with a daddy-issues chip on her shoulder, Graziela (Penelope Cruz) is the scared psychologist who must find her courage to join the fight, and Khadija (Lupita Nyong'o) is the techie who doesn't want to go back to the field after a bad mission.

Originally presenting the central thread of a stolen threat at large in terrorist hands, the scripts weaves the actresses in as unrelated strands, but rapidly brings them together as a team when they realise the odds stacked against them.

The dialogue is peppery and fun, with snappy zingers flying back and forth on a regular basis, and the women always feel like individuals, played with great skill and consistency by the leads, even as the characters change with experience, bringing layers of emotion, intensity, buried anger and determination that all feel authentic. Diane Kruger especially is standout as a fiery and excitingly edgy character. The poster-advertised presence of Bingbing Fan is best left undiscussed to avoid some minor spoilers, and while she's fun, and very good in the blazing finale, her acting doesn't ever feel quite as brilliant as the cast around her.

Sebastian Stan is very good as Mace's fellow agent 'Nick', and Jason Flemyng brings a sinister gravitas to his role as a shady criminal facilitator.

If anything, some of the male characters feel rather thin when stood against the excellent performances and writing of the female leads (fair enough after decades of underwritten women in movies!) but it doesn't matter too much as the script remains pacy and compelling at all times.

The writing reminds us that these are people with lives and relationships, all of which they're putting at risk - or on hold - to go out and risk themselves for the greater good. And there's a lot of risk involved, from minor career fracas to multiple brilliantly executed set-pieces.

A dockside shoot-out early in the film lays out the movie's action credentials nicely, but a multi-layered pursuit through an African market and a brilliantly exciting climactic sequence really show Kinberg's evolving action chops - all of the action is crisply visualised, beautifully conveyed, flashily filmed and pulse-raisingly kinetic.

The film also has a nice camaraderie between the women which is often missing from macho male action films, but still has real stakes and isn't afraid to raise the game when tension's required.

There are a very small handful of moments when the script's a little overly on-the-nose about gender politics issues at the end, when it's already made its point far more successfully with just how brilliant these agents are at their jobs, but it's only a slight clumsiness in an otherwise rousing movie that deserves to act as a massive wake-up call to Hollywood about how thrilling female-led action movies can be - as if more proof was needed after 'Aliens', 'Salt', 'Lucy', The 'Resident Evil' franchise and 'The Long Kiss Goodnight'.

I seriously hope this makes enough back to justify a second film, as I'm very eager to see where they take the characters next.

We're introduced to Sam and Nathan Drake as a couple of naughty scamps who like breaking into places to look at historical artifacts. They 'might be' related to THE Sir Francis Drake according to family members - (a nice way of the scriptwriters leaving themselves a back door out of that family tie in case the backlash against Drake's ties to slavery gets worse any time soon).

Later we meet grown-up Nate (Tom Holland), who is now a bartender. He likes robbing people, but it's okay because he's charming and they look like they can probably afford it. Sully (Mark Wahlberg) then rocks up with an attractive proposition for them to steal much more, from people who can almost certainly afford it, while dangling the carrot that Nate might be able to find his missing brother.

Along the way, they team up with Chloe (Sophia Ali) who seems to exist in the script mainly to hold onto a clue and give the hormonally-ravaged Nate something to drool over.

Their adversaries are the 'obvious baddie' Moncada (Antonio Banderas) and Braddock, played by Tati Gabrielle with such serpentine theatrical menace and charisma that this must surely get her on the lists of a lot more casting agents.

The trio of heroes reel from travelogue-pretty set-piece to set-piece while attempting to solve clues, survive traps and beat their enemies, a-la Lara Croft and Indiana Jones before them - a fact the film acknowledges in a cheeky dialogue wink.

Uncharted is fully aware of what it is - an adventure movie following in the footsteps of giants, while out to have a little fun of its own. Holland's Nate Drake is likeable company with a sweet nature and a comical approach, and spends significant amounts of the film either half dressed or wet, to the degree that you wonder if it's now become contractual. Wahlberg's Sully is only saved by the actor's charisma; while fairly amusing, he spends so much of the film indulging in properly scummy behaviour and using others that it would've been a disaster in the wrong hands. You can't help suspecting that the role would've worked even better in the hands of someone more adept at wry comedy like Nathan Fillion (if I can say that without getting lynched by the fans of the Uncharted fan movie).

All the usual cliches get trotted out - the cynicism of the older partner, the hero 'saving' someone who shouldn't need that written into their role in this day and age, the cocky young hero getting in over their head...

Plot-wise, it's never better than ridiculous, and is fun as long as you can stringently resist the temptation to put it under even the slightest scrutiny. Otherwise everything - and I really do mean pretty much EVERYTHING in the storyline comes tumbling down. A 'hidden' location that has a modern street grille above it, so should've been found by the workmen installing it decades ago...the location of the final treasure which could (and should) have been found by dozens of tourists from 2 different directions. The softest precious metal in the world suddenly becoming as great at stopping high-velocity bullets as a kevlar vest (and REALLY light!). The film has a problem with weight in general, and anybody with the slightest knowledge of flight, archaeology, history, water, old transport, new transport, or indeed gravity, will have to swallow ALL the disbelief for a finale that would've killed everybody involved three times over before it even gets halfway.

If you can manage that (and I don't mean that facetiously, it really is worth trying) you will have a lot of fun with what is easily one of the silliest light-hearted adventure romps in years.

An A-list cast carrying out barmy stunts in beautiful locations with some degree of feelgood factor? It's worth the effort.

Probably mis-marketed, 'After Midnight' is likely to irritate a lot of people. It suggests you're in for a suspense-filled exploration of why a mysterious creature is besieging a lone man in his house, and instead delivers a slow-paced slacker-esque relationship drama with occasional creature weirdness.

The vast majority of the plot is based around Hank (Jeremy Gardner) and shows a broad spread of his relationship with Abby (Brea Grant). Hank's a local hunter and likeable, but very much rooted to the area. Abby's seen glimpses of the wider world and is desperate for a better look outside their town, but stays because she and Hank have a strong (and quite cutesy) relationship.

Things go sideways all at once, when Hank wakes up to find her gone and nothing but an uninformative note to explain her continuing and lengthy disappearance.

Slowly the couple's friends and Abby's cop brother (Justin Benson) begin to question Hank's grip on reality and sobriety as he starts drinking harder, shooting at ill-advised targets, and complaining about a mysterious beast scratching to get into his house...

This is not the movie for you if you're looking for a 'creature thriller'. Although there are startling moments, they're very few and far between. For every minute that the creature plays a part in the script, there are 20 filed with relationship flashbacks, amusing drunken conversations, or scenes of Hank acting frustrated.

The script is very freewheeling, and seeing Benson and Moorhead's name as producers helped it make sense to me, as it feels tonally a little similar to their movie 'The Endless' (although not as polished) where scenes of gentle mystery and confusion give way to occasional bursts of brief amusing character silliness, and then something creepy.

By the time the ending nears, you'll have either jacked it in, or be decently invested in Hank and Abby's relationship, and finding out what's going on with them - to the point that you almost forget about the creature side of things.

There are special effects, and they're pretty good, but this film is all about the characters. If you think they're a little charming and kind-of-amusing in the first ten minutes, I'd stick with it - you might be pleasantly surprised with what you get, as it's definitely inventive. If they just annoy you, ditch it - the monster element isn't major enough to make up for it.

Despite its pedigree of production team ('Don't Breathe' and 'Evil Dead') and some good acting talent, 'Grudge' is a high-end movie in search of a plot. The direction is efficient, but never particularly inspired or exciting. The thrills are gently unnerving and weird, rather than terrifying, and the predictability is huge.

After a woman encounters a curse in Japan, she brings it back with her to the USA as an excuse to expand the franchise - I mean, by accident...ahem - and the film goes to some fairly entertaining lengths to hop around the various chains of lethal events that this unleashes.

Andrea Riseborough is magnetic and enjoyable as the single mother and cop who gets hooked in by the case, and Demian Bichir is solid as the new partner who's hiding a secret. The rest of the cast are good, but are never given an enormous amount of room to do anything with rather standard horror roles, and only John Cho's likeable estate agent sticks in the memory very much, although Jacki Weaver is good fun as a good Samaritan trying to help with a tragic situation, and Lin Shaye brings her usual enjoyable performance to a role she could now do in her sleep.

Unfortunately the script is loose (a mere week or two after seeing it, I struggle to remember exactly why some of the plot threads matter except to bulk out the running time), and much like the earlier American Grudge movies, the reason for the curse and the character/motives behind it are so vacuous and ill-defined that I have no real sense of why the curse came about or why it's so difficult for the victims to shake - the reasons for the level of malevolence involved are explained breathtakingly poorly, and don't convey to the audience in any way. Amorphous threats can be conveyed brilliantly by scripting, dialogue or atmosphere - think 'The Omen', or 'Final Destination' - but this just doesn't seem to think it matters.

The scares are 'okay' - they mostly rely on vaguely grotesque-looking characters pulling faces behind a window or in a doorway as a character looks away and fails to spot them, and attempts at such jump-scares are peppered fairly talentlessly through the film. The movie has better success at creating a vague sense of unease and Riseborough's horrified expression combines with the direction at some key moments to sell her shock or alarm.

However, as horror thrillers go, this is fuzzy and forgettable, not a future classic.

Oh dear.

Leslie Cumming and her sleazy boyfriend Gary (Hasselhoff, playing sexually impatient macho man with gusto) sneak onto an unattractive island where a hotel with suspiciously modern fixtures was the scene of a witch hunt that now leaves a curse lingering over the vacant property.

With great foresight and business sense, a family of hard-headed investors firmly say they won't part with a dime before seeing it and then show up on the island have just bought it (it's that kind of script), having made the savvy decision to bring a heavily pregnant Linda Blair on a choppy boat trip to look around a dilapidated island hotel. (Their hotel's gonna be REAL big on health & safety!)

Leslie drifts around being dreamily intrigued and having the plot explained to her by a tatty notebook, while a mysterious and glamorous woman in black occasionally flashes jewellery at people and and random selection of them die in absurd and unintentionally hilarious ways.

There's bad writing, bad acting, bad editing (it's night! It's day! It's night again!) and it's pretty poor in general, but the entertainment factor is high as long as you don't mind a lack of actual scares.

It's not a classic by any means, but it is entertaining to watch.

8 Millions Ways to Die could potentially be more '80s, but it'd be hard.

Scudder (Bridges) is a cop who makes a tough call and decides to handle it in the way '80s movie cops do: - with whisky-based oblivion and waking up somehow brilliantly perched in booze-drenched slumber on top of an 8-foot wall, having lost his job, his credibility and his marriage, and yet still managing to be a Private Investigator.

Because she clearly wants the best, hooker Sunny (a likeable but scatty Alexandra Paul) hires him to protect her and feeds him some unhelpful BS information about why, while demonstrating the exciting insights provided by the scriptwriters into the female psyche ("Act dizzy and confused. Chicks do that").

Because she can smell the stink of sleaze on him (and probably Jack Daniels) fellow hooker Sarah (Rosanna Arquette) gives him her best hard-as-nails cynical routine, which is '80s code for 'sex is imminent'.

Randy Brooks is charming and interesting as shady character 'Chance', fulfilling the '80s cliche role of the only coloured lead character having made his money through crime. Thankfully he's better than the part he's been given, and the scenes between him and Bridges are lively and spark with conflicted interests.

A young Andy Garcia is the MVP of the film, reminding us all why he became a star in the first place with a performance of such charisma and sleazy magnetism that he nearly steals the majority of his scenes.

Not rich with action, it still manages good shootouts where it counts, and the character conflict is strong. You also care about whether Scudder will solve the mystery and save the day.

I can't give you 8 Millions reasons to see this of-its-time thriller, but there are certainly still 2 or 3.

Wilderness guide Ben (Jeremy Irvine) is young, broke, and has chosen to stay in his backwater desert town to keep the family business alive, even as his girlfriend reluctantly leaves for college.

Rocking up with a car, rifle and accessories that would probably fund the town for 5 years, millionaire businessman Madec (Michael Douglas) flashes the cash and mysteriously wrangles a hard-to-get hunting permit, renting Ben as his suspicious guide.

Madec is cocky and slightly needling, clearly enjoying what he thinks is a perceived right granted by his money to verbally nudge and provoke people, and the character interplay between him and the broke but practical Ben is interesting and edgy as their relationship shifts from awkward to confrontational, to an uneasy accord.

An unexpected accident (okay, pretty predictable actually, otherwise this would be a travel documentary) brings out the ruthless businessman's self-preservation instincts, and before we know it, Ben is being made to march across the desert scrubland to what the rifle-armed Madec hopes will be his inevitable death from heatstroke and thirst.

But Ben knows this land, and is a survivor...

This is a well made film - better scripted than expected, acted with conviction by everyone involved, and well directed.

Ben's survival attempts are anxiety-inducing and entertainingly inventive, and Madec is a nasty, casual adversary who might as well have 'metaphor for big business stamping on the little guy' tattooed on his forehead. You're genuinely made to feel that Ben has no hope of winning against somebody who has mountains of money and all the firepower, and although some of the set-pieces stretch believability, they're good at jacking up the tension.

Irvine is a really likeable lead (who bravely spends much of the film in various states of undress) and Douglas certainly isn't phoning in his detestable millionaire, imbuing him with nasty believability.

Despite some silliness in the scripting, it's a very good, tense survival thriller.

I'd imagine this has some dedicated fans who'll be astonished that anybody didn't enjoy it - but coming to it fresh in 2022 - even with great enthusiasm to see something that might be dated, campy or low budget - it's so terrible it's beyond watchability.

The storyline, script, characters and even acting all feel like something horrifically ripped from a bad episode of the Power Rangers. I'll try to keep things vague to avoid giving away some minor 'surprises'. Guys in bad rubber suits (which are apparently supposed to be 'terrifying' take turns slapping a scientist around until he dies. His daughter is visited by Mark Hamill as the kind of agency spy who goes around loudly telling everyone that he's a spy - because 'the '80s'. The dopey buff white martial arts guy who's in love with her but generally incompetent in every way decides to follow her when she's taken to the scene of her father's murder, where he stumbles across the plot macguffin which is apparently apparently a script sticking-plaster - I mean, an all-powerful weapon - that's been left lying around for basically any kid or wino to pick up.

All while the main bad guy slaps his henchman around and threatens dire consequences if said health & safety hazard isn't recaptured.

At this point, this became one of only 10 or 15 movies I've ever given up on before the end, as I concluded that I've laughed more during visits to the dentist, had less painful experiences during surgery, and been more excited picking up a TV listings magazine. There's some creative talent here, but only in the weird ideas and suit design, not in the apocalyptically bad scripting and directing. Dire.

With most of Carey Mulligan's films, the main reason to watch them is the talent of the lead actress herself, whose lead role in 'An Education' marked her as an astonishing performer of huge intensity and range. Here, it feels like she is the magnetic core of a very powerful team, as Emerald Fennell has crafted a film as enigmatic and dynamic as its lead actress.

Mulligan's 'Cassandra' is an enigma - even her loving parents (Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown) can't get a handle on what she's doing with her life. Evasive, unambitious, Cassandra dropped out of a hugely promising career as a trainee doctor (hence the title) after an unspecified tragedy, and now seems perfectly content to while away her days working in her friend's coffee shop and vanishing to who-knows-where at night.

In reality, she's entered into a strange and dangerous life of laying honey-traps at bars for predatory men; pretending to be too drunk to stand, and then seeing which "nice guy" will come to her rescue in order to take advantage of a drunk woman - at which point they'll get an unwelcome surprise...

Into this unhealthy and mysterious cycle comes Bo Burnham's brilliantly played character 'Ryan' - an old med-school friend perplexed by her seeming downfall from potential medical superstar to coffee-shop worker, but harbouring a crush, and captivated by Cassandra's personality. As he faces an uphill battle to get past her hard shell of cynicism and get to know her, a chance remark about a third-party sets Cassandra's fate on a new path.

I won't say anything else about the plot, as Promising Young Woman is a movie about a specific mystery and its dramatic and damaging fallout just as much as it's about what happens as Cassandra tries to show the self-described "nice guys" who try to take advantage of her that they're really not that nice after all.

It's a brilliantly written movie, with every scene telling you more about the brilliantly played Cassandra. Mulligan is a true star-wattage performer in this role, holding the movie in the palm of her hand throughout, as she portrays a character who doesn't often pander to being 'likeable' but is always interesting, exciting or fascinating. The movie isn't afraid to surprise either, throwing in heavy doses of wry adult humour. Burnham is an incredibly likeable co-star for Mulligan's cynical Cassandra to spark off, and they have many excellent scenes together which flesh out her character and also add playfulness to the taut script (a scene in a pharmacy making use of Paris Hilton's only significant music single is particularly silly and amusing). This lightness of touch is necessary because the script goes to some very tough places. In addition to tense encounters with a handful of men, Fennell's script surprisingly holds other women equally to account for excusing or enabling appalling behaviour, reserving some of her most startling scenes for them. It's a movie that manages to convey the emotional beats of a murder mystery (anger, fury, grief) alongside the character development aspects of fallout, devastation and hope, alongside whip-smart intellect and humour. It's a miraculous achievement in writing and performing.

All of the performers are on their A-game, the dialogue is a treat (Cassandra feels like she's channelling the disappointment and rage of generations of women when a man exclaims: "We were young!" and Cassandra seethes: "If I hear that one more time...") and the plot events are built on character and nuance, making them land like prize-fight belters when they come slugging in from the side.

It's funny, dangerous, spiky, unexpected, challenging and full of the kind of brilliance that makes you hope the director has something similarly extraordinary in the pipeline.

I, for one, can't wait.

Wow.

I had encountered some middling reviews of Antebellum, and so although I was interesting in seeing it based on some captivating trailers, I sat down in the best possible state to see it; expecting little...

As a result, I was completely unprepared for the brilliant writing, directing and acting that seized me by the collar and refused to let go.

Opening on a seemingly idyllic ancient plantation house in America, we follow a little girl as she hands some flowers to her mother, the camera gradually gliding through their Civil-War plantation grounds until we begin to encounter more and more disturbing things; an unconscious woman on horseback. A black male slave being manhandled and beaten by soldiers as his wife begs on her knees...the film starts hard and builds an utterly terrifying portrait of Deep-South plantation slave life, treated with utter casual entitlement by the white folk involved, and filmed with extremely eerie beauty that somehow makes it even more chilling.

To go into the plot would be to risk spoilers for a story that manages to pull some brilliant and brutal gut-punches. Suffice it to say that if you give your full attention to the movie, it will reward it in spades with loads of little creepy details and odd, tension-building moments.

Janelle Monae is sensational in the lead, holding the film in the commanding grip of a robust, terrific performance. Gabourey Sidibe has rarely been more magnetic and engaging as her best friend, and the rest of the cast give powerful, brilliantly effective performances. Special mentions also need to go to Jena Malone, Eric Lange and Jack Huston for turns that manage to set your skin crawling, but they are actors who shine especially bright in a cast that is replete with actors playing utterly convincing detestable scumbags who only help to dramatically enhance your investment in hoping for the survival of our heroine.

The film has powerful things to say about race, gender and American History in particular, and I've never witnessed any film use such well-written dramatic writing to bring the staggering horror of black slavery so vividly and immediately to life. Maybe it just pressed the right buttons with me, and missed them with the media reviewers. But it walks an extremely clever tightrope of pulling you into a state of considerable empathy while also investing you in the fate of innocent characters in a tense thriller plot. The messages are served up purely as propulsion to the heroine's plot-line. You're aware that these appalling things really happened to people, all while you're being cleverly distracted into 'watching the magician's other hand', and wondering whether Monae's character will triumph.

It's rare that a movie leaves me stunned, exhilarated, sickened, moved and excited, and wanting to tell people about it, all at once.

This is that movie.

It may not have the same effect on you, but it had it on me. Try it - you might be as blindsided as I was.

A Quiet Place was a taut, contained thriller with such an effective premise that expanding it into the wider world was always going to be a risk. Happily 'Part 2' works pretty well, and largely that's down to the performances of a committed cast. Back for a brief 'Day one of the attack' cameo is series director and erstwhile star John Krasinski, and these scenes really showcase how these films differ from the average Hollywood monster movie, as I found myself getting so effectively sucked into the character performances by returning cast members Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe and new addition Cillian Murphy that I forgot to care about when the 'alien stuff' would start. But start it does, with some very effective and impressive sky-based special effects. Minutes later, a terrifying onslaught is unleashed and we understand how the world went to hell so quickly...

The plot then has the sense to cut to a point shortly after the end of the first movie, neatly bookending the film and then moving forward with its own energy. The tension is brilliantly conveyed as Blunt and her children have to escort the terrifying cargo of a newborn baby out into the wild in search of other survivors, encountering fresh and dramatic challenges as they go.

That's all I'll cover on the plot, as it works best when approached with little information.

Blunt is very good as the mother trying to help her family survive against impossible odds, but has far less character development to do in this film than in the first. Murphy is fascinatingly mercurial and hard to pin down as the survivor who may or may not be reliable. Jupe is terrific as a boy who isn't naturally brave, but keeps having to step up and somehow find a way to manage. But Simmonds is the golden ingredient as the deaf daughter whose resilience and bravery might just be the glue that helps to keep them all alive, facing each new situation with a courage that seems at first to be foolhardy, but invariably turns out to be sheer toughness and brilliance. The film milks many of its most anxiety-inducing moments from her attempts to propel their chances of survival forwards, and Krasinski remains a director to follow eagerly for his deft hand with tension just as much as Simmonds remains an actress who keeps growing to fill any opportunity to demonstrate her versatility.

The tension sequences remain knife-edge and squirm-inducing (you'll likely find yourself grimacing at injuries and harshly whispering "SHHHH!" at the screen whenever characters make a noise) and although the rules of silence at any cost seem to slip a little here and there, they remain just consistent enough to fill the movie with a dread of noise.

The creatures are seen a fair amount and remain very frightening, but unfortunately some slightly patchy VFX renders them a little less than convincing in one or two scenes, and there's a heinous error with an obviously CGI pool of blood at one stage. They've also lost a little of their fear-factor from over-exposure, and don't really show any new tricks apart from one interesting revelation about their capabilities.

The usually very good writing isn't always quite up to the standard of the direction (we get 'stupid decision syndrome' at least twice in order to propel the plot), but we do also get some absolute gems of moments - especially when Simmonds admonishes Murphy's character to 'Enunciate' because she can't read his lips. We also get some tropes in the plotting, as one particular finale element has been used in a great many survival thrillers.

However, movies with the invention to hand the control of the plot to a deaf teenage girl are few and far between, and it enriches the experience considerably, as does Simmonds' committed performance. The film suggests there might be potential for another sequel. Whether the franchise needs 'A Quiet Place 3: Even Quieter' or similar is up for debate, but as sequels go, this one is a success.

It's hard to distil 'Parasite' director Bong Joon Ho's 'Snowpiercer' down to a punchy description because it contains so many ideas. There's pithy criticism mankind's hubris at trying to control nature, there's social satire of conspiracy theories (the delivery method of the weather-control attempt is shown as 'chemtrails'), and after all the triumphant declarations of how this plan is going to save the planet, we're shown an armoured train blasting through a dead, frozen landscape. The train is on an endless loop of the globe on a special rail system, and we are informed it contains all that's left of humanity after their attempts to control the weather ended up killing the planet. And that's just the first 5 mins.

The rest of the film is a very punchy, dramatic and often violent class-war thriller as the oppressed 'tail' passengers living in squalor try to rise up against their wealthier oppressors from the front of the train and fight their way forward to something approaching freedom.

Anyone wanting more texture to Chris Evans after his roles as the paragon of virtue Captain America will find this a suitable tonic, as he plays disaffected rebel leader Curtis. Dirty, morally conflicted and with a haunted intensity behind the eyes, Evans convinces as a person pushed to their limits and willing to risk his very survival just for the chance of a better life. Similarly excellent but slightly more wry and sharp-edged is Jamie Bell as Edgar, his best friend and loyal second-in-command. Aiding them in their schemes is John Hurt as the wise and heavily crippled Gilliam, convincingly down to earth and more believable than most 'wise old soul' characters in similar fare.

They are up against a force that's a cross between a totalitarian police force and paramilitary army, acting in support of Tilda Swinton's fantastic character Mason, a fussy bureaucrat with a heavy regional accent of the kind not normally seen in big movies, and an array of very human and pomposity-bursting ticks. Bong Joon Ho makes great hay out of painting her as both a ridiculous figure of pathetic self-satisfaction and also a hateful oppressor who genuinely believes in stamping down the poor for 'the good of the social order'.

Elements like this greatly elevate the movie above the predictable path that such a plot could end up following, helped further by the involvement of prolific Korean star Kang-ho Song as a gifted engineer rendered dangerously unreliable due to his addiction to industrial waste, and Ko Asung as his equally wild-card daughter. Character guides everything as the tail-end passengers try to fight their way forward, encountering more and more frightening, bizarre and surprising things as they go.

Snowpiercer is excellently structured. Character histories (and the suggestion of secrets and regrets) are conveyed with story-propelling efficiency. Events constantly come along to elevate the story or flesh out the world. Things are allowed to happen at amusingly inconvenient moments which would usually be changed because they 'interfere with pacing', but which work brilliantly here to deepen your understanding of the people and way of life. It's a film full of terrifying hazards, both natural and man-made, and a highly interesting and varied location. The visuals are extraordinary, escalating as the movie progresses, and the action always tells you something about the characters (and often the design of the vehicle itself, in one beautifully effective late-stage exchange of hostilities).

The film might bounce off some viewers, with its tendency to lean quite hard into the squalor and oddness of the premise for the first chunk, but it's well worth persevering to see just how regularly and enjoyably it ramps up the tension. It's convoluted, weird, and occasionally creepy, but it's also fascinating, thrilling and original.

A brilliant post-apocalyptic thriller.

Bloodthirsty is NOT a monster movie. If you've been attracted by the wildly mis-representative DVD art, walk away now; you're not about to get an exciting/horrifying stalk & slash monster thriller, and I know how much that would annoy me if I came in with those expectations.

Bloodthirsty is actually a fairly navel-gazing character study of 'Grey' (Lauren Beatty) who we're told has had a big hit album, but is struggling with huge self-doubt and pretty intrusive mental health issues as she tries to create a follow-up. In her desperation, she accepts an offer of help from reclusive record producer Vaughan Daniels (Greg Bryk), a talented eccentric who has lived in the wilderness in seclusion ever since he was accused of murdering his partner.

Going along for the ride against her better judgement is Charlie (Katharine King So), Grey's girlfriend, who has concerns about Vaughan's motives and the effect that the pressure and isolation might have on Grey's already strained emotions.

From there, the movie largely turns into a character drama about the positive and negative tensions between the three as Vaughan tries to drive Grey to new heights, Grey tries to let go of the issues holding her back, and Charlie watches the worrying developments and tries to rein things in.

We get a lot of scenes of Grey trying to record music, a lot of scenes of Vaughan being pushy. Some of these are interesting and feel authentic, as Vaughan guides and shapes Grey's unfinished ideas into something more rounded and coherent. Others just feel a little self-indulgent. The music (by 'Lowell') is heavily featured - understandably as they helped to write the film - but it's hard to imagine that Grey has ever had a hit album. The character never seems to bring enough confidence, charisma or talent to proceedings to lend this credibility, and the music by Lowell is interesting and occasionally verges on catchy, but never into 'this character had a huge hit record' territory.

The monster movie aspects are also held back pretty hard for almost all of the film, emerging briefly for very short bursts, before emerging for the climax. Michael Ironside serves barely any purpose as Grey's therapist in a role that could've been played more cheaply by an unknown. His casting exists purely to pull people to the film.

We found it interesting as a drama, and also as a film that blends psychological illness issues and werewolf lore, but it would be disingenuous to remotely call it a monster movie; the werewolf aspects could almost just be written off as a result of Grey's fractured psyche if it wasn't for some moderate gore.

If you want an interesting slow-burn character drama, this is worth a shot. If you want a werewolf movie, head rapidly in the other direction.

Spiral is a 'Saw' movie in everything except name.

There's actually very little about it that's new. It has more humour, but that's about where the changes end. We still get characters being stalked & abducted only to come around in some horrific trap that requires them to maim themselves to survive (or requires others to get maimed to help). We still have an elusive killer uses puppets and imagery & saying they want to 'play a game' before rendering judgement on folks and telling them what has to be done to ensure survival. And we still have frustrated and badly flawed heroes trying to ineptly stop the carnage, all while the audience gets the impression that they might be too late.

Because people come to Saw movies for tension and inventive gore, we get lots of scenes of people trying to escape. The traps are quite hideous (one was so prolonged and disgusting that I did something I never do, and basically watched it through my fingers) and the gore is largely exceptional (apart from a few brief seconds of 'is it/isn't it realistic...?' that only momentarily distract). The plot, as usual, is silly and only exists to drive the gore and mutilations.

Meanwhile, Chris Rock is an interesting lead. Going full sweary in order to try to live up to the more serious tone of the movie, he puts in good effort, even getting a backstory as a 'rat' who turned on a corrupt partner in order to add conflict. Unfortunately despite some very likeable moments, he's simply not very convincing. Unlike many comedians, he doesn't seem suited to horror and drama at all. He constantly looks like he'd rather burst into laughter, and has no idea how to play a tense scene without looking manic and sweaty. Almost every dramatic scene he occupies is filled with URGENT SHOUTING (the trailer for the movie is actually a very good representation of how much he does this) and his relationships with his father and the partner he turned on are never remotely believable beyond being words on a script page.

For his part, Sam Jackson has played roles like this with his eyes closed, and near the end you start to get the feeling that he wishes he could do just that, working with almost no character development or material.

Max Minghella is a likeable, energetic presence as the rookie that Rock has to babysit as penance for some dubious actions (which would undoubtedly have gotten him fired from any precinct in the world, but hey...) and he helps give some of the scenes a heart that they would otherwise be missing.

In all, the writing is iffy. The direction is okay, but the director (series veteran Darren Lynn Bousman) seems uninterested in trying to shape the material into something better, aiming purely for the same kind of shocks and beats he hit during his earlier Saw films while upping the gore. His moviemaking history is filled with more duds than hits at this stage, so Spiral should be considered 'one of the better ones'. Writers Stolberg and Goldfinger should consider themselves luckier still that a script with this many stereotypical detectives making obvious stereotypical mistakes ever got made (clue; if it wasn't for the gore, this would've been thrown in somebody's shredder a long time ago) - especially with a mystery past scandal that is mentioned multiple times but a) never explained properly beyond a 1-line throwaway description, b) seems to be both ongoing in terms of behaviour but is always referred to as in the past (?!) and c) is so amorphous and vague that it's effects are never properly explained or shown.

Also, there's a plot hole the size of an aircraft carrier in a) how the killer is able to build his vicious instruments of torture and b) how they're able to get them into certain busy locations.

In short, it's a loud, gruesome distraction designed to prolong the franchise & if you're into gory thrillers, you're likely to enjoy this Saw renaissance.

Craig Gillespie's 'I, Tonya' is a revelation for anybody expecting a dull sports movie. The 'kind of' based on reality tale of ice-skating rebel Tonya Harding's bumpy rise and startling fall from grace in the world of ice skating, it hardly sounds like killer stuff for a movie (and even less attractive for a sports-movie phobic like me), but it's a belter of a good time. Assisted by a breathtakingly sassy and sarcastic script littered liberally with punchy f-bombs (this is NOT one to watch with the kids), Margot Robbie is absolutely brilliant as Tonya Harding, helping us to admire her bravery and sassiness even when we're being astonished by how foul-mouthed and nakedly ambitious she is. Sebastian Stan (best known as 'Bucky/Winter Soldier' in the Captain America movies) also gets to deploy much greater range than ever before, portraying childhood sweetheart and occasional awful husband 'Jeff'. Providing a great many of those f-bombs (and a lot more swearing besides) is Allison Janney as 'LaVona' - Tonya's affectionless mother and frequent bully, determined to verbally brutalise her daughter into excellence even if it half-kills her.

If all of the above sounds a bit gruelling, I've no doubt that the reality probably was. However, in order to lure us in and keep us watching through all the tough stuff of what is a remarkable life, Gillespie and co give us a brilliant blend of whip-smart, startling comedy. This helps soften the hard edges, but also places us in the palm of his hand for the rarer more affecting moments, like when a desperately frustrated Tonya begs a judge to tell her why her ice-skating scores are so low despite her great technique, or when she tries to connect emotionally with the thoroughly alarming LaVona.

The filming is brilliant and kinetic, the skating sequences thrilling, and the (widely publicised) criminal conspiracy is jaw-droppingly absurd and enjoyably tense in equal measure. Paul Walter Hauser also deserves special mention as a 'bodyguard' so dense and self-deluded that it takes your breath away.

Flashy, brash as hell, clever, challenging (there are some brief but startling scenes of domestic violence), very adult and regularly very funny, 'I, Tonya' isn't really a 'sports movie'; it's a brilliant and very close-to-the-knuckle comedy drama about a very unusual sports-person. And it's terrific fun.