Film Reviews by AER

Excellent no fuss time travel movie which has a brilliant concept, and is easy to follow if you stay sharp. Even though it seems unresolved by the ending, this is a great tour of how a time loop might work if you were to follow a single character around. Gripping and deft.

One of the best auteurs in action today, Paolo Sorrentino is one of the true masters at marrying beauty and music together. His films often get dismissed as all flash and no soul. But their quest and delivery of magnificent beauty is the thing that brings me the most joy. Parthenope is the summing up of his mission to dazzle with the moving picture. 10 out of 10.

Flimsy murder mystery with stock Woody Allen annoying characters. I dragged my feet on the way to watch this one, and swerved around it when it came out on the cinema. Now I've finally watched it, I am disappointed that it was just flat, unfunny, boring and a below average effort from all involved.

The late John Singleton's second film and follow up to Boyz-n-the-Hood was never released on UK cinemas and it took a very long time to receive any kind of UK release on VHS. After all these years, I finally sat down to watch it and it's not hard to understand why this was virtually ignored. It stands as Tupac Shakur's worst film (imo) and Janet Jackson's solo leading role. to date The script is terrible and the plot lazy, basic, unfunny and repetitive. How many times can a character say '**** you b**ch / **** you n***** etc. It was melodramatic and corny - not even Maya Angelou's poetry could rescue this. Awful in most ways.

What a letdown after the classic and unforgettable BOYZ-N-THE-HOOD.

This lame ghost story is a rip-off of the Insidious films but it's not even a good attempt. This has a wet Nicolas Cage and Sarah Wayne Callies running around trying to find thier son who had been abducted on Halloween. Pay The Ghost are the last words he uttered before he vanished. The convoluted reason for the disappearance has Nic wandering around Toronto (standing in for NYC) and following up clues that make no sense and seem to have dropped in his lap out of nowhere. Clueless cops and academics show up to spout plot exposition and then makers just leave it to the soundtrack to the provide the jumpscare. The SFX are weak but aspects unnerve (like the flying crowd of children at the end). So there's nothing to look at - only Nicolas Cage completists or those who have forgotten his dog years and find this in charity shop (I'm in this category) will ever watch this. Lame.

I will never watch Tommy Wiseau's The Room, especially after watching this very funny but cringey true life tale of it's making. Starring real-life brothers James and Dave Franco as Wiseau and his best friend Greg Sesestro, this was like watching a car crash in slow motion. The story of monstrous ego and self-belief if still sweet at times yet totally weird. Note perfect comedy from talent I usually don't bother with. Features strong doses of Seth Rogen....

Cameos galore!!! too.

This the ultimate film to watch on a long haul flight. It's the equivalent of a page-turning holiday read. Undemanding as they come, this the type of movie that came out every week in the 1990s and I'm happy that they are back. You know it's gonna be corny-a-clock when Laurence Fishburne turns up as 'mentor' and Rami Malek elevates the material from being a Liam Neeson cast off. A good cast shows up in thankless supporting roles. Only Holt McCallany stand out as the fiendish CIA puppetmaster. The villains Malek's Heller is targetting barely register. Features cameos from Jon Bernthal, Marthe Keller, Michael Stuhlberg, Joseph Millson, and Julianne Nicholson.

Slight but entertaining. And very, very undemanding. slightly above average.

An unassuming film that almost glides away into a dream. The story of Siamese twins who have come to a midwest city to find their birth mother is peculiar, meandering and touching at times. The Polish Brothers (who write and direct) went onto make the bewitching NORTHFORK and for fans of that, this feels like a toe in the water of style development. It's unique, well told but slight. Nice turns from the brothers, and cameos from LESLEY JANE WARREN, PATRICK BAUCHAU, and WILLIAM KATT also make it worth a look.

A ONE AND A TWO feels like six year's worth of soap opera squashed into 3 hours such is the level of incident. However, Edward Yang's most famous(?) film is engrossing and involving. The life of a large Taiwanese family and its orbiting friends plays out during a period of time when an elderly relative falls into a coma. From the youngest to the eldest we witness rebellion, infidelity, drunkenness, heartbreak, guilt and more. It's an impressive epic.

This was director Edward Yang's last film before he passed away in the mid 2000s. Set in Taipei, Taiwan.

Santosh is a British film set in India and deals with lots of hot topics. Banned (so far) in India, Santosh centres around a woman who becomes a police officer after inheriting her late husband's job. A natural for the role, she is still dismissed by lazy male counterparts. The film looks at the inqualities of the caste system, sexism, corruption and public sex shaming. It's a sad film that is engrossing, gripping and extremely well-presented and acted. One of the best films I've seen at the cinema so far in 2025. Unmissable if you love police procedurals and also for fans of Zootropolis, who's plot this vaguely mirrors (serious!)

If you already remember events from the time or have seen the documentary One Day In September or even Steven Spielberg's melodramatic Munich, you already know what happened here. The only thing different is the angle. September 5th is told from the POV of the TV sports coverage room of ABC. And even though they were near the front line as the tragedy unfolded, this film was largely redundant. Choosing to take a distant line of sight I felt this telling and depiction of the Black September hostage situation at the Munich Olympics in 1972 was pretty much redundant and only occasionally vital. Well-played by the committed cast however.

Danny Dyer is back from TV land to hit UK cinema screens with this unfunny comedy about an ageing football hooligan. It's a shame as it's determinedly anti-woke stance would've been used to puncture pompous attitudes to the working-class but it misses easy targets left right and centre. What could've upset a lot of liberals by having something to say, fails to be clever. It's sweary, right-wing, embarrassing and has maybe two lines that raise a smile. This also works as a sequel to director Nick Love's earlier FOOTBALL HOOLIGAN, you jils.

This particular liberal-minded viewer was disappointed there was no fight in the dog. Just bluster.

PS: My local Big Issue seller was telling me he'd gone to the cinema for the first time in years and his mate chose this for them to see. I quote, "Marching Powder put me off going watching films for life, mate..." It's not quite that bad. But you get the picture.

Unconvincing and turgid gangster flick set in Hell's Kitchen. It has a top (kitchen) drawer cast: Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright, RD Call, John C Reilly and John Turturro, yet it plods its way through a succession of well-worn (even by 1990) story beats. I wonder if Infernal Affairs took it's inspiration from this film's story yet the makers made an effort to improve it dramatically. The cast over act, scream and shout and smash things. And shoot each other. I like crime flicks but this was hard to like.

Hollywood is going through an interesting time at the moment because we are back to seeing interesting films on the cinema once again. The stranglehold of remakes, reboots, sequels, superheroes is continuing to wain (thank goodness). However, Death of a Unicorn only serves to remind us that original content can yield bad results too. A few good ideas can't bring this wacky and unfunny horror comedy through. It reminded me of Hudson Hawk with it's big swings into thin air, it's cavalcade of unlikeable characters and (intentionally) shonky SFX. An all-star cast including Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Will Poulter, Tea Leoni (where has she been!!!), Richard E Grant, and Steve Park pull in many different directions and (for once) the exposition of the original unicorn myth isn't made clear enough; all this adds up to a confusing, muddled, tonally uneven, unfunny film. It's not awful, but not as inspired or original as I had hoped it would be.

The Last Voyage of the Demeter is a stodgy affari ruined by shoddy SFX and an inevitable plot. Torn from a chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula, this film has a foregone conclusion, the tale of the doomed freighter that brought the fanged-faced-one to the UK from Romania. The cast are given thin roles which amount to cliches, except for a black doctor as the main role, played well by Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) with a decent English accent. Liam Cunningham, Aisling Franciosa, (Speak No Evil), and David Dastmalchian (Late Night With The Devil) round out the principle cast and Javier Botet's (THE SLENDER MAN) is a SFX blur and mess as creature feature Dracula. I was largely bored waiting for each of the sailors to get picked off. The only interesting bit was SPOILER the dynamic between the captain and his grandson whose arc was unpredictable. I was waiting for this to receive a cinema release but I think Covid put pay to that, and then it was shelved for a few years. So I'm sad that this ended up being a resounding dud.

Oh yeah, The Last Voyage of the Demeter also suffered from Hollywood geography. I won't go into it, but you'll see for yourself. 3.5 out of 10. Lacked bite.