Luckiest Girl Alive ★★★½ UKRANIAN-born Mila Kunis likes her comedies and she’s mostly pretty good in them. Unfortunately, she doesn’t make many dramas, which is a shame because she’s usually pretty good in those as well. I’m talking about her performances in 2010’s Black Swan, Blood Ties (2013) and Four […]

Welcome dramatic entry for Kunis

Deadpool and Wolverine ★★★ THE 34th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a tough one to rate. Deadpool and Wolverine is hugely entertaining and, as a result, has been extremely successful at the box office. It features charismatic performances from two of cinema’s most popular stars, plenty of laughs […]

Deadpool is best and worst of Hollywood

The Good Mother ★★★ IT’S not going to win awards or attract big audiences, but The Good Mother is a taut and moody crime drama worth seeking out. Released in 2023, it’s the third feature from director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte; not a household name but did direct Margot Robbie in 2019’s […]

Good Mother worth looking for

Birdeater ★★ AN hour into the Australian film Birdeater I started to get that feeling. You know the one. When you’re not sure this film is for you. Normally, a film alternately billed as horror, drama, thriller or black comedy, would be in my wheelhouse. But Birdeater just wasn’t succeeding […]

Birdeater lacks venom

Joker: Folie à Deux ★★★½ TODD Phillips takes a big swing with the sequel to his 2019 mega-hit Joker and mostly succeeds. Joker Folie à Deux is a quieter film, but no less angry in its character study of mental illness and commentary on the public’s response to fame, or in […]

Phoenix and Phillips take Joker to new level

Speak No Evil ★★★½ THE difference between European arthouse cinema and Hollywood is starkly evident in the 2024 remake of Speak No Evil. The original, released in 2022, was a Danish psychological thriller with one of the bleakest endings in recent film history. It was written by two brothers, Christian […]

See and hear plenty of evil

Maxxxine ★★★½ TI West’s third and possibly final film of his X trilogy is solid but ultimately a little disappointing. The first two films, X and Pearl, were very good.  X was styled on the ‘70s slasher but varied to the extent that it examined themes of female empowerment and […]

West’s Maxxxine not quite the perfect ending

Monkey Man ★★★½ DEV Patel’s directorial debut reflects, as you would expect, two different cultures. Monkey Man is an action thriller merging Indian culture and film-making tradition with the best Hollywood capture of recent Asian cinema efforts like The Raid and the John Wick series. It’s high-octane, brutal action with […]

Patel’s action hero a merge of cultures

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge ★★★½ THE second film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is certainly an oddity. Coming hard on the heels of the original, 1985’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge should have been a stock-standard method of cashing in for […]

Nightmare sequel takes different turn

A Nightmare on Elm Street ★★★½ 1 MICHAEL, 2 Jason, 3 Freddy That’s my ranking of the three greatest slasher characters in horror film history. Michael Myers from the Halloween series has always been the most compelling on all levels, with Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees just edging him for […]

Dreaming of a nightmare

Fear the Night ★★ DON’T get me wrong – Maggie Q definitely has screen presence. But in more than 20 years, this Hawaiian actress has mostly appeared in average material. Her latest, thriller Fear the Night, is on par with the majority of her B-grade filmography. Borrowing from a whole […]

Question still hangs over Q

Kill ★★★½ FOLLOWING hard on the heels of Dev Patel’s Monkey Man comes the highly entertaining Indian action thriller Kill. Both films are full of great hand-to-hand and armed fight sequences that will enthrall John Wick fans. But where Patel’s film incorporates a mystic, supernatural aspect, in keeping with most […]

Raid on a train – Indian style