Tag Archives: British Cinema

Movie Review – Bohemian Rhapsody

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TL;DR – At the heart is the powerful story of Freddie Mercury, but you can see the difficulties of adapting a life as grand as his into a standard film runtime.     

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There footage during the credits that you want to stay back for.

Bohemian Rhapsody. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox

Review –

There have been a lot of productions that have been stuck in ‘production hell’ for years before they get made (and some never exit it) and one of the big casualties of this was the Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic. It had gone through multiple directors and leading cast before finally going into production, only to find out that the difficulties were not done there. With clashes on set and the inevitable replacement of the director befalling production. When this has happened in the past, it has led to at best an uneven film, but often times the final product is a complete mess. Thankfully, Bohemian Rhapsody avoids the latter but you can still see the problems under the hood.

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Movie Review – Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

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TL;DR – Of the many things I expected of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, what I was surprised about was just how dull it all is. Watching JK Rowling fling herself into George Lucas prequel territory is really sad to see.

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Fantastic Beasts The Crimes of Grindelwald. Image Credit: Warner Brothers

Review –

As I was walking out of the cinema today I thought back to the first Fantastic Beasts film. I wouldn’t say it was a great film, but it had its moments and set the groundwork for the future, but there was always that last minute reveal of Johnny Depp that that sort of took the wind out of its sails. Well, they have had a couple of years to work all that through that so what did we get, well we got a completely dull film that in some respect hurts everything that comes before it by existing. Well, that’s not great. No, it is not.

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Movie Review – Outlaw King (Outlaw/King)

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TL;DR – It is a film that is completely serviceable, with some amazing action, but just comes off feeling lacking in many ways

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Outlaw King. Image Credit: Netflix

Review –

This is a real odd duck of a film, even before it came out there were questions about its runtime and how it was edited together, with reports that over 20 minutes got cut for its final release. Add to this the only other thing it was noticeable for was a certain alleged scene involving Chris Pine and well, that was not a strong platform to release a film on. So, my real concern was – did taking a hatchet to the film trim it down to only its best parts, or did it turn it into a hacked up mess – and the answer is a bit of both. Now just a quick thing, I will let others more versed in Scottish history to comment on whether or not the film is accurate with history or not.

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Movie Review – Darkest Hour

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TL;DR – A beautifully realised look at the world of British politics on the onset of WW2, but it loses some of its impact with an unclear portrayal of its central protagonist.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – No

Darkest Hour Banner

Review –

Well, today we are looking at our third Dunkirk related film in the last year. Dunkirk (see review) looked at the retreat on the ground, sea, and air, Their Finest (see review) looked at how Britain used the retreat to mobilise the populace, and now Darkest Hour looks at the politics behind it all. Today we are exploring the rise of Winston Churchill from being an outsider of the political spectrum to a wartime ruler facing the might of Hitler and his European blitzkrieg. So in today’s review, we are going to look at the acting and how it captured that moment in time.

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Movie Review – Paddington 2

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TL;DR – I don’t think I can say it as good as the first one, but what I can say is that it is full of joy, laughter and feels, and I would recommend it for everyone

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

P.S. – There is a mid-credit scene

Paddington 2. Image Credit: Studio Canal.

Review –

Ah, Paddington, I do love this film series, I saw the first film when I was a chaperone for a group of teenagers going to see it at the local drive-in theatre. I had no idea what to expect, but the first film was filled with such joy and was genially one of the funniest films I have ever seen. I found it so funny that at one point one of the teenage girls I was with yelled out “IT’S NOT THAT FUNNY BRIAN” … but it was, oh it was. So I was delighted to hear that there was a new movie coming out, but could it live up to the first film, well no, but that doesn’t mean it was not a delightful ton of fun.

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Movie Review – The Killing of a Sacred Deer

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TL;DR – No matter how well it is filmed or acted, I can’t recommend it on the story alone which is a deeply disturbing slog with no real redeemable features.

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

The Killing of a Sacrificial Deer. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

Oh boy, is this is a tough film to review, and I am going to be honest right from the start that I’ll be quite negative towards the film because of its subject material. Now you might agree with this or not, but for me personally, I found this film to be deeply disturbing and frankly I completely understand why people walked out of my showing. Just a warning that there will be major spoilers in this review.

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Movie Review – The Foreigner

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TL;DR – This is a movie with a lot of moving parts, some which are simply amazing and others that don’t quite work as well.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

The Foreigner. Image Credit: STX Films.

Review –

The Foreigner is a really interesting film, because it is a film with a lot of moving parts, and it is delving into an area and setting you don’t see very often these days. However, while some parts of this film are simply amazing, others just don’t work at all, which creates a kind of juxtaposition. You’ll be sitting there during these moments of high intensity, or fascinating filmmaking, but then something from the story will just rip you out of it. So today what we will do after setting the scene is break down this juxtaposition.

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Movie Review – Victoria and Abdul

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TL;DR – A beautiful film, wonderfully acted, but it does glaze over history

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Victoria and Abdul. Image Credit: Universal.

Review –

So we are about to look at Victoria and Abdul a film that promotes itself as ‘Based on Real Events’ … ‘Mostly’. Now, on the one hand, this could sum up most ‘based on true events’ films, but it is telling that they had to add the disclaimer which we will see as we go through it. Overall I did like Victoria and Abdul despite its many issues, but it does present a very one-sided view of the past and that is deeply problematic. Though I must say it was interesting watching the BBC make something that is almost irreverent about the Royal Family.

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Movie Review – Kingsman: The Golden Circle

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TL;DR – A great follow-up, but it does struggle to find its feet in places.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Kingsman The Golden Circle. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review –

So the original Kingman: The Secret Service was one of the first films we reviewed back in 2015 when we started (and you can read it HERE). Overall we really liked the film, it had great action, a fantastic cast, a magnetic lead villain, and it was a star-making turn for lead Taron Egerton. Overall the movie worked bar one ill-placed ‘joke’ at the end which was out of place, tacky, unnecessary, and literately brings the whole movie to a stop to get it out, but that didn’t stop Kingman from getting on our Top Films of 2015 list (see HERE). So I was wondering if they could make the follow-up as good as the first film and I think they may have just pulled it off.

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Movie Review – Hampstead

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TL;DR – Beautiful and charming, a fun look into that quirkiness that is classic Britannia, a great date night film

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Hampstead. Image Credit: Entertainment One.

Review –

What happens when your life is falling into a hole of others making, what happens when the world is against you and you just want to be left in peace, what happens when worlds collide, this is the story of Hampstead. Hampstead is part romantic comedy, part comment of the class divisions in Brittan, and part legal drama, but it is all heart.

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