Reviews in a nutshell
Mangrove is a must-see piece of filmmaking, unassuming in its immediate production values but fast becoming a tsunami in its message. Steve McQueen has made this message universal too, inclusive and game-changing for any cinephile.
It is as entertaining as it is patriotic, banging the David vs Goliath drum for the downtrodden everywhere. It should go into battle with pride in theatres.
These bite-size stories are certainly a labour of love for the Coens, a romantic jaunt back to a time when a country was being born and was strikingly volatile, with many stark parallels to present-day USA.
It is this fight for survival, coupled with an urgency that makes Widows the movie an apt fit for McQueen’s filmmaking skills. Look out for it at awards season – it will pay off for the British director.
The First Purge is a mixed bag. It’s definitely divisive and borderline glorifies violence. However, it’s not altogether superficial either. It empowers as it champions change and industry diversity on screen. Without question it gets the viewer to address where they stand on all the societal issues it raises which can only be a good thing.
Soldado is a very worthy, well-paced and multi-layered sequel that moves the narrative forward. In fact it displays global problems and security concerns still within the same stomping ground, never tiring in its narrative that is ever expanding and consuming. It will be very exciting to see where allegiances lie next.
The action is less than the other films but the strategy and technology is still abundant. Writer-director Gary Ross’s slick production does not stray from the latter films either.
Fallen Kingdom obliterates the dinosaurs’ habitat but places them in our midst. It is a frightening concept, given the advances of DNA science and too much power in some corporation’s hands in reality. This film feeds off that, as well as has enough dino and man heroes to be a solid 12A contender at the box office.
The Square likes to hold the supposed ‘aspirational’ middle-class Scandinavian lifestyle to account and provoke it in a darkly sinister fashion. Östlund achieves this goal in a beautifully scripted and well-crafted film.
