Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar’s Revenge (3D) **
A CGI triumph and a character fail, with a story/adventure worth telling far, far better.
Tag: Keira Knightley
LFF 2014: The Imitation Game ****
The life of the brilliant-minded Alan Turing is not known by most. That will certainly change after this film, The Imitation Game, with the genius British logician and cryptologist forever associated with cracking the Nazis’ Enigma Code and helping the Allies win World War II. But inventor of the modern-day computer – as is suggested here, …
Begin Again ****
Once writer-director John Carney’s latest soul-searching drama set in New York initially sounds clichéd and egocentric, a sort of smug music set pandering to a trendy elite of snobbish music aficionados. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth, and the soundtrack grows on you as the characters’ and their search for acceptance do. This …
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit ***
Jason Bourne has created such a high benchmark for any non-007 action film that all seem a poor imitation in comparison. Even more unfortunate is Jack Ryan is a much admired character from the Tom Clancy school of espionage brilliance and very different from Bourne, but the action part of any film adaptation will always …
The Great Gatsby ***
You can imagine that a literary adaptation set in the self-indulgent Roaring Twenties about a fateful love story that’s given the Baz Luhrmann touch would be as extravagant as ever. Think Moulin Rouge. Indeed the flamboyant director does not hold back with his version of The Great Gatsby and even tries to shoehorn in a …
Anna Karenina ****
Director Joe Wright’s take on Tolstoy’s tragic love story, Anna Karenina, is bound to divide opinion, particularly after watching the initially distracting theatrical element of a film set within theatre set changes. Those who favour classic Russian epics, like the days of Doctor Zhivago, may well have envisaged this in grander, more realistic settings. Admittedly, …
Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World ***
Setting the end of the world as a romcom backdrop may seem like an original bittersweet idea, and in the hands of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist writer Lorene Scafaria who directs for the first time here, it has so much dark, quirky potential. Indeed, Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World …
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LFF 2011: A Dangerous Method ***
A Dangerous Method feels like a conservative filmmaking departure from David Cronenberg’s usual darkly unsettling, if shocking affair, replacing reality-morphing, mind-bending scenarios with character-driven performances in a period setting. This sobering, if more mature film from the King of Venereal Horror almost takes a step back from the introspective insanity of his past work, and …
Last Night ***
Temptation is the name of the game of The Jacket writer Massy Tadjedin’s quietly profound directorial debut, Last Night. The temptation of such an intriguingly sexy and good-looking cast of Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes and French actor Guillaume Canet is the film’s obvious draw, and what drives a story full of acute observations …