Southpaw – Review

Touted by its marketing materials as “the best boxing movie since Raging Bull”, Antoine Fuqua’s sports-drama has generated considerable expectations for itself. Jake Gyllenhaal’s “beast-mode” physique and tales of production meetings taking place inside the gym have been all over the movie press in the build-up for Southpaw, but does the film live up to…

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Selfless

Self/Less – Review

Tarsem Singh continues in his apparent quest to never quite strike a suitable balance between style and substance; Self/Less, his latest directorial project, fails to find either concept over 116 minutes of unremarkable storytelling and uncharacteristically weak visual appeal. The story, which bears more than a passing resemblance to 1966’s Seconds, centres around New York…

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Ant-Man Review

Ant-Man – Review

Ant-Man is a must-see for those who prefer zany and absurd action in their comic-book adaptations. If The Dark Knight is the king of gritty superhero stories then Ant-Man is its polar opposite; rather than trying to mix a dark atmosphere with witty quips (e.g. The Avengers), director Peyton Reed has gone all-out to create…

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Terminator: Genisys – Review

At one point during Terminator: Genisys, Kyle Reese exclaims “time travel makes my head hurt”. Truer words have never been spoken. This isn’t because the plot does anything intricate or intelligent with paradoxes or timelines, far from it; Genisys instead utilises time travel as a story convolution device. It throws multiple alternate realities at the…

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The Longest Ride – Review

Let’s kick this review off with a quick bit of maths. Silvano Alves, the current Professional Bull Riders World Champion, has an average buck off time of 3.59 seconds. The Longest Ride, the new Nicholas Sparks adaptation from director George Tillman Jr, has an agonisingly lengthy running time of 128 minutes. Thus, in the same…

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Jurassic World – Review

The transition from creating a successful indie-comedy film to directing the difficult revival of a classic and adored franchise can be no easy task, yet Colin Trevorrow has done exactly that. Following 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed, a film made with a modest $750k, Trevorrow graduated straight into blockbuster leagues to take the reigns on a…

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Man Up

Man Up – Review

From the uncomfortable introduction through to the uneasy small talk, there are few things more awkward than the first minutes of a blind date. Between the probing questions and exaggerated answers, no-one is quite who they say they are in those difficult opening moments but you’d hope that at least their name isn’t a complete…

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