Film Trance

Film Review: Bad Moms

From the writing duo who brought us The Hangover and 21 & Over, the double team of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore’s latest effort is the Mila Kunis-led comedy, Bad Moms. Also starring the well-honed comedic chops of Christina Applegate, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn, this shenanigans-filled PTA riot may well be one of the biggest surprises of 2016. Under-appreciated at work and on the edge of divorce,…

Film Review: War Dogs

Todd Phillips loves a cringe-worthy laugh. Ken Jeong’s ear-drum-breaking cackle in The Hangover series will forever make the soul shudder; now it’s the turn of Jonah Hill to launch the most memorable giggle of the year in the new ‘based on real events’ dramedy War Dogs. Inspired by Guy Lawson’s 2011 Rolling Stone article ‘Arms and the Dudes’, it stars Miles Teller opposite Hill as two plucky…

Film Review: The Purge: Election Year

It’s the third outing for James DeMonaco’s Purge franchise and it is election time. The Purge: Election Year, the sequel to 2014’s The Purge: Anarchy, picks up two years on with Frank Grillo’s super-slick security chief Leo Barnes back in business, this time protecting Presidential candidate and anti-purge campaigner Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell) from her growing list of enemies. Each…

Film Review: David Brent: Life on the Road

Well over a decade has passed since Ricky Gervais’ most iconic creation, David Brent, graced our screens for the first time in the BBC’s fictional documentary The Office. The then regional manager of a Slough-based paper merchants, Brent – now a semi-successful sales rep – still has aspirations of becoming a rock star. David Brent: Life on the Road, written and directed by Gervais himself,…

Film Review: Lights Out

When thinking of creepy entities that have entered into horror folklore in recent years our minds leap towards Jennifer Kent’s lurking Ba-Ba Dook-Dook-Dook!, or cinema’s most famous goat, Black Phillip from The Witch. David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out – originally a 2013 short film of the same name – introduces us to another mysterious being: Diana. Starring Teresa Palmer (Warm Bodies) and Maria…

Film Review: Nine Lives

I’m not mad, Kevin, just really, really, bitterly disappointed. A two-time Oscar winner and world-renowned thesp, Spacey’s latest role is that of a cat. Yep, a blue-eyed feline. Helmed by Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld, and also starring Christopher Walken and Jennifer Garner, Nine Lives is the summer family flick that no one, young, old or in-between, wanted or deserved. Super-rich…

Film Review: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Zac Efron’s a changed man. We definitely knew it after the disastrous Dirty Grandpa and we were reminded again after the surprisingly lol-inducing Bad Neighbours 2; he ain’t no High School (Musical)-er anymore. Ok, his vocal chords do get a work out in Jake Szymanski swear-filled wedding lark, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, but Efron’s now a fully-fledged comedic leading man. Co-starring Pitch…

Film Review: The Shallows

It’s a simple premise: woman v shark, winner takes all. Turn on the Syfy Channel most evenings and you’ll see a frantic male or female antagonist on the run from a lurking predator. Non-Stop director Jaume Collet-Serra’s shark thriller, The Shallows, won’t win any awards for originality, but this Blake Lively-starring popcorn muncher is an exciting watch. Mourning the death of her recently…

With horror fare such as 2015’s well-executed Unfriended and this year’s so-so Friend Request jumping on the social media bandwagon, it’s no surprise that in such techno-literate times we’re seeing another anti-web flick hit our screens. Directorial duo Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s Nerve – starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco – is an interesting, but ultimately shallow, look into the murky…

Film Review: Suicide Squad

Buzz for David Ayer’s star-studded anti-hero flick, Suicide Squad, was stratospheric for months prior to its release. With much attention focusing on just how bat-sh*t crazy ‘method’ Jared Leto – DC’s new Joker – was, and crazy shenanigans a seemingly daily occurrence on an apparently intense film set, fingers were firmly crossed that the Fury helmer’s latest work would be the awesome comic…

Film Review: Captain America: Civil War

Marvel’s phase three is off to a shield-wielding bang with this Avengers-sized third outing for the previously frozen American war hero: Captain American: Civil War. With the Russo bros, Joe and Anthony, back on board as co-directors after their critically acclaimed 2014 sequel Captain America: The Winter Solider, Chris Evans returns as Steve Rogers and is joined by all but two of Marvel’s…

Dallas Buyers Club helmer Jean-Marc Vallée’s latest directorial effort is the Jake Gyllenhaal-lead, grief-stricken dramedy, Demolition, which also co-stars Naomi Watts, Chris Cooper and newbie Judah Lewis. After Gyllenhaal’s by-the-numbers investment banker Davis loses his wife Julie (Heather Lind) in a car accident, the previously dead-between-the-eyes young hot shot has a grief-induced…

Film Review: Midnight Special

Mud helmer Jeff Nichols reunites with cinematic muse Michael Shannon for sci-fi drama Midnight Special. Also starring Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver and St. Vincent youngster Jaeden Lieberher, it’s the acclaimed director’s first studio feature and his fourth collaboration with Shannon. Taking inspiration from such Spielberg-ian science fiction fare as E.T. and Close Encounters of the…

Film Review: The Man Who Knew Infinity

Get your calculators out and prepare your brains to be scrambled with Matt Brown’s big screen adaptation of The Man Who Knew Infinity, the story of Indian maths whiz Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar. Based on Robert Kanigel’s biography The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan, and starring Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel alongside Jeremy Irons, the film portrays the self-taught…

Disney’s latest family friendly animation comes in the form of anthropomorphic animal adventure Zootropolis from the directorial trio of Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush. Featuring Ginnifer Goodwin’s vocals as the aspirational bunny cop Judy Hopps and the mischievous fox-turned-hussler Nick Wilde, voiced by Jason Bateman, the pair of misfits form an unlikely friendship as they come…

Like fine wine, the Divergent series has gotten slightly more tolerable with time having bored the pants off of millions in its previous two outings of head-scratching, generic YA guff. Robert Schwentke has returned to direct Allegiant, the third instalment of the franchise, with faction rebels Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) leading a small band of youthful heroes beyond Chicago’s…

Film Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane

Announced less than two months ahead of its release, the super secretive 10 Cloverfield Lane – the “blood relative” of 2008’s found footage hit Cloverfield – is a real sneaky treat from producer J.J. Abrams. This not-so-sequel helmed by newbie director Dan Trachtenberg and starring John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr., is a twisty-turny claustrophobia-inducing thrill ride.…