Of all the filmmakers working in Hollywood today, Guillermo del Toro is one of the most fervently followed. The cult of interest that springs up around any project he’s attached to is well earned: smaller scale Spanish language classics (Cronos, Pan’s Labyrinth) are offset against mega-budget Hollywood blockbusters (Hellboy, Pacific Rim) in his back catalogue, … >
In 2008, Scottish writer John Niven published his first full-length novel, Kill Your Friends: a hilarious, horrifying satire on the music business during the Britpop-saturated 1990s. Based in part on the author’s experiences working in the industry – although to what degree is between him, his conscience and his lawyer – the book chronicles the … >
The Martian opens with a shot of the vast, empty expanse of space, and for anyone with a passing familiarity with cinema, it’ll be instantly evocative of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi/horror classic Alien. Even the way film’s title text lingers slightly on screen is a very deliberate call-back to the iconic opening moments of that 1979 … >
Is there a story that’s been adapted more times than the tale of Peter Pan? Since his debut in 1902, Peter has appeared in video games, on stage, radio, TV and of course movies with the most famous being the 1953 Walt Disney adaptation. Hugh Jackman leads the cast of Pan – an origin story … >
If you haven’t seen Bill yet, go see it. If you have seen Bill, go see it again. You know you want to. Exploring the genre of speculative history with its tongue firmly lodged in cheek, the makers of Horrible Histories set out to give a possible (but probably not true) account of a period … >
Of all the actors to star in a gritty action film, Owen Wilson is probably pretty far down the list. His lackadaisical comic timing is perfectly suited to comedy, but he’s never really shown that he has many more strings to his bow than that. No Escape might not prove that he’s a brilliant dramatic … >
I’m not generally the sort of person who will gravitate towards gangster films. There’s something I find generally distasteful about the prospect of glorifying or making glamourous the basically sociopathic, violent nature of gang cultures. So when I was invited to a screening of Legend, based on the lives of real-life twin brothers and London … >
I can’t remember the last time I went to see a film where I had expectations quite as low as I had for Fantastic Four. With Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, I didn’t know what to expect and they both turned out to be triumphs. So I decided to keep an open mind about … >
Four years after the last adventure and 19 years after its big-screen debut, the Mission: Impossible franchise returns for a fifth outing. A new Mission: Impossible movie always feels like a bit of a surprise, not least because they are released at such sporadic intervals that the franchise never seems to gain any sense of … >
The Gallows is a late entry into what feels like a dwindling found-footage sub-genre, and it’s one that does nothing new with the idea. In fact, it’s a film that falls into nearly all of the usual pit-falls that the genre can offer – but it’s not all bad. The Gallows sees an American high-school … >