The Purge – 2013’s horror/thriller about a near-future America, where on one night a year, for twelve hours, virtually all crime is legal – was a frustrating experience. It boasted an intriguing premise, but failed to build upon it, instead focussing in on one (uninteresting) family in a fairly generic house-under-siege plot, and featuring an … >
Giving drama a backdrop of contemporary world events is a double-edged sword. While it lends realism and gravitas to a story that might otherwise be as fantastic as it is fantastic (as it were), it can also be like trying to use a live tiger as a sofa: there’s a real danger of it biting … >
Guardians of the Galaxy is a strange entry into the Marvel canon. Based on a lesser known comic franchise, and featuring such an outlandish group of characters as a genetically engineered, gun totting raccoon and a sentient tree, it’s something of a wonder that it got made at all, let alone into a big-budget, tent-pole … >
What’s a modern conspiracy thriller without some hacking? Nothing. Since humanity first hooked its TV up to an Atari to play Pong, ‘hacking’ has been an entirely misrepresented but convenient techno-obfustication to leapfrog plot difficulties faster than the speed of typing. It’s the wi-fi Expelliarmus. A deus.exe machina. And it’s no different in Utopia, where … >
Ideally, in a romantic comedy, you should want the leads to get together at the end of the film. There should be romance. There should be comedy. We’ll Never Has Paris is occasionally funny. It is also based on a true story. ‘Unfortunately’ the title card informs us, and that’s certainly true. Written by and … >
It’s probably a bit early to be reaching for True Detective-sized superlatives when discussing The Honourable Woman. Yet with each instalment surpassing the last, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to resist. Comparisons with Nic Polazzo’s acclaimed thriller are both fitting and inappropriate. The suspense that hangs over Hugo Blick’s serial like Victorian smog, making it almost … >
Matt Reeves’ sequel to 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes is an involving story of power, fear and the struggle for peace. But the real star here – and indeed, the crowning glory of this year’s Hollywood blockbusters – is the breathtaking CGI. A decade on from the events of the previous film, … >
Twelve episodes sooner than normal, we reach the end of the latest season of 24. Live Another Day has been an experiment from the off – a twist on the formula designed to breathe new life into the show and hopefully extend the longevity of the franchise for future seasons – and as we reach … >
Making last night’s Episode 1 feel increasingly redundant, the second instalment of Utopia 2 brings us up to speed on where everyone is since we last left them aaaaaages ago, and does little else. But only in a show like this could that not really matter. Because Utopia is so abrasively bonkers it manages to … >
In 2005, a group of teenage girls from Drumchapel in Glasgow made national headline news as they spearheaded a campaign to change deportation laws in the UK, after one of their immigrant friends and her family were arrested in one of a series of dawn raids initiated by the UK Immigration Department. Glasgow Girls, a … >