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The 6th Day (2000)   Arnie’s pre-penultimate pre-governator starring role, and perhaps surprisingly, given he’d been making bad or lazy choices for the best part of a decade, The 6th Day’s probably his best material since Total Recall. What it isn’t, however is a production with any sense of vision or attitude, which comes down to journeyman-at-best, director of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot at worst, director Roger Spottiswoode calling the shots. That in itself is evidence enough of how Arnie’s stock – or again, decision-making skill – had tumbled since the early ’90s. Perhaps his people were persuaded by the success of Tomorrow

The Woman in the Window (2021)   Disney clearly felt The Woman in the Window was so irrevocably dumpster-bound that they let Netflix snatch it up… where it doesn’t scrub up too badly compared to their standard fare. It seems Tony Gilroy – who must really be making himself unpopular in the filmmaking fraternity, as producers’ favourite fix-it guy – was brought in to write reshoots after Joe Wright’s initial cut went down like a bag of cold, or confused, sick in test screenings. It’s questionable how much he changed, unless Tracy Letts’ adaptation of AJ Finn’s 2018 novel diverged significantly from the source

Serenity (2019)   I was intrigued by Serenity as soon as I saw the trailer. And then the reviews mauled it, and I became slightly less intrigued. But I persevered, avoiding spoilers so as to give it a fair go. I can absolutely understand why it has been savaged, since writer-director Steven Knight’s solution to the overfamiliar “reality is not what you think it is” premise is simultaneously absurd and – most damagingly – sadly mundane. And yet, I still couldn’t find it within myself to dismiss the movie entirely; it’s closer to the engaging folly namechecked by Christy Lemire’s review, The Book of Henry.

WandaVision (2021)   Much as I’m loathe to suggest it – especially since the results would have been torturously overloaded with pop-culture references – the Joss Whedon version of Wandavision would surely have been superior to the one we got (although, it might not have featured Emma Caulfield Ford, since she stood with Charisma Carpenter). I watched the miniseries in several sittings after the run had completed, so I was spared most of the frustration at potential fan service left unfulfilled – anyone would think it was Lost… or Q Drops – but even without such dashed anticipation, it was very evident the

Duffy (1968)   It’s appropriate that James Coburn’s title character is repeatedly referred to as an old hipster in Robert Parrish’s movie, as that seemed to be precisely the niche Coburn was carving out for himself in the mid- to late-60s, no sooner had Our Man Flint made him a star. He could be found partaking in jaundiced commentary on sexual liberation in Candy, falling headlong into counter culture in The President’s Analyst, and leading it in Duffy. He might have been two decades older than its primary adherents, but he was, to repeat an oft-used phrase here, very groovy. If only Duffy were too. Stefane: Gonna

Psycho (1960)   One of cinema’s most feted and most studied texts, and for good reason. Even if the worthier and more literate psycho movie of that year is Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom. One effectively ended a prolific director’s career and the other made its maker more in demand than ever, even if he too would discover he had peaked with his populist fear flick. Pretty much all the criticism and praise of Psycho is entirely valid. It remains a marvellously effective low-budget shocker, one peppered with superb performances and masterful staging. It’s also fairly rudimentary in tone, character and psychology. But those

Vertigo (1958)   I’ll readily admit my Hitchcock tastes broadly tend to reflect the “consensus”, but Vertigo is one where I break ranks. To a degree. Not that I think it’s in any way a bad film, but I respect it rather than truly rate it. Certainly, I can’t get on board with Sight & Sound enthroning it as the best film ever made (in its 2012’s critics poll). That said, from a technical point of view, it is probably Hitch’s peak moment. And in that regard, certainly counts as one of his few colour pictures that can be placed alongside his black-and-white ones. It’s also clearly a

The Handmaiden (2016)   Park Chan-wook’s highly-acclaimed BAFTA winner, a loose adaptation of Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith – she suggested “inspired by”, rather than “based on” – gets its salacious cachet from the erotic lesbian love affair at its centre, artfully choreographed by the director. But it’s the presence of themes of incest, tricksy plotting and gratuitous violence that announce it as Park’s work through and through. As someone entirely underwhelmed by Oldboy (2003), my appreciation of The Handmaiden was correspondingly muted. Mostly, I was disappointed by the first twist at the end of the first hour, undermining the unfolding of an engrossing character piece in which

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)   Well Patty and Gal brought their undiluted vision for Wonder Woman to the screen… and suddenly the Snyderverse doesn’t look quite so bad after all. No, that’s an exaggeration, but the fact remains that Wonder Woman 1984 is every bit as flawed as anything arrested-development Zach has delivered to DC. Just considerably less grimdark. On the flip side, moments of curdling sentimentality in this sequel will have you longing for the balm of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s relentlessly portentous foreboding. There are quite a few things to enjoy in Wonder Woman 1984, but they’re almost all on display during

Woman of Straw (1964)   The first fruit of Sean cashing in on his Bond status with other leading man roles – he even wears the tux he’d later sport in Goldfinger. On one level, he isn’t exactly stretching himself as a duplicitous, misogynist bastard. On the other, he is actually the bad guy; this time, you aren’t supposed to be onside his capacity for killing people. It’s interesting to see Connery in his nascent star phase, but despite an engaging set up and a very fine performance from Ralph Richardson, Woman of Straw is too much of a slow-burn, trad crime thriller/melodrama

The Thirteenth Floor (1999)   The somewhat ignored third major Hollywood studio late-90s exploration of the nature of reality, The Thirteenth Floor had the misfortune to come out a couple of months after The Matrix turned everyone’s world upside down. And two weeks after Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. It also made the decision to embrace a noirish virtual world, one that had already proved less than compelling to general audiences in the previous year’s Dark City. Plus, the critics trounced it. The latter is the most surprising part, in retrospect, as Josef Rusnak’s movie has a lot going for it, not least the best mind-bending

Soylent Green (1973)   The final entry in Chuck Heston’s mid-career sci-fi trilogy (I’m not counting his Beneath the Planet of the Apes extended cameo). He hadn’t so much as sniffed at the genre prior to 1967, but over the space of the next half decade or so, he blazed a trail for dystopian futures. Perhaps the bleakest of these came in Soylent Green. And it’s only a couple of years away. 2022 is just around the corner. The secret of Soylent Green is, of course, everything about the movie. Like The Sixth Sense, it would probably be quite difficult to come to the

Krampus (2015)   On the evidence of Krampus, you can see why Legendary Pictures might have considered it a bright idea to enlist Michael Dougherty to direct a Godzilla movie. Much less so why they’d also ask him to write one. This horror tale, based on the anti-Saint Nick, posits the title character as the punisher of those who have lost that Christmas feeling (rather than, per se, children who have misbehaved): “It’s not what you do. It’s what you believe”. Dougherty does a solid job with the setup, but unfortunately, he then lets it all go to waste. Max (Emjay Anthony) tears

Fight Club (1999)   Still David Fincher’s peak picture, mostly by dint of Fight Club being the only one you can point to and convincingly argue that the source material is up there with his visual and technical versatility. If Seven is a satisfying little serial-killer-with-a-twist story vastly improved by his involvement (just imagine it directed by Joel Schumacher… or watch 8mm), Fight Club invites him to utilise every trick in the book to tell the story of not-Tyler Durden, whom we encounter at a very peculiar time in his life. Indeed, much of the fare Fincher has ended up making since has seemed like a regression

Destroyer (2018)   Karyn Kusama seems to get offered a steady stream of TV work these days, but then, her movie career has never quite taken off. Following the well-received Girlfight, Æon Flux was a well-documented disaster, and Jennifer’s Body was unable to capitalise on either Megan Fox or Diablo Cody, then both then in fashion, sort of. More recently, The Invitation proved a very pleasant surprise, one of those instant cult movies that, despite bearing a resemblance to other fare (I’ll say no more) managed to etch out its own distinctive furrow. She’s working from a screenplay by her husband Phil Hay (who writes with Matt

The Sixth Sense (1999)   It has usually been a shrewd move for the Academy to ensure there’s at least one big hit among its Best Picture Oscar nominees. At least, until the era of ever-plummeting ratings; not only do the studios get to congratulate themselves for their own profligacy (often, but not always, the big hits are also the costliest productions), but the audience also has something to identify with and possibly root for. Plus, it evidences that the ceremony isn’t just about populism-shunning snobbery. The Sixth Sense provided Oscar’s supernatural bookend to a decade – albeit, The Green Mile also has a

Us (2019)   Jordan Peele evidently loves his conspiracy lore, so he’ll probably appreciate inevitable theories that his sophomore movie, even with movie and literature antecedents and influences such as The Skeleton Key, C.H.U.D. and Wells’ Morlocks, is an exposé of celebrity cloning antics in underground bases and/or Vrill body snatching, right through to the facilities being shut down. I mean, he only offers the most ungainly of expository monologues in the latter stages of Us to that essential effect, during which we’re told these subterranean locales have been used in the past for producing soulless clones. It’s very on-the-nose material in that regard;

The Sting (1973)   In any given list of the best things – not just movies – ever, Mark Kermode would include The Exorcist, so it wasn’t a surprise when William Friedkin’s film made an appearance in his Nine films that should have won Best Picture at the Oscars list last month. Of the nominees that year, I suspect he’s correct in his assessment (I don’t think I’ve seen A Touch of Class, so it would be unfair of me to dismiss it outright. If we’re simply talking best film of that year, though, The Exorcist isn’t even 1973’s best horror; that would be Don’t Look Now).

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)   The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part isn’t very good. Which is to say, it’s just about passable – nothing more, so don’t take the equal and opposite tack and interpret that as effusiveness – until the last twenty minutes. At which point, it opts to become actively objectionable in its efforts to patronise and consequently provoke children (and hopefully their parents) everywhere into states of abject wrath. The fact that Phil Lord and Chris Miller penned the screenplay should, by rights, cause any rational person to question every positive impression they

Miss Sloane (2016)   John Madden’s name as director might be a clue that this exploration of the world of political lobbying isn’t going to be altogether successful; one might give a pass to his inoffensive pensioner pictures (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel) but otherwise, he hasn’t delivered a truly satisfying feature since the Oscar glory that (rightly) greeted Shakespeare in Love. As usual, he’s only as serviceable as his screenplay, and this one is all sorts of uneven. Jessica Chastain’s title character is a too-familiar cliché, the workaholic career woman with no time for relationships (she hires male

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)   Sometimes, a movie comes along where you instantly know you’re safe in the hands of a master of the craft, someone who knows exactly the story they want to tell and precisely how to achieve it. All you have to do is sit back and exult in the joyful dexterity on display. Bad Times at the El Royale is such a movie, and Drew Goddard has outdone himself. From the first scene, set ten years prior to the main action, Goddard has constructed a dizzyingly deft piece of work, stuffed with indelible characters portrayed

Tully (2018)   A major twist is revealed in the last fifteen minutes of Tully, one I’ll happily admit not to have seen coming, but it says something about the movie that it failed to affect my misgivings over the picture up to that point either way. About the worst thing you can say about a twist is that it leaves you shrugging. Jason Reitman appears to be carving himself out an expressly “respectable” niche as a purveyor of relationship dramas about adults for adults. Which, in Hollywood, means he can’t entirely escape the whiff of cynical calculation about his chosen

Den of Thieves (2018)   I’d heard this was a shameless Heat rip-off, and the presence of Gerard Butler seemed to confirm it would be passable-at-best B-heist hokum. So maybe it was just middling expectations, even having heard how enthused certain pockets of the Internet were, but Den of Thieves is a surprisingly very satisfying entry in the genre. I can’t even fault it for attempting to Keyser Soze the whole shebang at the last moment – add a head in a box, and you have three 1995 classics in one movie – even if that particular conceit doesn’t quite come together. Part of

The Ward (2010)   I’d felt no particular compunction to rush out and see The Ward (or rent it), partly down to the underwhelming reviews, but mostly because John Carpenter’s last few films had been so disappointing; I doubted a decade away from the big screen would rejuvenate someone who’d rather play computer games than call the shots. Perhaps inevitably then, now I have finally given it a look, it’s a case of low expectations being at least surpassed. The Ward isn’t very good, but it isn’t outright bad either. While it seems obvious in retrospect, I failed to guess the twist before it

The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)   André Øvredal’s previous film Troll Hunter was an unlikely delight, succeeding in taking the generally moribund found-footage device and coming up with something both wickedly funny and disquieting. This follow up is an altogether more routine affair, expertly stitched together but relying on its choice of lead actors for what juice it has. Which is fortunate, as there’s a strong rapport between Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch, playing father and son coroners taking delivery of a very unusual corpse and becoming increasingly unsettled as it confounds their every expectation. Cox’s veteran Tommy is a widower of

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)   A supremely satisfying superhero movie that shows everyone, even the sometimes laurels-resting Marvel, taking the reins of their most renowned property for the first time on the big screen, how it should be done. I wasn’t as down on the Andrew Garfield incarnation of Spidey as most, although he certainly didn’t deserve the “amazing” adjective before his name. Spider-Man: Homecoming, in contrast, wisely keeps its hero’s lowered stakes in sight throughout, and in so doing keeps you invested in his trials and tribulations to a degree all but foreign to the genre. Scott Mendelson’s Forbes review complained that Homecoming turns Peter

Collateral Beauty (2016)   Will Smith’s most recent attempt to take a wrecking ball to his superstardom, Collateral Beauty is one of those high-concept emotional journeys that only look like a bad idea all along when they flop (see Regarding Henry). Except that, with a plot as gnarly as this, it’s difficult to see quite how it would ever not have rubbed audiences up the wrong way. A different director might have helped, someone less thuddingly literal than David Frankel. When this kind of misguided picture gets the resounding drubbing it has, I tend to seek out positives. Sometimes, that can be quite easy – A

Moana (2016)   Disney’s 56th animated feature (I suppose they can legitimately exclude Song of the South – which the Mouse House would rather forget about completely – on the grounds it’s a live action/animation hybrid) feels like one of their most rigidly formulaic yet, despite its distinctive setting and ethnicity. It probably says a lot about me that I tend to rate this kind of fare for its wacky animal sidekick as opposed to the studiously familiar hero’s journey of Moana’s title character. You can even see the John Lasseter-Pixar influence in the fricking cute kids burbling through the opening scenes, before

Westworld Season One   The debate over whether TV should be consumed in bite-sized, weekly chunks or gorged in box-set style season binges occasionally gets a jolt when one of the enthroned architects of the medium vouches for the former (Joss Whedon, Damon Lindelof), but it’s most especially pertinent when a show itself creates a “water cooler” atmosphere. The irony of Westworld is that the waves it has created, fuelled by Lost-esque speculation over what was really going on amid its multiple timelines and potential identity crises over which humans were really robots, has been somewhat dampened by the stark realisation that its creators

Get Out (2017)   Movies, let alone horror movies, with a satirical edge are few and far between, so when one comes along and delivers on the thrills and scares, it’s nigh on a minor miracle. I purposefully stayed as spoiler-free as I could for Get Out, which is undoubtedly a key to its effectiveness – the trailer is shockingly remiss in that regard, and I’m glad I didn’t watch it first – but even more so is how deftly observed and layered debut director Jordan Peele’s screenplay is (as a director, meanwhile, he has the confidence of one who’s been doing this

The Accountant (2016)   A reasonably-sized hit stateside, probably because The Accountant has a flashy idea at its centre (an autistic hit man: whatever next?!), if one foolhardily flirting with insensitive territory, is reasonably well executed (from journeyman director Gavin O’Connor, at least surrendering any faux-aspiration towards serious dramatics per Pride and Glory and Warrior), and stars Batfleck, perfectly cast as a remote, impersonal, impassive number-cruncher (emotional depth has never been Ben’s metier). If that sounds like faint praise, it is, since the picture is junk, but fitfully entertaining junk. Most of that fitfully entertaining part snaps into gear when Batfleck, as mild-mannered but socially-inverted

Ex Machina (2015)   Ex Machina is a handsome, meticulously crafted film that if nothing else evidences Alex Garland as a filmmaker of talent. As a screenwriter, however, the jury is still out. I’m a little surprised by the levels of discussion the picture has provoked, in fact. Anyone would think Garland was reinventing the AI wheel, or breaking profound new ground in the study of gender identification. He has directed an engaging picture, a chamber piece populated by fine actors giving fine performances, but one that treads familiar ground and allows its plot twists to lead it by the nose. It

Predestination (2014)   I’m not the biggest fan of predestination paradox time travel yarns. I’m even less a fan of time travel tales requiring their protagonists to undertake key acts in order to fulfil the causal loop of a bootstrap paradox. Both require some pretty hefty pre-designated rules that don’t readily apply themselves to scrutiny or internal plausibility (breaking down to, “Because the writer says it’s so”). Since Predestination immerses itself in both these narrative conceits then, I really ought to have come out less than impressed. However, its eccentric mystery mostly flies for the sheer verve with which the Spierig brothers

Gone Girl (2014)   A David Fincher film is always a seductive treat, even when the greater whole proves something of a misfire (The Game, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Gone Girl finds the director’s technique ever more refined, seamless and subtle, yet as with his previous picture he has chosen to unleash his virtuosity and microscopic attention to detail on subject matter that is overtly lurid and provocative. In contrast to Tattoo, Gillian Flynn’s adaptation of her novel is at least imbued with multiple layers themes, adding substance – but let’s not overstate this – to what is at first sight just

Promised Land (2012)   Matt Damon’s would-be directorial debut finished up helmed by old pal Gus Van Sant. Scheduling conflicts got the better of the man who was Bourne. It’s easy to see why Damon wanted in; he co-wrote the script with co-star John Krasinski, and this is the kind of socially conscious fare Matt and buddy George Clooney have a yen for. Politically alert entertainments that raise issues and provoke the audience, however gently. Both have in mind the cinema of the ’70s, but ultimately Promised Land is just too damn nice and well-meaning to get under the skin. Like it’s

Oldboy (2013)   I’m not averse to remakes so long someone has a good reason for going there. Generally, I wouldn’t regard “It was in a foreign language” as a valid motive. Just occasionally however, even a straight retelling can provide the lazy distraction of a different-but-the-same iteration, although one invariably ends up reaching the same conclusion; why did they bother? Most of non-English language films picked by Hollywood for a remake fail at the box office, and yet the lesson is never learned. If there’s a whiff of a name property, even from a somewhat insular bean counter standpoint,

Side Effects (2013)   At first, it appears that Steven Soderbergh’s final cinematic release (for the time being) may be taking the Traffic approach to the pharmaceutical industry. It wouldn’t be a surprise, as the director likes his issue-led films (which also include Erin Brokovich and Contagion). But Side Effects veers from such a path so preposterously that it leaves him with nothing to say on the subject. It ends up as an above average thriller, but completely forsakes discussing prescription dependency for easy twists and cheap thrills. It’s near to the reverse of how he treated Contagion. There he had a wonderful opportunity to make a truly

Now You See Me (2013)   These days, the arrival of a summer movie that is neither a sequel nor a superhero outing is rare. And one that requires its audience to do a bit of thinking is even less common.  Any film that promises both these ingredients is to be seized gratefully, making the ineptitude of Now You See Me doubly disappointing. The premise is an alluring one; four stage magicians (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco) pull off robberies in public. They announce themselves as the culprits during live shows, but the authorities can neither place them at the scene

Unbreakable (2000)   In the fourteen years since The Sixth Sense went from sleeper hit to box office titan, M. Night Shyamalan’s cachet has taken a significant tumble. Initially impressed with his distinctive narrative and visual approach, realisation dawned that he was, by all appearances, a one-trick pony. The appetite for his tales-with-a-twist diffused and, in seeming recognition (or, through difficulty in finding funding) he turned to adapting others’ material. First up was The Last Airbender (which, I admit, I still haven’t seen) and this summer comes Will Smith & Son in After Earth. But Unbreakable was his first post-Sense picture. Bruce was back. Big things were expected.

A Beautiful Mind  (2001)   As Best Picture Oscar winners go, is there a more obvious example of a mediocre, heart-warming film serving up a fast-food illusion of depth and profundity? In a case of the bland leading the bland, Ron Howard directed Akiva Goldsman script, resulting in one of the most fatuous representations of mental illness to make it to the big screen. No wonder the Academy went wild for it. I’ve said that I don’t think the mark of a film based on a historical incident or figure should be its faithfulness but, rather, its dramatic integrity. A Beautiful

No Way Out (1987)   Kevin Costner’s best year was the one in which he found fledgling success, with the double-header box office hits of this and The Untouchables. Crucially, they were both very good movies. No Way Out is undoubtedly lodged as an artifact of the era in which it was made, with its Maurice Jarre synth score, and unavoidable dose of Sean Young. But as a thriller it stands the test of time extremely well, maintaining pace and tension throughout; this is easily journeyman director Roger Donaldson’s finest piece of work. It’s based on a novel by Kenneth Fearing that was