fantasy
Demetrios Matheou
Frozen is possibly the most beloved Disney movie since the studio rediscovered its mojo in the 1990s. While picking up a couple of Oscars and laying waste to box office records, it had young girls immersing themselves in favourite characters and performing the songs on a dime.A sequel to that 2013 film was inevitable. And so with the same production team, composers and stars, we’re returning to Arendelle and its two royal sisters – one with magical powers, the other some good old-fashioned gumption, who make a formidable team when they’re not immersed in sibling squabbles. But Read more ...
Marianka Swain
It’s been 15 years since Cameron Mackintosh’s stage musical version of P. L. Travers’ Mary Poppins made its West End debut. Now, the magical nanny returns to the Prince Edward Theatre, with Zizi Strallen (who also headlined the UK tour) succeeding her sister Scarlett in the title role – all set to capitalise on the recent Emily Blunt-starring film sequel renewing our interest in the adventures of the Banks family.“I fear what’s to happen all happened before,” muses Charlie Stemp’s Bert at the start of the show. Well, yes and no. Fans of the original movie should be warned that the Disney Read more ...
David Nice
The good news is that television's serial slow burn will allow for a lot more original Pullman to make its way to screen than was possible in the one and only instalment of the intended film trilogy, The Golden Compass. Its virtues were many, despite drastic late alterations, and in terms of casting and cinematography, this version doesn't look set to outstrip it. But from one expository episode on BBC One in which we've only briefly left a parallel-world Oxford for the London nerve-centre of the controlling Magisterium – and that's the bad news, that the thrills aren't here yet – it isn't Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Angelina Jolie is back again with those cut-glass cheekbones and ink-black wings, reprising her role as the self-proclaimed ‘Mistress of Evil’, in Joachim Rønning’s nauseating sequel to the 2014 live-action spin on Sleeping Beauty. As the first film taught us, Maleficent isn’t evil, she’s misunderstood. Rat-bag men sold her out, and ever since she’s been on warry of humans, except for her god-child Aurora. The legend we knew was just propaganda. All Maleficent wants is to protect her fellow fairies from the war-mongering ways of men. This time around, it’s not a man that’s the Read more ...
Heather Neill
Reviewing Ian McKellen's show is, in one sense, like appraising the Taj Mahal or Mount Everest: he too is an awe-inspiring phenomenon. In another sense, Sir Ian is not like that at all, going out of his way to be available to the adoring patrons filling the theatre, apparently enjoying every minute of up to three hours from a jokey beginning geared to Gandalf and Widow Twankey to shaking a collecting bucket at the door as the audience leaves. Apparently indefatigable - despite this show marking his 80th birthday - he can even be found chatting to punters in the stalls during the interval. He Read more ...
Owen Richards
Oh to be inside the head of Wayne Coyne. The frazzle-haired frontman has always been an enigma, persistently quirky, morally dubious, and undeniably fascinating. Perhaps King’s Mouth offers our best chance yet to get in there – the album is an accompaniment to his art installation in which visitors enter a giant metallic head. Rather on the nose for a metaphor, but still a hell of an invitation.King’s Mouth is as conceptual as an album gets: a fairytale about a giant baby that becomes king, sacrifices himself for the city, and becomes a monument. Full marks for imagination, the medieval Read more ...
Nick Hasted
One day, when superhero films are as rare as westerns, we will appreciate the brilliant talent applied to the best of them. X-Men: Dark Phoenix moves with a classic’s smooth conviction from its very first scenes. The simple changing of a family’s car radio station on a sunny Seventies day gives mutant Jean Grey a taste of her power’s tragic potential, then we slam into the film’s Nineties present, where the adult Grey (Sophie Turner) is part of the X-Men’s rescue of a space shuttle crew, a desperate mission of seat-clenching excitement which ends with her absorbing a cosmic storm. The queasy Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Just how many cinematic universes can one planet stand? Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla and Kong: Skull Island’s Apocalypse Now/ape mash-up suggested there might be useful room for old-school creature features amidst the superhero surfeit. As random, rococo mythology and super-sized spectacle crash frenetically together in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, this third instalment of the ineptly named MonsterVerse is often great fun. But you can sometimes glimpse talented people working furiously to distract you from its sawdust substance.Edwards’ sombre reboot, with Godzilla and co. leaving city- Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
It’s been a memorable few days for audiences – big-screen and small – who happily invest years of their lives in epic storytelling. With the dust still settling on Avengers: Endgame, the final season of Game of Thrones has reached its mid-point with one of the most extraordinary episodes in its impressive history. The eagerly anticipated Battle of Winterfell, in an episode formally and aptly titled The Long Night, was terrifying, emotionally gruelling and at times exhilarating. Taking up most of the 78-minute episode, it’s said to be the longest battle ever Read more ...
Nick Hasted
No one was waiting for another Hellboy film, but here this rude, crude reboot is anyway, stomping all over Guillermo del Toro’s 2004 original with freewheeling energy. Based on Mike Mignola’s long-running comic about a grouchy demon summoned from Hell as a baby by Nazis, but raised to do monster-bashing good by adoptive dad Professor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane stepping into John Hurt’s ’04 shoes), this minor franchise has the advantage of existing outside Marvel and DC’s crowded universes.British genre specialist Neil Marshall draws deeply on Mignola’s stories. But where del Toro reverently Read more ...
Nick Hasted
The DC Universe continues to back out of its dark dead end with this satiric kids’ film about the other Captain Marvel. In reality sulky 14-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel), he stays a callow teenager inside when the magic word Shazam transforms him into an invincible superhero, a contrast which allows winning goofiness almost throughout.Drawing on the veteran character’s 2011 comic-book reinvention, director David F. Sanberg and screenwriter Henry Gayden slip between the origins of Batson and his eventual nemesis Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) with sly sleight of hand, beginning with the Read more ...
Saskia Baron
This might just be the most challenging film review I’ve had to write in decades. The best thing would be to go and see Border knowing nothing more than that it won the prize for most innovative film at Cannes. Don't watch the trailer, and definitely don’t read those lazy reviewers who complete their word count by writing a detailed synopsis ruining every reveal and plot twist. Border is simply brilliant and best seen clean, although a duty of care means that viewers of a delicate disposition are warned that there’s a significant amount of body horror on screen. Fans of David Cronenberg, Read more ...