Category Film Reviews

National Lampoon fans rejoice – the Griswolds are back! This week sees the release of Vacation, a reboot of the original National Lampoon film starring Ed Helms as Rusty, the son of Chevy Chase’s iconic character.

In an attempt to spice things up with his wife and reconnect with his sons, Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) takes his family on a cross-country excursion to America’s favourite fun park, “Walley World”. The film is the fifth installment of the National Lampoon’s Vacation film series and is ...

AP Photo/Royal Shakespeare Company, Ellie Kurttz

Donna Kelly takes a look back at five of the most famous adaptions of Hamlet on film

With Benedict Cumberbatch currently treading the boards as the Danish prince at the Barbican, the word on everyone’s lips at the moment is Hamlet.

William Shakespeare’s tale of tragedy of murder and revenge in medieval Denmark is arguably the Bard’s most famous and most-discussed play and it’s not hard to see why.

For those who have never read (or indeed seen)...

Rachel Arundel reviews The Girl in the Woods, a short film by Tofiq Rzayev

Filmmaker Tofiq Rzayev, from Azerbaijan, is back this September with his latest short film, The Girl in the Woods; a Turkish-language adaptation of the original English screenplay, Find Me.

Launching straight in to the central narrative, Deniz Aslim’s character, Mert, receives a mysterious text message from his friend Ali, containing one simple instruction: ‘Find Me’...

Following its debut at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in earlier this year, Bobcat Goldthwait’s latest documentary Call Me Lucky finally hits the big screen.

Call Me Lucky is a biographical documentary film that tells the incredible life story of Barry Crimmins, a politically outspoken comedian-turned-activist who helped to expose child pornography online.

The documentary opens with video footage from a stand-up comedy night in Boston in 1990...

20th Century Fox’s reboot of Fantastic Four fails to compete with other Marvel films

This week sees the release of 20th Century Fox’s reboot of the comic book franchise the Fantastic Four. As a Marvel fan, I was eager to see what director Josh Trank had in store for Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team, particularly as it’s been rather quiet on the media front (clearly 20th Century Fox had an embargo). The result, unfortunately, is rather mixed.

For those who aren’t fami...

Based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a coming-of-age comedy/drama written and directed by Marielle Heller. Set in 1970s San Francisco, it follows the story of Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley), a 15-year old girl who enters into an affair with her mother’s 34 year-old boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård).

Challenging, edgy and controversial, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a film about sexual awakening and the crossroads between female adolescence and wo...

Tense, thrilling and visually stunning, Tom Cruise is back on top form in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

Tom Cruise and the team are back with the fifth installment in the Mission: Impossible series, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. Donna Kelly reviews for Frankly My Dear…

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation sees Tom Cruise reprises his role as IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, as Hunt and his team take on their most impossible mission yet, eradicating ‘The Syndicate’ – an international rogue o...

A Dozen Summers is a light-hearted, funny and entertaining coming-of-age comedy

If you’re looking for a light-hearted, funny family film to keep the children entertained this summer, check out A Dozen Summers. 

A Dozen Summers is a coming-of-age comedy about two twelve-year-old girls trying to make sense of life in the 21st century. It follows Maisie and Daisy McCormack, twin sisters who inadvertently hijack a children’s adventure film and proceed to tell the story of their own lives...

Marvel’s Ant-Man/Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). Photo Credit: Film Frame © Marvel 2015

Marvel Studios strike gold again with Ant-Man

It seems like Marvel can do no wrong at the moment. Following the success of Avengers: Age of Ultron earlier this year (the third-highest-grossing film of 2015), the studios appear to have struck gold again with the release of Ant-Man.

Armed with a super-suit that can shrink in size, Ant-Man tells the story of con-man Scott Lang, who must embrace his inner hero to pull...

Desert Cathedral makes UK Premiere at 2015 Manchester Film Festival

Desert Cathedral is a very emotionally challenging film to watch not just because of the subject matter of suicide but also because this happens to be based on a true story, made to feel even more real by the VHS archival footage integrated throughout the film.

Beautifully shot and directed by Travis Gurtiérrez Senger, Desert Cathedral is a captivating story about the 1992 disappearance into the Southwestern desert of Peter C...