Nick Harkaway hasn’t put a foot wrong since his debut novel The Gone-Away World was released in 2008. I always look forward to the next Harkaway novel and was pleasantly surprised when my pre-ordered copy of Titanium Noir dropped through my letterbox. The biggest surprise was that it did fit through the letterbox. His hardbacks are weighty, to say the least, with labyrinthine plotting and complex narrative structures.  But for the lower page count, you’ve still got a tightly plotted gem of a story on your hands.  Harkaway’s entry into the hard-boiled detective character, Cal Sou ..read more

The Review After a single mother and her son find out the house they have bought is haunted they must call in a team that can help them solve the mystery. The Review Someone said to me as I was walking into the premiere of Haunted Mansion “why would Disney make a film based on a ride?” I thought the answer to that question would be pretty obvious. First of all, one of the most successful Disney franchises – Pirates of The Caribbean – was based on a ride and second of all there are so many fans of and urban legends about the actual Haunted Mansion ride that it is a ripe for a story to be told ..read more

The Gist An astronaut finds himself trapped in space after a solar wind creates havoc on a mission. The Review Disaster movies don’t normally come with a serious storyline. Normally they are films full of amazing special effects, loud noises and people running for their lives. A decent screenplay is normally the last thing on the filmmakers’ minds – but the latest film from South Korean director Kim Yong-hwa (Take Off) bucks that trend as it delivers both amazing visuals and a biting screenplay that makes a strong political statement. In fact, to just call The Moon a decent disaster film might ..read more

The Gist Tells the story of the team that created the BlackBerry phone and how it raced to popularity. The Verdict It is probably difficult for a lot of people to fathom but there was actually a time before mobile phones were a thing. I remember buying my first when I was at uni and at the instance of a friend who was tired of not being able to contact me when I was out and about. At the time what brands you could buy were pretty limited. There was Nokia that was dominating the world and then there was this new device, a BlackBerry – simply a phone that could also email. There was an issue tho ..read more

The Gist While further exploring the trench Jonas and his team find more than they are bargaining for. The Review One of the most underrated films to have been released over recent years had to be 2018’s The Meg. This action-packed juggernaut did everything expected of it and more, yet for some reason was quickly forgotten by audiences. The question that left everybody asking was – what exactly did people expect from a film that was largely Jason Statham versus a huge shark? The film worked because it didn’t try to be anything else but just that – but the fact that it actually had a decent plo ..read more

The Gist In the not too distant future a Detective believes that one of the so called safe ‘simulants’ is responsible for the death of his son. The Review It is sometimes strange how a good film can seem to magically appear out of thin air. With very little publicity many could assume that April Mullen’s (Wander) Simulant may not be worth the price of admission. But that assumption would be wrong because this turns out to be one of the most unusual and underrated films of the 2023. The film is set in the not too distant future. Humans co-exist with humanoids called simulants. The first few gen ..read more

The Gist When a dog suddenly finds himself a stray he teams with a pack of dogs that talk him into getting revenge on his abusive owner. The Review Over the past few years the amount of laugh out loud comedies that have been released in cinemas has been pretty low. It’s strange given that with the way the world is today what most people probably need to do is laugh – well now the time to laugh has come in the form of director Josh Greenbaum’s (Becoming Bond) brand new comedy Strays. Now let’s get something out there straight away. Yes, Strays is a film about cute and fluffy dogs but no this ce ..read more

The Gist A scientist, often viewed as an outcast, is brought on to work on one of the USA’s most important scientific projects. The Review When it comes to how he is viewed by the cinema world director Christopher Nolan is now in rare air. He doesn’t need to make a film with crazy stunts to have one of his movies deemed a blockbuster – just having his name on the poster does that. To be fair there are very directors that deserve that kind of credit but Nolan is certainly one of them. This is a man who started off making arthouse films like Memento and Insomnia and then he changed the comic boo ..read more

The Gist After Barbie’s dream life begins to change she realises she must go to the real world in order to get thing back on track. The Review It is the film that has the whole world talking right now – Barbie. In the lead up nobody really knew what to expect, except a lot of pink, was it going to be something serious aimed for adults or was it going to be funny and aimed at children? It seems though it wasn’t only the cinema going audience asking those questions, they were questions that the filmmakers themselves may have been confused about because the result is a film that seems to awkwardl ..read more

The Gist The modern re-telling of the story of a mermaid who falls in love with a prince. The Review Has there ever been a film that has divided people before it has been released as much as Disney’s new real-life adaption of The Little Mermaid? If you have been on social media over the past few months, then it would be impossible that you haven’t seen people projecting what they think they will believe what they think of the re-working of the animated family classic. From “I’m sure I’m going to love it” through to “I’m going to hate it, she doesn’t even look anything like Ariel”: it has all b ..read more