Alison Janney

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: The Creator is high-end, low-tech sci-fi with middling ambitions

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 11th October 2023

    Apologetically plonked at the end of the September release schedule like a $100m afterthought, Gareth Edwards' The Creator is a movie that does a lot with a little, although that should be no surprise to anyone familiar with the director's prudent knack of making movies that look twice as expensive as they actually are. His first movie since Star Wars spin-off Rogue One - that rare Disney-era Star Wars feature that is universally beloved - Edwards finds himself back on imperious form, crafting a zeitgeisty tale about the dangers of A.I. that couldn't be more timely if it were written by ChatGPT itself.

  • Spy

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 10th June 2015

    I'm not sure I understand how people continually lump Melissa McCarthy into the same category of comedians as the likes of Kevin James (actually, I do understand, I just choose to ignore it), because she's so much more talented than him it's barely a contest. Comic timing? Check. Pathos? Check. A habit of making her co-stars appear funnier by proxy? Check. These are not qualities you typically associate with Paul Blart: Mall Cop. McCarthy, on the other hand, is the complete package, and she furthers her winning relationship with director Paul Feig in Spy, albeit to not quite so winning effect as previous team-ups The Heat and Bridesmaids. The most important stat for the non-believers? There is only one [1] pratfall in Spy; Paul Blart: Mall Cop had 25.