Anthony Mackie

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: Point Blank isn't... pointless, but draws a... blank in...uh

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 22nd July 2019

    It's finally happened: I've watched a film I can't find an angle to wring several torturous paragraphs out of. That's not to say there's anything offensively bad about Joe Lynch's new action flick Point Blank - there's not - but there's nothing particularly notable to write about either. I'm at a loss for opinions, but even worse than that I'm at a loss for words, and as a film blogger can only exist if there are words to scroll past to the star rating, I can already feel myself fading away...

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 27th February 2019

    Following the low-point (both in terms of the MCU and our attempts at having an insightful discussion) that was Thor: The Dark World, we’re back on track now with Captain America’s first solo sequel. Don’t let that fool you though - we certainly haven’t stepped up our game in any way. The recurring feature of diminishing returns continues!

  • Detroit

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 23rd August 2017

    There was a time when seeing overtly racist characters on screen was shocking. I can remember real, genuine frustration on watching Mississippi Burning for the first time; actual anger that this happened, and useless, impotent white-saviour frustration that I couldn't do anything about it. Now that there's a global instant news network, events like Charlottesville play out and are documented in real time, and proud, gleefully stupid characters like Christopher Cantwell willingly offer themselves up as celebrity apologists for their empty ideology. So seeing racism on screen doesn't shock me like it used to.

  • Captain America: Civil War

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 5th May 2016

    "So what is Vision?" I'm at the pub, still digesting Captain America: Civil War, and I've been caught off guard. "Well, he's... um...he's a, er... so Thor had this sort of bath, then Ultron, erm... You know the Mind Gem, th-..." Christ, I'm racking my brains and his first movie only came out a year ago. Marvel movies move pretty fast; if you don't re-watch regularly, or God forbid miss a movie, your pub trivia game will suffer. (My best guess: Vision is a space ghost fruit roll-up robot butler dressed by George at Asda). Civil War is the 13th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and if you haven't been paying attention over the last eight years, you're going to find it really, really hard to keep up. The MCU doesn't slow down, doesn't pull its punches and doesn't really do 'Previously, on the Marvel Cinematic Universe..." It has unapologetically and unreservedly been constructed from the ground up for fans - and those fans are going to go bend-over-backwards apeshit crazy for Civil War, arguably the movie that the previous 12 have all been working towards.

  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 19th March 2014

    Just like Stan Lee releases those How To Draw Your Favourite Superhero books, complete with crudely sketched circles and squares that somehow become awesome comic-book artwork in just four 'easy' steps, it is becoming increasingly clear that Marvel is working to a very strictly defined template with its movies. Almost like they've all been storyboarded for years in advance. (*glances at comic collection*) OH.

  • This poster is not doing Forest Whitaker's lazy eye any favours

    Movie News | Ali Gray | 13th November 2013

    Honestly, it'd be like having a Christian Bale poster that plays up his eye wart. Oh, you didn't notice that yet? CANNOT UNSEE.

  • The Fifth Estate

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 10th October 2013

    You are the Fifth Estate, it says on the poster. That's right, you. Not me: I'm busy with other stuff, but I'll cover for you when you're on holiday if you like. What this means is that, in the digital age (*spits*), beyond the realm of the news media, all of us have a voice and so all of us are responsible for holding institutions and elected officials to account. Shit, and all we've been using it for is highlighting the fact that Russell Crowe has a wang on his hat.

  • Runner Runner

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 26th September 2013

    I was all ready to kick off my Runner Runner review with some killer gambling analogies: how it had an ace up its sleeve, or how the action left you flushed, or even that it was just a flop. However, to my consternation, I quickly realised there was no gambling analogy than could adequately describe something so utterly ordinary and unremarkable. In poker terms, Runner Runner is the player who wins an average stack of chips, bets moderately, cashes out even and leaves before the game gets interesting. If it were a poker hand, it would be a pair of sixes. Good luck getting excited over a pair of sixes.

  • Pain & Gain

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 27th August 2013

    In bringing to prominence the idea of the American Dream in his 1931 book Epic of America, James Truslow Adams wrote that it was "a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable". In doing so he likely didn't foresee that one day a film starring Marky Mark and The Rock would distort the notion with glorious excess, suggesting that it is a hollow hope when misinterpreted by the ignorant. Or that I would steal his quote from Wikipedia and pass it off as serious historical research.

  • Man On A Ledge

    Movie Review | Rob | 30th January 2012

    Go into this cold turkey and you could be forgiven for thinking Man On A Ledge is a contemporary commentary on the current state of the economy. Let's look at the evidence, shall we? It's set in New York, there are mentions of "this economy" followed by tutting, Ed Harris wears a sharp suit and smokes cigars like a boss (lit with $100 bills I hope ) and, oh, there's a bloke perched on a ledge threatening to throw himself off.