Ian Mcshane

News, Reviews & Features

Review: John Wick: Chapter 3 is a war on the senses - and on the balls

Movie Review | Becky Suter | 17th May 2019

We all know there are six basic story types: the fall, the fall then rise, the rise then fall, the rise from nothing, mismatched buddy cops, and stop that wedding. The third installment of the John Wick franchise delivers a seventh - the fall then rise then kick you in the bollocks, go to Casablanca, rise, then literal fall. The film's subtitle, Parabellum, translates to "prepare for war" - in this case a war on limbs, vital bodily organs, and your ability to stomach extreme violence, so you can't say it didn't warn you.

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Review: Hellboy (2019) is... nope, already forgotten it

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 15th April 2019

In this social media driven age of bite-sized criticism and speedy reactions, opinions often get reduced to simplistic extremes. Fleabag is perfect. Bohemian Rhapsody is the worst. Paul Rudd is life. Liz Lemon is everything. Aquaman is honking bonkersness. Avengers: Age Of Ultron is the best film of the MCU. So it’s surprising when a film like Hellboy (2019) comes along and defies such snappy judgement. And it’s not because the film isn’t bad –it is, it's awful - but because it is neither entertainingly good nor entertainingly bad. It just plays out to dull, listless effect, utterly devoid of a single scintillating superlative that can be attributed to it. It’s a near-unremarkable, mostly forgettable, practically ineffectual film in almost every way. After first coming to the big screen 15 years ago to keep the theological peace, Hellboy has ended up confined to cinematic purgatory.

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Pottersville

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 28th December 2017

You think a Christmas movie where Michael Shannon is mistaken for Bigfoot sounds weird? You don’t know the half of it. And trust me, you don’t want to know the rest. Unless you do, in which case that’s cool, we’re all friends here. I’m being purposefully vague because, well you’ll see... Let’s just say the internet has a lot to answer for.

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Cuban Fury

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 16th February 2014

I am an impressionable idiot. Take me to a martial arts movie, I'll come out Kung Fu fighting. Take me to a spy thriller, I'll be eyeing everyone with suspicion in the car park. You don't want to know what I'll do after I see Nymphomaniac. Naturally then, Nick Frost's comedy Cuban Fury - a movie set in and around the world of salsa dancing and rumba rhythms - had me swaying my hips and sashaying down the Jubilee Line all the way home, where I suggested to my wife we take dancing lessons. Me! Someone whose one and only dance move was nicknamed 'The Ali Shuffle'! Cuban Fury may not have the long shelf life of Frost's Cornetto movies, but during that all-too-brief post-movie glow, it serves as a wonderful example of feelgood comedy done right.

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Jack The Giant Slayer

Movie Review | Rob | 22nd March 2013

Having grown up in a small, middle-class Conservative-voting Cambridgeshire village, I’ve seen enough poorly-acted productions of Jack and The Beanstalk to know when something isn’t quite right. And "Fe-fi-fo-fum, ask not whence the thunder comes" isn't quite right.

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Snow White And The Huntsman

Movie Review | Ali | 29th May 2012

What's this, you say? A film about Snow White? A movie in which Kristen Stewart has to choose between two dudes? A movie in which Charlize Theron behaves like a complete lunatic? A movie in which Chris Hemsworth is a swarthy yet heroic warrior? Please, continue! How delightfully original! There hasn't been a movie like this for years! Seriously! Shit you guys! My sarcasm button is stuck! It's making it sooo difficult to write this review with any modicum of professionalism! Ugh!

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Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Movie Review | Matt | 16th May 2011

Franchises don't usually recover well from a post-trilogy hiatus when coming back for a fourth instalment (I'm looking at you, Indy - and you McClane), but Pirates Of The Caribbean has the added obstacle that each previously released film got progressively worse anyway, ending on a bloated CGI mess of a finale. So has the studio learned its lesson and made a worthy reboot? Of course not – it's utter 'yarrr'se.

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Coraline

Movie Review | Ben | 7th May 2009

There's something deeply disturbing about button-eyes. Maybe it's the lack of reflection or emotion that leaves a certain 'deadness' about them. But if your Other Mother is more loving and attentive than your real mother, surely that's a good thing? Even if she has button eyes, right? Coraline (Fanning) is an adventurous but ...

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Death Race

Movie Review | Rob | 30th September 2008

It wouldn't be fair to compare this modernised carmageddon to the 1975 movie that bares the same name. Sure, the film shares the same basic premise and the occasional character name, but they're different animals. While Paul Bartel's '70s exploitation road movie had David Carradine and a young Sly Stallone hauling ass across Ame...

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