Rebecca Ferguson

News, Reviews & Features

Review: Doctor Sleep feels like a lot of work for very little play

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 11th November 2019

There’s a lot to be said about the context surrounding Doctor Sleep. About the impossibly high benchmark set by The Shining, about the challenge of reconciling Stephen King’s vision and Stanley Kubrick’s execution, and about choosing which source material to honour most. But honestly, ignoring all of that for now, my biggest takeaway from this film is... fuck, it spends a lot of time driving in a car. Every pre-set-piece scene is spent hauling across road for hours and every post-sequence respite is spent hauling back again, usually at night-time, usually while someone is asleep in the passenger seat. I have spent more time in cars while watching this film than I have on actual road trips. It seems Danny Torrance simply swapped one purgatory for another. Come drive with him. Forever... and ever... and ever...

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Discussion: Impossible - Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

Movie Feature | Ali Gray, Matt Looker, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson | 9th August 2018

Timed perfectly to coincide with Fallout's three week anniversary, here is our fifth and final Mission: Impossible catch-up, for Chris McQuarrie's Rogue Nation. Thanks for Reading: Impossible!

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Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 17th July 2018

Forget the rubber masks and the death-defying stunts: the Mission: Impossible movies' true gimmick is its insistence on hiring a different director for each outing, building a franchise that feels fresh and flavourful with every new installment. Fallout, however, is unique in that it marks the return of Rogue Nation director Chris McQuarrie, the first man to have a second go on Ethan Hunt. The results speak for themselves: what the series' first true sequel trades off in originality, it more than makes up for in dramatic tension and sky high stakes. Rooted deep within the franchise and connecting back to every other M:I movie, Fallout still feels uncomplicated and unbothered by baggage collected over 22 years. It's the most effective execution of the Mission: Impossible formula so far - a heady mix of humour, action and adventure, distilled to its purest form.

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The Snowman

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 12th October 2017

Murder mysteries exist in a weird sort of critical stasis while you're watching them, because any story that hinges on an explosive final act reveal floats in limbo until it has shown its hand. Such a reveal - a surprise identity, a killer motive, a shock twist - may cause you to reassess everything you've already seen. The best films of the genre do just that: they cleverly subvert what you think you saw, fill in plot gaps you didn't know were there and, like a smug serial killer, flaunt the fact that they've been one step ahead of you the whole time. Yeah, The Snowman does not do any of that. You watch attentively and wait patiently and cross your legs and twiddle your thumbs but come the crushingly disappointing final act, the only dawning realisation you have is this: The Snowman is a bad movie and it turns out it had been all along. Twist!

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The Girl On The Train

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 7th October 2016

Here's Emily Blunt on the Girl on the Train poster, looking suspiciously like she has more make-up on than she does in the actual film (again). She's very much the best thing about it, but still: if there's one genre for which I have a soft spot, it's the serviceable but unexceptional thriller.

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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 24th July 2015

Mission: Impossible is the only movie series that's got the measure of franchise fatigue. Some elements remain omnipresent - the star, the stunts, the self-destruction - but with each new M:I instalment helmed by a new director bringing a fresh flavour, it has Bond beat in terms of shelf-life. Rogue Nation, however, is the first entry in the franchise to play it relatively safe, offering a slick and entertaining adventure but one that doesn't feel different enough from Ghost Protocol - perhaps inevitably, given its predecessor's lofty ambitions, Rogue Nation couldn't ever hope to hit the same heights.

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