Sally Hawkins

News, Reviews & Features

Review: Godzilla: King Of The Monsters is a dreary mess of titanic proportions

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 29th May 2019

To all those that said Gareth Edwards' Godzilla was a bore, or that it was slow, or that it took too long to reveal the beast himself, this one's on you, because this new monster mêlée follow-up is a megatomic nuke to the senses. It's a relentless shit-storm of mayhem and bullshit that attempts spectacle but delivers shaky-cam confusion and exhausted clichés for optimum headaches and head-shakes. It's a slog, an onslaught of expensive oblivion and a brain-fouling juggernaut of chaos. Although, I realise some of you may actively want all of this from your giant monster stories.

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Maudie

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 1st August 2017

Since Maudie is a film whose hat hangs largely on its two main performances, and since the critics on the posters are starting to talk about Oscars for them, let's have a word about performances and whether there's any value in qualifying them.

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Godzilla

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 12th May 2014

Godzilla is the kind of excellent monster movie you can only make when you've already seen someone else make it exactly wrong as your reference. Though director Gareth Edwards first movie, the fittingly titled Monsters, was a stunning debut, Roland Emmerich's ill-advised 1998 Godzilla remake acts as Edwards' training wheels – a clear guide on what not to do. Where Emmerich favoured levity, Edwards favours atmosphere; where Emmerich keeps it local, Edwards goes global; Emmerich's disowned creature became officially known as 'Zilla'; Edwards' king of monsters is quickly labelled "a God". And rightly so, because this Godzilla stands tall in the modern pantheon of monster movies: a no-nonsense beast from beyond that makes his 90s counterpart look like a bogey with legs.

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Blue Jasmine

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 27th September 2013

Never seen a Woody Allen film before. You'd think one might have been on while I was in the same room at some point over the last 34 years, but no: never. People don't half talk a lot in them, it turns out. Not that I've anything against that, it's just I'm mainly used to things where people shoot each other in the knees rather than sit around running their mouths the whole time. Meh, maybe it'll catch on.

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Submarine

Movie Review | Ali | 14th March 2011

Though I don't agree with the relentless tub-thumping that occurs in the UK press every time a half-decent British film is released - as if it's mandatory that you HAVE to get behind it because it's BRITISH and THE KING'S SPEECH - it's nonetheless a very welcome surprise when a British filmmaker releases a genuine gem.

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Never Let Me Go

Movie Review | Anna | 12th February 2011

It's difficult to know where you stand with Never Let Me Go. It's dystopian sci-fi, yet it's set in the recent past, not the future. There's a timeless quality to the film: it could just as easily be the 1960s as the '80s or '90s - how many sci-fi films are there where the protagonists look like they've tumbled out of a 2-for-1 jumper sale at Oxfam? - but at the same time, it taps into something very contemporary. It contains by no means a far-fetched concept; the technology and knowledge exist to make what happens in this movie a reality. At some point the ethical barrier holding us back will crumble, and then what?

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Made In Dagenham

Movie Review | Oli | 25th October 2010

Call it 'faction', call it 'docudrama'... call it what you will, but cinema is currently full of dramatic recreations of meaningful moments of history (and it'll only become fuller in the run up to the Oscars). Director Nigel Cole is on home turf in this forum, after finding prominence helming Calendar Girls in 2003; like riding a bike, he shows the skills employed to direct in this genre cannot be forgotten.

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