Samuel L. Jackson

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: Shaft (2019) is... what the hell did I just watch?

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 9th July 2019

    The danger with judging films based on what you want rather than what you get is you'll forever be on the lookout for things that don't agree with your blinkered view of the world. It's a slippery slope; one minute you'll be tapping furiously into Twitter trying to get Piers Morgan's attention, the next setting up a change.org petition with the vitriolic entitlement of a superhero movie manbaby. That said, they've somehow made a new Shaft film with the exact same comic inclination as an Adam Sandler movie, and while I'm happy the baddest badass motherfucker in town is back, I've never forced myself to sit through something so much in my entire life.

  • Review: Spider-Man: Far From Home but back to brilliant basics

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 28th June 2019

    The epic, end-of-times extravaganza of Endgame left us with many questions: Has the timeline now been irreparably changed? Who are the Avengers now? Where the fuck did Valkyrie suddenly get a flying horse? And also, how does the world adjust to half of its population now having a five-year age gap? What about all the parents that missed out on seeing their children grow up? All the spouses that remarried in that time? All those people that were snapped out of existence while on their way to return something to a shop, only to be brought back and find out that their receipt is now five years out of date? If those questions are going to be addressed at all, it isn’t happening with this first film out of the gate since the 'snapback'. No, this is just very much Spider-Man back to doing whatever a spider can.

  • Review: Captain Marvel is predictably great fun by numbers

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 5th March 2019

    It seems strange now to consider any new Marvel movie to be a risk. After 20 films, each amassing box office receipts equal to the size of entire national economies, surely a new instalment of the MCU can only ever be a sure thing at this stage? And yet, here we are, with a film that is about risky as Marvel gets now; not because this is its first female-fronted film (Wonder Woman has kapowed that glass ceiling already), but because we are dealing with a character most won’t know, with abilities that are supposed to be more powerful than anything we have ever seen before, played by a still relatively obscure lead actress. Oh and there’s that little thing of presenting her as the Endgame saviour of the Infinity War. Have no doubt, Marvel is rolling the dice here, even if they are safely loaded.

  • 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!

  • Review: Glass is a fragile follow-up with wasted promise

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 17th January 2019

    No one knows the importance of a good ending like M. Night Shyamalan. He has built his entire career on them. He knows that many film flaws can be forgiven along the way if, right before the credits roll, he can suddenly wow an audience so that they leave only talking about that ending. It’s a circus approach to storytelling, saving the big top narrative stunt for the final act, but it works. In the case of Split - an otherwise divisive film - it worked so well that the ending itself manifested a whole sequel. But no one should be in any doubt that it’s a cheat. A big last-minute reveal teasing a forthcoming crossover might be an original way to have a shock twist, but it doesn’t automatically make for a good ending to what came before it. Just as it doesn’t automatically make for a good beginning for what comes next.

  • Incredibles 2

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 9th July 2018

    With more than a decade between Toy Stories or Finding Fish Characters, Pixar’s recent run of belated sequels is clearly part of a canny business plan rather than a sign of creative exhaustion, because these franchise returns do the job of appealing to both the original fans and a whole new generation of toy-demanders. If this has always been the strategy though, Incredibles 2 takes home the trophy for longest audience payoff of all time. Because, with the original film invoking everyone’s childhood fantasies of wanting to be superpowered, this sequel - delivered 14 years later - teaches those of us that have become parents in the meantime that our wish has been fulfilled: we now are heroes.

  • The Hitman's Bodyguard

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 16th August 2017

    After years of us all running hot and cold on Ryan Reynolds ("Van Wilder yay! Green Lantern boo! The Proposal yay! Shut up. Er… Green Lantern boo!"), it’s great that the success of Deadpool has now finally shown us once and for all that he is an unquestionably talented comic genius. Now that this has been established, we can look forward to many, many films of Reynolds’ "What the fuck?!"-ing and "I know, right?"-ing in every cinema for several decades to come, safe in the knowledge that this is definitely what makes for a good, quality movie. 

  • Kong: Skull Island

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 11th March 2017

    There will surely be a time soon when the film industry decides that monster movies just aren't a good fit for modern cinema audiences. That we have developed a more sophisticated taste for storytelling and an appreciation for nuance, and that therein lies a problem for films that are essentially about giant rage-beasts smashing things up with their clumsy hoof-paws. Luckily, that time hasn't come yet and until it does we still have opportunities like this one to enjoy creature features that are as big, dumb and ridiculous as whatever enormous idiot monkey is causing all the destruction in the first place. That's right, this film is a gigantic fun monster - a stupidly thrilling buffoon baboon of a movie - and we shouldn't want it any other way.

  • The Hateful Eight

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 8th January 2016

    Tarantino movies are primarily known for two things: long, wordy dialogue and extreme, bloody violence. However, the difference in this new drawling epic, is that the two are kept almost entirely separate, with viewers forced to sit for over 90 minutes of bum-numbing scenery-chewing before a first shot is even fired. Still, pacing issues don’t exist in a Tarantino film, do they? Not when every smug, showy word is delivered with all the prestige of a gift-wrapped masterclass in filmmaking, complete with nods to classic films, winks to the audience and middle fingers to the fainthearted. Throw in some cool music, offbeat humour, iconic character moments and some controversial racist themes, and this film delivers everything you expect - and want - from a Tarantino movie. It is quintessential Quentin. It's Quentinssential.

  • Avengers: Age Of Ultron

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 21st April 2015

    For how much longer can superhero films rule the box office? Everyone's waiting for comic-book movies to implode, and while it probably won't happen with one disastrous misfire that has a big Comic Sans 'Ker-dunk!' hanging overhead, this second Avengers assembly would seem like the logical start of a more gradual decline. After all, genre fatigue is already setting in, and The Avengers' USP - superhero all-stars teaming up for one mega-big movie - is no longer a fresh, never-before-seen idea. Just in terms of living up to the sheer excitement levels of its predecessors, Avengers: Age Of Ultron would already seem like a failure.