Scarlett Johansson

News, Reviews & Features
  • The Jungle Book

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 15th April 2016

    Will they... will they be singing? The 1967 classic animation is so embedded in the public consciousness that it's difficult to know what to expect from this live-action retelling. What will the life-like animals look like when they talk? Will Mowgli look just like cartoon Mowgli? Will Baloo at any point wear coconut shells and a hula skirt? And what of the songs? Those legendary earworms so infectious that it's going to be hard not to resort to punning references throughout this entire review? Thankfully, Jon Favreau delivers a film that is just as wonderful and captivating as that original classic, and he does so by concentrating on the bare n-... the basics. He concentrates on the basics.

  • 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.

  • Lucy

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 14th August 2014

    In an increasingly formulaic industry, it's rarer now than ever to experience that most simple of pleasures: a movie you can't predict. Lucy is a bizarre mish-mash of ideas - Besson himself says the first third is Leon: The Professional, the middle section is Inception and the final act is 2001: A Space Odyssey - and it gels about as well as you'd expect. It's frustrating in its execution and bafflingly vague where it matters. But, but: just try to second guess it. Even if it falls short in almost every department, Lucy is a fascinating anti-blockbuster that delights in its deficiencies - even the anti-climactic ending is a thrill, just because it's different.

  • Five other Marvel spin-offs in which the most interesting person just left

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 19th May 2014

    In Marvel's Agent Carter, announced last week as a star vehicle for the quite splendid Hayley Atwell, Peggy Carter must "balance doing administrative work and going on secret missions for Howard Stark all while trying to navigate life as a single woman in America, in the wake of losing the love of her life - Steve Rogers". You've got to hand it to them: they're confident enough that we're on board with their 14 movies a year that they'll try a TV series where the most interesting person has just nipped out to the shops. Here's five more they've got in the pipeline.

  • 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.

  • Mini-interview: Mica Levi, composer for Under The Skin

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 11th March 2014

    One of the myriad reasons Jonathan Glazer's Under The Skin is terrifying is composer Mica Levi, the English singer-songwriter tasked with creating a seriously messed up soundscape for Scarlett Johansson to hunt in. Because I'm one seriously connected cool dude (LOL j/k), I scored an exclusive mini-interview with Mica through a friend of a friend. Then about a week later I got a press release from the film's distributors offering a Mica Levi interview to everyone. Still. I got there first. So there.

  • Under The Skin

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 10th March 2014

    There are plenty of films that scare you. There are few that leave lasting damage. Under The Skin does not bear its title lightly: it is a film that's so profoundly distressing, it disturbs on a genetic level. On the surface, it is about a female alien interloper looking to harvest the bodies of single men for reasons too ungodly to explain. But burrow deeper and you'll see that Under The Skin is a catalogue of your worst fears: fear of intimacy, fear of nature, fear of being chased, fear of being violated, fear of being outcast. Jonathan Glazer's third film explores the concept of death more intimately than I would have cared for; it's a nightmarish vision that I imagine will haunt me to my grave. Frankly it makes 'Windowlicker' look about as menacing as a Katy Perry video.

  • #LFF2013: Don Jon

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 21st October 2013

    Joseph Gordon-Levitt is impossible to dislike. The bastard. Attractive, talented, creative, industrious and brilliant at karaoke, he's the kind of self-made leading man who you actively will towards success – as opposed to all the no-talent shit-for-brain himbos for hire who I actively will towards homelessness. Gordon-Levitt's directorial debut Don Jon is certainly an accomplished and confident first film, but I can't help but think a lot of the praise it's receiving is directed at its star and not its screenplay – subtract all the personal goodwill that Gordon-Levitt has banked over the years and Don Jon remains a good film, just perhaps not a great one.

  • No wonder he looks smug

    Movie News | Luke | 5th August 2013



    New poster for Don Jon, which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a porn-addicted womaniser who has full sex with Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore. Written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (via IMPAwards)

  • Hitchcock

    Movie Review | Matt | 9th February 2013

    No one can deny that Psycho is one of the most groundbreaking, evocative horror movies ever made, so just think of the exciting story behind the business decisions involved in filming it. All that dramatic paperwork, all those engrossing lighting set-ups, the thrilling process of rewriting script drafts. And imagine that incredible, never-saw-it-coming twist ending when the movie definitely gets made.