Scarlett Johansson

News, Reviews & Features

Review: Black Widow adds shades of grey to the most interesting Avenger

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 10th July 2021

People sure like to bitch about Marvel movies, huh? You've got the usual Film Twitter snobs, writing them off as "films for children". You've got the hard nerd right, who never met a female character they couldn't belittle. You've got the cinema purists, claiming they represent everything wrong with cinema and that Disney are sounding the death knell for the industry. We are now, what, 24 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (I'm not checking, I refuse to check) and it's never been easier to write a review of a Marvel movie - just reapply the same argument you did on the previous 23 films, file copy, commence smugness. People like to say the Marvel production line creates "cookie-cutter" movies, like that's somehow a bad thing. What, you don't like fucking cookies now? Enjoy your gluten-free artisanal crackers you tedious bores, because Black Widow is a triple-chocolate chunk cookie of a movie and it goes down real easy.

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Review: Marriage Story battles for the high ground but risks sanctimony

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 31st December 2019

Relationships are weird. You come to them as a pair of individuals, both trying to find common threads while maintaining individuality. Then you move in together and over time adjust to each other's idiosyncrasies, forming new habits based on a shared life, until one day you realise you're a completely different person. Later if you decide to wave goodbye to sleep for about fifteen years by having children it adds an adorable layer of walking on eggshells to proceedings. The only way to really make it work is to be totally open about your thoughts and feelings - keeping secrets is just asking for trouble - so if/when things fall apart and you're held to account for your part in the failure you get to gloat over that deceitful snake (just kidding, honey - L for Love!).

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Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 10th April 2019

We have two weeks to go until Avengers: Endgame brings about the end of an 11-year-long story arc and changes the MCU as we know it forever. So what better time to revisit an old Avengers movie from four years ago? That's right, we're back with another instalment of our less-than-semi-regular Marvel movie email discussion feature, which might even have been a better title than 'Marvel's Cine-CHATIC Universe'.

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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!

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Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: The Avengers (2012)

Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson, Luke Whiston | 7th December 2018

Guess who's been emailing again! That's right, we're back with our regular feature that I'm only just now realising we should have called 'We see you, MCU'. Hmm, maybe not actually. But a better title than the one we went with certainly does exist somewhere. Anyway, please enjoy the latest of our rambling chats that are pieced together during an editing process so painstaking, that this article is its own heroic assembly.

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Ghost In The Shell

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 1st April 2017

'The only colour that matters in Hollywood is green,' he typed, pleased with himself, attempting to clumsily sidestep the whitewashing controversy that surrounded the movie. Okay, fine. Is Ghost In The Shell racist? I am here today to spectacularly ignore that important issue, not because it's not worth addressing, but because the answer is 'Yes, but only as racist as most other movies', which is not exactly a good point on which to start a healthy and balanced debate. Let's just get on with the review, shall we? This is already in my top five worst opening paragraphs.

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Sing

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 24th January 2017

I can't tell you how long I have been waiting to take my two-year-old son on his first trip to the cinema. Well, actually, I suppose I can. It's been two years. Obviously. But that wait finally came to an end with this movie, one which I thought might be an appropriate introduction to the big screen for him because a) it's about singing cartoon characters, and b) it wasn't written by Seth Rogen. Of course, I was still fully prepared for failure. Expecting a toddler to stay still and quiet in a chair surrounded by strangers for nearly two hours? Surely impossible. And yet, that's exactly what he did, while fixated on the movie. So whatever I say in this review from now on, know that my son – easily closer in age to the target demographic than I – rates it 10 out of 10 choo-choo trains or whatever.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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