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Review: The House With A Clock In Its Walls is a fun waste of time

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 18th September 2018

Ugh. September. The worst month by some distance. Nothing good has ever happened in September. I checked history, which verified and confirmed: September is a dud. All the blockbusters are a distant memory, the big Christmas movies are too far away (see also: Christmas) and even the tiresome slog that is Oscar season has yet to get underway. That just leaves shitty geriaction movies where Denzel Washington kills people, horror movies that are too crap to save for Halloween and oddball movies that genuinely don't fit in anywhere else in the calendar. Mercifully, that last sub-genre occasionally yields surprising results, which is where The House With A Clock In Its Walls chimes in: it's not quite enough to salvage the September cesspool, but it is a fun kids' fantasy that does just about enough to distract you from the backslide into the arse end of the year.

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Thor: Ragnarok

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 19th October 2017

Thereâ€™s a lot that could be said about Taika Waititi being hired at this stage of the MCU. Is it a risk to give a giant special effects blockbuster property like Thor to a director known for off-kilter, low-budget comedies? Is it merely a cynical move in an attempt to mimic the quirkiness of the hugely successful Guardians Of The Galaxy films? Can a unique creative tone even shine through within the confines of the strict Marvel model? And does Waititiâ€™s brand of humour even translate to the big-budget world of EXCEPT IT TOTALLY FUCKING DOES AND YOU CAN FORGET ALL THESE THINGS BECAUSE THIS FILM IS SO MUCH FUN.

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The Monuments Men

Movie Review | Rob Young | 21st February 2014

Last summer I remember reading about George Clooney and Matt Damon playing basketball at a Cambridge council-run gym. They posed for photos, were called 'lovely people' by the manager and basically had a cracking time in south Cambridgeshire. And while in my neck of the woods, they shot scenes for The Monuments Men at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford: a joyful place I was often taken as a child by an over-eager father keen on Spitfires, but less keen on buying me an Airfix model of one.

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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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Hanna

Movie Review | Ali | 1st May 2011

Joe Wright must be secretly pissed that Mark Millar's Kick-Ass came along and pooped on his doorstep, because Hanna is a pretty hard sell, post Hit-Girl. Teenage assassin trained as a killing machine since birth? Unless your movie has Nicolas Cage dressed like Batman with a paedo-tache, you're fighting a losing battle from the start.

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Robin Hood

Movie Review | Rob | 15th May 2010

The first time Ridley Scott made a big budget, historical epic with Russell Crowe, it worked out really rather quite well. Scott tried again five years later, only this time he roped in Orlando Bloom. That didn't work out so well. The lesson there is, don't work with Orlando Bloom. Now it seems Scott has learnt his lesson and got his Gladiatorial mate back for another historical/fictional jaunt, but this time, with bows, arrows and a Yorkshire accent (or something like it).

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Ponyo

Movie Review | Darren | 18th February 2010

Spirited Away introduced a larger audience to the majestic works of Japanese anime genius Hayao Miyazaki, lifting the profile of the studio he founded, Studio Ghibli. Since then, the many magical yet ecologically conscious animated features within Miyazaki's impressive back catalogue - like Pom Poko and Nausicaa Valley Of The Wind - have been redistributed and are now readily available in high street stores.

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The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Movie Review | Andy | 6th February 2009

David Fincher + Brad Pitt = fantastic. That's pretty much a given; Fincher brings out the best in Pitt, who is cursed with the affliction of being an actually very good actor trapped in a pretty body (George Clooney being another example). The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is adapted from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald t...

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Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Movie Review | Ali | 21st May 2008

16 July, 1999. The queue for the cinema spills out into the car park. Crowds jostle with energy and a sense of adventure. The screen is packed to capacity, a quick glance revealing the audience to be a cross-section of both males and females, young and old. The lights go down to giggles at first and finally, respectfully, an awe...

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Babel

Movie Review | Dave | 22nd February 2007

So here we are. Oscar season is with us again. Time for actors everywhere to dust down their 'ugly' make-up, brush up on their period accents and unleash films about gay midgets in 1940's Warsaw on unsuspecting audiences. The latest effort from 21 Grams and Amores Perros helmer Alejandro González Iñárritu has some of the t...

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