Our latest movie reviews

Sex sells. So you can’t go wrong with a film about sexy-time, right? Believe us, there are lots of heavy moaning, masturbating men and dirty positions in Rubbers. But unfortunately, the movie chaffs more than it pleases. Set on Valentine’s Day, the three short tales that comprise the movie – Nightmare, Balloons and The Plumber – are spliced together and abruptly cut from one to the next. Perhaps it would’ve been better to let each one shine on its own, without the arthouse acrobatics. Nightmare, true to its name, is the most jarring and out of place. Adam (Tay), a womaniser and condom-hating Casanova, is made an example of when a playful warning turns into a freakish hallucination ending with his private bits getting hacked off. In contrast, Balloons tells a bittersweet tale of longtime married couple, Ah Hua (Sng) and Ah Niu (Chin). Teetering on the edge of divorce after years of Ah Niu’s philandering ways, they both begin to recall the days of old when their love was young and unscathed. Ah, nostalgia. The highlight performance comes from Yeo Yann Yann, who throws all inhibition to the wind in her portrayal of the lonely Baoling in The Plumber. Egged on by a talking durian-flavoured condom (yes, we were kind of weirded out, too), she attempts to seduce a plumber to hilarious effect. This scene is a fitting example of the type of Singaporean humour employed in Rubbers: slapstick and on-the-nose, with cringe-worthy antics plucked straight out of MediaCorp’s joke archives....

It’s forgivable to wince a little when you hear that a British sitcom is getting a movie spin-off. Whether you’re flashing way back to the risible likes of On the Buses and Are You Being Served?, or thinking more recently of the okay-not-so-bad Alan Partridge or The Inbetweeners, it’s hardly the gold-standard of big-screen comedy. So the bar is pretty low for Ghosts: The Possession of Button House, which rejoins the BBC show’s daffy, bickering band of spectres (played by theatre collective Them There/Horrible Histories gang plus the brilliant Lolly Adefope), who are eternally stranded in a semi-rural mansion. Fortunately, the Ghosts movie floats comfortably over that bar by virtue of two crucial factors. Firstly, it has the exact same creative team (all of Them There, who co-write, plus director Simon Hynd) and as such faithfully imbibes the original series’ alcohol-free cocktail of cosy-comedy charm, cheeky edginess, political/social commentary, winking risqué-ness and light-touch sentimentality. While there aren’t really any big laughs, it maintains a steady flow of pleasantly gentle chuckles, right up to the moment when you realise you’re shedding a tear or two because, damn their eyes, you really do love these silly characters.  A delightful, Ealing-esque caper with added body-swap shenanigans Secondly, the movie manages to avoid the ‘extended episode’ pit-trap by inventively progressing the ‘sit’ of the com and expanding its narrative horizons, without resorting to...

The first shot of 7 Miles Out – of a black-and-white terraced house in Stockport – suggests we are about to see a weepy tale of provincial working-class hardship. Then the music kicks in. Riotously atmospheric hits from post-punk Manchester are the soundtrack to Carol Morley’s coming-of-age drama, which cloaks its musical outbursts in a diffuse haze of desaturated colours that create a nostalgic, dreamlike aesthetic. Morley may ditch the black and white two seconds in, but there is plenty of sadness in this story, which is based on her own semi-autobiographical novel. Spanning three stages of Ann’s adolescence (played as a child by Amelie Hughes and as a teenager by Lucy Halliday), the film begins with the promise of middle-class life, symbolised by a new job in Manchester for Ann’s dad, Ronald (Aidan Gillen), and the car that comes with it. But this reverie is soon shattered when a traumatic event destabilises Ann’s life, her childhood idealism giving way to the self-destructive behaviour of her teenage years.  Riotously atmospheric hits soundtrack Morley’s coming-of-age drama As in her wider filmography, Morley is interested in what makes a person who they are. This time, it’s herself. 7 Miles Out is the PG version of her story, already immortalised with gritty authenticity by her acclaimed documentary The Alcohol Years (2000). Here, she has instead opted for a refreshingly colourful, warm-hearted approach that dispatches its fair share of suicide, depression and...

If you’ve ever had impure thoughts about a basket – or simply wanted to date a man who asks you questions about your life – then the wonderful Wicker should get you all hot and bothered. Based on a 2008 short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, this fantasyland comedy-drama also might be the first time anyone has ever attempted to meld a bawdy 1970s sex comedy with Lord of the Rings.  As gender allegories go, Wicker’s premise might be sledgehammeringly obvious, but the execution is immaculate. Olivia Colman is resplendent as a nonchalant fisherwoman who commissions a basketmaker to weave her a husband. Played with creaky restraint by Alexander Skarsgård in a full body woven suit and facial prosthetics, it turns out that he’s a keeper. The handsome willow husband immediately outshines the local menfolk due to his gentle nature, willingness to help around the house and massive cock.  Feminism hasn’t yet arrived at this pleasingly grubby medieval-era village, where women are named only in relation to the men they associate with (the doctor’s daughter, the tailor’s wife and so on). Though every one of these men is absolutely bloody useless and none of the women are happy in their marriages, the fisherwoman is mocked for being single – as well as for stinking of the daily catch. Cue a quick visit to Peter Dinklage’s theatrical wood weaver, who, like Dr Frankenstein after a trip to Travis Perkins, delivers the goods in the form of an intricately woven hunk that looks like a cross...

Coming out more than three decades after the Jean-Claude Van Damme stinker Street Fighter, this all-kicking, all-punching action movie reboots the Capcom video game franchise with more positive results. Plotwise, Street Fighter sticks close to the heightened camp of its source material, opening with laughably expository but well-crafted anime flashbacks. Best mates Ken (Noah Centino) and Ryu (Andrew Koji) fight and train together in the ’90s, eventually falling out after the lazily-named World Warrior Tournament. Meanwhile, Interpol agent Chun Li (Callina Liang) is set on reuniting the duo to seek revenge from the tournament’s fascist, power-hungry organiser M. Bison (David Dastmalchian). Any semblance of a proper storyline stops here as it’s just one battle after another from here on. Director Kitao Sakurai zooms in on the character details, sticking to fighting styles and finishing styles of the games (‘Yoga fire!’ etc). But unlike this year’s dud Mortal Kombat II, Street Fighter extends its gaming influences with hypersaturated neon colours and a sense of silliness to deliver an entertaining, if somewhat exhausting gladiatorial tournament. Centino is a bratty, insecure Ken, coming across as ’90s Logan Paul. His frat-bro swagger is contrasts nicely with the Bruce Lee stylings of Koji, a dedicated martial artist in real life. Sakurai’s penchant for gross-out comedy (he previously directed Eric Andre’s Bad Trip) can be off-putting, from characters referring to Chun Li as a...

The studio behind Madagascar, How To Train Your Dragon and Shrek, DreamWorks Animation has an unerring knack for launching animated franchises that run… and run. But the studio’s latest effort is unlikely to add to that illustrious roster, flopping in the US despite straining every sinew to dazzle. There’s plenty to like in its punky mash-up of 3D and hand-drawn animation styles – the spirit of the Spider-Verse and the most recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies is writ large here – and the sweet story of two teenage besties fixing their fraying relationship on a fantastical island. And there’s a very rare and refreshing use of the Philippines as the setting for a big Hollywood movie. But this mythological adventure is an exhausting watch, a fantasy adventure paced like a panic attack. Filipino-American animator Januel Mercado and his co-writer/director Joel Crawford, the filmmaking pair behind Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, give us two BFFs who meet at their Manila high-school and bond over trips to the principal’s office, viewings of Predator and hangouts at the beach. They have their own catchphrase (‘Waboosh!!’) and friendship bracelets that will take on a powerful symbolism. Raissa (voiced by Liza Soberano) is the studious one, who dreams of moving to California for a career at Caltech; the punkier Jo (H.E.R.) is all imagination and impulse, upset that her friend is thinking of flying the nest. Jo’s kindly grandma, Lola (Dolly de Leon), tells them stories of...

Jasmine Jobson’s terrific depiction of British-Somali boxer Ramla Ali brings to life the struggle, resilience and determination of those who have crossed oceans and started over. Director Anthony Wonke’s dramatisation of her life, written by Ursula Rani Sarma, captures all patriarchal barriers and unhealed traumas that needed overcoming on her path to Olympic glory in 2021. As refugee Muslims from Somalia, Ramla’s family considers the honour and safety of its women non-negotiable. So her ambitions to box at the Olympics are haram and cannot be approved. She has to train in secret after work, all the while fighting her mother’s (Hodan Yusuf) persistent attempts at matchmaking her with Somali men. She meets and marries a white man (Peaky Blinders’ Finn Cole), who converts to Islam out of love for her – a string of choices the family is much less resistant to than Ramla’s athletic dreams.  But this resistance comes from a deep-seated fear around Ramla’s physical safety, with roots in an old death. Ramla lost one of her elder brothers as a child during the civil war in Somalia, which was immediately followed by their move to London. This unaddressed wound, which came to dictate all future concerns within the family, appears in recurring flashbacks. However, the frequency of the flashback feels superfluous and the film suffers from beating the point home too much. Jasmine Jobson is fiercely moving Jobson is fiercely moving, especially in her scenes with her hesitant mother and...

Based on a novel by Daniel Kraus, this bananas-sounding but sweatily effective survival thriller sees Resident Evil and Weapons’ disaster-magnet Austin Abrams facing his most luckless scenario yet: getting interned within the belly of a sperm whale. Replete with flesh-burning digestive juices and oozing gunk, it’s the kind of noxious environment that would put even HP Lovecraft off his dinner. And it’s a 4DX screening that only the truly bold will want to book in for.  Abrams is Jay Gardiner, a twentysomething Californian who has decamped to the Midwest, mainly to avoid his dad Mitt (Josh Brolin giving his best Nick Nolte), an alpha type who seems to love the ocean a lot more than his son. The movie opens with the terminally ill Mitt committing himself to the deep, off his favourite beach. But Jay, his mum (Elisabeth Shue) and older sisters (Jane Levy, Emily Rudd) won’t find peace without a body to bury. With something still to prove to his old man, the scuba-diving Jay tanks-up and slips beneath the waves to find him.  Accepting that no marine biologist is going to stand what happens next, director Brian Duffield (No One Will Save You) still manages to make the moment of truth convincing – with the help of some inky depths and a giant squid that the whale is pursuing. By the time Abrams’ panicking Jay wraps his head around his Jonah-esque predicament, the oxygen in his tank is already beginning to run out and the clock starts ticking. Claustrophobics are going to need a...

Brad Bird is one of the biggest names in animation, responsible for all-time classics like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille. In the early ’90s, before any of these films existed, Bird first imagined Ray Gunn. It’s taken more than 30 years for Bird’s passion project to become a reality. It was worth the wait. Ray Gunn throws us into a stunning retro-futuristic world of Metropia, full of impossibly sky-high buildings and flying cars, where aliens live alongside humans. Ray (Sam Rockwell) works as a private eye, specialising in ‘discreet investigations’ with his partner Eye-Ra (a brilliant Tom Waits, whose gravelly voice lends perfectly to his characters weariness). Despite Eyera’s warning that ‘we’re months away from being able to afford ethics’, Ray’s stringent moral code makes staying afloat in the city a challenge. That commitment to doing what’s right gives him a job that could change everything: protecting ultra-popular pop star Venus Nova (Scarlett Johansson). It’s a job that proves to be no small feat, especially as the bodies start piling up. Ray Gunn is a super satisfying gumshoe caper, moving along at breakneck pace. The characters, especially Eyera, are winsome. Ray makes a fun detective, Venus delivers a slick twist on the femme fatale, while the villainous Francis (Matt Berry) is like a combination of Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon and Jabba the Hutt. Bird’s sense of adventure is on display here, and his script (co-written with Matthew...

By turns inspiring and bleak, 14th uses a constitutional amendment to dissect the American experiment. Spoiler alert: things are not going great. But while it may seem as though the country is unraveling in real time, this upheaval is not, as it turns out, anything new. 14th does feel like a natural follow-up to 13th, DuVernay's 2016 documentary about how the 13th Amendment’s exception clause paved the way for mass incarceration. Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment was a cornerstone of post-Civil War reconstruction, guaranteeing birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law, and barring officials who engage in insurrection from holding office again. As DuVernay expertly illustrates, every one of those provisions is under pressure, at minimum, today.   DuVernay is clearly aware that the very notions of civics lessons and constitutional amendments are likely to put people to sleep. So she emphasises visual flair and narrative momentum, to keep her audience engaged as we're learning. It works: due credit to everybody on her graphics, archival, score, and soundtrack teams, who have juxtaposed past and present with considerable insight. 150 years of striking archival material shares the screen with biting comedy from the likes of George Carlin and Paul Mooney, backed by music from James Brown, Kendrick Lamar and even Fleetwood Mac. Rarely has a documentary felt so thoughtfully constructed. Her longtime editor, Spencer Averick, deserves extra praise...