Reviews by Andrew Robertson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  1945 (2017)

  Review preview for 1945

  As stark as its empty landscapes, as measured as the tread of the strangers along the poplar avenue, as compelling as the panic that grows in the village ahead of them.

  A Hungarian village becomes a mirror for the failure of an entire society.
• 
  2000 Meters To Andriivka (2025)

  Review preview for 2000 Meters To Andriivka

  The smoke, the blasts, the spinning of ejecting shell casings, yells that become cries, the front-line as it becomes frantic.

  Amid the failing counteroffensive, a journalist follows a Ukrainian platoon on their mission to traverse one mile of heavily fortified forest and liberate a strategic village from Russian occupation. But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realise that this war may never end.
• 
  2040 (2019)

  Review preview for 2040

  This is a grand vision, grandly executed, and like the solutions it depicts it exists today.

  The intrepid creator of the documentary That Sugar Film sets off on another journey, this time to scour the world for solutions and measures to combat climate change.
• 
  2073 (2024)

  Review preview for 2073

  As much as 2073 mentions things, it digs no further.

  A futuristic docudrama lamenting the state of the world to come.
• 
  20 Feet From Stardom (2013)

  Review preview for 20 Feet From Stardom

  This is great stuff - a fantastic musical documentary.

  Backing singers tell their stories.
• 
  25km² (2011)

  Review preview for 25km²

  The film has a magnetic quality - it is allegedly based on a true story, but its whimsy and execution put it in the realms of 'man in the pub' and 'shaggy dog'.

  An alchemist draws on the power of lightning to create splendid jewels.
• 
  28 Years Later (2025)

  Review preview for 28 Years Later

  Alfie Williams is tremendous. In a cast that includes figures like Ralph Fiennes and Jodie Comer he more than holds his own.

  A group of survivors of the rage virus live on a small island. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors.
• 
  28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026)

  Review preview for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

  More than anything else it's Fiennes, manager of the marrow-hall, that makes The Bone Temple worth seeing.

  Another entry in the epidemic franchise. As a young man is inducted into a gang, a doctor makes a discovery that could change the world.
• 
  The 355 (2022)

  Review preview for The 355

  There is a solid certainty amongst its crosses and doubles and that's that it isn't very good.

  When a top-secret weapon falls into mercenary hands, a wild card CIA agent joins forces with three international agents on a lethal mission to retrieve it, while staying a step ahead of a mysterious woman who's tracking their every move.
• 
  3x1 (2008)

  Review preview for 3x1

  It's easy to be curious... but 3x1 gives nothing away.

  Views from a bridge.
• 
  3 Hours (2010)

  Review preview for 3 Hours

  The cast deliver good performances, but not enough for the burden they're expected to carry.

  Recreation of an incident in Iraq in which nine children were massacred by militants.
• 
  3 Logical Exits (2020)

  Review preview for 3 Logical Exits

  Both neat and strong.

  A sociological meditation on the different 'exits' that young Palestinians choose, in order to cope with life in the refugee camps.
• 
  489 Years (2016)

  Review preview for 489 Years

  The film makes good use of computer generated recreations of landscape to evoke wonder at nature and capture moments of genuine terror.

  A soldier's memories play over this animated tale of Korea's demilitarised zone.
• 
  4x4 (2019)

  Review preview for 4x4

  It's frantic at the fore, but contains some of the most accurate depiction of both boredom and resignation I can recall.

  A petty thief finds himself trapped in a hi-tech car he was boosting.
• 
  600 Miles (2015)

  Review preview for 600 Miles

  A brilliant piece of character driven desert noir.

  A federal agent is kidnapped while he is trying to track a weapons cartel.
• 
  7 Peaks (2012)

  Review preview for 7 Peaks

  While it's got culture (or at least poetry and sculpture), it's not long on meaning.

  Looking down from the mountains of Europe, can one gain an insight into its culture?
• 
  9 - 5 (2023)

  Review preview for 9 - 5

  Tonally awkward, deliciously so, a film full of textures.

  An inexperienced copywriter must face the pressures of work and the expectations of his surroundings, which have an increasing impact on his sex life.
• 
  Absolute Denial (2021)

  Review preview for Absolute Denial

  It's not that it's not clever, it's that it runs away with itself.

  Science fiction animation sees a programmer building a super computer off the grid runs into trouble as the AI he's created grows in strength.
• 
  Access All Areas (2017)

  Review preview for Access All Areas

  A cast of talented actors and a superabundance of musical acts and a genuine sense of fun.

  A group of British teenagers go on a road trip to an island music festival.
• 
  The Accountant (2016)

  Review preview for The Accountant

  The action sequences are alright, but The Accountant falls into the common superheroic trap (or trope) of confusing origin stories with character development.

  As a math savant uncooks the books for a new client, the Treasury Department closes in on his activities, and the body count starts to rise.
• 
  The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

  Review preview for The Adjustment Bureau

  There's a lot of good work here, decent performances from Blunt, Damon and Mackie, some gorgeous locations and some neat production design, but it doesn't quite work.

  When a man meets a beautiful woman for the second time, the plans the mysterious Adjustment Bureau have for his life go awry.
• 
  Adulthood (2008)

  Review preview for Adulthood

  Clarke has range and talent.

  The sequel to Kidulthood follows a young man on his first day out of prison.
• 
  Adult Life Skills (2016)

  Review preview for Adult Life Skills

  Charm' is just one of the words, and others like 'winsome' are right there - it manages this without ever feeling forced, without ever feeling twee - and that makes it a triumph.

  Anna is stuck: she’s approaching 30, living in her mother’s shed, and spending her time making movies with her thumbs. Her mom wants her to move out; she just wants to be left alone.
• 
  Aida (2021)

  Review preview for Aida

  The widescreen of Hanane Abi Khalil's camera manages an intimacy, one born of proximity.

  A woman decides to get married. What is her story?
• 
  Air (2023)

  Review preview for Air

  With another cast this would be an also ran, but Bateman, Tucker, Damon and Davis all put their backs into it.

  The story of of shoe salesman Sonny Vaccaro, and how he led Nike in its pursuit of the greatest athlete in the history of basketball: Michael Jordan.
• 
  Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2011)

  Review preview for Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

  Weiwei is such a fascinating subject that even a documentary that never seems to stray into the experimental is compelling, but white text on a black screen does not a revolution make.

  Renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has garnered international attention as much for his ambitious artwork as his political provocations and increasingly public clashes with the Chinese government.
• 
  Alice, Darling (2022)

  Review preview for Alice, Darling

  In its subtleties and strength it finds new ways to explore difficult ground.

  A young woman trapped in an abusive relationship becomes the unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends.
• 
  Alien: Romulus (2024)

  Review preview for Alien: Romulus

  In the opening sequence we're shown a relief carving of a xenomorph. Such a thing could be used as a mould, but the film is so intent on replication that it doesn't break it, or free.

  A group run into trouble while exploring a derelict space station.
• 
  All Movements Should Kill The Wind (2019)

  Review preview for All Movements Should Kill The Wind

  This is experimental documentary that seeps, sidles, creeps, cannot be washed off.

  Man shapes his environment, which shapes his brain.
• 
  All Of Your Stars Are But Dust On My Shoes (2021)

  Review preview for All Of Your Stars Are But Dust On My Shoes

  From the colonial to the occupying, this is wide ranging as an exploration of something fundamental to cinema.

  A sensorial meditation on how the public administration of light and darkness became an essential policing tool.
• 
  All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (2022)

  Review preview for All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

  The intimacies are staggering.

  The story of artist Nan Goldin and the downfall of the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical dynasty often blamed for the US opioid epidemic.
• 
  Alpha (2025)

  Review preview for Alpha

  Alpha exists in the intersection of the probable and the parable.

  Alpha, a troubled 13-year-old, lives with her single mother. Their world collapses the day she returns from school with a tattoo on her arm.
• 
  The Amateur (2025)

  Review preview for The Amateur

  As a spy story it's not great and as a revenge thriller it's not new and between them there's not much else to say.

  When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands.
• 
  Amerikatsi (2022)

  Review preview for Amerikatsi

  The physicality extends past harm to outright comedy.

  A refugee returning to Armenia after growing up in the US is arrested and sentenced to prison for wearing a tie. When an earthquake ruptures the prison wall, he begins to spy on the couple in the adjacent apartment, gradually forging a connection with a culture he knew nothing about.
• 
  Aamir (2017)

  Review preview for Aamir

  Asaad's performance is astonishing.

  A well meaning but thinly stretched British volunteer becomes the last hope for a young teenager alone in a refugee camp.
• 
  Anarchism At Two O'Clock (2023)

  Review preview for Anarchism At Two O'Clock

  There's real delicacy within the performances.

  In 1940s Spain, two young seamstress sisters have their lives changed during the Civil War. In resistance to the Franco dictatorship, the anarchists leave their house every day at two o'clock.
• 
  Angela (2018)

  Review preview for Angela

  As gentle and as enjoyable as a sunny afternoon in the park , but perhaps as ephemeral.

  A Cuban immigrant tries to find her place in New York City.
• 
  Anna And The Apocalypse (2017)

  Review preview for Anna And The Apocalypse

  Any film that has both a fight director and a dance choreographer is probably doing something right.

  When the zombie apocalypse hits the sleepy town of Little Haven - at Christmas - teenager Anna and her high school friends have to fight, sing and dance to survive, with the undead horde all around them.
• 
  Anora (2024)

  Review preview for Anora

  What isn't untrue is that Anora is brilliant.

  Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch.
• 
  Antlers (2021)

  Review preview for Antlers

  Variously Antlers lets what might have been subtext break the surface but in doing so undermines subtlety and overmines tapped out seams.

  In an isolated Oregon town, a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother become embroiled with her enigmatic student, whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature who came before them.
• 
  Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018)

  Review preview for Ant-Man And The Wasp

  Small of scale but big of heart, Ant-Man And The Wasp is a light and charming outing for a staggering film juggernaut.

  As Scott Lang balances being both a superhero and a father, Hope van Dyne and Dr. Hank Pym present an urgent new mission that finds Ant-Man fighting alongside The Wasp to uncover secrets from their past.
• 
  Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

  Review preview for Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania

  It's okay. Relentlessly okay. Non-stop, wall-to-wall okay.

  Scott Lang and Hope Van Dyne, along with Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne, explore the Quantum Realm, where they interact with strange creatures and embark on an adventure that goes beyond the limits of what they thought was possible.
• 
  An Acceptable Loss (2019)

  Review preview for An Acceptable Loss

  There's a story here, a good one, one built on three strong performances and some good supporting turns.

  A former top national security advisor, haunted by having signed off on a controversial military action that cost thousands of innocent lives, sets out to tell the truth
• 
  An Incredibly Elastic Man (2014)

  Review preview for An Incredibly Elastic Man

  Gorgeous to look at, and listen to.

  The animated tale of a man born without his own shape, who keeps being shaped by others.
• 
  An Irish Goodbye (2022)

  Review preview for An Irish Goodbye

  Despite a strong performance from Martin it feels a half-hearted black comedy, never quite finding its pitch.

  In rural Northern Ireland, a pair of estranged brothers reunite following their mother's untimely death.
• 
  The Apparition (2018)

  Review preview for The Apparition

  The greatest strength of The Apparation is how ably and confidently it projects not just uncertainty, but the nebulous possibility of it.

  A journalist investigates a woman's claims to have seen the Virgin Mary.
• 
  The Apprentice (2024)

  Review preview for The Apprentice

  It finds room for those who despise weakness, and are weaker for it, and is stronger because of it.

  A dive into the underbelly of the American empire. It charts a young Donald Trump’s ascent to power through a Faustian deal with the influential right-wing lawyer and political fixer Roy Cohn.
• 
  Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (2023)

  Review preview for Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom

  What I most noted the return of was not kings but pacing issues.

  Aquaman balances his duties as king and as a member of the Justice League, all while planning a wedding. Black Manta is on the hunt for Atlantean tech to help rebuild his armor. Orm plots to escape his Atlantean prison.
• 
  Argylle (2024)

  Review preview for Argylle

  Argylle isn't a delicate or even restrained construction, thread-bare and candy-coloured to the point that if it were underwear it'd be both crotchless and edible.

  A reclusive author who writes espionage novels about a secret agent and a global spy syndicate realises that the plot of the new book she's writing is starting to mirror real world events, in real time.
• 
  Ascension (2021)

  Review preview for Ascension

  From the first shot of a uniformed member of a cleaning team walking the tiled lip of a rooftop infinity pool this is the edge of image, the thing unseen.

  Documentary portrait of the "Chinese Dream" - a contemporary vision of a China that prioritises productivity and innovation above all