Reviews by Andrew Robertson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Erotos (2013)

  Review preview for Erotos

  Montaldo has to some extent revealed the horror of the body as a thing itself.

  A couple has a sexual encounter in a car.
• 
  Europa (2012)

  Review preview for Europa

  The sound is amazing.

  A vision of Europe's urban landscapes.
• 
  Evan Almighty (2007)

  Review preview for Evan Almighty

  Despite all the hard work by the special-effects teams, this is lazy film-making.

  A US congressman is ordered by God to build an ark in preparation for a great flood. Out to own on DVD from November 26.
• 
  Everything Or Nothing: The Untold Story Of 007 (2012)

  Review preview for Everything Or Nothing: The Untold Story Of 007

  While clearly aimed at fans of Bond, there's a lot to sell this to those who are unfamiliar to the franchise.

  A documentary about the history of James Bond films.
• 
  Exchange And Mart (2014)

  Review preview for Exchange And Mart

  Directors Martin Clark and Cara Connolly have an eye for detail.

  A girl boarding at a remote highland school undertakes a challenging self-defence test, but things don't go according to plan.
• 
  The External World (2010)

  Review preview for The External World

  It's well executed, voiced, a sitcom segment has the hollow laughter of canned audiences down pat, but its targets are soft, safe, staid.

  An animated short about a boy learning to play the piano and to express himself in new ways.
• 
  A Family Portrait (2009)

  Review preview for A Family Portrait

  Ingenious, convincing, and powerful.

  A family portrait session reveals underlying jealousies.
• 
  Fawn (2007)

  Review preview for Fawn

  It could be worse. It may yet be.

  From contours and shadows, the indistinct impression of a girl emerges from faint images that bode ill.
• 
  F1: The Movie (2025)

  Review preview for F1: The Movie

  Seated in the front-row of the cinema, it's hard not to lean into corners. Once you're committed to that the rest follows.

  A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.
• 
  Fable Of The Fish (2011)

  Review preview for Fable Of The Fish

  At the end of it one sits, dumbfounded.

  The mythic tale of a woman who gives birth to a fish.
• 
  Faceless (2021)

  Review preview for Faceless

  The two basic tenets of documentary - find something interesting, tell its story in an interesting way. Faceless absolutely achieves the former, to the point that it starts to highlight its difficulties in the latter.

  Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors forge political community through anonymity.
• 
  Fake Tattoos (2017)

  Review preview for Fake Tattoos

  In an age where punk aesthetics are sufficiently mainstream that corporate monoliths like McDonalds seek to leverage them to sell chicken wraps, its modesty, modernity, magic work to its advantage.

  A young punk couple's one-night stand develops into something more meaningful.
• 
  The Fall (2006)

  Review preview for The Fall

  To see it on any screen other than the biggest you can is to do yourself a disservice, and to miss it is to miss a masterpiece.

  Tarsem Singh's visually opulent fantasy epic borrowing the narrative device of The Princess Bride to widen and scorch the eyes.
• 
  The Fall Guy (2024)

  Review preview for The Fall Guy

  Film is an assemblage, a team effort, and in foregrounding the unsung The Fall Guy gets its mix wrong.

  A battle-scarred stuntman, is drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget studio movie - directed by his ex - goes missing.
• 
  The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

  Review preview for The Fantastic Four: First Steps

  This is not just the best of the filmed Fantastic Fours but top drawer MCU, a film that entertained me as a thing itself, as a comics connoisseur, as someone who's done their Marvel miles.

  Forced to balance their roles as heroes with the strength of their family bond, the Fantastic Four must defend Earth from a ravenous space god called Galactus and his enigmatic Herald, Silver Surfer.
• 
  Far From The Tree (2021)

  Review preview for Far From The Tree

  Drawn in a beautiful style that recalls older Disney hand-drawings.

  Curiosity gets the better of a young raccoon whose frustrated parent attempts to keep them both safe.
• 
  Fatal Danger (2010)

  Review preview for Fatal Danger

  A good evocation of genre, long enough for us to pick up the cues, raise a smile, and then gone.

  A kitten dreams itself into an action movie.
• 
  Father Stu (2022)

  Review preview for Father Stu

  This is an oddity, a curiosity, a mystery not so much in the sense of a religious play but in its intent.

  The story of a boxer-turned-priest who inspired countless people during his journey from self-destruction to redemption.
• 
  Fear Of Flying (2012)

  Review preview for Fear Of Flying

  A charming bit of stop-motion and well worth seeking out.

  A bird with a fear of flying dreads the forthcoming winter migration.
• 
  Field Notes On Love (2020)

  Review preview for Field Notes On Love

  It's in the messy business of definition that the film starts to explore where things end and things begin.

  Essay about a filmmaker in a relationship with a woodland ecologist.
• 
  Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025)

  Review preview for Final Destination: Bloodlines

  On the big screen Bloodlines was close to an amusement park ride, the steady click of anticipation paired with the knowledge of the impending drop. On small screens that sense of fun will be preserved, though perhaps not as immersively.

  Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.
• 
  Fireflies (2021)

  Review preview for Fireflies

  Fireflies is abstract, potentially uncomfortable, even intermittently visceral.

  One night, when the city of Rio de Janeiro was asleep, the flora and fauna took over Flamengo's Park.
• 
  First Man (2018)

  Review preview for First Man

  This is a story about grief and loneliness here masquerading as one about rockets.

  Biopic of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon.
• 
  The First Slam Dunk (2022)

  Review preview for The First Slam Dunk

  The basketball sequences grab the eye as firmly as the players grasp the ball.

  Hanamichi Sakuragi is a delinquent with a long history of getting dumped by girls. After enrolling in Shohoku High School, Hanamichi becomes interested in a girl named Haruko who loves the game of basketball.
• 
  First Step Swim (2021)

  Review preview for First Step Swim

  Caitlin McMullan's film is a delight.

  Delving into deep water, a disabled woman finds a sense of wholeness.
• 
  The Five Devils (2022)

  Review preview for The Five Devils

  While it's a road well-travelled, here it's a road travelled well.

  Eight-year-old Vicky possesses a special power: a hyperacute sense of smell. She spends her days exploring this gift, and lives happily with her mother Joanne, a swimming teacher whom she adores exclusively - to the despair of her firefighter father. When her mysterious aunt Julia suddenly reappears in their lives, secrets from their past resurface both violently and magically.
• 
  Five Families (2019)

  Review preview for Five Families

  There's a certain flavour here, well executed.

  A semi-retired associate of the Jewish mafia in Los Angeles tries to save his young grandson from a life of crime as three corrupt cops crack down on local criminals
• 
  Flammable Children (Swinging Safari) (2018)

  Review preview for Flammable Children (Swinging Safari)

  While it's got some sections that are striking, it's a swing and a miss.

  Story of teens in a Seventies beach resort that hits the headlines when a whale washes ashore, and their eccentric parents.
• 
  The Flash (2023)

  Review preview for The Flash

  I have to give credit for The Flash understanding it is derivative, repetitive, even repeating elements of its opening for comic effect.

  Barry Allen uses his super speed to change the past, but his attempt to save his family creates a world without super heroes, forcing him to race for his life in order to save the future.
• 
  Flight Risk (2025)

  Review preview for Flight Risk

  It feels like a mid-season episode of one of the interminable slew of acronym-based law enforcement shows.

  A pilot transports an air marshal accompanying a fugitive to trial. As they cross the Alaskan wilderness, tensions soar and trust is tested, as not everyone on board is who they seem.
• 
  The Flood (2019)

  Review preview for The Flood

  This is often made of smaller moments, questions, answers, the unasked, the unsaid.

  A hardened immigration officer decides the fate of a potentially dangerous asylum seeker.
• 
  The Flying Sailor (2022)

  Review preview for The Flying Sailor

  A life might flash before eyes before us, but it's a thing constructed.

  A sailor's life flashes before him after an explosion.
• 
  Fly High (2023)

  Review preview for Fly High

  A thing itself to wonder at.

  In a modern metropolitan city, amidst tall skyscrapers and busy streets, the unexpected sight of a man flying undisturbed in the sky disrupts the busy coming and going of people.
• 
  Fly Me To The Moon (2024)

  Review preview for Fly Me To The Moon

  For all its star-power there's not much shining.

  Marketing maven Kelly Jones wreaks havoc on NASA launch director Cole Davis's already difficult task. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, the countdown truly begins.
• 
  Food (2011)

  Review preview for Food

  Not so much leftovers reheated as new twists on old classics.

  With sustenance running short, people start to look around for new things to eat.
• 
  Foreign John (2009)

  Review preview for Foreign John

  Director Victor Buhler works well with what, on the face of it, is a minor story.

  A hardworking builder bonds with his foreman's daughter.
• 
  For Those In Peril (2013)

  Review preview for For Those In Peril

  Falls just shy of a state of perfection.

  The lone survivor of a shipwreck, blamed for it for superstitious reasons, refuses to believe his fellow sailors are dead and sets out to find them.
• 
  A Fox In The Night (2022)

  Review preview for A Fox In The Night

  Isabel-Olsini Edwards' production design might not seem more than bottles and floors but all of them tell a story as heavy with implication as mention of rugby or kerbs.

  A South London story in which opposites attract, appearances deceive and bravery reaps rewards.
• 
  Frankenstein (2025)

  Review preview for Frankenstein

  There is a magnetism to it all.

  A brilliant but egotistical scientist brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation
• 
  Free Guy (2021)

  Review preview for Free Guy

  It's entertaining, no doubt.

  A bank teller discovers that he's actually an NPC inside a brutal, open world video game.
• 
  The French Dispatch (2021)

  Review preview for The French Dispatch

  It all has a very particular flavour. Even a new one.

  A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th Century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in the French Dispatch magazine.
• 
  Frontier Blues (2009)

  Review preview for Frontier Blues

  Not outright farce, too naturalistic to mug, but observational, behavioural comedy requires that we be looking from the same perspective.

  Four Iranian men and a donkey struggle with life's complexities.
• 
  Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

  Review preview for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

  You've seen it all before, but that's its strength. That cranked footage, those desperate eyes, the obscuring sand.

  Prequel about the young Furiosa, who is snatched by a biker gang.
• 
  Furnace Four (2009)

  Review preview for Furnace Four

  This is one of those dystopian fables that affirms the human spirit.

  Two furnace stokers are supposed to be burning all the music in the world. But some things just won't burn.
• 
  Further And Further Away (2021)

  Review preview for Further And Further Away

  Vincent Villa's sound means we can hear the water even when we cannot see it, feel it when we can do both.

  A young Indigenous Bunong woman and her brother spend one last day in their village, before moving to the capital in search of a more prosperous life.
• 
  The Future Is Behind You (2004)

  Review preview for The Future Is Behind You

  While technically accomplished, it's well-trodden territory, and there's a certain familiarity to it all.

  Found footage is used in a fictional story exploring the development of gender identity. Part two of The Suburban Trilogy.
• 
  Fini (2010)

  Review preview for Fini

  A nice little piece, characterful if not compelling.

  An elderly man whose short term memory has been eroded by Alzheimer's disease goes on a series of adventures in the course of one dark night.
• 
  Fire (2007)

  Review preview for Fire

  A delightful film.

  The original oblivious firestarter.
• 
  Fire In The Eye (2007)

  Review preview for Fire In The Eye

  In the monochrome strobing there may be some challenge beyond the ability to endure tedium, but it is well hidden.

  Lightning strikes and misses the mark.
• 
  First Cousin Once Removed (2012)

  Review preview for First Cousin Once Removed

  There is talk of his reaching a "transcendent place of nothingness", but this is not tranquil, this fading - it is distressing, discomfiting.

  Chronicle of poet Edward Honig's loss of memory.