Reviews by Angus Wolfe Murray

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Atomic Blonde (2017)

  Review preview for Atomic Blonde

  The pace squeezes your windpipe; the action pulverises your senses; the plot double crosses your preconception

  An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent.
• 
  The Emoji Movie (2017)

  Review preview for The Emoji Movie

  The brave new world of electronic dictatorship is not ready for this. There are no maps.

  Emojis live in a parallel universe inside a teenager's smart phone hoping to help out with his romantic messaging before marauding bots erase them
• 
  47 Meters Down (2017)

  Review preview for 47 Meters Down

  "I'm so scared we're going to die down here."

  Two sisters trapped in a shark cage and running out of oxygen have to fight to survive.
• 
  Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017)

  Review preview for Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

  No synopsis can do justice to the sense of fun, or the ingenuity of the animation

  A head teacher is hypnotised by two naughty boys into becoming an unconvincing superhero.
• 
  Dunkirk (2017)

  Review preview for Dunkirk

  This is not just a war film. It is an artistic triumph.

  Dramatic rescue of British soldiers, trapped on the beaches in France, at a critical moment in WWII.
• 
  Cars 3 (2017)

  Review preview for Cars 3

  It has a kick in its heel and a nice surprise at the end

  Will Lightning McQueen retain pole position as the young bloods race to take him down? Has new technology made the old hometown garage a sentimental memory?
• 
  It Comes At Night (2017)

  Review preview for It Comes At Night

  The fascination of the film is the atmosphere created and the danger that fills every living minute

  Three people struggling to survive in a post apocalyptic forest find themselves severely tested when a young family seeks refuge with them.
• 
  All Eyez On Me (2017)

  Review preview for All Eyez On Me

  Messy, unstructured and deeply disappointing

  Biopic of the late rapper, actor, poet and activist Tupac Shakur.
• 
  Baby Driver (2017)

  Review preview for Baby Driver

  This is not a serious film, rather a parody. Every attribute of style over content is here

  His name is Baby and he’s a young and exceptionally talented getaway driver for a criminal gang. Pedal to the metal, music cranked up on his headphones, and flashing lights in the rear-view mirror. Just one last job and Baby can make a fresh start.
• 
  The Book Of Henry (2017)

  Review preview for The Book Of Henry

  As an original idea from left field it lacks the courage of its convictions

  With instructions from her genius son's carefully crafted notebook, a single mother sets out to rescue a young girl from the hands of her abusive stepfather.
• 
  Hampstead (2017)

  Review preview for Hampstead

  Predictable and embarrassing, despite a cast that deserves better,

  An older man, known as The Tramp, who lives in a homemade shack in North London woods attracts support and something more from a lonely widow and a bunch of protesters when he is ordered to leave.
• 
  Gifted (2017)

  Review preview for Gifted

  Without the girl the film might have slipped under the radar. With the girl it takes off.

  Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.
• 
  Churchill (2017)

  Review preview for Churchill

  The film breaks the rule that says Winston saved us, he cannot be criticised

  The British prime minister in the run-up to D-Day.
• 
  Mandy (1952)

  Review preview for Mandy

  The pace is deliberately slow to give time for these fears and passions to settle in a civilised way.

  A teacher tries to help a deaf and mute child to communicate.
• 
  The Shack (2017)

  Review preview for The Shack

  In the world of hope and love man is the servant of good

  A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called "The Shack."
• 
  My Cousin Rachel (2017)

  Review preview for My Cousin Rachel

  This should carry you to Christmas on a wave of nostalgia... but it doesn't.

  A young Englishman plots revenge against his mysterious, beautiful cousin, believing that she murdered his guardian. But his feelings become complicated as he finds himself falling under the beguiling spell of her charms.
• 
  Spark (2016)

  Review preview for Spark

  Offered the galaxy screenwriters and animators can't help themselves. They indulge and then overindulge until nothing makes sense anymore

  Cheeky monkey seeks revenge for the damage done to his star by the galactic bad guy, a Farquaad sized power maniac in the other world of animation
• 
  Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge (2017)

  Review preview for Pirates Of The Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge

  Visually the film excels. There are scenes that lavish the mind's eye

  Sparrow is drunk. Salazar is dead. Barbossa takes charge. The young ones are searching for the trident of Poseidon. There's a lot of water. And magic. If you wait long enough you might glimpse Keira Knightley running.
• 
  Miss Sloane (2016)

  Review preview for Miss Sloane

  She has you in her thrall and when she's done you feel splattered like a kitten in a blender

  A ruthless Washington lobbyist takes on gun control.
• 
  Alien: Covenant (2017)

  Review preview for Alien: Covenant

  Its use of blood and slime and razor teeth is more inventive than a 12-year-old needs watch.

  A spaceship full of colonists check out another planet where man eating monsters are starving for fresh meat
• 
  A Dog's Purpose (2017)

  Review preview for A Dog's Purpose

  Don't expect revelations beyond those designed to appeal to eight-year-old girls and warm blooded animal lovers

  A dog looks to discover his purpose over the course of several lifetimes and owners.
• 
  The Promise (2016)

  Review preview for The Promise

  Scenes are set up and played out as if rehearsing for a mud sculpture

  Complex love triangle against a backdrop of Armenian genocide in Turkey during the Great War
• 
  Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 (2017)

  Review preview for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2

  Making sense of explosions on green screen is a tough call

  Battles in space continue between weird people and weirder people as the head honcho searches for his dad.
• 
  The Sense Of An Ending (2017)

  Review preview for The Sense Of An Ending

  No defense against a life less lived

  A second-hand camera dealer remembers his university years when relationships were scarred with tragedy and desire while living a life of selfish isolation.
• 
  Table 19 (2017)

  Review preview for Table 19

  Laughing at morons and drunk people and social incompetents feels embarrassing and uncomfortable

  Misfits and undervalued guests accompany the best man's ex-girlfriend in a frenzy of disconnected behavior at a posh wedding
• 
  City Of Tiny Lights (2016)

  Review preview for City Of Tiny Lights

  Not a satire on the aspirations, colonial hangovers and intuitive racism of the Asian community in England's fraught and fractured land, but a detective story cluttered with high school nostalgia.

  Crime thriller sees a PI from the Pakistani community of London's dark lands become embroiled in a missing person case.
• 
  The Boss Baby (2017)

  Review preview for The Boss Baby

  The script is hilarious and the CGI's lip-and-eye treatment positively perfect

  Some babies are pukealots. Some babies are squeeze-me-cutsies. This baby has the mind of a merchant banker and the skills of con artist. He takes no prisoners.
• 
  Get Out (2017)

  Review preview for Get Out

  There is something wrong, something odd about this place

  A young African-American man visits his Caucasian girlfriend's mysterious family estate.
• 
  Beauty And The Beast (2017)

  Review preview for Beauty And The Beast

  You see the money on the screen, which is good, but not the love

  Live action version of the Disney animated fairy tale in which a spoilt prince is turned into a beast and a pretty girl from the village proves that looks aren't everything
• 
  Kong: Skull Island (2017)

  Review preview for Kong: Skull Island

  Boggles the mind and stretches credibility to the outer reaches of imagination

  Scientists, soldiers, a photo journalist and an English toff explore a hidden island stuffed with dangerously large preditors
• 
  Viceroy's House (2017)

  Review preview for Viceroy's House

  Such an important story cannot be squeezed into 106 minutes. The politics are complex and the religious conflict on a Syrian scale of horror

  In 1947, Lord Mountbatten assumes the post of last Viceroy, charged with handing India back to its people, living upstairs at the house which was the home of British rulers, whilst 500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants lived downstairs.
• 
  Logan (2017)

  Review preview for Logan

  The film overdoses on violence. There is no escape from it.

  In the near future, an ageing Wolverine and Professor X must protect a young female clone of Wolverine from an evil organisation.
• 
  The Man Between (1953)

  Review preview for The Man Between

  Tension tightens as the black leathered storm troopers move ever closer. It would help if their motive was understandable and the plot more transparent.

  Intrigue and kidnaps amongst the ruins of Berlin immediately after the war
• 
  John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

  Review preview for John Wick: Chapter 2

  Slowly but surely the wonder of moving pictures bleeds to death in the corner of your mind

  John Wick faces trouble when a bounty is put on his life after a killing spree of gut wrenching proportions
• 
  The Founder (2016)

  Review preview for The Founder

  Understanding the flaws in a character who respects the capitalist ideal while denying the danger of outsourcing integrity is a hard sell

  The story of the man who turned McDonald's from a single store into a global franchise.
• 
  The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)

  Review preview for The LEGO Batman Movie

  In crash bang lingo this would be dubbed explosivimo

  Batman takes on The Joker and just about every other super (weird) villain in Legoland's latest animated comic extravaganza, otherwise dubbed product placement
• 
  Gold (2016)

  Review preview for Gold

  They have dirt under their fingernails

  An unlikely pair venture to the Indonesian jungle in search of gold.
• 
  Sing (2016)

  Review preview for Sing

  If this sounds like a corn fed carbon copy of a Debbie Reynolds standard, it's not

  Fast talking koala bear with a great line in bull and a cool idea to save his theatre from bankruptcy organises a talent contest with hilarious, disaster prone results
• 
  Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

  Review preview for Hacksaw Ridge

  Gibson has an eye for a good story and knows how to lay it on with a trowel

  An act of supreme bravery by a conscientious objecting junior medic in the battle for Okinawa
• 
  T2 Trainspotting (2017)

  Review preview for T2 Trainspotting

  A unique piece of cinema, superbly performed and dangerously directed

  Renton returns to Edinburgh after running off with the money to find the city changed and his mates in various degrees of rage and despair.
• 
  Fences (2016)

  Review preview for Fences

  As a family saga in the tradition of O'Neill and Miller, August Wilson reveals its destructive nature

  Pittsburgh in the Fifties exposes the prejudice and failed ambition of an ex-baseball contender/now garbage collector and how it affects the hopes and dreams of his family.
• 
  Lion (2016)

  Review preview for Lion

  The film has a beginning, middle and end. You might call this predictable, or miraculous

  An Indian man who was adopted by an Australian couple as a boy heads off to find his real family.
• 
  Monster Trucks (2016)

  Review preview for Monster Trucks

  The plot is bonkers, the characters charming and the baddies brutally blunt

  A truck driving giant octopus makes friends with a teen mechanic to outrun the bad people from The Factory
• 
  Why Him? (2016)

  Review preview for Why Him?

  Embarrassment and vulgarity are sisters under the duvet

  A dad forms a rivalry with his daughter's boyfriend.
• 
  Collateral Beauty (2016)

  Review preview for Collateral Beauty

  Is this a film about loss and how (not) to cope with it?

  Retreating from life after tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death.
• 
  Passengers (2016)

  Review preview for Passengers

  The concept of being trapped in solitary confinement for the rest of your natural is a goose bump reversal experience

  An odd romance develops on a transport spaceship.
• 
  Silence (2016)

  Review preview for Silence

  It looks as if Scorsese is battling his own demons, oblivious of the pain he inflicts upon an unsuspecting audience

  In the 17th century, two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor.
• 
  Ballerina (2016)

  Review preview for Ballerina

  There is nothing here to be afraid of and a whole bunch of sweetness to wrap around a girl who makes you want to say YES!!

  Set in 1879, an orphan girl dreams of becoming a ballerina and runs away to Paris where she impersonates someone else and accedes to the position of pupil at the Grand Opera House.
• 
  La Grande Vadrouille (1966)

  Review preview for La Grande Vadrouille

  Lifts the film into realms of comic genius

  Two ordinary Frenchman help the crew of an RAF bomber shot down over Paris during the German occupation
• 
  Caprice (2015)

  Review preview for Caprice

  Question: how can attractive women fall for someone as dull and useless as Clement? Answer: who knows.

  A stupid man becomes embroiled in an unlikely love triangle.