Chris Rogers
Film Critic
Cambridge-based film writer for The Digital Fix, Den of Geek and for my personal film review blog. Film and Philosophy graduate from the University of East Anglia.
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'Loving Vincent' - Review
The father of modern art lives and loves again in this startling visual experiment – the first and only hand-painted motion picture – that continues a golden age of cinematic animation. Directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman lead this British-Polish co-production, with Douglas Booth and Saoirse Ronan heading up a perfect cast of performers through ninety minutes of painted poetry, detailing the aftermath of Vincent Van Gogh’s death in 1890. [...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'The Snowman' - Review
Why does this film exist? Why did Michael Fassbender waste his talents on this sodden snowdrift of a script? Did they really draft in the editor of Goodfellas to try and save it? Why is Val Kilmer, a real human being, less convincing than the CGI Peter Cushing in Rogue One? What’s with the giant clumsy iPad thingies the police are carrying around? What were those glowing pin badges? Do they exist in real life? Where can I get one? What’s the subplot about[...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'Blade Runner 2049' - Review
It’s the dead of night. Unable to sleep, a man – dressed in his day clothes, a glass clutched in hand – stands watching the city below. Cars roll endlessly past, a thin film of rain trickles streetward and all around, the skyline is lit by the distant diodes of passing aircraft and countless illuminated windows. This is not Los Angeles, November 2019, but Norwich, October 2013. The man is not Rick Deckard, bounty hunter, but me. His reason for restlessness is not the spectre of [...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'Flatliners' - Review
In a revelation as inevitable as the “dead on arrival” gags accompanying its reviews, this sequel to Joel Schumacher’s 1990 thriller is as pointless as it is sterile. Five medical students become obsessed with triggering their own near-deaths in attempts to capture evidence of the afterlife. After initial highs and cognitive awakenings, the group find themselves hunted by the ghosts of their individual pasts. The post-flatline powers exhibit themselves in trust[...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' - Review
Matthew Vaughn’s spy series makes a haphazard pivot from ‘parody of bad Bond films’ to ‘bad parody of itself’ in this simultaneously listless yet overblown sequel. Taron Egerton returns as Eggsy, now left with only Mark Strong’s agent Merlin for company when the Kingsman organisation is all-but obliterated around them. Their enemy: Julianne Moore’s drug overlord, Poppy, a sugary[...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'mother!' - Review
After the big budget blowout of Noah, Darren Aronofsky returns to simpler times with this deliberately provocative tale of a man and woman (Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence, whose characters remain unnamed) living peaceful, but soon-to-be interrupted lives. Basking in their Eden-like seclusion, Lawrence’s eponymous matriarch sets about restoring the house (with which she shares a strange connection[...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'American Assassin' - Review
A charmless Dylan O’Brien takes the lead in this callous thriller which may as well be titled Toxic Masculinity: The Movie. He stars as Mitch Rapp, a young-ish man on the warpath for those who shot his girlfriend dead on a beach in Ibiza. His attempts to connect with vaguely-defined Muslim terror groups catch the attention of the CIA, and he’s brought in to face brutal training [...]
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'The Limehouse Golem' - Review
Here’s a deliciously sordid and gory gem from director Juan Carlos Medina and screenwriter Jane Goldman (Kick Ass, X-Men: Days of Future Past). Based on Peter Ackroyd’s book, Dan Leno and The Limehouse Golem, Medina’s film stars Bill Nighy as Inspector John Kildare. Eager to restore his reputation after damaging rumours of not being “the[...]
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'American Made' - Review
Sold almost entirely on Tom Cruise’s ability to deliver a cheeky grin, American Made tells the ridiculous true story of Barry Seal, a TWA pilot hired by the CIA to provide reconnaissance footage in the early eighties. His skills are soon noted by the Medellin Cartel, and thus begins an eight-year odyssey of drug smuggling, arms dealing and mountains of cash large enough to[...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
Minor Star Wars Characters Who Need Spin-Offs
This summer, the Star Wars rumour mill kicked into high gear once again thanks to an exclusive from The Hollywood Reporter’s Borys Kit. Kit wrote that Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry would be directing a spin-off centred around Obi-Wan Kenobi, and that Lucasfilm were also considering movi...
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The Digital Fix
'Patti Cake$' - Review
Coming second only to The Big Sick, Geremy Jasper’s debut feature as writer-director was a hot property at Sundance. Due to relatively low-key publicity (at least, in comparison to the Apatow-funded hit), I had next to no idea what to expect from Patti Cake$, which turned out to be a rare standout thrill amongst the overhyped marketing deluge usually associated with festival darlings[...]
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chrisatthepictures.blogspot.com
'The Hitman's Bodyguard' - Review
Ryan Reynolds stars as Michael Bryce, a professional bodyguard looking to restore his damaged reputation in this self-satisfied smirk of an action comedy. Bryce’s ex, Ameila (Elodie Yung), an agent at Interpol, begs for his help to escort incarcerated assassin, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) from the streets of Coventry to a trial at [...]
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'The Dark Tower' - Review
Look, I get it: a one-star rating always looks very harsh. This one isn’t chiefly directed towards The Dark Tower for its technical faults (though they’re certainly plentiful), but at its total failure to bring anything new to the table whatsoever, or drum up the slightest inkling of interest in its soon-to-follow franchise. Apparently optioned by studio heads who thought cinema [...]
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The Digital Fix
What we want from the Obi-Wan Kenobi standalone
On Tuesday evening, Borys Kit for The Hollywood Reporter delivered an exclusive report claiming that Disney/Lucasfilm were indeed (as many had suspected) working on a standalone film centred upon saga heavyweight, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oscar-nominated director Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot) is allegedly in early[...]
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The Digital Fix
'Atomic Blonde' - Review
This glamorous right hook of a thriller stars Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton; a British secret agent on a mission to Berlin, 1989. She’s in pursuit of a list detailing undercover allied operatives, safeguarded by a man named Spyglass (a trembling Eddie Marsan) and inside man David Percival (James McAvoy, who gives a great line in clenched teeth and spittle). Before you[...]