Cath Clarke

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The Guardian, Time Out, Time Out London
For 508 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 32% higher than the average critic
  • 9% same as the average critic
  • 59% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Cath Clarke's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 60
Highest review score: 100 Some Like It Hot
Lowest review score: 20 Diana
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 129 out of 508
  2. Mixed: 367 out of 508
  3. Negative: 12 out of 508
508 movie reviews
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    • 39 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
    I have to admit to being helplessly enchanted – or suckered – for the most part. There’s wit here and The Nutcracker will take you from zero to Christmas jumper in the opening sequence. What’s missing is the melancholy darkness of ETA Hoffmann’s story. Instead, schmaltz-merchant director Lasse Hallström tugs at the heartstrings and ladles on the syrup.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Croods: A New Age
    There is just too much going on, and the movie doubles in hecticness with every minute that passes, which may have you rummaging around for a couple of paracetamol.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
    As per the two previous films, Stahelski cranks up the body count with a string of fight sequences so balletic you might forget you’re watching violence – until Reeves sinks a knife into a man’s eye. But, three movies in, franchise bloat is beginning to set in; the dead dog jokes are definitely wearing thin.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The President
    Makhmalbaf says he was inspired by the Arab Spring, and his film is pitched somewhere between allegory and satire.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    A Sloth Story
    It’s perfectly adequate for little kids but with little character of its own and a straight-to-download-style blandness.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Origin of Evil
    Without a doubt this is easy entertainment, never dull, and it has some shrewd things to say about class and money – though the satire might have been sharper and the running time shorter by a good 20 minutes.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Escape from Mogadishu
    This is a decent, intelligent, well-acted film if a little uninspired until that third act, which packs an almighty punch.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland
    There are some lovely playful moments: his favourite elf eats a magic shroom and grows to monstrous proportions. But there is a lot of padding and the decision to stick with the book’s rhyming scheme becomes annoying.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Pathaan
    The film sags a little towards the end, with a few too many implausible action sequences: characters jumping out of helicopters and fighting on top of speeding SUVs, the choreography glossing over the basics of gravity and physics. Still, the cheers kept coming.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Unbroken
    Jolie has assembled an A-list team – Roger Deakins behind the camera, the Coen brothers in charge of the script - but while her film is perfectly competent, it hardly dazzles.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    This Is Congo
    A difficult, depressing watch.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    More Than Honey
    The message to take home: put a pot of lavender on your windowsill. Save bees!
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Pete's Dragon
    This being a kids film, there is a ‘message’ – about the destruction of nature. But the eco theme genuinely works with the film’s wonder at nature.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Halston
    The archive clips suggest Halston is a role Richard E Grant was born to play: the designer had a long-limbed loucheness, grandiose affectations and put-on accent, along with a fierce perfectionism.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Valley of Love
    The fish-out-of water moments are great fun, watching arthouse gods Depardieu and Huppert in tacky tourist hell.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Here Before
    The question of whether this is a ghost story or if Laura is experiencing a kind of psychological breakdown twists and turns in ways that lost me by the end. Still, it’s is a very accomplished debut from Gregg, and acted with subtlety and sensitivity by Riseborough.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Love, Marilyn
    Love, Marilyn blows out of the water the impression of Monroe as the helpless dumb blonde.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Alien: Covenant
    Really, this is David/Walter’s show. For reasons too spoilery to give away, Fassbender is electric, giving a spectacularly skin-crawling performance.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile
    The film’s good-natured warmth wins the day, just.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Betrayed
    It’s a film of desperately upsetting details.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Imperium
    It is solid and watchable, and Radcliffe is genuinely ace, giving a smart, understated and intelligent performance.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Broken Circle Breakdown
    Heldenbergh and Baetens pull you in with committed performances ­– their raw pain and grief is totally believable. But all that honest, intense emotion is thrown away as the film outstays its welcome by 40 minutes or so, piling one tragedy on to another.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Medusa Deluxe
    Without a doubt, it is an impressive debut from director Thomas Hardiman, even if his script doesn’t quite pull off a first-class whodunnit.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Into the Woods
    Into the Woods starts better than it finishes but it’s a great-looking film, with a nicely old-school, easy-on-the-CG feel.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Missing Link
    But the storytelling is unevolved compared with the animation.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Pirate Fairy
    There are some gorgeous Disney touches, rabble-rousing songs on the pirate ship and the usual ‘best friends for ever’ message.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Testament of Youth
    A beautifully acted but disappointingly stiff period drama.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Dead & Beautiful
    Director David Verbeek’s script doesn’t quite wield the scalpel with enough sadistic glee. Instead, this film feels ever-so-slightly sluggish and dour in places.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Grand Bizarre
    The Grand Bizarre is a film that will alienate many with its video-artiness but the focus here on looking and looking again with wonder at the everyday stuff around us may strike a chord at the moment.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Distant Constellation
    It’s a thoughtful, dream-like film, but, in the end, I’m not sure what Distant Constellation is saying about age or memory.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Sicario: Day of the Soldado
    Del Toro is the Ernest Hemingway of screen badasses: the less he says the better he is – he does his most convincing work while looking like he’s about to nod off. ‘Sicario 2’ sets up a future instalment centred on him: that sequel will be a must.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms
    It is a poignant set-up but, disappointingly, Okada’s ideas about motherhood don’t cut as deep as they could.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Thunder Road
    Cummings presents us with a guy whose heart is in the right place – he just can’t control himself. But, like me, others may find their tolerance for a clueless white man’s anger issues has maxed out.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Vice Is Broke
    This isn’t meant unkindly, but Vice Is Broke will be essential viewing for anybody who ever worked there, with its details about who had what job title and when.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Skinamarink
    There is without a doubt something uncanny, almost seance-like, in the way Canadian film-maker Kyle Edward Ball evokes childhood fear of the dark.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Manglehorn
    Pacino gives his most natural performance in years.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    La Syndicaliste
    It’s a political thriller that tells the story matter-of-factly, and is perhaps a little lacking in the pace department. But Isabelle Huppert carries it along with a performance every bit as gripping as you’d expect.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Kid Who Would Be King
    None of the young stars shine as John Boyega did in ATB, but this movie is sentimental in all the right places, and impossible to dislike.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Trolls
    Trolls is not break-the-mould brilliant like The Lego Movie or Toy Story, or a keeper like Frozen. But it’s a lovable and giddy guilty pleasure.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    PVT Chat
    Ben Hozie makes his feature debut with this semi-insightful, uncomfortably funny indie drama about a man who becomes obsessed with an online sex worker. It’s a film with a slackerish mumblecore vibe, and Hozie is refreshingly grown up about sex. But it’s hard to see how his film adds much to the conversation about intimacy in the internet age.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Funny Face
    There are some gorgeous comic touches.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Together 99
    The original delivered some big laughs, scenes that were an absolute joy. This is less good-natured; it is a film with streak of misanthropy, more likely to leave a sour taste in the mouth than a smile on your face.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Out of the Furnace
    Bale is as good as it gets, Harrelson shows us why he is Hollywood’s favourite psycho and Willem Dafoe is terrific as a sleazy drug dealer. The rest of the film is without a bat squeak of authenticity.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    McKellen: Playing the Part
    McKellen occasionally slips into the part of twinkly super-cool gay uncle that he tends to play in interviews these days. But mostly he’s thoughtful and self-reflective (and not at all gossipy about his theatrical chums, disappointingly).
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    In Pursuit of Silence
    [An] informative documentary.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Reign of the Supermen
    If gym buff Henry Cavill really is quitting the role in the movies, as has been rumoured, the film-makers could do worse than to follow the direction here, opening a vacancy for a skinny, long-haired Superman with an earnest hipstery vibe that screams Adam Driver.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Cadejo Blanco
    The tension leaks away in the second half; the film could have done with being snipped by a good 20 minutes.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    How I Live Now
    Kevin Macdonald’s slightly drab adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s popular teen novel would be nothing without Saoirse Ronan.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Diamantino
    The film is fun, but, for all its inventiveness, it’s a bit tame, with its nice-but-dim hero. But Diamantino is never dull.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Maze Runner
    Entertaining but never quite thrilling, this actually feels like the second film in a franchise, coasting along, but saving the best bits for the next episode.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Edge of Tomorrow
    The film’s Groundhog Day-meets-Independence Day plot is actually pretty genius.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Daughter
    At points I wondered if this is a film that tells us anything about anything. Some of its ideas feel a bit thrown together.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Ride the Eagle
    It’s a bit indulgent but, still, a gentle watch.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Wild Boys
    Mandico has made a wildly strange debut, striking enough to make you sit up and pay attention.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain
    The film is a reminder of just what a brilliant writer Bourdain was.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    A Vigilante
    The more the movie explains, the less powerful it becomes – ending with a Shining-like finale in the snow that for me was a letdown.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    You Are Not My Mother
    Intense performances by Doupe and Bracken give it a real emotional pulse.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story)
    It’s refreshing to see a movie like this directed by a woman, Eva Husson, so boys and girls are objectified equally. Which is not to say this passes the feminism test.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Up for Love
    There is a message here about celebrating differences, which would be a bit more convincing if they’d cast a smaller actor in the role – instead of using distracting CG effects on Dujardin.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Funny Boy
    In the end the story is told rather blandly, the edges sentimentally smoothed down.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Letters from Baghdad
    The film also touches on Bell’s work for the British government, drawing up the boundaries of Iraq after WWI – which was to have consequences still felt today.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Creation Stories
    A lairy, likable film.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Lost Children
    The film, with its clanging score, felt to me slightly tactless in its approach, like a Hollywood-ised version of a human interest story.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Hockney
    There are beautiful moments from David Hockney’s home-video stash in this thoughtful doc.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Sputnik
    A smart and satisfying movie, although the crashy-bashy deafening score is so loud you can probably hear it in space.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Futura
    In the end, it’s a film with a melancholic feel, which probably has a lot to do with its timing.
    • 41 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Before I Go to Sleep
    As a thriller, Before I Go To Sleep is perfectly effective, but while director Rowan Joffe keeps the twists coming, something about Kidman’s blank, frosty performance is unconvincing.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    18½
    It’s entertaining enough and you never know where the story is headed, but it doesn’t quite hold together.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado
    The movie is not lacking in adventure, perhaps what’s missing is a sense of fun.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    I.S.S.
    ISS does deliver one knock-out terrific death in space: a screwdriver to the neck, perfect little bubbles of blood floating prettily away in zero gravity.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Broken Hearts Gallery
    It is something of a letdown: a funny but conventional glossy romcom. But there is no messing with Viswanathan, who is undoubtedly the main attraction.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    A Boy Called Christmas
    It feels kid-gloves at times: big-hearted and entertaining, but possibly lacking a little fun or oomph. A lovely warming film, though.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    After Blue (Dirty Paradise)
    After Blue is a preposterous film, easy to ridicule. But it’s surely already halfway to cult classic status – destined to play midnight slots, watched by students smuggling bottles of red wine into the cinema under their coats.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Belén
    The film is essentially a legal procedural: solid, mostly entertaining and occasionally gripping.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Cutie and the Boxer
    It’s a touching film and a fascinating glimpse into one of those couples you can’t quite believe are still together.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    A Life on the Farm
    The documentary’s director, Oscar Harding, explains that his grandfather was a neighbour of Carson’s in the wonderfully named village of Huish Champflower, and he was first shown A Life on the Farm age six. Stretching this curiosity of a man and his work into a full-length documentary is perhaps pushing it.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Cinderella
    It’s all very sweet and harmless, though you can’t help wishing that Cinders got her happy ending for more than being kind to her digital mice and weathering a lot of crap with a never-ending smile on her face.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Utama
    It’s a gentle and superbly shot film.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Mario
    At two hours, the film feels a little long, but this is a heartfelt and human drama with the texture of truth and characters to care about.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Showdown at the Grand
    It makes for some fun moments and a funny showdown with the baddies. In the old days this would probably have gone straight to tape, so straight-to-download feels like the right place.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Artist's Wife
    Brilliantly acted but never entirely credible and not quite the force for feminism it wants to be.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Swedish Connection
    For good to prosper, it seems, all it takes is enough good people to take action. It’s an uplifting message in a watchable movie.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Misha and the Wolves
    It’s propulsively watchable if a tad light on reflection. And you may feel hoodwinked by one late reveal.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Justice of Bunny King
    The strength of the writing is in portraying Bunny’s reality, allowing us to wonder – like the social workers – whether she really is a reliable parent. This is thoughtful film-making, though I didn’t quite buy into the explosion of drama at the end.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Eight Hundred
    With so much intense focus lavished on the action, there’s none to spare for the characters’ emotional lives, and it’s hard to care much about who lives or dies.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
    It’s stylishly shot by first-timer Louis-Seize, a bit reminiscent of an early Jim Jarmusch movie with its deadpan sense of humour, never trying too hard, just a little bit too cool for school.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Again Once Again
    Some might find her style, leaving no thought unexamined, a bit rambling, but Paula is doing something interesting here.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Man Up
    Bell is so goofy and likeable I found myself willing the film to keep up with her. But the funny bits are never quite funny enough, and the script loses feminist points bigtime for its sour bitch ex-wife character.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Enforcement
    There are plenty of heart-pumping moments, plus a fair few false notes, a couple of implausible coincidences and some exposition-y dialogue spelling out the film’s message, which is about how the two sides see each other.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Bank of Dave
    It’s a film with a decent bit of charm, and it’s hard to argue with the greed-is-bad message.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A.
    There’s a made-by-a-mate feel to the film, which jumps around confusingly: if you’re not a fan it might help to read her Wiki page for context. Perhaps there is just too much MIA for one film to handle. One thing’s for sure, in an era of manufactured pop stars, she is resplendently unfiltered.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Wild Men
    There are some very funny scenes and a reasonably tense shootout finale – though the sentimental ending felt to me like a bit of a cop-out.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Results
    Like Bujalski’s early mumblecore work, this is sensitive and meandering – and just a little bit patience-testing. But it’s also infectiously sweet and honest-feeling.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    How to Be Single
    As modern dating movies go, How to Be Single gets a lot right.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Tove
    Where biopics often end up with a cardboard-tasting blandness, the focus on Jansson’s interior world gives this film moments that really come to life.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    The Racer
    What the film does very well is show how doping became so normalised. It’s as much a part of the team’s routine as a post-race rubdown.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    My Best Friend's Exorcism
    My Best Friend’s Exorcism could perhaps do with one or two genuine scares. But for anyone old enough to remember Tiffany and advice columns in teenage girls’ magazines, this is going to deliver a pleasing shot of nostalgia.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Cath Clarke
    Bel Canto
    It’s overripe and improbable, but you’d need a flinty heart to resist the message of solidarity, that if you spend time with someone, anyone, you’ll find common ground.
    • 29 Metascore
    • 40 Cath Clarke
    Hector and the Search for Happiness
    Simon Pegg plays the world’s most unconvincing psychiatrist in this fluffy, irritating Brit comedy.
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