David Jenkins

Bulk is a self-unravelling noir sci-fi which gleefully ties its various threads into impressive granny knots of self-referrential absurdity.

It was an exciting prospect to see what someone like Jenkins would do while up against the Hollywood machine, but it unfortunately feels like the machine won this bout, if not by knockout, then definitely on points.

Where the film suffers is in its lack of a coherent dramatic arc, as it instead chronicles a chunk of time that marks a confluence of small epiphanies and aching fallbacks.

There’s the nagging feeling that this one is very content to rake old ground rather than search for a new way to express these important, if rather boilerplate ideas. It’s laudable that these lessons are being passed on to a new generation, but it’s hardly new or exciting terrain for storytelling.

There is something a little boilerplate in how the film is structured which prevents it from offering anything particularly original. Were the visuals not so gorgeous, you might even see this as material primed for the small rather than big screen.

The film does well to capture the probing literary spirit of Murakami, even if it doesn’t quite manage to channel the intense emotional aspect of its work, instead coming across as dryly ironic and detached.

The throbbing interpersonal strains intensify with a gentle logic, even if, tonally, the film does sometimes stray into a mid-tier streaming dramady serial at times.

Its recourse to human suffering as a way to jerk a viewer to react feels tiresome after a while, and it’s not helped by an ending which serves as a quick-fix band aid suggesting that sublime happiness is just an unlikely plot twist away.

It studiously documents the various ways that Hamid makes his case, even though there’s never that much depth to the character beyond his cloak-and-dagger maschinations and a pressing desire for justice.

It’s a sweet film that hits all of its modest targets and works largely because it avoids vapid pop culture references and ironic humour that would be out of date within a month of release.

It’s a film with some decent feel-good credo (if that type of thing floats your boat), and there’s certainly value in having a film about mature characters that isn’t horrendously winsome and patronising.

We don’t hear from law enforcement as to why the raid happened in the manner it did, and why it ended in a humiliating capitulation. Yet there’s definitely a rousing prescience to a film like this at such a politically precarious moment, and perhaps we should take this rare happy ending with a pinch of salt.

Where Ozon presents as an ironist in much of his work, skewering genres and retro styles, there’s a refreshing seriousness to this mad endeavour that demands attention, even when some of the choices he makes don’t feel entirely right.

It’s a pleasant film, albeit one which makes its point fairly early on and then restates it in various, sometimes sentimental ways. The film lacks for a strong narrative arc, and instead opts to filter stories and histories through the present moment.

The film’s thesis is often a little obvious, yearning for a return to a brand of architecture whose half-life isn’t so slim, but ignoring the arduous and exploitative construction methods that were used to produce those grandiose structures of yore.

Even though it’s a story that severely lacks for surprise, in both the silly nature of the tests and the question of Anna and Amir’s latent bond, the actors take the material seriously enough for the film to remain engaging enough.

The film excels in nasty generic thrills, even if there are some fictional elements of the story which undermine its apparent allyship to the victims.

As a writer and director, Sweeney shows much promise, at times demonstrating the swaggering confidence of the Canadian upstart, Xavier Dolan – the pair even look quite similar. Yet the film works best as a showcase for exemplary range of O’Brien.

It’s a fascinating, chilling, if limited study of how the endless cycle of global warfare plays out.

It’s such a lovely set-up, you wish the filmmakers had attempted to do a little more with it.

It’s a slow, detailed procedural, one which carefully draws you into its dismal intrigue – and it’s engrossing for much of its runtime.

It’s an engaging movie about being able to control one’s destiny, but the wait continues for when this director will pull something truly heartfelt out of the bag

A couple of really random and contrived twists in the fourth quarter make it hard to invest emotionally in the climactic, must-win game, though there’s just enough humour and heart to scrape a last-second win.

The idea of finding that perfect other but having to back away due to circumstance certainly has value, though Tezel does paint Kira and Ian as the only pure souls in a world of self-involved fools. And as such, they’re never entirely likeable or relatable heroes.

Watkins’ slick direction and McAvoy’s frankly terrifying performance make this an effective, worthy if not essential entry into the “If you go out to the woods today…” creepy canon.

Dosa’s film is a slick, moving and cutely Herzogian portrait of this loving, monomaniacal couple who straddled the line between the eccentric and the earnest.

It’s superior to the stuffy, lore-obsessed recent Scott films, yet doesn’t hold an atmospherically flickering candle to the original or its sequel. It also doesn’t have the rough-and-ready, overreaching character of Fincher’s famous folly. Yet it makes for a decent time at the pictures, and the grinding first half is worth enduring for a pleasantly rip-snorting finale.

Director Blitz Bazawule does well to draw out multifaceted performances from his cast, particularly Barrino and Brooks, and with them the big emotional beats all manage to land well enough. Yet the musical flights of fancy feel creatively bound by the stage adaptation and lack a certain eccentric pizazz.