Fionnuala Halligan

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Screen Daily
For 441 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 55% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 42% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 4.3 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Fionnuala Halligan's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 70
Highest review score: 100 Nickel Boys
Lowest review score: 30 Absolutely Anything
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 306 out of 441
  2. Mixed: 126 out of 441
  3. Negative: 9 out of 441
441 movie reviews
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    • 55 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Walk with Me
    Walk With Me is a slip of a film, at turns worthy and profound, yet also soporific and uneventful, an occupational hazard of spending three years embedded in a Zen community, no doubt.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Our Kind of Traitor
    While McGregor and Harris convincingly portray a couple in trouble, and Lewis’s odball spook is an uneasy fit, it is Skarsgard’s dynamic performance which saves the day.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Far from the Madding Crowd
    It’s a title to be admired, certainly, but for all its visual fireworks, Far From The Madding Crowd doesn’t truly ignite an emotional spark.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America
    Robinson is a precise, empathetic and informed speaker and a righteous man who, in sisters Emily and Sarah Kunstler’s documentary, is every teacher you might have ever wished for as a student, but who deserves a larger stage.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Swallows and Amazons
    For a film industry determined to open itself to a diversity of voices, this is very much a safe, back-to-basics play for British audiences in need of some reliable comfort food.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands
    This is an idiosyncratic hop around Fassbinder’s life by his Danish film historian friend Thomsen.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Fencer
    The Fencer plays an entirely predictable match right down to its final bout, but the period Soviet Block setting gives the game an interesting hook, and DoP Thomo Hutri’s muted location shots prove atmospheric.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Creator
    Rogue One’s Edwards delivers a film which is reliably visually inventive even when the familiarity of the narrative can make it feel oddly stale.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Kong: Skull Island
    If the film belongs to anyone, it’s creature designer Carlos Huante. Kong is expressive and impressive, both in hair and full-body movement, and his interaction – with water, humans, other animals – is consistently fluid.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Racer and the Jailbird
    An indulgent 130-minute running time and a plot that wildly over-stretches sees Racer ultimately bounce off the rails.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Queer
    For a Burroughs adaptation, it has all the provocation but none of the haunting power that Naked Lunch still holds, almost 35 years later.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Take
    Bastille Day is fun, for the most part, but the biggest take-home here is how easily Elba could slip into Bond’s shoes.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Hollars
    It’s not that [Krasinski] fails, or that his film isn’t desperately charming as it goes about its business, but this is very familiar American indie territory, and The Hollars stops well short of innovation.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Jumbo
    Wittock has neatly sketched out her subject and a groovy neon palette for scenes involving Jumbo “himself”, but the story and general characterisation remains broad and thinly developed.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Nightride
    Nightride doesn’t try to reinvent the (car) wheel, nor does it really pretend to be anything more than it is. Fingleton shows us what he can do, so it’s efficient vehicle in the end. Like the audience, it knows where it is going. It all depends on whether those on board like the cut of its chassis.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Deadpool 2
    Perhaps it’s the effort of introducing so many new characters that has sucked out the spontaneity from Deadpool: still, it’s nothing that can’t be sorted for the likely next installments.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A.
    Loveridge doesn’t seem to trust Maya’s natural significance and strains for the doc about her to achieve UN levels of relevance. Taking her for what she is would have been more than enough.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Our Ladies
    It’s hard not to wince sometimes, even amid all the lewd jokes and proud sexuality in the face of a no-hope future.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Bridget Jones's Baby
    In its own deja vu way, Bridget Jones Baby is intermittently entertaining, mainly thanks to Zellweger’s performance.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans
    John McKenna and Gabriel Clarke have been assiduous in tracking down the participants and their descendants, and deserve recognition for the effort they have put in to raising Le Mans for a new generation of fast car enthusiasts and Hollywood buffs.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    The King of Staten Island
    Like protagonist Pete Davidson, on whose life it is loosely based, The King Of Staten Island is a loping, amiable, sweetly-funny film, and yet you sometimes wish there was a bit less of it.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Little Women
    It’s only when Pugh gets her hands on spoiled younger sister Amy and opens up that often-overlooked strand of the work does the film seem to find relevance beyond its pretty fussiness and that warm, wintery – decidedly Christmassy, somewhat pleased-with-itself – glow.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Skywalkers: A Love Story
    Zimbalist’s film is all about the highs: at no point will it dig deep. There is zero sense of perspective past the obvious.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Kindred
    A drama that simmers away on repression but never comes to a fully satisfying boil.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Aftermath
    While Schwarzenegger is solid – almost literally, his face like granite and his movements stiff – and McNairy is completely committed in this tragic two-hander, Lester’s film is resolutely one-note.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Golda
    Golda is a tentative step towards looking at that inflammatory era with the depth it needs and that’s worthwhile: but plucking Golda out of her own life and that time out of its wider context still feels like a missed opportunity.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Breaking Ice
    The actors are reasonably charismatic and the film grows increasingly lovely to look at, while failing to really make a case for itself beyond the superficial pleasures.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Last Vermeer
    All the lavish sets and gorgeous costumes in the world – and they are here – can’t quite cover over the cracks in Friedkin’s canvas, constructed by three writers from a non-fiction book.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Surge
    An uncomfortably un-restrained Whishaw, and an enhanced, aggressive sound design make Surge a raw experience and its eventual lack of any deeper insight is a little like rubbing salt into that experience.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Wonder Woman 1984
    Wiig is terrific, but there’s just not enough of her. It truly is a wonder to see an A-lister like Chris Pine embrace the traditional female support role of the pretty sidekick so winningly, while Gadot is as smooth as silk and never less than watchable. The team is there, but this is most definitely a sequel.
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