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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    • 48 Metascore
    • 60 Fionnuala Halligan
    Tomb Raider
    Norway’s Roar Uthaug (The Wave) directs it straight up, without even a twist of humour, bouncing Vikander from set piece to set piece with no real attempt at coherent plotting in-between. Yet Vikander is so watchable as the video-game-made-flesh, and the low-fi chase sequences can be so exciting, it’s almost enough. Almost.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Cured
    The Cured is at its sharpest when drawing acute political parallels. As a zombie film, the shocks are few/
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Fionnuala Halligan
    Isle of Dogs
    So lush with gorgeous detail it’s like a piece of highly-textured haute couture, there’s also a sharp social message behind the elaborate seams.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 40 Fionnuala Halligan
    Maze Runner: The Death Cure
    The thin story plays out in a hail of bullets, zombies and action-laden sequences.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 90 Fionnuala Halligan
    Miss Kiet's Children
    The Latasters rarely put a foot wrong - from their static opening shot in the town of Hapert to the final frames of Miss Kiet in her classroom, this is a beautifully-judged piece.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 90 Fionnuala Halligan
    Song of Granite
    Layering the life of Irish folk singer Joe Heaney through a flickering lens and leaning on the natural, unadorned voice of the sean nos [old style] singer, this doc/feature hybrid film isn’t perfect, but it is quite perfectly-made.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    Shadowman
    Jacoby delivers an adroit portrait of the artist at work in a technical package which wraps itself smoothly around this intense, surprising story.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 90 Fionnuala Halligan
    No Stone Unturned
    Long and detailed and frequently terrifying, Alex Gibney’s documentary about a 1994 massacre in a pub in Northern Ireland is investigative journalism at its rigorous best.
    • 23 Metascore
    • 40 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Snowman
    Jo Nesbo’s Harry Hole series is comprised of page-turning, airport-blockbuster Scandi crime potboilers; Alfredson scorches the seventh, The Snowman, with such art-house intensity that it eventually melts into an exhausted puddle.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Fionnuala Halligan
    Goodbye Christopher Robin
    Goodbye Christopher Robin doesn’t just lack authenticity, it appears to scorn it.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Leisure Seeker
    It’s a long, long road cluttered with clichés and stalled in softness, pot-holed by its self-serving use of Alzheimer’s as a narrative convenience.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    Battle of the Sexes
    Served up with star turns from Emma Stone and Steve Carell, Battle Of The Sexes slams a crowdpleaser across the net.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 70 Fionnuala Halligan
    Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
    Anchored by a funny, foul-mouthed performance from McDormand, McDonagh’s daringly-structured dark comedy is rich and layered and often laugh-out-loud funny but trips over constant tonal shifts.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Limehouse Golem
    Director Juan Carlos Medina (Insensible/Painless) fails to muster Golem’s many moving parts, and tension leaks from the film like the blood from one of its many savaged corpses.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Fionnuala Halligan
    mother!
    Darren Aronofsky’s churning fever dream mother! is a devouring and restless experience: a creative surge that’s like the lancing of a boil, releasing a torrent of despair and disgust for the greedy chaos of society today as well as a self-loathing portrait of the artist as an emotional succubus.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 70 Fionnuala Halligan
    Suburbicon
    Suburbicon is a solid, pleasing piece, even if it never quite reaches the bleak heights its set-up promises.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 100 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Shape of Water
    Guillermo del Toro channels all the streams that make him unique into The Shape Of Water, pouring his heart, soul and considerable craft into an exquisite creature fable.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Farthest
    It’s the right film at the right time, a cathartic moment in which audiences will shed tears for a little machine made of silicon and aluminium, wrapped in tin foil and running on less computing power than our smartphones, yet which will outlive us all – perhaps by billions of years.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 100 Fionnuala Halligan
    Dunkirk
    There may be money on the screen, but cash alone can’t guarantee this kind of pulsating, cinematic magic, delivered by a director at the height of his powers, mustering the very best at their craft.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    Our Time Will Come
    While the running time can weigh heavily on some of the sub-plots, the overall effect is as strong as Hui intended and the title underlines the bitter irony of the history involved.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Reagan Show
    Although this doc is slender, it’s also fascinating, playing into nostalgia and current-day politics in equal measure.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 90 Fionnuala Halligan
    War for the Planet of the Apes
    It’s engrossing every inch of the way, with casualties, infighting, character flaws, war mongering, and some delicious grandstanding from Harrelson.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    Nowhere to Hide
    Those who can’t understand the tangled battle zones or tragic recent history of Iraq may take some comfort from Nowhere To Hide’s revelation that ordinary citizens of that country don’t understand any of it either.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Fionnuala Halligan
    Hampstead
    Watching it is akin to witnessing Maggie Smith’s The Van slowly rear-end Richard Curtis’s Notting Hill: a cringing slow-mo car crash best viewed between your hands.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Mummy
    Everything about The Mummy strains solely towards setting up a franchise in a world which only makes sense to its writers.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 70 Fionnuala Halligan
    My Cousin Rachel
    Weisz shows her Oscar-winning talents by hitting precisely the right notes throughout My Cousin Rachel: from warmth to guile to chilly practicality.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Rider
    To say the performances are authentic is clearly stating the point, but the Blackburn family opens up to give an easily intimate portrait of themselves.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 70 Fionnuala Halligan
    Elián
    &t does effectively plunge the viewer back in those choppy seas for an object lesson in how politics can rapidly inflame a situation to dangerous levels, even when both countries had agreed the best place for him was Cuba.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 70 Fionnuala Halligan
    The Challenge
    Italian artist Yuri Ancarani’s mostly-silent travelogue captures the Arabian peninsula without comment, its repetitive, dreamy imagery providing an insight to an age-old sport which plays out within the trappings of extreme wealth.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 50 Fionnuala Halligan
    Alien: Covenant
    It’s a long, flat, no-frills journey which struggles to engage despite its many bloody shocks.
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