Phil de Semlyen

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For 512 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 45% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.1 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Phil de Semlyen's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 The Lost Daughter
Lowest review score: 20 Stuber
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 5 out of 512
512 movie reviews
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Newcomer Abraham Wapler as video artist Seb and Zinedine Soualem’s high-school teacher Abdel are standouts in the likeable ensemble, but the Adèle timeline, a sepia-tinged coming-of-age tale with a backdrop of characters to put Madame Tussauds to shame, is the film’s heartbeat. It’s a great excuse to revisit this gilded age in French history.
    • 50 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    An early twist means that the bloodletting develops a repetitive feel, and there are unfortunate parallels with the recent Ready or Not 2, but the wincing and guilty laughs never quite dry up. Cult status may await.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    The Magic Faraway Tree isn’t on Wonka’s level, let alone Paddington 2’s – two other Farnaby joint – and the aesthetic is occasionally a bit CBBC, despite the bucolic settings and intricate sets. But with the cracking cast, thoughtful message and the odd rollicking adventure, it’s a fun family movie that’ll finally give you permission to switch off the wifi.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Sorrentino explores these heavyweight themes with his usual wit and high style – as well as a standout soundtrack of haunting classic cues and Eurodance bangers. Surreal, comedic touches also prick the pomposity of La Grazia’s cloistered world.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    A slow cinema treat, Two Prosecutors rewards patience, with endless waiting rooms and antechambers both a limbo state and a last-chance saloon for Kornyev. It’s a haunting, mesmerising, pessimistic piece of work.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Director Bienvenu, who also voices helpful robot Mikki in the French version, has crafted a family film that’s offbeat and full of heart.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Weaponising the cinema’s Dolby Atmos into a delivery mechanism for frights is a clever ploy that Undertone never maximises.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Newton is a fun addition as the bubbly Faith, but the game Weaving is MVP again: a sharp finger in the eye of the one percent. This is a broader sequel, though, that only has more of the same for her to do. It’ll pass an evening but it won’t blow your mind.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    The symbolism is lightly worn here in a gently observational film that’s underpinned with humanism and compassion.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    With Gosling and Hüller to the fore, Lord and Miller have delivered a cosmic adventure with hope in its heart and a twinkle in its eye.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    It’s often enthralling – especially with Murphy at its heart – though rarely explosive.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Smart storytelling and snappy editing elevate the jokes and enrich the emotions.
    • 35 Metascore
    • 40 Phil de Semlyen
    And that’s the major problem here. When the first Scream hit, it had a ball deconstructing ’80s and ’90s horror movie tropes. Six movies and three decades on, it’s become the very thing it was built to deconstruct, trapped in its own lore and fumbling about for its old smarts. The genre has moved on. Scream needs to get with the times.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    If, like Alan Partridge, you believe that Wings were ‘the band The Beatles could have been’, Morgan Neville’s propulsively upbeat music doc is a total treat.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Phil de Semlyen
    The class satire, the strongest suit of its Ealing ancestor, is blunter than a burglar’s cosh. The murders should be the juice in this devilish cocktail, especially with Zach Woods, Topher Grace and Ed Harris as the marks. But the deaths are throwaway affairs.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    It’s refreshing to see a grown-up big-screen thriller this well crafted – and one that cares for its grounded characters and their predicaments. If it comes off the road once or twice, it’s still well worth the ride.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Rather than a bruising marital wipeout drama, Is This Thing On? is a film about how new purpose and a new tribe can help you re-evaluate what was there all along (the title, of course, refers to the marriage as well as the mic). It might make you think about relationships differently; it probably won’t make you want to take up stand-up.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Kangaroo has a love for the people, landscape and wildlife that leaves a warm glow. It’s not doing anything wildly different or unexpected, but it’ll put a smile on your face.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Happily, Send Help is both a return to the world of horror and a major return to form for the Evil Dead man, who’s been waylaid with bland franchise fare in recent years.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Finally, someone has returned to The Damned United’s cunning formula for a good football movie: don’t show any football.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Empathetic, funny and myth-busting – there are 300,000 children and adults living with TS in the UK alone whose condition will be better understood for this film – it gives you permission to laugh at the situation while feeling only compassion for the man.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    This is simultaneously the nastiest and most soulful of the franchise to date – and the most probing.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    For brain-free Friday night viewing, you could do much worse than spend 90 blood-soaked minutes with not-so-gentle Ben.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Sure, it’s a somewhat honeyed portrait that lacks voices to put the other side across. But as the flimsiness of the case against Assange is laid bare, so too is a system that tried to suffocate, torture and crush him to protect its interests.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    When the foot comes off the gas, the cracks become apparent.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 100 Phil de Semlyen
    Marty Supreme is a stunning achievement, a breathless yet precisely controlled joyride full of vivid characters, hairpin turns and did-that-just-happen moments – and a modernist fairy tale about big ambitions colliding with grubby street-level realities and capitalism’s seedy imperatives. This is a film that’s built to last.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    There have been better animated sequels and more epic ones, but has there ever been a fluffier follow-up than this bouncy, buoyant caper starring at least half the nature world?
    • 58 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Ultimately, though, there’s not enough story to fuel a three-hour musical stretched across nearly five hours. What once was brisk and bright becomes a bit of a slog. Fans will be obsessified; everyone else, ossified.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    It’s weird, in the year 2025, that it seems timely to point out that the Nazis were bad. But Nuremberg, an old-fashioned and satisfyingly complex morality tale in the guise of a courtroom drama and spy thriller, does that job in impressive style.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Phil de Semlyen
    It’s a movie that got up on the wrong side of the bed and compensated with four quadruple espressos.

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