Phil de Semlyen

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Empire, Time Out, Time Out London
For 490 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 51% higher than the average critic
  • 5% same as the average critic
  • 44% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 5.2 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. Positive: 284 out of 490
  2. Mixed: 201 out of 490
  3. Negative: 5 out of 490
490 movie reviews
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    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Blitz
    McQueen isn’t questioning the courage or endurance of the city and its people through these brutal days. But he is probing our relationship with this over-lionised period of our history, though, and finding it hopelessly romanticised. Maybe it’s time, his flawed but hard-hitting film suggests, to lift the curfew on looking it afresh.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Separated
    It’s a story of dehumanisation, children in cages, and the blurting, vote-craving policy-making of government by id – and it’s shattering to experience.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    I'm Still Here
    I’m Still Here takes you right into the machinery of a repressive regime, showing just enough of its dank jail cells and casual cruelties without overwhelming its deeper story of loss.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 100 Phil de Semlyen
    The Brutalist
    The Brutalist is a major work of art that asks something from its audience but gives back in spades.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Babygirl
    A deliciously barbed, but wise and ultimately hopeful investigation of female sexual desire, marriage and modern power dynamics that takes a hundred touchpoints, from ’80s erotic thrillers to the indie candour of Sex, Lies and Videotape and Secretary, and does something completely new with them.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    The Order
    A brooding, muscular FBI procedural that occasionally explodes into Point Break-y action, Aussie director Justin Kurzel’s (Snowtown) true-life thriller delves, pungently and topically, into the inner workings of white nationalism in America before deciding that squealing tyres and shootouts are a lot more fun.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
    Still, powered by its own helter-skelter momentum and the wild-eyed Keaton, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice just about holds all its macabre threads together. It’s not Burton at his very best, but like its fiendish antihero, it does the trick.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Only the River Flows
    This analogue noir set in central China evokes satisfying memories of Bong Joon-ho’s great Korean crime thriller Memories of Murder.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Alien: Romulus
    Like its xenomorphs, Romulus is best when it’s single-minded, streamlined and ferocious. See it on IMAX and hold on tight.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Black Dog
    The dog of the title – a sinewy, reputedly rabid greyhound mix – offers Lang a foil and a path to rediscovering his sense of self. Their snappy early encounters give way to a deepening bond; two solitary souls forming one of the most touching on-screen relationships of the year.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    It Ends with Us
    After the nuance of what comes before, it’s annoying that the knottiness vanishes in an ending that wraps everything up in a neat bow.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Kneecap
    Can a movie leave you with a comedown? If it’s as raucous and unruly as Kneecap, a nonstop blizzard of beats, bumps of white powder and punky defiance of the British and Belfast’s sectarian past, the answer’s a firm ‘yes’.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Deadpool & Wolverine
    Still, cumbersome plotting aside, there’s enough gory mayhem and genuine zingers to make Deadpool & Wolverine a fun ride in a packed and up-for-it cinema.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Twisters
    With its peppy cast, streamlined story and about a bazillion pixels’ worth of VFX cyclones to sweep you back in your seat, it’s a fun and refreshingly old-school night at the pictures.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Thelma
    Thelma is neither as funny nor as Marmite-y as Little Miss Sunshine, a kindred spirit in the quirky indie realm, but its light shines in myriad little character beats.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 100 Phil de Semlyen
    Longlegs
    It’s artfully shot, the aspect ratio tightening claustrophobically as it flashes back to the 1970s. But Perkins’s script also sprinkles in sudden shocks, deeply macabre moments and slashes of dark humour to generate a deep unease all of its own.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Kill
    Genre fans will admire the ceaseless mayhem of this rare Indian entry to the carnage canon. It’s not The Raid, or even this year’s Monkey Man, but it’s got some slick moves of its own.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    The Imaginary
    With no Ghibli film in the offing (although My Neighbor Totoro is getting a UK cinema re-release in August), The Imaginary is an often delightful way to fill the anime gap.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Wilding
    It charts an unexpected success story that leaves you hopeful others will embrace its lessons.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Inside Out 2
    The result is an empathetic, emotionally candid treat – Pixar’s own brains trust back at full capacity.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    In a Violent Nature
    It’s rare for something this necrotic to feel this fresh.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    The Dead Don't Hurt
    Watching this sturdy, sensitively acted Old West drama, it’s easy to wonder how many westerns Viggo Mortensen would have made if he’d been kicking about in the ’50s and ’60s.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    The Girl with the Needle
    With his energised 2021 breakthrough Sweat, von Horn followed a young influencer grappling with the dark side of online life. This period piece offers a very different kind of female odyssey through a lonely and forbidding world. The result is harrowing but seriously impressive.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 100 Phil de Semlyen
    The Seed of the Sacred Fig
    It clocks in at three hours but not a scene feels superfluous as its central quartet – dad, mum, two teenage daughters – squabble, fall out and finally implode in a subversive final act.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    Santosh
    Santosh positions its protagonist as a fundamentally decent woman in an impossible situation, rather than a crusading cop on mission. If ‘Training Day with more grey areas’ sounds dull, it’s anything but.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Motel Destino
    Motel Destino never deviates radically enough from that tried-and-tested Postman template to throw up too many surprises. The result is frisky but fleeting.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Emilia Pérez
    Imagine Pedro Almodóvar directing Sicario and you’re close to the tenor of this exuberant cartel-thriller-stroke-musical – which, as if those elements weren’t heady enough, comes with a tender trans twist.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Phil de Semlyen
    The Apprentice
    A cinematic Rorschach test, it’s more likely to reaffirm your views on the man than challenge them.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    In Flames
    As a supernatural chiller, In Flames finds itself undermined by its own everyday horrors.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 60 Phil de Semlyen
    Jim Henson Idea Man
    Still, if his doc is as toothless as Cookie Monster 2.0, it’s still a nostalgic treat to spend time with the man who gave us Kermit, Big Bird and the Goblin King.
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