Simran Hans

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The Observer (UK)
For 293 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 38% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 58% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 3 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Simran Hans' Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 63
Highest review score: 100 Hale County This Morning, This Evening
Lowest review score: 20 Stardust
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 120 out of 293
  2. Mixed: 168 out of 293
  3. Negative: 5 out of 293
293 movie reviews
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    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    Capernaum
    Rafeea, a non-professional actor and Syrian refugee, is the film’s secret weapon. At times, the tragedy unfolding on screen feels borderline unwatchable, but his strange, fascinating, eerily adult face offers a litany of minute expressions. There is a wisdom, a soulfulness, and an icy, angry candour that feels lived rather than performed.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    The Competition
    Simon’s fly-on-the-wall mode is a distancing tool, but shouldn’t be confused with ambivalence. Exposing the mechanics of decision-making is an implicit reproof of increasing conservatism, both of La Fémis itself and the film-makers they are producing.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    The Kid Who Would Be King
    I’m a huge fan of Cornish’s 2011 debut Attack the Block, but this film isn’t nearly as energetic or enjoyably wacky as its predecessor. In fairness, it’s pitched at a considerably younger audience, but at two hours it drags; less patient children may struggle.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 60 Simran Hans
    Instant Family
    The tone is weird, seesawing between broad comedy (Tig Notaro and Octavia Spencer as hardened adoption agency workers) and manipulative melodrama (I hate to admit it, but a standoff between Pete, Ellie and Lizzy moved me to tears).
    • 86 Metascore
    • 100 Simran Hans
    An Elephant Sitting Still
    At times, it feels as though we’re watching something we’re not supposed to be seeing, such is the detail of the emotional degradation on show; in this sense, it’s impossible not to read it as something of a nihilistic suicide note.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Simran Hans
    Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno
    Kechiche is quite brilliant at using stretches of time to create space for actors to let their characters breathe. It’s a sleight of hand that makes the intimacy on screen seem as though it’s unfolding organically, deployed to particularly dexterous effect in one sequence that takes place in a bar.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Boy Erased
    The film feels thin, drab and ultimately unable to harness the collective power of its otherwise talented cast.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 60 Simran Hans
    All Is True
    I like Branagh’s eye for landscapes too; space is used elegantly, while widescreen canvases glow green and orange.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
    The final set piece is a little protracted, but the jokes are mostly sharp and enjoyably self-referential and the songs still catchy (one track is titled Catchy Song).
    • 86 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    One Cut of the Dead
    For a movie about the undead, Japanese director Shin’ichirô Ueda’s horror comedy is certainly lively.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    King of Thieves
    There are a few rascally moments, such as Jim Broadbent settingoff roman candles in his back garden, but mostly it’s a staid affair, laden with dragged-outscenes of the gang doing thejob.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Beautiful Boy
    Mimicking the relapse-recovery cycle of addiction, the film’s timeline moves in unsatisfying narrative circles that stall the already shallow stakes.
    • 43 Metascore
    • 60 Simran Hans
    Glass
    The metaphors are messy (trauma makes people extraordinary?) and the pacing’s off, but it’s fun to see the individual films’ universes crossing over.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 60 Simran Hans
    Monsters and Men
    Inevitably, some chapters work better than others but it’s an interesting, sideways look at how violence can serve as a catalyst rather than a climax and how it can change – and galvanise – a community.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 100 Simran Hans
    Hale County This Morning, This Evening
    The film works as a collage of everyday moments that dovetail seamlessly between the sublime and the banal. Indeed in its most mesmerising scenes, the alchemy of duration and focus elevates these moments to something more profound.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    Bumblebee
    Though the references are familiar, it’s a fresh direction for the macho franchise.
    • 40 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Welcome To Marwen
    The film fetishises female strength, but only in its ability to prop up men; its women remain prettified empty shells.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    1985
    Malaysian-born writer-director Yen Tan shoots stylishly in black and white 16mm, each frame a tasteful photograph. What’s most skilful, though, is the way he succeeds in complicating archetypes.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Lizzie
    Most irritating is the murder scene itself, which sees both women stripping nude, seemingly in order for the camera to leer more effectively at their bodies rather than to spare them getting their petticoats bloodied.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Papillon
    At a slow two hours plus, the film feels stretched.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 60 Simran Hans
    Polina
    Though the film suggests a hardiness borne of her working-class background and mobster father, Polina remains fairly opaque. At least the contemporary dance sequences are beautifully mounted; French choreographer Angelin Preljocaj has a co-director credit on the film.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Aquaman
    The film isn’t totally unenjoyable, but it isn’t particularly coherent either.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Mortal Engines
    The film’s critiques are unimaginative, tutting at how territories attack first in order to consolidate power, as well as the spectacle of war itself, bystanders crowding the balconies of the ship-like city, shrieking as guns and lasers fire at the wastelands below.
    • 87 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
    There’s lots to love here, not least the animation itself, which uses split screens, Ben-Day dots and onomatopoeic text that mimic the tactile experience of reading physical comics – panels, hatching and primary colours intact and ready to leap off the page.
    • 44 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Swimming with Men
    Based on the true story of a group of Swedish men who competed in the synchronised swimming world championship, Swimming With Men is reminiscent of The Full Monty, its feelgood climax landing with a welcome, if gentle, splash.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Simran Hans
    Bad Reputation
    This unwillingness to divulge anything truly intimate, combined with the film’s jumbled chronology, gives the whole thing a thin, Wikipedia-ish feel. Jett says she wants to offer her fans “a primal release”. A pity, then, that this film about her is so repressed.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Simran Hans
    The Hate U Give
    Though it leans on the genre beats of melodrama to occasionally clunky effect in order to mine the audience’s tears, it’s impressive how it metabolises these moments of charged emotion in order to make its wider points.
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