Since 2022, I’ve written The Critic’s monthly film column.

• Cardinal win

  Sometimes a lesser book can make a greater film. Brought to the screen, Robert Harris’s 2016 novel Conclave is a perfect two-hour thriller.

• Some picture-perfect restorations

  I first watched The Terminator on a 12-inch black and white TV, some time in the late Eighties.

• The Critic

  ★★★★☆ The Critic is not, I’m sad to say, the film of the magazine. Our time will come, and what a tale it will be. While you wait, here is a Jacobean tragedy remade for our Carolean age and set in…

• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

  ★★★☆☆ There is a shot about halfway through Beetlejuice Beetlejuice that reminds you what cinema can do. Teenager Astrid, played by Jenna Ortega, breaks off from her first kiss with a look of wonder…

• Eerie decadence

  ★★★★☆ What did movies do before they had tech billionaires for villains? It says something about the young men who have done well out of the internet that there’s something instantly plausible in the…

• Cowboy quartet

  Cowboys, gunslingers, lawmen, the cavalry — well, they may have begun in 19th century dime novels, but they were made great on the silver screen.

• The cinematic future is bright

  For Hugh Grant, it was another example of how the internet is destroying all we hold dear. “Fulham Road cinema closing after 94 years,” he wrote on Twitter.

• A bore film

  ★☆☆☆☆ There are great war films — The Cruel Sea, The Guns of Navarone — there are war films that are, to be honest, less great, but still fun — The Battle of the River Plate, Force 10 From Navarone…

• Without a twist

  Twisters ★★★☆☆ Another reboot! The original Twister, released in 1996, was an enjoyable but forgettable adventure starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt as a divorcing pair of tornado-chasers who realise…

• Polls at the pics

  This article is taken from the July 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. It’s a testament to how well things are…

• Reboot camp

  Hollywood, desperate for stories, has always mined existing content: could that book or toy be filmed? Could that film be filmed again?

• Violent delights

  It’s 30 years since Pulp Fiction hit cinemas, and what a time it was to be young.

• Ghostbusted

  ⭐⭐ Why are we here? Why do this? My main thought about the fifth Ghostbusters film, is that it’s the most pointless sequel I’ve seen since Ghostbusters 2. Although, now I think about it…

• War destroys everything

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ One of the jokes in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop is that when it comes to the civil war in the East African state of Ishmaelia, the Daily Beast newspaper wants victories for the Patriots and defeats for…

• Discomfort Zone

  This article is taken from the March 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. How do you tell the story of the Holocaust…

• The worm (re)turns

  It’s epic time again, with the arrival of Dune: Part Two in cinemas. How excited should we be by this? The best guide is how excited you were by Dune: Part One, if only because no one should attempt…

• A sharp satire perfect for Critic readers

  I realised I’d spent quite a lot of the year watching films that I was supposed to admire but actually found somewhere between disappointing and interminable.

• Prepare for takeoff

  Band of Brothers fans aren’t like Trekkies or Whovians. You won’t find us on Twitter discussing alternate timelines and obscure alien races. We’re not even like fans of The Wire…

• Row, row, row your boat

  The Boys On The Boat is being marketed heavily as “Directed by George Clooney”, but anyone hoping for a glimpse of the lovesome hunk is in for a disappointment: he remains firmly behind the camera.

• Returning affairs

  The Goldfinger is an action thriller of the mind…

• Enjoyable destruction

  After several “event” films that have pretended to have more significance than they’ve delivered, along comes one that pretends to be less. Godzilla Minus One is a monster movie, which means it’s not…

• Napoleon sold short

  Biopics are a tricky beast. Anyone who’s lived a life worth putting on a cinema screen will have done a hell of a lot more than you can squeeze into two hours. You can try to offer a bunch of tiny…

• My war stories

  “Before the war the British cinema had no tradition,” wrote the critic Dilys Powell. Other nations, she said, had found their themes in the 1930s. The French had the underclass.

• Acting his age

  This article is taken from the August-September 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. “It’s not the years…

• We don’t need another (super)hero

  Where, my father asked while flicking through the Disney app on my television, were the films he might enjoy? And what was the Marvel Cinematic Universe? The two questions are related. If you’re not a…

• The wild north

  This article is taken from the June 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. “Any last words?” The question is directed…

• Into thin Air

  This article is taken from the May 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. The astonishing thing about the movie Air is…

• Killer roles

  The Dungeons &

• Romcom revival

  Making romcoms modern: plausible obstacles to happiness and a broadening of vision…

• A hellhole Noël

  Stalag 17 followed by Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life is an ideal festive double-bill…