Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
Rating: ★★
Jun 20, 2002Space Opera
The second of George Lucas’s Stars Wars prequels is no particular improvement. The romance is stiff and awkward, badly written while the effects sequences seem to be running out of new things to do and so just up the scale of what has happened before with so much going on it reaches a point of visual overload

The Thing (2011)

The Thing (2011)
Rating: ★★
Oct 16, 2011Shapechanging Alien Nasty
Though pitched as a prequel, this is essentially a remake of John Carpenter's classic. Alas, this only finds the same phantasmagoric outlandishness as Carpenter did in a couple of scenes that may be moderately impressive for those who have never seen the original

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)

The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)
Rating:
Aug 14, 2012Magic Child Appears Out of the Garden
On one level, this sets out to be a warm-hearted fantasy about the appearance of a magic child to a childless couple. On another possibly unintentional level, it is a rather unlikeable film about how two parents continually force a child to conform to the social expectations of those around them

The Gift (2015)

The Gift (2015)
Rating: ★★
Aug 22, 2015Old Schoolfriend Stalker
Blumhouse psycho-thriller about an old school friend who inserts himself into the lives of a successful couple and proceeds to stalk them. This produces several effective twists but ultimately feels too mannered where you keep wanting it to sink its teeth in

Midnight Special (2016)

Midnight Special (2016)
Rating: ★★★
Apr 9, 2016Gifted Otherworldly Child
This feels like a reworking of late 70s/early 80s sf films like Starman and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Much of the film is based around a series of amazing happenings but its crucial failure as science-fiction is the lack of explanations for why these are happening

It Comes At Night (2017)

It Comes At Night (2017)
Rating: ★★½
Sep 10, 2017Plague Outbreak/Fallout Shelter Drama
This received good reviews but audiences were confused by a title and promotion that led them to expect a horror film. The confusion exists because it isn't a horror film but a plague outbreak/fallout shelter drama – at which this serves as an okay offering but nothing standout

Bright (2017)

Bright (2017)
Rating: ★★★
Jan 1, 2018Alternate Present Where Fantasy Creatures and Humans Coexist
Set in an alternate version of the present where fantasy creatures – orcs, elves, fairies – live alongside humans, this comes with a cleverness, while being played as a buddy cop drama that anchors it with a realism