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Callina Liang in Bad Genius.

Bad Genius is smart but fails to fulfil its early promise

This Hollywood remake of a 2017 Thai hit tracks a brainy high-schooler who has to break the rules to achieve her dreams.

  • Jake Wilson

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Rami Malek plays a nerdy CIA analyst out for revenge in The Amateur.

Rami Malek is no action hero – and that’s the point in The Amateur

When a nerdy CIA cryptographer, played by Malek, determines to avenge the death of his wife, ingenuity is his most potent weapon.

  • Sandra Hall
Jack Quaid in Novocaine No Pain.

Where rom-com meets torture porn, this movie is a shocker

Jack Quaid is likeable as the hero who can feel no pain, but over-the-top violence ruins Novocaine No Pain.

  • Sandra Hall
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Jason Momoa in a scene from “A Minecraft Movie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

The building blocks are there, but this movie cash-in is chaotic and uneven

A Minecraft Movie, a live-action adaptation of the biggest video game ever, grafts a stock fantasy quest onto a landscape where plot was never the point.

  • Jake Wilson
Jason Statham just wants to leave his past behind in A Working Man - sadly it catches up with him.

Jason Statham past his peak slaughtering unimpressive foes in ultraviolent action film

Co-written by Sylvester Stallone, A Working Man follows a familiar pattern reaching back to Stallone’s 1980s action hero heyday.

  • Jake Wilson
Despite a cast including Richard Gere and Uma Thurman Oh, Canada is ultimately let down by the writing.

Richard Gere’s deathbed confessions thwarted by underwritten characters around him

Despite a cast that includes Jacob Elordi and Uma Thurman, Oh, Canada fragments in a way that is difficult to care about – or piece together.

  • Sandra Hall
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Soheila Golestani (left), Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki as mother and daughters in The Seed of the Sacred Fig.

The film that was so controversial, its director had to flee the country

Set during the women’s uprising in Iran, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is courageous indictment of that country’s system.

  • Sandra Hall
Elle Fanning and Timothee Chalamet in A Complete Unknown.

Timothee Chalamet deserves best actor, and Demi has the edge

While Adrien Brody is favourite, Chalamet’s performance in A Complete Unknown deserves recognition, as does Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here.

  • Michael Idato
Pamela Anderson shines as a Las Vegas dancer in The Last Showgirl.

Pamela Anderson shines in showgirl tale that’s all dazzle, no razzle

The star brings an air of innocent gentility to her role as Las Vegas dancer facing the end of her career.

  • Sandra Hall
Gonçalo Waddington plays a man running away from his fiancee in Grand Tour.

Acclaimed Grand Tour is weirdly compelling yet totally disorienting

Miguel Gomes won the Best Director Award at Cannes last year for this mash-up of Asian travelogue, colonial satire and an ill-begotten love story.

  • Sandra Hall

Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/topic/s-magazine-1njm