Review
★★★★
Ariana Grande
Perfectly cast, Wicked is made bigger and better on screen
Director Jon M. Chu has taken a successfully radical approach to the beloved Broadway musical, smoothing out the kinks in the narrative.
- by Sandra Hall
Latest
★★★½
For subscribers
Two friends from across the divide try to make sense of the horrors in the West Bank
No Other Land, which won best documentary and an audience award at the Berlin Film Festival, was made by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian activists.
- by Garry Maddox
★★★½
For subscribers
Confused? That seems to be the whole point of this movie
The plot is familiar in Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, but it comes with a subtle twist.
- by Jake Wilson
Mescal is the star of Gladiator II, but Denzel Washington steals the show
As the gladiator Lucius, Paul Mescal wisely doesn’t try to emulate Russell Crowe’s swagger in the original film.
- by Jake Wilson
★★
Cinema
The Rock’s Christmas comedy is neither naughty nor nice
As seasonal cash-grabs go, Red One is relatively benign – and it never transcends its status as a family-friendly product.
- by Jake Wilson
★★★½
For subscribers
Australian comedy Audrey goes to dark, dark places in its hunt for laughs
Jackie van Beek plays a former Logie winner who pretends to be her teenage daughter in a black comedy that counts Muriel’s Wedding as a spiritual predecessor.
- by Craig Mathieson
Lifting the veil on the horror abuse Jelena Dokic faced as a young tennis player
Of the many harrowing stories in the documentary, Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story, the worst is when her father beats her in a locked bathroom after a loss.
- by Garry Maddox
Saturday Night Live’s origin story gets lost in the nostalgia
Director Jason Reitman’s fanfic is crammed with characters and subplots, yet it is too micromanaged to convey any real feeling of anarchy.
- by Jake Wilson
‘Whale is delicious’: The push to revive Japan’s whaling culture
These days, most Japanese people have either never eaten or rarely eat whale meat. But one filmmaker wants to change that.
- by Lisa Visentin
Indigenous thriller’s child-stealing spirit conjures horrors of the Stolen Generation
The Moogai is both monster and metaphor, but unfortunately, this well-intentioned film isn’t as scary as it’s trying to be.
- by Sandra Hall
Tom Hardy’s final monster mash-up has well and truly lost its bite
The spirit of resignation is all over Venom: The Last Dance, which feels like a contractual obligation for everyone involved.
- by Jake Wilson
Original URL: https://www.theage.com.au/topic/film-review-1ms9