This is going be a difficult film to talk about without spoilers, so if I let anything slip, I apologize in advance. Truthfully though you should have already seen Mother! before reading this review because it’s a film worth knowing as little about it as possible before going in. That way you can hate it on your own terms because trust me, this will piss a LOT of people off! But if you’re into weird, creepy stuff like me, you might love it.
Taylor Sheridan has made a big name for himself as a screenwriter with only Sicario and Hell Or High Water under his belt. Now with his directorial debut, Wind River, Sheridan has proven himself as one of the more interesting voices of modern cinema and someone unafraid to touch upon darker subject of America.
Set in and around the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming, Wildlife hunter Cary Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is called by his ex-wife’s father-in-law to deal with a lion that’s been killing his livestock when he comes across the body of Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Chow), an 18 year old resident on the reservation the best friend of Lambert’s deceased daughter Emily. With signs of sexual assault on the body, the police call the FBI however the only person available is rookie agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olson) in Las Vegas who is unfamiliar with the location or the cold.
kathryn bigelow
I wasn’t initially going to review Detroit for many reasons that I’ll get into in a moment, but I’ve been thinking about it all day, and I found myself getting angrier while wondering why no-one else has picked up on the stupidity in this film. Maybe it is just me, maybe I am focusing too much on such a minor part of the film, but it’s a minor part that sets off the entire second act. And the fact that the film refuses to even acknowledge it is why it pisses me off.
There should have never been a Planet Of The Apes reboot, a prequel series chronicling the events that led to the destruction of humanity and the rise of the apes. It was a ridiculous concept that should’ve never made it passed the conception, but it did make it. Through this whole trilogy, from Rise to Dawn to War, this franchise has proven itself one of the greatest sci-fi trilogies of the modern age. With War For The Planet Of The Apes, they end this series in the perfect way to create one of the most personal and morally complex blockbusters out there today.
WARNING – Spoilers and swearing are plentiful
I had no immediate plans to see The Last Knight, I knew I would because I just can’t turn away from this franchise now that I’m five films into it (I finished the Texas Chainsaw series so I can tackle this one). But if I hadn’t lost an Oscar bet, I wouldn’t have taken the theatrical viewing because I haven’t seen a Transformers movie in the cinema, since I was dragged to Revenge of The Fallen while I paid a tenner to have Michael Bay shove his f**king robo-balls in my face. But I did lose and I did go to see The Last Knight and to my surprise the film had the exact same problems as the last film. Hell it has the exact same problem that every Transformers film has and yet somehow this one turns out worse than nearly all of them. This is one step above Fallen as worst in the series.
Marvel introducing Spider-Man in Civil War was a big step and allowed them to introduce their version of one of the most popular characters in this Universe. Now with his own movie in the MCU, thankfully it isn’t an origin story again. In Homecoming, Spidey proves why his inclusion to the MCU was the best move for the character, and Tom Holland sets himself up as arguably the best incarnations of the web-slinger.
The nature of films, and indeed all media, means that comparisons are almost inevitable and it’s important to remember that just because a film isn’t as good as a similar films, that doesn’t mean it itself is a bad film. Case in point, Pilgrimage comes across as a mix between Valhalla Rising and Silence, without the visual trip of the former or the heaviness of the latter, but still within it’s own rights is an enjoyable and interesting examination of faith.
