Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

The further it enters genre territory, the more the film begins to resemble something the notorious Spanish exploitation guru Jess Franco might have knocked out over a long weekend in a borrowed villa, albeit with an all-star cast, all dizzying camera moves and damp pubic hair. As such, it's a lot of fun, if maybe not in the way Guadagnino had intended. Review

John Goodman steals his scenes as producer Frank King, who is all too happy to work with a communist as long as he's cheap. At one point, King admonishes a scriptwriter for injecting politics into a sci-fi screenplay; he wouldn't have any such problem with the politically vague script for Trumbo. Review

Strangerland does have two undoubted assets - a quality central cast and a striking location. Kidman, Weaving and Fiennes do their best to flesh out their characters, but there's not a lot for them to work with beyond the stereotypes of horny wife, grizzled cop and uptight husband. Review

Hakonarson does an admirable job of keeping the storytelling visual, yet at the same time the ambiguity regarding the brothers' animosity is ultimately unrewarding. We never learn why they hate each other so much, and despite fine performances, this reduces them to bearded Spy Vs Spy players. Review

To call 13 Hours propaganda would be an insult to that particular school of manipulative cinema. Bay simply doesn't have the skill to sell a political stance. To view the movie as anything more than a bad Assault on Precinct 13 knockoff is to give its director far too much credit. Review

Here, we're asked to accept French (Juliette Binoche), British (Naomi Scott) and Irish (Gabriel Byrne, whose Chilean accent sounds like a Dublin comedian riffing on Pacino's Tony Montana) actors as natives of Chile. With the diversity issue gaining mainstream headlines, Hollywood needs to give audiences more credit, and non-white stars more credits. Review

Paquet-Brenner's script boils the story down to a series of bland, expository conversations, and despite her best efforts, Theron fails to make anything of a character that should have been a lot more compelling than the one that made it onto the screen here. Not so much dark as dull. Review

Caine's Ballinger is a classic Sorrentino protagonist - an aged, well off, white male suffering what could be dismissed as 'first world problems' - but this time the Italian director has the good sense to dial down his flashy camera tricks and allow his leading man do the heavy lifting. Review

McKay's protagonists mostly come off as characters that failed to make the final cut of one of his comedies, all fake tans and comedy haircuts that belong in 1988 rather than 2008. It's difficult to invest in his subprime drama. Review

The buddy cop movie is a winning formula. It's drama at its simplest. You shouldn't be able to get this wrong, yet the folks behind Ride Along somehow have. Twice. Review

Technically, this is an awful movie, but damn if I didn't have a blast with it. Hopefully we get a '6th Wave', as we need a bonkers movie like this every now and then, especially in the midst of 'awards season'. Review

Our Brand is Crisis is the sort of film that sells us a loveable rogue and asks us to embrace and revel in their corrupt ways before spanking our bottoms with a climactic lecture on morality. Be they Bolivian voters or cinemagoers, the people deserve better. Review

Watching The Assassin is like taking a childhood trip to your grandparents; you don't understand much of their speech and you're unsure of their rules, but the alien and archaic sensual delights are intoxicating. Review

For all its insight and thoughtfulness, Creed ultimately has us on our feet rooting for its hero in a thrilling action climax, and when that famous theme finally kicks in at a crucial moment, no movie lover - from the 'one trip to the cinema a year' casual viewer to the snobbiest of critics - will be left unmoved. Review

Bettany dedicates his film to "the couple that lived outside my building". The fact that he's unable to name said couple provides more insight into the plight of the homeless than anything in his film. Review

This is the sort of film that believes it's an extra tragedy that someone with great hair ends up losing it due to cancer, just as Still Alice suggested Alzheimer's was being particularly cruel in latching onto a professional linguist. Of course, a balding plumber wouldn't be bothered by such afflictions. Not at all. Review

Much has been made of DiCaprio's performance here, and he'll probably receive an Oscar for eating raw fish, as that's how awards seem to work these days, but the far more impressive turns come from Tom Hardy as the gruff narcissist who leaves him behind, and Will Poulter as the well-meaning young trapper manipulated by Hardy into going along with his plan. Review

Equal parts good, bad and downright ugly, this is Tarantino's blood soaked love letter to classic network TV and the down and dirty horror flicks of the '70s and '80s, more Sam Raimi than Sam Peckinpah. Review

Partisan never really gets under the grubby nails of its subject, and plays as a superficial genre exercise from the Nicolas Winding Refn colouring book. Review

While it initially intrigues, At Any Price ultimately frustrates. Its third act feels all too rushed, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot more of this film on the cutting room floor. Review

Like Trainwreck, Sleeping With Other People is a comedy that fools you into thinking you're in for a modern, enlightened look at sexual mores only to ultimately pander to the most conservative of views on the topic. Review

A War comes close at times, but we still await the great Afghanistan conflict movie. Perhaps we'll have to wait for an end to the war so filmmakers can assess it in hindsight, in which case it seems we'll be waiting quite a while. Review

Lucas's original films are still relevant because they were and are about something. Their themes are universal and timeless. Abrams' film is about nothing but Star Wars itself. Lucas's films told us everything about his philosophy of life. Abrams' film only tells us he's a geek. Review

Working with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle - one of the first DoP's to adopt digital technology - Howard seems to be aping the style of Michael Mann, with lots of extreme close-ups and in your face action, but it's a poor imitation, more pathetic than kinetic. Review