Movie reviews of Eric Hillis

Rise is a bit like a prison sentence; at the start you’re unsure what to expect, but, very soon, you find yourself trapped within the solid narrative, and intimidated by the forceful characters. That’s as far as the metaphor goes though, as, in a complete contrast to the prison experience, Rise is never boring. Review

With a bunch of characters that could easily carry their own solo movies, it's a shame that X-Men: Apocalypse teases their potential early on, only to gradually turn them into indistinguishable figures duking it out in the ruins of yet another destroyed city. Review

It's the sort of movie in which websites concerning the paranormal all appear to have been designed on geocities in 1999. It's the sort of movie in which every TV set glimpsed is always playing a public domain horror movie. It's the sort of movie genre snobs use as a weapon to beat on horror fans. Review

Lindon is fantastic in a quiet role that requires him to act as an emotional punching bag as Thierry goes from one degrading scenario to the next. It's impossible not to root for this guy, but while you may be shouting "Give him a job!" during the film's first half, by the end you'll be pleading for him to quit his soul destroying position. Review

The Carroll estate may be counting the cash, but I suspect old Lewis is turning in his grave at the thoughts of his little book of wonder being transformed (oh, that reminds me, there are Transformers in this - no, seriously) into this soulless sequel. If Burton's film was a poor man's Wizard of Oz, this is a second rate Return to Oz. Review

Bad Neighbours 2 is so commendably progressive in its outlook, a feature notably lacking from most mainstream Hollywood comedies, that it goes some way to brushing over its reliance on lowest common denominator comedy. Its mind may be in the gutter, but its heart is in the right place. Review

Though written and directed by Tom Tykwer, a filmmaker often accused of style over substance, A Hologram for the King is exactly the sort of movie you might expect from someone like Lasse Hallstrom, another European who began life as a somewhat celebrated auteur only to find himself in the realms of journeyman mediocrity. Review

The makers of the recent spate of American Christian themed movies could learn a lot from Journey to the Shore, a movie that wears its spiritualism on its sleeve, but doesn't feel the need to rub said sleeve in your face. There's nothing mean spirited or bigoted about its message, and as an atheist I had no difficulty identifying with and warming to its central conceit. Review

Better suited to a two-night TV mini series, Our Kind of Traitor is very much a character drama, and it boasts a cast well up to that task (Lewis is a standout as a very British spy), but the story's players are paper thin at best, caricatures at worst. Our Kind of Traitor isn't my kind of thriller, and it probably won't be yours. Review

Malick offers us so much stunning imagery here - an astronaut's view of the earth bathed in the emerald light of the aurora borealis and a multi-storey car showroom at night, standing out in the LA night like a barroom aquarium - that even if you fail to engage with his film's theme, there should be enough eye candy on display to keep anyone remotely interested in cinema dazzled for two hours. Review

Director Joe Stephenson fits comfortably in the lineage of great British social realist filmmakers like Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Alan Clarke and Shane Meadows with an assured, confident and mature debut behind the camera, while young actor Scott Chambers delivers a contender for performance of the year in his first feature lead role. Review

The film conveys the appeal of music in an explicit manner lacking in most biopics of genuinely talented performers. In many ways it could be considered a musical companion to Tim Burton's Ed Wood, as both movies are celebrations of talentless yet undoubtedly passionate figures. Review

Subtlety has never been Vallee's strong point but Demolition really takes the crumbling biscuit. The epistolary nature of the narrative allows Vallee to lazily dish out character backstory and exposition through the Gyllenhaal narrated letters of Davis. You could listen to Demolition as an mp3 and you wouldn't miss a beat. Review

Considering the gap between this and her 2005 debut, Hadzihalilovic's sophomore effort is relatively slight, running at a mere 80 minutes and featuring a storyline that could probably have been handled more efficiently in a 20 minute short. It's a visually impressive piece of work, but there's little to sink your teeth into in narrative terms. Review

Had O'Brien and his co-writers allowed us more time to get to know their film's protagonists, we may have cared more about their plight, but The Timber is a movie as paper-thin as its accompanying layer of snow is thick. Review

At its best, Son of Saul resembles a prison camp take on the similarly grim Ukrainian sign language drama The Tribe. At its worst, the film's stubborn aesthetic feels like a gimmick - 'Hardcore Henry's Holocaust'. Review

While everyone involved likely wants to put Jane Got a Gun behind them, the film that finally makes it onto screens is far from a trainwreck. It's a coherently made western with competent performances; it's just not very compelling. Review

The marketing for Captain America: Civil War encourages viewers to choose a side - Team Cap or Team Iron Man. I'll side with the referee; they can't blow the final whistle on this mediocre franchise soon enough. Review

Friend Request is yet another sub-mainstream horror movie that shows no understanding of its genre. It's devoid of the basic elements that make horror work; tension, suspense and atmosphere are shunned in favour of - BANG - jump scares, as per bloody usual. To quote one of the film's more amusing lines, "Unfriend this dead bitch!"... Review

Elba's Briar is such a stereotypical action cinema protagonist you can almost see plastic chads hanging from his frame, indicating where he's been broken out of a mould. Once he hooks up with Michael, the movie begins to reference every '80s action movie possible. Review

Criminal may be packed with star names, most of whom likely spent no more than two days on set, but it establishes its b-movie sensibility early on, a welcome relief from the many Hollywood movies that go out of their way to be taken seriously despite boasting similarly ridiculous premises. For the most part, the movie is a lot of fun, and it's only its extended running time that stops it short of becoming a future Friday night... Review

There are plenty of movies that prove hanging out with boisterous young American men can be not just fun, but enlightening; Big Wednesday, Breaking Away and Fandango are three of the best, but Linklater's film has none of the melancholic uncertainty that elevates those examples. Review

If you walked into the cinema unknowingly, you could be forgiven for believing you had stumbled into a screening of an episode of Starsky & Hutch. An amateurish energy keeps the film moving at a rapid pace, even if it does get bogged down at times in the underdeveloped Frances Taylor subplot. Review

I can't recall a single line of dialogue from Our Little Sister, but I remember every scene vividly, and I know exactly how each one made me feel. This is the mark of a truly great filmmaker, and Koreeda may be the greatest orchestrator of quietly conducted human drama working in cinema today. Review