Apex (2026)

As if Dangerous Animals weren't abominable enough, Netflix essentially repeats the exercise here: a big Hollywood name - in this case, Charlize Theron - gets thrown in amongst the Aussies in a horror thriller that squanders its most interesting idea, namely that a strong independent woman is pitted against  toxic masculinity in a remote Aussie environment, and instead serves up unedifying nonsense about an impossibly bizarre killer - Taron Egerton's psycho would sit more comfortably in Pan's Labyrinth - and, suggesting how little anyone cares about this throwaway exercise, the film has been given a name that is destined to bury it amongst Google search results for a computer game and an old Bruce Willis bomb.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Astronaut's Wife (1999)

Charlize Theron, at least, got a chance at a do-over in The Devil's Advocate, another, better scifi-fantasy in which a woman with a boy-cut experiences mental collapse while her husband becomes distracted by otherworldly issues at work, a concept that works well within the context of a morally bankrupt law firm but which here, set in Florida and centred around NASA male astronauts and their wives who wait fearfully on Earth, never is definitively a story about mental health nor alien abduction nor paranormality nor trauma, is never exactly a story about the after-effects of space travel, of loneliness, of body snatching, nor twinship, just a long string of ponderous scenes, the tedium of which is eventually put to death by an hysterical ending so random it is as if it comes suddenly from outer space.

★☆☆☆☆

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Tully (2018)

First of all, Tully is touching and hilarious and you should watch it just for the bittersweet laughs as exhausted mother of three Charlize Theron invites a young, charismatic night nanny into her home to help with the baby and to be the other half of late-night heart-to-hearts about her molecular makeup, the lost dreams of her pre-pregnancy days, and her marriage, and always just below the surface lies the possibility that you're watching a thriller about a sinister interloper with free run of a family home, ostensibly in the house to help but in fact quietly dividing and conquering until the time is right to kill the children, steal the husband, and leave the mother hobbling on crutches.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

You would be forgiven for giving up on this movie after its dire opening scenes of wooden acting and leaden courtroom drama but the movie starring Keanu Reeves as a hotshot small-town lawyer who finds himself in New York living the high life under the tutelage of Al Pacino's nefarious law firm boss develops into a satisfying mystery thriller that draws parallels between courtroom right and wrong, and heaven and hell, and is at times reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby.

★★★★☆

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Young Adult (2011)

This Jason Reitman black comedy has Charlize Theron playing a misguided woman-child intent on seducing her old high school flame now married with a child, but after the cracking dark potential of its opening scenes, the film loses momentum with the arrival too soon of Matt, the film's moral compass and sounding board.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

The fairytale is given a grubby Middle Ages look and stretched to movielength by cgi sequences and extraneous details that are boring and add nothing to the clunkily told story, but as the queen with a personality disorder, Charlize Theron is effective.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Prometheus (2012)

This sci-fi horror on an epic scale has in its relatively short runtime way too many lofty themes and too many character story arcs - the one about Charlize Theron's family tree is the most clanging and underdeveloped - and so it all feels rushed, and in place of satisfying conclusions, there is an almost completely unnecessary - or, at least, unexplained - tie-in with Ridley Scott's Alien; nonetheless, this succeeds in being thought-provoking and entertaining.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS