The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

The creators of the Cloverfield movies seem to be developing the series in a way akin to going into a bookshop, selecting books from different sections and finding ways to connect the disparate genres with an overarching universe, and so one dimension of this third movie to enjoy is seeing how their intellectual writers' game ends up tying together this scifi set on a space station to an underground abduction thriller and a much earlier found-footage creature feature, but the other dimension - simply enjoying each movie as a standalone - is where these movies - and this movie yet again - fall down because while the universal ties are intriguing, it doesn't take an astrophysicist to see the two dimensions do not co-exist very well, with poor plotting (spaceships that eat arms but then don't, inexplicable magnet troubles and astronauts who one minute don't know what is going on and the next know that flicking a switch reverses dimensional shifts) letting down the grander plans for the series.

★★☆☆☆

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Widows (2018)

Lynda La Plante's crime soap, a book previously made into a British tv series and now, here, a star-studded American blockbuster, ends up feeling like its story of gangster wives, forced to do a 'job' after the death of their husbands, overreaches in its attempts to be a sprawling epic because while its flourishes - race and gender politics, personal trauma, relationship angst - are interesting, none seems warranted given the heist at the core of the movie ends up being a home robbery requiring the widows to climb some stairs and make sure first that no-one is home.

★★★☆☆

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The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

The Man From U.N.C.L.E., based on the 60s tv show, looks terrific, like a photo shoot of mod fashions from a 60s Vogue magazine, but with one-note characters and key scenes presented as comic book panels, the spy action hunt for nuclear weapons across glamorous European locations is about as involving as flipping through a glossy.

★★★☆☆

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The Great Gatsby (2013)

The camera sweeps around, never stopping for longer than two seconds, in Baz Luhrmann's overwrought, overthought adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, with the heart of the novel buried in too much of Bazzle's razzle-dazzle and, with the exception of Leonardo DiCaprio, the cast lacks gravitas, coming across like high school kids playing dress-ups.

★★☆☆☆

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