The Amateur (2025)

Run-of-the-mill rogue agent stuff not made any more engaging - in fact, it is all rendered a bit daft - by the fact Rami Malek's hero is a hastily trained amateur - a data geek working deep in the bowels of CIA headquarters who takes it upon his pasty little self to track down and kill the terrorists responsible for killing his wife, in outlandish ways that are laughable given the smug way he glibly enacts these logically impossible booby traps.

★★☆☆☆

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No Time To Die (2021)

When it is all said and done, this final Daniel Craig James Bond movie has revealed that all the major players of all the recent movies have been moving all their lives in a circle so so small, so insular that the spy's world ends up looking like a daytime soap: he/she grew up with him/her and he/she is the son/daughter/mother/father/secret twin of him/her and is the one responsible for this/that major event in this/that other character's life, and everyone's made at least two trips through the snow to a particular home in remote Norway - making No Time To Die the soapiest, most melodramatic James Bond episode yet; themes are ripped from Greek tragedy: there's long-lost family secrets, a modern-day Midas touch, and diabolical revenge sought by yet another facially disfigured male villain; but it is beautiful and engrossing and checks all of those James Bond boxes - exquisitely photographed locations, expertly choreographed action, sophistication and sexiness - not quite achieving the sublime thrills of Casino Royale but certainly not a Quantum of Solace either - in terms of James Bond quality, this is more Skyfall or Spectre.

★★★★☆

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The Little Things (2021)

It is wrong to say this is a thriller about the serial murders of six or five women because in fact it is an unpleasant drama about three male caricatures, Rami Malek's incomprehensible suit-wearing detective, Denzel Washington's heavy-footed deputy sheriff, and Jared (if I limp I'm acting, right?) Leto's pot-bellied Charles Manson type, a trio whose characterisation ends with their outfits but whose interactions, you won't realise until the dismaying end, are the things you are being asked to care about - the women, all of them dead except for a door-opener, some out-of-focus swimmers in a pool, and one who actually speaks but only three or four lines and only to help facilitate the film's utter male-centredness, are, literally, just little things in the way.

★★☆☆☆

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Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

There is nothing objectionable in watching people catapault from one success to another as Freddie Mercury and his band Queen do in this bandopic, but there is nothing much unique about the trajectory traced by this particular movie, either - the band experiences the crazy heights and then the abject lows experienced by all winners of The Voice and all musicians in movies - have you seen A Star Is Born? - and all you are left with in the end as you watch a painstakingly recreated 20-minute set at a rock concert is doubt regarding the reality of Queen's longevity and questions - because I just don't know - about the accuracy of Rami Malek's impersonation.

★★★☆☆

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