Movies“A Walk Among The Tombstones” is no vacuous retread of the rambunctious “Taken” series nor is it implausible action nonsense like “Non-Stop”. Neeson lays aside the superhero persona here to deliver a performance of real weight in this atmospheric serial killer drama based on the novel by Lawrence Block. When a drug trafficker’s wife is ..
MoviesMrs Craggus has a recurring complaint about Liam Neeson, specifically that in many (she says all) of his roles, he just happens to be the exactly skilled person the plot needs. When his daughter is kidnapped, he has that ‘special set of skills’, when his commercial flight is threatened by terrorists, it turns out he’s ..
MoviesWhile the trailer may have raised ‘Groot Expectations’, J A Bayona’s sumptuous adaptation of Patrick Ness’ novel is a world away from the bombastic bonhomie of Marvel’s galactic gadabouts. Firmly rooted (ahem) in the mundane tragedy of real life, “A Monster Calls” is low fantasy elevated to great heights. Conor (Lewis MacDougall) is a creative, ..
MoviesA Million Ways To Die In The West (2014) Cards on the table: I’m a fan of Seth MacFarlane. I love “Family Guy” and “American Dad!” (although I could take or leave “The Cleveland Show”) and I thought “Ted” was a brilliantly profane and laugh-out-loud twist on both the magical childhood wish and romantic comedy ..
MoviesWith awards season winding down, the world’s multiplexes are once again opening up to a broader range of movie as we start the slow, inexorable march towards the summer blockbusterpalooza. It’s time for an action movie, and cometh the hour cometh the man. Liam Neeson adds another troubled tough guy to his action hero CV in ..
MoviesLudicrously lavish and, by turns, lavishly ludicrous, “Krull” is a wonderfully wasteful, overindulgent high fantasy misfire that still manages to entertain even as it baffles and frustrates in equal measure. When The Beast’s star-travelling space fortress crashes onto the planet Krull, it interrupts the wedding of Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) and Princess Lysse (Lysette Anthony ..
MoviesThe only thing ‘taken’ in this flaccid threequel is diabolical liberties with the audience’s patience and intelligence. When ex-CIA operative Brian Mills is framed for the murder of his ex-wife, he sets off to find out who really killed her, evading the LAPD and Russian mobsters as he closes in on the culprit. Where the ..
MoviesHardly the frozen “Taken” we were promised by the marketing, this remake of the director’s own 2014 film “Kraftidioten” has moments of sublime black humour but is too disjointed, derivative and haphazard to do justice to its cast or premise. Hard-working snowplough driver Nels Coxman (Neeson) is a pillar of the community of Rocky Mountain ..
MoviesLike its fellow Weinstein distributed stablemate “Escape From Planet Earth”, “The Nut Job” reaches the UK some months after it made its Stateside debut, but it really shouldn’t have bothered making the trans-Atlantic trip. When an attempt to rob a nut cart goes disastrously wrong and destroys the park’s food stores for the winter, rebellious ..
MoviesWith the pedigree of talent behind and in front of the camera, you’d be forgiven for expecting “Widows” to be something very special. And you’d be right, too. Director Steve McQueen, sharing screenwriting duties with Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) in adapting a 1983 British TV series by Lynda La Plante, creates a polished, compellingly multi-layered ..
MoviesOppressively contemplative and impassively brutal, Martin Scorsese’s religious epic “Silence” sweeps us back in time to the rule of a cruel and uncompromising Japanese Shogunate. When a Dutch trader delivers the last letter from Father Cristóvão Ferreira (Liam Neeson) and testifies that Ferreira committed apostasy after being tortured, two of his former pupils – Father ..
MoviesFor a franchise which has often been plagued with a sense of déjà vu (indeed its first sequel was an almost note for note remake of the first film and its second was themed around the redoing historic events), the most disappointing aspect of “Men In Black: International” is how familiar it all feels, despite ..
MoviesRichard Curtis’ “Love Actually” is often misunderstood as an ensemble romantic comedy, intertwining numerous criss-crossing plots in the run up to Christmas. It is, in fact, an avante garde adaptation of a grand British Christmas institution: “Love Actually” is the cinematic adaptation of a tin of Cadbury’s Roses (or Quality Street if you prefer, but ..
MoviesIt’s something of a running joke in the Craggus household that there’s a body of Liam Neeson’s work which is based on the simple premise that Liam Neeson’s character just happens to have the specific set of skills/ experience for the extremely specific and somewhat contrived situation he finds himself in. In many ways, THE ..