Netflix And Chill: Fathers & Daughters (2015)

I am not surprised that Fathers & Daughters was written by someone, Brad Desch, who has no other screenplay credits to his name. It feels very basic in the way the predictable storyline is plotted, and ultimately relies on the talent of the two main stars. What is more surprising is the fact that director Gabriele Muccino is no newcomer. He's done a number of movies in a very similar vein, and a number of his previous films are much better than this one.

Russell Crowe plays Jake Davis, a writer and a loving father who loses his wife in a car crash that also leaves him with some health issues that impact his everyday life. He's also now the single parent of young Katie (Kylie Rogers), but there are other people who don't think that is the best situation for both of them. In the here and now, viewers get to see Katie (now played by Amanda Seyfried) making her way through life, her father absent for reasons to become clear before the end credits roll, and making her way through a number of one-night stands. Until she meets Cameron (Aaron Paul). Happiness may be belatedly coming back into her life, but will she be able to deal with it?

If you like Seyfried and Paul then this movie should work for you. They both try hard to compensate for the weak material with performances that deserve a better movie around them. Crowe, on the other hand, settles into a performance that makes use of far too many familiar "ACTOR" tricks, whether he's angrily defending his ability to look after his young daughter or dealing with the problematic tremors afflicting him post-accident. Diane Kruger is disappointingly underused, but Bruce Greenwood excels as her partner, and the man who has the money and willingness to be diplomatic in offering to welcome young Katie as a permanent resident of their home, and it's good to have Octavia Spencer, Quvenzhané Wallis, and Jane Fonda doing well enough with their limited screentime to make it easier to enjoy things in between moments that have Crowe overdoing things.

Things are quite jarring when you move between watching scenes with a main character as an innocent young girl and then scenes in which she's a woman using sex as some band-aid for a deep well of pain, but the rest of the film is very standard and manipulative stuff. Desch seems to have spent less time writing a full screenplay and more time stringing together a whole load of dialogue and moments he's picked from many superior movies, Muccino thinks that he can rely on his cast to lift everything out of the doldrums, and the cast are too restricted by the material. There are intermittent highlights for fans of the supporting players, but not enough to make this more worthy of your time ahead of at least a hundred other melodramas that people could recommend to you.

4/10

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Spirited (2022)

It’s not the worst thing to have a new version of A Christmas Carol made available to audiences every few years, even if no newer version can ever hope to do a better job than The Muppets. Spirited is a musical comedy that places Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, and Octavia Spencer in the lead roles, playing characters very familiar to anyone with even a passing acquaintance of the classic Dickens Christmas tale. Which is pretty much everyone.

Reynolds is Clint Briggs, a man who has built a career on playing the public like a violin. He manufactures outrage, knows how to manipulate everyone around him, and doesn’t have time for anything in his life outwith his work and ego. Ferrell is the Ghost Of Christmas Present, tasked alongside the Ghost Of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani) and the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come (Tracy Morgan) to change the ways of Briggs. That could be tough though. He is labelled an “irredeemable”. But there was one other famous character transformed by ghosts who was once considered “irredeemable”, and he might be the person in the eBay position to help Briggs change his ways.

Directed by Sean Anders, who also co-wrote the film with frequent collaborator John Morris, Spirited is enjoyable enough for those who like the leads (including Octavia Spencer, playing Kimberly, the main assistant to Briggs, and currently having her own journey towards what she views as damnation or redemption). Sadly, there’s little else here to make it worth recommending.

What you get is a musical without decent musical numbers (with the exception of a fun number called “Good Afternoon”), a comedy without enough great laughs, and a riff on a classic tale that insists on breaking the fourth wall as characters remind you that they are all as aware of the plot and characters as viewers are. Give me a Deadpool riff on A Christmas Carol and I would be very happy, but this half-arsed attempt to be all things to everyone ends up just disappointing all but the most undemanding viewers. It’s a hard film to absolutely hate, but even those who enjoy it would probably admit that it could have been tweaked and improved in a number of different ways.

The cast are trying to do good work, and end up impressing most when they have moments they can play with what feels like genuine earnestness. Ferrell and Spencer have some lovely scenes together, and Reynolds almost gets a chance to show some of his actual acting chops during times when his character is being genuinely moved while revisiting the worst moment of his life. The laughs actually come more readily from the supporting cast, with both Mani and Morgan working well with what they’re given, and the likes of Patrick Page, Joe Tippett, Marlow Barkley, and Andrea Anders do decent work in the less comedic/super-serious roles.

I am not sure what would have helped make this a better film. A less smug script, I suppose. Pushing both Ferrell and Reynolds further out of their comfort zones. And better song and dance routines. Definitely better song and dance routines. Despite the budget and special effects, there’s also a constant feeling of this being staged very much like a theatre show. That is something I would enjoy, if I was watching it IN a theatre. Cinematically, it feels a lot less satisfying.

You cannot really go wrong with any version of A Christmas Carol. It’s a tale that ensures for good reason. It’s the main reason that Spirited works at all. It’s just a shame that so many other elements drag it down, like the heavy chains carried around in death by Jacob Marley.

5/10

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Prime Time: Encounter (2021)

I think it's fair to start this review by saying that Encounter isn't a bad film. It really isn't. There are two things that affected my opinion of this. The first is a feeling of deja vu. Encounter feels so close to another movie, one from just over 15 years ago, that to discuss that film would spoil this. The second is to do with expectations. A film defying, or subverting, expectations can always be a good thing. It's just a shame when things turn into what feels like something much weaker than it could have been. 

Riz Ahmed plays Malik Khan, an ex-military man who turns up unexpectedly to take his sons away on a road trip. He's convinced that the planet is being invaded by aliens, but not your standard "greys" or Independence Day invaders. These aliens are bugs, parasites that get inside people and make them act out of character. The best way to stay safe is to keep spraying yourself with bug spray. Determined to keep himself and his kids safe, Malik turns to increasingly desperate measures. The threat is growing, and there are a number of people trying to track Malik's movements.

Although directed and co-written by Michael Pearce, Encounter feels strongly influenced by co-writer Joe Barton (who has written films as diverse as iBoy and The Ritual). Pearce definitely has a good eye, and he certainly creates some impressive atmosphere and tension throughout, but the underlying theme, that becomes much more clear in the second half of the film, is something that Barton has explored in a fair bit of his previous work.

Anyone who has watched any performance from Riz Ahmed over the past 10+ years will not need any convincing of his status as one of the best young actors around. His performance here does nothing to affect that status. What could have been overdone and irritating is, thankfully, believably intense and agitated by circumstances. It also helps that the two child actors (Lucian-River Chauhan and Aditya Geddada) do very good work in their strong supporting roles, and there is some limited screentime for the great Octavia Spencer, Rory Cochrane, and other people who fit well in their roles.

Having thought more on the film as a whole, there IS a third factor that affected my opinion. The first half feels as if it is cheating slightly in what is shown to viewers, the second half feels disappointing in how simple and unambiguous everything is. I may have found this a more satisfying viewing experience if Pearce had chosen one way to let things play out, but he seems unsure of himself. 

The technical side of things is decent, and scenes making use of insect imagery or potential parasitic threats are impressive, but this is a film that just isn't quite deserving enough of the lead performance at the centre of it. The main idea isn't supported as well as it could be, and the end result falls between two stools. It's not a bad film though. It just falls short of being very good.

6/10

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Dolittle (2020)

Here is a perfect example of a film that, while not necessarily as bad as the very worst of them, stands out in the way it saps some fun out of the central concept and makes everything worse by over-reliance on CGI to make everything possible.

Robert Downey Jr. plays the man who can talk to the animals, and he has decided that his Dolittle should have a strong Welsh accent. He also doesn't want to deal with people any more, spending many years locked away after the loss of his adventuring wife. He is forced to change, however, when young Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett) sneaks in to his home, carrying with him a squirrel that he accidentally shot. Dolittle is also forced to accept a request to help save the life of Queen Victoria, who has been struck down by a mysterious malady that can only be cured by the fruit of a tree that nobody has ever managed to reach. It's time for an adventure, and Dolittle has plenty of animals to help him on his quest. He also has at least one person, Dr. Blair Müdfly (Michael Sheen ), trying to stop him from succeeding.

After a slightly unsteady start, scenes giving viewers a quick summary of the life of Dr. Dolittle and then showing him talking to animals IN animal noises before we then get to the more enjoyable format of Dolittle and the animals all talking in English, Dolittle becomes a decidedly okay bit of family entertainment. The animals are enjoyably exotic (with three of the main characters being a parrot, voiced by Emma Thompson, a gorilla, voiced by Rami Malek, and a polar bear, voiced by John Cena),  things look bright and lively enough, and there's a sense that the whole adventure could be a lot of fun.

It's a shame that the script, written by Doug Mand, Dan Gregor, and director Stephen Gaghan, seems to have been written with the idea that the visuals and lead performances will carry everything along. The lead performances, voice acting aside, don't feel as strong as they could be. Downey Jr. may be having fun, I guess, but he doesn't feel right for the role, as much as I often like his onscreen presence. Sheen is more enjoyable, a proper pantomime villain, and Antonio Banderas is a welcome addition, although not involved for long enough. The same can be said for Jim Broadbent. Young Collett does fine, but he's really there to be caught up in the middle of the animal shenanigans. And while it is a bit of a coup to rope in such a variety of big names, including Ralph Fiennes, Tom Holland, and Selena Gomez, for the animals, few of them really add to their roles, unlike the standout, an ostrich voiced by Kumail Nanjiani.

It's also a shame that the makers of the film have decided to let the visuals carry so much of it when the visuals are, despite the fact that some may find me overly critical here, a bloody mess. So many scenes lose any sense of magic because it feels like CGI interacting with CGI, against a CGI background, with some more CGI being used to add flourishes here and there. I wouldn't mind if it was better, and some of the scenes have to contain what I assume is a lot of seamless CGI complementing the action, but some moments are jarring in how obviously fake they look. There's one scene in which Tommy is being taken on the back of a giraffe to catch a departing ship that looks, well, it looks as if it could have been lifted directly from some high-quality BBC programme from the early 2000s.

Younger viewers should find enough to enjoy, and there's an amusing fart gag during the finale that will prompt giggles, but this is a horrible attempt to reinvigorate a property that was handled better back in the late '90s. Maybe we'll get something better next time, when someone more suitable is put in the lead role.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: Ma (2019)

It's kind of heartening to know that the standard "insert noun - from hell" thriller movie has never really gone away. It's just been dressed up in a variety of ways, from the many TV movies you can see in the schedules (with a hell of a lot of them featuring Eric Roberts, if you want to watch someone stalked by their doctor anyway) to the slick, mainstream outings that start deceptively tame before letting things go enjoyably crazy in the finale.

A departure for both director Tate Taylor (who has The Help as arguably the best-known film in his filmography) and writer Scotty Landes (although he also wrote the pretty poor Deadcon, released the same year), Ma is all about Sue Ann (Octavia Spencer), a woman who finds herself in the company of some teens when she buys alcohol for them. She sets things up in a way that gains the trust of the teens, turning part of her home into a bit of a party area, and becomes more and more reliant on their friendship, Or so it seems. While initially fun and strange, the teenagers soon realise that they should maybe distance themselves from Sue Ann AKA Ma. She seems particularly interested in Maggie (Diana Silvers) and Andy (Corey Fogelmanis), but she also may have some reason for recapturing a youthful experience that she seems to have missed out on.

Ma is ridiculous, yet it's also a lot of fun. A large part of that is thanks to the performance from Spencer, pitched perfectly between the believable and the absurd. We've all probably known that one "cool" adult who would prefer teenagers to drink in their home than out in the streets. Ma is just portraying herself as that kind of person, until she keeps pushing her way into the lives/phones of the young revellers.

Silvers and Fogelmanis do just fine in their roles, and McKaley Miller is a lot of the fun as the first person to become wary of Ma, calling her out directly. But there's more fun to be had here with the rest of the experienced adults populating the cast. Juliette Lewis plays Erica, Maggie's mother, and does well with her small role. Luke Evans is Andy's father, Ben, and has a past with Ma that makes him wary of her behaviour, and Allison Janney is Ma's boss, quick to notice when she is becoming more distracted in the workplace.

It gets awkward at times, and may certainly cause a cringe or two, but Ma generally strikes just the right balance to keep it entertaining throughout. You get a backstory teased out throughout the proceedings, you get one or two developments that you know are going to become vital in the third act, and you get some enjoyably over the top acts of crazed rage before the end credits roll. In fact, considering the motivation of the main character, and the attempted bodycount, this could easily be considered a slasher movie. Fans of that subgenre would expect some more blood and guts though, but you may be pleasantly surprised by this anyway.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Thunder Force (2021)

I really like Melissa McCarthy. I am fed up of saying that to people who think that she does nothing more than fall over and swear. It gets more depressing when she then goes on to appear in a movie in which she seems to do little more than fall over and swear. Although he's done some good work with his wife onscreen, writer-director Ben Falcone is one person who misunderstands the best way to use McCarthy comedically. In her best roles, and two of those were starring in Paul Feig films, she is smart and competent, but with an ability to swear enough to make a sailor blush while everyone arounds her underestimates her.

Thunder Force is set in a world in which some people have suddenly received superpowers, leading them to a life of super-villainy. After losing her parents at a young age, Emily Stanton is determined to devote her time to creating a superhero worthy of taking on the villains. Unfortunately, after decades of working on this main goal, Emily has her work potentially ruined when her old childhood friend, Lydia Berman visits her place of work. Lydia ends up being given super-strength, while Emily continues a treatment schedule that should give her the ability to become invisible. Perhaps they can still protect people, but do it as a team. The Thunder Force. Or perhaps they won't agree on the best way to do things. Emily has always been very cautious, after all, while Lydia is the kind to act first and think later.

I am sure it's already obvious to you, but McCarthy plays the Berman character here. Stanton is played by Octavia Spencer, who has spent the past couple of years in movies that focus on delivering some fun (yes, that includes Ma). Neither lead is given good enough material, leaving both of them desperately trying to create some additional chemistry that, I'm sorry to say, doesn't ever appear. Taylor Mosby helps, playing Tracy (the daughter of Emily), she's a lively presence, but the rest of the fun here really comes from the other supporting players. Melissa Leo is Allie, a strait-laced head of operations, and is the butt of one or two good gags, Bobby Cannavale is The King, a candidate for mayor who has a plan involving the super-villains, Pom Klementieff is Laser, having a blast as she tries to blast people, and Jason Bateman is a highlight as The Crab, someone with crab appendages where his arms would be. 

I am sure that Falcone and McCarthy make each other laugh loudly many times each day, and I'm sure that happened while making this movie, but the former really needs to take a step back, or sideways, to remind himself of just how much better he could do behind the camera, in both the writing and direction, instead of resting so much of the film on his wife's shoulders.

It's not as terrible as many people will tell you it is, but Thunder Force doesn't do anything to make it truly worth your time. There are too few laughs sprinkled throughout, the superhero side of things is all too silly (although an exchange between the head villain and a henchman that he may have killed is very amusing), and it feels like everyone may have had so much fun behind the scenes that they forgot to capture any of it on camera.

4/10

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The Witches (2020)

I was not won over when I saw the trailer for The Witches, a remake of the 1990 Nicolas Roeg film, one of the most legendarily-terrifying movies aimed at kids, adapted from the book by Roald Dahl. It looked as if it had been completely sanitised, and the choice of Anne Hathaway as the main villain seemed like a bit of miscasting.

Well, while it's worth bearing in mind that it has been many years since I last saw the original movie, this ended up being a decent remake/re-adaptation. The biggest problem it has is that it feels quite redundant. I don't recall anyone crying out for another version of the tale, and the film itself, while very competent, and enjoyable, just never gives you anything to make it more worthy of your time than the previous incarnation, which is now 30 years old.

Witches are everywhere. And they hate children. When our young hero (Jahzir Bruno), actually named Hero Boy, and his grandma (Octavia Spencer) head away for a break at a lovely hotel, they don't realise that their timing could not be worse. The hotel is also hosting a meeting for a number of witches, led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway). They have a plan for children, and that plan involves turning them into mice. All of them. Our young hero gets caught overhearing this plan, so is immediately mouse-ified, alongside a young man named Bruno Jenkins (Codie-Lei Eastick). Accompanied by a surprise ally, the mice must reach grandma, tell her what is going on, and find out if there's a way to reverse the effects of the potion.

Directed by Robert Zemeckis, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Kenya Barris and Guillermo del Toro, The Witches gets a number of important things right. It keeps things quite scary, especially for younger viewers (parents may want to either check this over beforehand or be prepared for extra-tight cuddles while watching). It transfers the action to 1960s America without losing anything vital to the overall tone or atmosphere. The cast are also a bonus. Bruno does well with his screentime, Spencer is a wonderful grandma, Stanley Tucci is excellent as the hotel manager, and Hathaway is clearly having a lot of fun in her role, complete with an undetermined accent and inability to comprehend people around her who don't give her immediate agreement and compliance. You also get an enjoyable voiceover from Chris Rock.

It's a shame that the main thing it gets wrong is something many can probably guess before even seeing one second of the film. Yes, with Robert Zemeckis at the helm you get an over-reliance on CGI, some of it nicely done and some of it that will make you yearn for some practical effects. I like the depiction of the witches when shown in their natural form (bald, with claws, no toes on their feet, and wide mouths with sharp teeth), but even that serves as a reminder of how great the practical effects were in the 1990 movie. And as for the CGI mice, let's not dwell on those. There's a pretty decent black cat that I was impressed by, and numerous enjoyable little touches here and there, but it's definitely a case of Mr. Zemeckis once again playing with some of his favourite new toys while some old dependables could have worked equally well.

So, unless my memory is blanking out one, we have had three movies in the past decade or so made from Roald Dahl books that had been filmed before. One was quite bad, one was quite good, and now this one sits almost squarely in the middle. I enjoyed it while it was on, but I won't rush to rewatch it, and am now more eager than ever to revisit the version that terrified me when I was young (and I wasn't even that young, being about 15-16 when it was released).

6/10

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Onward (2020)

Here's the starting point for this review. Onward is a disappointing film from Pixar. The fact that it IS from Pixar means there is still a lot here to enjoy, but it's disappointing, even if the message about sibling love/care feels like a slight improvement on the neverending stream of movies aimed at kids with a message all about how the people who created them during the act of sex are the best, and most important, people in the universe, and to be loved by them is the cure for everything ever. 

I admit . . . that has been a bugbear of mine for many years. I have my reasons.

Tom Holland voices Ian Lightfoot, the younger brother of Barley Lightfoot (Chris Pratt). The brothers live in a magical world that has left a lot of the old ways behind, for more convenient methods. They live with their mother, Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), and the shadow cast by the death of their father. So it becomes an urgent matter when the brothers are given a gift from their late father, a magical staff and instructions on how to bring him back for one extra day with them. So begins a quest that will involve some erratic driving, some angry pixies, a number of death-defying moments, a manticore, and lessons about the people in your life who help bring out the best in you.

Visually, Onward is lovely. The quality of the animation is as you would expect from Pixar, although it's a shame that every scene isn't packed out with the usual selection of details and small gags that we've come to expect from them. Maybe they are now a victim of their own success, and there are certainly plenty of lovely touches to pick up on repeat viewings (while occasionally pausing the movie), but it definitely feels like this movie is set in a universe that was not as fully-formed as the environments in so many other Pixar movies.

Holland and Pratt are decent leads, and their vocal performances somehow emanate a nice helping of brotherly love, but the rest of the cast feels a bit . . . lacking. Louis-Dreyfus is a fine mom character, Octavia Spencer is wonderful as the Manticore, but they're the only ones who stand out. Mel Rodriguez gets a number of good lines, playing Colt Bronco, a centaur police officer dating Mrs Lightfoot (and let's not even start considering the ramifications of THAT relationship), but it would have been nice to have a more familiar voice in that role.

Director Dan Scanlon also co-created the story and screenplay with Keith Bunin and Jason Headley, and this feels like a film that may have been better handed over to someone a step removed from the story. Everyone involved treats it as something a bit too precious, which is why the better moments (the angry pixies being a highlight) are so few and far between. As sweet and predictable as the ending is, it also feels like the safest and dullest way to tie everything up in time for the pending end credits.

As mentioned at the very start of this review, however, there is still plenty to enjoy here. It's not as bad as The Good Dinosaur (which remains the worst of the many Pixar movies I have seen so far, although I have yet to watch the Cars movies, despite owning them). It's just not half as good as it could have been. It's Onward, but no step upward.

6/10

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Prime Time: The Nines (2007)

It's really hard to consider how to even begin writing a review of The Nines, a film that is quite often overlooked in the filmography of Ryan Reynolds. It was only brought to my attention just over a week ago, in the midst of an online conversation about Reynolds, and I'm very glad that it was.

Reynolds plays a number of characters, I think it is safe to say that. And all of those characters seem to be going through a bit of a tough time. He keeps meeting incarnations of Melissa McCarthy and Hope Davis, among others, and tries to piece his mind together, while viewers try to figure out just how, if any, of this makes sense. There IS an explanation, and it's probably not one you would see coming.

Written and directed by John August, there's plenty here to mull over as you start to wander deeper and deeper into a story that is either about deteriorating mental health or something less easy to explain. In fact, despite the end of the movie seeming quite clear, I would argue that you could view the whole film as a look at a deluded individual, someone seeing patterns that aren't necessarily there while creating a wild theory to explain everything.

Reynolds is superb in his multiple roles, even better than he was in The Voices (a film that many seemed to love, but I just liked), and he's matched by his co-stars. Davis does well, but it's McCarthy who almost steals the show, mainly thanks to a large portion of the film that sees her playing a version of herself for the purposes of the plot. Elle Fanning, David Denman, and Ben Falcone also do solid work in smaller roles.

August has a varied and interesting filmography, from his short film God to Go and on to the Charlie's Angels movies. This is much more in line with the former than the latter, and allows him to tell his own tale in his own way, rather than take part in the blockbuster machine. The fact that he found some quality names to go along for the ride, and it is a wild ride indeed, is a major bonus.

The technical side of things is a-okay, utilising a few special effects moments here and there when showing cracks in the reality around the main characters but mostly keeping everything grounded by the effectiveness of the script and performances. The dialogue is always lively, with one or two lines that brilliantly punctuate scenes at vital moments, and it's a film that will continue to entertain on rewatch, even if it doesn't become any easier to fully untangle.

Not quite a 9 but . . . 8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can pick it up here.

The Shape Of Water (2017)

Guillermo del Toro has made a career out of trying to convince everyone to view monsters and ghosts the same way that he does. They're just the same as us, but different. In fact, sometimes the very things that make them monstrous or scary are the things that make them a little bit better than your average Joe. The Shape Of Water may very well be his most overt guide to loving monsters yet, taking it quite literally.

Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a mute woman who works as a janitor at a secret research facility. She spends her workdays alongside her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and when at home she sometimes enjoys the company of Giles (Richard Jenkins), an elderly, lonely gay man. There's excitement in the workplace when a bipedal amphibious humanoid specimen (Doug Jones) is brought in, under the watchful eyes of Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), and Elisa finds herself forming a strong connection with the creature. Some people might be happy to see that development, Strickland isn't one of them.

While it's certainly a very derivative film in many ways (from the obvious "gillman" movies to the tone and visual palate of Jean-Pierre Jeunet), The Shape Of Water takes the familiar and mixes it into something that feels quite unique. I would say that those looking to hammer the film for the range of influences on display aren't considering how well Del Toro has placed everything. Never one to skimp on the detailing of the worlds he wants to let viewers into, the director, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Vanessa Taylor from his own story, somehow manages to fill every scene with little touches and thematic strands without having it all feel too busy and overdone.

Dan Laustsen, the Director of Photography, deserves a special mention, because there are a number of scenes here that stand out as some of the most beautiful from last year (and I know I am terrible for not often singling out the DPs in my reviews), and Alexandre Desplat has come up with an appropriately beautiful score to accompany those visuals, with everything coming together to make a film that feels very much like a Del Toro film in content and theme, while moving away from his standard visual palette.

Hawkins gives a wonderful central performance, as does the prosthetically-covered Doug Jones. The two manage to say so much without actually speaking. Spencer and Jenkins both give great supporting turns, and chatter away to Hawkins throughout the film, and Shannon is the villain of the piece that the film requires (allowing him to have a lot of fun with some over the top moments). Michael Stuhlbarg is another good presence, but it's easy to forget the other people involved during the moments that show Hawkins and Jones wordlessly connecting with one another.

The biggest problem with The Shape Of Water stems from the biggest plus point. This feels very much like a film Del Toro has had in his mind for years, something he was just waiting to finally be allowed to do. Now, having been given permission, he loads it up with no small amount of self-indulgence. That is fine when it comes to the detailing and style of the film, but it also means that the runtime feels just a bit too long, there are one or two extra plot points that didn't really need to be in there, and some of the quirkier moments don't work.

Those minor mis-steps, however, are nowhere near irritating enough to detract from the gorgeous and uplifting experience that the film provides. It's not up there with the very best films we've already had from Guillermo del Toro, but it's leagues ahead of many other films that you'll see this year.

8/10

There's a lovely book available here.
Americans can order the film here.