The main problem with FIRE AND ASH isn’t the unimpeachable visuals or James Cameron’s earnestness, it’s the repetition. The latest chapter of Jake and Neytiri’s (Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña) story on the verdant planet of Pandora sees them confront grief and continue to battle human invaders as well as the marauding ash tribe under the psychotic shaman Varang (Oona Chaplin). Look, the strange stuff is great. I wanted more psychedelic tripping on alien drugs, more subtitled space whale councils, weird things for Na’vi to do with their hair/psychic link things, more trips to Pandora’s mycelial astral plane. But what was the point in watching the previous film WAY OF WATER when its entire final act was going to be recycled wholesale, but bigger here? There’s also entirely too much run-captured-escape-repeat for the Sully clan here and too many instances of characters verbally recapping what’s going on. Just luxuriate in, or get overwhelmed by, the imagery and leave it there. SSP
Review in Brief: One Battle After Another (2025)
By all rights, a film so timely, so powerfully relevant, shouldn’t be this entertaining as well. It’s disheartening to see how little the world has changed in the decade and a half the film takes place over; evil never dies, it just mutates. We follow past-his-best freedom fighter Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is pursued by the fanatical Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) as he tries to save his daughter from white supremacists. ONE BATTLE, like the majority of Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, has been universally acclaimed and is deservedly all-but guaranteed to dominate come Awards Season. It’s epic in scale and scope, thematically complex and goes for the jugular in its criticism of contemporary society. It’s also relentless, thrilling and boasts the best work from DiCaprio, Penn and Benicio Del Toro in years. SSP
Review in Brief: The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)
Much like the similarly rural Wales-set BRIAN & CHARLES, THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is an elliptical, low-key and bittersweet tale of lost souls finding meaning. Rich superfan Charles (Tim Key) underhandedly reunites former musical and romantic partners Herb (Tom Basden) and Nell (Carey Mulligan) for a private gig on a remote Welsh island, and things get awkward and emotionally fraught rather quickly from there. Director James Griffiths, Key and Basden have expanded and developed their short film from almost 20 years ago, recruited Mulligan for a little star power and come up with an album’s worth of melancholy folk songs worthy of these characters. There are many neat, comforting, crowd-pleasing ways this film could go if it was a conventional Hollywood romcom, but this goes to some much darker places and largely refuses to indulge convention. This is a warm but unsentimental, romantic but grounded, poignant and witty sort-of musical. SSP
Review in Brief: The Shrouds (2024/25)
David Cronenberg plumbs his real-life grief trauma to fuel one of the most twisted yet affecting sci-fi horrors for years. Following his invention of technology allowing mourners to view a live feed of their loved ones’ decomposing body from their grave side, grieving tech mogul Karsh’s (Vincent Cassel) company is subject to hacking and sabotage while he receives vivid visions of his deceased wife Becca (Diane Kruger) coming back to him. You definitely have to already be on Cronenberg’s wavelength for this one, but the vulnerable performances, the emotional rawness and a deft balancing of disparate tones reaffirms the maverick Canadian as the best there is at this sort of thing. Prepare to feel deeply uncomfortable at some of the sights and sounds in THE SHROUDS, but you have to admire how it’s all laid out there without shame, a particularly graphic form of therapy. SSP
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) Review
Review in Brief: The Phoenician Scheme (2025)
“I feel very safe myself”. On the whole I think I’m much more of a fan than many others of Wes Anderson’s latest career stage where his unmistakable style has never been more prominent but he continues to experiment with storytelling techniques and vivid characterisation. It’s definitely not style over substance, whatever lazy naysayers might say. Following infamous arms manufacturer Zsa-zsa Korda (Benicio Del Toro) miraculously continuing to cheat death while reconnecting with his estranged nun daughter Liesl (Mia Threapleton) and attempting to close the biggest deal of his career, THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME is one of Anderson’s most ambitious projects to date. Apart from anything else, this has got a real scale to it. He still plays with reality and dials up the theatrical elements, but this is a real globe-trotter, an absurdist comedy showcasing a diverse ensemble of regular collaborators and even dicing with a bit of political commentary. It’s mad, it’s exciting and breathlessly convoluted and one of Anderson’s best in years. SSP
SSP Thinks Film 