Reviews

Film Review: Tenzing is a breathtaking Everest drama gives an unsung hero his due

History has a funny way of remembering partnerships as individual achievements. Ask who first reached the summit of Mount Everest and Edmund Hillary’s name will likely arrive before Tenzing Norgay’s, despite the two men standing together atop the world’s highest mountain on May 29th, 1953. Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing seeks to redress that imbalance, shifting the…

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Series Review: Crystal Lake is a gloriously gruesome and ambitious resurrection of the Friday the 13th franchise

After almost two decades of cinematic silence, Jason Voorhees is finally back. Well, sort of. The hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding horror icon has remained conspicuously absent from our screens since 2009’s Friday the 13th reboot, with legal complications and creative uncertainty keeping one of the genre’s most recognisable villains frustratingly dormant. Now, with A24’s eight-part prequel…

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Film Review: Love of Your Life is a beautifully affecting reminder that moving forward doesn’t mean leaving love behind

The notion of “moving on” after losing someone has always felt somewhat cruel. It suggests that grief is something we can eventually put behind us, that heartbreak comes with an expiration date, and that finding happiness again somehow requires us to leave behind the people who once made us happy. Cinema has often embraced this…

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Series Review: Carrie; Mike Flanagan creates suspense around a tragedy whose destination we already know in emotionally bruising adaptation

For more than 50 years, we’ve known how the story of Carrie White ends. Stephen King’s 1974 debut novel has become so embedded in popular culture – helped immeasurably by Brian De Palma’s seminal 1976 adaptation – that even those who have never read the book or watched one of its screen incarnations likely know…

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Series Review: Neagley; Maria Sten steps out of Reacher’s shadow in worthy spin-off

It was almost inevitable that Frances Neagley would earn her own series. From the moment Maria Sten first appeared opposite Alan Ritchson’s human brick wall in Reacher, she proved one of the few characters capable of matching his intimidating competence without feeling like she had been engineered purely to keep up with him. She was…

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Film Review: The Devil’s Mouth; claustrophobic thrills keep this creature feature afloat

There’s a certain comfort in knowing exactly what you’re getting from a killer shark movie. A group of attractive twenty-somethings, a spectacular location, increasingly questionable decisions, and a predator waiting patiently for everyone to separate one by one. The Devil’s Mouth doesn’t pretend to be anything more ambitious than that, and while it never quite…

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Series Review: Furious; Emmy Rossum fronts one of 2026’s most essential pieces of television

Serial killer thrillers are comfort food for television. We know the rhythm by now: a brilliant investigator, a methodical killer, a trail of bodies, a race against time. Furious begins by inviting us into exactly that kind of story, only to reveal that it has something far more confronting on its mind. Created by Elizabeth…

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Series Review: Lucky; Anya Taylor-Joy makes Apple TV’s slick crime thriller worth the gamble

Crime thrillers live and die by two things: whether their central mystery keeps you guessing, and whether you care enough about the people at the centre of it to stay along for the ride. Thankfully, Lucky has Anya Taylor-Joy. Apple TV+’s seven-episode limited series wastes little time throwing audiences into the deep end. Luciana “Lucky”…

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Series Review: The F Ward is one of Australia’s best new dramas

When The Pitt reminded audiences how compelling a hospital drama could still be and Scrubs returned to television for a new generation, Australian TV was noticeably missing its own great medical series. Thankfully, The F Ward arrives not just to fill that gap, but to prove the genre still has plenty of fresh stories to…

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Film Review: Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War; confident thriller works as both a continuation for fans of the series and a satisfying standalone for newcomers

There’s always a risk when a successful streaming series makes the leap to a feature film that it will feel like an extended episode rather than a cinematic evolution. Fortunately, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War threads that needle with confidence, delivering a slick, character-driven thriller that works both as a continuation for fans and…

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Prime Video’s Off Campus; it’s Dawson’s Creek for the TikTok generation

Off Campus understands exactly what it is selling within the first ten minutes. Beautiful people. Hockey players with tragic backstories and perfect jawlines. College hookups shot like perfume ads. Emotional vulnerability wrapped in towels (and sometimes not) and locker-room lighting. It knows the “girls, gays, and theys” audience it is chasing, and it goes after…

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Film Review: Apex; well-crafted Netflix thriller leans into performance, place, and momentum

Grief sits at the centre of Apex, but it’s not the kind that asks for quiet reflection. It’s restless, disorienting, and constantly pushing forward – much like the film itself. What begins as a solitary escape into the wilderness gradually tightens into something far more dangerous, until it snaps into a lean, nerve-rattling game of…

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Series Review: Running Point Season 2 makes a convincing case that it’s here to play for the long game

Season two of Running Point doesn’t just build on its breakout debut – it confidently steps into its own power, sharpening its voice, raising the stakes, and leaning even harder into the messy, addictive dynamics that made the first season such a bingeable delight. At the centre of it all is Kate Hudson’s Isla Gordon,…

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Series Review: Margo’s Got Money Troubles; Elle Fanning anchors this modern dramedy done right

The speed at which Margo’s Got Money Troubles has moved from page to screen feels almost miraculous – and even more impressive is how fully formed it arrives. Created by David E. Kelley and based on Rufi Thorpe’s novel, the series lands as one of the most vibrant, funny, and unexpectedly moving shows of the…

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Interview: Nick Offerman and Thaddea Graham on Margo’s Got Money Troubles and exploring the performative nature of existence

From David E. Kelley, the multi-Emmy Award-winning creator behind some of television’s most compelling character dramas, comes Margo’s Got Money Troubles – a sharp, funny and deeply human series anchored by a powerhouse cast including Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nicole Kidman and Nick Offerman. Based on Rufi Thorpe’s bestselling novel, the show follows Margo, a…

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Series Review: The Boys Season 5 is fearless, excessive, and just self-aware enough to know exactly how far it can push things before it cuts to black.

There’s something almost fitting about how The Boys bows out: loud, messy, confrontational, and completely sure of itself. Season 5 doesn’t attempt a reinvention. Instead, it doubles down on everything that made the series essential viewing in the first place, delivering a finale that feels both earned and unflinchingly true to its identity. Developed by…

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Series Review: The Testaments is a worthy return to Gilead

Few fictional worlds have embedded themselves into the cultural consciousness quite like The Handmaid’s Tale. In the decades since Margaret Atwood first published her landmark novel, Gilead has become shorthand for a very real kind of fear – one that has only felt more immediate with time. So when she released The Testaments more than…

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Series Review: With Season 2, Deadloch remains one of the most distinctive and exciting series on Australian television

There’s something quietly miraculous about how Deadloch manages to be so many things at once without collapsing under the weight of it all – and in its second season, it somehow gets even more ambitious. Shifting the action from Tasmania to the Top End is more than just a change of scenery; it’s a smart…

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Film Review: Pretty Lethal is a lively, blood-splattered little thrill ride

There’s something immediately appealing about the gleefully ridiculous premise of Pretty Lethal: take a troupe of young ballet dancers, strand them in the middle of nowhere after witnessing a violent crime, and then let them fight their way out using a very particular set of skills. It’s the kind of concept that sounds like a…

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Series Review: The Madison; Michelle Pfeiffer is phenomenal in Taylor Sheridan’s most intimate, emotional series yet

Created by Taylor Sheridan, The Madison may have been born from the creative orbit that produced Yellowstone, but it ultimately emerges as something far more intimate: a quietly devastating family drama wrapped in the sweeping visual language of the American West. Rather than leaning on the operatic power struggles that have defined Sheridan’s other series,…

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First Impressions: Scarpetta; Nicole Kidman dissects a dark past in gripping crime series

For decades, readers of Patricia Cornwell’s bestselling crime novels have followed the meticulous, morally driven investigations of medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Now, the character finally makes the leap to television in Scarpetta, with Nicole Kidman (possibly the busiest woman working in Hollywood) stepping into the blood-spattered lab coat. It’s a fitting match. Kidman brings…

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Film Review: The Bluff; entertaining, though not revolutionary jaunt for audiences in the mood for swords and spectacle

The Bluff is a spirited dive into pirate-infused action, set against the jaw-dropping Cayman Brac, where towering bluffs and Skull Cave provide the perfect backdrop for a story about revenge, family, and redemption. At its heart is Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Ercell “Bloody Mary” Bodden, a woman dragged back into the violent world she thought…

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Series Review: Long-awaited Marian Keyes adaptation, The Walsh Sisters celebrates the sisters we know and love

If you’ve been following the adventures of the Walsh sisters since 1995’s “Watermelon,” then you’ll know that these are five sisters who have been through a lot together. There’s heartbreak, infidelity, addiction, struggles with fertility, grief, depression, and, to top it all off, their mother – affectionately known as Mammy Walsh – is blunt, over-involved,…

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Series Review: The Artful Dodger Season 2 broadens its story in both scale and spectacle

The Artful Dodger debuted in 2023, serving as an inventive sequel inspired by Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.” Rather than focusing on Dickens’ original orphan, the series followed the “Artful Dodger”, Jack Dawkins (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), as he forged a new life in the British Colony of Australia, balancing ambition, love, and the lingering influence of Fagin…

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Film Review: The Wrecking Crew; Momoa and Bautista power energetic, violent buddy actioner

The Wrecking Crew knows exactly what kind of movie it wants to be, and it’s in that confidence that it reveals its greatest asset. Directed by Ángel Manuel Soto (Blue Beetle), this sun-drenched, bruising action comedy channels the spirit of 80s/90s-era buddy chaos, pairing Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista as estranged half-brothers pulled back together…

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Film Review: The Rip; Damon and Affleck reunite in one of Netflix’s more confident cinematic thrillers

Joe Carnahan’s The Rip arrives with the familiar Netflix sheen, but beneath that polish is something tougher, meaner, and far more cinematic than the algorithm usually allows. A pressure-cooker crime thriller steeped in mistrust and moral rot, the film leans hard into character before letting violence and paranoia take the wheel. It’s a throwback with…

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First Impressions: The Copenhagen Test is confident in its patience and unsettling in its implications

The Copenhagen Test arrives without the usual genre fanfare. There are no grandiose set pieces or relentless action beats demanding attention (at least not initially), with the series instead drawing viewers in quietly, building tension through atmosphere, psychology, and a creeping sense of dread. It’s a sci-fi espionage thriller that understands restraint can be more…

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Interview: One More Shot stars Aisha Dee, Sean Keenan and Ashley Zukerman on their time-loop comedy

On New Year’s Eve, 1999, armed with a bottle of time travelling tequila, Minnie (Emily Browning) arrives at the swanky beach house of her long-time friend, Rodney (Ashley Zukerman), only to discover that her former flame Joe (Sean Keenan), has brought his new girlfriend, Jenny (Aisha Dee). When Minnie takes a shot and is suddenly…

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Series Review: Man Vs Baby; Rowan Atkinson’s situational comedy is perfect for Christmas season streaming

2022’s Man Vs Bee was the type of simplistic, farcical premise that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. One of the reasons it did though was the utter commitment from the comedic genius that is Rowan Atkinson, who built upon the largely silent, situational mentality of his classic Mr. Bean for nine micro-episodes…

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Film Review: Jay Kelly; George Clooney is charming and agreeable in soft Netflix dramedy

Though a richly textured performance from George Clooney (even if he is essentially playing himself) and some warm support from Adam Sandler (though his overuse of the word “Papi” starts to grate) help bolster Jay Kelly, it’s difficult to entirely find a way into the universality writer/director Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story, White Noise) hopes to…

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