Hollywood is obsessed with cinematic universes. Nowadays, it seems that every blockbuster franchise is on a mission to sprawl into as many films (and consequently as many wallets) as possible. However, while more recent attempts such as DC’s Extended Universe and Universal’s Dark Universe continue to stumble over rushed worldbuilding and poor reviews, the pioneering Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps going from strength to strength. After smashing glass ceilings with the slick, smart and sincere Black Panther earlier this year, the MCU smashed box office records with Avengers: Infinity War . The third and penultimate instalment in the MCU’s central series, Infinity War beat 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens to earn the biggest opening weekend ever. However - as impressive as this is - box office numbers mean nothing if the film isn’t any good and I wasn’t confident Infinity War was going to succeed in that area. As exciting as the trailers were, I couldn’t see how all these ...

It's difficult to stress how much Black Panther needed to be good. The film was coming off the backs of 2017’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok - three of Marvel's strongest films to date. Plus, as the last release before the highly anticipated Avengers: Infinity War , Black Panther had to be something special to avoid being overlooked. Most significantly, Black Panther found itself in a similar position to last year's Wonder Woman , bearing the responsibility of representing a regularly underrepresented group without screwing it up. Fortunately, it succeeds with flying colours. Black Panther is possibly my favourite standalone Marvel film yet. It excels in nearly every area, including those the MCU normally botches. Black Panther is the first Marvel film that doesn't look merely professional, but genuinely beautiful. The sets and costumes are an inventive kaleidoscope, shot with beaming vibrancy by Academy Award-nom...

Major Oscar contenders are not unfamiliar with backlash. Anything hyped up that much is inevitably going to inspire some pushback. However, recently these pushbacks have been more politically charged. La La Land received much criticism for a lack of black characters despite prominently featuring jazz music (although, as a privileged white man, the fact that the film wasn't actually that great bothered me more). Now, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - the latest film from In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths director Martin McDonagh - has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and is already receiving several think pieces regarding its allegedly thorny racial politics.  Of course, we're living in divisive times. It's becoming increasingly difficult to see anyone who disagrees with you as anything more than a political enemy and increasingly easy to label them libtards/Nazis and punch them in the face. We're constantly seeing cries for nuance from both si...

Up until this point, Aaron Sorkin has exclusively been a writer. Responsible for creating iconic TV shows such as  The West Wing and The Newsroom , as well as recently penning the screenplays for  The Social Network and  Steve Jobs , Sorkin's dense, witty and rapid-fire style is successful with critics and audiences alike. However, Molly's Game marks Sorkin's first time in the director's chair. Unlike The Social Network and Steve Jobs , where Sorkin's writing was filtered through directors David Fincher and Danny Boyle respectively, this is purely his vision . Is it any good, or is it just an indulgent attempt to cram as many words into 140 minutes as possible? There is no doubt that Molly's Game is an Aaron Sorkin film. Dialogue is the centre of attention and for good reason: it's excellent. Of course, it isn't exactly naturalistic. Every line sounds like one that you come up with an hour after a conversation and wish you'd said instead. Howe...

The real world of 2017 was like the messier, uglier sequel to 2016. That year left us with an ominous array of terrible decisions, and 2017 consisted of everyone flailing about in unsuccessful attempts to deal with the consequences. By the end of the year, we were pretty much right where we started, just significantly more tired and miserable. Fortunately, beyond the number of high profile people in the industry that have turned out to be abhorrent sexual criminals, the entertainment of 2017 has been excellent. My current favourite band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard released five whole albums of consistently fantastic quality, Stranger Things season two was predictably marvellous and we finally got a female Doctor to look forward to in 2018. Then, there were the films. There were a handful of things I didn’t get to see ( Get Out , The Death of Stalin , Call Me by Your Name ) that could have made this list. However, there was still a bucketload of brilliance that I did se...

[MINOR PLOT SPOILERS] Star Wars: The Last Jedi ’s divisive reception is genuinely unprecedented. The originals are universally loved, the prequels are universally loathed and The Force Awakens only faced dissent from a miserable minority. Yet this latest instalment has a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 54%, meaning fans are split almost straight down the middle. When asked if The Last Jedi is any good, I’ve genuinely replied, “I don’t know”. Sure, I know my opinion, but what on earth is theirs going to be? I don’t want to give them any false expectations. The situation is only made more confusing when you consider the lavish acclaim poured on the film by critics. Why are audiences so polarised? Why are critics so enamoured? How is there such a disconnect between these two groups? These are all excellent question that I can't and won't answer. Instead, I’m going to explain why The Last Jedi is my favourite Star Wars film since The Empire Strikes Back . I love The L...

Ever since Avengers: Age of Ultron , a film stuffed with more superhero cliches than you can shoot a giant laser at, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been trying to shake things up. Last year's Doctor Strange was a good example of this. Going all out on trippy visuals and ending with a third act that favoured mind-bending inventiveness over mind-numbing spectacle, Doctor Strange hinted at a refreshing new path for the MCU. Have Spider-Man Homecoming and Thor Ragnarok , the latest two instalments in the MCU, continued down this road? Before its release, audiences were rightfully sceptical about Spider-Man Homecoming . The Spider-Man franchise had already been rebooted very recently with the two Amazing Spider-Man films, both of which were received with a collective "ehhh". On the other hand, audiences had already witnessed Tom Holland's Spider-Man in last year's Captain America: Civil War , in which he effortlessly stole the show. Regardless, most people were...