Film & TV Reviews

Alien (1979)

In its genre, Alien has rarely, if ever, been bettered. It's a very simple story of a terrifying monster let loose in a confined space, killing off the crew of a space ship one by one. Its greatness lies in its superb handling and in its extraordinary art direction.

The film begins with the mining ship Nostromo returning to Earth with a cargo of 20,000,000 tons of mineral ore. The ship is still a long way from home when its computer picks up a distress signal from a nearby planet. The ship's crew are automatically awakened from suspended animation and directed to the planet to investigate.

The ship has a crew of seven. There is the businesslike captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), curious and incautious Kane (John Hurt), nervy Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), suspicious science officer Ash (Ian Holm), tough but brittle Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and two grumbling mechanics from below decks, Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton).

Dallas, Kane and Lambert investigate the …

The Matrix (1999)

In The Matrix, Keanu Reeves plays Thomas Anderson, an average guy living an average, unfulfilling life in an average and anonymous American city, somewhere at the end of the 20th Century.

Anderson works in a dull job as a computer programmer by day, while by night he is a computer hacker who goes by the name of Neo. Neo is looking for something. Specifically, he is looking for Morpheus, a shadowy figure wanted by the government for unspecified crimes.

When Neo is contacted over his computer by another hacker, Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), she tells him that he is in great danger. But she also tells him that, just as he has been seeking Morpheus, so has Morpheus been seeking him.

When Neo and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) finally meet, Morpheus reveals to him the startling and uncomfortable truth about the world in which he is living.

Unbroken (2014)

Unbroken is based on the life story of Louis Zamperini. Zamperini was an American athlete who competed in the 1936 Olympics, became a bomb aimer in the USAAF in WWII, survived being shot down over the Pacific, and spent 47 days adrift in a dinghy on the open sea before eventually being captured by the Japanese.

The film moves back and forwards in time, opening with a bombing raid in the Pacific, where the plane of Zamperini (Jack O'Connell) is attacked by Japanese fighters, before having to make an emergency landing. The film then shows Zamperini's childhood in flashback where, as the son of Italian immigrants, he is bullied by the other local boys and becomes a trouble-making tearaway. Eventually, with the encouragement of his brother, he reluctantly takes up running after discovering he has a talent for it, with his being taunted as a “dumb dago” spurring him on to succeed on the running track. Zamperini goes on to compete in the 5,000 metres at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

In …

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Alien (1979)

The Matrix (1999)

Unbroken (2014)