MovieMuse
T
he MovieMuse Reviews (MovieViews) database is a searchable collection of films that the team have watched. It provides a link to an in-depth review or a short opinion on the film and a rating, as well as a link to the film’s poster or DVD cover. Over time this will build into a comprehensive guide about what to watch and what to avoid.
You can search and sort the list by individual film names, genre, reviewer, score and other variables to inform you on whether a film is worth your time, or to inspire you for your next movie night.
We will also use the database to create periodic lists of the recommended films in all sorts of categories. These lists will be shared on the website and some will even come with a video.
| Poster | Movie | Year | Genre | Comments | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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My Octopus Teacher | 2020 | Documentary | An amazingly-shot and fascinating insight into the life of a creature with more intelligence than you'd expect, with extra drama created by the relationship between two beings that should never interact in this undersea domain. | 4 |
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The Yards | 2000 | Crime, Drama | A decent cast does their jobs well in this film, but the abundance of slow-paced scenes, dated cinematography and dull subject matter render the whole thing incredibly tedious. | 2 |
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Zero Dark Thirty | 2012 | Drama, Thriller | Hard to watch at times due to the torture scenes, this is a reasonably gripping study of the patience and persistence required in probably the biggest manhunt of all time, with excellent attention to detail and a suitably tense finale. | 3.5 |
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Spontaneous | 2020 | Comedy, Mystery, Romance | A high school romance set against the backdrop of a spontaneous combustion epidemic is certainly an original idea and the early stages of the film offer an engaging mix of tension and black humour, but it gets a bit too heavy and serious for the last act. | 3 |
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The Silencing | 2020 | Mystery, Thriller | Starts off well with some great locations, gritty performances and a few surprising moments, but sells itself short for the finale with the lazy, incomprehensible reveal of the antagonist. | 3 |
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Munich | 2005 | Thriller | Possibly Spielberg's grittiest film, with some brilliant acting and cinematography and bags of tension, but the endless attrition between the different parties is exhausting and nobody comes out of the story with any sense of achievement or honour. | 3.5 |
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Nowhere to Run | 1993 | Action, Thriller | Van Damme violently escapes from prison and creepily spies on a vulnerable woman and yet still ends up the hero in this ludicrous and unintentionally hilarious film that has way more cheese than action! | 2.5 |
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Villains | 2019 | Comedy, Crime | Another entry in the 'home invasion gone wrong' sub-genre, this one is actually quite amusing to begin with but takes a very weird turn mid-way through and loses its way despite a couple of inventive scenes. | 3 |
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Black Water: Abyss | 2020 | Horror, Thriller | This killer crocodile in a cave movie is totally predictable yet fairly tense and the acting is better than expected, but the bizarre relationship triangle sub-plot thrown in towards the end just adds ten minutes that would have been better left out. | 2.5 |
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Velvet Buzzsaw | 2019 | Drama, Horror | Quirky and bizarre, this film satirises the pretentiousness of the art world in amusing fashion before turning itself into a crazy horror movie that doesn't really explain itself very well and ends up a muddled, pointless mess. | 3 |
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Lost Girls | 2020 | Drama, Mystery | A true crime story that is sadly not very interesting to watch as it focuses more on the actions of the victims relatives than the investigation of the crime itself. It certainly has some emotion but is just not very gripping. | 2.5 |
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Nell | 1994 | Drama | The actions of the medical professionals involved in the story are questionable to say the least, but Jodie Foster gives an amazing perfomance as the lead character and her story is compelling from start to finish. | 3.5 |
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The Prodigy | 2019 | Horror, Mystery | A fairly typical creepy child movie and to be fair the kid does his job well, but the actions of the adult characters are frankly ridiculous and the bleak ending brings no satisfaction at all. | 2.5 |
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Queen of Katwe | 2016 | Biopic, Drama, Sport | A Disney production unlike any other, showing both the vibrancy and hardship of the Ugandan slums and an unlikely rags-to-riches story that is sure to warm the heart. | 4 |
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Red Hill | 2012 | Thriller, Western | It may take place in modern-day Australia but this is a classic Western at heart, with characters, cinematography and music that typify the genre. A brutal revenge story with a twist and the usual grit and black humour you'd expect from the Aussies. | 3.5 |
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Tolkien | 2019 | Biopic, Drama | It may not be quite as magical as his stories, but this film covering Tolkien's formative years is well acted and reasonably engaging, with some clever visualisations of events that stimulated the author's imagination. | 3.5 |
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Up | 2009 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy | Another truly delightful tale from the masters of emotional animation. Whilst it is a film of 2 halves (and the 1st outshines the 2nd), the overarching story is superbly realised as a grumpy old man learns to live after grief. | 4 |
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Ratatouille | 2007 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy | An odd choice to have a rat lead film about cooking, but Pixar pull it off yet again. The action and set-pieces are superbly done and the humour spot on to create another delightful tale, albeit a strange one about a rodent chef. | 3.5 |
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Schemers | 2019 | Biopic, Comedy, Music | The entertaining 'based on a true story' tale of how a young Dundee lad went from college dropout to big time concert promoter through a series of schemes, dodgy deals and adventures. | 3.5 |
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Casino Royale (Climax! TV movie) | 1954 | Drama, Thriller | This TV movie is the first on screen appearance of 007, but this time he is the American spy Jimmy Bond! A fairly simple telling of the story but for a great performance from Peter Lorre as bad guy Le Chiffre. | 3 |
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Flora & Ulysses | 2021 | Adventure, Comedy, Family | A fun family film that comes across like an Americanised (and squirrelised) version of Peter Rabbit. Disney manage to introduce a child actor full of character without them becoming obnoxious and a silly animated sidekick that isn't too in-your-face. | 3.5 |
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Baby Done | 2020 | Comedy | Another fine reminder that New Zealand makes the best quirky comedy on the planet. Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter gets a rough ride when his girlfriend gets pregnant but refuses to accept it. | 3.5 |
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Quiz Show | 1994 | Biopic, Drama | Robert Redford directs a boring film about an incredibly dull 'scandal', when a government lawyer uncovers match fixing in a TV game show. Ralph Fiennes insipid character only exacerbates the tedium. | 2.5 |
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Poppy Shakespeare | 2008 | Comedy, Drama | An odd little film about a day patient at a north London psychiatric hospital and how her life is changed when a glamorous new patient is admitted. Well acted, but does get a little disjointed as it goes on. | 3 |
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21 | 2008 | Adventure, Biopic, Drama | An entertaining account of how a team of MIT students took Las Vegas casinos for millions by card counting is entertaining, but trivialises the true story by changing the characters ethnicity and adding wild drama to give the story a more thrilling edge. | 3 |