Eleanor Reviews

No rating Warning: This film features a lot of quickly flashing images, which could trigger epilepsy in some viewers Constrained within a strict all girls’ school, beautiful and alluring Abbie, and rebellious, troubled Lydia, are best friends, struggling through the painful years of adolescence. When a tragedy occurs, Lydia begins to suffer fainting fits, an ailment that soon spreads throughout the school, affecting teachers and pupils alike. This is a very strange film. At times it is beautiful, at times deeply disturbing… and at other times just wholly frustrating. Let’s begin with the positives: Maisie Williams and Florence Pugh are excellent as Lydia and Abbie respectively. Williams, is at times venomous and cruel, but at other points strangely fragile and lost whilst Pugh is charismatic and genteel, her Abbie placed on a pedestal by Lydia and worshipped. Maxine Peake (although criminally under-utilised) is perfect as Lydia’s mother, living out her life encased with

**** In an attempt to protect the Earth from future alien attacks, Tony Stark creates an artificial intelligence, something he believes will keep mankind safe. When his plan backfires, the Avengers find themselves up against his creation, the deadly Ultron. Following months of hype, the much-awaited, highly-anticipated sequel to Avengers Assemble finally arrives and, in my opinion, it was rather worth the wait. Now familiar with our heroes and their struggles, the film pulls you into the action from the very first frame, and rarely lets up. Alongside the comic book-action, however, we are treated to quieter scenes, in which we see characters we have grown to love interact with one another and develop. Indeed, apart from a mysterious lack of Pepper Potts, it seems that all the major players from all the films are here to perform their various roles, which immediately put a massive grin on my face. Whilst the first half of the first film dragged a little as the characters we

***/**** (3.5 stars) When struggling lawyer Randy Schoenberg agrees to meet with Maria Altmann, he little expects the case he will be confronted with. For Maria is an Austrian Jew, who fled from her homeland to escape the Nazis, leaving behind her family, friends, a an infamous portrait of her aunt, Adele, painted by Gustav Klimt. This is, essentially, your standard 'little fish takes on the big fish' story, where one woman and her inexperienced lawyer end up taking on the Austrian government in an attempt to make sure justice is served. What raises this film above your standard 'underdog' story is undoubtedly the two central performances from Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds, who I have always thought to be a rather unremarkable actor. Here, though, donning glasses and a drab suit, he is forced to use his emotional skills as opposed to his rippling torso, and he doesn't do a half bad job. He is believable as a family man, so goes on a journey of self-discove

Undecided upon a star-rating DVD Release When the head of a village’s sacred Buddha is stolen, it is up to young martial arts prodigy, Ting, to travel to the big city to retrieve it, and save his village from damnation. So, I watched this film whilst quite drunk, and sitting with my equally tipsy friends and, honestly, if we hadn’t been inebriated and up for a laugh, we probably would have turned it off after the first five minutes. The acting is truly terrible, whoever did the subtitles should probably seek another form of employment, and the script is loaded with so much forced exposition it rivals Jupiter Ascending in terms of spelling out the plot. It is just utterly bonkers throughout. How anyone could ever take this film seriously is honestly beyond me, as we all just sat and laughed for the duration, revelling in the ridiculous chase scene through the streets, a truly hilarious chase scene on tuk-tuks, and a young man kneeing his various opponents in the face.