Because Everybody Else Has One

This, I believe, is what a stream of consciousness review looks like. The review is also up on Channel 24 . What it’s about Anna Poliatova may look like your average supermodel with the rags to riches story that often goes along with it but there’s a lot more to her than meets the eye. Beneath her beautiful façade lies a trained killer with the sort of keen intelligence and cold ruthlessness that only the best spies have. Who is she working for, though, and what part does she have to play in a showdown between the CIA and KGB in the final years of the Cold War? What we thought Anna has been shrouded in secrecy with a worldwide embargo to prevent any reviews going up before its day of release (today, internationally) and with no regular press screening of the film, at least in this country. This is only worth mentioning because a) I have literally just gotten out of seeing the film at a packed public preview mere hours before the film is due to be released to the public so I...

It's probably not even 10% scientifically accurate but this bonkers, high-octane sci-fi flick is still easily worth your time.  Lucy marks the third arty science fiction movie of the year to feature the prodigious talents of Scarlett Johansson (and, come to think of it, if you also factor in the espionage-superheroics of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, there's even less place to doubt that Ms. Johansson is pretty clearly the reigning queen of genre cinema) and, though Lucy is certainly more low-brow than either Her or Under The Skin, it actually compliments both films quite brilliantly. Even more importantly, Lucy is the genuine, long-awaited return of maverick filmmaker, Luc Besson. Not that Besson himself has been away, you understand, it's just that generic thrillers like Taken and austere biopics like The Lady are a far cry from the sort of deranged, audacious genre films on which he made his name. Lucy is very much the Besson of Leon: The Professional and t...