Though stronger in its more straightforward first half than in its experimental and hallucinatory second, 28 Years… still provides enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy.
Jared Hess's indie sensibilities help to elevate a video game adaptation that is boosted further by Jack Black's irrepressible star turn. The special effects could be better, as could the female roles. But this remains an entertaining fantasy adventure that makes light work of what might appear to be unpromising source material.
Though closer in quality to Morbius than Venom, Kraven is far from a catastrophe and serves up a decent helping of bloodthirsty, globe-trotting action. Taylor-Johnson makes a muscular if self-satisfied protagonist in a film that would have been better off standing on its own shoeless feet than cravenly (or should that be, 'kravenly') cleaving itself to its comic book brethren.
As impressive as [Berry] is, though, it’s the kids who shine brightest in a drama whose iron hold on the audience’s attention can withstand the odd dip into credulity-stretching implausibility.
Tapping into the same rich vein of British folk horror the likes of 2015’s The Witch and 2022’s Enys Men mined so productively, Starve Acre roots its dread in a gloomy past that is mundane, real and tangible.
The horrors, like Cage himself, are largely kept off-screen for much of the movie’s duration. Yet with its eerie soundscape and sepulchral visuals, Longlegs nevertheless succeeds as a deeply disconcerting experience, one that burrows into the brain as insidiously as the innocuous means its villain employs to disseminate his evil.
Long before the film reaches its action-packed, train-based climax, however, adults will be questioning if its three writers have so much as seen an actual Garfield comic strip, given how removed their work feels from its activity-averse inspiration.
