Anamaria Marinca

Like a 10-years-later follow-up to 28 Days Later, this small British thriller takes a refreshingly original approach to the zombie genre. The most engaging difference is the fact that the central character is infected with a brain-eating virus, so the question has to be whether it's all bad. This introspective approach gives the movie a strong kick, and it looks great despite a small budget. So the film is involving and gripping even if, ultimately, there isn't much to it beyond a cool central idea.

The film opens with a school in an underground encampment, where soldiers guard children who are as heavily restrained as Hannibal Lecter. Their teacher Helen (Gemma Arterton) is friendly and open, as opposed to the sceptical Sergeant Parks (Paddy Considine). Dr Caldwell (Glenn Close) casually experiments on these youngsters to learn more about the virus, arguing that they're no longer human. But Helen has her doubts, especially with her super-smart pupil Melanie (Sennia Nanua). When the compound is overrun by "hungries", it's Melanie who helps Helen, Caldwell, Parks and guard Kieran (Fisayo Akinade) escape. And as they travel across a wasteland into London, they begin to wonder if there's any hope left for humanity as they knew it.

Director Colm McCarthy and writer Mike Carey keep these five survivors at the centre of the film, giving us people we can identify with as things get increasingly desperate. At each juncture, they make yet another grim discovery about this virus, forcing them to revamp their plan. This means that the film has a series of escalating set-pieces that are cleverly designed and very nicely shot and edited to build suspense and sometimes horror. It's also rare for a movie to take such an thoughtful approach to this genre, but then its three lead characters are strong, interesting women.

Continue reading: The Girl With All The Gifts Review

From Training Day to this year's Sabotage, filmmaker David Ayer writes and directs movies about the cathartic power of releasing your inner warrior. And this World War II action thriller is more of the same, with a "war is hell" message stirred in for good measure. The problem is that there's nothing particularly new here. It's a beautifully shot and edited film, with terrific performances and a remarkable sense of scale, but there have been so many movies made about this conflict that it's difficult to find something original to connect with.

It's near the end of the war, April 1945, as Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) leads the crew of a tank named Fury: Bible (Shia LaBeouf) is a true believer, Gordo (Michael Pena) is a relaxed joker, and Coon-Ass (Jon Bernthal) is a hot-headed thug. Having just lost their driver, they're joined by rookie Norman (Logan Lerman), who doesn't yet have a wartime nickname because he never thought he'd end up driving a tank. Together, they head further into Germany, not as liberators but as invaders and occupiers, working with other tank crews to take a strategic town before heading further into the hot zone, where a series of particularly brutal Nazi assaults ensue.

The point of the film seems to be that war erodes a person's humanity over time, and the sharpest aspect is the way each character emerges at some point on the continuum. Obviously, Norman is the naive newbie who still has a strong conscience, while at the other extreme Coon-Ass is virtually a monster. Wardaddy is somewhere in between, a tough guy who still has a sense of perspective, such as when he reasons that Norman should be allowed to have some private time with a young German girl (Alicia von Rittberg) simply because they're "young and alive". All of the actors are excellent, adding telling details to their characters that deepen every scene. And the camaraderie between the five-man crew is remarkably authentic, as is their ease inside the cramped quarters of the tank, which makes submarine movies look spacious by comparison.

Continue reading: Fury Review

A bracingly original approach to both science-fiction and the found-footage genres makes this eerily realistic thriller well worth a look. Director Cordero may indulge in a variety of gimmicky and manipulative tricks, but he keeps everything grounded, as it were, and his expert cast makes sure that we are drawn into the story as it progresses. Which makes the conclusion startlingly intense.

After six months in space, the feed from the Europa One mission suddenly went blank, leaving Earth to wonder what was happening in humanity's first deep-space voyage. Unknown to the mission commander (Davidtz) in Houston, the six-person crew has continued on course to Jupiter's moon Europa, where they plan to explore whether there are conditions that could support life. When they arrive, their landing doesn't go quite as planned, and their experiments reveal things they couldn't possibly have expected. They also finally get a chance to send their video footage back to mission control.

What we're watching is an assembly of this footage, taken both inside and outside the ship as they travel, intercut with the commander's comments. Cordero directs all of this exactly like scenes we've seen from Space Shuttle missions, so it looks all too real, complete with a crew of complex experts. Marinca is terrific as the soulful pilot, with the charismatic Camargo and the curious Wydra as scientists, and the cheeky Copely and the intriguingly shaded Nyqvist as mechanics. This cast of acclaimed actors really raises the bar, adding layers of interest without ever seeming to act at all.

Continue reading: Europa Report Review