Film Reviews

Today we welcome Gavin Deas the author of the stunning Empires: The First Battle back to the blog for a **SPOILER FILLED** review of The Force Awakens. You have been warned.  The two-headed monster that is Gavin Deas has been fighting again. This time, however, they’re not arguing over the colour of lasers, or who’d […]

Gollancz Editorial Manager Charlie gives his rundown on the best films of last year, based on UK cinema release dates. Honourable Mentions: Big Hero 6, Sicario, Song of the Sea, Tangerine, Wild 20. Dope (dir. Rick Famuyiwa) Wonderfully energetic and freewheeling, with one of the few good uses of a voiceover in a non-Scorsese film, […]

By Gareth Powell The other night, I watched Lucy, the 2014 film written and directed by Luc Besson. It starred Scarlett Johansson as the titular character: an American student coerced into becoming a drug mule, only to become something much stranger when her body starts absorbing the experimental substance carried in her stomach. In this […]

We are delighted to welcome Jon Wallace back to the Gollancz Blog. Jon Wallace joins us to discuss Mad Max: Fury Road. Warning, spoilers are ahead. When my debut novel, Barricade, was published last year, a few people were kind enough to compare its exhaust-choked action with the ‘Mad Max’ films. Therefore this month, with […]

By Charlie It’s been a few weeks and I guess many people will have now seen it so here are some of my thoughts on Avengers: Age of Ultron. SPOILERS AHEAD (obviously) plus much waffling: – I’ve seen it twice now and overall I really like it. It’s definitely not as good as the original […]

Charlie, the Gollancz Editorial Manager, drops by to take us through his favourite films from the past year.

Our new Marketing Assistant Harriet went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past over the weekend. A long time fan of the X-Men films (she called her first pet Storm), here’s what she thought. So this weekend I went to see X-Men: Days of Future Past. The premise of the film is that Wolverine is […]

So I took my twelve year son and my twelve year old self to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier (or shall we say Captain America: The Cool Sounding Subtitle That is Actually Little More Than a Pretty Cool Subplot?). It was fun. Chris Evans is very engaging and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow is a superb […]

It’s officially film season and we here at Gollancz could not be more pleased. Last night’s Golden Globes saw some of the biggest films of the year being recognized, and in honour of that and our building excitement for the Oscars in March, our resident film spokesperson, Charlie, rounds up the best films of 2013 […]

The Gollancz team went to see Gravity and this is what they thought… Gillian I’ve been looking forward to Gravity since I saw the very first trailer, and it didn’t disappoint. If it’s not come to your attention as yet: Gravity is a gripping what-if story set in space. What if a shuttle was destroyed […]

Review by Den Patrick Elysium is this summer’s Sci-Fi blockbuster from Neill Blomkamp, director of the much loved District 9. Blomkamp had a significantly larger budget to play with this time, along with the star power of Matt Damon and Jodie Foster. It is the year 2154 and the world has become an overcrowded, polluted hell. […]

Last week saw the release of Star Trek ‘we couldn’t come up with a decent title for this film’. I went to see it on the weekend and here’s some brief thoughts (with no spoilers for those who haven’t seen it yet). – I thought it was very good. Not Avengers-good, but still highly enjoyable. […]

So I watched DREDD again last night, having seen it in the cinema originally (in 3D). I’m probably biased, as I read loads of 2000AD in my youth (and am enjoying picking up the graphic novels now, although I haven’t read the weekly comic in years and years), but I really enjoyed it. It’s impossible […]

This is a wonderful, wonderful independent Scottish film which was released straight to DVD in 2011. The DVD is an absolute investment of pure joy. It stars David Tennant, of Dr Who fame, and Kelly McDonald of Trainspotting and Brave renown, and it’s honestly worth every penny. The story follows the attempts of a famous […]

Aww, remember this? Remember how excited you were…? And then you saw the movie. Some have been scathing of Prometheus, but I rather enjoyed it. No, it wasn’t Alien or Aliens, but it looked jaw-droppingly stunning, and there were great performances. But something wasn’t quite right, and it was largely the screenwriters Jon Spaihts and […]