As we’re all enjoying the indoor Covid-19 extravaganza, I’ve had a chance to watch some movies. In future, I’ll generally be trying to do longer in-depth reviews on single films but today I’ll just smash these out. I’ll avoid spoilers, so go in peace 🎉.

Hidden Figures

The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.

I quite enjoyed this one. There’s no single aspect that’s particularly amazing; it’s just an interesting and relatively feel-good story that’s told well. As with any story based on real life, it’s interesting to compare what’s presented against reality. In this case, the liberties taken generally don’t bother me though I do agree with the introduction of a ‘white saviour’ being problematic.

Summary: 4 out of 5 space missions.

The Invisible Man

When Cecilia’s abusive ex takes his own life and leaves her his fortune, she suspects his death was a hoax. As a series of coincidences turn lethal, Cecilia works to prove that she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.

Oof, I feel like this was a missed opportunity. There’s a strong start that falls apart when they don’t know how to progress and resolve the story. That and the writing feels lazy to me; like, the protagonist is being stalked by an invisible person and yet (mostly) doesn’t spend any time thinking about how she might render them visible. There’s another scene where the script has Cecilia basically waiting patiently in the background when she could have ended the problem; that really killed it for me. Anyway, that’s just my opinion and I’m apparently on the outside here with the film getting generally favourable reviews.

Summary: 2 out of 5 missing knives.

The Lighthouse

Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity whilst living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.

This is one of those films where the less you know going in, the better. This film nails it on every level artistically and is as disturbing as it is excellent. Go see it.

Summary: 5 out of 5 monkey pumps.