"I have a bad feeling about this," says the young Obi-Wan Kenobi (played by Ewan McGregor) in Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace as he steps off a spaceship and into the most anticipated cinematic event ... well, ever. He might as well be speaking for the legions of fans of the original episodes in the Star Wars saga who can't help but secretly ask themselves: sure, this is ...
The most densely plotted instalment of the saga so far, Attack of the Clones is a tale of both Machiavellian political drama and doomed romance; it's epic war film and silly comic-book fantasy combined, as teenage Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) chafes at the restrictions imposed by his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and falls in love with Padme Amidala (Natalie Portman). ...
One of the better BBC costume dramas of recent years, 2003's Charles II: The Power and the Passion depends very strongly on its central performance. Fortunately, Rufus Sewell is admirable throughout as the saturnine, witty monarch who has retained popular fondness down the centuries in spite of his conscientious adherence to the bad and losing cause of absolute monarchy. Adrian Hodge's ...
On its original release in 1988, the pairing of Steve Martin and Michael Caine in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was seen as something of a dream ticket. Viewing the film many years later, that assessment still proves completely accurate: the casting is perfect. American Freddy Benson and Briton Lawrence Jamieson are con men who work the French Riviera--at first as colleagues, later as ...
This acclaimed BBC adaptation of Crime and Punishment remains faithful to Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel. Set in St Petersburg in the second half of the 19th century, the psychological thriller tells of a desperate young murderer caught in a web of his own guilt. Rodya Raskolnikov is a poverty-stricken student living among the fetid alleyways and crumbling tenements of St Petersburg. ...
Martin Cruz Smith's bestselling mystery novel seemed ideal material for a movie version, but in Gorky Park director Michael Apted and the usually reliable writer Dennis Potter couldn't quite solve the problem of taking the story from page to screen. William Hurt plays Renko, a Cold War-era Moscow police detective who must cope with both crooks and Communist party protocol as he tries to ...