Archive

2014

Articles published in 2014.

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The Imitation Game (2014)

The Imitation Game (2014)

A handsome, tightly built Bletchley Park drama carried by Benedict Cumberbatch, smoothing the real Turing into a more conventional shape but rarely loosening its grip. 8.5/10.

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Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar (2014)

Christopher Nolan trades the dream architecture of Inception for a dying Earth and a wormhole, and builds the most emotional film of his career around hard physics. The science is sound, the sentiment is bold, and on scale and rewatch value it is near the top of the genre. 9/10.

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The Equalizer (2014)

The Equalizer (2014)

Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington reunite for a slow-burn vigilante thriller that trades plot for craft and a wonderfully controlled lead. The script is thin, the violence is precise, and the rewatch value is high. 8/10.

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The Guest (2014)

The Guest (2014)

A polite stranger turns up on a grieving family's doorstep and the temperature drops a few degrees every scene. Adam Wingard's synth-soaked thriller knows exactly what it is doing. 8/10.

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Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Marvel hands its riskiest property to a director from the B-movie fringe and gets back the funniest, most musical space adventure in years. A talking raccoon, a sentient tree and a soundtrack of seventies pop should not work this well. 8.5/10.

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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Matt Reeves takes the rebooted apes somewhere most blockbuster sequels never go, into a sombre tribal war story with Andy Serkis's Caesar at its centre. It is bigger than its predecessor and, against the odds, sadder. 8.5/10.

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Snowpiercer (2013)

Snowpiercer (2013)

Bong Joon-ho takes his class war onto a frozen train that never stops, and turns a single corridor into one of the strangest, most committed dystopias of recent years. 8/10.

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Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Doug Liman takes a Japanese light novel, a video-game premise and a movie star willing to die on camera a hundred times, and turns them into the sharpest summer science fiction in years. 8/10.

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The Raid 2 (2014)

The Raid 2 (2014)

Gareth Evans answers a lean siege thriller with a sprawling crime epic, and the fights are somehow even better. The story strains at the seams; the craft does not. 8.5/10.

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