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With The Northman, director Robert Eggers has pulled off another Shakespearean masterpiece, but this is his best yet.

"I will avenge you father. I will save you mother. I will kill you Fjölnir." These three sentences that Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård) repeats are woven into the heart of this story - they are his identity. Set in the North Atlantic and beginning in 895AD, the film follows Amleth and his quest for vengeance in a Viking tale.

After his father (Ethan Hawke) is murdered by his uncle (Claes Bang), Amleth travels from Norway to Iceland, posing as a slave. Intent on getting his revenge and rescuing his mother (Nicole Kidman), he crosses a host of characters and kills his fair share of enemies to try and get closer to his poetic objective. He must choose between "kindness for his kin or hate for his enemies".

Having previously directed The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), The Northman is Eggers' third major film. It has shown, if the others had not already, that he is one of the most promising filmmakers currently working. The previous two films reconstructed American folklore in a manner rarely seen in cinema, but they were on a smaller scale. The Northman is a much larger project, and with an estimated budget of at least $60 million, it can truly be noticed on screen. What ties these three films together is Eggers' continual desire to explore the supernatural and its anthropological roots. His new film continues the trend of original films centred around key themes of particular historical periods. Where The Witch was shocking for its bleak horror, and The Lighthouse for its crude nature, The Northman can be characterised for its untainted brutality.

The film is particularly spectacular in its technical display. Shot in a 2.00 : 1 aspect ratio, Jarin Blaschke's cinematography is - quite literally - breath-taking. A range of filmic methods were employed, including Eggers' signature close-up shots. These work especially well in this film, allowing for actors such as Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe - who plays a rabidly prophesying character - to work their craft through subtle motions. Long shots are also on display on numerous occasions. The natural beauty of the landscapes and the way in which they were captured is truly special. From the snowy towns in Norway to the grassy hill ranges in Iceland (most of it filmed in Northern Ireland), the scenery is dynamic and utilised to its full extent.

Coupled with the beautiful displays is the score. Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough's commanding score captures the authenticity in which The Northman imagines the Viking era. With a thumping, loud musical score continuous for much of the 140-minute runtime, it has a real sense of character to it. It matches the story and era in which the film encapsulates, journeying through Amleth's quest as if the sounds are urging him on.

Central to what these technical aspects were trying to convey was the theme of rage, as Amleth's story was based entirely on this. A usually dark colour palette is used to describe this, while the night is a key aspect that brings a realistic dullness to the brutalities on show. The film expects its viewers to not hold these characters to the standard we believe we hold as humans today. It is an unforgiving look into the ruthless nature of the Viking world and legends. Guts are spilled and heads are chopped off, and it is this honest depiction that makes this world particularly believable. This is Eggers' vision; it feels untainted, and the results show it.

Skarsgård revels in this role of rage. It seems he was born to play Amleth, as through not only dialect but also mannerisms and movement, he brings this character to life. Although numerous, the action scenes are excellent. Rarely have I seen a film that I become so immersed in through these sequences. The fights are stunning and are certainly up there with some of the most jaw-dropping in cinematic history.

The film has also shown how well-rounded Anya Taylor-Joy has become in recent years. After superb performances in The Witch and the Netflix series, The Queen's Gambit (2020), to name a few, she has demonstrated a whole host of capabilities, and this role certainly continues that. She and Skarsgård make for an unexpected, but fantastic, duo in this story.

The Northman is a truly mesmerising tale that will not be forgotten and is easily a contender for film of the year. Its obvious reliance on Viking myths sets it apart from others that have tried to lazily capture the era. Rather than a re-imagining, this film feels more like an imagining; one perhaps, that Vikings themselves would have enjoyed watching, as it does not feel corrupted by modern culture. From the wacky prophetic cave scenes to the brilliant action sequences, Eggers and his crew encapsulate the most dramatic aspects of Viking legends. Its entirely supernatural scenes do not feel out of place at all, and the pacing of the story wraps essences of reality and fiction together perfectly. The thread of fate determines that you must see this film, hopefully on the big screen.

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After being involved in some great modern horror films such as Hereditary (2018) and Saint Maud (2019), A24's latest film is an immature mess that feels more like an exercise in superfluity than it is a meaningful narrative.

Set in 1979, X follows six Americans as they arrive at an isolated farmhouse for a weekend, intent on shooting a porno. Hosted by an unsettling, elderly couple, things soon turn into a full-blown bloodbath.

Obviously inspired by Tobe Hooper's classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), writer-director Ti West ensured that X was full of slasher tropes, adding little originality to an already saturated genre. Where it does succeed is creating characters with some personality. Mia Goth's Maxine is noticeably unstable but tries to believe that she is a star. Bobby-Lynne, played well by Brittany Snow, comes across as the more witty, experienced porn actor. Jackson (Kid Cudi) is a Vietnam veteran, while Wayne (Martin Henderson) and RJ (Owen Campbell) provide the overseeing eyes to the pornographic production. Finishing off the cast, Jenny Ortega plays the outsider of the group, Lorraine.

Lacking believable or serious motives, the killers in the film were nonetheless unique, providing some creepiness and mystery. However, this soon subsides as we learn their quite ludicrous reasons for their murderous streak. They will certainly not be remembered as iconic horror characters.

From the beginning, the film uses themes of religion to juxtapose the vices taking place. The TV in the house shows a programme of a preacher discussing sin, which is repeated throughout the film. As well as this, a well-crafted shot of Lorraine taking off her cross while giving in to the temptation of being involved in the pornographic film hints at what could have been further developed. Unfortunately, the theme is only touched upon within the hour-forty-five runtime, in what seems a missed opportunity to flesh out the barren story.

This slasher focuses too much on numerous scenes of nudity in the first half of the film which then mostly moves aside to allow for excessive gore. The extended sex scenes are used in place of well-written dialogue and provide little else than what you would expect. It seems as if Ti West had more of an interest in indulging in some sort of manic sex-gore film than providing any substance to this horror show. And while the gore was well executed with some great effects on display, they are at times over the top and not for the faint of heart.

The editing of the film was unique, but rather out of place. Alongside this, X lacked adequate direction, with suspense in short supply and predictability with every kill. The film did not use perspective enough and could have created further tension within scenes by narrowing the viewer's vision and creating a more personal point of view.

Without a strong plot, X fails to create a memorable story and instead focuses on showing something more akin to a pornographic film and a gore-fest. The killers were boring and the kills felt formulaic. Decently written characters could not make up for some of the bizarre dialogue and while gore was in abundance suspense was not.

The Batman opens with a stunning cinematographic style - this film takes its own approach to Gotham City. It begins with a narration from Robert Pattinson's Batman about the 'fear' his existence instils in the criminals of Gotham while showing a compilation of different everyday criminals carrying out their vices. After this, Batman is introduced both excitingly and violently, beating up some thugs at a tube station, and showing little restraint. This sets the expectations that this is the Batman that will bring a darker take to the character.

The first half of the film is promising, including some particularly tense scenes, such as the funeral section, sure to produce goosebumps. Michael Giacchino's consistently epic score and the always dark and rainy setting dictate the pace of the film. Until the third act, there is the expectation that there is something more to come. Something more to find within this film. However, we arrive at the third act, and the mess unfolds.

This iteration of a Batman film fails in a key way - Batman starts and ends the film as entirely the same character. There is no emotional development within this character. This is no fault of Pattinson, who is suited to the role, but not given enough to work with. Throughout the film, Bruce Wayne maintains the same characteristics, aggression, emotion from start to finish. As mentioned, near the beginning, Batman aggressively beats some thugs at a train station, showing little restraint. Near the end of the film Batman, again, aggressively beats one of Riddler's gunners, requiring Jeffrey Wright's James Gordon to stop him. There was simply no development of the character that resulted in his actions changing. At one point, the Bat learns that his father may not be the man he thought, and there was a great opportunity for a significant plot device to the story. However, after a brief exposition from Andy Serkis' Alfred Pennyworth, the matter is essentially settled, and Bruce offers no further reaction to this revelation. Perhaps where Pattinson is most allowed to provide emotion is through the narration of his journals, which are very good scenes, but the fact that this is where the most emotion is displayed is a disappointment. It could be said that The Batman needed less action and more storytelling.

Paul Dano's Riddler is not the best of villains. His performance seems to usher in an essence of Heath Ledger's Joker, however, at times, it seems over the top. Regardless, up until the third act, he is nonetheless intriguing. He convincingly comes across as delusional, but somewhat justified. He is trying to cure the city of its corruption. However, this all falters away as soon as Matt Reeves decides that Riddler's actions should turn from targeting corrupt officials to anyone and everyone, including innocent civilians. Why this is done I truly do not know. The Riddler's motives become completely muddled, and he simply fades away as a generic killer seeking total destruction.

As for the other characters in the film, Colin Farrell's Penguin is criminally underused. He had almost no significant role in the outcome of the story. Whether he was in the film or not, almost nothing of the outcome would have changed. It was almost as if this film teased the character as a marketing tool to promote the Penguin TV show, announced before this film was released. Farrell's performance is nonetheless excellent, as well as the makeup design of the character.

As to quick mentions of other characters, Zoe Kravitz's Catwoman was fine. Jeffrey Wright was great as Officer Gordon and had a surprising amount of screentime. As for John Turturro as Falcone, it almost seemed like this character unnecessarily took attention away from better ones like Oswald Cobblepot.

The Batman is certainly not a bad film, it is actually quite enjoyable. However, serious problems with the writing severely hinder it. The film had me thinking of David Fincher's Zodiac throughout. The cryptic puzzles laid out by the Riddler, the incredible darkness. I cannot help but think this film is both worse than The Dark Knight and worse than Zodiac. If you want a spectacular Batman film, head in Christopher Nolan's direction; if you want a cryptic, chilling detective film, look to Zodiac.

Unlike most films from Joel and Ethan Coen, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs doesn't demand a certain focused mindset to watch, digest, and enjoy every aspect of the film in great detail; it instead is a great spectacle to sit back and simply enjoy.

The ever-interesting Brothers present us with a great look at the Wild West in an almost raw and gritty way, and the film distances itself entirely from the usual Hollywood type. It consists of six completely independent short stories; although they all seem to have the theme of showing the Wild West as what it really was. The film doesn't fall into any tropes or clichés and doesn't play by, really any, rules. It portrays a wide range of individuals and their stories, and does so extremely well. Each story is interesting in its own way with some very touching and real moments, especially Liam Neeson committing a certain act and showing what humans are really like - selfish and really only looking out for themselves (especially in the Wild West). The script is very well crafted, the dialogue just feels right and doesn't over do it, and even when no words are spoken it is entirely appropriate and helps create part of a great atmosphere and story. With the great script comes superb acting. From Tim Blake Nelson's overtly over-the-top, hilarious acting as the title character to Tom Waits as a quite wholesome and determined gold digger, in every single one of these shorts the acting is on point and although each character has such short screen-time and a virtually non-existent backstory, the acting paired with the script somehow quickly immerses us with each character and makes each of them interesting in different ways. Although the Coen's did not team up with their usual cinematographer in Roger Deakins, they did team up with Bruno Delbonnel who did a fantastic job capturing the stunning and appropriate landscapes that help make this film shine. The score also fits very nicely with the overall atmosphere and pace of the film.

While the Ballad of Buster Scruggs is not a must-watch, it is a very refreshing, entertaining and new take on the Wild West genre, and even in film in general. It is a great film for the Coen Brothers to add to their filmography.

Fargo is set in a very unique environment, with snow all around and some very awkward and odd characters. Where this film shines is in its fairly interesting plot and well written characters. The Coen brothers showed off their intelligent and bizarre writing with a kidnapping goes wrong plot. It had great pacing and a clever set of events with the story shown from different perspectives in a refreshing way. While I found the key instigator character to this plot, Jerry Lundegaard, frustrating and irritating, other characters had some charm. Steve Buscemi's character, Carl, was particularly well done. The acting was on point, as you'd expect from Buscemi, and the character had some odd charm to him, he was comedic, down to earth and this created for an interesting sort of bad-guy. He was complimented nicely by the not-so-talkative Gaear, played by Peter Stormare. Gaear was a more typical bad-guy in being clearly ruthless and without remorse; but the pair made for an oddly fun couple of bad-guys. Marge Gunderson, played by Frances McDormand, was another well thought out character. She almost personified the town in her awkwardness and relationship with her husband but was funny and copper that fitted with the film very well.

Fargo is a wacky, quirky and weirdly humourous film which makes it stand out from a potentially saturated murder film genre.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a classic Western. It has a cleverly written and easy to follow plot following three characters. The way the film follows these individuals and how their stories intertwine is quite interesting. There is a back and forth relationship between the characters and a, literally, long journey for all of them, specifically the 'Good' and the 'Ugly' characters. The action scenes are well executed and fairly exciting. Some of the cinematography and editing is top notch, the end scene specifically comes to mind. The score by Ennio Morricone is legendary and adds suspense and intrigue to a film that could otherwise suffer from slow pacing. Where the film falls a bit flat for me is the depth of the characters. The three title characters are actually not all that different, even though the title would suggest otherwise. While these characters do differ in style and personality, which does create some contrasts, their convictions and morals are quite cliché (although maybe less so in the year the film was made) as they all want one thing and they are all willing to commit the same deeds to get there. Due to the lack of depth and sympathy in these characters this created a scenario where I did not really care what happened to any of them, or who won out in the eventual end to the tale. Having said this, the characters do very much compliment each other with the few subtle differences they have, specifically in personality; they all have their own unique charm, while sustaining a ruthlessness that is needed to succeed in the wild West...

While having some downfalls, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is nonetheless a very good film and is well worth watching.

A potentially great film that is hard to understand, but this is one of its perks. Some will watch and simply let the spectacle engulf them in an enjoyable way and others will try to tie together the clues and puzzles to understand and unlock what this film is really showing you. Tenet is certainly worth the watch. In some ways, although we had no idea what to expect, it is exactly what you would expect from a Christopher Nolan film. This palindromic, intelligent, enigma is one not to miss on the big screen!

American History X tells the story of a neo-Nazi and his overcoming of hate, and his attempts to prevent his brother from following in his footsteps. The film shows how blame only leads to hate, and hate creates nothing positive, only suffering and regret. Edward Norton's performance as Derek Vinyard, the former neo-Nazi, is enthralling and showcases his exceptional ability. Norton bosses every scene he is in, whether he is portraying a neo-Nazi or one that has overcome that path; it almost seems as if he is portraying two different characters. Some extremely powerful speeches - whether for good or bad causes - are excellently written, showcasing the ability of screenwriter, David McKenna, and Norton delivers them exceptionally. Supporting performances from many of the cast, including Edward Furlong, who plays younger brother Danny, are well done. Danny in many ways portrays the shadow of his older brother; he is on a very similar path, and this is clearly shown when comparing the Derek seen as a neo-Nazi in clever flashbacks to Danny now, and the gap in mentality and attitude there is between the brothers after Derek is released from prison. We get a more precise view of Danny's thoughts in small sections we see in his essay, American History X; he writes the words 'It doesn't bother me anymore' on his computer screen, and this in some ways explains his demise and how he has been desensitised to violence and hate. The use of different characters to represent levels of extremes and how people influence one another is profound. The headteacher of Danny's school, Bob Sweeney (Avery Brooks), is the first person in the film we see try to discourage Danny from falling into a hateful path, he represents a sort of hope that one can be better than full of views of hatred and division. The new partner of the brother's mother, Doris (Beverly D'Angelo), represents how people with decent views can be pushed aside by hatred. And characters on the other end of the spectrum, such as the brother's friend, Seth (Ethan Suplee), who embodies blind thuggery. How these characters influence both Derek and Danny show how important it is to listen to the right people and is also a showcase of the intelligent writing on show. Director Tony Kaye utilises every minute of this film to full effect; no scene is wasted. The film has a good pacing and is done very well with flashbacks and current events. The cinematography is quite brilliant, the use of the noir effect on all flashback scenes is crucial. The black/white contrast is a theme ever-present in this film and the noir effect captures this perfectly. The fact that present scenes are in colour also shows a contrast and change in attitude of Derek; as in the flashback scenes he is a neo-Nazi skinhead, full of hate, and in present scenes he is a changed man, a neo-Nazi no more, and a man who has lost his hate. The film shares some similarities with Shawshank Redemption: they both involve crime and prisons, but more importantly can give the viewer a slightly different outlook on life. Shawshank has been known to give many viewers a different outlook on life in general - how to view life and how to be more positive. American History X can give a viewer a slightly more nuanced look on life; it shows how hate gets you nowhere, it only causes evil, and that losing that hate can make your outlook on life much more positive. American History X has a cleverly intertwined story that is still relevant today. Edward Norton's performance is outstanding along with the screenplay, and although the main character may not be relatable on face-value, the way his mind works, is manipulated, and the mental experiences he goes through can be compared with those of an everyday person. This makes for a captivating experience and is well worth the watch.