Andrew Osmond– Author –

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) Rated 18. Contains images of strong bloody violence, torture, scalping, strangulation, castration (no balls at all!), farce, cartoon German and British soldiers, cartoon war leaders, a cartoon Brad Pitt,...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Despite receiving many scathing reviews, the sci-fi thriller The Darkest Hour is a capable, sometimes suspenseful, alien-invasion thriller for three-quarters of its length, before its belly-flop ending does its b...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) I saw Ruben Fleischer's comic Zombieland expecting little and enjoyed immensely. True, there's a big problem with the concept; it's a zombie pic where the two key characters are a college-age maybe-coupl...

Like many animation fans, I was delighted by the victory of Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse in the Best Animated Feature category in 2019 - but also by the nomination of Mamoru Hosoda's Mirai, the first Oscar-nominated feature that was...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) Ajin is Tokyo Ghoul meets 24. That’s not a subtle analysis, but then this horror-action-thriller isn’t in it for the subtlety. It’s about grabbing the viewer early and propelling you through chases, story rug-pulls,...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion - I also have an interview with the director Gareth Evans about the film on the MangaUK blog.) Monsters is already the subject of much buzz, although it’s one of these films where the punditry blurs two t...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) James Gunn’s Super is distinguished straight off by its opening titles, an overwrought, very funny, crayola-violent cartoon. Director James Gunn could have been one of the kids in Super 8; according to h...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) The director Masaaki Yuasa has long been a hero to fans of maverick, free-spirited anime. He’s had a following since his first movie, the extraordinary fantasia Mind Game (2004), which has had one-off screenings ove...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) This ill-famed film folly from Donnie Darko’s Richard Kelly has two advantages on DVD. In the cinema, you were stuck with the Rock, Justin Timberlake, Sarah Michelle Geller and their fellow thespians dis...

I wrote a review of Alita: Battle Angel for the AllTheAnime website.

The following retrospective on the film was published in SFX Magazine, Future Publishing. I also wrote a piece focusing on the Battle Royale novel for the Manga Entertainment blog. Half asleep, Japanese author Koshun Takimi envisioned a ...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) Grimgar does something unusual and impressive. It tells a fantasy adventure story that’s a small story of everyday, mundane, universal life and death. It’s about kids in a world of magic and monsters, one of the mos...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) Gantz is a live-action film version of a manga strip that, even by Japanese standards, is a long runner. It started in 2000 and continues today after more than 350 episodes, written and drawn by Hiroya O...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) The Cabin in the Woods (out now), produced by Joss Whedon, directed by his former Buffy collaborator Drew Goddard, and written by both of them, has had a favourable reception from reviewers. The film is ...

[Whereas I have an entry on the original Kung Fu Panda film in my 100 Animated Feature Films book, here's my review of the third film for Sight & Sound magazine, published by the BFI. I also wrote an article on the film's significanc...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) How far is too far? It’s a question asked by the 2004 series Koi Kaze, but it equally apples to the series. Anime has pushed against acceptability for decades, often by linking sex and violence in shocking ways. Koi...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Following The Truman Show (1998), The Matrix (1999) and The Village (2004), City of Ember returns to Plato’s fable of the cave, his allegory for how humans are sealed within a deceptive, false reality. Gil Kenan’...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) The new Indiana Jones film starts in a veritable museum to modern myth. It’s a military warehouse in Area 51, hallowed ground for UFOlogists and conspiracy nuts. The set is a reconstruction of one in the closing ...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) It’s common wisdom among animators that humans are the hardest species to simulate realistically, because we know the true articles so well. Director Robert Zemeckis takes up the challenge using the same CGI tech...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Denmark, AD 507. The ageing Norse King Hrothgar holds debauched revels in his drinking hall. These disturb a monstrous giant in the hills above, who attacks the hall and slaughters many of Hrothgar’s people. Hrot...

(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion) “This place is the arsehole of the world.” Such is a Roman’s unflattering appraisal of the barbaric country that’ll one day be Scotland, still holding out against Emperor Hadrian. Romans go in; the savag...

(Neo, Uncooked Media) This is the Tenchi that British fans are likeliest to have seen already, the 13-part video series from the early 1990s that looks better than most TV fare today. It began a sprawling franchise but remains highly acc...

(SFX Magazine, Future Publishing) Song of the Sea was among the contenders for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars this February. It didn’t win, but now we can finally see it, it’s clear why it was nominated. This is a lovely, crafted fi...

(Sight & Sound, BFI) Phuket, six months after the Asian tsunami. A couple, Paul and Jeanne, are devastated by the disappearance of their young son, Joshua, in the disaster. Jeanne sees video footage shot in Burma, and insists that a ...