Matthew Macfadyen

Deadpool & Wolverine

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Publicity shot of Deadpool leaning on Wolverine

The quipping and meta-referencing have started even before the Marvel Studios ident is fully on the screen. Deadpool & Wolverine carries on in this vein, hitting Peak Ryan Reynolds at about the halfway mark, before realising it’s also meant to be a superhero movie, stops waving its hands around airily and finally balls them into fists. It also gets a bit dull at that point too, or less fun. Up till then this is a very funny film, making jokes about cocaine use, pegging, the shocking treatment that Fox meted out to Wolverine, how Disney saved the day, how Deadpool is “Marvel Jesus” and on and on and on it goes. Don’t even … Read more

The Assistant

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Jane, the assistant, with two men in the background

“It’s about Harvey Weinstein,” is how The Assistant is often shorthanded. Yes, but no. At a basic level Kitty Green’s bracingly edgy film really is about an assistant at a movie production house ruled over by a predatory tycoon. At another it’s about the way low-status individuals – women in this case – are treated in general. It’s not all sexual misconduct either. The Assistant makes it clear, even from the weak position of those two words on the screen in the opening credits (bottom right, the last stop on the eyes’ journey) that status bleeds into every aspect of human relations. Take the early scene where the rookie assistant, Jane, is silently waiting … Read more