Matt Goddard

The new DC Universe is warming up as a concerted effort to transfer DC’s decades of comic book storytelling to movie theaters, TV, games, and more.
Of course, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) stands in front of DC like Galactus. Marvel’s decade-plus experience of creating a shared universe on screen may not always please everyone, but it’s undoubtedly the most successful Hollywood franchise in history.
When Iron Man’s armor was being welded and oiled in 2008, few could have foreseen the sp...

Independent cinemas used to be a premier hang-out for students. But with multiplexes pushing smaller venues out of picture, Matt Goddard asks whether it's curtains for the art-house cinema.

The Strangers – Chapter 3 is more than just the final instalment of a trilogy—it's the end of a single psychological horror story told over the best part of five hours. For viewers introduced to Ryan and Maya (Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez) in May 2024, when they were forced to spend the night in a remote cabin outside Venus, Oregon, it's the end of quite a journey.

That's a journey that the director of all three films, Renny Harlin, described as an “amazing opportunity” when we spoke with him...

When it came to realising the simian threat at the heart of its horror, Primate went old-school. With an eye on the tangible make-up and prosthetic horror of ‘80s classics, director and co-writer Johannes Roberts was determined to make the threat of a rabid ape as physical as possible. He found the perfect performer in Miguel Torres Umba, the man behind Ben the chimpanzee. Primate is a physical, visceral rollercoaster ride that draws on classic horror while playing with expectations...

It's been a long time coming, but the world finally has its Toxic Avenger back—surely just the tonic comic book movies need.
Macon Blair steers Legendary Entertainment's attempt to bring Troma's superpowered poster boy screaming and ripping into the 21st century, along with an impressive cast and an ‘unrated' stamp. But while the noxious results will get whoops in the cinemas, it‘s hard to miss the smoking remains of a wasted opportunity...

No Other Choice starts with a family barbecue. Two parents, two children, two dogs, under falling blossoms. Few viewers will expect that perfect scene to tell the whole story, but even if they're braced for the sublime to turn ridiculous as the seasons change, even fewer will anticipate where this dark comedy thriller heads. A sprawling triumph of filmmaking, it's likely to hit you in successive tiny hits: satire by a hundred paper cutsa...

Jan Komasa’s political thriller imagines a dystopian future for America, distilled through the celebrations of a liberal family. With the household at its centre left increasingly battered and isolated, this isn’t so much ‘succession’ as (to quote one character) ‘obliteration.’ But packed with sharp touches that explore the space between belief and perception, loyalty and revenge, its adroitly satirical narrative doesn’t hold back...

Apes may be swinging through a golden patch on the screen, but we're used to humans getting a look in. From Kong's chest-beating to the rising kingdoms of the Planet of the Apes, modern simian cinema tends to offer us a shred of hope. Well, that stops with Primate. Johannes Roberts's latest horror is a deliciously gruesome, slick, and menacing horror which turns a chimpanzee from family member to savage killer, with sharp intelligence and fast-twitch muscle fibre that won't be reasoned with...

Night and cinema heat up in Ryan Coogler’s impressive horror fusion.
Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan have produced some incredible work together. The biographical debut Fruitvale Station; the tragic Marvel wallop of Black Panther; and effortlessly fusing the past and future in the drama of Creed...
It’s saying something, but Sinners is easily their most successful collaboration yet.
The Smokestack twins (both played by Michael B. Jordan), slick Stack and pragmatic Smoke...

Fantastic Four: First Steps is determined to sell the idea of heroes a world can get behind, and Marvel hopes that audiences can too. An opening ‘television recap' gives us a brief refresher on the Fantastic Four's origin, and then bombards us with their heroic successes. Classic villains get cameos in a medley that gives us a real sense of the team, the family, and the force for good. In short, things are fantastic, but the universe won't let things stay that way.

This year’s FrightFest Glasgow kicks off with the world premiere of Jailbroken, a punchy, intense home-grown film that keeps its twists and turns impressively locked in a 6-by-8 cell.
In the final days of his five-year stretch, Joe (Bryan Larkin) is using burner phones to line up his mates for a good night out...

Renny Harlin's long-form treatment of psychological and slasher horror reaches its climax with The Strangers – Chapter 3. Concluding a four-and-a-half-hour storyline is a rare feat—the recent Halloween trilogy scotched the idea when the pandemic and thematic concerns intervened—but this trilogy is nothing but committed. With all three films shot simultaneously, and Harlin and the two scripting Alans (R. Cohen and Freedland) pulling the story strings throughout, it's certainly cohesive...

John Constantine always felt bigger than comics. Years after his mid-1980s debut in the pages of Swamp Thing, his co-creator Alan Moore would claim to have encountered John in real life on two occasions. But Constantine's path to immortality is even more intriguing than a creation conspiratorially keeping an eye on its creator. Moore and company didn't so much tap illicit knowledge like Frankenstein as chip away at a block of marble like Michelangelo to reveal what was always inside…

Gold has long held a special place in the James Bond franchise. It was Goldfinger, the third film in the EON-produced series, that established many of the elements we now consider essential to the Bond formula in 1964. From the gadget-packed Aston Martin DB5 to the full pre-credit sequence and a pounding gold-soaked title sequence, many of its innovations were soon inseparable from the superspy's adventures...

Casting a light on the relationship between two famous figures is irresistible, especially when they are, on paper, chalk and cheese. Moss & Freud is a rather formally titled film that recounts the meeting of supermodel Kate Moss and figurative painter Lucien Freud and how, against the odds, they became friends despite their age gap and lifestyles. ...