The Guardian

It’s the interactions with late former partner Waller that are probably the most resonant, with the virtual duet Asher sets up being especially moving.

It’s safe to say the ethics aired here are a far murkier affair.

This is a cacophonous, chaotic film which delivers a sensory overload of almost incoherently frantic onscreen activity, and it can be hard to take, though it is often funny.

The spirit of mystery author Shirley Jackson is interestingly revived in this peculiar folk-horror romance, adapted from a 2006 story called The Wicker Husband by British writer Ursula Wills. It’s almost funny but not exactly, and almost disturbing but not exactly, occupying a strange and intriguing Venn-diagram overlap between macabre horror and sentimentality

As with every war movie, there are a thousand possibly better or more challenging war movies existing at the margins of this one. But this one, firmly for the marines, is what we got.

It’s mostly a matter of camera angles capturing faces in mirrors and reflections, wire work and well choreographed use of body doubles. The old school vibe makes this particularly endearing, even if the characterisation isn’t especially complex or nuanced, but Hoshi brings a spontaneity and intelligence to the lead role that is consistently winning.

It’s a frustrating film, because there are flashes of something great here, but in the final analysis, Big Baby crawls rather than walks.

All the sticky, intriguing psychological stuff gets backburnered when it’s time for the howling and hunting to start.

The jokes keep coming, and it’s every bit as warm and comforting as on TV.

There’s admirable ambition here, and plenty of sumptuous visuals to spare, but the clash between one section’s biting cynicism and another’s ragged heart proves too discordant to overcome. Which is a shame; as a whole, the film may be a mess, but there are little treasures within this Junk to perhaps be reimagined down the road.