2016

AFTERMATH

Cert 15 90mins Stars 2

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s screen career takes an interesting detour in a rare serious-minded role. Sadly his decent attempt at acting goes unrewarded in this dull aeroplane disaster.

It takes off with good intentions but stalls mid-flight. Unable to decide on the best route, it crashes somewhere between tired revenge thriller and underpowered drama.

The story is inspired by true events of 2002 when two planes collided mid-air. The resulting carnage on the ground left no survivors, but created a wake of angry relatives.

As a grief stricken grandfather, Schwarzenegger fails to secure an apology from the authorities. So he hunts down Scoot MacNairy’s hapless air-traffic controller.

The build up to the crash is nicely tense, while the scenes of the rescue services trawling the wreckage are sensitive and effective.

But the ploddingly paced script is even handed to a fault, leaving us without a hero or villain, or little in the way of drama.

SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE

Cert U 90mins Stars 2

The boys in blue are back for another animated adventure, but this time the girls are doing it for themselves.

Following the success of Disney’s female-led adventures such as Frozen, and Zootropolis, this latest ham-fisted Smurf reboot tries to offer a more female friendly experience.

Smurfette leads Brainy, Hefty, and Clumsy into the Forbidden Forest on a journey of self-discovery, where they find a lost village of female Smurfs.

This is an attempt to address a longstanding criticism regarding Smurfette’s status as the only girl in the village. Unfortunately the clumsy script reduces her status from a spare rib to a non-Smurf, saying she was created from a piece of clay by an evil Smurf-hating wizard.

Despite this bizarre twist, it’s generally good natured and filled with slapstick and shenanigans. However all but the youngest of kids will struggle to be entertained, and the patience of parents will be tested to the limit.

 

THE VOID

Cert 18 90mins Stars 2

This homage to 1980’s body horror flicks combines an old school style with new age nonsense, but fails to conquer the credibility gap.

A welcome throwback to classics such as The Thing and The Fly, but at times strays perilously close to unwitting parody instead.

While knife wielding cult members stalk the grounds of a small town hospital, the innocent citizens inside are terrorised by a shapeshifting beast.

It’s great to see physical special effects create the monster, which is a throbbing mass of tissue and tentacles.

However the good work is hamstrung by a small budget, and there’s a failure to compensate with either great writing or a sense of camp fun.

Alarmingly large plot holes lurk around every dark corner and preposterous dialogue such as ‘there are things older than time’ don’t help.

If you’re not in the mood for some gory face-ripping action, you’d probably best avoid.

 

THE EYES OF MY MOTHER

Cert 15 76mins Stars 4

This deeply disturbing American gothic horror is a piercing portrait of macabre madness. It enters your brain with the jab of a rusty pitchfork, and is just as difficult to remove.

The brutal violence and transgressive sex occurs off screen, and is more unsettling for it. Filming in soft black and white adds to the sense of timelessness, helping the story cover a period of years with great economy.

Francisca is the young daughter of a dairy farmer and an surgeon, living a remote rural life. When a gun wielding salesman causes chaos, her behaviour takes a dark turn.

As she grows up, she retains our sympathy. This is due to the remarkably poised performances of first Olivia Bond and then Kika Magalhaes in the role.

Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, The Eyes Of My Mother is a powerful and punishing watch, if you can bear to see it.

CHIPS

Cert 15 100 minutes Stars 1

The 1980s TV show about motorbike cops has been remodelled as a comedy. And the result is a car crash.

Though it doesn’t take itself seriously, it isn’t clever enough to mock its own stupidity or the ridiculousness of the old shows. Instead it delivers a wreck of vehicle porn, extreme sport fetish, and limp jokes. With added explosions.

An off-the-shelf plot sees an undercover FBI agent investigating corruption in the California Highway Patrol police department.

Michael Pena plays sex obsessed agent Frank Poncherello who is teamed up with over eager new recruit, Jon Baker.

He’s played by Dax Shephard, who is also the writer, director and producer. So we all know who to blame. He even finds a bimbo role for his wife. Which is nice of him. This is action movie road kill in stuck in a comedy cul de sac.

CHiPs is remarkable only for its leering sexism and its woeful inability to make you laugh.

 

GET OUT

Cert 15 Stars 4

Fear, prejudice, and hypocrisy are shown the door in this fiendish and clever comedy horror.

It’s an excruciating comedy of manners which takes a darkly violent twist. A racial riff on the sci-fi satire, The Stepford Wives, it includes echoes of comic Steve Martin’s early, funny films, such as The Jerk.

The smart script and knowing cast gleefully collude to laugh at the fears of white America, while highlighting where the balance of power really lies.

Brit star Daniel Kaluuya stars as a middle class photographer who is accompanying his white girlfriend to meet her wealthy parents at their big house in the country. But Rose hasn’t told them he’s black.

Director Jordan Peele had a surprise hit last year when he wrote and starred in kitty kidnap crime caper, Keanu. Get Out has so far scored for a cool £93 million at the box office. Hugely impressive for a film which cost a paltry £4 million.

Get out and go see it.

 

TRESPASS AGAINST US

Cert 15 100mins Stars 3

Two great actors go head to head, as Traveller’s tradition sets father against son for the soul of the next generation.

This English drama has a strong celtic flavour as actor Brendan Gleeson plays the head of a small band of travelling folk.

Michael Fassbender is his illiterate son who wants an education and a better life for his own young family.

His wife, Kelly, wants away from the chaos, control and criminality of camp life. Lyndsey Marshal is more than a match for her better known acting colleagues.

Tying the film to England’s theatrical heritage are the the presence of a painted fool, the rural Gloucester setting, use of traveller dialect, and grand themes of family, inheritance, loyalty and betrayal.

Action scenes stray unintentionally into caper territory, and sit uneasily alongside the social realism and echoes of Shakespearean tragedy.

A sudden leap of optimism at the end is at odds with the carefully crafted sense of impending doom.

 

 

BEST

Cert 12A 92mins Stars 3

For anyone who knows nothing about the alcoholic former footballer, George Best, this unauthorised documentary is a sympathetic and straight forward introduction to his life.

For those looking for fresh insight, it’s back to square one.

The Belfast boy’s playing career peaked aged twenty two, and his drinking lasted until his death from liver disease at fifty nine years old.

All too-familiar footage of his playing days is mixed with interviews with his wives, Angie and Alex.

Former colleagues wax lyrical of his virtues but admit they refused to visit him as he lay on his hospital death bed.

Best’s contribution to popular culture was to be the first to fuse football and celebrity, leading us to where it’s reported the far less skilful player, David Beckham, feels entitled to whinge about not being ennobled.

This film is at its best on the pitch, where Best’s outrageous ability still makes me grin like a schoolboy.

ROBIN HOOD (2018)

Cert 12A 116mins Stars 1

This brain-numbingly awful re-imagining of my favourite legendary outlaw is a mythological medieval mess.

A shoddy riff on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, it sacrifices coherent fun for blundering action and a grab-bag of styles, and feels as if it’s been adapted from a Batman video game.

The plot at least is familiar with Robin returning to Nottingham from the Crusades to find his mansion destroyed and the peasants taxed to high heaven.

Whether Lord of Locksley or the outlaw known as ‘the Hood’, Taron Egerton’s geezerish Robin is smug and charmless as the Kingsman star fails to convince as either to the manor born, or an inspirational man of the people.

Meanwhile Eve Howson, the daughter of U2 singer, Bono,  plays Marion, and struggles with everyone to rise above the woeful script.

Unfathomably stupid and unforgivably dull, it’s an abomination worse than Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur, and as bad as 2015’s Assassin’s Creed, wildly misfiring and always off target.

COMMON PEOPLE

Cert 12A 89mins Stars 3

This bittersweet comedy-drama is a celebration of England’s green and pleasant public places and wears its micro-budget roots as a badge of honour.

Different stories are linked by an escaped parrot in one afternoon on London’s glorious parkland of Clapham Common, and we’re offered  defiant optimism, romance and humour in the face of homelessness and heartache.

Among the disparate groups we encounter are a birdwatching Scout troop, a philosophical party of drunks, and a woman in labour.

In his final screen role, British acting acting stalwart Sam Kelly joins a cast including Diana Payan, Iarla McGowan and Melody Weston Shaw, who jolly us along while radiating charm, raising a smile and warming the heart.