2018

THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN

Cert 12A 92mins Stars 4

Hollywood legend Robert Redford pulls the curtain down on his long acting career with this wonderfully warm and spirited character-driven comedy drama.

The remarkable tale of a real life career criminal, it’s a deft, funny and surprisingly life affirming caper which is every bit as smart and accomplished as its star.

Redford plays bank robber Forrest Tucker, the dapper leader of a team of geriatric bank robbers who the media nickname, ‘The Over the Hill Gang’, after they go on a courteous spree of low-tech bank heists across five US states.

They’re slowly pursued by Casey Affleck’s hangdog detective cop who is determined to catch the thieves after letting them slip though his fingers.

And a luminous Sissy Spacek shares a marvellous sparkly chemistry with Redford as a horse whispering widow who catches Tucker’s eye.

Director David Lowery previously made the Disney terrific live-action 2016 remake of Pete’s Dragon in which Redford had a minor role.

As camera moves and jazz score offer reminders of Redford’s 1970’s heyday, the tone of nostalgic lament deliberately echoes that of 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The cowboy classic saw Redford in his most enjoyable and best remembered role as a gunslinging outlaw alongside Paul Newman, and Tucker is clearly intended as a septuagenarian spin on the Sundance Kid. 

Occasionally if understandably indulgent with many other nods and winks to Redford’s prestigious career, this misty-eyed eulogy offers an explanation as to why he first took to acting and then stuck with it.

The tremendous supporting cast includes Danny Glover, Tom Waits, Elisabeth Moss, Keith Carradine, Tika Sumpter and John David Washington – but it’s Redford’s show all the way.

They don’t make films like this or film stars like him anymore, and it’s all credit to Redford that after an astonishing career of nearly sixty years, the Kid leaves us crying out for more.

 

MORTAL ENGINES

Cert 12A 128mins Stars 3

The latest blockbuster from the makers of The Lord of the Rings trilogy is surprisingly clunky and run of the mill as it rumbles across the big screen.

Adapted from a series of books by Brit author Philip Reeve with tremendous design and faultless CGI, it’s a steampunk sci-fi fantasy epic set 1000 years into the future on an apocalyptic Earth.

European cities are now ginormous armoured vehicles which prey on smaller mechanical towns for scarce materials such as fuel and salt.

However this inspired premise is crushed beneath the wheels of the misfiring storytelling which has clanking dialogue and no sense of time or distance while the comedy and romance barely register.

Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar does her best as an orphaned outcast intent on murdering Hugo Weaving’s duplicitous patrician, while he’ll stop at nothing to drive London to a brighter future.

Despite the actors determined efforts to provide emotional fuel, they’re too often squandered as grist for the towering spectacle.

SMALLFOOT

Cert U Stars 3

Discover the secret life of the yeti in this warm-natured animated family adventure based on a book by the creator of the Despicable Me franchise.

Channing Tatum voices Migo, a member of a Bigfoot tribe who live in peaceful isolation in a mountain above the cloud line.

After falling out with the village elder, Migo is banished and meets a supposedly mythical Smallfoot, that is a human.

Percy is a video blogging naturalist voiced by James Corden, and in portraying a character conflicted between his integrity and achieving huge internet ratings, the Carpool Karaoke crooner proves he is indeed a great actor.

Pop star Zendaya plays Migo’s love interest, and contributes a couple of tunes which could have come from her previous film, The Greatest Showman.

Their hair-raising escapades are fast-paced and carry a message of openness and honesty, and though there’s not enough of the Wile E. Coyote-style slapstick, it’s a lot of amiable fun for the kids.

JULIET, NAKED

Cert 15 Stars 3

This soggy British seaside comedy drama is too content to coast on the considerable charm of its stars instead of pushing out the boat of its ambition.

It’s based on Nick Hornby’s 2009 novel, and film adaptations of his work are a mixed bag. 2000’s High Fidelity is brilliant, 2014’s A Long Way Down is execrable, and this one somewhere in the middle.

Rose Byrne’s art curator lives unhappily with Chris O’Dowd’s pathetic film studies lecturer, who is obsessed with Ethan Hawke’s reclusive rockstar.

Hero worship and human failings collide when the musician turns up in the fictional town of Sandcliffe, in reality picturesque Broadstairs, in Kent.

With some nice observations and a lot of wistful regret, it covers familiar Hornby ground such as men burying themselves in pop culture minutiae as a substitute for emotional engagement.

The scene with the most bite takes place in a hospital cardiac ward, but sadly no-one will die laughing at this.

 

PETERLOO

Cert 12A Stars 3

Director Mike Leigh takes a blunderbuss to a historical slaughter and kills the drama stone dead in this sincere and serious epic which is devoid of subtlety.

A period companion piece to his superior 2014 Oscar-nominated biopic of the 19th century artist, JMW Turner, this centres on the Peterloo massacre of Monday August 16, 1819, when 60,000 people gathered peacefully in Manchester to demand Parliamentary reform and voting rights.

And in one of the most infamous acts of violence committed by the country against its own people, families were charged down by British cavalry, leading to hundreds of injured and fifteen deaths.

It’s a long wait for the grandly staged and suitably shocking sequence, and too much of what precedes too often feels like a heavy-handed history lecture with too little thought given to entertainment.

There are multitude of people milling about and seemingly all of them get to proclaim their political position, and at bum-numbing length. 

The closest we have to a lead character is Joseph, a PTSD-suffering infantryman who we follow from the battlefield of Waterloo in 1815, to his home town where he witnesses more carnage.

Joseph is a great example of how Leigh values dramatic irony over melodrama, spectacle and appealing characters.

And with barely a dark satanic mills in sight we’re told why the masses are crying ‘liberty or death’, but we never see or feel it.

However Leigh is good at showing how historical events are extraordinary messy affairs, full of competing egos, factions and agendas.

It’s suggested we don’t have to look far to find contemporary parallels of violent state oppression or blustering self-important politicians, but Leigh caricatures the upper-classes so broadly it undermines any intention to condemn them. 

Peterloo is a moment of British historical significance which will benefit from being far more widely known, but also one which deserves a far more compelling account.

 

 

THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS

Cert PG Stars 4

This live-action coming-of-age fantasy adventure is exciting, lavish, sentimental and sweet in Disney’s best tradition and should beguile its target audience of young girls.

It’s inspired by the book on which Tchaikovsky based his famous ballet score, and though there’s judicious use of his glorious music, this owes far more to The Wizard of Oz, The Chronicles of Narnia, and David Bowie’s Labyrinth.

Best known from the Twilight franchise, young Mackenzie Foy is an endearing science-loving heroine called Clara. On Christmas Eve at a grand ball she receives an intricate mechanical egg, bequeathed from her late mother.

Searching for a key to unlock her gift, Clara enters a magical world and discovers she’s a princess who must save three realms from the fourth dark one, the Land of Amusements. 

Accompanied by Jayden Fowora-Knight’s dashing Nutcracker, Clara encounters an army of life-size tin soldiers, a fearsome Mouse King, and Helen Mirren in whip-cracking form as a wicked witch called Mother Ginger. Smug posh comic, Jack Whitehall, has a thankfully very minor role as a fawning sentry.

Keira Knightley is a delicious delight who rules the film as the breathy-voiced Sugar Plum Fairy, having the time of her life in a performance and supercharges proceedings whenever she appears. 

Along with everyone else she wears fabulous costumes by Brit Oscar winning designer, Jenny Beavan, which are perfectly suited to the eye-popping and brightly coloured chocolate box set-design.

Two directors are credited and occasionally there are small indicators dance scenes have been retooled to suit a more conventional storytelling style and a crowd-pleasing framework.

Disney have been surprisingly low key about this film which is a shame as it deserves a big sell, but presumably they’ve occupied by the upcoming box office juggernaut, Mary Poppins Returns, as it rumbles up the track for Christmas.

In the meantime this is a lovely early treat which will enchant your little princess.

 

 

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Cert 12A Stars 5

In a year when musicals have ruled cinema, this supersonic biopic of Freddie Mercury allows rock band Queen to claim their rightful crown as the champions of the box office.

Sympathetic, moving, funny and filled with some of the greatest rock anthems ever recorded, at a rare lick we see Freddie’s rise from airport luggage handler to global superstar.

As the band’s outrageous and supremely gifted vocalist, he struggles to break free of his traditional family, beginning the film by chasing what he wants and ending up with what he needs.

Powered by his finding somebody to love, 1985’s famous Wembley charity gig, Live Aid, becomes a redemptive, poignant and climactic celebration.

Though the film steers away from showing anything graphic, Freddie’s rockstar party life leads to his being diagnosed with AIDS, the disease which would kill him at 45 years old.

Rami Malek is tremendous as Freddie, and who cares if the American-Egyptian doesn’t particularly look like the Parsi Indian Brit, he absolutely captures the essence of the man as we’d like to remember him, dynamic, creative, outrageous and a world class crowd-pleasing frontman.

With the actors miming to the bands actual recordings, Queen’s chart-topping and lengthy back catalogue supercharges the script, and it’s worth the ticket price to hear the soundtrack, which rockets through their best-selling greatest hits album.

The majestic title track is the first song I can remember hearing that wasn’t a church hymn, and the scenes of its recording imbue the song with deeply personal meaning, a trick used repeatedly on songs such as, Love of My Life.

Band members, Brian May and Roger Taylor are executive-producers, and you might expect more of a contribution from their characters. Efforts are made to emphasise their contribution to the group, but even in their own band they were always the supporting act.

It’s a kind of magic this films is as great as it is, after the original director, Bryan Singer, was sacked with two weeks of filming to go. For the sake of brevity some of the dialogue is very direct, but it’s not afraid to ask the important questions, such as ‘how many Galileo’s do we need?’.

For his Tom Hanks-starring 1994 drama, Philadelphia, director Jonathan Demme persuaded Bruce Springsteen to contribute a title track. Demme argued the Boss’ song would encourage people who otherwise might  be disinclined, to go see a film about a gay man who dies of AIDS.

Similarly the music of rock royalty Queen will draw in an audience to this determinedly mainstream Hollywood biopic where they’ll watch a drama which celebrates the life of a much-loved performer who dies from AIDS.

And though this isn’t a ‘message’ film, if it kickstarts a discussion among parents and young teens of sexual health then that can only be a good thing.

Also in this film is a scene featuring a passionate, tender snog between two men, conducted without shame or fear. How many other broad-appeal saturation release Hollywood films will be showing that this year, next year or the year after?

It’s unlikely the upcoming Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald will feature Jude Law’s young wizard Dumbledore snogging Johnny Depp’s titular villain. The Star Wars, Marvel and Fast Furious franchises fail repeatedly to do anything more than pay lip service to gay representation at best, and the decision to cut a gay kiss from Star Trek Beyond tells us all we need to know about Hollywood timidity.

I loved last year’s gay drama, God’s Own Country as much as anyone else who saw it, but far more people will see , and I suspect many will be people who wouldn’t normally consider to pay to watch a gay love story.

 isn’t a warts and all expose of the life of Freddie Mercury, it’s the unapologetically enjoyable, accessible, music-laden celebration it sets out to be. It promises a good time and it delivers.

And for once don’t worry about the size of the cinema screen, see this at the venue with the biggest sound system. And this will rock you.

BLACK ’47

Cert 15 100mins Stars 4

The Western is bracingly invigorated with this bitter, brutal and brilliant Irish revenge thriller which swaps the Wild West desert for Ireland’s bleak midwinter of 1847.

When a soldier returns home from fighting for the British overseas, he finds the remains of his family in desperate circumstances due to the potato famine and the despotic land clearances of the English aristocracy.

It’s an impressively physical and taciturn performance by Aussie actor, James Frecheville, as the veteran, Martin Feeney, who begins to wage a one-man war across the land and has his sights set on Jim Broadbent’s callously indifferent lord of the manor.

Meanwhile Freddie Fox’s foppish sergeant is sent to hunt down Martin, and recruits Hugo Weaving’s disgraced policeman, who is also a former army colleague of the renegade.

During the course of his personal vendetta, Martin’s patriotic shift is clear from his use of his native Irish language, and those caught in his violent wake also experience a political radicalisation.

One such example is Barry Keoghan’s squaddie, whose conscience-driven actions suggests the working classes on either side of the Irish Sea have a great deal of common cause against the English landed gentry.

Adopting a suitably spartan style, director Lance Daly brings a harsh mournful beauty and mythic overtones to the magnificently photographed epic landscapes, while not forgetting to feature plenty of shoot-outs and horse rides.

A lean script doesn’t waste a word of dialogue is full of contemporary concerns such as bigotry, torture, the clash of religions and a refugee crisis. It also includes moments of gallows humour and there’s a novel use for a pig’s head, which even the English members of today’s broadminded political elite would shy away from.

Though lacking the romance, melodrama or grandstanding speeches of Mel Gibson’s Oscar winner, this is very much an Irish Braveheart, and is intense, timely and terrific.

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

Cert PG 103mins Stars 3

Ewan McGregor comes unstuck by a CGI Winnie-the-Pooh in this period live-action family fantasy which is surprisingly light on honey.

Disney plunder A.A. Milne’s whimsical classic children’s characters and throw in elements of their own 1960’s animated adaptations, but for all it’s impressive craft, occasional charm and predictable sentiment, there’s a surprisingly lack of joy.

And with the doom-laden donkey, Eyeore, as the funniest character, it struggles for chuckles.

The script imagines Milne’s son Christopher as a middle-aged office manager who’s under pressure at work, disconnected from his lovely wife and daughter, has forgotten his old friend Pooh bear, and can’t see the magical 100 Acre Wood for the trees.

Hayley Atwell brings charm to her small role as the wife, and Mark Gatiss is a panto villain of a boss.

Before you can say ‘Mary Poppins’, the wind changes direction and Pooh Bear enters his life once more, needing help to find his missing friends such as Piglet and Tigger.

Scotsman McGregor deploys his stilted English accent in an earnest performance, but the lacks the genius light-comedy skills of Hugh Grant, who was so brilliant in last years talking bear movie, Paddington 2.

That film placed a beloved bear in a bright modern context, but Pooh is weighed down with a muted palette of autumnal tones and Edwardian nostalgia, making the US accents of the animated cuddly toys sound out of place.

Plus considering 100 Acre Wood is a metaphor for the carefree joys of childhood, even when the sun’s shining it’s a gloomy, muddy, chilly and vaguely nightmarish place.

Director Marc Forster’s is a curious choice as director given his last big movie was Brad Pitt’s zombie thriller, World War Z, and he delivers at best a solid, handsome and occasionally creaky experience.

Fortunately we’ve the Mary Poppins sequel arriving in December to give us a proper spoonful of sugar.

THE MEG

Cert 12A 113mins Stars 4

It’s man versus megalodon in this enjoyably silly slick and glossy action adventure.

Jason Statham experiences a sinking feeling when a prehistoric giant shark is discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

The Brit star plays a retired rescue diver with a ropey reputation called Jonas, presumably in homage to the biblical who was swallowed by a huge whale.

Jonas realises he’s going to need a bigger boat if he’s to save the crew of a stricken submersible, lost off the China coast 11 miles underwater and faced with the 23 metre long hungry behemoth.

Various characters become fish bait as greed and self interest compete with bravery and noble sacrifice.

With the script merrily splicing Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece, Jaws, with his Jurrasic Park franchise, the big budget CGI and an international cast are designed to give this fishy tale a global appeal.

And with Statham being a former member of the British diving team, he’s completely at home when up to his neck in watery thrills.

Plus he’s well-practised at delivering outrageous lines with the straightest of faces. The film would be sunk without him.

Most impressively of all he swims against the tide of accepted wisdom by being adept at acting with animals and  children, establishing a lovely rapport with the cute-as-a-button ten year-old, Shuya Sophia Cai.

Her on-screen mother is Chinese superstar Li Bingbing, who is a strong foil for Statham, with equal screen time and action scenes of her own.

There are monstrous squids, schools of sharks, and holidaymakers oblivious to the peril of the cast spouting some of the best so-bad-it’s-good dialogue of the year.

This is knowingly broad not deep entertainment, a giant bite of popcorn fun which is totally jawsome.