2018

GAME NIGHT

Cert 15 99mins Stars 4

This riotous knockabout comedy sees an evening in get wildly out of hand.

Super competitive couple Annie and Max and their friends are invited to his brother’s posh pad to take part in a murder mystery game night.

Rachel McAdams has huge success playing off Jason Bateman’s trademark straight bat comic delivery.

With the ownership of a sports car at stake to drive forward the plot, the rule book is thrown away when the boundaries are changed.

Along with sibling rivalry, sexual jealously and general stupidity, there is gamesmanship and sledging. And as at a 1980’s football match, the cops get involved as it descends into violence, anger, punch ups, and bloodshed.

The script is very aware of how nonsensical it all is and scores a high average of daft laughs, helped by an enthusiastic and energetic cast.

They’re all great sports but as their characters would agree, taking part is nearly as important as winning.

 

 

MONSTER FAMILY

Cert PG  93mins Stars 1

An early contender for the worst family film of 2018, only the naughtiest kids should be exposed to this monstrously poor animated horror show.

A lovelorn Count Dracula orders a witch to magically transform a married mother of two  into a vampire so he can woo her.

Unfortunately her stupid bickering family are also changed into various legendary creatures such as Frankenstein’s monster, and they’re no best pleased.

Pratfalls and fart jokes pad out the script of this repetitive, joyless and charmless mind-numbing drivel.

It’s brought to zombified life by feasting on the creative blood of far superior films such as Pixar’s Incredibles and Adam Sandler’s Hotel Transylvania films, which have sequels out this summer.

Horrifyingly, this is even worse than Tom Cruise’s recent version of the Mummy. 

Emily Watson, Nick Frost, Celia Imrie, Jason Isaacs and Catherine Tate are the British voice talent putting a stake through the heart of their credibility for an easy payday.

 

MUTE

Cert 15 126mins Stars 2

This derivative sci-fi thriller is beautifully designed but an ambitious structure of two criss-crossing stories results in a disjointed and un-engaging journey.

Strong and silent Alexander Skarsgard plays a mute barman searching for his missing girlfriend, lumbering through the seedy criminal world of Berlin, forty years in the future.

Meanwhile Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux are mercenary military medics who drink and banter during surgery in a manner reminiscent of Robert Altman’s M.A.S.H. One is desperate to relocate to the US and the other is happy to stay in order to indulge his dark impulses.

So visually and tonally different are these strands, they rub against each other without much in the way of action or humour, and generating static but no thrill power.

What comedy exists is launched in broad stabs, mostly from Rudd, and I suspect the occasional minor absurdity springs from the far reaching impact of cult British comic, 2000AD.

Women are even more mute than Skarsgard, being mostly confined to the background even when the plot is nominally concerns their wellbeing.

The dark neon style is borrowed wholesale from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and lacks invention or a sense of it’s own identity.

Director Duncan Jones is honest about being influenced by Scott’s 1982 masterpiece, though frankly they’d be no denying it. He certainly isn’t the first and won’t be the last. But the more closely Mute parades its primary visual source, the more we recognise it’s lack of identity.

Mute doesn’t possess the strong authorial voice, sharp storytelling or acute mind of its heroes. The script doesn’t question what makes us human, or make a highly politicised anti-war statement. This isn’t noir, or satire or action adventure. As towards the end it drowns in sentiment, I still wasn’t sure what it is.

Described as a spiritual sequel to his intriguing 2009 debut, Moon. Sam Rockwell cameos in the same role here but his presence serves to remind us how Jones has struggled to deliver on his early promise. Neither 2011’s Source Code or 2016’s Warcraft were as interesting, rigorous or successful in their execution.

After the extraordinary Blade Runner 2049 became a big budget casualty last year, it’s easy to see why distributors where wary of putting this into cinemas. Big budget sci-fi films not based on an existing book, film or even game have suffered in recent years.

So fair play to Netflix for giving it a platform for audiences to see it. I just wish it was more involving and gave me something to shout about.

NATIVE

Cert 12A 85mins Stars 1

Crossing the galaxy seems to take eons in this suffocatingly soporific sci-fi, which is indulgent, portentous and stage bound.

Rupert Graves and Ellie Kendrick play humanoid alien scientists who leave their home world to colonise a world light years away.

Their biblical names point to where the story is headed and there should be a ban on films naming the lead female character any variation of Eve.

They perform slow space-yoga, and stare moodily into middle distance waiting for anything to happen.

Plus the script flies in the face of convention by bravely having the pair express their every thought. Communicating telepathically is no excuse for the banality of their conversations or their stilted delivery.

The budget seems to be on a pair with an episode of Dr Who, but without the quality of design, writing or performance.

There may be life out there but you won’t find much here.

DARK RIVER

Cert 15 90mins Stars 4

A torrent of family grievances cascade across the Yorkshire Dales in this bitingly real rural drama. 

The death of a sheep farmer leads to his estranged daughter returning home for the first time in many years.

Isolated in the sodden and majestic landscape, Alice struggles with her brother Joe for legal tenancy and the legal, spiritual and moral ownership of the land, with tragic consequences.

Mark Stanley and Ruth Wilson are tremendous as the warring siblings, and a weathered Sean Bean appears in flashback as their tyrannical father.

Wilson’s talent and commitment to her role shoulders the film, in a role which must have as punishing to perform as it is to watch.

Mixing a fiercely clear eyed authenticity with echoes of Emily Bronte’s Wutherin’ Heights, this dark tale is full of slaughter, violence, abuse and alcoholism.

However writer and director Clio Barnard is careful to sow a seed of redemption to leaven the bleak tone.

 

LADY BIRD

Cert 15 94mins Stars 4

A high school student yearns to spread her wings in this compelling coming-of-age drama.

In director Greta Gerwig’s typical semi-biographical style, she’s fashioned an honest and droll account of high school, which could almost be an unofficial prequel to her 2013 arthouse hit, Frances Ha.

Only 23 years old and convincingly playing five years younger, Irish-American actress Saoirse Ronan has deservedly secured her third Oscar nomination as Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson. 

With wit and quiet economy, the script also acts as a critique of other teenage films by turning traditional Hollywood narratives on their head. 

So driving tests, prom night, and losing ones virginity aren’t the grandstanding life changing experiences they’re frequently presented as being. Instead Lady Bird slowly begins to appreciate her mother is also a person.

Nominated for five Oscars, apart from Ronan I doubt this will win on the big night. But any film which tells teens they’re not the centre of the universe has got to be worth watching.

 

ATTACK ON TITAN: THE ROAR OF AWAKENING

Cert 15 120mins Stars 3

There’s a nicely nightmarish and Grimm feel to this animated fantasy sequel which sees grotesque giants threaten the human race with extinction.

The Attack On Titan franchise began life as Japanese manga comic before becoming a two full length feature films, and was followed up with two TV series, and a third is promised in July.

Despite this big screen adventure being stitched together from the 12 episode second TV series, even if you’re totally unfamiliar with it, it’s surprisingly coherent and enjoyable.

In a medieval universe, young Eren Jaeger of the Scout Regiment is ordered to the front line to find a member of the Trainig Corps called Christa. She may hold the key to victory in their ongoing war against the human-eating titans.

The streamlined plot means it’s non-stop action all the way, and there’s lots of graphic bloody violence in the exciting battles as the giants don’t spare the horses in any sense.

JIGSAW

Cert 18 Stars 3

It’s been 14 years since the first Saw horror film first hacked its brutal way into popular culture.

Scoring for nearly billion dollars at the box office for a fraction of the cost, the torture porn franchise has been a huge success and returned with this eight instalment.

Proving there’s no stopping a psychopathic killer, and despite Jigsaw dying in the previous film, he’s back to punish a group of strangers who wake up chained in a steel shed.

This is a typically nasty and violent, and longtime fans will lap up its bloody inventiveness.

LOVELESS

Cert 15 124min Stars 4

Grim fatalism hangs over this magnificently maudlin and bitterly bleak Russian drama, which won best film at 2017’s prestigious London Film Festival.

The tense cold war between a recently divorced couple is heightened when their unwanted 12 year old son goes missing.

Boris and Zhenya savagely unload blame and guilt on each other when they eventually realise something is wrong. The more time we spend with them the more we pity their young teen.

This is a damning critique of modern Russia, with the church, state and corporations failing to offer assistance or solace.

A voluntary organisation provides the only help, and their selfless members are an argument there’s nothing wrong with the Russian people, but a great deal at fault with the governing institutions.

Loveless has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film as was director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s previous film, 2014’s even more scathing Leviathan, which won the Oscar.

 

 

BLACK PANTHER

Cert 12A 134mins Stars 4

Marvel studios aren’t pussyfooting around with this big beast superhero adventure.

First seen in 2015’s Captain America: Civil War, Chadwick Boseman returns as Prince T’Challa A.K.A. Black Panther.

Back in his African homeland of Wakanda to inherit his father’s throne, T’Challa’s enhanced physical abilities and meteorite-powered suit are of little use against a political coup.

Full of trademark humour this is a typically action packed blockbuster. What separates this from its comic book stablemates is its sweeping multi-generational family saga played out on gorgeous plains of Africa.

Bright bold colours dominate the African influenced design, the soundtrack is tribal and local languages are used, all combining to create an environment unique in the Marvel universe.

Providing African American cast and crew a major Hollywood movie as a stage to strut their stuff is a huge roar for equality and demonstrates the extraordinary depth of talent available.

Among the cast are Oscar winners Lupita Nyong’o and Forest Whitaker, plus Brit nominated Daniel Kaluuya appears in a key role. Though it’s young Letitia Wright who steals the film.

Ryan Coogler previously directed 2015’s excellent Rocky sequel, Creed. Michael B. Jordan had the starring role there and brings his muscular swagger here as the villainous Killmonger.

Similarly to the Amazons of Wonder Woman, the women are warriors, but also scientists, and are frequently funnier than the men.

There are witty riffs on Disney’s Lion King. While an early interlude in a South Korean featuring a casino and a car chase cheekily presents T’Challa as a James Bond figure, which is sure to wind up the 007 purists.

And it politically unambiguous with Wakanda being a progressive vision of Africa, wealthy, independent, strong and united.

Unlike the recent reboot of Spider-man who had Robert Downey. Jnr’s mega popular Iron Man popping by to boost audience figures, Black Panther has to go it alone.

But this cool cat more than earns his stripes.