GREEN BOOK

Cert 12A 129mins Stars 3

This US road trip comedy-drama about a classical concert tour is an amiable and sentimental journey with plenty of pretty scenery, but painfully straightforward and devoid of surprises.

Astonishingly it’s scored for five Oscar nominations including nods for its stars, Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, with the former also winning a prestigious Screen Actors Guild gong.

They play an African-American pianist and his Italian-American driver, on a tour of the racially divided US deep south during the early 1960s.

One is snobby and the other slobby and I didn’t really warm to either of the disharmonious pair, and directed by Peter Farrelly, of Dumb and Dumber fame, it feels very much a cover version of Steve Martin’s classic, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, but not as funny or as moving.

There’s no real sense of danger, and the scenes where the white guy explains African-American music to the black guy, is every bit as tin-eared and cringe-worthy as it sounds.

OCCUPATION

Cert 15 Stars 3

An alien attack threatens the human race with extinction in this hard working low budget action sci-fi.

Former Neighbours and Home and Away star, Rhiannon Fish, joins a disparate group of survivors of a small country town who rally around as resistance fighters, while veteran actor Bruce Spence appears as the alien leader.

With some decent character work and no little flair or shortage of ambition, writer and director Luke Sparke squeezes in as much explosive action as his can into his agreeably no-nonsense old school end of the world affair.

MCQUEEN

Cert 15 Stars 4

I’ve only a vague recollection of controversial British fashion designer Alexander McQueen as someone who was on the periphery of the 1990’s Britpop scene.

However by using never-seen before home movies, interviews with family, friends and collaborators, and footage from his catwalk shows, this striking and intimate documentary shows he was a key force of Cool Britannia era and put me straight on the extraordinary talent the working class London lad possessed.

It also conveys the pressures he suffered to maintain his standing in the industry, which contributed to his shocking early death in 2010.

 

 

DEAD NIGHT

Cert 18 Stars 3

No good deed goes unpunished in this brisk and blood-soaked supernatural slasher horror which sees a family on a trip to remote cabin, ironically for the good of their health.

En route they offer shelter to a woman they find passed out in the snow,  but their act of is one they come to regret.

It’s reasonably stylish with more some decent atmosphere and fulfils its modest ambition of offering some unfussy old school chills. Plus it’s always great to see veteran screamstress, Barbara Crampton, of 1980’s horror flicks such as Re-Animator, back on the screen.

 

THOROUGHBREDS

Cert 15 Stars 4

Take a punt on this immaculately poised and nihilistic black comedy thriller which carries its chilly premise across the finish line with tremendous composure and style.

Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy give deliciously dead-pan performances as a pair of teenagers born to a world of wealth and privilege and bred to be social show ponies.

With the former saddled with a creepy and controlling stepfather, a plot is hatched to dispatch him. The film is dedicated to the late Anton Yeltsin who plays the local drug dealer whom they rope in to help.

A QUIET PLACE

Cert 15 Stars 5

Writer and director John Krasinski co-stars alongside real-life wife, Emily Blunt, in this magnificently terrifying apocalyptic horror.

They play a married couple whose family are struggling to survive in a near future world where civilisation has been destroyed and humans are preyed on by creatures who hunt by sound.

Produced by Transformers supremo, Michael Bay, it scared up a thunderous £250m at the global box office on a tiny £13m budget. Smart, sharp and shocking, it’s a stunning example of how to use the simplest techniques to create nerve-snapping tension and will leave you silent with fear.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – FALLOUT

Cert 12A 147mins Stars 5

Tom Cruise crashes back into cinemas with the sixth outrageous, death defying and exhilarating episode of his all-action espionage franchise.

IMF agent Ethan Hunt is the US answer to James bond, and Cruise chose to accept his first mission in the role back in 1996, and this is by a running jump the best one yet.

The preposterous plotting involves some missing plutonium and a terror organisation trying to establish a new world order. Plus of course the familiar latex masks, a series of betrayals and the famous signature tune.

Humour lands with the almost same impact as the punches as we’re whisked from Paris to London and Kashmir in bikes, boats, cars and helicopters, through a series of wildly improbable stunts. 

It begins in a surprisingly low key fashion with Hunt having doubts over his chosen career, but he’s soon accepting a new mission, aided by trusted colleagues Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg.

Joining them is former Superman, Henry Cavill, who’s on career best form as a CIA agent tasked to shadow Hunt and help complete his task.

And a cocktail lounge punch-up involving Rebecca Ferguson and The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby, suggests the possibility of an all female spin-off mission should Cruise ever decide he’s too old for all this.

He was famously injured during filming and his willingness to put his body on the line for our entertainment is what makes this franchise so compelling, 

Plus each dazzling display of virtuoso stunt work exceeds the previous one in ambition and scope and is conceived and executed with clockwork ingenuity. And they’re performed on location with a minimum of CGI assistance, adding to our gobsmacked disbelief. This is best watched on an IMAX screen for maximum effect.

Fallout establishes a new high bar in slick, glossy stunt-driven action adventure, and next year’s 007 film will have to keep it in its sights if Bond wants to remain top gun.

APOSTASY

Cert PG 95mins Stars 4

There’s an acute emotional intimacy to this deliberately downbeat drama based in Oldham’s community of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It’s a religion pretty much all but ignored by cinema and is part of the multi-faith working class town where it’s shot on location with local accents.

At the story’s heart are a trio of wonderfully natural and unsentimental performances, lead by Siobhan Finneran. She plays a devout single mum who struggles to square the demands of her congregational elders with the needs of her young adult daughters, Molly Wright and Sacha Parkinson.

As questions of faith and religion battle family and science, the script by debut director Daniel Kokotajlo is careful to not to condemn the religion and offer an explanation how a middle aged woman finds herself in a rainswept shopping precinct and spreading the word of Jehovah.

Catholicism is dismissed as being as ‘airy-fairy’, which is possibly the nicest comment my religion has received in the history of movies.

MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN

Cert PG 114mins Stars 4

Unleash your inner dancing queen and boogie in the glorious sunshine glow of whats’ going to be the smash hit of the summer.

This unashamedly feel good sequel to 2008’s poptastic box office chart buster is another sequinned celebration of sisterly love and the unbreakable bonds of motherhood.

Once again the irresistible platinum-plated pop tunes of ABBA set the tone for this flamboyant escapist fantasy, which sees the original cast reunite in a split storyline which flicks between events now and from twenty five years ago. 

In the present Amanda Seyfried is organising her Greek island hotel’s grand opening night and frets about her relationship with Dominic Cooper, while a deliciously lusty Christine Baranski and a lovelorn Julie Walters banter for space alongisde Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard.

There’s a conspicuous deficit of Meryl Streep as Seyfried’s vivacious screen mother, Donna. However the younger version of the character is played in the earlier timeline by Lily James, and the former Downton star treats us to a barnstorming turn worthy of Streep herself.

Bristling with defiance, optimism and enthusiasm, we see how Donna meets a trio of buff and eager suitors who become responsible for the confusion surrounding her daughters parentage.

All this turning back time sets up a show-stopping singing turn by the ever fabulous Cher. It’s one of many preposterous and crowd-pleasing scenes, my favourite of which is set at sea and best described as Dunkirk with a disco beat.

This brazen and cheerfully loopy sense of fun mingles with heartfelt multi-generational bonding and the pains of summer loving.

Among the barely choreographed mass dance-alongs and ill advised attempts at singing lurks a finger so firmly on the pulse of its intended audience it was rewarded at the packed-out world premiere with an all singing and dancing ovation. 

And if you’re a fan of the first film then you’ll love this second outing just as much as they clearly did.

PIN CUSHION

Cert 15 81mins Stars 3

This brisk low budget British coming of age drama is a nightmarish revenge tragedy which is at times as darkly uncomfortable to watch as the name suggests.

Young Lily Newmark gives a well judged performance full of awkward angles as a teenage girl at at a school trying to fit in with the local mean girls.

Her clumsy attempts are hampered by her shyness and sexual innocence, plus the social inadequacies of her mother, a terrific Joanna Scanlan.

She’s weighed down with a club foot and a hunchback which emphasise the collision of reality and fantasy which lie at the heart of the script, by debut director, Deborah Haywood.

Putting her characters through a wringer of social media betrayal, self harm, alcohol abuse, she maintains our sympathy as the mother and daughter seek refuge in self created fantasies, one of which involves a glamorous air stewardess, played with toothy splendour by former Girls Aloud singer, Nadine Coyle.