SKYSCRAPER

Cert 12A 102mins Stars 4

Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson cements his place at the pinnacle  of the Hollywood pile with another hugely entertaining action adventure to follow this year’s Rampage, and the Jumanji sequel.

He plays a former marine injured in a hostage rescue and now wears a prosthetic leg, working as a safety assessor in Hong Kong on the world’s tallest and most hi-tec building.

When a criminal gang set the building on fire, he must swing in to action to save his wife and kids.

The international cast and setting brings maximum appeal to the Chinese cinematic market, now the globes biggest.

There’s no escaping Skyscraper is built on the foundations of 1974 disaster classic The Towering Inferno, and 1988 terrorist thriller, Die Hard, while the tone is peak Arnold Schwarzenegger at his cheesey action best.

It’s an express elevator ride of slick stunts and knowingly preposterous plotting, and as the cast kept commendably straight faces I grinned my way through 220 floors of pure popcorn fun. 

 

 

SWIMMING WITH MEN

Cert 12A 97mins Stars 3

Dip a big toe into the feel good waters of this very British comedy.

Rob Brydon plays an accountant whose midlife crisis sees him leave his wife and teenage son, and seek refuge in the arms of a synchronised swimming team comprised of middle aged men.

Brought together by the pointlessness of existence, they find themselves unexpectedly competing in the unofficial World championship in Milan.

It’s kept afloat on bubbles of charm by the likeable and familiar cast, which includes Jane Horrocks, Downton’s garrulous Jim Carter, and This Is England’s Thomas Turgoose.

Best in show is Charlotte Riley as the team’s instructor, whose drill sergeant manner is all the more ferocious for using her native Teesside accent.

Oliver Parker’s direction keeps everything fluid, and it’s played in the same tone as his previous work such Dad’s Army and Johnny English Reborn.

So it’s heart is always in the right place, even if the chaps’ arms and legs frequently aren’t.

 

LEAN ON PETE

Cert 15 Stars 4

Yorkshire born writer director, Andrew Haigh, made one of this year’s best indie films with this understated and emotional coming of age drama, based on the novel by Willy Vlautin.

The impressive Charlie Plummer completes his transition from child star to adult actor as Charley, who finds work caring for an ageing racehorse, Lean On Pete. There he meets Chloe Sevigny’s jockey, and Steve Buscemi’s horse trainer.

To save Pete from the slaughterhouse, Charley leads him on a road trip across the US full of hope, heartbreak and adventure in search of a new place to live.

 

 

THE FIRST PURGE

Cert 15 97mins Stars 3

This brisk and effective prequel to the hugely successful horror action trilogy is a typically blood splatting mix of carnage and satire.

It shows how a far right government uses a mass psychological experiment named the ‘purge’, to exploit the anger of social deprivation to cull the poor and so consolidate political power.

When New York’s Staten Island is quarantined and for twelve hours all crime, including murder, is legal, some turn to prayer and others to party.

However it soon becomes a warzone, with violence inflamed by social media, and a drug dealer must run the gauntlet of violence to rescue his former lover. Y’Lan Noel has a muscular charisma as Dmitri, and Lex Scott Davis is dainty but deadly as Nya.

The costume department has great fun creating nightmarish masks and outfits as booby trapped teddy bears and needle gloves are macabre additions to machine pistols and drone warfare.

I doubt this first Purge is the last one.

PATRICK

Cert PG 94min Stars 1

The spirit of Bridget Jones lives on in this madly derivative and disposable shaggy dog story which is very much the runt of the British comedy litter.

Sarah is a London singleton who unexpectedly inherits a pug called Patrick from her wealthy grandmother.

However despite her reluctance and after recovering from a wave of canine chaos, Sarah finds her love life and career improving with Patrick around.

The likeable Beattie Edmondson might be a decent actress when not being asked to do a pale imitation of Renee Zellweger with substandard material.

In real life she’s the daughter of comedians Adrian Edmondson and Jennifer Saunders, with the latter bumbling about on screen as Sarah’s fellow teacher.

Unapologetically influenced by the work of Four Weddings writer, Richard Curtis, there are lots of posh people saying things such as ‘bonkers’ and calling each other ‘pudding’.

It even has the cheek to include a clip from his Notting Hill among all the desperate and predictable nonsense.

THE BOOKSHOP

Cert PG 113mins Stars 3

I’m never happier than browsing in a bookshop, and this period drama provides plenty of dark corners to lose oneself in.

It’s illuminated by the intelligent and elegant performance of Emily Mortimer, who plays childless war widow, Florence, who’s determined to open a bookshop in a disused house in the snobbery and gossip-ridden fictional fishing village of Hardborough. 

However Patricia Clarkson’s powerfully connected matriarch has longstanding plans for the building and begins an insidious campaign to close the shop.

Bill Nighy brings solemn charm as an eccentric reclusive landowner, and Julie Christie’s opening voice-over helps set a mournful tone and an indicator of the tragic events to follow.

Northern Ireland is a majestic stand-in for 1950’s Suffolk, while the wintery photography, decaying grand houses, and tales of death in the marshes, add to the gothic atmosphere.

Adapted from Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel this is a defence of free thinkers against stifling nonconformists and a passionate love letter to the written word.

SICARIO 2

Cert 15 122mins Stars 4

There’s a grim foreboding looming over this bone dry sequel to 2015’s scorching crime action thriller.

Once again we’re in thrown in to the vicious warfare on the US Mexican border, contested by Federal agents, police and gangsters, with civilians caught in the crossfire.

Sadly Emily Blunt doesn’t return as she’s too busy making the Mary Poppins sequel which is due at Christmas, and there’s no denying she’s a big miss.

However this allows the brooding charisma of Benicia Del Toro to take centre stage, reprising his role as Alejandro.

The attorney turned assassin is so world weary he no longer celebrates Christmas, but is lured from his hideout in Colombia by the promise of revenge on the cartel boss who murdered his family.

He’s recruited  by a beefy Josh Brolin, who again plays a dark ops CIA agent, now tasked with starting a war between the Mexican cartels in order to shore up the US southern border.

But among the shifting sands of foreign policy, corrupt police elements and rival cartels, Alejandro finds himself protecting the teenage daughter of the man he’s sworn to kill.

Young Isabela Moner is very strong in her role of few words, conveying an inner conflict as she begins to experience the violence through which her fathers wealth is generated.

Scriptwriter Taylor Sheridan is responsible for some of the best thrillers in recent years, such as Wind River, and throws in contemporary concerns into the complex mix of allegiances and motives.

So we see people smuggling, domestic terrorism, drone warfare, African piracy and a great deal of military hardware.

Cinematographer Dariusz Wolski achieves brilliance in his helicopter arial work, and by shovelling dust and dirt over the moral murk, he brings a parched intensity to the intense and bloody action sequences.

And I wouldn’t rule out a return for Blunt to conclude a third chapter.

THE HAPPY PRINCE

Cert 15 105 mins Stars 3

This handsome biopic is a tender, sympathetic and bawdy character portrait of the scandal-ridden playwright, Oscar Wilde.

The journey to the big screen has been a decade long passion project for the writer, director and star, Rupert Everett. 

He gives a terrifically complex and rich performance as the self-obsessed 46 year old dandy who is exiled, destitute and debauched in turn-of the-century Paris, following imprisonment for homosexuality.

With Wilde’s reputation, marriage, and career in ruins, and a diet of champagne, cocaine and absinthe having wrecked his health, he begins to re-evaluate his selfish behaviour and life decisions.

Suitably, the film has a visual extravagance which would seem way beyond its means, with the finance depending on Colin Firth appearing in a small role.

Everett sprinkles his script with familiar examples of Wilde’s wit and doesn’t over burden it with plot. Using Wilde’s children’s story, The Happy Prince, as an analogy for the author’s life allows Everett to create an honourable ode to his hero. 

OCEAN’S 8

Cert 12A 110mins Stars 4

Be dazzled by a sparkling mix of high crime and haute couture in this hugely enjoyable diamond heist caper.

Sandra Bullock stars in this all female spinoff sequel to the super-successful Ocean’s 11 trilogy, which began way back in 2001.

It featured George Clooney as crook, Danny Ocean, who is supposedly now dead, and now the The Gravity star plays Debbie, his con-artist sister.

Leaving prison on parole after five years inside, she cuts a strikingly strong, sexy and smart figure as she promptly blags her way into an expensive hotel suite with plans for an audacious, risky and hugely profitable con.

Hooking up with former partner-in-crime, Cate Blanchett, they put together a multi-ethnic team of women which includes Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, and Awkwafina.

Helena Bonham Carter is entertainingly distracted as a fashion designer roped in to help, and popstar Rihanna is confident and surprisingly good as the teams technical genius.

It’s fun to hang out with the all-girl gang who have a convincing and easy going chemistry, and each of them is given their moment to shine in the spotlight and demonstrate their varied skills.

Dressed in a series of fabulous outfits, they plan to steal a $150 million necklace from an exclusive fundraising Gala in New York while it’s been worn by a famous actress, played with comic vacuity by Anne Hathaway. Though not everyone knows there is more than one con being played, which raises the stakes for all concerned. 

Cameos by worthies such as Vogue supremo, Anna Wintour, and tennis player, Serena Williams, are thankfully kept to a minimum. And not even the late arrival of James Corden to the party can spoil the fun.

This is a slick and highly polished good time, and is all the better for feeling as if it smells of expensive perfume rather than the men’s locker room.

HEREDITARY

Cert 15 127mins Stars 4

There’s a demonic creepiness to this slow burning supernatural horror which doubles as a tormented exploration of a very dysfunctional family.

Aussie actress Toni Collette gives an Oscar-worthy performance as a woman being torn apart by fear, grief and the pressures of parenting.

Her daughter has some very disturbing habits, her son has some serious issues and her mother is recently deceased but remains a malign influence. 

With echoes of 1968 classic, Rosemary’s Baby, this is an extraordinarily stylish and self-assured debut by director, Ari Aster, who seems to want to punish more than entertain us.

Intense, anxious, bleak and deeply unsettling rather than scary, Aster deliberately avoids the crowd pleasing thrills of the recent and more easily enjoyable horror, A Quiet Place, and he seems intent on shocking us into submission.

Hereditary has proved hugely divisive in the US, due in part to its controversial ending, but you’d best see it to make up your own mind. If you dare.