MCLAREN

Cert 12A 92mins Stars 3

I’m as far from a petrol head as it’s possible to imagine, but this motor-racing documentary kept me engrossed until the chequered flag.

It’s a celebration of Bruce McLaren who overcame a crippling childhood condition and through his driving exploits, became a national hero of his native New Zealand.

Though it races along in nostalgia tinted plumes of petrol smoke, there’s no denying his was a remarkable life. A passion for engineering fuelled his racing ambition and drove his success as a businessman.

Friends, family and competitors offer the personal detail we can’t glean from the footage of beautiful if alarmingly fragile looking cars.

Sadly the film travels unburdened with financial details, salacious pit gossip or much in the way of technical details.

McLaren’s untimely death behind the wheel arrived in 1970 at the horrifically young age of 32. The F1 team which he established and bears his name is his legacy to the sport he loved.

 

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LONG HAUL

Cert U 91mins Stars 1

I thought the recent reboot of National Lampoon’s Vacation set the all time low in family road trip comedies, but this car crash goes the extra mile.

Stockport-born director David Bowers has entirely recast his own franchise from 2012’s last instalment, and it’s poor Alicia Silverstone who suffers the most.

Her career may never to have recaptured the heights of 1996’s teen comedy Clueless, but it’s extremely upsetting to see it sink this far.

She plays the mother to wimpy boy Greg, who decides to take her husband and three sons on a road trip for their grandmother’s 90th birthday.

However the social media-addicted boys conspire to attend a video game convention instead.

Along the way they suffer cockroaches, a farting pig and projectile vomit. There’s an-in car karaoke scene featuring Wannabe by the Spice Girls, which is gnaw-your-own-leg-off painful.

It’s all as desperate as needing the toilet and knowing the next motorway services are 37 miles away.

 

 

 

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: SALAZAR’S REVENGE

Cert 12A 129mins Stars 3

The supernatural swashbuckling franchise returns to chart a course through familiar waters, but there’s a new star to light the way.

After 2011’s ponderous adventure On Stranger Tides, this adventure moves at a fair clip along its formulaic route of spectacular CGI sea battles and big scale stunts.

The special effects, costumes, sets and locations are a treasure dazzle us, but outshining them all is newcomer Kaya Scodelario. The Brit actress brings fresh life to the regular skeleton crew as a feisty astronomer turned treasure hunter.

Carina is the only woman of note in an ocean of men, and it’s a pity she’s saddled with Brenton Thwaites as a romantic interest. As Henry, he’s a suitably bland son and heir to Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner.

They team up with Johnny Depp’s hapless pirate, Captain jack Sparrow. Though Depp’s pantomime performance becomes more tiresome with every appearance, the troubled actor needs this film to rescue his badly listing career. 

Sparrow features heavily, but through judicious editing, stunt work and stand-ins, there’s a lot less Depp than we’re supposed to believe. 

Bloom and Keira Knightley briefly reprise their roles and Paul McCartney continues the series’ rum tradition of rock star cameos.

A ruddy faced Geoffrey Rush does a spot of acting as Captain Barbossa and gives his one legged pirate some real welly. And one time James Bond villain, Javier Bardem harries everyone amidships as the revenge seeking Salazar, the matador of the sea.

The scattershot script pays lip service to its own plot which involves the Trident of Poseidon. The reappearance of pirate galleon The Black Pearl, brings closure to a major character.

This week Depp was confirmed as the Invisible Man in Universal Studio’s new ‘Dark Universe’ franchise. If his career continues its downward spiral, he won’t need special effects to play the part.

 

 

SNATCHED

Cert 15 90mins Stars 3

Goldie Hawn is so confident and likeable in this brisk and amiable action comedy, it’s remarkable to realise she hasn’t appeared in a film since 2002’s The Banger Sisters.

The one time Oscar winner shares a breezy chemistry with co-star, Amy Schumer. They play a mother and daughter who are kidnapped while on holiday in Ecuador.

Their well established screen personas allow for an interesting generational comparison of comic actresses in Hollywood.

Superficially sweet and ditzy on the surface, Hawn’s character is far more shrewd and strong than she first suggests. Schumer offers a brash yet insecure social media-addicted slattern who seeks affirmation.

The better jokes are mostly in the first half, while the second half uses the more action orientated stuff for some predictable family bonding.

Schumer’s determinedly shambolic presence infects everything from the random music choices to the occasional under-written scene.

But her energy and willingness to play the clown can’t be taken away from her.

 

 

 

COLOSSAL

Cert 15 109mins Stars 4

Despite the giant lizard co-star which is seen stomping across the Seoul skyline, it’s Anne Hathaway’s talent which dominates this sci-fi black comedy.

The Oscar winner is permanently dishevelled under a heavy fringe and black eyeliner, she’s an irresistible combination of vulnerability, determination, comic ability and sex appeal.

She plays Gloria, a thirty-something writer whose inner demons have prompted a retreat to her small hometown in the US. She wakes one hungover afternoon to discover a real monster has appeared in South Korea.

Though the twisted script threatens to be a romantic uplifting tale of empowerment, we’re repeatedly pushed off balance by its dark turns into childhood trauma, domestic violence and alcoholism.

The creature is designed in homage to Japan’s Godzilla, and this is easily more entertaining than Hollywood’s two most recent attempts to make a Godzilla movie.

But for all the monsters on display, it’s the green-eyed variety which is the most colossal and terrifying.

KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD

Cert 12A 126mins Stars 2

Director Guy Ritchie puts Arthurian legend to the sword with this humdrum fantasy adventure.

It’s a big budget spectacular full of magical beasts and battles, aiming appeal to fans of TV’s Games of Thrones. But without all the nudity and sex.

It barely plays lip service to the legend, and often feels as if Ritchie has made a Robin Hood film by mistake. He does manage to remember to include a sword in the stone and a lady in the lake.

The definitive versions of King Arthur are 1981’s Excalibur and 1975’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This is not as funny as one or as grandly mythic as the other.

Ritchie made his name with gangster romps such as Lock Stock, and it’s no surprise to find Arthur reinvented as a brylcreamed cockney hard case.

The King is played with a remarkable lack of charisma by Charlie Ho-hum, sorry, Hunnam. Imagine Gary Barlow in It’s A Royal Knockout, armed with a super-powered sword. But without the cavalier sense of fun that suggests.

With Ritchie being director, producer and co-writer, only those on set with any clout remain unscathed from the pillage of his stylistic flourishes.

Jude Law is impressively imperial as Arthur’s evil uncle, Vortigern. In order to maintain his reign of terror in England, he needs to find and destroy his nephew.

In an astutely edited and mildly distracting cameo as a knight, former footballer David Beckham makes a valiant stab at acting.

With the exception of French actress Astrid Berges-Frisbey, women are mostly window dressing.

Who knows why Warner Bros allowed Ritchie to squander £135 million of their cash on this dull and disappointing disaster.

But having already fallen on its sword around the globe, trying to turn this into box office gold will be as easy as finding the Holy Grail.

THE RED TURTLE

Cert PG 81mins Stars 5

Be swept away on waves of imagination by this remarkable animated fable.

Many familiar elements are borrowed from sources such as Robinson Crusoe, and the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. But Dutch writer/directer Michael Dudok de Wit crafts something fresh and uniquely wonderful.

It’s visually inspired by Japanese and Chinese art and uses traditional ink and watercolour in an elegant hand drawn style.

Deep currents of love and loss stir beneath the surface of what begins as a traditional adventure story and evolves into a rich exploration of the circle of life.

When an unnamed man is stranded on a tropical island, his attempts to escape on a raft are thwarted by a giant red turtle.

Without a word of dialogue, but with many an exclamatory grunt and cry, their relationship moves from antagonism to understanding.

Beaten to the best animated Oscar by Disney’s more obvious offering, Zootropolis, this is a breathtakingly beautiful, magical and moving experience.

SPACESHIP

Cert 15 90mins Stars 2

There’s not too much out of this world about this teen drama, which has a distinctly British atmosphere.

It’s constructed with a rickety homemade charm and uses the under-explored visual texture of Aldershot as a launching pad.

But the haphazard storytelling fails to achieve escape velocity. Looping around in an unambitious orbit, it’s powered by hormones, angst, an over abundance of black eyeliner and experimental hair styles.

Displaying more exuberance than experience, the mostly young cast are suitably self-obsessed as they indulge in role playing and discuss at length their preferences regarding blood, death, sex, beer, unicorns, black holes, vampires and fairies.

Alexa Davies is nicely off kilter as Lucidia, a cyber-goth teenager who fantasises about aliens. She’s suffering from the fallout of her mother’s suicide and has a difficult relationship with her father.

Her friends assume Lucidia’s been abducted by extra-terrestrials when she goes missing and fails to phone home.

MISS SLOANE

Cert 15 132mins Stars 4

Flame haired Jessica Chastain gives a red hot performance in this scorching political courtroom drama.

The two time Oscar nominee has never been better than as Miss Sloane, a ferociously cold-blooded political fixer who takes aim at Washington DC’s powerful gun lobby.

Even her role as a deer-shooting mob wife in 2015’s A Most Violent Year wasn’t as jaw-droppingly determined to crush her opposition.

Chastain is reunited with her Zero Dark Thirty co-star, Mark Strong. Alongside fellow Brit, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, they provide the film a conscience to the dubious goings-on.

With a twisted plot is full media manipulation, bribery and blackmail, the intelligent script moves its well-heeled cast at pace through meeting rooms, TV studios and hotel assignations.

Probably due to its nakedly anti-gun agenda, this took an undeservingly small £3m in the US on an £14m budget. But don’t be fooled by negative spin, this movie hits the target.

 

 

 

THE SECRET SCRIPTURE

Cert 12A 108mins Stars 2

Irish writer-director Jim Sheridan has previously delivered great work, such as the socially aware dramas, My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father.

Sadly this overwrought production is a muddled affair, with elements of gothic horror, mystery drama, and wartime romance, all jostling to dominate.

Eric Bana’s dashing doctor has been summoned to assess Rose McNulty. Accused of killing her baby, the fragile widow has since been held in a mental asylum for forty years. As the narrative flits between then and now, a personalised bible holds clues to the truth.

There’s no shortage of impassioned performances, with Vanessa Redgrave and Rooney Mara play the old and young versions of Rose.

But Sheridan’s cynicism at small town hypocrisy, punitive Irish republicanism and the brutal church, all sit uneasily with a deep lying sentimentality.

An oppressive score leaves no room for subtlety, and the script contains no secret worthy of the name.