KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Cert 12A 118mins Stars 2

British heartthrob Tom Hiddleston, has a passionless encounter with Hollywood’s biggest swinger, in this fruitless jungle romp.

The high profile star with great hair and glad eye for the ladies has been rampaging through cinema for eighty years. King Kong, that is, not the posh Brit actor from TV’s The Night Manager.

It’s 1973. Hiddleston plays a former RAF officer hired for his tracking skills. Alongside scientists and Vietnam war-hardened soldiers, Captain Conrad flies off to the mysterious Skull Island.

When Kong attacks their helicopters, the few survivors have a two day trek across the island to the rescue rendezvous. They must fight a series of giant critters on the way. As there’s only one of each species, the island feels strangely underpopulated.

The local tribe of transcendental woodworking communists are a photogenic afterthought.

A portable – if unfathomably durable – record player, survives. This enables the director to squeeze in far too many of his favourite songs from the era.

It’s beautifully photographed, the locations are epic, the creature design spot on and the cast features stalwarts of the calibre of Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman. But the script is terrible.

John C. Reilly appears as a US airman, stuck on the island since 1944. His larky performance succeeds in bringing the humour, which elsewhere is absent or fails to work.

Gorgeous sunsets are everywhere, ape-ing the high maintenance vacuity of an aftershave advert. When Conrad shares an almost romantic moment with Brie Larson’s war photographer, it’s in front of a glorious aurora. This doesn’t begin to compensate for their absolute lack of chemistry.

Wafer-thin characterisation is the norm, and not just of the humans. The filmmakers have little interest in their biggest star.

Never has any version of Kong lacked such personality. Going full frontal demonstrates how the once proud King of the jungle has been neutered. And he’s just like this beautiful but sexless film, all fur coat and no bollocks.

 

 

 

Elle

Cert 18 130mins Stars 4

Back in the 1980’s, confrontational Dutchman, Paul Verhoeven, directed some great satirical sci-fi such as the original Robocop. Then in the 1990’s he created the memorable trashy flesh-fests, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls.

Now he’s back to seduce you, with this stylish and twisted psychological thriller.

Isabelle Huppert is mesmerising as Michele, raped in her home by a masked assailant. Among many awards for her performance as the defiantly sharp-tongued and sexy businesswoman, the French superstar actress deservedly won the Golden Globe and was Oscar nominated.

As Michele sets about finding the perpetrator, we witness the shocking and graphic attack several times. Each version reveals more about the attack, and of Michele’s perception of herself.

Through stalking, voyeurism, and violence, the script explores questions of consent and culpability. This being Paris, marital affairs are rife in Michele’s social circle. Her response to her violation stirs the muddy waters of morality with a devious elegance.

 

 

 

OPERATION AVALANCHE

Cert 15 Stars 3

This playful mockumentary plays on the conspiracy theory the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing was faked by NASA.

Posing as documentarians, two less than special FBI agents are sent to infiltrate NASA. They’re tasked to find Soviet spies, and clearly aren’t rocket scientists.

Instead they discover it’s impossible to return a man safely from the moon, and are roped into a politically expedient plot to fake the landing.

The commendably straight-faced actors take it all very seriously, and the photography captures the grainy feel of  1960s home movie.

Lacking any stars, this is an enjoyably knock-about enterprise.

 

TRAIN TO BUSAN

Cert 15 stars 5

Book yourself a seat on this non-stop first class carriage of carnage. This inventive epic zombie thriller delivers express thrills straight to the jugular.

A businessman and his nine year old daughter are among the mixed bag of grannies, high school sports stars and pregnant women travelling to Busan in South Korea.

The journey turns into the ride from hell when an infected escapee from a failed biotec experiment causes a zombie outbreak.

They’re a ferociously rabid pack of hungry undead, though none too clever.

It’s a rip roaring thrill ride full of heart, muscle and nerve, most of it splattered over the seats.

CATFIGHT

Cert 15 Stars 2

This satirical essay on the pointless destructiveness of violence offers caustic mockery of hideous people.

Anne Heche and Sandra Oh are splendidly unlikeable as middle class New Yorkers, caught in a long term feud. One is rich, the other poor, and a chance encounter at a party leads to a fist fight, lasting trauma and fluctuating fortunes.

There are merry digs at war in the middle east, the dumbing down of news media, the consequences of lacking health insurance, and modern art.

But as the feud stretches down the years, we end up wanting them both to lose.

 

 

LOGAN

Cert 15 137mins Stars 4

The gloves are off and the claws are out as Hugh Jackman makes an emotional last stand as the superhero, Wolverine.

True to the spirit of the Marvel comics the character was ripped from, this is a splatter fest of bone splitting, brain skewering violence. And it’s all the more fun for it.

Armed with super tough adamantium bones, retractable claws and an extraordinary healing ability, Wolverine was the breakout star of 2003’s first X-Men film.

Though Jackman hides his leading man looks behind a beard and glasses, there’s no disguising the big Aussie’s fierce physique. The big Aussie actor first played the role in 2003 and he remains imposing, even at forty eight years old.

Now years later, he and Professor Xavier are eking out a living in Mexico. Patrick Stewart brings all his Shakespearean expertise to bear as Wolverine’s surrogate father and wheelchair bound, former X-Men leader.

The third member of the group is Caliban, an albino mutant with the power to sniff out other mutants. Former Ricky Gervais sidekick, Stephen Merchant, gives an affecting performance in heavy makeup. 

A mute orphan of prodigious ability is landed in their care and they’re pursued by heavily armed corporate agents, aiming to terminate her. In a politicised subtext, the bad guys are militarised corporate agents, the good guys are fence-storming Mexicans.

Whereas previously the X-Men series had courted a family audience with a 12A certificate, this one flaunts its 15 age limit. Abandoning spandex and light hearted frolics, this is notably the grittiest, darkest and bloodiest offering in the often disappointing, nine film franchise.

20th Century Fox are clearly aiming for the mega box office of their X-Men spin-off and surprise smash, Deadpool, which also had a 15 certificate. However at £102 million, Logan is more than twice as expensive, so will have to work a lot harder to make as much money.

There’s no lack of money, effort or expertise on show. Ferocious fist fights litter the cross-country chase, and it ends with a drug fuelled rampage through a forest.

Pummelled by far more emotional and physical punches than previous episodes, I almost wish it wasn’t the last one. We’ll see.

 

 

HEADSHOT

Cert 18 118mins Stars 4

From the bullet ridden jail break to the blood soaked beach finale, this ferocious action thriller is a relentless jackhammer hammer of bone snapping violence.

Having washed up unconscious on the shore, Ishmael wakes up in hospital with scars but no memory.

Actor Iko Uwais is best known as Rama, the iron-fisted hero cop from the equally brutal, The Raid movies. Very soon it’s apparent he hasn’t been cast for his sweet smile or method acting.

Ishmael’s gorgeous doctor is kidnapped. In order to rescue her, he must confront his own secret past, the sinister Mr Lee, and an army of well groomed guards.

Full of rape, torture, child trafficking and execution, this is a mad mash up of monstrous martial art moves, machetes and machine guns.

It’s as punishing to watch as it must have been to perform. Plus it offers equal opportunity mayhem, with the girls being easily as nasty as the boys.

 

 

 

THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES

Cert 12A 104mins 1 Star

Billed as a comedy, this sedate road trip is a laugh free and terminally mawkish ride.

A pair of unhappy British pensioners strike out for the south of France, hoping for a second chance at life.

Joan Collins gives her all as she sends up her public persona. But it isn’t much of a stretch for the former Dynasty star to play a friendless and foul mouthed former Hollywood star.

Pauline Collins is her mousey, downtrodden companion. The game old girls have trouble with the satnav, drive on the wrong side of the road and so on.

We’re also treated to the sight of the arse of the old Italian rogue, Franco Nero. The film finds this incurably funny. He plays a wealthy widower, with a fancy for footloose English women.

Though aimed at the grey pound, the script frequently patronises its target audience. Everyone deserves better than this ITV sitcom-standard offering.

At the least the soundtrack was occasionally jolly.

 

 

TRESPASS AGAINST US

Cert 15 100mins Stars 3

Two great actors go head to head, as Traveller’s tradition sets father against son for the soul of the next generation.

This English drama has a strong celtic flavour as actor Brendan Gleeson plays the head of a small band of travelling folk.

Michael Fassbender is his illiterate son who wants an education and a better life for his own young family.

His wife, Kelly, wants away from the chaos, control and criminality of camp life. Lyndsey Marshal is more than a match for her better known acting colleagues.

Tying the film to England’s theatrical heritage are the the presence of a painted fool, the rural Gloucester setting, use of traveller dialect, and grand themes of family, inheritance, loyalty and betrayal.

Action scenes stray unintentionally into caper territory, and sit uneasily alongside the social realism and echoes of Shakespearean tragedy.

A sudden leap of optimism at the end is at odds with the carefully crafted sense of impending doom.

 

 

BEST

Cert 12A 92mins Stars 3

For anyone who knows nothing about the alcoholic former footballer, George Best, this unauthorised documentary is a sympathetic and straight forward introduction to his life.

For those looking for fresh insight, it’s back to square one.

The Belfast boy’s playing career peaked aged twenty two, and his drinking lasted until his death from liver disease at fifty nine years old.

All too-familiar footage of his playing days is mixed with interviews with his wives, Angie and Alex.

Former colleagues wax lyrical of his virtues but admit they refused to visit him as he lay on his hospital death bed.

Best’s contribution to popular culture was to be the first to fuse football and celebrity, leading us to where it’s reported the far less skilful player, David Beckham, feels entitled to whinge about not being ennobled.

This film is at its best on the pitch, where Best’s outrageous ability still makes me grin like a schoolboy.