The Witches - 2023 - The National Theatre's Olivier Theatre

 The Witches – Seen at The National Theatre’s Olivier Theatre – Saturday 25^th November, 2023.

Roald Dahl has always juxtaposed the magical with the macabre; the sweet with the sinister. Stage adaptations of popular films and established source material are currently at the absolute epicentre of populist, commercial theatre. Whether it’s everyone’s favourite nanny being a blessing in disguise in Mrs. Doubtfire, or Marty zooming Back To The Future – to seminal effect.

   Now, the National Theatre stages a truly spectacular, brand-new musical version of Dahl’s The Witches for its annual yuletide programming - a customarily subversive allegory on mortality, potions, mice, and hotel conventions with ulterior motives.

  Director Lynsey Turner (returning to The National after supernaturality of a more occult tone in The Crucible), stuns with an absolutely superb, simply dazzling production. It expertly combines visual aplomb, with Lucy Kirkwood’s endlessly inventive book – which references everything from selfies to Lynx Africa!

  These contemporary touchstones are nicely balanced with always honouring the fantastical subgenre of witchcraft’s far more traditional origins too - not least aesthetically. Lizzie Clachan’s terrific sets, begin in full Tim Burton-esque gothic mode: insidiously twisting trees – complete with seamlessly incorporated video projection. Dave Malloy’s lyrics even acknowledge these archetypal conventions in the opening number: ‘Everyone knows what a witch looks like!’. The colossal Olivier Theatre, is perfectly suited to encapsulate it all too – it’s mounted on such an ambitious scope and scale; the effect is awe-inspiring.

The colour palette softens in the second half in favour of pastels, as we relocate to The Hotel Magnificent – where we meet gluttonous, upper-class posh boy Bruno Jenkins. His snobbery at the exasperation of staying in rather more provincial surroundings than he’s accustomed, is hilarious: ‘Where’s the single malt?!’. The show is completely stolen here by the exceptional William Skinner – who is gifted an entire top hat-and-tails-style number all to himself, on the joys of a whole panoply of confectionary, with the ensemble dressed as giant cupcakes. ‘Sweets, chocolate and great big toffee / Maltesers and Revels / Every flavour ‘cept the coffee!’ – such witty lyricism, delivered with boundless, full-tilt brio by the revelatory Skinner!

 

Katherine Kingsley is also brilliant as The Grand-High Witch, striking exactly the correct mixture between gleefully evil and very funny. Marvel at the atmospheric, magical trickery, revealing the true appearance of the titular clan. Beneath the leader’s veneer of ruthless, sophisticated glamour, lurks a corrosive mask, akin to a rotten apple - thanks to astoundingly clever illusionary effects. While there are certainly several of these darker moments, it’s never too scary – and will utterly captivate anyone from 8 to 80. Even the hot-button topic of audience etiquette is hilariously satirised. At one point, the fourth wall is suddenly broken, as Kingsley challenges an unsuspecting member of the audience, spotlit for using their mobile phone. Ingeniously, it’s not initially clear whether this self-referential nod is supposed to be a deliberate part of the show – as she declares with acerbic, Transylvanian sneer: ‘You’re at The National Theatre for god’s sake! Everyone’s having a wonderful time!’ – and we are. One of her standout songs, Wouldn’t it Be Nice, alludes to how much better it would be, to eschew all children and their perpetual demands: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice / Just to have a little break'... This induced much identificatory laughter from the parents in the audience!

 

It’s just one of many moments, in a production that constantly surprises, not only with its astonishing technical innovation, but also the sheer audaciousness of Kirkwood’s writing, despite the pace dropping ever so slightly towards the end.  

  Curiously, thus far, its only had an 11-week run in-house, without an announcement of a West End transfer, which is unthinkable - when the quality is this incomparable. It’s fully deserving of being a mainstay, both in the West End and on tour, for many years, and is, for me, the undisputed – best show of 2023!

 

Rating: * * * * * 

The Last Tourist (2021) Reviewed: Friday, 1st July, 2022.

 James Burgess - The Last Tourist (2021) Dir: Tyson Sadler – International Distributor: Utopia – Running Time: 100 mins.

1^st July, 2022.

If you’ve turned on the news within the last few months, you don’t have to channel-hop too long before encountering yet another hot-button story: the latest round of airport chaos, due to horrendous queues at security, and a woefully understaffed amount of personnel.

 It’s one of several all-too familiar scenarios, covered in director Tyson Sadler and producer and contributor Bruce Poon-Tip’s, absolutely fascinating, ever-timely, excellent and unbelievably powerful chronicling of the – at present - very conflicted and deeply pressurised, tourism industry.

Not at all shying away from potential pitfalls as well as timeless glories of holidaymakers experiences, it’s essentially doubling up as both a twin-edged cautionary tale, as well as vitally important testament, to customer responsibility; showcasing and foregrounding a rich compendium of cultures, people, community and commerce – and above all the urgent need for a mutually established dialogue of respect, balance, sustainable intervention, and all of the inhabitant’s welfare - in the face of a great, and far too frequent variety of adversity.

  From the stunning island vistas of Thailand’s pearlescent, azure waters of Koh Phangan – turned effervescently on its head as the sun sets, for its annual whirligig Full-Moon Party – to India’s desolation of great poverty – it’s a superbly constructed, visual tour-de-force – running its own absolutely crucial, uniquely inimitable gamut - between tourism’s various facets of celebration, tribulation and isolation.

    What’s particularly striking throughout this unbelievably astutely executed documentary; is the sheer scale of the global outreach of the travel and tourism industry itself.

Once March 2020’s global pandemic hit; what once served as a colossal source of international revenue was gone. Documentary’s use of found footage succeeds in immersing the audience within the bigger picture with an immediacy that narrative fiction can never hope to replicate. Brilliant panoramic graphics, illustrate virtual maps, cataclysmically changed irrevocably, by the fact that profit margins were instantly eradicated, substituted for even greater infrastructural losses, which preceded to shut down an entirely international industry, overnight.

  Special mention should also go to cinematographer Stephen Chandler Whitehead, who captured over 400 hours of footage with stunning high-definition cameras. The results are simply incomparable.

It’s the incidental imagery that endures the most; those unexpectedly mundane, peppered moments of gentle humour. A favourite is a produce salesman on a moped, who, in transporting just a few too many bananas, comically topples over - as do his deliveries – all in the name of enthusiastic dedication!

  The elephants are the undisputed stars of this particular show, both figuratively and in a way that is shockingly literal. Documented in conditions of both magisterial tranquillity and unbearably abusive hardship – all for the function of supposed ‘entertainment’. These segments of overt animal cruelty are especially affecting, and often extremely difficult to watch. But, that just makes them all the more necessary, because most mass audiences, simply might not know this unacceptable maltreatment exists, whether it be animal, child or the wider human populace.

What’s so interesting, is that it seeks to shine a light on those unsung heroes within tourism - from underpaid waitressing staff, to native loom-weavers. Thankfully, documentaries as great as this, don’t only raise awareness, but by extension, act as a positive force for change – without ever resorting to a lecture.

Inventive shot selection, ranges from voyeuristically high-angled, parasol-strewn beaches, bathed in perpetual custard-bowl-yellow sunshine, to milk-white waterfalls discovered within pockets of near-complete isolation. Chandler Whitehead’s image is always pin-sharp in its clarity - and uncompromisingly clear in its cultural, social and economic messaging. Meaning, messaging that’s not just framed in the form of social media – although its dominance of democratisation is shown too – to fantastic effect. The ubiquitous bubble of instantaneously obtaining affirmation; through the snapshot of a photograph, or the millennial Insta-generation’s unrelenting appetite for self-documenting a ‘like-and-subscribe’ culture - could potentially, be doing tourism as much disservice, as favour. ‘Has travel lost the plot a little?’ one contributor asks. ‘Are we going on holiday, just to take that one perfect shot?’ another poses, presciently.

 Already winning deserving accolades, including The Grand Jury Prize at The 2021 Calgary Film Festival, it deserve as widely theatrical and cinematic a release as it can. These stunning locations really do need to be seen on the biggest screen possible.

Throughout, it proves terrifically to achieve the very rarest of plaudits for a documentary: never taking sides. It neither idolises, nor is detrimental to, its often hard-hitting subject matter. Never feeling like a didactic diatribe, it is instead a sumptuously hypnotic, assuredly comprehensive treatise, on the constantly juxtaposed antithesis between leisure, pleasure, legality, entertainment, economy, preserved connectivity and the immeasurable value of just how far simple acts of kindness can reach, within our often fractured, but also globally enriched - sense of community.

 Travelers changing their collective mindset in order to treat other cultures with mutually professional respect, is this piece’s core value – and it’s beautifully distilled both in its visual language and it’s vocalised opinion. ‘Travellers are pollinators. Travel shouldn’t just be about you, but about what you can offer’. Insightful quotes such as these, sum up this film’s essence, perfectly. Charting an emotional trajectory from unspoiled paradise to polluted chimera, it’s impactfully strong lesson, remains one of balancing the quests for optimum user-experience, sustainability and accountability – with an aim for these to co-exist as harmoniously as possible.

The soundtrack also helps greatly, with Heidi Webster’s hopeful end credits parable: Wander, adding to the concluding, but rarely conclusive, sense of optimism.

Long may documentary; a fascinatingly difficult and vastly underappreciated genre - continue to help tourism, by not least making many more films every bit as brilliant, necessary and memorable as this one.

 

   Rating: * * * *

Diana (2013)

 September 2013

Cert: 12A / 113 mins.

It’s the near-impossible task of double-Oscar-Nominated actress Naomi Watts to portray Princess Diana. There’s a deep level of strong, opinionated controversy surrounding this movie and its been almost universally critically panned – but when you judge it on its own terms – not in terms of dismissing it for its inaccuracies, and such woefully clichéd dialogue, it’s still a very singular, powerful and memorable character study.

 

Naomi Watts (it was Jessica Chastain originally, but scheduling conflicts for Zero Dark Thirty reportedly intervened), is very good as Diana, in a hugely emotional, uncanny performance; worthy of an Oscar, despite its terrible critical reception, and at best, middling to moderate box office. Watts is particularly good at conveying the brittle, edgy more erratically impulsive side to Diana’s immense humanity – as an incalculably famous figure, under immeasurable scrutiny, quietly containing wells of subtle restraint. 

 

I was far less enamoured with the love story that seemed put-upon, outdated and uninteresting. What was absolutely fascinating to me though, were two other elements: the scenes with her public appearances, speeches, and beautiful locations and costumes – all elegantly designed by production designer Kave Quinn.

 

Particularly striking, are these elaborately reconstructed scenes which are now iconic, such as the infamous (and subsequently disgraced), Martin Bashir interview, staged paparazzi photography of Diana sitting on the edge of the diving board on the yacht, or, most chillingly, the cinematographically rich very first shot is an eerily panoramic one; of hurried night-time preparation, in that fateful hotel in Paris. Director of the much-acclaimed Downfall, Oliver Herschbeigel, increases the level of atmosphere tenfold, by ominously getting rid of almost all the sound completely, as, crucially, she seems to stop, considering staying, leaving us with a rotoscopic backwards pan, and only a muffled, relentless humdrum; it succeeds in a relentlessness of intensity, of what it must be like to be the hounded subject of endless tabloid flashbulbs – even on a shopping trip which descends into utter chaos.

 

As with Thomas Newman’s score for The Iron Lady, this score by David Holmes is simple and urgent, when it suddenly emerges in desperate bursts.

 

Rating:  * * *

 

2022 Awards Season

There’s a rich, exciting and extremely versatile slate of films this year – it’s certainly a more mainstream crop than last year’s muted, movement-conscious affair, whose BAFTA members snubbed everyone from Gary Oldman to David Fincher – I’ll never understand what they had against the magnificent Mank.

This year there’s the divisive but incredibly sharp Don’t Look Up, Del Toro’s magnificent referential noir pulp Nightmare Alley, Aaron Sorkin’s languid but terrific and very underrated Lucille Ball biopic, Being The Ricardos, with Nicole Kidman’s committed (if not entirely aesthetically uncanny; or nearly as hilarious as the real Lucille was), and Javier Bardem magnificent as her increasingly persecuted husband and collaborator Desi Arnez. Both are Oscar nominated – neither will win – the film proving either critically divisive or just middling. There are two more excellent powerhouse performances, from Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield in the beautifully costumed, fascinating vitally beguiling, and equally divisive The Eyes Of Tammy Faye. There’s also Wes Anderson’s delightful ode to anthropological journalism, in the idiosyncratic oddity that is The French Dispatch. It seems didactic to say, but it once again exercises a truly unique clockwork precision, that is inimitably him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Though inexplicably not nominated for playing Tammy’s morally duplicitous husband Jim Bakker, Garfield is also a little bit of an outsider’s favourite, to win the best actor Oscar on 27^th March, for his full throttle performance as creative whirlwind Jonathan Larson in Lin Manual Miranda’s musical on Netflix: Tick, Tick, Boom.

I’ll discuss who might win, who should’ve been nominated - and the reasoning behind Hollywood’s biggest night’s continuing decline in popularity, both critically and with its viewership.

 

 

Supporting Actress – The 3 That Got Away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Matrix Resurrections and Eternals – The snubbed blockbusters.

Artemis Fowl Review

Sir Kenneth Branagh is becoming increasingly versatile and mainstream with each film he directs. Somewhat unexpectedly, he directed the first Thor film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2011 (until you realize, Norse mythology of course, can be treated as sharing deep Shakespearian links). He then adapted arguably Christie’s most famous Poirot novel, in his opulently mounted, star-studded version of 2017’s Murder On The Orient Express – playing the exuberantly moustached detective himself.

Now, comes the much delayed, big-screen version of Eoin Colfer’s bestselling young-adult novels. ‘Big-screen’ remains mere wish-fulfilment though - sprinkled in hope by the fairies that populate the narrative’s magical worlds. Branagh’s multi-million-dollar, long gestating project has very sadly been somewhat downgraded to only ever existing through those much-maligned streaming platforms – or, to exercise specificity – the new platform on the evermore competitive block – Disney Plus.

It is such a pity, because its exactly the sort of ambitious, fantastical, blockbusting fare that belongs squarely in the multiplex, instead of within the confines of four corners of ever-decreasing screen-sizes.

  Young Artemis Fowl, is introduced to an entire underground populace of fairies, goblins and giants etc, after his father (another soulfully earnest turn from Colin Farrell) is captured by a faceless, raspy-voiced culprit. Naturally, our titular protagonist is forced to personify the figure of unlikely hero.

  It’s hugely enjoyable, very much in that glossily sheened mould of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids, Anthony Horowitz’s Stormbreaker, a child-palatable version of Matthew Vaughn’s decidedly more adult Kingsman franchise, and a touch of a certain Harry Potter.

  It’s in the supporting roles that the casting choices really shine. Dame Judi Dench’s Commander Root, head elf of Magical Law Enforcement strides onto screen in lime suit and goggled visor with a growly: ‘Top o’ the Mornin’ Cornish accent. It seeks to act as further proof, not that any were needed, that Dench is still finding completely refreshing roles, well into her eighth decade.

Josh Gad, similarly, takes on somewhat of a departure, as Mulch Diggums (a fantasy name for a character, if ever there was one), a giant whose motivations are somewhat ambiguous.

Jake Davies, terrific as the corrupted son and brother in the second series of BBC One’s The Missing, is one of our very best young actors, and here has a small role as one of those lime-suited elves under Dench’s command.

  Jim Clay’s sumptuous production design, and Sammy Sheldon’s costumes, ensure great detail and intricacy is given to every set and character; from Fowl Manor’s gold-encrusted chandeliers, to an entire underwater colony of creatures and security divisions.

  Of course, a cliff-hanger ending sets up an inevitable franchise. There are eight novels in total, so there’s plenty of scope for further instalments.

   The comparatively short running time of 95 minutes jams a lot in, but it’s vibrant, sincere, colourful fun - and a refreshing change for Branagh. I just hope any sequels are released cinematically – which is exactly where they should be.

Rating: * * * 

Vox Lux

Distributor: Curzon

Starring: Natalie Portman, Raffey Cassidy, Jude Law, Jennifer Ehle, Stacy Martin, Micheal Richardson & Christopher Abbott.

Running Time: 114 Mins

Seen At: HOME, Manchester, Wednesday, 8^th May, 2019.

Brady Corbet, today’s American equivalent of the British ‘angry young men’ of the sixties, frequently played troubled, broken souls as an actor. None more so than the best friend of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s conflicted hustler in Gregg Araki’s uncompromisingly punishing Mysterious Skin. After turning director with 2015’s Childhood Of A Leader, there’s a synchronised irony to the fact that his terrific, absorbing follow-up, Vox Lux, could’ve not only so easily been quite literally dubbed that ‘difficult second album’ directorially, but is a deceptively profound piece, plunged headlong into the strangest and most instantaneous of zeitgeists: that of celebrity. It brilliantly and very topically foregrounds our current preoccupations with fame, validation and the distortion of truth at any cost. Infinitely timely, without hammering its politic stance home with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, as filmmakers such as Harmony Korine or enfante terrible Xavier Dolan could’ve done - it’s a chilly, expertly framed, gloriously uncompromising expose, as understated as it is unapologetically exaggerated - caught in the beautifully constructed, hyperbolic whirligig of consumerist pressure.

There’s a bold, Herrmann-esque, lyrically hallucinogenic score, the last from the late Scott Walker, who’s Vertigo-inducing, pounding, swooningly romanticised strings don’t feel a bit out of place, even in today’s aural landscape.

Opening in an act of stark, shocking style, when a 1999 high school is subjected to a horrendous shooting, with hauntingly indirect echoes of Columbine, which injures the shy Celeste (brilliantly played in teenage form by Raffey Cassidy, so striking in Tomorrowland and Killing Of A Sacred Deer). At the community’s candlelit vigil, she channels the collective mourning into an Adele-style pop-anthem, Wrapped Up, which unexpectedly goes global, turning her into an overnight star.

Taken begrudgingly under the wing of Jude Law’s washed-up music producer (Law’s best performance since 2012’s Anna Karenina), Cassidy’s fantastically assured, yet glassy-eyed demeanour, illustrates Celeste’s descension into someone already slightly jaded by a meteoric rise to fame. There’s a brilliant scene where she’s drawn into a vacuous evening liaison with a disinterested rock-band frontman (Micheal Richardson, grandson to Vanessa Redgrave) while they listen to her self-penned singles in the background.

 Fast-forward twenty years to the present, and Celeste (who’s own daughter is also played by Cassidy), has now transfigured into a Bolan-like, unstable pre-millennial, courted by somewhat inevitable controversy. A glam-rock, quasi-Gaga figure, all peroxide purple quiff and temper tantrum, now played with barnstorming fearlessness by a career-best Natalie Portman, giving an absolute powerhouse performance of self-disillusionment. Her adult Celeste has lost that innocuous sheen of innocence, and Portman’s portrayal is deliciously mannered: twitchy, inflected and drug-addled. It’s the type of no-holds-barred, glorious star-turn, you so rarely see now, one which Academy votes should plump for in next year’s awards season - but probably won’t. She hides behind the high-street celebrity’s customarily eponymous dark sunglasses, to escape the perpetual scrum of press intrusion, and faces off mercilessly in a milkshake bar, against a fan who asks for a selfie, during a fractured attempt at mother/daughter bonding.

There’s a refreshingly minimalist approach to today’s wholly distracting spin-cycle of technology. Corbet doesn’t resort to citing mention of apps, filters or dreaded tweets that all-too often pop up on-screen - dating it immediately. Lol Crawley’s voyeuristic, constantly ominous cinematography, is almost reminiscent of Kubrick at times: static, singular shots, choosing to focus - in faux pop-documentary style - on one perspective, namely Celeste’s – always resisting rebelliously to cut to wide, never revealing the full picture.

Its thematic daring, in tackling an eclectic playlist of terrorism, pop, fame and politics, is handled every bit as delicately as Celeste’s fragile psyche. She holds the ISIS-like, publicity-seeking organisation to account at a press conference, and is in the grip of an electrically charged interview with a journalist (a cameo from the wonderfully unassuming Christopher Abbott, currently wowing as Yoyo, the lead in Catch-22).

She’s also in the frenzied midst of an exhaustive live tour of insistent ‘rebirth’. While approaching meltdown in her dressing room, condemning (punctuated between banshee wails) at being: ‘Treated like she’s not a person’ – you realize just how accurately acute the film must be in chronicling the transient, ever-fluctuating trajectory of celebrity. The tour’s grand-standing crowd-pleasers are written by a similarly unconventional iconoclast - Sia.

 As the astonishing final scenes inside a huge arena arrive, with Portman decked-out in glitter and sequins, still tinged with that ever-present hollow strive for adoration, at too high a price, Corbet’s propulsive vision and verve plays out in the metronome of memory rather like the ultra-digitised career its anti-protagonist longs for: streamed on an endless loop, polarising, a deliberately acquired taste, but one you just can’t stop watching.



Rating: * * * * *

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Thor: Ragnarok, 12A, 130 mins. Marvel.

Thor, the chiselled, hammer-welding God Of Thunder of Avengers fame, has now had three standalone films (I use the term ‘standalone’ loosely - it’s now  beyond expected that several ‘Easter Eggs’ - hidden clues occur, both throughout and after the end credits, including appearances by characters crossing-over both films and cinematic universes).

Thanks largely to another of these, namely the Guardians Of The Galaxy, not only do the characters venture into the stratosphere of the intergalactic, but the tone of this particular Thor film is as smartly cynical and quick-witted as anything in the Marvel canon.

This tongue-in-cheek direction starts immediately, and it’s clearly a deliberate change not just because of Guardians’ colossal commercial success, but also one which Chris Hemsworth clearly enjoys. Thor, as with Captain America alongside him, has previously been a rather intentionally stolid, monotone, straight-laced figure of patriarchal honour and order. Here, he exercises previously untapped comedic potential. He’s kidnapped and taken to a planet which transports him to a kaleidoscope-esque planet via an ode to the opening chimes of Pure Imagination.

That’s not the only unusual musical choice employed by antipodean director Taika Watiti, highly regarded for smaller, independent projects. The opening track, heard repeatedly during epic, slow-mo staged battles, is Robert Plant’s Immigrant Song.

However, it’s in the supporting performances that this one really shows its strengths. Cate Blanchett stars as the gleefully slinky Hela sister (yes, sister) to Thor and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. ‘I’m not a queen, or a monster - I’m the Goddess Of Death! What were you the God of again?’. Next to Catwoman, she’s posited as one of the first principal female franchise villains - and has great fun. Mark Ruffalo is terrific as the green, not so mean Hulk, and Jeff Goldblum laconically plays The Grandmaster as only he can.

All these retro pop-references and back-and-forth banter is all well and good, but I wonder whether these lighter group of Marvel rag-tag high-jinks are simply becoming extremely entertaining, by now very well-worn parodies of themselves - so much so that Saturday Night Live may soon be saved the trouble.


Rating * * *

Blade Runner: 2049 (2017)

12A, 164 mins, Columbia Pictures.

Thirty-five years after the master of dazzling scale Ridley Scott genuinely redefined the sci-fi genre forever with the original Blade Runner in 1982, we’re still wondering if Harrison Ford’s despondent detective Deckard is one of the robots he hunts down.

Now, directorial control that couldn’t be more sacred to the devoted fandom, is handed to Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve’s status as the master of constructing tense, sparse, simple, ominously-built atmosphere - is fast becoming unparalleled.

Whether it’s the desolate isolation of the mist in the landscape where Hugh Jackman’s child is abducted in Prisoners, the relentless shredding of Emily Blunt’s adrenaline powering through the war-on-drugs on the unforgiving Mexican boarder in Sicario, or the indeterminable drones of an alien species deciphered by Amy Adams’s linguist in Arrival. No immersive nerve is left untested - whatever kind of environment we’re inhabiting.

The visuals here couldn’t be any more sumptuously poetic: epic, panoramic cityscape vistas of monolithic proportion - and stunningly realised ambition. Instead of perpetual rainstorms and dry-ice, this one takes sleek, threat-laden futurism into the absorbing stratosphere.

Production designer Dennis Gassner’s (Into The Woods, Skyfall) sets are shot with pin-sharp, crisp skill by prolific cinematographer Roger Deakins (The Coen Bros. and Revolutionary Road). From the chill of clouds to the searingly vivid, orange burn of a white-hot wasteland.

It’s spoiling nothing to say that Ryan Gosling’s Agent K might also be a robot, but why is he, as always, so utterly, blankly vacuous? I found it impossible to connect emotionally. Harrison Ford’s much-awaited reprisal is reliable, in that crumpled, grumpy look of permanent incredulity he does so well.

Jared Leto’s illusive, if underused new villain, Niander Wallace, is very subtly ruthless, and Sylvia Hoeks completely steals the apocalyptic show, as his ruthlessly relentless, icily lethal assistant.

There’s also more of that revolutionary CGI resurrection - used so well in TRON and bringing Peter Cushing back to life in Rogue One. Hans Zimmer and one of his rising contempories, Benjamin Wallfisch, ramp up the now customarily propulsive score, which lacerates us even further, I just wanted more shock, surprise, underpinned by some much-needed emotive heart and substance, beneath the aesthetic awe. A punishingly audacious, at times exhaustingly overwhelming assault on the senses...


Rating: * * * *

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)

12A, 152 Mins, Disney/Lucasfilm.


Since 2015, the as-of-then Disney-owned reboot of Star Wars has become a Christmas tradition. This latest, eighth instalment, The Last Jedi, marks the fortieth anniversary since George Lucas made an entirely different sort of sci-fi movie, with the ground-breaking original, back in 1977. In 1999, the much derided politic-heavy prequels began - then after a decade-long gap, the franchise was brought back to box-office-busting, somewhat over-hyped life, two years ago, with lifelong fan J.J. Abrams, directing the decidedly middling The Force Awakens.

Now, after last year’s surprising, fantastically impressive standalone chapter Rogue One, the main series resumes, with new director Rian Johnson. A real rising-star in filmmaking, he’s best known for the brain-teasingly clever mould-breakers, such as the exceptional neo-noir Brick and mind-blowing time-traveller Looper, both starring his long-time collaborator Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who actually has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it voice-over cameo here, as an alien in a fun casino-planet sequence. Why not have him as a fresh main live-action character?).

Johnson hits the ground running with a stunning aerial space battle (even more spectacular in 3D).

However, I just can’t get used to this new clutch of protagonists. Seemingly, both Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are a huge hit with the critics, but I just can’t connect with them emotionally. Ridley’s portrayal of Rey, the mysterious scavenger-turned-heroine, remains extremely stilted and frustratingly wooden, and Boyega similarly fails to either engage or convince as Finn.

The lack of substantial back-story doesn’t help, in an increasingly tonally uneven screenplay which often can’t decide if it’s a fairly broad comedy or deep existential drama. I understand that Rey’s supposed to be an enigmatic character whose origins are unknown, but she surely needs further explanation as to why she’s there in the first place?

Oscar Isaac remains the charismatic highlight as pilot Poe, and particularly impressive once again is Adam Driver as that most conflicted of villains, Kylo Ren. Driver brings out many layers of moral complexity.

There aren't nearly enough real shocks, genuine emotion or revelatory surprises - apart from the very underused, cameo return of one favourite character. I wish the twists and turns had been pushed far further...

The late Carrie Fisher has a fitting tribute as Leia. The tonal changes, poor attempts at occasional humour and, as before, often very wooden acting delivery does jar though, with this being even less impressive, less impactful and even less memorable, than the already dumbed-down Force Awakens. Even with the extravagant but very distracting induction of seat-shaking, dry-ice spurting 4DX.

Rating: * * *

Loving Vincent (2017)

PG, BreakThru Productions, 94 mins.



The first ever hand-painted film, this tells the largely uncharted story of the infamously reclusive painter Vincent Van Gogh - through using the medium he became synonymous with.

  Constructed entirely out of oil paint, a team of thousands of animators from all over the world painstakingly create a world of trains, sun-dappled landscapes and many - quite literally - colourful characters.

 Not a lot is known about this enigmatic figure, even less about the events which occurred directly after his death. How much is dramatised is an open question, but it makes for an interesting, if not always gripping, narrative device nonetheless.

 Boyish detective Armand (Douglas Booth) meets a varied array of individuals to try and deduce exactly how a troubled and often volatile Van Gogh, died under suspicious (or perhaps not so suspicious) circumstances.

  Booth has had a phenomenal slate of roles to his name over the last few years. From playing Boy George, to privileged party boys Harry (The Riot Club) and Anthony (Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None) and a flamboyant Vaudevillian impresario in this autumn’s criminally underrated serial-killer chiller The Limehouse Golem, he’s a versatile, polished and incredibly focused actor - and Armand is no exception. Relatable, subtle and unassuming, it’s another performance which absolutely anchors the film.

  There is also a Poldark reunion, with Aidan Turner and a particularly brilliant, very natural Eleanor Tomlinson as the daughter of the owner of a provincial café.

‘You want to know so much about his death, but what do know of his life?’ inquires an aloof maid.

  There may not always be a great deal of substance or new information about our deliberately elusive titular character.

However, it’s executed in such a genuinely state-of-the-art way, that the mechanisms of the plot somehow become incidental to the artistry. The dazzling images are always alive with movement too: faces change expression, looking temporarily perplexed with incredulity. The actors are filmed using revolutionary motion-capture technology: photographed as normal, with the computer matching their every mannerism. But, as this great achievement demonstrates, innovation coupled with traditional methods work the best…

Rating: * * *

Coco (2018)

PG, 105 Mins, Pixar.

The latest from animation powerhouse Pixar, there’s a wonderfully old-fashioned, moral, Disney feel to Coco - yet it feels simultaneously fresh. Young Mexican boy Miguel has a unrequited passion for music - his family dismiss his artistic talent ever since a family descendent abandoned them years ago to pursue his own dreams of being a musician.

When the guitar inside the statue of his local celebrity idol magically comes to life, Miguel is transported to the phantasmagorical irreverence of The Land Of The Dead, where he must get back to the living, and discover the true meaning of how family lasts forever…

The animation is technically extremely rich, full of little moments of slapstick, particularly in the world of the afterlife - eye-sockets retract and jaws fall off.

But it’s the emotional, human touches of affection which really resonate. For example, the title itself refers to the oldest living member of Miguel’s family - Grandma Coco. Well into her hundreds, the lines and wrinkles on her face are rendered with such minutia of detail and texture, that there were moments - as so often happens with computer-animations, where my disbelief was so suspended that I believed that these characters were really people - and was completely emotionally captivated.

It’s also thankfully very telling in its timing and themes. Along with tackling quite difficult, universal thematic material for children: life, death, forgiveness etc, it’s also somewhat of a much-publicised statement against the separation-politics which presently loom over us. With diversity currently such a hot-button topic, this is one of the first mainstream animations ever to have an almost entirely Latino cast. There are nods to making a stance against both Trump and Brexit, even a reference to immigration control, but all treated subtly enough as to not be too heavily ladled-on. It’s so refreshing to see a Hollywood studio make such a celebratory film about embracing another culture so fully.

This joyousness is evident in the glorious songs, from the Frozen lyricists, notably Remember Me, which will have many parents misty-eyed by the end. A delight - bound for Oscar glory.

Rating: * * * *

Murder On The Orient Express (2017)

114 Mins, 12A, 20th Century Fox.


Just as the poster for the famous 1974 version of what is arguably Christie’s most famous mystery, showcased its stars faces like a Cluedo-esque comic-strip cartoon, this one has had equally starry publicity, for a cast that contains some of our finest actors of all time.

 Sir Kenneth Branagh directs, co-writes, and also stars as Poirot, that fastidious perfectionist of a Belgian detective. Twelve strangers meet, and become stranded on the famous train, then one of them is brutally murdered…

Johnny Depp plays Edward Ratchett, a notoriously nasty gangster, absolutely terrifically - surly, slimy and relentless, but in such a subtle way. Depp dosen’t actually have that much screen-time, or that many lines, but actually has a couple more scenes than Richard Widmark did in the original.

One is a very interesting, lust-strewn exchange between himself and Michelle Pfeiffer, also extremely good, but again, as with Depp, underused, as the domineering, serial divorcee - Mrs Hubbard, previously played by Lauren Bacall.

The other key scene for Depp, is his famous confrontation with Poirot, when he asks unsuccessfully for his help. It’s discussed over what looks like a caramel pastry dessert, which Ratchett demolishes with frustration…

There are some fantastic sequences, namely a central set-piece where the train itself derails completely, with everybody falling out of their beds, as a lightening storm releases a giant avalanche…

Not everyone is well cast. Mary Debenham, the governess brilliantly  played by Vanessa Redgrave before, is now played by Star Wars’s Daisy Ridley, - far too young to convince in the the role. Josh Gad, as Ratchett’s assistant McQueen, fails to capture that nervous energy that Psycho’s Norman Bates himself - Anthony Perkins, brought to the role.

The biggest miscast is Branagh himself, majorly over-egging the accent and mannerisms as Poirot - his performance is pure caricature. 

Character names and professions have been changed. Sean Connery’s Colonel Arbuthnot from the original, is now a doctor. The car salesman, who was called Foscarelli, has now become the Spanish Mr. Marquez, played with fantastic, gregarious benevolence by Manuel Garcia-Rufo.

Stylish, and very entertaining. 




Rating: * * * *

Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle (2017)

15, 141 Mins, Twentieth Century Fox. 


In 2015, director Matthew Vaughn made the first Kingsman film: it was gloriously unapologetic in the irreverence of its own subversiveness. It knows, as Vaughn does, exactly which elements it’s sending up. So much so that there’s even a scene in the original between Colin Firth’s dapper gentlemen spy and Samuel L. Jackman’s lisping, baseball-capped megalomaniac, where they discuss the many iterations of the spy genre itself. ‘Nowadays they’re all a little serious for my taste…give me a far-fetched theatrical plot any day’.

Now, all the on-the-button self-referentiality coupled with a knowingly nostalgic whip-smart screenplay gets a sequel.

The second chapter in a proposed trilogy, is even more over-the-top, flashier, brasher, and gratuitous than the first one. The only element that’s given a comic-book tone-down this time, is the speed-ramped violence: there’s no equivalent of the infamous church massacre from the original.

 We’re back in spy extravagance from the opening scene: an spectacularly staged sequence in a London taxi.

Eggsy, our charismatic young spy, must tackle everything from deadly bionic arms, to American rivals and lethal cable-cars, all with sharp orange tuxedos, acerbic one-liners and its tongue firmly inside its cheek.

Taron Egerton as Eggsy, is so confident and funny delivering all of the above, that he really could be a Bond of the future, effortlessly having much more personality than Daniel Craig. These movies wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining without him at the centre.

Starry new recruits are given nothing to do: Halle Berry and Jeff Bridges are both frustratingly stuck behind desks. While this film definitely works significantly less well than the original in terms of sheer surprise, shock or invention - it has an even better villain - another terrific performance from Julianne Moore as Poppy, the deceptively sunny proprietor of a fifties-style diner with a ruthlessness behind her veneers. In her words: ‘Kingsman is crumpets!’. Why ruin it with a gimmicky cameo from Elton John, and lewdness which makes it impossible to determine who it’s aimed at. It’s far too jammed with expletives for younger children, and also too much off an obviously mainstream comic-book spectacular to appeal to more mature adults. Not as streamlined, self-referential or as strikingly original as the first one. Can’t wait for the next two though!


Rating: * * * *