THE ROSES****

I was pleasantly surprised by Jay Roach's remake of the iconic late 80s black comedy about a divorcing couple sabotaging each other's lives. The Crown's Olivia Colman plays a talented chef who puts her career on hold to raise the kids while Benedict Cumberbatch (THE THING WITH FEATHERS) goes on to become a successful architect.  The tables are turned when a massive storm both destroys his latest commission and his career but drives a famous food critic into her humble crab shack.  He becomes a stay-at-home dad and she becomes a radically successful restauranteur.  The divorce only moves into view in the final 45 minutes or so, and allows for a deliciously brilliant cameo from Allison Janney as a fierce divorce lawyer. It's then that we get the gonzo sabotage that made up most of the original film.  

I loved everything about this film. The brilliantly nasty verbal sparring from the two British leads, much of which comes at the expense of their shocked, prudish American friends.  No surprise that the script was written by Tony McNamara who so beautifully mined marital bickering in his under-rated and hilarious TV series The Great. But what gives this movie so much more depth and relatability compared to the original was its willingness to explore contemporary marriage dynamics around gender norms. I loved seeing the husband and wife struggle to cope with his feelings of emasculation as she becomes the breadwinner, and the wife struggle with becoming a side-show in her own children's lives.  We may not all build multi-million dollar houses in the Bay Area, but I think a lot of these financial and cultural pressures on marriage resonate. It was wonderful to see them explored honestly on film.

THE ROSES has a running time of 105 minutes and is rated R. It was released in August.

SUPERMAN (2025)***

Writer-director James Gunn (GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY) has jumped ship from Marvel to reboot the DC Universe, and the first film in this endeavour really suffers from setting up the chessboard.  It's a film that is overstuffed with ideas and characters and so many aliens that I couldn't give a shit about. There's also a scrappy dog called Krypto that is presumably adorable if you like scrappy dogs (I do not) and that's basically ripped off from Terry Pratchett's Luggage - a super-powerful, super-loyal chaos agent.  As a result, the real life human characters - whether Clark Kent's adoptive parents or his Daily Planet colleagues - are given way too little screen time.  Poor Wendel Pierce as Perry barely gets a line and even Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane feels sidelined.  All to make way for alien monsters, quirky robots (come on Alan Tudyk - do something new!)  and endless gonzo fight scenes.  This far into the Marvel universe it's just all so blah.  I would rather have seen Superman rescue a cat from a tree than yet another Big Bad ripping up Metropolis.

So for much of its running time I was basically quite bored by this film. I realised about two-thirds of the way through that I would probably rather just watch Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern doing his comedy schtick in his own film. I guess that's coming.

Part of the problem is that this film needs to pick a lane in its look and feel. Is it in a contemporary near-future in which evil mastermind Lex Luther (Nicholas Hoult) has super technology and sleek Marvel-style henchmen and headquarters? Or is it in a world where people actually care about newspapers, and take notes with a pencil and notepad, and record interviews on dictaphones rather than iPhones? The whole concept of the Daily Planet is basically anachronistic now and I don't think the film knows how to handle that. 

Thing is. Thing is.  By the denouement, despite all of its flaws. This film had me.  Because its core message is a good one. And a moving one. That to be kind and think the best of people and not be cynical is actually "punk rock".  And that to be human is to make your own choices and to make mistakes and to try to be better.  And that family is what you choose it to be. I want my Superman to be in day glow blue and red and to be earnest and kind.  I don't want moody post-modern dark Superman.  Superman has always been hokey and kitsch because that's what we need.  Onwards!

SUPERMAN is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 129 minutes and is on global release.

SNOW WHITE (2025)****

Disney's live action remake of one of its most iconic and oldest properties, SNOW WHITE, came to our screens freighted in politics, as evidenced by it being ratings-bombed on IMDB.  So I came to the film with low expectations. However, I am delighted to report that I had a wonderful time watching this film! I found its production design and costumes beautiful and full of wondrous detail. I loved the look and characterisation CGI non-dwarves who take Snow White in.  I loved all three lead performances from Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot and Jeff Morrow.  And most of all I loved the reworking of the messaging - not as woke - but in a way that does not stretch the credulity of the modern viewer.

Let's start with the look and feel of this film. It's set in a lovely fairytale medieval middle Europe with endless beautiful detail in its architecture and costumes.  Gal Gadot's wicked stepmother has a ridiculously beautiful and stunning set of costumes - peaking in an epic sequinned dress and long cape in jewel bruise tones.  She leans into the camp. There is no back story justifying her evil. And I loved it. Snow White's iconic blue and yellow dress has been similarly beautifully rendered by designer Sandy Powell. Layers and layers of chiffon in the skirt. And yet somehow, despite all of this, a very young-looking Rachel Zegler, with a fresh face, makes Snow White seem like just a young girl rather than a princess. And we put it all together in scenes that again and again made me gasp with how gorgeous they looked - whether vistas in the forest or a particularly lovely rendering of Snow White's bier in the forest.

And on to the messaging. In this version of the story - nearly ninety years after the original - to be "fairest of them all" is to literally be fair, and kind, and beautiful from within. Snow White does indeed whistle while she works, but rather than becoming a servant to the dwarves she shows them how to clean up after themselves. We realise that poor Dopey doesn't like being so-called (who would!) and Snow White gives him the confidence to move into the spotlight. Most importantly, rather than a total stranger of a prince kissing Snow White awake, we now have a young man with whom she has already fallen in love doing the job - far easier for a modern audience to rationalise.  And yes, he is not a prince but a person living in the woods Robin Hood style.  As a result, the movie doesn't end with the kiss but with Snow White reclaiming her throne, inspiring her people to be better, to be kinder, to remember what it was to share and to hope.  Yes it's hokey. But it isn't woke. To quote the new SUPERMAN, maybe thinking the best of people is what's actually "punk rock" now.

Kudos to director Marc Webb (500 DAYS OF SUMMER) who has done a beautiful job with this film. And to screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN) who threaded the needle of keeping what we love in the fairytale but also making it more palatable for a modern audience.  I really hope the film finds its audience in due course away from all the controversy and hatefulness around its release. It's a lovely film full of heart and earnest good intentions.

SNOW WHITE is rated PG, has a running time of 109 minutes and is on global release.

THE WEDDING BANQUET**** - BFI Flare Opening Night Gala

Writer-director Andrew Ahn (FIRE ISLAND) reimagines And Lee's THE WEDDING BANQUET in a contemporary Seattle setting.  With Ang and long-time collaborator James Schamus' blessing, Ahn has the freedom to truly update the film's central premise. In a world where gay people can now marry, the question is do they actually want to, and what should they decide about having kids? After all, as Ahn said as he introduced his new film at the BFI Flare film festival this week, they can't just oopsie-daisy a pregnancy - their choices have to have intentionality.  The result of these musings is a film that is hard to categorise, and that contains wild swings in mood, but that is ultimately rather moving and rewarding.  

The structure of the film is farce.  Min (Han Gi-Chan) is a Korean expat who needs a Green Card so he can avoid being yanked back to Korea by his super-wealthy but homophobic family. Min asks his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chis (SNL's Bowen Yang) to marry him, but once rejected moves on to his friend Angela (Kelly Marie Tran - STAR WARS).  She agrees to the sham marriage because Min will fund her girlfriend Lee (KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON's Lily Gladstone) in her IVF attempts.

So, two gay couples, two halves of each reluctant to commit, and two maternal figures.  We have Angela's mum (the ever-beautiful Joan Chen) who is making up for lost time and past hurt with her aggressive and somewhat narcissistic allyship. And we have Min's Korean grandma, whose surprise visit sets off the events of the film, and whose eventual softening ends it.  She comes to see that despite the foursome's stupid decisions, they truly are a wonderful found family.  Her wisdom is complemented by that of Chris' young cousin Angela (Bobo Lee in a really beautiful cameo).  Nobody is good enough to be a spouse or a parent alone, but our friends and lovers can make us good enough.

There are some hilariously funny moments in this film - and while I know Bowen Yang can be funny it was Han Gi-Chan that really made me crack up with his naive, sweet Min.  But the overwhelming tone of this film is one of contemplation, and grappling with really intense issues. I loved how deftly Ahn and Schamus' script balances all the different storylines.  Even smaller characters such as the grandma and Angela had depth and a story - even if only hinted at or lightly referred to. I also appreciated just seeing things on screen that I have never seen before - a woman's IVF journey, or a traditional Korean wedding ceremony. This film broadened my perspective.

More than anything, I feel this is a film from a rapidly vanishing America. Inclusive, sensitive, vulnerable, not scared of laughing at itself, but also dripping in humanity and love. It's a film that genuinely moved me, but also made me laugh and applaud.  That's a rare feat.  My only wish is that audiences meet it on its own terms and go with those genre or tonal shifts as they come.

THE WEDDING BANQUET is rated R and has a running time of 102 minutes. It played Sundance and opened BFI Flare 2025. It opens in the USA on April 18th.

Thoughts on NOSFERATU (2024)***

Robert Eggers' version of FW Murnau's iconic 1922 NOSFERATU is an earnest reimagining that looks wonderful, but I found it to be a frustrating and problematic film. First the good stuff. The film looks beautiful.  Eggers and cinematographer Jarin Blaschke film in colour but desaturate the film to look like old black and white films with colour tints to delineate the different moods and time of day of each scene. The production and costume design are immaculate, particularly in the Central European scenes. We absolutely believe we are in this gothic, sinister world.  And the ultimate test - the depiction of Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) - works - with one exception that I will mention in the negative column. I also really loved Robin Carolan's evocative score and some of the performances. Lily-Rose Depp is tremendous as Ellen Hutter, as is Simon McBurney as the vampire-enabling lawyer Herr Knock. 

Now to the negative column. This version of NOSFERATU is, to my mind, not scary. And to my surprise, apart from a few very well telegraphed jump scares, it's just cheap EXORCIST style body horror. 

Second, I found a lot of it unintentionally funny, and once you get into that mindset it's hard to come back. As someone who works with legal docs, seeing Orlok sensually finger a legal covenant was hilarious. The whole film is basically about not doing sufficient legal due diligence!  Moreover, Count Orlok’s camp moustache may well be historically accurate but it looks funny.  And I cannot but believe that Willem Dafoe's attenuated pipe was a deliberate attempt at humour.  

And then there's the bad acting. Nicholas Hoult is just mediocre as Thomas Hutter but Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s acting is literally laughable.  I know his character, Friedrich Harding, is meant to be a misogynistic dullard, but must every line be spoken at eleven?  And then the poor actor is saddled with a really pointless necrophilia subplot?  What?  Just trim that nonsense and get to a tight running time.

Third, the message of this film is really problematic. Horny lonely teenagers get what’s coming to them. And what’s coming to them is Orlok orgasm and intellectual superiority? I think if the message is that a misogynistic and sexually oppressive society forced Ellen to invite in Orlok as a means to sexual expression then the film could have done more work around that rather than her saying she was lonely twice. It was a two hour plus film - I would have spent more time on that and less on pointless (thematically) necrophilia.

Interesting sidenote for anyone who has watched The Idol - in both Lily Rose Depp plays a sexually commoditised woman who we think has fallen thrall to an exploitative man but in the final scenes we realise she actually has all the power.  Okay so she has the power, but she ends up dead in this. So yeah. Feminism!

Also my perennial minor issue with all sail-ship Nosefaratus.  Why is Orlok sailing from Central Europe to the German Baltic coast? Pack that shit up on a wagon or a canal barge. Especially when in a modern re-telling you have thankfully cast off the anti-semitic undercurrent of an "other"/migrant bringing plague with them.

NOSFERATU is rated R and has a running time of 135 minutes. It was released on Christmas Day 2024 in the USA and New Year's Day 2025 in the UK.

THE FALL GUY**

My two stars for THE FALL GUY are a weighted average of 90 minutes of flaccid, obvious, juvenile action-romance followed by 30 minutes of a super-fun sparky high-stakes romantic comedy. The difference? In the final 30 minutes of the film its stars Ryan Gosling (BARBIE) and Emily Blunt (A QUIET PLACE) are actually on screen together, in on the plan together, MacGuivering a trap for the Bad Guy, and vibing of each other. The two actors are superfun and have real chemistry. The problem is that this film contrives to have them at odds with each other for most of its running time.

Gosling stars as stunt man Colt Seavers who doubles for douchebag superstar Tom Ryder, clearly based upon Tom Cruise, and played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson (KICKASS).  When the star disappears from the set of his latest blockbuster, which happens to be directed by Seavers' old flame and debut director Jody (Blunt), her agent Gail (Hannah Waddingham - Ted Lasso) persuades Colt to go find the star and save the film. Crucially for some reason Colt has to do this without telling Jody. And this is what separates them for the majority of the film.

I dunno. I just didn't vibe with this film. The humour didn't catch fire for me. The meta jokes about action films and Hollywood and the 1980s, which is totally my era, just felt forced and off.  The action sequences from director David Leitch (DEADPOOL, ATOMIC BLONDE) never excited me. And the script from writer Drew Pearce (MI: ROGUE NATION) lacked any romantic fizz or genuine laughs. I feel Blunt and Gosling were doing all the heavy lifting, and it worked when they were allowed to get into it at the end of the film, but that was too late to save it for me.

THE FALL GUY is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 126 minutes. It is on global release. 

ROAD HOUSE (2024)**

The original 1989 ROADHOUSE is an iconic grungy sexy action movie starring Patrick Swayze at his hottest, and I have no idea why one would want to remake movie perfection.  This remake seems keen to distance itself ironically from its predecessor - it's a ROAD HOUSE that's on an island and accessible by boat - geddit?!  That lame joke just about sums up the level of scripting and intelligence this film is operating with. 

Jake Gyllenhaal takes the lead role as the buff but damaged loner with a talent for breaking up rowdy fights.  He just doesn't have any charm or charisma, so why would one root for him? Talented comedienne Jessica Williams is wasted as the bar owner trying to save the Road House from evil capitalist property developers. And Conor McGregor - well let's just say I have views about director Doug Liman (BOURNE) giving a platform to a UFC fighter that has had many accusations of sexual assault thrown at him.

The resulting film features a lot of decent music played behind a cage while well-choreographed fight scenes are played out.  I didn't care. I didn't enjoy it. And I don't know why it exists. 

ROAD HOUSE is rated R and has a running time of 121 minutes. It played SXSW and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

SOCIETY OF THE SNOW*****

Spanish writer-director JA Bayona's retelling of the iconic 1972 Andes air crash is his career best work, which is a big call given how masterful his 2016 film a A MONSTER CALLS is.  There is evident care taken to listen to the testimony of the survivors and honour both their experience and that of the victims.  What lifts this film beyond earlier movies covering the same topic is its technological prowess in showing the crash, and then by contrast, the quiet moments of philosophical and moral contemplation as the survivors decide how to live.

The film opens with a brief but powerful essay on life before the crash. We see these young college students full of life and exuberance as they plan for a flight to Chile for a rugby match.  Within five minutes we are on board and the fun continues until the first dramatic moment of air turbulence shifts the mood. Bayona moves as fast as events would have in real time, showing the plane hit a storm, wildly gyrate before having its wings sheered off, the fuselage ripped, before crashing into a mountain. We feel the impact viscerally - it's the most frightening depiction of a crash yet seen on film - and matched in impact by an avalanche shown later in the film.  We feel the peril and the suffocation and claustrophobia of endless hostile snow.

And then we move into the main bulk of the film which has a far quieter, more contemplative tone.  The team captain with his quiet gentle manner becomes the leader of the 29 survivors, raising their morale, rationing food and organising their tasks. When their hope of rescue is quashed by a news report heard on the radio. And so they realise that they are on their own, with no food, but a misperception that Chile is just on the other side of the mountain. And so they take the fateful, profound decision to use the "protein" of their dead comrades, build strength, survive and achieve their own rescue. Two of them hike an incredible ten days, without any mountaineering equipment or experience or even a compass or a map, and achieve rescue.

The most moving scene is how JA Bayona chooses to end the film - showing the Society Of The Snow reassembled, now seemingly safe and clean in a hospital ward, but still emaciated. They look confused and concerned, maybe now facing up to the decisions they took and the improbability of their rescue and the injustice of who did and did not survive. Bayona chooses to give us the essential truth beyond the sensational headlines - that these boys survived because they were truly a society - they were friends, they trusted each other, they cared for each other, they helped each other do the unthinkable, and willed each other to survive. And that this community care is going to have to continue as the men process what they have been through.

SOCIETY OF THE SNOW is rated R and has a running time of 144 minutes. It played Venice 2023 and was released today on Netflix.

THE ARCHIES**

Zoya Akhtar's Indian adaptation of the Archie comics is a strange beast.  One assumes that these comics are aimed at kids, and apparently they were very popular in India in the sixties. But why then do we have a film that seems neither aimed at kids nor at adults?  On the one hand, we have pantomime villains and heroes and an entirely sexless love triangle. On the other hand, Akhtar is trying to say something about the unique position of the Anglo-Indian community in a post-Independence India. None of it hangs together.  The film might have been saved by wonderfully catchy songs, but the songs are trite and unmemorable with bizarrely statically shot dance sequences.  And as for the performances..... Much has been made of the fact that Zoya Akhtar (herself a "nepo baby") cast three scions of major Hollywood dynasties in lead roles. Archie himself is played by Agastya Nanda, grandson of Amitabh Bachchan, and his love interests are played by Suhana, daughter of Shah Rukh, Khan and Khushi, daughter of Bonny, Kapoor.  None of them can act (yet?) but if I had to rank them, Khushi seems to have the most talent, followed by Suhana then Agastya. Maybe it's just the thin characterisation giving them nothing to do.

So what is there to like about this film? I genuinely liked the prologue where we get the history of the Anglo-Indian community and something of their culture. This isn't something we ever see in mainstream Indian cinema.  I liked the production design and beautiful rendering of the interiors. I felt a sense of place in Riverdale and its central Green Park and independent stores, and peril that this would be demolished to make way for a mall. In other words, I liked the background, but not the plot or action.

THE ARCHIES has a running time of 141 minutes. It was released on Netflix last December.

MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS****

MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS is a three-star film turned into a four-star film by the both delightful and moving central performance from Lesley Manville, as well as some sharper than expected writing.  I came to the film for whimsy and froth but thanks to Manville we get something deeper and more acute in its diagnosis of post-war class snobbery.  

Manville plays a post-war cockney cleaning lady who is taken for granted and grifted on by her rich employers (Anna Chancellor - magisterially awful).  Good and ill fortune (not least her war widows pension) give Mrs Harris the money to go to Paris and buy a couture dress from Christian Dior - her heart's desire. She has to contend with the snobbery of the Dior saleswoman - an equally haughty Isabelle Huppert, but soon wins over the ladies of the sewing room, the models, and the accountant (EMILY IN PARIS' Lucas Bravo) with her good humour, good heart and ready cash.

Naturally, she gets her dress, and is the agent of romance, and all against a soft sunlit Paris that is creamy-delicious to look at.  But there's always the dark backing of reality and Mrs Harris is no fool. She knows when she's being condescended to, and to see her face crumple when a certain character pigeonholes her as a servant is to have your heart break.  The genius of Mrs Harris is that, amid the whirlwind, she never loses herself. She is proud of what and who she is, despite society's attempts to make her feel less than. And I've never felt a delightful ending more earned and joyous. 

MRS HARRIS GOES TO PARIS has a running time of 115 minutes and is rated PG. It is available to rent and own.

WHAT MEN WANT

WHAT MEN WANT is exactly the kind of film you watch after a year in lockdown when you have no social life and nothing better to do. I knew the reviews were bad, but I had a genuine fondness for the 2000 original WHAT WOMEN WANT and saw Tracy Morgan on the cast list and thought, well, how bad can this be? 

The answer is very, very bad indeed. This film is so humourless, joyless, lacking in originality or surprise, that it genuinely boggles the mind. Adam Shankman (BEDTIME STORIES) directs like a hack. Scenes slickly move forward, but nothing coheres, nothing moves, whether to laughter or tears. It's all just deeply blah.

Taraji P Henson is utterly wasted in the Mel Gibson role. She plays a tough as nails sports agent raised by her single dad (Richard Roundtree). She fears she's being blocked from promotion because she's a woman. But one of the more troubling aspects of this film is that while she IS being disinvited from the boys' poker games, she's actually being blocked not because she's a woman but because she's just not very nice, and certainly not a team player. So essentially this is a film about how its progonist is a dick, and the men are actually okay. Weird. 

Also this may be one of the very few films in which Tracy Morgan - playing the dad of the young sports star the heroine has to sign to make promotion - is just annoying and unfunny.  What a crime against cinema! All of the scriptwriters -and there are many - need to go and sit in the corner and think very carefully about what they have done.

WHAT MEN WANT was released in 2019 but is now streaming on Netflix. This makes the marginal cost of watching it zero but that's still too much.  It is rated R and has a running time of 117 minutes. 

REBECCA

Daphne Du Maurier's nasty little thriller, Rebecca, is both iconic as a short story and as its film adaptation by Hitchcock. It's a grim tale about a banal simpering middle class spinster who falls for an unattainable rich aristocratic widower.  Which is not to say she doesn't attain him. For reasons that are still murky to me, he marries her, maybe to protect himself from the ghosts of his first and titular wife.  But the new, unnamed wife will never really possess her husband because he remains obsessed by the cynical and manipulative Rebecca - a woman beloved by all including her obsessive and diabolical housekeeper Mrs Danvers.  At the end of the novel, there is no happy ending. The couple are trapped overseas in a loveless and frigid marriage. The only triumph is that the second Mrs De Winter realises her husband never loved his first wife. At the end of the Hitchcock version we get a slightly soupier Hollywood ending. Joan Fontaine's second wife has gathered some courage and supported Laurence Olivier through his trial. He clings to her like a parasite. But it's no marriage of equals. Nonetheless, both original novel and film are of a tone - sinister, nasty, dark, cynical, blighted, thwarted and corrupt. It is Rebecca who sets the tone.

In this new adaptation by a director I very much admire, Ben Wheatley, the tone is altogether different. The south of France is lush and sunlit and Mr De Winter and his second wife (Armie Hammer and Lily James) seem young, healthy, vibrant and jarringly contemporary despite the period setting.  He takes her home to a lavish mansion but instead of the gothic gloom of the original we have Kristen Scott Thomas chomping through the scenery in a high camp version of Mrs Danvers that made me laugh at it rather than shudder from it. I had to question whether I was watching a Ryan Murphy film. And so it goes on, bad casting and bad direction. Sam Riley is utterly toothless as Rebecca's nasty cousin. The thriller/drama utterly uninteresting. It winds on to its ending which is about as cynical and Hollywood happy as anything I've ever seen. All is happy and sexy and fruitful. Rebecca has truly been vanquished. Along with any credibility Ben Wheatley ever had.

REBECCA has a running time of 123 minutes and is rated PG-13. The film was released on Netflix on October 21st. 

ALADDIN

I approached the live-action remake of ALADDIN with extreme cynicism. I didn't understand why you'd want to remake the perfection that was Robin Williams in the original animated version, and I had my doubts that mockney action director Guy Ritchie was the guy to do it.  But I have to admit that this film won me over within its first minutes and that by the end the I was a committed fan. It is, in essence, a very faithful adaptation with all the beloved songs from Alan Mencken; all the beloved characters; and even some of the set piece action and dance numbers recreated scene for scene.  But it does so much more in its delineation of character and acknowledgement of current political mores, and yet none of that feels clunky.

But let's start with what this film lives or dies on - the performance of Will Smith as the Genie.  I have to say that he is just wonderful - charismatic, effervescent, truly a warm and loveable figure.  Crucially, Smith makes the figure his own, rather than trying to ape the untouchable Williams, and I love that he gets his own love-story framing device. His genie is almost more human, more warm and more touching that Williams', and the film benefits from that.  Smith's Genie also doesn't dominate the film in the way that Williams' did and that's all to the benefit of the really impressive cast of actors playing the other roles.  I really liked Mena Massoud as Aladdin - he was charming, smart and I really rooted for him. But I felt he was outshone by Marwan Kenzari (MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS) as a superb Jafar - almost like an Edmund from Lear with a kind of demented logic to his scheming - a poor boy like Aladdin who resents that he doesn't live in a pure meritocracy where his smarts would be properly rewarded.  But most of all, I loved Naomi Scott (POWER RANGERS) as Jasmine.  She has strength and agency and her costumes, while stunning, aren't the cliched skimpy numbers from the original film. Mencken gives her a new song that shows her desire to be a just ruler and decide her own fate, and in this film Jasmine is not a damsel in distress but truly the protagonist to Jafar's antagonist.  I really rooted for Jasmine and Aladdin to get together, but even more I rooted for Jasmine to rule, and that's as it should be.

All of this lovely character work is situated inside a truly stunning production design that Guy Ritchie's kinetic camera-work shows off to its maximum. It turns out he really was the guy to direct this film and I really can't fault any of it. 

ALADDIN has a running time of 128 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released earlier this year and is now available to rent and own.

ROBIN HOOD (2018)

Otto Bathurst's remake of the Robin Hood myth is a dismal effort. His directorial style is sub Guy Ritchie - all mockney bovver without any of Ritchie's kinetic energy or wit. The resulting film is a CGI heavy mess, full of dull action scenes and bad performances acting out a worse script.  Lead actor Taron Egerton has none of the charm or glee of his KINGSMAN role playing "Rob".  Eve Hewson is very pretty as his working class girlfriend Marion, but she has to also play a woman who thinks her boyfriend died in the crusades, only to find him inconveniently alive while she's shacked up with Jamie Dornan's Will Scarlett. Neither she nor the script betray the requisite emotional depth or range to pull off that storyline.  And WTF is Dornan doing here? Recent turns on UK TV show he's actually a very good actor.  He's definitely playing well below himself here. The same can be said of Ben Mendelsohn doing that evil villain thing he's done countless times before, not least in ROGUE ONE. He looks bored doing it, so it's no surprise we're bored seeing it. As for F Murray Abraham - magisterial in AMADEUS - he's utterly anonymous here.  Avoid at all costs.  

ROBIN HOOD is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 116 minutes. It was released last year and is now available to rent and own.

A STAR IS BORN (2018)

What an absolute surprise to find that Bradley Cooper's remake of A STAR IS BORN is so well-made, so well-acted, so desperately moving and watchable! I approached it with caution, a sense of wonder that it was necessary at all, but all my fears were over-turned by this beautifully naturalistic, painfully raw depiction of an ingenue tragically in love with a traumatised, alcoholic old showman. 

As in the other versions of the film (see below) the film begins with a meet-cute between the two artists. The first is the alcoholic country rock star Mason Craine, played by a grizzled Cooper, and fairly close in tone to Kris Kristofferson's interpretation of the role.  Cooper adopts an accent that's so deep and southern I sometimes struggled to hear him through his mumbling, but later realised this was to make his being Sam Elliott's younger brother credible.  It's a superb impersonation.  Cooper doesn't hold back at all from showing the true depths of drug abuse and depression, and the rare moments when his eyes light up seeing Ally (Lady Gaga) sing are genuinely delightful.  We know that, as in other versions of the tale, he isn't jealous of her at all. Rather it's a relationship founded on the idea of a jaded, cynical, weary man, falling in love with is art again through the genuine joy of his protégée making the same journey he once did. I utterly believed in his character, and despite knowing how every beat would play out in this version of the film so faithful to the 1976 predecessor, I was genuinely tense at the set pieces.  And I really loved the fact that movie shifted its centre of attention a little from the leading lady to the man's story.  Kudos to Cooper as screenwriter for giving us this backstory. 

Lady Gaga is truly a revelation as Ally (the screenwriters have finally ditched the name Esther - a shame!) Stripped of the make-up and bleach blonde hair of her stage persona, Lady Gaga is truly beautiful, and delivers a performance of real nuance, strength and charisma.  But there's an added bizarre-o aspect as we see Gaga essentially act out the beats of her own career - the first experience on a big stage, the first Grammy nominations. There's also a meta discussion about Ally refusing to "pretty up" and then acquiescing to further her career. In all this I remain surprised that Gaga herself, reflecting on her experience making this film and how stunning she looks on screen, continues to market herself as a persona.  After all, she is not credited under her actual name but as Gaga. And she went back to blonde as soon as the film was over.

The meta narrative continues with a final reflection from Mason Craine - that the artist only plays with the same 12 notes over and over, and all he can do is offer up to the world his interpretation of them.  This is essentially what Cooper is doing with this well-worn material. But in centring it on a story of childhood trauma, rehab, youtube videos and SNL sketches, he has both made it contemporary and more profound. 

A STAR IS BORN is rated R and has a running time of 136 minutes.  It is on global release.

You can read reviews of the previous versions of A STAR IS BORN here:

The 1937 version starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March [link]

The 1954 version starring Judy Garland and James Mason [link]

The 1976 version starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson [link]

JUNGLE BOOK (2016) - Crimbo Binge-watch #11

Disney's live action remake of its iconic animated classic is a triumph - a superbly executed mix of live action and animation and a respectful update of an old story.  I absolutely adore the original and was sceptical of the need for a remake, but found myself won over by this version's intelligent reworking, the beautifully rendered animal CGI, and the sheer charm of its lead actor, Neel Sethi.

As we all know, THE JUNGLE BOOK is the story of a young boy called Mowgli who has been raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. When Shere Khan the tiger (Idris Elba - suitably menacing) returns, he threatens to kill anyone who won't hand over the man cub to him. I love the fact that in this version we get more explanation of the tiger's hatred of man and fear of fire - he is battle-scarred from man's tiger hunts.  Accordingly the wolves hand Mowgli over to his friend Bagheera the panther (a perfectly cast Ben Kingsley) to take him to the man village. He rebels and runs away to be befriended by the hip bear Baloo (Bill Murray but I really thought it sounded like Bradley Cooper!)  They have a run in with a scheming ape (weird casting of Christopher Walken and yet it somehow works!) en route to a final confrontation.

If the casting choices really work well then so too does the reworking of the ending. I love the idea that instead of using Man's Red Flower to defeat Shere Khan, Mowgli turns away from the destructive violence of man and uses the group power of his animal friends.  That said, the decision to leave Mowgli in the jungle at the end of the film does feel like a cynical opening to a sequel. 

JUNGLE BOOK has a rating of PG and has a running time of 106 minutes.  It was released in 2016.

A STAR IS BORN (1954)

The second version of the 1954 is also my second favourite - but almost by average. Inside this sprawling 154 minute song and dance extravaganza there's a beautifully acted tragic drama of around 90 minutes of equal quality and perhaps greater satirical scorn than the 1937 original. James Mason as the alcoholic jaded star Norman Maine is just as tragic as Fredric March's original, and perhaps moreso - there's just something particular in the hang-dog way he carries himself in the iconic awards ceremony scene that's utterly heartbreaking.  This film also goes far further in satirising the Hollywood machine.  There's a scene in which Judy Garland is made over by the press department - told her face is all wrong - which must have cut very close to the bone for an actress who struggled with her self-image and weight and fed pills since she was a teenager to keep her weight in check. 

The problem is that surrounding all this drama are a handful of Judy Garland song-and-dance numbers. This is an interesting break with the original where we occasionally saw the renamed Vicky Lester act, but sort of took her breathtaking talent as read.  In this version, we are very much invited to indulge in the talent of Judy Garland playing herself.  the problem is that, for me at least, the numbers by Arlan and Gershwin just don't hold up.   "The Man That Got Away" remains an absolute heart-breaker of a torchsong but the other setpieces just aren't memorable. You watch one to remind yourself of just how good Garland is, but after that - well, I'm sorry to say I hit the fast forward button - especially during a 15 minute medley that finishes the first half of the film.

The result is a film that doesn't hold up as well as the original because the music and format date it - hold up the story we actually care about - and distract from the central tragedy of Norman Maine.  It's a film desperately in need of an edit and I am thoroughly unsurprised that the studio tried to hack it down, and that it proved a commercial flop on its initial release. That said, if you find the right scenes, does make an emotional impact, and hues very close to the original, with many lines transposed directly from one to the other.  James Mason deserved an Oscar.  

THE 1954 VERSION OF A STAR IS BORN HAS A RUNNING TIME OF 154 MINUTES. 

CHiPs

I have a strangely warm-hearted nostalgic recollection of the cheesy 80s motorcycle cop show CHiPs - enough that I ventured into the cinema to watch the ill-reviewed big screen remake starring writer-director Dax Shepard as rookie cop John Baker and Michael Pena as his partner Ponch.  I was expecting a knowing but essentially light-hearted and funny post-modern take on the TV show, in the same vein as the recent 21 JUMP STREET film. But by contrast, CHiPs felt underwritten, crude, and just not as clever.  Worse still, Shepard and Pena are fine on screen together, but they certainly don't have the natural chemistry of Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill. 

So in this version Ponch is the cover name for an FBI agent from Florida who is sent to investigate corruption in the California Highway Patrol that gives the movie its acronym-title.  He's meant to be a sex addict (how funny!) and not that good on a motorbike and is grieving his dead partner.  Ponch is teamed up with middle-aged ex pro biker Baker (Shepard) whose body is so messed up from biker accidents he can barely walk, and who's becoming a cop to win back his bitchy ex-wife (played by Shepard's real wife Kristen Bell). 

The humour is broad and crude and often misses the mark but on the handful of occasions it works this really is a laugh out loud funny movie.  It's also surprisingly violent, in a kind of weirdly arbitrary way - and ventures into social commentary territory that it should probably leave well alone. Still, there are worse films out there.

CHIPS has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated R.  The movie is on global release everywhere except Australia, where it opens on April 6th; Germany where it opens on April 20th; Brazil where it opens on May 4th; and Cambodia, where it opens on August 11th. 

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. is an extraordinarily handsome spy film that a little bit Bond, a little bit MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and a little bit OCEAN'S ELEVEN. It's stylish, slick and elegant but boy is it joyless too.  This Guy Ritchie directed franchise reboot has none of the wit or imagination of his SHERLOCK HOLMES series.  And where Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law are a truly memorable and charismatic double-act, this movie severely lacks any kid of chemistry between the leads.

The movie is set in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War.  Two secret agents, Solo and Kuryakin - one American and one Soviet - come together to save the world from an evil Nazi millionaire couple intent on acquiring their own bomb.  To do so, they have abducted a German scientist, and so our secret agents team up with his daughter, Gaby, who also happens to be very, very good looking.  And I'm not joking. This movie has a very Zoolander vibe to it. Every scene looks like a spread from Mr Porter.  It's not just that Henry Cavill (SUPERMAN) and Armie Hammer (THE LONE RANGER) are very, very good looking as Solo and Kuryakin, but they have been styled to within an inch of their lives and then draped decorously over the cityscapes of luxurious European cities like an advert for aftershave.  And Alicia Vikander gets the full sixties make-over, complete with bouffant hair, go-go boots and Jackie O sunglasses. It's hard to take proceedings too seriously after all that.

FANTASTIC FOUR (2015)

One gets the feeling that FOX have never really known who to handle the Fantastic Four IP, and with any luck the poor performance of this film will prevent a sequel and allow the rights to revert back to Marvel. We've had the broadly inoffensive but unmemorable 2005 and 2007 outings starring Ioan Gruffud, a pre-Cap Chris Evans and Jessica Alba.  And now we get a reboot of actively poor quality starring a much younger cast.   This causes as many problems as it solves - sure, the movie might appeal to a younger demographic but as a result the Four meet in a kind of super-nerd school that gives the movie a feeling of ripping of the X-MEN reboot.  Worst of all, the writer-director Josh Trank massively fell out with the studio and disowned the final 90 minute cut, and the resulting film feels incoherent in its editing.

Anyways, back to basics. The movie kicks of with twenty minutes of tedious pre-amble in which a geeky young Reed Richards befriends Ben Grimm and the two work on building a teleportation machine only to be mocked by teachers and students alike. Fast forward to their late teens and Reed (Miles Teller0 and Grimm (Jamie Bell) are recruited by Franklyn Storm (Reg E Caffey) to join his well-funded research org.  They hook up with Johnny and Sue Storm (Michael B Jordan and Kate Mara) as well as the rebellious Victor von Doom (Toby Kebbell) and create the transportation device.  Pissed off that pro scientists will get to pilot it, they decide to take the ship out to Planet Zero, shit hits the fan, they get their superpowers and Doom becomes a destructive comic book villain.  Thereafter we get a kind of Hulk goes to Latin America to find his soul interlude and the inevitable showdown.  

The actors are all decent, so why does this movie suck? A hammy derivative script, hamstrung by bad editing and shitty special FX. Move along, there's nothing to see here. 

FANTASTIC FOUR is on general release. It has a running time of 100 minutes and is available to rent and own.