Film Reviews by Alphaville

Twee child/baby-centred plot holds little interest, leaving only a few excellent scenic shots to keep us interested.

After the astonishing Fury Road, I had high hopes for this film more and it starts well enough with a kick-ass motorbiking mum battling Chris Hemsworth’s motorbiking gang across the desert wasteland to rescue her kidnapped young daughter Furiosa. Then it degenerates into adolescent intertribal bickering, with Chris chewing the scenery as the Great Dementor. More chase/battle sequences interrupt the pantomime plot, with lots of motorbikes crashing as they chase the War Rig (a big truck). Alyla Browne is a real find as the young Furiosa and Tom Burke as an ally brings some much needed character interest later on, otherwise Anya Taylor-Joy as the grown-up Furiosa has nothing to do except look blank while the rest of the cast ham it up, take the money and run. There’s no denying the excellent stunt work and visceral film-making, but it soon becomes repetitive, goes on forever and we’ve seen it all before in Fury Road. The minimalist score doesn’t help either (it’s louder on the enticing trailer). Disappointing.

In the hands of Alex Garland, this film about a civil war in the US should be a blockbuster epic, instead of which it’s unbelievably trite and underwhelming. We follow a group of press people trying to photograph the action. Action? If only. As they travel by car from New York to Washington DC there’s one slow talky scene after another, signifying nothing. As observers, they hold no interest as characters. Chief press person Kirsten Dunst remains sullen and stony-faced throughout. What little action there is is ruined by showing it as they photograph it, in staccato stills. What we’re left with is a series of uninvolving tableaux and an equally annoying ending. A dismal score with dire pop songs makes everything even worse. Hard to keep watching without hitting FF.

Apparently well-known in Denmark, this is the true story of an English princess who marries the mentally disturbed Danish king and has an affair with his doctor that changes the course of history. It’s the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, and they bond over the works of Rousseau. It can’t go well, can it? Although straightforward in the telling, restrained and with the standard plinky-plonk piano score, this is a well made, intelligent, handsomely mounted film with a screenplay that zips along nicely. As long as you expect no fireworks, it’s an unexpectedly immersive viewing experience.

Four circus freaks are on the run from a six-fingered Nazi concert pianist. If that premise and the title make you think this is some cheap Italian rip-off, leave your preconceptions at the door. This is movie-making on the grand scale, full of magic moments, with huge sets, an unending stream of surprises and a no-holds-barred climax. Gorgeously filmed, operatic in scale. Whimsical, beguiling and often tragic as the band of four discover that their captured leader is on a train heading for a concentration camp. Sample scene: the electric (literally) Matilde can’t help but burn anyone who touches her, so it’s edge of seat stuff when a Nazi soldier decides to rape her. As a whole the film is probably a tad too long, but it remains a blast. Fellini would have been proud.

Well, whadya know? A romantic sort-of-comedy drama that’s a class above your average brain-dead boring point-and-shoot star-vehicle. This is a proper film with a dynamic time-jumping screenplay, visual panache and a driving synth score. The tennis is good too. It’s half an hour too long and runs out of ideas before regaining form at the climax, but it’s still a cut above.

Like many Chinese films of its ilk, this is a feast for the eyes but lacks plot clarity and characters to root for. The typically hammy acting doesn’t help. However, it has an undeniable grandeur right from the outset, which features a visceral cgi-enhanced battle in the snow. The plot, such as it is, centres on a relic called the Fengshen Bang that can save mankind from the Great Curse (yawn, yawn). It’s overlong and gets bogged down in boring court intrigue. Nevertheless, the scale is vast, the visuals are sumptuous, the cgi jaw-dropping, the camerawork kinetic and there’s a rousing climax with added monsters. If cinema is a visual medium (clue: it is), this is a visual treat.

This is a well-executed film about a Korean moon landing that goes wrong, with some thrilling Gravity-style visuals early on. The trouble is… we’ve seen it all before. It develops into the standard rescue mission, with various technical problems and emotional outbursts in mission control that are neither involving nor exciting. Shame.

While Kong’s in Hollow Earth fighting off predators, Godzilla’s on the surface fighting off monsters and napping in Rome’s Coliseum. But… oh no!... Kong’s got toothache and has to surface so that gung-ho vet Dan Stevens can fit him with a false tooth. And that’s just for starters. Dan and Rebecca Hall now have to go down to Hollow Earth. Why? Who cares? Coupled with a knowingly ironic score and filmed by a director (Adam Wingard) who doesn’t get overly bogged down in character exposition, this is a fast-moving off-the-wall ride with grandiose visuals. Negatives? The token unfunny wisecracking sidekick and the cgi mash-up climax. Still, eat your heart out, Marvel.

Perhaps you need to like noisy cars to like this. Even then, this is a crushing disappointment from the director of such rousing films as Heat and Last of the Mohicans. The subject of the film, as played by a stone-faced Adam Driver, comes over as an unappealing figure and the plot just treads water. It’s 1957 Italy and we follow Ferrari as he tries to make deals to stop his business going broke and deals with problems in his personal life. Nothing much happens until a final 1000-mile road race, which you’d think Mann would at least shoot excitingly, but one noisy car is much like any other and we barely know the drivers so there’s no investment in the result. Plus it’s intercut with yet more financial dealing to blunt any momentum. What a disappointment.

Marvel nerds will hate it, but this is better than you could have hoped for from Marvel. It’s a pre-superpower origin story, so for three-quarters of its run-time there’s no boring cgi flash-bang fight scenes nonsense. Sure, the concept’s nonsnense, with a spiderman-type villain, but the plot’s focus is on a heroine who can see bad things happening before they happen, giving her the chance to avert them. This leads to some scenes that actually have tension. Even three teenage girls, whom she saves when the spiderman goes after them, are not your usual excruciating teenagers. Shame it all falls apart in the FF-worthy flash-bang finale, with all four women now having silly superpowers for a sequel, but for an hour and a half it’s a good watch.

Well-written, warm-hearted tale of a teacher, a troublesome teenage boy and a cook forced to spend Christmas together at a 60s US prep school in 1970. Such a set-up sounds stagey and boring, but in the hands of director Alexander Payne it’s a beautifully observed, study of human nature – sweet, sad and funny – that hooks you in until you don’t want it to end.

More po-faced Dune nonsense, laughably overfull of its own importance. As directed by the once-promising Denis Villeneuve, it has all energy drained from it. All 159 minutes of it. Right up to the thrill-free climax. With its pallet of muted colours it even looks dismal. Only those who buy into the silly plot premise will find anything but boredom here

Embarrassingly bad coming-of-age so-called comedy about two irritating teenage girls. You’ll want to turn it off after five minutes.

Animation in the Ghibli mode. Glorious landscapes but characters that lack nuance and a kindergarten plot. Sample dialogue: ‘We must take the keystone back and banish the worm’. So says a talking chair, referring to a giant worm that’s demolishing Japan. Shame. The landscapes are beautiful.