Films round-up

It's actually been quite a while since I last went to the cinema - I've been far too busy of late! But it's been far, far longer since I got round to posting any reviews. Being increasingly reminded of how many of these are now available for home viewing made me think I really ought to catch up, so here we go:

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - Thanks to a scheduling quirk, this was only the second-best film about multiverse-spanning relationships out in cinemas at the time (see below for #1). But it's still very good. After an opening half hour of traditional Marvel fare, director Sam Raimi flexes his horror muscles and turns this into something much creepier and more gruesome. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has his name on the title, but it's really all about Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen). I'm not pleased with the way you increasingly need to follow the MCU's TV series to make sense of its films (watch the excellent WandaVision first, if you can), but at least this is well done, and a satisfying continuation of the stories of two of its most powerful protagonists.

Everything Everywhere All At Once - The always-watchable Michelle Yeoh stars in a delightfully chaotic, multiverse-bending, action comedy. It starts off slow and low-key, with Evelyn (Yeoh) struggling to manage running a laundromat, family stresses with her husband (Ke Huy Quan), daughter (Stephanie Hsu) and father (James Hong), and a determind IRS agent (Jamie Lee Curtis) on her case. But then a peculiar encounter in a lift leads her into parallel universes and a mission to save all of reality. There are shades of The Matrix, except that this is packed full of absurd, often puerile, constantly hilarious madness. It's high-concept stuff, but satisfyingly grounded with a character-based plot and a whole lot to say about choices, regrets, love, family, life, the universe and everything. And, all at once, the kind of comedy martial arts scenes that would make Jackie Chan proud, and cinema’s greatest ever use of googly eyes. It's possibly the most bonkers film I've ever seen (and I've seen some pretty bonkers films in my time). I loved it.

The Innocents - A great slice of Scandi horror, from Eskil Vogt, co-writer of The Worst Person in the World, and confronting the cruelties of childhood in a similar way to Playground (both of which were excellent, and I reviewed last time around). Strictly speaking, this is a superhero film, about a group of children discovering their powers. But it's very low-key, set as it is in and around a drab housing estate and with the supernatural elements supporting a very human drama. 9-year-old Ida is new to the estate and left looking after her autistic elder sister, Anna. They meet mean, telekenetic Ben and kindly, telepathic Aisha and form a circle of friends, but tensions between the four threaten to lead to tragedy. The child actors are all superb, and this is gripping stuff, masterfully written and directed.

Top Gun: Maverick - There's nothing low-key about Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell's return to the big screen, and indeed you should see it on the biggest screen you can find. Maverick is brought in - much to his commanding officers' annoyance - as the only man capable of training a group of ace pilots how to carry out an impossible bombing run down the Death Star trench to take out its main reactor. Naturally, the group of pilots includes Goose's son Rooster (Miles Teller), who blames Maverick for his father's death (as does Maverick himself). Naturally Maverick meets up with old flame, Penny (Jennifer Connelly). Naturally, there's a hot-shot pilot (Glen Powell) who thinks he's better than everyone else. It's easy to be cynical about such a big-budget, cliché-laden sequel, but it's all so well-done it's hard not to love it, even if you didn't care much for the original. The flying sequences (mostly shot "for real") are genuinely spectacular, and there's a touching cameo return for Val Kilmer's Iceman.

Jurassic World: Dominion - The previous film gave us the intriguing set-up of dinosaurs running wild, all over the world. While that's played with a little, unfortunately it's largely squandered, as we're soon back with dinosaurs contained in yet another remote, secret research location. Disappointment is the order of the day, as this is easily the weakest entry in the franchise. The main point of this sixquel seems to be "Hey, look! We got all the old and new cast together!" Which is fine, and there's joy in having Drs Grant (Sam Neil), Sattler (Laura Dern) and Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) back, but they didn't need to replay quite so many beats from the original film. The dinosaurs are nicely varied (Feathers!) but often feel too choreographed and pasted in to be scary, and they're disappointingly redundant to the "evil corporation" plot. If you haven't seen Battle at Big Rock, check it out to see what this film should have been.

The Black Phone - An interesting twist on supernatural horror, in which the vengeful ghosts are the good guys. Finney (Mason Thames) is snatched by "The Grabber" (Ethan Hawke), a serial child murderer, and thrown in a soundproof basement to await his fate. Except there's a disconnected black phone on the wall, through which the Grabber's previous victims can communicate with Finney from beyond the grave. But the help they can offer is limited. With his allies only slightly less terrifying than his kidnapper, the tension is in seeing whether Finney can conquer his fears and escape. It's a neat concept, but not enough to sustain a full film, so the writers throw in a psychic sister, abusive father, and tragic family backstory. It works well enough, but it's not a classic.

Elvis - Make no mistake, this may be a biopic about the King of Rock & Roll, (played by Austin Butler) and the complex, manipulative relationship he suffered with his manager, "Colonel" Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), but there's one larger-than-life personality stamped all over the film, and that's Baz Luhrman's. As you'd expect, there's enormous amounts of glitz, style and energy throughout. Luhrman charts Presley's life from childhood to the twilight of his career, through highs and lows, marriage and divorce, and the political events which shaped 20th Century America as much as the King's music. At times, the whole film feels like an overextended montage and, at 159 minutes, a patience-testingly long montage too. Focussing on the central pair of characters, there are some events Luhrman seems to dwell on too much, and others he skips past with reckless abandon. The use of modern, non-Elvis music also feels unnecessary and out of place, given the rich catalogue he had to choose from. Enjoyable but flawed.

Thor: Love and Thunder - This seems to have divided people, and has got some terrible reviews, but I loved it. A tragic love quartet between a Norse god (Chris Hemsworth), an astrophysicist (Natalie Portman), a hammer and an axe... No, wait, let me try that again: An epic battle to save poor, overpriviledged gods everywhere from an evil Christian Bale who just wants his daughter back... No, wait... A common complaint is the mood is all over the place. But Norse legends are kind of like that too, and some of the stranger aspects (Thor's goats) are lifted straight from that mythology. While it's true that this continuously bounces from absurd comedy to heardrending life-and-death drama and back, Thor: Ragnarok did that too. The gags in that film constantly undermined the dramatic moments, whereas the balance is handled better here. The "Marvel Holiday Special" feel worked for me, though it's clearly not to everyone's taste. And I am a sucker for a Guns N' Roses soundtrack. :o)

Bullet Train - If I tell you this is by John Wick and Deadpool 2 director, David Leitch, you'll have a fair idea what to expect. Washed-up assassin, "Ladybug" (Brad Pitt) is given the task of retrieving a briefcase from a bullet train travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto. Simple, right? Well, maybe it would be, if not for seemingly everyone else on the train also being a psychotic killer. Cue over-the-top comedy violence, Tarantino-style convoluted plotting, and more double-crosses than you can shake a samurai sword at, as the train rattles towards a final confrontation. It's actually surprisingly clever, while being laugh-out-loud silly at the same time. A lot of fun.

Nope - Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us) is back with more smart, myseterious horror, this time centred on a Hollywood horse ranch owned by siblings, OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Em (Keke Palmer). When strange things start happenning and they see phenomena in the sky, they suspect aliens and set out to film the "Oprah shot" - the footage that will make them famous. Steven Yeun also stars as a carnival owner with a tragic past, and Michael Wincott has a small but memorable role as a determined film director. As always with Peele, there's almost as much social commentary as tense horror, this time about the treatment of people and animals in showbiz, as well as the lengths some will go to for fame. It's not as outstanding as his previous efforts, with more emphasis on spectacle than smarts - so best watched on the big screen - but still well worth checking out.

Minions: The Rise of Gru - They're back again. This time the gimmick is young Gru (Steve Carell)'s journey to supervillain status. Except young Gru isn't nearly so much fun to watch as adult Gru, and is sidelined for a large chunk of the film anyway. So we're largely following the minion trio of Kevin, Stuart and Bob, plus new addition Otto (all voiced again by Pierre Coffin) as they get into a variety of scrapes. As you'd expect, there are some hilarious set-pieces and some fun cameos, as well as an enjoyable array of over-the-top supervillains. But this feels like a studio simply churning out more of the same, in a franchise which peaked several films ago. It's fine, but I have to wonder how many more of these they can do.

Three Thousand Years of Longing - Tilda Swinton is Alithea, an introverted scholar who knows all about myths and folk tales. Idris Elba is the Djinn she unwittingly releases from a bottle. What follows is essentially an extended conversation between two of the finest actors in the business today, as the Djinn tells his personal history and tries to convince a reluctant Alithea to make her three wishes. On that level, it's really good (funny too), and I love the idea of the person being granted wishes being genre-savvy enough to know this never ends well. Unfortunately the ending itself is a bit unsatisfactory, and the modern day plot never grabs your attention quite as much as th colourful flashbacks. The result is it doesn't entirely work as a film, though points for effort and trying something a bit different. Still worth a watch, if only for the two leads.