Olly Richards

⭑⭑✩✩✩ Hay mucho peso sobre los diminutos hombros de Ant-Man (Paul Rudd). Esto, aparentemente, es el comienzo de la llamada "fase cinco" del Universo Cinematográfico de Marvel. La fase cuatro, de Black Widow a Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, representó un período triste para una franquicia que necesitaba un reinicio. Pero Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania es la misma vieja fórmula, en lugar de un nuevo comienzo.  Es un error desde el principio. Por un lado, poner a The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) en el título es exagerar enormemente su participación. Ella simplemente zumba al borde de la historia. El atractivo de Ant-Man siempre fue que era el Vengador menos impresionante, un padre tonto que sabía que en realidad no debería estar allí, pero hizo lo mejor que pudo. Esto intenta elevarlo a un superhéroe dramático, pero no funciona. El encanto de Rudd se ve atenuado al despojarlo en gran medida de los fragmentos de comedia; no hay diversión con los cambios de tamaño de Ant-Man. Hay demasiado hombre, pero no hay suficiente hormiga.  Scott Lang (el alter ego de Ant-Man) está muy feliz en su vida posterior a los Vengadores. Él, Hope (Lilly), su hija Cassie (Kathryn Newton) y sus suegros Hank (Michael Douglas) y Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) viven alegremente, hasta que uno de los experimentos científicos de Cassie los arrastra a todos al "Reino Cuántico"; un universo oculto de mundos alienígenas y manchas sensibles. Todo el Reino Cuántico vive atemorizado por Kang (Jonathan Majors), un ser

⭑⭑⭑✩✩ Smile no te da mucho tiempo antes de que empiece a aterrorizarte. Justo después de conocer a la Dra. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), una psiquiatra quizás demasiado comprometida con su trabajo, está sentada con una paciente que insiste en que está siendo acosada por una entidad sonriente asesina. Rose se sorprende cuando la mujer aterrorizada comienza a retorcerse en el suelo. Mirando hacia otro lado brevemente para pedir ayuda, Rose se da vuelta para ver a la mujer cortarse la garganta, con una horrible sonrisa en su rostro. Lo que sea que la perseguía ahora viene por Rose, sonriendo ampliamente mientras arruina su vida. Durante aproximadamente la primera mitad, el debut de terror de Parker Finn es curiosamente espeluznante. Hay ecos de It Follows, el hit de 2014 de David Robert Mitchell sobre una entidad que acecha incesantemente a sus víctimas. Hay una sensación persistente de amenaza y una cotidianidad en su aspecto que hace que el horror sea más discordante. Rose sigue viendo a alguien en la distancia mirándola lascivamente, pero no están lo suficientemente cerca para ver con claridad. Está convencida de que algo la atormenta en casa, pero podrían ser los nervios los que la engañan. Existe una clara posibilidad de que todo esto esté en la cabeza de Rose.  Ciertamente es creíble que el trauma de ver a un paciente cortarse la garganta, apilado sobre el sufrimiento infantil no resuelto de Rose, le haya dado una patada severa a su salud mental. Finn y Bacon (excelentes en

⭑⭑⭑✩✩ La primera película de Sonic fue, sorprendentemente, un gran éxito. En los Estados Unidos, fue la película más taquillera de todos los tiempos basada en un videojuego. Cuando consideras la competencia, ese no es el alarde más impresionante, pero significa que Sonic fue lo suficientemente rentable como para que ahora tengamos la secuela inevitable. Es un poco más divertida que la primera película, muy poco divertida, y tiene un CGI menos barato. Al igual que la primera película, Sonic 2 tiene la eficiencia hueca de una película forzada para vender mercancías y para la colocación de productos. Lo hace mucho mejor publicitando el Four Seasons en Hawái que entreteniendo a su audiencia, sin importar la edad. La mayoría del elenco trabaja duro para vender un guión salpicado de chistes de pedos y escenas sin inspiración, pero está tan caóticamente trazado que rápidamente se vuelve agotador. Continuamos donde terminó la última película, con el erizo alienígena Sonic (con la voz de Ben Schwartz) viviendo como el peculiar hijo adoptivo del sheriff de un pequeño pueblo, Tom (James Marsden) y su esposa Maddie (Tika Sumpter). Desterrado a otro planeta al final de la última película, el villano Doctor Robotnik (Jim Carrey) encontró el camino de regreso a la Tierra al inventar una máquina para "regresar a la Tierra". Accidentalmente, recogió a Knuckles (con la voz de Idris Elba con poco entusiasmo), un erizo que posee la misma supervelocidad que Sonic, además de una superfuerza y ​​

⭑⭑⭑✩✩ En 2017, Kenneth Branagh presentó Murder on the Orient Express de Agatha Christie, una pelusa anticuada con valores de producción lujosos. Apenas vital, pero con un fácil. Su segunda adaptación de Christie es efectivamente el mismo trato, pero el tren ahora es un barco y todos están hirviendo en lugar de helados.  Muerte en el Nilo encuentra al detective Hércules Poirot (Branagh) aparentemente de vacaciones en Egipto. Allí lo arrastran a la fiesta de bodas de la multimillonaria Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle (Gal Gadot), quien acaba de robar el prometido (Armie Hammer) de una vieja amiga (Emma Mackey) y lo agrega a sus posesiones. Hay un asesinato. No hay premios por adivinar a la víctima. Todos los sospechosos están atrapados en un lujoso barco de vapor, tratando de evitar la muerte o el arresto para poder volver a su champán. Si bien todavía es un elenco lleno de grandes nombres, no es tan deslumbrante como la primera película. Cuando el vataje de estrellas es una gran parte de la venta, eso importa. Con todo el respeto por el talento de los actores, tener a Gal Gadot, Annette Bening, Russell Brand y French and Saunders en la misma habitación no tiene el mismo deslumbramiento ni la misma logística impresionante que Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe u Olivia Colman. Las actuaciones son una bolsa mixta. Jennifer Saunders está agradablemente al borde de la pantomima como una comunista de champán, y Dawn French es conmovedora como su compañera. Gadot extr

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ Ha pasado más de una década desde la última película de Jane Campion. Es difícil imaginar una mejor manera de anunciar su regreso que esta, una de las mejores —quizás la mejor— películas de su carrera. No es que Campion sea de fanfarrias, por supuesto. Ella hace películas que te atraen con un misterio silencioso, sumergiéndote en su mundo y sus personajes a su propio ritmo, y luego destroza todo de manera devastadora cuando está lista. The Power of the Dog es Campion en su máxima expresión. La historia tiene lugar en la década de 1920 en Montana, en un minúsculo pueblo rodeado de polvo y montañas. En este pequeño mundo, de un rancho, un restaurante y un montón de vacas, se gesta un drama descomunal. El rancho es propiedad de los hermanos Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch) y George (Jesse Plemons). George tiene ambiciones de caballero, se viste con pulcritud y se codea con los dignatarios de las grandes ciudades. Phil es un vaquero tosco que intimida, pelea y nunca esboza una sonrisa. Lo único que cuida es la silla de montar de su difunto mentor, Bronco Henry, que trata como una reliquia sagrada. El trabajo es lo único digno de atención. George no comparte el compromiso de Phil con la soledad. Tiene un romance suave y luego se casa con Rose (Kirsten Dunst), la dueña de ese restaurante. Ella y su hijo, Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee de X-Men), se mudan a la enorme casa que comparten George y Phil. Phil intimida con petulancia tanto a Rose, acusándola sin fundamento de ser una cazafort

A diferencia de Ghostface, las películas de Scream nunca podrían ser acusadas de ser llamadas incómodas. Incluso cuando la serie comenzó a quedarse sin aliento después de las dos primeras entregas que redefinieron el género, todavía hubo un esfuerzo por seguir ideando nuevas formas de torcer las reglas del terror. El problema que tuvieron Scream  3 y 4 fue que se quedaron sin reglas. Se esforzaron por convencernos de que había una plantilla para trilogías y reinicios, pero tuvieron que inventar clichés para cambiarlos.Todo se volvió tenso y se perdió la mezcla de diversión y terror que hizo que las primeras películas fueran tan exitosas. Esta precuela-secuela-quinta parte,  revigoriza la serie evocando un nuevo ángulo, inspirado y usándolo para comentar sobre el estado del horror de la misma manera que lo hizo el original. Esta vez se trata de los fans: el mejor amigo y el peor enemigo de las franquicias cinematográficas. Los fans pueden mantener una serie mucho tiempo después de que la mayoría de la gente haya perdido el interés. Están complacidos con "secuelas", como The Force Awakens, Ghostbusters y, bueno, esto que les da el golpe de nostalgia de volver a ver viejos personajes, mientras intentan tentarlos con nuevos. Tratan sus películas favoritas como religión. Pero disgustar al fandom, tomando una dirección con la que no estén de acuerdo y se enfrentará a su ira. En Woodsboro, parece que alguien no está contento con la forma en que el legado de Ghostface se ha manchado

⭑⭑⭑✩✩ Generosamente, la cuarta película de Matrix no espera que hayas seguido de cerca las dos últimas películas para comprender lo que está sucediendo. Pero eso es tanto una fortaleza como una debilidad. La historia esta vez es mucho más simple, aunque a veces sigue siendo obstinadamente cursi, pero lleva tanto tiempo conectarla con la trilogía original que termina siendo mucho más pesada en exposición que en emoción. En última instancia, el resultado es más satisfactorio que las secuela y tercera entrega, pero tiene éxito en gran medida debido a ambiciones más modestas. Si hay algo que debes recordar de Matrix Revolutions, es que Neo (Keanu Reeves) y Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) murieron. La muerte no se quedó. Matrix Resurrecciones encuentra a Thomas Anderson, como se conoce a Neo en el mundo artificial de Matrix, vivo, aunque solo sea técnicamente. Es un diseñador de videojuegos de fama mundial, cuya creación más famosa es The Matrix, una trilogía sobre personas que viven en un mundo informático falso. Está deprimido, perseguido por extrañas visiones de una realidad alternativa imposible. Siente una extraña conexión con una mujer (Moss) que ve en su cafetería local. Él piensa que está perdiendo la cabeza, pero ¿está despertando a la verdad? Esta meta apertura puede sonar cursi, incluso hay una escena de un ejecutivo de Warner Bros., el distribuidor de Matrix tanto en ficción como en realidad, presionando por una secuela del juego de Anderson, pero funciona narrativamente.

⭑⭑⭑⭑✩ Los personajes menos conocidos a menudo funcionan bien para Marvel, dando más libertad de jugar y la oportunidad de reescribir la historia sin molestar a los fanáticos. Ant-Man y Guardianes de la Galaxia convirtieron las bajas expectativas en una gran diversión. Afortunadamente, lo mismo ocurre con Shang-Chi y la Leyenda de los Diez Anillos. Esta tremenda aventura de artes marciales nos presenta a Shang-Chi, un personaje de cómic tan oscuro que incluso el director y la estrella de la película inicialmente no habían oído hablar de él.  Shang-Chi muestra su historia de una manera agradablemente enérgica. Wenwu (Tony Leung), un hombre obsesionado con el poder, se convierte en el criminal más peligroso del mundo con la ayuda de 10 anillos que le otorgan poder. De manera bastante maravillosa, una voz en off dice que pudo haberlos “robado o encontrado en una tumba”, pero lo deja así. ¿Quién necesita más?  Wenwu tiene un hijo —con una mujer que es aún más hábil que él—, Sean (Simu Liu) quien vive en San Francisco, habiendo canalizado todo ese impresionante linaje en una carrera de estacionamiento de autos en un hotel. Él está feliz deambulando con su amiga Katy (Awkwafina), hasta que es golpeado en un autobús y, en una espectacular ráfaga de patadas y saltos, revela que de hecho es un luchador asombroso con un pasado muy misterioso. Hay una encantadora facilidad cómica entre Liu y Awkwafina, que da muchos momentos llenos de risas. Cuando llega la acción, aparentemente viene de

⭑⭑⭑✩✩ Casi se puede ver la génesis que llevó a la creación de Jungle Cruise, la última película de Disney que toma su nombre de uno de sus paseos en su parque temático. Hay mucho de La momia (una maestra va en busca de algo mítico y pide ayuda de un aventurero musculoso), un poco de Indiana Jones (un alemán excéntricamente malvado intenta llegar antes), y generosas cantidades de La reina africana (romance de barco y sombreros alegres) y Piratas del Caribe (malvados hechos con efectos especiales). Parece bastante fría, pero eso no significa que el resultado no tenga encanto. De hecho, está repleto de eso.Una gran parte de la razón por la que Jungle Cruise avanza alegremente es el casting perfecto de Emily Blunt y Dwayne Johnson. Blunt es Lily Houghton, una científica de principios del siglo XX que es rechazada por la comunidad académica de Londres porque es mujer. Harta de esperar permiso para realizar su trabajo, Lily roba una antigua punta de flecha que cree que la llevará a un árbol mítico en la selva amazónica que tiene el poder de curar todos los males. Es cálida e ingeniosa, es decir, ideal para Blunt. Johnson es Frank, un sardónico capitán de un barco de vapor que conoce cada centímetro del Amazonas y acepta ayudar a Lily a encontrar el árbol. Juntos son pura alegría: aceite y agua, pero perfectamente complementarios; peleando coquetamente a través de casi cada momento. Su claro disfrute es contagioso, y su carisma pura ayuda a suavizar las partes más difíciles del guió

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje has been part of some surprising stories in his time. He was violent crime lord Mr Eko in ‘Lost’, Killer Croc in ‘Suicide Squad’ and a vicious killer in ‘Oz’ (he’s played a lot of killers). He’s appeared in a ‘Thor’ movie and popped up in ‘Game of Thrones’. But none of those fantastical narratives are half as startling as the one he’s turned into his directorial debut – his own. ‘Farming’ is an account of how, as a young black man, he became a white supremacist. The actor-turned-filmmaker was born in 1967 to Nigerian parents. At barely six weeks old, he was given to a white foster family in Tilbury, Essex. The hope was that he’d have a better life, but these were the dark days of Enoch Powell and the National Front. His blackness made him unusual – and largely unwanted – in a very white town. ‘Every time I went out, I was reminded [that I was different],’ he says. ‘It didn’t matter how much you tried to assimilate. I remember walking to primary school and a policeman called me over. He smiled at me, then spat in my face and drove away. I’d done nothing.’ A whole childhood of abuse brought the teenage Akinnuoye-Agbaje to the horrifying decision to join a gang of skinheads. He hoped it would give him some protection. Damson Idris (centre) as Enitan in Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s ‘Farming’.  Photograph Angus Young ‘I remember watching them clash with police,’ he says. ‘There was an area they used to hang out in and the police tried to move them on. They s

As Massive British Comedy writers go, Jesse Armstrong is probably second only to Phoebe Waller-Bridge right now. ‘Succession’, his brilliant HBO show about a chaotic media dynasty, won him an Emmy last month. He has ‘Peep Show’, ‘The Thick of It’, ‘Fresh Meat’ and ‘Veep’ on his gem-laden CV. Now he’s reteamed up with his ‘Four Lions’ co-writer Chris Morris for ‘The Day Shall Come’, an FBI-skewering satire that centres on a group of bungling black rights activists in Florida, which Morris also directs. When did ‘The Day Shall Come’ start for you?‘Maybe eight years ago? Chris had clocked these cases that weren’t technically entrapment by the FBI’s definition, but in common parlance would be. The case of the Liberty City Seven [a 2006 case very similar to the one in the film, in which a religious cult in Miami was nudged by the FBI to plan terrorist attacks it had no means of carrying out] was the germ that started it for him.’ As two middle-class white men, did you and Chris Morris worry if you were the right people to write about working-class black men in America? ‘It’s a valid question [and] you have to be aware of that. I remember going into “Four Lions” and thinking: This feels scary. It’s about terrorists and it’s white people writing about brown people. But the research guides you. Most of [the cases involved] people of colour. You do it carefully and be as honest as you can.’ ‘I don’t think you can think: God, Trump’s really crazy so we have to make the film crazier’ H

Let’s be honest, eating during movies is annoying. It’s hard to focus on gawping at ‘Avengers: Endgame’ or being traumatised by ‘Midsommar’ when someone’s ladling nacho cheese into their face two seats down. It’s enough to put you off both cinemas and food. At tonight’s screening at The Signal pub in Forest Hill, however, eating is not only encouraged, it’s the point. I’m at the inaugural night of The Signal’s Meals on Reels series, a new pop-up that pairs cult classics with themed food and drink. As the actors stuff their faces on screen, you do the same. ‘We were trying to think of an interesting spin for our screenings,’ says organiser Jess Beechey. ‘The tough part was thinking which films to do. Some of the suggestions – “Do ‘Chef’! Do ‘Willy Wonka’!” – would have been insanely hard. We settled on something a bit more unusual.’ Marwood goes on holiday by mistake in ‘Withnail and I’ at The Signal pub The film picked, perhaps surprisingly, is ‘Withnail and I’. A fabulous comedy, yes, but not one closely associated with food. Do they even eat in ‘Withnail and I’, those poor jobbing actors? There’s a nagging fear that I’m going to get nothing to feast on but cheap lager and lighter fluid – maybe a hint of a fine wine if I’m lucky. ‘There’s a nagging fear that I’m going to get nothing to feast on but cheap lager and lighter fluid’ It turns out, I’m very wrong. ‘Withnail and I’ is stuffed with grub. Within moments of the screening starting, I’m handed a fried egg sandwich, much

Amid the self-conscious gloom of most of DC’s movies – Batman, Superman, Justice League – 2019’s Shazam was a welcome dose of light-hearted silliness. The story of Billy (Asher Angel), an orphaned boy who can turn into an adult superhero (Zachary Levi) thanks to a magical gift, it was a zippy, Amblin-esque bit of wish-fulfilment fantasy. This sequel is much the same deal. If it sometimes struggles to muster the same degree of wide-eyed excitement now that its characters are young adults, it mostly gets there with a strong cast, some witty gags and large quantities of unabashed enthusiasm. Picking up some time after the last movie, Billy is now happily living with his foster family, but with his 18th birthday approaching he’s uncertain of where his future lies. For now, he’s living a normal teenage life while also secretly fighting crime with his foster siblings, who share his ability to transform into superheroes. Billy wants them to do everything together, but the others want to forge their own paths, both superhero and regular. Meanwhile, a pair of furious gods (Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu) have come to reclaim the power they believe Billy stole from them. There’s a lot to wrangle here, with six heroes and multiple villains, and returning director David F Sandberg (Lights Out) does a commendable job of keeping things brisk and tangle-free. In a hefty cast, Jack Dylan Grazer stands out as teenage Freddy, who is gliding through adolescence like a duck through wet cement.  Zacha

There is a story to the John Wick saga, and no doubt there are people who memorise every bit of assassin lore and its convoluted power structure, but plot has never really been the selling point of this series. Its prime appeal is in the batshit fight scenes in ever more ridiculous scenarios. This fourth movie certainly doesn’t short-change viewers on that front.  There are fight scenes through a grand hotel filled with glass cabinets and antique relics; through a burning building; a preposterously grand Berlin nightclub; whizzing round the Arc de Triomphe at rush hour; and up the very steep steps to Sacré Coeur. The body count is enormous. There’s so much fighting that occasionally it might leave you numb to the punching, worn out by a blur of fists, but it cannot be accused of not putting the effort in. John Wick (Keanu Reeves, again showing you can be a riveting movie star without doing much acting) was left for dead at the end of the last film. Now, he emerges from hiding to wage ultimate war on The High Table, the assassin organisation that effectively owns him. Finally, he believes he has found a way to earn his freedom. Standing in his way is The High Table’s latest villain, impeccably turned out git the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård), and about a million henchmen.  The franchise’s director Chad Stahelski once again mounts everything impressively, with the series signature techno-goth look dialled-up to maximum. While all the action scenes are huge, some are more

Cocaine Bear is based incredibly loosely – by its own cheerful admission – on a true story about a bear that found a stash of smugglers’ cocaine in the Tennessee wilderness and hoovered up as much as its snout could take. The real bear died after ingesting 34 kilos of Colombia’s finest. In the fictional retelling, the bear develops such a gargantuan habit that it will rapidly dismember anyone who gets between it and its next hit. That is a very, very daft premise, but it’s not without potential. And it starts reasonably, with a pair of hikers stumbling across the bear and discovering the rule of ‘stand your ground’ doesn’t work when the bear is chemically overconfident. It’s gory and mildly funny but its joke – that the bear is acting like a serial killer – is the only one the film has. It wears thin very quickly. It's unclear what director Elizabeth Banks wants this to be. She’s an actor with sharp instincts, but a director with surprisingly little comic timing and no grasp of tone. Like her last film, Charlie’s Angels, Cocaine Bear begins new scenes before it’s tied up the last ones and seems content to be all tangent and no point. She spends an age setting up too many characters ­– a mother (Keri Russell) hunting for her daughter; henchmen ( and O’Shea Jackson Jr) trying to find the lost drugs; a horrible drug kingpin (Ray Liotta, in an unworthy final role); a lazy ranger (Margo Martindale); a cop (Isiah Whitlock Jr) with a comedy dog; several others – then grants each so

There’s a lot of weight on the tiny shoulders of Ant-Man (Paul Rudd). This, apparently, is the beginning of the so-called ‘phase five’ in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Phase four, from Black Widow to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, represented a dreary period for a franchise in need of a reset. But Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania is the same old formula, rather than a bold new beginning.  It’s misguided from the beginning. For one thing, giving The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) equal billing is to wildly overstate her involvement. She just buzzes at the edge of the story. The appeal of Ant-Man was always that he was the least impressive Avenger, a goofy dad who knew he shouldn’t really be there but did his very best. This tries to elevate him to a dramatic superhero. It doesn’t work. Rudd’s charm is dimmed by largely stripping him of comedy bits and there’s no fun to be had with Ant-Man’s changes in size. There’s too much man, not enough ant.  Scott Lang (Ant-Man’s alter ego) is very happy in his post-Avengers life. He, Hope (Lilly), his daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton), and in-laws Hank (Michael Douglas) and Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) are all living cheerfully, until one of Cassie’s scientific experiments gets them all dragged into the ‘Quantum Realm’, a hidden universe of alien worlds and sentient blobs. The whole Quantum Realm lives in fear of Kang (Jonathan Majors), a being with whom Janet has a secret history.  Janet drives the plot – such as it is – drip-feeding details of

You cannot reasonably complain about a film called ‘Plane’ being silly or trashy. That title, an act of almost heroically little effort, is telling you to expect the bare minimum. If they couldn’t be bothered to jazz the title up with so much as a kicky adjective or even an exclamation mark, how much effort do you think went into the script? If you buy your ticket thinking you’re going to see a dazzling new take on the genre, well, that’s on you.  Turns out, the horrible title is a minor masterstroke. Plane sets the bar of expectation low then glides cheerfully over it. It’s riddled with plot holes; populated by characters so sketchy that some – even lead ones – are barely more fleshed out at the end than they were at the beginning; and it all proceeds largely as you’d imagine. But it’s fun. Ridiculous, pacy, unselfconscious fun. It’s all focused on the audience’s entertainment. No indulgent emotional moments. No needlessly complicated plotting. Just efficient carnage. Ironically, it’s the sort of film that would be immensely enjoyable to watch on a plane, if it weren’t for all the crashing.  Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) is piloting a commercial flight from Singapore to Tokyo on New Year’s Eve. It’s almost empty – just 14 passengers and one extra, a convicted murderer (Mike Colter) being moved to a new prison. It should be an easy trip on Torrance’s way home to see his daughter, but the plane hits a storm, gets struck by lightning and crash lands on an island near the Phil

This is the third collaboration between director Scott Cooper and Christian Bale, and much like the others, Out of the Furnace and Hostiles, it’s robustly acted with a strong sense of place, but a little baggy in the storytelling. The Pale Blue Eye is probably best enjoyed if you treat it as a spooky, somewhat silly yarn, rather than taking it too seriously. It begins with a body hanging from a tree. It’s 1830 and we’re in Hudson Valley, New York. A young soldier at a remote military academy has apparently hanged himself, but his heart has been cut out, suggesting he came to a more sinister end. The head of the academy (Timothy Spall) recruits world-weary, retired detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) to investigate the death. Landor receives some uninvited help from another young recruit: the burgeoning horror writer Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling). There are strange things afoot. What Poe is doing here isn’t really clear. The story and the events Poe goes through are entirely fictitious, based on Louis Bayard’s novel of the same name (the book is written as a sort of homage to Poe). Whether or not his presence makes sense quickly ceases to matter, because Poe is easily the most enjoyable element of the film. Played with a mix of wide-eyed enthusiasm and Nosferatu-esque creepiness by Harry Melling, Poe is a curiously endearing character, a man unliked by his peers and obsessed with death, yet somehow delighted by the curiosities of the world. He makes a highly entertain

A mistake made by far too many musical adaptations is thinking that a cinema screen is simply a stage with a frame around it. Films from Everybody's Talking About Jamie to Cats have turned hit stage musicals into thin, flat films by failing to consider their different demands – their need for more plot and more action. Matilda, as befits a story of a very clever little girl, is smarter than that. The team of Matthew Warchus (director), Dennis Kelly (writer) and Tim Minchin (composer and lyricist) have rethought, tweaked and stretched their mega-hit stage musical and turned it into a movie that’s a tremendously badly-behaved delight.  Matilda (Alisha Weir) is born to parents (Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough) who hate her. While they’re as thick as they are loud, she’s somehow a tiny genius who reads Dostoyevsky for fun despite never going to school. When Matilda is eventually sent to school, it’s something more akin to a prison, run by the fearsome Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson). Matilda’s only escape from her horrible life is her love of stories and the friendship of her teacher, Miss Honey (No Time to Die’s Lashana Lynch, giving the usually limp character a little backbone). With everyone around her acting horribly, Matilda decides it’s time to put things right, even if it means being a little bit naughty.  When it comes to the musical numbers, Warchus makes the most of a larger canvas, producing big, propulsive showpieces that charge around the school or erupt into h

Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion version of Carlo Collodi’s ‘Pinocchio’ is a children’s story in the very traditional sense. Which is to say: it’s full of violence, torture and kids being killed for making the wrong decisions. It’s also incredibly beautiful, not only visually – there’s always something slightly heartbreaking about the painstaking work of stop-motion animation – but in the way it subtly reimagines a story that has been told countless times.  Co-written and co-directed by the Mexican auteur, his Pinocchio takes as many liberties with Collodi’s original stories as Disney’s classic, while keeping the core dark tone. Gepetto (voiced by Game of Thrones’ David Bradley) is an elderly carpenter whose son is killed in a bombing in the 1930s, when Italy is in the grip of fascism. Grief-stricken and desperate to bring his son back, Gepetto one night carves a boy from wood, before collapsing in a drunken stupor. He wakes to find a sprite (Tilda Swinton) has brought the puppet to life, which is initially no great gift. Pinocchio has the attention span of a goldfish and the destructive nature of a Labrador puppy. As in Collodi’s stories, he’s a selfish agent of chaos, repeatedly getting into trouble of his own making. But every mistake brings him closer to understanding that a life lived just for yourself is no life at all. Guillermo del Toro’s version beats Disney’s drab recent redo by more than a nose The tweaks to the story are subtle but transformative. With the ominous

This is the sort of horror movie that’s best to go into almost clueless. If you prefer it that way, just know this: Jesus Christ, it’s terrifying. And funny. And you’ll never guess where it’s going. Take someone who won’t shout at/sue/divorce you if you crush their hand to mush in fear. If you can stand to know a little more, Zach Cregger’s movie, already a sizeable sleeper hit in the US, is one of the most thrilling horror debuts in years – inventive, constantly surprising and so pant-spoilingly, throat-shreddingly frightening that we can only recommend it to those of either a robust constitution or a love of hiding under chairs. It begins innocuously enough, with a young woman, Tess (Georgina Campbell) arriving in Detroit for a job interview. She gets to her Airbnb, late at night in the pouring rain, and discovers there’s been a double-booking. Keith (Bill Skarsgård), a handsome location scout, is already inside. As Tess has nowhere else to go and Keith doesn’t seem dangerous, the pair agree to share the place. Then something happens in the basement… This is where I’ll leave you, plot-wise, but whatever you think is going to happen, you’re probably wrong. Cregger plays brilliantly with your expectations throughout. The characters constantly make the wrong choices – peeking round dark corners, going back to check out a noise – but those choices don’t go in the usual directions. Cregger isn’t smug or sly about that. He isn’t winking at the audience. He’s using your horror kno

Hear the name Richard III and your mind likely leaps to Shakespeare’s version: an evil hunchback nephew-murderer whose death was met with great rejoicing. Philippa Langley would like a word about that. This is the true story of how Langley (Sally Hawkins), an amateur historian, sought to rehabilitate the king’s reputation and led a hunt for his lost remains, which she eventually found in a Leicester car park in 2012. A reunion for the team behind the Oscar-nominated Philomena – director Stephen Frears and writers Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope – The Lost King has lots of charm but an unsure grasp of its tone and a lack of momentum. Langley is a divorcée who’s overlooked at work, largely due to her boss’s unsympathetic attitude to her ME, and bored at home. One night she takes her son to a production of ‘Richard III’ and is suddenly obsessed by the king’s legacy. When she learns his remains have been lost to history, Langley determines to find them and prove he was not the villain he’s been painted as. Assorted patronising men stand in her way. The film struggles to get a good handle on Langley’s obsession. The script draws a parallel between Langley’s illness and Richard’s spinal condition and the way disabilities are used to pre-judge people, but it doesn’t entirely convince as a reason to upend her entire life. Possibly aware of this, Coogan and Pope try to tie the pair together with the cute device of having Richard III (Harry Lloyd) appear to Langley as a sort of imaginary fr

Smile doesn’t give you long before it starts terrifying you. Just after we meet Dr Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon), a psychiatrist maybe too committed to her job, she’s sitting with a patient who insists she’s being hounded by a murderous smiling entity. Rose is shocked when the terrified woman starts thrashing about on the floor. Looking away briefly to call for help, Rose turns back to see the woman cut her own throat, a horrible grin stretched across her face. Whatever haunted her is now coming for Rose, smiling broadly as it ruins her life. For about the first half, Parker Finn’s horror debut is interestingly creepy. There are echoes of It Follows, David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 hit about an entity that ceaselessly stalks its victims. There’s a persistent feeling of threat and an everydayness to its look that makes the horror more jarring. Rose keeps spotting someone in the distance leering at her, but they’re not quite close enough to see clearly. She’s convinced something is tormenting her at home, but it could just be her nerves tricking her. There’s a distinct possibility this is all in Rose’s head.  It’s certainly believable that the trauma of watching a patient slash her own throat, piled on top of Rose’s unresolved childhood suffering, has given her mental health a severe kicking. Finn and Bacon (excellent throughout) make the audience feel her nerves slowly shredding. As a film about the ways past traumas haunt you, it’s hugely effective.  Disappointingly, the second half

To call Michael Flatley’s feature debut long awaited might put too positive a spin on things. But it is certainly technically true. Flatley first screened the film in 2018, an ‘I was there’ moment on a par with being in the live audience for Katie Price’s Eurovision audition or attending the Fyre Festival. It’s taken four years to inflict it on the larger public. Whatever Flatley’s been doing with it in that time, he certainly hasn’t been improving it. Flatley is star, director and writer of Blackbird. To some degree you have to respect his chutzpah in making it. Nobody was ever going to cast the Lord of the Dance as a James Bond-type hero, so he decided to do it himself. Who, if they were worth hundreds of millions, wouldn’t at least consider the same? He had a dream and he fulfilled it. Unfortunately, it’s not a dream anybody else shared and he makes no persuasive case that we should. Flatley plays Victor Blackley, aka The Blackbird, a secret agent with a group called The Chieftains, who suddenly retires after the death of his fiancee. Just why her death forced his retirement is his darkest secret, which you will guess immediately. Victor builds a new life running a hotel in the Caribbean, where he whiles away the nights fending off the advances of beautiful young women and wearing many hats (so many hats, all tipped at a jaunty angle, like he’s just run to set from a regional production of ‘Guys and Dolls’). His old life comes back to haunt him when a colleague from the pa

The Batman, the latest reinvention of the Dark Knight, gives us a new take on the comic character known as ‘the world’s greatest detective’. But how good are your own detecting skills? The film is packed with nods to other movies, music and art, and holds some sneaky hints about the characters and the future of the franchise. How many of these did you spot? Warning: contains spoilers for The Batman throughout Photograph: Warner Bros. Pictures/© DC Comics 1. Kurt Cobain was a major inspiration for the movie Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is a lot more grungy than previous iterations, with his emo eye make-up, floppy fringe and sulky demeanour. Matt Reeves said the touchstone for Wayne was the late Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain. He told Esquire, ‘Early on, when I was writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about ‘‘Something in the Way”… What if some tragedy happened and this guy becomes so reclusive, we don’t know what he’s doing? Is this guy some kind of wayward, reckless, drug addict?’ And the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He’s like a Batman Kurt Cobain.’ Cobain also inspired Paul Dano, who plays the Riddler. He told NME he listened to ‘‘Something in the Way” a lot, absorbing the lyrics about a lonely man living on the street: ‘That song, those words, that refrain, became hugely important to me. Nirvana became a part of that [character].’ Photograph: Universal PicturesJimmy Stewart’s

It took a lot longer than anyone expected but finally, after 15 years, the Daniel Craig Bond era has come to an end. From Casino Royale to No Time to Die, it’s been an uneven run, but one full of ambition and some spectacular highs – arguably the greatest highs in Bond history. Now that we’ve watched Craig’s farewell, this is what No Time to Die tells us about the future of Bond. Warning: contains mild spoilers for No Time to DieBond has (hopefully) finally solved its sexism problemWith rare exception, women in Bond films have been devices to move the plot along rather than agents of their own destiny. As much as the Craig era has tried to right that (Judi Dench’s M getting a larger role; Vesper Lynd becoming the first Bond love interest with her own full story), it’s still had its bleakly misogynist moments. Bérénice Marlohe’s Sévérine being surprised by Bond in the shower in Skyfall, shortly after telling him about her life as a sex slave, was a low point. In No Time to Die, the franchise finally establishes new female characters who exist outside of Bond’s gaze. He beds nobody new. Ana de Armas’s CIA operative Paloma may be in the traditional ‘Bond girl’ vein – beautiful, half his age, dresses impractically for action – but, crucially, she shows not a glimmer of sexual interest in Bond. It’s Lashana Lynch’s Nomi, the new 00 agent, who really shakes things up, though. She can do Bond’s job as well as him, she’s not in awe of him and she can match him on kiss-off lines. It

After years of pop-ups around London, starting in a literal back garden, Backyard Cinema has found a permanent home. The popular immersive movie company has taken over the old Capital Studios building in Wandsworth. Once used to record music videos for David Bowie, as well as several series of ‘Ready Steady Cook’ – yes, the Ainsley Harriott once walked its halls – the vast space reopens on Friday September 13 with a 250-person cinema and an enormous bar. ‘This is something we’ve wanted for years,’ says Backyard Cinema’s co-founder Dom Davies. ‘When we found this building, with two huge studios, we couldn’t believe it. We want it to become an entertainment hub with the cinema at its heart.’ The venue has the same feel as previous Backyard Cinema venues, but finessed. The cinema space resembles a crumbling theatre, strewn with vines and lit by huge chandeliers. A special-effects-heavy pre-show will include lightning and glowing, smoke-filled bubbles drifting over the audience. Seasonal elements like the hall of Christmas trees have been supercharged, but we won’t give away all the secrets. The bar at Backyard Cinema. Photograph: Andy Parsons The cinema, bar and courtyard, with food offerings from Honest Burger and Motherclucker, are just phase one for the building. Given three storeys to play with, Davies and his partner James Milligan plan to add karaoke booths, a second screen, another bar and possibly a theatre space and mini-golf. Their hope is that the cinema becomes ju

Three stars ‘Pet Sematary’ is exactly the kind of horror movie that is ripe for remaking. The 1989 version of Stephen King’s creepy novel is fairly well remembered, but it’s far from a classic, not even the cult kind. You can reinvent it without really annoying anyone. That’s exactly what the creative team on this movie have done. They’ve hacked up the narrative and resurrected it in a slightly different, weirder form.  The script keeps the same rough shape as King’s novel. Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and their young daughter and son move to a quiet Maine town in the hope of a simpler life than the one they had in Boston. Louis learns of a spooky burial ground behind his house, which he discovers has the power to raise the dead. First, he buries his dead cat, which comes back whiffy and mean, but soon grief drives him to test its powers on someone human. In the details, the writers have some mischievous fun, changing key elements to give the film its own surprises (avoid all the trailers if you want some major ones preserved).Directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer make the tone just a little cheesy, as the premise deserves, but not overripe. The scares are easy – sometimes literally a cat jumping from the shadows – but cleanly done. Helped by intense performances from Clarke and Seimetz, there’s a deep human sadness running beneath the silliness.  Head here for ‘Pet Sematary’ screening times in London.

Born and raised in Surrey, Lily James has starred in 'Baby Driver', 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' and 'Downton Abbey'. She's played Cinderella and Winston Churchill's secretary, and this week is headlining the handsomely-named 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society'. Next up she's in Danny Boyle's new comedy. But did we want to ask her about any of these things? No we didn't. We wanted to know whether she eats popcorn at the cinema and hear about that time she had a spontaneous dance party during a screening of 'Moulin Rouge!' Click below to find out more. 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society' is out on Fri April 20. Read our review here.Ten new films to see in April