A gripping survival story

Americans struggling to survive in the face of corporate malfeasance gives the film a resonance.

The octogenarian geezers turn to every trick in the book to tickle the viewer’s funny bone. Among the more amusing situations is a dry run for the planned robbery, which involves shoplifting at the local grocery store. In addition to the once-in-a-lifetime leads, the rest of the elderly ensemble too manages to sustain a feeling of playful cheerfulness.

Ann-Margret — still impossibly beautiful — turns on her feminine wiles as the flirtatious grandmama. Going in Style may not rank alongside the classic comedy capers but it certainly provides a welcome change from the malarkey that seems to clog the multiplexes these days.

Ghost in the Machine has the cyberpunk aesthetic but lacks the core element of soul.

In a future dominated by technological tinkering, a female human-cyborg hybrid (Scarlett Johansson) is tasked with investigating a series of crimes committed by a disgruntled cyber hacker (Michael Carmen Pitt).

You’ll see flashes of the Matrix trilogy, Ex Machina and RoboCop in this live-action retread of the Japanese animated sci-fi tale of the same name. But the script rambles from one pointless predicament to another as the onewoman army attempts to come to terms with her true identity.

In short order, the hybrid also learns a number of disturbing details about the boss (Peter Ferdinando) of the shady corporation which reassembled her as a weaponised machine.

Skyscraper-sized holograms dot the neon-drenched cityscape but the production design is lackluster, as are the digitally