Who you gonna call for the new Ghostbusters?
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Cert: 12A, 1hr 55mins ★★★
The Beautiful Game
Cert: 12A, 2hrs 5mins Also on Netflix from Friday ★★★★
Road House
Cert: 15, 2hrs 1min Available on Amazon Prime ★★
Immaculate
Cert: 18, 1hr 29mins ★★
Baltimore
Cert: 15, 1hr 38mins ★★★
S‘Full of horror genre cliches, it gets both sillier and nastier as it lumbers on ’
uch was the enduring comic charm of the original Ghostbusters film, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, that the sporadic franchise has met with warm goodwill ever since. We instinctively like the idea of another Ghostbusters picture, another round of slime, proton packs and that instantly recognisable theme tune.
The latest instalment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, however, uses up a generous dollop of that good will. It’s enjoyable, in an Easter popcorn pic way, but it’s not great. That said, there is an undeniable pleasure in seeing the new generation of ghostbusters – Callie (Carrie Coon) her teenage children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and teacher-turned-Callie’s-boyfriend, Gary (Paul Rudd) – not just back in New York but back in the old firehouse where the original gang hung out. But as we wait for the inevitable encounter with the purveyor of a deadly freeze, a problem soon begins to emerge. There are too many characters competing for screen time – not just the surviving members of the original gang, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson, but secondary characters from 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, such as Podcast (Jordan Kim) and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor). It’s no wonder that the franchise newcomer, James Acaster as lab-rat Lars, feels surplus to requirements.
Kumail Nanjiani, star of The Big Sick, proves an excellent addition but it’s disappointing to discover that evil deities that once might have been played by the glorious likes of Sigourney Weaver are now just clever visual effects.
With a screenplay from Frank Cottrell-Boyce, writer of Goodbye Christopher Robin, and a central performance from Bill Nighy, The Beautiful Game was always likely to be emotionally charged. And so it proves as we watch Nighy, admittedly slightly unlikely casting as former football scout, Mal, putting together an England team for the Homeless World Cup.
And yes, it really does exist: contested every year, and you do have to be homeless to play. Vinny (Michael Ward), Mal’s last-minute addition to the team, may be living in his car but he can really play…
This is a film all about second halves and second chances and while energy levels do drop a little whenthefootballstarts(four-a-side is not the most cinematic of sports) Nighy’s laid-back charm, some fine ensemble acting and oodles of basic humanity will have you dabbing at your eyes by the end.
Some way into the sporadically violent action, Road House is shaping up nicely as a latter-day western, with Jake Gyllenhaal giving a quietly compelling performance as a retired cage-fighter who goes to Florida to provide security for a bar being overrun by biker gangs.
And then, inexplicably, Conor McGregor, yes, the Conor McGregor, swaggers into the action, stark naked and playing the whole thing for laughs, and pretty much ruins it. Presumably no one was brave enough to tell him.
Following the surprise box office success of Anyone But You, the 26year-old American actress Sydney Sweeney dips a bloody toe into the horror genre in Immaculate, playing a novice nun who arrives at a convent to pursue her calling.
Some of her fellow nuns seem hostile but there’s a handsome priest who translates and big glasses of wine to accompany dinner. No wonder she wakes up feeling groggy-headed… Full of jump-scares and other genre cliches, it gets sillier and nastier as it lumbers predictably on.
Rose Dugdale, the Devon-born debutante, Marxist and former IRA terrorist, died last week at the age of 82, just as Baltimore,a drama chronicling one of the most notorious episodes of her life, was released in cinemas. In 1974, she led the gang that tied up the elderly owners of Russborough House in Blessington, Sir Alfred and Lady Clementine Beit, and stole 19 old masters, worth millions, demanding the release of IRA prisoners. It’s a challenging, stylised watch, not helped by a non-linear structure and by Dugdale’s decision to use a French accent throughout the violent raid. But it’s a good story, captures that period well and Imogen Poots does her best in an undeniably difficult central role.