TV Movie Guide

Tron: Legacy TVNZ 2, 7pm

Starring Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund. This cinema release was a high-tech, 3D whiz-bang for the video-game generation and if that’s your demographic, you’ll love this sci-fi action sequel, even on the small screen. ★★★

Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie M ori TV, 7pm Voices Phil Vischer, Mike Nawrocki. An animated Christian musical comedy no less, featuring Bob The Tomato, Dad Asparagus and his Veggie children. Here, they end up listening to a veggie-ised version of the biblical tale of Jonah. Laugh if you will, but it’s pretty good. ★★★

Eye In The Sky Choice, 8.30pm Starring Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman. Powerful, thoughtfully told tale about the moral and political implications of drones in modern warfare. The story revolves around a joint United States and United Kingdom operation to take down a Kenyan terrorist organisation and whether the presence of a girl in the ‘kill zone’ merits the operation being cancelled. Helen

Mirren, as expected, is outstanding as the iron-willed Colonel Katherine Powell, who will stop at nothing to hit her target. ★★★★

The Kitchen Sky Premiere, 8.30pm Starring Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss. One look at the leads and you would naturally be excited about this crime thriller. But curb that enthusiasm – it’s pretty routine stuff where women married to mobsters take over their criminal empire. Here the crims are in jail and their wives become sort of Robin Hood gangsters, earning the respect of the locals they extort money from in Manhattan’s Hells Kitchen district. ★★

Jaws Three, 8.30pm Starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw. Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, Dum, Dum… One of the most recognisable pieces of movie music, John Williams’ Oscar-winning score was just one of the many factors that made Steven Spielberg’s 1975 mega-hit Jaws so popular, they coined a new term for it – the blockbuster. Jaws still delivers the goods – true testimony to the flair and talent with which it was made. ★★★★★

The Lovely Bones TVNZ Duke, 8.30pm

Starring Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg. Great novel, good-ish movie. Director Peter Jackson’s adaptation might have been better as a straight thriller, but Alice Sebold’s story had a spiritual dimension which he fails to adequately capture. Reminiscent of Heavenly Creatures at times, but Jackson’s trademark special effects don’t seem to work quite so well for this particular story. ★★★

Samba M ori TV, 8.30pm Starring Omar Sy, Charlotte Gainsbourg. The French film The Intouchables starred Sy as the deadbeat caregiver to a wealthy quadriplegic. Here, he joins up with the same directors in this story about a Senegalese migrant fighting to stay in France, aided by a troubled volunteer social worker. While notionally a comedy, the serious theme of immigration and the bureaucratic response casts a long shadow over the humour. ★★★

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan TVNZ 2, 9.10pm

Starring Adam Sandler, John Turturro. While established fans of the Adam Sandler genre will no doubt love this, it’s safe to say that

the most impressive thing in this lacklustre comedy about an Israeli secret agent turned hairdresser is the leading man’s untypically bulked-up physique. ★★

Dead Poets Society TVNZ 1, 10.20pm

Starring Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke. One of Williams’ finest serious performances here as English teacher John Keating who inspires his students at an exclusive school to ‘seize the day’ and make their lives extraordinary with his unconventional approach. ★★★

White Chicks TVNZ 2, 11.25pm

Starring Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans. Formulaic Wayans Brothers spoof of the Hilton sisters and their associated pals – who perhaps don’t even deserve this sort of unwelcome attention, no matter what you may think of them. Crude, rude and chock-full of too many Wayans’ in-jokes, the comedy is scattershot at best. The black-to-white makeup job is fairly impressive though – in a freaky-looking kind of way. ★★

Everybody Wants Some!! TVNZ 2, 1.20am (Sun)

Starring Blake Jenner, Zoey Deutch. The spiritual successor to Dazed And Confused. Similar in tone to the high school hijinks of the original, it follows a group of baseball players who find themselves playing for an amateur college team in Texas in 1980. All young male camaraderie, it’s a subtle comedy and underneath the sports jock swagger, there is a freshness and sunniness which makes the end result deeply satisfying. ★★★★