EASTER SUNDAY

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows TVNZ 2, 12.05pm

Starring Megan Fox, Laura Linney. The Heroes In A Half Shell return in what is, thankfully, a cut above the 2014 offering. This is truer to the spirit of the TV series with more humour and action – although the plot could still use a little work. Adults will find it a little silly but, at the end of the day, this one is aimed squarely at the kids and they’ll love it. ★★

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory TVNZ 2, 5.20pm

Starring Gene Wilder, Jack Albertson. Timeless fantasy musical tinged with the black comedy prevalent in Roald Dahl’s children’s book and capably carried by the enigmatic Gene Wilder. Remade a bit darker as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory with Depp as Willie, but not quite as good. ★★★★★

Spider-Man: Homecoming TVNZ 2, 7pm

Starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Zendaya. The second film in the Spider-Man reboot has Holland taking over as Peter Parker/Spider-Man from Andrew Garfield, whose performance in The Amazing Spider-Man earned mixed reviews. Holland won the role after a bit part in Captain America: Civil War and absolutely nails it here as 15-year-old Parker, who is dealing with adolescence as well as saving the world, or at least America. Keaton is on form too, as arch-villain Adrian Toomes, aka Vulture. ★★★★

Baby Mama Bravo, 7.05pm Starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear. The comedic talents of 30 Rock’s Tina Fey and Saturday Night Live’s Amy Poehler are combined in this lightweight but enjoyable story of a New York career woman who recruits a younger working-class woman as surrogate mother to the baby she so desperately wants. Fey and Poehler are seamless here. Put this down to their nearly 30 years of friendship – they met in 1993 at Chicago’s Improv Olympic, a showcase for rising comedians. ★★★

Searching For Winnetou M ori TV, 7.40pm Let’s explain the title of this documentary. Winnetou was the fictional Apache hero of a series of German novels written at the turn of the 19th century. So when Native American author and humorist Drew Hayden Taylor noticed that lots of Germans were visiting Canada looking for a “real Indianer” experience, he spent a summer in Germany trying to uncover the roots of this century-old obsession. He found that thousands of Germans still attend annual camps and dress as Native American warriors – apparently Hitler was fascinated by the Sioux people. It’s a fascinating documentary which asks: what is cultural appreciation and what is cultural appropriation? ★★★★

Parasite M ori TV, 8.30pm Starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun. A shock winner of four Academy Awards in 2019 – including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong Joon-ho – this South Korean film tells the story of a struggling family from a basement flat who, one by one,

trick their way into becoming employed as live-in servants to a wealthy family. As well as being hilarious – with a black humour that seamlessly crosses continents – it’s a biting satire on the social inequities in South Korea. Again, that’s a theme that crosses continents seamlessly. Notably, it was the first film with a non-English script to win Best Picture at the Oscars. It also won the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and is widely considered to be one of the best films of the 21st century. ★★★★★

White House Down Three, 8.30pm Starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx. One of the better, and certainly one of the slickest, blockbusters of the past 10 years. White House Down is far-fetched baloney, but it is pure entertainment. It needs to be – its 137 minutes stretches the attention span of most moviegoers. It picks up on the same theme as the earlier, lower-budget Olympus Has Fallen – a terrorist attack on the White House. This is the better film, largely in part to Tatum, a police officer who gets caught up in the plot to assassinate the President, played by Foxx. Foxx, too, plays the part for all it’s worth and Barack Obama would have got a kick out of seeing his screen counterpart get down and dirty. ★★★★

Bill And Ted Face The Music Sky Premiere, 8.30pm Starring Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Samara Weaving. It has been a long time between drinks – 30 years. This is the third Bill And Ted movie, and it follows on from 1991’s Bogus Journey, itself a sequel to 1989’s Excellent Adventure. Such ventures are usually doomed, desperate affairs seeking solely to cash in on past glory but Face The Music isn’t. John Wick revived Keanu Reeves’ career and here he reunites with Alex Winter, who’s had a somewhat lesser career, for a fun-filled romp through times. Here, they must write that song to save space and time collapsing, aided by their wives and daughters. It’s a task not helped by the fact that Bill and Ted have long-standing issues with the Grim Reaper (William Sadler) who has taken out a lawsuit against them. Great fun. ★★★

The Sweetest Thing Bravo, 9pm Starring Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate. Crude, rude and at times repellent, this comedy skews its bawdiness to a female audience. It stars Cameron Diaz as Christina, one of three gal pals with a love ’em and leave ’em mentality. But unexpectedly hit by the love bug at a dance club when she encounters nice guy Peter (Thomas Jane), she travels halfway across the country to surprise him at a family wedding. ★★

Friday The 13th TVNZ 2, 9.10pm

Starring Adrienne King, Harry Crosby. The first instalment in this famous slasher series. It sticks strictly to formula with teens terrorised in a summer camp by a mystery murderer. A bit of a rip-off of Halloween really, but fun if you want it to be. ★★