ALSO SHOWING
TOY STORY 4 (U)
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HOW do you improve on the perfection of Toy Story 3, which bade a moving farewell to Woody the cowboy (voiced by Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear, pictured, (Tim Allen) and the other denizens of Andy’s childhood?
Oscar-winning computer animation studio Disney Pixar comes tantalisingly close with a belated rip-roaring fourth instalment that will have parents dabbing at their eyes with sodden handkerchiefs. Director Josh Cooley’s hare-brained rescue mission was always going to disappoint after the note-perfect resolution to the third film.
The script quietly preaches the beauty of imperfection between a barrage of visual gags and the fractious central relationship between Woody and Buzz, reaches a gorgeous, heart-rending crescendo that closes this toy box of wonders with a soft and satisfying emotional thud.
BRIGHTBURN (15)
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DIRECTOR David Yarovesky’s picture puts a sinister, gore-soaked twist on the Superman origin story, featuring a series of grisly deaths as an adopted alien child (Jackson A Dunn, pictured) learns how “special” he is and deciphers a transmission from his fallen spacecraft: “Take the world.”
A misery-saturated script penned by Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn, brothers of Guardians Of The Galaxy director James Gunn, mines a rich vein of dark, subversive humour but their narrative drilling is hit-and-miss.
Brightburn boasts plenty of splatter, but the tone seesaws between parody and slasher, leaning hardest in favour of the latter – and characterisation is thin, leaving Dunn to stare eerily into the camera to prickle our fear.
CHILD’S PLAY (15)
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REBOOTING a cult
1980s slasher horror for tech-savvy modern audiences is anything but child’s play, as Norwegian director Lars Klevberg learns to his cost – and our dismay.
In the original version of Child’s Play, a serial killer invokes a voodoo ritual to transfer his tormented soul into a benign plaything, which goes on a bloodthirsty rampage armed with sharp implements and droll one-liners.
For the remake, screenwriter Tyler Burton Smith eschews hocus pocus and relies on a technical malfunction to explain how a doll could become a relentless killing machine.
Klevberg takes lurid delight in eviscerating the cast but Mark Hamill’s vocal performance as Chucky seldom causes goosebumps.