THE ADDAMS FAMILY
(PG)
★★★★★
CREEPY, kooky, mysterious, spooky. The theme tune to Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan’s computeranimated comedy, based on Charles Addams’s newspaper cartoon strips and the 1960s TV series, promises plenty of tricks and treats in time for Halloween.
Unfortunately, Matt Lieberman’s script is musty and soulless like the majority of the doom-laden characters.
The Addams Family repeatedly fails to sink its fangs into the deliciously dark and disturbing tone of the source material, softening sharp edges to ensure young children aren’t cowering with fear in the dark.
Gomez Addams (Oscar Isaac) marries sweetheart Morticia (Charlize Theron) in front of dearly beloathed family and friends including Grandma (Bette Midler) and Cousin Itt (Snoop Dogg).
The ceremony is interrupted by pitchforkwielding villagers and the newlyweds flee on the back of Gomez’s brother Fester (Nick Kroll) in search of a sanctuary that “no one in their right mind would be caught dead in”.
An abandoned insane asylum in New Jersey, shrouded by swirling mists from nearby marshland, becomes the Addams’ family home and the couple raises a ghoulish daughter Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and explosivesobsessed son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard).
Interior design doyenne Margaux Needler (Allison Janney) chooses a plot of land down in the valley to build the picture-perfect community of Assimilation as a backdrop to her new reality TV series.
She drains the marshland during her makeover, revealing the ramshackle Addams estate on the hill.
Margaux stages a forceful intervention to compel Gomez, Morticia et al to embrace pastel shades or suffer her wrath.
Meanwhile, Wednesday forges an unlikely friendship with Margaux’s neglected daughter Parker (Elsie Fisher) and Pugsley practises swordplay for the forthcoming mazurka ceremony that marks his transition from boy to man.
The Addams Family dilutes the macabre and moribund pungency of the cartoon strips, delivering heavy-handed sermons about individuality and tolerance in an era of angry mob rule.
Booming belly laughs are depressingly scarce, except for an amusing Frankensteinian interlude with dead frogs in a school science lab.
Like the amphibian specimens, Vernon and Tiernan’s picture briefly jolts to life.
SET 27 years after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, when Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and son John (Edward Furlong) erased Skynet from our future timeline, the bombastic sixth chapter in the ageing franchise enjoys a welcome software upgrade.
Scriptwriters David S. Goyer, Justin Rhodes and Billy Ray hardwire a belated sequel to the second chapter with a trio of strong-willed and gutsy female characters, who are mistresses of their own rubblestrewn destiny.
These flawed, self-sacrificing heroines are the heart and soul of director Tim Miller’s entertaining gallop down memory lane, which melds precious metals from previous instalments with a touching mother-daughter relationship against a backdrop of largescale destruction and slambang digital effects.
The long-awaited on-screen reunion of Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger is withheld until the muscular second hour, delivering a surprisingly touching pay-off amidst the usual blitzkrieg of earth-shaking pyrotechnics and hand-to-metal combat.
Nuance has never been in the series’ armoury and with James Cameron reinstated as producer, Terminator: Dark Fate gleefully wages war on land, under water and in the clouds, including a dizzying set piece inside the cargo bay of the US Air Force’s largest transport aircraft.
Mankind’s unlikely saviour is kind-hearted and unassuming Daniella Ramos (Natalia Reyes), who works on the assembly line of Arius Motors in Mexico City alongside her brother (Diego Boneta).
She is, unknowingly, the touchpaper of a powerful resistance, which will rise out of the smouldering ashes of mankind’s downfall and retaliate against the machines.
Daniella is targeted for extermination by Legion, an artificial intelligence created in the future for the purposes of cyberwarfare.
Legion dispatches a liquid metal Terminator, the Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna), to kill Dani.
An augmented human soldier named Grace (Mackenzie Davis), who can unleash short bursts of boneshattering power, materialises on the factory floor in the nick of time to protect Dani, setting in motion a thrilling demolition derby that proves the Terminator films are frequently at their best on four wheels.
Grizzled, gun-toting Sarah
Connor (Hamilton), who has dedicated her life to eliminating the mechanised monstrosities, enters the fray and pledges to protect Dani. “Why do you care what happens to her?” asks Grace. “Because I was her,” growls Sarah, “and it sucks.” Terminator: Dark Fate trades unabashedly on nostalgia, largely ignoring the disappointing third to fifth films to reboot the time-travelling battle royale between woman and machine.
Action sequences are orchestrated with gung-ho ★★★★★
CREEPY journey of self-discovery. Christian (Jack Reynor) is poised to break up with his girlfriend Dani (Florence Pugh) when she suffers a devastating loss. Rather than twist the knife, Christian invites Dani to join him and three pals on a summertime trip to a commune in Halsingland, Sweden. After a long journey, the friends emerge into a forest clearing dotted with large wooden structures and white-robed figures tending the land. Matriarch elder Siv (Gunnel Fred) opens the great feast, which takes place every 90 years, heralding nine days of painful self-reflection the outsiders will never forget.
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