DUNE (TBC)
DANIEL CRAIG’S fifth and final mission as James Bond is set five years after the events of Spectre.
No Time To Die begins with Bond (Craig) retired from active duty, trying to salve emotional wounds with the help of his psychiatrist lover, Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux).
Good friend Felix Leitner (Jeffrey Wright) ushers 007 back into the fold, reuniting the spy with M (Ralph Fiennes), Q (Ben Whishaw), Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and a feisty new 00 agent, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). They face a sadistic adversary, Safin (Rami Malek), who knows how to burrow beneath Bond’s skin and exploit his most deeply rooted fears.
Released: December 18
FRENCH-CANADIAN director Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Blade Runner 2049) will be hoping for a warmer response to his visually arresting opus than David Lynch received when he adapted Frank Herbert’s novel Dune in 1984.
Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) is offered an assignment to mine a precious mineral known as “the spice” on the desert planet of Arrakis. Leto is aware that he is almost certainly walking into a trap laid by his sworn enemy, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard), but he accepts regardless.
The Duke travels to his new home, which is protected by giant sandworms, accompanied by his concubine Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), son Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and members of the household including protectors Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) and Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa).
Battle lines are drawn between clans and blood seeps into the sand.
FANNY LYE DELIVER’D (18)
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JOHN LYE (Charles Dance), a former captain in the English Civil War, presides over his remote Shropshire farm with an iron fist. He upholds Puritan strictures and admonishes young son Arthur (Zak Adams) for submitting to his wife, Fanny (Maxine Peake). Order is thrown into disarray by the arrival of two naked, bloodied strangers (Freddie Fox, Tanya Reynolds) who claim to be victims of a robbery. Next morning, the high sheriff (Peter Mcdonald) arrives, searching for “a pair of licentious heretics”.
Fanny Lye Deliver’d is an engrossing chamber piece about a common woman, forcibly blinkered to her power and potential.
■ Streaming now and on DVD from August 24.