ALSO SHOWING
PREVIEW PAPILLON (15)
RAMI MALEK provides sterling support in director Michael Noer’s drama based on the autobiographies of Henri Charriere.
Revered safe cracker Henri (Charlie Hunnam) is nicknamed Papillon (butterfly) and has a gift for breaking into impenetrable vaults on behalf of members of the Parisian underworld.
Framed for a murder he claims he did not commit, Henri is consigned to the notorious penal colony on Devil’s Island in French Guyana. En route to South America, Henri befriends a fellow prisoner, a counterfeiter called Louis Vega (Malek, above), who is suspected of hiding money. The two men hatch an escape plan from Devil’s Island and they involve two other prisoners in their daredevil scheme.
AQUAMAN (12A)
★★★★★
OCEANS rise and standards fall in this bloated origin story for the eponymous DC Comics superhero.
Maine lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry (Temuera Morrison) discovers Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of Atlantis, injured on the shore and nurses her back to health. They fall in love and she gives birth to a boy called Arthur, who can breathe in water and communicates with aquatic life. “He’s living proof our worlds can co-exist,” coos Atlanna. Alas, the queen is forced to abandon her child and Arthur grows up believing she died to give him life.
Years later, Mera (Amber Heard), daughter of King Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), visits Arthur (Jason Momoa, above) and implores him to challenge his power-hungry half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), who has declared war on humanity.
If Arthur can locate the trident of Neptune and hone his fighting skills under the aegis of mentor Nuidis Vulko (Willem Dafoe), he might avert disaster. However, Orm is flanked by a vast army led by pirate Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Manteen II).
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (PG)
★★★★★
DAZZLING computer-animated adventure that introduces a menagerie of gifted spider-folks.
Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales, pictured (voiced by Shameik Moore), takes a break from studying to spend time with his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), who indulges Miles’s passion for street art by venturing into the sewers beneath New York City to spray paint a mural.
A radioactive spider bites Miles’s hand and he inherits the same abilities as Spider-Man (Chris Pine), who recently died at the hands of crime lord Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber). Fisk is conducting experiments which disrupt the space-time continuum and consequently, a washed-up Peter B Parker (Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), talking pig Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), brooding Spider-Noir (Nicolas Cage) and inventor schoolgirl Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) materialise in Miles’s bedroom. Together, they take on a rogue’s gallery of villains including Green Goblin (Jorma Taccone) and Doctor Octopus (Kathryn Hahn).