ALSO SHOWING
Dunkirk (12A)
Redefining what epic cinema means, Christopher Nolan’s Second World War movie uses its massive scale to intensify the immediacy of the experience not drag it out. In keeping with the theme of a film charting the desperate evacuation of more than 300,000 Allied troops from the beaches of Northern France, not a second is wasted in the taut 105-minute running time, something Nolan emphasises by giving it the ticking-clock structure of a thriller, albeit a very Nolan-style thriller. This starts the moment the film opens and only gets more urgent as he deploys an overlapping triple-timeline narrative device reminiscent of the one he used to exhilarating effect in the final act of Inception. Splitting Dunkirk’s plot along elemental lines, the film tells the story of the so-called “Dunkirk miracle” over the course of a week on the ground, a day on the sea and an hour in the air, with all three converging in intriguing and nerve-shredding ways as the movie progresses. Zeroing in on a few characters only, Nolan gives us just enough information to ensure our investment in their fates and never loses sight of the human moments amidst the madness, exploiting his preferred large-format IMAX cameras to make the characters a fully-fledged part of the spectacle. See it on the biggest screen possible.
The Beguiled (15)
Revolving around an injured Union soldier hiding out in a girls’ boarding school in the South during the dying days of the Civil War, Sofia Coppola’s take on Thomas Cullinan’s pulp novel is a far more subdued affair than the 1971 Clint Eastwood version. Colin Farrell plays the soldier with the vulnerability of a wounded puppy, which changes the dynamic considerably when he’s taken in by Nicole Kidman’s headmistress and her students. Presenting the story from the point of view of her female protagonists, Coppola uses their cloistered position to explore the simmering sexual jealousies that emerge when this stranger comes into their midst, with Kidman, Kirsten Dunst (as the girls repressed French teacher) and Elle Fanning (as the most sexually curious of the girls) doing strong work, even if the film feels at times almost too tasteful and too incurious about the wider issues of the times – especially slavery.
War for the Planet of the Apes
(12A)
Despair at humanity’s collective cruelty and hubris has always been at the heart of the Planet of the Apes movies, so it’s no surprise that the current iteration of the long-running franchise has been one of the more intelligent and urgent blockbuster revivals of recent years. Directed by Matt Reeves, War for the Planet of
the Apes feels perfect for the times, largely because the times feel terrible and the prospect of rooting for another species to replace our own seems entirely natural. Andy Serkis once again leads the ape cast; Woody Harrelson is his Kurtz-like human nemesis.
Spider-man: Homecoming (12A)
There’s no escaping the titular significance of Spider-man:
Homecoming. The first Spidey movie made in collaboration with Marvel Studios, it feels like the character is finally back where he belongs. British actor Tom Holland plays Peter Parker as a super-powered 15-yearold whose desperation to take off his “superhero training wheels” is making him more reckless than his mentor, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr), would like. Director Jon Watts
(Cop Car) smartly fills the film with a racially diverse cast of bright and sparky newcomers and doubles down on Spider-man’s status as a blue-collar superhero by pitting him against Michael Keaton’s Vulture, a street-level super-villain embittered at being a working man screwed over by government and corporate bureaucrats. ■