SECOND SCREEN
It’s been more than eight years since a large monster roamed New York in
Cloverfield, and now the brand attempts to reboot itself with 10 Cloverfield
Lane (16) ★★★ , a film that has so little in common with the first film that it can’t really be described as a sequel at all.
But it’s a decent piece of low-budget film-making that shows what you can do with artfully built tension, skilful editing and a handful of shocking moments. Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is fleeing a failed relationship in her car when, distracted by mobile phone calls from her ex, she is involved in a terrible accident. She wakes up in a cell, hooked up to a drip and chained to the wall. Confused and terrified, she tries to escape but is no match for her apparent captor, Howard (John Goodman).
But Howard insists he is no kidnapper or pervert. A fervent survivalist, he claims something terrible is happening in the outside world and that he saved Michelle and cellmate Emmett (John Gallagher Jr) by locking them in his bunker. Ah, but is he telling the truth?
Those up on their forthcoming releases will know that Florence Foster
Jenkins, a new comedy-drama starring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant about a New York heiress who dreams of becoming an opera singer, is out in May.
Marguerite (15A) ★★★★ , a very good French version of essentially the same story, has already arrived. Catherine Frot is heartbreakingly wonderful as Marguerite Dumont, whose love of opera is passionate and sincere and yet whose voice is appalling.
Risen (12A) ★★ is one of the growing number of faith-based films that do reasonably well in the God-fearing United States but less well here, where there seems lit--
tle appetite for the simple retelling of familiar Bible stories. Here, the only real novelties are Joseph Fiennes (left) as a sceptical Roman tribune, Peter Firth as a grumpy Pontius Pilate and a screenplay that starts with what many would regard as the end: the Crucifixion.
Rock The Kasbah (15A) ★★ is a strange, misfiring comedy in which Bill Murray plays a down-onhis-luck music promoter who falls in with some kindly arms dealers on a tour of Afghanistan where he hears the voice that may save his career and win the country’s top talent show, Afghan Star. The only problem is, in this hardline Muslim country, the voice is female. Despite the occasional brilliant flash of deadpan Murray and the fact that it is inspired by a true story, it’s disappointing overall.