SECOND SCREEN
Spike Lee may be 61 now but the black filmmaker is as angry, provocative and foul-mouthed as ever with his latest picture,
BlacKkKlansman (15) ★★★★.
It’s the improbable but apparently true story of a black police detective, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), who, in the late Seventies, infiltrated the Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan… by phone.
It’s funny, well acted and the use of music is excellent. But the racism is astonishing, while the parallels with the Trump era are underlined with all the (lack of ) subtlety we expect from Lee.
Mila Kunis does her best while Ghostbusters star Kate McKinnon frantically overacts, but neither is enough to stop The Spy Who Dumped Me (15) ★★ from feeling unoriginal as newly dumped waitress Audrey (Kunis) and best friend Morgan (McKinnon) discover Audrey’s ex was a spy and go to Europe to complete his final mission.
Alpha (12A) ★★★, set
20,000 years ago is the story of an injured teenager (Kodi Smit-McPhee) forging a relationship with a wounded wolf that becomes the first-ever domesticated ‘dog’. Some of the CGI isn’t great, but it’s ambitious and strangely touching.
Which is more than can be said of Luis & The Aliens (U) ★★, a cartoon in which charm and humour are missing. Matthew Bond