Rub-a-dub-dub, Gerard’s actually good in his sub...
Hunter Killer (15A) ★★★★ is one of those macho military thrillers that just doesn’t know when to stop. Not content with being a rather effective submarine adventure, with two nuclear subs sunk to the bottom of the Barents Sea within minutes of the opening, it then tosses in a military coup, a special forces raid behind enemy lines and a kidnapped Russian President for good measure. It certainly isn’t short of ambition.
But nor, somewhat surprisingly, is it short of tension, spectacle and slightly shlocky enjoyment, helped by Gerard Butler being rather good (yes, you read that right) as the maverick submarine commander sent to discover what the hell’s going on, and by a screenplay that may have some cheesy lines but is definitely just that bit cleverer than we’re expecting.
Well shot, effectively edited and with decent visual effects, the non-stop action may unfold in an all-too-familiar world of powergrabbing men doing despicable things but, refreshingly, just for once the answer isn’t just a show of overwhelming American military might. Not entirely, anyway.
After months of will-he, won’t-he uncertainty, Jack Black has returned for Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (PG) ★★★, the modestly awaited sequel to the 2015 original. But you have to wonder why he bothered, given that he makes a very limited contribution as the children’s horror author, R L Stine.
It’s Halloween in upstate New York, where pretty teenager Sarah (Madison Iseman) is trying to complete her college application (appositely, she’s writing an essay on ‘fear’), little knowing that her younger brother and his best friend are about to stumble across Slappy the creepy ventriloquist’s dummy while doing their first house clearance.
Before we know it, they’ve said the magic words, Slappy has come back to life and he’s unleashing animated Halloween chaos.
It’s likeable, lightweight fun but not as good as Black’s similar-feeling alternative, The House With A Clock In Its Walls.
Whatever his subject, maverick documentary-maker Michael Moore can be relied on eventually to bring the story back to his home town of Flint, Michigan. But in Fahrenheit 11/9 (15A) ★★★★ – not to be confused with his
Fahrenheit 9/11 from 2004 – it plays a far more central role, as the famously Left-wing Moore tries to explain ‘how the f*** Donald Trump became President of the United States’.
Using the extraordinary manoeuvrings of Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, to set anti-Trump alarm bells ringing, it’s no surprise to see the Republicans getting it in the neck. What is surprising, however, is seeing the Democrats coming in for similar criticism, with both Clintons and even President Obama coming under Moore’s fire too.
So more balanced than normal but, once Adolf Hitler hoves into view, as provocative as ever.