THE BIG SCREEN
GRIMSBY (15)** Cohen plays Nobby Butcher, a football hooligan with monstrous sideburns, who lives in Grimsby with his sex-crazed girlfriend Lindsey (Rebel Wilson) and 11 obscenity-spewing children. For 28 years, Nobby has been separated from his younger brother Sebastian (Mark Strong), unaware that his sibling has become a debonair secret agent with the Tiger Tail Unit of MI6. Grimsby is lewd, crude and poorly structured, ricocheting between frenetic action sequences and heart-tugging flashbacks to Nobby and Sebastian’s childhood.
SECRET IN THEIR EYES (15)*** FBI counter-terrorism officer Ray Karsten (Chiwetel Ejiofor) assesses possible threats emanating from a local mosque. He is called to a crime scene close to the mosque and finds the mutilated body of a girl in a dumpster. Unfolding in dual time frames 13 years apart, Secret In Their Eyes is a competent update of a vastly superior tale of retribution and regret.
HOW TO BE SINGLE (15)*** Perky heroine Alice (Dakota Johnson) meets her boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) at college, but worries that the relationship has curtailed her journey of self-discovery so she moves to the Big Apple, where she crashes with her sister Meg (Leslie Mann). How To Be Single stomps over similar ground to the 2009 romcom He’s Just Not That Into You. ZOOLANDER NO .2(12 A )** Ben Stiller and co-star Owen Wilson gamely throw themselves into the fray as numbskull walking clothes horses in this sequel, flanked by returning cast member Will Ferrell as the film’s bouffant archvillain and new additions Penelope Cruz and Kristen Wiig as femme fatales of law and disorder. Zoolander No. 2 is gormless and charmless, and mustering affection for the lead character is a mission: impossible.
DEAD POOL (15)**** Former Special Forces operative Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is a low-rent assassin for hire, who works out of a bar called Sister Margaret’s Home For Wayward Girls run by his wise-cracking buddy Weasel (TJ Miller). Relentlessly lurid and unapologetically foul-mouthed, Deadpool is a sinful treat.
TRIPLE 9(15)**** High levels of testosterone course through the bulging veins of Triple 9. At the heart of this man’s world is venomous moll Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet), who takes charge of the Russian-Israeli mob while her husband Vassili (Igor Komar) languishes behind bars. Triple 9 exerts a strong grip on our attention.
GOOSEBUMPS( PG )**** Rob Letterman’s film opens with the calm before the computer-generated storm as Gale Cooper (Amy Ryan) arrives in Delaware with her teenage son Zach (Dylan Minnette) to take up the position of vice-principal at Madison High School. Goosebumps careens wildly between action, comedy and touching drama, with pithy verbal gags that will go above the heads of children and strike a bullseye with parents.
SPOTLIGHT (15)**** Ben Bradlee Jr (John Slattery) presides over the Boston Globe newsroom. Down in the basement, Robby and colleagues Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy) invest thousands of man hours following leads. Attorney Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) claims to have documents which prove Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou) knew about abuse within the diocese and did nothing. Spotlight is a clinical, precise and riveting dramatization of a bloody war of words in a city in the thrall of the church. Ruffalo is worthy of his Oscar nomination.