All cliches great and s
Little (12A) Verdict: A very diminished Big ★★✩✩✩ Hellboy (15) Verdict: Overwrought reboot ★★★✩✩
FOR an industry meant to celebrate the imagination, cinema continues to show a breathtaking lack of it. Derivative films abound, pointless remakes are everywhere, unwanted sequels proliferate.
Two of this week’s major releases tick one or more of those boxes.
Hard on the heels of superhero movie Shazam!, Little is the second film in seven days to rip off the plot of the classic 1988 comedy Big.
This one exploits Penny Marshall’s film even by name; the story is Big in reverse.
Regina Hall, never the most subtle of comedy actresses, plays Jordan Sanders, the obnoxious boss of an Atlanta tech company.
When a child magician she has disparaged casts a spell on her, Jordan is transformed into the geeky 13-yearold she used to be (played by Marsai Martin). The only person in on this metamorphosis is her long-suffering PA, April (Issa Rae). Internally, Jordan is still her adult self: bossy and controlling. But because she looks 13, nobody takes her seriously. So April has to take over the company, with Jordan advising her.
That’s the premise, but it is milked dry of comic potential long before the end of the film.
In fairness, there were quite a few ripples of laughter at the screening I attended, but they didn’t ripple as far as me.
Directed and co-written by Tina Gordon, Little has some decent lines, mostly in relation to race (the leads are all African-American), but it
doesn’t boast anything like the charm and wit of Big.
HELLBOY is a reboot of the superhero fantasy films, with Neil Marshall replacing Guillermo del Toro in the director’s chair.
Marshall has directed episodes of Game Of Thrones and it shows; there are some lively fight scenes and lashings of the supernatural in what is otherwise a boldly incoherent story, which dares to connect the legend of King Arthur with the Pendle witches and even Alice in Wonderland.
David Harbour plays the benign monster whose brief is to rid modern-day England of his more malevolent brethren, leading him inexorably to a showdown in St Paul’s Cathedral with an ancient sorceress (Milla Jovovich). Ian McShane is as watchable as ever as Hellboy’s adoptive human father, and Stephen Graham has fun (how could he not?) as a giant Liverpudlian warthog.
There are some laugh-out-loud moments and solid special effects, but it’s all just a bit laboured and overwrought.