The Herald - The Herald Magazine
PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS
WELCOME TO MARWEN (12A)
Inspired by a remarkable true story, which was sensitively captured in the 2010 documentary Marwencol, director Robert Zemeckis’s heartwarming yarn of self-rediscovery fails to connect on any emotional level. In his previous work, including Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump, the Oscar-winning filmmaker demonstrated a flair for plucking heartstrings while engineering fantastical grand adventures. If life is like a box of chocolates then Welcome to Marwen serves up a handsomely packaged selection of bland hard centres which are impossible to swallow without choking. A misfiring script co-written by Caroline Thompson unspools in real and imagined worlds, the latter providing a safe space where the victim of a horrific attack can piece together fragments of his shattered psyche. Tears should flow freely, especially with Steve Carell cast in the anguished lead role, but there is barely a trickle of saltwater during two disjointed and curiously underwhelming hours.
LIFE ITSELF (15)
The march of the television subscription channels into cinema continues with this Sky Cinema Original Film. Life Itself is directed by Dan Fogelman, who wrote the screenplays for animated comedies Bolt and Tangled but is perhaps best known for This is Us, a multi-character, multi-generational television drama which starts off with one couple about to have twins and spreads ever wider. Fogelman is on similar territory here with the story of Will and Abby (Oscar Isaac and Olivia Wilde), a glossy pair who seem to have everything going for them. A starry cast that also includes Mandy Patinkin as Will’s father keeps things watchable even when the whirl of competing stories makes it hard to keep track of what is happening.
HOLMES AND WATSON (15)
Etan Cohen, director of the 2015 comedy Get Hard, reunites with leading man Will Ferrell for a rumbustious romp based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes (Ferrell) is a consulting detective in Victorian London who tackles the most fiendish cases with the help of trusted companion Dr John Watson (John C Reilly). The men’s methods are unconventional, to say the least, but somehow they unmask criminal masterminds before Inspector Lestrade (Rob Brydon). During a visit to Buckingham Palace, Holmes and Watson witness a murder. A note left at the scene, purportedly from Sherlock’s great rival Professor Moriarty (Ralph Fiennes), challenges the detective and his sidekick to solve the case within four days or Queen Victoria (Pam Ferris) will be next to die.
THE FAVOURITE (15)
Courtly intrigue pits two resourceful women against each other in director Yorgos Lanthimos’s wicked comedy, which is co-written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) is somewhat removed from the machinations of the government, allowing her secret lover Sarah Churchill
(Rachel Weisz) to effectively rule 18th-century Britain. While Sarah has the monarch’s ear, Robert Harley (Nicholas Hoult) challenges her from his seat of power in Westminster, doing everything he can to protect state taxes, which are financing the war effort against France. In the midst of this battle of wits and words, Sarah’s lowly cousin Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) arrives unceremoniously at court, seeking employment as a scullery maid. She recognises the key to bettering her positioning is winning the Queen’s fickle favour. Consequently Abigail launches a charm offensive to catch Anne’s eye and undermine Sarah’s influence. Once Sarah discovers her cousin’s Machiavellian scheme, she retaliates in venomous kind.
MARY POPPINS RETURNS (U)
A spoonful of nostalgia – make that several heaped spoonfuls – helps the joy-infused medicine of Rob Marshall’s 1930s-set musical fantasy go down in the most delightful way. Based on the books by PL Travers, Mary Poppins Returns prescribes two hours of pure, sentiment-soaked escapism to banish the winter blues and jiggedy-jog our weary souls. It’s a lavishly staged carousel of whoop-inducing song and dance numbers that kicks up its polished heels in the face of cynicism and affectionately harks back to the 1964 Oscar-winning classic directed by Robert Stevenson. Emily Blunt is practically perfect in every way, making her entrance with a reverential nod to Julie Andrews – “Close your mouth, Michael. We are still not a codfish!” – as the London-born actress makes this iteration of the role her own with effortless efficiency.
AQUAMAN (12A)
Oceans rise and standards fall in Aquaman, a bloated origin story for the eponymous DC Comics superhero which capsizes in a tsunami of splashy digital effects and melodramatic storytelling. The scriptwriters crown a new king of Atlantis via a convoluted treasure hunt above and below cresting waves, where armies of armoured crocodiles and seahorses clash in a titanic battle to the thunderclap of composer Rupert Gregson-Williams’ bombastic score. Sweeping panoramas of otherworldly marine creatures locked in bloody combat owe a debt to The Lord of the Rings trilogy in their gargantuan scale and execution, but there is no emotional connection to two-dimensional characters in the midst of the melee. Jason Momoa flexes his muscles and pearly whites in the title role, imbuing his reluctant heir with flashes of rough charm and humour when he isn’t conversing with co-stars using his fists. Nicole Kidman and Willem Dafoe, sporting a fetching man bun, buoy throwaway supporting roles and refuse to drown in the relentless onslaught of special effects trickery. We are not so fortunate.
BUMBLEBEE (PG)
The robots in disguise receive a welcome and sweetly sentimental reboot in the sixth instalment of the Transformers franchise. Travis Knight, Oscar nominee for the exquisite stop-motion animation Kubo and the Two Strings, replaces Michael Bay in the director’s chair for a family-friendly origin story cast in the mould of The Iron Giant. Bumblebee unfolds before events of the original Transformers and services a softly beating heart beneath gleaming metal through the touching friendship of the titular autobot and a grief-stricken girl played by Pitch Perfect alumnus Hailee Steinfeld. The 22-year-old actress delivers a beautifully calibrated and sincere performance, capturing the awkwardness of a teenager, who hears her pain echoed in the songs of The
Smiths. Every war has casualties and, for once in this fantastical universe, compelling character development and heartfelt emotion aren’t among the fallen.
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (PG)
Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti and Rodney Rothman’s dazzling computer-animated adventure introduces a menagerie of gifted spider-folks, who tick myriad racial, socio-economic and anthropomorphic boxes. There is a half-black, half-Hispanic teenage hero, a sassy Asian female heroine, a grizzled old school crusader torn from the pages of a noir thriller, two markedly different reflections of Peter Parker... and a talking pig. The laughs come thick and fast courtesy of a self-referential script that gleefully pokes fun at itself. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse employs a striking visual palette which honours the comics as it confidently lives up to its billing as “a pretty hardcore origin story”.
THE OLD MAN AND THE GUN (12A)
Robert Redford makes his final screen appearance before retirement in David Lowery’s gently paced crime caper, a (mostly) true story which is also an unabashed Valentine to the charismatic leading man. Based on a 2003 article of the same title in The New Yorker, The Old Man and the Gun possesses a simple, old-fashioned charm epitomised by the 82-year-old star at the film’s emotionally molten centre. Photographed in lustrous close-up, Redford beguiles us with each glance into camera as real-life bank robber Forrest Tucker, who ran rings around the authorities and escaped from San Quentin prison in a canoe. The script stages a couple of tense robberies with aplomb but characterisation always take priority and there is a lovely scene of verbal to and fro between Redford and co-star Casey Affleck in the corridor of a roadside diner. The film is the cinematic equivalent of a warm hug: comforting, heartfelt and undeniably pleasurable in the moment.
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (15)
Chicago-born rapper Boots Riley makes his feature film directorial debut with an audacious, wildly inventive and frequently uproarious satire about workplace culture, black exploitation and rampant capitalism. It’s fair to say that Sorry to Bother You won’t be everyone’s tipple and there are madcap moments when the wheels threaten to come off this runaway train of thoughts. However, patience and gargantuan suspensions of disbelief reap rewards over almost two hours, which simultaneously bamboozle, delight and astound. The writer-director has a penchant for visual gags in background detail like a rogue photocopier, which churns out reams of paper, creating a snowstorm of tumbling A4 around despairing employees. Riley holds firm to his ambitious and outlandish vision, and occasionally draws blood with his barbs.