The pick of the week’s films on Sky, Virgin & other platforms
BAD SANTA 2
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PREMIERE (Available from Mon) Back in 2003, the deliciously dark black comedy Bad Santa saw Billy Bob Thornton’s foul-mouthed, alcoholic slob of a Santa deliver a gleefully offensive assault on festive pieties and political correctness. Sadly, this sequel’s efforts to reheat its predecessor’s raucous comedy prove as appetising as stale mince pies. (15, 92min)
CULT OF CHUCKY
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Killer doll Chucky returns to terrorise the luckless Nica (Fiona Dourif), now incarcerated in an isolated psychiatric institution in this seventh outing of the longrunning horror franchise. Writerdirector and original creator Don Mancini ramps up the scarefactor with some elaborate death scenes and stylish camera-work that makes atmospheric use of the hospital location. (18, 87min)
DESPICABLE ME 3
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PREMIERE (Available from Mon) See review, right. (U, 90min)
THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS
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The petrolhead action-movie franchise rolls relentlessly on, as ludicrously silly and OTT as ever, with an instalment that sees Vin Diesel’s carjacker hero Dominic Toretto and his outlaw band picking up new allies and new enemies. Chief among the latter is Charlize Theron’s ice-blonde cyber-terrorist, who blackmails Dom into betraying his gang and helping her nefarious missilestealing plans. (12,133min)
IT COMES AT NIGHT
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Set in a post-apocalyptic America, this gripping thriller focuses on two families trying to escape a mysterious epidemic in a remote forest house. But there is plenty of slow-burning tension and menace as Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo’s husband and wife, and their teenage son uneasily share their refuge with two strangers (Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough) and their young son. (15, 92min)
A KIND OF MURDER
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An unhappily married architect (Patrick Wilson) begins stalking a suspected wife murderer little realising the consequences that lie in store in this twisty and twisted psychological thriller. Stylishly shot and perversely gripping, the film is based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The
Blunderer, and it is not hard to detect echoes of the author’s
Strangers on a Train. (15, 92min)
KING ARTHUR:
LEGEND OF THE SWORD
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Director Guy Ritchie’s take on Arthurian myth is a mash-up of sword-and-sorcery action fantasy and geezers-on-amission caper. Charlie Hunnam’s Arthur is a Mockney badass, ducking and diving in 5th-century Londinium until he finally gets around to embracing his destiny as the son of Eric Bana’s King Uther Pendragon. (12,126min)
THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED)
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Hilarious and painfully touching, this bittersweet New York comedy revolves around a hopelessly dysfunctional family. Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Elizabeth Marvel play the bickering adult offspring of Dustin Hoffman’s patriarch. Sandler gives his best performance in years, and his rivalry with his half-brother (Stiller) provides the film’s comic spine. (15,110min)
MY COUSIN RACHEL
HHH A glossy adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s romantic Gothic mystery set in 19th-century Cornwall. Sam Claflin plays the tale’s callow young orphan Philip Ashley, who suspects foul play after his beloved uncle dies abroad following his marriage to the eponymous Rachel (Rachel Weisz). The drama is surprisingly underpowered and its simmering passions never fully come to the boil. (12,102min)
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: SALAZAR’S REVENGE
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Johnny Depp’s pirate captain Jack Sparrow is back, but his fifth screen adventure sees him playing a largely passive role in the plot. This time, a younger generation is at the helm of the story as Brenton Thwaites’ Henry Turner, son of Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Swann, sets out to free his father from a watery curse. (12,129min)
WONDER WOMAN
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Gal Gadot’s lithe Wonder Woman was all conquering at the global box office this year, emphatically showing that female superheroes could be more than a match for their male counterparts. The film is an origins tale, so we see Gadot’s Amazon heroine Diana growing up on her idyllic all-women island home before leaving it for the first time with Chris Pine’s World War One American spy. (12,141min)