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IN CINEMAS/ Streaming Now
Elvis. (12A.)
Directed by Baz Luhrmann. Starring Austen Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Luke Bracey, Richard Roxborough and Kodi Smit-McPhee. 158 mins. Baz Luhrmann’s celebration of the King is definitely selling the sizzle, not the tray of hamburgers. Details and facts are casually brushed aside and the liberties taken are considerable. It’s long, restless and packed to bursting (don’t say “bloated,” don’t say “bloated") charging through his adult life in a manner reminiscent of Natural Born Killers-era Oliver Stone, throwing every trick and gimmick available – back projection, archive footage, animation, etc. at the screen. For anyone else you'd call it overblown, but this is Elvis. 
Lightyear (PG.)
Directed by Angus MacLane Starring Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, Peter Sohn, James Brolin and Taika Waititi. 107 mins. In Cinemas. Sequels. Remakes. Prequels. Reboots. Spinoffs. Merchandise. Lego versions. Hollywood employs a wide variety of schemes to reduce the risk of contamination posed by New Ideas. But the path followed by this latest Pixar product is so twisty and convoluted that it probably does count as a form of originality, or at least a tired path that has not been trodden before. This is not simply a prequel about Buzz Lightyear, beloved of Toy Stories 1,2,3 and 4, plus numerous spinoff shorts. At the start, the film states that in 1995, this was Andy’s favourite film and the reason why he desperately wanted a Buzz Lightyear doll in the first Toy Story. Given there has already been an animated TV series that covered this territory but with a different story, I guess this classifies as a rebooted spinoff prequel sequel origin’s tale. 
Jurassic World Dominion. (12A.)
Directed by Colin Trevorrow. Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Scott Campbell and Jeff Goldblum. In cinemas. 147 mins. The thing about dinosaurs is that they were fundamentally thick and dull. 165 million years on Earth and what did they do with it? Nothing. No development, no evolution, no change. The artistic progression of this era can not even be charted. Like the Mitchells in Eastenders, they were stuck in a mindless cycle of feeding, fighting and fornicating, determined that whatever the setback or situation, no lesson would be learned and they’d remain none the bloody wiser. And their spirit of caution and routine is properly honoured in the Jurassic films. When Spielberg unleashed the technological marvel of Jurassic Park smartphones and the internet were future wonders and western civilisation was contemplating the lazy pleasures of consensus politics. Humanity is always on the move, backward and forward, except in Jurassic Park movies where nothing changes, nothing evolves, there is no artistic development and we are always, stubbornly, proudly, defiantly, none the bloody wiser. 
Il Buco. (U.)
Directed by Michelangelo Frammartino Starring Antonio Lanza, Nicola Lanza, Claudia Candusso, Paolo Cossi and Mila Costi. 93 mins. In 1961, a group of young Italian speleologists travel south to Calabria to chart the Bifurto Abyss cave system. Being a film about people doing stuff this is a relative cop-out for Frammartino. For three-quarters of his previous film, 2010's Le Quattro Volte, the lead character were some goats, then a tree and finally some charcoal. Il Buco’s protagonists are human but presented as a herd. The speleologists are not individualised and are shot in either medium or long shot. The only character to be given any close-ups is a shepherd who occasionally watches over the expedition from his hut in the cloud-level peaks. 
Top Gun: Maverick. (12A.)
Directed by Joseph Kosinski Starring Tom Cruise, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, Glen Powell, Ed Harris and Val Kilmer. 131 mins. Top Gun 2 opens like it can’t bear to leave the eighties. Just like in the original, the credits proclaim it as a Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production, even though Simpson died in 1996. The exact same written scroll in the same font explains what the Top Gun academy is. Over shots of an aircraft carrier Harold Faltermeyer’s original opening theme gives way to Kenny Loggins's "Danger Zone." Sat in the auditorium watching this I felt something very strange and disturbing – affectionate nostalgia for a film I hate. 
I Am Zlatan. (15.)
Directed by Jens Sjorgren. Starring Granit Rushite, Domini Andersson Bajraktati, Cedomir Glisovic, Merima Dizdarovic and Linda Haziri. Partly subtitled. In cinemas. 98 mins Note that it's not I Am Lionel. Or I Am Cristiano. Or Becks. Or Fat Frank. Or even Jamie Vardy, as was once threatened. The contemporary footballer whose life and career have been deemed worthy of a biopic is the wandering Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He isn’t the greatest footballer but probably no footballer has scored as many spectacular goals as him and few can match his oversized personality and knack for controversy. He’s played at most of Europe’s biggest clubs (and Manchester United) and this film’s release coincides with him winning another league medal with AC Milan at the age of 40. 
Vortex. (15.)
Directed by Gasper Noe. Starring Dario Argento, Françoise Lebrun and Alex Lutz. 142 mins. Single-word titles are, in my opinion, best avoided. But if you are gonna limit yourself to just the one, Vortex, is probably as good as any – Jaws and Psycho having already been taken. Still, Gasper Noe, whose catchphrase is Time Destroys All Things, must surely regret having already used the perfect title for this contained, innovative and jump-off-a-roof bleak study of ageing and dementia on a previous project – Enter The Void. 
Doctor Strange and The Multiverse of Madness. (12A.)
Directed by Sam Raimi. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Rachel McAdams. 126 mins. At Christmas, while bemoaning my wretched lot and parading the stigmata inflicted by another year of film reviewing, I announced that I was fed up with all the comic book/ superhero movies. Then I was asked which films I was most looking forward to in 2022. After a moment’s pause, all I could come up with was The Batman and this. 
Wake Up Punk. (12A.)
Directed by Nigel Askew. Featuring Joe Corre, Vivienne Westwood, Ben Westwood, Eddie Tenpole Tudor and Jordan Mooney. In Cinemas May 5th and on Demand May 9th. 83 mins All the old dudes, bemoaning the new. In this documentary a bunch of old punks bellyache about the rebellious nature of punk being co-opted by the establishment and all the anodyne Punk nostalgia there is nowadays and how this is a betrayal of what it was like back in the old days. Angriest of all is Joe Corre, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McClaren’s son and the co-founder of pricey knickers emporium, Agent Provocateur. He’ll show them. He decides to do a KLF and burn punk memorabilia worth around $5 million. 
The Batman. (15.)
Directed by Matt Reeves. Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Andy Serkis and Paul Dano. Available now on Premium Video on Demand. 176 mins. Excluding a few 90s digressions, the aim of each new Batman incarnation is to prove that it is darker than all the previous ones, that this is the Darkest of Dark Knights. It’s a process which has brought us to a Batman film that is basically a remake of Se7en with a masked, bondage-geared Riddler taking the role of Kevin Spacey serial killer. Objectively this new take on Batman is all a bit much. It's too long, too goth, too dark and too wet. Gotham is a rainy city with Blade Runner levels of precipitation. The colour scheme is shades of black with the odd splash of red and yellow. It’s ponderous and preposterous and shouldn’t work at all but seeing it for a second time, streamed onto my telly, confirmed my initial impression that this latest caped crusade is absolutely one of the very best. 
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. (15.)
Directed by Tom Gormican. Starring Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Tiffany Haddish, Sharon Horgan, Lily Mo Sheen and Neil Patrick Harris. In cinemas. 105 mins. Bruce Willis being diagnosed with brain disorder aphasia completely changed the perception of his recent, prolific output. The raft of terrible films he made prior to his enforced retirement instantly acquired a desperate poignancy, like Dennis Potter hurrying to finish Karaoke and Cold Lazarus before he died, or Anthony Burgess turning out five novels in a year because of misdiagnosed brain tumour. That’s the noble and tragic reason why Bruce Willis made all those terrible films; Nicolas Cage, what’s your excuse? 
Morbius. (15.)
Directed by Daniel Espinosa Starring Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Al Madrigal, Tyrese Gibson, Jared Harris and Michael Keaton. 104 mins. In cinemas. Morbeii, there's a lot of them about. A character in Forbidden Planet, a villain in Doctor Who, (different spelling) a French artist, other assorted scientists and villains. It's a fun name, you enjoy the feel of it on your tongue: Moibeyus, with heavy stress in the oi. This incarnation, something in the expanding Sony/Marvel Spiderverse, is a living vampire, doncha know. The unprecedented, cinema reviving, Covid-be-damned, success of Spider-man: No Way Home must have put Sony on a euphoric high, a buzz that Morbius is going to comprehensively kill; this spin-off is a total non-event. It's so stubbornly unoriginal, uneventful and unimaginative you might almost believe it was made out of spite. |
Wings Of Desire. (12A.)
Directed by Wim Wenders. 1987 Starring Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois and Peter Falk. Subtitled. Black and white/ colour. Back in cinemas as part of a Wender’s retrospective at Curzon cinemas. 127 mins It's not unusual for foreign-language films to use their original title in English-speaking markets – Rashomon, La Dolce Vita, Hana Bi – if the translation doesn't excite. Der Himmel Uber Berlin doesn’t quite roll off the tongue but surely something better than the unforgivably wishy-washy Wings of Desire could be used as the title for Wender’s greatest film: Wings Over Berlin, perhaps? 
George Michael: Freedom Uncut
Directed by George Michael and David Austin. Featuring George Michael, Ricky Gervais, Stevie Wonder, Tracy Emin, James Corden, Elton and almost every other celebrity you can think of. In cinemas Wednesday, June 22nd. 109 mins. At the start, Kate Moss (obviously, Kate Moss) swivels around in a high chair to face the camera and inform us that this is George Michael's final work, the film he was putting the finishing touches to just days before he died. In it, he explores the impossible pressures of being globally famous and his battles to be free of his restrictive contract with Sony, while a bunch of celebrity mates tell us how great he is. 
God Luck To You, Leo Grande. (15.)
Directed by Sophie Hyde. Starring Emma Thompson, Daryl McCormack and Isabella Laughland. 97 mins. Previously sex in films has tended to be raunchy or steamy or passionate or violent or destructive or, if we’re being honest, look like more effort than it was really worth. Now, for perhaps the first time, a film that is about sex being nice. Emma Thompson is Sophie, a retired, widowed RE teacher who wants to have some good sex, so pays a nice man to come round and give her one. 
Elizabeth. A Portrait in Parts. (12A.)
Directed by Roger Michell. In cinemas and streaming on Amazon Prime from June 1st. A portrait of the Queen made to coincide with the platinum jubilee would seem to be a rather dull enterprise and an unfortunate choice to end up as the late Roger (Notting Hill, The Duke) Michell’s final film. Michell though saw something in the project to inspire him because he's gone out on a cheery, subversive, poignant, insightful high. It opens with a montage of images set to Robbie Williams’ Let Me Entertain You, which immediately sets the tone as being a little bit cheeky. Early on we see an unidentified man from the black and white ages being interviewed by Robin Day suggesting the Queen should be a little bit more spontaneous in her public proclamations and then getting slapped around the face on his way out of the studio for his impertinence by an irate viewer. Were he still around Michell might have received similar flack for this. 
Benediction. (12A.)
Directed by Terrence Davies. Starring Jack Lowden, Simon Russell Beale, Calam Lynch, Jeremy Irvine, Ben Daniels, Geraldine James and Peter Capaldi. 137 mins. A film about the celebrated First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon (Lowden) might reasonably be expected to concern itself with him writing poetry during the First World War. Terrence (Distant Voices, Still Lives) Davies's film about Sassoon gets through all that Great War business in the first twenty-odd minutes and without a single visit to a battlefield so that it can concentrate on Sassoon’s many more years not being a war poet. This is Sassoon being a bright young thing in London’s gay social circle, having his heart broken by Ivor Novello (Irvine), giving up and marrying a lady, becoming grumpy Peter Capaldi in his old age and converting to Catholicism. 
Everything Everywhere All At Once. (12A.)
Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert Starring Michelle Yeoh, Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan and James Hong. Partly subtitled. 139 mins. Great titles are hard to come by and should be treasured. They are a great help because they give the film some leeway with audiences. The caveat is that expectations are set that bit higher if you’re called Natural Born Killers rather than, say, Blood Revenge. And if you are called Everything Everywhere All At Once, you’ve really given yourself something to live up to. 
Velvet Queen. (15.)
Directed by Vincent Munier and Marie Amiguet Featuring Sylvain Tesson and Vincent Munier. 92 mins. In this visually stunning feelbad nature documentary, two French blokes – esteemed wildlife photographer Munier and writer Tesson - go off to remote Tibetan plateaus to search for the incredibly rare Snow Leopard. They make a great team: Munier takes the beautiful photographs and Tesson talks the bollocks. Faced with some Yaks he informs us that they are “Totems sent back down time …. suspended vessels of time. Prehistory wept and each Yak was a tear.” 
Ennio. (18.)
Directed by Guiseppe Tornatore Featuring Ennio Morricone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Quentin Tarantino, Roland Joffe, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Springsteen and Hans Zimmer. Mostly subtitled. In cinemas, streaming on Curzon Home Cinema. 156 mins. Ennio Morricone: there was a lot more to him than spaghetti westerns and ah ah ah, wah wah wah. (Though just his score for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly would have been enough.*) Inexplicably, the distributors have decided to drop “: The Maestro” from the title, which was how you were obliged to address Mr Morricone, should you be lucky enough to meet the Italian composer. Maestro is to understate it: in the twelve decades of its existence, Ennio Morricone is the only genius to have worked in the medium of cinema. 
Benedetta (18.)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven Starring Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Daphne Patakia, Lambert Wilson, Olivier Rabourdin and Louise Chevillotte. In cinemas. 132 mins. For six decades Dutch-born Verhoeven has blazed a trail of satirical sex and violence across the big screen in films like Basic Instinct, Elle, Starship Troopers and Total Recall. There've been bloody dismemberments, the blaze of machine guns and a selection of top-ranking actresses have been abused, upskirted, raped and doused in poo, while Verhoeven has somehow managed to maintain a reputation as a feminist. How can he top all that? Well, it’s going take nuns, lots of nuns. 
The Northman. (15.)
Directed by Robert Eggers Starring Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe. In Cinemas. 137 mins. This blood-drenched, mumbo jumbo fuelled Viking epic offers a vision of a society so bleak and so depraved that Willem Dafoe is the comic relief. That said, he doesn’t last long as the court jester to the returning king (Hawke), his services are dispensed with when his position is cut, along with his tongue and ears, in the extensive downsizing exercise affected by the usurping bastard brother (Bang) when he decides to seize the throne and queen Kidman. 
Navalny. (12A.)
Directed by Daniel Roher. Starring Alexei Navalny, Julia Navalny, Christo Grozev, Maria Pevchikh and Dasha Navalny. Partly subtitled. Screening in Curzon cinemas on 12th April for a special one-day event with director Q&A, followed by a UK wide release. 98 mins That’s Navalny as in Alexei, the imprisoned Russian opposition leader who narrowly survived an assassination attempt. You’ll remember the 2020 story of him being taken ill on a plane, the Russian doctors denying he was a victim of Novichok poisoning and refusing his family and supporters' attempts to have him removed from the hospital until eventually he was flown to Germany. 
The Real Charlie Chaplin. (12.)
Directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney Narration by Pearl Mackie. Featuring Jeff Rawle, Paul Ryan, Anne Rosenfeld and Dominic Marsh. In cinemas or available for digital download. 114 mins. Charlie Chaplin was one of the defining figures of the 20th century; its biggest movie star and in terms of global pop culture influence only The Beatles and Elvis were comparable. Or he was painfully annoying, unfunny ****. 
Uncharted. (12A.)
Directed by Ruben Fleischer Starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Tati Gabrielle, Sophia Ali and Antonio Banderas. In cinemas. 116 mins. Just what the world needs now: another Cinematic Universe. The opening credits announce that this is a PlayStation Production, the first of a number of film adaptations the newly formed film studio plans to make of its various video games. Everybody wants a CU these days but for every Marvel, there's a Universal Dark Universe, a revamp of their classic old monster movies which stubbornly and repeatedly fails to launch. And film versions of video games have a horrible track record so the odds are stacked against them. Uncharted though seems very sure of itself and the good time we are having, to the extent that they have included an end credits sequence teasing the next instalment and even introducing its villain. At times they almost had me fooled but I suspect audiences may wipe the confident smile off its face. 
The Eyes of Tammy Faye. (15.)
Directed by Michael Showalter. Starring Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield, Cherry Jones, Louis Cancelmi and Vincent D’Onofrio. 126 mins. The rise and fall of Jim and Tammy Bakker, “The Ken and Barbie of televangelism” takes us back to the eighties, when preachers were still the primary manipulators of American gullibility. Probably Christianity and show business have always been entwined but nobody made the link quite so explicitly as Jim and Tammy. For the kids there were puppets and songs; for the adults, a schedule of religious-themed daytime TV shows on their Praise The Lord cable channel. It was a neverending Telethon with banks of receptionists waiting to take in viewers’ donations. |
