The Grinch (2018)

For their eighth fully animated feature, Illumination and Universal Pictures present The Grinch, based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved holiday classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous holiday spirit. Funny, heartwarming and visually stunning, it’s a universal story about the spirit of Christmas and the indomitable power of optimism. Illumination’s take on How The Grinch Stole Christmas is as warm and sweet and comforting as a hot mug of cocoa that’s mostly marshmallow.

Those familiar with Dr. Seuss’ Christmas tale will recognise the opening all too well. We sweep and swoop over the town of Whoville—bustling with Christmas colours and sounds—as the introduction to the place and time of year is given through voice over. Feelings of familiarity trickle in, accompanied by a dynamic camera that grabs us by the hand to explore the town. In a movie that might seem uncalled for, the same-ness you might be expecting ends there. The core story is tried and true, but the slick pace of The Grinch doesn’t waste time showing us things we’ve seen before at length, and goes as far as to realign and shed what’s not important in this fictional land. As the happy town of Whoville busies itself preparing for Christmas, Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch lends his voice to the infamous Grinch, who lives a solitary life inside a cave on Mt. Crumpet with only his loyal dog, Max, for company. With a cave rigged with inventions and contraptions for his day-to-day needs, the Grinch only sees his neighbours in Who-ville when he runs out of food. Each year at Christmas they disrupt his tranquil solitude with their increasingly bigger, brighter and louder celebrations. When the Whos declare they are going to make Christmas three times bigger this year, the Grinch realises there is only one way for him to gain some peace and quiet: he must steal Christmas. To do so, he decides he will pose as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, even going so far as to trap a lackadaisical misfit reindeer to pull his sleigh. But of course, we all know this classic story by now!

From the snowy opening alone it’s clear the animation style goes straight down the middle. The characters are simple and nothing stands out, but the textures in the snow and materials are delicate, bringing winter and the fuzz on the Whos’ faces to life. What’s most noteworthy is the fun direction. One of the blessings of animation is total control, and that’s something directors Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier make full use of. The delights of the swings, loops and circles that dance around the characters are enough to keep the visuals interesting, and even if they weren’t, the saturated colours and beautiful details of Whoville and the Grinch’s mountain peak would be. A lot of what The Grinch lacks in fully developed storytelling is made up for with pretty renderings that do well to distract.

Dr Seuss’ original work is short on side plots and additional details so this animated offering – like the 2000 live-action movie – finds ways to embellish and expand the story. Both offer an insight into the Grinch’s childhood loneliness to provide some motive for his lack of Christmas cheer, but this animated offering also adds in a side plot involving a rotund comedy reindeer called Fred and opts to give Cindy Loo-Who, voiced by Cameron Seely, much more agency than before, giving her a parallel plot of trying to make a Christmas wish for her mother come true. A big difference here is that the 2018 incarnation of The Grinch is immediately more sympathetic than any we’ve seen before. His mean-spiritedness is clearly conflicted, with numerous indications that he’s not the mean and nasty creature of previous versions. His dog Max, for example, is clearly loved and loves the Grinch in return and while he’s not the kindest of friends, the Grinch has friends in Whoville and he’s not the ostracised villain seen in other adaptations.

It’s exactly what you would expect, though, from Illumination, whose family-friendly animated offerings often skew young and cutesy and when it comes to that target audience, this film plays like gangbusters. The Grinch won’t be revelatory for anyone who’s seen on-screen translations before, but for a new generation of little ones it spreads a wonderful message of love and outreach. So although this film will be added to my annual December viewing list, it does not reach the level of the 2000s adaptation. Jim Carrey still holds the Grinch crown in my eyes. 

The Holiday

It's officially December, so I'm going to revisit one of my go to Christmas-vibes film. It's not my favourite, and I'm not always complimentary of it, but I do reach for it around this time every year. So let's dive in!

To list all the contrivances strewn throughout The Holiday would require more words than are warranted by Nancy Meyers’s festive batch of cinematic maple syrup. However, the kooky, heartwarming cutesiness peddled by this lovefest is—despite the film’s numerous references to, and accompanying desire to tread in the path of, classic Hollywood screwball romances—of a distinctly modern vintage. 

The Something’s Gotta Give writer-director’s painstakingly arranged tale involves the twin plights of neurotic American movie-trailer editor Amanda, played by Cameron Diaz, and clingy British newspaperwoman Iris, Kate Winslet. Iris lives in London, Amanda in Los Angeles, both are as different as can be. However, they have one thing in common; lousy relationships with men who take advantage of them. Feeling fed up, they agree to trade houses for two weeks and soon find themselves crossing the ocean in hopes of leaving their troubled lives behind. What they did not expect was to find love on the other side of the pond... Gag, I know. But in December, I love it!

The film's love interests/dreamboats take the form of Jude Law (for Diaz) and Jack Black (for Winslet), a superficially raw deal for Winslet that nonetheless works to her benefit once it’s revealed that Law’s book editor Graham is a hunk of blandness and Black’s film composer Miles is a witty, self-deprecating charmer. Of course, these guys have secrets and/or personality quirks that make them seem initially wrong and then ultimately ideal mates for their respective beauties. Yet stranger than The Holiday's by-the-books fantasy is its subplot involving Iris’s friendship with neighbouring senior citizen and Oscar-winning screenwriter Arthur, played by Eli Wallach, which, besides giving Myers the opportunity to pointlessly juxtapose the sight of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly star with an Ennio Morricone tune, both features an odd criticism of Hollywood’s obsession with opening weekend box-office figures, and adds a nauseating dose of sentimentality to the proceedings. While Amanda and Graham make a strikingly attractive but thoroughly dull couple, Winslet and Black’s credible chemistry partially makes up for the run-of-the-mill characters and implausible situations they’ve been saddled with. The duo’s genuineness, however, doesn’t change the fact that, for the sake of his career and the good of moviegoers everywhere, Black needs to stop with the improvised weirdo singing that’s become his worn-out trademark.

It may come as a surprise that I love this Christmas movie, and it is probably not for reason you think. Actually my love of the film is for the side-story of Iris and Arthur. As mentioned, Arthur is an elderly man, quite alone, Iris encounters in Los Angeles. Arthur is portrayed by the legendary Eli Wallach; who's career spanned over seven decades. He was a legend and to see him in The Holiday was a very sweet treat indeed. His scenes with Kate Winslet in the restaurant are poignant and amazing and will give food for thought for all of us who feel a little less confident at times. To me, the movie is worth seeing for those scenes alone.

Granted, the movie has, at times, painfully dull or overly-sentimental moments, yet my love for this movie does not diminish with each viewing. If you have not seen it, I urge you to do so. It is syrupy sweet, fitting the standard Rom-Com template, but it's a comfortable watch and surprisingly festive in feel. 

Halloween (2018)

40 years since Michael Myers, The Shape, first terrorised the quiet town of Haddonfield on Halloween night. Although audiences didn’t know it, John Carpenter’s Halloween was the start of something special when it hit the big screen in 1978. It not only introduced us to one of the most famous killers to be put to film, but it laid the groundwork for every slasher film that followed it. Sure, the rules it set were sometimes bent and occasionally broken, but its influence can still be felt in every masked killer horror film that has come out in the years since it made those rules. Four decades, seven – not always watchable – sequels, and a much maligned reboot later, Blumhouse, one of the biggest names in modern horror, brought Halloween back. And expectations were high. 

It’s been a long time since the kid with a penchant for masks and stabbing people found his way back to his home town, grown up, angry, and ready to take it out on any babysitter he could find. Now, having wallowed in Smith’s Grove Asylum for 40 years, an ill-fated bus trip to a new prison ends with a crash and Michael on the loose. Carving a bloody trail towards his hometown, The Shape appears to be single-minded in his need to finish what he started all those years ago and eviscerate Laurie Strode, the babysitter that got away. Unfortunately for the near supernatural serial killer, Laurie hasn’t been idly twiddling her thumbs for all these years; she’s been preparing herself and her now three generations deep family for this day and this upcoming fight.

Nearly ten years after the last film to don the name Halloween seemed to all but kill the chances of another, it has taken an unlikely pair to bring Micheal Myers back to the big screen where he belongs. Teaming up with Blumhouse Productions for this new entry in the series, screenwriter Danny McBride and Pineapple Express director David Gordon Green. The pair come out big and bold, not only showing that they have the balls to take on a project of this magnitude, but give us an hour and forty minute, scene by scene showcase on why they are the perfect guys for the job.

Refusing to waste its audience’s time, Halloween gets straight to the point with a trip to the soon-to-be closed down asylum where Aaron Korey and Dana Haines (Jefferson Hall and Rhian Rees), a pair of investigative journalists looking to resurrect the Myers myth try to interview, and subsequently taunt, our antagonist. Not to be discarded as a throw away opening, this scene gives us our first look in 40 years at Nick Castle’s The Shape and instantly shows us the man and his demeanour, without really showing us anything of the actual man as camera angles, fast edits and dirty windows disguise Myers as much as his mask has done in the past. For those thinking that we might get a killer we can sympathise with, a character flawed and needing nothing but a good hug, Halloween reminds you quickly that that isn’t the case. Michael’s first on-screen kill is cold and vicious and serves to show you that this might be the softer, nicer 21st century, but this killer didn’t get your memo. The film takes you to a place that many audiences would have thought off-limits until this point, as writers, producers, and the director flash you their platinum horror membership cards and show you they mean business. He's nasty, he’s brutal, and he’s wholly unforgiving of anyone that gets in his way. Once freed from the shackles that held him, he’s dangerous; once he has his mask back, all bets are off.

It doesn’t happen very often; horror is a genre much forgotten and abused and frequently used for quick cash, but Halloween is a perfect horror experience. Heavy on scares, atmosphere and fun kills; light on plot sag and story slowdown. You can get behind our soon-to-be victims as much as you can get behind the mythical monster chasing them and you can find yourself scared for these people and holding your breath in hope of a safe escape. Green and McBride know they owe everything to the 40 years before this and they show an unending respect for that heritage. They know that there is no 2018 iteration of this legendary series without the films that provided the roadmap to get here. They know this series doesn’t continue without the twists, turns, and frankly ludicrous left field moments in the lore, and whether they and fans want to admit it or not, without Rob Zombie’s much hated vision of The Shape, this film simply can’t exist. These gentlemen know this, and they treat that legacy with the respect it deserves.

There is plenty for newcomers and die hard fans alike: glorious kills, and nostalgic throwbacks that even get an old Halloween cynic like this writer a happy tear and a wry smile.

First Man

We hear the metal of the ship groaning in protest of the immense forces being placed upon it. We see various dials and displays that are shaking so violently they're impossible to read. Over a headset, a voice gives barely audible instructions that the crafts pilot can do nothing about thanks to the intense G-forces that are pinning him to the back of his chair. This flight isn't graceful, or easy: it's a tiny, claustrophobic tin can that is propelling itself through sky not with finesse or grace but through nothing more than a vaguely controlled explosion that has been pointed in roughly the right direction, and the grimace of the astronauts face as he endures the shaking and hopes against hope that everything will turn out OK only worsens as the screaming of the metal gets all the louder and the shaking all the more vicious. And then, as the nose of the craft begins to glow red hot, just as you think this almost comically primitive shuttle hurtling through the air at incredible speeds can't possibly take much more: silence. Stillness. Peaceful serenity as it exits the atmosphere. Floating gently, the shuttle offers its inhabitant a beautiful glimpse of Earth from afar. It's a view that very few people are lucky enough to have seen to this day. The journey was a success - he survives, at least for now.

It's in these moments that First Man is at its very best, managing to imbue the NASA missions that Neil Armstrong and others undertook with an incredible amount of tension despite the fact that we already know what the outcomes are, fully managing to make us understand both how dangerous the early space missions were and how terrifying they must've been for those brave enough to undertake them. Sequences like this punctuate First Man's nearly two and half hour long running time throughout, each one more tense and gripping than the last.

Around those sequences First Man is a different film entirely, either giving us an abridged but still educational overview of how NASA went about putting a man on the moon, or speculating about what might've driven Neil Armstrong to become that man through the lens of his family. Chazelle's decision to shoot the majority of the movie on small, grainy film stock lends First Man a sense of authenticity that is not only heightened by some scenes being shot in a documentary-style way but also helps make the IMAX moon landing finale feel all the more spectacular. There is a sense of quiet confidence and simple, solid filmmaking that really, really works, proving that Chazelle isn't particularly interested in being just one kind of filmmaker, refusing to stay in whatever box his previous films have placed him in.

That isn't to say that First Man is totally different to his earlier work, however. They may be worlds apart in terms of genre or style, but First Man is still very much a story of ambition, the lengths that people might go to and the sacrifices they have to make to achieve their goals, and in that sense it actually feels surprisingly apiece with both Whiplash and La La Land, all three of them adding up to create a far more nuanced look at these topics. Previously, we were left to wonder where Chazelle actually stood on the arguably ambiguous endings of his films - now, I think it's pretty clear that they're all approaching the same ideas from different angles and viewpoints, showing the greatness that can be achieved when people aim for the stars and the way those ambitions can end up driving someone down a bad path. I could be wrong, of course - there's an outside chance that Chazelle sees the story of Neil Armstrong and the story of Whiplash's Andrew Neiman as one and the same - Andrew's victory at the end of Whiplash justifying what he was put through in the same way that Neil Armstrong walking on the moon justified the hardships he and his family went through - but I doubt it.

All that being said, ultimately I'd struggle to argue with anyone who said that First Man isn't quite able meet the standard set by Whiplash and La La Land. Despite all its prestige and a number of fantastic performances (particularly from Claire Foy as Janet Armstrong, who almost single-handedly makes the sections of First Man work on a deeper emotional level), First Man is ultimately a touch too formulaic and not quite attention grabbing enough to leave the same kind of impression that Chazelle's previous films have, regardless of how solid the filmmaking is throughout. What it is, however, is proof, if proof were needed, that Damien Chazelle has a lot more variation in him than Whiplash or La La Land might've suggested - and I can't wait to see where that leads him next.

A Simple Favour

A Simple Favour is a pretty delicate balancing act. It's a thriller told with a broad sense of humour (even slapstick at times). One false move could have been deadly, resulting in a film self-serious, or straining to be relevant. But A Simple Favour, directed by Paul Feig, has its cake and eats it too. It's suspenseful, but also hilarious. It's insightful about the head games women can play with each other, but it doesn't burden itself with trying to be meaningful. It's not trying to say something about how we live now or anything like that. What a relief to watch a film unafraid of letting its hair down - reflective, I believe, of the film's leading ladies. The plot shares some similarities with Gone Girl, but that's where the comparison should end. Gone Girl took itself very seriously. A Simple Favour doesn't take itself seriously at all. And that's a good thing.

Single super-mom, Stephanie Smothers, played by Anna Kendrick, meets the mother of her son's best friend, Emily Nelson, Blake Lively, who likes to drink, has a demanding job, and isn't much of a hands-on mother. The two have hardly any anything in common, but quickly become good friends. Several weeks later, Emily vanishes without a trace leaving her husband, Sean, Henry Golding, and Stephanie with a mystery on their hands. As they investigate what happened to Emily, they quickly realise they didn't know her as well as they thought.

A Simple Favour works because of the performances of all three leads. Anna Kendrick is fanatic as the awkward and naive Stephanie. She has tons of really funny moments and is very sweet, but even with a slight edge - the character and the performance is believable. Blake Lively is endlessly entertaining, extremely enigmatic, and unbelievably charismatic. It helps that I am a little bit in love with her. She's beautiful and seemingly lovely in real life! Henry Golding also oozes charisma and adds an unexpected amount of intrigue to the film. All three of them have excellent chemistry and provide, in my opinion, one of the best ensembles of the year. One of Paul Feig's gifts as a director is working with strong charismatic women, giving them space to whoop it up, work off one another, be co-creators. There's space in his approach, space left for behavior, humour, spontaneity.

The plot is really engaging and has seemingly endless twists and turns that leave you constantly wondering what is going to happen next and what is actually true. Each of these characters have secrets, each more shocking than the last, and there are some jaw-dropping moments throughout the film. Director Paul Feig does a great job of giving us his vision of this story. The direction is marvelous and stylish and wouldn't be nearly as good in a lesser director's hands. Unfortunately, the afore mentioned twists and turns overwhelm at times and turn the film into something it didn't intend to be - a parody of genre cinema. Granted, it does find its way back on track, but the journey isn't entirely smooth.

A Simple Favour is one of my favourite films of the year. It has excellent performances all around, a really engaging story and great direction. Interestingly, one of the strongest aspects of this film's success has been its marketing. I don't often interact with film campaigns but I could not avoid this one - the intrigue was there from the start! 

A Star is Born

A Star is Born is a rarely well made remake that delivers an affecting and effective new take on a tragic love story as Bradley Cooper makes a 4th reiteration of the classic and  manages to put a fresh spin on a Hollywood fable thanks to captivating visuals, chemistry, and performances. In this new take on the tragic love story, seasoned musician Jackson Maine, played by Bradley Cooper, discovers—and falls in love with—struggling artist Ally, Lady Gaga. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer… until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally’s career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.

Cooper’s directorial debut is a soulfully satisfying love story that straddles the line between mainstream and Oscar-contender. The movie features live performances that reminded us why we all wanted to be rock stars at when we were young. Shot at real festivals like the Coachella and Glastonbury, there is a lived-in and immersive vibe to the film that shows the scale and impact of being famous. When Ally belts the chorus of her song for the first time on stage, the movie erupts with a geyser of feeling. Cooper keeps the camera on her face, showing us that transformative moment of uncertainty to triumphant conviction. The on screen crowd responds and so did many in the audience in the screening – that cathartic magic that can only come from the power of cinema. It’s this intimate kind of filmmaking that makes A Star is Born a must see on the big screen.

Gaga manages to make you forget about her larger than life persona and delivers a convincing, unassuming yet special dive-bar singer. And even when Ally manages to get it all, the down-to-earth restless woman is still there - it's hard not to root for her. In fact, I've been outspoken about my disinterest in Gaga and how I felt her acting (American Horror Story) was a hobby that too many people had invested in. Yet, I walked away surprised, moved and behind her 100% of the way. This is Gaga’s first lead role in a feature film and she kills it in a natural, experienced actress kind of way. If you aren’t a Little Monster by now, this film will convert you. I now realise her previous acting was misplaced (or rather miscast) in the wrong roles. What it took was a well rounded character, wonderfully written with depth, edge and grit to really bring Gaga's acting abilities into the golden glow of a potential Oscar. Yes, I think this film will be heavily nominated based on critic and audience reception so far and I think she will be the main recipient. 

Cooper has never been better onscreen. He’s one of the biggest stars in the world, but when you watch him in A Star Is Born, you don’t think you’re watching Bradley Cooper. You’re watching Jackson Maine. He melts into the trouble rockstar role seamlessly. He anchors the entire film from start to finish. As someone who was a newcomer to the guitar and singing, Bradley could easily be a rockstar if he wanted. Cooper, whose screen persona can so often be bland and unchallenging, makes precisely this conservative tendency work for him in the role. He is so sad you want to hug him.

I would’ve never thought that Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper could be paired in a feature together, but their chemistry is amazing. When they are on screen together they are electrifying, especially when they play music together. The same can be said whenever there are interactions with the supporting cast. Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s father is great and surprisingly charming. Dave Chappelle is great as he delivers an amazing monologue, and so is Anthony Ramos as Ally’s best friend. Sam Elliott as Jackson’s brother was incredible in this film. Some other appearances (Alec Baldwin) were bizarre to me but I guess they fit into the Hollywood/Entertainment Industry world that is being portrayed.

A Star Is Born will likely go far during awards season. It has all of the elements of an Oscar contender – a beautifully crafted melodrama about the entertainment industry. It’s not a stretch to expect that most audiences will love this film and the chemistry between Gaga and Cooper. You’re in good hands technically and aesthetically with this remake of A Star Is Born, but brace yourself for heartbreak. 

Hereditary

Empathy is a funny old thing. The ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and imagine what it must feel like to be in the same situation as them is, as far as I'm aware, a uniquely human trait, one that allows us to be more compassionate than any other creature on the face of the planet. It's also something that we often choose to ignore when it might be an inconvenience, shutting ourselves off from the plight of others if it might disrupt something as simple as the way we like to think of the world, or the ease with which we go about living our lives. Empathy is behind all that humanity should be most proud of; our ability to ignore it is responsible for our most terrible acts.

Which is part of what makes Hereditary, a film that plays with empathy throughout, such an interesting movie. It's a horror film first and foremost, but behind that there's a story of family, loss and the strain that can put on any relationship that ultimately ends up being Hereditary's most compelling feature. Yes, it's a film that asks more of its audience than a lot of horror films do, both in the level you're expected to engage with the material and in accepting a handful of what can only be described as goofy moments - but it's also got a lot more to offer than a lot of horror films too, a trade off that is at least in my eyes completely worth it.

For all the traditional horror that Hereditary throws at its audience come the finale, it's ultimately the tense family drama at the heart of it that holds most of the film's potent scares, all of which are rooted in our ability to empathise - or more accurately, the fact we can't help but empathise - with these characters and the situations they find themselves in. We're left to sit and stew with this family as their situation only grows worse through a series of slowly escalating but wholly believable events, pushing them into conflict with one another in understandable ways and only shortening the fuse on this already ticking time bomb. This is where a lot of Hereditary's tension comes from, simply seeing the breakdown of this family in pretty much real time, which when combined with the masterful way that Hereditary doles out new information about this family and their history together adds up to create a deeply engaging piece of drama.

But the real genius of this is that it never feels like a simple drama. That might be the area that the first half of Hereditary's story is almost solely operating in, but the actual film-making is in full blown horror mode throughout, lending even the most otherwise ordinary of scenes an extra sense of dread and tension that only adds to the films distinctive atmosphere and sense of mystery, again long before Hereditary actually plays its hand. The sound design is phenomenal, ensuring that when a noise is meant to startle or creep you out it's easily able to do so, and the cinematography is frankly like nothing I've ever seen before, playing with negative space, lighting, movement and even your own eyes' ability to adapt to darkness in order to keep you off balance and frantically searching the screen for what you think might be hiding there throughout.

Everyone has their part to play in Hereditary, from the overtly creepy daughter played by Milly Shapiro to the resigned father played by Gabriel Byrne, but ultimately it's Toni Collette and Alex Wolff as the mother and son respectively who deserve the most recognition. They're the two most interesting, relatable characters in the film, and the relationship between the two of them is vital to the film's success - a success that is never in danger thanks to the powerful, vulnerable and deeply human performances they're each giving. 

This is a film that made me more tense and more anxious than any film I've seen this year, a feat made only all the more impressive by the fact that this is the first feature length film from director Ari Aster. It's not for everyone, but for those who have also enjoyed the more artistically inclined horror films of the last few years, Hereditary is going to be nothing short of a really great couple of hours.

Incredibles 2

Incredibles 2 from Pixar, was a must-see movie at this year's Edinburgh International Film Festival. Or at least, it was for me. 

The misunderstood supers are back in a sequel in which Jack-Jack shifts towards centre stage, much like the Minions who increasingly stole the spotlight in the Despicable Me series. This time, it’s Bob, aka Mr Incredible, balefully voiced by Craig T Nelson, who’s left holding the baby while his altogether more glamorous partner Helen, aka Elastigirl is out fighting crime. She has been enlisted by a shiny-suited PR guru to help rehabilitate outlawed superheroes via a charm offensive involving runaway trains, political lobbying and a new bike, the Elasticycle.

Back at home, Bob is facing his own challenges: helping Dash with his maths homework, nursing Violet through the traumas of her first teen crush and containing Jack-Jack’s emerging powers, which are as scary as those showcased by the monstrous child in that notorious Twilight Zone episode It’s a Good Life. These include multiplication, transformation, immolation, laser-beam eyes and a Poltergeist-style ability to disappear into the fourth dimension. Oh, and he still needs his nappy changing.

The first Incredibles is arguably amongst the best Pixar films, which is saying a lot. It has heart, humour, depth, and it’s a better superhero flick than some of Marvel or DC's recent outputs. Incredibles 2 – while not as good as its predecessor – also has these qualities. Everything you and I loved about the first film is there. With its fab future-retro designs accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s Bond-inflected score, Incredibles 2 has snappy charm to spare. We’ve seen many of the visual gags before but that doesn’t make them any less effective. Elastigirl is stretched to breaking point several times in the first few minutes alone without wearing down our patience. Dash is shown more than once fiddling with remote controls and causing havoc as he does so. The family dynamic is what makes the Incredibles series special, and seeing Mr. Incredible at home with the kids far exceeds following Elastigirl on her adventure (though that’s fun too). It feels real and allows you to connect with this fictional family of supers. Watching them interact is still so relatable and funny.

And on top of all the fun, director Brad Bird inserts a powerful message. Whereas the first film was all about celebrating what makes you special, this sequel is more about trust. It’s about helping others, and both trusting and allowing others to help you, instead of everyone just looking out for themselves. It very much plays off of the fear and paranoia plaguing our society today. There’s even a line early on in the film about how the government doesn’t trust people who do good just because it’s the right thing to do. It’s very relevant, and a good lesson for both kids and adults in the audience.

However, the voice acting in Incredibles 2 does take a step down from the last film. It’s not bad; most of it is actually pretty good. But there are a few scenes where the actors just don’t seem to jive together like last time. In fact, at times it feels as though the lines were recorded separately and just mixed together. Which very well could have been the case, and is a common practice in animation. It doesn’t always flow properly here though, and can be a little distracting.

Overall, Incredibles 2 did not disappoint after 14 years of waiting. Though it doesn’t quite match the first film, it’s still a worthy successor and a rewatchable Pixar modern classic.

Downsizing

Alexander Payne's social satire Downsizing is one of those films whose premise sounds extremely interesting but isn't effectively explored to any compelling extent. It's an ambitious concept, but it comes off jumbled and confused, failing to grapple with the many themes it tries to juggle. Some of it manages to stick (as things tend to do when you throw a bunch of ideas at a wall), and the film manages to tread some very unexpected terrain, yet still manages to be a long, tedious, seldom gratifying drag.

When scientists discover how to shrink humans to five inches tall as a solution to over-population, Paul, played by Matt Damon, and his wife Audrey, Kristen Wiig, decide to abandon their stressed lives in order to live in wealth and splendor at the acclaimed downsizing resort, Leisureland. However, the decision to downsize doesn't prove to be the salvation that Paul was expecting. 

As far as Alexander Payne satires go, which are generally fairly pointed, Downsizing is as dull as he's ever been. All of the film's lackluster stems form the half-baked and fairly directionless screenplay full of soft and doughy concepts that are never given an opportunity to truly rise. Payne never chooses a side to stand on concerning the environmental issues central to the film, which would've likely worked to the film's benefit. Instead, it tries to straddle this odd bipartisan line; on one hand, it's saying that we should be more globally conscious, and on the other, it's saying that the planet is already too far gone and any efforts to mend it are essentially fruitless. It tries to come off as a think-piece, but its central message (if it even has one) becomes increasingly more and more unclear as the film meanders on. 

The film may've worked better as an ensemble film, but the known names it manages to cram in (like Kirsten Wiig, Jason Sedeikis, Laura Dern, Neil Patrick Harris, and James Van Der Beek) aren't around for much more than a bat of an eye. Narratively, we're stuck with Matt Damon's vanilla everyman character, who never manages to be anything more than boring, for the entirety of the film. Luckily, Christoph Waltz and Udo Kier have much bigger roles than the rest of the cameo performers, and they really help to give the film some redeeming quality.

The series of unexpected narrative and tonal shifts the film undertakes can very easily throw a viewer out of the story. The biggest of these are with Kirsten Wiig, who isn't in the film as much as trailer and synopsis suggest, and with Hong Chau, who plays Vietnamese refugee Ngoc Lan Tran. Both of these shifts are vital to a viewer's potential enjoyment. If you're unable to get behind the film after Wiig's short exit or Chau's bizarre accent and character rendering, the film may irritate the hell out of you. I was fine with Wiig not being a more permanent fixture in the story, but I teeter-tottered back and forth on Chau's performance. Her portrayal of the character didn't really work for me, but her performances did lead to a few laughs, which the film desperately needed more of. The film tried to cover too much ground and got lost somewhere along its journey to find an ending. The unforeseen narrative turns or the amount of ideas the film flings out may be enough for some viewers, but I personally found its lack of focus and convoluted central message to be extremely frustrating. It left me with a lot of questions.

All things considered, Downsizing is not a total disaster. There are some interesting concepts that are halfway explored in the film, a handful of genuinely comical happenings, and some decent cinematography, particularly in the Norway portion of the film; however, it's too all over the place to warrant a recommendation. If you're curious about the film, watch it for free or on demand — you're less likely to feel cheated or disappointed.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Hollywood is always looking for old properties with nostalgia value. It seems they are always looking to take a new approach to something that has a built-in fanbase, and director Jake Kasdan is just the latest filmmaker tasked with doing exactly that, with his revamped reimagining of 1995's Jumanji, now subtitled Welcome to the Jungle.

In this version of Jumanji, we follow four high school kids who, over the course of their day and for one reason or another, find themselves sent to detention. The Geek, Spencer, and the Jock, Fridge, are former best friends who get in trouble because Fridge had Spencer do his homework. The Outcast, Martha, refused to participate in gym class and talked back to the teacher. Finally, there's the Princess, Bethany, who refused to turn off her phone during a quiz. While in detention, they come across a decades-old video game called Jumanji, and as they begin to play, they are transported into the world of the game and transformed into their avatars within it.

Spencer becomes archaeologist Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Fridge becomes zoologist Franklin "Moose" Finbar (Kevin Hart), Martha becomes "killer of men" Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) and Bethany becomes a middle-aged male scientist named Professor Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon (Jack Black). Despite their differences, all of them must learn to work together to navigate their way through the dangers of the jungle and to complete a mission to lift a curse on it, so that they can return back home.

The result has elements of an action movie, a body-swap comedy and a video game movie. Yet the film is able to bring the best out of all of these elements, which is a credit to the tremendous cast that has been assembled. A geek trapped in the physique of a bodybuilder is a hilarious concept, and Johnson does a terrific job with it. Likewise, Gillan does a great job cause pulling off her fight scenes while simultaneously hating the impracticality of her outfit, and Hart does a really good job playing the sidekick to Johnson's character, transforming from jock to vertically-challenged in tremendous fashion. But the heart of the film is seriously Black, whose character is so fun-loving and goofy, and who also has a great arc as he comes to terms with how he has been treating others.

Needless to say, Hollywood has a troubled past when it comes to making good video game movies, so it is interesting to see Welcome to the Jungle take this type of approach. The film makes good uses of such gaming concepts as life bars, levels, NPCs and attributing various strengths and weaknesses to each character, with the latter in particular leading to a number of funny gags throughout the movie, such as when Fridge discovers that one of his character's weaknesses is cake, and then has an explosive reaction when he comes across a piece of pastry later on in the film.

But the issue with video game movies is that the plot is usually very weak and is mainly secondary to the action. And in this regard, Welcome to the Jungle is no different from the rest. The script by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner is there to solely to set up the jokes and the action sequences. Furthermore, the film tries to establish its big bad villain in John Hardin Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale), an explorer driven mad by the supernatural powers of the jungle, but it all just comes across as very cheesy and as not much of a real threat. Van Pelt is your typical mustache-twirling villain and doesn't have much substance to him.

That said, even though Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle has a paper-thin plot with a lackluster villain — which has become the norm in blockbuster filmmaking — the movie is able to rise above its shortcomings. With a great cast, good comedic moments and quality action sequences — not to mention a positive lesson about being true to yourself and accepting others — this is a video game movie that's worth the price of admission.

Annihilation

A film that truly merits being experienced on the big screen, Annihilation begins with a fairly straightforward setup. Lena, played by Natalie Portman, is a former soldier who's now a biologist teaching at Johns Hopkins University, and her husband, Kane, played by Oscar Isaac, whom she met while serving in the military, has been missing for the past year. What Lena doesn't know, however, is that Kane was part of an expedition sent in to investigate an incident at Blackwater National Park, the site of an asteroid impact three years earlier, resulting in an anomaly that has been swallowing up the surrounding land.

When Kane mysteriously reappears, Lena's first reaction is that she can now breathe a sigh of relief. Little does she realise that it's only the beginning of a larger mystery. And when her husband's health takes a sudden and rapid turn for the worse, Lena is brought to Area X, where she meets psychologist Dr. Ventress, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the all-female team of scientists, Josie (Tess Thompson), Anya (Gina Rodriguez) and Cass (Tuva Novotny), who are set to enter the anomaly — dubbed "the Shimmer" — next. Hoping to help her husband, Lena volunteers to go in with them, and that is where Annihilation really takes on a life of its own.

Told from Lena's perspective through a flashback structure that sees her recounting her ordeal to a group of men in hazmat suits, the story follows the five women as they enter the Shimmer, tasked with making their way to the lighthouse where the asteroid first struck. Of course, it doesn't take long for their mission to go awry. And as they begin experiencing strange phenomena like memory gaps and encountering lifeforms that cannot be explained by science, it soon dawns on them that the fate that befell the previous expeditions could very well befall them too.

To reveal anything more about the movie's plot would be to spoil the creepy surprises and reality-altering revelations that Garland has planned for viewers along the way. Just know that you really haven't seen anything like this film. From its body horror set-pieces that will make you squirm in your seat to its fantastical imagery, there are many ways that Annihilation carves a niche for itself. And even though its thoroughly bizarre and mesmerizing climax relies too much on questionable CGI for its own good, you won't be able to look away for a second.

Some might be quick to judge this movie as "feminist sci-fi." But if that implies that the film has some kind of agenda, or that it can't be enjoyed by men and women, then that couldn't be further from the truth. What Annihilation is, however, is smart sci-fi filmmaking that's equal parts thrilling and introspective, the likes of which challenges the status quo. And in a time when distribution deals are being decided based on potential box office receipts, it's exactly the type of movie we need more of right now.

American Made

Whether he's scaling the Burj Khalifa or hanging from the outside of an Airbus 400, Tom Cruise is no stranger to danger. However, for his latest role, Cruise plays a man whose real-life exploits were just as daring as any stunt he himself ever committed to film.

In American Made, Cruise re-teams with Bourne Identity director Doug Liman to play Barry Seal, a talented airline pilot whose career path takes a sudden and dramatic turn, when a CIA operative by the name of Schafer, played by Domhnall Gleeson, approaches him in an airport bar one night in 1978. Noting Barry's penchant for smuggling Cuban cigars, Schafer makes Barry an offer he can't refuse, handing him his very own aviation operation in exchange for his services flying reconnaissance missions over Central America.

As the 1980s roll around, we watch as the nature of Barry's assignments for Schafer becomes much more hands-on, and he goes from merely flying over hostile territory to being the CIA's man on the ground, routinely delivering under-the-counter payments to General Manuel Noriega in exchange for valuable intel, and smuggling Contra fighters into the States for combat training. But it's the allegiances Barry forges along the way — when Uncle Sam isn't looking — that prove the most lucrative, especially the fast friends he makes with Pablo Escobar and the founding members of the Medellin drug cartel, helping them to ferry kilo upon kilo of their product into the U.S.

Needless to say, it all has to catch up with Barry at some point. But much to his surprise — not to mention the chagrin of the numerous State and Federal law enforcement agencies pursuing him — it takes eight long years for that to happen. In the meantime, Barry is allowed to essentially grow his operation unabated, eventually adding a small fleet of planes and a small crew of hand-picked, trusted pilots, and continuing to rake in bag after bag bursting at the seams with cold, hard cash — more than enough to keep his beautiful and supportive wife, Lucy, played by Sarah Wright Olsen, and their three young children living comfortably.

It all adds up to Cruise at his charismatic best, and even though the script by screenwriter Gary Spinelli can seem a bit scattershot at times — feeling more like a series of loosely related vignettes rather than a tightly woven narrative — Cruise is always on-point, bringing his multimillion-dollar smile, cooler-than-cool aviator sunglasses and trademark persona to the proceedings. Much like how Barry refers to himself in several scenes as "the guy who delivers," so too can the same be said of Cruise, who consistently delivers a likeable and winning performance as a man equally flummoxed by his own successes as the people around him.

With its light-on-its-feet mix of espionage, humor and action, the result is one part biopic and one part geopolitical history lesson, all wrapped up in a retro aesthetic that utilizes archive news footage, a period-appropriate soundtrack and VHS-quality home video confessionals to tie everything together. Is it a fair assumption to state that American Made substantially fictionalizes the real-life Seal's story, retrofitting it to suit Cruise's strengths as one of Hollywood's longest-running and most bankable actors? Probably so. But if the ultimate goal was to make a starring vehicle for Cruise to shine in, then consider it mission accomplished.

Sicario

Sicario follows FBI agent Kate Macer as she joins a team of Delta Force operators who are attempting to hunt down the people in charge of a Mexican drug cartels. Led by an adviser for the Department of Justice, Matt Graver, they begin operations in Mexico in order to draw the leader of the cartel back into Mexico. No more than about half an hour or so into Sicario we find our main characters on a mission to retrieve someone from a Mexican prison and transport them back to America. Everything has gone smoothly picking him up, but on the way back to the border they notice someone following the convoy in order to report on their movements, and not long after they find out that the border crossing is backed up with traffic. Sitting in the traffic jam, they slowly notice cartel members in other cars, but the voice in their ears tell them that they can't engage until they are engaged - so they sit in their cars, waiting for the cartel to make the first move before an intense burst of gunfire and violence over a matter of seconds concludes the confrontation. It's the kind of scene that leaves you breathless, a master class in building tension that makes you think 'Wow. Nothing this film can do from now on can top that'.

Kate acts as our sole viewpoint throughout the majority of Sicario and like Kate, we end up unsure about why things are happening or what might happen next, but the mystery Sicario tries to create isn't intriguing enough to serve as a narrative and the eventual reveal is so inconsequential that I don't know why Sicario bothered to hide it from the audience in the first place.

Additionally (and I'm going to preface this by saying that it might just be me that feels this way), Kate as a character doesn't really have an effect on the way the film progresses, and that bores me. She has no agency within the story, partly due to the aforementioned way that she kind of has no idea what is going on throughout, but also because of the way that at the end of the day she is simply being used by the team for jurisdiction rights. The way that Sicario progresses is through things happening to her rather than her making things happen, and if I'm being honest I expected more from a film with Emily Blunt - with or without her, almost all of Sicario would have happened the way it did, to the point where it begins to feel like Sicario should have chosen a different main character.

The film is otherwise incredibly well made, with stellar performances from the entire cast, particularly Benicio Del Toro, gorgeous cinematography courtesy of Roger Deakins, and a handful of intense scenes. Director Villeneueve is worth keeping an eye on, someone who manages to blur the line between art house cinema styles and mainstream appeal incredibly effectively, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next. I wouldn't recommend Sicario to everyone but I enjoyed it for what it was.

Concussion

Concussion, the true story about one doctor’s discovery of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopothy) among athletes in the NFL, is a film to be admired, if not loved. With performances from Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as his wife Prema, the gripping narrative explores one man's fight to be understood and respected. Whilst at times the depiction of the public and corporate backlash Dr. Omalu endured is unsettling the film makes necessary steps towards shining a light on the power the NFL has over the nation and media. Director Peter Landesman’s interpretation of the NFL could be perceived as a harsh generalization of an organisation focused on making money above all else, but ultimately his film is directed towards the NFL with with aim of making further changes in their regime. And sometimes, a jarring portrayal is more effective than an attempt to keep both sides happy.

From staged news conferences and phony medical advice to enlisting the F.B.I. to investigate his superior and friend Dr. Cyril Wecht, played by Albert Brooks, the National Football League sought to undermine Dr. Omalu and his colleagues, discredit the existence of CTE, and downplay the deadly nature of concussions. It would sound like a conspiracy theory if it weren’t all true. Brooks lends his signature sense of humor to the role of Wecht, a man who backs up Bennet’s crusade every step of the way, even when wary of the inevitable consequences. Despite a hit or miss southern accent, Alec Baldwin is especially effective as Dr. Julian Bailes, a former team doctor for the Steelers and an unlikely friend in helping Omalu combat these mounting obstacles. Smith gives his best performance in years as Omalu, a forensic pathologist at the Pittsburgh coroner’s office whose work is almost undone from the beginning when Steelers legend Mike Webster, played by David Morse, arrives in the lab. He is considered Patient Zero, the first known death due to CTE, and Omalu’s co-worker nearly derails the whole autopsy on the misguided basis of respecting his hero’s body. 

The pace of the film was at times confusing. Landesman moves things along a little too fast, utilizing overly kinetic cinematography and tired visual tricks to add immediacy to a story that’s already ripped from the headlines. Fake zooms, hokey freeze-frames, and CGI renditions of real-time concussions only distract and potentially undercut the message he is trying to convey. It’s not dissimilar from the sensationalist editing techniques found in Discovery channel crime documentaries. They might be eye-grabbing to some, but they render everything less authentic in the process. It’s important that Concussion preaches to more than the choir, and while occasionally amateur direction gets in the way of that, Will Smith’s commanding presence and a true story that’s hard to deny ensure this film succeeds in doing so.

Gone Girl

Gone Girl is a film that primarily revolves around the idea of perspective, whether that be a husbands perspective of his marriage, a wife's changing perspective of her husband, the perspective of the police in a missing persons investigation or the perspective of the media as the investigation develops. It follows the disappearance of Amy Dunne from the small town where she lives and the growing media circus surrounding her husband, Nick Dunne, told from both Nick's point of view during the investigation and Amy's point of view in flashbacks taken from her diary, two narrations that offer very different perspectives of the same marriage.

To say any more about the plot could ruin it - even though Gone Girl was released four years ago - this is a film that deserves to be seen with as little previous knowledge as possible. The film contains one of the most interesting, captivating stories that draws you in from the start and consistently subverts expectations and develops in unpredictable ways, never letting go of the audience. 

It's a film of two distinct parts, splitting the running time fairly equally between a mystery and a thriller, separated by a plot twist that is only obvious in retrospect. The film keeps a consistent tone throughout, a grim reality that is used to mask the more unbelievable aspects of the story while also allowing the dark humour embedded in the film to get through. Large parts of Gone Girl are pure satire, particularly the parts involving the medias growing interest in the case and how easily they decide that the husband is guilty based on pure speculation. It's a mocking look at the witch-hunt mentality that the media can inspire, with one scene in particular having a sympathetic, supporting crowd turning into an angry mob in seconds based on a few sentences from one person.

Originally presented as the archetypal couple, both Nick and Amy Dunne are fully realised, three-dimensional characters by the end of the film, each of them conforming to and then subverting audience expectations. The film slowly peels away the layers of deception that covers their marriage as it progresses, each new reveal taking the story in a new direction while also changing the audiences perception of the plot and the characters involved. I can only assume that the casting of Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike was deliberate here - both actors that have struggled with typecasting in the past and since the films release, being used to portray characters that are constantly battling the idea that they are being defined by their relationship despite their efforts to avoid that.

Both of the leads play their characters excellently, with Pike in particular giving a career defining performance. Both Nick and Amy are characters that the wrong actor or the wrong director could have easily mishandled, but there is a deft touch throughout that keeps things on track. If people are still doubtful of Affleck's acting abilities after his mid-Nougties losing streak, Gone Girl is surely the film to change minds if Argo didn't already. There is something to be said for the supporting cast as well, with a lot of strange casting decisions (including Tyler Perry and Neil Patrick-Harris) really paying off.

Gone Girl has defied expectations throughout and isn't afraid to make an audience feel uncomfortable. It's tense, enthralling and at times darkly funny, and it has one of the most interesting, memorable and down right loathsome antagonists of recent years.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

The Hobbit trilogy can only be defined by it's complete lack of restraint, the same restraint that made the Lord of the Rings trilogy so good, and The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies is a near perfect example of why this lack of restraint matters. 

It's a perfect example of the padding that was added into Jackson's King Kong and the earlier Hobbit films, but this time we have an entire film that is easily 80% new material, or additions to pre-existing events that serve no real purpose. Tauriel has almost nothing to do, the addition of Legolas to the proceedings adding nothing of value to the film other than the rule of cool and Gandalf's adventures are quickly dealt with to move onto what the trailer referred to as the defining chapter in Middle Earth - a nice way of selling the film, but one that is thoroughly incorrect. The result of the battle is inconsequential to the only character that the audience actually cares about, and being as this is a prequel, we already know who survives, so any dramatic tension that could have been built in that regard is already gone by the time the audience is in their seats.

Despite this focus on one battle, action fatigue fails to set in. The film periodically takes breaks from one set piece to focus on another in order to refresh the sense of scale that the battle holds, and for the most past this works quite well. The camera never lingers on one set piece for too long, moving from one set of dwarves to the men to another set of dwarves to Bilbo to the elves and the orcs. This constant movement could have felt jumpy or overly erratic, but it makes the battle feel as large as the battles seen in LOTR. The over reliance on CGI that Jackson has fell into really stands out here though - it would have been nicer to see more practical effects, a highlight of the Lord of the Rings films being the realism given to the battles by the use of extras.

Minor characters in the book are bumped up to major characters status, and it doesn't feel like fan service for the most part thanks to some passable writing and the addition of minor sub-plots that, despite being fairly extraneous to the main story, matter to the characters involved in logical ways.This isn't to say that these sub-plots aren't nonsense, but the film seems to realise this and plays up to it, adding in small moments of humour that wouldn't have been present in the Lord of the Rings. No one will be looking back on The Hobbit films as a solid trilogy in their own right, but at the same time these won't end up as infamously bad as the Star Wars prequels.

I've tried not to go into too many details of the plot itself to avoid spoiling the story for anyone that hasn't read the book that was first published 80 odd years ago, but the meandering nature of the plot does get tiresome before the battle really kicks in, spending too much time setting up the position of each of the armies, and is again indicative of the poor, padded writing that the trilogy suffers from as a whole. There are more flaws than I've gone into here (the best action scene happens near the start, the only interesting sub-plot is wrapped up far too quickly and Bilbo is barely in it), but I don't think anyone expected greatness from this film. The Battle of Five Armies concludes The Hobbit films in the same way they started - full of padding, overly long, but still reasonably fun. It's an entertaining couple of hours, but it isn't a couple of hours you'll be dying to repeat.

Avengers: Infinity War

Avengers: Infinity War feels like a Marvel movie on steroids. Trying to describe any part of it alone will make you sound like you’ve lost your mind; trying to describe it all kind of makes it sound like it’s lost its mind. And it’s all the more confounding for how closely it mirrors its decade of movie predecessors only to end up shattering that mirror: Infinity War moves, sounds, and acts like a typical Marvel movie, but then unmasks itself as a creature distinctly its own.

Directed by the Russo brothers, the architects behind Captain America: Civil War and Captain America: Winter Soldier. It’s a testament to Marvel and the Russos’ daring that villain Thanos is actually one of the less surprising things about Infinity War. For the past six years, we’ve been told that he’s on a collision course with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, setting us up for the chaos that ensues in this long-heralded culmination. What I didn’t fully realize is just what that chaos would look like, and that Marvel had the guts to, mostly, pull it off.

The most difficult task Infinity War is faced with is addressing all of the characters, motivations, subplots, and relationships that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has built up over the years without making it feel like an expository avalanche careening down a mountain to bury the audience below. For example: Gamora and Nebula are adopted daughters of Thanos, the villain of Infinity War and the big bad lurking in the shadows of Marvel’s movies since 2012’s Avengers. Gamora and Nebula hate each other and hate Thanos, who tortured them by pitting them against each other; he also killed the family of Gamora’s Guardians of the Galaxy teammate Drax. Gamora, Drax, and the other Guardians aren’t technically Avengers, but that’s just because they operate in Marvel’s cosmic universe, which we found out in Thor: Ragnarok is connected to Thor’s Asgard, a recently destroyed world populated by Norse gods and goddesses. That intricate web of characters and motivations barely scratches the surface of four of Marvel’s recent movies; there are 18 total, not including Infinity War. The Russo brothers’ solution to this dilemma is to turn a movie nominally about the Avengers into a movie about Thanos, played by Brolin decked out in lumpy mounds of purple CGI.

Most of the Marvel superheroes appearing in Infinity War, particularly Black Panther and Captain America, are compressed, concentrated versions of themselves. T’Challa is given five or so lines to be majestic in his defense of Wakanda; Captain America gets a few more minutes to be noble and inspiring. Spider-Man (Tom Holland) is around to remind us that he’s young. Scarlet Witch and Vision have scenes together to tell you they’re in love. Characters like Drax, Mantis, Falcon, Bucky Barnes, Shuri, Okoye, Rocket, Black Widow, and, of course, Groot have a few one-liners. Instead of showing us why these characters are so beloved, the Russo brothers employ a Marvel shorthand of sorts, relying on past movies to do most of the work. And that’s not an unreasonable instinct: Captain America’s first onscreen return in Civil War is awe-inspiring in large part because he’s the Captain America who’s lived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the past seven years. The same kind of chills happen when the Wakanda theme plays in Infinity War — a testament to the power of Ryan Coogler’s massive film.

Not all of the film’s heroes are underutilized, though. Tony Stark’s fear of a galactic threat, established over the past few films featuring him, is fully realised in Thanos, and Downey sinks his teeth into Stark’s vulnerability and apprehension. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor are apt counters to Stark. Cumberbatch’s Strange is coolly stubborn, calculating in ways that Stark isn’t. And Hemsworth, after flexing his knack for comedy in Ragnarok, taps into that same humor but laces it with jagged grief and anger informed by having seen Thanos’s wrath firsthand. It would have been stellar to see all of Marvel’s superheroes allowed these little pockets of storytelling in between the Thanos action, but there’s not enough room in Infinity War’s two hours and 40 minutes. I’m not convinced that giving us a Thanos origin story and relying on that Marvel superhero shorthand to fill in the gaps was the most efficient way.

Midway through, I lost count of the planets and galaxies visited, each one terrifyingly beautiful in its own way. There’s a breath-stopping visit to a deserted ghost city of a planet, so evocative you can almost smell the sulfur in the air and feel the temperature drop when it comes on the screen. The problem with flexing this sort of expansive world building is that it requires so much jumping around the universe that the film feels like it’s spinning plates. That results in the compression I mentioned earlier, the feeling that some characters are around simply to remind you they exist. But it also, frustratingly, kneecaps what should be the MCU’s grandest fight scene, Infinity War’s invasion of Wakanda. It’s the largest-scale onscreen fight I can recall since the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Our heroes, in a valiant last stand, are the only thing that stands between Thanos and universal destruction. And his generals have unleashed thousands of intergalactic hounds upon Wakanda. Unfortunately, though, because there are multiple storylines going on at one time, we jump from Wakanda to outer space and another faction of Avengers doing their part to save the universe, or get thrust into Thor’s side quest to find a weapon strong enough to kill Thanos.

It’s frustrating that it’s so difficult to fully appreciate the fantastic work that went into orchestrating these massive spectacles when we’re constantly being jostled from place to place. Midway through, all these different settings and all these jumps begin to feel exhausting.

But still, Infinity War boasts the most breathtaking, audacious moment in superhero movie history, one that rocketed through my brain an heart. For the first time in a while, I can’t wait to see what happens next.

A Quiet Place

The horror is tricky to get right and modern horror films have developed a new set of rules for the genre. They tend to be sub-par, a parody of its own genre, pandering to the lowest common denominator with copious and unnecessary amounts of gore and cheap, poorly filmed jump-scares. Sad as that may be, there is a silver lining; namely, in a genre saturated with bad films, whenever there is a decent one, it gets the appropriate attention and praise it deserves. Last year the exception to the rule was Get Out – a different, unique horror film that audiences and critics alike adored, partly due to its strength and partly because it stood out among the slew of films released at the same time. And now this year, we have A Quiet Place, comparable to Get Out in how it has made a splash in Hollywood, bringing in a large audience and receiving universal praise and adoration. Personally, I haven’t seen suspense like this in a film since Berlin Syndrome at the 2017 Glasgow Film Festival.  

Cinema may be an audiovisual medium, but silence is one of the most effective tools a film-maker has at their disposal. When used well, the absence of any and all noise can draw an audience into a moment like nothing else, instantly ramping up the tension as they tentatively wait to see what might be behind the sudden need for quiet. It's a very primal reaction that films have been taking advantage of for decades now, and it's one that A Quiet Place uses to great effect, making well-established techniques feel incredibly fresh in the process.

I mean, it's kind of genius really. By setting a horror movie in a world where making any kind of noise is likely to get you killed by a lightning fast and virtually invulnerable alien predator, A Quiet Place finds an in-universe excuse to never allow its audience the release of tension that something as simple as a conversation or the hustle and bustle of normal life often provides. Most of the time, a dead silence in a horror film indicates that something is about to jump out and scare you - here, it's indicative of nothing in particular, offering no clues about if the characters we follow throughout (the Abbott family) are in immediate danger or not, and that can't help but imbue every single scene with a staggering amount of suspense that the film itself doesn't even need to work that hard to maintain. Even the most ordinary of day-to-day tasks take on extra significance when the smallest of slip ups will have deadly consequences, and that's something that A Quiet Place takes great pleasure in playing with.

A Quiet Place is really intelligently written - not that it's thematically deep or scientifically accurate or asking big philosophical questions of its audience, but simply because it has a really solid understanding of how to get the most out of its premise. The film never abandons its smart suspense building techniques in favour of the kind of exciting but dumb chase sequences you could easily imagine it falling back on. Everything logically stems from the thing that preceded it, resulting in a film that feels less like a monster movie and more like watching a carefully constructed Rube Goldberg machine operate without fault. A sound attracts the aliens; the Abbotts do something to draw the aliens away; now they must deal with the consequences of what they did to draw the aliens away. It's nothing groundbreaking by any means but it gives a sense of internal consistency, a sense of consequence that is vital to its success.

It helps, of course, that director/co-writer/star John Krasinski seems just as at home behind the camera as he does in front of it. The amount of visual storytelling required of this kind of film means it could've easily collapsed under its own weight with a less capable director at the helm - fortunately, Krasinski instead makes it all seem quite easy, ensuring throughout that the audience have all the information they need at any given moment to fully understand the stakes of the situation at hand.

None of this is to say that A Quiet Place is flawless, of course. I wish the ending had been reworked but having said that, the poor ending did very little to detract from what A Quiet Place ultimately is - a ridiculously tense and really well put together monster movie that at just 90 minutes long knows what it is and doesn't feel like wasting your time. It's smart, measured, well thought out and imbued with the kind of suspense that I really wish we saw more of in modern cinema.

Spider-man: Homecoming

In anticipation for the new Avengers film, released later next month, I have finally decided to fill the gaps in my Marvel Cinematic Universe knowledge.

Between the love still held for Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man trilogy and the damage done to the brand by Marc Webb's half-hearted Amazing Spider-Man reboot, Spider-Man: Homecoming was always going to find itself in something of a difficult position, culturally. Even ignoring how unlikely it was to live up to Raimi's Spider-Man 2, a film that's still arguably a genre high-point over a decade after release, Spider-Man: Homecoming is tasked with offering a fresh take on a character already well-established in pop culture while also delivering on the promise of finally seeing Peter Parker exist as part of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe - maybe more than any other MCU film to date, Spider-Man: Homecoming is burdened by some heavy expectations, to the point where it would have been far too easy for it to end up disappointing. Fortunately, that simply isn't the case. It may not reach the dramatic or emotional heights of Spider-Man 2, but by giving us a Peter Parker who looks and acts like a genuine teenager, avoiding any hint of an origin story and maybe most importantly delivering hard on the comedy, Spider-Man: Homecoming manages to avoid retreading the same ground as previous films without leaning too heavily on its links to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is, in short, exactly what it needed to be, and the result is a film that's simply delightful.

Following his inclusion in Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming sees Peter Parker back home in New York continuing his "Stark Internship", which has him spending his evenings practicing his super hero tricks in an attempt to impress Tony Stark and become an Avenger. He starts off small - giving directions to old ladies, preventing bike thefts - but after stopping a bank robbery involving extremely high tech alien weaponry, Peter takes it upon himself to find and shut down the group making and selling said weapons, all while attempting to juggle his school work, social life and extracurricular activities at the same time.

Peter Parker has always been something of a complex, contradictory character - awkward yet charming, naturally heroic yet deeply conflicted, deadly serious yet constantly quipping - but Tom Holland embodies all that with such ease that it seems like the most natural thing in the world. On top of that, his young age brings a real sense of vulnerability to the role that previous iterations of Peter Parker have lacked, helping him sell a number of big emotional moments that wouldn't have worked with an older actor in the costume - it's a genuinely great performance, and it's clear now how lucky Marvel Studios are to have found him. Seeing Peter being pulled in ten different directions at once as he struggles to balance his real life with his superhero double life is effectively the quintessential Spider-Man story.

In much the same vein, Spider-Man: Homecoming's entire supporting cast (particularly those playing Peter's schoolmates) are excellent throughout, lending its high-school drama a degree of authenticity that films set in high-school rarely achieve. As with Peter, these characters aren't just written to act like teenagers, they're played by young actors who genuinely look and sound like teenagers too, and some of the films best moments come from simply watching them interact with one another in the way that teenagers would. Director Jon Watts spent a lot of time comparing Spider-Man: Homecoming to various John Hughes films in the run up to release - it's clear throughout where Spider-Man: Homecoming's inspirations lie, and that's only to the film's credit. Marvel Studios seem to be well-aware at this point that "superhero" isn't really a genre unto itself, and Spider-Man: Homecoming's foray into the world of coming-of-age films makes it a stronger and more unique movie. Main antagonist Adrian Toomes is just as well-developed and three-dimensional as Peter Parker, driven by understandable motives and undergoing is own character arc over the course of the movie. Naturally, Michael Keaton is brilliant in the role, ramping up how intimidating he is over the course of the film without ever becoming too cartoonish, but what really makes Toomes work as a villain is how his relationship to Spider-Man progresses as the story develops.

Ultimately, Spider-Man: Homecoming only falters during its action sequences, some of which are uninspired at best and rendered virtually incomprehensible by downright poor CGI - a real shame considering that Spider-Man has one of the most potentially visually interesting power sets of any superhero. Around that though, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a hilarious, well-written and expertly directed movie that nails the character of Peter Parker in a way that no previous Spider-Man film has.

Black Panther

I don't think it's going to come as a massive shock to anyone to learn that Black Panther, the 18th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is worth seeing. Marvel Studios have been releasing strong films for so long now that it almost feels like a foregone conclusion, which means that the real question at this point is if each new installment in this mega-franchise can meet the expectations set for it. In the case of Black Panther, those expectations are sky high thanks to the character's impressive debut in Captain America: Civil War and the fact it's written/directed by the brilliant Ryan Coogler.

It's without a doubt one of the stronger films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date, introducing us to great new characters and telling an interesting, thematically complex story that I'm sure people will be analysing and talking about for a long time to come. It's a really good superhero film for sure, certainly one with more ambition and intelligence than most, but the realities of making a Disney-backed Marvel Studios film means that it's also ultimately only a really good superhero film, rather than the legitimately great piece of cinema it falls short of.

Set some time after the events of Captain America: Civil War, we follow T'Challa as he is officially crowned the King of the technologically advanced and secretive African nation Wakanda following his father's death. But after Vibranium thief Ulysses Klaue (last seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron) resurfaces, T'Challa sets out to capture him alive and bring him back to Wakanda to face trial, a decision that ultimately results in an outsider named Erik "Killmonger" Stevens challenging T'Challa's right to the throne. It's a politically charged, thematically rich and almost Shakespearean tale of royalty, family, tradition and legacy that would be interesting regardless of where it was set, but it's only made all the more compelling by Black Panther's ability to sell us on Wakanda as a place worth caring about. It takes mere minutes for Wakanda to feel like a tangible location with its own history, culture and place in the larger world around it. With the exception of scenes that are overly reliant on CGI, Black Panther is one of the best looking films in the Marvel Universe to date thanks to Rachel Morrison's vibrant and colourful cinematography, and Ludwig Göransson's constantly evolving score. 

The only actual problem in Black Panther is the incredibly disappointing CGI. Between this and Thor: Ragnarok's inconsistent-at-best green screen work, I'm genuinely worried that Marvel Studios think they can get away with skimping out on the visual effects budget. They can't - Black Panther looks really bad whenever it is forced to resort to CGI characters fighting in CGI locations, don't get me started on the ancestral plains, to the point where it pulls you out of the film entirely. Naturally then, Black Panther's action is at its best when it's trying to be a more grounded spy-film, and at its worst when it remembers that it's meant to be a large scale superhero movie.

Black Panther might not be quite as impressive (or consistent) as Coogler's other films have been but it's still undeniably an intelligent, entertaining, mostly very well-made movie, and something of a watershed moment for blockbuster cinema too.