Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is a ten-year-old boy growing up in Hitler’s Germany during the end stages of World War II. His mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) leaves him to his own devices to explore his hometown and spend lots of time playing with his imaginary friend Adolf (Waititi), the Führer himself. An injury incurred at a Hitler Youth training camp will mean Jojo has lots of time to recuperate and discoveries will make him question his allegiances.

Jojo Rabbit is the third major film that Waititi has helmed that features a young child in the lead role. Boy is a spectacular film that explores the loss of innocence of its lead character. Hunt for the Wilderpeople takes the audience on a bizarre adventure as a juvenile delinquent bonds with a father figure who isn’t interested in children. Waititi coaxes excellent starring performances from his young leads in both of those films.

In Jojo Rabbit, Waititi is again considering the loss of youthful naiveté through the eyes of his hero, Jojo. And, again, Waititi helps Griffin Davis to excel in a comedic lead performance that many adults would be proud to have created. Matching Griffin Davis is Thomasin McKenzie as Elsa, while both Johansson and Sam Rockwell turn in accomplished takes on their supporting roles.

The first part of this film is an absolute riot: Jojo and Adolf have a blast (pun intended) preparing and then attending the Hitler Youth camp, and Waititi’s comedic skills are on full display. This is a satire with elements of slapstick and visual comedy thrown in, and it is really, really funny.

Considering the topic and themes under exploration, however, there inevitably needs to be a change in tone. Waititi tries to graduate the shift in the mood so that it isn’t so jarring, but there is a moment when the audience is assaulted by a thematic gut punch.

It is the difficulty of balancing the two different films Waititi is trying to make that means Jojo Rabbit isn’t as successful as it threatens to be. There is only so much an audience can be willing to trust a filmmaker, and Waititi breaks that trust when the gear change occurs. As a consequence, one wonders whether we are witness to a dream sequence and the cognitive dissonance causes a departure from the filmmaker’s world back into the real.

This is all incredibly lamentable, as Jojo Rabbit has enough heart to win most audiences. The film is mostly satisfying, and it is commendable that Waititi succeeded in creating it and then having it released. Were it not for its unevenness, Jojo Rabbit would be a miracle; as it stands, it’s just a very good film with a major flaw.

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6 Underground’s marketing is based primarily on the presence of Ryan Reynolds, and the incomprehensible trailer is matched only by the incoherence of the film. This film is a mess. It’s disheartening when one watches 127 minutes of a movie and then wonders what the f*ck they just sat through.

Reynolds stars as One, a billionaire who fakes his death to become the leader of a group of anonymous vigilantes operating on a global scale. Their mission is to take down the despotic leader of the fictional country Turgistan, but first they’ll have to complete a rescue mission and assassinate some generals.

Reynolds first came to my attention playing a pre-med student in the TV show Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place, and it was clear from that moment that he could be a big star. After appearing in a series of college frat-boy movies, he has reinvented himself as an action man with a comedic edge in movies like Deadpool. In my opinion, Reynolds is one of the most watchable of all of Hollywood’s leading men. He oozes charm and has used it to achieve tremendous success.

Even Reynolds’ charm can’t save 6 Underground.

Bay deliberately obscures the narrative by employing a non-linear structure that confuses rather than enhancing the flow. Sometimes starting with a flashback or flashforward makes sense when considering the dramatic tension that can build, but in 6 Underground there seems to be no purpose other than to bewilder the viewer. The action sequences and set pieces make little overall sense within the disorganised narrative.

Melanie Laurent features opposite Reynolds but is strangely restrained, showing none of the vitality on display in her turns in Inglourious Basterds or Now You See Me. The remainder of the ensemble are placeholders and play their roles without ever becoming interesting. Of course, this is a Michael Bay film, and therefore the action sequences are given far more attention than character development.

There are moments – brief, but moments nonetheless – where the action threatens to become enjoyable or a chase scene surprises. It’s all shot in glorious Michael Bay Vision as well, so you know it’s going to look ok. Those moments are mirages, however, and things peter out into a disappointing and confusing film with little to recommend it.

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Boseman is introduced as Andre Davis, a grieving son at the funeral of his slain NYC police officer father. His righteous fury at his father’s death is presumably intended to make us sympathetic to his subsequent acts as a police detective. When a drug heist goes wrong and several police officers are shot and killed, Andre is asked to lead a manhunt to capture their killers.

Drawing from a long line of police thrillers that have come before it, 21 Bridges is formulaic filmmaking at its finest. Of course, Andre can’t trust anyone around him, including his partner. Of course, the good guys become indistinguishable from the bad, and Andre can only rely on himself. Of course, Andre is redeemed for his sins by the end of the film. Would that it were all not so predictable.

Andre is partnered by Sienna Miller’s Frankie Burns, and they share precious little chemistry. New York is shot as a dark and foreboding place – hardly the city that never sleeps of repute – and the characters are similarly lacklustre. Burns has a little girl she mentions at one point in a vain attempt to give her some depth, while Andre still visits his ailing mother. None of this information adds to the audience’s understanding of their motivations or actions.

The only performance that is remotely interesting is Stephan James’ turn as Michael. Here is someone who communicates the urgency of his situation, and who the audience can understand and perhaps even feel sympathetic toward. J.K. Simmons phones in his performance and the remaining cast are noteworthy only for their injuries: oh, there’s the fingers-missing guy! Hey, there’s the one with no eye.

At only 99 minutes, 21 Bridges is an outlier given the trend to long-form filmmaking and the inability of modern directors to tell their stories efficiently. I’d love to say the film doesn’t feel bloated but it really drags at stages.

21 Bridges is more miss than hit and is unlikely to satisfy fans of crime thrillers or action/adventure films. One can only hope Jonah Hill doesn’t feel inspired to create the ultimate 21 Jump Street Bridges crossover.

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After the discovery of the lifeless body of family patriarch Harlan Thrombey, his family come together at his gothic mansion to understand what could have lead to his murder. Old resentments resurface and the reading of his will escalates matters even further. Meanwhile, a mysterious private detective is investigating… something.

At a time when remakes and sequels are de rigueur and we’ve all slogged through 23 movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe alone, an original movie that is as fun and enthralling as Knives Out can lead to a form of ecstasy. This is the kind of film that so rarely sees the light of day any more, and it is so much more valuable for that. Knives Out is a reminder of what great cinema can and should be: a surprising laugh; a tragic mistake; a thrilling discovery.

And yet, Knives Out still needs to earn its stripes and it does so with aplomb. Paying homage to Agatha Christie while remaining stridently modern, the film is a hard one to encapsulate in a single genre. Is it a straight-out comedy? Not quite, but there are moments to make you laugh out loud, especially in seeing Captain America shed his lycra. A simple murder-mystery? Not exactly, but it certainly features many of the tropes of the oeuvre. There are elements of the caper; there are even some moments that shoot for political commentary although don’t let that put you off.

Quotable:

Marta Cabrera: I’ve never been to a will reading before.
Benoit Blanc: Think of it as a tax return by a community theater.

The entire cast seems to be loving their experience, although Chris Evans and Daniel Craig appear to particularly enjoy playing at variance to their most recent well-known characters. Craig is a revelation as private detective Benoit Blanc, a southern gentleman for whom the respect of the police detectives hints at an intriguing backstory. Johnson leaves questions about Blanc’s history unanswered, a decision that allows the film to feel deeper and more grounded. It must have been tempting to tell more of his story but thank goodness he resisted the urge.

Ana de Armas and Evans round out the leading roles, and de Armas is excellent in her part as the only one who really seems to care about Harlan’s death. Don Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, Christopher Plummer, LaKeith Stanfield and Katherine Langford fill out an incredible leading cast. Unfortunately, a running joke about Jaeden Martell’s Jacob falls flat while Riki Lindhome’s Donna is wasted entirely and might have been excised to encourage focus.

The film moves along fairly briskly, although with a couple of brief edits to its 2h10m running time it would have been close to perfect. As released, the occasional redundancy keeps it short of that (high) mark.

Knives Out is a wonderful film and a must-see for film-lovers. This is the kind of filmmaking I wish audiences would encourage more with our box office money, rather than handing over yet more cash for yet another superhero money-maker. Please, go along and pay full-price: it’s the only way we can tell the accountants in Hollywood what we think is important.

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Mackenzie Davis stars as the naked young woman and she is the best thing about this – hopefully final – Terminator film by a good measure. Anyone who has seen Halt and Catch Fire will know how powerful she can be, but this is probably her most prominent role since her small but important character in The Martian. Davis brings just the right amount of strength mixed with fear and fragility. She is fantastic in an otherwise mediocre film.

For anyone who watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day and marvelled at James Cameron’s VFX chops while enjoying an almost perfect conclusion to the story from The Terminator, the hack job that is done on the story and legacy of those films is hard to believe. This film was released with a bunch of ‘James Cameron is back doing Terminator’ publicity and his involvement as story author and producer was trumpeted as a reason that this Terminator reboot will get it right.

One must wonder if Cameron has forgotten what happened at the end of T2 as the retcon performed here makes no sense whatsoever.

Talk about a slap to the face. Arnie’s T800 didn’t need to lower himself into a vat of molten metal? The iconic image of his thumbs-up sign as he sacrifices himself was meaningless? Oh, dear.

via GIPHY

This is a competent film, with action sequences that are sometimes exciting and yet very often things just feel flat. Robert Patrick’s molten T-1000 was terrifying because he was incredibly hard to conquer and completely soulless. It is hard to specify exactly why Gabriel Luna’s REV-9 doesn’t invoke the same sense of hopelessness, but it means the turmoil inflicted on the lives of Dani and Diego Ramos is harder to engage with.

It is enjoyable to consider some of the broader ideas raised by having a different apocalypse to consider after Sarah & John Connor avert the Skynet disaster in T2. The concept of the alternative future being different but equally bad is alarming and makes a good point about Man’s tendency to self-destruct. It will be difficult for fans, however, to ignore the canon and accept this new Dark Fate on its merits.

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Phoenix is Arthur Fleck, a clown working in streetside advertising by day and wannabe stand-up comedian by night. He cares for his ailing mother and fantasises about his neighbour Sophie (Zazie Beetz). An altercation with some street toughs will set Arthur on a downward spiral that eventually leads to violence and mayhem.

Phoenix deserves all of the plaudits he receives for his nuanced turn as the troubled anti-hero. Fleck is a sad and lonely man, lost in a big city that doesn’t care about its downtrodden but celebrates the success of billionaires like Bruce Wayne. Phoenix creates a character that the audience will care about, even though he does awful things that should repulse us. It is a rare actor who can walk this tightrope and yet Phoenix has a track record of achieving just that.

Phoenix hasn’t been nearly as prolific as many of his peers in the past decade or so, but consider some of the films he has featured in and the performances he has unleashed. As Johnny Cash in Walk the Line through to Her and You Were Never Really Here, he is reliably one of the best actors to watch for the pure enjoyment of seeing someone completely engaged in their character. That quality is again present in this film.

Joker is a critical commentary on social isolation and the disconnection the mainstream feel from the ruling elite. Although it seemed a bit of a stretch to suspect widespread violence as a consequence of this film, that fear does speak to the power of the medium to provoke. Were Phillips’ film any less potent, those fears would have been completely unfounded: it is a compliment that some feared its quiet power.

The cityscape (and film more broadly) pay homage to the films of Martin Scorcese and Robert De Niro, in particular, Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy. The streets of Joker’s Gotham City are more disturbing to this viewer than those of Taxi Driver, however, and perhaps this is because they feel more modern in their grime. As someone who came to Taxi Driver as an adult, there is a different sense looking back at New York versus looking at Joker’s Gotham that makes Arthur Fleck’s milieu more immediate. Older viewers might disagree.

Todd Phillips has created a masterpiece of modern cinema, that features a wonderful leading performance and speaks with urgency about social isolation and the plight of the mentally ill. This is easily one of the best films of 2019.

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Given this pedigree, it might not be surprising that I still remember the era when Sylvester Stallone was both Rocky and Rambo. Sly was the biggest star of a time when action movies could be simple ‘us vs them’ creations without any nuance.

Which isn’t to say that the first film featuring John Rambo – First Blood, released in 1982 – wasn’t a film worth watching. The original Rambo film is a thriller that explores the dramatic story of a soldier who can’t escape his past. It is a dark and sad film, with Stallone giving a strong performance as the anti-hero. Subsequent outings have moved further and further from the original character such that the writer of the original novel reporting being embarrassed to be associated with this film.

I agree with these RAMBO: LAST BLOOD reviews. The film is a mess. Embarrassed to have my name associated with it.https://t.co/Yd2G9T7A9A pic.twitter.com/RS0gGHzL5h

— _DavidMorrell (@_DavidMorrell) September 20, 2019

In Rambo: Last Blood, John is a rancher in Arizona who tends to his horses and shares his home with a Mexican friend Maria (Adriana Barraza) and her granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal). When Gabrielle goes missing after travelling to Mexico to see her estranged father, Rambo will go to war one last time.

It is hard to overstate just how anachronistic this film feels in 2019. For lovers of action films who don’t want to be challenged by their choice of entertainment – people who will say things like “it’s just a film, it doesn’t have to mean anything” – Last Blood will still be hard to accept. This film is overtly racist and doesn’t even pretend to be otherwise. Of course, so were the earlier films in the series so one shouldn’t be surprised, and yet it’s hard to see this film getting made in 2019 without the name of the lead character being John Rambo.

Obviously, he eventually wins by setting a series of elaborate traps – just like in the previous films – and achieving a body count to rival the number of lies told by Donald Trump while in office. None of the action sequences feels fresh or interesting, in what really feels like a paint-by-numbers approach to the writing.

The audience is asked simply to humour Stallone and his longing for the old days, and ignore the ridiculous plot and its many holes. Perhaps Stallone and his team really believed their fans wouldn’t notice the problems, or maybe they didn’t care.

Either way, Stallone needs to retire this dated action hero before he wastes more of our time.

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While assisting his father in preparing a suit, a youthful Phineas Taylor Barnum meets Charity Hallett, and both of their lives will never be the same. Her patience and acceptance of him despite his flaws are the perfect match for his imagination and lust for life. After starting their family together, a financial crisis provokes Barnum to invest in a museum of curiosities. His hope is to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.

It would be hard to have missed the media blitz that accompanied the release of this Hugh Jackman vehicle. When Oprah listed the Original Soundtrack among her favourite things of 2017, the hype reached another level. The soundtrack is fantastic, but that kind of advance publicity can be hard to live up to.

Jackman and his co-stars are more than capable of meeting the challenge. Apparently something of a passion project for the star – he had signed on in 2009, but it took years to get funding – Jackman gives his all in every scene. He shines as the singing and dancing Barnum. It is hard to imagine another actor in the role; Jackman is just that good. In fact, there aren’t any other actors with the necessary talent in so many different spheres. It’s almost as if it the part was created with him in mind.

Michelle Williams has been appearing in quality dramatic roles for years now. The Greatest Showman might be considered lightweight in comparison. Nonetheless, she ensures her scenes carry the appropriate gravity and is an excellent foil for her enthusiastic on-screen husband. She also sings in several tracks and demonstrates a unique voice. The twelve-year difference in age between Jackman and Williams is awkward, although both try to make it work.

The remaining stars – Zac Efron and Zendaya – have a little less screen time. They do share a romantic duet complete with a trapeze (Rewrite the Stars) that must have taken many takes to get just right. Efron and Jackman also share a foot-tapper (The Other Side) which is almost stolen away from them by the actions of the bartender in the background.

The Greatest Showman does have problems, mainly in its pacing. There are periods during which time flies, and every new scene is a joyful surprise. There are other sequences, however, in which one can see the machinery working. Themes are telegraphed for a return later in the film and, at times, exposition slows things down.

Despite these quibbles, The Greatest Showman is a fabulous experience from start to end. The film does demand the suspension of disbelief as some critics will contend. (At least it is not to the extraordinary degree of the now infamous Leia scene in The Last Jedi.) If you can accept the enthusiasm of the cast and crew and relax and enjoy their fantastical creation, you will be in for a beautiful ride.

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Cruise is Jack Harper, maintenance man on a destroyed earth, tasked with repairing the security drones that defend the energy mining apparatus of humanity’s last hope. Invasion and war have left Earth essentially uninhabitable, and the remaining folk need the energy to power the new colony on Titan, the lagest of Saturn’s moons. The invading scavengers (‘scavs’) are a constant threat, but Jack will find more than he’d imagined when his curiosity about his mission takes hold.

For anyone familiar with science fiction there will be few surprises, although it is clearly intended that the audience uncover each new piece of the puzzle as Jack does. There are ideas here that are explored in many recent and not-so-recent sci-fi films, and in many cases those films do it better. The most obvious is Moon, the remarkable film directed by Duncan Jones in 2009, yet there are innumerable references scattered throughout. Hell, there’s even a nod to Independence Day. The outstanding thing about Oblivion, however, is that the familiarity of the themes and the lack of surprise at the turns taken by the plot still don’t diminish the enjoyment of the film.

Much of the credit must go to the production design and visual effects, as this is just a beautiful film to look at. Audiences will be thrilled by the depiction of a ruined world, and the action sequences featuring Harper in his flying machine are as exciting as they come. This is truly a film to see on the big screen, and the bigger the better.

Oblivion sees Cruise at the top of his game, and it is his charisma that is the other factor in the film’s success. When compared with his by-the-numbers approach to the rather laughable big-screen adaptation of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher in recent months, it isn’t hard to imagine with which project he had most fun. He really sells the action and intrigue, and it is impossible to remain unmoved both by Harper’s plight and Cruise’s skill in making us care

The best of science fiction explores humanity and its foibles, and while Oblivion isn’t a genre-redefining piece, and it doesn’t say anything profound, it remains one of the better of recent screen sci-fi thrilers.

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Mark O’Brien is a man in his forties, who has spent much of his life coping with the after effects of polio. He sleeps in an iron lung, and needs assistance with bathing, dressing and leaving his home. His mind is intact, however, and he is a poet and freelance journalist with an acute sense of humour. After deciding he no longer wishes to remain a virgin, O’Brien contacts a sex surrogate who will allow him six sessions in which to achieve his goal.

Writer / director Ben Lewin has performed a remarkable balancing act: he handles his subject with honesty, respect and a wonderful sense of the absurd, without ever falling into the trap of playing his characters for cheap laughs or alternatively becoming overly maudlin. Perhaps it is his own experience as a former polio victim, or maybe his use of the writings of the real life Mark O’Brien, but however he has done it he has created a work of intelligence that might challenge audience preconceptions without feeling preachy.

O’Brien as played by John Hawkes is a master of self-deprecation, but is also capable of startling candor. Hawkes is wonderful in a role that actors should have been fighting each other to play. He spends the entire film lying crooked upon his back or being carted around as dead weight by various co-stars, but he nevers fails to convey the impression that he really has the physical limitations he is portraying. He is also utterly charming, and it beggars belief that there could be a single viewer who wouldn’t be in his corner throughout his story. His performance is all the more noteworthy when it is considered that he has only facial expressions and voice to enable it.

Helen Hunt has always seemed to be an actress capable of great things, but it seems unlikely she will surpass her turn as Cheryl the sex surrogate. Much has been made of the full frontal nudity, however it is the disarming frankness of Cheryl’s approach to the physical and spiritual obstacles to O’Brien’s goal that Lewin’s film relies most heavily upon, and this would not have worked without Hunt’s skill.

The supporting cast is led by the ever-reliable William H. Macy and Alan Arkin. Moon Bloodgood gets to stretch her legs as one of O’Brien’s carers, and is leant on by Lewin when momentarily he needs to lighten the tone. The success of The Sessions, however, is built on the foundation of Lewin’s approach to his subject, with the remainder resting mostly on the shoulders of Hawkes and Hunt.

Lewin paces his film almost perfectly before bringing things to a resounding and moving conclusion, and all within a sub-100-minute running time that proves – once again – that a film doesn’t have to be a three-hour epic to offer something of value. Highly recommended.

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