Planning a trip to the movies? Before you buy your popcorn, check out TEN's round-up of new and recent movie releases, including Julianne Moore's Oscar-winning performance in Still Alice, Chappie and Kill The Messenger
Still Alice
Director: Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland
Starring: Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth, Kristen Stewart
Duration: 101
****
12A
Julianne Moore
Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) is a professor of linguistics at Columbia University, a seemingly healthy woman of fifty, with a loving, attentive husband, two daughters and a son. She is ambitious, clever, yet humane enough to have us on side from the get-go.
One day on the university campus, she finds herself suddenly plunged into a cloud of disorientation, the beginning of her realisation that things are not right . . .
Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here
Kill The Messenger
Director: Michael Cuesta
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Lucas Hedges, Barry Pepper, Michael K Williams, Michael Sheen, Ray Liotta, Yul Vazquez, Oliver Platt, Jena Sims, Andy Garcia
Duration: 112 minutes
****
15A
The name Gary Webb may not create the same frisson of excitement as the revered Woodward and Bernstein, but he was the investigative reporter who claimed to have found a far bigger scandal than President Nixon's tortured machinations and lies over Watergate.
Webb was the journalist who alleged that the CIA was complicit in the spread of crack cocaine in US cities in the early Eighties, with the proceeds then used to arm the anti-communist Contras in Nicaragua . . .
Read Alan Corr's full review here
CHAPPiE
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Starring: Sharlto Copley, Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser
Duration: 120 minutes
***
15A
CHAPPiE
Director Neil Blomkamp has delivered a highly-entertaining, amusing and original foray into the world of artificial intelligence with Chappie.
This fast-paced, frequently humorous and often-touching tale stars Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, but it is the titular robot himself, played using motion capture by Sharlto Copley, that steals the show . . .
Read Sarah McIntyre's full review here
Kill The Messenger
Director: Michael Guesta
Starring: Jeremy Renner,
Duration: 119
****
15A
Read Alan Corr's full review here
It Follows
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Starring: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Olivia Luccardi, Lili Sepe, Jake Weary, Daniel Zovatto
Duration: 100 minutes
*
16
Maika Monroe
This teen horror film is a tedious exercise indeed, based on really nothing much at all, except what can be scared out of us - I wasn’t - by ambient electronica to underline the rather tired, trite action.
This involves disturbed looking people popping up out of nowhere and walking zombie-like towards the hapless young 17-year old Jay (Maika Monroe) who typically runs in terror . . .
Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here
Focus
Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Adrian Martinez, Gerald McRaney, Rodrigo Santoro, B.D. Wong, Brennan Brown, Robert Taylor, Griff Furst, Stephanie Honoroe.
Duration: 104 minutes
15A
***
Will Smith, Margot Robbie lack focus
Will Smith’s attempt to catapult his son to movie stardom in 2013’s After Earth lost him some acting kudos, but thankfully the Fresh Prince has brought his A-game back to the present day.
In his first R-rated movie in the States since 2003's Bad Boys II, Smith plays Nicky, a smooth third-generation hustler, who hires aspiring con artist Jess (the insanely gorgeous Margot Robbie) as his intern. He shows her the ropes and introduces her to his team of lifters who are adept at making a quick buck from lifting tourists’ possessions . . .
Read Laura Delaney's full review here
The Second Best Marigold Hote
Director: John Madden
Starring: Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Richard Gere, Judi Dench, Dev Patel
Duration: 123 minutes
PG
***
Judy Dench
You couldn't blame anyone for taking this one out for a second spin. The original Best Exotic Marigold Hotel raked in profits in excess of €100 million as its mix of great veteran actors and an upbeat, colourful Indian backdrop proved to be a massive success.
These days - any days, really - a movie that only requires you to turn up at a cinema and allow a broad smile to slowly form on your face has a lot going for it . . .
Read John Byrne's full review here
