San Andreas
3/5
Director: Brad Peyton
Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti, Archie Panjabi, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Ioan Gruffudd
12A
Warner Bros really has it in for San Francisco. Last May, the city was levelled in the studio's Godzilla reboot, and now 12 months later it's on the receiving end of a 9.6 earthquake. With the CGI-fuelled destruction as you'd expect from a summer tent-pole movie, the biggest surprise of San Andreas is that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has to dig a little deeper emotionally amidst the rubble. According to the man himself, that was his reason for signing up for the movie.
He plays Ray Gaines, an LA Fire Department helicopter pilot who saves his ex-wife Emma (Carla Gugino) during a "seismic swarm" involving the San Andreas Fault and then travels up the coast to try to find daughter Blake (Alexandra Daddario), a survivor of the first shockwave in San Francisco. Short of bikes and trains, the duo use...
Read Harry Guerin's full review here
Man Up
3.5/5
Director: Ben Palmer
Starring: Lake Bell, Simon Pegg, Rory Kinnear, Olivia Williams, Sharon Horgan, Harriet Walter, Ken Stott, Ophelia Lovibond, Stephen Campbell Moore
15A
If you've ever fantasised about a missing romance from Love Actually then Man Upcould be the story for you. Now, it's a bit bawdier than Richard Curtis' Christmas favourite (The Inbetweeners Ben Palmer is behind the lens) and not as special, but when it comes to heart, it's the equal of the 2003 vintage.
Bell plays Nancy, a 34-year-old journalist whose love life is a disaster zone. Pegg is Jack, a just-divorced 40-year-old who works as a marketing manager but really wants to...
Read Harry Guerin's full review here
Director: Dan Fogelman
Starring: Al Pacino, Annette Bening, Bobby Cannavale, Jennifer Garne, Katarina Cas
15A
Inspired loosely by British folksinger Steve Tilston’s discovery that John Lennon had written to him in 1971, writer-director Dan Fogelman’s directorial debut, hits just enough good notes to strike a chord with viewers.
Danny Collins (Pacino) is a washed-up star trying to recover his artistic mojo after wasting his talent over the years on booze, drugs, women half his age and dodgy spray-tan. Finding it hard to outshine his classic cheesy hits and shimmy shakes, Danny hasn’t penned new material in decades.
Feeling the birthday blues, Danny’s long-time manager (Plummer), presents him with an...
Read Laura Delaney's full review here
The Connection
3.5/5
Director: Cédric Jimenez
Starring: Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Céline Sallette, Mélanie Doutey, Benoît Magimel, Guillaume Gouix, Bruno Todeschini, Féodor Atkine, Moussa Maaskri
15A
If you're someone who has also been itching to visit Marseille ever since a way-past-bedtime viewing of The French Connection II way back when, then The Connection will only have you promising yourself a trip even more. Whereas Gene Hackman's boorish copper Popeye Doyle battled heroin and the heat (both kinds) in the city in the 1975 film, here The Artist's Jean Dujardin plays Pierre Michel, a much smoother magistrate, but someone who proves to be just as determined as the US lawman to dismantle the Mediterranean drugs empire. His nemesis is Gaëtan 'Tany' Zampa (Lellouche), the closest thing to a lizard in a suit in recent cinema history.
While the title shows an awful lack of imagination (the domestic moniker is as bad - La French) there is still much to enjoy about The Connection. Dujardin and Lellouche are both excellent; the cinematography is superb and the mid-to-late Seventies are brilliantly recreated. Director Jimenez manages to do grubby and swagger...
Read Harry Guerin's full review here
Director: Abderrahmane Sissako
Starring: Ibrahim Ahmed, Mehdi Ag Mohamed, Layla Walet Mohamet, Toulou Kiki
12A
Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako’s latest, much-acclaimed film engrosses from the beginning, with its shot of what might be a gazelle running across the desert sands. Meanwhile, a band of jihadists attempt to shoot it dead for sport, while travelling in a fast-moving jeep.
‘Tire it, don’t shoot it,’ exhorts one of the armed gang, perhaps outlining in the course of this paradigm the two choices open to these zealots as they attempt to convert the eponymous Malian city. Either be sharp and summary about it, or otherwise tire the local Islamic population out by endless persuasion.
The invaders seem to opt for...
