There's plenty to see in the cinema this week and if you want a helping hand in deciding what to go to, here are all of our movie reviews in one place.
The Assassin *****
Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Starring: Qi Shu, Tian Ji'an, Chen Chang, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Shao-Huai Chang, Ethan Juan
Duration: 106 minutes | Cert: 12A
Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin was selected as the Taiwanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards last year. Much more importantly, Hou Hsiao-hsien (born 1947) won Best Director at Cannes for his latest, magisterial film.
A Taiwan-China-Japan production, in Chinese Mandarin with English subtitles, The Assassin was also ranked as the best movie of 2015 by Sight & Sound. Chu Tien-wen ‘s screen-play is based on a ninth century Tang Dynasty story, Nie Yinniang,drawn from the so-called Wuxia tradition.
The assassin of the piece is the eponymous Nie Yinniang (Qi Shu) a female killer who is instructed to kill corrupt government officials by Jiaxin (Ethan Juan), the nun who has reared her and taught her martial arts from the age of ten. In combat Yinniang is fearless, but while she... Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here
The Big Short ****
Director: Adam McKay
Starring: Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Marisa Tomei, Selena Gomez, Margot Robbie, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro
Duration: 130 minutes | Cert: 15A
Based on the non-fiction bestseller by Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side) and developed by Brad Pitt and his Plan B production company, The Big Short chronicles a handful of diverse players and intuitive fund managers, who foresaw the looming catastrophe of 2008's global meltdown.
The story is told from three points of view - all of which explore the fundamental flaws and criminality prevalent in the banking institutions of the mid-2000s and the Wall Street con artists who profited as a result.
Michael Burry (Bale), an antisocial, heavy metal-loving hedge fund manager in California, digs deep into the spreadsheets of unpaid mortgages and realises that they're actually worthless. He takes it upon himself to bet against the bonds by accumulating credit-default insurance that will make him... Read Laura Delaney's full review here
Ride Along 2 *
Director: Tim Story
Starring: Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, Olivia Munn, Benjamin Bratt, Ken Jeong, Tika Sumpter
Duration: 102 minutes | Cert: 12A
We all had our fill of James (Ice Cube) and his soon-to-be-brother-in-law Ben (Hart) in 2014's Ride Along and for some reason they have been brought back for a sequel.
This time around they are on a mission to bring down a powerful, lawbreaking, criminal mastermind (Bratt) in the days leading up to Ben's wedding and it's as unfunny as its predecessor.
For an action-comedy, the action is pretty tame and the comedy non-existent. I didn't laugh once, and at no point in the film did I even think 'Ah, that's funny' because it's not. At all. Not one bit... Read Sinead Brennan's full review here.
Our Brand is Crisis *
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton
Duration: 107 minutes | Cert: 15A
Is it the times that are in it that a very poor comedy about politics and PR could be made in so toothless a fashion, and be so lacking in edge and intelligence? Moreover, that it could be dragged down by Peter Straughan’s limp screen-play and not enlivened by the ill-judged slapstick? Don't know the answer to the first question, but, boy, is this one a disappointment.
Film fans of a certain age, cast your minds back to Tim Robbins in the brilliant film Bob Roberts. Now allow yourself some smug feelings that you had the discernment to check it out back in the early 90s. Clap yourself on the back that you enjoyed what was an admirably sharp, realistic satire on American politics. Because you sure as hell ain’t going to check out Our Brand is Crisis if you got any... Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here.
The 5th Wave ***
Director: J Blakeson
Starring: Chloë Grace Moretz, Alex Roe, Nick Robinson, Liev Schreiber, Maria Bello, Zackary Arthur, Ron Livingston
Duration: 102 minutes | Cert: 12A
With The Hunger Games done and dusted, and The Divergent series three-quarters of the way there with the release of Allegiant in March, there's a gap in the YA movie market for a new love and rockets franchise...
And so Hollywood turns to Rick Yancey's aliens-among-us adventure The 5th Wave, a page-turner that was multiplex-bound right from its publication in 2013. They've cast it perfectly with Kick-Ass' Chloë Grace Moretz as teen hero Cassie Sullivan; the second book is in the shops and the third's on the way. But if The 5th Wave makes its bones at the box office, there will need to be more quality control and a bigger budget next time 'round to do justice to both star and author.
"When you're a teenager," laments Cassie in the prologue, "everything seems like the end of the world..." Then the end of the world happens... Read Harry Guerin's full review here
STILL SHOWING
The Revenant *****
Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, Domhnall Gleeson, Forrest Goodluck, Paul Anderson
Duration: 156 minutes | Cert: 15A
An epic action movie set in a vast landscape that tells an age-old tale of revenge and redemption, The Revenant boasts stand-out performances and stunning visuals
Rumours of Werner Herzog-like demands and escalating production costs circulated around the making of The Revenant and it’s easy to see why. It’s a near three-hour epic that cost $135m and watching it is an almost physical experience.
Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who made Birdman and Babel, the story itself might have been carved from the very landscape and foundation myths of America. Set in the Great Plains in 1823, we meet a team of trappers, lead by Domhnall Gleeson’s Captain Andrew Henry, who go by such unromantic names as Dave Stomach Wound, Elk Dog, Coulter Naked Pale Trapper and Stubby Bill, but it is Leonardo DiCaprio's character, the quiet and watchful Hugh Glass, who is the most... Read Alan Corr's full review here.
Room ****
Director: Lenny Abrahamson
Starring: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, Tom McCamus, Sean Bridgers, Wendy Crewson
Duration: 118 minutes | Cert: 15A
Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay turn in brilliant performances in Lenny Abrahamson's adaptation of Emma Donoghue's book about motherhood, childhood and the fight and right to freedom
Lenny Abrahamson strikes a very human chord in his big screen adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s celebrated book Room. What could be a harrowing tale of captivity and the slow destruction of the soul is in fact a life-affirming movie about survival, resilience and an inspiring lust for life. Room is also a kind of modern day fairytale but it is also loaded with suspense and all the elements of a gripping thriller.
Brie Larson, who has won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for her performance, plays Joy (although she is mostly called Ma), a young mother who has been imprisoned in a tiny garden shed with her five-year-old son, Jack, for seven years.
She should be a woman on the edge of nervous collapse and Jack might be expected to be a withdrawn shell of a boy denied the joy and beauty of a full life. Instead Ma has made their 10 x 10ft prison... Read Alan Corr's full review here.
Creed ****
Director: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew
Duration: 133 minutes | Cert: 12A
Let's face it, for all the memories, there weren't too many movie fans wishing their lives away waiting for another Rocky. There were six in the can already - what could a seventh outing possibly add?
Well, a lot, as it turns out. Creed is a special film that pound for pound competes with the best heartstring-pulling of Rocky Balboa's 40-year screen odyssey but, crucially, looks to what's ahead in a very exciting way. As the name implies, the gloves are passed on to a new generation here, with Stallone taking on a very different role. You need to take a ringside seat... Read Harry Guerin's full review here.
