There's no shortage of good movies in the cinema this weekend, but if you're struggling to pick just one to go and see, check out our reviews first.
NEW RELEASES
Deadpool ****
Director: Tim Miller
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, T.J. Miller, Ed Skrein, Morena Baccarin, Gina Carano, Jed Rees, Stefan Kapicic
Duration: 107 minutes | Cert: 16
The unpredictable katana-swinging mercenary and his twisted sense of humour are back. Prepare for the doors to get blown off your local theatre.
Deadpool's solo big-screen outing has been a long time coming and after a decade of waiting to see what 'The Merc With a Mouth' has to offer, fans can rest assured that it was worth the wait.
Wade Wilson disappointed comic book fans around the globe when he briefly appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and failed to live up to source material - his motor-mouth was surgically sealed and he managed to acquire new and bizarre abilities along the way.
His cameo in Wolverine was a tip of the hat to the fans and a way to test the waters to see if Reynolds' take on Marvel Comics' most unconventional anti-hero could have an audience of its own - but the combination of his extreme bad luck with comic book adaptations (Blade: Trinity, R.I.P.D. and Green Lantern) and Zombieland writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick's attempt to push the boundaries with their R-rated script [16s in Ireland] set off alarm bells for 20th Century Fox. There was also the teeny tiny issue of the movie having no director attached to the project... Read Laura Delaney's full review here.
Concussion ****
Director: Peter Landesman
Starring: Will Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alec Baldwin, David Morse
Duration: 122 minutes | Cert: 12A
In a world of remakes, reboots and endless sequels, this time of year is always ripe for more thought-provoking, powerful pieces of cinema as Hollywood's heavyweights vie for those all-important nominations. Concussion may have failed to live up to the considerable Oscar hype surrounding it late last year - it didn't receive a single nomination from the Academy - but it is still very much worth seeing.
Will Smith stars as Dr Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian-American forensic pathologist who found that American football players were susceptible to developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) due to receiving so many knocks to the head while on the pitch.
Omalu becomes the underdog taking on the National Football League (NFL), which sets out to discredit him and says there's nothing unsafe about its beloved cash-cow of a professional sport. As viewers, we are reminded that, most of the time, real-life is far more interesting than fiction.
The film may be about American football but it isn't driven by gameplay that glorifies the sport. Instead, it is based in science and the dangers are put on display through montages of tackles that will leave you gasping and squirming in your seat... Read Sinead Brennan's full review here.
Zoolander No. 2 ***
Director: Ben Stiller
Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Penélope Cruz, Will Ferrell, Amy Wiig, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christine Taylor
Duration: 103 minutes | Cert: 12A
The world's favourite fashion dummies return in another idiotic caper. With great cheekbones.
We are all Derek Zoolander now. Since the world’s most ridiculously good-looking male model first sashayed into cinemas 15 years ago, his world of preening self-obsession and perfect hair now seems almost quaint. Social media has seized a certain generation and turned them all into selfie-obsessed preening Zoolanders living in drama of their own making.
The immediate worry with this long overdue sequel to the first Zoolander, a box office stiff on its release in 2001 which then enjoyed an afterlife on DVD and Netflix, is that it will go the way of Dumb and Dumber Too. However, a lot like JJ Abrams' blatant Star Wars remake, it manages to repeat the joys of the original, a bit like the very goodAnchorman sequel, a movie which did for the vanity of US broadcast news whatZoolander did for the vacuity of the fashion world.
Zoolander No 2 opens with the delicious sight of Justin Bieber being hunted down in the streets of Rome at night by two gunmen on motorcycles. He races down dark alleys and pulls some action hero moves but is finally cornered and expires in a hail of bullets.
What's not to like? In fact, this opening scene will later become one of the best jokes inZoolander 2; when Derek confronts evil fashion genius Mugatu (Will Ferrell, back to chew the scenery and chew out his cowering aide Todd)....Read Alan Corr's full review here.
A Bigger Splash ***
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schonaerts, Dakota Johnson.
Duration: 124 minutes | Cert: 15A
The volcanic island of Pantelleria, off the coast of Sicily, is the setting for Luca Guadagnino’s latest feature, which like his previous film, the markedly inferior I am Love, stars his fave dame, the formidable Tilda Swinton. However, before the action switches to the island, there’s a brief prologue, a shot of the rock star Marianne Lane - played by Swinton - arriving on a stage to loud cheers from thousands of fans in an arena-style venue.
The singer basks in the idolatry, to the sound of loud guitar chords, before there’s a quick switch to a languorous, sensual scene - an isolated country house in shimmering heat, two lovers sunbathing naked by a swimming pool on the island. The woman is Marianne Lane, but almost unrecognisable without her jet-black Chrissie Hynde-style hair - it’s a wig - and make-up.
The singer is played interestingly against (rock chick) type by Swinton. Lane is fearless and hedonistic, not flaky, but quietly perceptive and apparently in control of much of her life, despite having lost her voice due to a recent operation on her vocal chords. She talks in whispers or makes signs, and it’s not entirely clear if she will get her voice back... Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here.
The Survivalist ****
Director: Stephen Fingleton
Starring: Martin McCann, Olwen Fouéré, Mia Goth
Duration: 103 minutes | Cert: 18
It's only February but already there's many a Best Movies of 2016 list taking shape in heads and hearts with The Revenant, Room, Spotlight and The Big Short the stand-outs so far. Making a very strong case for inclusion in that exalted company is Northern Ireland's The Survivalist. It's a ferocious debut from Enniskillen writer-director Stephen Fingleton - so gritty that you might feel you have to wipe your feet after leaving the cinema.
Fingleton calls his film "post-event" rather than post-apocalyptic, but suffice to say Peak Oil and whatever else have had their way with civilisation and now only the most ruthless killers, stragglers and hermits remain. One of them - a man with no name (McCann) - lives on a woodland farm, sleeping with a shotgun and sensing danger every waking second. But when a mother and daughter (Fouéré and Goth) arrive at his door, you're not sure who should be most afraid of whom... Read Harry Guerin's full review here.
STILL SHOWING
Point Break **
Director: Ericson Core
Starring: Édgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer
Duration: 113 minutes | Cert: 12A
Remaking a film, especially one with such cult status, is a risky move unless you are going to completely turn the universe in which the film is set on its head, bring something new and jaw dropping to the table or replace the original stars with superior actors.
This remake of 1991's Point Break doesn't really do any of those things aside from give Bodhi and co. a 'higher purpose' and bring it technologically into the 21st century, so I can't help but wonder if the only reason they retained the name and general premise was to draw in fans of the original, because the cast and storyline wouldn't be strong enough to sell on its own merits.
For those of you unfamiliar with the premise, Point Break sees extreme sports star Johnny Utah (Bracey) turn his back on his stunt life and join the FBI (because, why not?) where, fresh out of the training academy, he notices a link between a series of high profile international incidents.
As a result of this, Utah infiltrates a group of eco-warrior thrill-seeker types who are on a mission to have the time of their lives while also 'giving back' to the environment. The posse is lead by Bodhi (Ramirez) and the two leads form a sort of bromance that really should have been developed on more... Read Sinead Brennan's full review here.
Dad's Army **
Director: Oliver Parker
Starring: Toby Jones, Nighy, Chatherine Zeta Jones, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon, Blake Harrison, Felicity Montagu
Duration: 100 | Cert: PG
Dad's Army returns with the old bungles and prat-falls but the script is misjudged and there is a severe rationing of belly laughs
The early signs were certainly good. Toby Jones as bumptious Captain Mainwaring; Bill Nighy as patrician Sgt Wilson; and Blake Harrison as simpering Pt Pike. Add to that Michael Gambon as the ancient and docile Godfrey and Tom Courtenay as the always game Lance-Corporal Jones and the new Dad’s Army movie looked like it was about to earn its stripes as a spit and polish of the much loved BBC sitcom.
Click here to read Alan Corr's full review
Goosebumps ***
Director: Rob Letterman
Starring: Jack Black, Dylan Minnette, Odeya Rush, Amy Ryan, Ryan Lee
Duration: 103 | Cert: PG
With more attempts to get things off the ground than the Wright brothers and a danger of movie nut whiplash from all the yo-yo-ing with release dates, Goosebumps looked like it could live up to its title for all the wrong reasons. How wide of the mark can you be? Default mode doom is entirely misplaced here and February has a fun and (very) fast adaptation of author RL Stine's best-selling children's horror stories. For many a kid this will be a gateway film to new worlds, while for seen-it-all-twice adults it's a reminder not to be jaded.
Grieving mother and son Gale and Zach Cooper (Amy Ryan and Dylan Minnette) move from New York City to sleepy Delaware, and right from the get-go have problems with their new neighbour, the reclusive Mr Shivers (Jack Black). Very rude and incredibly paranoid about the fence dividing his house from the Coopers', Shivers is hell-bent on keeping Zach away from his daughter, Hannah (Odeya Rush). Easier said than done. Zach and Hannah are really keen on each other and with one secret sortie following another it's not long before the youngsters open up a big book of trouble.
Read Harry Guerin's full review here.
Strangerland ***
Director: Kim Farrant
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Jospeh Fiennes, Hugo Weaving, Maddison Brown, Nicholas Hamilton.
Duration: 112 minutes | Cert: 15A
It’s a potent theme in Australian films - the children or teenagers who go missing in the Australian outback. 40 years ago there was Picnic at Hanging Rock and in the late 80s Meryl Streep put on an Australian accent for A Cry in the Dark, which was based on the so-called Dingo abduction case. Nic Roeg’s Walkabout also hovered around the notion of loss and erasure in the vast stretches of the boiling Antipodean desert.
In this impressive indie movie, Joseph Fienes and Nicole Kidman play the married couple who have moved to a remote settlement for murky reasons which become clear as the story proceeds. The dourly professional Fiennes runs a pharmacy and Kidman keeps house. However, their sexually precocious 15-year-old daughter Lily (Maddison Brown) is having difficulty settling into a dull town with one main street, surrounded by arid desert and a range of dramatically empty hills.
Lily and her kid brother Tom (Nicholas Hamilton) have become friendly with a local aborigine boy, and the kids hang around the skateboard park, which is frequented by an unsavoury gang of youths. You can sense there will be trouble ahead. Lily can’t resist flaunting her sexual charms, flirting with the wrong kind of guy... Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here.
Youth ****
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, Jane Fonda
Duration: 124 minutes | Cert: 15A
From Children of Men to the Batman movies to The Prestige and on to Is There Anybody There?, Harry Brown and Inception, Michael Caine has been on one almighty 'run' of quality roles over the last decade. It's some feat when you're still enhancing a two-Oscar CV into your eighties, and to the glorious list above can now be added Youth. Caine won Best Actor at the European Film Awards in December for this bittersweet stock take of life, love and loss - for all the current Academy Awards controversy there's an argument that he should have also been in the shake-up for his work here.
Caine plays Fred Ballinger, a composer who's put down pen his baton and sees nothing left in the world to excite him. At the insistence of daughter and PA Lena (Weisz), Fred is getting the twice over at a spa in the Swiss Alps, where film director pal Mickey (Keitel) is trying to knock the script for his twilight tour de force into shape.
In between treatments Fred and Mickey walk, talk about old times, interrogate each other on their urinary output and bet on whether a couple they see at dinner each night will ever have a conversation. To the outsider it seems that Mickey has far more of an appetite for the here and now, but the arrival of a royal emissary, and a friendship with a young actor (Dano), may just shake Fred out of his stupor... Read Harry Guerin's full review here.
Spotlight ***
Director: Tom McCarthy
Starring: Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, John Slattery.
Duration: 128 minutes | Cert: 15A
Spotlight is essentially All The President’s Men rebooted, with the quarry being the real-life Cardinal Law and errant Boston clergy rather than Richard Nixon and his associates.
Instead of the Washington Post, it’s the Boston Globe doing the hunting down. So you get the long strip-lit office, the serious news story simmering away while the mostly male hacks rib each other about poker and golf and attend baseball games together.
The year is 2001 and a new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) has taken over. After initial suspicions are allayed, he assembles the editorial team and gently but forcefully probes what kind of stories the journalists have been chasing down.
As an outsider - Jewish, non-Catholic - Baron has no residual loyalty to the city, nor indeed has he any particular appreciation of, or much interest in, the city’s Catholic clergy who are respected and admired by many seemingly well-heeled locals for their charity work... 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 stinking rich when doomsday arrives... Read Laura Delaney's full review here.
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.
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.
