Heading to the cinema this weekend? Here's a round-up of the best of what's on show movie-wise around the country.
Twice Shy ****
Director Tom Ryan
Starring Ardal O'Hanlon,Iseult Casey,Pat Shortt,Shane Murray-Corcoran
This Irish film is about a couple in their 20s who fall in love and are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. While it may be somewhat encumbered with the tag of 'the abortion movie', Twice Shy is much more than that. It's balanced and un-showy film-making that presents a complex dilemma with great care and without any recourse to preachiness. Rather than shouting its intentions, the film instead finds refuge in subtlety and unspoken gestures
Despite being only 80 minutes, Twice Shy is powerful and will be enjoyed by all. For a full review click here
Hampstead ***
Director Joel Hopkins
Starring Brendan Gleeson, Diane Keaton, James Norton
This rom com features a widowed American played by Diane Keaton who lives in a fancy flat in London's Hampstead, and Donald Horner, an eccentric Irishman played by Brendan Gleeson, who lives nearby in a shack in Hampstead Heath (think Phoenix Park). She spends her days helping out in a charity shop and fussing over her son, while he scavenges and washes in a pond. Then they meet . . .
The younger generation may find Twice Shy a film they can relate to more.
For full review click here.
Transformers: The Last Knight **
Director Michael Bay
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Josh Duhamel, Isabela Moner, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci
Mark Wahlberg plays hedge fund-sounding inventor-turned-one-man-army Cade Yeager. After a prologue that would be the final battle in most movies, Cade teams up with an eccentric astronomer (Anthony Hopkins) and 'feisty' Oxford professor (Laura Haddock) to save the world as the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons duke it out to the sound of the Doomsday clock. An hour in, you realise there's a whole movie still to go - like trying to cut the grass in August when the last time you had the mower out was September.
This film would be a thrill a minute for a pre-teen audience but from an adult perspective it only merits two stars.
For a full review, click here
Still Showing:
Wonder Woman ****
Director Patty Jenkins
Starring Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Danny Huston, Elena Anaya, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lucy Davis, Ewen Bremner, Saïd Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock
Full of Gal power, this action-packed film has an impressive storyline as well as countless stunts. Wonder Woman, clad with bionic bracelets, lasso of truth and jumping ability, is summoned from her home island of Themyscira to protect vulnerable powerless humans. Whether it's banter or battle, Gadot excels - as comfortable with the physicality of the role as the heart and humour needed to make an icon her own.
For a full review, click here.
Cardboard Gangsters ****
Director Mark O'Connor
Starring John Connors, Fionn Walton, Kierston Wareing, Jimmy Smallhorne, Toni O'Rourke, Ciaran McCabe, Paul Alwright, Alan Clinch, Stephen Clinch, John Dalessandro, Damien Dempsey, Gemma-Leah Devereux, Kyle Bradley Donaldson
Cardboard Gangsters feels like the type of movie that would have been unthinkable 'round these parts 20 years ago. It'll still hold up two decades down the line. Low-level hash dealer-come-DJ Jake Connolly (John Connors) finds himself in a bind, listens too much to the bravado loop of his crew and decides to move up in Darndale's drugs trade. It's a long, long way down . . . Across the board the acting is excellent. While Connors is the main man, his co-stars make just as much of an impression with their screen time.
As gritty a crime drama as you're ever going to get from Irish cinema.
For a full review, click here
For a round-up of all the other movies on release and reviews click here.
