Find out which movies are worth the popcorn money this week.
The Kid Who Would Be King ****
In his first film since 2011's acclaimed Attack the Block, writer-director Joe Cornish tweaks an Arthurian legend to suit the modern setting of Brexit-era Britain.
As the 'chosen one' narrative rolls out, it's up to 12-year-old Alex (Louis Serkis, the talented son of Andy Serkis) and his Excalibur Sword to save his hometown from villainous scorcher Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson, interviewed below). Cue inspirational lessons on self-discovery and the importance of camaraderie.
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There's a spirited charm here reminiscent of Spielberg's '80s kids' adventure flicks. Read our full review here.
Happy Death Day 2U **
If there's one thing that the makers of horror franchises have in common with their characters, it's that they never know when to leave well enough alone.
The latest exhibit for the prosecution is Happy Death Day 2U; a fourth-rate follow-up to the 2017 slasher-comedy that made a breakout star of Jessica Rothe and took over $125 million on an estimated $4.8 million budget. Rothe is back for this Groundhog Slay sequel. You've no need to join her.
The original saw snarky student Tree Gelbman (Rothe) dying the same day over and over in a time loop while trying to catch her cherub-masked killer. Waking up the morning after, Tree now discovers she's not done yet, thanks to a fellow student messing with proton lasers and slowing down the centre of time on a molecular level. Or something. Read our full review here.
Instant Family
Instant Family’s earnest look at the trials and tribulations of fostering children feels at times so cloyingly sweet it’s verging on being emotionally manipulative, but it certainly gets under your skin.
You’d be hard pressed to emerge from a screening of this movie without wiping a tear or two from your eye.
Although it’s largely a cookie-cutter Hollywood depiction of creating an "instant family", writer-director Sean Anders (Horrible Bosses 2, Daddy’s Home) has drawn on his own experience of adoptive parenthood which lends a sense of authenticity to the emotions. Read our full review here.
A Private War ***
The hell of war is etched on Rosamund Pike’s face in every scene in documentary maker Matthew Heineman’s gripping film about the late war correspondent Marie Colvin. Pike, always a still and studied performer, is transformed into a nervous wreck as the veteran journalist, always on the edge of collapse through the sheer exhaustion of her job and the slow release panic attack of her home life. Read our full review here
Still Showing:
The LEGO Movie 2 ****
Five years on from the release of the outstanding The LEGO Movie, our favourite mini figures are back and everything is still pretty awesome.
Where The LEGO Movie focussed on a father-son relationship, this outing is all about sibling dynamics, with the big brother's citizens of Bricksburg - now living in a more mature, post-apocalyptic LEGO world - coming under threat from the younger sister's LEGO Duplo.
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This new dynamic plays out with less subtlety than in the first film, but it will tug at your heart-strings and have you laughing out loud – and what more could you want? Read our full review here.
If Beale Street Could Talk *****
If you're scrambling to find the time to watch all the films you've lined up for February, here's another one to add to the list - at the top.
After his breakout success with Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins has returned with a film that's every frame as special - another for-the-ages love story, this time set in 1970s New York.
Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) had been friends since childhood, only to discover that they wanted all of each other. We stroll with them on warm nights and feel that heat from the screen; they see the brightest of futures together, and we tell ourselves that we see it too. But life has other plans... Read our full review here.
Boy Erased *****
The best coming-of-age stories remind you of something from your own life, while also making you realise the truth in someone else's.
And so it is with actor-turned-director Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased, a film that is guaranteed to make viewers feel very angry, but is also determined that they shouldn't lose hope.
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Based on the 2016 memoir by Garrard Conley, this study of love and acceptance sees pastor Marshall (Russell Crowe) and devout wife Nancy (Nicole Kidman) left reeling after their 18-year-old son Jared (Lucas Hedges) tells them that he is attracted to men. Read our full review here.
All Is True ****
There's more than a touch of the BBC's masterful adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall in this passion project from lifelong Shakespeare scholar Kenneth Branagh.
It's certainly there in Branagh's elegant direction. Every shot has a painterly candlelit quality, which captures the unhurried pace and lifestyle of the era. It's also in the poised performances of the cast, not least Judi Dench's stoical portrayal of Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway and Kathryn Wilder as their bitter and angry spinster daughter Judith.
Branagh himself, in a false nose and hairline, plays the man with restraint and humour and is only given to one isolated incident of rage. Read our full review here.
Alita: Battle Angel **
Rosa Salazar plays Alita, a half-destroyed cyborg unearthed from a rubbish dump and turned into the "most dangerous weapon ever" in Robert Rodriguez's uneven and overlong comic book adaptation.
Like a Manga version of Fritz Lang’s Maschinenmensch crossbred with a Disney princess, Alita chops and hews her way through Iron City in the year 2563, while also finding time for a dopey teen romance with a local boy and a Pinocchio/Geppetto relationship with her father figure and saviour - cybersurgeon Dr Dyson Ido (a reliable but bored looking Christoph Waltz).
Mega producer James Cameron has had his sights on adapting this Manga comic book by Yukito Kishiro for decades, but a little thing called Avatar and its planned sequels got in the way. However, Cameron's megalomania is all over Alita, from the total reliance on CGI, to the clunky dialogue, to the clichéd characters. Read our full review here.
