Find out which movies are worth the popcorn money this week right here!
Rocketman ****
The history of the music biopic is littered with many corpses, both figuratively and literally. Val Kilmer nailed Jim Morrison as a shamanistic lounge lizard in Oliver Stone’s flawed but worthwhile The Doors; Angela Bassett’s blew the roof off Nutbush with her powerhouse portrayal of Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to do With It?, Joaquin Phoenix painted a nicotine-stained portrait of languorous self-destruction in Walk The Line, and Gary Busey was sublime on the day the music died in The Buddy Holly Story.
However, for every smash hit rock flick, there have been numerous flops. Very few reservations linger over Dexter Fletcher’s madly entertaining life of Elton John, the suburban boy wonder piano player who became the most unlikely of rock superstars in the gauzy seventies, before morphing into knowing self-parody as the queen bitch of the eighties and nineties. If there was ever a pop star who ate himself and, indeed, everything else, it is Elton... Read our full review here.
Aladdin ***
The wonder of Aladdin is impressively realised and though it lacks some of the magic, there is plenty to sit back and soak in, with laughs and singalongs guaranteed.
Remaking a classic Disney film comes with one distinct advantage; the storyline and songs are already a winner, so the pressure is off in that regard.
The flipside to that - you have an awful lot to live up to and assembling a live-action cast that can do the roles justice becomes absolutely crucial, and here, it's pretty spot on.
Will Smith had big Genie shoes to fill in the place of the late Robin Williams but he does so with ease as his version of the character is just far enough removed from the original that it is completely his own, without going too off-book... Read our full review here.
The Secret Life of Pets 2 ***
Anyone who has spent listless hours scrolling through YouTube clips of cats and dogs doing funny stuff may find some laughs from this brisk sequel to the 2016 animated hit.
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Louis CK has been replaced in the lead voice role of eager but timid terrier Max by Patton Oswalt and he’s ably supported by Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet as his old buddy, Newfoundland mix Duke, and jive-talking rabbit Snowball (Hart), who thinks he’s a superhero.
This time around Max and Duke have to contend with the arrival of their owners’ new baby and a trip to a farm where they encounter Rooster, growlingly voiced by Harrison Ford and who just may be based on Jack Palance’s Curly from City Slickers... Read our full review here.
Too Late To Die Young ****
Nervy restlessness and the anticipation of doomed innocence shadows the brilliant Too Late to Die Young (Tarde Para Morir Joven), which is set in 1990s Chile.
On paper, it sounds like a reasonably appealing prospect - a bunch of families head up into the forested hills above Santiago de Chile to set up an alternative commune. There they plan to celebrate New Year with a big party, where the alcohol will flow freely.
It's sometime in the early 1990s and it is, of course, the Southern hemisphere, so we are talking an air of summer. The adults are busy setting up things, a water system and electric power lines are installed. Meanwhile, the numerous children that populate the film mess about in the swimming pool that looks like a disused reservoir... Read our full review here.
Memoir of War *****
Memoir of War, France's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards, is a brilliant rendering of novelist Marguerite Duras's Second World War experiences in occupied Paris, as told in her autobiographical novel, La Douleur, which was first published in 1985. Moreover, La Douleur is the French title of the film.
Mélanie Thierry inhabits the role of Marguerite with such compelling power that the viewer must inevitably spend the entire movie reading her face for signs. How genuine is she in the first place about missing her husband, the Communist and writer Robert Antelme (Emmanuel Bourdieu)? How deep is her wish to locate him? The actress cultivates a delicious ambivalence about the relationship and seems to be close to another Resistance member, Dionys Masolu Benjamin Biolay. She is curiously isolated in the film by the bold handling of her own situation. Indeed she stands apart anyway because she - Marguerite Duras - is a reasonably well-known writer... Read our full review here.
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John Wick 3 **1/5
In a recent interview with Empire magazine, Keanu Reeves said there was no comparing him to Tom Cruise because the Mission: Impossible mogul "is on another level".
In terms of physicality, the John Wick star is doing himself a disservice, but when it comes to sequel satisfaction, Reeves has hit the bullseye. Six movies in - and counting - Cruise's franchise delivered its best yet with 2018's Fallout. After half that number John Wick is running out of ammunition... Read our full review here.
Birds of Passage *****
The broodingly incendiary Birds of Passage will keep you captivated until the exhausted conclusion as a feud between two families of the Wayuu people of Colombia ratchets up the drama to breaking point.
The proud Wayuu people live out on the isolated Colombian plains, fiercely attached to their ancient traditions, customs and rules of behaviour. The action, based on actual events, begins in the mid-1960s as the young bachelor Raphayet (José Acosta) seeks the hand of, but cannot as yet afford marriage to, Zaida (Natalia Reyes). To win her, this serious, doggedly determined young man must assemble a valuable dowry, involving herds of goats and valuable necklaces... Read our full review here.
Pokémon Detective Pikachu ****
Detective Pikachu is very much a kids' film but there are enough in-jokes for older Pokémon fans and one-liners for parents that it's a bit of fun for all the family.
When Tim's (Justice Smith) estranged detective dad is presumed dead following a fiery car accident, Tim travels to Ryme City, a place where humans live side-by-side with Pokémon. Battles and trainers are no more, and each person has a Pokémon partner... Read our full review here.
High Life ****
Written and directed by French director Claire Denis, this pretty downbeat sci-fi tale is the 73-year-old's first film in the English language and was co-written by her long-time collaborator Jean-Pol Fargeau.
Basically, a group of death row criminals are sent on an alternative energy-finding mission in space to potentially source from a black hole. The mission has no chance of making it back to Earth, so the ship is effectively a death sentence for all aboard anyway... Read our full review here.
Hustle **
Chris Addison’s directorial debut is a gratingly vapid and clunky misfire of seen-it-before set-ups that never settles on whether it’s a parody or a homage.
This gender-swapped remake of 1988’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was a remake of 1964’s Bedtime Story, is so ill-considered and erratically realised that it can only aspire to stupidity in its characters and in itself... Read our full review here.
