Movie Review Round-Up - The New Releases

Spider-Man: Far from Home is the big, big movie this weekend. But if it's scares you want, then try Midsommar.

Spider-Man: Far from Home ****

This is pretty much a perfect Peter Parker pic. It's certainly one of the most enjoyable solo superhero adventures in years, and at just over two hours it rattles along at a nice pace.

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The tale's as straightforward as they come. Peter Parker's (Tom Holland) pretty pooped - both physically and mentally - following the monumental battle between the Avengers and Thanos in Endgame.

Back in Brooklyn, a school trip to Europe offers the 16-year-old an opportunity to get away from everything for a while, and he even ignores phone calls from Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury. Read our full review here.

Midsommar ***1/2

What's the worst thing you can say about a horror film? That it's not scary enough or that it's too up itself?

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Midsommar, Ari Aster's follow-up to his breakout debut Hereditary, makes quite the case for the latter. And yet, like its predecessor, there is plenty to admire.

After a devastating prologue (as powerful as anything else in the film - and that's saying something), Aster shouts "roll up!" to his carnival of the bizarre. Read our full review here.

Never Look Away **1/2

Never Look Away (Werk ohne Autor) runs to over three hours and is a reasonably engaging human story but it is overly-long and flawed by a certain degree of cinematic indulgence that makes it syrupy and fluffy when it should not be so.

The best thing in it, however, is the enthralling stage baddie, SS doctor Professor Seeband. We gleefully follow proceedings, awaiting his eventual comeuppance and, indeed, the enthusiastic viewer may be tempted to shout "He's behind you!" at certain points.

The film's director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, impressed many with his breakthrough film The Lives of Others, which won Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2007. He also made The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, which did not pass muster for people who expected more from Herr von Donnersmarck. Now, nine years on, comes this German-language movie, an overflowing, milky saucerful of secrets, sinister and otherwise. Read our full review here.

Vita & Virginia ***

"Love and work... work and love, that's all there is."

Sigmund Freud's life-itself quote comes to mind many a time during Vita & Virginia, the story of the relationship between authors Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and how it inspired Woolf's classic Orlando.

Really, director Chanya Button's refined literary biopic about the chase and the catch has no business being in cinemas at the height of summer, but if you're looking for something away from the multiplex norm, or a break from the boxsets, it will inspire you to read more of/about both authors at its centre. Read our full review here.

Still Showing:

Yesterday ****

Like an acid trip transported from 1968 and deposited in 2019, this whimsical, alternate universe comedy-fantasy from the apparent odd couple of writer/director team of Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle asks the ultimate music 'what if...?' question - what if The Beatles never existed?

Well, for a start Alan Partridge would be most dismayed (no Wings!) but on the plus side, no Imagine and no Frog Chorus either. The cleverly titled Yesterday is like the butterfly effect in reverse, really - what are the consequences of wiping the greatest pop act of all time from collective memory?

However, despite the high wire/high concept of the whole endeavour and Boyle's trademark euphoric style of filmmaking, Yesterday somehow slips up along the way and becomes a lot like A Day in the Life in reverse. It starts like Helter Skelter and ends like The Long and Winding Road in a lachrymose pool of Richard Curtis cuteness but it never loses its surreal heart and sense of absurdity. Read our full review here.

Metal Heart ***

Irish teen movies could never be considered a genre that spoils give-it-a-go viewers for choice, so kudos to actor-turned-director Hugh O'Conor and co for their services to growing pains.

Now, Metal Heart isn't up there with the greats from, say, Amy Heckerling (Clueless), John Hughes (The Breakfast Club), Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused) or Penelope Spheeris (Suburbia) - what is? - but it's an easy watch, well cast and acted. And that message of being true to yourself never gets old - no matter how many candles are on the cake.

Chalk-and-cheese fraternal twins Emma (Jordanne Jones) and Chantal (Leah McNamara) are left to fend for themselves when their parents head off on a lengthy adventure holiday. Emma is devoted to decibels, distortion and despair, Chantal has her business plan, and life, all mapped out. Read our full review here.

Movie Review Round-Up - The New Releases

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