Movie Review Round-Up - The New Releases

Shaun the Sheep is baa-ck in cinemas this week, the new Maleficent is on screens, and Zombieland is back from the dead for another sequel. There's also sublime Irish fare in Dark Lies the Island.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

This is the most Disney film I've seen in years. And that's meant as a compliment, because a sizeable proportion of my favourite movie moments - in films such as The Jungle Book, Snow White, Pinnochio and Mary Poppins - come from that much-loved stable.

Okay, while I wouldn't be placing this sequel to 2014's Maleficent anywhere near my top five (or even ten) Disney offerings, it looks amazing and the story is a pretty straightforward and enjoyable tale with a topical twist.

This time around, Aurora (played once more by Elle Fanning) is living in the Moors with her godmother Maleficent (Angelina Jolie, again), and there remains a gulf between their fairy world and the neighboring Ulstead, which is populated by humans. Read our full review here.

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A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon ***1/2

Shaun's back in an out of this world adventure.

A mystery visitor crash-lands in Mossingham Forest, and makes her way to Mossy Bottom Farm, where she comes face-to-face with Shaun and the rest of the mischievous flock.

Shaun, who himself is always pushing boundaries, especially with farm dog Bitzer, meets the intergalactic visitor, an adorable alien called Lu-la. He then gets a taste of his own medicine as they set off on a mission to help Lu-la get home before the Ministry for Alien Detection capture her. Read our full review here.

Zombieland: Double Tap ***

The red carpet in Sequel Heaven can stay in the lock-up - The Godfather Part II, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens and Paddington 2 will have to wait a bit longer to welcome some new company.

Ten years on from Zombieland - the film that got the casting, comedy and carnage so right - director Reuben Fleischer and his magnificently unlikely gang of Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg and Abigail Breslin have reunited for this fun-but-bitty follow-up.

They still have the killer chemistry; they don't have the killer script. Read our full review here.

Dark Lies the Island ****

Here we go: yet another Irish film that shows us just what we're really like. Sure you'd have to laugh.

Over the many decades since Tinseltown started mangling Irish accents and making us out to be a bunch o' leprechaun-fearin' drunks, there's been a more recent, though steady stream of home-made movies pointing out the folly of Hollywood.

Irish people may not be away with the fairies but are pretty messed-up. Look at this lot, for example.

Formed from the fertile imagination of novelist, playwright and screenwriter Kevin Barry, and inspired by characters in his collections of short stories, this is a tale of unrelenting dysfunctionality. In other words, this story could be anybody's. Read our full review here.

Still Showing:

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie ***1/2

Breaking Bad ended in 2013 with all dangling threads sewn up into a neat scar tissue of revenge, bloodletting and mayhem, nicely and grisly tied up with Walt's righteous mass murder of a gang of neo Nazis and, in the closing seconds, Jesse screaming - half with elation and half with madness - as he rocketed away from the scene of his enslavement in a sleek black El Camino muscle car.

But here we are back in the blasted terrain and nocturnal tension of the New Mexican criminal underworld and who can blame creator and showrunner Vince Gilligan for returning to the scene of the crime - lots of crimes - after the relative calm of Better Call Saul? Like the blue ice Walt and Jesse manufactured, BB was always the most addictive of binge watches.

The two-hour El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is very good and while it doesn't besmirch the reputation of the original series, it does leave a lingering sense of disappointment that they even bothered. From Meth Men to Meh Men. Read our full review here.

The Day Shall Come **1/2

There are some moments that work, others that really don't, and a whole lot of unrealised potential in The Day Shall Come.

The film is "based on a hundred true stories" but centres on Moses (Marchánt Davis), a preacher working in the Miami projects who finds himself embroiled in an FBI plot to turn him into a criminal in a bid to then thwart his crimes and look like the heroes.

The points the film makes are clear, but there is so much clutter that they are never made in as powerful or as effective a way as they should be. Read our full review here.

A Bump Along The Way ***1/2

If high school comedy Booksmart is already down as your sweetest film of the year then this homegrown heartwarmer will give the Californian caper a serious run for its graduation money.

A Bump Along the Way also has a double act to treasure, this time in Bronagh Gallagher and Lola Petticrew as Derry girls Pamela and Allegra - a warring mother and daughter left reeling by the news that they'll soon be hearing the patter of tiny feet.

But in a clever role reversal it's Pamela who's expecting after a one-hour stand on a birthday night out... Read our full review here.

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The King ****

Ronnie Scott used to say that it was easy to make a million running a jazz club - all you had to do was start with two million.

That gem comes to mind watching The King, an excellent historical drama but one which, like the Saoirse Ronan-starring Mary Queen of Scots earlier this year, looks like it has a better chance of finding an audience in homes rather than cinemas.

Sure enough, this Shakespearean adaptation will be on Netflix by November 1, with the big screen release feeling like the pre-requisite awards season hoop-jumping, and the most honourable way to give director David Michôd (The Rover, Animal Kingdom) his due. Read our full review here.

Abominable ****1/2

Abominable is one of the most charming animations to come out in a long time. It is not voiced by the big names that you might expect from such a production and will definitely seep into the soul of any child over the age of eight.

It is set in contemporary China and is based around an abominable snowman cub - also known as a yeti - who is captured and then escapes. He hides on the roof of a Beijing apartment block where a girl called Yi - voiced by Chloe Bennet - who is traumatised by her father's death lives. Read our full review here.

Best Before Death ***1/2

The KLF's Bill Drummond believes that shining shoes, baking cakes, and making wooden beds are all artistic endeavours, so much so that he is on a 12-year tour of the world - 12 cities, 12 countries, the so-called 25 Paintings Tour. Is it art? You decide.

Drummond is an artist, a musician and a record producer. Is he atoning for what he might subconsciously perceive to be the indulgence of art-making, the frittering, frippery aspects of it?

The son of a Presbyterian minister, it is hard not to see him as a chip off the old block. At the age of ten, Drummond himself lived for three months in the town of Lexington, North Carolina, where his father was doing an exchange programme. Only actors and pop stars flew in 1963, so the family left the UK on a ship, sailing from Southampton to New York. Read our full review here.

Joker ****

Joaquin Phoenix turns in an Oscar-worthy performance as a comic-book villain whose power once lay in his ambiguous mythology, but has now been bolstered in Joker by an unflinching deep dive into his origins.

Pulling back the curtain on the Joker was a risk, but it's one that pays off hugely here as Phoenix's portrayal of the character, who has been played many ways by many actors to varying degrees of success, is unique and if anything, more terrifying, as this story is so grounded in a quasi-reality and the most real-worldly Gotham we've seen.

What transpires on screen is chilling, unnerving, completely compelling, anxiety-inducing, sleep-disturbing, and absolutely brilliant. Read our full review here.

Judy ****

I was really looking forward to this. I've been a big Judy Garland fan for decades, and I guarantee that at least one of the songs she's associated with will be played at my funeral.

Add to that the reports that Renée Zellweger had put in a career-defining performance in the lead role, and I couldn't wait to see it.

Unfortunately, the reality didn't match the hype in my head.

Sure, Zellweger is out-and-out Oscar bait in the lead role, showing the camera a version of Garland that also offers a fair amount of Renée too. Unfortunately, her performance only highlights the flaws in this film. She's easily the best thing about it. Read out full review here.

Movie Review Round-Up - The New Releases

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