Review Category: Movie

“In order to remember, you first need to forget.” That’s the slogan for Adina Istrate’s short film Terminally Happy, which within its modest running time raises some fascinating questions of loss, remembrance and science. Within minutes you are ushered into the private, intimate (and near-futuristic) setting of a family home, and it is implied that something is up between the mother Evie (Emma Campbell-Jones) and the father Louis (Alastair Mackenzie). Their conflict centres around that most mundane of parental concerns; making sure that their son Oscar (William Stagg) eats his breakfast and goes to school.

Such a seemingly insignificant concern feels like it stands in place for something much larger, and as becomes clear by the end this is not the minor parent-child tiff that it seems like on the surface. The opening shot, of a pill violently fizzing and dissolving in a cup of water, alludes to where the film is going but you are still taken back by the context of this ordinary family situation.

It looks ordinary anyway but feels anything from it. The score puts you on edge – not because there is the chance of some jump scare or a mysterious death, but because it helps to tighten the knots in your stomach as the creeping feeling of unease takes over. The whole movie is a transfixing and unsettling experience.

The lead performances from Campbell-Jones and Mackenzie are solid, but it is Istrate’s vision and control that completes Terminally Happy. The creation of an atmosphere that has such feelings of nervousness and almost dreads is the result of her screenplay and how the whole film feels like some kind of controlled experiment. Far from being a problem, it is a style that compliments the issues and the themes of the film, which transcends its modest running time to feel a lot longer and more important than thirteen measly minutes would suggest.

For such a short film, the dialogue is surprisingly sparse. This only serves to keep you guessing until the final moments, where there is so much conversation you share in Louis’ struggle to distinguish the words from each other. It highlights the contrast between, as becomes clear, two essentially different worlds, the world of remembering and the world of forgetting.

Flawless it is not. Some context from the outside world regarding what plays out in the home would be nice. It becomes clear that there is something to do with pharmaceutical and scientific testing, but it is not clear who is involved or why. It borders on the confusing for sure, but this fails to take away from what is a fascinating little movie.

TERMINALLY HAPPY (Short Film) / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: ADINA ISTRATE / SCREENPLAY: ADINA ISTRATE / STARRING: ALASTAIR MACKENZIE, EMMA CAMPBELL-JONES, WILLIAM STAGG / RELEASE DATE: MARCH 2ND

Who’d have thought that Estonia would unleash one of the most mesmerizingly involving dark fantasies of recent years? Well, they have – via Rainer Sarnet’s November, which has been adapted for the screen from Andrus Kivirahk’s novel Rehepapp.

It is an atmospheric and beautifully realised supernatural vision that would belong as much in the vision of Guillermo Del Toro and Tim Burton as it does here. Osciilloscope, who recently distributed the excellent The Road Movie, have got another worthy winner here, which opened in late February 2018 in the USA.

At the heart of this – amidst all the strange and weird concepts – is a story of love in various incarnations, at odds with a community that is clearly embracing of black magic and the Devil as it is the love in the hearts of the locals.

November focuses on a love triangle between Liina (Rea Lest), Hans (Jordan Liik) and a German baroness (Jette Loona Hermanis). Liina wants to marry best friend Hans, but he is smitten with the Baroness and as a result, devilish deals and a pound of silver appears to be the way forward for Liina and Hans to achieve their love and romantic goals.

The community, who embrace the return of the living dead and some supernatural Burton-esque tree-based life-forms called Kratts (believe me, you will be curious and enchanted in equal measures from the opening with what these things are, rendered with some excellent CGI effects and interaction with the live actors). The Kratts, as such, are curious monstrosities who are keen to work for humanity. Before long, however, many dark figures and ideals are about to bring a hard reality on the individuals, who are as naïve about them as they are with their emotional objectives.

This writer was drawn into the visual enterprise here and found November to be a truly involving and encompassing world – in much the same way that the makers of the recent Stephen King blockbuster version of IT created the most perfect vision of a King world ever.

At times and perhaps understandable given the nature of the film, you might find the plot and relationships secondary to the visuals, which are realised in gorgeous black and white by cinematographer Mart Taniel, a supremely talented DOP who will doubtlessly have an ace of a calling card to Hollywood with his work here. The buzz has already begun for him, given his prize for Best Cinematography at the Tribeca Film Festival 2017

I really do hope he does – as he has got the same kind of visual strength that the likes of Roger Deakins and the late legendary William A. Fraker (Bullitt, Wargames) possess. Taniel certainly has the chance to follow the likes of Janusz Kaminski and Jan De Bont into the Hollywood arena.

November is a multi-faceted genre masterpiece, taking a stylish blend of classic supernatural horror and blending it with a tender tragedy to create a superior work of Eastern European Cinema.

NOVEMBER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: RAINER SARNET / STARRING: REA LEST, JÖRGEN LIIK, ARVO KUKUMÄGI, DIETER LASER / RELEASE DATE: TBC (UK), FEBRUARY 23RD (US)

Scars of Xavier, recently acquired for Worldwide Distribution by genre specialists Devilworks,   premiered at this year’s European Film Market and is the latest entry in the now-familiar serial killer genre.

Familiarity is very much mixed in with the graphic gore on show here, as Scars of Xavier treads similar ground to the likes of David Fincher’s Se7en, both versions of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the Elijah Wood Maniac remake and the classic 1986 benchmark Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, which explores this type of subject matter better than any other film we can recall to a far more disturbingly powerful pay-off and remains the definitive analysis of a twisted mind.

That’s not to say Scars of Xavier doesn’t have the potential to reach the core audience who have been so ingrained in their psyche with the examples above alongside the likes of Silence of the Lambs and Zodiac and it is generating significant buzz amongst the horror festivals with an award from the Nightmare Film Festival for Best Thriller.

Marc Engel, who co-produced the film with writer-director Kai E. Bogatzki, stars as the Xavier of the title, a man who works in a mundane job as a car wash, but then transforms at night into a vicious, uncompromising serial killer with vulnerable young women on his radar. He clearly is missing a thought or two and takes pride in putting a collage of pictures of his victims for reflection on his home wall. It is obvious that he is looking for more entries and reflection…

The film certainly whets the appetite at the outset when Xavier dispenses with a group of armed police officers in body armour in a Raid-style sequence and there seemed to be potential in a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game with the police,  but before long the film disappointingly taps back into the well-used style of the examples mentioned, without focusing much on the motivation or backstory, which backdates here to Psycho and Don’t Go In The House as a prime motive for Xavier’s acts of degradation.

The film does score highly with the graphic gore and make-up, which is up there with the best of Tom Savini’s work in the Friday The 13th films and Joseph Zito’s The Prowler (aka Rosemary’s Killer in the UK), but it doesn’t disguise the fact that the film hasn’t added anything to the debate of what a serial killer can do or why they do what they do.

This is the key problem with Scars of Xavier. The film-makers do have a talent for this type of genre thriller and it is a shame that they didn’t expand on some of the psychological ideas and concepts that would have elevated this film to the classic status of a Se7en or Henry.

SCARS OF XAVIER / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: KAI E. BOGATZKI / STARRING: ISABELLE ARING, MARC ENGEL, FRANK FREITAG, JELLY FRANCIS GAVIRIA / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Are you one of those stressful parents where you just have one of those days that you just want to shut up your son or daughter? If yes and nothing more, then at least you’re not on the same step as the parents we see in Brian Taylor’s Mom and Dad.

Mom and Dad focuses on Brent Ryan (Nicolas Cage) and Kendell Ryan (Selma Blair) as parents to innocent toddler Josh (Zackary Arthur) and up-to-no-good teenager Carly (Anne Winters). They are just like any normal American family, all hanging out in the kitchen eating their breakfast having a laugh before they all rush off to work and school. We have moments in the opening scenes where we see Cage’s character give his son weird and intense looks, leaving us feeling awkward and perhaps wary of what’s to come. Later on, the ultimate storyline drops as a student is killed by his mother outside Carly’s high school. Blood splatters everywhere with a bit of a slapstick approach indicating the horror/thriller genre is mixed in with a bit of comedy. The scenario is set like it is the end of the world with school kids evacuating the building and running to their parents waiting outside. Creating a good horror is using something in an unusual place – for example, a snake coming out of a toilet or a monster attacking a village. Not many can imagine parents killing their own children; not just any children but their very own children. It’s weird but it works.

Taylor’s approach of adding comedy to this film was a perfect choice by the writer/director. Without adding some humorous moments this storyline would have just been dark, making it not everyone’s cup of tea, but having the comedy element added is a good distraction from what a bizarre storyline we are watching.

Cage – the lead star – is not exactly everyone’s favourite actor when you look back at some of his unpopular films such as Ghost Rider and National Treasure. But if you enjoyed his antics while playing Big Daddy in Kickass then you may just like his presence in Mom and Dad. Clearly, both are very different characters, but both are fun to watch. In fact, for the future perhaps Cage should look more into comedy film roles.

Throughout most of the film, we follow Carly and her little brother Josh as they try to survive by avoiding their Mom and Dad from killing them around the house.

Taylor – also director of Crank and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance – uses somewhat a simple storyline, but if you enjoy horrors with a comedic twist then this may be a film to take your friends out to. Definitely don’t drag along your parents, though – they may get that killing feeling in the process.

MOM AND DAD / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: BRIAN TAYLOR / STARRING: NICOLAS CAGE, SELMA BLAIR, ANNE WINTERS, ZACKARY ARTHUR / RELEASE DATE: MARCH 2ND

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

You can relax… Black Panther is cool.

Iron Man tries too hard and Captain America is far too earnest to be cool but Black Panther, both Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of the character and the film that surrounds him, is just effortlessly cool.

Taking place almost immediately after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther finds T’Challa returning to his native Wakanda to be crowned King after his father’s death. Almost immediately you are struck by the depth and colour of the world Ryan Coogler has constructed, which is rivalled only by the depth felt in the relationships between T’Challa and the ensemble around him. There are simply no small parts in Black Panther, with every character feeling fully realised from T’Challa’s banter with his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) and mother (Angela Basset) to ex-girlfriend and master spy Nakia (Nyong’o) to Wakanda’s tribal council, these characters all know each other inside out and you can feel it. The inclusion of Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya may seem like the addition of a “hot” actor in a minor role but both he and Winston Duke’s M’Baku of the Jabari tribe fulfil important yet natural roles in the story.

As for that story, probably more than any previous Marvel Cinematic Universe outing, it concerns itself not with inner demons of its lead but more with external threats to the king and Wakanda, as T’Challa finds out just how hard it is for a good man to be king. The biggest of those threats coming in the form of Ulysses Klaue (a delightfully deranged Andy Serkis) and the lithe, dangerous Erik Killmonger. Michael B. Jordan may be physically incapable of giving a bad performance at this stage but in Killmonger he may have created one of the best and yet most grounded MCU villains in a long time. His aims are strikingly simple and yet incredibly relevant; use Wakanda’s advanced technology to free oppressed people “who look like him” all over the world. It’s one even T’Challa has trouble arguing with.

Marvel Studios isn’t likely to suddenly forget how to make good movies, however, some of the action scenes don’t quite live up to the standard set by say Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Almost anything featuring Danai Gurira’s General Okoye and the Dora Milaje (The king’s guard), however, is absolutely amazing, probably because their costumes restrict the ability to replace them with CGI. This causes some problems in the third act as it descends, for a time, into a CGI slugfest but these are minor quibbles.

This writer might possibly be the least qualified person on the planet to speak to the authenticity of Marvel’s Wakanda, a technologically advanced African country, undisturbed by colonisation or the mix of Wakandan beats, contemporary tracks and a more traditional score by Ludwig Göransson and Kendrick Lamar, but it all works. Boy, does it ever work and all with very few references to the rest of the MCU or the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. Even the two post credit scenes barely tie into Marvel’s ongoing saga, but after the adventure you’ve just experienced, you’d barely care.

BLACK PANTHER / CERT: 12A / DIRECTOR: RYAN COOGLER / SCREENPLAY: RYAN COOGLER, JOE ROBERT COLE / STARRING: CHADWICK BOSEMAN, MICHAEL B. JORDAN, LUPITA NYONG’O, DANAI GURIA, MARTIN FREEMAN, DANIEL KALUUYA / RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 13TH

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

This, then, is the fate of the much-anticipated third entry into J.J. Abrams’s refreshingly-unpredictable Cloverfield series; bumped back from its original theatrical release date (and renamed from its God Particle working title) and finally, it seems, hurriedly off-loaded to Netflix and released without fanfare following the screening of a hasty Super Bowl trailer. Hard not to imagine that Paramount (who clearly wanted shot of the thing) and Netflix are just hoping that with the film’s sudden appearance (the Netflix deal has been rumoured for a couple of weeks but no-one was expecting it to arrive this quickly) that momentum from the previous films will be enough to pull in a curious audience before the reviews fly out of the paddock. Sad to report that The Cloverfield Paradox really ain’t too good…

It isn’t, however, that bad. Vexed critics denied their apparently God-given right to see films before lowly mortals will almost certainly be swinging their broadswords at newcomer Julius Oneh’s somewhat sloppy space saga.  They’re probably right to do so as long as they’re doing it because the film’s under-par and not just because the new Netflix release model is starting to change the way critics and public alike are consuming Hollywood’s golden nuggets. There’s so much wrong with The Cloverfield Paradox that Paramount’s decision to pull the film away from the unforgiving glare of the Box office is entirely justified and yet on the handful of occasions when the film works it hints at what night have been and, in all honesty, what should have been. The film takes us to the Cloverfield space station where it’s hoped that experiments with the Shepherd particle accelerator will bring an end to the Earth’s global energy crisis by accessing an infinite supply of energy (science is not one of the film’s strong points). A looney tunes TV scientist warns of potential catastrophe, fearing that use of the accelerator will open portals to other dimensions, unleashing assorted monsters and demons. If you’ve seen either of the two previous (far better) Cloverfield movies, you’ll probably be able to guess where this is heading.

Sure enough, no sooner has the Shepherd been fired up than it goes haywire. The Earth disappears and the Cloverfield’s commendably-multinational crew quickly realise – we’re not entirely sure how – that they’ve been flung into an alternate dimension. Back on the Earth not only has the Cloverfield disappeared but, sure enough, Very Bad Things are happening across the planet (see Cloverfield for further details). On the space station the crew make contact with the alternate dimension Earth and work feverishly to activate the Shepherd again in the hope it’ll transport them back to their own dimension. But reality itself has gone slightly off the rails, which the allows the film to indulge in a bit of useful body horror which is alternately icky (worms exploding out of one of the crew’s body) and ridiculous (Chris O’Dowd’s Mundy’s arm being ripped off and wandering around of its own accord like a prop from The Goodies circa 1973).

What’s so frustrating about The Cloverfield Paradox’s unashamed clunkiness is that it squanders all the goodwill and intriguing dramatic potential of the two earlier films in the series. Admittedly we now get an explanation for the events of the first film but it all seems a bit prosaic and off-hand, a pseudo-scientific rationale flung together for the sake of explaining the events of a film made a decade ago. It allows for a certain narrative satisfaction (there are a couple of callbacks to the earlier films) but because The Cloverfield Paradox misfires in virtually every other discipline, we’re left with a feeling that a potentially very special baby has been thrown out with the bathwater. A fine cast – Mbatha Raw, Bruhl, Oyelowo – are given nothing to sink their teeth into, their characters little more than stereotypes shaded in with the broadest of brush-strokes, and O’Dowd (who could at least have done us the courtesy of turning something off and back on again) is clearly cast in the trademark Simon Pegg comic relief Brit role to little or no side-splitting effect.

Wearing its influences far too readily on its sleeve – virtually every spaceship movie made in the last fifty years, from Alien to last year’s far superior but criminally-underrated Life – The Cloverfield Paradox, despite a strong opening and a satisfactorily-downbeat ending, has little of real interest going on for the bulk of its running time. In truth, it’s just a bit dull. But if you’re happy to look at some acceptable visual effects and endless scenes of people running up and down corridors (and some very odd sequences where the camera prowls around the same corridors overlaid with frantic off-screen character dialogue) then you may find some superficial enjoyment in The Cloverfield Paradox. But what’s clear though, is that here we have a film which has gone very badly wrong somewhere along the creative line (possibly the result of what was originally a non-Cloverfield story being shoehorned into a pre-existing franchise narrative) and quite comprehensively deflated a series which, in its first two instalments, was determinedly not playing by the rules by teasing both the audience and indeed the industry with the promise of a long game story the outcome of which no-one could really predict. Sadly we’ve ended up with The Cloverfield Paradox and none of it seems to really matter now. Overlord, the fourth Cloverfield movie is apparently coming our way in October. We’re betting you won’t give a damn anymore.

THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JULIUS ONEH / SCREENPLAY: OREN UZIEL / STARRING: GUGU MBATHA-RAW, DAVID OYELOWO, DANIEL BRUHL, ZHANG ZIYI, CHRIS O’DOWD / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

Blumhouse’s Loud Noise and Jump Scare factory churns out another effort, this time from the franchise which kick-started it all. Ever since Darth Maul popped out from behind Patrick Wilson’s head, the Insidious series has come to define the studio’s signature style; even as they continue to break the mold with gems like Get Out and The Gift, nothing screams ‘Blumhouse’ like Insidious.

Never mind the diminishing returns; that their best character’s arc ended with the first one; that the two Conjuring movies are better than this series has ever been; the show must go on, at least until they can make people care about Sinister instead. Thankfully, Lin Shaye hasn’t given up on the series either, and she returns in this second prequel, filling in the remainder of Medium Elise Rainier’s past. The comedy sidekicks are back too, but it’s a bit like a Joey-heavy episode of Friends.

The Blumhouse formula is not one calculated with subtlety or restraint in mind though, and The Last Key lays on everything it has with a trowel. While that’s not always a bad thing, there are only so many jump scares you can throw at an audience before they start to wise up. Its scares are telegraphed and predictable – ninety percent of them being some variation on a demon moving around in the background while Elise looks dead on into the camera. The best shocks are those which come organically with the story, unaccompanied by an obvious demon jumping out with a ‘boo’.

Sadly, those are spoiled too, by a script laden with some of the most horrible exposition ever spoken in a horror film. In a film packed with discoveries and revelations, everything is immediately followed by a line of dialogue explaining what just happened, no matter how obvious it might be. From parking tickets (“oh look, a parking ticket”) to demons (“oh look, a demon”) to plot points (“oh look, a plot point”) everything has to be explained. And yet not once does the film tell us why its head demon is named Key Face when, clearly, it should be Key Fingers. The rest of the dialogue is Leigh Whannell giving himself all of the best lines at the expense of two characters who really should have been the film’s leads.

None of this should discredit the fine work Lin Shaye does as Elise, whose humanity, goodness and heroism is a shining beacon in a franchise already well past its halcyon days. The prologue and flashbacks are where the film is at its most affecting and effective, even if this is plagued with cliché and overly basic characterisation too. It’s a shame, because the series has a great anchor in Shaye, and this painful, personal story deserved to be her swansong and celebration. Because you know how that whole Insidious thing turns out for her.

While it’s too slick and professional to be an outright failure, and it does have some good character moments, it’s a condescending, lazy bore, coasting on the efforts of an actress too good for the material at hand. There is a good story at the heart of The Last Key, it’s just not the one being told here.

INSIDIOUS: THE LAST KEY / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ADAM ROBITEL / SCREENPLAY: LEIGH WHANNELL / STARRING: LIN SHAYE, LEIGH WHANNELL, ANGUS SAMPSON, KIRK ACEVEDO / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

You know how it goes. Boy meets girl, and, after a series of kooky misunderstandings and miscommunications, boy and girl fall for each other. Life, inevitably gets in the way, and it looks for a while like our lovers are destined not to be. Maybe they will though, and it’ll be a Happily Ever After for both. Or maybe they won’t, and this is going to be one of those bittersweet romances like Orpheus and Eurydice, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s a story as old as stories themselves. Except this time, the ‘boy’ is a fish-man; a cross between the Creature From the Black Lagoon and Abe Sapien from Hellboy. And who better than the director of Hellboy to tell it?

This is hardly Guillermo del Toro’s first time playing in such a ballpark, and The Shape of Water feels like the work of a director at the top of his game – the mid-sized budget and non-blockbuster story presumably allowing it to fly (or swim) under the radar of meddling producers. It feels like del Toro, through and through, in its imagery, themes and characters – the perfect distillation of a late Guillermo del Toro movie.

Its merman is the catalyst and the love interest, but this is Sally Hawkins’ movie. Working as a low-level cleaner at a mysterious government facility, mute daydreamer Elisa encounters Amphibian Man (Doug Jones) when he is captured and brought in for experimentation by sinister G-Man Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon). Bonding over boiled eggs and music, Elisa and the amphibian fall in love. And so a plan is hatched to free the captive creature and start work on their happily ever after…

While Michael Shannon is on hand to ensure that the course of true love does not run smoothly, this is first and foremost a fairytale and romance – and a very sweet one, at that. The prudish and the intolerant may be turned off by the central inter-species romance, but you’d need a heart of stone not to be touched by this sweet, gentle story and its tender beating heart. It’s a healthier relationship than your average Fifty Shades of Grey, founded upon mutual respect and kindred spirits in unison. Guess it really is better, down where it’s wetter.

In roles where neither of them can speak, Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones do an incredible job of commanding the screen. This is doubly impressive when you have Richard Jenkins at the most adorable he’s been since Bone Tomahawk, an achingly sympathetic Michael Stuhlbarg, and Michael Shannon firing on all cylinders as the film’s villain. On paper, his Strickland doesn’t sound like much, but del Toro and screenwriter Vanessa Taylor load him up to the hilt with weird mannerisms and affectations, and Shannon gives a typically intense, terrifying and hilarious Michael Shannon performance. Octavia Spencer, meanwhile, gets to ask what everyone else was thinking. So that’s how that works, huh.

The Shape of Water is Guillermo del Toro’s best film since Pan’s Labyrinth. A charming, heartwarming modern fairytale with not an ounce of flotsam or jetsam, it’s an idiosyncratic delight to behold.

THE SHAPE OF WATER / CERT: 15 /DIRECTOR: GUILLERMO DEL TORO / SCREENPLAY: GUILLERMO DEL TORO, VANESSA TAYLOR / STARRING: SALLY HAWKINS, DOUG JONES, MICHAEL SHANNON, RICHARD JENKINS, OCTAVIA SPENCER, MICHAEL STUHLBARG / RELEASE DATE: FEBRUARY 12TH

Expected Rating: 9 out of 10

When boffins crack the mystery of how to shrink organic matter to tiny proportions, any average Joe with an average life in a pokey apartment suddenly finds they can trade up to dream homes in idyllic, crime-free communities – as long as they’re willing to shrink down to a few inches in size. Soon, thousands are taking the plunge and benefiting from the extreme economies of scale on offer in places like Leisureland, the premium colony of choice for wannabe shrinky-dinks like Paul and Audrey Safranek (Matt Damon and Kristin Wigg). But when Paul awakes after his size reduction surgery to find his wife has bottled it and stayed large, his dream is suddenly derailed.

As is the movie. Downsizing’s first act fizzes with smartly knowing jokes at the expense of the set-up, but once Wiig jumps ship, things take a major nosedive. Out go most of the laughs, out goes Matt Damon in Homer Simpson mode, out goes the engaging conceptual exploration of miniaturisation. Bye-bye to all that. Say hello to sincere everyman Matt Damon learning ‘who he really is’ and finding true love along the way as he goes about providing medical assistance to a scatty cleaning lady (Hong Chau) and her sad-faced compadres in Leisureland’s equivalent of Rio’s Favela slums. How’s that for an ambience adjustment?

Alexander Payne has rarely put a foot wrong in his directorial career, but this tonal cut n’ shut lands him waist-deep in the brown stuff. The Truman Show-esque potential of Leisureland as a concept is nicely foreshadowed, only to be tossed away in favour of heavy-handed social messaging before Payne gets really bored and decamps his entire cast on a laugh-free hippy excursion to Norway to visit a colony of little people who are planning to move underground because the world is about to end, apparently. Did we mention Downsizing also wants to be an end-of-the-world movie? If you make it to that point (it’s 2 hours and 15 minutes long, so we’re making no assumptions), feel free to invoke the Trades Descriptions Act 1968 and ask for a refund because the film doesn’t even include the money-shot from the trailer involving a giant vodka bottle. We were rather looking forward to that bit.

If there’s any compensation for the curdled eggnog of a plot, you’ll find it in the performances. Damon hangs in there, Chau is a bundle of potty-mouthed energy who just about makes the bolted-on romance fly, Christoph Waltz as Damon’s enigmatic neighbour adds trademark Waltzisms and Udo Kier smoulders with that aloof disdain only he can do, despite having no narrative function whatsoever.

The really sobering economy of scale about this overlong auteur indulgence is that it cost $68 million to make and none of that money went on a script doctor. Talking of which, if you are accidentally exposed to Downsizing, we prescribe The Incredible Shrinking Man and a large bottle of vodka. Repeat as necessary.

DOWNSIZING / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ALEXANDER PAYNE / SCREENPLAY: ALEXANDER PAYNE, JIM TAYLOR / STARRING: MATT DAMON, CHRISTOPH WALTZ, HONG CHAU, KRISTEN WIIG, ROLF LASSGÅRD, UDO KIER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expecte Rating: 8 out of 10