Review Category: Movie

Be careful what you read about Good Manners. A film of two very contrasting halves, it would be a great shame to have any of the surprises of the second half spoiled for you by over enthusiastic film reviewers. These critics may mean well (some of them), but Good Manners is a film to savour with next to no knowledge of what is in store for you. This review contains no spoilers for the second half.  When you are done reading the review you can check out this genting casino promo code while you consider if this movie is something for you.

It’s safe to say that right from the opening credits, Good Manners has a storybook, fairytale feel to it. A specific font used in the opening credits and elsewhere in the film reminds that this is a film that will be more fantastical than it at first appears. It starts with care worker Clara accepting the position of live-in nanny to the as-yet unborn child of wealthy, single Ana. But while the two women immediately form a close bond, it soon emerges that Ana is hiding a very dark secret about her gestating offspring.

To say any more would be to ruin the unexpected direction that Good Manners swerves in its second half. Suffice to say, the first half is social realist, fuelled by two intense performances from the two leads. Both Isabel Zuaa and Marjorie Estiano are by turns vulnerable and strong bringing great depth to their characters and investing the relationship with real heart. How their relationship develops is the first of many surprises that Good Manners has to offer, and the story is already intriguing enough with just these two women staying put almost entirely in one location.

But it’s the second half that will delight genre fans, flipping the tone and changing the scenery for the rest of the story. While Clara and Ana have been largely locked away in Ana’s luxury apartment overlooking Sao Paulo, the remainder of the film takes place down on the streets where Clara lives on the outskirts of the city. There is also a major jump in time, allowing the viewer to see a huge development in Clara’s character as she contends with a major new challenge in her life.

Good Manners becomes increasingly complicated to categorise with writer/directors Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra unashamedly throwing in elements of a love story, horror, fantasy and social realist drama. Hell, it even throws in a couple of musical moments for good measure. It’s a film of many bold transformations (both literal and structurally) and it balances heartfelt emotion with some knowing laughs, as it gets more outlandish.

It’s one of those films that needs to be seen to be believed. Dealing with desire and death, growing pains and inequality, Good Manners is truly unique and surprisingly touching come the finale. See the original, just in case Hollywood dares to remake it.

GOOD MANNERS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTORS & SCREENPLAY: JULIANA ROJAS, MARCO DUTRA / STARRING: ISABEL ZUAA, MARJORIE ESTIANO / RELEASE DATE: TBA

Expected Rating: 6

What to expect from the latest Michael Haneke film, Happy End? Well you’d be right to suspect that the promise of the title may not be fulfilled. While the film follows three generations of a successful construction dynasty, Haneke’s characters are frustrated, bitter and broken right from the first frames of the film.

Anne (Isabelle Huppert) oversees the business and deals with the fallout from a construction site accident. Her doctor brother Thomas (Mathieu Kassovitz) is reconnecting with his teenage daughter, who has come to live with the family after Thomas’ ex-wife overdoses. Anne’s aging father Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) has stepped away from the business as his health is starting to fail. Anne’s son is drinking too much and appears to be crying out for attention.

It’s a plot full of major events that mostly happen off screen. A car crash, an overdose, a suicide attempt and more are involved but Haneke’s focus is on the quieter moments of relationship drama, including some surprisingly tender moments of inter-generational mutual understanding as well as inevitable conflict. Missing some of the more important moments of the story does have its downsides though. This is typically detached from Haneke and though it is a compassionate look at a dysfunctional family, it’s difficult to get emotionally involved.

However, Happy End’s characters are brilliantly drawn and engaging for the most part. They might be blind to the real struggles of the refugees living across town in the Calais Jungle, but Haneke is building to a climax that clashes cultures in a sharp, smart, understated way. Before this unexpectedly brilliant final scene, Happy End gets under the skin of three generations of the family. Thirteen-year-old Eve is watching the world through a camera’s eye. She is curious, and experimenting with the effects of medication that seem to swirl around so many characters in her life. Thomas is a father paying lip service to trying to be a better father, but more concerned with his burgeoning affair that appears in the film to be carried out entirely through Internet messaging. Most interesting is Anne’s son Pierre who is the most obviously unwilling and unable to fit in to this bourgeoisie world of repressed emotions. His performance of Sia’s Chandelier at a Karaoke bar might be worth the price of the ticket alone.

But that would be to deny Happy End its real pleasure and that is appropriately its final scenes. It’s here where Haneke’s themes all crystallise into satirical perfection. It becomes a film about gratitude, about freedom to make our own decisions, and about youth and the increasing obsession to capture the world through a lens and share our experiences.

Fuelled by superb performances, particularly from old-timer Trintignant and teen Fantine Harduin as Eve, the film truly finds a heart when it puts these two contrasting faces together in a scene. One fresh and youthful, one older, wiser and wrinkled, it’s telling that the Happy End of the title might actually work out just the way these two characters want it to.

HAPPY END / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL HANEKE / STARRING: ISABELLE HUPPERT, JEAN-LOUIS TRINTIGNANT, MATHIEU KASSOVITZ / RELEASE DATE: FRIDAY 1ST DECEMBER

Expected Rating: 7

Actual Rating:

Some films really only exist to showcase their painstakingly choreographed fight scenes. Following in the footsteps of The Raid, Jailbreak is one such film, but while director Jimmy Henderson earns a gold star for fisticuffs, he could have tried a little harder to hide his disinterest in any scene that doesn’t involve a room full of dudes beating the living crap out of each other.

The story? Doesn’t much matter. A Parisian cop joins a police unit that have been tasked with transporting crime boss Playboy to his cell in the high security Prei Klaa prison in Cambodia. However, Playboy has admitted that he isn’t the real top dog, and in so doing, he has betrayed The Butterflies, a gang of beautiful female assassins lead by a psycho with a samurai sword. Playboy is now a wanted man and once the cops get him to his cell, the prison inmates escape their own cells in order to catch and kill him.

It’s a ludicrous setup riddled with plot holes, but efficient at getting to the aforementioned fight scenes. Trapping four cops trained in the martial art of Bokatar in a prison full of criminals means a brutal brawl is around every corner and down every corridor. Once they kick off, they rarely let up for a moment. The choreography is constantly impressive and the cinematography often inventive. It doesn’t always work; a POV shot during one of the fight scenes feels like an experiment gone wrong, but when it does, it’s brutally effective. Capturing the fights in long takes is doubly remarkable as the film was shot with one camera and with non-professional stunt people.

Jailbreak works wonders with its limited budget, but that is again mostly because its fight scenes are so striking. Unfortunately, in other areas, the cracks show a little too often to make the film wholly successful. The sound design seems notably flat so it never convinces that we are truly trapped in a large prison. Without establishing shots and a better use of space, it becomes very difficult to believe that the heroes are really trapped in a massive prison riot. Every corridor, every cell, and every room of the prison feels the same. The setting becomes too familiar too quickly and there is no sense of the geography of the prison they are in. That leads to characters bumping into each other, but it all appears like random encounters, as we have no idea where all the characters are in relation to each other.

Some of the performances are decent, but dialogue is not the writers or director’s speciality. There are some laughs even in the middle of fight scenes and a generally campy tone that sets this apart from the darker, more serious style of The Raid. It aims for fun over a real sense of jeopardy or investing its characters with any kind of emotive back stories.

Overall, Jailbreak is an impressive effort and will likely appeal to fans of the fight scenes in The Raid. Just don’t expect to be as impressed by anything outside of the kinetic, expertly choreographed clashes.

JAILBREAK / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JIMMY HENDERSON / SCREENPLAY: JIMMY HENDERSON, MICHAEL HODGSON / STARRING: CELINE TRAN, JEAN-PAUL LY, LAURENT PLANCEL / RELEASE DATE: TBA

Expected Rating: 8

Actual Rating:

Martin McDonagh gets small-town America in his sights in his seraring follow up to Seven Psychopaths. It’s been five years since his previous film, but Three Billboards is worth the wait with towering performances from Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell and a profanity strewn script that will make you laugh, cry and quite possibly offend half its audiences as much as it delights the other half.

Seven months after the rape and murder of her daughter, Mildred Hayes (McDormand) has had enough of the inertia of the police investigation. Seven months with no answers and no arrests. With the police having given up, Mildred decides to pay for a series of messages to be plastered high on three disused billboards outside her home. This most public of provocations, and the personal prodding of the town’s Chief Willougby begins a feud between Mildred and the police department, not helped by Mildred’s foul mouth and stubborn, but righteous refusal to accept that the cops could give up on catching her daughter’s killer.

What Three Billboards isn’t, is a procedural. The police here, much to the growing frustration of Mildred do no investigating. It would be easy to label them as the bad guys and McDonagh’s script does give American police a kicking at every opportunity. Cutting right to the core of America’s troubled relationship between the police and African Americans, Mildred sometimes sounds like an avenging angel and with her inflammatory remarks, it’s a surprise she doesn’t start a riot.

But McDonagh’s characters are never quite so simple and whether it’s Harrelson’s seemingly decent police chief or even Sam Rockwell’s considerably less decent redneck sidekick Officer Dixon, these characters reveal some very unexpected depths. McDonagh finds ways of provoking sympathy for even the most psychotic of characters, and Three Billboards is fascinating in the way it plays with audiences’ allegiances. Even Mildred with her completely sympathetic mission is irascible and dangerously driven by guilt, anger and hatred.

If Three Billboards weren’t so hilarious, it would be insufferably bleak. Its characters are almost uniformly difficult to like. They are racist, homophobic and the dialogue is liberally peppered with insults, the harshest language imaginable and all events are overshadowed by the tragedy at the film’s heart. But it’s in the wonderful language and the timing of cuts that McDonagh finds plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.

Meanwhile, Mildred’s pain is written all over McDormand’s face. It’s a brilliant performance filled with stony looks, some memorable monologues (watch her destroy a priest) and at least one howl of primal rage and misery. Harrelson is fantastic support as the Chief distracted by his own serious illness, and better still is Rockwell who is by turns despicable and hilarious.

Three Billboards is far more interested in exploring the characters, their moral codes and the psyche of small-town America than it is with solving the murder at its heart. While it’s refreshing to not show and dwell on the details of the tragic event that has ruined Mildred’s life, it’s also symptomatic of a film that, Mildred notwithstanding, has sadly little time for rounded female characters.

It’s a minor complaint though. Three Billboards is a wonderfully tragic comedy that gifts McDormand with an incredible character. Expect to see both Rockwell and McDormand in awards conversations next year. Timely and abrasive, it’s a must see.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MARTIN MCDONAGH / STARRING: FRANCES MCDORMAND, WOODY HARRELSON, SAM ROCKWELL, PETER DINKLAGE, ABBIE CORNISH, CALEB LANDRY JONES / RELEASE DATE: 12TH JANUARY 2018

Expected Rating: 8

Actual Rating:

If the title wasn’t already taken then The Moose Head Over the Mantel could just as easily have been called A History of Violence.  A sort-of found footage film, the events unfolding are witnessed through the eyes of the titular stuffed noggin, as well as a couple of other ex-animal heads that provide us with different angles on the main room in an old house.

It’s 1983 and Lillian (Jessi Gotta, also the writer and a segment director) is a mother who has through circumstance been forced to move to a house belonging to her family but long abandoned. Lillian didn’t even know about the house being in the family until her mother suggests she stay there with her husband and young son. It soon becomes clear to Lillian there was good reason for this secrecy as the house’s horrific history dates back all the way to the 19th century and involves murder and a very human evil.

The film is set in various time periods (1881, 1904, 1922, 1945, 1966 and Lillian’s time) and we cut back and forth between these years to build a picture of how the brutal violence that was present in 1881 casts a shadow over everything that follows. Lillian already has concerns that her son is not altogether right and what she learns about the house will only intensify her building dread.

It’s an interesting riff on the found footage approach, and Gotta and her crew are careful to use the conceit cleverly to slowly feed us more information as the film progresses towards its final reveal. The time periods are directed by someone different, but the animal heads are our cameras each time and their impassive, objective observance of the horrors that happen help develop that atmosphere. For the most part there’s no camera-in-the-face close ups here either so the cast work hard to involve us in proceedings. The set-design and costuming that clearly delineates each different year from the others make everything easy to follow.

Gotta’s script is genre-literate and subtle, and while the ending is not exactly unexpected, in the main this is deftly handled stuff. For a film about violence and the lingering effect it can have on generations it doesn’t shy away from this either with some uncomfortable moments that work as horror but also just as much as a matter-of-fact-commentary on the way families can tear each other apart, taking others down with them.

It’s a compelling, bleak film that’s well made and worthy of your attention. With her third feature, it further marks Gotta out as a talented filmmaker who is doing interesting things with the genre.

THE MOOSE HEAD OVER THE MANTEL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTORS: JESSI GOTTA, REBECCA COMTOIS, BRYAN ENK, MATTHEW GRAY, SHANNON K. HALL, JANE ROSE / SCREENPLAY: JESSI GOTTA / STARRING: JESSI GOTTA, NAT CASSIDY, JESSE VANDERVEER, KRISTEN VAUGHAN / RELEASE DATE: UK RELEASE TBA

 

Writer and director Andrew Wiest’s The Forlorned is a micro-budget entry in the caretaker-moves-to-a-remote-haunted-building subgenre that arguably should have been put to rest 27 years ago, following the release of The Shining.

It’s clear that the filmmakers didn’t have a lot to work with, so the fact that they’re so frequently able to evoke the sense of otherworldly, visual splendor of the films of Dario Argento or tap into the madcap tension and energy of the Evil Dead franchise is utterly commendable.

Based on the novel of the same name by Angela Townsend, the dialogue is, at times, lacklustre and many scenes feel like they would have been more effective in print, but it’s a remarkably well-plotted piece of work when compared to its peers.

Whilst the acting is generally on the weaker end of the spectrum, we’re treated to a standout performance by Cory Dangerfield who chews the scenery as a grizzled, local bartender.

Colton Christensen, frequently veers into performing as a sort of bargain-bin Jack Black, but he’s an undeniably likeable screen-presence and that goes a long way. Christensen plays Tom, our caretaker protagonist who, having taken the job of maintaining an old light-house on a sparsely populated island, is plagued by bad dreams, spectral encounters and to, top it all off, a bedroom full of creepy, porcelain dolls.

Much like the ghosts encountered in the story, the film really comes to life during the night time scenes, where its cinematography lights up with bright, pastel colours and extravagant use of shadow and the holes in the effects-budget are glossed over by darkness. Throughout, The Forlorned is noteable for the surprisingly high quality of the artistry behind its low-budget production values. The art-design, for example, is minimal, but we’re given a huge deal of ambience thanks to props ranging from an imposing stuffed boar to a pair of dolls that look downright furious.

Sadly, for a film where the atmosphere is so reliant upon the bleak loneliness of the coast, we’re barely ever treated to scenes outdoors – and when we are, there’s often some awkward digital trickery at play, be it actors green-screened onto a clifftop or establishing shots seemingly digitally created in After Effects. What could have tapped into the creeping dread found in the work of M.R. James ultimately lands closer to R.L. Stine.

Much of the film works really well, but for every effective moment, there’s another that falls flat on its face. The average filmgoer might want to give this one a miss, but if you’re a forgiving viewer and a fan of horror, then The Forlorned might be worth a watch. If you can see past the cracks, there’s an awful lot to like here.

THE FORLORNED / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: ANDREW WIEST / STARRING: COLTON CHRISTENSEN, ELIZABETH MOUTON, CORY DANGERFIELD / RELEASE DATE: UK RELEASE TBA

Written and directed by Kyle Mecca, Dwelling is a by the book horror which sees a young woman deliberately buying a haunted house with her husband and niece. Suffering from a tormented past in which her sister was institutionalised, she attempts to make contact with the spirit world in an effort to communicate with her deceased mother who died under mysterious circumstances. Using a black mirror as a conduit, she starts to witness a strange malevolent force that begins to slowly tear her family apart.

Offering nothing new to the genre, Dwelling is a relatively pedestrian affair, which is low on both thrills and chills. With not much in the way of suspense, Mecca may have played his cards too close to his chest, as there’s not a whole lot here that’ll entice modern-day audiences. With a story that’s been done more effectively before, Dwelling pales when put up against its counterparts and although there are glimmers of well-orchestrated terror, it’s not enough to grip one’s attention.

With some crisp cinematography and ambitious shots scattered throughout, there is a polished sheen to proceedings that gives the film some added weight. The performances, however, lack authenticity making it hard for the viewer to connect with any of the characters on screen. With paranormal horrors having saturated the market in recent years, this low budget entity will fail to resonate with even the most hardcore of fans and although it’s efficiently put together, there’s not enough that will test or challenge its audience.

Overall, Dwelling is a generic horror, which you’ve probably seen before. Not offering much in the form of scares, Kyle Mecca has crafted an instantly forgettable addition to the paranormal genre. With a bland script and a weak story, Dwelling lacks the killer instinct that you’d come to expect from most horror films and with nothing to get the heart racing, it all becomes a little redundant. With questionable performances and countless clichés, there’s not a whole lot to keep one invested and although the running time is relatively short, it does ultimately become a chore to watch. With a UK release scheduled for the second quarter of 2018, our advice would be to steer clear and seek out other alternatives to this low rate horror.

DWELLING / CERTIFICATE: NR / DIRECTOR AND SCREENPLAY: KYLE MECCA / STARRING: ERIN MARIE HOGAN, DEVANNY PINN, MU-SHAKA BENSON / RELEASE DATE: TBC

A group of kidnapped people awake to find themselves tied to chairs in a windowless room and sedated to prevent their movement. After it’s revealed that one of them is the maniac-for-hire Trick and another is a detective who once hunted him their selection seems less than random, and after realising they’ve been targeted by the infamous Deathstalker Killer, they know time is swiftly running out if they want to survive.

Like its forerunner, the plot of Coffin 2 is reminiscent of any of the Saw movies, although with a far greater psychological leaning than the assortment of gory death traps that came to characterise the latter saga. It’s an interesting spin on the first movie to see its manipulative villain Trick on the receiving end of a killer’s machinations, and the setup of a roomful of strangers with no apparent link sets the scene for what could be a decent thriller. 

Although produced on a limited budget, the film acquits itself well. The single setting in which much of the story takes place creates a tense atmosphere of claustrophobia, especially after it becomes established that the captives have each been marked for execution. However, we aren’t given enough reason to properly care about their plight or lament any deaths, while some early accusations of why each of them might actually deserve to be trapped in the dire situation receive no subsequent elaboration.

Despite the plot being a relatively straightforward one, its development is hindered by the presence of a few too many supporting characters, using up time that would have been better spent developing the core players into something resembling complete personalities. Even more frustrating is that many of them make so little an impact they may as well have not been there, with the notable exception of a fantastic sassy tech queen who really needs her own spin off.

The mind games that characterised the first movie still make an appearance, but to a lesser extent that robs the film of true suspense, and as the film approaches its climax twist after twist compound upon each other until it becomes unclear who, if anyone, had the slightest idea what was actually going on.

Coffin 2 is a decent enough follow-up to its predecessor, but is bogged down by too many characters and is overall just a little too clever for its own good.

COFFIN 2 / CERT: TBA / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: KIPP TRIBBLE / STARRING: ROBERT ALLEN MUKES, JOHNNY ALONSO, LAURA JAMES, MICHELE MARTIN, SCOTT HAMM, DERIK WINGO, KIPP TRIBBLE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (US), TBA (UK) 

Just in time for Halloween comes a British film that’s steeped in the genre’s tropes and harkens back to the folk horror classics of the ‘70s. With the director of the best segment of the first V/H/S film at the helm, hopes were high, but much like the friends whose story we follow, it loses its way somewhat.

Five old friends are getting ready to plan a holiday together. Each has a different idea of what they should be doing with Rob (Paul Reid) pushing for a hiking trip to Sweden. On their way home, Rob and Luke (Spall) nip into an off-licence to keep the booze flowing, but interrupt an in-progress robbery. Hiding behind a shelf, Luke watches helplessly as Rob is beaten and killed. Flash forward a few months and the group has decided to honour Rob’s memory by leaving a memorial on the Swedish hillside. With the weather worsening and Dom (Troughton) having hurt his knee after slipping, they make the ill-advised decision to take a shortcut through the woods.

Choosing to spend the night in a deserted shack isn’t the cleverest of ideas, either. Each of them has a distressing nightmare; one of them is even found naked and praying to a strange wooden figure in the loft. If the night terrors weren’t enough, something in the woods is stalking them.

While The Ritual – which is based on an award-winning novel by Adam Nevill – manages to keep the audience’s interest, the familiarity of the scenarios and expectant jump shocks and beats eventually bring it down as we’re faced with a series of illogical decisions and contrived set pieces (not to mention the title being a big fat spoiler). The fact we don’t actually care what happens to the chiefly obnoxious group is a problem, and the one likeable friend is no doubt set for an unpleasant demise. That’s not to say that it’s a waste of time; the cinematography by Andrew Shulkind makes the most of the stunning scenery and director Bruckner knows how to handle the tension but it’s just a shame that we’ve seen it all before. He wisely keeps the creature mostly hidden from view, but when we do see it, it’s an interesting design that doesn’t altogether make sense, which actually adds to the nightmare situation. It’s just a shame the same old Blair Witch and cabin in the woods ideas are rehashed, as the central premise of guilt, grief, and the handling of trauma in a group of friends is interesting – particularly the very ‘laddish’ ensemble we’re presented with here.

THE RITUAL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DAVID BRUCKNER / SCREENPLAY: JOE BARTON / STARRING: RAFE SPALL, ROBERT JAMES-COLLIER, SAM TROUGHTON, ASHER ALI / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 13TH

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating:

LEGO is fast becoming an entertainment juggernaut. Not satisfied with being a mainstay in the living rooms and bedrooms of children and adults alike across the globe, they have successfully branched out in other media, mostly console games and the cinema.

Having already achieved great success with both The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie, the suits in Denmark have a mould that they know works and they don’t appear to be considering changing it anytime soon. This, as it turns out, is a good thing.

Like Disney and Pixar before them, LEGO is aware that the way to guarantee continued success is to cater to all age groups, something that they already do so well with their toy lines.

Moving the Ninjago title from television to the big screen is a riskier move than their two previous big-screen outings as the risk of alienating those unfamiliar with the characters is very real. Fortunately, that template has been used again to great effect here.

We join the Ninjago team, led by Lloyd (Franco) – who appears to be just your common teenager struggling with life and bullies – as they successfully repel yet another attack on Ninjago City by the big bad Garmadon (Theroux, in particular, scenery-chewing form). The nice twist here is that Lloyd knows that Garmadon is his father, although he keeps referring to him as L-loyd to his son’s annoyance.

Sent back to his lair with his four arms between his legs, Garmadon returns with a stronger robot under his control and a better plan to win the day and conquer the brick city. In a last-minute attempt to stop him, Lloyd breaks out what Master Wu (Chan) has warned him to never use, the Ultimate Weapon!

The problem is, this turns out to be nothing more than a standard laser pointer, which gains the attention of Meowra – think Godzilla, but in the shape of a cute house cat – who proceeds to wreak havoc on the buildings and mini figures running around.

In an attempt to stop Meowra from destroying everything that has been built, Lloyd and his team are forced to work with Garmadon in order to find the McGuffin that will save them all, only to find by the end of the film that the power to defeat Meowra was inside them all along.

This is all bookended by Jackie Chan as a shop owner teaching a kid in his store about the importance of believing in yourself. Similar to the tale in The LEGO movie with Will Ferrell, it’s interesting that although this whole premise of the toy world existing in tandem with real life is blown apart by the human characters being quite integral (and cats, in this instance), you’re still sucked into the experience unrolling on the screen.

There’s nothing quite as annoyingly addictive as Everything Is Awesome on the soundtrack, although Heroes and Dance of Doom come mighty close!

So, yes, you’ve probably seen this all before and, in some places, the storylines have been done better. But it’s not all about that in the end. The fact is that the LEGO movies are universally accessible and manage to cleverly complete a balancing act that gives a lot for the kids to enjoy whilst entertaining the adults with knowing winks that make you smile, rather than wince from embarrassment.

The thing is, you forget that you are watching plastic bricks on screen and settle in nicely to enjoy the spectacle. As a result, in perhaps in one of the most unsurprising reviews of the year, The LEGO Ninjago Movie is exactly what you expect – bloody good fun.

Go see it if you’ve got kids. Go see it if you haven’t!

THE LEGO NINJAGO MOVIE / CERT: U / DIRECTOR: CHARLIE BEAN, PAUL FISHER / SCREENPLAY: BOB LOGAN, PAUL FISHER / STARRING: JACKIE CHAN, DAVE FRANCO, JUSTIN THEROUX, FRED ARMISEN / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 13TH

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating: