Review Category: Movie

On Halloween, teenager Dora discovers she is pregnant, but before she has time to even process the revelation, a nightmare descends. As her baby begins to grow at an alarming rate, menacing children in sinister masks swarm from the pumpkin fields to take the child, and they will stop at nothing until they have it.

One of the problems with horror is that it’s very, very easy to do it very, very badly. While Hellions is far from the worst horror film ever made (*cough*Birdemic*cough*), it also doesn’t have much to properly recommend it.

It’s disappointing that after Bruce McDonald previously gave us the fantastic and original aural zombie movie Pontypool, as well as some interesting episodes of otherwise mediocre TV series (Transporter; XIII), he has now gone down the well-trodden path of so many generic genre movies from decades previously, telling a story featuring little more than a screaming heroine laboriously menaced by supernatural forces. The film does have a few good ideas but none are adequately explored (Why are the pumpkin children killed by salt? What do they want with Dora’s baby? If the baby is human why is it growing so quickly?), and the climax is too surreal for its own good, not making it clear what is supposed to be truly happening and what is merely a nightmarish hallucination.

However, despite the generic plotting, McDonald shows himself to have a distinctive flair for visuals that saves the film from descending into irrevocable mediocrity. As events kick off, the town is bathed in a purple-white illumination like it has been enveloped in a UFO tractor beam or viewed through a negative filter, creating a sinister unreality that’s a refreshing counterpoint to the perpetual pitch of night usually seen in films such as this. The ashen purgatory is littered with scores of pumpkins, the numerous smashed ones perhaps the hatched eggs of the masked hell-children, showing where they keep coming from.

As Dora, Chloe Rose is by herself for much of the film, and unusually for an unknown pretty young thing she actually has the presence to keep you engaged, although the point of the virtuous purity of her features is perhaps slightly laboured by the fact she spends much of the film in an angel costume. It won’t be too surprising if she becomes this year’s breakout star in a similar fashion as Maika Monroe after The Guest and It Follows.

Unfortunately, it takes more than a cute girl to carry a film, and despite a moderately interesting premise, in the end Hellions is merely yet another supernatural horror flick largely indistinguishable from the dozens of DTV efforts lining the genre sections of HMV. Not even Robert Patrick’s all too brief appearance can provide it with the legitimacy it needs, and you also have to wonder why he doesn’t have better things to do with himself.

The best thing you can say about Hellions is that it shows its director and star to both have the potential to progress to greater things, but it also that it takes far more interesting material than this for such promise to be properly realised.

HELLIONS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: BRUCE MCDONALD / SCREENPLAY: PASCAL TROTTIER / STARRING: CHLOE ROSE, ROBERT PATRICK, ROSSIF SUTHERLAND, RACHEL  WILSON, PETER DACUNHA / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:
  

Despite the film’s title, any actual therapy only plays a small part in Therapy for a Vampire, merely serving as a joyfully contrived setup that allows the rest of the plot to take place. Depressed vampire Count Közsnöm begins seeing renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud. Upon glimpsing a painting of Lucy, the girlfriend of Freud’s artist employee Viktor, Közsnöm recognises her as a dead ringer for his departed beloved. Believing Lucy to be the reincarnation of his lost love, he sets out to turn her into one of the undead and so allow for the resurrection of his one true, much to the consternation of his neurotic wife Elsa.

If the ‘reincarnation of a dead love’ plot seems overly familiar to you, that’s kind of the point. Therapy for a Vampire is a deliberate throwback to the sinister elegance of classic vampire flicks from Universal to Hammer, eschewing modern interpretations of them as night-stalking party animals, condescending apex predators, or undead supernatural warriors. It even has Közsnöm refer to himself as a Nosferatu, referencing FW Murnau’s original vampire film from 1928.

Although the story is one of classic Gothic horror, the tone is one of overstated Gothic comedy, including all the required ingredients for this vampire cheese soup. The violence is exaggerated to the point of appearing cartoonish; when camera angles allow for it, the vampires literally glide along the ground as though propelled by some invisible conveyer belt; Közsnöm’s Renfield-esque henchman Oscar (who also appears to be channelling Peter Lorre) bottles the blood of victims with their date of birth as a vintage; and at one point, Elsa becomes a bit hammered after drinking the blood of a couple of drunkards. The surreal nature of the humour manages to be over-the-top enough to dampen the inherent menace of the plot, but exercises enough restraint to prevent it from descending into throwaway farce. Imagine if Dracula had been adapted by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and you’re most of the way there.

The physical humour is joined by several vampire-themed puns as terrible as they are inventive (when Közsnöm is asked why his wife can’t be seen in a mirror, he replies “She’s never reflected on it”) and some quick-fire word play that challenges your ability to quickly process subtitles. The assortment of romantic strands that drive the story offer explorations into various relationship dynamics, but while meaningful they are also structured to fit the blackly comedic tone of the film.

Therapy for a Vampire might play up to every vampire stereotype in existence and be utterly corny in every way, but it’s done with such disarming self-deprecation that the overfamiliarity becomes part of its charm, and in recognising exactly what it is it lets itself in on the joke and allows us to do the same.

THERAPY FOR A VAMPIRE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: DAVID RÜHM / STARRING: DOMINIC OLEY, CORNELIA IVANCAN, TOBIAS MORETTI, JEANETTE HAIN, KARL FISCHER / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating:

When Nick receives a surprise visit from his brother Conrad, who is travelling across country to begin a new job and life with a suspiciously mysterious environmental company, he soon discovers his brother’s obsession with infamous cult leader Charles Manson. As Conrad drags him around Los Angeles to visit the historical hotspots of the two nights in August 1969 and snap some selfies at murder sites, the disturbing depths of his fixation become revealed.

Regardless of your personal opinions of his legacy, you can’t deny that Charles Manson has left a lasting impact on the American landscape. Were it not for the infamous murder spree that ended with his life imprisonment, it’s entirely possible he would have grown to be a counterculture icon embraced by all rather than an underground few.

Conrad’s fascination with Manson involves endlessly watching his TV interviews and espousing extracts of his personal philosophy, extending even to the point of modelling his appearance on the man. As the brothers travel around the city, his childish enthusiasm for being in the exact places where these horrific events took place becomes impossible for him to restrain, responding to people’s distaste for his morbid fascination as if their reactions were somehow utterly unreasonable. He perceives the murder victims as simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, almost as if they were a small detail that should be overlooked, and should simply be written off as an unfortunate mistake that has tainted an otherwise worthy legacy. While it’s a point of view some people genuinely hold, being admired for your achievements does not excuse being guilty of horrific crimes and the punishment that follows. Nobody is ever going to argue that Ian Watkins will be best remembered as the narcissistic singer in Lostprophets.

The film uses the discord to look at themes of sibling rivalry and make a statement that even family members have things they don’t know about each other. A couple of significant and unlikely turns take the story into dark and more than a little disturbing territory, and slightly distracts from the film’s primary intent of being an exploration of family fractures, while also acting as an examination into the philosophical sway Manson holds to this day.

MANSON FAMILY VACATION / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: J. DAVIS / STARRING: JAY DUPLASS, LINAS PHILLIPS, LEONORA PITTS, TOBIN BELL, DAVIE-BLUE / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating:

Unassuming Glasgow barber Barney Thomson has a bit of a problem: he’s just accidentally killed his boss and needs to get rid of the body. Trouble is, the police are already on the hunt for a body-dismembering serial killer, and Barney’s predicament ends up putting him directly onto their radar. Unfortunately for him, it only goes downhill from there.

Films with a particular kind of humour are best served when the tone is immediately and unequivocally established at the outset, and the postal delivery of a severed penis in a cardboard box pretty much sums up the kind of twisted absurdity we can expect from The Legend of Barney Thomson. While the basic premise of a serial killing hair-cutter might call to mind a certain Demon Barber of Fleet Street, rather than serving a dark and hungry god, Barney is a frustrated man who has watched life drift by him as “one of the pishy wee townsfolk where every fucker knows your name.”

Robert Carlyle proves himself as dependable as ever as the eponymous sort-of hero, capturing Barney’s perpetual bemusement as he stumbles through one bizarre situation after another as if he is the only person who can see just how ridiculous it all is. As well as starring in the film this also marks Carlyle’s feature directorial debut, and with his only previously credit being a single episode of Stargate: Universe, he has much to prove as a reliable helmer. Fortunately, he does not disappoint. His early life in Glasgow has afforded him a knowledge of the city’s less photogenic areas, so instead of the prismatic expanse of the river at night or the distinctive armadillo shell of the Clyde Auditorium, the grimy neon of the Barrowlands is as close to glamour as the film gets, otherwise largely playing out in wet grey backstreets and concrete tenements. Dark and anonymous places for dark and anonymous deeds.

Although the story is rooted in reality, the slightly surreal world in which it takes place allows for a number of memorable supporting characters who exist on just the right side of caricature and are played by ever-reliable actors. Emma Thompson, despite being only two years older than Carlyle, is frighteningly convincing as his mother, and with heavy makeup, a granite-hard dyed perm, thermonuclear tan and a fag perpetually hanging out her profanity-spewing mouth, nails the attitude and accent of a pure Glasgae granny. Ray Winstone gives his usual gruff growling as Detective Holdall, a “big slab of bastard” who first stumbles onto Barney’s trail. Trapped in a city he despises and surrounded by colleagues who don’t respect him, he is in a way similar to Barney, as both men are frustrated at where life has led them but lack the courage to actually do anything about it. After having a career consisting largely of comedic and romantic supporting roles, Ashley Jensen is an utter revelation as the seemingly unhinged DI Robertson. As aggressively profane as Barney’s mother and with the manic intensity of a rabid ferret, her standoffs with Holdall are a storm of blonde fury, while the fact that she is clearly quite willing to pick a fight with someone twice her size fits in with the slightly unreal tone of the film.

A dark, twisted and joyously farcical black comedy, The Legend of Barney Thomson deftly demonstrates Robert Carlyle is just as talented a presence behind the camera as he is in front of it. As the film was based on the first of series of books that escalates in comical improbability as it progresses, we can only hope this is not the last we’ve seen of both Carlyle the director and Thomson the legend.

THE LEGEND OF BARNEY THOMSON / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ROBERT CARLYLE / SCREENPLAY: RICHARD COWAN, COLIN MCLAREN / STARRING: ROBERT CARLYLE, EMMA THOMPSON, RAY WINSTONE, ASHLEY JENSEN, BRIAN PETTIFER, MARTIN COMPSTON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10
Actual Rating:

In 1971, Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment whereby a prison environment was simulated, with one set of students assigned to be prisoners and another taking on the role of guards, having no idea just how much of an equal success and failure it would be.

The film captures well the escalation of the events as faithfully as the confines of a two-hour narrative will allow, and its ensemble cast of largely unknown young actors convincingly portray the swift descent into base behaviour. Both prisoners and guards at first treat it like a game, but quickly begin to assimilate into the roles they have been assigned. Guards in real prisons have higher authorities to answer to should their behaviour become too extreme, but once the Stanford guards realise there will be no consequences for anything they do, their actions escalate with an alarming inventiveness. The speed with which the psychological abuse the guards inflict upon the prisoners intensifies becomes truly apparent when after a lengthy sequence of humiliation and degradation, a caption appears reading “Day 2”.

That the film largely follows the real-life events makes for difficult viewing, both from watching the psychological abuse inflicted and also wondering at how people could either perpetrate such acts or allow their infliction upon each other. The film becomes a frustrating watch once the flaws in the experiment’s validity become apparent, most notably in Zimbardo not only observing the experiment, but also participating in it in the role of prison superintendent. In doing so, he influences the progression of events and thus taints its development and invalidates any conclusions that can be taken from it. You’d have thought that as a professor at a respected university this is an important detail that would have occurred to him.

To even refer to it as an experiment is something of a misnomer, as Zimbardo is not testing a specific hypothesis but merely observing a situation. Drunk on the absolute power he has assigned himself, he ignores the potential danger of the contentions in favour of waiting to see how they will further degrade; practically giving himself a hard-on with the unexpected intensity of the microcosmic animal factory he has created. You begin to wonder just how long it will take him to realise the unethical and immoral implications of what he is wilfully allowing to happen.

Like the experiment itself, the film is an insightful and unnerving exploration into the darker traits of human nature, but also like the experiment it goes on long after it’s established all that it set out to.

THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT / CERT: TBA / DIRECTOR: KYLE PATRICK ALVAREZ / SCREENPLAY: TIM TALBOTT / STARRING: BILLY CRUDUP, EZRA MILLER, MICHAEL ANGARANO, THOMAS MANN, NELSAN ELLIS, TYE SHERIDAN / RELEASE DATE: TBA

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating:

Tech writer Joy is given week-long access to the home and workspace of reclusive robotics wunderkind David and his newest creation Adam, a robot so lifelike he initially fools her into believing him to be human. Her presence upsets the dynamic between the young father and his artificial son, and soon everyone begins to realise that becoming completely human might not always be a good thing.

It’s easy to compare Uncanny to the recent Ex Machina, as both deal with the evaluation of a human-like artificial intelligence. But where Alex Garland’s directorial debut had its AI Ava develop self-awareness due to her psychological development, Adam is seemingly unfazed by his synthetic nature, which makes for a less interesting examination of existential themes.

The film’s title refers to the uncanny valley, a cognitive phenomenon that basically means a robot that looks almost human but not quite will generally creep us out. The construction of Adam, who appears to be utterly indistinguishable from a human man, is the culmination of effort to rise up the valley’s far side. Unfortunately, in order to truly act like a real boy, he also begins to display negative human traits like anger and jealousy.

The film is a three-hander throughout between its trio of leads (Rainn Wilson has literally nothing to do other than sit isolated while glowering thoughtfully at computer screens while in the interim the story forgets he is actually there), and the single setting is used to the story’s advantage, creating an isolated environment that allows the future-as-present plot to play out without jarring with the real world. Although, in an attempt to make things look more futuristic, Leutwyler seems to have missed the running joke about J. J. Abrams’ lens flare fixation, and has distracting surges of blue-white light periodically blazing from a corner of the screen for no discernible reason, at one point irritatingly punctuating an entire conversation.

The romance that develops between Joy and David is as swift as it is unconvincing, and we see nothing of what would attract a seemingly well-rounded woman to an arrogant and emotionally distant recluse, which in a genre routinely criticised for its depiction of (often lone) female characters, is a disappointing throwback. The seven-day timeframe of the story magnifies its unlikelihood, and the fact their hook-up is only required for a significant plot development only serves to amplify how artificial it comes across as.

In the end, Uncanny proves itself to be little more another quasi-cerebral sci-fi that, despite its referencing of Eastern mysticism and endless chess motifs, really isn’t as clever as it thinks it is.

UNCANNY / CERT: TBA / DIRECTOR: MATTHEW LEUTWYLER / SCREENPLAY: SHAHIN CHANDRASOMA / STARRING: MARK WEBBER, LUCY GRIFFITHS, DAVID CLAYTON ROGERS, RAINN WILSON / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10
Actual Rating:

One by One is set within a mundane English town where a cafe worker is on the verge of a breakup with her pushy boyfriend, yet her friends are what are making her life cheery and uplifting. However, after an unfortunate event, her normal every day-to-day existence gets turned upside down when she’s offered the startling revelation that this world is not what it appears to be. Here, she and her friends realise that the world as they know it may be on the brink of destruction, revolution, or possibly both.

This is Diane Jessie Miller’s feature film debut as both writer and director, and Miller has stated that this film has been a very personal project for her, and that is evident. Even though she started out in theatre, this looks like the work of an experienced filmmaker. Through her script, Miller makes us engage and bond with the characters, their interactions on screen and the situation they find themselves in. This is also strongly helped by a solid cast, and most of them apparently just starting out. The main character in Dion is basically the audience surrogate, and it’s thanks to Heather Wilson that we identify, understand and engage with Dion, and when she uncovers the major revelation after the halfway point, we completely understand her confusion.

Duncan Wigman has screen charisma about him, and Katrina Nare gives a very charming and likeable portrayal of a character who’s positively upbeat despite the bad stuff happening around her. Rik Mayall himself is someone who always had great screen gravitas, whether it’s in comedy, drama, film or TV, and here he’s a magnetic screen presence; whenever he’s on screen you really can’t take your eyes off him. It’s still sad that Mayall is no longer with us, but this reminds us why he was a true bona fide screen icon.

The film touches upon very real themes like friendship, loss, love and working within a troubled climate, yet Miller handles them in a very honest and believable manner that doesn’t feel clichéd or contrived. But, shortly after the unfortunate incident, the revelations are revealed and that’s when the film touches upon weightier concepts like human annihilation, manipulating governments and conspiracies surrounding major events. In a way, it’s like the film’s offering new possibilities as to how we perceive the environments surrounding us and the interactions and relationships of the people within it. It’s almost as if Miller is trying to get across the controversial message that we should question everything, which is understandable and Miller does do her best to make that message exhilarating within the drama. However, when this was going on it occasionally felt like being lectured heavily, and the final turn-to-camera moment was far too on the nose and made the lecturing more evident.

Overall, One by One is an emotionally involving drama, with solid performances, powerful themes and a solid narrative from Diane Jessie Miller. The film’s central metaphor may be overripe and overwritten at times, but if you can get past that, you will find this compelling viewing. It took very long to complete and distribute with the film finally getting a limited showing very soon in selected cinemas, such as Nottingham and Romford, so if you can get to one of those showings then it’s certainly worth checking out.

ONE BY ONE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: DIANE JESSIE MILLER / HEATHER MILLER, SEAN MEYER, DUNCAN WIGMAN, STEVEN MACAULAY, KATRINA NARE, RIK MAYALL / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 19TH (SCREENING DETAILS HERE)

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

It’s been 22 years since the first Jurassic Park film was released, and in-universe it’s been 22 years since the original park opened with such tragic results. It’s also been 10 years however since the new park, Jurassic World, successfully opened to the public and has operating ever since without (major) incident. Three story threads guide visitors around this new park; that of Zach (Robinson) and Gray (Simpkins) Mitchell, two kids visiting the park for the first time, the former bearing an uncanny resemblance to Goonies era Sean Astin; their aunt Claire (Dallas Howard), who’s in charge of operating the park and is supposed to be chaperoning their tour but is working instead, and ex-Navy animal expert Owen (Pratt) who’s been trying to train a pack of Velociraptors to follow simple commands.

As these characters weave around each other, the realities of the park come to light. The older brother Zack is bored by most of the attractions, more interested in the girls visiting the park. Gray keeps missing out the action due to the crowds and his lack of height. Pratt’s four raptors aren’t quite as domesticated as they may seem and in order to keep the public excited about the park and paying the entrance fee, the gene-splicers down at the lab have to come up with a new attraction every few years, with the emphasis for new dinos not on being more authentic, but to be more exciting, more terrifying and generally with more teeth. It’s a strategy that has resulted in Indominus rex, a mishmash of dinosaur and other DNA, bred to be over 50 feet long and terrifying, but which may have some secrets hidden in amongst is genetic makeup. What isn’t a secret is her intelligence and before long she escapes and starts heading towards the main body of the park, the tourists sections, neatly outsmarting her pursuers at almost every step of the way.

In their efforts to stop Rex and find her nephews, Claire and Owen have to deal with shady scientists taking dangerous shortcuts, InGen employees who wants to weaponise the raptors for military use and see’s Rex’s escape as the perfect trial run, interference from the well-meaning new owner of the park, Masrani (Khan) and the usual shenanigans where everyone in power ignores the suggestions of the one or two people who know exactly how to handle the situation, until a high enough body count has been reached.

DNA from the first film can be found throughout in respectful nods, with a ‘gyrosphere’ sequence nicely harking back to the T-rex attack in the first film, Mr DNA pops up for a moment along with a Dilophosaurus, and some characters even visit the ‘old’ park’s abandoned visitor’s centre with plenty of ephemera from the first film still there.

Pratt continues his run of bringing his likeable charm to the action genre (essentially playing Burt Macklin straight), and has some decent chemistry with Howard despite the numerous, groan-worthy double entendres she’s forced to deliver. Despite her character’s initially softer nature, Howard does get to handle one of the more badass action sequences that once again respectfully references the first instalment of the franchise while putting a new spin on it. D’Onofrio provides a more one-note comic style villain than he did in Daredevil, but works as the darker face of InGen, the company that own and operate the park.

The awe inspired by that first sight of dinosaurs 22 years ago, can never be cloned, and in fact some of the dinos here look slightly worse than their 20-year-old brethren, especially when it comes to the puppets used for close-ups on some of the herbivores. Thankfully, the raptors and Indominus rex fare much better, although after being teased for much of the opening half of the film, Indominus rex isn’t quite as immediately visually arresting as the T-rex was in its first appearance, but the savagery of her attacks more than makes up for it.

Some slightly goofy scenes in the climax featuring shared ‘moments’ between a T-rex and a raptor, between Pratt and one of the dinos, and between Pratt and Howard, don’t quite manage to mar a solid summer action film that drops plenty of loving references to the previous films, while going in a new direction and putting in place new elements for future sequels, just as the original did with that lost can of shaving foam. On top of all this, the kids aren’t annoying!

Definitely worth the price of admission.

JURASSIC WORLD / CERT:12A / DIRECTOR: COLIN TREVORROW / SCREENPLAY: RICK JAFFA, AMANDA SILVER, COLIN TREVORROW, DEREK CONNOLLY / STARRING: CHRIS PRATT, BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD, IRRFAN KHAN,  VINCENT D’ONOFRIO, TY SIMPKINS, NICK ROBINSON / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 11TH

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

Actual Rating:
 

Tasked with creating a third Insidious film around a fairly one-beat idea – demonic spirits from an astral plane known as The Further sometimes hitch a ride back into the world of the living – franchise creator Leigh Whannell (who directs this third instalment in addition to reprising his role as bumbling ghost-hunter Specs), has done his best to avoid just remaking the first two films but with a new cast. The story of the Lamberts (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) in the first two films is done and dusted so, realising that the series’ most bankable assets are feisty demon hunter Elise Rainier (the always-watchable Shaye) and Specs and his cupcake-munching partner Tucker (Angus Sampson), Whannell has crafted a prequel to the earlier movies; this allows us to spend more time with Elise (killed off in the first film, brought back as a ghost in the second) and to establish her previous relationship with the world of the undead and her first meeting with Specs and Tucker, which leads to the unlikely partnership depicted in the original Insidious.

The film’s A-story is familiar enough; troubled teen Quinn (Scott) is determined to make contact with her recently-deceased Mom Lillith, but Elise’s reluctant attempt to speak to her from beyond the grave releases something nasty and bad-tempered, which is going to make life difficult for Quinn, especially when she’s housebound and virtually bedbound following a traffic accident.

It’d be all too easy to write Insidious 3 off as Insipid 3 because, in truth, this is fairly generic, predictable stuff. The scares aren’t really scary – we get the usual bumping and thumping, grasping hands, hideous faces looming out of the darkness, shuffling figures leaving oily footprints on the carpet – there’s nothing here we’ve not seen in a zillion horrors aimed at those of a nervous disposition. But Whannell, conscious of his audience, handles the inevitable story beats with precision, and the film perks up when Shaye is on screen and even the goofy ghostbusters aren’t quite as irritating as they’ve been in the past (or, chronologically, the future). Of course, our foreknowledge means the stakes are never very high whenever any of the three are in jeopardy, because we know where their story is going (and, indeed, where Shaye’s ends) but the final battle with the grisly Breathing Man still manages to ratchet up a bit of tension where the rest of the film has been spent largely going through the motions.

The cinematic circle is squared as Elise, Tucker and Specs walk off into the sunshine (which is a relief after ninety-odd minutes spent in gloomy interiors) with a new business enterprise brewing and a final ‘jump-scare’ which seems to lead directly into the first movie. It’s a decent and effective ending to a horror-lite franchise which really has run its course now and ought to be laid to rest. But we suspect that, like its otherworldly demons, Insidious will find it way back in a year or two…

INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 3 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: LEIGH WHANNELL / STARRING: DERMOT MULRONEY, STEFANIE SCOTT, LIN SHAYE, LEIGH WHANNELL / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10
Actual Rating:  

Most of the cast of Paul Feig’s espionage flavoured comedy Spy may play CIA agents but it’s pretty clear that he’s far more interested in a certain superspy from UK rivals MI6. What else could explain the “cold open” with a suave spy infiltrating a fancy, if heavily guarded party, seeking out international terrorists while accompanied by a very familiar sounding “stealthy” violin and flute score? An infiltration mission that all too soon devolves into a pitched gunfight and a daring escape? The spy in question, Bradley Fine, is even played by Jude Law for that extra British flavour for Pete’s sake!

All that said, Fine has one up on Bond in the form of a little real-time, remote assistance from analyst Susan Cooper (McCarthy), on hand back home via earpiece and satellite, who saves Fine’s neck more than once. Once back home and it’s discovered that a suitcase nuke has been “lost” (in one of the best gags in the movie, if you haven’t seen the trailer) and that the identities of the CIA’s best field agents have been compromised, it’s up to Susan to step out from behind her keyboard, switch from being Chloe O’Brian to being Jack Bauer and get out into the field in a series of insulting cover identities (weird divorcee, crazy cat lady, all with awful hair) to try track down the nuke via spoilt brat Raina Boyanov (Rose Byrne).

Feig, director of McCarthy’s most successful ventures by far, has cleverly avoided using McCarthy as the “crazy one” here, as she has been in films such as The Heat, Bridemaids or Tammy (which he didn’t direct) and instead uses her as the eye of relative normality around which a tornado of deranged characters rotates; Law’s pretty boy spy; Statham’s overly intense, dumber than a box of rocks agent, Rick Ford; Byrne’s prissy, stuck-up Boyanov; Peter Serafinowicz’s overly handsy Aldo; and Miranda Hart’s relatively normal, if enthusiastic Nancy, McCarthy’s best friend in the agency.

Statham is hilarious as the genuinely thick agent who regularly messes up his missions and honestly believes that the CIA actually has a “face-off” machine. It’s great to see a comical side to “The Stath'” and hopefully it’s something he will show off more in future. Likewise Byrne is absolutely delightful in her utter horribleness, while Hart easily holds her own with the Hollywood regulars. McCarthy, however remains the real star of the show, getting the biggest laughs as Susan improvises wildly to the changing circumstances around her, developing a joyous line in swearing in her cover identities and kicking a surprising amount of ass.

Despite some weird technical overlays that appear without warning the film rarely misses a step and without too much cheap humour at McCarthy’s expense, a surprising plot twist and an inspired post-credits scene, Spy will nicely tide espionage fans over until Spectre and The Man from UNCLE arrive later in the year.

SPY / CERT:15 / DIRECTOR: PAUL FEIG / SCREENPLAY: PAUL FEIG / STARRING: MELISSA MCCARTHY, JUDE LAW, JASON STATHAM, ROSE BYRNE, ALLISON JANNEY, PETER SERAFINOWICZ, MIRANDA HART / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 5TH

Expected Rating: 5 out of 10

Actual Rating: