Review Category: Movie

REVIEW: I AM DIVINE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JEFFREY SCHWARZ / STARRING: DIVINE, MICHAEL MUSTO, JOHN WATERS, MINK STOLE, MARK PAYNE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Harris Glenn Milstead’s rise from bullied outsider at school in Baltimore to international cult icon known as Divine is a story that has been touched upon in documentaries several times over the years. These were usually in relation to his association with Waters, but I Am Divine focuses the spotlight purely on the one they called The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. That is not to say that those wonderful counter-culture classics are not a massive part of the Divine story, but it’s fantastic to see the other side of the larger-than-life character.

As well as footage from the well-known cult films, there is rare footage of her performing in off-off Broadway play Women Behind Bars, talk show appearances in which he insisted as showing up as Glen, much to the bemusement of the hosts who obviously wanted the ‘freak show’ act, and a later, rather successful, disco career. From early collaborations with infamous troupe of hippies and drag queens from San Francisco, The Cockettes to excessive drug taking and worse still for Divine – eating (and not that scene in Pink Flamingos).

Director Schwarz (who also made the superb Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story) took to Indiegogo to finish the production, and the attention to detail and assortment of interviewees is astounding. Glen’s mother, Frances, talking not too long before she herself died, gives an emotional account of her difficulties with her son, but also how wonderful it was to be reacquainted in later life. From the film world, naturally, Waters and co-star Mink Stole are present, but so are Tab Hunter (Polyester) and Ricky Lake (Hairspray).

The real tragedy to Divine’s untimely passing, other than what one would normally expect, was he was beginning to be accepted as an actor rather than just a drag queen, and that he never realised his full potential.

For a large part of the population, Divine means nothing. Some don’t even realise the Hairspray musical is based on one of her films. To them, this is a must-see, if only to open their eyes to what is happening outside the mainstream. Those who already know and love Divine will cherish this documentary as both a tribute and testament to a great, much missed talent.

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

Actual Rating:

REVIEW: SCINTILLA / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: BILLY O’BRIAN / SCREENPLAY: STEVE CLARK, JOSH GOLGA, ROB GREEN, BILLY O’BRIEN, G.P. TAYLOR / STARRING: JOHN LYNCH, CRAIG CONWAY, ANTONIA THOMAS, JUMAYAN HUNTER, MORJANA ALAOUI, BETH WINSLET, NED DENNEHY / RELEASE DATE: TBA

Freed from a pending death sentence in an African prison, mercenary leader Powell is reunited with his team and given a job offer: extract a scientist from a former Soviet army base hidden deep in the war-devastated rubble of Eastern Europe and remove specimens of the work being performed there. However, once they arrive, what should have been a simple undertaking soon turns into a desperate fight for survival as one horrific surprise after another seems to be awaiting around every corner.

At least, we think that’s the film that was trying to be made here, but the slow pace and lack of identifiable story beats mean that the end result is far less grandiose than the above description makes it sound.

The film just progresses from one scene to the next with little in the way of plot development, and after a lengthy base infiltration and descent into an underground network of caverns, we enter the science lab and what little story there actually is gets divulged. Not much actually happens during the protracted build up (aside from encountering some shrieking syringe-wielding humanoids decked out like the Big Daddies from BioShock), which is rendered particularly egregious when we later learn there’s a lift shaft that links the lab to the surface. While utilising this in the first place would have made the film almost half an hour shorter, that wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing.

The soldiers are so generic you’re better off distinguishing them by appearance rather than character, as they’re sorely lacking anything resembling the latter and their implacable exteriors prevent us from ascertaining anything about what they’re feeling, and thus why we should actually care about them.

The visual style of the film is distinctive enough, placing sterile science next to grimy industry, and the experimentation being undertaken beyond the catacombs has a lot of potential both from a narrative and ethical perspective, but unfortunately, despite being the most attention-grabbing aspect of the whole film its only purpose seems to be to justify the events leading up to it and the inconsequential revelations that follow.

Scintilla is a mix of parts that don’t slot together well enough to form a coherent whole. It’s not eventful enough to be an action film, not engaging enough to be a mystery, not interesting enough to be a sci-fi and not scary enough to be a horror. Mildly distracting, but ultimately disposable.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

REVIEW: COHERENCE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: JAMES WARD BYRKIT / SCREENPLAY: JAMES WARD BYRKIT / STARRING: HUGO ARMSTRONG, EMILY BALDON, NICHOLAS BRENDON, ELIZABETH GRACEN, LAUREN MAHER, ALEX MANUGIAN, LORENE SCAFARIA, MAURY STERLING / RELEASE DATE: TBA

When a group of friends have a dinner party on the night a comet soars through the sky, odd things start happening. First everyone’s phones are knocked out and then a blackout leaves them in pitch darkness, but it’s after they try to get help from the only house with power that things get bizarre. They see themselves within the other house, and from then on the certainty of truth and reality comes crashing down around them.

Coherence begins innocuously enough, the dinner party setting providing an intimate atmosphere and close enough environment for interpersonal dynamics to come forth with little effort, such as one guest bringing along his hot new girlfriend who is the ex of another whose wife remains a little insecure about her. But once the blackout hits, the number of mysterious occurrences begins to steadily increase, along with their intensity.

The story’s premise is partly explained utilising the popularised notion of Schrödinger’s Cat, a thought experiment from quantum mechanics suggesting that multiple and contradictory states of physical reality can theoretically exist concurrently until observed. The film’s title refers to quantum decoherence, which ensures different realities cannot interact with one another nor be perceived simultaneously, a law that the comet’s presence somehow shatters.

A spiritual cousin to Shane Carruth’s time travel headscratcher Primer, Coherence is less concerned with precisely how the split in reality occurred and more with the characters’ reaction to it, specifically the varying levels of existential crises they each undergo. The only other people out there are themselves, which in a mind-twisting way makes their actions even more unpredictable; how do you second-guess yourself? Since none of them are especially well-versed in the theory behind multiple universes (the many-worlds interpretation), they try to figure out the rules of the fragmented reality within the limits of their own comprehension of it, their growing understanding of what exactly is happening matching our own. Also, since we are no more clued into the precise nature of events than they are, the film generates an all too rare experience of genuinely not knowing what is going to happen. The only thing approaching an explanation is one character mentioning his physicist brother told him to call should anything odd happen on the night of the comet, but the truth behind what actually initiated the fracture is largely irrelevant. It’s the people that are the focus here.

When the true extent is revealed of just how many variant scenarios the comet’s path has fragmented reality into, you get the impression there is no limit to the possibilities, giving some choice observations such as “What if we’re the dark version?” or the hilariously ill-advised “If there are a million different realities, I have slept with your wife in every one of them.” While the single setting is close and personal (not to mention neatly keeping the film’s budgetary requirements down), at the same time it also feels somewhat oppressive and claustrophobic; although nobody wants to get away, even if they tried there’s no way they actually could as they’d end up right back where they started, while also being somewhere else.

Coherence is a film that warrants being seen multiple times. Watching it again when armed with all the facts will allow you to pick up on details you may have missed first time around, with subsequent viewings likely revealing even more of its mysteries.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

REVIEW: LIFE AFTER BETH / CERT: 12A / DIRECTOR: JEFF BAENA / SCREENPLAY: JEFF BAENA / STARRING: DANE DEHAAN, AUBREY PLAZA, JOHN C. REILLY, MOLLY SHANNON, CHERYL HINES, PAUL REISER, MATTHEW GRAY GUBLER / UK RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 3RD

After his recently deceased girlfriend Beth comes back from the dead, Zach is initially overjoyed that he’s been given a second chance with her. But as her zombie-like characteristics start to take over, he begins to question how much of her true self there is left, and if this means he should do something about it.

Nobody would deny that zombies are the “in” thing these days. But while the popularity of shambling flesheaters continues unabated, attempts are continuing to be made to infuse the undead with a degree of humanity. It’s nothing new – even in Romero’s films the zombies were shown to be capable of learning – but nowadays they’re even allowed to express emotion. Gaining increasing traction is the rom-zom-com (romantic comedy with zombies), which began with Shaun of the Dead and continued with Romeo and Juliet riff Warm Bodies. Life After Beth is the latest in this bizarre fusion of genres.

As Zach, Dane DeHaan (Chronicle, The Amazing Spider-Man 2) mixes bereavement and hopefulness, wanting to believe he and Beth truly have a future despite developing circumstances indicating its increasing unlikelihood, and he has fantastic chemistry with Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) in the eponymous role. Although Beth could have easily come off as psychotic or pathetic, Plaza navigates her tempest of emotions with such precision that she never feels unworthy of your sympathy, even when smashing car windows, punching through walls, or appearing splattered with the blood of some anonymous guy she’s just eaten.

Plaza has always excelled at dripping deadpan sarcasm with nothing more than a facial expression, and such blank looks form the basis of Beth’s emotional instability in-between her lurches from one mood extreme to another (tempered only by, somewhat incongruously, smooth jazz). Beth is initially unaware she was actually dead, the relevant memories a blur within her mind and, in an unspoken callback to Dawn of the Dead, keeps returning to the state of reality she was in around the time of her death, while the constant confusion adds to her frustration with nobody telling her exactly what’s going on.

Right from the beginning and throughout, the film deals with the aftermath of losing someone and the toll it takes on those left behind. Some touching and unforced moments include Beth’s family using her return to alleviate the regrets tormenting them since her funeral, with Zach taking the opportunity to tell her everything he wished he had when she was alive, or her mum taking as many photos of her as possible after previously lamenting how few she had.

Even though the world slowly goes to hell in the usual way through background events and visual details, the story remains a personal one with its focus on the emotional content. While some people’s behaviour might seem unfair or illogical, nobody is judged for their actions as there are no rules for how people are supposed to feel in a situation like this. Through all this, the movie still finds time to play with expected genre conventions (the repeated mention of a minor character being from Haiti doesn’t have the significance you’d presume) and include a great deal of perfectly timed physical comedy, mostly courtsey of Plaza’s gradually increasing zombie behaviour.

Romantic comedies are more often than not tales of love lost and then found (and possibly lost again), and Life After Beth meets all the required story beats (including a prospective new girlfriend in the shape of Anna Kendrick) while seamlessly fusing them with the horror comedy theme without seeming trite or contrived. A difficult balance to strike but one that debuting director Jeff Baena manages to maintain.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

SHARE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW OR ON TWITTER @STARBURST_MAG

REVIEW: THE GREEN INFERNO / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: ELI ROTH / SCREENPLAY: ELI ROTH, GUILLERMO AMOEDO / STARRING: LORENZA IZZO, ARIEL LEVY, AARON BURNS, DARYL SABARA, KIRBY BLISS BLANTON, MAGDA APANOWICZ, RICHARD BURGI / UK RELEASE DATE: TBA

After six years away from the director’s chair (not counting the pilot episode of horror series Hemlock Grove), Eli Roth has returned to give us another dose of grisly violence and morbid humour.

A group of student activists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to highlight the ruthless and murderous activities of industrial companies and their armies of mercenaries. However, a plane crash on the way out leaves them stranded in the jungle and held prisoner by the very tribe they came to save. A tribe whose open attitude to roast meat puts all the survivors on the dinner menu.

You have to hand it to Roth, he’s found a concept he likes and has stuck with it: hot young things first travelling far outside their comfort zone of urban Americana and then revealed to be woefully unequipped to deal with the horrors that await them. However, instead of necrotisation by a flesh-eating virus or torture by psychotic millionaires, this time the terror comes courtesy of a lost tribe of jungle cannibals daubed in crimson bodypaint that clashes vibrantly with the verdant tropical foliage as they come swarming from the undergrowth like a colony of fire ants. Roth has never been the most subtle of filmmakers, and in the space of twenty minutes you’ll be able to list the order in which the characters will die, and that’s not including the half dozen or so redshirts brought along to make up the numbers. To quote the tagline of horror anthology Cradle of Fear, it’s not if they die, it’s how.

Unlike the pointed grotesquery of Cabin Fever or the gleeful sadism of Hostel, the visceral gore of The Green Inferno is all the more gruesome for it being so matter of fact. The tribe aren’t killing, cooking and eating people out of any perverse pleasure or desire to prove themselves, but merely because in the inhospitable terrain of the tropical jungle that’s how they survive. More often than not it’s the attitude of villains that breeds your hatred of them rather than their actions, and as the tribe aren’t truly villainous in the traditional sense of the word, to give us a figure upon whom to focus our contempt we instead have one of the activists gradually reveal just how large his ulterior motives are, as well as his sociopathic self-serving attitude. The tribespeople might be hacking people apart to eat, but he’s the one whose protracted and agonising death you’ll be clamouring for.

Surprisingly, the film is devoid of misogynistic sexual violence (sadly a consistent rarity in gorefest films), but there is eye-gouging, tongue-ripping, limb-hacking, head-severing, blood-drinking, corpse-roasting and flesh-eating, at one point all within the space of five minutes. Amongst other nasty moments we also get an obligatory Day of the Dead tribute shot and a particularly unpleasant tribal ritual that heroine Justine is threatened with, which is bluntly signposted earlier in the film but still makes you squirm at the thought of it being carried out.

With events like one survivor attempting to alleviate his stress by masturbating while still in the open and gore-strewn cage, some quite literal toilet humour, or an escape attempt involving stuffing a bag of marijuana down the throat of a deceased and soon to be eaten comrade to get all the natives stoned and harmless, its clear Roth’s time out from behind the camera hasn’t dulled his twisted love of dark comedy. He’s also ballsy enough about the film’s potential success to include a mid-credits sequel hook.

Predictably reminiscent of associated Italian exploitation flicks of the ’70s and ’80s such as Cannibal Ferox, Natura Contro (incidentally also known as The Green Inferno) and the notorious Cannibal Holocaust, The Green Inferno is Roth’s most technically accomplished film to date. Granted, he doesn’t have an especially extensive back catalogue from which you can draw a comparison, but his directorial skills are nevertheless noticeably on the rise. If you can believe it, he’s even developed a little restraint. Now hurry up and give us a feature length expansion of that Thanksgiving trailer!

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

SHARE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW OR ON TWITTER @STARBURST_MAG

REVIEW: WOLFCOP / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: LOWELL DEAN / SCREENPLAY: LOWELL DEAN / STARRING: LEO FAFARD, AMY MATYSIO, JONATHAN CHERRY, SARAH LIND, AIDAN DEVINE / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 13TH

To break WolfCop down into its simplest terms, it’s a movie that centres on an alcoholic deputy sheriff who turns into a werewolf. As far as plots go, it’s pretty out there. Thing is, it’s a ridiculously enjoyable movie that long-time fans of horror and black humour will enjoy.

Opening the film, we’re introduced to Lou Garou (Fafard), who is a waste of space, alcohol-dependent cop who has the respect of absolutely nobody. After experiencing seemingly just another blackout, it becomes clear that Garou has actually been used by some shady, dark arts types for something much bigger than any hangover. Discovering he has heightened senses, it doesn’t take long before we’re treated to a practical-effects-heavy, visceral transformation that is very much in the vein of An American Werewolf in London rather than the sleek, soulless transformations of more modern fare. Managing to keep a relative understanding of what is going on around him, Garou sets out to get to the bottom of things, all whilst supping liquor and chowing down on doughnuts.

Now WolfCop could be taken as nothing more than a gimmick and just the latest in the line of movies trying to go for an odd angle in order to drum up some hype and attention. In fairness to Dean and his team, they have put together an absolutely brilliant flick that is tied together by humour, gore, and cheesy dialogue; its roots firmly in the dirty grindhouse-type horrors of the 1970s and ’80s. For fans of those movies, WolfCop will tick a whole host of boxes. In fact, the titular character even gets his own theme song during the end credits. And you’ve clearly never lived until you’ve seen a werewolf in a cop’s uniform micturating on some no-good graffiti artists. Then there’s even some interspecies erotica thrown in for good measure.

WolfCop is delivered tongue firmly in furry cheek, with the texture and ambience perfect for a movie of this ilk. Fafard seems perfectly cast as the everyman Garou and his hairy alter ego, whilst Jonathan Cherry’s awkward charisma as best friend Willy regularly steals the film. Sarah Lind delivers a murky love interest, whilst Amy Matysio is great as Garou’s fellow cop, bringing heart and innocence to a film shrouded in darker moments.

Credit goes to all involved for delivering a movie that has heart, humour, and hair aplenty. In the lead, we get a Canadian fur-ball that makes Wolverine look like a pussy cat, whilst the use of practical effects is a joy to behold. A mixture of ’70s/’80s cheese with a hint of Todd & The Book of Pure Evil, WolfCop is a movie that is most definitely worth the hype.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

REVIEW: DOC OF THE DEAD / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: ALEXANDRE O. PHILIPPE / SCREENPLAY: N/A / STARRING: GEORGE ROMERO, SIMON PEGG, MAX BROOKS, ROBERT KIRKMAN, BRUCE CAMPBELL / RELEASE DATE: TBA

As you may well surmise from the title, Doc of the Dead is a documentary about the pop culture juggernaut of zombies. It charts the horror subgenre’s beginnings in the early 1930s (specifically with White Zombie) to ’50s sci-fi like Plan 9 From Outer Space, its reinvigoration via George Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead, and its subsequent explosion into mainstream consciousness.

The film features a mix of new interviews and archive recordings of Romero and other genre luminaries such as Simon Pegg, Bruce Campbell, Zombie Survival Guide author Max Brooks, Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman and legendary effects artists Greg Nicotero and Tom Savini all discussing the cultural significance of zombies, accompanied by a barrage of clips, and it also has some contributions from other cult favourites such as Alex Cox (Repo Man, Straight to Hell) and Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond).

There are also a few esoteric inclusions such as alt-porn filmmaker Joanna Angel, whose Walking Dead parody was her fastest and biggest selling title, and Joss Whedon alumnus Fran Kranz (Dollhouse, Cabin in the Woods), who, while possibly not an authority on the subject, is still highly opinionated. Whedon himself appears courtesy of a brief clip from his “endorsement” of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, discussing the zombie apocalypse (look it up on YouTube, it’s brilliant).

A number of themes are touched upon, most significantly Night of the Living Dead’s extensive influence over all that came after it (which gives rise to an amusingly oblivious moment where Kirkman accidentally compares himself to Twilight author Stephanie Meyer), and how zombie films have often dealt with the societal fears most rampant at the times they were made. Discussions from more recent years include the fast zombies vs slow zombies debate (Brooks: “A Fast Zombie Survival Guide would be a pamphlet called Kiss Your Ass Goodbye”), and whether or not 28 Days Later actually counts as a zombie film.

As well as zombies’ cinematic heritage, their origin in the folklore of Haiti – where the subject is taken so seriously there is even a section in the country’s criminal code declaring the use of neurotoxins to zombify a person as tantamount to murder – is discussed by Max Beauvoir, Haiti’s Chief Supreme Vodou Houngan. Additionally, biology professor David Hughes discusses the entomological science behind how a zombie hive mind would behave, the conditions required for an undead outbreak to conceivably occur and, most terrifyingly, which of those factors are already in place. There are also further contributions from people who make zombies their business, such as survivalist companies who specialise in apocalyptic supplies, fans organising zombie walks (or crawls), and professional LARPers who provide immersive zombie survival experiences in controlled environments.

While listening to cultural icons espouse their opinions on the given topics is interesting, the film itself is a little directionless, flitting from one subject to the next with little or no segue. While it’s nonetheless an admirable goal to be an all-encompassing exploration into what over the decades has grown into a global phenomenon, the fact remains that throughout Doc of the Dead’s entertaining and in-depth presentation, it doesn’t actually have a great deal to say.

REVIEW: RUNAWAY DAY / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DIMITRIS BAVELLAS / SCREENPLAY: DIMITRIS BAVELLAS / STARRING: MARIA SKOULA, EFTHYMIS PAPADIMITRIOU, ERRIKOS LITSIS, EVA VOGLI, CONSTANTINOS STARIDAS / RELEASE DATE: TBA

Without warning, all over Athens people are disappearing. Maria, a stifled housewife, and Loukas, unemployed and debt-ridden, are two amongst millions faced with the same uncertain future. Abandoning their responsibilities and venturing into the swiftly emptying streets of the Greek capital, they wander through the urban desolation in an aimless search for some meaning.

Science fiction doesn’t always have to be space flight, planet hopping, alien battling and time travel. Some of the best pulp sci-fi ever written, such as Philip K Dick’s short stories, aren’t considered so because of their fantastical themes, but because they hold up a dark mirror to the world in which we live, their events parallel to our everyday lives but outside our own reality to just enough of a degree so that we see our own inherent absurdity in their reflection.

Unlike most films dealing with the financial crisis in Greece that feature bleak social realism or grim black humour, Runaway Day instead imagines a world where years of economic meltdown and crippling austerity act as a catalyst for a mass exodus of the city. Driven to despair by their nation’s seemingly unsolvable problems, people have had enough and are simply just giving up.

A talking (or rather ranting) head on TV screens relates the increasing severity of the desertions, as people continue to disappear without explanation. The repeated refrain of “Is there something you all can do about this?” echoes the patronising rhetoric of governments whose citizens’ lives have been ruined by the financial mismanagement of the country: although they fucked up, their incompetence is somehow your fault and your responsibility.

After following the nominal protagonists on their somnambulist wanderings, events eventually come together at the Olympic Village built for the 2004 Games. Once a proud proclamation of Greece’s glory, it has now become a weed-choked wasteland heralded with chipped and faded stencilling at its entrance, signifying just how much a country can change over a decade when enough mistakes are made by those in power, and also juxtaposing nicely with the film’s opening vintage newsreel declaring Athens as “the economic capital of Europe.”

The monochrome palette and unfiltered lighting are intentionally evocative of ’50s B-movies, but instead of rubber-suited aliens or badly made-up zombies, the oppressive force is instead Athens itself and the problems its populace face by virtue of simply living there, and thus self-exile becomes the only means of escape.

Short, slow and almost silent, but still possessing a loud and distinct voice, Runaway Day is a cathartic exorcism of frustration that asks many questions but offers no answers, ultimately leaving us in the same position as those it features.

REVIEW: ZIP & ZAP AND THE MARBLE GANG / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: OSKAR SANTOS / SCREENPLAY: JORGE LARA, FRANCISCO RONCAL, OSKAR SANTOS / STARRING: RAÚL RIVAS, DANIEL CEREZO, CLAUDIA VEGA, FRAN GARCÍA, MARCOS RUIZ, JAVIER GUTIÉRREZ, CHRISTIAN MULAS / RELEASE DATE: TBA

Sent to a remote summer school as punishment for one indiscretion too many, hellraising twin bothers Zip and Zap soon earn the ire of headmaster Falconetti, an eye-patched sadist who runs the Gothic mansion like a Siberian gulag and is determined to destroy any sense of fun for its young pupils. Forming an underground resistance movement with sweet-natured Filo, brainy Micro, and Falconetti’s mischievous niece Matilde, the gang uncover a map that could lead them to a hoard of hidden treasure.

Despite being made only last year and set somewhere in the middle of the last century, Zip & Zap and the Marble Gang feels very, very ’80s. Even the music of the opening sequence takes you back to that decade and the crowd-pleasing family films of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, and the feeling is maintained by the child’s-eye perspective of the world and the perception of life as an adventure.

The protagonists come together quickly, united by their outsider status and refusal to be beaten down by the school’s harsh conditions. Even when functioning as a unit their individual personalities remain distinct, and each viewer will likely have their own favourite. Some of their actions might seem a bit irrational, but you should remember that children are not rational people but creatures of emotion, and while they can be quick to anger and blame, they are also just as swift to forgive and move past any differences.

The most anticipated aspect of the film, the puzzles and riddles of the hidden pathway to the treasure, doesn’t come into play until the last act and although it is traversed relatively quickly, the requirements to pass each gateway never stop feeling like a challenge, especially with the villainous characters in pursuit. Even though it doesn’t really matter, the over-elaborate design of the makeshift labyrinth actually makes sense in context; it was built by a toymaker and so was basically designed to be one big game. As such, even a situation that appears to put the children in genuine peril has an explanation.

The translation of the film from Spanish is perfect; the kids actually sound like kids rather than an adult writer failing to do so, while several jokes and one important plot development each relying on wordplay all still make sense in English.

Zip & Zap and the Marble Gang is inevitably reminiscent of any number of ’80s films with a treasure hunt plot, The Goonies in particular (which, along with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, some shots are more or less directly lifted from), but the true heart of the film is the relationship between its central quintet and being reminded of the simple unadulterated joy of being a child, having fun with your friends, and the sense of loyalty that binds you together. Charming, funny and entertaining, this is a family film in the truest sense: children of all ages will love it, and parents watching it with their kids will still enjoy themselves.

REVIEW: HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON 2 / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: DEAN DEBLOIS / SCREENPLAY: DEAN DEBLOIS / STARRING: JAY BARUCHEL, CATE BLANCHETT, GERARD BUTLER, CRAIG FERGUSON, AMERICA FERRERA, JONAH HILL, CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE, T.J. MILLER, KRISTEN WIG, DJIMON HOUNSOU, KIT HARINGTON/ RELEASE DATE: JULY 4TH

Animated sequels never inspire overwhelming enthusiasm. Unless you have access to a wizard from Pixar, it’s normally a chance to squeeze money from exhausted parents who simply want a peaceful afternoon at the weekend. So why should How to Train Your Dragon 2 be worth your attention? And why is that little Viking kid from the first movie rocking some adolescent stubble?

How to Train Your Dragon 2 is, for lack of a better term, a proper sequel. This isn’t a replay of old comedic beats with a new baby dragon thrown into the mix as a cute sponge, everything here has been developed in a surprisingly organic way. Hiccup is now 20 years old, he’s comfortable with his popularity in the village of Berk, and after the events of the first film, his mind is yearning to search for whole new islands and dragons over sea.

What they find however is a group of dragon trappers led by Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou) who possess an entirely different outlook on the relationship between man and his flying beast. Threatening the livelihood of those on Berk and a mysterious island where Hiccup’s mother Valka (Cate Blanchett) resides with her dragons, the Vikings embark on an adventure which quickly forces Hiccup to grow up even faster as the scale of the danger escalates.

It’s remarkable how an edge of cynicism never hangs over How to Train Your Dragon 2. Everything has beautifully evolved and improved since the original, from the relationship between Hiccup and Astrid to the soaring musical score and the minutely detailed life-like animation. At times it’s a pleasure to observe some of the characters as they cavort in the background, especially Toothless and Valka’s dragon-companion Cloudjumper as they go about teasing and trying to win each other’s affection; with their facial expressions evoking more than any amount of dialogue ever could.

Even when the thrilling flying action sequences push the series towards borderline fantasy epic territory, the film shines brightest in its quieter and more subdued moments. The reunion between Hiccup’s father, Stoick and his long-estranged wife is one such heart-melter which carries some surprising emotional heft, showing a refreshing willingness from director and writer Dean DeBlois to tackle difficult themes head-on and not pander to the film’s younger audience members.

It’s witnessing this series grow with an exciting maturity which really marks How to Train Your Dragon 2 as a resounding success. It doesn’t quite pack the wholly well-rounded climax found in the first, but it’s a tantalising and promising leap forward for a series which still stands as one of the summer’s most sublime blockbuster rides. With the sequel nailed, we’ll just have to hope the final part of the trilogy in 2016 can whisk us away on the knockout flight the franchise deserves.

Expected rating: 8/10

Actual rating: