Review Category: Movie

Review: How I Live Now / Cert: 15 / Director: Kevin Macdonald / Screenplay: Tony Grisoni, Jeremy Brock, Penelope Skinner / Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, George Mackay, Harley Bird, Anna Chancellor / Release Date: Out Now

Based on Meg Rosof’s popular ‘young adult’ novel, Kevin (Last King of Scotland) Macdonald’s How I Live Now is very much a film of two halves… but fortunately the second half – gritty, uncompromising and sometimes brutal – makes up for the slightly mawkish soppiness of the first half. Ronan (last seen in the forgettable The Host) is Daisy, a disenfranchised and troubled New York teen packed off to live in the English countryside with distant family as a worldwide nuclear conflict looms. Frosty and offhand, Daisy soon learns to tolerate her new makeshift family and, in time (probably too quickly) falls in love with… er… her cousin Edmond (Mackay). We might have to think about that one…

So far, so lovey-dovey. Fortunately signs and portents are all around us; the military have been mobilised, jet fighters scream overhead, the kids’ activist mother (Chancellor) is making feverish phone calls as she tries to guarantee her family’s safety from something she seems certain is About To Happen. Unfortunately the sickly and cloying first thirty minutes, as Daisy slowly acclimatises to her new surroundings and falls for hunky cow-whispering Edmond (Mackay) just seems to be delaying what promises to be a much more interesting story of survival and terrible hardship. Luckily the film shifts out of first gear when a nuclear device is detonated in London and the kids, frolicking in the woods, hear the blast and hurry home to find out that the country is falling into chaos and the lights have gone out. They quickly adapt to their new circumstances  (but don’t seem hugely troubled by the fact that their mother, who jetted off to Geneva, doesn’t seem to be coming home) when the military arrive and split the group up. Torn apart, Edmond and Daisy both promise to find a way back to the farm but before long Daisy and cousin Piper are shacked up with a family in a darkened suburban estate and forced to forage potatoes and fruit from towers of rotting crops. Eventually the pair escape and set off on a long and dangerous journey through a treacherous countryside in which wander vicious bandits and potential rapists.

How I Live Now has its faults – mainly its sluggish and deceptively-dreary first act – but behind the soft-focus spooning and rural romping there’s a tough, brutal story which evokes everything from 1970s’ post-plague TV series Survivors to 28 Days Later and the brilliant Children of Men. This is a typically British dystopia of mud, guns, cold food and blisters, a nightmare apocalypse made more unnerving by the fact that we’re never fully apprised of exactly what the situation really is. We’re told of a massive nuclear detonation killing tens of thousands in London, gun-wielding guerilla forces who ruthlessly slaughter refugees, and terrorists poisoning the country’s water supply, but we don’t know who the aggressors are or what’s really going on beyond the world Daisy and her family inhabit. And their world just gets grimmer and grimmer; the scene where Daisy tentatively investigates crumpled, bin-bagged corpses in the camp where Edmond and his brother Isaac have been interred is almost unbearably bleak. Many may find the film’s ending a bit too glib also – it seems that World War Three isn’t necessarily the end of the world as we know it – and the relationship between Daisy and Edmond is ultimately bittersweet at best. How I Live Now, powered by dynamic performances from Ronan and young Harley Bird as Piper and atmospherically-directed by Macdonald, is unlikely to find a huge audience because it’s often cold and challenging stuff, its heart far blacker than its familiar and deceptive fish-out-of-water first half-hour might suggest. Apocalypse aficionados will find the film agreeably stark and thankfully worlds away from the cheery devastation offered up by the likes of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich. Uncomfortable viewing but highly and surprisingly accomplished.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Starburst Rating:

Review: Machete Kills / Cert: 15 / Director: Robert Rodriguez / Screenplay: Kyle Ward, Robert Rodriguez / Starring: Danny Trejo, Alexa Vega, Mel Gibson / Release Date: October 11th

Make no mistake, Machete Kills certainly lives up to its name. As the film goes on, those luckless chaps working for the villains happen on new and extravagant ways to die. Deaths involving the rotor blades of helicopters seem to be a particular favourite, and our grizzly protagonist (or as one character labels him, a “people-fucker-upper”) is only too happy to provide them. For our money, the best death has to be killing some nameless bloke by using his own body as a conductor for a lethal dose of electricity (with Machete somehow not falling foul of it himself after the enemy collapses).

But naturally the $7,000 question is “how good are the writing and storytelling?” Well, we can’t say we care for the way in which some characters’ fates are telegraphed to an even worse extent than the “shows picture” guy in Black Dynamite (if you haven’t seen that, watch it as it’s very similar to Machete except it’s Blaxploitation rather than Mexploitation), but the dialogue is excellent and leads to about as many laughs as the deaths do. (If you’re wondering how many that is, the answer is ‘lots’.)

As for the plot, what can we say? It’s obvious that Ward & Rodriguez wanted to get to the stuff with sci-fi and space shuttles (we can’t blame him; we’d feel the same way) but had to go by way of Mexico first (to take part in what we are branding the “Marcos Mendez Power Hour”). This is perhaps a moot point as a lot of moviegoers won’t care. They’ve got the right attitude. It’s not worth getting worked up over the excuse plot because this film knows exactly what it is. The plot doesn’t need to be great for a film like this. But that’s what anybody would expect after having seen the first one – having an excuse plot is pretty much part of the point of Machete. As a result, Machete is given a fetch-quest to go on (taking out evil revolutionary Marcos Mendez and stopping him from launching a missile at the States).

However, it’s when Machete gets back to the US that things take a turn for the very freaking bizarre. In fact, the second half of the film is basically the first half of a Moonraker remake. We’re okay with this; that film is one that needs to be remade. It’s here we’re introduced to one of the best things about the film, Mel Gibson in the role of super-evil super-scientist Luther Voz. Voz claims to be able to see into the future, which is part of the reason that he’s managed to gather so much futuristic technology. Gibson is suitably villainous while also somehow managing to be extremely lovable, getting lots of laughs. Certainly does a lot to take the edge off recent scandals!

It would be rather remiss of us not to mention the other major talents on display here. Carlos Estevez (Charlie Sheen going by his real name) shows up here as a loveable rascal of a President who sends Machete on his mission (hell, we’d vote for him). Sofia Vergara does a turn as crazed brothel madame, who employs weapons made out of things that really shouldn’t dispense bullets (such as bras, in what appears to be a fitting shout out to Austin Powers). You’ll never see strap-ons in the same way again…

Of course we can’t forget Danny Trejo as Machete himself. He embodies the myth that is Machete, morphing from a mere mortal Mexican into an unstoppable force of nature. We can’t say we entirely approve of taking his character in this direction but you’ve got to hand it to the man, he certainly plays it well. Hell, depending on how well these films do at the box office, he’s got potential as a long-term leading pensioner in a series of Machete films (and all we’re saying is that if Danny Trejo can do this, Harrison Ford can do Indy 5). We’re looking forward to many more films of Machete getting the guns, the girls (and occasionally the men) and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Bring on Machete Kills Again… In Space! 

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Insidious – Chapter 2 / Cert: 15 / Director: James Wan / Screenplay: Leigh Whannell / Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey / Release Date: Out Now

Insidious: Chapter 2 picks up in the moments following the conclusion of what we thought was Insidious’ then self-contained narrative. A turn of the metaphorical page and we are thrust back into the second part of the Lamberts’ supernatural nightmare. From the threat of possession to actual possession, Chapter 2 tells the story of Josh’s (Wilson) liberation from the Further, where he is trapped following the possession of his body by his childhood tormentor, the Bride in Black.

The original was a film of courage and brilliance as Wan and writer Leigh Whannell dared to make a decisive tonal change that provoked and continues to provoke a polarising reaction within the horror community. Suddenly they dragged us off the roller coaster of terrifying, suspenseful horror and thrust us into the realm of the fantastical. This time round, expectations will be raised, and therein lies the problem, because Insidious: Chapter 2 is a disappointing retread, nowhere near as terrifying as Insidious, its exploration of the Further less creatively compelling.

The genuine scares are few and far between. Wan trots out his usual tricks, but by now we’re becoming desensitized to them and they’re beginning to seem tired and worn. The Bride in Black, in particular, pales in comparison to the menacing demon of the first film. The whole thing lacks the suspense, heightened fantasy, and menace of its predecessor, and a nonsensical and manipulative possession plot doesn’t help. Unlike Insidious, which packed a powerful punch that stayed with you for days and nights after the fact, Insidious: Chapter 2 is likely to be one of those movies that quickly slips your mind.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Gravity / Cert: 12A / Director: Alfonso Cuarón / Screenplay: Alfonso Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón / Starring: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris / Release date: November 8^th

A routine maintenance mission to the Hubble telescope aboard the shuttle Explorer ends in disaster for a crew of astronauts, including newbie Ryan Stone (Bullock) and old hand Matt Kowalski (Clooney), when debris from a disintegrating Russian satellite intersects their orbit. Travelling at thousands of miles per hour, this wreckage can tear them and their spacecraft apart. This much has been known since the first trailer for Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity was released, and to share more of the plot would do a grave disservice to one of the finest cinema experiences of recent times.

Far from the sedate pace suggested by the synopsis of “astronauts adrift”, Cuarón has fashioned a realistic, space-based, action thriller utilising a dizzying array of technical and human tools to capture both the potential horror and frequent beauty of life in space. The mix of CG, actors and the use of the space around them, is simply stunning. At times the camera effortlessly floats around people and objects, fluidly switching focus from one subject to another, matching their velocity and rotation in space, before swinging around them to take in some new subject and head off towards it. This is often accompanied by a maelstrom of fragments spinning through the frame, from the distant background to an uncomfortably close foreground in 3D. Gravity is a marvel of modern filmmaking.

After the initial impact, everyone and everything yo-yos around each other as inertia takes hold, every jerk and collision jangling the nerves. Sometimes Gravity can seem like a peculiar horror movie where the enemy is a lack of friction as characters have nothing to stop themselves from spinning in space, never mind attempting to save themselves. This dread is ratcheted to almost unbearable levels by an excellent score by Stephen Price (Attack the Block, The World’s End), with faint synths growing to electronic snarls as danger approaches, reaching a crescendo during the most tension-filled scenes of the film, putting the audience through the wringer along with the crew.

That’s not to say that the film is completely relentless. Long, intense action scenes, many seemingly shot in one take, are mixed with moments of almost silent panic and sedate contemplation; all working together to keep the eye from becoming bored or “lost in space”. Likewise the technological wizardry on display does not overwhelm the story; instead it serves to elevate a relatively simple tale of the human drive to survive to something quite astounding.

Bullock’s performance carries the whole movie, no mean feat considering she has to swing from abject terror to fierce determination, her face filling almost the entirety of the IMAX screen in some scenes, while in others only her voice can be heard as she diminishes to a tiny speck against a blanket of stars. Clooney, as the veteran astronaut, is reduced to unflappable yet charismatic support, delivering a reliable performance while apparently striving for the title of most charming astronaut ever.

Demand for the eventual DVD/Blu-ray release is sure to be high, if only for the featurettes, as it’s unclear upon first viewing how Cuarón made the film without actually going into space, but Gravity demands to be seen in IMAX 3D. From Clooney reaching into the 3D foreground to grab a loose screw, to the emptiness of space, to the immensity of Earth looming in the background over an out-of-control crew member, the visuals are frequently distressingly effective. The actors and the effects combine to highlight the magnitude of the characters’ situation and just how minuscule their chances of survival are.

James Cameron has stated that Gravity has “the best space photography ever done, I think it’s the best space film ever done”. He’s not wrong and it’s not just down to the effects. The performances and the emotions at the heart of Gravity are what raise it to that status.

Expected Rating: 8 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: The Borderlands / Cert: TBC / Director: Elliot Goldner / Screenplay: Elliot Goldner / Starring: Gordon Kennedy, Robin Hill, Aidan McArdle / Release Date: TBC

Two Vatican representatives, Deacon (Kennedy) and Gray (Hill), accompanied by sceptical technician Mark (McArdle), are sent to a rural West Country church, to investigate the legitimacy of a supposed miracle. What they find there rocks their faith to its foundations, changing their lives forever.

We must admit to wondering whether we’re on the same planet as everyone else where modern horror films are concerned. Take for instance The Borderlands, the acclaimed new indie Brit chiller from writer/director Elliot Goldner. Reading the synopsis and taking its sinister advertising poster into account, all the elements required for a disturbing foray into the realms of cinematic terror would appear to be in place.

It doesn’t take long after this film starts however, for it to fall into many of the traps fast becoming clichés in contemporary horror. For a short while following the release of The Blair Witch Project – say a couple of years max – the found footage format still seemed original, particularly in the horror genre where it added an extra touch of the unexpected to proceedings. Now however, almost fifteen years after the release of that groundbreaking film, anything using this approach appears done-to-death and lacking in originality. Admittedly The Borderlands tries a fresh twist, filming proceedings through small headband-mounted cameras worn by the Vatican representatives investigating the strange happenings in the small church in England’s West Country. Unfortunately it soon becomes more of a distraction from the proceedings, rather than enhancing the film’s overall ambience. Add to this the modern habit in the horror genre of shooting everything in semi to total darkness – has no one ever heard of turning on the light? – and the result leaves you praying for the protagonists to get on the first train back to civilisation.

This film’s other major weakness is its unimaginative script. Now it’s fair to say that in a state of shock, the majority of people will express themselves with the occasional expletive. However, as in real life, if ‘colourful’ language is the only way you know how to speak, as appears to be the case with the cast here, then the same language loses much of its bite when you actually find your back against the wall. The result here leaves the viewer hankering after the old days, when writers believed in the adage ‘the less said (and shown), the better’.

The Borderlands had the potential to be a clever exercise in atmosphere and tension – which admittedly it achieves to some degree through its rural West Country setting and the occasional (standard) jump inducing sequence – but ultimately misses the mark with its pedestrian and predictable plot beats and mise-en-scene.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Turbo / Cert: U / Director: David Soren / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Bill Hader, Paul Giamatti, Samuel L. Jackson / Release Date: October 18th

2013 has been a rather disappointing year for animated films, and Turbo sadly continues this trend. The latest effort from DreamWorks Animation, Turbo features an all-star cast, but ultimately fails to deliver in the emotional, character, and story departments.

Theo (Reynolds) detests the way of life that his fellow snails have resigned themselves to. More than anything, he wants to be a famous racer, but unfortunately, that’s not exactly in the cards for a garden snail. But after a near-fatal accident endows him with new-found speed, Theo realizes that his dream of racing in the Indianapolis 500 is within reach. But what does five-time winner Guy Gagne (Hader) have to say about that? Theo will have to rely on more than just his incredible speed to win against such overwhelming odds.

Ryan Reynolds leads a talented but largely uninspired cast, his sluggish performance failing to keep up with his character’s breakneck pace. Paul Giamatti falls flat as Theo’s on-screen brother, Chet, who is supposed to serve as Theo’s plucky support but instead just comes off as annoying and unnecessary. Pretty much the entire cast, including Bill Hader as Guy Gagne, Michael Pena as the taco truck driver, Tito, and Samuel L. Jackson as the smooth racing snail, Whiplash, fails to exude enough charisma for anyone to connect with them on even the most shallow level.

The film starts off just as slow and unexciting as its titular character, and ends the exact same way. Long periods of dull exchanges between characters are occasionally punctuated by brief moments of excitement, moments that come and go as quickly as racers speed around the track. The awful dialogue and lack of character development undercut any emotional resonance that viewers could salvage from this wreck of a movie, things that could have been fixed if the filmmakers had been more careful and more patient. The film’s premise is not entirely original, but it definitely piqued our interest, and it’s a shame that the execution left much to be desired.

Despite its numerous flaws, the film looks great. The animation is top-notch, the environments are meticulously detailed, and it’s clear that the filmmakers put more love into the film’s aesthetics than in the aspects that actually matter.

Sadly, Turbo is forgettable, soulless family fare, and might be a sign that DreamWorks is dipping in quality much like Pixar has for the last two years. Here’s to hoping their next animated effort is a giant step up.

Expected Rating: 7 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 / Cert U / Director: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn / Screenplay: Judi Barrett, Ron Barrett, John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein, Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Erica Rivinoja / Starring: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Samberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Terry Crews, Kristen Schaal / Release Date: October 25th

2009’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a pleasant surprise from Sony Animation Studios, taking a slim children’s book and jettisoning most of it apart from the title and the concept of a town receiving food from the sky, and then building a mad-cap science adventure around it, one filled with a crazy company of characters careening all over the screen and operating at a breathless, manic pace that meant that another joke was never more than a few moments away.

Concentrating on the tale of Flint Lockwood (Hader) and his “Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator”, or FLDSMDFR, a machine that takes ordinary water molecules and turns them into complete meals, the film dabbled in themes such as father-son relationships, the corruption of power, a sweet awkward romance between two scientists and the prophetic power of Mr T’s chest hairs, as the FLDSMDFR went out of control and began to rain gigantic burgers, meatballs, spaghetti and all sorts of food on the town, and eventually the world.

This sequel takes up the story a full 8 minutes after the previous film when Flint and his friends have saved the town, although not before an over-long introduction fills in Flint’s backstory for anyone who missed it last time. Cue the arrival of Chester V (Forte), a bendy-limbed, goateed and lurid body warmer-wearing cross between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Doctor Venture from The Venture Bros; a childhood hero of Flint’s whose “Live Corp” is tasked with cleaning up Swallow Falls. Accompanied by his human “Thinkonauts” and hyper-intelligent orangutan assistant Barb (Schaal), Chester relocates the citizens of Swallow Falls to fabulous “San Franjose California” for the duration of the clean-up and offers Flint a spot as an inventor at Live Corp, where Flint desperately tries to make his mark in the world of inventors.

Before long Flint starts to have doubts about his talents (and a spot-on Tom Waits spoof is played) and it starts to becomes apparent that Chester may not be all that he seems. He tasks Flint with returning to Swallow Falls as the clean-up crews have been encountering… difficulties with the local “fauna”, as the FLDSMDFR is back online and spitting out wild “food animals”.

For no real reason, other than they were in the first film, Flint reassembles his team of meteorologist/girlfriend Sam Sparks (Faris), cameraman Manny (Bratt), former Tinned Sardines child mascot Baby Brent (Samberg), police chief Earl (Terry Crews replacing Mr T), lab assistant/monkey Steve (Neil Patrick Harris) and Flint’s dad Tim (Caan), and sets out to find the FLDSMDFR and determine what is really going on, back at the island.

The film picks up once our heroes return home and encounter the food animals with their terrible, pun-riddled names. These are completely scattershot but it’s difficult not to smile when first encountering a herd of cute “watermelon-phants” or “cantalopes”, seeing “shrimpanzees” swinging through the canopy, or Flint being stung by “mosquitoast”. The writers take every available opportunity to work food-based puns into the dialogue, leaving no “scone” unturned in their quest to bury the audience in a torrent of food-related jokes. While there as many misses as hits, the frequency of jokes guarantees that there are regular laughs and the near-constant antics of Steve in the background manage to carry the audience through any rough spots.

Younger children will be entranced by the rubber, flailing characters but there are a fair number of jokes aimed squarely at adults that work well, including a very funny codename for a MacGuffin that is pretty audacious for a PG-rated movie.

True, it doesn’t have the novelty of the first film, but, given that the rough edges are usually filed off most children’s movies these days, the fact that one of the large animation studios is making such a zany feature, where the much-lauded Neil Patrick Harris only delivers single-word lines of dialogue and even the sardines that Flint’s dad catches offer a shrug or a smile, should be applauded. CwaCoM2 definitely provides enough laughs to warrant a watch.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: A Magnificent Haunting / Cert: 12A / Director: Ferzan Ozpetek / Screenplay: Ferzan Ozpetek, Federica Pontremoli / Starring: Elio Germano, Margherita Buy, Vittoria Puccini / Release Date: October 25th

This light Italian comedy-drama from director Ozpetek, who is most famous for his gay interest indie films such as Loose Cannons (2010), sneaks onto Starburst’s radar by virtue of its fantastical setting, and has already won four Italian Golden Globes, including best film.

Pietro (Germane) is a 28-year-old croissant maker with obsessive tendencies and a desire to be an actor. Moving into a flat by himself for the first time, he is more than a little disconcerted to discover he actually shares the apartment with a group of ghosts. Far from being hostile, however, this amiable former musical hall troupe teach him more about life, love and comradeship than any acting school.

At the time of year when most spirit-related films are geared toward scaring the bejesus out of you, it’s nice to have one with a heart instead. Although, the moment when we first feel the presence of the spectres is slightly creepy, in the main these ghosts are non-threatening and genuinely likeable.

It’s easy to identify with the character of Pietro; awkward, lonely and socially inept, who, following the advice of the well-meaning (but very dead) acting company, almost manages to get a job on a film, only to blow it by taking too much of their advice. The story touches on the struggles of the troupe during Italy’s fascist era (when they died) as well as on themes of loyalty, passion and belonging. Not your usual Starburst film, but it’s still one we can recommend if you want to get away from the bloodshed and violence for a while.

It’s certainly not laugh-out-loud funny, but there’s plenty of moments which raise a smile, leading up to the inevitable heartstring-tugging conclusion. It’s perhaps better referred to under its original title Magnifica presenza as what the film captures is indeed a presence and not a haunting, but we can’t begrudge them a commercial title this time of year.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: Riddick / Cert: 15 / Director: David Twohy/ Screenplay: David Twohy, Oliver Butcher, Steven Cornwell / Starring: Vin Diesel, Katee Sackhoff, Jordi Molla, Matt Nable, Karl Urban / Release Date: Out Now

Birthed in the 2000 sci-fi sleeper hit Pitch Black, Vin Diesel’s brooding, seeing-in-the-dark futuristic escaped prisoner Richard Riddick appeared to have hit the buffers with the bloated, bigger budget 2004 uberflop Chronicles of Riddick (the film which truly put the chronic into Chronicles). But it seems you can’t keep a good (or even average) anti-hero down and, nearly ten years on, Riddick is back in a leaner, meaner second sequel which attempts to remind us why we were interested in Riddick in the first place by reinventing Pitch Black and telling the same story all over again.

Riddick plays lip service to the events of Chronicles – whatever they were – by way of a plot contrivance whereby the Necromongers (blokes in big armoured costumes) dump Riddick on a hostile planet where he has to fend off the unwelcome advances of the indigenous population of angry CGI wolf-dogs and slimy snake-things. No sooner has he bested the beasts (an impressive and largely wordless opening act) than Riddick spots something unpleasant approaching over the horizon. Keen to make a swift exit from his hostile new home, he fires off a couple of handy distress beacons and before long, mercenaries and bounty hunters are on their way. A tense game of cat-and-mouse (or mercenary-and-Riddick) ensues as Riddick attempts to get his hands on one of their shuttles and make his escape while the mercenaries attempt to get their hands on their ex-con prize.

It’s a brave attempt to rehabilitate a compromised character but Riddick is an awkward and often ugly film. A painfully low budget has resulted in unconvincing, cut-price CGI – think of any of the straight-to-DVD Starship Troopers sequels – and planetscapes which look uncannily like the soundstage sets of TV’s Lost in Space in the 1960s. An odd script structure sees Riddick shunted into the background for a while as the bounty hunters – the usual bunch of gruff, sweaty grunts enlivened by Sachhoff’s butch Dahl – take centre stage and shout at one another for half an hour. Riddick is eventually captured and chained up, which allows Diesel to growl monosyllabic threats before breaking free just as the planet’s easily dispatched aliens arrive and the scriptwriters cut-and-paste from the last half of Pitch Black as Riddick uses his night vision to help the remaining grunts fight their way back to their spaceships.

Less Riddick-ulous than Chronicles, Riddick is not without its moments and Twohy battles against budgetary adversity to create a couple of interesting images and inventive character deaths. But where Chronicles demonstrated that Riddick doesn’t work in a bigger universe, Riddick goes back to the first movie’s well with predictably diminished returns. The film ends with the promise of further adventures for our dome-headed hero but we’re willing to bet that this is one Diesel vehicle that’s finally run out of fuel.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating:

Review: About Time / Cert: 12A / Director: Richard Curtis / Screenplay: Richard Curtis / Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Lindsay Coulson / Release Date: Out Now

Richard Curtis follows up the absolute howler of his last film, The Boat That Rocked (and sank), by returning to the tried-and-trusted light rom-com formula which has stood him in good sickly stead in titles such as Notting Hill and Love, Actually. But, possibly inspired by his superior 2010 Doctor Who script, Vincent and the Doctor, Curtis has gone a bit high concept this time around, adding a dash of time travel shenanigans to his usual frothy mix of lovable English eccentrics and playful buffoonery.

On his twenty-first birthday, gangly Tim Lake (Hugh Grant clone Gleeson) is told by his father (Nighy, less irritating than usual) that the male side of his family have, traditionally, enjoyed the ability to travel in time, but only back through their own timelines. Sadly this does not present the opportunity to do anything truly beneficial for mankind, like killing Hitler or stopping Simon Cowell’s parents from ever meeting. So it’s a familiar story; boy meets girl, boy goes back in time to help a friend and changes history so he never met girl, boy jumps through all sorts of temporal hoops to meet her again, boy meets girl again, they fall in love, get married, have kids, etc. And that’s pretty much it. Curtis isn’t remotely concerned with the mechanics of time travel (or the reasons for it) – there’s no elaborate time machine or time corridor; Tim just goes into a cupboard or other darkened room, closes his eyes and clenches his fist and he’s back in time. No troubling ‘butterfly effect’ either; Tim’s father casually explains that there’s never been any unpleasantness or awkward side effects and on we go.

Curtis is on much firmer ground here, in every sense, than he was in The Boat That Rocked. He can do this sort of stuff in his sleep and it’s hard not to shake off the impression that he’s done exactly that in About Time. Once Tim has worked his way into Mary’s affections the time travel gimmick takes a back seat, wheeled out once or twice just to pad out the length of the film or to introduce a brief bit of dramatic oomph when the film’s in danger of sliding into mawkish over-sentimentality. We’re again in Curtis’ very peculiar cinematic utopian view of Britain; all our lead characters are resolutely middle to upper class with good jobs, London is a glittering, spotless paradise of nightlife, art galleries and plush restaurants and, as usual, there’s barely a non-white face in sight. Tim’s family own a huge house on the Cornish coast and they lounge around doing nothing much, enjoying picnics on the beach and throwing huge parties. Tim leaves home and moves to London to work as a lawyer but isn’t forced to move into a scummy stinking flat in Balham – he shares a house with one of his Dad’s friends, an eccentric grumpy playwright (Hollander). Not for Tim a cashier or shop assistant for a girlfriend; Mary is a reader for a big publishing house. Few people in Britain will recognise these people or, indeed, this Britain.

Despite its faults and its achingly rose-tinted depiction of the UK in the twenty-first century, About Time is fitfully amusing even if it’s never laugh-out-loud funny. Many characters are Curtis stereotypes, several storylines lead nowhere much and there are never any high stakes or any suggestion that there’s going to be anything other than a Very Happy Ending. Performances are faultless – Gleeson is a real find and displays some decent comic timing – and Curtis’ script eventually becomes reflective and maudlin, reminding us mere mortals that even if we can’t actually travel in time (and we can’t) we’re really all travelling in time just by living our lives every day and we should make the most of every moment because… oh, pass me the sick bucket…

Richard Curtis has come a long way since the glory days of Blackadder, Not the Nine O’Clock News or even The Vicar of Dibley and whilst there’s certainly no bite or edge in fare like About Time he’s shown again and again that he knows his audience and he knows what they like. You don’t have to be able to travel in time to predict they’ll like this one too.

Expected Rating: 6 out of 10

Actual Rating: