Three “friends” (it actually isn’t entirely clear how they became a gang) have been making a career for themselves as thieves. Alex (Dylan Minnette) utilises his father security business to rob its customers, bypassing their security measures and meticulously planning the cover up including always keeping their ill-gotten gains on the small scale so they don’t draw too much attention to themselves. He’s the brains, Money (Daniel Zovatto) is the muscle and most believable criminal, and Alex (Jane Levy) is the female member of the group who we’re supposed to sympathise with because she’s the only one who gets a suitably tragic backstory.

Things have been going well until Money hears of a potential big score that could be easy money even if it does break Alex’s small scale rule. Said job involves a lonely old blind man who supposedly has several hundred thousand dollars hidden away in his dilapidated house in the middle of an abandoned neighbourhood. Sounds simple, but once inside the house things go wrong as The Blind Man (Stephen Lang) turns out to be an ex-soldier who has presumably “seen some s**t” in addition to being traumatised over the recent death of his daughter, and is just crazy and highly skilled enough to try and kill them all despite his impediment.

So the kids, who aren’t really bad guys they’re just desperate, enter a complex game of cat and mouse when they become locked in the house with The Blind Man hunting them down. Thing is he’s just as much a victim as they are, he’s sympathetic and not a villain as such, he’s just scared and detached from reality, that is until … sigh … suddenly he isn’t. If my initial description, a thought provoking character piece on trauma and criminality hidden inside an extremely well crafted horror setting, seems intriguing to you then prepare to be disappointed. Yep, there’s a twist or two here and it turns out The Blind Man isn’t what he appears to be and our trio of thieves are in serious trouble as he devolves into just another psychotic slasher movie villain and the film moves from one shock to the next with such predictable pace that all I could think about was all the others things I could have been doing with my time instead of being sat in the theatre.

I find myself reminded of why I don’t watch horror films for fun. That’s not to say there aren’t good horror films out there but being a good movie and being a good horror movie don’t seem to be the same thing. Horror has a tendency to go purely for shock value and it really feels like this film has a unique and interesting premise that it chickens out of almost immediately. I honestly think the filmmakers looked at this script and were worried it was too nuanced and interesting so decided to gradually make it get stupider to compensate.
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The set pieces of our heroes trying to silently negotiate their way around the house whilst The Blind Man hunts them work brilliantly, they’re gripping and exciting and the movie could easily have survived on that alone, but no, they felt the completely pointless need to ramp up the shock value for no reason and it’s just ridiculous. Once the final truth about The Blind Man comes out no matter how grotesque it is, and it is, it can’t help but be almost comical, except the film has a crushingly dark tone so the audience isn’t even allowed in on the joke. Thus we end up laughing at
the movie rather than with it, and believe me people in my screening were laughing, it just didn’t seem appropriate.

And like I’ve said there’s no reason the original premise wouldn’t have worked, distraught highly skilled ex-soldier struggling with a myriad of personal issues ends up in a stand off with a group of reluctant teen thieves who are in over their heads. Great, some elements would have even made more sense and Scott Lang brings some real gravity to the character even in this dopey story so he clearly could have pulled this off. Watching him break down in tears should have been moving, made you question whose side you were supposed to be on, except it isn’t and it doesn’t because he’s clearly pure evil.

Plus the kids don’t want to kill him, even after it’s really clear he deserves it, and that would have made more sense if we were able to view him as just as much a victim of circumstance as they are, but no, instead it’s just the tired horror cliche of the heroes not killing the villain when they had the chance and we all know that’s bound to be a decision they don’t grow to regret. And no spoilers but the ending leaves everyone in a questionable moral position of supposing that getting away with theft is better than getting away with murder and not to nitpick but aren’t those both bad things?
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It’s all so much potential wasted and whilst it’s a perfectly good movie I kind of want to hate it for that reason alone.

Disney does it again. After the amazing 'Zootropolis' earlier this year Disney throws in a few coconuts, an engaging heroine, a singing Dwayne Johnson and an epic journey to save the world to bring us one of the best animated films of recent years. I am still reeling from what I have just experienced.
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Catchy new songs are already auto-playing in my head, I’m almost skipping out of the cinema on my emotional high, overhearing young and old excitedly sharing their favourite bits of 'Moana'. And there are many. It won’t surprise anyone that Disney has another hit on their plate, but I’m calling it now, this is Disney’s new 'Frozen'. Parents, ready yourself for soundtracks being played on repeat in the little time you will get between repeat viewings of 'Moana' once it hits home video. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and maybe do yourself a favour and leave the kids at home.

'Moana' takes place in a mythical Polynesia. Te Fiti’s heart has been stolen, unleashing darkness upon the world. A chosen one is said to restore the heart and defeat the darkness forever, or so the little children are told by Moana’s granny. Her son, the chieftain, believes everyone is safe on Motunui Island as long as they do not venture beyond the reef. But when the darkness starts to affect their home Moana can no longer abide by her father’s rules and sets out to restore Te Fiti’s heart. First she must find the demigod Maui to help her on her quest and he might not be the hero everyone thinks he is.

The opening prologue immediately reminded me of 'The Lord Of The Rings' and the similarities did not end there; a great evil can only be stopped by returning a small shiny item to where it belongs by getting the unlikeliest of heroes to set out on a seemingly impossible quest. The Ocean chooses Moana, who is determined to undertake this mission for the sake of her people. During her adventure she doesn’t only discover the world, but her true self.

It’s nice to see Disney continuing its trend of having the princess being the hero, though Moana would argue she is not a princess (“If you wear a dress and have an animal sidekick, you’re a princess”, Maui tells her). It is Moana who saves the world, not Maui, though he does lend a helping hand. It was Maui who stole the heart, causing the entire mess, and he gets his redemption in the end, but it is Moana who gets to do the heroic deed.

Within the first few minutes of the film we are shown exactly who Moana is. When cute as a button baby Moana (voiced by Auli’I Cravalho) wants a shiny seashell but sees a baby turtle in need, she abandons the seashell to help the baby turtle to the water without being eaten by birds; she even gets some foliage to shield it from the sun. It is an adorable sequence, showcasing how kind and selfless Moana is. She is rewarded by the Ocean becoming her friend, edging out some space by holding back the water for Moana to get to the seashell. We are introduced to the Ocean as a character, cleverly represented by something akin to the water entity from 'The Abyss'. Nature has been personified in 'Moana' with the Ocean and Te Fiti taking on shape and personality, making the green message of the film even clearer. It never hits you over the head with it as 'Zootropolis' sometimes did. 'Moana' is more subtle in its approach.

On the other end of the spectrum we have demigod Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), who is self-absorbed and in constant battle with his conscience, visualised by his animated tattoos. Instead of lending a helpful hand, he steals Moana’s canoe first chance he gets and only ends up part of the mission due to circumstance and Moana’s perseverance.

Also along for the ride, more by accident than anything, is the sidekick and comic relief, the chicken Heyhey. When the film started I suspected the cute little piggy would function as Moana’s sidekick, but the brainless chicken was chosen instead. It leads to some funny bits and, as I’d hoped, it gets its moment to shine and validate its existence later on. I wasn’t too taken with that character as it had no character to speak of and was surprised to hear kids and adults alike seemed to love the chicken as we walked out of the cinema.
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The unlikely trio make for an interesting team. Moana and Maui’s juxtaposed personalities lead to a lot of wisecracking and bickering, making every scene a joy to watch. The voice actors clearly had fun with their characters. And if not for all three of them one of the best action sequences in the film wouldn't have worked as well as it did. When the Kakamori approach, Moana turns into a kids version of 'Mad Max', with high speed action that has your head spinning. Against impossible odds Moana shows courage and perseverance again and again. She is the badass hero that not only kids like to see. And don't call her a princess just because she has an animal sidekick.

The animation is eye-watering beautiful, especially everything to do with water, which is everywhere in 'Moana'. Making the Ocean a character in itself adds an additional layer to an already well-crafted and impacting film. The actors bring a lot of energy and emotion to every scene. There wasn’t a single moment the characters, the music or the animation didn’t affect me. An utterly beautiful experience from start to finish.

The icing on the cake of this already well rounded package is the music. The score and songs are utterly brilliant. The songs all serve purpose in the narrative and move the story along. They are catchy and beautiful, all co-written by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. Auli’I Cravalho has a tremendous voice, belting out Moana’s songs with such vigour I got emotional every single time. When Johnson started singing I was readying myself to cringe. And yes, he is not a great singer, but the song suits him and turned into THE song loads of adults and kids were talking about after the film. He puts so much energy and fun into his performance that you can't help but join in. People were singing his song “You're welcome” when leaving the cinema, and I still have it stuck in my head days later.

Speaking of leaving, make sure you stay until after the credits for an additional scene. I won't spoil it for you, but I enjoyed it and had another giggle. The music during the credits doesn't make it tough to stay behind so do yourself a favour and linger.

I could keep going, but this is getting rather lengthy. When you watch 'Moana' you’ll notice tons of things I haven’t talked about that are worth mentioning. It’s beautiful, fun, emotional, crazy, full of action, witty dialogue, adventure and so much more. 'Moana' will stick with you long after you have left the cinema, not only thanks to its earworm-status worthy songs. Engaging characters, beautiful visuals and catchy songs make 'Moana' one of the best animated films of the year.

Being an ensemble piece centred around the lives of a variety of characters who all live within 100 streets of each other it would likely take the entire length of this review to fully explain everything that is going on in this movie but the short version is as follows. Max (Idris Elba) is a former rugby superstar whose marriage to Emily (Gemma Arterton) is on the rocks and he’s not taking it well. Kingsley (Franz Drameh) is a low level street hood looking for a way out of a life he never really fit into in the first place; and George (Charlie Creed-Miles) is a black cab driver whose life is turned upside down one fatal day on the road.

These are our central characters whose lives intermingle in large and small ways as their stories play out. Kingsley makes a friend in Terence (Ken Stott) who is an old friend of Emily and helps to put him on a better path. Max’s attempts to get his life together end up sending him even further down the rabbit hole, whilst the life George and his wife have worked so hard to achieve seems to slip further and further away as he descends into his own little pit of despair.

There’s a general theme of redemption and struggle, though played out in very different ways through the stories of each of our heroes. Ensemble pieces are harder to pull off than you might think, they are more than just a series of short stories strung together, what makes a good story doesn’t necessarily make for a good ensemble. What I’m saying here is I’m not entirely sure this film works.
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Each story works great, the cast really engage, even those with a limited screen time, but ultimately I feel like I’d rather have seen each of them in their own movie. It’s a weird criticism to say that the movie doesn’t work because I like the story but that’s kind of the way it is. The thread connecting our heroes is so very weak that it almost doesn’t exist at times, in fact I’m not a hundred percent sure how George even connected to the others now that I think back on it.

And part of the problem is that you kind of keep waiting for this connecting moment and when it doesn’t pay off it’s something of a disappointment, even though the film didn’t promise or particularly need it. It’s a just quirk of this kind of movie, I’m watching three stories I like but why do we have to keep chopping between them, I’d rather enjoy them one at a time so I can really take each one in.
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In addition because they’re sharing screen time we do end up a little with just the broad strokes of the narrative. Not many of the characters have time to just breathe and be themselves, they have a limited number of scenes so they have to pack in the important plot points and leave us to just assume each one got resolved in-between those moments whilst we were watching something else happen. That being said what we get is strong and there’s plenty to sink your teeth into.

So it’s good but it’s not great, a fairly average example of the style and whilst the cast are selling the hell out of it some may struggle to get immersed in the bullet point presentation of the characters lives. You’ll feel for them but it’s unlikely to stick with you once you leave the theatre.

I’m going to start off, instead of my usual summary, by saying that I don’t get this film. I understand what it was about and I followed it, I even enjoyed it, but I don’t understand what it’s supposed to be. Seemingly a documentary it feels weirdly staged a lot of the time and events tend to play out a little too conveniently, meaning it’s too structured to feel like a documentary but not structured enough to feel like it isn’t. Conversations sometimes feel like they’ve been set up, in fact Julie (our lead) even says this at one point, accusing the director of ambushing her with a fake scenario.

In addition it seems to have a very specific audience. Nothing particularly interesting happens and there doesn’t seem to be much of a message or point to the proceedings, which helps add to the confusion of whether or not the film is fake or real. But having said all that negativity, I did actually enjoy this movie and found myself oddly compelled by the story it was telling. It’s far from a classic but I was never bored.

From what I’ve managed to gleam the film is partly staged but mostly the true life story of Julie, a professional British nanny who goes out to work for a wealthy family in the United Arab Emirates. British nannies are quite popular out there, though whether there’s a practical reason for that or if they’ve just seen Mary Poppins too many times is unclear (you kind of suspect a British nanny is a status symbol more than anything).

Julie joins a large family of six children who don’t really have any kind of structure to their lives and is told by the parents to figure out how to fix this. The parents then wander off into the background and remain curiously distant from the proceedings, and though they seem like perfectly nice people and loving parents, it’s fair to say they aren’t naturals at the whole parenting thing. Anyway, with six kids to control, a new culture to get familiar with and a distant family always on her mind Julie has no choice but to dive right in.
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As I said, this is an odd film. It’s doesn’t look especially compelling on the surface unless you are specifically interested in the subject matter and the design is more than a little jarring with the curiously scripted opening at the office of the agency that sends the nannies around the world and the even more bizarrely random appearance of a social media superstar during a family outing.

But as someone who knew basically nothing about what I was about to see, when I went in to this movie I found it pretty interesting. The problem may be that everything is a little out of focus. The culture clash is there, but it feels like the films not really about that. The role of a nanny and the relationship with the rest of the house staff is there, but it feels like the films not really about that. There’s some conflict with the kids, but it feels like the films not really about that. I suppose this is where the movie is clearly a documentary, after all something exciting can’t be filmed unless something exciting happens, but without a targeted focus we just sort of meander about with no real purpose and it shows at times.

Ultimately the film is about anything and everything in this 'Nanny Culture' so the story spreads itself a little thin perhaps. Like I say, I don’t really know what this movie is, but I enjoyed learning about the world it was set in and felt genuinely attached to Julie and the family by the end of it. There’s certainly messages and lessons on multiculturalism and class structure that can be taken from this story and it’s all very fascinating, but again, it feels like the film isn’t really about that.

Superhero fatigue is a term that has been bandied around a lot recently. With the arrival of the fourteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) - and the sixth superhero movie of the year - it's easy to see why. Thankfully, 'Doctor Strange' makes it just as easy to argue against such a belief.
 
'Doctor Strange' is the story of Stephen Strange, a former neurosurgeon who embarks on a journey of healing only to be drawn into the world of the mystic arts.
 
Starring Benedict Cumberbatch ('Sherlock', 'Star Trek Into Darkness'), the latest entry to the MCU is simultaneously a return to its roots and a broadening of its horizons. The plot is a routine one, especially within the world that Marvel has created. One that vividly mirrors the like of the first 'Iron Man', as a man finds his life drastically altered, his world view transformed, and his purpose renewed in the most fantastical of ways. 

To many, that will no doubt be a reason to groan. But it's a formula that still works. With the MCU entering it's third phase and inevitably gearing towards a stark change in the line-up, it's also a decision that makes sense, grounding the new elements in something familiar to those invested in the franchise. That in itself is the greatest success in both this movie and the MCU over all, it takes measured leaps rather than trying to hurdle everything at once. Each film focuses solely on introducing something new to the world - be it the technological advancements of Tony Stark, the otherworldly mechanics of Thor, and now the mysticism and magic of Doctor Strange - before merging them together.
 
And that is why a belief in superhero fatigue may be a tad premature. Like ice-cream, each film of the MCU might be of the same mold but each has a distinct flavour that makes it unique and allows it to stand on its own. Like 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Ant-Man' before it, 'Doctor Strange' is the most emphatic proof of that. If the 'Captain America' movies are delicious, reliable vanilla, then Doctor Strange is Neapolitan covered in sprinkles of every colour.
 
Judging a film based strongly on the visuals is almost never a good idea, but 'Doctor Strange' is easily an exception to the rule. The effects poured into many of the sequences can only be described as the visual embodiment of a Pink Floyd song or 'Inception' on LSD as described by Terry Pratchett. They are a treat; beautifully - and sometimes terrifyingly - realised. Rather than just eye-candy, however, they serve a narrative function, as well as the occasion injection of humour, allowing Stephen Strange to have his mind and skillset expanded. As well as expanding the audience's scope of the Marvel Cinematic Universe right alongside him.

The film suffers from a slightly rocky start, especially in the rough introduction to numerous characters but thankfully settles, ironically, when the true madness starts to kick off. In the titular role, Benedict Cumberbatch is as perfect a fit as Robert Downey Jr. But that should be no surprise to fans of Benedict's hugely popular BBC series 'Sherlock', given that Stephen Strange, in many ways, is Sherlock Holmes with magical powers.
 
He's arrogant, he's brash, he's brilliant, and underneath it all there beats a rarely seen yet ever present heart. Cumberbatch encompasses each of this traits with his usual, expert finesse, juggling both the pathos and humour of the character with seeming ease and an American accent that, whilst jarring at first, grows on you.
 
Unfortunately, many of the other roles aren't quite as well served. But such is the case when their storied pasts are mostly offered up through dialogue, if at all. Rachel McAdams' Christine Palmer serves a narrative function and provides a tether to Doctor Strange's humanity, but little else. Benedict Wong is mostly a source of comic-relief and exposition. Both do well with what they are given, but are even overshadowed at times by a cloak which will easy be to this generation what Aladdin's magic carpet was to kids of the 90s.

Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Mads Mikkelsen fair better as The Ancient One, Mordo, and Kaecilius respectively. Each blessed with a level of shading to their characters, making them more three dimensional than most supporting MCU characters and villains. Though not extensively utilised, each feels fully formed, distinct, and, with nuances to their characters that allows things to be more than black and white, consistently sympathetic and relatable even when their actions and decisions might prove questionable.
 
And each give everything to their roles. Swinton is wonderfully ethereal and packed with world-weary yet hopeful wisdom. Ejiofor is all strength and nobility, offering a great guide and foil to Cumberbatch's Strange. And Mikkelsen is equal parts charm and menace, driven by an ambition that could almost be described as understandable, especially given the details of his past. He may not quite reach the peak of MCU villainy, but he is certainly far from the worst of the bunch, lacking only a little more fleshing out of his aforementioned past.
 
The plot may be a tad run-of-the-mill, especially by Marvel's standards, but with one of strongest all-round casts put together within the MCU, supported ably by good writing, a rapid pace, and solid direction, the combined whole might just be one of the strongest entries to date.

All in all, whether Superhero fatigue is on the horizon or already here, the visual delight that is 'Doctor Strange' is a breath of fresh air and might just be a perfect antidote.