Now You See Me: Now You Don't review – A disposable but fitfully fun reunion
The script for this threequel is rarely as clever as it thinks it is and hardly ever as fresh as it should be.
Combining legacy characters with a new trio of younger illusionists, the third film in this action-comedy series is a busily disposable – if fitfully fun – combination of reunion gig and new-generation franchise spruce-up. Director Ruben Fleischer (Venom, Uncharted) replaces predecessors Louis Leterrier and Jon M Chu, stepping in to juggle the expected ingredients of a tangled heist, some tricksy set pieces, a couple of crowd-pleasing cameos and splashes of globe-trotting glitz. Yet as the crowded cast grapple with the script’s patchy supplies of sparkle and finesse, it can be hard to care which way the plot’s cards end up landing. The opening piles deceit on deceit with a show seemingly involving the returning Four Horsemen, star magicians whose ranks number cocky frontman J Dallas Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), hypnotist Merritt (Woody Harrelson), escapologist Henley (Isla Fisher) and card-sharp Jack (Dave Franco), reunited after almost 10 years away. A rug-pulling segue then introduces a fresh-faced gang of magicians, namely Bosco Leroy (Dominic Sessa), June (Ariana Greenblatt) and Charlie (Justice Smith). When Atlas infiltrates their secret hideout to reprimand them for imitating his crew, he also recruits them. Their mission, should they choose, etc? To help engineer a diamond heist and take down a crime syndicate fronted by Veronika Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike), a woman whose callous activities, we’re told, “make the world’s worst people possible". Read more: Dragonfly review: Brenda Blethyn is at her very best in frequently heartbreaking film Die My Love review: Jennifer Lawrence is superb in this absorbing and quietly devastating drama The film’s prologue tries to big up the Horsemen’s comeback to a degree that might seem excessive even if Elvis were resurrected. While it’s hard to share the excitement at their return after the shallow romp of 2016’s Now You See Me 2, a nifty on-screen switcheroo at least revitalises the franchise’s mild pleasures: watching charming rogues wrongfoot all-comers and fleece the rich remains the rough gist. A clumsy reliance on exposition muffles that magic, however, and the problem is exacerbated by a script that insists on congratulating itself when it’s not flagging up its subtexts. The idea that audiences need magic in dark times is presented as if the series requires legitimising, a risky suggestion when spry fun and cleverer-than-thou misdirection should be the aims. The cast do their best to deliver on these fronts even if the script glues their characters to type, presumably to minimise complications in an already messy plot. Eisenberg is playfully verbose, while Harrelson’s line in laconic asides bears repeating – "This liver’s not going to destroy itself," he quips, accepting a drink. Pike has fun with the hissable Veronika, her silky self-assurance, smirk and camp accent offering fun compensations for slender characterisation. View oEmbed on the source website Fisher makes a welcome franchise return after sitting out the previous film, but gets little to do. The new trio show potential, notably Greenblatt during a gymnastic fight sequence in a tight space, but spoiler-y appearances from former series cast-members leave ever-decreasing room for the newcomers to register. A disappearing act is one thing, but the new trio threaten to vanish from memory whenever they’re off-screen. Meanwhile, any subplots about legacy character relationships barely get a second thought, beyond rote nods to their “weird” interpersonal history. It's the set pieces that lift proceedings, with action sequences at a public diamond display and in a house of illusions showing flashes of pacey wit, levity and invention – though Christopher Nolan might want his rotating corridor set back. The narrative linking them is, however, frustratingly loose even for a franchise that revels in the ridiculous. One or two twists prove inconsequential, while the script is rarely as clever as it thinks it is and hardly ever as fresh as it should be. When the final, creaky reveal recalls the first film’s climax, you hope the series manages to conjure up some new tricks before the proposed fourth outing apparates. Now You See Me: Now You Don't is released in UK cinemas on Friday 14th November. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Life of Chuck review: Tom Hiddleston charms in this entertaining, imaginative and non-horror Stephen King adaptation
Midnight Mass director Mike Flanagan makes King's novella into a real crowd-pleaser – even if schmaltz occasionally overrides substance
★★★★☆ The Life of Chuck is in cinemas now. Add it to your watchlist Like Frank Darabont before him, Mike Flanagan is becoming his generation’s foremost film-maker-as-fan of Stephen King. Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game are faithful – perhaps to a fault – takes on the writer’s novels, channelling King’s feel for emotion, dialogue, suspense and shock alongside fitful echoes of his lapses into folksy woolliness. Even Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, which was not a King title, summoned the spirit of King’s Salem’s Lot more keenly than the 2022 movie. Flanagan extends this connection into a stirring riff on one of King’s non-horror novellas in The Life of Chuck, a crowd-pleaser in the heart-tickling vein – if not quite class – of Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption. Telling the story of a man’s life in reverse across three acts, the result is prone to sentiment and big swings that aim wide. But it also shares King’s sometimes generous empathy for character, flair for dialogue and rarely noted fascination with dancing. Even if the result can trip over its hoofing feet, it’s not for want of sincere engagement with King’s tale. In the opening act (or closing, depending on your viewpoint), Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Marty, a teacher trying to interest his class in Walt Whitman through the world’s dying days. As Marty reconnects with his ex (Karen Gillan) one last time, a mystery emerges: why does he keep seeing signs thanking a stranger named Chuck Krantz for "39 great years"? We find out more in act two, where Chuck emerges as an accountant (Tom Hiddleston) in his late 30s. Chuck is facing tough times. But in the meantime he makes a spontaneous, joyful dance connection with a heart-broken woman to a street busker’s vigorous drumbeat. Finally, in act three, we see how Chuck grew up in a possibly haunted house with his grandparents and learnt what his dancing feet were for. These synopses only skate over the surface of the film, which also cogitates lightly on climate change, cosmic forces, time, choices, human connections, inner universes and the moonwalk. Its philosophies tend towards the homespun, but the musical rhythms of Flanagan’s direction help leaven the load and his way with actors adds plenty of unforced lift. Read more film reviews: Freakier Friday review: Get set to party like it's 2003 all over again Weapons review: One of the best horror films of recent years The Naked Gun review: Liam Neeson's legacy sequel is a 90-minute hoot Fantastic Four: First Steps review — Pedro Pascal's Fab Four give Marvel a much-needed boost Although Hiddleston only features strongly in the central act, his performance pops with easy charm and warmth. Child actors Benjamin Pajak, Cody Flanagan and Jacob Tremblay acquit themselves well as younger Chucks, too, while Mark Hamill remains a talent to treasure as his grandpa. Even then, a cameoing Matthew Lillard almost steals the show as one of King’s ardent chatterboxes. View oEmbed on the source website It helps that Flanagan whole-heartedly embraces how and why King’s people talk so much. Even if their folksy wisdoms aren’t always that deep, King’s ear for vocal cadences ensures his words are a delight to listen to. Their desire to connect registers tangibly, and King’s facility for scares isn’t wholly neglected, either. The opening sequence projects a kind of cosmic dread, while strange things occur behind a cupola door – a cousin to other ominous doorways in The Shining, perhaps – in the climax. Schmaltz occasionally overrides substance in this end stretch, where the film’s questions about life and how to live it seem to crave a more elegant conclusion than the one that arrives. Taken as an accretion of minor-key moments and details, though, the film notches up many pleasures along the way. Whether you accept that as a workable life metaphor or not, The Life of Chuck is entertaining, imaginative and affirmative enough to tempt a rewind to the beginning (or end), just to see whether it does all slot together. For Flanagan, whose TV take on Carrie is also incoming, it’s another good reason to keep revisiting King’s deep well of stories.
The Life of Chuck review: Stephen King adaptation is entertaining, imaginative and affirmative
The latest adaptation by Mike Flanagan is a real crowd-pleaser – even if schmaltz occasionally overrides substance.
Like Frank Darabont before him, Mike Flanagan is becoming his generation’s foremost film-maker-as-fan of Stephen King. Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game are faithful – perhaps to a fault – takes on the writer’s novels, channelling King’s feel for emotion, dialogue, suspense and shock alongside fitful echoes of his lapses into folksy woolliness. Even Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, which was not a King title, summoned the spirit of King’s Salem’s Lot more keenly than the 2022 movie. Flanagan extends this connection into a stirring riff on one of King’s non-horror novellas in The Life of Chuck, a crowd-pleaser in the heart-tickling vein – if not quite class – of Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption. Telling the story of a man’s life in reverse across three acts, the result is prone to sentiment and big swings that aim wide. But it also shares King’s sometimes generous empathy for character, flair for dialogue and rarely noted fascination with dancing. Even if the result can trip over its hoofing feet, it’s not for want of sincere engagement with King’s tale. In the opening act (or closing, depending on your viewpoint), Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Marty, a teacher trying to interest his class in Walt Whitman through the world’s dying days. As Marty reconnects with his ex (Karen Gillan) one last time, a mystery emerges: why does he keep seeing signs thanking a stranger named Chuck Krantz for "39 great years"? We find out more in act two, where Chuck emerges as an accountant (Tom Hiddleston) in his late 30s. Chuck is facing tough times. But in the meantime he makes a spontaneous, joyful dance connection with a heart-broken woman to a street busker’s vigorous drumbeat. Finally, in act three, we see how Chuck grew up in a possibly haunted house with his grandparents and learnt what his dancing feet were for. These synopses only skate over the surface of the film, which also cogitates lightly on climate change, cosmic forces, time, choices, human connections, inner universes and the moonwalk. Its philosophies tend towards the homespun, but the musical rhythms of Flanagan’s direction help leaven the load and his way with actors adds plenty of unforced lift. Although Hiddleston only features strongly in the central act, his performance pops with easy charm and warmth. Child actors Benjamin Pajak, Cody Flanagan and Jacob Tremblay acquit themselves well as younger Chucks, too, while Mark Hamill remains a talent to treasure as his grandpa. Even then, a cameoing Matthew Lillard almost steals the show as one of King’s ardent chatterboxes. View oEmbed on the source website It helps that Flanagan whole-heartedly embraces how and why King’s people talk so much. Even if their folksy wisdoms aren’t always that deep, King’s ear for vocal cadences ensures his words are a delight to listen to. Their desire to connect registers tangibly, and King’s facility for scares isn’t wholly neglected, either. The opening sequence projects a kind of cosmic dread, while strange things occur behind a cupola door – a cousin to other ominous doorways in The Shining, perhaps – in the climax. Schmaltz occasionally overrides substance in this end stretch, where the film’s questions about life and how to live it seem to crave a more elegant conclusion than the one that arrives. Taken as an accretion of minor-key moments and details, though, the film notches up many pleasures along the way. Whether you accept that as a workable life metaphor or not, The Life of Chuck is entertaining, imaginative and affirmative enough to tempt a rewind to the beginning (or end), just to see whether it does all slot together. For Flanagan, whose TV take on Carrie is also incoming, it’s another good reason to keep revisiting King’s deep well of stories. The Life of Chuck is in UK cinemas from Wednesday 20th August 2025. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Here review: Tom Hanks and Robin Wright can't save this heavy-handed Forrest Gump reunion
Director Robert Zemeckis's ambitious domestic drama on the passage of time is a syrupy affair hampered by distracting de-aging technology.
★★☆☆☆ Here is in cinemas now. Add it to your watchlist With its opening segue from dinosaurs to the Ice Age to Indigenous people, Here signals itself as a kind of grand statement on time’s passage for director Robert Zemeckis. A workable alternative title could have been We Live in Time, were it not taken. Although the film soon turns into a multi-generational domestic drama, history and change sit high on its thematic agenda, which would suggest bracing ambition if the results didn’t so often land with the deadening thud of a dinosaur’s stomp. View oEmbed on the source website Adapting Richard McGuire’s graphic novel, Zemeckis reteams here with his Forrest Gump writer (Eric Roth) and stars, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Echoing Gump, Zemeckis uses experimental techniques and cutting-edge technology, notably the de-aging effects that make actors’ faces glisten so oddly. The camera mostly assumes one perspective, fixed on the land a house was built on in the early 20th century and then on the living room of that house over a century or so. As families pass through, the idea is that so does all of life, love and death, accompanied by some wincingly on-the-nose song choices about the same. The characters range from Benjamin Franklin to an early-20th-century woman who berates her husband for his fixation on flying, convinced it will kill him. Another man invents the La-Z-Boy armchair, while a modern-day black family bring a robot vacuum to the home. But the primary focus falls on the family of a Second World War veteran (Paul Bettany) and his wife (Kelly Reilly), whose children include Richard (Tom Hanks), a would-be artist who marries his high-school sweetheart Margaret (Robin Wright). As Margaret becomes pregnant, Richard stops painting and becomes the family provider, setting up a decades-long tale of dreams deferred that unfolds while history happens around them. If the single-room perspective feels stagey, Zemeckis attempts to remedy the issue with an initially seductive trick. Comic-book-style boxes inside the frame introduce images from other eras, easing the transitions between years. But the effect becomes self-defeating: time slips by too smoothly, ironing out the kinks and creases in how it really passes. Equally problematically, the de-aging effects that proved divisive in The Irishman haven’t evolved as fast as technology seems to change on screen in Here. The house sits in Pennsylvania, but the casts’ smoothed-out features come direct from Uncanny Valley. When Richard feigns fear as his daughter dresses as a ghost for Halloween, Hanks’s glacial skin generates the most chills. Fatally, Zemeckis seems more fascinated with this stylistic toolkit than with the stories and subtexts he applies it to. Ham-fisted echoes across eras – the pandemics, say – elicit groans. Dramatic ironies are rammed home with sledge-hammer finesse and a fatalist sigh, notably when one character declares a belief that 1942 will be a good year. Read more film reviews: The Brutalist review: An Oscar-worthy epic in length, weight and ambition A Complete Unknown review: One of the most convincing interpretations of a musician ever Wicked review: Ariana Grande steals the show in bewitching blockbuster Nosferatu review: This creepy and compelling new take on vampire myth is a thing of beauty Gladiator II review: A sturdy sequel that revels in its more ludicrous qualities Emilia Pérez review: A musical that redefines what's possible in the genre We Live in Time review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield thrive in thoughtful but overcooked weepie Voiced sentiments about how time flies resemble fortune-cookie pickings even before two characters open fortune cookies. Big twists feel signposted to within an inch of their life, such that we don’t relate to the characters so much as watch over them like omniscient observers: when one character becomes forgetful, for example, we recognise Alzheimer’s long before they do. The characters register less as people than as illustrations of under-nourished ideas or heavy-handed messages, particularly when it comes to the desperately under-written black family. Nestled among these notions is the (again, voiced) idea that withholding dreams through worry won’t stop painful things from happening in life. You might as well take risks, Zemeckis wants to suggest, but Here feels too premeditated to embody that message, too calcified within its formal conceits. It’s only when the film trusts in Hanks and Wright to act their ages that their story moves us, helped by Alan Silvestri’s syrupy but disarmingly tender score. A more engaging film might have aimed to catch a sense of fleeting life in motion, but what we get in Here is a too often sterile reverie on stagnation.
We Live in Time review: Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield thrive in thoughtful but overcooked weepie
This romantic melodrama from Brooklyn director John Crowley boasts a strong pair of leads, but isn't without contrivances.
★★★☆☆ We Live in Time is in cinemas from New Year's Day. Add it to your watchlist A cast you want to spend time can be the saving grace of many a flawed romantic melodrama. While Brooklyn director John Crowley’s seventh feature is a considered and classy tear-jerker, it also arrives laden with overcooked metaphors (eggs are on the menu) and scrambled plot convolutions. But these excesses serve at least one welcome purpose: they make you appreciate how good Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield are in the lead roles. View oEmbed on the source website Pugh plays Almut and Andrew plays Tobias, a couple whose partnership is fraught with coincidences and kitchen-based contrasts. She’s a high-grade chef who knows the best way to crack an egg; he knows his way around a cereal box, presumably, since he works for Weetabix. They fall in love, then fall out before reconnecting and debating whether to have a child and get married. But a crisis unfolds when Almut is diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer, which reoccurs after the couple have a daughter. Scripted by playwright and screenwriter Nick Payne, this relatively straightforward set-up becomes more complicated in action. The story unfurls in non-chronological order, so that viewers need to figure out by visual cues where the narrative is in Almut and Tobias’s journey at any given time. Under Crowley’s elegant direction, Almut’s hair is one reliable steer and Tobias’s injuries are another, given the nature of the film’s meet-cute: a collision that occurs as he pops out of a hotel room in his dressing gown to buy pens and gets hit by a car. Guess who’s driving. This pile-up of circumstances typifies a tendency towards contrivance in Payne’s script. The issue extends to the dialogue, which ranges from Tobias’s faltering, Richard Curtis-esque declaration of love to a fall-out in which his syntax comes out mangled. When he tells Almut that their conflict “a lot, hurt,” it’s hard not to wonder why Payne’s insistence on putting things in the wrong order needed this oddly Yoda-esque spin. If Payne sometimes gets away with these quirks, it’s at least partly due to the leads. Garfield’s pliable ease of emotional expression proves instantly endearing. Pugh is also hugely impressive in a role that tests her character in many ways — terminal illness, figure-skating, childbirth in a garage restroom and wrestling with an octopus in a global cookery contest all feature. The supports square up, too. While Grace Delaney proves duly heart-melting as the couple’s daughter, Lee Braithwaite’s capable turn as Almut’s commis chef suggests bigger roles may beckon in the future. Meanwhile, Payne’s decision to scramble up past, present and future seems distractingly at odds with the kind of romantic weepie that needs to get to the heart of the matter. In fairness, what he’s trying to do almost becomes clear when Almut lays out her options after her cancer diagnosis. Does she want to spend six months doing something amazing that she loves, like the international Bocuse d’Or chef championship, or 12 months struggling with treatment that may not work? How will this time be best remembered, by her or her loved ones? Read more film reviews: Wicked review: Ariana Grande steals the show in bewitching blockbuster Nosferatu review: This creepy and compelling new take on vampire myth is a thing of beauty Gladiator II review: A sturdy sequel that revels in its more ludicrous qualities Emilia Pérez review: A musical that redefines what's possible in the genre Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl review — A banquet of jokes with storytelling as audacious as ever Time is the crux of the matter for Payne, though it’s a pity the emotions at stake are rendered frustratingly elusive as a result of the choppy structure. The film is at its most absorbing when it’s at its most direct, like when Almut and Tobias argue passionately over ambition, marriage and parenthood. Gracefully scored by The National’s Bryce Dessner, We Live in Time is a thoughtful film for the heart, but it’s also an emotional film that seems suspiciously over-thought. If you come out of it knowing how best to crack an egg, you also learn the perils of overegging a tale.
Mufasa: The Lion King review – Disney's CG prequel is flawed but fitfully powerful
Moonlight director Barry Jenkins adds currents of personality and style, but there's still a weird cognitive disconnect seeing photoreal big cats talking.
★★★☆☆ Mufasa: The Lion King is in cinemas from Friday 20 December. Add it to your watchlist Beloved villains' origin stories are largely best left alone, or at least ambiguous. While Heath Ledger’s Joker mocked the idea of origins in The Dark Knight, Darth Vader might have been better off without his surly teenage years. With many such tales, the sense of an imposing figure being reduced to a mechanical box-ticking exercise lingers. With that in mind, it’s impressive that director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and writer Jeff Nathanson make such an absorbing job of this flawed but fitfully powerful CG prequel to Jon Favreau’s The Lion King makeover. In the age of the backstory, the film never fully shakes from its fur a sense that Scar’s villainy and Mufasa’s stature are diminished by bullet-point psychologies. But at least Jenkins gives his tale of brotherhood and betrayal currents of personality and style, aided by some springy songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda that extend the original’s legacy breezily. View oEmbed on the source website The story introduces the idea of legacies — "He lives in you," indeed — swiftly. A framing device involves Simba (voiced by Donald Glover) and Nala’s (Beyoncé Knowles) daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) hearing the tale of Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) and Scar-to-be Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr) from sagely mandrill Rafiki (John Kani). During a flood, a young Mufasa is swept from home, orphaned and saved by fellow cub Taka. The two become brothers, thick as thieves as they grow and dream of finding a new home. But soon, a shared love for lioness Sarabi (Tiffany Boone) and a shared desire to be king — coupled with the machinations of embittered white "outsider" tiger Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen) will drive a wedge between them. While this premise shares the timeless sweep of the original Lion King, Jenkins anchors it in visual detail. There’s still no avoiding the weird cognitive disconnect of seeing photoreal big cats talking, but these animals are more expressive than Favreau’s. Aided by wingman cinematographer James Laxton, Jenkins ensures you notice it by transposing his live-action facility for charged close-ups to IMAX-filling displays of whiskers, teeth and eyes. Elsewhere, close-ups of retractable claws and rippling fur under water show a feel for minutiae. This sense of intimacy extends to some graceful touches, like the moment where Sarabi and Mufasa’s whiskers entwine lovingly. Fine voice work helps, with Pierre and Harrison Jr projecting conflict and chemistry through the CGI. Child voice actors Braelyn Rankins (Mufasa) and Theo Somolu (Taka) endear, especially singing the winningly propulsive I Always Wanted a Brother. And Mikkelsen delights with the coldly insinuating villainy of his song, Bye Bye. Read more film reviews: Wicked review: Ariana Grande steals the show in bewitching blockbuster Nosferatu review: This creepy and compelling new take on vampire myth is a thing of beauty Gladiator II review: A sturdy sequel that revels in its more ludicrous qualities Emilia Pérez review: A musical that redefines what's possible in the genre That Christmas review: Richard Curtis's animation is twee but with a winning formula The sense of elemental scale on show is equally imposing. Jenkins uses 3D wisely to pull you into the vast landscape, where gushing waters and tumbling rocks impart elemental threats. As a young Mufasa duly notes, "Wow". There’s a light-footed fluency to Jenkins’s direction, too: when the camera adopts a cat’s-eye view as it tears across the landscape, you’re pulled along in unison. Some distractions and developments stall that momentum, however. In the framing narrative, Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) lighten the mood but dilute the drama; the main story’s hornbill Zazu (Preston Nyman) is surely comic relief enough. And while Taka’s change into Scar is visually impeccable – narrowing eyes, sloping shoulders – the motivations seem too slight for such mortal frenemies as Scar and Mufasa. Even if Scar is judiciously kept torn and complicated, it’s hard to shake a sense that romantic jealousy could have been less murderously resolved. Still, Jenkins makes resonant work of other themes, from a subtext of tyranny vs unity to the ideas of home and heritage that underpin the mystical climax. Composer David Metzger provides respectable accompaniment, invoking Hans Zimmer’s classic score while adding his own strident cues. Even if there’s no dislodging the original’s crown, Jenkins’s fable of broken bonds and binding legacies does it no dishonour.
Mufasa: The Lion King review – A flawed but fitfully powerful CG prequel
Iconic villains' origin stories are largely best left alone, or at least ambiguous. While Heath Ledger’s Joker mocked the idea of origins in The Dark Knight, Darth Vader might have been better off without his surly teenage years. With many such tales, the sense of an imposing figure being reduced to a mechanical box-ticking exercise lingers. With that in mind, it’s impressive that director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and writer Jeff Nathanson make such an absorbing job of this flawed but fitfully powerful CG prequel to Jon Favreau’s The Lion King makeover. In the age of the backstory, the film never fully shakes from its fur a sense that Scar’s villainy and Mufasa’s stature are diminished by bullet-point psychologies. But at least Jenkins gives his tale of brotherhood and betrayal currents of personality and style, aided by some springy songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda that extend the original’s legacy breezily. The story introduces the idea of legacies – "He lives in you," indeed – swiftly. A framing device involves Simba (voiced by Donald Glover) and Nala’s (Beyoncé Knowles) daughter Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter) hearing the tale of Mufasa (Aaron Pierre) and Scar-to-be Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr) from sagely mandrill Rafiki (John Kani). During a flood, a young Mufasa is swept from home, orphaned and saved by fellow cub Taka. The two become brothers, thick as thieves as they grow and dream of finding a new home. But soon, a shared love for lioness Sarabi (Tiffany Boone) and a shared desire to be king – coupled with the machinations of embittered white "outsider" tiger Kiros (Mads Mikkelsen) will drive a wedge between them. While this premise shares the timeless sweep of the original Lion King, Jenkins anchors it in visual detail. There’s still no avoiding the weird cognitive disconnect of seeing photoreal big cats talking, but these animals are more expressive than Favreau’s. Aided by wingman cinematographer James Laxton, Jenkins ensures you notice it by transposing his live-action facility for charged close-ups to IMAX-filling displays of whiskers, teeth and eyes. Elsewhere, close-ups of retractable claws and rippling fur under water show a feel for minutiae. This sense of intimacy extends to some graceful touches, like the moment where Sarabi and Mufasa’s whiskers entwine lovingly. Fine voice work helps, with Pierre and Harrison Jr projecting conflict and chemistry through the CGI. Child voice actors Braelyn Rankins (Mufasa) and Theo Somolu (Taka) endear, especially singing the winningly propulsive I Always Wanted a Brother. And Mikkelsen delights with the coldly insinuating villainy of his song, Bye Bye. Read more: Kraven the Hunter review: Better than Morbius and Madame Web at least Nosferatu review: This creepy, compelling take on the vampire myth is a thing of beauty The sense of elemental scale on show is equally imposing. Jenkins uses 3D wisely to pull you into the vast landscape, where gushing waters and tumbling rocks impart elemental threats. As a young Mufasa duly notes, "Wow". There’s a light-footed fluency to Jenkins’s direction, too: when the camera adopts a cat’s-eye view as it tears across the landscape, you’re pulled along in unison. Some distractions and developments stall that momentum, however. In the framing narrative, Timon (Billy Eichner) and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) lighten the mood but dilute the drama; the main story’s hornbill Zazu (Preston Nyman) is surely comic relief enough. And while Taka’s change into Scar is visually impeccable – narrowing eyes, sloping shoulders – the motivations seem too slight for such mortal frenemies as Scar and Mufasa. Even if Scar is judiciously kept torn and complicated, it’s hard to shake a sense that romantic jealousy could have been less murderously resolved. Still, Jenkins makes resonant work of other themes, from a subtext of tyranny vs unity to the ideas of home and heritage that underpin the mystical climax. Composer David Metzger provides respectable accompaniment, invoking Hans Zimmer’s classic score while adding his own strident cues. Even if there’s no dislodging the original’s crown, Jenkins’s fable of broken bonds and binding legacies does it no dishonour. Mufasa will land in cinemas on Friday 20th December 2024. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
That Christmas review: Richard Curtis's animation is twee but with a winning formula
The Love Actually writer's adaptation of three children’s Christmas books is formulaic but gentle and heart-warming
★★★☆☆ That Christmas is on Netflix from 4 December. Add it to your watchlist. Despite its strained efforts to bring so many of its characters together, Richard Curtis’s Love Actually has proven more divisive than boiled Brussels sprouts in its time as a Christmas staple. Revisiting seasonal fare as a writer (alongside Peter Souter) after 2023’s dreary Genie, Curtis evokes a spirit of festive unity more surely with British studio Locksmith Animation’s adaptation of his three children’s Christmas books. Twee but winning, the heart-warming result is cooked to Curtis formula but laced with just the right doses of mirth, merriment and melancholy. View oEmbed on the source website Working with one reindeer (voiced by Guz Khan) after a bout of illness, Brian Cox’s stressed Santa zooms in on the quaint English seaside town of Wellington-on-Sea. Here, he discovers children, tweens and grown-ups in a “blizzard of bother”. Hapless new kid in town Danny (Jack Wisniewski) wrestles with a blushing crush on young Sam (Zazie Hayhurst) and family crises — his parents are divorced, his mum (Jodie Whittaker) works long hours as a nurse, and his dad may not be home for Christmas. For her part, Sam struggles to temper the misbehaviour of twin Charlie (Sienna Sayer), lest Charlie ends up on Santa’s naughty list. And young Bernadette (India Brown) is tasked with taking charge of her siblings and other kids when their parents become stranded while travelling in heavy weather. That Bernadette takes advantage of the problem to reinvent the family Christmas is typical of a film that toasts kids’ imaginations, resilience and resourcefulness. As with Love Actually, the script treats Christmas as “an emotional magnifying glass”, following multiple characters as they converge, disconnect, run riot and reunite. Where it differs from that 2003 hit is in Curtis’s abandonment of certain registers that struck sour or queasy notes. That Christmas is clearly his work — bumbling romantic Danny is just a loose fringe and a few birthdays away from a 1990s Hugh Grant — but its gentle generosity is in tune with the kids at its heart. Quaint as the town is, too, Curtis, Souter and first-time director Simon Otto (head of character animation on the How to Train Your Dragon films) take care to make it at least a little multicultural and modern. Themes of childhood mental health issues and climate anxiety are lightly incorporated. The film opens with Sam and mixed-race director Bernadette’s play, a progressive take on festive fare that ends in chaos but proves a nifty way of introducing the film’s characters. An appealing voice cast helps make these characters pop, with Whittaker and Wisniewski establishing an endearing mother-son chemistry. Fiona Shaw adds nuanced support as Ms Trapper, a stern teacher whose cautious bond with Danny over his struggles to build a snowman leads to some nicely developed twists. These pay-offs are typical of the film’s inventiveness, at its best. The humour can be soft and broad — one gag involves a whoopee cushion. But clever, playful ideas elsewhere range from the use of Post-It notes as a communication device to some Aardman-esque business involving a hungry fox and a rafter of runaway turkeys. The travails of adults stuck in a camper van amid snowfall is more contrived, though it proves an effective way of freeing up their kids to — in a nicely self-aware gag — not watch that “lovely old Christmas film” their parents cue up every year. Guess which one. The results earn plenty of goodwill, despite the predictable inclusion of Coldplay and Ed Sheeran songs. Superior musical work is served by composer John Powell, who follows Otto from the How to Train Your Dragon films with a twirling score that matches the film nicely: spry, breezy and poignant, both charm and disarm in roughly equal measure.
Transformers One review: Animated prequel is earnestly enjoyable
It’s all a little predictable, but it's a pleasant surprise to see a Transformers film where you can tell which hunk of metal is lamping which.
"It’s time to show ’em we are more than meets the eye," declares a robot in this animated Transformers prequel. Even working with the well-worn materials of a rusty screen saga – 2018’s franchise high Bumblebee aside – and an origin story, director Josh Cooley manages to show just that with his take on Hasbro’s metamorphosing metal-heads. Against the odds, Cooley has crafted one of the most earnestly enjoyable toy-based animations you didn’t ask for since his last one, Toy Story 4. His methodology is nicely simple: strip the ’bots of their main attributes and rebuild them again. With the action set on the planet Cybertron, the focus alights on familiar characters when they were lowly workers who can’t even transform due to the absence of a crucial "T-cog". All they do is mine Energon, an energy source vital to Cybertron but in short supply. Essentially slave labour, these robots bring to mind an unexpected cross between Antz and Aliens' marines, complete with locker-room banter. Their number includes one Orion Pax (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and his pal D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), who tends to get Pax out of trouble when required, which is often. Pax has dreams of greatness and D-16 is more cautious, and their contrasts will set these friends on a path to conflict that Transformers fans know well. Meanwhile, this version of Cybertron is lorded over by Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), a robot with a pristine paint job. He’s also the last surviving Prime, after the others were wiped out by an alien species. Into this class-divided climate comes Pax, who sets out to restore the flow of Energon to Cybertron by attempting to locate a vital artefact on the planet’s surface. Aided by D-16, workplace supervisor Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and joshing fellow miner B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key), Pax instead uncovers a conspiracy involving off-world oppressors, political corruption and missing T-cogs. If the prospect of a Transformers film about oppressed workers revolting sounds unlikely, that’s why it’s welcome. A likeable voice cast helps, with Hemsworth projecting roguish charm and his Marvel friend Johansson proving instantly recognisable. Steve Buscemi cameos as Starscream, continuing a trend in Transformers films to score with voice actors. Laughs-wise, Key banks the lion's share of chuckles as Bumblebee-to-be B-127, who insists on declaring his preferred title of ‘Badassatron’ to anyone interested or not. Meanwhile, the emergent villain is prone to pronouncements like "The truth is what I make it," which almost makes him seem like a Trump parody. Read more: Joker: Folie à Deux review – Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga shine in downbeat sequel Speak No Evil review: No less stark, satirical or unsettling than the original Along with the voices, the animation keeps the heroes more appealing than their live-action CGI versions, not least due to their soft human features. The environments are beautifully realised, too, from the living quarters and glinting cityscapes to a racetrack that unfolds like something out of Mario Kart. While the script (Marvel veteran Eric Pearson, with Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari) briskly fires off quips, Cooley ensures the action remains quick on its feet as the robots hurtle along the track and beyond. True, where those tracks lead is no great shock. One robot’s turn to evil is a foregone conclusion, which still happens too swiftly for effect. The climactic fights are over-familiar, too, although Cooley recognises that even predictable problems can be somewhat leavened by clarity in the stakes and stylings. You know where all this is headed, but it’s a pleasant surprise to see a Transformers film where you can tell which hunk of metal is lamping which and – without overstating the case too much – where you care a little about who wins. After the regressive Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Hasbro’s metal scrappers might just have earned themselves a fresh screen future. Transformers One is in UK cinemas from Friday 11th October 2024. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Twisters review: Serviceable summer spectacle won't blow you away
The set pieces often impress but any hints of romance, drama and humour are too often lost in the eye of the storm.
Towards the end of this follow-up to director Jan de Bont’s 1996 hit, a writer reporting on storm-chasers wonders what kind of story he should be telling. The question is a pointed one, because Twisters never quite resolves what angle it wants to take. Elemental romance or meteorological thriller? Disaster movie or lament for real-world losses? Sequel or reboot? Though the pluralised title seems to augur maximalist thrills – Aliens being the obvious precedent – director Lee Isaac Chung’s serviceable summer spectacle frustrates because it never fully amplifies its lines of attack. As films from Cliffhanger to Twister itself tend to, it begins with trauma. Student Kate Cooper (Daisy Edgar-Jones) leads a ragtag team on an experiment in Oklahoma to battle a tornado, firing nappy material up into the funnel to absorb moisture and thus disperse the cloud. But the mission goes wrong, and three of her friends die in the diaper-based dust-up. Five years on, fellow survivor Javi (Anthony Ramos) approaches Kate in her calmer New York job. Having developed a means to measure twisters’ behaviour, he needs her to help determine their paths. When Kate returns to Oklahoma with Javi, they clash with a rootin’-tootin’ posse of reckless tornado-chasers, fronted by YouTube stud Tyler Owens (Glen Powell). Might Kate and Tyler bond as he reveals hidden qualities? They might, indeed, though this low-sparks connection typifies the underfed writing in Mark L Smith’s script. It’s equally typical that, after five years away from “chasing”, Kate takes all of five minutes to forget her losses and join Javi’s operation. Lacking sparkle and character tension, the on-screen drama feels oddly muted. View oEmbed on the source website The fun starts as Tornado Alley’s twisters rear up and the chasers get to work, giving Chung licence to deliver the expected sound and fury. His previous film, Minari (2020), offered a gentle strain of rustic Americana before climaxing in a fierce conflagration. Chung channels both ingredients into Twisters, showing a poetic feel for landscape then leaning into the elemental turmoil as the tornadoes whirl. There isn’t much to distinguish one twister from another here, sadly, but Chung does make their impact ragged and visceral, particularly when Kate and Tyler’s date at a rodeo takes a turn for the tempestuous. The cast tend to be somewhat swept aside by contrast, though they perform solidly enough. Edgar-Jones and Powell are likeable leads, even if the dialogue between his tornado-wrangler and her twister-whisperer could have used some screwball-ish crackle. Harry Hadden-Paton is fun as a storm-scared British journalist reporting on Tyler’s antics, while Ramos, Sasha Lane and David Corenswet all impress. Read more: Fly Me to the Moon review: A bright and breezy '60s-set romcom Longlegs really is terrifying – but maybe not in the way that you think Maura Tierney draws a shorter straw as Kate’s mother, mobilised at the film’s midpoint to provide under-written quips while Kate and Tyler connect. The calm before bigger storms to follow, this perfunctory sequence speaks volumes about the film’s plot problems. Fitful character beats aside, the story merely hurtles between tornadoes, with only sketchy narrative tissue in between. As the pressure builds over Oklahoma, ill winds blow for a climax that swaps Twister’s drive-in-set finale for a cinema-set stand-off with heavy weather. The reference to this local cinema’s ‘Monster Fest’ follows Chung’s tendency to characterise tornadoes as near-sentient beasts but it’s not a theme he develops with any fervour. And while Chung touches on a real-world theme of corporations benefitting fiscally from human tragedy, the real-world subtext of climate change is merely glanced at, too. While Twister gamely embraced its popcorn pleasures and star power, the result here is a film that never quite locates a sense of purpose. Even as the spectacle of flattened locations fitfully impresses, any hints of romance, drama and humour are too often lost in the melee, levelled in the eye of the storm. Twisters is released in UK cinemas on Wednesday 17th July 2024. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
IF review: Like a live-action Pixar film with less finesse
John Krasinski's new film is loosely-plotted and derivative but occasionally playful and charming.
John Krasinski carved out a reputation as an emotionally assured horror director with the first two A Quiet Place films, tense and ingenious creature features about a traumatised family. Aimed at younger audiences, his follow-up is a more benevolent but baggier riff on themes of familial strife. Loosely-plotted and derivative but occasionally playful and charming, IF explores loss and recovery through a story about cutesy creatures who just want to hug their human co-stars, not disembowel them. Cailey Fleming plays Bea, a 12-year-old girl whose mother died of cancer and whose father (Krasinski) faces a heart operation. As Bea moves in with her grandma (Fiona Shaw) in New York, the girl develops the ability to see fantastical 'IFs' (imaginary friends) in the vicinity. Dapper neighbour Cal (Ryan Reynolds) shares her newfound skill, and Bea joins him to help reunite this menagerie of sweet creatures with the childhood pals who grew up and forgot them. As echoes of Pixar’s Up, Monsters Inc and Toy Story mount, Krasinski seems intent on making a live-action Pixar film, right down to composer Michael Giacchino’s score. The faint influence of Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro further registers Krasinski’s taste, though it’s hard to shake the sense that much of IF has been done before, and with more finesse. Even if Krasinski shares Pixar’s emotional articulacy, IF lacks the animation studio’s precision-honed feel for plot and comedy. The first half meanders, lacking momentum and stakes. Laughs are scarce, and any sense of focus slowly winds up diluted by the diffuse comic interactions between Bea, Cal and the IFs. Read more: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review: Decent thrills and spectacular action The Idea of You review: Anne Hathaway is a delight in enjoyable romcom When Bea enters the world of the IFs beneath Coney Island, some inventive fun is had as the environment mutates according to her imaginative whims. The creatures are cutely quirky, albeit overly reminiscent of creations in films from Zootropolis to Hotel Transylvania. Lead IF Blue (voiced by Steve Carell) recalls Monsters Inc’s Sulley, not least when IF’s out-sized fur-ball is found hiding in a child’s wardrobe. Reunited with the director a decade-plus after The Office US, Carell joins Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the late Louis Gossett Jr to headline a huge voice cast of A-listers, indicating the renown Krasinski is held in. But the voice cameos from Bradley Cooper (as an ice cube), Emily Blunt, Awkwafina, Brad Pitt and others merely feel like indulgences, distractions that add little to the plot. Pity Bea’s father, whose stay in hospital keeps slipping out of view. Of the in-person leads, Fiona Shaw brings class to Bea’s grandma, whose childhood becomes the touching focus of some late-film twists. View Green Video on the source website IF is released in UK cinemas on Friday 17th May 2024. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Saw X review: Drawn out in-between-quel has no sense of mystery
The 10th entry in the horror franchise puts Tobin Bell's Jigsaw back at centre stage – but has little to offer besides gory fan service.
Released in 2021, Spiral: From the Book of Saw was a bold but flawed bid to make a Saw movie without – even in flashbacks - Tobin Bell as original Jigsaw killer John Kramer. Duly, the disappointing box office returns for that ninth entry in the horror series provoked the inevitable response for the 10th outing in the series. Neither on-screen death nor franchise overkill can keep a horror icon down, so Kramer returns for Saw VI and Saw 3D director Kevin Greutert’s Saw X, set in the saga’s timeline between Saw and Saw II. The calm pleasures of Bell’s unnervingly purposeful performance aside, that sense of inevitability is the main problem with this run around John’s old block of wicked games, pseudo-moral tests and medieval death traps. After Saw sequels, prequels, near-parodies and spin-offs, the main sell here is a back-to-basics approach. Greutert delivers all the gushing gore and series Easter eggs fans might expect, with a caveat. He’s so busy pleasing the fanbase that he neglects another vital piece of the franchise puzzle: the sense of mystery that helped lift the best Saws above ‘torture porn’ clichés. Saw X starts with a declaration of intent, closing in on Kramer’s face as he reckons with a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He expects to live for a year, at best, until a seemingly recovered cancer patient informs Kramer of a radical new cure. Signed up, Kramer visits a secret location in Mexico and pays for treatment. But when he realises he has been scammed, he contacts his protégé Amanda (Shawnee Smith) and plots revenge – which, in his troubling thinking, involves devising elaborate torments and tests to "reawaken" his victims to an awareness of life’s value. With Kramer situated as the protagonist, Saw X partly plays into the emotional impact of his confrontation with mortality. Conversely, the opening stretch also peddles a winning line in gallows humour. "I," says Kramer, pausing for comic-dramatic effect as faux-surgeon Cecilia Pederson (Synnøve Macody Lund) asks what he does, "have a few hobbies." A look at his grim hospital room sketchbook amuses, too, and there’s a playful pay-off to his gratuitous torment of a thieving orderly that’s too cheeky to spoil. Once he and Amanda capture the grifters who sold him false hope, however, there’s precious little to spoil. Since we know where Amanda ends up in Saw II, we also know that her fleeting clashes with Kramer over the punishment of drug user and scammer Gabriela (Renata Vaca) are going nowhere. Read more: The Creator review: Spectacular visuals but generic storytelling "Proof that movie stars never die" – In defence of the Expendables films As Kramer chains up these cheats in a warehouse and subjects them to cruel "tests", Greutert instead focuses on amplifying the gross-out factor. Living up to the title, Saw X proves the series can still leave you craving a cold shower afterwards. Ticking clocks boost the tension as characters hack into limbs to prevent agonising death. One character’s self-administered brain surgery beats the scalping scene in Ridley Scott’s Hannibal for schlock value. Another poor unfortunate’s indignities extend beyond death when their intestines are unravelled and used as rope. The problem is that there’s no mystery here to tug you in, much less anything to surprise. A nasty late development gives Greutert a chance to unleash gallons of gushing blood, but the best Saw films offered more fiendish puzzle-box pleasures than a crude blood-boarding. With X being the longest Saw film, the result feels drawn out rather than developed, and then drawn out further still as the revelation of a key character’s inner moral vacuum results in some grim 'evil villain' acting. When Kramer says, "Our work’s not going to end," he could be speaking for any horror icon stretched beyond their breaking point, with little new to offer besides gore-spewing fan service. View Green Video on the source website Saw X is in UK cinemas from Friday 29th September 2023. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on tonight. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10, PLUS a £10 John Lewis and Partners voucher delivered to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts review – heavy going and exhausting
After showing signs of evolution, the Hasbro toys franchise regresses again in its seventh offering.
When director Michael Bay’s joylessly super-sized five-film run ended with the deadening Transformers: the Last Knight in 2017, director Travis Knight offered a charming course corrective with his sweetly nostalgic Bumblebee (2018). In a seeming attempt to remedy the relative under-performance of ’Bee at the box office, director Steven Caple Jr (Creed II) attempts a rapprochement between his predecessors’ extremes, pairing winning cast work and soundtrack choices with action excesses and apocalyptic stakes. But even the efforts of five screenwriters can’t prevent the balance from tilting towards Bay’s maximalism as the metal-on-metal aggro mounts. The prehistoric prologue sets the heavy going tone, zeroing in on an ape Transformer with buzz-cut hair and another who resembles a falcon. Why extra-terrestrial robots would disguise themselves as thus is an issue the film does not pause to address, mercifully so given the payloads of exhausting exposition it already has ready to drop on us. In a nutshell, the premise establishes Unicron (voice, Colman Domingo) as a planet-devouring tyrant whose evil robot army comprises the sadistic Scourge (voice, Peter Dinklage), the monstrous Terrorcons and the savage Predacons. For those taking notes, the heroes are the animal-like Maximals, whose number includes metal bird Airazor (Michelle Yeoh) and goofily named gorilla-’bot Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman). Welcome relief arrives as the action moves to New York, 1994. Here, museum researcher Elena (Dominique Fishback) and out-of-work former soldier Noah (Anthony Ramos) cross paths when a mysterious artefact sends out a glowing signal that draws the clashing interests of the Terrorcons and the Autobots, the latter fronted by the stern-faced Optimus Prime (rumbling voice by Peter Cullen). Ramos and Fishback do their best to add human elements to Rise. Impressive in The Hate U Give and Judas and the Black Messiah, the endearing Fishback manages to look plausibly scared during a decent set-piece involving Alien-style insectoid robots in a dark museum. After strong showings in Hamilton and In the Heights, Ramos brings an easy warmth to his scenes with his ailing kid brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez) and, later, with smart-ass Autobot spy Mirage (Pete Davidson). Set to a vigorous hip-hop soundtrack, this latter bond is the film’s best attempt to bridge the line between man and metal, and Rise might have benefited from more of it. Instead, the film’s second half relocates to Peru, where the action builds towards an almighty ruckus that draws heavily on Avengers: Infinity War and tips the emphasis away from human interest altogether. When one of our human anchors undergoes a ‘transformation’, if you will, it’s as if the filmmakers are throwing their hands up in surrender to the rise of the machines. Meanwhile, lofty speeches about sacrifice and working together to save the world seem entirely out of kilter with the silliness of robots disguised – best not to worry about why - as chugging Second World War cargo planes. Read more Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse review: No live-action superhero movie comes near it Oshi no Ko has forgotten what made it so special in the first place When one missing-in-action Autobot elicits a laugh and a cheer for his quipping return, this rare hint of levity spotlights how strenuously self-important so much of the action here is. For all the ‘rising’ these beasts are supposed to be doing, raising laughs seems to be largely beyond their abilities. As for the climax’s tease of a new Hasbro expanded universe on the rise, it is to be hoped the studio sees sense and punctures that idea. If filmmakers can’t engineer some kind of progression in this franchise, the best place for Hasbro’s toys is not on screen but in Bumblebee’s boot, ready for packing off to a second-hand sale somewhere. View Green Video on the source website Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is now showing in UK cinemas. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Take part in the Screen Test, a project from Radio Times and the Universities of Sussex and Brighton, to explore the role of television and audio in our lives. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
John Wick: Chapter 4 review – Excess is not a problem
Between bone-breaking fights and decimated apartment blocks the fourth film outdoes its predecessors.
Even with a 169-minute running time, excess is not a problem in the fourth outing for Keanu Reeves’ zen hitman. Unapologetically, excess is the engine of a film that aspires to outdo its unrestrained predecessors on most fronts and - between bone-breaking fights and decimated apartment blocks – largely fulfils that goal. For audiences who want more of the saga’s criminal underworld lore, globe-trotting opulence, pseudo-philosophical asides and sad-Keanu existential sorrows, satisfaction awaits. Sharper suits? This one has “the latest in ballistic chic”, bulletproof jackets that Reeves wields like Batman’s Kevlar cape. More chances for Reeves to drawl “Yeah”? Yeah, that too. As for more action, returning director Chad Stahelski excels himself by finding fresh ways to maximise the series’ convulsive and cartoon-ish carnage. And even if the plot is blunter than a kick in the head, writers Shay Hatten and Michael Finch navigate the 14 beat-’em-ups involved efficiently. After losing a finger and taking a bullet in Chapter 3, Wick recovers here by punching coiled rope until his remaining knuckles bleed, ready to tackle crime syndicate the High Table. To break his criminal ties, he issues a challenge to the Table’s sadistic envoy, the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgard), who deploys assassins to kill Wick. Enter Donnie Yen’s blind swordsman Caine and Shamier Anderson’s sharp-shooting Mr Nobody, aka the Tracker, who shares Wick’s love of dogs. MMA star Scott Adkins cameos as the gold-toothed Killa, while Wick’s aides include hotel manager Shimazu (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his daughter Akira (singer Rina Sawayama). Meanwhile, Ian McShane’s Winston returns, supplying balancing notes of whisky-dry calm. While the action takes longer to kick off than in Chapter 3, an early set piece in the Osaka Continental Hotel compensates. The battle between armoured hitmen and Shimazu’s army escalates bracingly, with Yen and Sawayama adding a lightness to the muscle-mania. Indeed, it’s a shame the film doesn’t find more time for the nimble Sawayama, who joins Chapter 3’s Halle Berry in leaving the sausage party too soon. But more of almost everything else soon follows, including of Adkins, who sports a ludicrously outsized bodysuit to trade block-rocking beatdowns with Wick in a Berlin nightclub. More drollery features here, as revellers ignore the flying axes and rave on regardless. Upholding the saga’s disregard for realism, the action throughout seems to unfold in a lavish alternative universe, where ravishing furnishings and Skarsgard’s wardrobe alike honour the excess-all-areas edict. View oEmbed on the source website Maintaining that mandate, half of Paris seems to emerge for the bounty on Wick as he travels to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica for a climactic duel. Here, Stahelski revs up a volley of almost exhausting, mostly exciting showcases of action-movie flair. After the ‘gun-fu’ – basically, kung fu with guns - and ‘horse-fu’ fun of earlier Wicks, Chapter 4 adds pulverising car-fu prangs. Shot from above, a fracas across the rooms of an apartment block flaunts Stahelski’s hyper-stylised pitch exuberantly. A semi-comic sequence on the steps to the Sacré-Coeur delights, too, evoking classic Hollywood musicals by way of Looney Tunes as Yen pirouettes around his opponents and Reeves takes 222-step tumbles. Even if Reeves delivers every line like a man bewildered by words, his physicality and presence remain vital to the series’ appeal. Commitment unflagging, his persona provides an innately endearing counterpoint to the action extremes, such that he never needs to strain to engage. As the mayhem mounts, then mounts again, Chapter 4 generally resists the perils of excess fatigue. And if the apocalyptic violence begs one clear question, the writers at least acknowledge the query: “Have you given any thought,” Wick is asked at one point, “to where this ends?” Chapter 4 has a considered ending, not just a sequel set-up, at least until a post-credits scene teases at something more. It’s to the film’s credit that, even after this lengthy fourth workout with Wick, you leave wanting to see that teaser’s promise fulfilled. View Green Video on the source website John Wick 4 is released in cinemas on Friday 24th March 2023. Check out more of our Film coverage, or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Spirited review: Ryan Reynolds's unruly but enjoyable yuletide romp
Will Ferrell and Octavia Spencer also star in this fresh musical spin on A Christmas Carol from writer/director Sean Anders.
In recent years, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has been subject to numerous radical revamps. Director Robert Zemeckis added motion-capture effects all the way from uncanny valley. Guy Pearce supplied a sociopathic Scrooge, while Doctor Who found room for flying sharks. Even so, co-writer/director Sean Anders’ twist – despite its manifold flaws – finds fresh scope for elaboration in Dickens’s redemptive fable, give or take intermittent lapses into over-familiar, over-egged schmaltz. Featuring songs by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul (both of La La Land and The Greatest Showman fame), Khiyon Hursey, Sukari Jones and Mark Sonnenblick, Spirited is a musical variation on Dickens, brimming with often excessive but exuberant showtune set-pieces. At its core is a nifty conceit pitched somewhere between Charlie Kaufman and Monsters, Inc., wherein the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come are part of a secret company of spectres whose job involves turning bad eggs good. They scare because they care, essentially. Almost 20 years after he banked a seasonal staple in Elf, Will Ferrell assumes a more restrained guise as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Ferrell’s spectre has been in the job for two centuries, working alongside – as credited - Past (Sunita Mani) and Yet-to-Come (Loren Woods, voice by Tracy Morgan). While Yet-to-Come aspires to do more than just point ominously, Present is overdue for retirement, which here means a return to the living world. But Ferrell’s long-haul redeemer can’t resist a challenge, which he finds in Ryan Reynolds’ Clint Briggs, a PR cad who thinks nothing of smearing his niece’s tween competitors on social media in order to help her school election bid. Present wants to work some redemptive magic, but might Clint be truly “unredeemable”? If the answer emerges too slowly over Spirited’s 127-minute sprawl, there’s still fun to be had as Clint turns the tables on Present, intent on finding out what is going on in the ghost’s afterlife. And, of course, there are songs and dancing, all dressed up like the gaudiest Christmas shopping mall you ever wanted to run away from. Reynolds’s brassy opening showtune is droll and playful, with the none-more-seasonal phrase “same-day shipping” smartly worked in, but the busy surrounding choreography sometimes seems designed to induce dizziness. View oEmbed on the source website If Ferrell and Reynolds can’t really sing, they at least commit to the job gamely, their struggles to hit the notes helping to humanise the characters. Required to carry out Clint’s dirty work as his rueful assistant Kimberly, Octavia Spencer fares better in the vocal stakes with The View from Here a standout lament for her place in the world where she finds depths in her character. On the sidelines, Ferrell’s Present falls in love with Kimberly while listening to her plaint. While Anders fails to invest this romantic subplot with conviction, he gives the budding bromance between Present and Clint far more time, to mixed ends. For a long stretch, Anders’s sometimes ill-integrated romp neglects to commit to the musical format as it watches the chalk-and-cheese leads chafe and bond. The most appealing of the two, Ferrell’s ghost banks a decent share of endearing fish-out-of-water laughs. Reynolds’s smarmy sarcasm can veer close to autopilot in contrast, though he summons flashes of disarming charm and cheek as needed. The script’s achingly self-aware jibes at Christmas tales and films prove rather more grating: though such self-mockery feigns cleverness, the effect runs close to self-defeating. When Anders leans more readily into his film’s strengths, there’s enough here to redeem. Surprise twists and shows of comic spritz help offset inevitable lapses into seasonal sentiment, while a Victorian musical set-piece finds fresh and mischievous uses for a famous bit of Scrooge dialogue. At moments like these, Anders’s unruly but fitfully enjoyable and inventive romp does, just occasionally, live up to its title. Spirited is showing in select UK cinemas and on Apple TV+ from Friday 18th November 2022 – you can sign up to Apple TV+ here. If you’re looking for something to watch tonight, check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Movies hub for all the latest news. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Wendell & Wild review: Funny, frisky and fully imagined
The latest stop-motion fantasy from The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline director Henry Selick is a carnival of devilish mischief.
Between The Nightmare Before Christmas and the button-eyed heebie-jeebies of Coraline, stop-motion director Henry Selick nurtured a niche in gothic outsider tales for tweens and upwards. Despite traces of over-compensation for time lapsed since his preceding film, Selick keeps up the good, ghoulish work with his first feature in 13 years. Funny, frisky and fully imagined, Wendell & Wild is a phantasmagorical pleasure: a carnival of devilish mischief with punk combat boots on, laced with fresh twists on Selick’s preferred twilit turf. Whether or not these twists can be attributed to co-writer Jordan Peele (Get Out, Nope), the results benefit from an infusion of social commentary and a spirit of inclusivity. Alongside unexpected critiques of the prison industrial complex, a welcome emphasis on diversity in the heroine’s classmates and elsewhere helps broaden Selick’s horizons. Said heroine is Kat, winningly voiced by Lyric Ross as a troubled teenager. Keeping her feelings safety-pinned up inside, Kat lost her parents as a kid – a tragedy she blames herself for. Buffeted between schools, she is transferred to a “break the cycle” Catholic institution in run-down Rust Bank, where all is not as it seems. The school’s Father Bests (James Hong) colludes with entrepreneurial types, who are intent on milking the profits from an inhumane business plan. And Angela Bassett’s nun clearly has her own spooky secrets. Meanwhile, where other animated films might treat grief as a springboard for sorrow and sentiment, Selick and Peele have alternative ideas. Kat has demons – and her demons have names. Meet Wendell (Keegan-Michael Key) and Wild (Jordan Peele), daffy underworld denizens who live inside the nostrils of out-sized monster Buffalo Belzer (Ving Rhames). Typically, Wendell and Wild toil away squirting Belzer with magic hair cream to prevent baldness – until they realise that Kat could be their ticket to the overground. While that sounds like plenty to be getting on with, Selick’s visuals elevate the material. His (under)world-building bustles with detail, from livid colour schematics to the Oogie Boogie-ish Belzer, who has a funfair on his belly. Above ground, the colours are initially muted to reflect Kat’s moods, though Selick soon adds fresh flavours to the mix. The whole screen seems to ooze out at the edges, spilling over with lurid purples and squashed creepy-crawly innards. View oEmbed on the source website Connoisseur-ish needle-drops from Fishbone, the Specials, Poly Styrene/X-Ray Spex, TV on the Radio, Hot Chocolate and others help keep proceedings lively, though the action becomes a little overly busy at times. Drawing from a book he co-wrote with Clay McLeod Chapman, Selick leaves no ingredient on the chopping board. He’s waited long enough to make the film, after all, but it is sometimes hard not to miss the elegant simplicity that Neil Gaiman’s trim source novella brought to Coraline. Still, the narrative of a girl struggling to adapt to both new environs and eerie incursions links Wendell & Wild neatly to Selick’s earlier film. Like Coraline’s blue hair and yellow mac, Kat’s punk garb may become a dress-up hit at children’s Halloween parties, too. Further ameliorating factors include Selick’s reserves of invention, which hold the attention even when the plot’s convolutions become unwieldy – if you were to needlessly peel back Selick’s scalp and scoop out the contents, they would surely resemble the secret storeroom of bottled demons one character harbours here. The plucked harps and fiendish chorales of Bruno Coulais’ score add further pleasures. And if these devilish delights for eyes and ears are not enough, what other tween-friendly horror features climactic confrontations with bulldozers over a callous business proposition? Selick and Peele’s best trick is to make the villains human, a neat twist in a film that sides squarely with the punks, freaks and naughty devils. Wendell & Wild is released on Netflix on Friday 28th October 2022. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out our lists of the best series on Netflix and the best movies on Netflix – or see what else is on with our TV Guide. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
The School for Good and Evil review: A ponderous young-adult fantasy
Paul Feig's fantasy film wants to have its fairytale cake and deconstruct it, too.
Which is to blame, the Wizarding World and The Worst Witch? Or is it Once Upon a Time and Disney Channel’s Descendants? Either way, any film about reimagined fairytales and magic schools is perhaps doomed to struggle in a market already well stocked with spells and storybook characters. That problem weighs heavy on this ponderous young-adult fantasy, adapted from the first in Soman Chainani’s series of books. While director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters) seems a good fit for Chainani’s theme of female friendship, the film’s fantasy elements arrive as a gaudy pageant of the over-familiar, made stifling by the sheer weight of world-building involved. Essentially, there’s enough lofty lore here to buckle Harry Potter’s broomstick. After a blustery prologue, the story starts modestly enough with the bond between Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie), young misfits in the village of Gavaldon. While Sophie dreams of training as a fairytale princess at the mythical School for Good and Evil, Agatha has the makings of a witch. When a mysterious force whisks the duo to magic school, their roles are flipped. Is the sorting hat on the fritz, or does it know something we do not? Either way, Sophie is streamed into the school for Evil under Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron), while Agatha lands in the Good house under the beneficent watch of Professor Dovey (Kerry Washington). While the friends' attempts to fix this issue provide a solid storytelling spine, the plot soon loses focus. Faced with the demands of a secondary school story, expansive mythologising and a crowded intake of students, Feig and co-writer David Magee lean on exposition to navigate a muddled narrative, with deadening results. Making heavy weather of introducing the warring brothers – embodiments of good and evil – behind the school, the prologue alone groans with backstory. Elsewhere, the dialogue labours the obvious. It’s the kind of film where characters are compelled to say, "I thought fairies were supposed to be nice" when encountering vicious variants, lest viewers failed to spot the twist. The students, similarly, deliver thudding banalities about their place in the storybook continuum. "My father, Captain Hook, he's got a pretty awesome ship," says one. "I’ll try not to be too charming," says a prince, cheesily, when talk of "true love’s kiss" enters the picture. Other gaps in plot are filled by Cate Blanchett’s voiceover, which gradually emerges as a character - or, rather, a quill called the Storian, a self-consciously writerly conceit that has the inadvertent effect of making the film seem dead on the page. The production designers do enliven proceedings in some aspects; the 'Groom Room' and other environs flaunt a kitschier front than the Potter saga’s tour of British castles, but the school is an extended Hogwarts otherwise, from forbidden forests to turrets, moats and great halls. View oEmbed on the source website The teachers appear to have been appointed under JK Rowling’s magic ministrations, too. In a Severus Snape-ish role, Theron draws heavily on ye olde book of exaggeratedly bored villainy - elongated vowels, vocal purr - without matching Alan Rickman’s mystery. Laurence Fishburne receives short shrift as the School Master, a catch-all title for a character glued to archetype. Notably, the Master also reinforces Wizarding World parallels in a twist that echoes the climax of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. In fairness, the young cast give it their best. Earl Cave and Freya Parks bring sparks to their roles as goth-chic Evil students. Parks sports a nifty tattoo, too, unleashed to striking effect during one of a few fleetingly stirring magic brawls. Wylie and Caruso also invest their bond with warmth, though the film underplays their affection in twists on fairytale lore that never quite twist hard enough. While Feig challenges conventions of beauty, one young woman’s witchy makeover maintains the principle of using 'ugliness' to connote evil. The result is a film that wants to have its fairytale cake and deconstruct it, too, which would be fine if the results were more fun or more daring. "Your tale has only just begun," one of our leads is told near the close, hinting at more daring developments to come. Could the tale told here be the preamble to a wickeder saga of meta-whimsical magic? Perhaps, but 148 minutes is an awful lot of preamble. The School for Good and Evil will land on Netflix on Wednesday 19th October. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream. Check out our lists of the best series on Netflix and the best movies on Netflix – or see what else is on with our TV Guide. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Hocus Pocus 2 review: Something nostalgic this way comes
The uneven Disney Plus sequel is most successful when it leans into the Halloween hokum and pays tribute to the original.
Despite poor initial reviews and ticket sales, Disney’s Hocus Pocus went on to fill a cult-ish gap in the market for high-camp comedy in Halloween fancy-dress. While the plot and tone showed all the focus of a lurching, headless zombie, stars Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy embraced the silliness gamely as Salem witches the Sanderson sisters. Almost 30 years on, the similarly muddled sequel works best when it emphasises the sorceresses’ sister act, emerging as a knowing tribute in sequel disguise. Recognising the Sandersons’ importance to the title’s appeal, Jen D’Angelo’s script opens with a 1653-set origins vignette. The young Winifred (Midler), Sarah (Parker) and Mary (Najimy) were just girls who wanted to have fun after all, especially if goats’ blood-flavoured jelly (“Look, it jiggleth!”) was involved, until the pious Reverend Traske (Tony Hale) banished them from Salem. Meanwhile, in 2022, teenagers Becca (Whitney Peak) and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) inadvertently reawaken the 17th century sisters when Halloween shop-owner (and secret Sanderson fan-boy) Gilbert (Sam Richardson) sells the duo a black-flame candle he claims is fake. Lit in the woods, the magical candle resurrects the Sandersons, who instantly break into song before haplessly attempting to wreak revenge on Salem. As the Sandersons seek children to boil in pursuit of eternal youth, the set-up saddles director Anne Fletcher with tonal problems. Are the witches villains, or just misunderstood mischief-makers? But the disregard for consistency is flagrant enough to seem self-aware, and Fletcher duly milks her hoary horror ingredients for arch comic returns. Modernising touches emerge, ranging from high-school tensions to gags about the Halloween and beauty industries. While D’Angelo also plays with ideas about the patriarchal fear of girls growing up, these subtexts are soon sacrificed to the spectacle of Midler, Parker and Najimy goofing it up like overgrown kids. Between a makeover of Sir Elton John’s The Bitch Is Back and a showstopping cover of Blondie, the gratuitous musical set-pieces typify the relish for excess here, which extends to cameos from drag queens in Sanderson garb. View oEmbed on the source website Read more: Hocus Pocus 2 director explains original characters' absence from sequel Delivering to exuberant order, Midler cackles, Parker plays the ditz and Najimy – in a decent running gag - upgrades the vacuum cleaner she used as a broomstick last time around. Of the other stars, Hale is a comic standout as Traske and his child-like descendant Jefry, though Lilia Buckingham is saddled with an under-written role as the latter’s teenage daughter Cassie. Here and elsewhere, Hocus Pocus 2 isn’t immune to the original film’s sloppiness. The fall-out between Cassie and former friends Becca and Izzy is too under-developed to spark any interest, while will-this-do plotting rankles when the teens leave the Sandersons unguarded in a rudimentary trap. And after the prologue’s sympathy for the witches, a scene where they are later subjected to something like stoning sits oddly. On the film’s own daffy terms, Fletcher is more successful when she leans into the Halloween hokum and nostalgia bait. She makes the most of the moonlit woods sequences, branches cracking like The Blair Witch Project for kids, while the Sandersons and creature actor Doug Jones’ zombie Billy bank a solid haul of jokes. A gag involving Winifred’s response to a smart home hub is a nice out-of-time touch, before a fond twist frames the film as a love letter to women misbehaving. Even if the mix of patchwork plotting and patchy characters struggles to earn the set-up for another film, Midler, Parker and Najimy don’t waste a chance to rise to their comeback occasion. “I bet you’re looking for the stage?” someone asks them. With a conspiratorial twinkle, Midler has the right answer: “Always.” Hocus Pocus 2 comes to Disney Plus on Friday 30th September 2022. You can sign up to Disney Plus for £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year now. Check out more of our Film and Fantasy coverage or visit our TV Guide to see what's on tonight. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now and get the next 12 issues for only £1. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times podcast with Jane Garvey.