What films are out in UK cinemas this week? Reviews from Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man to The Bride
Your weekly round-up of all the films currently showing in UK cinemas.
Peaky Blinders built up an extremely devoted, flat cap adorning audience over six seasons on TV, and so the show's move to the silver screen is big news indeed for those desperate to dig into the next chapter in the saga of Tommy Shelby.
Cillian Murphy is joined in the cast of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man by a number of starry new additions, including Tim Roth, Rebecca Ferguson and Barry Keoghan, and creator Steven Knight has confirmed the film should also help set the stage for the previously announced sequel series.
The film is only playing in select cinemas ahead of its Netflix release in two weeks time, so you'll have to check if your local is one where's it's showing – if you're a fan of the series then it's almost certainly worth seeking out on the big screen.
There are plenty of other new releases in cinemas this week as well; including Pixar's latest original animation (Hoppers), Maggie Gyllenhaal's eccentric take on Frankenstein (The Bride) and an acclaimed German drama which won rave reviews on the European festival circuit (The Sound of Falling).
You can find our reviews for all four of those films below, while you can also discover our lowdown on the other major movies released in UK cinemas in recent weeks, including Oscar-nominated flicks The Secret Agent and Sirât.
Want to see this content?
This page contains content provided by Google reCAPTCHA. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as Google reCAPTCHA may use cookies and other technologies. To view this content, choose 'Accept and continue' to allow Google reCAPTCHA and its required purposes.
Read on for your weekly round-up of all the films currently showing in UK cinemas.
What films are released in UK cinemas this week? 6 - 13 March
Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man
Cillian Murphy returns as Tommy Shelby in an explosive continuation of the BBC TV drama, following its sixth series. It's 1940, and after years of self-imposed exile, the charismatic mob boss is back in Birmingham to re-take the reins of family business, after learning his illegitimate son Duke (introduced late in the series and here played by Barry Keoghan) is mixing with the wrong crowd: a Nazi sympathiser (Tim Roth) planning to crash the UK economy with £70 million in counterfeit banknotes.
Meanwhile, Tommy's still haunted by thoughts of the tragedies that led him to leave town in the first place. The switch from a six-hour narrative arc to a single feature-length release results in incident and characterisation being truncated, but writer/creator Steven Knight and returning director Tom Harper nonetheless manage to construct a satisfying story that doesn’t necessarily require viewers to have deep knowledge of Peaky Blinders lore.
Murphy and Keoghan are well matched sparring partners, and Roth’s manipulative businessman is a casually nasty piece of work. – Terry Staunton
The Bride
Maggie Gyllenhaal playfully re-imagines 1935 Universal masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein, boldy relocating the action to mid-1930s America, where the Monster or “Frank” (Christian Bale) has reached the end of his tether after being alone for over a century.
His desire for a mate brings him to the door of Chicago scientist Dr Euphronius (Annette Bening), whose work in reinvigorating the dead offers lovelorn Frank the chance to have a companion just like him. Enter Jessie Buckley as Ida, whose sudden transformation from glum gangster’s moll to dangerously gobby harridan is all down to being possessed by novelist Mary Shelley (also played by Buckley).
In her second film behind the camera, Gyllenhaal attempts to harness multiple elements, while adding in plenty of genre-mashing moments. Buckley is mesmerising as the Bride and Bale gives a restrained, sympathetic performance, while Gyllenhaal should be applauded for her ambition, stylish flourishes and obvious respect for the original film. Unfortunately all of the elements don’t cohere entirely, but there's still much to admire. – Jeremy Aspinall
Hoppers
Pixar blends body-swap chaos with a story about empowering environmentalism in this film directed by We Bare Bears creator Daniel Chong. Teenage activist Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) is determined to save a forest glade from being bulldozed by Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm). After uncovering the clandestine experiments of her biology professor (Kathy Najimy), Mabel transfers her consciousness into the body of a lifelike robotic beaver.
She befriends a real beaver, King George (Bobby Moynihan), who calls on the assistance of other animal rulers – including Meryl Streep’s formidable Insect Queen – to protect the glade, before things go horribly wrong. Pixar’s take on beavers is as cute as you’d imagine, and the ferociously principled Mabel makes a fascinating hero.
The sparkling script from Jesse Andrews (Luca, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) boasts a meaty, moderately complicated story that engages without becoming too confusing. It’s not quite up there with the studio’s finest but this is still witty and wonderfully entertaining, with a positive message about coexistence and not judging our fellow humans too harshly. – Emma Simmonds
Sound of Falling
Spanning around a hundred years, this boldly structured and richly atmospheric drama from writer/director Mascha Schilinski is set within and around a rambling farmhouse in north-eastern Germany, close to the Elbe river. The impressionistic experiences and perspectives of four girls, each from a different generation, are interwoven across several time frames.
In the 1910s, young Alma (Hanna Heckt) takes part in her family’s commemoration rituals on All Souls' Day, and in the 1940s the adolescent Erika (Lea Drinda) is morbidly fascinated by her uncle’s amputated leg. During the 1980s, in what is then East Germany, the teenaged Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky) yearns to escape her uncle’s predatory behaviour, while in the present day Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) befriends a recently bereaved neighbour.
A spectral mood permeates the film, with boundaries between present, past and future blurring, and traumas seemingly being passed down between generations. Accompanied by an ominous sound design and sometimes ghostly camera movements, this mysterious work doesn’t ignore the brutal injustices endured or witnessed by its female characters, yet it also conjures up fleeting moments of joy and delight. – Tom Dawson
Best of the rest still showing in UK cinemas
The Testament of Ann Lee
Based around the founder of the 18th-century Shakers religion, this earnest historical musical is a noble effort that ultimately becomes a slog. Amanda Seyfried is Ann Lee, raised in mid 1700s Manchester where she is turned against sex and towards godly pursuits. Various encounters help her cultivate a fervent approach to spiritual worship that takes on a physical form, as sins are literally shaken from the body.
As her movement grows, she and her followers move to New England to spread the word. Big mistake. With narration by Ann’s acolyte Mary (Thomasin McKenzie), the film boasts an impressive cast including Christopher Abbott as Ann’s blacksmith husband. Director Mona Fastvold (The World to Come) co-writes with her partner, Brady Corbet.
The pair previously concocted 2024’s brilliant Corbet-directed }The Brutalist, but this film never has the same storybook sweep. Devised by Brutalist composer Daniel Blumberg, the songs are spirited, and Mamma Mia! star Seyfried invests fully. But with characters often reduced to making declamatory statements, it becomes an increasingly vexing exercise. – James Mottram
Scream 7
As macabre as it may seem, the sound of a shiny blade slicing into human flesh has rarely sounded so reassuring. The seventh spin of the Scream carousel represents a kind of homecoming, with the return of both the franchise’s most enduring heroine (Neve Campbell) and the man who created the whole business 30 years ago (Kevin Williamson) contributing hugely to a horror that’s by no means perfect but isn’t short on pizzazz.
Naysayers might be of the opinion that no matter the changes in location or victims, the Scream series has a tendency to repeat itself; and while there’s more than a smidgen of truth in that, the seventh chapter at least displays more style and wit than the last couple of so-so outings.
The mystery elements could have been handled more effectively, and while the grisly attacks and fight scenes are choreographed with flair they don’t offer viewers much in the way of jaw-dropping shocks they haven’t seen before. But despite undeniable faults, plot holes and a dubious ending, it’s still a crowd-pleaser executed with zest. – Terry Staunton
Sirat
Taking its name from the Arabic word for a bridge between heaven and hell, this mercilessly tense thriller from Galician writer/director Oliver Laxe holds its audience in a vice-like grip. It follows Luis (Sergi López), a middle-aged Spanish man who takes his pre-teen son and dog to an illegal rave in the Moroccan desert, having heard that his missing daughter might be there.
When it gets shut down, he continues his search by following a group of partygoers (played by non-professional actors) towards the Mauritanian border. A perilous road trip follows, and as Luis becomes a fish increasingly out of water, nods to Heart of Darkness or Mad Max give way to the four-wheeled hallucinatory kicks of William Friedkin thriller Sorcerer.
There are breathtakingly cruel bumps in the road and a political backdrop that may feel inelegantly plotted, but such concerns give way to the overall sensory experience – and an existential edge to the survival story. As an electronic music score sends basslines throbbing and the ravers’ subwoofers pulsing, this utterly exhilarating film becomes a parable for our relationship with fate and the sublime. – Max Copeman
EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert
During research for his Oscar-nominated 2022 Elvis Presley biopic, director Baz Luhrmann trawled through 68 cans of archive footage of the singer in action – largely unused material from the 1970s concert films That’s the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour.
He returns to those reels here, fully restored, for an affectionate look at the King getting his groove back as a live performer. Given that he spent the bulk of the 60s making movies in Hollywood, it’s refreshing to watch Elvis reconnect with his first love of live performance, surrounded by exemplary musicians.
Although the word "concert" appears in the title, the film is at its most captivating in the lengthy rehearsal sequences, before cutting to stage footage from Vegas and arena shows further afield.
The songs are routinely thrilling, but what warms the heart most is Presley’s interaction with his fellow players. It's a joy to watch a superstar who clearly enjoys goofing around with a tight-knit group he trusts implicitly, and oozes easy charm in front of an audience. – Terry Staunton
The Secret Agent
This pleasingly unclassifiable 1970s-set Brazilian tale follows a man with a mysterious past who seeks to reconnect with his young son. Wagner Moura (TV's Narcos) is fantastic as Marcelo – just one of the names the character goes by – who arrives in sweltering Recife, having fled the north of the country.
His lad is obsessed by Steven Spielberg's Jaws and his father-in-law runs a local movie theatre, but these are just a sprinkling of the elements that go into a complex story dealing with corruption, chaos and carnival. Kleber Mendonça Filho (Bacurau) won the best director award at Cannes, and deservedly so: he conjures up a consistently surprising and inventive look at a bygone era, dotted with nicely rendered period detail.
This is a world where death permeates every frame, from a rotting corpse on a garage forecourt to the gruesome sight of a man’s severed leg inside a dead shark. Filled with weird asides (like the aforementioned leg, starring in its own exploitation flick) and even a present-day wraparound story, this is unusual, and sometimes extraordinary, film-making. – James Mottram
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Motherhood is a mountain to be exhaustingly climbed in this scathing, innovative comedy drama from American writer/director Mary Bronstein (who also pops up to play a patronising paediatrician). Rose Byrne is sensational as Linda, a woman whose life, and ceiling, is tumbling down around her. She’s grappling with the demands of her daughter (a largely unseen Delaney Quinn) whom she feeds via a gastric tube, while trying to maintain her career as a psychotherapist.
Her ship-captain husband Charles (voiced by Christian Slater) is away with work, and her own therapist (Conan O’Brien) seems to despise her. Things get really ugly when Linda is forced to move herself and her daughter into a motel (run by A$AP Rocky’s James) and she starts behaving recklessly, while a client’s crisis touches a nerve.
Bronstein confronts the depth of Linda’s depression and the judgements she faces in imaginative, interrogatory style, punctuating her film with sometimes wildly funny farce. A never-better Byrne, deservedly Oscar-nominated, thrives under the film’s intense focus, juggling comedy and tragedy with aplomb. – Emma Simmonds
Wasteman
A compelling and often uneasy watch, director Cal McMau’s feature debut is a taut, muscular thriller that’s stylish in all the right ways while exposing flaws at the heart of the British prison system. "Stay out of trouble," a parole officer tells the mild-mannered Taylor (David Jonsson), but in a centre rife with violence, avoiding conflict is easier said than done.
And with a volatile new cellmate (Tom Blyth) to worry about, Taylor’s chances of ever returning to the outside – or his son – suddenly seem vanishingly slim. Jonsson excels in commanding sympathy and wringing tension from Taylor’s every agonising dilemma. Blyth matches his co-star beat for beat, with a performance of animal intensity.
McMau’s tight framing ratchets up the stress, especially during the film's stand-out riot sequence, and a drone-heavy score lends the film an air of tragic inevitability. It’s a little heavier on flash than substance but works as a fine calling card for every member of its cast and crew. – Sean McGeady
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
If you only watch one movie featuring a computer-generated centaur with a cat’s head that sprays glittery confetti from its undercarriage, then make it this one. Gore Verbinski’s hog-wild time-travel tale is audacious, original and a massive amount of fun, even though it falls over in a confusing final act.
Sam Rockwell has a blast as the revolutionary from the future trying to save the world from a nine-year-old child who is destined to invent a godlike AI that hates humans. To do so, he must recruit a team of random strangers from a diner (among them a stellar Juno Temple, Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña and Haley Lu Richardson).
With Black Mirror-esque vignettes showing the diners’ backstories intercut with the mission, the first two-thirds of the film are clever, funny and packed with infectious energy. Likely to draw comparisons to Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), this is intelligent but unpretentious and an unashamed good time. – Rosie Fletcher
Cold Storage
Part apocalyptic zombie shocker, part alien conspiracy thriller, Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp’s novel receives a fun, scary adaptation crammed with splatter action and mordant wit.
Two guards (Joe Keery and Georgina Campbell) working the night shift at a desert storage facility face uncontrolled body-bursting mayhem when a parasitic fungus escapes from the underground levels. Who you gonna call? Weathered biochemist Liam Neeson, aware of the mutating virus threat decades ago, is now recruited to join the dazed duo in a race against time to destroy the organism.
Nimbly directed by Jonny Campbell, the outlandish action is peppered with plenty of gory surprises. The film also maintains the fine line between smart comedy and gruesome horror for a riotous high-end raid on "living dead" lore as defined by George A Romero. – Alan Jones
The Moment
Pop sensation Charli XCX rips into the music industry, and the success of her 2024 brat album, in this amusing, zeitgeist-tapping mockumentary. Set in the run-up to a gig at London’s O2 Arena, Charli is pushed by Rosanna Arquette’s spiky record company exec into participating in an accompanying tour film.
Overseen by Alexander Skarsgård’s pretentious film-maker, it’s the antithesis of the anarchic brat, full of compromise. Worse still, Charli’s team, led by manager Tim (Jamie Demetriou), is orchestrating a queasy deal for a "brat" bank card.
Debut director Aidan Zameri delivers a typical mock-doc flavour, with an overzealous use of handheld camerawork, but does well in capturing the energy and egos that surround artistic innovators.
With cameos from Kylie Jenner, Julia Fox and Rachel Sennott, all playing themselves, this is an insider peek at the way record companies can bleed artists dry of any creativity. Credit Charli for biting the hand that feeds, even if the result isn’t quite as scathing or insightful as it thinks it is. – James Mottram
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s gothic romance gets a radical revamp in this sizzling and wonderfully flamboyant screen adaptation from Emerald Fennell (Saltburn). Childhood friends Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) and Cathy (Margot Robbie) fall in love as youngsters, but become separated after Cathy marries their rich neighbour Edgar (Shazad Latif).
Five years after fleeing, Heathcliff returns as a mysteriously moneyed gentleman and the couple begin an affair. Boasting an outrageous, often irresistible sense of fun, Fennell's film is a visual riot, with this sexed-up version of the story love-bombing the screen with reds, pinks and whites.
The sincerity with which the love story is told and performed is impressive, too. Elordi channels Sharpe-era Sean Bean, Robbie gives a fully fleshed-out turn that blends brattiness with tragedy, and Hong Chau shines as watchful housemaid Nelly.
On one hand, this is the cinematic equivalent of "go big or go home", with the fantastical sets occasionally distracting. On the other hand, it's an emotionally impactful adaptation for the ages that captures the depth, passion and destructiveness of Heathcliff and Cathy’s bond. It will almost certainly provoke pearl-clutching among the purists. – Emma Simmonds
Crime 101
For his third film, Bart Layton takes on a heist story based on a novella by private-investigator-turned-crime writer Don Winslow (Savages). Chris Hemsworth heads a class cast as professional jewel thief Mike Davis, whose ability to carry out a series of robberies without using violence or leaving any DNA evidence and clue to his identity is foxing the Los Angeles police.
However, dogged detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo, going for the crumpled Columbo look) sees a pattern: these meticulously executed heists all take place in the vicinity of California’s elongated 101 freeway. Meanwhile, Halle Berry’s disillusioned 50-something insurance broker Sharon Colvin gets caught between Davis and Lubesnick.
Berry matches her co-stars every step of the way as a woman struggling to navigate a workplace where her age, experience and talent count for little. Meanwhile, Layton sustains the slow-burning tension, punctuated occasionally by some riveting chases, as the cast circle each other on the way to a nerve-jangling, edge-of-the-seat climax where the outcome is anything but predictable. – Jeremy Aspinall
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
This delightful, Oscar-nominated animated tale paints a world seen through the eyes of a toddler. Our narrator is Amélie (voiced by Loïse Charpentier), who lives with her Belgian family in 1960s Japan. At two and a half, she assumes that she is the centre of the universe – perhaps even God! Annoyingly, she can’t bend the world to her will. But she can bond with housekeeper Nishio-san (Victoria Grosbois), until lines blur and she is unsure whether she feels Belgian – most of the dialogue is in French – or Japanese.
Deftly adapting from Amélie Nothomb’s memoir The Character of Rain, directors Maïlys Vallade and Liane-Cho Han use delicate brushstrokes to tell Amélie’s story up to the age of three. As she experiences more of life, they expertly contrast washed-out watercolours with more vibrant hues.
Taking a leaf out of Studio Ghibli’s book, they also focus on small moments to build mood: someone gently straightening a pair of shoes, for example. The result is elegant, sweet and, with its subtle themes of post-Second World War national tensions, surprisingly poignant. – Jayne Nelson
Send Help
Horror legend Sam Raimi is at the helm of this madcap survival thriller, in which an office dogsbody and her nasty new boss get stranded on a deserted island following a plane crash. Rachel McAdams plays the lonely and hardworking Linda, with Dylan O’Brien her nepo-baby nemesis, who refuses to give Linda the promotion promised to her by his father.
However, once the pair wash up on the island the hyper-capable Linda seizes charge, with the spoilt, incompetent Bradley incensed at the role reversal. The film plays out like a gender-swapped version of Swept Away (both the 1974 Italian version and its disastrous 2002 remake), with some resemblance to Ruben Ostlund’s 2022 Triangle of Sadness.
It’s not quite as satirically successful as the latter and McAdams as a frump is frankly absurd, but things get deliciously dark and there’s a manic energy that’s recognisably Raimi. The director gets great value from his leads, with McAdams and O’Brien absolutely launching themselves into their performances as they plumb the depths of human derangement. – Emma Simmonds
My Father's Shadow
Two young Nigerian brothers bond with their estranged father in this beguiling coming-of-age story, set in 1993. Living out in a village with their mother, siblings Aki (Godwin Chimerie Egbo) and Remi (Chibuike Marvelous Egbo) are shocked when their long-absent dad Fola (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) returns, only to whisk them off to Lagos, where he is aiming to collect months of unpaid wages.
There, they get to see the big city, at a time when political tensions are rising due to an impending and contentious presidential election. Debut director Akinola Davies, filming this semi-autobiographical tale from his brother Wale’s script, creates a strong sense of place, his Lagos teeming with life, possibility and danger.
Only subtly do we glimpse something of Fola’s life apart from his boys, not least in a telling interaction with a waitress. But this is mostly a day-in-the-life film, in which these two boys come to realise the strengths and flaws of their father. Beautifully performed all round, this pulsates with energy and vibrancy. – James Mottram
No Other Choice
A paper-company employee loses his job after 25 years and decides to get ruthless in this rollercoaster South Korean movie. With two children, two dogs and a wife (Son Ye-jin) to support, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) tries everything to find gainful employment but comes to realise the only way he’ll find work at a rival paper company is by quite literally eliminating the competition, bumping them off one by one.
But this mild-mannered white-collar worker is no killer, making his task all the more complex. Loosely adapted from Donald E Westlake’s 1997 novel The Ax, writer/director Park Chan-wook steers his movie more toward ribald comedy than some of his more violent offerings such as Oldboy or Thirst.
Not all the laughs land, but this is still a sly look at modern-day employment in a world facing increasing automation and AI. Led by the highly watchable Lee, who worked with Park on the director’s 2000 debut Joint Security Area, it’s immaculately shot and performed, if a slightly overlong and unwieldy ride. – James Mottram
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
The zombie apocalypse gathers momentum in this direct follow-up to 28 Years Later (the fourth film overall in the franchise), with a battle between good and evil. Ralph Fiennes returns as the maverick doctor and survivalist studying the virus for a cure. He's on a collision course with Jack O’Connell’s charismatic quasi-religious gang leader, who is intent on wholesale slaughter. Alfie Williams, the pre-teen of the previous film, is also back, reluctantly drafted in to Jimmy’s ragbag of killers.
Taking over from Danny Boyle, director Nia DaCosta and screenwriter Alex Garland fashion a more personality-led tale that’s still a supremely satisfying horror thrill ride. All three of the lead actors bring a tangible depth to their characters, complementing DaCosta’s inventive gore and expertly executed shocks.
Some elements do remain frustratingly unresolved, but there’s hope of loose ends being tied together in the next chapter, which is teased in this film's epilogue. – Terry Staunton
Hamnet
The film's the thing, as family tragedy shapes this wrenching but wonderful fictionalised portrait of William Shakespeare through his domestic life. Paul Mescal plays Will, the sensitive playwright who meets and falls for Agnes (Jesse Buckley), an earthy free spirit. Together, they forge a family of three children – including a delightful boy, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe).
But as Will's career takes off in London, causing him to be increasingly absent from their rural Stratford-upon-Avon home, illness strikes – bringing with it unimaginable pain. Adapted from the novel by Maggie O'Farrell, who co-wrote the script with director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), this is a sensuous, serious work, in tune with the heartbeat of nature and the rhythms of life, as it explores the raw emotions of loss.
Mescal and Buckley are sensational, creating a relationship that feels honest and real. Zhao's transcendent work is extraordinary too, especially in the final act, as Mescal's playwright – who is only ever once acknowledged as being the Bard – finds creativity and catharsis in the bleakest of hours. – James Mottram
Marty Supreme
A ferociously good Timothée Chalamet pursues sporting greatness in this electric screwball comedy drama from Josh Safdie, who goes solo after co-directing Uncut Gems with his brother Benny. Set in 1952 in New York and very loosely based on the life of a real ping-pong hustler, this shaggy story follows 23-year-old Marty Mauser, a shoe salesman with the gift of the gab and an extraordinary talent with a table tennis bat.
As he represents his country with obnoxious showmanship in international tournaments, Marty's sweaty and scheming chase of the American Dream is exasperating for those in his orbit – including his long-suffering girlfriend (Odessa A’zion), a Japanese ping-pong prodigy (Koto Kawaguchi), a retired movie star (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her millionaire husband (Kevin O’Leary).
No matter how deplorable Marty seems in the absurd and exhilarating chaos entirely of his own making, you will laugh as much as you condemn – and never look away. In a feat of sheer intensity, Chalamet channels Tom Cruise in The Color of Money or even Robert De Niro in Mean Streets, and the result is a breathless and brilliant all-American character study for our times. – Max Copeman
The Housemaid
A live-in maid finds herself in hot water with a well-to-do family’s mood-swinging matriarch in this frequently shocking psychological thriller, based on the novel by Freida McFadden. Recently paroled from prison, Millie (Sydney Sweeney) is desperate to keep the job in order to avoid being sent back behind bars. However, she endures all manner of poor treatment and violent outbursts from her unhinged employer (Amanda Seyfried) before more sinister problems come to the fore.
Director Paul Feig has form walking the darker corridors of domesticity, but whereas 2018’s A Simple Favour revels in blackly comedic upheavals to happy homes, The Housemaid is a genuinely unsettling depiction of dysfunctional families and breathtaking cruelty. Seyfriend excels in a role that calls for her to flit from pantomime-like to pure evil, and Sweeney is impressive, too, blooming convincingly from put-upon maid to plucky heroine. – Terry Staunton
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Returning us to the alien planet of Pandora, James Cameron’s third Avatar epic comes in all guns blazing, heating up the battle between the humans and the Na’vi. Though much of the focus is still on former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his Na'vi family, the threat from the colonising military group RDA grows worse when Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang) forms an uneasy alliance with Varange (Oona Chaplin), leader of the fire-friendly Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash People.
At over three hours long, the film's narrative never quite justifies its length, as Cameron lurches through multiple frenetic and overwhelming battles. But with a sincere if simple message baked in about the destructive qualities of humanity, several scenes – such as one where the planet's whale-like population is attacked – do hit home.
This is not least because of the spectacular world-building characteristic of this series; the sheer effort put into creating the bio-luminescent forests, turquoise oceans and, now, fiery volcanos is worth the ticket price alone. Released once again in state-of-the-art 3D, it's a marvel of CG craftsmanship and of Cameron's pursuit of technical perfection. – James Mottram
- Read our full Avatar: Fire and Ash review
- Read our interview with Sigourney Weaver
- Read our interview with James Cameron
- Read our interview with Oona Chaplin
Zootropolis 2
Brimming with rapid-fire sight gags and movie in-jokes, the sequel to Disney’s hit 2016 animation is a fast and funny combination of buddy cop comedy and conspiracy romp. It picks up where the original left off, with perky bunny Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) on police duty with her wily fox partner Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman).
Despite their clashing methods, the duo stumble on a mystery involving Zootropolis’s 100-year anniversary and Gary De’Snake (Ke Huy Quan), a rogue viper slithering amok in the supposedly reptile-free city. Predictable plot twists aside, the duo’s investigation nimbly spans genres and Disney tropes, with animal jokes, crime film influences and lightly handled messages about prejudice deftly interwoven.
Old and fresh characters are breezily balanced, with series newcomers Quan, Fortune Feimster and Andy Samberg playfully nailing their voice roles. Featuring a winning lead pairing, pacey chase sequences and a richly realised world, the film builds on its predecessor’s appeal with charm, energy and the wittiest nod to The Shining in a kids’ movie yet. – Kevin Harley
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.
Authors
Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.
