Talk about a breath of fresh air. Every now and again a film comes along that you have heard nothing about and it restores your faith in originality. Such is the case with Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a decidedly quirky coming-of-age tale. In and out of foster care his whole life, rebellious, chubby 13-year-old Ricky…
Bigger than Ben Hur when it comes to tricks on a grand scale, three of the original four magicians return for a second installment of hijinks and thrills. That about sums up Now You See Me 2, with Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson and Dave Franco joined by Lizzy Caplan (who replaces Isla Fisher) to form…
What a delightful and engaging comedy, which moves along at pace and is entertaining throughout. Tommaso (Marco Giallini) is a respected heart surgeon, although his relationship with the “heart” is limited to the operating room because his hard-nosed manner is hardly endearing to patients, their families or his students. Nevertheless, he is a highly capable…
Turning a cartoon into a live action comedy adventure seems to have done the trick a couple of years ago, so a sequel was always on the cards. As a matter of fact, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows received the green light the night the first film opened. The producers chose 32-year-old…
Ensemble romantic comedies, a la Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, play to a formula and come out the other end as feel good entertainment … and so it is with Mother’s Day. And guess what? All three are directed by Garry Marshall, for whom comedic romance with a touch of drama is stock-in-trade. In…
Like the original that was released in 2014, the storyline of Bad Neighbours 2 is thin but the crude language and sight gags are plentiful, with the centerpiece again being Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne, along with Zac Efron. Direction is once more from Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall). The tone is set from the…
Melissa McCarthy is the larger than life star of a movie co-written by her and her husband, Ben Falcone (who directs) and Steve Mallory. McCarthy’s character was brought up in an orphanage. One after another set of parents took her in briefly but then sent her back, indicating she “wasn’t the right fit”. But that…
Comedian Glynn Nicholas has parlayed the cult following of the syrupy sweet Eurovision Song Contest into his often hilarious and decidedly agreeable new show, Song Contest. Eurovision is the longest-running annual international TV song competition that sees upwards of 20 European countries vying for the adulation that goes to the winner. Hundreds of millions of…
Occasionally there are times when we get two films released dealing with similar themes or plot lines – we’ve had two “Die Hard in the White House” clones with Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, two volcano films with Dante’s Peak and Volcano and two giant asteroids heading for Earth with Mimi Leder’s Deep…
I went from thinking I was watching a badly acted telemovie to forming a genuine attachment to the British dork at the centre of this recreation of events that led to Eddie the Eagle soaring at the 1988 Winter Olympics. Inspired by truth, this is a feel-good story about Michael “Eddie” Edwards (Taron Egerton –…
