Reviewed by GREG KING Director Ava DuVernay Stars: Storm Reid, Levi Miller, Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling, Chris Pine, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Pena, Deric McCabe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Andrew Holland, Rowan Blanchard, David Oyelowo, Daniel MacPherson, Tim Kang. Madeleine L’Engle’s popular 1962 YA fantasy novel A Wrinkle In Time has long been considered difficult to adapt to the screen. There was a four-hour television miniseries made for Canadian tv in 2004 which featured some shoddy special effects and ordinary performances. This version has …
12 STRONG
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Nicolai Fuglsig Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Pena, Navid Negahban, Numan Acar, Trevante Rhodes, William Fichtner, Rob Riggle, Austin Stowell, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, Austin Hebert, Ben O'Toole, Kenneth Miller, Kenny Sheard, Jack Kesy, Elsa Pataky, Arshia Mandavi. A very different dirty dozen for the war on terror? In the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks on the US, a small force of twelve Green Berets (all volunteers) were dropped into Afghanistan in a …
CHIPS
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Dax Shepard Stars: Dax Shepard, Michael Pena, Vincent D'Onofrio, Kristen Bell, Adam Brody, Isiah Whitlock jr, Jessica McNamee, Ryan Hansen, Justin Chatwin, Ben Falcone, Richard T Jones, Jane Kaczmarek, Adam Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, Rosa Salazar. Producers continue to tap into Gen X nostalgia by adapting classic television shows from the 60s and 70s for the big screen. Often though they get it wrong, by either miscasting iconic roles or by misjudging the tone of the piece or not understanding the appeal of the original, thereby …
COLLATERAL BEAUTY
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: David Frankel Stars: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, Helen Mirren, Kiera Knightley, Jacob Lattimore, Naomie Harris, Ann Dowd, Kylie Rogers. "There is collateral beauty in everything." Ironically though there is little beauty to be found in this maudlin and flawed drama about grief and a man damaged by his sense of loss. There have been a lot of films dealing with death and the grieving process that explore how different people respond to loss. Despite a stellar cast of A-listers and the pedigree of director …
WAR ON EVERYONE
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: John Michael McDonagh Stars: Alexander Skarsgard, Michael Pena, Theo James, Tessa Thompson, Caleb Landry Jones, Zion Rain Leyba, Malcolm Barrett, Paul Reiser, Stephanie Sigman. Irish playwright turned filmmaker John Michael McDonagh has given us a couple of powerful dramas with The Guard and Calvary, both of which were suffused with a strong streak of black humour and quirky touches. So it was with high expectations that I went in to the cinema to see his latest effort, the blackly comic crime caper War On Everyone. What a massive …
ANT-MAN
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Peyton Reed Stars: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Michael Pena, Abby Ryder Fortson, Martin Donovan, Anthony Mackie, David Dasmalchian, T I Harris, Wood Harris, Hayley Atwell, John Slattery. He may well be the smallest superhero in the Marvel stable, but Ant-man punches above its weight and gives the studio one of its better superhero movies. Ant-man is not as dour nor as bloated as the recent Avengers: Age Of Ultron and has a lighter tone throughout that makes it more of a crowd …
FURY
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: David Ayer Stars: Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Alicia von Rittberg, Jason Isaacs, Xavier Samuel, Jim Parrack, Scott Eastwood, Kevin Vance, Anamarie Marinca. This powerful and intense World War Two drama sees Brad Pitt back killing Nazis, something he did so effectively in Tarantino's bloody and violent Inglorious Basterds. But there is little of the tongue in cheek humour or cinematic references that shape his revisionist take on that war. Rather this is a more straightforward tale of heroism and …
MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Werner Herzog Stars: Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Udo Kier, Brad Dourif, Michael Pena, Grace Zabriskie. Following a brief run as part of ACMI’s first look program, Werner Herzog’s latest film gets a brief, limited theatrical release. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is loosely based on a true story about an unstable actor who so identified with his role as Orestes in Euripides’ drama Electra, that he killed his mother. Two of cinema’s most eccentric and idiosyncratic auteurs in David Lynch and Werner Herzog …