Magic Mike XXL ****
One big bag of entertainment, doing exactly as it sets out to do, unashamedly, and well worth the ticket price for sheer titillation.
Category: Dance
Step Up 5: All In ***
It’s compulsive viewing, like America’s Got Talent, not because anything groundbreaking is going to happen in the latest Step Up instalment, but because we’re secretly fascinated by how the choreographers will up their game in version 5, All In. There’s also that respect and awe we hold for such nubile young things without an ounce …
Goddess **
“Odd” does not begin to describe this film from Babe: Pig in the City writer Mark Lamprell. It’s not he story, per se, which seems remotely tangible and will initially strike a chord with many a former-career-woman-cum-stay-at-home-mum. But just who it’s targeting exactly remains a mystery, as it seems to suggest us women can’t expect …
Mud ****
The innocence of youth set against the sweltering heat of a hot and humid summer in the American south is captured beautifully in this slow and hypnotic drama. It centres on two fourteen year old boys who encounter a dangerous but charismatic fugitive called Mud (Matthew McConaughey) who is hiding from bounty hunters on a …
LFF 2012: Great Expectations ***
Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell’s take on the Charles Dickens’ classic Great Expectations is a safe, play-by-numbers affair that neither excites nor bores but simply picks off key moments and retells the tale with some of the cream of British acting crop, plus some extravagant set design that you would expect from …
The Fairy ****
The dynamic trio of filmmakers, Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon and Bruno Romy who gave us the delightfully enrapturing Rumba in 2008 have brought their dance/mime format back for another outing, The Fairy (La fée). Theirs is an old-fashioned, visual performance art that translates brilliantly on screen and is simply delightful to watch and totally unique …
Red Lights ***
Headline-grabbing cast of Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy and rising ‘horror/thriller star’ Elizabeth Olsen, Buried director Rodrigo Cortés’s new film, Red Lights, promises another intriguing delve into the supernatural unexplained. It pitches the sceptics and the believers against each other as it twists and turns and convolutes its story of exploration. Psychologists Margaret Matheson …
Rock of Ages ****
Sometimes being entertained happens in the most unexpected way. On first thought, a musical in itself is enough to make the toes curl, but one sold on dodgy rock anthems of yesteryear, overly camp costumes and cringe mullets will divide opinion further. However, go into Rock of Ages without any high expectations or an ounce …
A Royal Affair ****
There is a heady and rousing whiff of corruption, scandal, passion and Enlightenment to delight the avid period drama fan in Danish director Nikolaj Arcel’s A Royal Affair. The fact that it is based on the true story of 15-year-old English princess Caroline Mathilde who was married off to unhinged King Christian in the 18th …