Intermission

We’re taking time out for the simple reason there’s too many movies and not enough time. The pressures of work, coaching and renovating a house has left a stack of material not written and an even bigger stack of movies not watched.

Go grab a drink from the foyer and rejoin us later. RC

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Robin Hood (2018): Teaser Trailer

I don’t usually judge movies by the trailers, but if the teaser trailer for the twice-delayed Robin Hood is anything to go by, this could be an even bigger turkey than King Arfur Daley and the Geezers of the Round Table.

We all know (don’t we) that Robin Hood is a composite character based on several Medieval myths; so this production looks to go all-out fairy story reinvention; which is to say a mash-up of Assassin’s Creed and King Arthur, with a script that makes Big Russell’s Robin Hood look like Shakespeare.

Six months out from the release of an unfinished movie, it’s clear we’re not in Nottingham any more, Toto.

Red Sparrow (2018)

J-Law’s dominating screen presence only deepens the question: is Red Sparrow a feminist triumph or an ’80’s video nasty exploitation flick? Whichever it is, under the skin this is a remarkably old-fashioned Cold War espionage caper with only one twist in the switched female perspective and a cliché-o-meter that goes off the chart.

Real Steel (2011)

2011’s Real Steel is a Rocky-style Disney/Dreamworks family robot-boxing movie of a Matel plastic tabletop game (Battling Robots) that is so clichéd and daft that it shouldn’t work. And for all those elements, it works so much better than 2018’s Pacific Rim 2: Stupifying. So I’m reviewing Real Steel instead.

In one of those ‘near futures’, ex-prizefighter Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) builds ramshackle, low-end boxing robots for the new hi-tech sport of… robot boxing.

The Stolen (2017)

Kiwi Western The Stolen boldly goes where The Searchers, The Missing and Lonesome Dove have gone before, and despite a couple of good tense set-pieces, plods like a flat TV filler.

When her husband is murdered by ex-convict workers who then kidnap her baby, genteel British immigrant Charlotte Lockton (Alice Eve – Star Trek), goes in pursuit to wild frontier Gold Town. Cue general misogyny, battery, violence and abuse on gold-rush New Zealand’s wild frontier. Yep, it’s that kind of Western.

Tomb Raider (2018)

The latest franchise re-boot sees a ripped Alicia Vikander take on Lara Croft in a ‘stripped back’ origins story in the mode of Casino Royale. Far too angsty in it’s Daddy-abandonment issues, the first act ‘prologue’ drags painfully until the real tomb raiding starts. Ditching any ‘realism’ in acts two and three, it still feels like a warm-up to a main feature…

Paddington 2 (2018)

Cinema’s most polite ursine hero returns in an entertainingly inventive sequel that is sheer delight from start to finish. In a fantasy version of London that doesn’t bat an eyelid at a talking bear, Paddington’s latest caper is treasure hunt, prison break and steam train chase – with plenty of marmalade sandwiches.