For up to date local cinema links and day-by-day listings of what’s showing on local screens every week visit the Virtual-Lancaster Cinema Page. Read on for the weekly round-up, and reviews.
This period sees quite a change in the program of our local cinemas with five films being lost and six new releases.
New releases bring fantasy/drama with Dracula Untold (15) and The Maze Runner (12A). There is family entertainment with the drama Dolphin Tale 2 (U) and animation with Monster High: Freaky Fusion (U). Finally we have the comedy with The Rewrite (12) and mystery/suspense with Gone Girl (18).
The films that we have lost are Guardians of the Galaxy, How to Train you Dragon 2, Lets Be Cops, Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For and A Most Wanted Man. In addition it is likely we will soon loose The Riot Club, Before I go to Sleep, If I Stay and the excellent Pride. On the plus side however we have the return of Chef and the classic Maleficent.
Highlights for the week include the musical Billy Elliot and a police mystery (in subtitles) The Keeper of Lost Causes.
Reviews
A Walk Among The Tombstones
Director: Scott Frank
Certificate: 15
Cast Includes: Liam Neeson, Ruth Wilson, David Harbour, Robert
Boyd Holbrook, Dan Stevens, Adam David Thompson, Brian Bradley
Set in 1999 and based on the tenth book in Lawrence Block’s
best selling crime series. Matt Scudder (Neeson) used to be an
alcoholic police officer until a disastrous shootout caused him to give
up both. Now he works as an unlicensed private eye and, with some
reluctance, he agrees to help find the men who kidnapped and killed the
wife of a drug trafficker (Stevens). Scudder discovers the kidnappers
are serial killers and, helped by a homeless teenager (Bradley), who
acts as his apprentice he tracks them down. Neeson gives a strong
performance in this atmospheric thriller. There are quite a few sub
plots during the course of this movie as it builds to up a violent
conclusion. A fine film.
Before I Go to Sleep
Director: Rowan Joffe
Certificate: 15
Cast Includes: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth, Anne-Marie Duff, Mark Strong
A movie based on the best selling 2011 book by S J Watson.
Christine Lucas (Kidman) suffered a head trauma thirteen years ago, with
the consequence that she starts each day with no memories of the past
thirteen years. She does not recognise her husband, her doctor nor even
her own face. To try make sense of her world, she starts to keep a
video diary and in this way can begin to get some continuity in her
thoughts. However this reveals that her husband Ben (Firth) and her
doctor (Strong) are concealing something from her. This film is a
psychological thriller which successfully builds suspense with twists to
the plot and some false trails. An enjoyable thriller.
Frozen
Director: Chris Buck
Certificate PG
Cast Includes Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad,Alan Tudyk, Jonathan Groff
This Disney musical animation is loosely based on the fairy
tale ‘The Snow Queen’ who has condemned a kingdom to eternal winter. It
is up to Anna (sister to the snow queen) and a loner Kristoff to
undertake an epic journey to find the Snow Queen and convince her to
lift the icy spell. This is a magical movie destined to become a
classic. It will appeal to families and children of all ages.
Gone Girl
Director: David Fincher
Certificate: 18
Cast Includes: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike
The film is based on, and is pretty much true to, the best
selling book by Gillan Flynn. It is the fifth wedding anniversary of
the Dunne’s. Nick Dunne (Affleck) goes for a drive, and returns to find
his wife Amy (Pike) is gone and the house ransacked. He reports her as
missing to the police and initially he is treated with sympathy.
However as time passes he becomes a prime suspect. The film is told in a
broken time-line and we see in flashbacks that the marriage had started
to fail. However is Nick guilty of murdering his wife? The film is a
psychological thriller with the plot taking a sharp turn in the latter
half of the film. This is an excellent, must see, movie.
Lucy
Director: Luc Besson
Certificate: 15
Cast Includes: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman
Lucy (Johansson), a rather average American woman visiting
Taiwan, is kidnapped by gangsters, abused and made to smuggle an
experimental new drug which is sewn into her stomach. However a beating
received by one of the gangsters causes the bag to rupture and she
absorbs the drug, with the effect of increasing the efficiency of her
brain. This leads her to outgrow her physical and mental limitations as
she develops vast intellect and formidable psychic powers. Lucy can
now take her revenge. This is a fun film with the story told from
Lucy’s point of view. However as her powers develop the revenge part of
the movie becomes very one sided and the film sacrifices action
sequences for a quest to understand her evolution into something that is
beyond human.
Pride
Director: Matthew Warchus
Certificate: 15
Cast Includes: Bill Nighty, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton Joe Gilgun, Ben Schnetzer
The film is based on a true story and is set in the summer of
1984 during the miners strike. Mark Ashton, a member of a London based
gay and lesbian group organises a collection for the miners. However
when the group came to offer the donation, they were rebuffed due to
prejudice (the AIDs epidemic is one of the backdrops to the film). The
group therefore decide to bus to a mining village in the Welsh Dulais
Valley to make the donation personally. This movie is played for
laughs. It is an excellent comedy supported by an excellent cast and it
explores the clash of two very different cultures.
The Equalizer
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Denzel Washington, Chloe Grace Moretz, Bill Pullman, Marton Csokas.
A big screen adaption of the 1980’s TV drama series which
starred Edward Woodward. Now Washington takes on the role of McCall, a
black ops commando who faked his own death so he could retire to an
uneventful existence in Boston. McCall is a childless widow, working in
a superstore and with a fondness for reading. He befriends Teri
(Moretz) a young woman who works as a prostitute. However she is beaten
and hospitalized by Russian gangsters. McCall decides to use his
skills to retaliate and as a result finds himself the target of a
Russian team led by a psychopath Teddy (Csokas). Washington is a
consummate actor who plays the role with skill and conviction. However
the whole is essentially a violent vigilante movie. Entertaining and
believable but the film does not break any new ground.
The Hundred-Foot Journey
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Certificate: PG
Cast Includes: Helen Mirren, Manish Dayal, Om Puri, Charlotte Le Bon
A Walt Disney adaptation of the 2010 novel by Richard C
Morais. The Kadam’s are an Indian family that were displaced due to
political rioting. They arrive at a quaint but rather conservative
French Village and decide to open an Indian Restaurant, the Maison
Mumbai. However just across the road is a classical, Michelin starred
restaurant Le Saule Pleureur run by Madame Mallory (Mirren). This leads
to fall-outs and ultimately sabotage between the two institutions.
Meanwhile Hassan (Dayal) the master cook of the Indian restaurant begins
a flirtation with Marguerite (Le Bon), the sous chef of Mme Mallory’s
restaurant. This is a well acted and endearing movie with plenty of
laughs. Entertaining but lacking suspense.
What We Did on Our Holidays
Director: Andy Hamilton, Guy Jenkins
Certificate: 12A
Cast Includes: Rosamund Pike, David Tennant, Billy Connolly
Doug (Tennant) and Abi (Pike) are a married couple on the cusp
of a divorce. Despite this, they decide to take their three children
to Scotland to attend a family gathering to celebrate the 75th birthday
of Gordie (Connolly), Doug’s father. In conversation, the children let
slip to the wider family the details of their life in London and the
parents arguments. Hence tension and family feuds ensue. The
characters of the film are based on the TV series ‘Outnumbered’ and the
film is in part comedy sitcom and in part an emotional ‘roller-coaster’.
Despite fine acting (with Connolly in particular fine form) the final
third of the film seemed a little flat.