Ocean's 8 (2018)

In an all-female re-imagining of Ocean's 11,  Ocean's 8 is an interesting entry into gender politics with what amounts to a no-boys-allowed club (and rightly so, given the all-male line-up of 11), but ultimately it doesn't bring anything new to the table.

It was a fun enough film while watching, and has a few scenes that linger in the memory, but I had a nagging sense throughout that someone had done this all before, only better.

Part of the problem is one inherent to movies with ensemble casts - characters are reduced to sketches rather than being fully realised. There was enough character in each of the main players to get a sense of who they were, but it's only tantalising glimpses that the audience gets. Saying that, what was shown was good for the most part.

I think one of the major concerns I had was with the character of Debbie Ocean. At times, particularly during the heist, she shines, but for much of the film she acts so inscrutable that she comes across as a blank slate rather than someone with whom the audience can empathise.

The film also lacks a real villain. Richard Armitage provides the main focus for the audience's ire, but he comes across as a slimy loser rather than a genuine bad guy. The fault lies not with Armitage, who is perfectly capable of being the man everyone loves to hate, but in a shallowness of character in the writing. Perhaps there's a missing scene where he drowns kittens or kicks puppies, but aside from being a louche, there's not enough to hate. There is one act of betrayal that should have been breathtaking when it is shown, but it comes across as too sterile.

There's a decent enough style to the film, decent-enough heist bits, some (but not enough) funny moments, and likeable performances from most of the cast, including a late-in-the-film-appearance from James Corden being entertaining rather than annoying (it's often a coin toss which version of Corden will appear). It wasn't a bad film; it just wasn't as good as it should have been.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Remake

For those who aren't avid readers of Star Wars related things on Twitter, you might not be aware that a group of fans are attempting to gain $200 million in funding for a remake of The Last Jedi because as everyone knows, it was an awful movie that destroyed Star Wars and it needs to be erased from history.

Ideally, a time machine would be a good idea, but as that's not possible, now that Stephen Hawking is dead and has taken all the secrets of the universe to the grave with him, a remake is the best solution. After that, all the copies of the Ryan Johnson-written/directed film will be gathered up and put on a bonfire in Berlin, just like that scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The fans intend to write a script with the input of lots of other fans. This will include not only those who hated The Last Jedi, but also those who liked it because they want to bring everyone together so that once the new film had been made, we can all agree that the version-that-shall-not-be-mentioned-ever-again was horrible.

In light of this, I would like to put my name forward to become one of the hundreds of people who will contribute to this script.

Of course the advantage to all of us contributing is that we will know how the Star Wars story really continues long before we finish filming it.

So as Shakespeare said, without further ado, here is my concept for the new and improved Star Wars Chapter VIIIa.

LAST OF THE JEDIS

We open with the bit with Poe Dameron facing off against the Star Destroyers and the Dreadnought, but this time there are more pilots with him and there isn't that stupid thing with him trying to distract General Hugs (sorry, Hux) with a prank telephone call. No, we have Lando Calrissian (only he's going to be played by Tom Sellek, not Billy Dee Williams, because Billy Dee Williams is too, um, he's too, oh you know what I mean), and he's with Nien Nunb, and we'll have Wedge Antilles, and his son, who can be played by one of the film's backers.

And then the bombing raid will happen, and all the ships are being blown up until there's the last one being flown by Paige Tico (we can get Megan Fox for that role), and then the ship gets hit and she's the only survivor, so she goes for the bomb release remote control and drops it ... but it's caught by BB8 because Poe's flown his X-Wing under the bomber. And he rescues Paige and they fly away and BB8 releases the bomb payload.

We get back to the Rebel fleet and instead of giving him crap, Leia's all 'Poe, you're a goshdarn hero, and you saved the fleet, and here's a medal'. And we can use outtakes from the medal ceremony in Star Wars for Carrie Fisher's part.

And Finn wakes up from his Bacta bath, but he looks different because the Bacta's turned him back into who he really was before Snoake used the force to change his skin colour and stuff, and he can be played by me.

Then we cut to Rey and Luke and Luke's explaining to Rey that the real reason she could stand up to Kylo in the last movie without any Jedi training was because he (Luke that is) was secretly puppeting her, and it wasn't her abilities after all, because she's just a stupid girl. But Luke offers to train Chewbacca in the force, because he senses that Chewie is strong in the force.

Back with the fleet, Kylo and the tie fighters chase after the lead ship, but this time Kylo pulls the trigger on his mother, because he HATES HER for making him clean up his socks from his bedroom floor EVERY GOSHDARN DAY!!!

And Leia's blown into space like before. And we can still use the bit with Leia floating through space like Mary Poppins, but this time it will be because she is dead and that's her force ghost coming back to the ship. And when she gets back to the ship, she tells me, I mean Finn that he's really a Jedi and he needs to go to the Dagobah system to learn from all the Jedi masters.

So they escape from the pursuing First Order because there's no such thing as hyperspace tracking (stupid, stupid idea), and Finn goes off to Dagobah. But when he gets there, he finds the island with Luke and Chewbacca (and Rey) because Luke's planet is really Dagobah, where the sea level has risen because of all the rocks that have been falling into it, so there aren't any swamps left.

And Finn and Chewbacca are taught the ways of the force by Luke and ghost Ben Kenobi and ghost Annakin Skywalker (who's played by the old guy and not Hayden Christensen) and ghost Yoda and ghost Leia (although she just makes the tea and gives people medals) and ghost Samuel L Jackson. And Rey falls in love with Finn and there's kissing and stuff. Then the Jedi go and fight Snoake, who puts Poe into carbonite until the next movie and Chewbacca and Wedge Antilles' son go off to find him on Hoth where a gangster wampa has collected him because it like carbonite sculptures, and Finn has to console both Rey and Megan Fox and the end.

Oh yeah, and there's a big spaceship battle as well.

Do you think I'll get the job?

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Fallen Kingdom is a different beast to 2015's Jurassic World. If you're looking for another take on The Lost World sub-genre of movies, you're not going to get it.

Instead of taking its cues from the likes of King Kong, Fallen Kingdom is closer to the Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s. Like the hybrid monsters of which the Jurassic World films are so fond, Fallen Kingdom splices DNA from the likes of the Dracula, Wolf Man, and Frankenstein movies.

There are also strong traces of the Island of Dr Moreau, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes added into the mix.

There are a couple of nice story choices in the film. There's a degree of predictability - or perhaps that should be inevitability - but that wasn't unwelcome.

It has a darker feel than the other stories - some of the deaths feel nastier and I wouldn't say it was the dinosaur film you want to take your toddlers to see, but like the previous films it leaves the blood-letting off camera for the most part.

As to where on the spectrum of the films it sits for me, I still haven't made up my mind. The original Jurassic Park has never been bettered, and it still hasn't, and I  have a fondness for the first Jurassic World particularly with the bright optimism of its early scenes that Fallen Kingdom doesn't possess.

There are elements of the film that some will take issue with - there's a choice made by one of the characters while escaping from a dinosaur that made perfect sense to me, particularly in light of the aesthetics of the story being told, that will probably annoy more than a few. The action is also more of the comic book variety than some of the more grounded stunts of the original Jurassic Park.

 But for doing something different, for me it's a welcome addition to the extended tale. It gives Bryce Douglas Howard a chance to show off her action hero skills. It made me chuckle a few times (particularly with one of the news report's scrolling captions). And I think I might want to see it again.

Jeune Femme / L'Amanat Double (both 2017)

Some weekends it's seeing Solo twice, others I end up seeing nothing but French language films.

C'est la vie, as they say ... somewhere.

Jeune Femme is also known by the international title of Montparnasse Bienvenue (because Jeune Femme was so difficult for international audiences to pronounce?). It's chiefly a character study of Paula, a young (she would argue with this definition) woman trying to find her place in the world after being dumped out of her cushioned existence by her photographer ex-boyfriend.

She's introduced to the audience while head-butting a door and screaming at her boyfriend, and she's pretty much full-on from that point.

Self-absorbed, spoiled, and apparently without a useful survival skill in the world, she doesn't start as the most sympathetic character, but the film peels away at her layers, even as she tries to put more on as she tries out different identities, and with its climax gives a sense of what happened to throw her life so off course in the first decade of her adult life.

It's a smartly-made film. Definitely won't appeal to all, but it's rewarding to those for whom it will.

L'Amant Double (the Double Lover) is on a completely different level. A mind-bending, lurid, psychosexual thriller, it's been described by some as Hitchcockian, but I'd call it more De Palma-esque, as it's at least two degrees removed from Hitchock.

It's a film that probably requires two sittings, just to try and figure out where all the joins are. While I was watching, I developed at least five different theories about what was going on, and in my scattershot approach actually managed to pick-up on some of the clues that were layered into the film.

Again this definitely doesn't have broad appeal. It's an insane, exploitative, slow-burning piece of cinema with emotionally-distant characters. On the positive side, its completely bonkers execution and twisty-turning plot can be a lot of fun.