Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (2018)

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (or MMHWGA as it will henceforth be called), is the film that you need in your life right now.

MMHWGA is not like other films. Other films can generally be categorised into various flavours of good and bad. MMHWGA defies such mortal definitions. It sneers in the face of quality, laughs at five-star (and one-star ratings).

You will laugh, you will cry, you will laugh again, and cry again, although not necessarily at the right parts.

Or perhaps it will be. With MMHWGA, it's impossible to discern the difference between a well-crafted joke and a failed joke that's failed so badly it becomes funny again.

If you don't walk out of MMHWGA with a smile on your face, then you should probably check your pulse and get a friend to phone an ambulance, or possibly a funeral director.

If you think MMHWGA is the best film that the universe could possibly deliver, then you may very well be correct.

If you think that MMHWGA is an attempt to shoehorn a plot out of a bunch of ABBA lyrics, that features hammy acting that wouldn't look out of place in amateur theatre, a group of A-list male actors who stand around looking awkward in the middle of musical scenes only just realising that their dad-dancing skills won't cut it, and some of the most poorly staged comedy sequences this side of 70s sketch shows, then you might also be right.

But if you don't see that as a good thing, then you are most definitely in the wrong.

In the future books will be written attempting to dissect the perfect storm that is Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again.

Very few of them will come close to understanding the truth.

Incredibles 2 (2018)

Almost a week after seeing Incredibles 2, I still haven't made up my mind about how I would rate it.

Is it as good as the first film, better, worse? The answer is: I DON'T KNOW!!! (cue hysterical sobbing).

One things for certain is that it's very good. It's funny, heart-felt; stylistically it's a triumph; musically it's exceptional The action scenes are breathtaking, the acting superb, the animation excellent. It tells a fun story. Its use of Jack-Jack, a character who could have been irritating, works brilliantly, it ticks all the right superhero/60s spy movie boxes.

It doesn't have a volcano, and that lack of such an exceptional set-piece is probably one of the areas where the original movie wins outright.

But it does have a baby fighting a raccoon, and that might make up for the missing volcano.

The Happy Prince (2018)

I almost didn't write this review, but as the critical consensus seems to be generally favourable to the Rupert Everett written-directed-acted film, The Happy Prince, I thought maybe I'd offer a counterpoint.

Although I knew going in to the film that this was about the end of Wilde's life, and I was therefore expecting a certain amount of bleakness, I wasn't prepared for how much of a slog the film would be.

Part of the problem was that along with all the squalid wretchedness of the piece, I couldn't find a single character to interest me. I should have been able to feel some sympathy for the state of Everett's Wilde, but the portrait of a self-indulgent man, seemingly uncaring of all the damage he was doing to the lives of those around him, made the character thoroughly unlikeable.

Not that liking a character is required for a story to be compelling - sometimes awful personalities can be fascinating to watch - but this version of Wilde wasn't even interesting to me.

The photography looked good at points. The acting was fine from a number of the players, and Everett would have been decent enough if his Wilde had been a minor cast member rather than the main character, but I was seriously tempted to walk out halfway through the film. I only kept watching out of the hope that it would get better.

It didn't.

Skyscraper (2018)

The film The Towering Inferno was adapted from two books, The Tower, and The Glass Inferno.

The book Nothing Lasts Forever was apparently written after the author, Roderick Thorpe saw The Towering Inferno and then had a dream about a man being chased through a skyscraper by men with guns. That book was adapted into the movie Die Hard.

Skyscraper is about a man being chased through a skyscraper by men with guns, while the building is on fire, so we're already on two grandparents and one parent in the family tree of influences.

Adding to this Frankenstein approach, there are also elements from the TV series 24 thrown in for good measure.

With all this packed in, the film manages a running time of 100 minutes, which is remarkably short for the modern blockbuster.

Starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, it's pretty much what you would expect from a Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson film - a charismatic performance, big, ridiculous action set pieces (although the one that strained my credulity the most involved Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson climbing a ladder), and a substantial amount of cheese.

Neve Campbell, playing Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's wife in the film at first appears as if she's going to be the stereotypical female-in-distress, but the film manages to give her much more to do than be rescued by her husband (take that Die Hard), which was a pleasant surprise.

It's also set in Hong Kong, which scores it extra points as it's tied with New York for my second favourite city in the world (London beats both of those in that race).

It's unlikely to win any Oscars, but as a leave-your-brain-at-home action movie, it does its job in being an entertaining way to spend less than two hours.

Mary Shelley (2017)

On the strength of its trailer, I nearly didn't see Mary Shelley. I'd also noticed the film was receiving a lot of mediocre reviews, which reinforced my opinion that it would be a dull, self-important, ham-acted film.

However, there was enough craftsmanship on display that at the very least I thought it might look interesting, so the notion of making my own mind up about it nagged at me for a while.

My decision to see it over the weekend was made at the last minute - well the last half hour anyway. I had a nagging headache, was too hot and thought if the film was boring, at least I could have a nap in an air-conditioned cinema.

It took me about five minutes to realise my fears were unwarranted. Instead of being the trudge that I had expected, I found that I was enjoying the story.

The film is by no means perfect. At times the dialogue indulges in earnest feminist declarations, more concerned with forcing its point rather than letting it be made naturally.

Perhaps some of that is down to Elle Fanning's delivery. Although she handles the part and the accent well for the most of the time, I was left with the nagging feeling that she was spending too much effort sound 'proper'. At times it worked with her soft spoken delivery working as counterpoint to her physical acting, but it kept reminding me that she was acting rather than allowing me to be swept up in the story.

Aside from those moments though, I found much to enjoy about the film. Costuming, set design and the score were particular standouts, and minus the less subtle moments of storytelling, I was quite happy with the writing too.

Sicario 2: Soldado (2018)

Warning: vague spoilers ahead.

There's a general rule to storytelling: you don't use luck to get you out of a hole because it will make the audience groan.

There's a key moment in Sicario 2 that although plausible relies far too heavily on luck. The director has explained how they went to great pains to make sure it could happen, but whether it could is not really the problem.

Stick the scene at the beginning of the film and it's not a problem. Place it where they did and it's a moment that can disrupt your audience's suspension of disbelief.

Of course the thing to realise with Sicario is it's about as realistic as the Dark Knight films. Certainly it carries at time the air of verisimilitude, but this is just a regular action film with more moral ambiguity and better cinematography than most.

The film plays with the current concerns over the Mexico-USA border, which could have been a valuable subject if it had chosen to examine the situation properly. Instead it's merely serves to bring in the guns and helicopters, and doesn't really gives us much more social commentary than 'gangs are bad, but so are US politicians'.

Ultimately, the exploitation of the of subject matter, at this time, cheapens the film in my eyes.

That's not to say I hated the film. The action scenes are very well staged. There's a lovely performance by Isabela Moner as the daughter of a Mexican drug lord, and the scenes between her and Benicio del Toro worked well, and for my money the film would have been better served if it had focused more on that part of the story.

Visually it looks great too and is definitely worth watching on the big screen. It's just a shame that it missed the opportunity to do something really great.

Leave No Trace (2018)

Every so often a film comes along where I want to walk up to people, grab them by their lapels, Eric Morecambe-style, and insist that they put everything else aside and proceed at best speed to the cinema.

Leave No Trace is one of those films.

The story of a PTSD sufferer and his teenage daughter living off grid, who are forced back into the 'civilised' world, it's a coming-of-age-tale, as well as a reflective piece about alternative living, and the harm done by well-meaning society.

As a piece of cinematic craft, it's difficult to see a single flaw with it. There's not a single scene out of place. It looks beautiful, sounds fantastic, and features heartbreaking performances from its leads Thomasin McKenzie and Ben Foster.

There's a documentary approach to the storytelling, both in the cuts that the film's editor, Jane Rizzo, makes as the characters carry out their day-to-day tasks, and in the acting of McKenzie and Foster, who deliver such naturalistic performances that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should stop looking for anyone else to fill the bill in March 2019.

Like the look and feel of the film, there's an authenticity to the story being told. It never comes close to falling into melodrama, every action seems right, proportionate. The people who populate it are generally kind, well-meaning, although often misguided. Characters are people, not symbols of the themes of the story, giving the tale the sense that it was recorded, not crafted.

It's also a film that will stay with you after you've seen it. In terms of thinking about the life lessons, in wondering if you could learn to feather wood, in comparing it with the Fox and the Hound (although that last one might just be me).

It's a film that deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.