The Now You See Me franchise, which started in 2013, has proven an occasionally inventive but often annoying crime caper series that uses stage magic as device for introducing visual gags and action sequences and as an excuse for improbable plot points. Based largely on the franchise’s ability to lure likeable stars such as Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman
Read moreThe Roses is the sporadically funny but undercooked, shakily constructed and tonally uneven remake of the dark 1980’s marital discord comedy The War of the Roses that starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. This time, replacing Douglas and Turner are Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman. Cumberbatch plays Theo Rose a renowned architect who after an astonishingly quick courtship marries chef
Read moreCop show parody, The Naked Gun (1988) was classic Zucker brothers humour with silly word play, send ups of Hollywood clichés and surreal sight gags revolving around the bumbling Captain Frank Drebin’s (Leslie Nielsen) complete obliviousness to reality and capacity for unintentional destruction. The quality of the Naked Gun movies declined across the sequels but some people, including producer Seth
Read moreGuess what folks, the big new cinema release for this week is a sequel. Freakier Friday is the follow up to the juvenile but fun 2003 body swap comedy Freaky Friday which starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, a mother and daughter whose consciousness swapped bodies so that each had to live the other’s life and learn about their
Read moreWith a touch of the destructive disillusion of Falling Down and the unsettling oddness of Yorgos Lanthimos’ films, the very strange, dark and often very funny bromance cringe comedy Friendship is a bizarre take on the weird neighbour film. Comedian Tim Robinson (Saturday Night Live, Detroiters, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson) plays the socially awkward, misfit office
Read moreWes Anderson films are now their own subgenre, an excursion into a pastel coloured diorama world filled with quirky neurotic oddballs who are often doggedly noble or gleefully sadistic. While we can appreciate Anderson for carving out a distinctive piece of the cinematic universe, his tendency to avoid anything resembling a coherent or meaningful narrative, to pile absurdity on top
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