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This weekend there are eight new films out for you to choose from: there’s the new Ghostbusters, comedy/drama in Maggie’s Plan, the one and only Nicolas Winding Refn with The Neon Demon, Juliette Binoche’s new drama – The Wait, strong drama in River, political documentary in Weiner, alleged comedy in Bachelor Games, and total pointlessness in The Legend of Tarzan.
Ghostbusters (III) – yes, I can’t give it the full credit of being called exactly the same as the original – is something that might’ve been half an idea in the early 1990s, after the wonderful 1984 original, but then we later had the dismal sequel, Ghostbusters II, in 1989.
Over the years, there’s been talks of endless rewrites, rebooting the franchise with young Ghostbusters, Bill Murray not being at all interested, only a cameo from Harold Ramis – who sadly passed away in February last year, and then… an all-female Ghostbusters movie. Everything we’ve ever heard about it all sounds like a collection of bad ideas.
But, the latter option won, through.
The film is be led by forever-shouting Melissa McCarthy (surprisingly good in Spy, but I don’t think she’s right to lead this movie) and Kristen Wiig (The Martian), plus… Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon. Who? Apparently Saturday Night Live regulars will know them. The film is be directed by Paul Feig, responsible for Bridesmaids, which also starred McCarthy and Wiig. Thing is, I’d I’d rather lick the inside of my toilet bowl than watch that Bridesmaids!
While Spy worked, this just looks like it’ll trample over the value AND *values* of the original. The trailer brings in Slimer and the theory of screwing with the minds of the cast (both of which have been done before) and so it all just seems like a complete waste of time. Also getting in on this is Chris Hemsworth (Avengers: Age of Ultron), Elizabeth Perkins (One Child), Andy Garcia as the Mayor and The Wire‘s Omar, Michael Kenneth Williams.
IMDB also claims that we’ll see Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd, Annie Potts and Ernie Hudson, but take all that with a pinch of salt.
Oh, and it’s in 3D, yet looks like it’s not worth bothering in that format because any depth* comes from general perspective and certainly not in the same league as Gravity, Prometheus, Life Of Pi or The Walk.
(*certainly not in the script!)
I’d rather skip this and go back to the cartoon follow-up, The Real Ghostbusters!
And, finally, despite not deserving it, it has a good chance getting to No.1 next time, since it’s released next Monday, rather than the usual Friday, which means that the film has a SEVEN-day ‘weekend’. The most a film can get is nine days, by being released on a Saturday, but even a Monday shows that the studio are running scared.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Maggie’s Plan, with Greta Gerwig in the titular role, is to have a baby, but it gets derailed when she falls in love with John (Ethan Hawke), who’s a married man, destroying his volatile marriage to the brilliant and impossible Georgette (Julianne Moore doing some sort of accent but god knows what it is).
However, one daughter and three years later and Maggie has already got the seven year itch and is in a quandary: what do you do when you suspect your man and his ex-wife are actually perfect for each other?
This sounds a bit of a duffer, but the trailer grew on me more the longer it went on, and I loved Ms Gerwig’s line “I’ve decided to embrace the mystery of the universe and stop bossing everyone around so much”, to which a little voice replies, “Good luck with that, bossy pants!”
The film is written and directed by Rebecca Miller, and also starring Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph and Wallace Shawn.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Neon Demon is Nicolas Winding Refn‘s new movie and while his movies can be hit or miss, you can’t deny they certainly have a buzz about them.
Elle Fanning is aspiring model Jesse, who moves to Los Angeles, where her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.
The cast includes Jena Malone, Christina Hendricks, Abbey Lee, Bella Heathcote, Desmond Harrington and Keanu Reeves, and has a screenplay written by Refn plus Mary Laws and Polly Stenham.
The Neon Demon doesn’t yet have a fixed UK release date, but is due out some time this summer. It is also an official selection to play in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2016!
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Wait, aka L’Attesa, tells the tale of a Sicilian mother, Anna (Juliette Binoche), who lives with her son’s fiancée, Jeanne (Lou de Laâge), and refrains from telling the fiancée that her son will not return.
That’s more than I got from the trailer, which just showed a handful of lingering glances and made me think that some sort of an affair was going to develop between them. It certainly hasn’t grabbed me from this.
Directed by Piero Messina, from a script he wrote with Giacomo Bendotti, Ilaria Macchia and Andrea Paolo Massara, based on the play by Luigi Pirandello, the film also stars Giorgio Colangeli and Domenico Diele.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
River
In the south of Laos, an American volunteer doctor becomes a fugitive after he intervenes in the sexual assault of a young woman. When the assailant’s body is pulled from the Mekong River, things quickly spiral out of control.
Written and directed by Jamie M Dagg, and starring Rossif Sutherland, Douangmany Soliphanh and Sara Botsford, this certainly looks very intriguing based on the trailer.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Weiner
A documentary/examination of disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner‘s mayoral campaign and the landscape of today’s political landscape.
Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, how can you ignore a name like Weiner?
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Bachelor Games
A group of friends on a stag weekend in the mountains of Argentina are picked off by a dark force called “The Hunter”, but all is not what it seems.
Well, what it seems is exactly like BBC2’s recent three-part comedy/drama Stag starring Jim Howick and Pilou Asbæk.
Directed by Edward McGown, from a script by Chris Hill and Sam Michell, the film stars Charlie Bewley, Jack Doolan, Jack Gordon and Mike Noble, watching the trailer, it LOOKS exactly like that, too, except abroad.
This isn’t a new thing, even if it is inetntional, since 1992 saw two films based on Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America 500 years earlier – 1492: Conquest of Paradise, and Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, while 1991 saw Robin Hood get the same treatment – Robin Hood: Prince of Tides with Kevin Costner, and Patrick Bergin’s Robin Hood.
However, I’m sceptical whether an 86-minute film can get across what three hours of TV could, and it’s odd that a British film company would do this, since the TV series was a BBC production.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Legend Of Tarzan is a good example of why Hollywood has completely run out of ideas.
The main man, played by Alexander Skarsgård, having acclimated to life in London, is called back to his former home in the jungle to investigate the activities at a mining encampment. I misread that as ‘mincing encampment’ and had visions of tired 1970s humour set in a department store. Thankfully, it isn’t.
The film also stars Margot Robbie, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L Jackson, Casper Crump, John Hurt, Djimon Hounsou, Ella Purnell, Simon Russell Beale and Alex Ferns. It’s directed by David Yates – who brought us the last four Harry Potter films as well as the 2003 mini-series, State Of Play, from a script by Stuart Beattie, Craig Brewer, John Collee and Adam Cozad, all based on the original story and characters by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
The Legend Of Tarzan is out now and I’m still falling into a coma already, just thinking about it.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.