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This weekend there are TWELVE new films out for you to choose from: comedy with Americanisation in the title in Bad Moms, road trip thriller in Road Games, intriguing pop documentary in Gary Numan: Android in La La Land, comedy with a darker tone in War Dogs, Jason Statham cracks more skulls in Mechanic Resurrection, there’s murder aplenty in The Purge: Election Year, a Stephen King thriller in Cell, teenage angst in Kids In Love, clubbing movie XOXO, Pedro Almodóvar returns with Julieta, Noel Clarke returns with Brotherhood, and the idiocy of Adam Samberg returns in Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.
Bad Moms stars Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn as the three titular bad mothers, all overworked and under-appreciated, who are pushed beyond their limits, leading them to ditch their conventional responsibilities for a jolt of long overdue freedom, fun, and comedic self-indulgence.
Written and directed by both Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, a film with two directors rarely works but this looks from the trailer to have some promise. They’re previously responsible for writing/directing 21 & Over, and writing the three the three Hangover films – none of which I’ve seen but I hear they started off well and then went downhill along the way.
The cast includes Christina Applegate, Jada Pinkett Smith, Emjay Anthony and, for some reason, Kesha (or is it Ke$ha? …who cares)
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Road Games
The sun drenched days of summer turn dark and ominous for hitchhiking duo Jack (Andrew Simpson) and Véronique (Joséphine de La Baume) when they become inexplicably entangled with a mysterious married couple and a local road kill collector in rural France, this looks like a nicely weird revenge thriller and
Written and directed by Abner Pastoll, and also starring Frédéric Pierrot, Barbara Crampton, Féodor Atkine and Pierre Boulanger, this came across as a lot more engaging than I first expected. Sure, it’s “stuff goes really wrong, and the good guys have to take extreme measures to stay alive” but I do like the look of this.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Gary Numan: Android in La La Land
At the end of the 1970s, Gary Numan found himself to be one of the world’s biggest-selling recording artists, “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” and “Cars” were huge hits, no one had heard, or seen, anyone like Gary Numan. The Asperger’s syndrome that helped forge Numan’s tunnel-like ambition, informing his music and image, also brought problems. At a time when the public knew little about the condition, the press labeled him a freak, one paper suggested his parents should have been doctored for giving birth to him. Depression, anxiety, near bankruptcy and a long period in the wilderness followed. Then Numan fell in love with his biggest fan, Gemma, who helped him rediscover his passion for music.
This looks a fascinating documentary, but I suspect it won’t get an airing in mainstream cinemas, so I’ll have to wait for the Blu-ray.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
War Dogs tells the apparently true story of two young men, David Packouz (Miles Teller) and Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), who won a $300 million contract from the Pentagon to arm America’s allies in Afghanistan.
The film is directed by Todd Phillips (The Hangover Trilogy, Due Date) which he wrote alongside Stephen Chin and Jason Smilovic and also stars Ana de Armas and Jeff Pierre, and while I’ve never seen any of the Hangover movies, I agreed with one commenter on video who said “Studio was probably like… – This script has some actual potential, let’s not waste this one on Kevin Hart”
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Mechanic Resurrection brings us the sequel that no-one asked for, a follow-up to 2011’s The Mechanic, with Jason Statham as Arthur Bishop, a man who thought he’d put his murderous past behind him, only for his most formidable foe to kidnap the love of his life, Gina (Jessica Alba).
Now he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations, and do what he does best, make them look like accidents.
Directed by Dennis Gansel, from a screenplay by Philip Shelby and Tony Mosher, the cast also includes Tommy Lee Jones, Natalie Burn and Michelle Yeoh, and since it’s lasting just under 100 minutes long, it should be worth a look.
Barry Norman once declared Arnie as “the human special effect”. That mantle has easily since passed to Jason Statham.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Purge: Election Year is the third in the ongoing series which I’ve still not got round to beginning, even though they look rather a laugh.
Two years after choosing not to kill the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Barnes (Frank Grillo) has become head of security for Senator Charlene Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), the front runner in the next Presidential election due to her vow to eliminate the Purge.
Also starring Mykelti Williamson and Raymond J Barry, this was originally due for release on July 15th, but was deftly put back to this week, following the horrendous attack in France when 84 people were killed as a truck rampaged through a crowd of revellers gathered on the waterfront in Nice for Bastille Day fireworks.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Cell is what Americans call a mobile phone (also see the 2004 Kim Basinger/Chris Evans thriller Cellular, although, rather, don’t).
A strange signal pulsates through all mobile (cell) phone networks worldwide, and starts a murderous epidemic of epic proportions when users become bloodthirsty creatures (so, it turns into a zombie movie), and a group of people in New England are among the survivors to deal with the ensuing chaos after.
Directed by Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2), with a screenplay from Adam Alleca that’s based on the Stephen King novel, the two big leads are John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson, plus Isabelle Fuhrman, Stacy Keach, Lloyd Kaufman, Owen Teague, Catherine Dyer and Mandi Christine Kerr.
Cell (ahem, mobile phone) looks rather like a straight-to-DVD clunker.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Kids in Love is clearly in the running for ‘Worst movie title of 2016’ since, in the light of certain celebrities who were big in the ’70s, the title just sounds… weird.
Set against the backdrop of an underground, bohemian London, Kids In Love offers a new take on the traditional coming of age story, so says the billing.
Drifting through his gap year with internships and travel plans, Jack (Will Poulter) has always suspected there was more to life than this. A chance encounter with the beautiful and ethereal Evelyn (Alma Jodorowsky) and her friends, including free spirited Viola (Cara Delevingne), swerves his life radically off course. She is like no one he’s ever met before, and he quickly becomes caught up in a whirlwind of all-day parties and wild nights in London’s hidden dives with her charismatic friends.
Giving up everything to follow Evelyn and her hedonistic lifestyle, it takes Jack a while to realise what he’s leaving behind, that love isn’t a game you want to lose and that these people might not be the kindred spirits he first thought.
So, it sounds like a right load of old balls, and that whoever wrote the billing was sniffing something strong!
Also starring Pip Torrens and Geraldine Somerville, Poulter is turning into a good actor, while Cara did a great job of… standing up, in Suicide Squad. However, this film looks disappointly generic tripe.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
XOXO
Six strangers’ lives collide in one frenetic, dream-chasing, hopelessly romantic night, states the billing.
Directed by Christopher Louie, who co-wrote this with Dylan Meyer, the film stars Ione Skye (where has she been for ages?), Hayley Kiyoko, Ryan Hansen, Ian Anthony Dale and Girls Aloud’s caner-in-chief Sarah Hyland, I struggled to find any semblance of plot in this one. It’s just ‘people go clubbing’ and that’s it.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Julieta
Pedro Almodóvar‘s latest movie begins after a casual encounter, where Julieta (Adriana Ugarte) is a brokenhearted woman who decides to confront her life and the most important events about her stranded daughter.
I haven’t seen too many of the director’s films, as I don’t really tend to get them, but this has had decent reviews.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Brotherhood
First there was Kidulthood then Adulthood now comes Noel Clarke’s last installment brotherhood With Sam facing up to the new world he realizes it also comes with new problems and new challenges that he must face that he knows will require old friends to help him survive new dangers.
These films aren’t quite my bag, and this one’s also cheating the charts, as have other films, as it opens on Monday next week (August 29th), which means it will have a 7-day ‘box office weekend’ from Mon-Sun, instead of the traditional 3-day, thus contributing to the movie charts which will show up the week after next, rather than next week.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping clearly attempts to spoof Justin Bieber’s rise to fame and his 2011 concert movie, Never Say Never.
Alas, how funny does it look? Imagine tripping and falling down your stairs and breaking every single bone in your body apart from one. Then Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Cuckoo) comes in, as pop star Connor4Real, carefully strips back the piece of clothing that’s covering that one remaining unbroken bone… and urinates all over it. And then defecates in your face. Yes, about that funny.
As for the plot… when his new album fails to sell records, pop/rap superstar Conner4real goes into a major tailspin and watches his celebrity high life begin to collapse. He’ll try anything to bounce back, anything except reuniting with his old rap group The Style Boyz. And the pain begins from there…
Written by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, apparently collectively known as The Lonely Island (no, me neither), the film is also co-produced by Judd Apatow, the comedic black hole that forced upon us films like This Is 40, starring Paul Rudd, the most charmless man in cinema.
Also wasting their time onscreen are Sarah Silverman, Imogen Poots, Mike Birbiglia, James Buckley and Briana White.
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.