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This weekend there are five new films out for you to choose from, and from the list below, the last two are actually released the next day, December 20th – the latter of the two clearly trying the trick of “We’ll get a 9-day ticket count for high box office entry”, but I’m listing them here as Boxing Day has a number of big films which will dominate the schedules: comedy in Dumb And Dumber To and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, bizarre sort-of comedy in PK, British drama in Dragonfly and a horror of a musical remake in Annie.
Dumb and Dumber To reunintes Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as Lloyd and Harry, 20 years after the dimwits set out on their first adventure, and they head out in search of one of their long lost children in the hope of gaining a new kidney.
I never saw the first film, nor the follow-up without them which everyone seems to have forgotten about so it must’ve sucked, but this one is again directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly, and stars Angela Kerecz, Kathleen Turner, Laurie Holden and Paul Blackthorne, and it does look good from the trailer so will be worth a look when it’s released.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb is the third installment in the series where all the exhibits come to life overnight, just to annoy put-upon nightwatchman Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), and this time round Larry leaves New York City for London on a quest to save the magic before it is gone forever.
Directed by Shawn Levy, who also did the honours for the first two, the cast includes Robin Williams, Rebel Wilson, Owen Wilson, Rami Malek, Ben Kingsley, Dick Van Dyke and Ricky Gervais. I’ve only seen clips of the first two and it doesn’t look my bag so this is a…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
PK is a comedy of ideas about a stranger in the city – known only by those two initials, who asks questions that no one has asked before. They are innocent, child-like questions, but they bring about catastrophic answers. People who are set in their ways for generations, are forced to reappraise their world when they see it from PK’s innocent eyes. In the process PK makes loyal friends and powerful foes. Mends broken lives and angers the establishment.
PK’s childlike curiosity transforms into a spiritual odyssey for him and millions of others. The film is an ambitious and uniquely original exploration of complex philosophies. It is also a simple and humane tale of love, laughter and letting-go. Finally, it is a moving saga about a friendship between strangers from worlds apart.
It certainly looks very bizarre but possibly worth a watch. Check out the trailer below and you might need to put the subtitles on for the Hindi dialogue as I don’t think they come on automatically.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Dragonfly is a new British film, written and directed by Andrew Tiernan, who has appeared in films such as 300, 300: Rise of an Empire and The Pianist, as well as TV series including Silent Witness, Life on Mars, The Bill, Luther, The Driver and Ripper Street, with a short description: Some people pay a high price for what they crave for in this life.
The cast includes Wayne Norman, Frank Boyce, Nick Reynolds, Mark Wingett, Ramon Tikaram, Lucinda Rhodes-Flaherty, Ricky Grover and Simon Balfour and the trailer is intriguing so looks to be worth a watch.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Annie. Yes, it’s back. Oh dear.
Academy Award nominee (really?) Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) stars in the titular role as a young, happy foster kid who’s also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they’d be back for her someday, it’s been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz).
But everything’s about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) – advised by his brilliant VP, Grace (Rose Byrne) and his shrewd and scheming campaign advisor, Guy (Bobby Cannavale) – makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Stacks believes he’s her guardian angel, but Annie’s self-assured nature and bright, sun-will-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life just might mean it’s the other way around.
Everyone who was involved with the making of this film will be going to hell…
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.