Hellboy 2019 leads the new cinema releases April 12th 2019

This week, there are SIX new films out for you to choose from, led by Hellboy 2019. Here are the titles, with more info below:

Hellboy 2019
Mid90s
Division 19
Loro 1
Wild Rose
Little

Hellboy 2019 is here, and at 1:59 in the trailer, is that really Big Mo from EastEnders wielding a rifle? Cool!

(Yes, it is her, aka Laila Morse, aka Gary Oldman’s sister!)

Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy (David Harbour – Suicide Squad, Crisis In Six Scenes), caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles the ancient sorceress Nimue the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich), who’s bent on revenge.

Personally, I have no idea how well this new version translates to the original comic book. The two Ron Perlman movies – Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army – were okay, but no more than that.

What I can see from this, is that they’re clearly going for the Marvel-style jokey type of movie, so since that usually works for me, instead of when they’re trying to be overly serious, I will give this one a go, but not necessarily at the cinema.

Director: Neil Marshall
Screenplay: Andrew Cosby
Comic book: Mike Mignola
Also stars: Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Thomas Haden Church, Penelope Mitchell, Daniel Dae Kim, Sophie Okonedo, Brian Gleeson, Kristina Klebe, Alistair Petrie

Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!

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Mid90s follows a teenager named Stevie (Sunny Suljic – The Killing Of A Sacred Deer, then Lucas Hedges – Lady Bird) growing up in Los Angeles.

He’s struggling with his family, including his co-dependent single mom and his abusive older brother, and at school, where his richer friends seem to overlook him. When Stevie befriends a crew of skateboarders, he learns some tough lessons about class, race, and privilege. Williams will play Stevie’s mom, who’s dealing with the growing distance between them.

Shot in 4:3, this is written and directed by Jonah Hill (The Wolf Of Wall Street) – making his directorial debut with this movie, and does look pretty interesting so I am looking forward to checking it out.

Writer/director: Jonah Hill
Also stars: Katherine Waterston, Jerrod Carmichael, Alexa Demie, Stephane Nicoli, Cici Lau, Margaret Newborn, Kasey Elise, Jax Malcolm, Di Vinci SanTana Guthrie, Na-kel Smith

Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!

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Division 19

This is a film which looks like it stinks, but compared to everything else to come this week, it towards above them.

It’s 2039 and jails have been turned into online portals where the public gets to choose what prisoners eat, wear, watch and who they fight. So successful is Panopticon TV, it is about to be rolled out to a whole town, providing subscribers even more choice.

This is the first time Alison Doody has starred in a film in 30 years – since 1989’s Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade… well not quite – but the trailer feels like it’s cobbled bits together from a zillion sci-fi films you’ve seen before.

Writer/Director: SA Halewood
Also stars: Linus Roache, Lotte Verbeek, Clarke Peters, Will Rothhaar

Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!

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Loro 1

Loro translates as ‘Them’, and this is a film about the life of Silvio Berlusconi, apparently, even though that wasn’t clear from the trailer. In fact, it looks like it stinks worse than a backed-up toilet.

Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Stars: Toni Servillo, Elena Sofia Ricci, Riccardo Scamarcio, Kasia Smutniak

Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!

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Wild Rose stars Jessie Buckley (Beast) as Rose-Lynn Harlan, a musician from Glasgow who dreams of becoming a Nashville star.

She’s fresh out of jail, and forced to take responsibility, she gets a cleaning job and finds an unlikely champion in the middle-class lady of the house (Sophie Okonedo).

However, while this has apparently had some critical acclaim, this looks dull as hell.

The only thing of note is that both cast members Jamie Sives and James Harkness are in this week’s BBC1 drama The Victim.

Director: Tom Harper
Screenplay: Nicole Taylor
Also stars: Julie Walters, Craig Parkinson, Gemma McElhinney, Ashley Shelton

Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!

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Little – Where to begin? The initial premise of shouty bossy woman Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) turning into shouty bossy girl (Marsai Martin), after another girl puts a magic spell on her, makes it sound like a lazy body-swap movie, but there’s no other body for her to swap into, as you never get both onscreen at the same time.

Plus, we have black women speaking in a manner you only hear black women speak, i.e. with ‘attitude’ that sounds like they’re going to give themselves a hernia if they continue in that vein much longer.

There’s a soundtrack that reeks of “Yeah, this is what women listen to in order to make themselves feel important” with a main track of Little Mix’s godawful Salute.

And it comes across as a film that’s intended to work as a children’s movie, but with Jordan’s friend, early on, mouthing sarcastically, “Yeah, bitch(!)”, that’s hardly kid-friendly, is it?

In fact, looking at the BBFC page where they have rated this a 12, it includes a ton of unnecessary mild language, as well as a truncated f-word. Everyone involved in this film need a cold slap.

Little comes from the producer of both Girls Trip (black women shouting with ‘attitude’) and Night School (Kevin Hart shouting and being an incessant dick, as usual), and if I do have the misfortune to see this, it looks on course for one of the worst films of the year, but it’ll have strong competition with the likes of Backtrace and Distorted.

Director: Tina Gordon Chism
Screenplay: Tina Gordon Chism, Tracy Oliver
Also stars: Justin Hartley, Tone Bell

Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!

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