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This week, there are EIGHT new films out for you to choose from: Tom Cruise heads out as Ethan Hunt for a sixth time in Mission Impossible: Fallout, a faithful Jehovah’s Witness is forced to shun her own sister because of a religious transgression in Apostasy, there’s Asian action in Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings, Tracking Edith tells the story of a socially engaged, known Austrian/British photographer who led a double life: as a secret agent for the KGB, Iceman is inspired by the discovery of ‘Ötzi The Iceman’ – the oldest known human mummy found in 1991 – approximately 5300 years after his death, Adam Sandler & co. make a quick buck by lending their voices to Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation, a teen dancer becomes a Youtube sensation in Breaking Through, and there’s a big tale to be told in The Giant Pear.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout is out now and while most series would be looking crazy-tired by their sixth outing, the fifth movie, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation was the best one since the first one, for me.
However, the downside with this is that it looks like there’s too many characters in this one, and a lot of them from the previous movie, so it’s like a continuation but it feels like not too much thought has gone into it. However, it is good that writer/director Christopher McQuarrie is back, since his stuff is almost always worth a look.
Another thing is that this is the first one in 3D… and watching the trailer, I can see there’s zero point to seeing it in 3D. Only one 3D live action movie in 2017 was actually MADE in 3D and that was Transformers: The Last Knight, so all the others were pretenders to the throne. Just stick with 2D for MI6 and don’t encourage them.
Mission: Impossible – Fallout also has some scenes opening up to the digital IMAX ratio of 1.90:1, but a lot of 2.35:1 films are doing that these days, since they’re shot in 1.90:1 to give a bit more extra picture in IMAX *and* for when some TV channels want a version they can show without thick black bars and which doesn’t require cropping the image.
I guess I should throw in a plot, here, but all there is so far is: Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team, along with some familiar allies, race against time after a mission gone wrong.
So…. fairly generic.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Read the review!
Apostasy
A faithful Jehovah’s Witness is forced to shun her own sister because of a religious transgression. As the separation draws out, she starts to question the meaning of God’s love.
As devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, sisters Alex and Luisa and their mother, Ivanna, are united in The Truth. Alex looks up to her confident older sister, while striving to follow in Ivanna’s footsteps as a ‘Good Witness’. But when Luisa falls pregnant by her college boyfriend it causes a painful rift in the family as Ivanna and Alex are told by the Elders of the Church that unless they can persuade Luisa to return to the fold they must shun her completely.
Winner of the BFI’s IWC bursary award for best British debut feature and featuring astounding performances from its central cast, Apostasy is a remarkably powerful, personal and authentic film that investigates the complex nature of faith, family, loyalty and love.
Based on a clip I’ve seen along with the trailer, this looks superb so I’m very much looking forward to checking it out.
Director: Dan Kokotajlo
Starring: Siobhan Finneran, Robert Emms, Steve Evets
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings
Detective Dee (Mark Chao) is forced to defend himself against the accusations of Empress Wu while investigating a crime spree.
This looks like it could be a fun thriller, albeit a bit too fanciful.
Director: Tsui Hark
Also stars: Kenny Lin, Carina Lau, William Feng
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Tracking Edith tells the story of a socially engaged, known Austrian/British photographer who led a double life: as a secret agent for the KGB.
When she wasn’t working as a Soviet agent, she was taking photos of Vienna’s and London’s workers and street children, of poverty and social deprivation. Being a secret agent doesn’t seem to have come naturally to the photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (born Edith Suschitzky in 1908, in Vienna, died 1973 in Brighton). She recruited Kim Philby, and was one of the architects of the Cambridge Five, the Soviet Union’s most successful spy ring in Great Britain.
Edith was Jungk’s great aunt, his mother’s cousin; the writer/film maker tries to unravel the truth about his aunt’s life, in Austria, Great Britain and Russia. A documentary about the renowned photographer, about a spy with a conscience and hidden secrets in a family.
I was partially grabbed by this trailer, so it could be worth a watch.
Director: Peter Stephan Jungk
Starring: Paul Broda, Valeri Chepelev, Julia Donat, Misha Donat, Duncan Forbes, Barbara Honigmann, Vlad Ketkovich, Anna Kim, Barry McLoughlin, Felix De Mendelssohn
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Iceman
Inspired by the discovery of ‘Ötzi The Iceman’, the oldest known human mummy found in 1991, approximately 5300 years after his death, this is an immersive, universal story of survival told with minimal dialogue in an extinct dialect and without subtitles, offering a unique and fascinating cinematic experience which walks in the footsteps of ancestry to investigate a five-thousand-year-old murder mystery.
The Ötztal Alps, more than 5300 years ago. A Neolithic clan has settled nearby a creek. It is their leader Kelab’s responsibility to be the keeper of the group’s holy shrine Tineka. While Kelab is hunting, the settlement is attacked. The members of the tribe are brutally murdered, amongst them Kelab’s wife and son, only one newborn survives… and Tineka is gone.
Blinded by pain and fury, Kelab is out for one thing alone – vengeance. He sets out after the murderers on what turns into a grand odyssey where he must fight constantly – for the infant’s survival; against the immense forces of nature; against hunters he encounters; and, amongst the loneliness of the quest, against a growing sense of doubt over the morality of his mission.
Watching the trailer, I get to a degree how it says it’s similar to The Revenant, but whatever the hype is about this film, I just didn’t get it at all.
Director: Felix Randau
Starring: Juergen Vogel, Susanne Wuest, Andre Hennicke, Franco Nero
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation
Mavis surprises Dracula with a family voyage on a luxury Monster Cruise Ship so he can take a vacation from providing everyone else’s vacation at the hotel. The rest of Drac’s Pack cannot resist going along. But once they leave port, romance arises when Dracula meets the mysterious ship Captain, Ericka. Now it’s Mavis’ turn to play the overprotective parent, keeping her dad and Ericka apart. Little do they know that his “too good to be true” love interest is actually a descendant of Abraham Van Helsing, ancient nemesis to Dracula and all other monsters.
I haven’t seen either of the other two films in the series, and this is doing not a lot for me.
Director: Genndy Tartakovsky
Starring: Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Asher Blinkoff, Kevin James, David Spade, Steve Buscemi, Keegan-Michael Key, Sadie Sandler, Molly Shannon, Fran Drescher, Mel Brooks
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Breaking Through
When Casey, a dancer who is discovered on YouTube, gets thrust into the modern world of internet celebrity and culture, she must find a way to balance her true identity with her online persona, or risk losing everything she cares about.
One for the teenage girl crowd… and I am not a teenage girl.
Writer/Director: John Swetnam
Stars: Anitta, Sophia Aguiar, Larry Bourgeois
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Giant Pear
Life in peaceful Sunnytown hasn’t been the same ever since the mayor went missing. This is especially true for close friends Mitcho and Sebastian, who don’t believe that their mayor simply disappeared. One evening, they find a message in a bottle from the mayor saying he is on a mysterious island and has made a fascinating discovery.
Also in the bottle is a seed — which grows overnight into a giant pear! Cautious and apprehensive, Mitcho and Sebastian climb aboard the pear and set sail in search of their mayor. On their journey they encounter several obstacles, including a bizarre run-in with a quirky professor.
This beautifully animated, tale based on the picture book by Jakob Martin Strid, retains its storybook quality as the adventure mounts as if with the turn of ever page.
If kids CGI movies are your bag, take a look, but it’s not mine, and it’ll be far overshadowed by Incredibles 2.
Directors: Amalie Næsby Fick, Jørgen Lerdam, Philip Einstein Lipski
Starring: Alfred Bjerre Larsen, Liva Elvira Magnussen, Peter Frödin
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
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.