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This week, there are six new films out for you to choose from: the sequel we’ve been waiting 20 years for – T2 Trainspotting, real-life drama in Christine, war drama in Hacksaw Ridge, there’s a dictatorship in The White King, Holocaust drama in Denial, and a lot of CGI singing in…. Sing.
T2 Trainspotting is Danny Boyle’s sequel to the 1996 classic Trainspotting, partly based on Irvine Welsh’s novel Porno, and partly a brand new story. Plus, they couldn’t have the word Porno at your local multiplex, beaming out from their electronic display boards…
And the T2 part also harkens back, brilliantly, to 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day, another classic from that decade… if rather different in content.
And now there’s the official Red Band Trailer, so Choose a trailer with plenty of swearing and drugs…
The original cast are all back and 20 years older: Ewan McGregor as Renton, Robert Carlyle as Francis Begbie, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, and Ewen Bremner as Spud.
Lust For Life? I certainly have a lust for this sequel!
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Christine tells the true story of Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall – The BFG), a 1970s TV reporter struggling with depression and professional frustrations as she tries to advance her career. But what’s different about this journalist, it that she committed suicide on live television.
Also starring Dexter‘s Michael C Hall (no relation) and Tracy Letts, I definitely find this intriguing so want to see it.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Hacksaw Ridge is a war film with a plot so nonsensical I nearly lost the will to live while watching the trailer.
Two-time Spider-Man Andrew Garfield is WWII American Army medic Desmond T Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, and has a conscience that might get him killed… but obviously won’t because otherwise the film would end rather abruptly. Basically, he refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Or ‘Honour’ as we call it in Blighty. Then again, we still call the videogame series ‘Medal of Honor‘.
The film is trumpted as coming “from the director of Braveheart”, but it doesn’t state that that person is Hollywood troublemaker Mel Gibson. In addition, it also stars a less than stellar cast of Teresa Palmer, Sam Worthington, Hugo Weaving, Vince Vaughn, Rachel Griffiths and Point Break 2015‘s Luke Bracey.
Well, Mr Weaving is a great actor, but the rest?
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
iBoy
After being shot while calling for help trying to stop a violent attack on his high school girl, Tom (Bill Milner), a 16 year old boy, awakens from a coma to discover that fragments of his smart phone have embedded in his brain, giving him superhero powers. He uses this knowledge and technology to exact revenge on the gang responsible for the attack.
The film also stars Maisie Williams, Rory Kinnear and Miranda Richardson.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
The White King
Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Peter, and Djata and his mother Hannah are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again.
The film stars Jonathan Pryce, Olivia Williams, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Fiona Shaw, Agyness Deyn, Greta Scacchi and Clare-Hope Ashitey, but doesn’t look amazing to me, despite a decent cast.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Denial
Based on the acclaimed book “History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier,” Denial recounts Deborah E Lipstadt’s (Rachel Weisz) legal battle for historical truth against David Irving (Timothy Spall), who accused her of libel when she declared him a Holocaust denier. In the English legal system in Defamation, the burden of proof is on the accused, therefore it was up to Lipstadt and her legal team to prove the essential truth that the Holocaust occurred. Also starring Tom Wilkinson, the film is directed by Mick Jackson (Temple Grandin) and adapted for the screen by BAFTA and Academy Award nominated writer David Hare (The Reader).
Alas, despite some decent cast members, and the topic being important, it looks dull as ditchwater.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Sing looks like the laziest idea for a CGI kids movie ever as a koala called Buster recruits his best friend to help him drum up business for his theater by hosting a singing competition.
The extensive voice cast includes Taron Egerton, Scarlett Johansson, Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Nick Offerman, Seth MacFarlane, John C Reilly, Peter Serafinowicz and Jennifer Saunders. It’s written and directed by Garth Jennings, who brought us Son of Rambow and the godawful movie version of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.
Oh, and Creature Comforts got there a long time ago…
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.