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This weekend there are five new films out for you to choose from: comedy in Tammy, action in Transformers: Age of Extinction, a comedy in The Centenarian Who Climbed Out the Window and Vanished, some teen nonsense in Vampire Academy, and there’s a bit of an anomaly, since The Anomaly was meant to be released two weeks ago, but it’s only making an appearance this week. How bizarre.
Tammy
Tammy is a new comedy featuring Melissa McCarthy as a fat loudmouth who shouts a lot… so she’s really playing against type, here…
The plot, such that it is, is that she has been fired from a fast food restaurant and returns home only to find her husband enjoying a romantic meal with the neighbour. She quickly packs her things and travels down three houses to her parent’s home. Upon denied use of her mom’s car to drive to Niagara Falls, she quickly resorts to an “ailing” grandmother, who also lives in the home…
However, instead of traveling alone, Grandma Pearl (Susan Sarandon) wants in on the road trip. After realizing Pearl has the funds, they hit the road, and she soon proves to be quite the alcoholic despite her diabetes, and Tammy quickly turns into the “baby-sitter”. From finding love in a bar to robbing a Toppy Jack’s in order to bail Pearl out of jail,the quirky adventure will have you finding yourself riding along for the misadventures of Tammy.
Also starring Sandra Oh, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Dan Aykroyd, Kathy Bates and Gary Cole, Tammy is released in the UK on July 4th, and despite my reservations when the first trailer came out, this new UK one really builds on that and it’s a film I very much want to see. I will burn in hell for saying that…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Transformers: Age of Extinction
Transformers: Age of Extinction is the fourth film in Michael Bay’s take on those little toys you used to be able to buy in shops in the 80s, and it’s the fourth film we don’t really need. Okay, I’ve only seen one of these – the first one – and it was incredibly tedious. Yes, I enjoy an action film but this was just relentlessly robots bashing robots.
A mechanic (Mark Wahlberg) and his daughter (Nicola Peltz – The Last Airbender) make a discovery that brings down Autobots and Decepticons – and a paranoid government official – on them.
It also stars Stanley Tucci, Bingbing Li, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles and James Bachman, and it’s not out on Friday, but Saturday – which means that it won’t make next week’s charts, but will actually have a 9-day “weekend” in terms of box office, and so will easily by No.1 the following week. Hence, they’re clearly so unsure it’ll get to No.1 on its own merit that they have to cheat by getting almost two full weekends out of it.
Bad Neighbours also did that. I wonder if this is the start of a trend.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Centenarian Who Climbed Out the Window and Vanished
The Centenarian Who Climbed Out the Window and Vanished is based on the internationally best-selling novel by Jonas Jonasson, and it tells the unlikely story of a 100-year-old man who decides it’s not too late to start over. For most people it would be the adventure of a lifetime, but Allan Karlsson’s unexpected journey is not his first. For a century he’s made the world uncertain, and now he is on the loose again.
Starring Robert Gustafsson in the title role, plus Iwar Wiklander, David Wiberg, Mia Skäringer and Jens Hultén, this looks fantastic, so I’d very much recommend this… if you can find a cinema showing it, of course.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Vampire Academy
Vampire Academy sees Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) as a dhampir, half-vampire and half-human, who is training to be a guardian at St Vladimir’s Academy along with many others like her. There are good and bad vampires in their world: Moroi, who co-exist peacefully among the humans and only take blood from donors, and also possess the ability to control one of the four elements – water, earth, fire or air; and Strigoi, blood-sucking, evil vampires who drink to kill.
Rose and other dhampir guardians are trained to protect Moroi and kill Strigoi throughout their education. Along with her best friend, Princess Vasilisa Dragomir, a Moroi and the last of her line, with whom she has a nigh unbreakable bond, Rose must run away from St Vladimir’s, in order to protect Lissa from those who wish to harm the princess and use her for their own means
Also Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky, Gabriel Byrne, Olga Kurylenko, Sarah Hyland, Sami Gayle, Claire Foy and Joely Richardson, the trailer doesn’t do anything for me.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Anomaly
The Anomaly is about a former soldier who is taken captive and awakens in the back of a van where he learns that he only has 9 minutes and 47 seconds to figure out how he got there.
Directed by Noel Clarke, he stars in it alongside Ian Somerhalder, Brian Cox, Alexis Knapp and Luke Hemsworth, this looks like an absolute cracker of a movie, so I’m very much looking forward to it.
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.