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This weekend there are TEN new films out for you to choose from: comedy in Wiener-Dog, hard-hitting drama in ID2: Shadwell Army, a Chinese remake of Julia Roberts’ comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding, thriller in Nerve, comedy in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Jaws revisited in The Shallows, Pete has a dragon in… Pete’s Dragon, comedy horror in The Wrong Floor, seen-it-all-before-alleged-action in The Wave, and overhyped tearjerking drama in Valley of Love.
Wiener-Dog is a bizarre film from writer/director Todd Solondz (Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse) which chronicles the life of a dachshund as it travels around the country, spreading comfort and joy.
So, it’s a bit like The Littlest Hobo but without a whistly theme tune… maybe.
This looks weird as hell but it was also a damn sight more intriguing than most films on general release, and it’s difficult to describe, so just check out the trailer below and it’ll win you over.
The film also stars Charlie Tahan, Greta Gerwig, Zosia Mamet, Ellen Burstyn, Danny DeVito, Kieran Culkin, Clara Mamet and Julie Delpy.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
ID2: Shadwell Army
A young British Asian, Mo (BBC Doctors‘ Simon Rivers) is a fast-rising police officer who goes under cover infiltrating Shadwell’s resurgent hooligan element, who are fired up by Shadwells’s takeover by a Russian oligarch and their unlikely adventure into European competition.
Mo quickly becomes embroiled in the local schism between the BNP and EDL and plans to build a new mosque in the shadow of the Shadwell ground creates an explosive environment in which football and political violence form a perfect storm of social unrest. In the midst of this, Mo is faced with the essential existential question of of who he really is and where he really belongs. It’s 20 years on and clever Trevor is now chief super, but what happens to the rest of the gang?
Also starring Linus Roache, Paul Popplewell, Andy Rush, Neil Pearson, Benjamin Harris, Lee Ross, Duncan Airlie James, Christine Tremarco and Perry Fenwick, while this obviously looks very similar to Reece Dinsdale’s ID, it looks to be as hard-hitting as is required, so I definitely want to see this, especially since I haven’t seen anything else with Rivers in since he left Doctors.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
My Best Friend’s Wedding (2016 Chinese remake)
A successful fashion editor, Gu Jia (Qi Shu), realises she has romantic feelings for her childhood best friend when he invites her to his lavish London wedding.
Also starring Shaofeng Feng, Victoria Song and Rhydian Vaughan, basically, this is a Chinese remake of the Julia Roberts comedy from the late 90s, so while I’d normally give it a miss, I’ll watch anything with the lovely Qi Shu in.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Nerve stars Emma Roberts (We’re The Millers) as Vee, a high school senior who finds herself immersed in an online game of truth or dare, where her every move starts to become manipulated by an anonymous community of “watchers.”
After taking the dare to kiss a stranger (Ian – Dave Franco) for $100, she then has to follow him for $200, and then the situation goes on from there. It looks like a non-bizarre version of David Fincher’s The Game, and even they talk *about* playing a game.
Directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (both for Catfish), from a script by Jessica Sharzer, based on the novel by Jeanne Ryan, the film also stars Juliette Lewis, Jonny Beauchamp and Samira Wiley, and it looks okay, but not a lot more than that. However, I have heard good things about it, so…
Nerve is out now in cinemas. Pay £10 for that in the cinema? They’ve got a bloody nerve… Eh? Eh? I’m here all week, tip your waitress.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates shows that the stoner/party comedy idea is stretching beyond breaking point.
Mike and Dave are Adam DeVine and Zac Efron. Their sister is getting married and somehow – in Zac’s case – they can’t get a girlfriend, so cue the inappropriate Alice and Tatiana (Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza) who manage to party harder than they do.
And despite the man baring their chests, female nudity is frowned upon in any form by the US, hence there’s no nipples on show from Ms Kendrick or Ms Plaza, in the trailer at least. However, as it’s the Red Band trailer, there is a lot of fruity language.
There’s nothing major in the CV for director Jake Szymanski and somehow a script has been put together – Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien are responsible for that.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
The Shallows looks like Jaws-lite for a new generation (or on a par with Jaws IV: The Revenge)
The billing states that in this taut thriller, Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing alone on a secluded beach when she is attacked by a great white shark and stranded just a short distance from shore. Though she is only 200 yards from her survival, getting there proves the ultimate contest of wills.
Unfortunately, since this is Blake Lively, who was very much ‘Blake UNlively’ in The Age of Adaline, you wouldn’t care less if she snuffs it.
The film also stars Óscar Jaenada and Sedona Legge, is written by Anthony Jaswinski and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night, and no doubt plenty more Liam Neeson pieces of crap to come).
The Shallows looks to have a very shallow script and I’m in two minds whether I’d rather be eaten by a shark than watch this.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Pete’s Dragon is the modern remake of a the adventure of an orphaned boy named Pete (surprise, surprise) and his best friend Elliott, who’s a dragon, if you weren’t up to speed with the plot.
The big-name cast includes Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World), Robert Redford (All Is Lost), Karl Urban (Star Trek: Into Darkness) and Wes Bentley (Interstellar), while the lad called Pete is Oakes Fegley, and no doubt like most child actors, we’ll never hear of him again after this.
The film is directed by David Lowery (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) who also co-wrote the script with Toby Halbrooks, based on the original story by SS Field and Seton I Miller.
I won’t give a flying dragon about this one, though…
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Wrong Floor
Danny’s father, a pioneering research scientist, has disappeared. Suspecting foul-play, Danny (Carl Hamill) goes undercover at the research centre where he worked. He soon discovers that there is something sinister at work. It becomes a race against time to save himself, his father and the entire planet! What stands in his way? Gangsters, toxic hobos, shady agents, clown killers, badly dressed desperado chavs, a renegade swat team, street thugs, mad scientists, a news reporter out for blood, a town full of hatred and monster with a taste for dismemberment. Welcome to Haven Port City – It’s wrong on so many levels.
Directed by Marc Hamill (no, not that one) and also starring Heather Percival, MJ Simpson, Chris Postlethwaite and Ron Hamill, I can see this film is clearly meant to be tongue-in-cheek and low budget, but it doesn’t cut it as that. Even Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead had better production values!
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Wave
Based on the fact that mountain pass Åkneset, located in the Geiranger fjord in Norway, one day will fall out and create a violent tsunami of over 80 meters that will crush everything in its path before it hits land in Greenland. A geologist gets caught in the middle of it and a race against against time begins.
Starring Kristoffer Joner, Ane Dahl Torp, Jonas Hoff Oftebro and Edith Haagenrud-Sande, we’ve seen this sort of thing countless times in disaster movies and we really do not need to see it again.
To that end, the trailer gives enough away, anyway, so just watch that, and you have seen the film.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Valley of Love
Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu go to a strange appointment in Death Valley, California. They have not seen each other for years and are here to answer to an invitation from their son Michael, a photographer, which they received after his suicide, six months ago.
Valley of Love has seemingly had a ton of critical acclaim, but I can’t see why. Can the dead come back to life? Really?? What do you think!
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.