| Rereleases |
THE FIRST OMEN 15
Top nun…
★★★★☆
OUT NOW CINEMAS
It’s a nun-derful life at the cinema these days. You wait years for a sister-and-Satan movie, and The Nun II and Immaculate materialise. But this smartly chilling, 70s-styled revisit to the Omen franchise is a cut above.
A classy prequel shot with understated atmosphere, The First Omen propels naive novitiate Margaret (Nell Tiger Free) into a creepy Catholic orphanage in 1971 Rome, where she bonds with disturbed orphan Carlita (Nicole Sorace) over their abusive childhoods.
First-time feature director Arkasha Stevenson (Channel Zero) sets a tense, chilling mood, bringing back the psychological horror of the 1976 film. This gives Margaret’s visions of devil claws and mysterious bestial rites a useful ambiguity – is she relapsing into mental instability, as Sonia Braga’s shrewd abbess insists? But when disgraced Father Brennan (Ralph Ineson) reveals a Catholic sect’s plan to breed the Antichrist from an orphan, the rope-swinging, pole-flying callbacks to The Omen ramp up the film from arty restraint to burgeoning body horror.
Stevenson crafts something female-driven and fresh from the film’s heritage, as Margaret digs into orphanage files (and its terrifying crypt) in a bid to save Carlita. Like Immaculate, there’s a strong message about post-Roe-vs-Wade female bodily autonomy, especially in the gory, feisty finale. Free’s fabulously no-holds-barred performance keeps things swinging along in high style.
THE VERDICT This female-centred Omen prequel is devilishly good at keeping its nun on the run.
OMEN (AUGURE) 15
★★★☆☆ OUT 26 APRIL CINEMAS
Belgian-Congolese rapper Baloji directs this unusual examination of characters all accused of witchcraft and sorcery. The first is Koffi (Marc Zinga), who returns to DR Congo with his white fiancée Alice (Lucie Debay) to reunite with his estranged family. What follows is an increasingly bizarre and fractured narrative, as Baloji examines the tensions between modernity and ancient traditions. Visually it’s splendidly unsettling, but the film’s anthology-like nature – as Koffi’s sister and mother enter the fray, alongside young local Paco (Marcel Otete Kabeya) – loses focus at crucial times.
THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN 15
★★★☆☆ OUT 26 APRIL CINEMAS
Rural Ireland is both the setting and the subject of Pat Collins’ contemplative adaptation of John McGahern’s award-winning novel, a film that studiously takes its time as it charts a year in the lives of a writer (Barry Ward) and an artist (Anna Bederke) who have left London in search of a more peaceful existence as part of a lakeside community. The wedding of one neighbour and the passing of another are the primary developments in this quietly moving celebration of the quotidian, the mundane and the ineffable beauty of nature.
RED HERRING TBC
★★★★☆ OUT 3 MAY CINEMAS, DIGITAL
How do you cope with the certainty and imminence of death? Diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, Kit Vincent responds by picking up his camera in this achingly intimate documentary. Discussing his illness with his partner and separated parents, Vincent refuses to tidy up the uncomfortable exchanges had. Instead, flashes of humour – and his dad’s conversion to Judaism – add moments of warmth, before Vincent’s declared determination to give loved ones ‘something to remember me by’ emerges as a profoundly affecting mission statement.
SCARYGIRL TBC
★★★☆☆ OUT 26 APRIL CINEMAS
Based on an ever-growing multimedia brand, this Aussie 3D animation follows young Arkie (Jillian Nguyen) on her quest to unite a divided world, using a knack for technology and one tentacle arm. Directed by Ricard Cussó and Tania Vincent, the coming-of-age adventure features a prolific cast of voice talents, including Anna Torv, Tim Minchin, Deborah Mailman and Sam Neill – the latter put to good use as the villainous Doctor Maybee. The aggressively jumbled character designs initially grate, but creative visuals and a heartwarming message save the day.
GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE 12A
★★★☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS
Co-written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, who also directs, this watchable reboot sequel shifts the action from Oklahoma to the saga’s spiritual home of New York. Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her kids (Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard) and ex-teacher Gary (Paul Rudd) are in the firehouse, keeping the city ghost-free when a mysterious brass orb causes problems. The sharp script, creepy antagonist and OG stars (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts) please but the overcrowded stage results in an unwieldy, if likeable, brand extension.
BUTTERFLY TALE U
★★☆☆☆ OUT NOW CINEMAS
A Canadian-German production, this sweet computer-animated children’s film captures a day in a bug’s life as two monarch butterflies, one-winged Patrick (Mena Massoud) and vertigofearing Jennifer (She-Hulk’s Tatiana Maslany), bond with caterpillar Marty (Lucinda Davis). But they’re all excluded from the flutter’s annual migration due to their inability to fly. While director Sophie Roy and the writers lead with messages of inclusivity and conservation, they’re hampered by flat visuals and an uninspiring story. Despite noble motivations, this leaden adventure never quite takes flight.
STEVE! (MARTIN): ADOCUMENTARY IN 2 PIECES TBC
★★★☆☆ OUT NOW APPLE TV+
From the ‘wild and craaazy guy’ of the 70s to the grumpy guy of Only Murders in the Building, Steve Martin has reinvented himself successfully for nearly 50 years. Morgan Neville’s affectionate, access-all-areas doc tries and fails bravely to cram Martin’s evolution into an overstuffed film of two unwieldy halves. The first half is cracking, tracing Martin’s rise from teen Disneyland magician to comic idol, but the bitty – if intimate - second half sorely misses the smart analysis that Martin’s many-phased career deserves.
CATCHING FIRE: THE STORY OF ANITA PALLENBERG TBC
★★★★☆ OUT 17 MAY CINEMAS
Andy Warhol, Roger Vadim, three of the Rolling Stones: for most of her 75 years, the subject of Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill’s documentary was defined for some by the men she worked, partied and slept with. Catching Fire serves as an overdue corrective to that androcentric narrative, using film clips, home movies and Pallenberg’s unpublished memoir (read by Scarlett Johansson) to reappraise and recontextualise an artist, actor and mother whose screen credits range from cult classics Barbarella and Performance to Absolutely Fabulous.
SCOOP 15
Spare slice…
★★★★☆ OUT NOW NETFLIX
Hotter than a Sloppy Giuseppe from Pizza Express in Woking, Prince Andrew’s disastrous 2019 Newsnight interview gobsmacked audiences and rocked the monarchy. This punchy behind-the-scenes drama does a great job of unpicking the underdog story of how booking producer Sam McAlister (a scrappy Billie Piper) captured the scoop of the decade.
Director Philip Martin gives Sam’s canny chasing of royal-related Jeffrey Epstein tip-offs a Working Girl (1988) vibe, as posh Newsnight journos scoff at the impossibility of an interview. And rather than spoofing Rufus Sewell’s bluff Prince Andrew, the film digs into the blinkered entitlement that led him and private secretary Amanda Thirsk (Keeley Hawes) to try changing his ‘Randy Andy’ reputation with a PR offensive.
Once McAlister reels in the royal, the film has a thriller’s pace. In trademark ‘Netflix London’ style, urgent mobile calls outside famous buildings and arguments in glass-walled offices ensue as the Newsnight team war-game the top-secret, high-stakes encounter.
In the gunfight-style tension of the interview, Gillian Anderson gives an uncanny portrayal of Emily Maitlis. Yet even she is outclassed by Sewell’s narcissistic but oddly charismatic prince, indulged by Palace yes-people into thinking he could charm the nation. There’s another how-Newsnight-nobbled-the-palace project in production, but Scoop will take some beating.
THE VERDICT This jaw-dropping tale of how Newsnight ended Prince Andrew’s career is a right royal scandal.