Radheyan Simonpillai

Elvis is of course a tailor-made subject for Luhrmann, the Moulin Rouge director’s trademark bombast and razzle-dazzle so in tune with the singer’s rattle and roll, which comes through in both his biopic and now EPiC.

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple doesn’t quite live up to the earlier film’s promise. At best, it’s an ambitious and compelling enough staging ground biding time, with cruel violence more stomach-turning than ever, as it sets up the already-in-the-works final chapter in a planned trilogy

If Anderson fits like a glove in the new Naked Gun, it’s because her durability is as pleasantly unexpected as this franchise that’s refusing to heed the memo that reboots suck and studio comedy is dead.

Things play out as sentimentally as expected, while scratching the surface at something deeper, exploring the relationship people have to music, and how that can either change or stay frozen in time.

Boyle, who won the Best Director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, has often let his sentimental side get the best of him. But here there’s a maturity, gracefulness and elegance to how he hits those notes, though they’re nearly undone by a goofy but admittedly fun coda setting up the series’ next installment.

September 5 splices together its thoroughly researched dramatic recreations with the actual programming ABC aired, an initially nifty back and forth that quickly wears thin.

When In Flames premiered at Cannes last year, I compared it with Ari Aster’s Hereditary, but suggested Kahn’s film has more heart and conviction. I stand by that.

Mutant Mayhem is a giddily fun and relentlessly eye-pleasing rebranding for the Turtles, which, like the Spider-Verse movies, mixes up daring and inventive animation styles while embracing visual imperfections as part of its soulful artistry.

Touch, adapted from Olafur Johann Olafsson’s novel, is handsome, sentimental and restrained (admirably, in parts). But it also leaves a lot to be desired – yes, a movie about yearning left me yearning – chiefly when it comes to the central romance, which is presented as more ornamental than passionate.

Where Bloodlines excels is in the clever and often diabolical storytelling craft and visuals. There’s a decadence in the film-making that isn’t at odds with the campy nature of Final Destination but instead realizing its full potential.

The movie takes its time to get going, which can be frustrating given how thin the material feels along the way. But that patience also works in its favour during a lovely final act that doesn’t come off as maudlin and forced as this sort of melodrama usually tends to.

Clint Eastwood is still making movies at 94. That’s amazing. What’s more shocking is that Juror #2 is not just pretty good but arguably the Unforgiven director’s most satisfying work in well over a decade.

Daley and Goldstein aren’t here to reinvent. They love the tropes too much. It’s that fondness for what they mock with so much silly and snappy humour that makes Honor Among Thieves so charming. That affection is obvious especially when they punch up the familiar beats with inventive action and uncommonly stylistic direction.

For all its gestures toward trending conversations about our warped relationship with technology, and the entitled boys weaned on it, Companion is ultimately just a fun genre mash-up that pales in comparison to the superior movies it tends to pay homage to but elevated by its cast.

The script, the gags and the action remain mostly intact. But this time around, real actors and sets become deadweight to a story that soared in larger-than-life animated form.

It’s hard to stay mad at a movie for refusing to add things up, or resolve its mysteries in any traditionally satisfying ways, when getting lost with Qualley can be such a pleasure.

There’s a struggle throughout the movie to marry the human emotions to the surreal and supernatural spectacle.

Throughout it all, Winton remains a cypher. There’s no curiosity here about him or the people he dedicated his time to. There’s no emotional journey to help us understand him and the stubborn modesty that made him so reluctant to share his story.

Thunderbolts can be messy, sure. Pugh is the kind of star who can thrive in such mess.

The problem is, while alluding to the depressing state of things, the gleeful fun Gunn insists on having, with his kitschy aesthetic and silly humour, can feel forced.

The film is a fun and unsettling showcase for Kravitz, who proves herself to be an intentional and provocative filmmaker, putting jarring edits, precise framing and a sensational ensemble cast led by Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Adria Arjona and Geena Davis to great use.

Stripping the narrative of its gods and monsters, and almost two-thirds of the chapters, is great but the vacuum isn’t filled with much more than his two magnetic leads and consistently sumptuous cinematography. The Return is gorgeous to behold, but there just isn’t enough there.

The sequel to Twister – which pluralizes the title, while following the same beats as its predecessor – is serviceable. But it also misses what made director Jan de Bont’s disaster spectacle such chaotic fun to begin with.

Breezy, comically self-referential and totally likable. But its charms nevertheless feel like they came off an assembly line – one that has been engineered to deliver Marvel-like results, in animated form of course.

At two and a half hours, Oppenheimer’s strange and ambitious deconstruction of human behaviour – with its bleak but adorning visuals and its novel spin on ideas we’ve seen in The Hunger Games and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth – can also be draining. Maybe that’s intentional.

The Fantastic Four is here for a proper reset – a buoyant and frequently dazzling one at that, which sort of makes up for the failed movie adaptations of Marvel’s first family from the past.

Hikari and company mostly skim over the tension in a movie seemingly built out of highlight reels and lacking connective tissue.

Mescal and Pascal are both fine; though they often seem too overwhelmed by the tired plot machinations to really make an impression beyond how fine they both look in Roman garb.