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New movies to watch now: Smurfs, Superman, a gay rom-com and Spanish battlers

By Jake Wilson, Karl Quinn and Sandra Hall
Updated

SMURFS
★½
Rated G, 92 minutes

Hollywood is so lavishly stocked with guys named Chris, it can be hard to keep up. I had assumed, until I checked, that Smurfs was the work of Christopher Miller, the co-director of The Lego Movie, though it seemed oddly conventional coming from a filmmaker who used to be known as a hip innovator in the field of family entertainment.

The Smurfs are back, including No Name (James Corden) and Smurfette (Rihanna).

The Smurfs are back, including No Name (James Corden) and Smurfette (Rihanna).Credit: Paramount Animation

As it turns out, this reboot is by his fellow animator Chris Miller, who brought us Shrek the Third and Puss in Boots – although both do wacky fantasy lands, pop culture shoutouts and hero’s journeys, so the difference is only a matter of degree.

There’s less risk of getting confused about the Smurfs, small blue creatures who live in a woodland village and possess one notable trait apiece, sometimes represented by a signature prop: Brainy Smurf, voiced by Xolo Mariduena, wears glasses, Vanity Smurf (Maya Erskine) carries a mirror, and so on.

These markers aside, they all look identical, except for Papa Smurf (John Goodman), who has a beard and wears a red cap rather than a white one, and the blonde-haired Smurfette (Rihanna), by tradition the only female Smurf, sculpted out of clay by the evil wizard Gargamel (J.P. Karliak), who intended her as a femme fatale to lure the other Smurfs into captivity.

This bizarre but long-standing origin story is more or less the only interesting thing about the Smurfs, and was central to Smurfs: The Lost Village, their last big-screen vehicle in 2017 (in that one Smurfette was voiced by Demi Lovato; before that she was Katy Perry).

In this latest reboot we appear to have regressed: the focus is on the brand-new character of No-Name Smurf (James Corden) who hasn’t found the “thing” that would let him stand out from the crowd.

Smurfette’s “thing,” essentially, is being a girl, which is a tricky matter and always has been, although in her current incarnation she’s also meant to be tough and strong, meaning she’s resolved her own identity issues and can spend her time reassuring the protagonist that being a total blank doesn’t make him any less terrific.

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In fairness, Smurfette does eventually get the chance to confront her creator, following a big smurfing adventure that sees a selected group of Smurfs travelling through a series of magic portals to Paris, the Australian outback, and points beyond.

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Another subplot sees Papa Smurf reunited with his gruff but friendly brother Ken (Nick Offerman), allowing the pair to model what a healthy family dynamic looks like, in contrast to Gargamel’s doomed efforts to win the approval of his own sneering brother Razamel (Karliak again).

Aside from all the family-therapy stuff, there are some appealing backdrops in an old-fashioned Disney style, a few neat gags involving speech bubbles, and … truthfully that’s more or less it, unless you’re keen to hear Corden singing a lachrymose ballad about his search for identity. None of it is more than mildly toxic, but it would appear that Shrek-sequel Chris just hasn’t found his thing yet.
Reviewed by Jake Wilson
Smurfs is in cinemas now.

SUPERMAN ★★★
(M) 130 minutes

Zanier than Zack Snyder’s Justice League, more crammed with comic-book lore than an Avengers sequel, capable of reaching the top of the global box office in a single bound … yes, it’s James Gunn’s Superman, possibly the most-hyped cinematic reboot in the history of reboots, and also a perfectly adequate piece of light entertainment.

David Corenswet has taken on the iconic role of Superman.

David Corenswet has taken on the iconic role of Superman.Credit: AP

New beginning or not, a recap is required. Having written and directed three Guardians of the Galaxy films for Marvel, Gunn was poached by the rival DC Studios, which tasked him with launching a brand-new cinematic universe featuring all the beloved DC characters, with Superman recast as the suitably square-jawed David Corenswet (Pearl).

What all this amounts to is that if this new Superman is a hit, we can count on approximately two dozen movies like it, though not all of them made by Gunn, or with his particular flair.

The audacity peaks in the opening sequence, which shows us a wounded Superman lying in a vast Antarctic wasteland, somewhere near his fabled Fortress of Solitude, the blood on the snow the same hue as the S on his cape. And wait … no, it couldn’t be … why yes, it is Krypto the Superdog bounding to the rescue!

That’s Gunn all over: he likes bright colours, he likes things to be a little bit grisly, and if there’s anything in the source material that might be deemed too ridiculous for a 21st-century audience to accept, he’s duty bound to work it in.

David Corenswet as Superman with Nicholas Hoult as his nemesis, Lex Luthor.

David Corenswet as Superman with Nicholas Hoult as his nemesis, Lex Luthor.Credit: Warner Bros.

This is an extremely busy movie, aimed at reintroducing not just Superman but the whole parallel universe he inhabits, where so-called “meta-humans” have been part of Earth history for three centuries (many appear more or less prominently, with Edi Gathegi’s no-nonsense Mr Terrific coming closest to stealing the show).

Sensibly, Gunn assumes we all know by now that his hero was dispatched to Earth as an infant following the destruction of his home planet Krypton, and that he works for the Daily Planet in the guise of the mild-mannered Clark Kent.

Also already up and running is his on-and-off romance with fellow reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who’s fully aware of her man’s secret identity and not above needling him about some of his choices, particularly when it comes to intervening in global conflicts.

While Superman may no longer openly fight for the “American way”, something of the kind remains implicit, as does his status as the most prominent immigrant success story of them all.

With the arch-villainous Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult, an improvement on Jesse Eisenberg), the topical resonance is more pointed. There may be no strict proof that Gunn is drawing on a specific real-life model – but who comes to mind when you think of a blowhard tech billionaire with a raging sense of his own inadequacy and a doomed longing to be adored by the public?

It can feel as if Gunn believes more in Lex than he does in Corenswet’s Superman, who, compared with Christopher Reeve’s definitive interpretation, takes some getting used to: a good guy, yes, but smirky, a bit full of himself, and hardly more emotionally mature than Gunn’s typical heroes. On the other hand, the notion of having the character wrestle with his dark side leads nowhere: he doesn’t really have a dark side, in this incarnation at least.

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In this, he differs drastically from Gunn himself, who feels obliged to keep his usual bloodlust in check, even where the villains are concerned – there’s one cold-blooded murder and a bit of implied animal torture, but by his standards it’s mild stuff.

Supposing this Superman soars high enough, I’m both curious and anxious about what might happen when his overseer really comes out to play.
Reviewed by Jake Wilson
Superman is in cinemas now.

A Nice Indian Boy
★★★½
M, 96 minutes

A Nice Indian Boy is a rom-com of sorts, and predictable in many respects, but it’s far from a cynical cookie-cutter exercise. It clearly means the world to its director and its writers, each of whom is deeply invested in the material in their own way, and that gives it an air of sincerity that elevates it, even as it sometimes threatens to smother the life out of it.

Naveen (Karan Soni) and Jay (Jonathan Groff) first encounter each other at a Hindu temple.

Naveen (Karan Soni) and Jay (Jonathan Groff) first encounter each other at a Hindu temple.Credit: Roadshow

Naveen Gavaskar (Karan Soni) is a doctor, the son of Indian immigrants, a Hindu, a fan of Bollywood, and gay. It’s a complex and sometimes contradictory masala.

Naveen is obsessed with weddings – the film opens with a lavish bash for his sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani) and her husband – but deeply conflicted, as there is no place in his religious, cultural or family tradition for a gay celebration. He feels excluded from the thing he most desires.

There is also no potential husband until the charming and easygoing Jay (Jonathan Groff, the voice of Olaf and Kristoff in the Frozen films, and King George in Hamilton) enters his world.

Theirs is a classic rom-com meet-cute: Naveen is praying to Ganesh at a temple when he senses Jay behind him. They don’t talk, but when Jay later turns up to take photographic portraits at the hospital where Naveen works, the spark of romance is lit.

Weddings. parties, everything: The movie opens with a traditional ceremony for Naveen’s sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani).

Weddings. parties, everything: The movie opens with a traditional ceremony for Naveen’s sister Arundhathi (Sunita Mani).Credit: Roadshow

Naveen is such a tightly wound coil, though, that he’s forever on the brink of blowing up this fledgling relationship. He winces when Jay sings (in a complicated backstory, Jay was a foster child eventually adopted by Indian parents, and is a huge fan of Bollywood). He is ashamed of his family, but equally ashamed of Jay when he finally allows them to meet him. He is even afraid to admit he wants the big Bollywood spectacle as part of his own romantic wish fulfillment.

That all makes Naveen difficult to root for, especially in the first half of the movie. It also makes it hard to determine whether his parents are really the reactionary villains he depicts them as. Mum Megha (Zarna Garg) and Dad Archit (Harish Patel) certainly have their idiosyncrasies, but their arranged marriage appears to have thrived in its own prickly way. There’s more than one way to reach a happy ending.

Director Roshan Sethi is a doctor, a gay man, and – as he was preparing to make the film in Canada in late 2023 – about to wed his partner of many years, despite his Hindu mother’s objections.

Madhuri Shekar wrote the play on which the film is based during COVID while feeling intense pressure from her otherwise liberal parents to get married in a traditional Hindu ceremony. Screenwriter Eric Randall adapted the play as he was about to wed his boyfriend.

You can sense all that deep personal investment on the screen. A Nice Indian Boy may not break too many rules, but it does play the rom-com game with an uncommonly high level of compassion and commitment that’s to be applauded.
Reviewed by Karl Quinn
A Nice Indian Boy is in cinemas now

EL 47
Rated M.
110 minutes
In cinemas July 10
★★★★

When Franco, the Spanish dictator, died in 1975 after decades of fascist rule, the effect on the country’s film industry was immediate.

Forty years of pent-up grievances and frustrations exploded on to the screen in a display of colour, movement and melodrama. And it shows no signs of dissipating. I’m happy to say restraint still plays a minor role in the language of Spanish cinema.

But it can get serious. The director, Marcel Barrena, who favours social realism drawn from true stories, looks back to the Franco era in the opening scenes of EL 47.

Eduard Fernandez is one of Spain’s big stars, but you’d hardly know it in this role.

Eduard Fernandez is one of Spain’s big stars, but you’d hardly know it in this role.Credit: Lucia Faraig

It’s 1958 and a community of working-class people who have been forced from Extremadura and Andalusia by rising real estate prices and rapacious landlords, have bought small plots of land in Torre Baro, a hilly area on the outskirts of Barcelona. The terms of this arrangement are unbelievably harsh. They can build shanties if they can get them up in a single night. If their roofs are not on by dawn, the Civil Guard will come in and tear them down.

Against all the odds, they manage this with a collective effort, getting together to erect one house at a time. And 20 years later, most of these people are still in Torre Baro, having made the shacks into relatively comfortable houses. But the power and water supply is unreliable, the roads are unpaved and potholed and there’s no public transport.

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Manolo Vital and his wife, Carmen (Clara Segura), a former nun who left her order to marry him, are unofficial community leaders. She teaches the children to read and write, while he’s the one who pushed everybody to work together on their houses in establishing the settlement.

He’s played by Eduard Fernández, one of Spain’s big stars, but you’d hardly know it. Fernández has poured himself into the portrait of an ordinary man made remarkable by having to spend much of his life dealing with extraordinary circumstances.

Bluff and a little scruffy with a paunch and a weathered face, Manolo looks as if his activist days are well behind him. He’s a bus driver on Route 47 and he walks down the hill to work every day, proud of the skill with which he negotiates the Barcelona traffic and pleased to greet the passengers who travel with him every morning.

It’s not hard to see what’s going to happen next even if you know nothing about the real Manolo and the act of rebellion that catapulted his name into newspaper headlines and saw him honoured with a memorial in Torre Baro.

I think the facts of it all may have included few more wrinkles and twists but Barrena and his co-writer, Alberto Marini, have chosen to leave them out, shaping their script into a classic triumph of the underdog tale as Manolo gradually becomes obsessed with his plan to give his neighbourhood a long-awaited bus service.

So there’s not much narrative suspense but there is pleasure to be had in getting to know him and Carmen and seeing what they and their neighbours are up against in simply securing the basics of existence – food, shelter, warmth and the ability to light their homes and educate their children.

This is where Barrena’s strengths lie. Celebrated for his documentaries, he has a sharp eye for the telling details of everyday living – the effort needed for an elderly woman to haul a shopping trolley up a flight of steps, the humiliation of a mother whose child can read and write although she herself has never had the chance to learn.

I left his film with a strong sense of the Franco regime’s enduring influence on Spanish bureaucracy and just how much the country’s films are still doing to bring it to light.

Reviewed by Sandra Hall
El 47 is in cinemas now.

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Original URL: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/culture/movies/superman-review-james-gunn-20250708-p5mde4.html