Your night in: Every movie on Melbourne TV on Friday - rated and slated
From a star ballerina being blackmailed to become a weaponised Russian agent to the weird and wild world of competition ice skating, there’s plenty of great viewing on TV tonight. Here’s our guide.
Leigh Paatsch
Don't miss out on the headlines from Leigh Paatsch. Followed categories will be added to My News.
RED SPARROW
**1/2
8.30PM 7MATE
When not pressing as many pervy buttons as it can - you’ll lose count of how often Jennifer Lawrence is stripped naked, beaten and worse - Red Sparrow can work up an intriguing take on a new Cold War. Lawrence plays Dominika, a former star ballerina blackmailed to become a sexually weaponised Russian agent who must target her wiles at an unsuspecting American spy (Joel Edgerton). The basic thriller stuff - though arguably a touch too over-complicated for its own good - has a way of getting you leaning forward in your seat. However, the other dirty, damaging stuff - particularly the bone-breaking, flesh-piercing violence - keeps daring you to look at the floor and hope for the best.
THE RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN
***
6.30PM 7FLIX
This loose remake of the 1975 Disney-produced hit Escape to Witch Mountain is an entertaining hybrid of chase flick and sci-fi drama. AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig play a pair of extraterrestrial teenage siblings who have landed here on a secret mission. While taking flight from a gung-ho FBI Agent (Ciaran Hinds), they befriend a resourceful taxi driver (Dwayne don’t call me The Rock anymore, OK?” Johnson). A touch violent for a PG-rated film, but quite exciting in its best stretches, too.
THE KARATE KID
***
8.30PM 7FLIX
A surprisingly worthwhile re-imagining of the 1984 smash hit The Karate Kid. The famous tale of a whippetty young kid who short-circuits the power of bullies in his life remains pretty much unmessed with. 12-year-old Dre (Jaden Smith) is a happy-enough American kid who has recently moved to Beijing with his single mum (Taraji P. Henson). Our hero soon becomes too sad for words when he becomes a target for a local gang of rough-nuts being tutored by a psychotic Kung fu master. After suffering a number of brutal beatings - scenes of which are particularly confronting for a PG-rated film, it should be added - Dre finds an unlikely mentor in his building’s reclusive janitor, Mr Han (Jackie Chan).
THE NEXT THREE DAYS
**1/2
9.00PM CH. 9
This remake of the 2008 French thriller Pour Elle kicks off on a strong note, establishing an intriguing premise that poses a tricky ethical conundrum. If your spouse was imprisoned for life for a crime they did not commit, would you move heaven and earth to free them by any means necessary? Russell Crowe plays a mild-mannered college professor who answers in the affirmative, researching and staging an amateur jailbreak to free his wrongly convicted missus (Elizabeth Banks). The film has some exciting stretches and fine *gotcha!* moments to its name, but runs way too long for its own good. Had the pacing been tightened up, this really could have been something. Written and directed by Paul Haggis (Crash).
AMERICAN ASSASSIN
**1/2
9.45PM GEM
Say hello to Mitch Rapp, a can-do counter-terrorism operative rising through the ranks of the CIA. The most popular creation of the late best-selling author Vince Flynn, Rapp (played by Maze Runner heart-throb Dylan O’Brien) needs an all-stops-out origin story to find quick traction with audiences. This rudimentary run-and-gun action thriller does the job in largely workmanlike fashion, save for the surprise sighting of prestige actor Michael Keaton (Birdman, Spotlight) getting his kicks as Rapp’s tough old boot of a mentor.
THE LORAX
**
7.30PM GO!
There’s this movie The Lorax, and I think you should know. Ol’ Doc Seuss would loathe it,
he just wouldn’t go. When Seuss wrote The Lorax, t’was a swift-impact read. An eco-friendly message, with some biz about Thneeds. But the movie, the movie! Well, what can I say? If it ran just 10 minutes, it would still waste your day. Look, there is good stuff in there, as of course there should be : the love for our planet, and its truffula trees. But the movie, the movie! It often goes slack. Too much loud, brash cartooning, voiced by Efron (the Zac). For what little goes right, there’s so much going wrong. Many preachy montages, and the odd cheesy song. So who should attend? Let me put it nice-ler : it’s a maybe for Once-lers, and a no-go for Twice-lers.
BLADES OF GLORY
***1/2
9.10PM GO!
Will Ferrell is in cracking form in this ridiculously comedy set in the weird, wild world of competition ice skating. Ferrell’s hopelessly absurd odd-couple repartee with co-star Jon Heder is priceless stuff. The pair play disgraced Olympic figure skaters who join forces to beat a lifetime ban from competition. If you loved Anchorman or Dodgeball, you’ll certainly dig this.
THE PROGRAM
***1/2
7.30PM WORLD MOVIES
A provocative primer on the enduring ignominy of disgraced cycling psychopath Lance Armstrong. There has already been a number of superb documentaries about how the Texan road-racer took us all for a ride while “winning” seven straight Tours de France. Now it is the turn of a traditional feature film to re-enact the sorry debacle for the public record. If the docos carefully pointed fingers at their sinister subject, The Program is all about raising one digit in the same general direction. What the movie does lack in fine detail, it mostly makes up for with a sickening physical representation of Armstrong (played solidly enough under trying conditions by Ben Foster) at the height of his war on honesty. While following what is now a well- worn route here, The Program’s most lasting value may be when it is shown to young, ambitious sportspeople considering a pro sports career. Co-stars Chris O’Dowd, Jesse Plemons, Dustin Hoffman.
FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
****
9.25PM WORLD MOVIES
A gritty and engrossing real-life sports drama, based on the true story of a talented high-school football team from the backblocks of West Texas. The game sequences do stand out, but this refreshingly no-frills affair also finds time to question the value of the win-at-all-costs ethos rife in modern sport. Definitely worth a look, even if you’re only familiar with the (rather excellent) TV spin-off of the same name. Stars Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Derek Luke.
Originally published as Your night in: Every movie on Melbourne TV on Friday - rated and slated