Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated and slated
Tom Cruise brings the stunts as Jack Reacher, a mutant amphibian feasts on the citizens of Seoul in Host and a horrifying true crime documentary chills in American Murder. Here’s a preview of all your TV listings tonight.
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THE HOST
****
7.30PMM VICELAND
In this early burst of brilliance from master director Bong Joon-Ho (Parasite), a chemical spill in Seoul’s Han River spawns a massive mutant amphibian. The un-named organism’s first foray on dry land unleashes an unforgettably thrilling sequence of action filmmaking. Fast, angry and hungry, this crazed beast begins feasting on the slower citizens of the South Korean capital before scooping up a few live specimens to snack on later at home in a nearby sewer. Meanwhile, a do-nothing dad (Song Kang-ho) persuades his household to do something about the vicious visitor when he discovers his missing teenage daughter (Ko Ah-sung) is still fighting for her life in that sewer. Remarkably, it is this seemingly cliched quest for parental redemption that ultimately gives The Host a passion and a power not normally associated with a typical monster movie.
JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK
**1/2
8.30PM CHANNEL 7
In his first, self-titled movie from 2012, Jack Reacher bore only a passing resemblance to that lone-wolf righter of wrongs from the many books by pulp author Lee Child. Whether this was due to the against-type casting of Tom Cruise, or the overall glum’n’grubby mood of the picture, one thing was truly certain: the only way was up after such a downer of a start. Therefore news that Never Go Back achieves a minor, but marked improvement over its predecessor is worth noting. Plotting here is as gruffly generic as Jack himself. A bonkers federal conspiracy sees Jack re-drafted back into the army against his will, so he can be court-martialed for (sigh) a murder he didn’t commit. Naturally, Jack grants himself bail, and embarks on a reckless run-for-it towards New Orleans at Mardi Gras time — as you do — in the company of a disgraced officer who might be his next girlfriend (Cobie Smulders), and a dishevelled teen who might be his long-lost daughter (Danika Yarosh).
AFTER EARTH
*1/2
8.30PM GO!
An indecipherably inert action flick sees out-of-form director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) stuck in the same snoozy rut as his worst film, the notorious The Last Airbender. The story begins when a father-son combo of space-travelling Earthlings are forced to crash-land on their now-abandoned home planet. The dad, Cypher (Will Smith), has broken both of his legs upon impact. So it is up to his teenage boy Kitai (Jaden Smith) to embark on an arduous trek to find the missing rescue beacon that will save them from certain death. Any potential to raise a pulse as Kitai does battle with mutant wildlife of the future is undercut by an overwhelming atmosphere of dullness. No surprise, really, when so much of the film is driven by Will Smith robotically ordering his kid around via a fancy camera phone.
THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST (MA15+)
**1/2
7.30PM WORLD MOVIES
This drab political thriller is not unlike a relaunched brand of margarine. The creators obviously have the best of intentions, but cannot avoid the blandest of outcomes. Based on the best-selling book by Mohsin Hamid, the story centres on a Pakistani academic (Riz Ahmed) suspected of masterminding anti-US terrorist activities in Lahore. As a hostage crisis nears its peak, the rabble-rousing man of mystery recounts his former days as a materialist man of money on Wall Street. By the time this flashbacked business is done with, most viewers will be done with the film as well. Though definitely well-acted and well-reasoned, there is something quite flat and uninvolving about the tale. Guilty of all charges to cause grievously honourable boredom. Co-stars Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber, Kiefer Sutherland.
RAMPANT
(NOT RATED)
9.45pm VICELAND
Never seen it. Your guess is as good as mine here. Official synopsis for this Korean historical fantasy is not exactly the kind of stuff that forms queues at the box-office: “Lee Chung is a Prince of Joseon, but he has been taken hostage to the Qing Dynasty. He enjoys boozing, womanizing and gambling. He is also an excellent swordsman.”
THREE MOVIE PICKS FOR STREAMING OR RENTAL
AMERICAN MURDER: THE FAMILY NEXT DOOR (MA15+)
****
NETFLIX
A true-crime documentary far more chilling, yet also emotionally affecting than works of this type generally tend to be. In 2018, married mother Shannan Watts disappeared from her Colorado home, along with both of her infant daughters. I will spare you the horrifying details of what became of them. All you really need to know as American Murder begins is that the most likely suspect — husband and father Chris Watts — confessed to the crimes before too long. British filmmaker Jenny Popplewell resists indulging in the kind of exploitative reading of the case that has already spawned a Dr Phil special and a Lifetime feature movie. A persistent poster to social media, Shanann unwittingly left behind pieces of a puzzle that, when put together, revealed a marriage to a monster that was only ever going to end one way. Her many personal video confessionals and text message conversations are also blended with extraordinary body-cam and evidentiary footage collated by dogged investigators at the time this terrifying tragedy unfolded.
THE FOUNDER (M)
***
STREAM VIA AMAZON; OR RENT
This intriguing biopic tells the little-known story of how the McDonalds brand became a colossus in the world of fast food. It was all the doing of a business-savvy travelling salesman named Ray Kroc (masterfully played by Michael Keaton), who stumbled upon the McDonalds operation by chance in the mid-1950s, when it was just a single burger joint in small-town California. Hard-working brothers Dick and Mac McDonald (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) had no idea of the franchise goldmine they were sitting on. While they tinkered with radical experiments in swift food preparation, Kroc swooped in and literally stole the business from under their noses.
THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING (PG)
***
STREAM VIA FOXTEL; OR RENT
A perfectly pleasant, if a touch innocuous rejigging of the Arthurian legend for a modern audience. The hopeful hero of the piece is a 12-year-old boy having a tough-ish time of it in his first year at high school. While taking flight from some schoolyard bullies, the nerd-ish Alex (played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, son of mo-cap acting icon Andy Serkis from the Planet of the Apes series) finds the fabled sword of Excalibur sticking out of a concrete slab on a construction site. Together with his even geekier best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), Alex finds just the right mentor to guide him towards his destiny as an unlikely unifier of a divided, Brexit-broken Britain. The legendary ancient sorcerer Merlin guides Alex and Bedders towards an important mission - involving King Arthur’s evil sister Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) - that only their careful deployment of Excalibur can execute. This being Merlin, of course, means the wacky wizard won’t be taking the conventional route in training the novice knights. Co-stars Patrick Stewart.
Originally published as Your Night In: Every movie on TV tonight rated and slated