Your night in: Every Movie Tonight on Melbourne TV – Rated or Slated
From an epic screen adaptation of a smash-hit musical, to an action flick with the most beautiful bludgeon-fest ever filmed — Leigh Paatsch reviews every movie on TV tonight so you can avoid the duds.
Leigh Paatsch
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MOTHER’S DAY (M)
*
7.30PM CH. 9
A big fat blob of sticky, sit-commy gloop, supposedly celebrating the feminine side of good parenting. Instead, it lands in a very bad place: an echo chamber of botched gags blurted out by idiotic caricatures. Each is intended to come off as naturally wacky, but appear to be clinically insane. All involved are tenuously interconnected by either the fact they are a mother, or have a friend of a friend who kind of knows one. Give this junk more than half a thought, and it will leave you hellbent on spending all future Mother’s Days pretending you were conceived in a test-tube. Stars Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Jason Sudeikis. *
IN GOOD COMPANY (M)
***1/2
10.50PM CH. 9
A veteran ad salesman (Dennis Quaid) must shape up or ship out when a corporate hotshot half his age (Topher Grace) becomes the new office head. Primarily a comedy looking for the funny side of impending obsolescence, but functions better when viewed as a thriller of sorts. Fascinating for both its contemporary relevance and the palpable tension at work between its generation-gapped adversaries. Great acting and scripting makes this a package well worth taking. Co-stars Scarlett Johansson.
MEN IN BLACK (PG)
***
7.30PM CH. 7
A little knowledge about little green men can be a dangerous thing, as special agents Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones discover in this slick, effects-driven blockbuster comedy. The gremlins and the gadgets are the real stars of this show – especially the memory-erasing device known as the Neuralyzer, which modern-day experts believe to the real reason why people keep watching Married at First Sight.
JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2 (MA15+)
***1/2
9.20PM CH. 7
In their heart of hearts, most action fans had 2014’s surprisingly good John Wick marked down as a bit of a fluke. Those same folks will therefore be expecting the sequel to be a bit of a let-down. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, the return of Keanu Reeves as the title character – a black-suited, blank-faced assassin – is nothing short of a trashy triumph. When we last saw him, Johnny W was about to retire, having satisfactorily reduced the ranks of the Russian Mafia for killing his dog and stealing his car. Now he’s back in the game at the behest of a fellow assassin to whom he owes a favour. What John must do is not nearly as important as he does it: all you need to know is every heavy-duty henchperson he helps to an early grave had it coming. Alluring visuals and audacious combat choreography are impeccably fused together, to the extent this could be the most beautiful bludgeon-fest ever filmed.
REMEMBER THE TITANS (M)
**
9.45PM 7mate
An unashamedly hokey American sports drama. Flashpoints of undisguised contempt are commonplace at T.C. Williams High School, where black coach Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) has taken the reins of the school’s beloved football team. To further heighten racial tensions, his popular white predecessor, Bill Yoast (Will Patton), has been demoted to second-in-command. So don’t bring along your binoculars, folks, because you will be able to spot what is coming from some distance away. If the two coaches can somehow settle their differences, then the team will cease bickering and play like a harmoniously integrated unit. Lo and behold, them testy townsfolk will stop hating and start hugging. Sheesh.
PETER RABBIT (PG)
**
6.30pm 7FLIX
Those two sublime Paddington movies raised the bar to a whole new level for how beloved children’s books should be handled on the big screen. Unfortunately, Peter Rabbit doesn’t even bother trying to make the jump, diving instead into the same pile of highly-strung high jinks that kill the joy in so many kid flicks these days. Author Beatrix Potter (who resisted many film offers in her time) would be genuinely appalled by what has been done to her famous little bunny (voiced by James Corden). What was once a subtle mischievous streak in Peter is now his sole personality trait, and he can become very annoying very quickly. Kind of like a British country cousin of Alvin and the Chipmunks. The whole thing would have been much more fun had the focus stayed on the title’s character’s three delightful sisters Flopsy (Margot Robbie), Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki) and Cotton-tail (Daisy Ridley). Some ingenious blending of animation and live-action aside, this is a dud effort. Co-stars Rose Byrne, Domhnall Gleeson.
PITCH PERFECT (M)
***
8.30pm 7FLIX
There is singing. A lot of singing. Pop hits from yesterday and yesteryear, all of which you know like the back of your hand. Warbled winningly by voices drifting in and out of Auto-Tune. There is also low-level dancing, medium-strength plotting, and highly-strung stereotypes as far as the eye can see. Sounds like just another episode of Glee, doesn’t it? Well, if Pitch Perfect had simply settled for delivering all of the above, then it definitely could be dismissed as a Gleeks-only affair. However, there is an engaging oddball comedy going on between the music sequences that truly broadens the appeal of the film. Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) plays a rebellious student who reluctantly joins an all-girl a cappella group striving to win a national singing championship. While the song sequences are very good, the trash talking among the competitors is the real highlight. Especially when Australian breakout star Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids) starts with the weird wisecracks.
CUBAN FURY (M)
***
10.45pm 7FLIX
An efficient enough British crowd-pleaser, spicing up a sit-commy dish with a sublime side-serving of salsa dancing. Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) plays an overweight office worker with a crush on his new boss (Rashida Jones). All he has to impress her with is a long-lost talent for dirty dancing, so to recharge the batteries, our hero enrols in a salsa school run by a dodgy bloke called Ron (Ian McShane). Frost and Jones have just the right chemistry to freshen up this familiar material. Sterling support silliness from Irish comic Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids, The Sapphires) is a welcome circuit-breaker throughout. Co-stars Olivia Colman.
THE JUROR (M)
**1/2
9.55PM GEM
Tremendously trashy courtroom drama that improves as its silly premise just keeps on getting, well, sillier. Demi Moore plays a ‘struggling artist’-cum-mother sitting on a jury deliberating a Mafia murder case. Alec Baldwin is a psychopathic hitman putting heat on Moore to acquit an obviously guilty man. Much of the film’s running time is consumed by Mad Alec’s ridiculous threatening tactics, including sideswiping Demi’s son as he rides his bike, and seducing and killing her best friend. But he doesn’t stop there. No way. When Demi hides her kid in the backblocks of Guatemala (yes, Guatemala!), Crazy Alec tracks him down almost immediately with just a pen, some paper and an atlas!
SPIDER-MAN (PG)
***1/2
10.00pm GO!
This blockbuster reset of the mega-popular Marvel Comics superhero saga is corny, camp and a craven crowd-pleaser. However, for every rush of blood the frenzied action scenes bring on, there is also a profound feel for storytelling keeping this rollercoaster well and truly on the tracks. A perfectly-cast Tobey Maguire leads from the front with a surprisingly textured performance for a blockbuster, and the back-up he receives from co-stars Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe and the electric direction of Sam Raimi is equally effective. Much better than it might have been.
HELLBOY (M)
****
10.00pm GO!
A rare intelligent and shrewd adaptation of a comic book, taking risks without taking its audience for granted. Ron Perlman is magnificent as a living demon raised by the FBI to be one of the good guys, even if he’s fighting evil with evil. Director Guillermo del Toro (Shape of Water collaborated with Hellboy’s creator Mike Mignola on the richly-detailed SFX. Co-stars Selma Blair, John Hurt.
LES MISERABLES (M)
****
8.30PM SBS
An impressively epic screen adaptation of the smash-hit musical based on the famous book by Victor Hugo. At the epicentre of this ever-rumbling, sprawling tale, you will see the ultimate man with a past, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman). Chasing this noble fugitive all over 19th century France with unrelenting determination is Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe). The imposing scale of this production does not end with its ambitious screenplay, and its many colourful characters, lavish settings and extended musical sequences. Director Tom Hooper (The King’s speech) and a committed cast (including Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Sacha Baron Cohen) go for broke in every scene. Even if you have a personal problem with musicals where everything spoken is sung, the bombast and bravado of it all will still wear down your resistance by the bittersweet end. Bearing in mind vocals for this production were recorded live on the set, the quality of performances across the board is remarkable. Takes some getting used-to (and getting over), but well worth the effort. ****
THE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY OF THE FAKIR (M)
**
8.30PM WORLD MOVIES
Hollywood meets Bollywood meets French feel-good cinema here, and they don’t get along so well as this oddball comedy-drama progresses. Though there are memorable moments in this rather erratic adaptation of an unlikely 2014 international bestseller (full title: The Extraordinary Voyage of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe), it must be emphasised they are few and far between. This is the story of Aja (played by Indian star Dhanush), a Mumbai trickster who cons his way on to a flight to Paris in search of his long lost father. After meeting the potential love of his life in a French Ikea outlet, our hero accidentally falls asleep inside a closet. Upon waking, Aja discovers he has been shipped overnight to London, after which he becomes one of a band of passport-less refugees who are bureaucratically bounced all over Europe. What follows is a mostly dull journey, brightened only by the occasional eccentric interlude and a few sharp jabs at how governments choose to deal (and not deal) with illegal immigrants.
THE DEATH OF STALIN (MA15+)
***
10.15PM WORLD MOVIES
A political comedy so dark, the punchlines are all but blacked out. The year is 1953. The place is Moscow. The Communist regime’s ruthless leader Josef Stalin is dead. Now the hunt is on for a replacement who can dish out the same omnipresent oppression to 200 million people daily. The power vacuum left by Stalin’s passing is packed with suck-ups who have forgotten how to think for themselves or the good of the nation. Adapted from Fabien Nury’s graphic novel by hard line British satirist Armando Iannucci (In the Loop, Veep), the movie shines strongly when its polished cast (led by Steve Buscemi as dictator-in-waiting Nikita Khrushchev) let rip with withering wordplay. Co-stars Olga Kurylenko, Jason Isaacs, Michael Palin.
Originally published as Your night in: Every Movie Tonight on Melbourne TV – Rated or Slated
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